Calculated Risk (6 page)

“Stephanie Brandt,
you
are the Lorelei,” His
thumb lifted her chin. “You’re the forbidden fruit. Sophisticated,
alluring, provocative. You fill him with wonder. You’re a thrilling
mystery that he wants to solve.” His tone was suddenly bitter. “The
sins of the father.

“I know the lure of an older woman.” Of
their own volition, Quintin’s hands slid into Stevie’s
sleep-disheveled copper hair. His calloused fingers found
themselves hugged in the luxury of her silken curls. “I know what
my son is wishing for when he stares into your eyes; I know the way
he hungers for your lips; I know what he dreams and fantasizes when
he looks at your body.”

Quintin stared at her for what seemed
to him to be forever. Chestnut eyes began to rapidly blink away old
memories. “God, I could use some coffee.” He rubbed his jaw, the
dark stubble of his beard scratching against his palm.

“Coffee? Coffee!” In one fluid movement
Stevie exploded to her feet. “Do you think our sharing a nice hot
cup of roasted Colombian mountain beans is going to make everything
you said all right?”

When he opened his mouth, she raised a
hand in warning. “Don’t you dare utter one sound, Quintin Ward. You
really have some nerve! You think you know so damn much about
everything. So damn much about me and my world.”

Her upraised palm drew back as if she
intended to slap him. “So far you’ve been doing all the talking and
jumping to all the conclusions. Now it’s my turn to talk – and you,
by God, are going to damn well listen.”

Pushing up the long sleeves on her
nightshirt, Stevie paced in front of him and tried to organize an
effective rebuttal. “First, my glamorous, exciting life full of
jets and –“ her fingers made air quotation marks “—beautiful
people. At times, yes, it is glamorous and exciting.” Her head
nodded in agreement. “But that’s the nature of the entertainment
business. To get to that end, however, takes a hell of a lot of
hard work.

“I don’t have a nine-to-five job, Mr.
Ward. As a matter of fact, in the past few years I’ve had little
time to call my own. Brandt Associates has nearly one hundred
employees with branch offices in Los Angeles, New York and now
London. I have to know who, where and what’s going on all the time.
I make the final decisions. Not only do I worry about my employees,
but I control the careers and the lives of the people I
manage.”

She leveled an accusing gaze at him.
“Contrary to what that pea-size brain of yours may be thinking, Mr.
Ward, I did not sleep my way to the top. My father groomed me from
the day I was born to take over his company, and I did so
willingly.

“As a woman in a predominantly
male-oriented business, I’ve had a long, hard struggle to be taken
seriously. I can’t act like a groupie. I have to be tough and
hard-nosed. I operate by a certain set of rules and when someone in
my organization – be it employee or client – fails to conform to my
standards, I fire them.”

Stevie raked her hair back. “I respect
myself and my reputation. That’s one of the reasons I went to your
house last night, Mr. Ward. Your erroneous and slanderous
accusations could damage the Brandt name, and that means too much
to me.”

Clearing her throat, she continued. “As
far as my home and my clothes are concerned –“ Stevie drew herself
up to her full height “—this place is decorated to suit me and my
current life-style. When I change, it changes.”

Her fingers traced the bronze braiding
on the lapels of her lingerie. “I wear silk with the same ease I
wear denim and cotton or my fleece jogging suit. I’m a woman who
sweats, Mr. Ward, not perspires!”

Hazel eyes glowed like polished agates;
full breasts heaved beneath the fluid opulence of their ivory silk
covering. “You’ve convinced yourself that I’m evil incarnate. Those
wild, infamous parties? They’re not mine or my clients. I run a
very straight and rather boring operation. When I serve ‘coke’ it’s
in a glass, not a plastic bag and the only orgy I’ve ever had was
with a pepperoni pizza.

“Maybe some of the musicians and groups
I manage don’t look like the people you work with, but that doesn’t
make them less than dirt.” Her intonation was decidedly icy. “They
are bright and decent and hardworking and they function on talent
rather than illegal substances.

“Finally, as to your son –“ the muscles
in her face grew hard, her voice was devoid of any emotion. “I have
never wished for, never dreamed of, never alluded to, never had and
never will have any kind of relationship, sexual or otherwise, with
Robert. I was not attracted to seventeen-year-old boys when I was
seventeen, and I am not attracted to them now. On Monday, your son
will no longer work for Brandt Associates and you will no longer
intrude in my life.

“You want coffee, Mr. Ward?” Stevie
walked over to the burgundy lacquer wall unit, pulled down a desk
panel, and then stalked back. Her fingers yanked Quintin’s hand at
the wrist. “Go buy yourself a cup.” She slapped a five-dollar bill
into his palm. “You have one minute to get the hell out of my
sight.” She turned her back on his dumbstruck expression, her
barefoot tapping the carpet with ever-increasing
impatience.

Stevie’s feminine radar was tuned into
Quintin Ward’s every movement. Her ears acknowledged his ragged
dispelling of breath. She listened as hesitant footsteps shuffled
along the carpet to the tiled foyer. After a moment the front door
opened and all other sounds ceased until the final click of the
lock.

Only then was the tension Stevie had
built up released, leaving her shaking and spent. Lying on her
stomach, eyes closed, face resting against the soft upholstery of
the sofa, Stevie forced herself to relax and tried to make her body
return to its normal equilibrium. Instead her mind drifted and
darted in lightheaded confusion. The main preoccupation? Quintin
Ward.

Clenched fists pummeled the cushions in
a childish temper tantrum Still teeming with a wealth of unspoken
defenses, Stevie almost wished she hadn’t kicked the man out. How
dare he condemn her life-style, her clothes, her home, her very
existence!

“Damn you, Quintin Ward, you know
nothing about the real Stephanie Brandt!” The outspoken declaration
caught Stevie by surprise. Incredulity crowded out all other
emotions and she tried to make sense of her own
frustrations.

If anyone else had attacked her with
those allegations, she ruefully admitted, her reactions would have
been quite different. She would have cloaked herself in her usual
impervious armor, assumed an aloof, regal attitude, and politely
asked them to vacate the premises.

But Quintin Ward had elicited an
emotional response. Stevie had been driven by an overwhelming urge
to correct his misinformation, to prove that she was above
reproach, to make him believe she was his moral equal. While she
had often had to prove her business prowess, this was the first
time she had ever felt the need to defend her character. Was it
just a matter of pride?

Stevie found it easy to invoke Quintin
Ward’s image, even easier to remember his touch. For all his
roughness, his hands had been gently, lifting and fluffing her hair
like a soft, tropical breeze. The calloused thumb that had sculpted
her chin and jawline was tender and decidedly
stimulating.

As her body stretched and conformed to
the curve of the sofa, she imagined the luxuriant upholstery that
caressed her flushed, tingling skin was Quintin’s virile flesh. Her
heightened senses reeled under the vivid memory of his spicy
cologne. Her fingers bit into the cushions, feeling not the foam
but a man’s sinewy strength. She wanted to feel again the sensuous
pressure of his lips against hers. She yearned for a kiss that
would be shared.

Yearned? Stevie shivered
under the resurgence of this long-dormant emotion.
You, the Iron Maiden. How lovely to know that you
can still feel and even want again. What a marvelous feminine
reaction!

Her eyes narrowed into distrustful
slits. “A lot of good that marvelous feminine reaction has done you
so far,” Stevie hissed in defiance.

But you are older and
infinitely wiser and this man could care less about your
business.

“This man could care less about me!”
She sassed her conscience quickly. “Why him?” Her words were barely
audible, but Stevie’s feelings were quite distinct. Rolling on her
back, she stared at the ceiling and jeered at fate. “Quintin Ward
hates me.”

What rankled more than any of his
accusations was the impression that even when Quintin was touching
her, he had been thinking of someone else. “You’re jealous!” Stevie
chided herself. “You wanted to be the center of attention!” Shaky
hands threaded through her hair. Damn it! What was the matter with
her anyway? These were not her normal feelings. Maybe her glands
were out of whack.

A wry smile twisted her lips. “Probably
from disuse,” she muttered. “Some modern woman you are!” While she
was liberated in many other areas, she acknowledged that she was
very old-fashioned in her ideas of morality. Sex to her was not
casual or impersonal. She had never been one to frequent singles
bars; she had just never understood the language and she had enough
self-esteem not to want to wake up next to a stranger.

Quintin Ward had been right about one
thing: she did travel in a fast world. Drugs and alcohol abounded,
as did recreational sex, contract marriages, infidelity, lovers,
and divorces. Maybe it was living and working in this climate that
had made her guard against superficial alliances.

She wanted something lasting. She
wanted to emulate her parents, who were celebrating forty years of
marital togetherness. “Face it lady, “ came her rueful
announcement, “you are an out of date seventy-eight LP in a world
littered with CD’s.”

Her business position had been the
major influence on her love life. She invested so much of herself
in her job that there was very little left to share with a man.
Stevie inherited all the professional stress previously reserved
for men. It was difficult to keep her feminine side visible because
of her business position. Her career required a goal-oriented,
structured state of mind that demanded independence, not
intimacy.

For the last five years, and even more
diligently in the last two, Stevie had banished love and romance
from her life. Oh, there had been the usual promotional dates and
party appearances, but they occurred with friends and associates,
not lovers. After a day filled with appointments, professional
pressures and conflicts, the only thing Stevie languished for was a
long soak in her jetted tub so she could decompress.

That was her life and she
had been happy. Until yesterday, until last night, until Quintin
Ward.
Why him?
She
repeated that question, hazel eyes looking for answers in the
artistic details on the plaster ceiling.

She certainly knew handsomer men. Her
lips curved upward. Quintin’s face could easily be carved from
granite. And that Jekyll-and-Hyde temper of his! That man was bold
and belligerent, stubborn and willful and unfeeling.

Stevie quickly corrected herself. No,
he was not unfeeling. As a matter of fact it was the depth of his
emotions that she found so attractive – so compelling.

The furnace kicked on; warm
air drifted like a blanket to cover her supine form.
Attractive and compelling.
A series of yawns escaped her. Her eyelids refused to stay
open under an ever increasing, invisible weight.

The next sound she heard was the
newspaper thudding against the front door. Stevie stretched,
inhaling the aromatic greeting of fresh-brewed coffee courtesy of
the timer on her coffee maker

Rolling off the couch,
Stevie looked at the wall clock and was surprised to find that she
had slept for over three hours.
Mind over
matter
. She gave her cheeks an encouraging
pinch. After coffee and the morning paper, she would head for the
health club that was part of her townhouse community. A good
strenuous workout would further banish Quintin Ward from her mind
and her body.

Stevie enjoyed her three-times-a-week
sessions with the various pieces of gym equipment and the aerobic
dance class. Exercise made her feel better mentally and physically.
It was a renewal of the body that primed her spirit. She needed
that priming more than ever today, not just to erase Quintin’s
memory but to restore her business sense for the music video taping
she had later in the afternoon.

She headed for the kitchen,
needing the helping hand of caffeine to get her started. Coffee mug
in hand, Stevie opened the front door a little and reached out into
the cold, hurriedly searching the carpeted stoop for the newspaper.
The
Tennessean
proved to be quite elusive. Groaning, she wondered if the
newspaper boy had bounced it into her flowerbed and smashed her
still-blooming poinsettias. She opened the door wider and found –
Quintin Ward.

He handed her the rolled morning paper,
taking from under his arm the evening edition. “I took your advice
and went out for coffee.” His expression was bleak, his eyes
lackluster. “I read last night’s edition.” Quintin pointed to a
heavily inked headline. “Awful article on teen-age suicide and
cults. If you fire Rob, I’m afraid he’ll end up in an airport
lobby, wrapped in a sheet, with a shaved head, selling flowers and
shaking a tambourine.”