In Serena's Web (6 page)

Brian had a dim feeling his mouth was hanging open.

“His favorite color is blue,” Serena went on gently, “he drinks Scotch but prefers wine, takes his coffee black and strong, and loves Italian food and semiclassical music. He keeps his very nice condo neat without benefit of anything but once-a-week help, the leaning toward neatness possibly a holdover from the army but more likely the
result of being raised by a Scots-Irish mother and a German-English father, who is presently a retired general who does the Sunday
Times
crossword in an hour
flat
.”

“Serena—”

“Their paragon of a son,” she finished innocently, “is also adept at difficult crossword puzzles—and other kinds of puzzles—since he boasts an I.Q. that ranks him as something of a minor genius.”

“Minor—” He stared at her. “What’s your I.Q.?” he demanded abruptly.

“Same as yours,” she murmured.

Brian drew a deep, slow breath. “D’you mind telling me,” he managed to ask politely, “just where you got all that information about me? I don’t recall being asked to fill out a questionnaire.”

“Oh, here and there.”

“That’s no answer.”

“I asked Daddy.”

“Stuart’s never been to my condo, and he doesn’t know my favorite color. Try again.”

“Daddy. Seriously, Brian. He knows an awful lot that he doesn’t
seem
to know. And a man in
his position, well … he found out all he could about you before he ever signed on; it’s habit, after all these years.”

Brian was trying manfully to grapple with all the surprising, disturbing information that had capped a deceptively peaceful meal. “Let me get this straight. Person or persons unknown intend to hire your father away from my company by fair means or foul. The ‘fair’ includes dollars on a scale I don’t want to ask about; the ‘foul’ includes possible kidnapping and/or bodily harm threatening yourself. Right so far?”

“That was just lovely. You do have a way with words,” she said admiringly.

Brian ignored the plaudits. “In an attempt to remove you from circulation, your father has sent you on a cross-country jaunt with me as watchdog, while he busily, heaven only knows
how
, tracks down these unknown people.”

“That sums it up nicely.”

“And—
and
—while all this is going on, while you are presumably safest moving from place to place, and while your father and his mysterious ‘contacts’ attempt to track down these equally
mysterious people, while I’m being led by the nose down a blind alley filled with thugs, for all I know—” Under stress, Brian lost track of his sentence and hastily backed up to the point. “While all this is going on, you’re planning to stay here in Denver for at least three weeks? Stay in one place? The worst thing you could possibly do at the moment?”

“I thought I would,” she confirmed cheerfully.

Brian made a sound indicative of despair.

“Why don’t we walk in the garden?” she suggested.

“You’ll catch your death in that gown,” he retorted.

“I never catch cold.”

“Who said anything about a cold?” he muttered, signing the check and then following behind as Serena glided—there was no other description for the way she walked—from the restaurant. As they passed Long and his blond companion, Brian saw the other man shoot Serena a quizzical look, eyebrow lifted and amusement gleaming in his eyes; since Brian was behind Serena, he couldn’t see her response. But she had
probably, he thought sourly, given Long a come-hither look to end them all.

Brian was feeling somewhat put-upon. Being an honest man, he acknowledged inwardly that he was also feeling angry, sorely abused, bewildered, slightly anxious over the possibility of a kidnapping in the near future, and jealous. And he wanted Serena Jameson until he couldn’t think straight
anyway
.

He was hardly in the mood for a quiet stroll through a discreetly lighted garden. But when Serena slipped her hand beneath his arm and when he looked down at the top of her sable head and at the silver gown she hadn’t bothered to cover with a wrap, he couldn’t seem to form a protest.

“Why is it,” she asked thoughtfully, “that we always seem to fight in restaurants? Have you noticed?”

“We weren’t fighting. I was just trying to hold on to my sanity,” he corrected.

They walked slowly in silence for a few moments. Then Serena stopped, turning to gaze up at him almost as if she’d never seen him before. The whitewashing moonlight and shrubbery lighting
might have been deceptive, but she looked both pale and oddly uncertain. And she spoke with unusual seriousness. “Go back to California, Brian.”

He was more than a little startled, since her voice sounded shaky, and very small. He saw an expression on her delicate face he’d never seen before: a strange, masked vulnerability.

She looked up at him, her expression naked. “Go back,” she repeated softly. “I’ll be all right here. Daddy said they were closing in on whoever it is. I’m not in any danger now. And you’ve put up with me long enough.”

“I told you.” He found his hands lifting to her bare, tanned shoulders. “I’m in for the duration.”

“You said that,” she agreed wryly. “But you didn’t know then what the duration entailed. You deserve combat pay, Brian. Even for just this far, these last weeks. I’ve put you through hell.” She laughed shakily. “I’ve said and done ridiculous things, I know. Oh, I know.” Her chin dropped, and there was something bewildered and childlike in the gesture. “I get things all tangled and confused. Sometimes,” she confessed softly, “I do it deliberately. But not always.”

“Rena—”

She cut him off, speaking rapidly, her voice suddenly taut. “Dammit, I’m trying to warn you. I play tricks, Brian. I plot and I scheme—and I always get my own way. You don’t know—”

“I know,” he interrupted gently, “that you’re kind and softhearted and generous. I know that, Rena.”

Her chin lifted and her gray eyes shimmered wetly. “You’re not
listening
to me.”

He was, but more than that, he was looking at her. Looking at her and wondering if the dredged-up memories of her mother and her mother’s violent death had opened the wound he saw hurting in her eyes. Brian had felt protective impulses toward her before, but those impulses had always been tinged with exasperation. Not this time, not now.

He wanted to draw her into his arms and hold her, protect her. And that feeling swirled oddly among the tendrils of the desire he felt for her, confusing him with the tenderness both combined to produce. He’d never felt this way before.

His hands lifted to frame her face warmly.

“Why are you telling me this now, Rena?” he asked gently, gazing into her wet, shadowy eyes. “Because you feel guilty that I was named watchdog without being told about it? Is that it? Because if that is it, you may as well shut up. I’m not leaving you.”

Her hard voice contrasted sharply with the wet misery in her eyes. “I’m after Josh, remember? You’ll just get in my way, Brian.”

He might have been hurt or angered by the words, but he was concentrating on trying to understand what reasoning lay behind them. Serena was suddenly wearing a new hat, one he’d never seen or even suspected she owned before, and it intrigued him. Was it deliberate? Somehow he didn’t think so.

“I’m not leaving you, Rena.” He found a smile. “I couldn’t if I wanted to. And I don’t want to.”

Her eyes closed briefly, and she spoke in an oddly suspended voice. “What would you say if I told you I loved you?”

He felt his heart stop, then begin pounding against his ribs. “I’d say: Then why’re you after Long?”

“Maybe you’d better think about that, Brian.” Her arms went around his waist beneath his jacket, and her warm body pressed against his. “Maybe you’d better think about it.”

He couldn’t think about anything except the touch of her, the feeling of her against him. And the sight of those enigmatic gray eyes gleaming up at him filled his vision. If his body had been stone, he might have resisted her; being human, he just couldn’t.

“Rena …” His head bent, his lips seeking and finding hers in a touch that was gentle only for an instant. Her response was immediate, total; she became a slender flame that scorched him until every nerve ending shrieked awareness. He felt the smooth skin of her back beneath his hands and the thud of her heart against his chest, and his mind reeled with a wave of hot, savage desire. Her lips returned his kiss fiercely, as hungry as his own, as desperate.

And then, wildly, she wrenched away from him. There was something pagan about her as she stood staring up at him, breasts heaving and eyes flashing.

“I won’t lose control,” she gasped out, anger and bewilderment filling her voice. “Damn you, I won’t lose control of this!” And then she was gone, disappearing around a bend in the path leading back to the building.

Brian stood where she’d left him, his body taut and his mind bewildered. After a while, slowly, he started back to the building. Thinking. Wondering.

    Serena was still moving quickly, though no longer running, when she reached the lobby. And when she met Josh as he was coming back into the hotel, her voice emerged as brittle as fragile crystal.

“What? You mean you didn’t even invite her to stay the night? Josh, I’m surprised at you.”

“Not every evening,” he said dryly, “has to end in a bedroom.” He looked down at her for a moment, then caught one of her cold hands and tucked it into the crook of his arm. “Come on. I’ll walk you up to your room.”

“Thanks.” She stared straight ahead, not speaking,
while they went up in the elevator. Still in silence she unlocked her door before glancing up at him.

“How about a nightcap?” he asked quietly.

Serena nodded, preceding him into the room and closing the door behind them. While he wandered over to the window and stared silently out, she fixed two drinks at the compact bar. She didn’t ask what he wanted, but automatically prepared straight Scotch for them both. Then she handed him a glass and sank down on the foot of the bed to swallow half her drink.

Still gazing out the window, Josh said softly, “The watchdog has teeth, eh?”

Serena gazed at her glass without answering.

Josh crossed to half sit on the low dresser in front of her. “Serena?”

Reluctantly, wryly, she met his steady gaze.

“You caught a tiger by the tail this time, didn’t you?”

S
ERENA GRIMACED
. “T
HE
laugh’s on me,” she said, her voice low. “Go ahead, Josh; you said you would laugh.”

“When you got tangled in one of your own plots?” He looked at her, grave. “It’s odd, but I don’t seem to find it very funny. What happened?”

Serena finished her drink and stared at the empty glass. “I don’t know. He asked about Mother during dinner, and I told him all that. I also told him the rest.”

“About Stuart’s troubles?”

“Yes.”

“How’d he take it?”

“He was angry. Worried.” She smiled a little. “Feeling a bit ill-used, I think.”

“Can’t blame him for that.”

“No.” She sighed, then added abruptly, “I told him … In the garden I told him to go back to California.”

Josh’s rather hard blue eyes sharpened. “That doesn’t sound like you,” he commented, thoughtful. “Did Ashford decide to leave?”

“No. Oh, no. He’s an honorable man, you know. He promised Daddy, and he’s staying.”

“You think that’s his reasoning?” Josh asked mildly. “That he’s just keeping a promise?”

“Well, he isn’t staying for love of me,” she retorted bitterly. “Dammit, he’s got more walls than you have.”

“Which explains, I take it, why you decided on this very tangled web you have us all enmeshed in?”

Serena gestured helplessly with one slender hand. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” She brooded silently for a moment, then looked
up to find him watching her intently. “It did seem that way, Josh. After three weeks I knew—Well. I knew. But it was painfully obvious he thought of me as some troublesome kid with half a brain.
Kid!
” she finished incredulously.

“I don’t think,” Josh commented, “anyone else has treated you as a kid since you were seven. Troublesome, yes. A kid, no.”

“Well, I did give him a lot of trouble,” she said fairly. “I mean, I really pulled out the stops and chewed the scenery. But I just wanted to make sure he could handle it. When I get like that, I mean.”

“And did he handle it?”

“Oh, he handled it beautifully. Even when he yelled at me, he didn’t really lose his temper.” Smiling suddenly, she added, “But you should have seen his face when he bailed me out of jail.”

“You are a difficult woman,” Josh observed judiciously.

“I know.” She sighed.

After a few moments of silence—brooding, on Serena’s part—Josh spoke again. “How is the jealousy ploy working?”

Serena looked at him. “I wish I knew.”

“What?” He laughed. “You mean he isn’t a victim of the green-eyed monster, and isn’t filled with visions of decking me for corrupting the innocent?”

“I think he’s wanted to deck you once or twice,” she answered thoughtfully. “But that’s probably just his sense of responsibility working overtime.”

“No green-eyed monster, though?”

She was silent for a moment. “I don’t think so. He’s attracted. I don’t have to tell you about chemistry.”

“No,” Josh said very dryly. “You don’t have to tell me about that.”

“Yes, well … He got quite stiff about the whole situation when I asked him to teach me how to seduce you, and—”

“When you asked him what?”

Serena avoided his incredulous stare. “It seemed like a good idea. At the time.”

Josh looked plaintively toward the heavens, wondering vaguely if Brian Ashford had noticed how men invariably tended to do that in Serena’s
presence. Finally he returned his gaze to her. “My dear Serena,” he said politely, “you need a man who’ll beat you silly. Twice a day.”

She studied his expression thoughtfully. “Funny, but Brian reacted in a similar way. Different words, though. And when I just happened to mention I’d never slept with a man before, he—”

Josh closed his eyes and swore solemnly for several long moments.