Liar's Moon (16 page)

Then why had he gone out for a four-hour lunch with her mother?

She knew him; she had to believe in him. Un-unh. She didn’t really know him at all. How much of Leif had she ever really had? A month, once, years ago. And now— just a matter of days.

Tracy sighed and curled up, hugging a pillow as she closed her eyes and willed the thunder in her temple to cease.

Maybe she should leave, but she wasn’t going to. She would be there to stand against him in this raging battle
that he had going agai
nst her mother and her grandfa
the
r
.

And she would be there, too, because she simply couldn’t let him go. Not without learning if what they shared could be forever. If it could really be love.

CHAPTER NINE

I
t wasn’t that he didn’t desperately want to know which of the “loving” survivors had hated Jesse so coldly that he or she had hired a killer to take him out. He did. It was a fever inside of him; the last thing that he owed a friend of a quarter of a century.

There was just another obsession driving his life, too. A personal obsession—and he had to know the truth. Strangely, he felt, too, that if he solved the one mystery, he would solve the other also.

And Audrey was simply the easiest prey.

It hadn’t been at all difficult to get her to go out with him; he had expected a struggle. But just as she was an excellent seductress, she made an easy mark for a seducer. And another point stood in his favor—they had known one another for years. Sporadically, as enemies, as friends—as two people very closely involved with Jesse.

He’d found her alone in the parlor, leaning against the window and holding back the drape—and staring outside, where Blake played in the paved circle behind the driveway on his bike.

“Audrey.”

Startled, she turned back to him, nervously smiling, allowing the drapes to fall back into place.

“I’m sorry.”

“So am I. We shouldn’t fight. We’ve been friends a long, long time.”

“Friends,” she murmured. “I doubt if you thought that I was much of a friend once.”

He grinned and lifted his hands, palms upward. “That was the past, Audrey. We should let it lie. It’s over.”

“I don’t think we can ever escape the past, Leif.”

“Not escape it, Audrey. Just live with it.”

She stood very still, gazing at him again. And even if she didn’t really trust him, it just wasn’t in Audrey to leave a man alone. Not that she was really promiscuous; she just liked to flirt.

She came over to him, skinny heels against the tile of the floor. “Leif, you look good enough to eat. Oh—that sounded, uh, indecent, didn’t it?” She ran her fingers over his tie, making an unnecessary adjustment. Then she stepped back and sighed softly. “I swear, Leif,” she sighed softly, “Leif, you are a striking man. As striking as—”

She paused, and he didn’t fill in the name for her. They both knew she was thinking of Jesse, and despite himself, Leif felt a tenderness for her creep over him. Audrey had really loved Jesse. She’d just never had the strength to fight her father.

“Jesse’s gone, Audrey,” he said very softly.

“Yes, he is.” She looked sadly up at Leif. “I sound terrible, don’t I? Ted is a wonderful husband. Still, I can’t quite accept a world without Jesse in it.”

“Neither can I.”

He reached out a hand to her. She came against his chest, and he smoothed back her hair. They both broke away.

“Thanks, Leif.”

“I’ve got an idea, Audrey. Let’s both escape this for a
little while. There’s a wonderful new place that opened. Are you still heavily into those design magazines? This one was featured on last month’s cover. It’s a wonderful place.”

“I would like to get out of here
…
”

And so he had found Liz, to tell her where he was going and to ask her to see that his other guests were taken care of. And on the way out, he had called Blake over, giving him a big hug and promising to play ball with him later. And he had watched Audrey waiting for him while he talked to his son.

At the restaurant he had ordered wine right away. He’d seen to it that they consumed quite a bit before ordering. They laughed and talked about silly things in the past. And only when she was completely at ease and their meal completed did he lean back and smile, sadly, bitterly.

“How can you do it, Audrey?”

“What—what are you talking about?” she asked, moistening her lips, instantly on the defensive.

He leaned toward her, casually resting his elbows on the table, but capturing her gaze as if his own eyes were spears.

“Ignore your own grandson. Lie.” He sat back, lifting his palms in an irritated and baffled manner. “Why did you do it?”

Her eyes lowered. She tossed her napkin on the table.

“Really, Leif—”

“Yes, really, Audrey. It took me years to be suspicious. But here I am, married to Celia. And you knew why Celia had left me, because when she came back, I told Jesse, and Jesse told you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do, Audrey. You could come into my house
with Jesse and your father because Katie would never have thought to stop you. You had the law behind you— and my own sense of guilt!—when you immobilized me and spirited Tracy away. But you had no right—none!— to keep from me the fact that Tracy was pregnant.” Audrey wouldn’t meet his eyes. She was breathing too quickly, grasping at her wineglass and sipping quickly.

“Let me go on. Celia walked out on me because she knew about her heart—she knew she could never have children. I told her that I loved her, not her procreation capabilities. And the next thing I know, old Arthur Kingsley is calling me with an apology for the way things went, telling me that Tracy is in the west going to school and never wants to see my face again, and he’s really sorry about trying to cave my head in. He’s heard about Celia, and he’s real sorry, but you know, money talks, maybe he can help. The next thing I know, Celia and I are both thrilled to death because, thanks to Arthur, we won’t have to wait on a list for years and years to adopt an infant—Arthur knows of a young Swiss girl who wants to give her baby up for adoption.”

Audrey was shaking her head. “You’re crazy!” she told him.

He found her hand on the table. He wound his fingers tightly around hers, drawing her eyes to his again.

“Tracy was pregnant, wasn’t she, Audrey? I adopted my own son!”

“No!”

“Audrey!”

“No!”

“There’s a little grave in a cemetery just outside of Zurich, isn’t there, Audrey. It reads, ‘J. Kingsley.’ But if I went there, Audrey, the grave would be empty, wouldn’t it?”

“No. I don’t know. Leif—leave me—”

“I am going there, Audrey.”

“All right! All right!” she screamed suddenly. “Yes! Blake is your son, your biological son!”

“How could you—”

“Easily! Very easily, Leif! Because you’re just like Jesse. He ignored her all her life. He ignored me—he made promises he didn’t keep. Anywhere you went, women were ready to climb into bed with you. I didn’t want that for her. Can’t you see—can’t you understand? My God, if it hadn’t been for Tracy, I might have been able to cut it off! I might not have had to see Jesse again and again and—”

Her voice just paled away. He was sorry for her, but he couldn’t let up.

He took a deep breath. “Did—did Tracy know?”

For the first time that day Audrey actually misunderstood him. She started laughing, hollowly—a sound that was so painful it might have been a cry.

“Of course she knew.”

Men! What did he think—that Tracy had spent nine miserable months of pregnancy and not known it?

She was startled, the near hysterical laughter catching in her throat, when he pushed his chair back so violently that the legs rasped against the floor, like the nerve-jangling sound of nails scratching down a blackboard. Audrey stared at him and swallowed sharply and just caught herself from screaming out as he clenched her arm, practically dragging her from the chair, his mouth a line as tight as wire, the violence of his temper barely held in check.

“Leif, what—where—please—”

“We’re just going back to the house, Audrey, that’s all.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked, shivering and watching the thunder in his dark eyes.

“I don’t know yet.”

“Leif, you’re—hurting my arm!” Audrey gasped. He didn’t hear her. They just kept going until they reached his car and he packed her into it, slamming the door when she tried to speak again.

Leif folded his length into the driver’s seat and revved the engine; Audrey’s heart beat like a pummeling drum.

“Leif, please, let me speak to her—”

The engine went dead as he whipped around to talk to her. He didn’t touch her, but the quaking power held check in his body brought her instantly to silence.

“Audrey—don’t interfere. You step into my affairs again, and I promise, I’ll step into yours. This is between Tracy and me now.”

“Leif—”

“Shut up, Audrey.”

She did. When the Jag chortled and then purred into the driveway, she was desperate to escape it.

“I’ve a horrible headache,” she told Leif sullenly. “I won’t be down to dinner.”

Then she fled toward the house.

Blake came running past her. She stared at him and gasped out something, then disappeared.

“Can we play ball now, Dad?” Blake asked Leif, pitching himself happily into his father’s arms.

“Yeah, sure, son. Can you give me about half an hour, though. I have to change clothes and talk to—talk to Tracy for a minute.”

Blake nodded happily. “Maybe Tracy will want to play, too!”

Leif shook his head slowly. “Not tonight, son. Maybe
another time.” He smiled. “Wait for me. I won’t be long.”

He started up to the house, then changed his mind and walked around to come in the back; he was in no mood to run into any of his guests.

He was about to head silently for the stairs when he changed his mind and slipped into his office instead.

Leif picked up the phone receiver on his desk and noted that his hands were still shaking. He clenched them tightly; they still shook. Grinding his teeth together, he dialed Rob’s number. When Rob answered, he was quick and to the point.

“Don’t wait for me at Kennedy; meet me in Zurich, at the Zweikel Inn.”

“Sure. You’re going to take your private plane? That big jet for one person?”

“Yes. Except that there will be two of us.”

The good thing about Rob was that he never asked unnecessary questions.

“Fine. I’ll find you.”

Rob hung up. Leif called the hangar and made sure that his pilot and crew were available and that his 727— used for years for group tours—wasn’t out on a charity mission. He never paid much attention to the scheduling of its use since it had been customarily idle for a long time.

There was no difficulty; the plane was in and it could be overhauled and serviced by morning.

He hung up the receiver again and saw that his hands still trembled. He stared at them, willing them to be still.

Then he quietly closed the door to his office and walked around back to enter his room by the deck stairs. He didn’t want to see anyone yet. No one but Tracy.

* * *

S
he was half asleep when she sensed him in the doorway, framed by the slightly billowing drapes. Shivers penetrated the fog-swept clouds of her subconscious, warning her of danger at first. She rolled, not quite awake, her lashes rising and falling.

Rising, falling. There was no danger; it was Leif in the doorway. But she hugged her pillow to her because the sensation did not go away. He stood there for endless seconds, tall, his shadow cast across the room.

And then he moved.

Coming casually through the archway, his eyes swept over her form, naked beneath the terry towel haphazardly wrapped around her. She wanted to speak; she wanted to demand to know where he had been with Audrey so long.

She couldn’t form words. The sensation of danger still tripped along her spine—icy little rivulets that had her silent and still. He, too, was silent. She clutched her towel to her instinctively. She fought the grogginess of sleep and confusion. She should be accusing him—and demanding answers. He stared at her with searing charcoal eyes
that convicted and condemned…

And still she couldn’t speak. She could only stare at him. At the startling male image he created in the tailored suit, the broad appeal of his shoulders, the way the material encased powerful thighs and enhanced the trimness of his physique. The way he moved within it. Dark hair, dark eyes, a grim smile slashed against the uncompromising line of his jaw.

He sat on the edge of the bed, his eyes never leaving hers. He brought a hand to his collar, discarding his tie. Something in his look disturbed her further. Something in his eyes, in the ruthless cast of his jaw, in the way his
shoulders seemed even broader as he doffed his jacket and tossed it over the foot of the bed. Something about him spoke of a raw and powerful masculinity that excited her even as it frightened.

And something was wrong. All wrong.

Tracy gave herself a mental shake with confused desperation. He hadn’t said anything; he hadn’t really done anything. He
had just come upon her and…

She should be asking questions—not feeling that a trap was settling around her. That she should run, because an overwhelming danger was hard set upon her.

He touched her cheek, as if fascinated. His fingers were cold; his voice was light.

“You really are so exquisite. In my life, I have never seen bluer eyes. Felt softer skin. Seen lips so red, so lush, so formed to riddle a man with the desire to touch.”

He traced her mouth with a calloused thumb as he spoke, his touch, the sound of his voice, hypnotic—dangerously so, for she narrowed her eyes in wariness, yet realized she could not run. His weight was upon her towel.

“Leif—”

She breathed out his name in a question that he did not answer. He smiled, and tugged at her towel. She held it closer, but to little avail, for he lowered his head over hers and took her lips with his own, gently. The tip of his tongue tracing her mouth then, sliding over her teeth, subtly penetrating past them, exploding into passion. She whimpered slightly; the sensation was instantaneous, as if his kiss were a font, pouring into her, instilling her body with a fevered heat that cast it into a liquid pool of arousal. She thought that she should fight him; logic so warned her. But logic was all too easily swept away. She brought her hands against his chest; she felt the roughness of his vest, and the heat and power of his flesh beneath. He didn’t note her futile attempt to push him away; he swept the towel from her, settling his weight over her naked body as he held her head between his palms and drew his lips from hers to stare down into her eyes.

“So damned lovely,” he told her.

“Leif,” she found the will to whisper, “what is the matter with you?”

“What could possibly be the matter?” he returned, his stare so intent upon her, his body so hard that she quivered, longing to break the spell cast between them, to shake him into some kind of truth.

She tried to twist from beneath him; it was futile. He smiled as if she’d made no motion at all and shifted just slightly to avail himself of her form.

“Life—and love. So fascinating, Tracy,” he murmured. His fingers traveled her cheek, stroked her throat and over her breast. “I remember it so well. That first time. The way you moved, the way you walked. The way you shed your clothing before me. I trembled, watching you; I felt like steel, I felt like silver. I thought, ‘My God, I’ve never seen more beautiful breasts.’ ”

His strokes, soft, gentle, highly erotic, moved with his words. His eyes followed his touch. His fingers moved her, then his palm. He cupped the weight of her breast, then paused to dampen the nipple with his tongue and watched with fascination as he grazed it next with his thumb, over and over, fascinated as the bud tautened and peaked. A sound escaped Tracy, a strangling sound. Her body burned, and she could not bear it. She was painfully aware that her flesh betrayed her at every step. And she didn’t understand him at all. She didn’t understand his silky words, the hardness of his eyes, or the unwavering
way he touched her—gently, but with fingers that trembled like a tide held back—a volatile dam that quivered, ready to burst. He spoke of love, but something there was savage. Something wasn’t right.

“Leif!” She gasped out his name that time, slamming a fist against his chest, near sobbing in bewilderment. She wanted him; she was afraid of him. She didn’t want him touching her anymore
because she would give in to him
—and somehow, it was wrong.

She might not have used the slightest force against him. He caught her hand and studied it. “So tiny a woman, such elegantly long fingers. Long fingers, long legs. Beautiful long legs. I will never, never forget the way you came to me. Liquid grace, and I longed for you to pour all of yourself over me, into me. Just from that, from the way you moved, I knew. I knew that you would be an extraordinary lover, sexual and sensual. I never trembled so over any other woman. I could not wait to touch you, to feel you, bask in your scent, taste the silk of your flesh
…”

He kissed her fingertips, taking them into his mouth, sucking them, releasing them one by one. Tracy stared at him, caught in the sensuality of his touch, feeling again the fire that spread from her hand to her womb, that permeated through her.

She drew a ragged breath. “Leif—wait—”

He lowered his head to her. He touched her lips briefly, her throat. He caressed her breast with his hand and brought his mouth to it, and she gasped again with the chemistry, with the savage streak of desire that soared through her.

No…

But she was in love with him. She wanted to believe the tenderness, the silk and fever of his voice. And the
heat inside of her could not be quelled. Her fingers curled into his hair; her body arched against his. He used his mouth evocatively against her breast while his hand stoked downward, over her hips, along the length of her thigh. Again and again, so light, she craved for more. Hungered.

“Tracy…”

He whispered her name against her flesh, nuzzling her belly, taunting her naval with the tip of his tongue. Softly breathing, barely touching, lower and lower.

“I never suspected, never remotely imagined, that you could be a virgin. That it was maiden territory I transversed, I adored, revered, worshiped. You were so good— such a damned good actress, so beautiful.”

His lips hot and passionate, seared her flesh. She cried out softly, oblivious to his words—only aware that she loved his touch, his dark head, the feel of his
hair beneath her fingertips…

The pulsing hardness of him as he held her, still clad, still blatantly male.

“You smell good, you taste good, you are beautiful,” he said, harshly, and rose up again, bracing his hands on either side of her, staring down at her again.

And she was. Hair feathered about her beautiful features, her eyes so incredibly blue and wide and sensually glazed upon his. How could you remember a woman so thoroughly! he raged to himself in an agonized silence. Remember a beauty that drove him mad, a movement, a whisper; eyes—endless azure seas of innocence and desire.

Innocence…

She had lied to him. She wa
s still lying, still lying…

It didn’t matter. Her lips were curled into the softest smile, parted slightly, the breath coming so quickly from
her. Her fingers were anxiously on the buttons of his vest, and he took the task from her, ripping the garment from his body. She parted his shirt and tiny kisses fell on his chest—tender little bites that aroused him to fury. He crushed her against him, not bothering with the cuff links at his wrist or any other hindrance. She fumbled with his belt buckle. That, too, he dismissed for her, planting his length firmly between her thighs and melding into her with a swift and sudden plunge that stole both their breaths away, rocking with the vehemence and wonder, one at last.

He buried his head against her shoulder, feeling that he filled her with every inch of him—body, mind and soul— that he had never wanted a woman so badly, that no other woman had ever held him as this one. Her body a velvet blanket, her arms bars of silk that wound around him.

She’d used him once; God alone knew what she was doing now.

Still lying…

He raised himself and stared down and smiled slowly, bitterly. He saw the hurt in her eyes, the sudden mistrust, and knew that she was about to clamp her hands on his shoulders to escape him.

He caught her shoulder, and held her to him, and began to move. And he saw the fire catch hold in her eyes again, heard the soft gasp that assured him sensation moved her. He moved—with urgency, with love. He could never escape her. If he filled her enough with himself, perhaps he could hold her. Perhaps she could never escape him.

He closed his eyes. His palms closed around her buttocks and he lifted her and whispered to her and brought her ever closer to him. Tremors shook her body, dampness sleeked it; he heard the gasp and cry that escaped her, and he thrust into her one last time, seeking his own release, pouring into her.

They lay silent, gasping. He rolled from her then, pulling a pillow behind his head, leaning against it and lighting a cigarette. Staring at the ceiling, then into space— waiting for her questions to start.

They did come. More slowly than he would have expected. She didn’t look at him; she wrenched the top sheet from the bed and wandered to the window, staring out with her back to him.

“Leif! Damn it! What is it?” she raged suddenly, swinging back around.

She was beautiful. So beautiful. Soft, silken strands of hair falling about her in a fan, her eyes so deep and blue with passion. Quivery, tousled, she had just left his bed, just left his touch; her flesh still glowed.

He’d been duped before. Badly. Lies had fallen off her tongue like rain off the eaves.

Tracy was lost; totally lost. He just sat on the bed, comfortably relaxed, watching her. His shirt remained opened, the tails falling low, but with the deep tan breadth of his chest still visable. He’d adjusted his zipper and belt, and idly inhaled and exhaled, without once breaking contact with her eyes. He looked wonderful there, hair tousled and shirt open, rugged and virile and striking as ever, and she thought that she should be feeling a comfort that they had come together so easily after so much time. That he had cared, still cared. That maybe the time was right now, and maybe they had a future.

But she didn’t feel comfortable at all. She felt acutely uneasy at the fact that he had not disrobed and she was in nothing but a towel, making her vulnerable.

She stiffened suddenly. Once, she had set out to seduce
him for seduction’s sake. But now, if that was all that she was to him—a quick, easy sexual encounter—she didn’t think that she could bear it. Or the fact that she did come to him so very, very easily. There was just something there with Leif. And seeing him again had fed all the flames. Of the men she had met in life, he was the one whose smile alone could arouse her desires, whose kiss could render her so totally vulnerable. Of all the men in the world, why Leif?

“Why were you with my mother?” She almost screamed the words.

He frowned, then he smiled, shaking his head
w
ith bemusement.

“Tracy, I think I know what you’re thinking, and you’re crazy. Rest assured—it was not a romantic interlude. I thought you would know that.”

She swallowed, believing him—or desperate to believe him. If she were honestly to think that he had run from her mother to her, she would hate him for the rest of her life.

“Then what—”

A gray shield fell over his eyes; she broke off, knowing that no matter what she asked, he would not answer.

“Tracy, we went to lunch, for God’s sake. We’re friends, nothing more.”

She shook her head, approaching the bed with new determination.

“What was the matter with you then!”

He crushed out the cigarette and in a sudden movement caught her arm, pulling her back down beneath him.

“What was the matter with what? Did I hurt you?”

“No.”

He kept staring at her so intently. She closed her eyes
and leaned her face against his chest. Suddenly, she didn’t want to know anything.