On the Tycoon's Terms Read online

  Once again the food was excellent; once again Guy was gulping a fine Shiraz as though it were water and eating Châteaubriand with the appreciation hamburger deserved.

  The conversation turned to the vagaries of the stock market. Guy, to do him justice, had one or two insights about insider trading that were worth listening to. As Katrin poured coffee from a sterling pot, moving efficiently from seat to seat, Guy said with overdone bonhomie, “Well, Katrin, I don’t suppose you earn enough to consider investing. But if you did, would you buy into the Alvena bond fund?”

  She said woodenly, “I wouldn’t know, sir.”

  “Of course not,” Guy said in a voice as smooth as cream. “Let’s try something a little closer to your level. How about two-minute portfolios, they’re all the rage for people with no smarts who know zilch about the market…is that how you’d invest your money?”

  For a split second she hesitated, as though making an inner decision. Then she looked right at Guy, coffeepot suspended, and said crisply, “A two-minute portfolio isn’t a bad strategy. When you play the market, you’re going to get some duds no matter how careful you are. So by picking from the TSE’s top blue-chips, you’ll also get enough high-earners to more than offset your losses.” She gave him a bland smile. “Would you agree with me, sir?”

  Guy flushed an unbecoming brick-red. “This coffee tastes like it was brewed yesterday,” he snarled.

  “I’ll make you some fresh, sir,” she replied, deftly removing his cup, and with that same unconscious pride of bearing that Luke had noticed the day before, headed for the kitchen.

  Luke drawled, “That woman’s wasted as a waitress…so what’s the prognosis for the S&P over the next six months, Guy?”

  For a moment he thought Guy was going to jump across the table at him, and felt all his muscles tighten in anticipation. Then Guy subsided, mumbling something about low percentiles, and the conversation became general again. Luke lingered over a second coffee and was the last to leave the dining room, timing his departure just as Katrin was clearing off a nearby empty table. Soft-footed as a cat, he stepped up behind her. “It’d be a shame if you had to cash in your investments, Katrin,” he said, “but you’ll lose your job if you go dumping expensive brandy over every customer who insults you.”

  She turned to face him, her hands full of dirty wineglasses, her face expressionless. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, sir.”

  “Last night you spilled brandy all over Guy Wharton on purpose.”

  “Why would I do that? Waitresses don’t have feelings—they can’t afford to.”

  “Then you’re the exception that proves the rule. I wish to God you’d take those glasses off…then I might have some idea what you are feeling.”

  She stepped back in sudden alarm. “My feelings, or lack of them, are none of your business…sir.”

  She was right, of course. “I also wish you’d stop calling me sir.”

  “It’s one of the house rules,” she said frigidly. “Another of which is that guests and staff don’t fraternize. So if you’ll excuse me, sir, I have work to do.”

  “You’re wasted in a job like this, you’re far too intelligent.”

  She said tightly, “My choice of job is just that—my choice. Good night, sir.”

  She had turned away. Short of grabbing her by the arm, a move he had no intention of making, Luke knew the conversation was over. Score: Katrin, one; Luke, zero. He said pleasantly, “If you are investing, steer clear of Scitech—it’s going down the tubes. Good night, Katrin.”

  But, just as he was turning away, he heard himself add, “You know, I have the oddest feeling—you remind me of someone, and I can’t think who.” He hadn’t planned to tell her this. Not before he’d pinned down the memory that was teasing his brain.

  Her whole body went still: the stillness of prey faced with a predator. She said so quietly he could hardly hear her, “You’re mistaken. You’re quite wrong—I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

  His senses sharpened. Her shoulders were stiff with tension, the same tension that had underlain her voice. So there was something mysterious about her. The ugly glasses were nothing to do with hiding her femininity, and everything to do with another kind of disguise. Katrin didn’t want to be recognized because she was other than she appeared. He said, thinking out loud, “Right now I can’t pin down where I might have seen you…but I’m sure it’ll come to me.”

  Two of the wineglasses slipped through her fingers. As they fell to the carpet, one hit the table leg, shattering into pieces. With a tiny exclamation of distress, Katrin bent to pick them up.

  “Careful,” Luke exclaimed, “you could cut yourself.”

  He grabbed a napkin from the table and knelt beside her, wrapping the shards of glass in the thick linen. Her perfume drifted to his nostrils, something floral and delicate. The red mark on her wrist hadn’t completely faded; her veins were blue against her creamy skin, her wrist bones fragile. She said raggedly, “Please go away—I’ll clean this up.”

  Jerkily she reached for a splinter of glass. Blood blossomed from her fingertip; she gave a gasp of pain. Luke said urgently, “Katrin, leave this. Here, stand up.”

  He seized her by the elbow, pulling her to her feet. Then he gently rested her fingers on his sleeve, probing at the wound. She said breathlessly, “Stop, you’re hurting.”

  “There’s glass in it, hold still,” he ordered, and as carefully as he could extracted a small shard of glass from the cut. “There, that’s better. Is there a first-aid kit in the kitchen?”

  A male voice said authoritatively, “What’s the trouble here, sir?”

  The ubiquitous maître d’, thought Luke, and wished the man a hundred miles away. “She’s cut her finger,” he said with equal authority. “Will you please show me where the first-aid kit is?”

  “I’ll look after—”

  “Now,” said Luke, transferring his gaze from Katrin’s finger to the young man’s face. As Luke had known he would, the young man backed off.

  “Certainly, sir. This way, please.”

  The kitchen was in a state of controlled chaos from having produced gourmet meals for two hundred people. The maître d’, whose name tag said Olaf, led Luke to a square box in a secluded corner of the kitchen. “Thanks,” Luke said briefly, “I can manage now. Perhaps you could see that the remainder of the glass gets picked up.”

  Without another word, Olaf left. Katrin tried to tug her hand free, saying with suppressed fury, “Who do you think you are, throwing your weight around like this? Giving everybody orders as if you owned the place. It’s only a cut, for heaven’s sake—I’m perfectly capable of looking after it myself.”

  Luke rummaged in the kit. “Here, I’m going to douse it with disinfectant, hold still.”

  “I don’t—ouch!”

  “I did warn you,” Luke said, giving her a crooked grin as he ripped open a pad of sterile gauze. “There, that’s better.”

  Under the black uniform her chest was rising and falling; her eyes, very close to his, were a brilliant blue. On impulse, Luke reached up and snatched the glasses from her nose, putting them down beside the first-aid kit. His heart skipped a beat, then started a slow, heavy thudding in his chest. She had the most beautiful eyes he’d ever seen.

  He’d always thought of blue eyes as being open, unguarded, not potentially secretive as gray eyes could be, or his own dark brown. Once again, he’d been wrong, for Katrin’s eyes were so deep a blue he’d never be able to fathom them. Her brows were arched; her cheekbones, which had been hidden by the plastic frames, were exquisite. Even as Luke watched, color mounted in her cheeks, subtle as a rosebud unfolding in summer.

  He was still holding her by the hand. As he let his finger drift to rest on the pulse at her wrist, it speeded up, fluttering like a frightened bird’s. Had he ever in his life felt anything so intimate as those tiny thrusts against his skin? Had he ever allowed himself to?

  He wasn’t into in
timacy; he’d sworn off it years ago. But right now it was as though a chunk of lead had found a flaw in the bulletproof vest he was wearing and had gone straight for the heart. Hitting him where it hurt the most.

  Scarcely knowing what he was saying, Luke muttered, “So you feel it, too.”

  Her lashes flickered. Yanking her hand free, she cried, “I don’t know what you’re talking about—I don’t feel anything! Please…just go away and leave me alone.”

  Luke made a huge effort to regain control. A control he was famous—or infamous—for maintaining in any situation and at any cost. His voice sounding almost normal, he said, “I’m going to tape your cut. Then I’ll go.”

  “I can do it!”

  She sounded desperate. Desperate to be rid of him. And he was no nearer to pinning her down in his memory than he had been at the dining table. “It’ll take ten seconds,” he said in a hard voice. “Quit arguing.”

  “You’re sure used to having people do what you say.” She raised her chin. “I’m not going to cause a scene in the place where I work, you’re not worth it. But get on with it—and then get out.”

  He stripped the paper lining from a plaster. “You don’t sound very grateful.”

  “I don’t feel grateful.”

  “You’ve made that plain from the start.”

  “I can look after myself,” she snapped. “I don’t need some high-powered business type fancying himself as a knight in shining armor and then trotting up five minutes later to claim his reward. Thanks but no thanks.”

  Luke felt his own temper rise. “You think I did this so we could have a quickie in the corner of the kitchen?”

  “You bet.”

  “That’s not the way I operate!”

  “You could have fooled me.”

  Using every bit of his restraint, Luke taped the bandage over her cut. Then he took three steps backward and said with intentional crudity, “No feeling you up, no kisses behind the refrigerator. And—by the looks of you—no thanks, either.”

  Scarlet flags of fury stained her cheeks. She reached for her glasses and thrust them back on her nose. “You got that right. I don’t thank people who insult me.”

  Making a very determined effort to get his heart rate and his temper back to normal, Luke said dryly, “I’ve noticed that already. I’ll see you at breakfast, Katrin.”

  “I can wait.”

  Suddenly he laughed. “How would I ever have guessed?” Then, before she could respond, he turned on his heel and strode along the narrow aisle between ranks of stainless steel refrigerators. The kitchen door swung shut behind him. He crossed the deserted dining room, took the four flights of stairs to his suite, and slammed the door behind him.

  For a man who’d made it a mission in life to keep his distance and his cool, especially with regard to the female portion of the population, he’d made a total fool of himself.

  Well done, Luke. Tomorrow, at the breakfast table, you’d better concentrate on eating your cereal and minding your own business. So a waitress has gorgeous eyes. So what?

  Gorgeous eyes, obvious intelligence and a fiery temper. As well as a healthy dose of independence.

  And who in the world did she remind him of?

  CHAPTER THREE

  AT 3:00 a.m. Luke woke to the black silence of his bedroom punctuated by the pounding of his heart in his ears. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, breathing hard. He’d had his usual nightmare about Teal Lake, the one where his dad had him slammed against a wall and was brandishing a broken beer bottle in his fist. His mother, as always in these dreams, was nowhere to be seen.

  She’d left when he was five.

  Stow it, Luke told himself. It’s only a dream. And you’re thirty-three, not five. But his heartbeat was still thumping like a drum, and he knew from experience that it was useless to try and go back to sleep right away. Getting up, he pulled the drapes open and gazed out over the lake, where a half-moon traced a glittering path from horizon to shore. Teal Lake was a tenth the size of this lake; but the moon had been equally beautiful on Teal Lake, and equally indifferent.

  With an exclamation of disgust, Luke picked up a financial magazine from the mahogany coffee table and buried himself in an analyst’s prediction of the future of OPEC. At four he went back to bed, sleeping in snatches and finally getting up at five-thirty. He decided to go for a run along the lakeshore. Anything was better than being cooped up in this room until the dining room opened.

  The breeze was pleasantly cool, the morning sky a pale, innocent blue. Birds chirped in the willows; he startled two deer on the golf course. Far out on the lake he could hear the low growl of boats: fishermen catching pickerel and goldeye, for which the lake was famous. He must have some for dinner tonight; the goldeye in particular was considered a delicacy. He’d have to ask Katrin her opinion, he thought sardonically. Sure. Good luck.

  Pushing himself, Luke jogged for nearly an hour, sweat soaking his hair and gluing his T-shirt to his chest. He started to slow down when he reached the wharf that was just inside the resort’s high cedar fences. He should take time for some stretches, he thought, watching absently as a small daysailer came into sight through the trees. The sail was scarlet against the blue water, luffing as the sole crew member smartly brought the boat around the end of the wharf.

  It was a woman, her long blond hair blowing free in the breeze. She was wearing shorts and a brief top, white sneakers on her feet. With smooth expertise she docked the daysailer, throwing a line over the cleat on the wharf and tightening it before leaping ashore.

  It couldn’t be.

  It was.

  His mouth suddenly dry, Luke loped the last few yards toward the wharf. The woman had her back to him as she finished mooring the boat, her spine a long curve, her hair gleaming in the sun. Stepping onto the gently swaying wooden planks, he said, “Good morning, Katrin.”

  She gave an exaggerated start. Then she tied a couple of untidy half hitches, dropped the rest of the rope and stood up, turning to face him. She pushed her dark glasses up into her hair; her eyes, a glacial blue this morning, fastened themselves on his face. “What are you doing here?”

  “You’re a pro,” he said easily. “You handled the boat beautifully—is it yours?”

  “My question came first.”

  He swiped at his forehead with the back of one hand, and said with a winning smile, “I’m trying to work off last night’s pork tenderloin. Not to mention the orange mousse.”

  As though she couldn’t help herself, her gaze skidded down his chest, its pelt of dark hair visible through his wet top, to the flatness of his belly. She took a sudden step back. Luke grabbed at her arm. “Watch it, you don’t want to fall in.”

  Her skin was warm from the sun. She shook her elbow free, patches of color in her cheeks. “I’ve got to go,” she muttered. “I’ll be late for work.”

  His glance flickered down her body. Her breasts pushed against her thin green top, the faint shadow of her cleavage visible at the scooped neck; her legs were slim and lightly tanned. It wasn’t an opportune moment to remember Guy’s question…you hiding anything else under that uniform? Luke now knew what she’d been hiding. Trying to gather his wits, he repeated, “Do you own the boat?”

  “Yes,” she snapped, “I bought it with my investments.”

  Ignoring this, Luke said tritely, “Nice lines.” The same, of course, could apply to her. “Do you do much sailing?”

  “Whenever I can.” She lifted her chin. “It gets me away from the dining room. In more ways than one. Keeps my sanity, in other words.”

  “There are a great many other jobs that would suit you better.”

  “You’re repeating yourself.”

  “You’re not getting it.”

  “Life isn’t quite as simple as you seem to think it is. Sir.”

  If anyone knew life wasn’t simple, it was himself. Holding tight to his temper, Luke said more moderately, “I’m sorry, I’m being tactless. I’d hate to
see you stuck here year after year when there are wider horizons, that’s all.”

  “Fine. I get the message.”

  “I’m also sorry about Guy,” Luke went on. “He’s a grade-A jerk who shouldn’t go near a bottle of booze.”

  “I can look after types like him.”

  “So I noticed.”

  “The brandy was an accident.”

  “And the sail on your boat’s purple.”

  For a brief moment laughter glinted in her eyes. He’d already decided she had beautiful eyes. Now add the rest of her, he thought. Although beautiful was a much overused word that didn’t really encompass her grace, femininity and unconscious pride; the luster of her skin, the smooth flow of her muscles; the sexual pull she was exerting on him without—he was almost sure of this—in any way intending or wanting to.

  But wasn’t this all irrelevant? He met lots of beautiful women, so many that he should be immune to outward appearances by now; and the only reason his heart was thumping in his chest was that he’d been running for the better part of sixty minutes. Nothing to do with Katrin. He said abruptly, “I don’t even know your full name.”

  “You don’t need to.”

  Smiling broadly, Luke held out his hand. “Luke MacRae.”

  Katrin looked down at his hand, her own firmly at her sides. The wind blew a strand of hair across her face. “I already told you, staff and guests don’t fraternize. I could get in real trouble if someone sees us talking like this.”

  “Then it’s too bad there isn’t a bottle of brandy close by.”

  Again wayward laughter briefly warmed her blue irises; and was as swiftly tamped. Her whole face changed when she laughed, becoming vibrant and full of mischief. Luke discovered that he very badly wanted to make her laugh again, although he had no idea how to go about it. He said, reaching for her right hand, “How’s your cut, by the way?”