Not Even for Love(36)

Then he touched her with startling accuracy and involuntarily she closed around his stroking fingers, groaning her acquiescence. “Yes, Reeves. Now.”

“Jordan, you must know—”

The shrill ring of the telephone cut off his words.





CHAPTER 7



Reeves cursed expansively when the telephone rang a second and then a third time. They froze, staring at each other. She smiled with sad resignation. He eased himself away from her and jerked the receiver from the ringing telephone.

“Grant,” he barked. His eyes swung to her as the caller identified himself. Reeves said, “Hello, Helmut.”

Jordan covered her face with her hands and rolled over onto her side. A tiny sob was the only sound she made.

“No, you didn’t awaken me,” Reeves said. “I was up.” The double entendre didn’t escape her. Nor was it meant to. The scornful tone in his voice was intentional.

She sat up and scooted to the other side of the bed, hastily picking up her sweater and pulling it on. Without looking back at Reeves, she refastened her jeans and smoothed trembling, ineffectual hands over her hair.

Reeves listened to Helmut. Jordan walked to the window and stared out unseeingly at the lake water, which now sparkled in the first sunlight. She clutched the pull cord of the drape when she heard Reeves ask, “Have you tried to reach Jordan?”

She whirled around and met his steely gaze from across the room. He was holding the telephone at his ear, pausing, silently asking her what he should say next. One look at her shattered face and he knew. In the depths of her gray eyes he saw her plea for him not to tell Helmut she was there. His lips hardened into a bitter line, but his voice remained cool as he answered, “No, she probably isn’t awake yet.”

He listened while he stared at Jordan, where she stood im-mobile at the window. “That sounds great. Where should I meet you?… All right…an hour is fine…Yes. See you then.”

Long after Helmut had broken the connection, Reeves held the telephone to his ear, piercing Jordan with his implacable stare. Then he juggled the receiver from one hand to the other and replaced it.

He leaned down and scooped her jacket from the floor, then stood up and went to the door. He stood there with one hand on his hip, the other extended, holding her jacket toward her.

She took the less-than-subtle hint. With false bravado, she lifted her chin and stalked toward him. When she was within a few feet of the door, he threw the jacket toward her so forcefully that her hands had to come up quickly and grasp it.

“Your fiancé,” he said slurringly, “wants to go hiking on the mountain today. I suggest that you scuttle home like a good little girl and await his call, which will come in about twenty minutes. Always a true gentleman, he is allowing you an extra few minutes of sleep.”

The mockery in his voice was wounding, and reflexively, she flinched under it. He wasn’t finished yet.

“I’ll see you in about an hour. We’re to converge here on the porch of the hotel.” She walked past him. When her hand was on the door knob, he added, “Remember to sound sleepy and surprised when he calls.”

She shot him a withering look and then flung the door open. She almost made it into the hall before he grabbed her elbow and swung her around. “As for waking me up, you beat a cup of coffee all to hell, Jordan.” The scathing insult dripped with disdain. Before she could respond to it, he shoved her through the door and slammed it behind her.

She didn’t waste any time returning home. The obliging concierge was busy with a guest who was checking out, so he didn’t see her as she skirted past his desk and out of the hotel.

Breathless and humiliated, she reached home just as the telephone started ringing. Reeves’s words came back to haunt her as she picked up the phone and answered brightly, “Good morning.”

“Darling, are you up and about?” Helmut asked.

It gave her a sense of relief and salved her conscience to answer truthfully rather than to lie to him. “Yes, I’ve been up for a long while. Bill called this morning,” she added.

“I have an idea,” Helmut said, and invited her on the hiking expedition.

“That sounds great,” she enthused.

“That’s exactly what Reeves said.”

Oh, God. Had it been? Yes. He had said those exact words.

“Can you be ready by nine?” Helmut asked. “I told Reeves we would all meet at the Europa. Do you mind too terribly going there alone?”

In light of the fact that she had already walked through the gray shadows of predawn to the hotel, she almost succumbed to the hysterical laughter she felt building in her chest. “No, not at all,” she answered with amazing calm.