Escapade

CHAPTER TWO

THE DIN OF voices and the kaleidoscope of mingled colognes and perfumes gave Amanda a roaring headache. She’d come back downstairs long before Brad, who returned with a worried look and went straight to the bar.

Amanda, clad in a silver sheath with diamanté straps and matching shoes, put on her best party smile for the curious elite of Josh’s business group. Most of these people were executives of his company and bankers. But two of the men were Arab entrepreneurs whom Josh was hoping might introduce his newest business computer into Saudi Arabia for him. Even Brad’s personable coaxing hadn’t budged the men, so Josh had invited them along with the bankers and two of his executives back to Opal Cay for a buffet dinner. It provided him with a more congenial setting in which to wheel and deal. But this time his hospitality didn’t seem to be working, because the Arab’s black eyes were as cold as anything Amanda had ever seen.

Josh had nodded to her when she came downstairs, but his attention had been on his victims. She felt a little slighted, and that only aggravated her headache. Because she had always looked up to Josh, he could hurt her as no one else ever had. Over the years she’d managed to keep him from knowing it, however.

She watched his guests as they inspected the house with covetous eyes. The enormous white stone mansion in its grove of acacia and silk cotton and sea grape trees was a showplace, tangible evidence of Josh’s business acumen. The Lawson Company had branches in every major city in the United States and was moving slowly into Europe and the Middle East. This year Josh was adding a software division line to the Lawson offerings. His was a profitable public company, listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and although he was answerable to stockholders and a stiff-necked board of directors, he ran the whole organization himself, with key executives from every branch answerable only to him.

He ran his business with the same arrogant bearing and cool efficiency of a military commander. His employees stood in awe of him, as did Amanda. Some of the time.

In the beginning of Josh’s partnership with Amanda’s father, it was Harrison who had the business acumen and the contacts. But for the past few years Joshua had been in almost complete control. That had angered Harrison, who hated the thought of being outdone by a younger man. As a result, he’d tried to break away from the Lawson Company.

The attempt had been disastrous, culminating in Amanda inheriting a minority forty-nine percent of the newspaper that had been in her mother’s family for a hundred years. Before Amanda’s birth, and her own death in childbirth, Amanda’s mother had given Harrison Todd control of her part of the baby’s inheritance until the unborn child was twenty-five, but now Joshua had it. Amanda knew she was going to have to fight to convince him to let her inherit a controlling interest.

She also knew Josh didn’t usually fight fair, but that he would with her, because of their friendship. There had been no hope of her gaining control while her father was alive. But Josh would see things differently now. The Gazette was the only bright spot in her life. She would no longer have her family home because her father had mortgaged it, and the insurance that had saved the newspaper wasn’t going to save the house. Amanda had moved into a small cottage on the property that was free and clear.

Surely Josh would not let her lose control of the newspaper by a tiny percentage after all she’d been through. She desperately needed to retain that precious family heirloom.

She pushed back her long black hair and let it fall against her bare shoulders. Despite the fact that she was still a virgin at twenty-three, she sometimes felt a sensuality as overwhelming as night itself. She felt it most often when Josh was nearby.

Cradling her fluted crystal glass in her slender hands, she walked out into the hall. Secreted in a small alcove, all alone beside a potted palm, she watched Josh hold court in the grand living room.

The sound of footsteps close by broke her trance.

“Mr. Lawson wanted me to ask if you needed anything,” Ted Balmain asked with a smile.

“No, thanks,” she said, grinning up at him. “I have advanced training in this. I spent a lot of time sitting in the hall outside the principal’s office in high school.”

“Not you!” he chided.

“I never stopped talking. Or so they said.” She peered around him. Brad was trying to charm a young Arab woman. “Ted, do you know what some societies in the Middle East do to you for seducing innocent women?”

Ted cleared his throat. “Well, uh...”

“I think they cut off body parts,” she continued. “You might get Brad to one side and jog his memory.”

“I’ll do my best, but women love him,” he murmured.

She laughed. “Well, he’s handsome and kind and rich. Why wouldn’t they?”

He didn’t remind her that Brad had gone through two nasty paternity suits over the years. “I’ll educate him,” he promised. “Hopefully this party won’t go on too much longer. We’ve had this Middle East computer deal in the works for weeks, and today they wanted to discuss closing it. But, unfortunately for us, not in Nassau. They had a yen to see the house. Josh didn’t really have much choice, but it must be difficult for you to mingle with all these people right now.”

“Well, I suspected the house would be full. Isn’t it usually like this?” she asked gently. “Josh is always surrounded by business people.”

“In his income bracket, who isn’t?” Ted asked with a chuckle. “Staying rich is demanding. And I don’t need to tell you how many people depend on the company’s solvency.”

“No,” she agreed. “I’m only a guest myself, remember. I don’t expect preferential treatment.”

“All the same, your father just died.”

“Ted, I lost my father a long time before he died,” she said wistfully. “I’m not sure I ever had him in the first place. But I do know that if it hadn’t been for Josh, my life would have been unbearable. When Dad got hard-nosed about things I wanted to do, Josh was my only ally.”

“He thinks highly of you,” Ted had to admit. He glanced over his shoulder. “They’re not going to be here much longer,” he promised. “Then we might have a whole day of peace and quiet. Well, you will,” he amended with a grimace. “Josh has a meeting in Nassau tomorrow and in Jamaica the day after.”

“He needs to delegate more,” she mused.

“He can’t afford to,” he said. “Not on his level. His father did, but he was something of a playboy. In the process, he almost lost the business.”

“Balmain!” an impatient voice roared down the hall. It was deep and commanding, rough with authority and just a hint of a Texas drawl.

“Be right there, Josh!” he called back, flushing a little. Obviously he’d strayed too far.

“You’d better go,” Amanda murmured. “Thanks anyway, but I’m fine. I thought I might walk down on the beach for a few minutes. I need a little peace and quiet, even if that does sound ungrateful.” She leaned forward and glanced toward the elegantly dressed and jeweled women present. “Some of these women smell as if their husbands make a living from selling perfume! I’ve got the most dreadful headache.”

Ted laughed politely, but he hesitated. “Josh won’t like you going alone.”

She stood up, tall and elegant. “Oh, I know that,” she said with a gamine grin. “But I’m going anyway. See you.”

She walked toward the front door, her mind blocking out the sounds, the noise, the smells. Ted grimaced, because he would probably catch hell for this. He turned and, stomach tied in knots, went back to join his boss.

“What kept you?” the elegant blond man asked curtly. His dark eyes were intimidating in a darkly tanned face as sculptured and aesthetically pleasing as a Greek statue.

“Amanda wanted to talk,” Ted said reluctantly. “She’s lonely, I think.”

Joshua Cabe Lawson glanced around him impatiently at the Middle Eastern businessmen and their expensively dressed wives, chattering and laughing and drinking his best imported champagne. He wanted to be rid of the lot of them, so that he could comfort Amanda. He knew it was difficult for her just now. That’s why he’d insisted she come down here. He hoped a rest would help her get over the shock of her father’s death as well as the reality of her financial situation. But it wasn’t working out as he’d planned. He was smothered by business demands that had all seemed to come due at this inconvenient time. And these talks were the one thing he couldn’t postpone.

“I’m almost finished here,” he told Ted Balmain. “Tell her I’ll be along in ten minutes.”

“She, uh, said she wanted to walk on the beach. She has a headache.”

“I’m sure the noise bothers her.” He glared at his guests. He lit a cigar and puffed on it irritably, his blond hair catching the light of the chandelier overhead and burning like gold. He was tall—very tall, with a broad, muscular body that was as powerful looking as if he spent hours a day in a gym.

His thick, dark blond eyebrows collided as he considered that he hadn’t spent five minutes with his houseguest since she’d arrived. Not that she complained. She never did. She was spirited, but she was the least demanding woman he’d ever known. All the same, he felt vaguely guilty.

“Start hiding liquor bottles,” he told Ted. “And jerk Brad away from that terminal fascination in the corner and tell him I want to talk to him. Now.”

Ted whispered something to Brad, who quickly excused himself to join his brother.

The difference between the two brothers was striking: one blond and tan and handsome, the other a little shorter with brown hair. But both had dark eyes, and their builds were equally strong.

Brad held up his hand and grinned before Josh could speak. “I know I’m risking assorted body parts, but isn’t she a little dish? She speaks French and likes to go riding on her father’s Arabians, and she thinks that men are perfection itself!” He wiggled his eyebrows.

Josh was amused, but only briefly. “She’s engaged to one of the Rothschilds, and her father has an army.”

Brad shrugged. “Easy come, easy go. What do you want?”

“Wrap this up,” he said, jerking his head toward the balding sheik he’d been talking to all day. “Tell him the last price I quoted him is rock bottom. He can take it or go home and dust his camels. I haven’t got the time to bargain any further.”

“Are you sure you want to do that?” Brad asked. “This is an important market.”

“I know it. So does he. But I’m not going to sacrifice my profits. There are other marketing avenues open to us. Remind him.”

Brad chuckled. He loved watching his older brother in action. “I’ll make your wishes known. Anything else?”

“Yes. Get Morrison on the phone. Tell him I’ll want him to fax me those last cost estimates for Anders’s new operation in Montego Bay by midnight. I don’t care if he’s not through,” he interrupted when Brad started to speak. “I want what he’s got by midnight.”

“You got it,” the younger man said with a sigh, his mind drifting away to a disturbing phone call he’d made before coming downstairs. His worries were playing on his mind, but he couldn’t afford to let his brother find out what they were. At least not yet. He forced his attention back to Josh.

The older man misread his expression. He narrowed his dark eyes and smiled sardonically. “You think I’m a tyrant, don’t you, Brad? But business is best left to pirates, and we’ve got two in our ancestry. Cut and thrust is the only way.”

“As long as you’re sure the other guy isn’t wearing plate armor,” Brad reminded him.

“Point taken. I’ll be on the beach with Amanda. How is she?”

“Putting up a good front, as usual,” Brad said. “She’s hurting. Harrison wasn’t much of a businessman and less of a father. Still, blood is blood.”

“Maybe she’s mourning what Harrison never could give her—a father’s love.”

“When I have kids,” Brad said firmly, “they may not get much else, but they’ll get that.”

Josh turned away abruptly. “I’ll be on the beach.” He nodded politely to the balding Arab and left.

Moonlight sparkled on the softly moving water near the white sand. Amanda was standing in the surf, her shoes in one hand, her hair blowing in the breeze. There was the scent of blooming royal poincianas and hibiscus and jasmine in the night air.

Because of the noise of the surf, she didn’t hear him approach until he was right beside her. She looked up, her green eyes faintly covetous on his tall, powerful body in the elegant dark evening clothes. The white of his shirt made his tan seem even darker. She’d known this man forever. All the long years of her cloistered childhood she’d admired him. Through his public and private affairs, through the anguish of her home life, it was dreams of Josh that had kept her sane. He didn’t know. That was her secret.

“Sorry I ran away,” she said, feeling the need to apologize in case she’d seemed rude. He’d been kind to her, and she felt ungrateful. “I’ve got a rotten headache.”

“Don’t apologize,” he replied. “I hate the damned noise myself, but it was unavoidable. They’ll all be gone soon, one way or the other.” He looked down at her. “Why did Ted take so long to ask if you needed anything? Is he the reason you came out here?”

She stared at him blankly. “I beg your pardon?”

“Did he do something to make you uncomfortable?” he asked impatiently. “He’s too outspoken sometimes.”

She laughed in spite of herself. “As if he ever would. Don’t you know how you intimidate your employees?”

He cocked an eyebrow and smiled. “I don’t intimidate you.”

“Ha, ha,” she said. “Then why am I here?”

He shrugged. “You needed a rest. Mirri couldn’t get you out of town, so she called me.” His eyes narrowed. “She’s a good friend. I can’t figure out her wild taste in clothes, but I like her.”

She smiled. “So do I.” She stretched lazily, feeling as safe with Josh as she always had. “I love it here.”

She looked at ease, and that relaxed him. Turning back to the sea, he stuck one long-fingered hand into his slacks pocket and lifted the cigar he’d just lit to his mouth. “I bought Opal Cay for this view,” he remarked. “Prettiest damn stretch of beach and horizon in this part of the islands.”

She had to agree. In the distance, the dark outline of trees on the next island was plainly visible, along with the colorful neon lights of the casino that had been built there. It was one of Josh’s holdings, and he liked looking at it at night. The brilliant lights shone in the thick darkness that clung to the horizon, yet the complex was barely visible in daylight.

“I like trees and sunsets,” she remarked.

“I like the look of money being made,” he mused, watching her.

“That’s rotten, Josh!”

“I love to watch you rise to the bait.” His dark eyes admired the low cut of her sleek silver dress with its thin straps. “You shouldn’t dress like that around this sophisticated crowd,” he cautioned. “No wonder Ted took his time getting back.”

“It’s very modest, compared with what that redhead had on,” she accused, though it pleased her to know he noticed. She wanted to impress him, and she wanted him to see her not as a child, but as a woman.

“That redhead is a stripper.”

“Why did you invite her?”

He shrugged. “One of the sheiks took a liking to her, as they say back home. I didn’t imagine it would hurt the deal to let him bring her along.”

“That’s disgusting,” she said shortly.

His face went bland and vaguely wicked. “No, it isn’t. It’s business.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Don’t worry, they won’t be staying the night,” he said knowingly, and smiled.

She flushed, glad he couldn’t see the color in her face. “Why do you always put me in the room next to the main guest room? The last couple you entertained kept me awake all night. She was a redhead, too. And she screamed,” she muttered.

“And that brings back a memory, doesn’t it?”

She hadn’t expected him to bring it up. In eight years they’d never talked about it. She shifted her stance, trying not to let him see her face.

“Aren’t you going to answer?” he chided.

“There’s nothing to say. What I saw happened a long time ago.”

He put his smoldering cigar in his mouth and forced the broad tip back into bright orange life. “It isn’t a memory I like,” he said gruffly. “It shamed me to know you’d seen me with Terri on the beach. I was aroused enough to be careless.”

“I didn’t even realize you were out there with her,” she replied tersely. She tried to blot out the memory of Josh’s aroused, nude body poised over Terri’s writhing form, but it was impossible.

She looked away, shivering with reaction. How that memory had haunted her, the sight of his big hand on Terri’s hips as he’d jerked her up to him in a sharp rhythm. When she’d cried out and convulsed, Amanda had been horrified. Then Josh had found his own satisfaction and the sight had burned into her brain like acid. She’d run away, so fast, trying to escape the erotic images.

She closed her mind to the rest of it. Turning, she walked along the beach. Her body felt oddly on fire.

“I know it was traumatic for you,” he said quietly, falling easily into step beside her. “Maybe I should have brought this all up at the time, but you were pretty naive at fifteen.”

She wrapped her arms across her chest, trying to forget the memory of his face as he’d suddenly given in to his own pleasure. In all her life she’d never seen anything like it.

“There’s no need to explain it all, Josh,” she whispered in anguish, turning her head away. “I understand now what was happening.”

He took a sharp breath and jammed one hand into his pocket. “All right,” he said angrily. “We’ll skirt around it some more, just as we have for the past eight years. I just wanted to clear the air. You brought up the noisy, amorous guests next door to you, so, it seemed like the right time. But I guess you’ve had enough to deal with lately without my bringing up embarrassing memories.”

She stopped walking and turned to him, her face shadowed as she looked up. “Dad protected me so,” she began slowly. “I’d...never even seen a naked man.”

“Your father sheltered you too damned much,” he said.

She lifted her hair away from her hot face without looking at him. Her body felt funny. Hot. Clammy. Throbbing with some sensation she couldn’t understand.

Josh paused in front of her and reached out and touched her shoulder. His fingers fell lightly on her heated flesh. She caught her breath. His touch was the most erotic she’d ever felt, and she couldn’t hide her reaction.

His dark eyes slid down to her thin gown, to the small, hard peaks that betrayed what she was feeling. That, and her ragged breathing and the set of her exquisite body, told him things he didn’t really want to know just yet.

“You’re vulnerable,” he said curtly. “The night, the strain of the past week, the excitement tonight...maybe even the memory we share, it’s all knocked the pins out from under you.”

“Yes,” she said, her eyes wide as they searched his in the flood of light that came from the house.

His fingers trailed along the throbbing pulse in her throat, and further, to the faint outline of her collarbone. Her breath caught, but she didn’t protest or push at his hand.

His lips parted as he watched her face. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew this was dangerous. She was unguarded, and he was aroused. It had been a long time since he’d been with a woman. Just after Terri had left, there had been a Latin heiress with whom he’d conducted a very lukewarm, long-distance affair. And yet the tiny sound that suddenly escaped Amanda’s throat aroused him more than Louisa Valdez’s naked body in a bed ever had.

Amanda shivered. In one moment she’d recognized the years of frustrated longing she’d felt for him, and suddenly she needed him more than ever.

He couldn’t quite believe the look of desire he saw on her face. It unsettled him. The cigar dangled in his free hand, and he fought the sudden shift in his perception of her.

She still hadn’t moved, but his mind had. His fingers lifted as if her soft skin were white fire. He didn’t dare touch her again. He didn’t move. His face poised above hers as if it had been carved from stone.

“Joshua?” Was that husky whisper her voice?

His gaze fell to the taut thrust of her breasts against her bodice, down to her smooth hips and her long, elegant legs, to her pretty bare feet. Her silver shoes lay scattered on the white sand, the foaming surf just touching them. He had to remember why he couldn’t get involved with a woman, especially not with Amanda.

With a soft curse, he moved away from her all at once. “Here,” he said gruffly, “you’ve left your shoes in the surf. They’ll be soaked.”

His words brought Amanda back to reality.

“They’re old,” she said. “I touched them up with some of Harriet’s silver hairspray.”

He looked for his cigar and found it lying in the water. He sighed and shoved his hands in his pockets. He smoked too much, anyway. “Harriet’s hairspray?!” he replied suddenly.

She laughed. He sometimes seemed to be listening when really he was miles away. “That will teach you to pay attention when I talk to you,” she said, and in seconds he was smiling and everything was back to normal.

Afterward Amanda could hardly remember when or how they’d gone inside. But once she was upstairs, she almost collapsed with burning heat on her bed. Her head was really splitting now, and she was feeling particularly vulnerable.

She wanted Josh. She could no longer deny the sensations she felt. But she’d make sure that she stayed in control from now on. Having only just escaped her father’s domination, she was in no hurry to rush back into emotional slavery.

At least Josh wasn’t going to take advantage of her weakness. He’d rejected her, but not unkindly. She’d heard some of the rumors about his lovers. A lot about Terri, the woman she’d seen him with on the beach so long ago. She knew he didn’t want to get married, but that he was an honorable man. He knew Amanda too well to lure her into his bed for a few minutes of pleasure. Maybe that was a good thing, but all the same her body throbbed until dawn. The worst thing was that she hadn’t even had the presence of mind to mention the job press at the newspaper office to him.

* * *

JOSH GAVE UP on the idea of sleeping when his company finally departed. He’d won his deal with the oil sheik, and he should have felt satisfied. But he didn’t.

He felt as restless as ever. Imbued with an ongoing urgency about life, he often wore out employees who simply couldn’t meet the demands he placed on them. Like many overachievers, he was impatient with people who lived at a normal pace.

“Go to bed, for God’s sake,” Josh said to Ted. “You’re asleep on your feet.”

Ted chuckled as he rose from his comfortable chair. “I don’t mind keeping you company,” he said. “But a few hours of sleep sounds great. You seem to live on catnaps.”

Josh shrugged. “In the early days it was the only way I could manage to save the company. Now, it’s a habit.” He frowned. That wasn’t quite true. What he’d felt with Amanda bothered him. He lit a cigar impatiently.

“That will kill you,” Ted remarked at the door.

“Life kills people, too,” came the sardonic reply. “Dina’s enrolled me in a stop smoking seminar,” he added. “I’ll kick the habit. But not tonight.”

Ted shrugged. “Suit yourself. See you in the morning.”

The door closed, and he was alone with his thoughts, his memories.

He was going to miss Harrison Todd. Amanda’s father had not been a perfect human being, but Joshua had learned a lot from him in the early days. Knowing he wouldn’t have Harrison around had been a blow. Brad was a good salesman, but Harrison had years of experience neither Lawson brother had had a chance to accumulate.

Business, he mused. Even when he was alone, it dominated his mind. Better that than Amanda’s soft, pretty body, he reminded himself. His young life had been a kaleidoscope of affairs not unlike his parents’ adulterous adventures. He could remember his father flirting openly with other women, and it wasn’t a rare occurrence. His mother had been a little more discreet, but there were always men half her age traveling with her, helping her spend her money.

Sent off to school at the age of six, Josh had never known a family environment or honest love. Amanda’s tender concern for him over the cactus so many years earlier had surprised him. He wasn’t accustomed to people caring about him more than his money.

Amanda stayed near him at the worst times of his life. When he’d broken his leg on a skiing trip, it had been Amanda who’d come to see him in the hospital with potted plants and sympathy. She’d fussed over him when he was sick, teased him when he was well, become an integral part of his life. But in all that time he’d never touched her. Not even under the mistletoe at Christmas.

Everything had changed a few hours earlier on the beach. Now he didn’t recall her nurturing ways. He wanted her, but he didn’t know how to reconcile that with his affection for her, with their friendship.

With other women, relationships were simple. His lovers were experienced, sophisticated women who could settle for sex without emotional involvement. He knew that wouldn’t be possible with Amanda. He equated Amanda and sex with marriage and children and forever after. Since marriage had become an impossibility for him, he had to reconcile himself to keeping his hands off Amanda. Tonight had been a moment out of time. She’d sensed his rejection at once and with grace and dignity. He had to make sure that he didn’t put her in that position twice, because he didn’t like seeing Amanda humbled. It didn’t suit her spirited nature at all. He’d spent years prodding her temper, helping her stand up to her father. Now he had to keep her on the right track.

He flung open a file folder and buried his thoughts in business.