OW DID IT GO?" DIANA ASKED WHEN HE RETURNED ALONE, late in the afternoon.

Cole pulled her into his arms. "It was a trade-off," he said with a grin. "We gave a little and we won a little. And then we insisted the actual hearing be postponed until tomorrow morning at eleven."

"What did you win?"

"We persuaded the judge that since the SEC reports to Congress, I should have the right to request that members of Congress and members of the SEC be allowed at the proceedings if they wish to attend. I will also be allowed to make a brief opening statement."

She reached up and straightened the knot of the tie she'd given him.

"I just don't understand why an open hearing like that is so important to you."

"It's important because my name and my company's name have been dragged through the dirt over the Cushman deal." Steel threaded his voice as he added, "I don't like the reasons for it. I don't like the methods that were used. And I don't like the participants."

Making an effort to soften his voice, he said, "The Cushmans are an old and powerful American family, and they've used enormous political pressure and social influence to make certain I take a fall on this. The IRS has already been nudged to get into the act. I'm being tried by politicians and the media, and I don't like it. Most of all, I despise the hypocrisy behind it."

If there was one thing she had learned about her husband in the last few days, it was that, for a man who was supposedly ruthless and unscrupulous, Cole Harrison had some very strong personal convictions about which he was not willing to negotiate.

"And somehow," she speculated with a twinge of fear, "you think you can do something about all that tomorrow?"

"I may be able to demonstrate all that."

Diana didn't know how, and she was afraid to find out for fear it would worry her even more.

Instead she said, "You told me what you won this morning; what did you give up?"

"If I insist on making an opening statement, I have to give up my right to plead the Fifth Amendment."

"'Plead the Fifth Amendment,'" Diana said with a shudder. "It makes you sound like some mobster."

That made him grin. "I've been treated like a mobster. And that," he whispered, nipping her ear, "is what happens when nobodies from nowhere make it into the major leagues and start playing with the guys in the Brooks Brothers suits."

"You don't wear Brooks Brothers suits," she chided with a giggle as he continued to tease her ear.

"I know," he said with an unabashed grin. "And that's what pisses them off. They don't know how to deal with us. We're unpredictable. We're out of uniform."

In his place, Diana would have been frantic at the possibility of a trial and of being wrongfully convicted on some sort of circumstantial evidence and sent to prison. But Cole had such strength of purpose that it empowered him. He generated his own force and it swept people along with it.

Diana smoothed her fingers over his hard jaw. "Do you really know what's going to happen tomorrow?"

"No. I only know what can happen, and what I want to happen."

"What do you want to happen?"

He turned her face up for a kiss and said with a somber smile, "What I want to happen is this: I want to see your face on the pillow beside mine when I go to sleep and when I wake up. And more than anything else in the world right now, I want to give you everything you want."

"You?" she suggested and watched his gray eyes darken with tenderness.

"That, too," he whispered.

The phone rang and Diana reluctantly pulled out of his arms and reached out to answer it. Still in a lighthearted mood, she said, "You're the expert on human nature, tonight. Use your powers and tell me who this is."

Cole threw out the first name that came to mind. "Hayward," he guessed; then he had to hide his shock when he turned out to be right.

Diana covered the mouthpiece with her hand. "He wants to come up."

In answer, Cole shoved his hands in his pockets and nodded curtly.