"Come in," was the muffled response.
Her stomach fluttered as she opened the door. Rolt was sitting at his desk, his head bent in an attitude of concentration over the papers spread before him. Alanna closed the door and waited just inside the room for him to acknowledge her presence.
At the click of the door, he glanced up absently, then almost immediately the indigo darkness of his eyes narrowed for a piercing second. Her heartbeat quickened under the penetrating look. Then his gaze moved to the watch gleaming goldly on his arm, as if confirming the time.
"Take a seat." He was already bending over the papers again as he spoke. "I'll be through here in a few minutes."
Alanna hesitated. A white-hot urge rose to walk over to his table and scatter his precious papers to the floor and demand that he tell her whatever it was that he was supposed to know. She had waited three days for this moment. Surely that was long enough!
No, her common sense told her. Losing her temper would only give Rolt an added advantage. This meeting was going to be strictly formal and polite. They would discuss the subject and not go into the personalities involved, his or hers. Cooling the brief surge of anger, she walked toward the half-circle of the sofa.
"There's a bar on the far wall. Ice is in the refrigerator below. Help yourself," Rolt told her.
Alanna glanced at the bar briefly and sat down on the sofa. "No, thank you." The last thing she needed was to have her thinking muddled with alcohol.
Instead she reached into her bag for a cigarette, an occasional habit she had acquired at college and one she was trying to break. But, at that moment, she was more interested in the possibly soothing effect of the nicotine on her taut nerves, especially now that her interminable wait was being lengthened still more.
Leaning against the sofa back, she exhaled a thin trail of smoke. The silence in the room was unnerving, broken only by the rustle of papers from the desk and the occasional scratch of a pen on paper. Rolt worked on, completely ignoring her presence in the room—something Alanna couldn't do as she openly gazed at him.
His expression was closed, uncompromising. He concentrated on his task and let nothing interfere. The blue drapes at the window were not completely closed. The shaft of sunlight from the window streamed over the desk, casting a golden hue on the camel tan suit he wore and shimmering over the silk of his brown tie. The angle of light brought out the amber sheen of his coffee-brown hair.
The sunlight wavered as if a filmy cloud was drifting in the way of its source. It intensified the tan of his skin until it appeared bronze, a marked contrast to the white of his shirt. The uncertain light, hovering. between bright and dim, highlighted the craggy planes and angles of his masculine features. The impression Alanna had was of something savage and noble, inherently male and proud. The cloud passed and the light was steadily bright. His features again became uncompromising and closed.
She had forgotten her cigarette during her unobserved study of him, and the ash was threatening to fall as she qui
ckly leaned toward the ashtray on the large coffee table in front of the sofa. When she straightened. Rolt was watching her, his gaze alert and inspecting. There was a mirthless curve to the molded line of his mouth. He laid the pen down with an air of finality and rose from the straight-backed chair.
"Sorry to have kept you waiting," His words were without genuine meaning, phrased in politeness and lacking in sincere apology.
"Of course," Alanna answered coolly.
Strong fingers closed around the knot of his tie, loosening it and starting to pull it free. "Do you mind?" Rolt paused.
She doubted that it really mattered to him if she gave her permission, but she did. "Not at all."
The tie was removed and stuffed in his jacket pocket. The camel tan jacket he negligently shrugged off and draped over the chair he had vacated. Alanna was gripped by the sensation that she was watching him shed the trappings of civilization. He became primitively male and somehow dangerous.
When the top three buttons of his white shirt were unfastened, he stopped. Alanna felt faintly surprised. She had nearly expected him to strip away the shirt as well. Her senses had stirred alarmingly during these electric seconds and she looked away to bring them under control.
Instead of walking to the sofa, Rolt moved to the window, stopping in the slit of sunlight. He gazed out the dusty panes, his feet slightly apart, a stance that suggested arrogance and power. A giant looking over his domain, Alanna thought. Her impatience grew as he remained silent.
"What is it you claim to know about my parents?" she challenged finally.
Rolt sent a long, measuring look over his shoulder, then pivoted. "I'm going to have a drink. Are you sure you wouldn't like one?" he asked, calmly ignoring her question.
"I'm positive." It was difficult to keep the irritation she felt out of her voice.
Alanna leaned forward to crush her cigarette out in the ashtray. The bar was on the wall behind her. She listened to the opening of the refrigerator door, the clink of ice in a glass, and the closing of the door. Then there was only silence. She clasped her hands tightly together in her lap, refusing to glance around at him.
"My parents," she prompted icily.
Liquor splashed over ice. "What about them?"
"That's what I want to know." Alanna turned on the sofa cushion, glaring at Rolt. "This is a trick, isn't it? You used my parents as an excuse to lure me here, didn't you?" she accused.
He met her look with bland unconcern. "Yes."
"I should have known," she muttered. With jerky, angry movements, she grasped her bag and rose from the sofa. "You know absolutely nothing about my parents."