Stormy Challenge

  “I’ve read it. I went through it before I picked you up for dinner,” he admitted quietly, a new note of seriousness entering the heavy-timbred voice. Across the table, the tortoiseshell eyes met hers.

  “Well?” she pressed a bit grimly. “Do you agree with me?”

  “That it’s dangerous? It could be in the wrong circumstance,” Court said slowly, evenly. The cognac swirled gently in his glass.

  “I knew it!” Leya stated with unhappy satisfaction. “As soon as Keith gave it to me I knew there was something crazy about the whole setup!”

  “I said it could be dangerous in the wrong situation,” Court repeated calmly, watching her face closely. “You were wise to be cautious, Leya, but there are some mitigating circumstances involved here.”

  “Such as?” she challenged.

  “Such as the fact that you know your brother, and I know the other party named in the contract. The man he wants to hire.”

  “You know him!” Leya stared, totally astonished by this information. “You know this C. Tremayne? But how could you? Where would you have run into him?”

  “In Silicon Valley,” he told her, using the slang expression for the area around San Jose, California, where so much of the new high-technology electronics industry was based. It had been so named for the semi-conducting material that had helped revolutionize solid-state electronics.

  “You worked down there for a while?” Leya demanded, confused. “I didn’t know you were in engineering. I thought you said something about finance….”

  “I’ve worked with several electronics firms, helping them secure venture capital. It takes money to do first-class research and I help them find it,” he said, as if it were the simplest thing in the world.

  Leya knew there was a lot more to it than he implied, but she had other things to pursue at the moment. “So you’ve met Tremayne? What do you think of him?”

  Court smiled. “He’s not the ogre you’ve convinced yourself he is, for a start.”

  “He must be!” Leya scoffed. “What sort of creature besides an ogre would try to tie my brother to a contract like the one I gave you to read?”

  “A man who has as much to lose as your brother and wants to protect himself as well as his client,” Court explained tersely.

  “All the protection is on Tremayne’s side!” Leya exploded in disgust. “The way that contract is written, he’s tied his salary into the profits. If my brother’s company does well, Tremayne stands to make a tidy sum, far more than a normal salary for consulting!”

  “And if Brandon Security Systems goes under, Tremayne loses said fortune.”

  “What about that business of insisting on full decision-making authority?” Leya persisted irritably. “He’s virtually setting himself up as president of the firm!”

  “From what I know of him, Tremayne doesn’t make decisions by consensus,” Court admitted dryly. “He wouldn’t go into a situation like this unless he had the power to do what needed to be done, without having to refer everything to a committee.”

  “But the main reason Keith insists on having the man in as a sort of chief consultant is because he’s hoping to learn from Tremayne! If Tremayne won’t be bothered with discussing his decisions, what good will that do Keith?”

  “If Tremayne has agreed to guide your brother over the next couple of years, until Keith has enough experience under his belt to take on the full responsibility of running the firm, you can rest assured he’ll do as he says. In my experience, Tremayne is a man of his word. He just wants it clear from the outset that for the duration of the contract, he’s in charge. If you ask me, your brother is showing a lot of sense. After all, it must be damned intimidating to suddenly inherit a large business at the age of twenty-five. You did say he was a couple of years younger than you?”

  Leya nodded morosely. “I realize he’s had no experience in running the firm. After all, everyone assumed Dad would be in charge for years….” Grimly, she turned her thoughts away from the sudden death of her parents the previous year in a plane crash in Europe. She and Keith had both put the grieving behind them. Coming to grips with the present was the important thing now.

  “From what you’ve told me, your brother never really had any intention of taking over the reins,” Court noted quietly, his eyes probing.

  “No. It came as a complete surprise when he decided to assume the responsibility instead of just selling out,” Leya admitted. “He seems a new man lately, as if he’s found himself.” She shook her head, thinking of the way her brother had been drifting since graduation from college. “That’s why I hate to put the squelch on this idea he has of apprenticing himself to Tremayne, but…”

  “But you’re afraid he’s agreeing to a contract that will ruin him?” Court concluded understandingly.

  “You read it. It’s rather binding, wouldn’t you agree?” Leya retorted brusquely, running her finger idly around the rim of her snifter and watching the play of candlelight on the liqueur inside.

  “Yes, but your brother’s interests are well protected, Leya. Don’t forget, you still hold half the firm’ shares in your power. If Tremayne proves dangerous, it wouldn’t be impossible to fire him. All you’d have to do is to get Keith to agree he’d made a mistake. The contract is only truly binding as long as all parties are satisfied. Keith is just asking for a chance to do things his way. Are you sure you’re not playing the part of the overprotective big sister?”

  Leya lifted her eyes, the metallic green gaze narrowing in response to the small accusation. “No,” she snapped. “I’m exercising my obligations as co-owner of the firm. The agreement Tremayne wants signed needs both my signature and my brother’s. My father left Brandon Security to both of us.”

  “With the understanding that for the most part you would be a silent partner, you said,” Court reminded her gently but firmly.

  Leya winced. “I may have told you a little too much of the background of this deal before I asked your advice,” she grumbled, annoyed with herself.

  But it had been so easy to talk to Court last night. She was still amazed at the relaxed and communicative atmosphere that had sprung up between them from the start. One thing had led to another and before she knew it she had been discussing the main reason she had secluded herself at the inn for a week. She had promised Keith a decision on whether or not to hire Tremayne by the time she returned to Santa Rosa, the town in northern California where she made her home and ran her book business.

  Court smiled. “I think your basic decision isn’t whether or not to sign the contract, it’s whether or not you’re going to let your brother really assume control of the firm.”

  Leya gritted her teeth, forcing herself to consider the justification of his comments. “I have never been a bossy older sister!”

  “You strike me as the type of woman who could get quite bossy,” he chuckled.

  “Except that I’m too smart to make that mistake with my own brother. I don’t want him to hate me!”

  “How about with a lover? Would you make the mistake of trying to dominate a man in a relationship?” Court pounced provocatively, sitting forward with a deliberate air. The gold-flecked eyes glittered with teasing challenge.

  Leya smiled with serene superiority, aware of the heat in her veins. “That’s different,” she demurred. “Everyone knows a man is happiest in a relationship when he’s properly managed.”

  “Funny, I always heard it was women who were content when they’d been mastered!” Court purred.

  “A myth,” she responded breezily. “Fostered by all those old Rudolph Valentino movies featuring sheiks who carried their women off into the desert!”

  “Not to mention all those other films featuring masterful types such as Gable and Bogart and…”

  “So Hollywood got off on the wrong track,” Leya retorted, lifting one nearly bare shoulder dismissingly. “Most of the films were made by men, so it stands to reason they emphasized male fantasies.”

  “That
theory doesn’t explain all the women in the audiences.” Court grinned.

  “Who can ever account for an audience reaction?”

  “Who can ever account for a woman’s reaction?” he countered.

  “I stand by my theory,” Leya declared, removing her chin from her palm and settling back into her chair. “And I have not been a domineering older sister!”

  “Then why break a precedent and start behaving like one now?”

  Leya took a deep breath. “You really think I ought to go ahead and let Keith hire Tremayne?” For the life of her she couldn’t explain why she should value this man’s advice. But some instinct said he knew what he was talking about. There was a sense of sureness and authority about Court Gannon that made itself felt. You had the feeling that he knew what he was doing and his advice would be solid.

  “Yes. You asked for my advice and I’m giving it. I think you ought to sign and let your brother get on with the business of learning how to run the company he’s inherited, which you don’t particularly want. He sounds like a young man who’s found what he wants to do in life. Let him do it. Not all of us are that lucky at twenty-five!” he added with a wry smile.

  “Sad but true,” Leya sighed, shaking her head with an answering smile. Her own most depressing memories of thinking she knew what she wanted were from her twenty-sixth year. Well, she learned her lesson. There was no point in rehashing the subject. Her smile widened deliberately as she considered the man across from her. “Did you know where you were going and what you wanted when you were twenty-five?” Privately, she put his present age at around thirty-five or thirty-six.

  Surprisingly, he paused to consider the question. “In some aspects of my life I was quite certain of what I wanted,” he finally said slowly.

  “You sound as if you’re trying to hedge the question,” she accused softly.

  “A man’s privilege,” he shot back easily, eyes laughing. Then he went on in a careful tone. “I guess the truth is I knew what I wanted as far as my career was concerned, but there were until quite recently some very open-ended questions about what I wanted in my personal life.”

  Across the table, Leya caught the sudden blaze of intensity in him, and a part of her wanted to turn and run. The flash of cowardice was so unexpected she found herself swallowing in nervousness. It took an astonishing amount of self-control merely to stay seated and force a deliberately unconcerned expression.

  “I don’t see you as the unsure type,” she confessed lightly.

  He looked as if he were about to pursue the statement and then appeared to change his mind. “Tell me something,” he said instead, eyeing her. “If you had so many qualms about signing this contract, why didn’t you make it a point to meet with this C. Tremayne and judge him for yourself?”

  Leya blinked at the change of topic and then lifted a negligent hand. “If you must know, I chose this particular week for a vacation because Keith informed me Tremayne was trying to set up just such a meeting. I felt…” she broke off, searching for the right word, “as if I were being pushed. The man didn’t handle it very politely, you see. He simply told my brother to bring me to the office on a certain day and time this week, and he would handle me.” She grimaced in mild displeasure.

  “So you immediately disappeared on vacation?” One heavy brow lifted.

  “I told Keith I’d take the contract with me and make up my mind while I was away,” she explained, aware that she was tapping one foot gently under the table. She had the impression Court was about to condemn her for failing to go through with the meeting, and Leya didn’t appreciate the prospect of criticism from him.

  “I can see you think you know what I’m going to say next,” he teased. “But you’re wrong.”

  “Am I?”

  “Yes. I’m not going to tell you that you should have stayed and had the meeting with Tremayne.”

  “Why not?” she demanded dryly, positive that was what he was thinking.

  “Because I’m too happy to have you sitting across from me tonight,” he retorted smoothly. “I’m very glad you’re here and not back in Santa Rosa!”

  Instantly, Leya relaxed, her lips curving warmly and the silvery green glance softening. “So am I,” she agreed gently.

  “And I wouldn’t have wanted to forgo this encounter for all the semiconductors in California,” he finished, voice thickening with male anticipation, an ancient, primitive anticipation that had the power to send answering shivers of alarm and excitement through her.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, trying to sound only as if she were responding to a polite compliment.

  “You’re welcome,” he growled in soft laughter. “Are you ready to come up to my room now?”

  Some of the silver in Leya’s eyes coalesced into a harder substance, even while her heart picked up a beat. “Your subtlety is slipping again.”

  He smiled with only a touch of the predator. In fact, an onlooker would need to be quite alert to notice the implication of the flashing teeth because the heat in the golden eyes was so overpowering. “You have to come up to my room,” he said patiently.

  “Why?” she demanded starkly.

  “Because the contract is there. I left it on the table by the window.”

  “I’ll get it in the morning,” she evaded, acutely aware of the fencing match in which she was engaged. The contract was nothing more than a polite excuse for the war of wills.

  “I don’t want to be responsible for it overnight,” Court insisted. “It represents your brother’s whole future.”

  “You could bring it downstairs now,” Leya suggested huskily, her eyes never leaving his.

  “I’ll compromise and bring it to your room,” he announced with a totally false magnanimity that amused Leya in spite of the intriguing danger of the situation.

  “Do you ever give up?” she whispered curiously.

  “No.” It was a simple statement of fact and she believed him. Unconsciously, Leya ran the tip of her tongue over her lower lip, tension heightening all her senses. He waited.

  “You can’t come to my room. Not tonight,” she finally told him quietly, her eyes meeting his in a direct, honest look.

  “And you won’t come to mine,” he confirmed.

  “I…can’t…”

  “You mean you’re afraid,” he corrected softly.

  She drew a long, steadying breath. “Perhaps.” She didn’t try to deny the accusation and saw him nod in satisfaction.

  “I’ll settle for that tonight.”

  “What?” she almost yelped, suddenly outraged. “You want me to be afraid of you?”

  The sexual tension seeped out of her body to be replaced by affronted feminine anger. The green glance hardened and she watched him through suddenly narrowed lids.

  “With a woman like you, I think it might be a necessary first step.” Court returned her annoyed expression with one of glittering male certainty. “It ensures that I have your full attention!”

  Leya stared at him, trying to decide whether to laugh or to kick him. The humorous side of her nature, nearly always in the ascendency anyway, won. She grinned recklessly.

  “Are you sure you’d know what to do with my full attention once you had it? Remember, you don’t approve of bossy women!”

  “I am nothing if not resourceful,” he assured her, rising to his feet in a smooth, coordinated movement that appealed to her notions of masculine grace. He smiled deliberately, invitingly, reaching down to take her hand and tug her gently up beside him. “And I’m perfectly willing to let you try managing me.”

  “Because you don’t think I can do it?”

  “Why don’t you try it and find out for yourself how much you can get away with?” he retorted easily, leading her out of the lounge and into the main lobby of the inn.

  “What would happen to your poor masculine ego if I were successful?” Leya taunted, pleasantly aware of his fingers entwined with hers as he led her through the lobby and on towards the darkened, gla
ss-walled room which overlooked the pounding surf. The emerald dress swirled around her ankles as she moved.

  “It would probably be shredded,” he sighed in mock despair, guiding her through the empty, shadowy room to stand before one of its huge floor-to-ceiling windows. Below them, the wind-tossed waves crashed hugely on the rocky beach, driven by the first gales of an incoming storm. What little moonlight there was illuminated the scene in a mysterious, enchanting way. As always, Leya felt herself respond to the power of the landscape.

  She felt Court’s hand tighten abruptly on her fingers and knew instinctively that he was equally affected by the sensual impact of the scene. She was overwhelmingly aware that the teasing, baiting, inviting approach he had been exercising all evening had given way to something much more elemental and far more dangerous.

  She also knew with intuitive self-honesty that the real danger lay in her own reactions to this man who had moved from stranger to confidant in only a couple of days. Now he was pressing his status to that of lover, and Leya told herself she must be cautious.

  “We seem to have the place to ourselves. And if we sit down over there in that alcove, no one coming in will even see us. Come here, Leya,” Court commanded in a low, deepening tone that pulled at her.

  A moment later, Leya found herself sinking quite naturally across his knees, her head against his wide shoulder. The silver in her eyes turned to rich platinum just before his mouth covered her own.

  Two

  Leya’s first reaction to the touch of Court’s lips was that his kiss wasn’t exactly what she had subconsciously expected. There was nothing tentative or uncertain about the caress and his arms held her securely enough, but there was some quality in the way his mouth played on hers that didn’t fit her preconceptions. A provoking delicacy she hadn’t anticipated.

  Intrigued and curious with a deeply feminine curiosity, Leya wound her arms lightly around his neck, her fingertips toying with the oddly attractive gold and brown of his hair. She knew a genuine pleasure in the feel of the crisp stuff and gave a small, soundless sigh. The overall effect of the tiny escaping breath was to part her lips slightly, invitingly.