LITMIR.BIZ

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sorry that she was so dense. “You know, Marnie, sometimes you can be impossible.”

      “Good!”

      “You enjoy being perverse?”

      “I just want you to leave me alone. I thought you understood that. If you don’t, let me make myself clear,” she said, drawing up to her full height and sending him an icy glare. “I’m sorry I ever got involved with you and I never want to see you again.”

      He glanced to one of the chandeliers high overhead. “I made a mistake with Dolores.”

      She didn’t respond. She’d learned that his affair with Dolores had been going on for over six months. All the time that she and Kent had been picking out china, planning a wedding, looking for a house, sailing in the boat Victor had bought them as an engagement present, Kent had been sleeping with his secretary.

      “You know I still love you,” he said, and his expression was so sincere, she almost believed him. But she wasn’t a fool. Not any more. “Give me another chance,” he pleaded. “It’ll never happen again. I swear it.”

      Marnie shook her head. “You can do what you damn well please, Kent. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

      “I really did a number on you, didn’t I?”

      “I prefer to think that you did me a favor.”

      A light of challenge sparked in his hazel eyes. He leaned down as if to kiss her, and she ducked away. “Stop it!” she commanded, her tone frigid.

      He ignored her and grabbed her quickly, yanking her hard against him. “Don’t tell me ‘no,’” he whispered, his face so close that his breath, smelling of liquor, fanned her face.

      “Don’t pull this macho stuff on me!”

      “You love it.” His grip tightened, and his eyes glittered in a way that frightened and sickened her. He enjoyed this fight.

      Squirming, unable to wrench away, she stomped on his foot in frustration. The heel of her shoe snapped with the force. “Let go!”

      Kent let out a yowl and backed up a step. “What the hell’s gotten into you?” he cried, reaching down to rub the top of his shoe, as if he could massage his wounded foot. Wincing, he turned furious eyes on her. “I thought we could work things out, you know? I thought tonight would be the perfect time. Did you see me with your father and Senator Mann? The man knew my name! God, what a rush! And I come back to share it with you—the woman I love—and what do I get?”

      “Maybe you’re getting what you deserve,” Adam drawled, coming up behind Kent.

      A wave of heat washed up Marnie’s neck. Oh, Lord! How much of their argument had he overheard?

      Kent straightened, resting his foot gingerly on the floor as he eyed Adam. Adam was slightly taller, with harsher features, his hair a little longer, his whole demeanor laid-back and secure. Kent, on the other hand, looked military spit-and-polished, his tuxedo crisp, his hair clipped, his spine ramrod-stiff.

      “I thought you were leaving,” Kent said, glowering at Adam.

      “Not yet.”

      Kent straightened his tie and smoothed his hair. “Does Victor know you’re here?”

      Adam lifted a shoulder nonchalantly, but his features were set in stone. “I hope so.”

      Instinctively, Marnie stepped closer to Adam, and Kent shot her an irritated glance, his eyes slitting. “Just what is it you want, Drake?” he demanded, stuffing his hands into the back pockets of his pants and angling his face upward to meet Adam’s hard glare. “Why don’t you just leave?”

      “Not until I ask Victor if he knows who Gerald Henderson is?”

      “Henderson?” Kent repeated, his expression so bland it had to be false. “Didn’t he work for us?”

      “In accounting,” Adam clarified.

      “I remember him,” Marnie interjected, refusing to be left out of the conversation. “He left because he had health problems—asthma, I think. He had to leave the damp Northwest. And he got a better job with a hotel in San Diego.”

      “Still lives in Seattle,” Adam replied. “Spends a lot of time fishing. If I’m not wrong, I think he’s drawing some sort of disability or retirement.”

      Marnie glanced from one stern face to the other. “Didn’t the job in California work out?”

      “Who cares?” Kent replied. “Henderson’s history.”

      “Maybe,” Adam said, and the undercurrents in his voice jarred her. She was missing something in this conversation, something important.

      Kent swallowed. “I don’t think Victor would be interested,” he said, but his voice lacked conviction.

      “Not even if Gerald had an idea about the missing funds?”

      “What?” Marnie demanded, shocked.

      “It’s nothing,” Kent snapped. “Henderson couldn’t possibly know—”

      “Adam Drake?” Judith Marx, a reporter for the Seattle Observer who had obviously seen some of the hubbub, walked briskly into the banquet room. “I’m surprised to see you here,” she said, her eyes taking in the scene in one quick glance.

      The understatement of the year, Marnie thought.

      “I wouldn’t have missed this for the world,” Adam drawled.

      “Can I quote you?” she asked.

      “No!” Kent cut in, his face flushed, a vein throbbing near his temple. “Mr. Drake is an uninvited guest, and if you print that I’ll march over to the Observer and talk to John Forrester myself!”

      “Mr. Forrester would never suppress news,” the woman replied smartly.

      Kent whirled on Adam, his voice low. “Whatever it is you want, Drake, it can wait until later.”

      By now, more than a few guests had drifted into the room. Kent was beginning to squirm. Whispers began to float around them, like tiny wisps of fog that lingered for a second, then drifted by.

      “Mr. Drake?” Judith Marx obviously smelled a story. She wasn’t about to give up. “I thought you vowed vengeance against this company.”

      “What I said was that I’d prove my innocence.”

      From the corner of his eye, Adam saw Kent motioning with a finger to a beefy security guard in the doorway.

      “Wasn’t that all taken care of?” Judith asked Adam, and he turned his attention back to the reporter. “You weren’t even indicted.” She reached into her bag for her pocket recorder. Kent glanced across the room, nodding to the two guards making their way inside.

      Adam was ready for the two sets of hands that collared him and firmly guided him through a back door connecting the banquet room to the kitchen. He didn’t struggle. There was no point. Obviously Victor hadn’t seen him, or had decided to leave his dirty work to Kent. Either way, Adam wasn’t finished. Not by a long shot. But his next move would be more subtle. Hauling him through the service entrance, the security guards deposited him roughly on the wet asphalt near a delivery truck.

      One of the two guards, a big bear of a man with sandy hair and a flat face, muttered under his breath. “Still gettin’ yourself into trouble, ain’t’cha?” Sam Dillinger had worked with Adam for years before the scandal.

      “Looks that way, Sam.” Adam brushed himself off as he stood. He managed a grim smile.

      “I’m sorry, Mr. Drake. You know, I never believed you were involved in any of that thievin’.”

      “Thanks, Sam.”

      The other guard, a thickset man with short salt-and-pepper hair, snorted. He fingered

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