Stormy Challenge (2 page)

"A one-track mind is exactly what I seem to be developing around you, Leya," he confided with a sensual twist of his lips. "Do you know what my first thought was this morning?"

"What?" she asked warily, reaching for her own snifter and sipping delicately. In the candlelight the deep emerald color of her long-sleeved gown glowed. The light reflected warmly from the unusual green pendant set in gold that hung in the deep opening of the dress.

"I thought that it was all wrong I should be waking up alone. You should have been there with me," he whispered, with such intensity that Leya blinked uncertainly.

"I've told you the conversation has gone far enough," she breathed, forcing her willpower to the fore. It was not a characteristic in which she normally found herself deficient. "I suggest we either switch to another topic or say goodnight."

"You don't like knowing that I want you?" he queried whimsically. "Or are you afraid of admitting that you want me, too?"

"If you think you're going to trap me into answering a double-edged sword of a question like that, you're considerably less intelligent than I originally believed you to be!" she informed him loftily, forcing back the rush of laughter she was experiencing.

"It was worth a try." He shrugged with massive resignation, an answering grin in his eyes. "Well, what would you like to discuss? I'm at your service, I assure you. At least until I can think of a way to steer the conversation back to my main interests!"

"Limited though those interests appear to be?" she mocked.

"There's nothing limited about them," he informed her kindly. "You're just jealous because I know how to establish priorities and stick to them!"

Leya flung up a hand in laughing self-defense. "Enough! I'm going to choose a topic and you're going to do me the courtesy of following my lead!"

Court lounged back in his leather-padded chair and smiled benignly. "You leave me little choice. I am, after all, wearing the clothes of a gentleman tonight."

"And you always suit your actions to your clothes?"

"Not always, but as a special favor to you tonight, I'll make the effort. That is until the clock strikes twelve," he concluded with a theatrical salute of his snifter.

"You have a pumpkin waiting to take you back to your room at midnight?" Leya asked interestedly, leaning forward to prop her elbow on the table and rest her chin on her palm. The green stone at her throat gleamed softly in the light; a gleam that was reflected in her eyes. She smiled.

"Don't worry," he told her. "There's room for two inside."

"About my conversational topic," she began determinedly.

"Yes."

"Have you had a chance to read that contract my brother wants me to sign, so that he can go ahead and hire this high-powered consultant he's found?" Leya plunged into the question that had been on her mind ever since she'd given the papers to Court for his opinion.

"I've read it. I went through it before I picked you up for dinner," he admitted quietly, a new note of seriousness entering the heavy-timbred voice. Across the table, the tortoiseshell eyes met hers.

"Well?" she pressed a bit grimly. "Do you agree with me?"

"That it's dangerous? It could be in the wrong circumstances," Court said slowly, evenly. The cognac swirled gently in his glass.

"I knew it!" Leya stated with unhappy satisfaction.

"As soon as Keith gave it to me I knew there was something crazy about the whole setup!"

"I said it could be dangerous in the wrong situation," Court repeated calmly, watching her face closely. "You were wise to be cautious, Leya, but there are some mitigating circumstances involved here."

"Such as?" she challenged.

"Such as the fact that you know your brother, and I know the other party named in the contract. The man he wants to hire."

"You know him!" Leya stared, totally astonished by this information. "You know this C. Tremayne? But how could you? Where would you have run into him?"

"In Silicon Valley," he told her, using the slang expression for the area around San Jose, California, where so much of the new high-technology electronics industry was based. It had been so named for the semiconducting material that had helped revolutionize solid-state electronics.

"You worked down there for a while?" Leya demanded, confused. "I didn't know you were in engineering. I thought you said something about finance. ..."

"I've worked with several electronics firms, helping them secure venture capital. It takes money to do first-class research and I help them find it," he said, as if it were the simplest thing in the world.

Leya knew there was a lot more to it than he implied, but she had other things to pursue at the moment. "So you've met Tremayne? What do you think of him?"

Court smiled. "He's not the ogre you've convinced yourself he is, for a start."

"He must be!" Leya scoffed. "What sort of creature besides an ogre would try to tie my brother to a contract like the one I gave you to read?"

"A man who has as much to lose as your brother and wants to protect himself as well as his client," Court explained tersely.

"All the protection is on Tremayne's side!" Leya exploded in disgust. "The way that contract is written, he's tied his salary into the profits. If my brother's company does well, Tremayne stands to make a tidy sum, far more than a normal salary for consulting!"

"And if Brandon Security Systems goes under, Tremayne ioses said fortune."

"What about that business of insisting on full decision-making authority?" Leya persisted irritably. "He's virtually setting himself up as president of the firm!"

"From what I know of him, Tremayne doesn't make decisions by consensus," Court admitted dryly. "He wouldn't go into a situation like this unless he had the power to do what needed to be done, without having to refer everything to a committee."

"But the main reason Keith insists on having the man in as a sort of chief consultant is because he's hoping to learn from Tremayne! If Tremayne won't be bothered with discussing his decisions, what good will that do Keith?"

"If Tremayne has agreed to guide your brother over the next couple of years, until Keith has enough experience under his belt to take on the full responsibility of running the firm, you can rest assured he'll do as he says. In my experience, Tremayne is a man of his word. He just wants it dear from the outset that for the duration of the contract, he's in charge. If you ask me, your brother is showing a lot of sense. After all, it must be damned intimidating to suddenly inherit a large business at the age of twenty-five. You did say he was a couple of years younger than you?"

Leya nodded morosely. "I realize he's had no experience in running the firm. After all, everyone assumed Dad would be in charge for years. ..." Grimly, she turned her thoughts away from the sudden death of her parents the previous year in a plane crash in Europe. She and Keith had both put the grieving behind them. Coming to grips with the present was the important thing now.

"From what you've told me, your brother never really had any intention of taking over the reins," Court noted quietly, his eyes probing.

"No. It came as a complete surprise when he decided to assume the responsibility instead of just selling out," Leya admitted. "He seems a new man lately, as if he's found himself." She shook her head, thinking of the way her brother had been drifting since graduation from college. "That's why I hate to put the squelch on this idea he has of apprenticing himself to Tremayne, but..."

"But you're afraid he's agreeing to a contract that will ruin him?" Court concluded understanding^.

"You read it. It's rather binding, wouldn't you agree?" Leya retorted brusquely, running her finger idly around the rim of her snifter and watching the play of candlelight on the liqueur inside.

"Yes, but your brother's interests are well protected, Leya. Don't forget, you still hold half the firm's shares in your power. If Tremayne proves dangerous, it wouldn't be impossible to fire him. All you'd have to do is to get Keith to agree he'd made a mistake. The contract is only truly binding as long as all parties are satisfied. Keith is just asking for a chance to do things his way. Are you sure you're not playing the part of the overprotective big sister?"

Leya lifted her eyes, the metallic green gaze narrowing in response to the small accusation. "No," she snapped. "I'm exercising my obligations as co-owner of the firm. The agreement Tremayne wants signed needs both my signature and my brother's. My father left Brandon Security to both of us!"

"With the understanding that for the most part you would be a silent partner, you said," Court reminded her gently but firmly.

Leya winced. "I may have told you a little too much of the background of this deal before I asked your advice," she grumbled, annoyed with herself.

But it had been so easy to talk to Court last night. She was still amazed at the relaxed and communicative atmosphere that had sprung up between them from the start.

One thing had led to another and before she knew it she had been discussing the main reason, she had secluded herself at the inn for a week. She had promised Keith a decision on whether or not to hire Tremayne by the time she returned to Santa Rosa, the town in northern California where she made her home and ran her book business.

Court smiled. "I think your basic decision isn't whether or not to sign the contract, it's whether or not

you're going to let your brother really assume control of the firm."

Leya gritted her teeth, forcing herself to consider the justification of his comments.

"I have never been a bossy older sister!"

"You strike me as the type of woman who could get quite bossy," he chuckled.

"Except that I'm too smart to make that mistake with my own brother. I don't want him to hate me!"

"How about with a lover? Would you make the mistake of trying to dominate a man in a relationship?" Court pounced provocatively, sitting forward with a deliberate air.

The gold-flecked eyes glittered with teasing challenge.

Leya smiled with serene superiority, aware of the heat in her veins. "That's different,"

she demurred. "Everyone knows a man is happiest in a relationship when he's properly managed."

"Funny, I always heard it was women who were content when they'd been mastered!" Court purred.

"A myth," she responded breezily. "Fostered by all those old Rudolph Valentino movies featuring sheiks who carried their women off into the desert!"

"Not to mention all those other films featuring masterful types such as Gable and Bogart and ..."

"So Hollywood got off on the wrong track," Leya retorted, lifting one nearly bare shoulder dismissingly. "Most of the films were made by men, so it stands to reason they emphasized male fantasies."

"That theory doesn't explain all the women in the audiences." Court grinned.

"Who can ever account for an audience reaction?"

"Who can ever account for a woman's reaction?" he countered.

"I stand by my theory," Leya declared, removing her chin from her palm and settling back into her chair. "And I have
not
been a domineering older sister!"

"Then why break a precedent and start behaving like one now?"

Leya took a deep breath. "You really think I ought to go ahead and let Keith hire Tremayne?" For the life of her she couldn't explain why she should value this man's advice. But some instinct said he knew what he was talking about. There was a sense of sureness and authority about Court Gannon that made itself felt. You had the feeling that he knew what he was doing and his advice would be solid.

"Yes. You asked for my advice and I'm giving it. I think you ought to sign and let your brother get on with the business of learning how to run the company he's inherited, which you don't particularly want. He sounds like a young man who's found what he wants to do in life. Let him do it. Not all of us are that lucky at twenty-five!" he added with a wry smile.

"Sad but true," Leya sighed, shaking her head with an answering smile. Her own most depressing memories of thinking she knew what she wanted were from her twenty-sixth year. Well, she had learned her lesson. There was no point in rehashing the subject. Her smile widened deliberately as she considered the man across from her. "Did you know where you were going and what you wanted when you were twenty-five?" Privately, she put his present age at around thirty-five or thirty-six.

Surprisingly, he paused to consider the question. "In some aspects of my life I was quite certain of what I wanted," he finally said slowly.

"You sound as if you're trying to hedge the question," she accused softly.

"A man's privilege," he shot back easily, eyes laughing. Then he went on in a careful tone. "I guess the truth is I knew what I wanted as far as my career was concerned, but there were until quite recently some very open-ended questions about what I wanted in my personal life."

Across the table, Leya caught the sudden blaze of intensity in him, and a part of her wanted to turn and run. The flash of cowardice was so unexpected she found herself swallowing in nervousness. It took an astonishing amount of self-control merely to stay seated and force a deliberately unconcerned expression.

"I don't see you as the unsure type," she confessed lightly.

He looked as if he were about to pursue the statement and then appeared to change his mind. "Tell me something," he said instead, eyeing her. "If you had so many qualms about signing this contract, why didn't you make it a point to meet with this C. Tremayne and judge him for yourself?"

Leya blinked at the change of topic and then lifted a negligent hand. "If you must know, I chose this particular week for a vacation because Keith informed me Tremayne was trying to set up just such a meeting, I felt. . ." she broke off, searching for the right word, "as if I were being pushed. The man didn't handle it very politely, you see. He simply told my brother to bring me to the office on a certain day and time this week, and he would handle me," She grimaced in mild displeasure.

"So you immediately disappeared on vacation?" One heavy brow lifted.