Stormy Challenge (13 page)

"What the hell are you saying?" she blazed, infuriated anew.

"I think you are in love with me! I think you fell in love with me back in Oregon!"

"In only two days?" she scoffed, secretly appalled at his analysis. "Not likely!"

"What does time have to do with it? I could have taken you that night you signed the contract and you know it! 1 could have done it the next day, even though you were furious at me. When I held you and touched you on the beach, you were responding in spite of yourself!"

"You'd like to think that's the truth, wouldn't you? That I'd actually be so overcome by your mastery of seduction I'd fall in love with you regardless of what you did to me! Much more satisfying than just getting me into bed and more efficient, too! A woman in love is probably a lot easier to control than one who will merely consent to go to bed with you. That would give you a hell of a victory, wouldn't it?"

"Leya, you're becoming totally unreasonable. I'm taking you home!" Court threw himself around in the seat, shoving the key into the ignition and slamming the expensive car into gear.

Leya could read the fury in him and the control he was exerting over it. It radiated out to every corner of the vehicle.

"Thank you," she bit out icily. "Home is precisely where I want to go!"

In the dimly lit interior, she saw him lift one heavy eyebrow but he said nothing. She sat in frozen silence as he drove with an economy of movement and wished her own self-control wasn't so weak.

Oh, the anger was a bracing enough emotion, but the slight trembling in her lower lip was caused by another feeling entirely, one she didn't want to acknowledge but which forced itself on her awareness. Leya was far too honest to pretend she didn't understand what her mind and body were crying out. For a while, there on the terrace this evening she had wanted very badly to say the score between herself and Court was even, to declare a truce and start over. And Court was smart, too smart not to guess that for a few moments he had been close to getting what he wanted.

But why? she wondered bitterly. What kind of man would get so intrigued by the kind of challenge she represented? What kind of man needed to assert his victory over a woman by dragging her off to bed? The answer had to be only a man who knew his victory wasn't secure.

"Where are we going?" she suddenly demanded suspiciously.

'1 told you, I'm taking you home. My apartment. You wouldn't want me to catch cold in this damp shirt, would you?" he added mockingly.

"It won't take that much extra time to drop me off at my home, first!"

"Heartless creature," he murmured, not changing direction.

"Court!"

"Leya," he sighed. "We're going to talk this out tonight and my apartment is the logical place to do that."

"Afraid of giving me the home-court advantage?" she snapped.

"I suppose," he nodded wryly. "Maybe I'll feel safer on my own turf. I've had it with your crazy reasoning processes. To think I once thought you an intelligent woman!"

"Your insults don't bother me, Court," she managed tightly. "Perhaps if you think I'm not too bright you'll lose interest in the game!"

"I'm not the one who wants to play games, Leya, but if you force me into them I can guarantee I'll piay to win."

"Your threats don't bother me any more than your insults!"

"In that case, you've got a lot to learn." But he sounded calmer now, as if he were determined to be reasonable in the face of a totally unreasonable woman's tirade.

He also sounded implacable, and although she made a few more attempts to talk him out of it, Leya knew with great certainty that he wasn't going to take her back to her own house until he'd had his say on his own territory.

The ride was concluded in chilly silence. When at last Court drew the car into the parking lot of an exclusive condominium complex, Leya finally roused herself sufficiently to note caustically, "I thought you said you had an apartment."

"I'm renting one of the condos from the owner." He shrugged. "It feels like an apartment."

The thick, verdant landscaping lent privacy to the individual units of the complex.

The condominiums were modern, typically Californian in style with cedar siding, interesting angles, and a great many windows. Not at all as cozy and welcoming as her own home, Leya decided smugly.

"Come on, let's get inside. I'm cold." Court switched off the engine, heading around to Leya's side of the car but failing to arrive in time to assist her.

He said nothing about her obvious desire to ignore the intended courtesy, merely taking her arm firmly in his and leading her up the flagstone path.

"I can't imagine what else you have to say this evening," she grumbled as he silently opened the front door and ushered her into a pleasant but, to her eyes, uninspiring living room.

"Why don't we simply call the whole thing quits?" she added, taking in the politely neutral cream-colored carpeting, the bland but expensive beige-and-tan modern furniture and the touches of teakwood in the end tables. "You've won the basic prize by getting me to sign that contract. Have the grace to be content with the major victory!"

"What?" he demanded with the first hint of humor since they had left the party. "And imply you aren't as important a victory as the contract was? I wouldn't think of insulting you so!"

"Why not? You've already insulted me by telling me I'm not particularly bright."

Leya chose one of the rounded tan chairs near the fireplace and flung herself into it with unconscious grace. Arms stretched out along the curving back, she crossed her legs with deliberate elegance and disdain and eyed him coolly.

"But you know that really isn't true, don't you? And therefore it was very ineffective as a slander. I only said it out of annoyance," he told her dismissingly, his eyes following her movements.

Leya gritted her teeth. "Why should you be annoyed at a challenge, Court? My brother says it's the only thing that gets you excited in life!"

"Where does everyone get this notion that I'm attracted to difficult problems?" he demanded, lifting golden-brown eyes toward heaven in a oeseeching gesture.

"Aren't you?" Leya ground out, gazing at him morosely from under her lashes.

"Not in my private life," he retorted feelingly, coming across the room with a slow, stalking stride.

"Nonsense," she shot back caustically. "A challenge is a challenge. Tell me about this flaw in your character, Court Tremayne. What is it with the idea of a challenge?

Were you the kind of little kid who couldn't resist a dare?"

"If we're going to get involved in a discussion of my childhood, you'll have to excuse me while I change my shirt, first." His hands went to the buttons of the yellow fabric and Leya glanced pointedly away. "Why don't you make us some tea while I, er, slip into something more comfortable. I think you'll find everything you need in the kitchen." He paused. "And stop looking at the furniture that way. It's not mine. It came with the condo."

He turned and walked out of the living room, leaving her to do as she liked about the tea. Fingers drumming on the arms of the chair, Leya considered the options and decided to make the beverage. She'd known the furniture hadn't been his, she told herself wryly. She had the feeling his normal decor would be a lot more like her own: bright, positive, and warm.

The condo kitchen was as sleek and modern as the rest of the place. A copper teakettle sat invitingly on the almond-colored stove, and with very little rummaging, she found the teacups. They were conveniently near the stove, exactly where she kept her own at home. She and Court even organized alike!

"There," he informed her, walking back into the living room a few minutes later buttoning a dry shirt, "that's better. Now I can discuss my character flaw without danger of catching cold!"

Leya set the tea things down on one of the teak tables and watched as he knelt in front of the fireplace and began to stack kindling.

"Perhaps talking about it will help you work it out," she agreed sweetly, too sweetly.

"You're very kind. I don't think you're asking out of anything more than clinical interest, but I'll try and explain, anyway," he sighed, striking a match and bending his head momentarily over the flame.

There was a pause while he lit the fire, and then he sat back on his heels, studying the blaze intently until he was sure it had caught. He rose with a lithe grace that appealed to Leya's senses in spite of her mood, and sank into the chair across from her. He stretched his legs out in front of himself, slumping into the cushions and regarding her with a brooding air.

"About your lifelong problem," she prompted acidly.

"Oh, yes, my passion for challenge," he groaned, reaching for his tea. "You were wrong about me being the kind of little kid who's always accepting a dare, you know."

"Really?" Leya's voice held only cool, polite interest.

"I was an only child, you see, and I never did enjoy playing with other kids. Much preferred the pleasure of my own company. I wasn't antisocial, you understand," he put in with mock reassurance. "Just not interested in a lot of the things that amused my contemporaries. I liked to spend my free time in the basement with my tools and my electronics."

Leya half-smiled in spite of herself. The image was all too familiar. "Did your parents worry about your preference for solitude?"

"No," he chuckled. "Did yours?" He smiled at her with keen perception.

"No, I was lucky," she admitted. "Mom and Dad seemed to understand. They were kind enough to let me curl up alone with my books and my rock polisher!"

"Rock polisher?" He grinned.

"I had a little lapidary shop in my corner of the basement. It's how I became interested in jewelry making. But we were discussing your problems, I believe," she added determinedly. She was not about to let him charm her tonight!

"Well, where was I?" he said, leaning his head back in the chair.

"Your basement."

"Yes. I had a ham radio set up down there and all sorts of electrical test equipment. I used to send off for those build-it-yourself kits, and then one day ..."

"You built it yourself without a kit?"

"How did you guess?"

"It was inevitable."

"Perhaps," he nodded quietly. "At any rate, I began having more fun tinkering and putting odd things together on my own than building from a set of plans. But when it came time to go off to college, it wasn't engineering that intrigued me, it was finance.

Creative finance, as they say. I was attracted to the things that could be done when money was cleverly applied. The two interests, electronics and finance, sort of flowed together."

"Where did you go to college?"

"Berkeley."

"You were born in California?" Leya prodded, interested even though she knew she ought to be just the opposite.

"Umm, I was raised in a little town on the San Francisco peninsula. How about you?"

"Here in Santa Rosa," she confided. "But I chose the University of California campus in Santa Barbara when it came time to go off to school. Berkeley always seemed much too big, too urban for my tastes."

"Your choice doesn't surprise me," he told her softly, eyes warming. "The Santa Barbara campus would be a good setting for you, being right on the ocean. You seem to have an affinity for windswept beaches ..."

For a charged moment, the memories of Oregon hung between them, and then Leya deliberately pushed them aside.

"The beaches there were nice, but the degree in English was quite useless!" She smiled. "Until, that is, I took some business courses. I had never been particularly interested in business, but I found I did rather

well. By the time I graduated, I had decided I was the entrepreneurial sort."

"The bookstore?"

"Dad lent me the money to get started." Leya smiled suddenly. "Said he had complete faith in the Brandon talent for making money. I paid him back, too. Within a year the store was making money and now it brings in a very nice income. I'm thinking of opening up a branch out at the new shopping center."

"You weren't interested in taking over your father's business?"

"No, I'm much too independent. I'd never work well in a large managerial setting, even if I were the boss. Too many other people to consider. I think Keith will do it well, though. He likes directing others and pulling a team together."

"I agree, and when I've shown him a few of the ropes regarding finance and marketing ..."

"We seem to have lost the train of thought here;" she interrupted smoothly. "How
did
you come to be such an authority, anyhow?"

He shrugged. "When I graduated, it soon became apparent that I was never going to be happy working nine-to-five for someone else."

"Not enough
challenge
in the daily grind of engineering and accounting?"

"I wish you would stop using that word," he complained good-naturedly, his eyes laughing at her. Leya felt herself slipping dangerously back under the spell of the easy camaraderie they had discovered in Oregon. She must keep her distance tonight, she warned herself severely.

"Think of a better word," she invited pointedly.

"In any event," he began firmly, "it became obvious that my attention span was relatively short when it came to the mundane things of life, such as holding a regular job. So I started working on a contract basis."

"Choosing only the most interesting little puzzles to work on?" Leya drawled knowingly.

"Well, there's not much point in picking and choosing contracts unless one selects only the most interesting and profitable, is there?" he countered quellingly. "Besides, contract work gave me time for my basement tinkering."

"What's the longest contract you've ever accepted?" Leya demanded, eyes narrowing.

"This one," he answered honestly. "The idea of trying to help save Brandon Security and get a piece of the action if I was successful represented an interesting—" He broke off, wincing.

"An interesting challenge?" she supplied helpfully, watching him demurely over the rim of her cup.

"Vicious little thing, aren't you?"