PROLOGUE
IT WAS late on an unseasonably warm Friday afternoon in September, and all was right in Grant Landon’s world.
The deal The New York Times had called “impossible” was almost wrapped up, the weekend stretched ahead, and tonight a long-legged beauty whose face graced half the magazine covers in the city was dining with him at his Fifth Avenue apartment—which didn’t dim his growing interest in the blue-eyed blonde seated on the other side of his desk.
They had been dueling for the past several hours, each trying to gain the upper hand, but Grant knew better than to allow his attention to be diverted by something other than the intricacies of contract law. Now, with the deal concluded, he could see that she was all the diversion one man could handle.
Alicia Madigan was bright, sophisticated, and coolly elegant. A woman to his liking—and Grant knew just the way she’d like to be handled. A shadowy smile curved across his mouth at the thought, softening the hard, handsome lines of his face.
The Madigan woman noticed.
“Don’t look so pleased with yourself,” she said lightly. “I’ll begin to worry that I gave away too much.”
Grant laughed softly. “Come now, Miss Madigan. You know what they say about the fine art of negotiating. You give some, you get some.”
She smiled, sat back, and crossed her legs. Her demure suit skirt inched above her knees. Grant’s eyes narrowed. Was that a flash of black lace, or was it his imagination?
“I wasn’t born yesterday, Mr. Landon. We both know what the ‘fine art of negotiating’ really means. Her eyes met his. “Get as much as you can, while you can. Isn’t that right?”
Were they still discussing the intricacies of contract negotiations? Or had they moved on to an entirely different sort of negotiation?
“Perhaps.” Grant smiled. “But I’ve never taken pleasure in an arrangement that wasn’t mutually agreeable.”
Alicia Madigan gave a throaty laugh. “So I’ve heard.” Her long legs scissored again. There was no mistaking the flash of black lace this time. “You know,” she said softly, “I was as excited at the prospect as I was wary of the consequences of dealing with the famous Grant Landon.”
Grant’s smile tilted. “I have difficulty envisioning you as wary of anyone, Miss Madigan.”
“Alicia, please. Surely, we don’t have to be so formal now.” The tip of her pale pink tongue peeked from between her teeth and slicked across her bottom lip as she rose from her chair. “In fact, I was thinking we might have a drink together. Perhaps dinner. And then—well, who knows?”
Grant felt his body tighten as she came toward him. He looked her over slowly, his hazel eyes moving the length of her body in frank appraisal. Instinct told him that he could take her now, that she wanted to be taken now. All he had to do was go to her, put his hands under that seemingly demure skirt, shove it above her thighs…
“You’re very direct,” he said, his voice a little thick as he pushed back his chair and got to his feet.
“I am.” She put her hand on his arm; he could feel the heat of her fingers through the soft wool of his jacket. “Does it offend you?”
“On the contrary. I find it admirable.” He lifted his hand to her cheek and stroked his forefinger across the prominent arch. “I’m a believer in honesty in relationships.”
“So I’ve heard.” She smiled. “It’s a trait I admire.”
Grant smiled, too. “But I should warn you that I am old-fashioned about some things.”
“You’re not going to tell me that it would be a conflict of interest for us to cultivate our friendship, are you?” Alicia Madigan said with a little laugh.
Slowly, his eyes never leaving hers, Grant reached out and cupped his hand lightly over her breast. He heard her catch her breath, the sound loud as a gunshot in the silence.
“Actually,” he said, his tone almost conversational, “I was thinking about the concept of giving and taking.” She gave a choked moan of pleasure as his thumb swept lightly across her breast; he felt the swift hardening of her nipple beneath her suit jacket. “And you ought to know that I prefer to be the one who decides what to give.” His thumb moved again. “And what to take. Is that a problem?”
“Oh no,” she said. He could see her fighting for control of herself. “No, that’s not a problem at all. You can—”
His hand moved. Her fingers clamped tightly around his wrist as he stroked her; he could feel the sudden fierce tremor of excitement that swept through her body.
The realization that he’d so quickly cut through her cool, assertive exterior was almost as pleasing as it was disappointing. What she promised now didn’t matter. Later, she would want something more, something he could not give.
There had been women who’d accused him of having no heart, but it wasn’t true. He could take pleasure in a relationship—but love? Love was a word invented by greeting-card makers. It was not real. Any sensible man knew that, and Grant had always been a sensible man.
Suddenly, he felt weary, far older than his thirty-two years, and tired of this game he had played so many times before. He stepped back, took Alicia Madigan gently by the shoulders, and smiled at her.
“Give me your number,” he said. “I’ll call you.”
“But…” Her blue eyes clouded. “I thought—”
“Not tonight,” he said gently. “But soon. I promise.”
There was a moment’s silence, and then a tight smile curled across her mouth.
“I suppose I should be insulted—but I think I’d rather consider it
a challenge.” She bent and picked up her briefcase. “My number’s in the book,” she said. Her voice was cool, and gave no hint of what had just happened. “Please have the contract changes in my office first thing Monday morning.”
Grant nodded, smiled, and watched as she made the long walk to the door. Once it shut after her, he blew out his breath.
“Hell,” he muttered, as his gaze swept across the clock on his desk. He was running late. By the time he shaved, showered, then dressed, his date would be here. Kimberly would not like having to cool her heels, he thought as he took off his jacket and laid it neatly over the back of his desk chair.
But she’d wait.
They always did.
Crista Adams was running late, too, and she felt terrible about it—especially since she’d promised Danny she’d be on time tonight.
She paused to catch her breath on the fifth-floor landing of the Greenwich Village tenement. At least she’d remembered to stop for a bottle of wine. As for being late—well, that hadn’t been her choice. Gus had asked her to stay an extra hour to fill in for one of the other girls and she’d ended up with a tableful of beer guzzlers who thought waitresses had been put on this planet for their amusement.
Crista grimaced as she headed toward her apartment. It wasn’t worth thinking about. Getting hit on went with the territory down here, especially when Gus insisted that his waitresses wear short leather skirts, knee-high boots, and T-shirts that clung like a second skin. But the tips were good, you could work just about as many hours as you could handle and, slowly but steadily, she was beginning to save money toward the future.
Some day, she thought as she dredged out her keys, she’d have enough to open a little shop where she could sell the silver jewelry she loved to create. Until then, this life wasn’t so bad. At least she was answerable to no one but herself. And if the loudmouths and wise guys got the wrong idea about her and tried to push the issue…Crista smiled as she unlocked the apartment door. Well, she had her own security system just inside.
What fool would try any funny stuff, once he saw Danny?
“It’s me,” she called as she stepped into the postage-stamp-size living room. A gray cat with a mangled ear came hurrying toward her, meowing plaintively. Crista smiled and bent to pat its head. “Hello, Sweetness,” she cooed. “Did you miss me?”
The cat wove through her ankles as she walked to the kitchen where a pot simmered on the old-fashioned gas stove, a delicious aroma of garlic floating into the air. She put down the wine, scooped the mane of silky black hair away from her high-cheekboned face, and leaned down for a look.
“Mmm,” she sighed.
Danny’s sauce was always wonderful. Crista grinned as she shrugged off her jacket and tossed it across a chair. What more could a woman ask of the person who shared her apartment? Danny could cook, he loved animals, he didn’t mind the fact that she spent her spare time fashioning jewelry out of silver and beads—and he had more muscles than Sylvester Stallone.
That was the first thing she’d noticed about him, the day he’d shown up in answer to her ad—the day she’d been determined to turn him away.
“I want a female roommate,” she’d said firmly. “My ad specifically said—”
“The ad says two bedrooms, doesn’t it, Ms. Adams?”
“Yes, but—”
The gray cat had chosen that moment to come strutting in.
“Hey,” Danny had said, “you’ve got a cat.” He’d shot her a grin as he squatted down beside Sweetness. “I love cats.”
Crista’s smile had been politely dismissive. “That’s very nice, Mr. Amato. But my ad distinctly said ‘Single female to share 2 bedroom Village walk-up—’”
“Nice earrings. Never saw anything like ‘em before.”
She’d touched one of the little clusters of silver bells hanging from her lobes and then she’d frowned.
“Thank you. But—”
“Listen, Ms. Adams. I know what you’re thinking.”
Crista’s violet eyes had been cool. “I doubt it.”
“You’re thinking,” he’d said pleasantly, “this guy moves in here, he’s gonna hit on me.”
Crista hadn’t flinched. “And won’t you?”
“Tell me the truth, Ms. Adams. Am I your type?”
He wasn’t. Oh, he was handsome, but the fact was that Crista had yet to meet a man who was her typebut that was nobody’s business but her own.
“No,” she’d said bluntly, “you’re not.”
“And you’re not mine, Ms. Adams. You’re certainly a looker, but the vibes are all wrong—if you know what I mean.”
Crista had hesitated. Every loony in New York seemed to have answered her ad. This guy, at least, wasn’t mumbling about trips back home to Mars. He’d already shown her his references—and, she’d suddenly realized, sharing an apartment with a man who looked like Mr. Muscle might turn out to be an unexpected bonus.
To her surprise and his, Crista had agreed to a week’s trial—and she’d never regretted it, she thought as she filled a pot with water and set it on to boil. If Danny had one failing, it was that he was sometimes behind on his half of the rent payments, but struggling actors were not known for their wealth.
Anyway, there were more important things than money. Crista’s smile dimmed. She knew that better than anyone. She’d spent her teen years in the lap of luxury, the ward of a coldhearted uncle she’d never known existed until her parents’ deaths. Simon had wasted no time in telling her how her mother had lured her father from the bosom of his family.
“And you,” he’d snapped, “are her very image, in looks and in temperament.”
He had spent the next years determinedly trying to remake that image through private schooling and cultural tours of Europe. Shortly before Crista’s twentieth birthday, the situation had become intolerable. She’d moved out, and Simon had washed his hands of her.
That had been months ago. Still, when she’d read of his death in the paper a few weeks before, she’d gone to his funeral. Simon would have laughed; he’d have called her sentimental, a vulgar emotion he’d abhorred. But he was all the family she had, and sometimes, in the darkest moments of the night, she thought about how alone she was…
“Hey.” She looked up. Danny was standing in the doorway, his hair damp from the shower. “Why the long face?”
Crista cleared her throat. “What long face?” she said briskly.
“Did you hear the one about the camel and the goat?”
She groaned. “Only a thousand times.”
“I’ve got a new version, guaranteed to make you smile.”
He was right; the joke did make her smile. In fact, she almost forgot the brief sense of despair that had engulfed her moments ago…
Almost. But not quite.
Grant stood on the terrace of his Fifth Avenue penthouse, sipping a glass of Dom Pérignon from a Baccarat flute, waiting for Kimberly to reappear.
“Such a glum expression,” she’d said in a little-girl voice, just before she’d traipsed off to the powder room. “Don’t worry, darling. When I come back, I’ll make you smile.”
He doubted that, Grant thought grimly. He was bored, he was tired of watching Kimberly watch herself in every reflective surface, and he was hungry. What had his housekeeper left in the kitchen? Canard a l’Orange? Whatever it was, it had to wait until Kimberly put in an appearance.
He shot another look through the open terrace doors into the elegant white-on-white living room. Where the devil was she? She’d said she needed to fix her face—although what you could fix on that face was beyond him. It was so perfect it was almost expressionless, something he’d never noticed before tonight.
“Hell,” Grant muttered, and put the champagne flute down none too gently on a glass-topped table.
What was wrong with him? The feeling of disquiet that had begun late this afternoon had grown so that now he felt edgy and irritable. A premonition, his sister, Kyra, would have said.
> He frowned. Kyra? What did she have to do with anything? Why was he thinking of her when—
The telephone on the table beside him shrilled. He picked it up.
“Yes?” he said brusquely. It was Jane, his secretary.
A shape materialized at the far end of the living room. Kimberly was sauntering toward him, her hips swinging as if she were on a modeling runway. She was wearing a scarlet teddy, a sultry pout, and nothing else.
Grant’s breath caught, but not because of Kimberly. He turned away and pressed the phone more tightly to his ear.
“I see. Thank you, Jane. You did the right thing. I can make it. Would you phone my sister and tell her I’m on my way? And my brothers. You have Zach’s Boston number. Cade is in the Middle East. Ask Zach if—Fine. I’ll be in touch.”
He hung up the phone, cleared his throat, and turned to face Kimberly, who was breathing moistly against his neck.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but something’s come up.”
She giggled and put her hand on him. The scent of her perfume, sweet and cloying, filled his nostrils.
“Not yet it hasn’t,” she purred. “But it will.”
Grant’s hand clamped hard around her wrist. “I have a plane to catch,” he said. “Take your time dressing. The doorman will put you in a taxi when you come down.”
“A plane?” Kimberly said, her voice filled with bewilderment. “But I thought we…” Her voice rose as he brushed past her. “Grant, what’s so important that…?”
He wondered what she would say if he told her what was so important, if he said, well, Kimberly, if you must know, my father—a man I feel less for than I would for a stranger—my father, Charles Landon, is dead.
But he only turned and strode through the perfect living room, up the curved staircase to his bedroom. By the time he came down again, carrying a leather weekend bag, he had forgotten Kimberly existed.