While the Fire Rages (3 page)

From personnel, Brett took the elevator up three more floors. His body taut with purpose, he strode to a solid, unmarked door, twisted the handle, and, eyes narrowing with intent, stepped inside.

“May I help you?”

The query was directed at him from a frowning woman seated behind an open laptop. Her confused expression made a demand: Who the hell are you? And how did you get up here unannounced?

A sardonic smile teased Brett’s tightly compressed mouth. It
had
been a long time since his last foray into New York.

“Is Ms. Lawrence in?” Brett asked quietly, the smile tugging harder at his lips as he observed the confusion deepen in the woman’s eyes. Her expressive face telegraphed her mental self-questioning: Should I know this man? Is he someone important?

“Yes.” The woman nodded. “But she is very busy. She asked not to be disturbed.”

“She’ll see me.” His cool, deliberately arrogant tone brought out the backbone in the woman who, at any other time, Brett would have found more than passably attractive.

“Really?” she replied with matching coolness. “I doubt it. She was very busy.”

“Use your intercom,” he instructed patiently, “and inform your boss that ACT-boss is waiting.”

“Her boss?” The woman’s brows drew together. “I don’t understand.”

Brett sighed. Of course she didn’t understand. How could she? Hanging on to his patience, he smiled benignly.

‘Tell Ms. Lawrence Brett Renninger wants to see her.”

Suddenly, a door three feet to their right was thrust open and a melodious but impatient voice demanded:

“Reni! Who are you socializing with? I need that report you’re working on.”

“Ms. Lawrence, I... I... he ...”

The attempted explanation died on her lips as JoAnne Lawrence followed her voice into the room.

At first sight of her something that had died inside Brett made its first faint stirrings toward resurrection.

Beautiful?

Brett was hard put not to laugh aloud. As a descriptive adjective, beautiful, in regard to the tall woman glaring at him seemed woefully inadequate.

“Who are you? And what are you doing in here?”

Brett had been thankful for her imperious tone; it reminded him of exactly who this woman was.

“Oh, Ms. Lawrence,” Reni began, “he’s. .. he’s . ..”

“Reni! Will you please finish that report!”JoAnne’s eyes sliced a quelling glance to Reni then shot back to him. “Answer me”

“With pleasure.” Brett felt a curl of satisfaction when her impossibly long lashes flickered at his too-smooth, too-soft tone. Experiencing a sensation quite like joy, he let her have it with both barrels.

“Brett Renninger,” he introduced himself silkily, feeling the curl of satisfaction spreading at the stillness that gripped her. “And I am here in the capacity of your employer for the duration.”

In retrospect, Brett had to admit her aplomb was magnificent. There was a split second of appalled hesitation, then she stepped toward him gracefully, slim right hand extended.

“I’m sorry, Brett,” she apologized in a soft, clear voice. “Come right in.”

* * * *

A cool breeze skipped across the water, ruffling its inky-dark surface. Brett shivered inside the insufficient protection of his field jacket. Chilled out of his reverie, he moved his shoulders in a tension-relieving shrug, a vague hollowness inside bringing awareness of how long it had been since he’d eaten.

At least he attributed the empty feeling to hunger.

Turning abruptly, he frowned as his ear caught the faint crackle of the envelope nestled inside his breast pocket. The hole in his middle grew to a mini chasm.

Cold all over, Brett strode to the low-slung car, repressing a shudder as he slid behind the wheel. Punishing the ignition once again for his own conflicting emotions, he slammed his palm against the gear stick and backed the car the length of the street

It had been so ridiculously easy to reassure Micki of Wolf’s fidelity.

Cruising along the deserted street, a grimace broke the tight line of Brett’s lips. He had simply relayed almost verbatim JoAnne’s—rehearsed?—response to his interrogation in her office that morning.

Yes, she had been with Wolf in Boston.

No, the original arrangements had not been for her to accompany him.

Wolf had called her late in the afternoon the day after his arrival in Boston.

“I don’t like the setup.”JoAnne had quoted Wolf. “I think they believe they’re dealing with a lightweight here. They should know better. But then, so should I. I failed to run a routine check. Get research on it now. I want a full report by tomorrow noon, hand delivered, by you.”

Yes, she had delivered the report to him the following afternoon. They had gone over it together during dinner.

Yes, he had booked a room for her at the hotel but, as she had scheduled a meeting with his staff for the following morning, he drove her to the airport sometime around eleven that night. She had flown back to New York on the same company plane that had carried her to Boston.

Yes, he must have been on the way back to the hotel when the accident occurred.

Micki had gratefully, tearfully swallowed it whole; hook, line, and sinker.

Brett was a different type of fish. Keeping his own council, he had decided to search out the true depth of JoAnne’s seemingly still waters.

Depth indeed!

Brett’s entire body felt icy except for that one rectangular spot on his chest. The envelope crackled again as he mounted the steps in the silent motel.

Unlocking the apartment door, he strode angrily inside and stopped dead. Assuming she’d have gone to her own room by now, he had not expected to find her waiting for him. Brett voiced the first thought that came to his mind.

“Trouble?”

“No.” Her sleek, dark hair moved sharply in the negative. “I just now decided to call it a day.” An odd, sad smile brushed her soft, moist lips. “Possibly because I also just realized I haven’t eaten since breakfast. Let’s grab some dinner.”

Chapter 2

Absently unaware of the sensuousness of her actions, Jo toyed with her tulip-shaped wineglass, the fingers of her left hand caressing the stem with long, evocative strokes, the tip of her right forefinger slowly circling the rim.

Oblivious to the gray gaze following her finger play, she sighed with the unwilling realization that for the last several hours her thought pattern had mirrored the movement of her fingertips—round and round.

Why does he dislike me so?

After three weeks of regular repetition, the question was a familiar, if painful, refrain. She had repeatedly scoured her mind for reasons for his antipathy, and she came up blank time after time. Other than that first regretful morning in her office, she had scrupulously shown him all due respect. Surely the man had more intelligence than to carry a grudge for so slight an infraction! He had barged unannounced into her office! Her reaction to his sudden appearance had been completely normal.

Yet, since that first morning, uncomfortable waves of tension simmered between them whenever they were in the same room together, regardless of the number of feet that measured the distance between them.

It was more than unnerving; it was disheartening, because her initial reaction to him had been very positive, deeply favorable. In effect, Jo didn’t even have to
be
in the same room with him to reexperience her initial reaction; all she had to do was
think of
him and tiny little physical devils began a game of touch and run with her libido. It was enough to make a fully mature, intelligent, reasonably level-headed woman weep with longing!

Though Jo was unconscious of the yearning sigh that whispered through her lips, Brett, very obviously, was not.

“Tired?”

Blinking herself out of the fruitless introspection, Jo donned a mask of nonchalance before raising her eyes to his.

“Yes.” Her reply was blunt for two reasons; First, it was nothing but the plain truth; second, his taunting tone had instilled a chill. Was it her imagination, or did he continually use
that
exact tone with her for some reason she was too dim to decipher? Keeping a rigid harness on her own tongue—which did itch to lash a bit—she added tonelessly, “It’s been a long three weeks.”

For some obscure reason her statement seemed to anger him. Jo’s carefully constructed mask slipped to reveal bafflement when Brett stiffened abruptly.

“I imagine it has been,” he drawled icily. ‘Time has a tendency to drag when you’re missing someone.”

Jo’s bafflement retreated at the advance of sheer incredulity. What the hell was he talking about? Missing someone? Whoever could he ... good grief, he couldn’t possibly be referring to Gary? How had he even heard of that ill-fated involvement? Though she wasn’t aware of any gossip about her breakup with Gary Devlin, there was always the chance he had heard through the company grapevine. This man would surely demand to know all there was to know about an assistant he had no voice in choosing. All there was to know officially, and unofficially. But why would he think she was missing Gary? It was almost a year and a half since…

“If you’re ready to leave?”

Brett’s cold query put an end to her conjecturing. Employing fierce determination to keep her eyebrows from joining in a frown, Jo let a cool nod suffice for an answer. Inside, she seethed to tell him to go take a flying leap into the bay. Who the hell was he to think he could speak so condescendingly to her!

Inside the sports car, Jo sat rigidly erect, staring out the windshield all the way back to the motel.

Did he
have
to smell so damned good? Jo blessed the darkness that concealed the rush of heat to her face at the unexpected thought.

Slowly, very carefully, she inhaled, drawing the mingled scent of pure male and expensive aftershave into her senses.

I
wonder what he tastes like.
The heat in her cheeks intensified at the reflection. Jo shifted against the supple leather covering the bucket seat, becoming more uncomfortable from the heat uncoiling inside than the warmth singeing her outermost layer of skin.

Eyes forced ruthlessly forward, she forbade her sight the pleasure of examining his breath-robbing, austerely handsome face, the contemplation of the possible ecstasy his beautiful mouth could wreak on hers.

What does he look like stripped to the buff? That consideration cut her breath off in her throat.

I
am going totally mad!

Thankfully, at that moment Brett drove the car onto the motel parking lot and her musings were shifted to the edge of consciousness. The ensuing opening and closing of car doors were the only sounds that broke the silence from the time they left the car until they came to an awkward halt at the door to her room.

For one pulse-shattering, brief instant, Jo fancifully imagined she saw a flame leap in the remote grayness of the eyes studying her face. Then, with a brusquely muttered good night, he spun and strode to the door of Wolf’s former lair.

Stepping quickly into the pitch-black room, Jo closed and locked the door, then sagged back against its solid support. After gulping in numerous deep, calming breaths, she pushed her limp body erect, her hand groping for the wall switch.

For one infinitesimal moment there she had actually thought he might kiss her. What would she have done if he had? Jo frowned as she mentally listed her possible responses. Would she have chastised him in a scathing, acidic tone? Or, would she, perhaps, have laughed it off as of little meaning? Or, would she, much less likely, have allowed her palm to meet his cheek with resounding force?

Who are you trying to kid? she asked herself wearily. After three weeks of wondering, hoping, longing, you know exactly how you would have responded: You would have wrapped yourself around him like a wet bath towel.

The thought conjured the image and an anticipatory shiver feathered her skin, raising tiny goose bumps on her arms and thighs. Her physical response to the mere idea of being crushed to Brett’s hard, lean body no longer had the power to shock her, although it certainly had the first time it had occurred.

Performing the routine before-bed ritual of cleansing her skin and brushing her teeth, Jo’s thoughts backtracked to the first time she’d felt that hot-cold reaction to him.

It had certainly not happened that first morning, when he’d presented himself to her. She’d been much too flustered and embarrassed then to notice much of anything other than the fact that the Renninger brothers bore very little resemblance, physically or in personality.

Actually, he’d been in her office a very short time, during which he’d fired questions at her in a taut, angry tone that she’d later attributed to anxiety over Wolf’s accident.

Somewhat proud of herself for the appearance of composure she’d maintained, she had answered his questions clearly and concisely. It was when it became obvious that he was about to make an abrupt departure that Jo, voicing a query of her own, received the impression of his dislike of her. Confused, wondering why he should dislike her when he didn’t even know her, she had nevertheless repeated her question when he hesitated over answering.

“How
is
Wolf doing?”

“He is still on the critical list,” he’d finally, begrudgingly answered, confusing her all the more by his apparent unwillingness to discuss his brother’s condition. “I’m leaving now to fly back to Boston,” he’d gone on coldly, long fingers curling around the doorknob, giving the impression he couldn’t get out fast enough. “If there are any questions”—he’d paused, tone hardening—”pertaining to business, call the hotel and leave a message. I’ll get back to you.”

Stunned by both his tone and his attitude, frowning in perplexity, Jo had mutely watched as he opened the door then closed it again before turning to pin her with an icy, narrow-eyed stare.

“By the way,” he’d almost purred, “I’ve tapped Bob Harley for the executive slot opening soon.” The silky satisfaction in his voice went through her like the sound of a nail being scraped the length of a blackboard. “Sorry about that.”