Her Tycoon Lover: On the Tycoon's Terms / Her Tycoon Protector / One Night with the Tycoon

CHAPTER SEVEN

LUKE skirted the dogwood and tall shrub roses, whose scent teased his nostrils, and saw that Guy had cornered Katrin several feet away from the staff parking lot. Her back was to a clump of birch; Guy was looming over her, one hand clamped around her elbow. Although his stance was far from steady, he was talking with relative coherence.

“I e-mailed a friend of mine this afternoon,” he was saying. “Wanted to be sure of the facts before I said anything. It was a friend in San Francisco.”

Katrin flinched as though he’d physically struck her; with desperate strength she tried to tug her arm free. “I don’t want to hear this,” she said, “it’s got nothing to do with me.”

“Oh, yes, it does. We both know what I’m talking about.” He gave an uncouth burst of laughter. “A stain on your reputation. How’s that for starters?”

To Luke’s puzzlement, Katrin suddenly sagged against the white trunk of one of the birches. She looked defeated, he thought. Broken. What the hell was going on?

Guy laughed again. “I see you understand what I’m talking about. Well, I’ve got a little proposition for you. You come to my room, say in ten minutes, and we’ll forget the whole thing. But if you don’t, I’ll make sure before I leave here tomorrow morning that you don’t have a job—they wouldn’t want someone with your little secret working for them, now would they?”

Katrin said nothing. It wasn’t just defeat, Luke thought. It was despair. As though Guy had pushed her too far, to a place where she was defenseless. What was her secret? And why did she react like a startled deer whenever San Francisco was mentioned?

As though her silence infuriated him, Guy said nastily, “Room 334. In ten minutes—you be there, okay? If not, I’ll smear your name over every newspaper in Manitoba and you won’t get a job anywhere.”

He dropped her elbow and started weaving along the path toward the lodge. Luke sank back into the shadowed bushes, thorns scratching his neck and hands. Then he stayed very still, scarcely breathing. Guy stumbled past, never once glancing at the rosebushes. When he’d vanished around a bend in the path, Luke carefully extricated himself from the branches. His suit would never be the same again, he thought, and in a few long strides reached the woman who was still cowering under the birch trees.

“Katrin,” he said, “are you all right?”

She stared at him as though she’d never seen him before, as though he were some kind of apparition. She was trembling all over, Luke saw with a surge of compassion that rocked him to the roots. “What’s wrong?” he said gently, and reached out for her.

She shrank from him. “Don’t touch me,” she quavered, “I can’t stand it! Just go away. Please.”

“I can’t do that…you’re in some kind of trouble, aren’t you? Tell me about it, and perhaps I can help.”

Help? he thought blankly. Get involved? Him? Normally he never got involved in the lives of others.

“No one can help,” Katrin said with such a depth of hopelessness in her voice that Luke was chilled to the bone.

“What was Guy talking about? What’s this secret all about?”

Her shoulders drooped. “So you heard him.”

“He let it drop after dinner that he had something to say to you. He’s a bad actor, we both know that. Hell, the whole conference knows it. So I followed him here.”

With none of her usual grace, Katrin pushed herself away from the tree. “Luke, this has nothing to do with you. Stay out of my life…I keep asking you, and you just don’t get it.”

“Are you going to his room?”

“So that’s what’s bothering you,” she flared. “If you can’t have me, then no one else can?”

Luke winced. Then he said in a hard voice, “Guy Wharton’s a sleaze. You can do better than him, Katrin…and no, I’m not referring to myself.”

“Oh, Luke, I’m sorry,” she cried, “I shouldn’t have said that. I hurt you, didn’t I? I know I’m doing this all wrong. But I—”

“I sure don’t like being put on a par with Guy Wharton.”

“I’m not going to his room,” she said rapidly. “I don’t care what he tells the management, he can tell them anything he likes. I’ve been feeling like a caged bear for the last six months, and I’m sick to death of this job anyway. If I got fired it would be no great loss.”

“A caged bear—strong language. Is that why you go sailing on the lake in a south wind?”

“Well, of course.”

Luke let out his pent-up breath in a long sigh. “I’ll deal with Guy. I’ve got enough leverage that I could ruin him if I chose to.”

“I don’t need your help! Let him say what he wants—I’m leaving here by the end of the summer, so why should I care? My friend Anna knows who I really am, and the rest don’t matter.”

“And where am I in that?”

“I’ve already told you,” she said stonily. “Whatever my secrets are, they’re nothing to do with you.”

“I do wish you’d tell me,” Luke said with such intensity that he was taken aback.

“Too bad.”

“You’re one heck of a stubborn woman!”

“If I weren’t, you’d be trampling all over me.”

She had a point. Taking a moment to gather his thoughts, Luke said, “Katrin, you egged Guy on in the dining room—if you were really scared of him, you wouldn’t have spilled the brandy, or showed him you knew your way around the financial pages. But when he was threatening you a few minutes ago, you looked…despairing, I guess, is the closest I can get. Beaten.”

The words tumbled from her lips. “Have you never had anything so awful happen to you that when you go back there, even in your imagination, all the old emotions overwhelm you? Just as they did when it was going on?” She drew a ragged breath. “Or are you immune from all that, Luke?”

As though time and space had collapsed, Luke was suddenly back in the shack at Teal Lake the day his mother had left, never to return. His father’s drunken rampage, smashing glasses and crockery, the flames from the old woodstove flickering crazily over the ceiling. And in one corner, clutching an old teddy bear, cowered a little boy with black hair and dark eyes, terrified and alone.

Katrin said slowly, “So you do know what I’m talking about. What happened to you, Luke?”

With a shuddering breath, Luke hauled himself back to the present, away from an abyss that he’d fled years ago, a nightmare filled with noise and fire and unending fear. God knows what he looked like. He raked his fingers through his hair. “Nothing happened. Your imagination’s working overtime.”

“I don’t think so.” With sudden violence she cried, “What’s wrong with admitting you’re vulnerable? Just like the rest of the human race?”

Had he ever, wittingly or unwittingly, revealed as much of himself to anyone else as he had to Katrin in the last few seconds? And how he hated himself—and her—for that revelation. Not knowing what else to do, Luke went on the attack. “What if Guy goes to the media? What then?”

She hugged her arms around her chest, lines of strain bracketing her mouth. “He won’t. He’ll be so hungover in the morning, he’ll do well to get out of bed.”

It was painfully obvious she was trying to convince herself as much as Luke. Luke said savagely, “In effect, he’s blackmailing you.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic!”

“I’m telling it like I see it.”

“You’re overreacting,” she said coldly. “Luke, I’ve got to go home, I’m really tired.”

She looked more than tired. She looked at the end of her rope, with faint blue shadows under her eyes, her face haunted and unhappy. His only desire to comfort her, to somehow let her know that she wasn’t alone with her secrets, he awkwardly rested his hand on her wrist.

She looked down. In a strange voice she said, “You have such beautiful fingers. Long and lean…”

By mutual compulsion they fell into each other’s arms, Luke’s hands locking around her waist, her mouth straining upward to his. Her palms were flat to his chest, burning through the fabric of his shirt; the first touch of her lips enveloped him in a tumult of desire. He thrust with his tongue, pulling her hard against his body. As she melted into him, tinder to his flame, she fumbled with the buttons on his shirt. Then, like a streak of fire, Luke felt her touch his bare chest, almost shyly, with a tiny tug at the tangled hair on his torso.

He groaned with pleasure, aching to feel her naked breasts, warm and soft and yielding against his flesh. His kiss deepened. Then he reached for the clasp that held her hair, wanting to free its silken flow over his wrist. Nibbling at her lips, he said huskily, “You should never wear your hair like this. I want to see it loose on a pillow, Katrin, I want to bury my face in it. I want you naked in my bed…”

As precipitously as she’d reached for him, Katrin pulled back. Her hands pressed to her cheeks, she whispered, “What’s wrong with me? I’m doing it again, kissing you as though I’m in love with you, as though I can’t get enough of you—oh God, I can’t bear this.”

In the dim light, Luke was sure he could see the glimmer of tears in her eyes. “Don’t cry…”

“I’m not! Two years ago I swore I—” She stopped, aghast.

“What happened two years ago?” Luke said with dangerous quietness.

A shudder rippled through her body. Fear and pain flashed across her features so fast Luke might have imagined them. But he hadn’t. They were real. Her voice cracking, she said, “If you have the slightest feeling for me, Luke, leave me alone. Go back to the resort. Go to New York, go to San Francisco, go anywhere in the world. You’ll forget me by the time you arrive at the airport, I know you will—your normal life will catch up with you and take over. That’s all I ask—that you forget about me.”

She bit her lip, and for a moment he thought she was going to say something else. Then she struck his hands from her waist, whirled and ran away from him toward the staff parking lot, her black uniform blending into the night.

Luke took one quick step after her. Then he stopped dead. He could chase her and force his way into her car. Or he could let her go. It was his choice.

For a crazy moment that was outside of time, Luke felt as though his heart were being torn apart; as though every choice he’d ever made had been leading to this one. To a woman who’d been swallowed by the darkness. A woman with a secret.

He took a deep, harsh breath. He had no use for such fanciful guff. Woman of darkness, woman of secrets. He was losing his marbles. It was time he went back to civilization, to the sophisticated types he dated who knew the score. In fact, he was going to do precisely what Katrin had suggested: get on his plane tomorrow morning and forget all about her.

The quicker the better.

But first he had one piece of unfinished business.

Luke marched back to the lodge and took the stairs two at a time to the third floor. Then he halted outside Room 334. He tapped gently, rather as Katrin might have tapped, and waited.

Nothing happened. He knocked again, louder this time, again without result. Pressing his ear to the door, Luke could have sworn he heard a guttural snoring coming from Guy’s room. So Katrin had been right; she had nothing to fear from Guy. Not tonight, anyway.

He’d make double sure of that. Taking a piece of paper from his pocket notebook, Luke scrawled a very succinct message on it, knelt down and inserted it under the door, and then headed upstairs to his suite.

Guy wouldn’t be telling the management or the media anything tomorrow. Not if he valued his own skin.

If only he, Luke, could fix the turmoil in his gut as easily. Or did he mean his heart, not his gut?

Back in his own bedroom, he packed quickly, then went to stand by the window, gazing out over the black waters of the lake. If this were a story, and not real life, he’d be at the airport right now. That would be a tidy finish to an episode that had totally unsettled him. Unfortunately real life required him to get up in the morning, go to breakfast, say goodbye to his cohorts, including Guy; and face Katrin again.

Luke knew a good many swearwords, having grown up in a rough and tumble mining town in the bush. Not one of them seemed remotely adequate to his feelings. All he hoped was that he wouldn’t dream about her again. That would really be the final straw.

Luke did dream, tangled and distorted dreams in which Katrin, in a ridiculously ruffled wedding dress and her ugly glasses, was arm in arm with his father, who was equipped with snorkel gear and the financial section of the newspaper. Then Katrin and Guy were out on the tarmac accompanied by a trio of Icelandic ponies draped in peasant skirts. Katrin was jeering at Luke as he boarded his plane. He woke with that ugly laughter echoing in his ears.

He rubbed his eyes. At least she’d been wearing clothes; another night of erotic dreams would have finished him off. He had no idea what the dream was trying to tell him, or why Guy was in it. But he’d stake his bottom dollar that Guy was nothing to Katrin. She was genuine, every emotion she’d ever shown Luke coming straight from her heart.

Not that this made any difference.

Luke climbed out of bed, restlessly working the muscles in his bare shoulders. The best thing in this whole mess was her advice. Forget me, she’d said. And he had every intention of doing so, just as soon as he could.

If he pushed it, he could leave the resort in an hour and a half. Go for it, Luke, he thought, and headed for the shower. He checked out on his way to the dining room, leaving his bag at the front desk, and took his seat at the table. The young man called Stan was pouring Rupert’s coffee. With an uncomfortable mingling of relief and pure rage, Luke saw that Katrin was taking someone’s order over by the far wall.

She’d gotten her tables changed so that she wouldn’t have to talk to him.

We’ll see about that, thought Luke, and asked for black coffee. When he’d finished eating, he said a quick round of goodbyes and crossed the width of the room. Katrin was gathering the used dishes from one of her tables. He stopped beside it, aware that several people were within earshot, and said pleasantly, “I just wanted to say goodbye, Katrin, and thank you for everything you’ve done all week.” A statement that should leave plenty to her imagination.

She straightened, holding a heap of dirty plates; she looked as though she’d had as little sleep as he had. She said politely, “Goodbye, sir. Have a safe journey.”

Her eyes didn’t look polite. Far from it. He said, “I’ve already told you you’re wasted as a waitress—you’re far too intelligent. You should leave here, go to a city and get a job more suited to your IQ. Go to New York, for instance. Or to San Francisco.”

Her breath hissed between her teeth; her fingers tightened around the pile of plates. He added softly, “I dare you. To throw them at me, I mean.”

“That might jeopardize my tip, sir,” she said, giving him a brilliant, insincere smile. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”

“Goodbye, Katrin,” Luke said; and heard, to his inner fury, the edge in his voice. The hint of rawness that said, more clearly than words, that this was no ordinary goodbye.

He turned on his heel, nodded at a couple of Italians and left the dining room. It was an anticlimactic ending to an episode as inconclusive as it had been unnerving: his last contact with a woman who had aroused him sexually and emotionally in ways he could only deplore.

Temporary madness. That’s all it was. And the cure? To get as far away from here as he could and never come back.

To forget Katrin Sigurdson. Her beauty and laughter, her adventurous spirit and her independence. Her body. Her unspoken secrets.

To get his life back on track. Where it belonged.

Luke picked up his bag from the front desk and went outdoors to the parking lot. As he drove toward the road, his back to the resort and the glimmering lake, he told himself he was glad to be leaving. Of course he was.

He’d worked very hard to construct his life. He wasn’t going to allow a blue-eyed blonde, no matter how beautiful, to disrupt it.

And that was that.

CHAPTER EIGHT

FIVE days after he’d left the resort, Luke parked his sleek silver sportscar in the garage of his ultramodern house in Pacific Heights, and went inside. As always when he’d been away, he was struck by how impersonal and stark the rooms were, with their angled white walls, designer furniture, and the cold gleam of highly polished parquet. Not for the first time, he thought he should sell the house.

What had possessed him to buy it in the first place?

To show that he’d arrived, he thought dryly. That Luke MacRae from Teal Lake had a prestigious address in San Francisco, a city many considered America’s most beautiful. And, of course, to cut any last ties with Teal Lake. No one from there would have lived in a cement and glass box painted white and trimmed with metal.

He’d outgrown the house; which had nothing to do with its vast floorspace. What he should do is purchase some land outside the city and build a house out of cedar and stone, with a view of the beach and the rolling surf of the Pacific. Yeah, he thought. He might just do that. He’d check out the acreages that were available, and find an architect who dealt in anything other than postmodern.

Luke opened the mail, turned on his computer to scan his emails, and listened to the four messages on his telephone; three were from women he’d dated. Then he wandered over to the huge expanse of plate glass in the living room and gazed out. Another reason he’d bought the house was for the spectacular view of the city. Sailboats dotted the turquoise waters of the bay; the distant hills were a misty, cloud-shadowed blue. It was midafternoon. He should go to his office headquarters, housed in the elegant spire of the Transamerica Pyramid. Show his face and make sure everything was ticking over the way he liked.

There’d been no messages from Katrin.

How could there be? For one thing, she didn’t have his address; for another, she had no reason to get in touch with him and every reason not to.

So far, he hadn’t succeeded in forgetting her.

He’d gone out with two different women in New York, both ambitious and successful women, each of whom had let him know she’d be happy to warm his bed.

He hadn’t asked. Because neither had made him laugh like Katrin? Because each took the expensive dinner, and the waitress who served it, for granted? Because he couldn’t care less if he ever saw either of them again?

He could get a date for this evening, if he wanted one. Go dancing in one of the clubs south of Market, find a jazz bar, or see what was playing at the Geary Theater. If he tried, he could probably even find someone to play Frisbee with him on Ocean Beach.

And it was then that Luke remembered the three photos he’d taken of Katrin playing Frisbee by the lake with Lara and Tomas. He’d get them developed. That’s what he’d do.