Chapter One

 

Ms. Killian," Emma Reed's voice came over the speaker, "Mr. Trueblood calling. You know the Englishman."

"I'm not here," Jocelyn answered.

"He's called three times since yesterday afternoon. I don't think he believes me," Emma replied.

"I don't care what he believes, perhaps you should be more convincing." Jocelyn slammed down the phone, only to have it ring again.

Sighing deeply there was a worried, weary look in her green eyes. A hand combed through her unruly locks of red hair-she'd left her clip on her dressing table at home letting her hair dry in the spring breeze. Now it sexily framed her pert Irish features indicating the savagery of a spirit frayed at the edges.

"Yes, Emma," she answered the ringing line.

"Your attorneys are here," the secretary informed her.

"I don't want them here," was her exasperated reply.

"But . . ." Emma couldn't handle exasperation.

"I'll see them," Jocelyn relented, though she wasn't successful in changing her irritated tone of voice.

 

***

 

"It's a bad season Jocelyn," Harry Wise acknowledged the obvious.

"Sued twice in one month. I've never been so popular," she replied.

"We should settle out of court."

"I don't have the money. The suits are spurious. And I'll come off looking like a weak-kneed buffoon who's way out of my league."

"Maybe you are," Ed Davis suggested.

"Thank you for such faith," she replied. Sarcasm had become dear to her in the past six weeks. Rumors, false accusations, her faith in humanity a dozen times destroyed by finger pointing, pompous bastards that had taken her business and stomped it beneath their feet as if it was so much dust. All this because of Ibercon Corporation's latest disaster. After spending six months consulting time, to have them turn tail on her proposals and tube their company with several moves she'd advised them vigorously not to pursue, she was paying as dearly as the rest. She'd been swept into a black hole where anyone associated with their defunct Boston Project was being castigated by the press, the board of directors and everyone in the business world that watched Ibercon's demise. Her reputation had taken such a fall she was certain recovery was impossible-though she was still trying.

The discussion with her attorneys didn't end well. And their exit only brought her face to face with the nuisance, Arnold Trueblood, the private investigator she'd been dodging for days.

"Ms. Killian, or is it Mrs. Harold?" He was in her face with his fat jowls and beady eyes peering out of thick black rimmed glasses.

"It's Ms. Killian in business."

"Let me introduce myself ..." he started.

"I know who you are, Mr. Trueblood. Please be brief. Certainly you must know by now that I'm not answering any questions without consulting my lawyers and they just left." The stubby man grated on her nerves.

"It's a matter of some urgency."

"Isn't everything?"

Standing in the outer office where Emma's trained ears would hear any conversation no matter how muted, the man looked about, then took Jocelyn's arm by the elbow. She immediately shook him off. "I think in private would be more suitable for this," he said.

"If it will make you leave," she said, consenting to being led into her private office by the oily man who made her skin crawl just looking at him.

"You remember Ian Suffolk?" Trueblood asked.

At least he was to the point. "I'm sorry I don't know the name," she answered.

"Ian Bradbury. Ian Pennywhistle. Ian Devors? Perhaps?"

"Perhaps I knew Ian Pennywhistle fifteen years ago. The others . . ."

"All the same."

"Then he's probably the same scoundrel he was when I made his acquaintance."

"You know he's returned to the States?"

"I wouldn't know where he is, Mr. Trueblood."

"He's not looked you up?"

"Why would he? He's been out of my life for years."

"Years?" Trueblood did not believe that. "Didn't he post a letter to you about six months ago."

"None that I received."

"And you've not received letters from him every few months in the last several years."

"One or two at the most," Jocelyn offered, knowing that it was unwise to have even admitted to that. Who could say what trouble Ian was in. "How did you know I was ever associated with him in the first place?"

"There are people interested in finding him, I've been investigating Suffolk for nearly three years. In that time I've learned just about everything there is to know about the man. Including your affair."

"I was young. I'm married now, happily so. I wouldn't have any reason to entertain a renewed relationship with Ian whatever you want to call him. And if I had replied to any letter he's written, I'm sure I would have told him as much. Now you have to leave."

"Does Mr. Harold know about Ian?"

"Mr. Trueblood you're treading into personal territory where you have no right to be."

"You say you have a sacred marriage."

"I said it was happy one," she replied, though as she vowed that, she wondered just how true that was. It had been two weeks since she'd seen Reggie, and their last few days together were filled with barbs that stuck-all because of the sticky business of lawsuits and a fractured reputation. Her perpetually arrogant husband, under the guise of love, suggested it was time to give up Killian Management. "Banging your head against bricks is a tough and useless waste," was the first foul thought from his lips. "It's over, Jocelyn," was the second.

All that she'd built for nine years and he was so quick to cast it off as if it meant nothing to her. To suggest it was over made her heart ache, and her stomach burn with fear, even though he was likely right. (In such assessments Reggie was rarely wrong.)

There was still fight in her however, and she gave up going to Japan with him to stay home and work her way out of the predicament. But the way things had developed, she'd have been better to have spent the last few weeks in Japan wearing silk and serving tea with the Japanese matrons, watching them fawn all over her blonde Adonis, with his sculptured body and aristocratic face and uncommonly aloof resonance of darkness that was an accompaniment to his sapphire eyes.

The war between them was not unusual. They'd warred a hundred times in their five year marriage, but never to this impasse, and never without some degree of certainty that the darkness of their sexual attraction would eventually rule and begin to heal what had been broken.

"You have a fascinating way of being happily married," Trueblood stated.

"What makes you say that?" she asked.

Though he was a slimy creature, unctuous and sly, his speech disarmed her. Speaking with that snooty officious English accent, she thought she'd have to answer him when none was called for.

"Ian Suffolk, er ... a Pennywhistle, was noted for sexually deviant activities. I made it my business to check on those of his acquaintances."

"You what?" This was going too far.

"Just something cursory, of course. I'm hardly in your bedroom. But then, your husband's proclivity toward bondage, discipline and the art of training women to be submissives, is no real secret."

Jocelyn was fuming, but dozens of chilling rejoinders were left unsaid.

"I have no more time for you, you'll have to find Ian without me." She imbued her words with as much venom as possible and pushed the man to the door and out. Having handed her his card as he was leaving, another ingratiating smile on his lips, she was moved to tear the card into pieces and drop them in the wastebasket.

"Emma, I'm leaving for the afternoon," she announced moments later as she threw her coat over her shoulders and swept past her on the way out.

"You'll be back at two?" her secretary asked.

"No, cancel my appointments."

"But Mr. Donnally from the Ibercon board?"

"I'm not here," she snapped at the freckled innocent face, and she was gone.