“Send one of your people out tomorrow to buy up a batch of comic books. Soldier of fortune stuff, action heroes—have them throw in a couple of Bugs Bunny. I’ll need four or five dozen.”
“Comic books?”
“Yeah.”
Brian asked no more questions, even though Cal knew he wanted to. Their conversation ended, and he headed upstairs in search of the woman who had so deviously altered his life.
He didn’t feel even a pang of guilt for wanting revenge. The gridiron had taught him a lot of survival lessons, and one of them was fundamental. If somebody laid a dirty hit on you, you had to strike back twice as hard or pay for it in the future, and that was something he wouldn’t risk. He had no intention of living the rest of his life looking over his shoulder trying to figure out what she might be up to next. She needed to understand exactly who she’d tangled with and exactly what the consequences would be if she ever tried to deceive him again.
He found her in the nursery curled up in a rocker with her glasses resting in her lap. In her sleep she appeared vulnerable, but he knew what a lie that was. From the beginning, she’d been cold-blooded and calculating as she’d gone about getting what she wanted, and in the process she’d altered the course of his life in a way he’d never forgive. And not only his life, he reminded himself, but the life of an innocent child.
He’d always liked kids. For over ten years he’d spent a lot of his time working with underprivileged ones, although he’d done his best to keep that information from the press because he didn’t want anybody trying to make him over into Saint Cal. When he finally got around to getting married, he’d always figured he’d stay that way. He’d grown up in a stable family, and it bothered him to watch his buddies and their ex-wives shuffle their kids back and forth. He’d sworn he’d never do that to a child, but Dr. Jane Darlington had taken the choice away from him.
He walked farther into the room and watched the blade of moonlight caught in her hair turn it into silver. One stray lock curled softly over her cheek. She’d taken off her jacket, and her silk top clung to her breasts so that he could watch their gentle rise and fall.
Asleep, she looked younger than the formidable physics professor who’d instructed her class on Borromean nuclei. That day there had been something parched about her, as if she’d been closed up inside so long that all her juices had dried up, but asleep and bathed in moonlight she was different—dewy, renewed, plumped up—and he felt the stirrings of desire.
His physical reaction bothered him. The first two times he’d been with her he hadn’t known what she was like. Now he knew, but his body didn’t seem to have gotten the message.
He decided it was time for the next scene in their unpleasant melodrama, and he pressed the toe of his shoe down on the front of the rocker. The chair tilted, and she startled awake.
“Bedtime, Rosebud.”
Her green eyes flew open and immediately darkened with wariness. “I—I must have fallen asleep.”
“Big day.”
“I was looking for a bedroom.” She slipped on her glasses, then pushed her hands through her hair, where it had fallen forward over her face. He watched silvery blond drizzles trickle through her fingers.
“You can take the Widow Snopes’s room. Come on.”
He could see that she didn’t want to follow him, but she wanted another argument even less. It was a mistake for her to telegraph her emotions the way she did. It made the game too easy.
He led her down the hallway, and as they came closer to the master bedroom, her nervousness grew. He felt a grim satisfaction watching it happen. What would she do if he touched her? So far, he’d avoided any physical contact, not quite trusting himself to stay in control. He’d never hit a woman—could never even have imagined doing such a thing—but the urge to damage her was primal. As he observed her nervousness, he knew he had to test her.
They reached the door just before his own. He extended his hand toward the knob and deliberately brushed her arm.
Jane jumped as she felt his touch and spun to face him. His eyes were full of mockery, and she realized he knew exactly how nervous he was making her. There was something dangerous about him tonight. She had no idea what he was thinking; she only knew that they were alone in this big, ugly house, and she felt defenseless.
He pushed open the door. “We’ve got connecting bedrooms, just like those old-time houses used to have. I guess G. Dwayne and his wife didn’t get along real well.”
“I don’t want a connecting bedroom. I’ll sleep in one of the rooms at the other end of the hall.”