Notorious (2 page)

Gray-blue eyes glittering in a sun-browned face.

She stopped, frozen in place as the reporters crowded around her again. Her gaze focused only on the tall, powerfully built man standing beside the long, dark blue limousine directly across the street. It was the first time she had seen Wyatt standing. He was close to six five and as tough and muscular as a longshoreman. There was no earthly reason that he should look like Ben since the two men were only stepbrothers, but the contrast still struck her. Ben had been one of the handsomest men she had ever met and had had an endearing boyish quality. Sabin was totally
mature, totally male and obviously made no attempt to endear himself to anyone. The bone structure of Sabin’s face looked as if it had been hewn with a hatchet from a block of sandstone, yet the sheer brutal power of the deep-set eyes and broad cheekbones gave it a mesmerizing fascination. Sun streaks threaded his dark brown hair and, though she knew him to be only thirty-four, she noticed the faintest touch of gray silvering his temples.

His gaze held her effortlessly with the enigmatic demand she had become accustomed to. He was half-leaning against the limousine, his stance almost carelessly indolent, but she knew that was only a pose. Men of Sabin Wyatt’s ilk did nothing without a purpose, and she knew very well what his purpose was that day.

He was here to let her know that no matter what the jury had ruled, it was not over.

As soon as the taxi bearing Mallory Thane pulled away from the curb, Sabin turned and quickly opened the door of the limousine. He locked the
door in time to avoid the onslaught of reporters Mallory had just escaped. Thank heaven for the darkly tinted windows, he thought. He could see out but he knew that Carey and he were invisible to those outside. “Get out of here,” he called to the chauffeur as he settled down beside Carey.

“Very tasty, that lady,” Carey Litzke said. “I’ve seen her on screen a couple of times in bit roles, but I didn’t realize just how gorgeous she really was. Most screen stars are a disappointment in person. No wonder Ben went bonkers over her.” He glanced sidewise at Sabin. “She looked pale as death, didn’t she? She’s had a tough time this past year since Ben’s murder.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel sorry for her?”

“Maybe.” Carey leaned back on the cushioned leather seat. “She’s been torn apart by the public, the press and the law. Don’t you think that’s enough?”

“No.”

Carey sighed. “She’s got guts, Sabin. It’s a quality you usually admire. Why don’t you give her a break?”

“Because she doesn’t deserve one.”

“You said yourself that you didn’t think she murdered him. He was in debt up to his eyebrows to the mob. Your own investigators dredged up that information.”

“And he spent a fortune on buying gifts for Mallory Thane.” Sabin looked straight ahead. “He inherited at twenty-one, and he blew his trust fund in only three years. Where do you think he got the money to spend on her?”

“From you,” Carey said mildly. “I write the checks, remember? The first six months they were married you sent him over two hundred thousand dollars. Then all of a sudden you stopped.”

“I don’t like to throw good money after bad.” Sabin’s expression was impassive. “So I told him no more handouts.”

“I’m curious. Why did you decide to give him anything at all?” Carey glanced at Sabin speculatively. “You swore you were through with him after he embezzled from that account at the firm in London.”

“We grew up together.” Sabin shook his head. “Maybe if my father’s will had divided the companies
equally instead of giving the lot to me he wouldn’t have—”

“Turned out to be a jealous, conniving bastard,” Carey finished. “You must be feeling maudlin if you’re giving away half of Wyatt Enterprises in retrospect. You know as well as I do that Ben would have run it into the ground and flitted off with the capital.”

Sabin smiled grudgingly. “Probably.” His smile faded. “I admit I wasn’t overly fond of the bastard, but he didn’t deserve to be turned into a whimpering, besotted slave by Mallory Thane. She may not have shot him, but she caused him to go to the mob for money after I cut him off.”

“You don’t know he gave her presents. Ben mentioned them to his friends but the prosecution never located them.”

“I know.” Sabin’s lips tightened. “I’ve seen them.”

“How did—” Carey broke off as he saw Sabin’s expression become shuttered. He had kept both his job as Sabin’s personal assistant, and the man’s friendship, by knowing when to push and when to hold his peace. He valued both, and now instinct told him to back off.

Still, Sabin’s entire attitude toward Mallory Thane struck him as odd. In fact, from the moment Sabin had received the first communication from his stepbrother after his marriage two years earlier, his behavior had exhibited little resemblance to the hardheaded, ruthless business man Carey knew him to be. The two hundred thousand dollars paid out in monthly increments during the first six months of Ben’s marriage had completely mystified Carey. A lump sum for a wedding present he could have understood: Sabin was a generous man and the challenge of the acquisition of money meant more to him than keeping it. No, it was the way the money was given rather than the giving itself that had bewildered him. “You want Mallory Thane’s hide?”

A faint smile touched Sabin’s lips. “Very well put.”

“Okay.” Carey shrugged. “How do we go about it?”

“You’re going to offer her a job.” Sabin gazed out the dark-tinted window at the streets passing by. “I’ve set it up with Global Cinema. A small part in a low-budget movie called
Breakaway
.
She’d suspect anything but a minor role with an independent outfit after the notoriety she’s suffered. I figure she’ll jump at the chance.”

“No doubt. She’s dead broke according to Randolph’s investigators,” Carey said. “Then what?”

“Breakaway
is to be filmed in Sedikhan.”

Carey gave a low whistle. “And Alex Ben Raschid owes you a favor for helping expose that chemical warfare plant in Said Ababa. The poor kid’s going to be walking into a set-up.”

“Poor kid?” Sabin’s gaze turned icy as it shifted to Carey’s face. “You seem to be as taken with Mallory Thane as my late stepbrother. Perhaps you’d rather I send someone else to bait the trap.”

“I didn’t say that,” Carey said quietly. “I’ve never known you to be unfair in all the years I’ve worked for you, Sabin. If you think she took Ben for a ride and deserves to be taken down herself, that’s good enough for me.”

Sabin was silent a moment and then a rare smile lit his craggy face with warmth. “Sorry. I’m a little on edge. This thing has me tied up in knots.”

“I’ve noticed,” Carey said dryly. “You’ve been
barking at everyone for months.” Longer than that actually. Carey recalled Sabin’s temper had been uncertain since he’d received Ben’s first letter after his marriage. “Randolph’s last report said she’d sublet her apartment effective next week, but my bet is that she’s going to leave town as soon as possible. If you want her right away, I’d better move fast.”

“Oh, yes, I want her right away.” Sabin opened a compartment on the convenience board in front of him and pulled out a light blue jacketed manuscript and a manilla envelope and handed them both to Carey. “The script, a synopsis of the story, and the role we’re offering her, contract and airline tickets, also an advance that will permit her to settle outstanding debts.”

“And put her in debt to you.”

“Exactly. The airline reservation is for the day after tomorrow. That will give her time to settle her affairs and yet not enough time for her to start to wonder why Global’s willing to take a chance on her when no other studio is.”

“Very clever,” Carey said. “And when am I to deliver these twenty pieces of silver?”

“We’re on our way to her apartment now.” Sabin lifted a brow. “You can still back out. I’ve never seen you so reluctant to do a job.”

“She’s got guts,” Carey said simply. “For the last three weeks I’ve been watching her every night on the evening news, and she’s taken everything they’ve thrown at her and never lost her dignity. She may be a bitch, but you still have to admire her.”

“Speak for yourself.” Barely contained savagery tinged Sabin’s voice. “I don’t admire cheats. I only collect from them.” He drew a deep breath and when he spoke again his voice was even. “Tell her you’ll meet her at Marasef airport. We’ll take the Lear Jet to Sedikhan tonight.”

Carey nodded as he placed the script and the envelope in his briefcase and snapped it shut. “She impresses me as being very intelligent. She’ll check with Global to be sure it’s on the up and up.”

“She’ll get the right answer. I bought Global last week.”

Carey’s eyes widened. “I didn’t know. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Sabin smiled sardonically. “Because every
night when we watched the evening news I noticed just how enthralled you were with her.”

“You thought I’d betray you? For Pete’s sake, Sabin. She’s not Helen of Troy.”

“Close enough. I didn’t want to take the chance.” He looked out the window again. “Is she sleeping with James Delage?”

“I told Randolph you’d inquired. He said he didn’t think so. Delage seems devoted to his wife.”

“I didn’t ask what Randolph thought. I asked if she was sleeping with that damn shyster lawyer.”

“Easy,” Carey said. “Randolph said he’d have a report on your desk by five this evening.”

“Good.”

The limousine pulled up in front of a brown-stone and the chauffeur jumped out and hurried around to open the door.

Carey got out of the car and stood in the street looking hesitantly at Sabin. “I don’t suppose you’d change your mind?”

“No way. Come back to the office when you’re through.” Sabin’s expression suddenly softened.
“You’re doing the right thing, Carey. Believe me, she’s the kind of woman who can turn any man inside out before she’s through with him.”

“I believe you.” Carey still hesitated. He had the feeling there was something more behind all this. “It’s just hard to—” He broke off and took a step back. “I’ll stop and have lunch before I come back to the office. I may need to wash the bad taste out of my mouth.” He wheeled and started up the steps of the brownstone.

The chauffeur closed the car door and soon the limousine was gliding through the tree-lined streets of Greenwich Village en route to the Wyatt building.

Sabin leaned back and closed his eyes trying to control the anger and impatience surging through him. Even though he’d known Mallory Thane would be acquitted, it had been difficult waiting until the trial ended. In fact, he had assisted her defense. His investigators had turned up a piece or two of the evidence linking Ben to the mob and sent it to Delage. But knowing she would soon be free hadn’t quelled the temptation to whisk her away during the trial. Such an abduction was
easier to arrange than most people could imagine, and he’d wanted to be done with the waiting.

He had sat in that courtroom day after day and watched Mallory Thane face her accusers, watched her grow thinner and more finely drawn before his eyes, and felt a raging need to end it. If she was to be punished, he should be the one to do it. He had grown fiercely protective of that right in the last months.

Lord, he was acting like a nut case, he thought in disgust. She was becoming as much of an obsession to him as she had been to Ben.

No … in his own way Ben had been wildly in love with her, he reassured himself quickly. What Sabin felt for Mallory Thane was lust. Lust was tolerable. He could use lust, but pity and admiration were totally unacceptable.

He wouldn’t think of Mallory’s expression as she’d flown down the stone steps pursued by reporters. He wouldn’t think of the quiet dignity she’d shown in the courtroom, the dignity Carey had so admired.

But he
was
thinking about it.

Sabin impatiently reached into the compartment
that had held the script, drew out a videotape and slid it into the video recorder beneath the television screen.

He switched on the machine and smiled sardonically as Mallory Thane’s face appeared on the screen.
Voila
, the magic formula. Instant lust.

But lust wasn’t the emotion engendered by these first shots that showed only her face. Helen of Troy. Carey’s words had been sarcastic but his own had not. In his opinion the great beauties of the world were the women who displayed not only beauty but character: Mallory Thane had been blessed with both. On the tape she was laughing impishly, her face alight with mischief. Her features were as close to perfection as any he had ever seen, but what was truly noticeable was the spirit and vitality illuminating them. The wide-set eyes were an incredible blue-violet shade framed by long, dense dark lashes, and her blue-black hair was drawn severely back from her face to reveal the startling beauty of her bone structure and then allowed to fall in a long silky mass to the middle of her naked back.

Not that he could see her back now. That
would come later when she took off the full-length ermine coat and revealed that long elegant naked spine that was more erotic than most women’s breasts.

He could feel himself harden at the thought, and desire brought a welcome end to pity.

She was lying down on the chaise lounge now, carelessly showing glimpses of long legs and beautifully formed shoulders as the ermine coat fell away from them. Then, slowly, seductively, she took off the coat revealing she wore nothing beneath the fur but her own glowing, silken flesh.

She smiled lovingly at the camera, and then slowly raised her hand to shake back her long hair.

Sabin could feel the heavy, hot throbbing between his legs and wondered why he didn’t shut the machine off. The tape had accomplished its purpose, and he knew if he continued to watch he’d be in a fever for the damn woman.

The tape was both graphic and explicit—a woman displaying herself in the most intimate ways imaginable for her lover. Yet there was nothing obscene about the way Mallory Thane
tempted the viewer. She was as natural as Eve and as exquisite as man’s first dream of woman. Sabin knew every movement, every toss of her head by heart and still he couldn’t stop himself from watching in fascination even though the sight of her was enveloping him in a hot haze of need.