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wearing dresses with necklines cut to the waist, thats all. You’re still too much a child to realize what
you could be leting yourself in for.”
She turned at the door with great dignity, her carriage so perfect that Mademoiselle Devres
would have cheered. “I’m not a child anymore, Blake,” she told him. “Am I?”
He turned away, bending his head to light a cigarette with steady hands. “When does that writer
get here?”
She swallowed nervously. “Tomorrow morning.” She watched him walk to the darkened
window and draw the curtain aside to look out. His broad back was toward her and unexpectedly, she
remembered how warm and sensuous it had felt under the palms of her hands.
“Aren’t you going to tell me to call it off again?” she asked, testing him, feeling a flick of danger
run through her that was madly exciting.
He stared at her across the room for a long moment before he answered. “At least I won’t have
to worry about you sneaking off to go to that convention with him while he’s under my roof,” he
remarked carelessly. “And he’d have his work cut out to seduce you, from what I’ve seen tonight.”
Her eyes flashed at him. “That’s what You think!” she shot back.
He only laughed, softly, sensuously. “Before you flounce off, hugging your boundless attractions
to your bare bosom, you might remember that I wasn’t trying to seduce you. You ought t know by now
that my taste doesn’t run to over sexed adolescents. Not that you fall in that clasification,” he added
with a mocking smile. “You’re green for a young woman just shy of her twenty-first birthday.”
That hurt, even more than the devastating taste of him as a lover. “Larry doesn’t think so,” she
told him.
He lifted the cigarette to his hard mouth, his eyes laughing at her. “If I had his limited
experience, I might agree with him.”
That nudged a suspicion in the back of her mind. “What do you know about his experience?” she
asked.
He studied her for a long, static silence. “Did you really think I’d let you go to Crete with him
and that harebrained sister of his without checking them out thoroughly?”
Her face flamed. “You don’t trust me, do you?”
“On the contrary, I trust you implicitly. But I don’t trust men,” he said arrogantly.
“You don’t own me,” she cried, infuriated by his calm sureness.
the night worrying about it.
“Oh, go to bed before you set fire to my temper again,” he growled at her.
“Gladly,” she returned. She went out the door without even a good night, and then lay awake half
Her dreams were full of Blake that night. And when she woke to the rumble of thunder and the
sound of raindrops, she had a vivid picture of lying in his big arms while his mouth burned on her
bare skin. It was embarrassing enough to make her late for breakfast. She didn’t think she could have
looked at Blake without giving herself away.
But her worries were groundless. Blake had already left to go to the office when Kathryn came
downstairs to find Vivian sitting by herself at the breakfast table.
“Good morning,” Vivian said politely. Her delicate blond features were enhanced by her
buttercup yellow blouse and skirt. She looked slim and ultra-chic. She eyed Kathryn’s jeans and roll-
neck white sweater with disgust. “You don’t believe in fashion, do you?” she asked.
“In my own home, no,” she replied, reaching for cream to add to her steaming cup of coffee as
Mrs. Johnson hustled back and forth between the kitchen, adding to the already formidable breakfast
dishes.
Vivian watched her add two teaspoons of sugar to her coffee. “Don’t count calories either, do
you?” She laughed.
“I don’t need to,” Kathryn said quietly, refusing to display her irritation. Where in the world
were Maude and Phillip and Dick Leeds?
Vivian watched her raise the cup to her mouth, and her hawk eyes lit on the slightly raw lower
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