She looked at him helplessly. „And changed the sheets on the bed, too, I expect?“

He stared at her for a second and then grinned that engaging, slightly feral grin which was so unbelievably attractive on him. „How did you guess?“

„I have this strange feeling you’ve got the routine down pat!“

„No,“ he denied at once, sobering. „This time it’s special. There’s nothing routine about it Please, Kalinda. Have dinner with me tonight“

„So you can spend the evening trying to talk me out of my plans?“ she sighed.

„Yes.“

„No thanks!“

„I swear I won’t drag you off to bed.“ There was a meaningful pause. „Unless, of course, you decide that’s where you belong, after all. Just promise to have dinner with me. I swear I won’t muscle you into the bedroom.“

„We’ll only spend the time arguing over what I’m going to do tomorrow night,“ she protested, knowing she was weakening before the persuasiveness in him.

„Have you got anything better to do than argue with me?“ he murmured, his fingers on her nape moving lightly, seductively. „Think of it as an opportunity to convince me you know what you’re doing!“

„How can I refuse such a charming invitation!“ she muttered dryly, wretchedly aware that spending the evening with him was exactly what she wanted to do, regardless of the complications involved.

„You high-powered female executives are all alike,“ he taunted on a soft rumble of laughter as he bent to brush his lips against hers. „Can’t resist a challenge!“

4

Rand was a man of his word, Kalinda decided much later that night as she grimly closed her motel room door and went to the window to watch the Lotus disappear into the night Never had she spent an evening like the one he had just put her through!

She turned away from the window, letting the drape fall into place and morosely surveyed her room. It had been one line of reasoning after another, one argument after another, one persuasive attack on her logic after another. She felt utterly exhausted, she thought with a rueful grimace.

He had amazed her with his strategy, leaping nimbly from one point to the next in his efforts to convince her she was making a mistake in trying for revenge on David Hutton.

And, in spite of his hints to the contrary, Rand had not resorted again to seduction. Kalinda shook her head wryly. Instead, he had fed her well, spent several hours intently „discussing“ the matter at hand, and then he’d left her on her doorstep with the most singly devastating comment of the evening.

„Ask yourself,“ he’d ordered softly as he’d opened her door for her, „why you’re even bothering to listen to me in the first place. Face it, Kalinda, you want to be talked out of this fiasco. That’s the reason you told me the truth this afternoon, isn’t it? So that I could have a chance to play devil’s advocate?“

He hadn’t waited for her crushing retort Instead, he’d vaulted easily down the steps, slid into the Lotus and disappeared. Leaving Kalinda behind to face a serious attack of self-honesty.

The depressing part about the evening, she thought as she slipped into the satin and lace nightgown and climbed into bed, was that all of his arguments were reasonable. It was a foolish and potentially dangerous scheme she had concocted. But even Rand hadn’t hit on the one factor which was really troubling her about her own plans.

It was a factor which Kalinda had kept pushing into the background but which had become stronger than ever as Rand’s arguments had weakened the rest of her logic. That factor was David Hutton’s wife.

As Friday night approached, the unknown wife loomed larger and larger in Kalinda’s mind. It was one of the reasons she’d arrived early at the rendezvous point She’d wanted time to think about what she was doing. Time away from the pressures of work, from planning the party scheduled for the following week to entertain business associates, time away from her current and casual escorts of the moment.

She’d retreated to the mountains to convince herself she was doing the justifiable thing and here she’d met a man who probably should have been a prosecuting attorney instead of a part-time arts and crafts dealer!

Kalinda had never met Arleen Hutton but she knew a certain amount about her. At the time David had broken off the engagement there had been no lack of „friends“ to tell Kalinda who’d taken her place.

Arleen was the daughter of a wealthy Colorado rancher. She’d brought money to the marriage, according to Kalinda’s acquaintances, and she was reputed to be a very beautiful woman. She was also a few years younger than Kalinda.

It had been easy not to think about her, especially since Kalinda had no intention of actually trying to steal her husband away. But more and more frequently during the past week an insistent image had come to mind. The image of an innocent wife discovering her husband was meeting a woman at a remote mountain retreat.

Kalinda, blessed with an empathy she could have done well without in the business world, couldn’t help wondering how she’d feel if she were that wife. And now Rand had systematically demolished all the reasons for revenge, leaving only the face of the unknown wife to haunt Kalinda’s conscience.

Damn the man! She turned furiously over in bed, pounding the pillow with a disgusted fist. His talents truly had been wasted in life! With that sort of single-minded strength of purpose, he could have done just about anything he wanted in the world! But, she supposed thoughtfully, perhaps that’s exactly what he had done. Perhaps he was quite content to fish and ski and make lovely pieces of pottery. And date rich tourists!

She lay staring at the ceiling for a long time after that, trying to recall the hurt and humiliation she’d felt two years ago. A hurt and humiliation that had come in the wake of the tragedy of her father’s death and had, therefore, been all the more devastating. Kalinda’s parents had been divorced several years previously and her mother had moved to Europe with her new husband the year Kalinda had gone off to college. Kalinda had faced both the tragedy and the humiliation quite alone.

But it was difficult tonight to resurrect those old feelings. The habit of wanting revenge was still there in her mind, but the emotions driving those feelings were gone. If she were completely honest with herself, Kalinda thought wonderingly, she’d realize they had been missing for some time. Two years of hard work and success had killed them rather effectively.

It had been only the habit that had made her jump at the opportunity of paying back David Hutton. Now, a combination of her conscience and the relentless arguments of a man she had only known for two days seemed to have succeeded in killing even the habit of wanting revenge. Kalinda thought once again of the unknown wife and of her own stupidity in wanting revenge on a man who wasn’t worth the time of day.

She made up her mind about what to do in the morning and went very soundly to sleep.

She dialed the private line number of David Hut-ton’s office promptly at eight o’clock the next morning. He was there, just as she had expected him to be. Whatever else could be said of the man, he was a hard worker. It was one of the things she had admired about him in the beginning…

„David, this is Kalinda…“ she began firmly, coolly.

„Getting impatient, darling?“ he chuckled knowingly. „It won’t be much longer now. I’m taking off around twelve. I’ll be in the mountains by the middle of the afternoon. Enjoying yourself? Your office said you’d taken off a couple of extra days.“

„I left that message in case you tried to get in touch with me,“ she affirmed. „But, David…“

„I can’t wait to see you again, Kali. God, it’s been a long time! I keep wondering what happened to us two years ago. We had so much going for us,“ he murmured deeply into the phone.