The Senator’s Daughter (3 page)

Castillo, black eyes intent in a face made for being on TV, advanced on them.

“Tell them we have no comment,” Lyle insisted. “It'll be all right.”

Her laugh managed to be both mocking and warm. “You think that's all it takes? If you don't look at the mariachis they won't play at your table?”

Even as adrenaline started to pump, Lyle let his hand tighten on her. Sylvia's eyes slammed into his, and he had a sudden below-the-belt problem.

“They'll keep shooting,” she purred, “until they have what they think are the goods. And they'll twist it into whatever they want.”

“Come on,” he argued. “How much trouble can we get into?”

Sylvia's answer was immediate. She kissed him.

They were filming, all right; she could see the red camera light from the corner of her eye.

Sylvia Chatsworth and Lyle Thomas, “Mr. Straight Arrow,” caught together after she was publicly dumped. Why, from the clinch they were in, who would believe she cared about anything or anybody?

To make it good, she tilted her mouth beneath Lyle's and let her lips part. In an instant, the scene went from faking it to better than a reality show, from the passionless press of dry lips to a wet, scorching kiss sending thrills down all her nerves.

She didn't qualify for shrinking virgin, but the miniscule number of her lovers would have shocked her public. The reason was that she'd wanted to know, to trust a guy before she would shuck even the smallest item of clothing. How to explain, then, since she barely knew Lyle, he was blowing her circuits with a single kiss.

Something in the mastery with which he plied his mouth and tongue made her acutely aware this big man could have his way with any woman or put away most men with a single punch. Yet, the sense of him choosing to control and direct such power into arousing her was amazing.

On camera, this must look like true Hollywood. Hot, hot, hot, and who could doubt she and Lyle must be an item?

Sylvia's head fell back. His hand slid into her hair and caressed the back of her head. Goose bumps prickled her scalp, erupting down her spine and legs to her sandaled toes. The aroma of his soap or aftershave, clean and spicy, filled her head. God, if this weren't staged …

Lyle's fingers were on the move again, from her head down onto her expanse of bare back above the strapless dress. His palm splayed between her shoulder blades; through the warmth of his skin, she knew the chill of Ice.

Her arms lifted and found their way around his neck, drawing him down. He obliged by dragging her off her stool, slanting her across his lap, and sliding both arms around her.

“Lyle,” came out in a ragged gasp, half-entreating, half-demanding. There was nothing stuffed shirt about this man, at least when it came to lovemaking.

Lyle deepened the kiss so she could no longer say his name.

Yet, it was burning in her brain.

Lyle caught the spirit of having fun for the camera. A quick nip and “On the Spot” would have their pound of flesh. He and Sylvia would, because of their position in the City, be duly recorded as of interest, at least for the moment the kiss went on.

But within the first second of his lips touching Sylvia's, all calculations were off. Electrified, he felt alive in a way he'd never imagined. Bungee jumping on the South Island of New Zealand where the sport was invented, leaping out of a perfectly good airplane and experiencing free fall—nothing had quite prepared him for the raw and potent energy flowing from Sylvia Chatsworth.

It wasn't a one-way circuit. He wanted to direct his own force back to match hers.

Lord, whatever trouble this got him into might be worth the price of admission.

“Whoa,” said a voice behind him. “Check out Lyle and the bimbo.”

A compliment, really. The speaker couldn't know the depths Sylvia revealed through their communion. That raven hair made a fall as silky as it looked, her bronzed back smooth and flawless beneath his palm, and her ample breasts made a fine match for his broad chest. Her musky perfume was pure sex.

Another voice intruded. “This is Julio Castillo reporting from Ice. We've got Assistant DA Lyle Thomas and Senator Chatsworth's daughter, Sylvia, putting on a show here. Looks like Sylvia has found a new
amour,
or has she?”

A frown creased Lyle's brow.

Castillo hammered on, “Or maybe she's taking advantage of a nice guy who doesn't get out enough to know a she-cat when one gets her claws into him.”

That was it; the equivalent of a pitcher of ice water to his groin, while Sylvia's embrace turned from promising to pathetic.

Lyle set her aside. With his eyes open, the cameraman's spotlight seemed blinding.

He focused on Castillo, recalling how the man had invaded a funeral home viewing back in the spring and gotten knocked on his can for it. Lyle had instructed Sylvia to ignore the paparazzi, but he lashed out, “Is there no limit to how low your mind can go, Castillo?”

The red light on the camera glowed.

Sylvia sagged against the bar; Lyle reached a hand to her elbow.

“Sir Galahad, I presume?” Castillo prodded.

Lyle's fingers drew into a fist.

“Hit me and your career's over,” the reporter predicted.

With his courtroom training, Lyle sensed the room dynamic in his favor. But nobody here wanted to see him deck Castillo and get hauled up on assault charges, especially when the reporter's taunts had been sufficiently without substance to warrant a defamation suit.

Even so, having given himself a common-sense ruling, it took a huge effort to let his fist relax and his hand drop.

“You're right,” Lyle said. “It's not worth it.”

“Sylvia Chatsworth isn't worth it,” Castillo announced.

Laughter erupted around her. In the crowd, she located Corinne Walker, her face distorted with the kind of mean mirth Sylvia remembered from a long-ago schoolyard and this evening in the ladies' room.

Sensing her face was as bright as her dress, for the first time Sylvia realized the outfit was wrong. The stiletto sandals might look right on the page of a men's magazine, but there was a reason her blue-blood mother blanched at the sight of them.

Not worth it.

Where, at twenty-six, she might be allied with some prominent business concern, she had neither struck out on her own nor cashed in on her parents' contacts. She'd been too certain whatever she did wouldn't live up to their expectations.

While the laughter in the bar grew more raucous, Sylvia realized she was waiting for Lyle to act the knight in shining armor. But why should he? She'd just behaved with him in exactly the way the tabloids branded her.

If only he knew how carefully she made her choices in men, he might understand how rare was the embrace she had shared with him tonight. But how did you tell a man you found his kiss special when you'd jumped him on camera and earned the City's ridicule?

Sylvia looked up at Lyle projecting a composed image. He couldn't know her lipstick stained his mouth and cheeks.

It would have been nice to eat oysters with him. Good to have had a fresh, cold drink, to clink glasses together and smile into his eyes. Even better to have found out where their uncanny and unprecedented chemistry might have led.

The camera was still recording. Castillo shoved his microphone at her. She wanted to scream, to flee the lights and the humiliation.

Behind her, she heard Lyle say, “Hang in there.”

Sylvia dodged through Ice's close-packed crowd toward the door. Despite his encouragement, she knew she had to be a long way from him when he watched the show and found out how ridiculous her lipstick made his handsome face look.

Outside, clear weather had given way to a pea-souper. Condensation streamed from car windows; streetlights reflected on shiny pavement. Although Sylvia normally loved the City, this evening's atmosphere made her claustrophobic enough to long for mountains and redwoods.

Raised in charming Sausalito with the staggeringly lovely slopes of Mount Tamalpais above, its forested flanks and rugged cliffs overlooking the Pacific above Stinson Beach … on the surface it seemed all she yearned to escape to.

But she'd been stifled there … the best private schools with the skirted uniforms, the ones that groomed the finest little wives for wealthy men's sons.

Ever since she'd been old enough to get out of Marin County and set up her own place, she had lived in the bustling North Beach district, with its clubs, restaurants, and eclectic shopping. When Father had been elected, Mother had insisted Sylvia sell the town house bought with the trust-fund money she didn't control and move to a high-rise with security.

She had refused.

Maybe that hadn't been smart. Just as running out of Ice would have Castillo brand her a coward.

She hurried up the Embarcadero skirting the waterfront. Though well lit, in this weather the wide street with a trolley line down the center was deserted. Sylvia rushed west past the shoulder of Telegraph Hill and headed inland toward her place near Washington Square, wondering if she imagined a shout behind her. She looked back, but saw no one.

It started to rain and she went faster, hugging herself against a chill she wasn't dressed for. A moment later the squall hit in earnest, blasting in off the Bay. The rainfall increased to a thick curtain, and drops bounced off the pavement. She felt the spray on her bare knees.

“Sylvia!”

Without looking back, she ran faster. If it were the news crew, they could go to the devil. If it were Lyle, she must look a fright, the rain ruining her leather dress and turning her sandals sodden. Water streamed from her face and bare shoulders, her hair plastered to her head.

“Wait up.”

She risked a glance over her shoulder.

Twenty yards behind, Lyle ran like a linebacker, blond hair darkened. His dress shoes splashed through water sheeting across the sidewalk. She faced forward and kept going. All she wanted was the sanctuary of her town house, where she'd slam the door and lock out the world.