Fire and Ice

“Where are we going?” she asked again.

“Nowhere. I told Andy to finish that dance and come on out.” He threw a careless arm across the back of the seat and looked, really looked, at her, until a faint flush rose in her cheeks.

“I have all my own teeth,” she said. “And despite your opinion of it, everything you see is genuine.”

“A far cry from the lady of the evening,” he said, watching her eyes glitter at him. “Where did you put her?”

“Back into my Halloween bag of disguises,” she muttered. She shrugged. “Jan told me to dress conservatively and rush down to that restaurant for dinner last night. I was in the middle of a…of something, and I didn’t want to be dragged out….”

“So you set out to embarrass her as much as possible?” he asked.

“I had a feeling she’d invited you and Andy,” Margie admitted with a wry smile. “She’d told me you were very conservative yourself and that I must behave.”

“Conservative.” He mulled over the word and a faint smile momentarily softened the hard lines of his broad face. “I’ve been called a lot of things in my time, but I think conservative is a new one.”

“You wear traditionally styled clothes and drive a classy car,” she pointed out.

“It puts my adversaries into a false state of ease,” he murmured.

She was beginning to realize that. He was a worrying puzzle; none of the prefabricated pieces she’d imagined him to be seemed to fit together.

“You’re devious, Mr. Van Dyne,” she said.

“I’m careful, Mrs. Silver,” he returned. “If I make a mistake, people lose their jobs. I give the image the corporation needs—in public.”

She studied the unyielding lines of his body. “And in private?” she asked absently.

He half turned in the seat and looked straight into her eyes. “Do you make a habit of flirting with strange men?” he asked, ignoring her question.

“Not really,” she replied honestly. “You looked instantly hostile and disapproving. It got my dander up.”

“You aren’t used to disapproval?”

“Only from Mrs. James.”

He blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“My next-door neighbor,” she explained with an impish smile. “Very strait-laced, like my grandmother McPherson, who raised Jan and me. She takes exception to my nude statue of Venus in the backyard.”

His eyebrows shot up. “You keep a nude statue… I’m not surprised.” He chuckled. “It does seem to fit the picture I’m getting of you.”

And it was completely false, but she wasn’t about to admit it. Let him think her flamboyant and forward and sensual. It would keep such a man at bay.

“Do you sell a lot of…underwear?”

He sat back up, looking intimidating and calculating and just faintly amused. “You’d better leave that subject, honey, or you may get in over your head. I’m a good fourteen years your senior, and I’d be willing to bet that I’ve done a hell of a lot more living than you have.”

“I don’t intimidate easily,” she replied.

“I believe you. In fact, it makes you more interesting than I had thought at first. Women’s lib may be all the rage these days, but I hate like hell to be chased and fawned over.”

She studied his hard face for a long moment. “You are chased, aren’t you?” she asked seriously. “Because you’re wealthy and powerful, and some women would do anything to be part of that world.”

He looked as if she’d surprised him—and he wasn’t accustomed to surprises. “Yes,” he replied.

“Is that what your wife married you for?” she asked quietly.

His eyes flared dangerously. “That’s a subject I don’t discuss.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry. I’m a rather private person myself,” she admitted, finding him surprisingly easy to talk to.

He watched her, scowling, for a long time. He made her uneasy; he rattled her. She couldn’t remember a man ever affecting her so violently.

“Enigma,” he murmured absently. “You don’t fit into the usual category.”

“The line of women pleading to be taken into your bed?” she suggested. “Or did you have another category in mind?”

“If that was meant to shock, it fell short of the goal,” he said softly. “You’re very much on the defensive with me. Why?”

She didn’t like the turn the conversation was taking. “Ladies don’t discuss such subjects, anyway,” she drawled.

“Oh, haul down the flag, Margie,” he growled. “I’m tired of the pose. A little of that accent goes a long way.”

Her eyes gleamed. “And I’m getting pretty tired of you, too, Mr. Tycoon. I don’t like being taken apart and analyzed! And by the way, I find your accent just as grating as you seem to find mine, you carpetbagger!”

He burst out laughing. “Will it ease your mind if I tell that a grandmother of mine was born and raised in Charleston?”

“Not much, no,” she said. She was losing this battle of words, and she didn’t like it. He wasn’t what she’d expected.

“What’s wrong, honey, have you given up trying to charm me?”

She glanced at him. “I’d have more luck trying to charm a sweet potato,” she commented.

He chuckled deep in his throat. “You might at that.” He reached out suddenly and caught her shoulder, jerking her close enough to smell the rich fragrance of his cologne while his head tilted back and he looked down his arrogant nose at her. “Whether you know it or not, you’re coming to Panama City. And if you try that sweet seduction on me again, you’d better remember something: I’ve been married and women are no strangers to my bed. I’m not a gentle lover, Margie.”

She actually gasped at the insinuation. “As if I care,” she managed weakly.

“I’ve known women like you,” he said levelly, his eyes holding her relentlessly. “You flirt and charm outrageously, but at the first sign of passion, you turn around and run. It took me a while to get your measure, but I’ve got it now, and you’d better look out. Throw yourself at me in Panama City and I’ll take you on the damned beach.”

She felt the threat all the way to her toes as he freed her and moved back into his own seat to light another cigarette, as calm as if he’d been out for a stroll. “And for the record, all your scheming isn’t going to help your sister. There is no way, repeat no way,” he said, his shadowed dark eyes like glittering slits, “that I am going to give my approval to that marriage.”

“Then why invite us to Panama City? For target practice?”

“I have my reasons,” he said enigmatically.

“You won’t even give Jan a chance,” she accused.

“I don’t dare,” he returned sharply. “I know the obstacles. You don’t. Your way of life and mine are as different as New York and a swamp.”