Set Up (14 page)

Enraged, he shook her.

“Stop!”

Grunting, he took his hands off her and clenched them as if to keep them from crushing her. “All right, Scarlet. I didn't want to involve the police, but we'll do it your way.”

“The police?” Her reputation, her clients, her entire business would be lost. Everything she'd worked for during the past eight years. Her physical fear vanished under his new threat.

He reached for the phone.

She started to run.

His arm shot out, blocking her, forcing her down the hall.

A different door. A bedroom. Large bed. Large painting. White walls. Browns and blues. French windows opening to the outside. Greenery, splashes of purple, red flowering bushes.

If she could reach the window…

He stayed on her heels, close enough to catch her elbow.

Whirling, she kicked out.

He shunted her foot aside, throwing them both off balance so that they stumbled and fell onto the bed in a tangled heap. His knee caught her dress and fabric ripped.

“Get off me!”

He rolled off but held tight to her arm. “You may as well stop your sniveling. Before you leave this house, I'll know who hired you and what you did with my things you stole. The quicker you tell me, the quicker you can leave.”

“I’m not sniveling. And there's no reason for you hurting me.” When she tried to sit up, her wrist bent backwards too far. “Ouch! I told you I didn't take—”

He shoved her flat. “Don't bother repeating yourself. If you think I've hurt you, you're wrong. You don't know what hurt is, but you keep on and you're liable to learn.”

His contempt was so palpable, he practically smoldered.

Scared witless, she stayed perfectly still. There had to be something that would pacify him, keep him from going to the police. What could she say?

“That's right, sugah,” came the hateful drawl. “Just lie there. I'm sure you know how to do that real well.”

The gibe pierced her fear, made her stiffen.

He got up. “Better practice your wiles. You're about to tell your story to the police.”

“You can't call the police.” Her dress, caught beneath her, held her immobile.

“No?” He stood at the foot of the bed. His eyes that long ago had been warm and admiring were cold. “Do you have other ideas? We could put off calling them for a while if you want. You prefer your sex slow, I believe.”

“You don't know anything about me.” Freeing her dress, she used her heels to scoot toward the top of the bed and away from him.

“I know enough.” His eyes narrowed, his nostrils flared. “Where is my book?” He took off his tie. Slowly. Deliberately.

“I don't know anything about any book.” There was no room to run. Not that running would do any good. He would simply call the police and have her arrested. Dear God, why hadn’t she told Noelle she wouldn’t do it?

Holding up a sleeve, he removed a cuff link. “They say you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar.” Leisurely, he loosened the other sleeve. “You believe that, Scarlet? Want to see if it’s true? We could finish what we started the other night. It might put us both in better moods.” He tossed the links on a table and began undoing his shirt. “We were having a pretty good time, as I recall.”

His tone was seductive, his face terrible.

“You...” When she scooted up some more, her head banged the headboard.

The shirt came off and fell to the floor.

Dear God, he meant it. “You can go to jail for this. You're going to be in big trouble if you don't let me go.”

A lightning movement brought him onto the bed, kneeling beside her. “Trouble?”

She turned to escape but he caught her, rolled with her so that he lay stretched out on her, his length molded to her back, her butt. “You're the one in trouble. You're damned lucky I haven't already gone to the police.”

His body exuded an all-over heat. The spread rustled beneath her ear. When she turned her face to free it from the suffocating pillow, her cheek and nose pushed against his silk undershirt. His masculine scent mingled with woodsy cologne. “I c-can't breathe.”

His chest pushed into her back. He murmured at her ear, “This is about where we were, wasn’t it? When we were interrupted in the middle of our good time? By one roofie. Or a relative. You remember?”

Shame filled her. “Get off me.”

“Do you remember how far we'd got that night when you stopped the game in the middle? Want to start over? After all, you owe me.”

The scumbag. He was lower than dirt. “I don't owe you anything.” The words sounded too defensive. She hardened her voice. “Get off!”

“No way.” His fingers threaded her hair. Almost like a lover’s caress. “You're going to tell me all about our night together. You're going to tell me who put you up to it, and why, and then you're going to tell me where my things are that you stole…”

“I didn't steal your things.” His thigh was close enough to hit with the side of her fist.

He caught that fist and then the other. “…from me, and you're going to start now. If you don't...” His voice at her ear softened, became insinuating in a way more terrifying than his anger. “We'll call the police. But we can put that off awhile if you prefer. I've waited a long time for what you promised, Scarlet. We have some time.”

One of his hands clasped her wrists above her head while the other slid underneath her to pass through the front opening of her dress.

“No!” Outrage helped her free one wrist.

When she swung her elbow at his face, he dodged and laughed. “You like it rough?” The hand inside her dress tightened on her breast. “I’ll give you whatever you want. Just say the word.”

“Get away from me, you bastard! It was only a ring. You can buy a million rings.” When she threw her weight to the side, he held tight. Terror filled her. She couldn’t fight him off. He was too big, too strong.

“You can buy a million rings,” she sobbed.

Her sudden lack of resistance must have surprised him because his grip loosened. He leaned back.

Taking advantage, she rolled to the side and fell off the bed. Carpet burned her knees, but she barely felt the sting in her scramble to stand up and push hair out of her eyes.

She had to keep away from him.

He slid off the other side of the bed, gulping for breath. They watched each other across the mattress, two hostile animals waiting for an opening.

“You took more than a ring.” His words were flat. “And you know it. I don't give a damn about a frigging ring. You could have had it that night if you'd asked me. But the journal and my diamond studs are a different matter. I want them back and I want them back now.”

Journal? Diamonds?

“What are you talking about?” What did he think she took from him? He couldn’t mean...

Her jaw dropped.

* * * *

Cal didn’t miss Amanda Jane's shock. Though her mouth softened so that it resembled that of the redhead who had first beguiled him, there was no trace of coquetry about the woman before him.

Her bewilderment took the edge off the fury that had seethed for days.

“I, I don't know what you mean. I only took Noe… I only took a ring.” The words between gasps were so low he almost missed them. “The emerald ring was all I took. I swear that was all I took. It was.”

His own lungs struggled for air, but he’d already dropped his guard once when she'd whimpered beneath him, when he realized he was hurting her.

He couldn't afford to drop it again. He had to be alert, ready to catch her if, when, she made a break for it. “Then why am I missing a set of diamond studs and a book?”

She shook her head vehemently. Tresses of brown hair clung to one cheek and fell to her shoulder. A part of him took in her dishevelment and exposed breast, noted how defenseless, how trapped she looked. It was hard to remember what she was, what she'd done.

Hard to maintain his rage. “Well?”

“There were other things in the safe, but I didn't take them. Why should I? All I wanted was her engagement ring. If you'd given it back to Noelle, I'd never have come. Her ring is all I came to Houston for, and that's all I took.”

He curled his lip, for his benefit as well as for hers. “Liar.”

“It's true.” She brushed back strands of hair with trembling fingers, poise long since fled. No longer the cool and collected businesswoman, she was as terrified as a colt cornered by a wolf. “It
is
true. If you'd returned Noelle's ring after you took it as a gambling pledge...” Her words tumbled out. “If you'd returned it when she begged you, I'd never have been there.”

“Noelle? Your sister? She said that?” Despite his efforts to whip up anger, he failed as a piece fell into place.

He sorted facts and tried to match them, all the time wondering if he could believe her.

Damn it to hell, of course he couldn't believe her.

He knew better than to trust somebody like her.

“I got the ring from your sister, yes, but I got it in Houston. I bought it outright because she needed money.” He sneered. “She
said
she needed money for her sick baby.”

“No, that's not… Noelle wouldn't…”

He watched her already pale face turn white.

Maybe she didn't know.

* * * *

What's going on?

Doubts filled Amanda, doubts stemming from memories of other instances when her sister had twisted the truth. Because of those doubts, denials were bit off.

She couldn’t panic, not with Callaway McIntyre so furious.

“I understood,” she said, choosing her words with care, “that you made Noelle a loan at a Las Vegas casino when she was low on cash. She gave you her engagement ring as collateral, and when she went to pay you back, you wouldn't give up her ring.”

He shook his head. “The first time I saw her was in Houston when I bought the ring from her. There was no question of it being collateral. She never tried to get it back. I bought it outright one afternoon and by the next morning, it was gone. Stolen.” He scowled. “By you.”

Could it be true? Could Noelle have lied to Amanda, used her? But why? Her hands twisted together in a nervous habit long ago broken. She unclasped them.

This was ridiculous. Noelle wasn't a thief. Self-absorbed and silly sometimes, but she wasn't a thief.

But why had Noelle lied? Or had she lied?

No, the man before her was toying with her. “I don't believe you. My sister isn't a thief.”

“It doesn't matter what you believe. I want my diamonds and that book back, and you're going to give them to me or talk to the police.”

Her heart sank. “You don't want the ring?”

His face turned red. “I'm sick to death of hearing about some trumpery ring. I don't give a good goddamn about that ring. I never wanted the frigging ring to start with. What I do want are my studs and that book, and I want them now. If you don't tell me where the hell they are, you’ll be an old woman when you get out of prison.”

Amanda's last hope shattered. He didn't care about Noelle's ring. He had never cared about it.

Her legs failed, depositing her on the floor with no will left for battle.

He wasn't lying. Her sister had been the liar.

Numb, she realized something else. She was in trouble. Big trouble. “So I'm a thief. I’m sorry. I don't know why you should believe me, but all I took was the ring. I don't have it now.”

Her hands clenched and unclenched. The magnitude of her crime paralyzed her, but overriding that was anger with Noelle.

Why had Noelle lied? Had she planned to steal the diamonds? No, Noelle wasn’t that dishonest. Or that intelligent. Maybe Noelle
hadn’t
lied. She could usually tell whenever Noelle wasn’t being completely truthful. Although when Noelle had taken her ring at the apartment and left, there had been something...

“All right.” His tone was milder. His eyes were back to chocolate. While he stood next to her, he made no move to manhandle her. “Noelle planned it, did she? Your hooking up with me and robbing me, I mean?”

Amanda nodded, the words choking in her throat. “I was trying to help her recover something you took from her illegally. Well. At least immorally.”

He looked down his nose.

“That is, I thought you had taken it. I'd never have done it if she hadn't, if I hadn't thought she...” The tears were too close to the surface. She put an elbow over her face. “The ring was Edward’s—her husband—his grandmother’s ring. He would have divorced her if he found out she'd lost it gambling. He'd never have forgiven her.”

Then his explanation for possessing the ring penetrated. His story didn't make sense.

When she tried to stand, he didn’t move to help so she used the bed to pull herself up. “I can't believe Noelle sold it to you. Edward would be bound to find out.”

“Maybe she doesn't care.” He waved impatiently. “Anyway, she got it back, didn't she? Who told you the safe combination?” He read the answer in her face. “Noelle again?”