Only a few inches over five feet tall, Spencer Wyatt was petite, almost fragile in appearance, with small bones and delicate features. She was more slender than he remembered from the last time he’d seen her a year or so before, and the big, smoke-gray eyes seemed more opaque, almost completely unreadable. Her generous mouth was held firmly steady in a look of control, but her chin was up, Wyatt pride and confidence in the gesture he found disturbingly familiar. In that moment Drew was conscious of an almost savage urge to do something—anything—that would cause her to lose her unfailing composure.
“What are you doing here?” she repeated.
Quite deliberately, Drew looked her over with insolent thoroughness from the raven hair bound in an elegant chignon to the plain, high-heeled black pumps she wore. He allowed his gaze to linger on the firm mounds her breasts made beneath the green sweater, then trail slowly down to her narrow waist, and to the curved hips that were snugly encased in black slacks. He saw her small hands bunch suddenly into white-knuckled fists, and when he looked back at her face—angry heat rose in her cheeks, eyes glittering, bottom lip a bit unsteady now and her chin several degrees lower than before—he felt a jolt of almost brutal pleasure.
So her haughty poise could be disturbed, after all. He wondered what was underneath it, wondered what she would look like with the self-possessed mask at her feet in splinters. Would Wyatt pride keep her chin up and her voice soft even then? Or would the spoiled, calculating, ambitious bitch he believed was there finally show her treacherous face?
Perhaps that was what he needed to see, Drew thought. One glimpse of the Medusa, to cure him of her once and for all.
Leaving that thought where it lay, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the chamois bag, then tossed it to land on her side of the desk. Still a little flushed, she stepped forward stiffly and picked up the bag. Her fingers quivered just a bit as she opened it and drew the necklace partway out.
Without looking up at him she said evenly, “Where did you get this?”
“I bought it. From the man you sold it to.” His own voice sounded normal, he thought, even casual.
Spencer pushed the necklace back into the bag and then tossed it to his side of the desk carelessly. “I hope you got it at a good price.”
She was back on balance again, meeting his gaze with a direct, unreadable stare. A faint smile curved her lips, and her chin was back at its accustomed imperious angle.
“An excellent price—considering that it’s worth about three times what I paid.”
“Then you got a bargain.”
“Why did you sell it, Spencer? And why to Hanson?”
“None of your business.”
Drew picked up the bag and returned it to his pocket, then said, “I could ask Allan.”
Something flickered in her eyes, some emotion that was restrained too quickly for him to be able to read it, but her expression didn’t change and her voice remained calm. “He’s sleeping right now. He sleeps most of the time. And I don’t want you to upset him.”
“Upset him? You mean if I tell him you sold the Wyatt emeralds secretly, he’d be upset?” Drew smiled, and wondered fleetingly how it looked to her, because it felt strangely unnatural. “He doesn’t know, does he?”
“The necklace was mine to sell.”
Very softly, Drew said, “Like the paintings that used to hang in the foyer and hallway, the ones you’ve replaced with prints? Like the Ming vase that was once on the mantel over there? And the ivory lions that should be on that shelf by the door? Were all those yours to sell, Spencer?”
She was a little pale now, but he couldn’t tell if it was anger or something else. And she remained silent, staring at him as though frozen.
Drew laughed. “You finally did it, didn’t you? Reece Cabot divorced you without a penny in settlement, so you came crawling home to daddy—and in a few short years you managed to go through a fortune it took the Wyatt family centuries to build. But that wasn’t enough for you, was it? You couldn’t wait to inherit what was left from Allan; you’re selling everything off piecemeal before he’s even in the ground.”
Spencer heard him as if from a great distance, heard him saying things that were even more devastating because they were uttered in his cool, unemotional voice. She had always felt inadequate in his presence, miserably aware that while her gloss of elegance was only that, only a pretense to hide the shyness and uncertainty inside, his was innate and the genuine article. He was never rattled, never at a loss, never unsure of himself.
She had watched him cross crowded rooms and had seen other men give way to him as if by instinct, and she had seen women look at him in unconscious fascination because they recognized what Spencer had understood from the first time she had seen him. That he was different from most men, set apart from them somehow, like a thoroughbred stallion in a herd of mustangs.
He had awed her then, left her tongue-tied and nervous. Now those old feelings swept over her again, battering at her hard-won assurance until she wanted to find a dark corner somewhere and crawl into it. He had looked at her in a way he never had before, bringing tears of both pain and humiliation to her eyes. She’d felt as if he had stripped her naked and clinically assessed her body—and was contemptuous of the conclusions he had arrived at.
She had known what he must have thought of her all these years, but his distant politeness during their occasional public encounters in the past hadn’t prepared her for that shattering appraisal or for this chilling attack.
How he must despise her!
“Nothing to say, Spencer?” His voice was smooth and yet, at the same time, indifferently cruel. “Not a word in your defense? Not even an attempt to shift the blame? That isn’t like you, sweet. You always used to perform such a wonderfully innocent act of surprise and dismay whenever Allan gave you some expensive new trinket. But I suppose you’ve used up all your curtain calls over the years.”
Shift the blame . . . With an effort she continued to meet his scornful gaze squarely. All she had left was pride, and she clung to that desperately because she couldn’t let him destroy her. There was nothing she could say to change his opinion, his idea of what she was; that obviously was too deeply rooted to be affected by words. Accustomed most of her life to playing a part, Spencer numbly accepted the one he handed her simply because she was too exhausted to fight.
“What do you want, Drew?” she asked flatly.
“I want to hear you admit it. You have been selling off Allan’s things, haven’t you?”
“Yes.” She was willing to say anything, if only he’d go away and leave her to find some kind of peace.
“He doesn’t know.”
It wasn’t a question, but Spencer shook her head slightly, anyway. No, her father didn’t know. Her father had no idea how bad things had gotten in the past months, and she had no intention of allowing him to find out.
“Do you have any jewelry left, or were the emeralds the last to go?”
If he was after his pound of flesh, she thought tiredly, he was certainly determined to get it all. “The last.” It wasn’t hard to make her voice cold; she felt frozen inside.
He laughed again, a sound that seemed honestly, if derisively, amused. “Every well has a bottom—what happens when you hit yours? Another besotted idiot like Cabot?”
Spencer lifted her chin another fraction of an inch and called on all the acting ability he had so mockingly referred to before. “Whatever it takes,” she said deliberately.
He stared at her for a long moment, his classically handsome face completely expressionless, and then reached down and lifted a bulging file folder from the desk, holding it up between them. “But first this, I think,” he said in a soft tone. “Do you plan to sell Allan’s notes to the highest bidder, is that it? Just throw his life’s ambition to the wolves and watch someone else finally locate the Hapsburg Cross?”
As if his slow movement and soft voice had hypnotized her, Spencer’s gaze drifted to the folder a
nd the lifetime’s notes it contained. Notes on a holy relic that most historians and archaeologists denied the existence of, asserting that it was only myth. For fifty years those same experts had referred to the Hapsburg Cross as Wyatt’s Holy Grail or, more commonly, Wyatt’s Folly.
He had talked about it for all of her life, and searched for it all of his. In recent years he had called it merely a hobby, perhaps discouraged by the fruitless search, but he hadn’t given up and Spencer knew it. Sifting through books, journals, diaries, poring over maps, endlessly speculating and piecing together the tiny bits of information he regarded as accurate, he had collected an impressive amount of data.
To think she would sell that . . . She wasn’t capable of telling that lie, and answered involuntarily, “No, I won’t sell the notes. I’m going to find the cross.”
Drew laughed. He laughed as if the very idea of Spencer doing anything of the kind was utterly and completely ridiculous, and the contempt in that sound hurt her worse than anything else he had said. Already daunted by the task she had set herself and wretchedly aware of her lack of any formal training, his derision could have been enough to make her give up before she’d even tried. Could have been—but wasn’t.
Spencer looked at him and found within herself a determination stronger than anything she had ever felt before. Now she had two overwhelming reasons to find the cross: to put it in her father’s hands before he died, and to see the man in front of her shaken off his imperturbable balance just once.
“I’m glad you find it so amusing,” she said icily. “I hope you’re still laughing when you have to deal with me to add the cross to your splendid collection.” Now why, she wondered with a pang of sudden dismay, had she said that? It was bound to make him think—
“Of course,” Drew said in a tone of understanding, no longer laughing. “The things you’ve been selling can’t begin to compare to the Hapsburg Cross. With that in your greedy little hands you could ask for millions—and get it.”
He would never believe the truth, Spencer knew that. Never believe that all she wanted was to see her father’s face when the dream of his life was put into his hands. Never believe that all she could give the father she adored in the last days of his life was the triumph of knowing that he had been right, and that his work had uncovered not a myth but a priceless relic.
Drew wouldn’t believe that, no matter what she said. So Spencer clung to her pride and let him believe what he wanted, wishing only that his opinion didn’t hurt so much.
“You’ll never find it,” he said flatly. “You don’t know a damned thing about archaeology.”
“I had the best teacher in the world—my father. He’s forgotten more about archaeology than most of today’s experts ever learn. And I have his notes.”
For the first time, Drew showed some emotion other than scorn: incredulity. He looked at her as if she had lost her mind. “You think that’s going to make it easy? These notes aren’t step-by-step instructions, Spencer, and they don’t contain a nice, neat little treasure map for your convenience.”
She wouldn’t allow herself to be withered under his ridicule, even though it cost her to continue to meet his eyes. “I know that. But the notes give me a place to start, and I—”
“A place to start? You mean Austria?” Drew put the file back on the desk, shaking his head. A pitying smile curved his lips. “That’s a fine place to start. In fact, it’s where legitimate archaeologists began searching a hundred years ago. Since the Hapsburgs supposedly owned the cross—and lived there—it only makes sense. Common sense, honey, of which you appear to have less than your share.”
Though she badly wanted to convince him she wasn’t the fool he thought her, she wasn’t about to tell him that her father’s notes narrowed the field considerably more—and to a place in Austria where no search for the cross had ever been conducted. No matter what Drew thought of her, the last thing on earth she would have done was give him a place to start.
Her father used to say that whatever formal training Drew lacked was more than made up for by an intuitive, almost instinctive sense of understanding. He had “the touch,” an unerring ability to detect the genuine over the false, and a singular gift for finding artifacts, relics and ancient works of art that other more educated eyes had missed.
Until now, Spencer hadn’t considered that someone else could beat her to the cross; since the experts maintained it didn’t even exist, no one except her father had tried to find it in the past thirty years or so. But Drew, she realized with a sinking feeling of panic, could well decide to try his hand at the search. Given his obvious enmity toward her, he might even decide to do so just to teach her a lesson.
One of his elegant, powerful hands was resting on the file now, and she looked at it fixedly as she tried to regain control of her panic. Even if he had looked in the file, she assured herself desperately, he’d hardly had time to see the clues it had taken her months of intense study to find. From what he’d said, it was clear he believed she was planning to jaunt off to Austria without the least idea of any specific location.
That realization eased her anxiety, and she returned her gaze to his face. “I’m going to find the cross,” she said, refusing to give him the satisfaction of listening to her try to defend herself. Since he so obviously thought her a stupid, greedy little gold digger, then so be it.
“You don’t have a hope in hell.”
Spencer managed to force a smile that she hoped was a mocking one. “Then you can gloat later, can’t you?”
He stared at her for a long moment, then shook his head with a touch of impatience. “I’ll deny myself that pleasure. Even if I decide not to go after the cross, I’d hate to see Allan’s work lost—and you’re bound to lose it between here and Austria. You’d better sell the notes to me.”
He didn’t even think she was bright enough to copy everything and leave the originals safely here, Spencer realized. She had no conscious intention of throwing down the gauntlet, but because he’d had the upper hand from the first moment she’d walked into the room and her own control was strained almost to the breaking point, her emotions got the better of her and she wasn’t very surprised to hear the icy certainty in her own voice when she said softly, “Not if you were the last man left alive.”
He stiffened, vivid eyes suddenly hard and curiously bleak, and his mouth a grim line. Spencer felt no pleasure from having successfully struck back at him, though she was vaguely surprised that she’d been able to. What she felt most of all was a bone-deep weariness, a raw pain like an open wound at the conviction that she had turned this man into an enemy, and an overwhelming knowledge that nothing in her life had prepared her to cope with any of this.
Drew removed his hand from the file and came around the desk toward her. She managed not to flinch away from him, and even turned to face him as he reached her, fighting the still-familiar apprehensive urge to back away. Too close. He was too close, forcing her to look up in order to meet his eyes. She felt smothered, backed into a corner by some primitive threat she couldn’t even name and had no idea how to protect herself from. She had always felt that way whenever he was close to her—nervous, wary and terrifyingly inadequate.
Halting no more than an arm’s length away, he reached for her hands and held them in his, turning them briefly as he stared down at her soft palms and slender fingers. Her nails were long and perfectly manicured, polished in glossy red. The pale gold flesh of her hands was smooth and unmarked by scars.
“You haven’t done a day’s work in your life,” Drew said, his deep voice not cool now but curiously taut. “Even if you knew exactly where the cross was, do you really think it’s just lying out in the open for you to pick up in your delicate hands?”
“I’m not stupid, whatever you think,” she said, trying without success to draw her hands away. His touch was warm against her chilled skin, the slight roughness of his palms mute evidence that he had worked with his hands despite his elegant appearance. But i
t wasn’t that which unnerved her. It was the strength she could feel in him, the almost tangible aura of sheer physical power.
He seemed larger than she remembered, his shoulders broader, his entire body more impressive and overwhelmingly masculine. She had the confused idea that she’d never really looked at him before, or that some part of himself always hidden beneath the cultivated exterior was closer to the surface now. She felt surrounded by him, trapped.
“What I think?” He seemed to lean down toward her, his features stony, eyes glittering. “I think you’re a greedy, ruthless little fool. I think you broke that sick man upstairs, just like you’ll break any man insane enough to love you.”
chapter two
SHE WAS TRYING again to pull away from him, desperate to escape the knives of his words. She could feel the last of her control deserting her, rushing away just like the strength in her legs, and she knew she was going to afford him immense satisfaction by bursting into tears any minute now.
Then Drew released her hands, but before she could back away he was grasping both her shoulders and looking her up and down the way he had earlier, stripping her naked with insolent eyes and coolly weighing her charms.
“And it doesn’t show at all,” he said almost to himself. “That’s the most dishonest thing about you, sweet, that beautiful, enticing package. It could easily blind a man until he’d believe he had struck gold instead of greed. But I know the truth, don’t I?”
“Stop. Don’t say any more.” Every word she forced out hurt her tight throat. “Please, Drew—”
“Please, Drew,” he repeated in a musing tone, his eyes on her face now and narrowed consideringly. “I like the sound of that. The surroundings could be better, though. A bedroom, I think, with you flat on your back between the sheets saying ‘Please, Drew.’ ”