Fit for a King (4 page)

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Diana
Palmer

Fit for a
King

29

"Is
one of you in hot pursuit of the other?" she
conjectured, smiling
gently at his faint surprise.
"Since I'm guessing,
she's
after
you, I
imagine, and
that's why I was shanghaied into decorating
your
bed."

"It
isn't quite that simple," he murmured, searching her wide eyes.

"Why
don't you try telling me about it?" she sug
gested softly.

Still
gazing intently at her, he seemed to consider
that
possibility,
took a deep breath and then began.
"They
came down month before last while Bobby
was working to get a
hotel complex started. He's been
deeply involved in negotiations, and now he's
final
izing the subcontracting bids," he explained. He
paused.

"Go on," Elissa prompted gently.

"Bess
has been lonely, so instead of going back to
Oklahoma
, she's been
depending on me for amuse
ment." He stopped,
then
continued haltingly, "But a
couple of nights ago, the amusement did a
disappear
ing act, and things started to get serious." Again
he
stopped,
then
rushed on. "So I started
grasping at
straws and told her I was involved with you. If you
hadn't sent me that letter asking me to get the utilities
on, I
might still be in hot water. But I knew you'd be
in tonight, so I
made sure Bess would come over. To
catch you in a compromising
situation, that is."

"Too bad I wasn't stark naked instead, then,"
she

said
lightly,
trying to cheer him up. She gave him a wicked smile. "Just picture it:
gorgeous me in my
birthday suit sprawled out on your satin sheets. That
would
have really caught her eye."

Oddly
enough, that picture made King go hot all over. He suddenly realized he'd never
really thought of Elissa as a woman before. She was so young, so
naive, so
trusting. She was like a little sister to him.
But now, as his dark
eyes wandered over her, he re
alized with a start that she was pretty sexy
in that gown, and he wasn't thinking brotherly thoughts at
all. He
blinked. Maybe he was getting old and his
glands were going
crazy. Either that or his confusion
over Bess was getting to him. In an
effort to ground
himself
in reality once
more, he reached out and
clasped her shoulders. It was a mistake—they
were
bare.

Elissa
started. It was a rare thing for King to touch
her, and she was
amazed at the pleasure the feel of
his hands on her bare skin gave her.

"I
think this will do it," he mused, even more con
fused yet relieved he
could still find voice to respond
to her joking remark.
"Temporarily, at least.
How
about joining us for
drinks, just for an hour or so?
Just until Bobby gets
here?"

He
sounded almost desperate, and Elissa grinned.
"Sure. What are
friends for?" she said easily. She wondered how much he really cared for
Bess and if
his
only motive in the charade was to ward off his

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Diana
Palmer

Fit for a
King

31

sister-in-law
. Perhaps
he needed a barrier against his
own impulses, too, to keep himself honest?
Hard to
tell; he could be such a poker face. At times she won
dered if
she really knew him at all. She searched his
dark eyes, frowning
slightly. "King, is she in love with you?"

"I
don't think she knows, Elissa," he said, his
voice quiet and
tense. "She's lonely and bored—
maybe a bit afraid, as well. Bobby
leaves her alone
too much. I'm not sure if she's really interested in me
or just
using me as a ploy to get Bobby's attention."

In fact,
he was afraid to take a chance on Bess's
developing any real
feeling for him, since he was hav
ing a hard enough time resisting her
now. But he wasn't admitting any of that to Elissa.

He'd
always had a soft spot for his sister-in-law,
he acknowledged. Few
people in her current social
circle knew how rough she'd had it, what
with a father who drank and kept her mother pregnant all the time. Bess hadn't
even owned a decent dress when
Bobby brought her home and announced that
they
were getting married. King had formed an immediate
affection
for the shy little blonde, and that tenderness
had held on for the
past ten years. Now it was hard
to decide whether it was still brotherly
affection or
something more. Bess had never actively encouraged
him
before now.

Elissa
caught the wistful look in King's eyes. Her
lips pursed. "Did
you ever have something
going

with
her, maybe
before Bobby did?" she probed
gently.

He shook
his head. "She was just eighteen when
they married. They
were the same age, in fact." He
shrugged. "I was already eleven
years her senior. Be
sides, Bobby saw her first." He laughed,
then in
stantly sobered. "They were close in those early days, when Bobby
was working his way up in the business world. But now, with their years of
living high on the
hog and with the oil industry depressed, money's got
ten a
little tight." He frowned, studying her. "You
know, I
think maybe Bobby's working himself like
crazy because he's
afraid
Bess won't want him if he
can't support her in
the style she's gotten accustomed
to. And because he's ignoring her in
his pursuit of new building contracts, she thinks he doesn't care."

"What a mess," she sighed.

"You
aren't kidding. And guess who's smack-dab
in the middle of
it?" he asked ruefully. "They've
gotten along pretty
well the past ten years, but then,
there was always lots of money. Bess
used to joke
about leaving him if he ever lost his shirt; she said
she never
wanted to be poor again. I don't think she
really meant it
about leaving him, but Bobby tends to
take things literally, and they don't
seem to talk much anymore. Anyway, I helped Bobby make some real-
estate
contacts here in
Jamaica
,
and two months ago
they came down to get things started. Bobby's been
hellishly busy, so for the past
few weeks Bess has

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Diana
Palmer

Fit for a
King

33

turned
to me—out of boredom, I'm
sure. At first I
suspected she wanted to use
me to get Bobby to notice her again—you know, make him a little jealous.
But it's getting complicated now." He
shrugged, smiling faintly. "She's always been special to me,
and
I'm only human, if you get my meaning. But I
don't
want anyone to get hurt. That's where you come
in."

"I'm
going to run interference, I gather?" she mur
mured.

"That's
it," he agreed pleasantly. "By the way,
you've been in the States for the past few
months
because we had a quarrel. But now
we've patched it
up, and we're quite
serious about each other."

"I'm
beginning to see the light," she mused, grin
ning. "So we're
lovers, is that it?"

He
chuckled. "Can't keep our hands
off
each
other," he
agreed. "Mad to be together."

"What
fun.
" She smiled. "Now explain my missionary
parents to her and how you so easily led me
into a life of
sin."

He
groaned. "Don't, for heaven's sake, even men
tion your parents to
her. Well, not what they do for a living, at least."

She sighed. "I hope she
doesn't pin me down and
start asking
embarrassing questions."

"I'll
try not to leave you alone with her. You've
got to save me,"
he murmured dryly, although there
seemed to be something serious behind
the gibe.

"Bobby and I
are getting along better than we ever have. I can't come between him and the
one thing in
life he really values."

She sighed.
"Okay. I'll play along. But I have to
go back to the States in about three
weeks, so you'd
better get her convinced
fast."

"They'll be going back any
day now, I hope," he said. "Otherwise I don't know if I can stand it
much longer. It's a good thing I saw your lights on before
Bobby got me to pick up Bess at their villa. I
barely
had time to pressure you into
cooperating before I had
to
leave,"

"Lucky
you," she agreed with a grin. "I hadn't
planned to come back
for two more weeks."

He groaned.
"I'd have been in over my head by then, for sure."

She
glanced up at him. "Well, don't you
worry.
I'll save you." She
frowned, moving away from the
disturbing
touch of his hands. "Let's see now, what
did I do with that red cape—you know, the one with
the big
S
on it?"

"Never
mind the Superwoman cape," he said. "Just hold my hand."

"The one with the Rolex and the diamond ring?"
She pursed
her lips. "Careful I don't steal them. I'm
not rich yet, you
know."

He
laughed. "You will be," he said. Then he
glanced toward the
door. "Get dressed, will you? I'll
wait for you."

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Diana
Palmer

Fit for a
King

35

Heavens,
he had it bad, Elissa thought, if he was
afraid to face the other woman without
reinforce
ments.

"Chin
up," she said lightly. "I know karate. If she
makes one move—just one move—to
undress you,
I'll defend your honor with my
very life."

He
chuckled. Once, he'd thought his new neighbor
was a complete eccentric. He still did,
actually, but
she could be quite a gem at
times, too. And right now
she was
saving his neck. "You're a nice girl," he
said playfully.

She
winced.
"A nice girl?
Thanks awfully. I like
you,
too."

She turned, picked up her
clothes from the chair
and headed toward
the bathroom.

"You
can't dress in front of me?" he asked un
expectedly, watching
her from his relaxed position
against the door.

She glanced
up at him. "No," she confessed with
a somewhat wobbly
laugh. "I'm not quite as liberated
as I might seem.
I—I've never undressed in front of a man in my life, except for my family
physician."

The
confession seemed to shock him. "Never?"
he asked.

"Never," she
emphasized, knowing exactly what
she was
revealing to him.

He
scowled. Because of her physical aloofness,
he'd somehow taken it
for granted that she'd been

hurt
in love
somehow. To think of her as a virgin was
vaguely disturbing.

"Why?"
he asked with charasteristic bluntness.
"Did something
happen to you?"

"My
father's a minister, remember? And he and
my mother were
missionaries to
Brazil
when I was growing up. Try being Ms. Liberation in that kind of
atmosphere.
I dare you."

He was learning more about her
in minutes than
he'd learned in two years.
He studied her intently, his gaze taking in what he could see of her body in
that very revealing gown. Her breasts were full and firm
looking, her minuscule waist flared into nicely
rounded hips, and she had long, nicely shaped
legs.
Her face was lovely. And that
teasing, provocative air
of hers, he
realized, was pretty false at times. Re
membering that he'd seen her actually back away
when men came too close physically, he regarded
her
thoughtfully.

"No wonder," he mumbled.

"No wonder what?" she echoed.

"Well,
I'd always thought of you as sophisti
cated," he mused, thinking of her
occasional flirta-tiousness. "You certainly don't act like a virgin. And
yet—"

"How does a virgin act,
for heaven's sake?" she
broke in.
"Stand on the edge of a volcano and jump
in?"

Despite the seriousness of his current predicament,