Not Even for Love(34)

He seemed surprised by her question, but he answered promptly. “Yes. He’s a reporter for UPI out of the London bureau.”

“And you called him yesterday and told him all about Helmut and me. The fruits of your labor are smeared on the third page of last evening’s Times. If my shop were open on Sundays, I’d sell you a copy,” she said scathingly.

He shook his head and wearily ran a hand through his hair. “Jordan, I don’t—”

“You deliberately urged me to talk about myself yesterday, prying into my private life and its history. You put on a good act, Mr. Grant. I never suspected that you were only doing your research.”

“Jordan—”

“I would have much preferred that you tell me what you were doing. I might have even been cooperative. You needn’t have wooed me with kisses. Or is that the way you do your best work? Mixing business with pleasure?” To her chagrin, tears formed deep pools in her eyes and blurred her vision. Furiously she wiped them away.

He held up his hand to halt her next words. “Let me get this straight,” he said calmly. “Jim wrote a story for the Times about you and Helmut and your engagement, and you think that I leaked it to him?”

“You did!”

“No I didn’t, Jordan.”

“You had to have,” she shouted. “Don’t compound my loathing for you with more lies. I’m sick to death of your duplicity.”

He sprang off the bed and had her arms imprisoned by iron hands before she could blink. “Don’t lecture me about duplicity,” he said through his teeth. “You know what duplicity is? Duplicity is a woman who snuggles and cuddles one man while being engaged to another. And all the while she claims to the poor sucker she’s cuddling that said engagement isn’t real. Don’t accuse me of playacting, Jordan. You could give Sarah Bernhardt lessons.”

She tried to extricate herself from his tenacious hold, but her efforts didn’t even serve to loosen it. “I’m not engaged to Helmut. You know that.”

“Do I? You say you aren’t committed to him, yet every time he crooks his finger you go running after him. That sounds pretty permanent to me.”

“I don’t want to hurt him,” she cried. “I want to be fair. But you wouldn’t know about fair play, would you? You play to win. You play for blood, and you don’t care who bleeds. All you want is a good time and a good photograph and a good story.”

He lifted her off the floor, twirled her around, and tossed her onto the bed. He followed with his own body stretched down the length of hers. His hands pinned her arms to either side of her head.

“I didn’t leak that damned story,” he said with emphasis on each word as his hands dug more deeply into the flesh of her wrists. “I didn’t.” He gave her a little shake.

Her eyes were wide with fear and disbelief, but he met them levelly. She wet her dry lips with her tongue before asking, “Then who—”

“It could have been anyone. There were fifty or sixty people there the other night when you so naively asked them not to tell anyone about your engagement. That set thrives on gossip, Jordan. They could have tipped off any dozen hungry reporters.” His hands holding her wrists were inescapable, but the truth that radiated from his eyes held her in a tighter bondage. She squeezed her own eyes shut.

“But Bill said that the writer knew so much about me,” she argued. “Yesterday—”

“Doesn’t Helmut know all of that, too? Haven’t you told him bits and pieces of your history? He could have passed them along. And so on and so on, until a gifted reporter could have built a comprehensive story around them.”

Jordan thought back over the last few months. She supposed what Reeves said had credence. Was he telling her the truth?

As though reading her thoughts, he said, “I’ll admit to being as mad as hell yesterday when we got off that boat. And I know that the evidence against me is incriminating. If I had done it, I’d take the credit—or blame, as it were. But I didn’t do it, Jordan. I swear it.”

She opened her eyes then and was awed at how green his were this close up. The freckles that seemed to appear and disappear at will were so close she could count them. “Did you sleep with that girl last night?” The question caught them both off guard. Jordan hadn’t intended to ask it. It had just slipped out.

For a moment Reeves looked puzzled, then he shook his head and laughed softly. “That dimwit?” he asked scornfully. “I haven’t lived a celibate life for thirty-five years, but give me some credit, Jordan,” he chuckled. “I picked her up here in the bar and hustled her over to the Palace. Helmut had mentioned after our meeting in his offices that that’s where the dinner party was going to be. As soon as you left, I dumped her. I’ve never heard such foul language come out of a woman’s mouth.”