Queen of Hearts Page 4

  "My brother would have a more conventional approach," Adam nodded agreeably. "Which is why I mentioned your lack of a ring..."

  "I told you...!"

  "Yes, I know. He couldn't afford one. But I don't see why not. I'm still sending him an allowance and he had a hefty scholarship which covered most of his work on the master's." Adam munched his salad speculatively.

  If you only knew, Janna thought with returning humor. The bulk of the allowance had gone into the bank, forming a nest egg for Lucy and Nat. There had, indeed, been enough to buy a ring which looked quite lovely on Lucy's delicate hand!

  "I trust," Adam suddenly announced as if the thought had just then occurred to him, "That you're not expecting Nat's allowance to continue after he'd married? I believe a man should learn to make his own way in life and I don't think Nat would expect any help after graduation. Or want it."

  "I quite agree. Nat will find a job and until he does, we'll get by without your help. We've got it all planned," she added sweetly.

  "Even though there's been no formal announcement?" he asked sardonically.

  Janna nodded. "Why not? We both know what we want."

  "I find that debatable," Adam retorted rudely.

  "Look. Why don't we get off the subject of Nat and myself for a while," Janna suggested ruefully. "It's clear we're not going to find any common ground and we have a long meal to get through before we can leave."

  Adam appeared to consider the idea. "What shall we discuss?"

  "I don't know!" Janna flung out one hand in a small, helpless gesture. "Anything that doesn't deal with my relationship to Nat! I would like to enjoy the rest of my meal!"

  "But your relationship to my brother is the reason I'm having dinner with you in the first place," he pointed out logically, a hint of amusement in the faint quirk of his mouth.

  "And you've made your feelings on the subject very clear," she avowed quite firmly, "So let's go on to another topic!"

  "Such as?"

  "Lord! I don't know! Anything! Your work, science fiction, my work, whatever two normal, civilized people talk about at dinner!"

  "Alright. I'm not an unreasonable man," he informed her, "I'll compromise."

  "How?" Janna demanded warily.

  "I'll agree to keep the conversation off the subject of your association with my brother if you will dance with me for a while after dinner."

  "Dance with you!" Janna exclaimed, floored by the request. Except, of course, that it wasn't really a request. Adam was offering a deal. Why?

  "The sign out front said there would be a band in the lounge after eight-thirty," Adam explained. "We should be finishing dinner about then. Promise me two dances and I'll let you eat in peace." The grey-green eyes gleamed in amusement as he watched her struggle with the decision.

  "Two dances and no more," she finally agreed, frowning severely at him. Surely two dances was a small price to pay in order to keep this creature off the subject of Nat and herself, Janna rationalized privately. The more he insisted on talking about the matter the more likely she was to make a bad mistake and reveal the truth. Yes, two dances was a reasonable exchange for safety.

  "The field is now wide open," Adam grinned engagingly as the waiter arrived to fill their wine glasses. "How shall we begin our civilized discussion? I have it. Tell me how you made the batik wall hangings."

  "That batiks?" Janna glanced at him in surprise. "They interest you?"

  "Why not? I confess to a certain fascination with how things are created," Adam told her, one broad shoulder lifting in a slight shrug as he reached for a dinner roll.

  "Because of your work in construction?"

  "I suppose so. I enjoy learning about the processes behind a piece of construction. Any kind of construction. So tell me how batiks are made. Wax is used somewhere alone the line, isn't it?"

  "Well, yes, it is," Janna began slowly and then, becoming more involved with her subject, she launched into a discussion on the Indonesian method of handprinting textiles.

  "Where do you get the ideas for your designs?" Adam prompted when she began to wind down.

  Janna chuckled, thinking of the unicorns, dragons and strange fish which filled her walls. "I have a weakness for fantasy creatures. I imagine you must have noticed!"

  "I expect it comes from reading too much science fiction," Adam smiled kindly. And with that comment the conversation flowed naturally into what turned out to be an area of mutual interest.

  The good food and wine, combined with relief that she no longer had to watch her tongue for fear of saying something suspicious, put Janna into an almost mellow frame of mind by the time dinner ended. She rose obediently after Adam had settled the check and prepared to allow herself to be guided into the adjacent lounge. The prospect of paying for her peaceful meal was almost appealing now. It was only as she was walking toward the exit that she remembered Scott's entrance earlier. She had meant to try and see if she recognized his date for the evening. Very casually Janna turned her head slightly to glance in the direction of Scott's table. He was sitting with his back to her so there was no chance to catch his eye and smile in an easy, friendly fashion. As for his date, Janna had only a brief glimpse of cascading coppery curls before her perusal was interrupted by Adam's large hand tightening on her arm. His words dropped warningly in her ear, the steel in them very evident.

  "If I catch you looking in the Bearded Delight's direction one more time you'll find the heel of my shoe on your toe," he promised softly. "And since I outweigh you by a considerable margin, I can guarantee you won't have to fake a limp afterward!"

  "Bearded Delight!" Janna gasped, infuriated by this description of one of the most eligible members of the faculty she was likely to encounter. "How can you be so insulting? You don't even know Scott!" Nevertheless, in spite of her indignation, Janna didn't glance again in the assistant professor's direction. Adam Halleck was ruthless enough to carry out his threat. The man was a barbarian! How could she have been lulled into thinking otherwise during dinner?

  "I don't plan to get to know Scott, either," Adam remarked calmly. "I trust you won't force the issue!"

  "What are you talking about?" Janna hissed as they crossed the threshold into the lounge where a small band was producing soothing, danceable sounds for a cozy group of tables.

  "Never mind." Adam commandeered a nearby table.

  "We'll worry about it when the time comes. But right now I'm more interested in collecting my dances." He pushed a still fuming Janna gently into the chair, signaled the waitress and ordered two after-dinner drinks.

  "You must have a great deal of trouble maintaining good relations with the women in your life," Janna gritted. "How many of your dates are willing to tolerate your barbaric habits?"

  "It's amazing how enough money will make most women ignore a lack of education and refinement," Adam smiled suddenly, not appearing to be the least bitter at the thought.

  "Nothing would make me overlook such things," she informed him coldly, goaded into saying the harsh words and regretting them as soon as they were out of her mouth. She hadn't meant to sound cruel, but this man infuriated her!

  "Nothing? I think you underestimate yourself, Janna. Now come and dance with me." Adam was on his feet, pulling her up to stand beside him before she could demure. A moment later she was in his arms and experiencing the rare pleasure of feeling like a bit of thistledown on the dance floor. Adam moved them about with an easy masculine grace, making Janna feel as if she was weightless. It was so nice to dance with a man who could make her feel fragile and feminine, she thought fleetingly. It was simply too bad he was also rude, calculating and domineering.

  "Very wise, for once," Adam whispered with a small, husky chuckle a few moments later as they drifted by another couple. Somehow, as the music progressed Janna had felt herself being drawn closer and closer until now, when she turned slightly to look up into his face, she realized she was being held much too firmly against the broad chest.

  "W
ho's very wise?" she inquired, attempting to put a tiny amount of distance between them and failing completely.

  "You are. You haven't said a word since we began the dance." He smiled down at her. "Now stop trying to pull away and relax again. I like you best when you're in my arms and not arguing!"

  "You are the most annoying man I have ever met! Can't you at least make some effort to be polite?" Janna snapped, brows drawing together in a furious little scowl.

  "Not with you," he said, the smile broadening into a grin. "Hush, now. We've got one more dance to get through before I take you home." And with that Adam hauled Janna so tightly against him she could barely breath, let alone argue. To struggle would have caused a scene, which was the very last thing she wanted. And there was no doubt that Adam would have casually enforced his will with no regard at all for what others on the dance floor, let alone Janna might think. Feeling rather like a martyr, the pleasure gone from the dance, she tolerated his tight clasp through the second musical number.

  "I don't suppose you might like to stay a while longer?" Adam murmured softly as they finished their drinks and Janna made a show of picking up her purse and preparing for departure.

  "No, thank you!" She rose with dignity, head high, and started toward the door, leaving Adam to follow.

  "Does it occur to you, Janna," he inquired on an almost wistful note which startled her, "that you are every bit as rude to me as you accuse me of being to you?"

  "You started it!" she insisted as they left the restaurant for the parking lot. "How would you feel if you were Nat and your brother treated me as you do?" she demanded, climbing into the front seat of the Continental as he held the door. "Constantly trying to break up the relationship?"

  "I can't even imagine such a thing happening," he told her bluntly, leaning momentarily on the door frame. "In the first place I would never have thrown us together like this until I had made you mine in every sense of the word. So much mine that you wouldn't be able to contemplate dancing with another man as intimately as you just danced with me, let alone cast predatory looks at other men in a restaurant!"

  "I didn't...I never...!" Janna's furious defense was cut off abruptly as Adam closed the door. By the time he had circled the car and climbed in the other side she had decided not to talk to him at all, let alone defend herself. Who did he think he was to act as if the tension which existed between them was all her fault? He certainly had no right to make hateful remarks just because she had seen an acquaintance in the restaurant, either! Revenge was going to be sweet, she told herself, thinking of Nat's still-secret wedding plans. When Adam found out he had been tricked...!

  Janna spent the entire trip back to her apartment imagining the satisfaction she would feel when Adam Halleck learned he had been harrassing the wrong woman while the man in question drove in thoughtful silence, making no attempt to reopen the conversation. As he pulled the car alongside the curb in a casually expert manner, Janna reached for the door handle, only to hear a sharp click as Adam locked it with a switch on his side of the car.

  "I told you I didn't warn you proving your independence to me by bolting out of my car, remember?" he said evenly, turning in the seat and allowing one arm to stretch along the back of the upholstery.

  The front seat of the large, luxurious vehicle suddenly seemed very small. Janna instinctively pulled herself back into her corner, but it didn't do much good. Adam still appeared to fill the entire interior, leaving no room for escape. She mustn't let him see he was frightening her, Janna told herself, lifting her chin and glaring at him with every ounce of willpower at her command.

  "Well?" she demanded, "I'm waiting for you to do the gentlemanly thing, since you insist!" She watched him haughtily, not liking the steel gleam in Adam's eyes. A gleam just barely visible in the light of a streetlight. In the darkened car, he seemed very large, very menacing, janna had the fleeting thought that this was the first time in her life when she had felt physically intimidated by a man. Her own size and strength of will had acted as all the deterrent she had needed until now. What was he going to do? Kiss her? Not the woman who was supposed to be his own brother's girlfriend!

  "I think," Adam began softly, the velvet thick in his voice, "That you owe me a proper thank you for the evening." Before Janna realized what he intended, her left arm was trapped against the sear by the weight of his body as he drew her toward him in a swift maneuver. She lifted her right hand, the fingers curling involuntarily into a small fist, only to have him catch it in his much stronger, callous-roughened fingers. He folded it against his chest as if in a loving gesture, ignoring her frantic efforts to wriggle free. The knowledge that she was being easily overpowered sent a shiver of genuine fear down janna's spine and her blue-green eyes widened with it as she gazed helplessly up at her captor.

  "How could you do this behind your brother's back! He trusts you!" she snarled, using the only weapons she had left "Even if you think nothing of me, you must have some sense of shame about assaulting Nat's future wife!"

  "If you were, indeed, going to marry him, I probably would be able to scrape up some tattered bits of a conscience," Adam whispered huskily, lowering his head until his mouth hovered just above hers.

  "What do you mean? Of course I'm going to marry Nat!" Janna used the lie as a shield and wished desperately it wasn't such a flimsy barrier.

  "I told you earlier this evening I would do anything I had to in order to keep that from happening." The grey-green eyes roved her face with what Janna would have sworn was a look of almost raw male hunger. But that couldn't be right! He wasn't interested in her personally, she reminded herself, only in keeping her away from Nat!

  "Does that mean you would stoop to...to..." she choked, unable to speak the words.

  "Stoop to seducing you?" he concluded for her, tightening his grip until Janna could hardly breathe. "Why, yes, my feisty little queen. When I want something badly enough, I let nothing get in my way. Didn't you realize that?" He swooped to take her lips, but Janna managed to turn her face into the expensive material covering his shoulder.

  "Don't fight me, Janna." The steel was showing through the velvet now, Janna thought grimly, refusing to lift her head for his kiss. "You'll only get hurt," he warned her and then his mouth, nuzzling the side of her neck moved upward. Janna felt her vulnerable earlobe caught between sharp teeth and an instant later the painful nip Adam administered made her jerk her head away in an involuntary gesture. Before she could recover, his hard, bruising mouth had trapped hers.

  The kiss was a fiercely plundering action, asking no response, but forcing compliance. Janna trembled beneath its impact, feeling as if her whole world was filled with Adam's physical and mental power.

  "Adam! Please!" she gasped as his lips freed hers to seek out the soft areas of her throat. She hated the pleading in her words but knew she had no other defenses left.

  "You have to learn," he growled softly against her skin.

  "Learn?" Janna squeaked, trying and failing in her struggle to remove her arm from between Adam's rib cage and the back of the seat. "Learn what?"

  "Whose woman you really are!"

  The harsh, almost violently spoken words were ground out against the corner of her mouth, freezing Janna with their intensity, and then Adam's lips once again took hers.

  When he finally lifted his dark head to gaze grimly down at her bruised and swollen mouth, Janna felt as if she had been branded. But it made no sense, her swirling mind protected. Adam didn't want her. He merely wanted to keep her away from his brother! How, then, could he kiss her as if she belonged not to Nat, but to himself? And why, now that she felt his hold loosen, couldn't she pull away from him? Every muscle in her body felt limp, she thought with horror, as if the physical side of her welcomed Adam's ravaging ways and had no wish to fight him. But Janna was not a weak-willed female who would tolerate the abuse and humiliation of such treatment without retaliation. Her mind knew she had been assaulted, even if her body refused to acknowledge it
. With every ounce of will left to her, she swung her hand in a short, furious arc. The echo of the slap told her how hard she had struck Adam but it had been like hitting rock. Her palm stinging, she cradled it gently in her other hand, watching the harsh features for some sign of a reaction. That had been a stupid move, her brain announced chidingly. The man was quite capable of hitting her back. She should know by now he was no gentleman. But there was no place to run. The door was still locked and Adam's powerful body blocked the only exit,

  For an unbearably long moment Adam simply watched her, the narrowed eyes giving no indication of his feelings. Janna waited tensely, knowing she was quite helpless if he chose to punish her. He could silence her immediately if she even attempted to scream.

  "I hope," he finally said slowly, lips quirking in slight, mocking humor, "that you enjoyed that. It's the only free slap you'll ever get with me. The next one you pay for!"

  "Since I won't ever go out with you again, it's highly unlikely I will ever feel the need to do it!" she retorted, her spirits returning as she realized he wasn't going to hurt her.

  "Don't make rash promises that you won't be able to keep," he cautioned, the smile broadening. "I've decided to postpone my return to San Jose until Wednesday morning. I'll be here tomorrow night, Janna, and I want to see you."

  "With such romantic ways about you, I don't know how I can bring myself to turn you down!" Janna quipped furiously. "But I am doing just that!"

  "Even if I promise to deal with my brother for you?"

  "What do you mean by that?" Confused, Janna eyed him suspiciously.