“Hey, you’re a damn good stepmom, too.”
Her smile warmed; her tears seemed to dry a little. “Good night, Rafe. I’m in control, I promise. And I’ll—I’ll trust you.”
“Thanks, Myrna. This will take a little time, and you can’t make yourself crazy, right?”
She nodded, stronger now. With a smile and a little wave, she moved down the darkened hall to the suite she still maintained in the Tyler mansion on Long Island.
Rafe closed his study door, turned out the lights and went through the connecting door to his bedroom.
He didn’t turn on the light. Wearily, he stripped and headed for bed, then paused and turned to the mullioned floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on the gardens. There was a full moon tonight. There was a breeze, too. The moon’s glow fell on the water splashing in the main fountain and made fantasy diamonds of it against the velvet of the night.
A perfect setting for a Galliard girl, Rafe found himself thinking. Not just any Galliard girl. Tara Hill.
Dressed in something flowing, something almost translucent—chiffon silk. A gown that was soft yet would mold to her hips and breasts with each fluid movement of her long legs. Its color would be somewhere between blue and silver, like her eyes. Good God, he could almost see her walking the path, almost smell the fragrance of her perfume and her flesh….
He turned away from the window and angrily padded over to the bed, ripping the covers away with a vengeance. Damned bloody moon! It had been proved centuries ago that the moon gave rise to fantasies.
Rafe slammed a fist into his pillow and curled onto his side. Still she remained with him, her scent seeming to linger on his flesh. He closed his eyes tightly but could not dispel the vision of her in his room, walking toward him. He could discern her figure beneath the diaphanous gown, the lush round rise of her breasts, the shadow between, the dark, entrancingly peaked circles where her nipples rose in anticipation of his touch. The sway of her walk, the length of her thighs, the moon-touched silver of her eyes as she looked at him, the feel of her fingers as they rested first against his cheek and then on his chest. He could even hear her whisper to him….
He sat up, grunting between clenched teeth, holding his head between his hands. Had he been awake or asleep? That touch of her fingers had been nothing but a layer of sweat beading onto his naked flesh as he dreamed.
He closed his eyes tightly and vehemently shook his head. He finally banished her presence and brought to mind his stepmother’s glistening tears, recalling the agony in her voice. He thought of his brother Jimmy. Young, good-looking, happy-go-lucky. Sensitive and courteous, and such an easy mark when it came to a beautiful woman. One who might have cried, clung to him, used him.
Tara Hill—pretty poison. Or was she?
It didn’t matter. He lay down again, very aware that he could not fall in love with a fantasy. But he smiled grimly in the night. He intended to have that fantasy. She would be dealing with Rafe Tyler this time.
Not Jimmy.
And by God, he meant to have the truth. The whole story. It mattered not one whit how he went about procuring it.
He closed his eyes once more, finally exhausted by his determination. But his dreams wouldn’t quit. It seemed that he was plagued by whispers moaning in the wind, clarified by the moon.
Whispers hinting again and again that, despite the odds, despite the facts, she might be innocent. As real and innocent and beautiful as the shimmering silver of her eyes….
CHAPTER 4
Tara arrived fifteen minutes late for her fitting, and George wasn’t about to let her get away with it.
“Tara, back to work means back to work! Either you’re with us or you’re not. You don’t want a job? Fine—I’ve got dozens of girls who would die for the opportunity. Girls not yet a quarter of a century old, if you get my meaning, ma petite!”
Tara winced slightly behind her sunglasses and gritted her teeth. George had been really angry at first; he hadn’t even bothered feigning his French accent through the first two sentences. And George liked to “be French.” He might have been born in Brooklyn, but he was convinced that American women wanted French fashions. Maybe he had a point. He had managed to make his name synonymous with fashion the world over.
But he didn’t fool her. Not anymore. She had known him too long now. They had been friends; they had endured their squabbles. They had undergone an investigation together—he’d been dragged into it, all because of her! But still, he had tried to shield her, had tried to talk her out of running away. And he had taken her back without blinking when she had squared her shoulders and determined to work again.
“I’m sorry,” Tara murmured, lowering her head and trying not to show her grin. His toupee was slightly awry—and he was a man who did not admit to baldness. He was of medium height, with a wiry build, and his manners were perfect—when he wanted them to be.
He was also cruel at times. He liked to remind Tara that he had taken her on as a dirt-poor ragamuffin and changed her into a priestess of high fashion.
Tine had been worse! she reminded herself abruptly, and felt suddenly frozen. In her two years of solitude she thought she had matured. She thought she had faced all the facts and learned to live with them. But just as she had done through all the previous night, she was reliving the past. Yes, Tine had enjoyed his moments of mastery. Reminding her that even with her scholarships, she would never have been able to leave her parents to go to college. That if it hadn’t been for him, she wouldn’t have been able to give them relief in their
