hen Claire woke the next morning she felt rested for the first time in weeks, and she lay in drowsy relaxation, waiting for the alarm to go off. The minutes ticked by without the alarm, and finally she opened a curious eye to check the time. The first thing she noticed was that the room was very light for so early in the morning, and the second thing she noticed was that it was almost nine-thirty. "Oh, no!" She hated being late to anything, even by a few minutes, and she was more than a few minutes late. She should have been at work an hour-and-a-half ago!

She scrambled out of bed, still a little disoriented from sleeping so long, and stared down at herself in confusion. Why was she wearing a blouse and slip instead of a nightgown? Then memory flooded back, and her face heated. Max! She'd gone to sleep on the couch; Max must have put her to bed. At least he hadn't stripped her; she couldn't have borne that. It was bad enough that he'd handled her so easily while she'd been asleep, undressing her and putting her to bed as if he had every right to be so familiar with her. She would have preferred that he let her sleep on the couch.

But that explained why she had slept so late; he hadn't set her alarm. She looked at the clock then noticed the note beside it. She didn't even have to pick it up to read it; the handwriting was a series of bold slashes written with a strong hand. Don't worry about being late. You need the rest. I'll handle it with Bronson—Max.

She grabbed the note and crumpled it with a despairing cry. That was just what she needed, for him to "handle" it with Sam! What would he say? That he'd left her in bed, and she was so tired that he was going to let her sleep late? Sam would have to pull one of the other secretaries in to handle the office, and the reason why she was late would spread through the office like wildfire.

Her stomach rumbled, and she realized that she was both very hungry and very grungy from having slept in her clothes and makeup. She was already so late that she would gain nothing by hurrying to work. She decided to take her time; after a long shower, a shampoo and a leisurely breakfast, she would feel better. She wouldn't go to work looking thrown-together; she would be professional if it killed her.

It was almost noon when she walked into the office, but her stomach was pleasantly full, her hair washed and pulled back into an attractive chignon, and she wore her favorite dress, a navy-blue blouson with white piping. Her efforts to bolster her spirits had worked, or perhaps it was the extra sleep she'd had; for whatever reason, she felt almost calm. There was indeed another secretary at her desk, a young woman who had been with the company only a few months, and whose eyes widened with surprise when she saw Claire. "Miss Westbrook! Are you feeling better? Mr. Bronson said you fainted last night and wouldn't be working today."

Bless Sam for covering for her! Claire said calmly, "I'm feeling much better, thank you. I was very tired, nothing else."

She relieved the young woman and sent her back to her own job; when she sat down at her desk, Claire felt more normal, as if things were settling back into their rightful place. Then the door to Sam's office opened, and someone stood there watching her. It wasn't Sam; she had never felt that tingle of awareness sweep over her from Sam's gaze. Without looking at Max, she gathered her notes on the documents that needed typing.

"Leave those," he ordered, coming to stand behind her. "I'm taking you to lunch."

"Thank you, but I'm not hungry. I've just had breakfast."

"Then you can watch me eat."

"Thank you, no," she repeated. "I have a lot to do—"

"This isn't personal," he interrupted. "It concerns your job."

Her hands stilled. Of course. Why hadn't she thought of that? Sam would no longer need a secretary, so she would no longer have a job. The guarantees that applied to the others could hardly be expected to apply to her. She raised shocked eyes to Max, trying to cope with the idea of being so abruptly unemployed. There were other jobs, of course. Houston was a boomtown, and she would find other work, but would she enjoy it so much and would it pay so well? Though her apartment wasn't an expensive one like Max's, it was nice and in a good section of town; if she had to take a large cut in pay, she wouldn't be able to afford it. For a terrible moment she saw herself losing not only her job but her home.

Max reached down and pulled her to her feet. His eyes were gleaming with the success he'd had in putting his plan into motion. "We'll go to Riley's; it isn't quite noon, so we should get a good table away from the crowd."

Claire was silent as they left the building and crossed the street. It was a hot spring, with the daytime temperatures already climbing into the low nineties, and though the sky was a deep, clear blue now, the forecast was for more thunderstorms in the afternoon. Even on the short walk to Riley's her navy-blue dress began to feel too warm. Worry ate at her. How much notice would she be given? Two weeks? A month? How long it would take to move Sam completely into research?

They just beat the lunch crowd at Riley's and got one of the secluded booths in the back. Claire ordered a glass of iced tea, earning a hard look from Max. "You might eat a little something; you've lost weight, and you had precious little to spare.''

"I'm not hungry."

"So you said. The point is, you should eat even though you aren't hungry to gain back the weight you've lost."

Why did he keep harping about her weight? She had lost only a pound or two, and she had always bordered on thinness, anyway. She had other things to worry about. "Are you firing me?" she asked, keeping her expression blank.

His eyebrows lifted. "Why should I fire you?"

"I can think of several reasons. The most immediate is that my job is being phased out, since Sam won't need a secretary in research, and whoever takes over as CEO will probably bring his own." She met his gaze squarely, her dark eyes fathomless and a little strained, despite her efforts to keep all expression from them. "There's also the fact that this would be a good opportunity to get rid of a bad security risk.''

Swift anger darkened his eyes. "You're not a bad security risk."

"I leaked confidential information. I trusted the wrong person, so I'm obviously a terrible judge of character."

"Damn it, I—" He interrupted himself, glaring at her from narrowed, brilliant eyes. "You aren't being fired," he finally continued in a clipped voice. "You're being transferred to Dallas, to Spencer-Nyle headquarters."

Stunned anew, she opened her mouth to say something then closed it when nothing came to mind. Transferred! "I can't go to Dallas!"

"Of course you can. It would be foolish of you to refuse this opportunity. You won't be executive secretary to the CEO, of course, but there will be a substantial increase in salary. Spencer-Nyle is much larger than Bronson Alloys and pays its employees well."

Panic edged into her eyes, her voice. "I won't work for you."

"You wouldn't be working for me," he snapped. "You'll be working for Spencer-Nyle."

"In what capacity? Shoved into a closet sorting paper clips, so I can never get my hands on any valuable information?"

He leaned over the table, rage turning his eyes dark green. "If you say another word about being a security risk, I'll take you over my knee wherever we happen to be, even if it's the middle of the street—or in a restaurant."

Claire sank back, warned by the look and the barely controlled ferocity in his face. How had she made the colossal mistake of thinking him civilized? He had the temperament of a rampaging savage.

"Now, if you're through with the sarcastic remarks, I'll give you your job description," he said icily.

"I haven't said I'll take the job."

"It would be foolish of you to turn it down. As you pointed out, your job at Bronson Alloys will no longer be there in a short while." He named a figure that was half again as much as she was currently making. "Can you afford to turn down that much money?''

"There are other jobs in Houston. My entire family is here. If I moved to Dallas, I'd have no one."

His jaw tightened, and his eyes went even darker. "You could visit on weekends," he said.

Claire sipped at her tea, not looking at him. It would be foolish to turn down that much money, even though it meant moving to Dallas, but her instinct was to turn it down, anyway. If she relocated to Spencer-Nylie's headquarters she would be in Max's territory, seeing him every day, and he would have authority over her. It wasn't a decision she could make immediately, even though logic said she should jump at it.

"I'll have to think about it," she said with the quiet stubbornness that her family had learned to recognize.

"Very well. You have until Monday."

"That's just three days, counting today!"

"If you decide not to take the job, another person will have to be found," he pointed out. "Your decision can't be very complicated; you have to relocate or join the unemployment lists. Until Monday."

She saw no sign of relenting in his eyes, even though three days seemed like no time at all to her. Claire didn't hurry toward change; she liked to do things gradually, becoming used to changes by slow increments. She had lived all of her life in or near Houston, and to move to another city was like asking her to change her entire life. Things were difficult enough now without being lost in a totally new environment.

Max's prime rib was served, and he devoted himself to it for a few minutes while Claire nursed her tea and turned the idea of moving over and over in her mind. At last she pushed it away; she couldn't decide now, and she had other things she wanted to ask him.

"What did you tell Sam?"

He looked up. "Concerning what?"

"Last night. The fill-in secretary said that Sam told her I'd fainted and wouldn't be working today."

"Embellishment on his part. When he asked me this morning what the hell I was doing following and harassing you last night, I told him to mind his own bloody damn business and that it was a good thing someone made certain you got home safely because you collapsed."

"I didn't collapse."

"Really? Do you remember when I undressed you?"

She looked away, her cheeks heating. "No."

"I didn't cheat; I don't take advantage of unconscious women. When I make love to you again, you'll damned well be awake."

She had noticed that the more irritated he was, the more crisp his accent became, and he was practically biting off his words now. "If I don't go to Dallas," she whispered, getting up from the booth, "it will be because of you, because I can't stand being near you." Then she walked off before he could say anything, fleeing back across the street to the relative safety of the office.

Max watched her go, his face stiff. He hadn't thought that she would reject the job offer, but now it seemed that she might, and he was afraid that if he lost track of her now he might lose her forever. Damn it, after all the strings he had pulled, she had to take the job!

Rome hadn't been pleased by the late phone call the night before. "Damn it, Max, this had better be good," he'd growled. "Jed is cutting teeth and raising hell about it, and we'd just gone to sleep after getting him settled."

"Kiss Sarah good-night for me," Max had said, amused by Rome's grouchiness.

Rome told him where he could go and how he could get there, and in the background Max had heard Sarah's laughter. "This is important," he'd finally said. "Is there a job opening in the office? Any job?"

They worked so well together that Rome hadn't wasted any time asking unimportant questions, like for whom, and why. They trusted each other's instincts and plans. Rome had been silent for a moment, his steel-trap brain running through the possibilities. "Delgado in finance is being transferred to Honolulu."

"Good God, what strings did he pull to get that?"

"He understands money."

"All right, who's taking his place?"

"We've been talking about bringing Quinn Payton in from Seattle."

Max had been silent in his turn. "Why not Jean Sloss in R and D? She has a degree in business finance, and she's done a damned good job. I think she's executive material."

By that time Rome had seen a pattern in all this moving around. "Who do you suggest to replace Jean Sloss? I agree that she deserves a promotion, but she's good enough that replacing her won't be easy.''

"Why not Kali? She'd love to work in R and D, and it would be a chance for her to eventually move into a managerial position. She knows the company."

"Damn it, she's my secretary!" Rome had roared. "Why don't you move your own secretary?"

Max had considered that, but didn't think Claire would take the job; on second thought, being Rome's secretary would be too close and make working difficult, too. "Forget Kali, then. Caulfield, the general office manager…what's his secretary's name? Her qualifications are good, and she's ambitious. Carolyn Watford, that's it."

"I'm taking all this down. We're not in the habit of playing musical offices. Who takes Carolyn Watford's place?"

"Claire Westbrook."

After a long pause of silence Rome had said, "I'll be damned," and Max had known he didn't have to make any further explanations.

"I'll see what I can do. It won't be easy, moving this many people around on such short notice. When can I let you know?"

"Sometime before lunch tomorrow," Max had said.

"Hell!" Rome had snorted, and hung up, but he had been on the phone before ten o'clock with the all-clear. Rome Matthews was a mover and a shaker; when he decided something would be done, it was better not to stand in his way, and Anson Edwards generally gave him a free hand.

Max hadn't considered that he would have more trouble convincing Claire to move than Rome had had in shaking up an entire office, but he should have known. He had made enough mistakes in dealing with her, mistakes that had come back to haunt him, that he should have been expecting it. If he could just get her to Dallas, he would have plenty of time to convince her that he wasn't a complete bastard after all. If it took time to rebuild her trust in him, he was willing to take that time. He had hurt her, and the knowledge was eating away at him. It had been true when Claire accused him of compartmentalizing his life. He hadn't allowed for the possibility that Claire would think he had used her solely for the purpose of getting that information. Now he couldn't get her to listen to him, and he had the cold feeling inside that even if she did, she wouldn't believe him. He had destroyed her trust in him, and only now was he realizing how rare and precious that trust was.

Claire did her usual Saturday morning chores, finding comfort in the routine while she tried to get her thoughts in order and make a logical decision. She scrubbed and waxed the kitchen floor, cleaned the bathroom from top to bottom, did her laundry, and even washed the windows, trying to burn up the anger that consumed her. With a shock she realized that she was not just angry, she was furious. She was usually calm; she couldn't even remember the last time she had been truly angry, so angry that she wanted to throw something and scream at the top of her lungs. Damn him, how dare he! After using her as callously as he had, now he actually expected her to uproot herself and change her entire life, agree to move to another city and in doing so throw herself into continuous contact with him. He had said she wouldn't be working for him, but she would be in the same building, in the same city, and he had made it plain that he didn't consider things over between them. How had he said it? "When I make love to you again, you'll be awake." Again. That was the key word.

His gall made her almost incoherent with anger, and she muttered to herself as she cleaned. It was odd, but she couldn't remember being angry when Jeff had left her for Helene; she had been tired and grief-worn over the baby, and bitterly accepting that Jeff should want someone else, but she hadn't been angry. Only Max had touched her deeply enough to find the core of passion inside her. He brought out all the emotions and feelings she had spent a lifetime controlling and protecting: love, fierce desire, even anger.

She still loved him; she didn't even try to fool herself on that score. She loved him, she burned for him, she wanted him, and the flip side of the coin was her deep anger. It was nature's decree that for every action there should be a balancing reaction, and that was also true of emotions. If she hadn't loved him so deeply, she would have been able to shrug away his betrayal and accept it as a lesson in trusting the wrong person. But because she loved him, she wanted to shake him until his teeth rattled. She wanted to scream at his arrogant assumption that she was his for the taking, and she wanted to show him just how wrong that assumption was.

She could tell him to keep his job, turn her back on him, and walk away; that would show him that he couldn't use her and expect her to fall back into his bed whenever he beckoned. That would show him that she was perfectly capable of living without him…or would it? Wouldn't it instead be admitting that he had hurt her so badly that she couldn't face seeing him every day? She had to admit that joining the unemployment line when she had the offer of a good job was a drastic, illogical move. He would know how much he had hurt her, and her pride demanded that she put up a good front. It was somehow essential to her self-esteem that she prevent him from knowing that his betrayal had hurt her so deeply that the wound was still bleeding.

But what other choice did she have? If she went to Dallas, she would be playing right into his hands, dancing to his tune like a marionette on a string.

Claire straightened from her dusting, her mouth set firmly and her eyes deeply thoughtful. What she had to do was not allow Max to be a factor in her decision at all; this was her job, her financial future, and she shouldn't allow anger to cloud her judgment. Even if she went to Dallas, she wouldn't have to dance to Max's tune; when it came down to it, she was a woman, not a marionette. The choice, and the decision, were hers.

Looking at it like that, from a logical point of view, she knew that she would take the job. Perhaps that would be the best way of putting up a good front. If she went on about her life as normal, it would seem as if Max hadn't made such a disastrous impact on her heart, and only she would know the truth.

Once the decision was made it was as if a weight had lifted. The difficult part would be telling her family, and Claire chose to tell Martine first. That afternoon she drove out to Martine's house in the suburbs, a ritzy location that accurately reflected Martine's and Steve's dual success. Martine's house wasn't cool and picture-perfect, though. It reflected Martine's warmth and outgoing personality, as well as her joy in her children. A tricycle was parked next to the first step, and a red ball lay under a manicured shrub, but most of the cheerful tangle of toys was in the fenced backyard that surrounded the pool. Because it was a warm, sunny Saturday, Claire directed her steps toward the back. As she rounded the corner of the house, the tapping of her heels on the flagstones warned Martine of someone's presence, and she lazily opened her eyes. Just as Claire had expected, her sister was stretched out on a deck chair, lazing in the sun in a diminutive white bikini that had to make Steve choke whenever he saw it. Even wearing no makeup and with her golden blond hair pulled back in a haphazard ponytail with an ordinary rubber band, Martine was gorgeous and sexy.

"Pull up a chair," she invited lazily. "I would hug you, but I'm slimy with suntan oil."

"Where are the children?" Claire asked, sinking onto a deck chair and propping her feet up. The sun did feel good, all hot and clean, and she turned her face up to it like a flower.

"Skating party. It's Brad's best friend's birthday. It's an all-day skating party," Martine said gleefully. "And Steve is playing golf with a client. This may be the only day I have alone again until both children are in college, so I'm making the most of it."

"Shall I go?" Claire asked teasingly.

"Don't you dare. With our schedules, we don't see enough of each other as it is."

Claire looked down, thinking of the decision she'd made that morning. She was only now beginning to realize how close-knit her family was, without living in each other's pockets; moving away from them was going to be a wrench. "What if you saw even less of me? What if I moved to Dallas?"

Martine shot upright in the deck chair, her blue eyes wide and shocked. "What? Why would you move to Dallas? What about your job?"

"I've been offered a job in Dallas. I won't have my job here much longer, anyway."

"Why not? I thought you and Sam got along like a house on fire."

"We do, but Sam—the company has been taken over by Spencer-Nyle, a conglomerate based in Dallas."

"I've been reading about the possibility in the papers, but I had hoped it wouldn't happen. So it's final, then? When did it happen, and what does that have to do with you, anyway? They certainly aren't going to get rid of Sam; he's the brains behind Bronson Alloys. Aren't you going to stay on as his secretary?"

"The final agreement was signed yesterday." Claire looked down at her hands, surprised to see that her fingers were laced tightly together. She made a conscious effort to relax. "Sam is going completely into research, so he won't need a secretary any longer."

"That's bad; I know how much you like him. But it's also good that you've already had a job offer. What company is it?"

"Spencer-Nyle."

Marine's eyes widened. "The corporate headquarters! I'm impressed, and you must have impressed someone else, too!"

"Not really." Claire took a deep breath. This wasn't getting any easier, so she decided to just get it said. "Max Benedict's real name is Maxwell Conroy, and he's a vice president with Spencer-Nyle."

For a full five seconds Martine merely stared at Claire with a stunned expression; then hot color flooded her cheeks and she surged to her feet, her fists clenched. She seldom swore, but it was due to choice, not lack of vocabulary. She used every bit of that vocabulary now, pacing up and down and damning Max with every invective she could think of, and inventing new combinations when she ran out of the ones she already knew. She didn't need to hear all the details to know that Claire had been hurt; Martine knew Claire well, and she was fiercely protective of her sister, as she was of everyone she loved.

When Martine showed signs of running down, Claire interrupted quietly. "It gets more complicated. I gave him confidential information that he needed for Spencer-Nyle to engineer the takeover; that was why he was down here, and that was why he was showing so much interest in me. I blurted it all out like an idiot."

"I'll tear his face off," Martine raged, beginning to pace up and down again like a caged tigress. Then she stopped, and a peculiar expression came over her face. ''But you're going to Dallas with him?''

"I'm going to Dallas for the job" Claire said firmly. "It's the only logical thing I can do. I'd have to be an even bigger idiot than I already am if I deliberately chose unemployment over a good job. Pride won't keep the bills paid."

"Yes, it is the logical thing to do," Martine echoed, and sat down. She still had that peculiar expression on her face, as if she were trying to think something through and it didn't quite tally up. Then a slow smile began to crinkle the corners of her eyes. "He's transferred you so you'll be with him, that's it, isn't it? The man is in love with you!"

"Not likely," Claire said, her throat going tight. "Lies and betrayal aren't very good indicators of love. I love him, but you already knew that, didn't you? I shouldn't love him, not now, but I can't turn it on and off like a faucet. Just don't ask me to believe that he ever saw anything in me except the means to an end."

"But when I think about it, he always watched you…oh, I can't describe it," Martine mused. "As if he were so hungry for you, as if he wanted to absorb you. It gave me the shivers, watching him watch you. The good shivers, if you know what I mean."

Claire shook her head. "That isn't likely, either. You've seen him," she said, feeling her body tense up again. "He's beautiful; it stops my breath to look at him! Why should he be interested in me, except for the information he needed?"

"Why shouldn't he? In my book he'd be a fool if he didn't love you."

"Then a lot of men have been fools," Claire pointed out wearily.

"Fiddlesticks. You haven't let them love you; you never let anyone get close enough to really know you, but Max is more intelligent than most men. Why wouldn't he love you?" Martine asked passionately.

It was hard for Claire to say, almost impossible. Her throat tightened. "Because I'm not beautiful, like you; that seems to be what men want."

"Of course you aren't beautiful like me! You're beautiful like yourself!" Martine came over to Claire and sat down on the deck chair with her, her lovely face unusually serious. "I'm flamboyant, but that isn't your style at all. Do you know what Steve once said to me? He said that he wished I were more like you, that I would think before I leaped. I punched him, of course, and asked what else he likes about you. He said that he likes your big dark eyes—he called them 'bedroom eyes'—and I was about ready to do more than punch him! Blue-eyed blondes like me are a dime a dozen, but how many brown-eyed blondes are there? I used to die with envy, because you only had to turn those dark eyes on a man and he was ready to melt at your feet, but you never seemed to know that, and eventually he gave up." Suddenly Martine caught her breath, her eyes widening. "Max didn't give up, did he?"

Claire was staring at her sister, unable to believe that beautiful Martine had ever found anything about her to be jealous of. Distracted, she said, "Max doesn't know those two words are ever used together." Then she realized what she had just admitted, and she flushed. She wasn't used to talking so frankly to anyone, even her sister, but she was learning some things about herself that she'd never suspected before. Was it true that she held people away from her, that she didn't let them get close enough to care? She hadn't looked at it from that angle before; she had thought that she was keeping a distance between herself and other people so she wouldn't care, without considering the person who was being held at arm's length.

"Max won't leave me alone; he insists that it isn't over. He was called back to Dallas," she explained steadily. "By the time he returned to Houston, I had already found out his real name and what he was doing here. He called, but I refused to go out with him again. So now I've been transferred to Dallas."

"To his own territory. Smart move," Martine commented.

"Yes. I know all that. I know how he reacts to challenges, and that's all I am to him. How many women do you suppose have ever refused him?"

Martine thought, then admitted ruefully, "You probably stand alone."

"Yes. But I have to have a job, so I'm going." Even as she said the words, Claire wondered if there had ever been anything else she could have done. "What would you do in my place?"

"I'd go," Martine admitted, and laughed. "We must be more alike than you think. I know I'd never let him think that he'd made me run!"

"Exactly." Claire's dark eyes turned almost black. "He makes me so angry I could spit!"

Martine raised a militant fist. "Give him hell, honey!" Seeing the anger in Claire's face made Martine want to dance around the yard. Too often Claire held her emotions in, hiding her vulnerabilities from the rest of the world. Even when she had lost her baby, Claire had been pale and quiet; only Max had ever jostled her out of her composure. Claire might not think that Max cared for her at all, but Martine had seen Max watching her sister, and thought Claire was seriously underestimating the strength of his attraction to her. There was no doubt that he loved a challenge; he had that sort of fire in his eyes, that self-confident arrogance. But Claire didn't realize that she was an ongoing challenge, with her silences and perceptions, and the depths of her personality. If Martine read him correctly, Max would be fascinated by the complexity of Claire's character. And, damn him, if he hurt Claire again, he'd have to answer to Martine for it!

Claire felt as if she had made a momentous decision, but she was calm, even though the thought of changing her life so completely was a wrenching one. She had lived in her quiet, cozy apartment for five years, and it hurt to think of leaving, yet she knew that she had made the only logical choice. It was just that she preferred changes to come slowly, so she could adjust to them, rather than in a confusing rush.

She sat in silence that night, looking around and trying to accustom herself to the idea of a new apartment, a different city. She wasn't in the mood for either television or music, and she was too disturbed to find refuge in a book. There were plans to be made, work to be done; she had to find another apartment, get the utilities turned on, pack… say goodbye to her family. Martine already knew, but Alma would be the difficult one. It wouldn't really be goodbye, but it would be the end of easy access to her family. The distance between them would be great enough that she couldn't just get in the car and drive over whenever the whim took her.

Her doorbell rang, and she answered it without thinking. Max filled the doorway, looking down at her with a peculiarly intense glitter in his eyes. Claire tightened her hand on the doorknob, not stepping back to allow him entrance. Why couldn't he leave her alone? She needed time by herself to get accustomed to the sweeping changes she was making in her life.

The glitter in his eyes intensified as he realized that she wasn't going to invite him inside. He put his hand on hers and gently but forcefully removed it from the doorknob, then stepped forward, crowding her back into the apartment. He shut the door behind him. "Are you sitting here brooding?" he asked shortly, glancing around the silent apartment.

Claire moved away from him, her face closed. "I've been thinking, yes."

Strong habits had been established in the short time they had been together; Claire went automatically to the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee, then turned to find him leaning in the doorway, still watching her in a way that made her want to check all her buttons to make certain they were fastened. She would have to brush past him to get to the living room, so she opted for retaining the relatively safe distance between them and remained where she was. "You might as well know," she said, throwing the words into the silence between them. "I've decided to take the job."

"Is that what you've been brooding about?"

"It's a major change," she replied coolly, using every ounce of self-control she possessed. "Didn't you have any doubts when you relocated from Montreal to Dallas?"

Curiosity sharpened his gaze even more. "Ah, yes, I've been meaning to ask you about that. Exactly how did you discover my last name?"

"I read a magazine article on Spencer-Nyle. It had a picture of you."

He strolled into the kitchen, and Claire turned away to get two mugs out of the cabinet. Before she could turn around again, he was behind her, his arms braced on the cabinet on either side of her, effectively trapping her. "I had intended to tell you that morning, when we woke up," he said, tending his head to take a little nip at her ear. Claire sucked in her breath and twisted her head away, both alarmed and angered by the way his slightest touch made her pulse race. He ignored her movement of rejection and nuzzled her ear again, continuing his explanation whether she wanted to hear it or not. "But that phone call interrupted everything, and by the time I got back to Houston, you'd already found out, damn my luck!"

"It doesn't matter," she protested tightly. "What could you have said? 'By the way, dear, I'm an executive with a company that has targeted your company for takeover, and I've been using you to get information'?" She mimicked his clipped accent and saw his hands clench on the cabinet in front of her.

"No, that wasn't what I would have said." He pushed himself away from her, and Claire turned, clutching the coffee mugs to her chest, to find him staring at her with barely restrained violence in his eyes. "I wouldn't have said anything at all until you were in bed with me; trying to reason with you has turned out to be a waste of time."

"Oh?" she cried. "I think it's terribly unreasonable of you to think you could just waltz back into my life and pick up where you'd left off, after what you did!" She slammed the mugs down onto the cabinet, then stared at them in horror. What if she'd broken them? She never lost her temper, never screamed or threw things or slammed them down, but now it seemed as if her anger was so close to the surface that Max could bring it out every time he spoke to her. She was reacting in away that was totally unlike herself. Or maybe, she thought grimly, she was simply discovering facts about herself that she'd never before suspected. Max had a talent for drawing intense reactions from her. Grimly she sought control again, taking another calming breath,''Why are you here?''

"I thought you might want to know more about the job before you made your decision," he muttered, still looking furious. He admitted to himself that he was lying. He had wanted to see her; he had no other reason.

"I appreciate the thought," Claire said, as distant as the moon. She poured coffee into both mugs and extended one to him, then took a seat at her tiny kitchen table, which was just big enough for two. Max took the chair opposite her, still scowling as he drank his coffee.

"Well?" she prompted a few minutes later, when he still hadn't said a word.

His frown deepened. "You'll be secretary to the general office manager, Theo Caulfield. The departments of payroll, insurance, general accounting, data processing, maintenance, office supplies and equipment, as well as the secretarial pool, are all under his control, though each department has its own manager. It's a demanding job."

"It sounds interesting," she said politely, but she was being truthful. A job that diverse had to be interesting, and challenging.

"You'll need to work late occasionally, but the extra hours won't be excessive. You have two weeks to get settled. I would give you a month but the office is in an uproar with a lot of transfers, and you're needed on the job." He didn't add that he was the reason the office was in an uproar. "I'll help you look for an apartment. You helped me, so I owe you a favor."

Claire's face stiffened at the mention of his apartment; it was only an expensive prop, a part of his hoax. That apartment had given him the appearance of stability and permanence. "No, thank you. I don't need your help."

His face turned dark, and he set his mug down with a thump. "Very well," he snapped, getting to his feet and hauling her up with a strong grip on her arm. "You're determined not to give an inch, not even to listen to my side of it. Be safe, behind those walls of yours, and if you ever think of what you might be missing, think of this!"

His mouth was hot and strong. His arms crushed her against him, as if he couldn't get her close enough. His tongue went deep, reminding her.

Claire whimpered, tears burning her eyes as the wanting curled in her again, as hot and alive as it had ever been.

Max pushed her away, breathing hard. "If you think that has anything to do with business, you're a damned fool!" he said harshly and slammed out of the apartment as if he couldn't trust himself to stay a minute longer.