The Chilling Deception (4 page)

A roaring fire burned on the huge hearth in the resort lounge. The businessmen who had gathered at the hotel were well into a late-night drinking siege, and Guinevere was beginning to look pleasantly sleepy. It was definitely time to go back to the room. Zac reached out to touch her hand.

“Let’s go, honey. It’s late, and you’re half asleep.”

“Okay,” she agreed easily enough. Smothering a small yawn, she obediently got to her feet and said a polite good night to Vandyke, who glanced up and then rose.

“You two are going to your rooms?” he murmured, looking directly at Zac.

“That was the plan.” Zac arched one brow inquiringly. “Any objections?”

“No, no, of course not. I just wondered . . . That is . . .” Vandyke coughed a little in embarrassment and leaned forward confidentially. “Look here, Zac, I hired you to keep tabs on, uh, things. I hate to sound priggish, but the fact of the matter is I would appreciate it if you stayed in your own room tonight. So I’ll know where to find you if I need you.”

“I hadn’t planned on leaving the hotel.” Zac shot a sidelong glance at Guinevere, who was saying good night to Toby Springer. She couldn’t hear what Vandyke was saying. “Don’t worry, Mr. Vandyke. I’ll keep tabs on your briefcase.”

“Yes, well, thank you, but I’d like to know where you are at all times. Do I make myself clear?”

Zac thought of the connecting door between his room and Vandyke’s. It was locked, naturally, but that didn’t mean much. The resort was old, the walls badly insulated. A man on one side of that goddamn connecting door would certainly be able to hear any sounds made by the occupant of the other room. A woman’s soft cry of passion would be unmistakable. And Guinevere had her image to maintain. She wasn’t likely to make love within earshot of her current client.

Without a word Zac took the precious briefcase from Vandyke, collected Guinevere, and left the lounge.

It occurred to him that maybe it was time to find out what it was about the development proposal being presented to Washburn this weekend that made Vandyke so damn edgy. The man was acting as if he needed a bodyguard, not just a baby-sitter for important papers.

Chapter Three

“What do you mean you’re going to have a look in the briefcase? You can’t do that, Zac. Those are my client’s private business papers. Besides, it’s locked.” Guinevere shut the door to her room as Zac strode across the carpet and set the briefcase down on the bed.

“He’s my client too. Remember? And he’s acting weird.”

“I told you he was very anxious about a lot of things.”

Zac crouched down in front of the briefcase to study the locks at eye level. He fished a paper clip out of his pocket and straightened it. “He was the one who had the hotel give me a room next to his, Gwen. With a connecting door, no less. I asked the desk clerk this afternoon if there was any way of getting a different room, and was told that the present arrangements were per Mr. Vandyke’s personal request. And just now Vandyke ordered me to sleep in my own room.”

Guinevere flushed. “Yes, well, perhaps he was just trying to look after me. He’s very much a gentleman, Zac. He might feel obliged to, er, protect me from unwanted advances. Or something.”

“Bullshit. Vandyke is making it clear he wants a bodyguard, not a baby-sitter. But he won’t come right out and say it. I’m starting to get curious.” Zac fiddled delicately with the locks on the briefcase. “He’s not as concerned about where the briefcase is as he is where I am. He was upset this afternoon when he got out of his meeting early and found us gone. I got the feeling he expected to find me standing right outside the front door of the conference room with my trusty machine gun slung over my shoulder.”

“Maybe he has a right to be upset.” Guinevere went to stand beside Zac, eyeing his efforts curiously. “After all, he is paying us to be on call this weekend. Where did you learn to do that?”

“Correspondence school.” There was a tiny ping, and one of the locked clasps sprang open. Zac turned his attention to the other.

“Amazing what you can learn at home these days.” Guinevere leaned closer. “Is it hard?”

“Only when someone’s breathing over your shoulder.”

She leaned closer. “You have to learn to work under pressure, Zac.”

“Pressure,” he announced as the second clasp popped open, “is something I’m learning a lot about this weekend.”

“We’ve only been here one day.”

He opened the briefcase. “Don’t remind me.” He stood up and examined the contents. Folders, several thick documents with
Vandyke Development Proprietary Information
stamped all over them, and a number of letters were neatly arranged in the case. There was also a small silver flask tucked into one corner. Zac reached for it.

“You didn’t tell me the guy was a closet drinker.” He unscrewed the top and sniffed. “Cognac.”

“He has been under a lot of pressure lately, as I keep reminding you. Maybe he feels the need of a nip now and then; how should I know? He certainly handled his alcohol all right this evening.” She broke off consideringly. “Of course, it would have been hard to drink very much of that wine at dinner.”

Zac replaced the flask. “You can say that again. Tomorrow evening we’ll have to work it so that one of us gets to choose the wine.”

“It’ll have to be me. Anyone whose regular fare is tequila can’t be trusted to pick good wine.” Guinevere carefully probed the contents of the briefcase. “I’ve seen most of these at one time or another during the past week. He had me do some of the final revisions. He didn’t even want some of these documents sent out to the word processing pool.”

“That’s a normal precaution when there’s a major deal at stake. Routine company security.” Zac lifted out a few of the papers and set them on the bed. “But Vandyke isn’t acting routine.”

Guinevere examined a cost analysis. “Are you sure you’re not overreacting because he as good as ordered you to spend the night next door to him instead of, uh, wandering the halls?”

“Wandering the halls,” Zac repeated thoughtfully. “Is that what you call it?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Let me see that envelope.”

Obediently Guinevere handed it to him, watching as he opened the manila envelope and drew out a single sheet of paper. It was a badly photocopied document, she saw. Head tipped to one side, she peered at the grungy gray page. “That wasn’t done by me. I would never have accepted such a bad print. In fact, I don’t think the printing department at Vandyke Development would let any of the machines get that bad. They keep them in excellent condition.”

Zac held it up to the light. “It was done on one of those cheap little machines you sometimes see installed in out-of-the-way places. You know, the kind of store that sells gas, cigarettes, condoms, and booze.”

“A real service-oriented sort of place.” Guinevere tried to get a look at the page. It appeared to be a form that had had various blanks filled in by hand. There was a column of scrawled names with spaces opposite for times and dates. At the bottom there was a signature. “What is it, Zac?”

He studied it thoughtfully for a long moment. “A page out of a pilot’s logbook,” he told her absently.

“No kidding? Let me see.” She reached for the paper and he handed it to her. “These are the destinations? The places he flew? And these are the times and dates?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t recognize too many of these towns.”

“That’s because most of them are names of places in the Caribbean and the West Indies.” Zac peered over her shoulder. “The dates are all from nineteen seventy-two. The last one is May ninth. It says the pilot made a round-trip from Saint Thomas to some little island off the coast of South America. The trip back to Saint Thomas apparently took place several weeks after the trip out. Let’s see . . . the first hop was in April. The return trip was on May ninth.”

“Vandyke said he used to have a charter service down there some years ago. But that’s not Vandyke’s signature at the bottom of the page.” Guinevere was positive of that—she’d seen her client’s signature on enough papers during the past week to be certain. “It’s hard to read. Shannon? Bannon?”

“Gannon,” Zac said suddenly with finality. “L. Gannon.” He took the paper back from Guinevere with a snap and replaced it in the envelope. “That was the name of the man Vandyke said was his partner, remember? The guy who got killed in an accident.”

Guinevere shuddered. “It seems morbid to carry that kind of keepsake around, doesn’t it? After all these years, I wonder why he does?”

“You’ll notice he’s not carrying around the original.” Zac shoved the envelope back into the briefcase and replaced the rest of the documents. He relocked the case.

“So?”

“Don’t look at me like that. I don’t know the answer. All I know is that I’m being asked to stick very close to a man who’s on the verge of having an all-out nervous breakdown.”

Guinevere sat down on the edge of the bed, staring out the window. She could hear the rising wind heralding an incoming storm. “I’d hoped having you along would calm him down a bit, but it doesn’t seem to be working. He’s under so much pressure, Zac. I feel sorry for him.”

There was silence behind her and then the lights went out as Zac flipped the switch. Guinevere didn’t move, although she felt a sudden surge of tension. With the room lights off the gardens outside the window were faintly revealed by the discreetly placed outdoor lighting.

A moment later the bed gave beneath his weight as Zac sat down beside her. She hadn’t heard him cross the room, but that didn’t surprise her. When he wanted to, Zac could move very quietly. He reached out to fold her hand into one of his.

“How about feeling a little sorry for me, Gwen.”

“Is it sympathy you want from me?”

He exhaled heavily. “No, not really. But I am suffering.”

“Are you?”

“This trip isn’t going quite the way I had imagined it would. Christ, I feel like Cinderella. I’ve got to be back in my own room by midnight or Vandyke will be pissed.”

Guinevere turned her face against his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Zac. I sort of hoped it would be different too,” she confessed tremulously. His arm tightened around her and she could feel the welcoming strength in him.

“Did you?”

Mutely she nodded, her face still tucked against his shirt. She loved the warm male scent of him, she realized. There was something comforting and deeply intriguing about it. She felt him reach up to loosen his tie, and then he cradled her face in his palm.

“I’m glad, Gwen.”

His mouth came down on hers, heavy and warm. Guinevere shivered and let her fingers creep up around his neck. This wasn’t quite the way she had planned it, she reminded herself. She had wanted them to talk this weekend to get a few things out in the open. A part of her needed to analyze the relationship that was growing between herself and Zac, and she had hoped that a quiet resort might provide the right atmosphere for that kind of delicate discussion.

The sensual side of their association was already powerful enough. On the few occasions when she had allowed it to take the dominant role Guinevere had had plenty of proof of that. Zac’s effect on her senses was almost overwhelmingly intense. The passion sprang up so easily between them. Guinevere was starting to worry that it came too easily. She had been trying to keep it in perspective, not allow it to take over.

“Gwen, honey, I’ve been aching for you all day. We have a little time. Vandyke’s probably still down in the bar. . . .” Zac’s soft murmur was charged with sexual tension. The urgency he was feeling was being clearly communicated to her. Guinevere felt his hand against the sensitive nape of her neck. His fingers slid around her throat to the buttons of her yellow silk blouse.

“Zac,” she whispered huskily, “I’ve been thinking about us. I wanted . . . well, I wanted to know if you’ve been thinking about us, too. I mean . . .” Good grief. Even to her own ears she sounded like a tongue-tied teenager. This wasn’t the way she had planned it.

“Jesus, honey. I think about you all the time,” he said hoarsely. The buttons of her blouse slipped open beneath his fingers and he groaned softly against her throat as his hand moved down over her breast. “All the time.”

“You do?” She gasped as he pushed his hand up under the lacy camisole she was wearing. His thumb found the exquisitely throbbing nipple and gently coaxed it forth. Her own fingers sank languidly into the hard muscles at the back of his neck.

“You must know by now what you do to me.” He caught one of her wrists and dragged her hand down across his chest to his thigh. “Feel me, sweetheart. If you need any evidence, just touch me. All I have to do is watch you walk across a room and the next thing I know I’m in this condition.”

“Oh, Zac,” she breathed as his hand guided hers to the waiting hardness of him.

“I feel like I’m going to explode.” He released her fingers and went back to stroking her breast with slow tantalizing movements. Gradually his hand traveled lower and with his arm around her shoulders he eased her down onto the bed. Guinevere felt the teasing thrill of excitement that flared in her lower body and knew she was rapidly nearing the point of no return. Already she was softening under his touch, yearning for the heavy weight of him, and she sensed Zac was well aware of her reaction. She had never known what it was like to literally ache for a man’s possession until she had met Zac.

The urgency and immediacy of his physical effect on her was one of the things that made her wary and uncertain of the relationship. It was one of the things that had to be put aside so that a genuine dialogue could take place. Belatedly Guinevere remembered her own plans for the weekend.

“Zac?”

“We haven’t got much time, honey. Here, lift up so I can get your skirt off.”

“Zac, wait a minute, I think—”

“It’ll be okay, sweetheart. Damn it, I didn’t want to rush this.” He fumbled with the zipper of her skirt.

“Zac, please, listen to me.” Her fingers closed over his fumbling hand at the fastening of her skirt. “I wanted—I wanted to talk.”

“We’ll talk in the morning, I promise. Right now we haven’t got enough time to talk and make love.”

“Then we’ll have to make a choice, won’t we?” she said heatedly as some of her determination returned.

He agreed instantly. “Right. We’ll talk later. Right now I’m going to lay you down on this bed, take off every stitch of clothing you’ve got on, and let you wrap yourself around me the way you do when you finally let go. God, I can’t get enough of you when you come alive under me, Gwen. You’re so soft and hot and clinging, and it’s been so long since we’ve been together.”

“Fourteen days,” she reminded him grimly. “That’s hardly a lengthy separation.”

“Feels like a lifetime.” He sprawled across her, locking her securely under him with his thigh. His fingers traveled up under the hem of the skirt he hadn’t yet succeeded in removing and Gwen flinched passionately as he probed purposefully under her panties.

She planted her palms firmly on his shoulders, telling herself that she had to take a stand now or she would be lost beneath the tide of passion. “Zac, please. This isn’t the way I had planned it. I want to talk. We
have
to talk.”

He stilled above her, finally sensing her determination. She looked up into his shadowed face and saw the gleam of his hungry gaze. For a moment Guinevere faltered before the fire in him, but the need to settle the fundamentals of the relationship was stronger tonight than even her physical need of him. Settling things was the reason she had maneuvered him into this trip, she reminded herself. She must be strong for both of them.

“You want to talk,” he repeated roughly, staring down at her.

Guinevere nodded, moistening her lower lip with her tongue. “Yes. Please. It’s very important.”

“Obviously.” Zac sighed heavily and eased himself to a sitting position. “Somehow I knew things were going to go wrong. I think I’m under a curse this weekend.”

“This is serious, Zac. It’s important to me.” Guinevere sat up slowly, a part of her already missing the warmth of his touch. Awkwardly she began refastening the buttons of the yellow silk blouse.

“What exactly do you want to talk about?” He sounded resigned.

She gathered her courage. “I think we should discuss the status of our relationship,” she said very formally.