The Jet-Set Seduction. Sandra Field
should feel so ashamed of her duplicity when she was achieving her aim: to send Slade Carruthers in the opposite direction as quickly as she could.
Slade looked down at his cioppino. He wasn’t the slightest bit hungry. Picking up his spoon, he said, “I happen to have a few standards. I’m not into long-term commitment or marriage, but when I have a relationship with a woman I expect fidelity, and I promise the same.”
She shrugged. “Then let’s enjoy our lunch and say goodbye.”
He said with dangerous softness, “Perhaps I could change your mind. On the subject of standards.”
“You’re not going to get the chance.”
“I make frequent trips to Europe. If we exchange e-mail addresses, we can keep in touch and arrange to meet some time.”
She was attacking her sole as though she couldn’t wait to be rid of him. “No. Which, as I’m sure you know, is spelled identically in English and Italian.”
He’d never begged a woman for anything in his life. He wasn’t going to start with Clea Chardin. “Commitment is what you’re really avoiding. Why?”
Clea put down her knife and fork and looked right at him, her remarkable eyes brilliant with sincerity. “I don’t want to hurt you, Slade. And hurt you I would, were you to pursue me, because—as you just pointed out—our standards are different. So I’m ending this now, before it begins.”
He said sharply, “I don’t let women close enough to hurt me.”
Her temper flared. “Why am I not surprised?”
“You must have hurt some of those other men.”
“They knew the score and were willing to go along with me.”
Cut your losses, Slade thought. Get out with some dignity. What’s the alternative? Grovel?
Not your style.
Biting off his words, anger rising like bile in his throat, Slade said, “So you’re going to play it safe. Ignore that kiss as if it never happened.”
With a huge effort Clea kept her eyes trained on his. “That’s right.”
“Then there’s nothing more to say.” Picking up his spoon, he choked down a mouthful of the rich tomato broth.
She was eating her fish as fast as she could. She hadn’t lost her appetite, Slade thought sourly. Why should she? He didn’t matter a whit to her.
Rationally he should be admiring her for turning her back so decisively on all his money. Unfortunately he felt about as rational as a shipwrecked sailor brought face-to-face with Miss America.
Clea drained her wine. “You’re sulking.”
He put his spoon down with exaggerated care. “If you don’t know the difference between sulking and genuine passion, you’re worse off than I suspected.”
She paled. Surely he hadn’t guessed that she’d never known genuine passion? Reaching in her purse, she extracted a bill, tossed it on the table and said coldly, “That’s to pay for my lunch. Goodbye, Slade.”
Pushing back her chair, she walked away from him, her hips swaying in her flowered skirt. With an effort that made him break out into a cold sweat, Slade stayed where he was, his fingernails digging into the chair. Be damned if he’d chase after her.
He picked up his glass, tossed back the contents and addressed his seafood stew. He would never in his life order cioppino again.
He’d never go to bed with Clea Chardin, either: if it came to a battle of wills, he was going to be the one in control. Not her. So he’d better forget the highly erotic fantasies that had disturbed his sleep all night.
The empty chair across from him was no fantasy, nor was the twenty-dollar bill lying beside Clea’s plate. The money felt like the final insult.
He’d give it to the first panhandler he met.
Through the plate glass window, Slade watched the waters of the bay sparkle in the sunshine. He felt as though he’d been presented with a jewel of outstanding brilliance. But before he could touch it, it had been snatched from his reach.
CHAPTER THREE
AT THREE o’clock that afternoon in his hotel room, Slade was on the telephone punching in Sarah Hutchinson’s extension. Sarah was Belle’s cook, whom Slade had known for years, and whose chocolate truffles he liked almost as much as he liked her. When she answered, he said, “Sarah, it’s Slade Carruthers.”
“Mr. Slade, what a nice surprise…how are you?”
They chatted for a few minutes about the garden party, then Slade said easily, “I’ve mislaid my appointment book—Mrs. Hayward’s having dinner with Clea Chardin tonight, isn’t she?” He waited for her reply, his heart thumping so loudly he was afraid she’d hear it over the phone.
“That’s right. Seven o’clock.”
“Just the two of them?”
“Private, that’s what Mrs. Hayward said.”
“Great—I’ll call Belle in the morning, then. No need to mention this, Sarah, she’ll think I’m having a memory lapse. How are your grandchildren?”
He patiently listened to their many virtues, then hung up. All he had to do now was decide on a course of action. Gate-crash Belle’s place? Or find a bar, get royally drunk and cut his losses?
Slade started prowling up and down the room, as restless as a caged tiger. Why had he phoned Sarah Hutchinson? Why couldn’t he—for once in his life—accept that a woman didn’t want to go to bed with him?
The answer was simple: because he wanted Clea as he’d never wanted a woman before.
Or was it that simple? Clea had been so ardent in his arms, then so frightened by her own response. Neither reaction had been fake, he’d swear to it. By touching her physically, he’d touched her emotions in a way that had terrified her.
So she’d very cleverly produced the clippings, refused any prospect of fidelity and taken her leave. She’d played him, he thought. And he’d fallen for it.
It wasn’t going to happen again. Be damned if he was going to sit back and let Clea Chardin vanish from his life. He wanted her and he was going to have her. On his terms.
All of which meant he’d better have a plan of action in mind before nine-thirty tonight.
At nine-thirty, however, when Slade pressed the heavy brass bell on the Hayward front door, he felt devoid of anything that could be called a plan. He’d have to wing it. But this time he’d be the one in control.
Carter, the butler, let him in and left him in the formal parlor, where family photographs in sterling silver frames covered every available surface. The furniture represented, in Slade’s opinion, the very worst of Victorian excess. Over the elaborate wrought-iron fireplace, a stuffed stag’s head gazed down its aristocratic nose at him.
There was a painting by the fireplace, a small dark oil. Curious, he wandered over to look at it. A man in chains, head bowed in utter defeat, was being led by three armored guards into the black maw of a cave. Slade knew, instantly, that the prisoner would never emerge into daylight again.
It was his own lasting nightmare, he thought, his palms damp, his fingers curled into fists: the nightmare that had tormented him ever since he was eleven. His limbs heavy as lead, he turned away from the painting, staring instead at an innocuous watercolor of a sunny meadow.
“Slade,” Belle exclaimed, “is anything wrong? Your parents? You look terrible!”
He fought to banish the nightmare where it belonged, deep down in his psyche. While Belle knew the reason behind it, she had no idea of its extent, and he wasn’t about to enlighten her. “I didn’t