Man of the Hour (7 page)

“You’re supposed to start rehearsing in a month,” he persisted. “Will you actually be ready by then?”

“It’s in a week, actually,” she said tautly, and told him about the telephone call. He protested violently. “David, for heaven’s sake, I’ll be fine!” she burst out, exasperated to hear her own fears coming from his lips.

He stuck his hands into his pockets with a long sigh. “Okay. I’ll stop. Ahmed’s going to be here at six.”

“Yes, I remember. And you don’t have to look so worried. I know that he invited Steve and Daphne, too.”

His shoulders rose and fell heavily. He knew what was going on, but he couldn’t tell Meg. She looked haunted and he felt terrible. “I’m sorry.”

She forced down the memories of her last meeting with Steven, the painful things he’d said. “Why?” she asked with studied nonchalance. She dabbed at her face with the towel around her neck. “I don’t mind.”

“Right.”

She lifted her eyes to his. “What if I did mind, David, what good would it do? I ran, four years ago,” she said quietly. “I could have stayed here and faced him, faced her. I let myself be manipulated and I threw it all away, don’t you understand? I never realized how much it would hurt him….” She turned, trying to control her tears. “Anyway, he’s made his choice now, and I wish him well. I’m sure Daphne will do her best to make him happy. She’s cared about him for a long time.”

“She’s cared about him, yes,” he agreed. “But he doesn’t love her. He never did. If he had, he’d have married her like a shot.”

“Maybe so. But he might have changed his feelings toward her.”

He gave her a wry glance. “If you could see the way he treats her at the office, you wouldn’t believe that. It’s strictly business. Not even a flirtatious glance between them.”

“Yes, but you said that it all came to a head when she quit.”

He grimaced. “So it did.”

Her heart felt as heavy as lead. She turned away toward the staircase. “Anyway, I’m going back to New York soon.”

“Sis,” he said softly. She paused with her back to him. “Can I help?”

She shook her head. “But, thanks.” She choked. “Thanks a lot, David.”

“I thought you might get over him, in time.”

She studied her hand on the banister. “I’ve tried, you know,” she said a little unsteadily. She drew in a small breath. “I do have my dancing, David. It will compensate.”

He watched her go up the staircase with a terrible certainty that ballet wouldn’t compensate for a life without Steve. Her very posture was pained. Her ankle wasn’t getting any better. She had to know it. But she must know, too, that Steve wasn’t going to give in to whatever he felt for her; not when he’d been hurt so badly before. David shook his head and went upstairs to his own room to dress.

The limousine was prompt. Meg didn’t have many dressy things, but once she’d bought a special dress for a banquet. She wore it this evening. It was a strappy black crepe cocktail dress with a full skirt and a laced-up bodice. David gave her an odd look when she came downstairs wearing it.

“Ahmed will faint,” he remarked.

She laughed, touching the high coiffure that had taken half an hour to put up. Little blond wisps of hair trailed around her elegant long neck. “Not right away, I hope,” she murmured. “It isn’t really revealing,” she added, to placate him. “It just looks like it. It was a big hit when I wore it in New York City.”

“This isn’t New York City, and Steven’s going to go through the roof.”

The sound of his name made her heart leap. Her eyes flickered. “Steven can do so with my blessing.”

He gave up trying to reason with her. But he did persuade her to add a lacy black mantilla to the outfit by convincing her that Steven might take his rage out on David instead of Meg.

The limousine was very comfortable, but Meg had the oddest
feeling that she was being watched. She glanced out the back window and not one but two cars were following along behind.

“Who’s in that second car, I wonder?” she murmured.

“Don’t ask.” David chuckled. “Maybe it’s the mob,” he mused, leaning close and speaking in a rough accent.

“You’re hopeless, David.”

“You’re related to me,” he replied smugly. “So what does that make you?”

She threw up her hands and laid her head back against the seat.

It was an evening she wasn’t looking forward to. All week, she’d dreaded this. But once Ahmed was gone, she wouldn’t need to see Steve again socially. She could avoid him until she left to go back to New York. Meanwhile, if the sight of him with Daphne cut her heart out, there was nobody to know it except herself.

S
teven’s reaction to the black dress was almost the same as it had been to the red one she’d worn before, only worse. Meg remembered too late that the dress she’d had on the night she and Steven had parted had been black, too.

After a rather strained but delicious meal, Meg headed for the entrance lobby while the men paid the bill.

An uncomfortable-looking Daphne excused herself. Meg only nodded with forced politeness and stayed where she was. She had no intention of sharing even a huge ladies room with her rival. Unfortunately that left her unexpectedly alone with Steve, when Ahmed and David also excused themselves. Steve was fuming.

“Was that deliberate?” he asked Meg, nodding toward her dress.

She didn’t pretend ignorance. She pulled the mantilla closer around her shoulders. “No,” she replied after a pause. “Not at all.”

He leaned against the wall and stared down at her, oblivious to the comings and goings of other patrons. The buzz of conversation was loud, but neither of them noticed.

“You wore black the night we argued,” he said tautly. He caught her gaze and held it hungrily. “You let me undress you and touch you.” His face hardened. “My God, you do enjoy torturing me, don’t you, Meg?”

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” she said miserably. “Why do you always think the worst of me?”

“I’m conditioned to it, because I’m usually right,” he said through his teeth. He dragged his eyes away, looking toward where the others had disappeared. “Damn them for deserting us!”

His violent anger was telling. She moved closer, unable to resist the power and strength of him. His cologne was the same he’d worn then. She got drunk on the scent as she looked up into silver eyes that began to glitter.

His eyes darkened as she approached, stopping her in her tracks. She hadn’t realized quite what she was doing.

“Feeling adventurous?” he asked with a cold smile. “Don’t risk it.”

She clutched her purse. “I’m not risking anything. I was just getting out of the way of the crowd.”

“Really?” He caught her hand in his and jerked. Under the cover of his jacket, he pressed the backs of her fingers deliberately against the hard muscle of his upper thigh, holding it there. “Look at me.”

She panicked and pulled back, but he wouldn’t let go. His strength was a little frightening. “Steven, please!” she whispered.

“There was a time when you couldn’t wait to be alone with me,” he said under his breath. “When your hands trembled after you fumbled my shirt open. Does dancing give you that incredible high, Meg?” he asked. “Does it make you sob with the need for a man’s body to bury itself deep in yours?”

She moaned at the mental pictures he was producing, shocking herself. She dragged her hand away and all but ran to escape him, blindly finding her way to her brother. She found him in the hall, on his way back to where he’d left her.

“There you are,” he said. “Ready to go, sis?”

“Where’s Ahmed?” she asked, flustered and unable to hide it.

“He’ll be right here.”

As he spoke, Ahmed came through another door, looking for a moment as if he were someone Meg had never met. Another man was with him, a smaller and very nervous man with uplifted hands, who was grimacing as Ahmed spoke in a cutting soft tone to him in a language Meg couldn’t translate.

The smaller man sounded placating. He made a gesture of subservience and abruptly departed as if his pants were on fire.

Ahmed muttered something under his breath, his black eyes cruel for an instant as he turned to the Americans. He saw the apprehension in Meg’s face and the expression abruptly vanished. He was the man she knew again, smiling, charming, unruffled.

He strode to meet her, bending to kiss her knuckles. “Ah, my dancing girl. Are you ready to sample the theater?”

“Yes, indeed,” she said, smiling back.

“I will have the driver bring the car around.”

“I’ll, uh, help you,” David said nervously, with an incomprehensible glance over Meg’s head at Steven.

“What’s going on?” Meg asked curiously.

“A problem with the car,” Steven said suavely, smiling down at Daphne as he linked her hand in his arm. “Shall we go, ladies?”

They were on the sidewalk, when the world shifted ten degrees and changed lives. As Steven left the women to follow Ahmed and David across the street to where the limousine had just pulled up, a car shot past them and sounds like firecrackers burst onto the silence of the night.

It seemed to happen in slow motion. The car sped away. Steve fell to the pavement. Ahmed quickly knelt beside him and motioned the others back toward the restaurant.

Daphne screamed. David caught her arm and rushed her toward the building yelling for Meg to follow. But Meg was made of sterner stuff and terror gave her strength she didn’t know she had. She ran toward Steve, not away from him, deaf to the warnings, the curses Steve was raining on her as she reached him.

“Get back inside, you little fool!” he raged, his eyes furious. “Meg, for the love of God…!”

She didn’t register the terror that mingled with anger in his
face. “You’ve been hit,” she sobbed. Her hands touched him, where blood came through his torn jacket sleeve. “Steven!”

“Oh, my God, get her out of here!” he groaned to Ahmed. “Get under cover, both of you! Run!”

But Ahmed wouldn’t go and Meg clung. She wouldn’t be moved. “No!” she whispered feverishly. “If they come back, they’ll have to get both of us…!” she blurted out, shaking with fear for him.

Sirens drowned out any reply he might have made. His stunned eyes held hers while Ahmed got to his feet in one smooth movement, and his gaze searched the area around them. Satisfied that no other would-be assassins were lurking nearby, Ahmed murmured something to Steven and moved away toward two men—a dark one and a fair one—with drawn pistols who made a dive for him, through the crowd that was gathering just as the police and paramedics rushed forward. Meg’s heart stopped, but Ahmed apparently knew the men and allowed himself to be surrounded by them and escorted to safety.

Meg sat on the pavement next to Steve, holding his hand, while the paramedics quickly checked his arm and bandaged what turned out to be only a flesh wound. Her white face and huge eyes told him things she never would have. His fingers entwined in hers and he watched her with fascination while stinging medicine and antiseptic was applied to the firm muscle of his upper arm.

“I’m all right,” he told her softly, his tone reassuring, comforting, but full of wonder.

“I know.” She was fighting tears, not very successfully.

“We’d better get him out of here,” the officer in charge said grimly, staring around. “Don’t spare the horses. We’ll be right behind you with your friends,” he told Steve. “Young lady, you can come with me,” he added to Meg.

“No.” She shook her head adamantly. “Where he goes, I go!”

The policeman smiled faintly and moved away.

“Don’t get possessive, Miss Shannon,” Steve remarked without smiling. “I don’t belong to you.”

Meg began to realize just how possessive she was acting and she felt embarrassed and a little guilty. “I’m sorry,” she said, falteringly. “I forgot about Daphne…”

His face closed up completely. He averted his eyes. “You were upset. It’s all right.” He got to his feet a little unsteadily. “Go with the others,” he told her. He turned when she hesitated, his eyes flashing. “Will you send Daphne here, please?”

“Of course,” she said through numb lips. “Of course, I will.”

So much for feeling protective. She’d given herself away and he didn’t care. He didn’t give a damn. He was still bearing grudges for old wounds. Why hadn’t she known that?

He started to speak, but she was already walking away, her carriage proud despite the faint limp. He wondered if his heart might burst at the feelings that exploded into it. He couldn’t tell her what was going on; she’d be safer that way.

“Steven wants you to go with him,” Meg told Daphne, refusing to meet her shocked eyes. “He’s at the ambulance.”

“But, shouldn’t you…?” Daphne asked uncertainly.

Meg looked at her. “He asked for you,” she said unsteadily. “Please go.”

Daphne grimaced and went, but there was something new in her face, and it wasn’t delight. She passed one of the two men who had guarded Ahmed, the blond one, and smiled at him rather secretively. He gave her a speaking glance before a terse comment from his tall, dark partner captured his attention.

Meg watched curiously until her brother interrupted her thoughts. “Are you all right?” David asked.

“Yes,” she said slowly. She moved toward the Arab while his companions were momentarily diverted by policemen. “Ahmed, are you okay?” she asked the tall man gently. “In the confusion, I suppose I acted like an idiot.”

“No. Only like a woman deeply in love,” he said gently, and he smiled. “I am fine. I seem to invite Allah’s protection, do I not? I have not a scratch. But I would not have had my friend Steven shot on my account.”

“He’ll be fine. Steve’s like old leather,” David said, chuckling with relief. “They’re waiting for us.”

“I don’t suppose anyone would like to explain what’s going on to me?” she asked the men when they were situated in the back of the police car heading toward the hospital.

David thought carefully before he replied. “We’re selling some pretty sophisticated hardware to Ahmed’s country. He has a hostile neighbor, a little less affluent, and they’ve made some veiled threats. We’ve had our security people and some government people keeping an eye on them. Tonight, they came
out in the open with a bang. They’re making their protests known in a pretty solid way.”

“You mean they tried to kill Steve because you bought a plane?” she gasped, turning to Ahmed.

Ahmed grimaced. He exchanged a complicated glance with David and then shrugged. “Ah, that is so. Simplified, of course, but fairly accurate.”

“They tried to kill Steven. Oh, my gosh!” she burst out.

“Equally simplified and fairly accurate,” David added grimly. It wasn’t the truth, but he couldn’t tell her what was.

“Steve does have government protection?” she asked.

“Of a certainty.” Ahmed gestured over his shoulder, and Meg saw a big black car following them and the police car ahead of them that carried Steven and Daphne.

“Who are they?” she asked nervously.

“CIA,” David said. “They had us under surveillance, but nobody really expected this to happen. Now, of course, we’ll be on video if we sneeze.”

“You’re kidding!” Her voice sounded high-pitched and uncertain.

There was a tiny noise and she jumped as “Gesundheit,” came in an amused drawl from the police car’s radio.

Steven was patched up, given a tetanus shot and released with an uneasy Daphne at his side. Ahmed and David kept Meg too busy talking to suffer too much at the sight.

Then they were all taken to police headquarters where two
tall, tough-looking men—the same two who’d surrounded Ahmed after the shooting—sat down with the group and began to ask questions of everyone except Ahmed. That gentleman had been met by a small group of very respectful Arabs who surrounded him and preceded him into another room. It didn’t occur to Meg just then to wonder why, if Steve was the target, these government agents had rushed to protect Ahmed.

As he spoke with his people, Ahmed, again, looked like someone considerably more important than a minor cabinet minister of a Middle Eastern nation. His very bearing changed when he was approached, and he seemed not only more elegant, but almost frighteningly implacable. The liquid black eyes, which for Meg had always been smiling, were now icy cold and threatening. He spoke to the men in short, succinct phrases, which the other Arabs received with grimaces and something oddly like fear.

Meg frowned at the byplay, drawn back into the conversation by the CIA.

“Are you a permanent resident of Wichita?” the blond one asked.

She shook her head. “No. I live and work in New York most of the time. I’ve had a small injury…”

“Left ankle, torn ligaments, physical therapy and rest for one more week,” the big, dark-headed agent finished for her. Her mouth fell open and he leaned forward. “Gesundheit,” he said, grinning wickedly.

David laughed. “Meg, I hope you don’t have any skeletons in your closet.”

Meg suddenly remembered the night in Steve’s car and flushed. She didn’t dare look at him, but the big, dark agent pursed his lips and deliberately turned his head away. She could have gone through the floor.

There were a few more questions and some instructions, but it was soon over and they were allowed to leave.

Ahmed was in the hall with the other Arabs. The government agents greeted him with quiet respect and a brief conversation ensued. He nodded, said something in Arabic to his companions and moved forward to say goodbye to his friends.

Meg came last. He took her hand in both of his, and the dark authority in his face made her start. This was not the charming, pleasant, lazily friendly man she thought she knew. Ahmed was quite suddenly something out of her experience.

“I hope that the evening has not been too strained for you,
mademoiselle
. I hope to see you again soon, and under kinder circumstances.
Au revoir
.”

He kissed her hand, very lightly. With a nod to Steve and David, he strode back toward his men. They surrounded him quickly, flinging hurried, respectful questions after him, and followed him out into the night with the big dark government man a step behind.

Meg had the oddest feeling about Ahmed. She had to bite her tongue to keep the words from tumbling out. But her concern now was only for Steve. Her eyes slid around to where he was standing close to Daphne and the tall blond agent. “They’ll catch the men who tried to kill him, won’t they?” she asked David worriedly.

“Sure they will. Don’t worry, now, it’s nothing to do with you.” He held up a restraining hand when she opened her mouth to ask some more questions. “Steve was barely scratched, despite the amount of bleeding. He’ll be carefully looked after. Everything’s fine.”

“What is Steve selling to Ahmed?” she asked agitatedly.