The Chilling Deception Read Free Page B

purse. “That’ll take care of my bill with enough left over for a tip. I’ll have to trust you not to pocket the tip, of course, but I guess I don’t have any choice.” She reached for her coat.
    “Jesus Christ, Gwen, what do you think you’re doing?”
    “Walking out before you can insult me any further.” She smiled very brittlely. “I’m going back to the office—the man I work for happens to be a gentleman. Gentlemen are so rare these days.”
    “Damn it, Gwen, I wasn’t insulting you. I was just trying to make a point. Now sit down and stop acting like a child. This is ridiculous . . .”
    But Zac was talking to empty space. Guinevere had her coat on and was on her way out of the restaurant. In stunned amazement, he watched the scarlet coat flash through the door. Out on the street she turned in the direction of Vandyke’s office building and vanished into the crowd. The problem with the new style in women’s footwear, Zac decided, was that it allowed the wearers to move a great deal faster than they could in high heels.
    Slowly Zac pulled his attention back to his half eaten spicy noodles. “Damn temperamental female.”
    “Excuse me, sir. More coffee?” the waitress asked with a politely inquiring smile.
    “No thanks.”
    “Will the lady be returning?”
    “She had to leave,” Zac mumbled, searching for a convenient excuse. It was humiliating to have a woman walk out on you in a public restaurant, he discovered, chagrined. “Business appointment.”
    “Of course. I’ll clear her plate.”
    “Fine.” It would be tacky to tell her to leave Gwen’s plate of noodles so he could finish them, Zac decided morosely. Just one more irritation to chalk up to Guinevere Jones, he thought as he watched the excellent noodles disappear toward the kitchen. Not only did Jones abandon him in the restaurant, he couldn’t even find a polite way to finish off the food she’d left behind. The lady was getting to him. Zac grudgingly acknowledged to himself that he wasn’t accustomed to this level of uncertainty around a woman.
    It seemed to him that he’d been alternately irritated, possessive, uncertain, and exhilarated since he’d first encountered Guinevere Jones a few weeks ago. The first time he’d gone to bed with her, he’d been aware of a feeling of rightness that he couldn’t begin to explain in words. So he hadn’t tried. Their relationship was at a very tentative stage. It could not yet be characterized as an affair, although Zac knew he would be irrationally enraged if he found out she was seeing another man. But surely they had more than a casual dating arrangement. At least, it felt like more than that to him. He’d like to get to the point where he could say he was having an affair with Guinevere Jones, Zac thought. The words sounded good to him. They had a nice, settled,
definite
quality. But as yet he hadn’t dared say them aloud in Guinevere’s presence.
    Words in general seemed to be a real problem around Guinevere. Bleakly Zac finished his noodles and sat cradling his coffee cup in his large hands. Had he insulted her? He hadn’t meant to. She must know that. He’d only been trying to point out that weekend jaunts with bosses might be frowned on in some circles—severely frowned on by one Zachariah Justis, as a matter of fact. Damn it, he’d only been giving her some good advice. She certainly spent enough energy giving him advice!
    Of course, he reminded himself, perhaps she’d only been attempting to do him a favor. She’d tried to throw a little business his way. He’d been too busy jumping on her for scheduling that weekend trip with Vandyke to pay much attention to the baby-sitting job she’d suggested. Zac stared into his coffee cup and thought about her proposal. Normally the project would not have interested him in the slightest. He had no intention of hiring himself out to ride shotgun for executives who saw industrial spies behind every water cooler. He had