“Damn it, Gwen, I wasn’t insulting you. I was just trying to make a point. Now sit down and stop acting like a child. This is ridiculous—”
But Zac was talking to empty space. Guinevere had her coat on and was on her way out the restaurant. In stunned amazement he watched the scarlet coat disappear through the front doors. Out on the street she turned in the direction of Vandyke’s office building, and then she vanished in the crowd. The problem with the new style in women’s lunch-hour footwear, Zac decided, was that it allowed the wearers to move a great deal faster than they could in high heels.
Slowly Zac pulled his attention back to his half-eaten spicy noodles. “Damned temperamental female.”
“Excuse me, sir, more coffee?” The waitress paused with a politely inquiring smile.
“No thanks.”
“Will the lady be returning?”
“She had to leave,” Zac mumbled, searching for a convenient excuse. It was humiliating to have a woman walk out on you in a public restaurant he discovered, chagrined. “Business appointment.”
“Of course. I’ll clear her plate.”
It would be tacky to tell her to leave Gwen’s plate of noodles so that he could finish them, Zac decided morosely. “Fine.”
Just one more irritation to chalk up to Guinevere Jones, he thought as he watched the excellent noodles disappear toward the kitchen. Not only did Jones abandon him in the restaurant, but he couldn’t even find a polite way to finish off the food she’d left behind. The lady was getting to him. Zac grudgingly acknowledged to himself that he wasn’t accustomed to this level of uncertainty around a woman.
It seemed to him that he’d been alternately irritated, possessive, uncertain, and exhilarated since he’d first encountered Guinevere Jones a few weeks ago. The first time he’d gone to bed with her he’d been subtly aware of a deep sense of satisfaction, a feeling of rightness that he couldn’t begin to explain in words. So he hadn’t tried. Perhaps he should have made the attempt, but Zac wasn’t sure that he could manage the task or that Guinevere would want to hear the words if he had succeeded in saying them.
Their relationship was at a very tentative stage. It could not yet be characterized as an affair, although Zac knew he would be irrationally enraged if he found out she was seeing another man. But surely they had more than a casual dating arrangement. At least it felt like more than that to him. He’d like to get matters to the point where he could say he was having an affair with Guinevere Jones, Zac thought. The words sounded good to him. They had a nice, settled, defined tone. But as yet he hadn’t dared say them aloud in Guinevere’s hearing.
Words, in general, seemed to be a real problem around Guinevere. Bleakly Zac finished his noodles and then cradled the cup of coffee in his large hands. Had he insulted her? He hadn’t meant to. She must know that. He’d only been trying to point out that weekend jaunts with bosses might be frowned on in some circles, severely frowned on by one Zachariah Justis as a matter of fact.
Damn it, he’d only been giving her some good advice. She certainly spent enough energy giving him advice!
Of course, he reminded himself, perhaps from her point of view, she’d been attempting to do him a favor. She’d tried to throw a little business his way. He’d been too busy jumping on her for scheduling that weekend trip with Vandyke to pay much attention to the baby-sitting job she’d suggested. Zac stared down into his coffee and thought about her proposal. Normally the project would not have interested him in the slightest. He had no intention of hiring himself out to ride shotgun for executives who saw industrial spies behind every water cooler. He had deliberately structured Free Enterprise Security, Inc. to be a cut above that sort of mundane operation. His firm was a consulting business. He gave expensive advice, conducted expensive but highly discreet investigations, and generally aimed for a sophisticated security image. True, he was still Free Enterprise’s only employee, but someday things would change. In the meantime, he didn’t want to jeopardize the image.
Zac was listlessly swirling the last of the coffee in his cup, wondering how to go about making amends for his insult, when it struck him that there was one irrefutable advantage to accepting Guinevere’s job suggestion.
It would enable him to spend a three-day weekend with Gwen at a classy resort. Three days on an island with Gwen.
Stunned by the implications and wondering foolishly why he hadn’t spotted them right from the start, Zac hurriedly fished out his worn leather wallet and matched the amount Gwen had left on the table.
Three days at a fancy resort with Guinevere Jones at the client’s expense. It boggled the mind. No wonder he’d had trouble putting the right perspective on the job offer, Zac told himself. After all, he rarely encountered that degree of luck in the universe. What was the matter with him? He’d been so damned busy warning Guinevere not to go flitting off with another man that he hadn’t even realized she was offering him a chance to be the one she spent the weekend with.
There was the unfortunate matter of having to safeguard a development proposal, but in his new, tolerant mood Zac could anticipate no real problem with that element of the situation. A briefcase would be an annoyance, but he could deal with that. He headed back toward his office, wondering if Gwen would let him handle the room reservations.
As soon as he reached the tiny cubicle he rented in the downtown high-rise, Zac threw himself into the new chair he’d bought with the fee from the StarrTech case and reached for the phone. Guinevere answered on the second ring. Zac half smiled as he heard what he called her office voice: husky, polite, and just distant enough to let the caller know that the lady was professional in every sense of the word.
“Gwen? Zac. Listen, I’ve been giving your job offer some more thought.”
The polite quality left her voice, but nothing could banish the pleasant huskiness. “Don’t strain yourself.”
“I’m serious, and I’ve decided you’re absolutely right. I can hardly afford to turn down the work. Tell Vandyke that I’ll be glad to baby-sit his development proposal.”
“You will?” She sounded startled.
“Sure. On one condition.”
Instantly suspicious, she asked, “What condition?”
“No gold handcuffs for the briefcase.”
“You want silver or stainless steel?” A thread of humor finally warmed the ice in her voice.
“I’ll just clutch it with my bare hands. Oh, and Gwen?”
“Yes, Zac?”
He coughed a little, clearing his throat. “Have you made the reservations?” Visions of sharing a room for three days with Guinevere sizzled through his head. He felt his body tighten in instinctive response.
“No, not yet.”
“I could handle ours,” he said as nonchalantly as possible.
“Oh.”
Zac hung up the phone, determined not to let the small setback bother him. He would see this as an opportunity to be creative in the field.
Sitting in Vandyke’s office, Guinevere stifled the unexpected burst of excitement that threatened to bubble up inside her. This would be a working weekend, naturally, but still . . .
She halted the direction of her thoughts and went to work on the problem of how to convince Edward Vandyke that Free Enterprise Security was just what he needed to give him a little peace of mind.
***
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Jayne Castle, the author of Canyons of Night, Midnight Crystal, Obsidian Prey, Dark Light, Silver Master, Ghost Hunter, After Glow, and After Dark, is a pseudonym for Jayne Ann Krentz, the author of more than fifty New York Times bestsellers. She writes contemporary romantic s
uspense novels under the Krentz name, as well as historical novels under the pseudonym Amanda Quick. She lives in Seattle. You can find her online at www.jayneannkrentz.com.
Titles by Jayne Ann Krentz writing as Jayne Castle
The Lost Night
Canyons of Night
Midnight Crystal
Obsidian Prey
Dark Light
Silver Master
Ghost Hunter
After Glow
Harmony
After Dark
Amaryllis
Zinnia
Orchid
The Guinevere Jones Novels
The Desperate Game
The Chilling Deception
The Sinister Touch
The Fatal Fortune
Titles by Jayne Ann Krentz writing as Amanda Quick
Crystal Gardens
Quicksilver
Burning Lamp
The Perfect Poison
The Third Circle
The River Knows
Second Sight
Lie By Moonlight
The Paid Companion
Wait Until Midnight
Late for the Wedding
Don’t Look Back
Slightly Shady
Wicked Widow
I Thee Wed
With This Ring
Affair
Mischief
Mystique
Mistress
Deception
Desire
Dangerous
Reckless
Ravished
Rendezvous
Scandal
Surrender
Seduction
Other titles by Jayne Ann Krentz
Copper Beach
In Too Deep
Fired Up
Running Hot
Sizzle and Burn
White Lies
All Night Long
Falling Awake
Truth or Dare
Light in Shadow
Summer in Eclipse Bay
Together in Eclipse Bay
Smoke in Mirrors
Lost & Found
Dawn in Eclipse Bay
Soft Focus
Eclipse Bay
Eye of the Beholder
Flash
Sharp Edges
Deep Waters
Absolutely, Positively
Trust Me
Grand Passion
Hidden Talents
Wildest Hearts
Family Man
Perfect Partners
Sweet Fortune
Silver Linings
The Golden Chance
eSpecials
The Scargill Cove Case Files
Anthologies
Charmed
(with Julie Beard, Lori Foster, and Eileen Wilks)
Titles written by Jayne Ann Krentz and Jayne Castle
No Going Back