Intimate Betrayal

His chuckle was soft, deprecating. “But—” he smiled “—what I’m beginning to feel about you is telling me otherwise.”

Reese grinned seductively. “Are you saying that you’re having feelings for me Mr. Knight?” She ran her pearl-polished nail across his knuckle.

Maxwell laughed outright, shaking his head while he enclosed her hand in his. “Reese, any man would be a fool not to fall all over himself trying to find out what makes you tick.” His voice descended another octave, and he stared into her questioning gaze. “And I don’t consider myself to be anybody’s fool.”

Reese continued to look at him even as she raised his hand and brushed her moist lips across his knuckles. “Why don’t we start from here, today,” she said in her throaty voice, “to get to know each other and save the interviewing for the office.” Her eyes were the wind racing across his face. “There are so many things I want to know about you—and believe me, they have nothing to do with my job.” She grinned wickedly.

Maxwell’s smile matched hers. “Things like what?” he challenged.

Reese opened her mouth to respond, when a shadow and the scent of Chanel No. 5 floated across their table. They both looked up simultaneously. Reese was instantly alert to the mixture of shock, anger, and something she couldn’t place on Maxwell’s face.

“Victoria,” he said, his voice laden with memories.

The striking woman moved closer, her startling green eyes zeroing in on Maxwell. She reached for him, her long, slender hand the color of suntanned porcelain, clasped his, the one that had moments ago held Reese’s.

“It’s so good to see you again, Max.” Her voice was light, almost musical in its quality, Reese noted with annoyance. Who was this woman and why in the devil did she have to show up now?

Victoria bent, daintily at the knee until she was eye-level with Maxwell. “How long will you be in town?”

He ignored her question, knowing that he’d answered it when they’d spoken on the phone. He eased his hand from her grasp and indicated Reese.

“Reese Delaware, this is Victoria Davenport.” Reese spotted the telltale tightening of his jaw.

Slowly Victoria rose and Reese had the unsettling sensation that she knew this woman with the silky strawberry blond hair and green eyes. A dull pounding began in her temple. She winced.

Victoria summoned all of her self-control to quell the rage that bubbled to the surface like hot lava. So this was her. In the flesh. Her half sister. She swallowed her pride, and recalled her promise to her mother on her deathbed. Her smile never reached her uncanny eyes. “Nice to meet you. How did you two meet?” she asked in a sugar-based voice.

Maxwell leaned back in his seat. “Ms. Delaware is a journalist from Visions Magazine.”

“Oh, yes,” she said brightly. “I believe you did mention that on the phone.”

Inwardly Reese cringed. So they’d spoken on the phone—recently. “Where are you from?” Reese queried, in her get-on-the-good-side interviewer’s voice. “That’s definitely not a California accent I hear.” Her smile was full of encouragement, laced with venom.

Victoria tossed her mid-back-length hair over her shoulder with a toss of her head—an affectation that Maxwell, at one time, thought was sexy. Now it annoyed him.

Victoria’s smile was slow in coming. “Norfolk, Virginia. And you?”

“I grew up in Arlington, Virginia,” Reese said slowly, as though searching for her thoughts.

Victoria felt a tightness in her chest. Her heart began to race. They’d practically been neighbors—all those years, she thought, the blood boiling in her veins with a surge of jealousy. “What a small world.” She forced a smile.

Maxwell watched the exchange with growing interest. The two women were like night and day in personality and in looks. Reese with her dark beauty and Victoria with her lighter than air looks. How curious, he mused, that he had been, and now was, attracted to such opposites.

“Well,” Victoria said on a long breath. “I must be going. I have some business clients waiting for me. Nice meeting you, Reese.” She turned her attention toward Maxwell. “And I hope we can…get together before you head off to Tokyo.”

“I don’t see where I’ll have time.” He hesitated. “But maybe I’ll give you a call.”

She dug in her purse, pulled out a business card and jotted down a number. She handed the card to Maxwell. “Try,” she softly urged. “That’s the number where I’ll be staying.” She nodded in Reese’s direction and glided away.

“So how long were you two involved?” Reese boldly asked.

“It’s not anything I care to discuss,” he replied succinctly, shutting down any further discussion on the subject of Victoria Davenport.

But even though Victoria was no longer in their midst, they were unable to recapture that brief moment of intimacy.

They ate their meal of steamed mussels and garnished spaghetti in relative silence, punctuated by brief comments about the city of Los Angeles and places they’d traveled.

“I always envisioned Japan as an extremely exotic and mystical place,” Reese said, as Maxwell drove toward the hotel.

He chuckled. “A lot of that is pure hype. For the most part, it’s just like any other bustling metropolis, only more crowded.”

“Humph. A lot of fun you are,” she scoffed. “You’ve completely ruined my fantasy.”

Maxwell sobered and slanted his eyes in her direction. “Seems like a few things got ruined tonight.”

“We did seem to get sidetracked. But it isn’t anything that can’t be fixed.” She turned in her seat to face his profile and waited.

Maxwell cut the engine of the Corvette. For a split second before he turned to her, he pursed his lips as if debating the inevitable. Catlike he turned toward her, his dark exotic eyes skimming across her face. His gaze seemed to hold her breath captive in her chest, and she began to feel the drumming of her pulse in her ears.

By infinitesimal degrees he leaned closer, his eyes never leaving her face. Just as his mouth was a whisper away from her, Reese’s eyes fluttered closed in anticipation.

In a heady whisper, he commanded, “Look at me.”

Reese slowly opened her eyes and was instantly drawn downward into the twin pools of midnight. His lips captured hers, his mouth hot, hard and moist. Unbidden, a sigh rose from deep in her throat when his tongue ran across her parted lips, before conquering the depths of her waiting mouth.

Fingers of steel clasped her head, pulling her closer, deeper into the kiss, while Reese clung to his shirt as if afraid of drowning in the tidal wave of the coupling.

A moan tore from Maxwell’s throat as he pulled slowly away. Gingerly he rested his forehead against hers and closed his eyes. He hadn’t expected a simple kiss to affect him the way Reese’s kisses did. Each time that his lips met hers, he lost another part of himself. He felt consumed by the roar in his heart. It would be so easy to let himself go with this woman—to give himself up to her and make her his.

Reese tenderly caressed the hard line of his jaw. She felt shaken, and lightheaded. Certainly she’d been kissed before more times than she could count. But never before had she experienced the awesomeness of a simple kiss. Max had transported her to a place she’d never been and her body, on fire, was screaming for more of the sweet torture.

Maxwell inhaled deeply then spoke in one long breath. “I think you ought to be getting upstairs. We have a busy day tomorrow,” he added softly.

“Max, I…”

His dark eyes swirled, reflecting the raging storm that brewed in his spirit. But his voice masked the turmoil within. “It’s really late Reese. I’ll have a car pick you up at seven forty-five,” he continued, now all business.

She’d never felt so humiliated. But she’d never give him the satisfaction of seeing her break down. “You’re right. And I did want to get some writing done before I went to bed.” She turned away from him and flipped the lock on the door. “Good night, Max, and thank you for a lovely evening.”

Before he had a chance to respond, she was out of the car and pushing through the revolving doors of the hotel.

Maxwell pressed his head against the steering column. “You idiot,” he bellowed, slamming his fists against the dashboard.

Reese walked blindly through the lobby, propelled by instinct. Each step she took she fought down the tears that scorched her eyes. She would not cry, she vowed. The headache that had begun at the restaurant built to a crescendo.

By the time she reached her room, she was weak with the pain. Stumbling to the bathroom, she snatched her medication from the cabinet. Downing two tablets without benefit of water, she virtually crawled out of the bathroom to her bed.

Collapsing on top of the quilts, she squeezed her eyes shut against the torrent of pain, and then the nightmares bloomed with terrifying might.