sobering. "This time it’s special. There’s nothing routine about it. Please, Kalinda. Have dinner with me tonight."
"So you can spend the evening trying to talk me out of my plans?" she sighed.
"Yes."
"No thanks!"
"I swear I won’t drag you off to bed." There was a meaningful pause. "Unless, of course, you decide that’s where you belong, after all. Just promise to have dinner with me. I swear I won’t muscle you into the bedroom."
"We’ll only spend the time arguing over what I’m going to do tomorrow night," she protested, knowing she was weakening before the persuasiveness in him.
"Have you got anything better to do than argue with me?" he murmured, his fingers on her nape moving lightly, seductively. "Think of it as an opportunity to convince me you know what you’re doing!"
"How can I refuse such a charming invitation!" she muttered dryly, wretchedly aware that spending the evening with him was exactly what she wanted to do, regardless of the complications involved.
"You high-powered female executives are all alike," he taunted on a soft rumble of laughter as he bent to brush his lips against hers. "Can’t resist a challenge!"
4
Rand was a man of his word, Kalinda decided much later that night as she grimly closed her motel room door and went to the window to watch the Lotus disappear into the night. Never had she spent an evening like the one he had just put her through!
She turned away from the window, letting the drape fall into place and morosely surveyed her room. It had been one line of reasoning after another, one argument after another, one persuasive attack on her logic after another. She felt utterly exhausted, she thought with a rueful grimace.
He had amazed her with his strategy, leaping nimbly from one point to the next in his efforts to convince her she was making a mistake in trying for revenge on David Hutton.
And, in spite of his hints to the contrary, Rand had not resorted again to seduction. Kalinda shook her head wryly. Instead, he had fed her well, spent several hours intently "discussing" the matter at hand, and then he’d left her on her doorstep with the most singly devastating comment of the evening.
"Ask yourself," he’d ordered softly as he’d opened her door for her, "why you’re even bothering to listen to me in the first place. Face it, Kalinda, you want to be talked out of this fiasco. That’s the reason you told me the truth this afternoon, isn’t it? So that I could have a chance to play devil’s advocate?"
He hadn’t waited for her crushing retort. Instead, he’d vaulted easily down the steps, slid into the Lotus and disappeared. Leaving Kalinda behind to face a serious attack of self-honesty.
The depressing part about the evening, she thought as she slipped into the satin and lace nightgown and climbed into bed, was that all of his arguments were reasonable. It was a foolish and potentially dangerous scheme she had concocted. But even Rand hadn’t hit on the one factor which was really troubling her about her own plans.
It was a factor which Kalinda had kept pushing into the background but which had become stronger than ever as Rand’s arguments had weakened the rest of her logic. That factor was David Hutton’s wife.
As Friday night approached, the unknown wife loomed larger and larger in Kalinda’s mind. It was one of the reasons she’d arrived early at the rendezvous point. She’d wanted time to think about what she was doing. Time away from the pressures of work, from planning the party scheduled for the following week to entertain business associates, time away from her current and casual escorts of the moment.
She’d retreated to the mountains to convince herself she was doing the justifiable thing and here she’d met a man who probably should have been a prosecuting attorney instead of a part-time arts and crafts dealer!
Kalinda had never met Arleen Hutton but she knew a certain amount about her. At the time David had broken off the
"So you can spend the evening trying to talk me out of my plans?" she sighed.
"Yes."
"No thanks!"
"I swear I won’t drag you off to bed." There was a meaningful pause. "Unless, of course, you decide that’s where you belong, after all. Just promise to have dinner with me. I swear I won’t muscle you into the bedroom."
"We’ll only spend the time arguing over what I’m going to do tomorrow night," she protested, knowing she was weakening before the persuasiveness in him.
"Have you got anything better to do than argue with me?" he murmured, his fingers on her nape moving lightly, seductively. "Think of it as an opportunity to convince me you know what you’re doing!"
"How can I refuse such a charming invitation!" she muttered dryly, wretchedly aware that spending the evening with him was exactly what she wanted to do, regardless of the complications involved.
"You high-powered female executives are all alike," he taunted on a soft rumble of laughter as he bent to brush his lips against hers. "Can’t resist a challenge!"
4
Rand was a man of his word, Kalinda decided much later that night as she grimly closed her motel room door and went to the window to watch the Lotus disappear into the night. Never had she spent an evening like the one he had just put her through!
She turned away from the window, letting the drape fall into place and morosely surveyed her room. It had been one line of reasoning after another, one argument after another, one persuasive attack on her logic after another. She felt utterly exhausted, she thought with a rueful grimace.
He had amazed her with his strategy, leaping nimbly from one point to the next in his efforts to convince her she was making a mistake in trying for revenge on David Hutton.
And, in spite of his hints to the contrary, Rand had not resorted again to seduction. Kalinda shook her head wryly. Instead, he had fed her well, spent several hours intently "discussing" the matter at hand, and then he’d left her on her doorstep with the most singly devastating comment of the evening.
"Ask yourself," he’d ordered softly as he’d opened her door for her, "why you’re even bothering to listen to me in the first place. Face it, Kalinda, you want to be talked out of this fiasco. That’s the reason you told me the truth this afternoon, isn’t it? So that I could have a chance to play devil’s advocate?"
He hadn’t waited for her crushing retort. Instead, he’d vaulted easily down the steps, slid into the Lotus and disappeared. Leaving Kalinda behind to face a serious attack of self-honesty.
The depressing part about the evening, she thought as she slipped into the satin and lace nightgown and climbed into bed, was that all of his arguments were reasonable. It was a foolish and potentially dangerous scheme she had concocted. But even Rand hadn’t hit on the one factor which was really troubling her about her own plans.
It was a factor which Kalinda had kept pushing into the background but which had become stronger than ever as Rand’s arguments had weakened the rest of her logic. That factor was David Hutton’s wife.
As Friday night approached, the unknown wife loomed larger and larger in Kalinda’s mind. It was one of the reasons she’d arrived early at the rendezvous point. She’d wanted time to think about what she was doing. Time away from the pressures of work, from planning the party scheduled for the following week to entertain business associates, time away from her current and casual escorts of the moment.
She’d retreated to the mountains to convince herself she was doing the justifiable thing and here she’d met a man who probably should have been a prosecuting attorney instead of a part-time arts and crafts dealer!
Kalinda had never met Arleen Hutton but she knew a certain amount about her. At the time David had broken off the
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