The Ties That Bind (11 page)

On at least three occasions his attitude was even more austere than normal when he made introductions. The first time she noticed it, Shannon turned to look up at Garth as the man she had just met moved off into the crowd.

"What's wrong, Garth?"

"Kenyon's firm is also bidding on the
Carstairs
contract," he explained grudgingly.

"Oh. He seemed nice enough."

"He'd cut my throat in a dark alley for that contract."

Shannon grinned. "Then you'd better stay out of dark alleys until the bidding is settled."

It was Wes McIntyre who responded to her comment as he wandered over to stand beside Shannon. He cast a half-humorous, half-knowing look at his boss. "If Kenyon has any sense, he'll be the one keeping clear of dark alleys. He's competed against
Sherilectronics
before. He knows Garth doesn't play games."

"What a cheerful thought." Shannon didn't look at Garth.

A few minutes later she experienced the second overly polite introduction, this time to a pleasant young man who clearly belonged to one of the Ferraris parked outside. When he'd departed in search of another drink, Shannon cocked an eyebrow at Garth.

"Well?" she demanded. "Why the cold shoulder there?"

"Tyler used to work for me. When he got lured away by
HiCal
, he tried to take several new component designs with him."

Shannon swallowed. "I see."

"He didn't get out the door with them. But just to teach
HiCal
a lesson, I stole one of their best design engineers."

"A fun business."

On the third occasion she sensed an added coldness in the introductions. Shannon was almost afraid to inquire into the matter. But curiosity overcame good sense.

"Okay," she challenged, "what awful crime did that nice Mr.
Eaker
commit against
Sherilectronics
?"

"None."

"Then why all the disdain and disgust?"

"
Eaker
is presently under investigation by the FBI for his role in a recent sale of restricted electronic parts to a foreign power."

Shannon nearly choked on her wine. "Good lord. A spy? An honest-to-goodness spy?"

"Nothing's been proven yet."

"But you're sure
Eaker
is involved?"

"It's a good bet. It's also a good bet the FBI won't be able to nail him. He's smart."

"What's he doing at a nice party like this?" Shannon asked, bewildered.

Garth's mouth curved. "As I said, nothing's been proven."

Shannon tried to enjoy herself for the remainder of the evening, but it was difficult. If she smiled too brilliantly at a man, Garth moved in, cutting off whatever conversation had been going on at the time. When she tried to slip away to pay a visit to the buffet table, Garth followed, handing her a plate to fill for him, too. And on the occasions when the words "
Carstairs
contract" came up in a discussion, Shannon found herself being led off to join another group.

Her first moment of freedom came when she excused herself to use the powder room. Some places were still sacrosanct, she reflected a few minutes later as she emerged back into the hall. She passed the room that was being used to store purses and shawls and noticed both her own tote and
Bonnie's
lying on the bed. Amid the clutter of more ordinary leather and fabric bags, the vividly hued designs on the totes were readily visible. Shannon was pleased that Bonnie had liked hers enough to bring it tonight.

As she came around the hall into the white-on-white living room, Shannon was startled to be greeted by a masculine voice.

"Garth finally let you escape, I see." Ed Kenyon was standing beside a huge potted palm, sipping a martini.

Kenyon. The man whose firm was bidding against Garth's for the
Carstairs
contract. Shannon smiled politely. "He's afraid I'll feel lost among all these strangers."

Kenyon chuckled. He was a good-looking man in his early forties, brown-haired and blue-eyed. He was dressed in an expensive Italian-made summer suit, and Shannon was fairly certain he, too, owned one of the Ferraris out front. "Garth never does anything out of sheer good manners. He's keeping tabs on you because he wants to make it clear you're not available. Can't blame the guy, I guess. Not after the way his first wife skipped with his partner."

Everyone seemed to know about the mysterious Christine and her affair with Garth's friend James. With that kind of scandal hanging around in the background, she could understand why Garth wasn't anxious to introduce another woman to his business acquaintances.

"I'm afraid I'm new in Garth's life. I don't know much about his past. Maybe it's better if I hear the details from him." She nodded serenely and started to step past Ed Kenyon.

He put the hand that wasn't holding the martini glass on the wall beside her shoulder, halting her. "Hey, I'm sorry. Didn't mean to step on any toes. You've got a lot of class, you know that? Garth may have gotten lucky this time around. Look, let's start over. Any friend of Garth's is a friend of mine."

"I understood the two of you were rivals."

Kenyon grinned. "That doesn't mean much. Around here everyone involved in the computer business is a potential rival. I take it you're not from San Jose?"

"No, I'm just visiting from the coast."

"Ah, that explains it." Kenyon nodded wisely, his hand still on the wall next to Shannon.

"Explains what?"

"Why you're under the impression Garth and I are rivals. I suppose he's told you his firm is going to be the one to walk off with that
Carstairs
contract?"

Shannon moved uneasily, turning slightly to slip away from the restraining hand. "I don't know anything about Garth's business."

"Then you'd better learn, honey. A smart, pretty lady like you needs to know which way to jump when things move. And things do move fast here in the valley. You wouldn't want to be left hanging on to a loser instead of a winner, would you?" Kenyon set down his martini glass and flattened his other palm on the wall beside Shannon's head, blocking the escape route she had been about to take. He leaned close. "Between you and me, Shannon, I'm a winner."

Outrage mingled with disgust in Shannon's mind. She reminded herself that she was a guest at a party and the last thing she wanted to do was create a scene. But this had gone far enough. She lifted her chin and stepped away from the wall, trying to force him to back away from her.

"Excuse me, Mr. Kenyon, Garth's waiting for me."

"Let him wait." His arm still blocked her path, and his blue eyes were taunting.

Shannon took a deep breath and ducked under one restraining arm. She had just slipped out from captivity when she glanced across the room and saw Garth.

"Garth!" She hurried toward him. "I was just coming to look for you."

"Get your bag, Shannon," he ordered, his voice too lethally soft. His eyes were on Kenyon. "We're leaving."

"But, Garth..." Helplessly she let her protest run into the ground. She didn't need any extra degree of feminine intuition to tell her this was not a time to try setting the record straight. Garth was furious. The knowledge subdued her. She'd never seen him in this mood and it alarmed her. For a moment she had a mental picture of Kenyon and Garth in a dark alley with knives. It wasn't a pleasant image. She knew the blood on the ground would be Kenyon's.

Choosing discretion as the better part of valor for the moment, Shannon went back down the hall to the bedroom to fetch her tote bag. Sadly she told herself that it was only to be expected that her first major social event shared with Garth turned out to be a disaster. Parties and Garth didn't seem to mix.

WHEN SHANNON COULD STAND the awful silence in the Porsche no longer, she set her teeth and muttered, "Just say it and get it over."

"We'll talk when we get home. Right now I've got my hands full with this traffic." Garth downshifted for a light that went green just as he coasted to the white line. With ruthless skill he brought the Porsche back up to speed.

There was a cold, tight energy in his movements that told Shannon all she wanted to know about his mood. Watching him out of the corner of her eye, she kept silent until he had parked the car in the garage of his expensive condominium. When she had first seen his home earlier. Shannon had looked around eagerly, seeking the subtle clues that would tell her more about the man she loved. The condominium complex was starkly modern in design, all angled white walls and endless windows. It was surrounded by a great deal of perfect green lawn and several rows of exotic shrubs. There were the usual California-style pool and athletic facilities in the center of the grounds.

The inside of Garth's home was as cool and uncluttered looking as the outside. It was a little too uncluttered for Shannon's taste. The place reminded her of his office. The furnishings were composed of sleek leather-and-steel pieces with accents of black glass. The windows in the living room and bedroom opened onto Japanese-style gardens that were maintained by professional gardeners and looked it. Shannon couldn't imagine having a comfortable picnic in such a perfect garden.

Tonight as she walked into the condo, Shannon was suddenly aware of the fact that she felt like an errant wife. It was a ridiculous feeling, under the circumstances, and she resented it. Lifting her chin, she tossed the tote bag onto the gray carpet beside the nearest chair and turned to face Garth.

He ignored her, pacing across the room to the liquor cabinet. Without a word he poured himself a shot of whiskey.

"All right, Garth. Let's get this out in the open," Shannon said, all her tension and uncertainty making her sound quite aggressive. "I don't particularly appreciate being made to feel like a stupid little fool who can't handle herself in a difficult social situation."

Garth leaned back against the black steel cabinet and glanced down at the whiskey in his glass. When he looked up, his eyes were the color of ice. '"A difficult social situation,'" he repeated slowly. "Is that what you call getting yourself cornered by my chief rival?"

"This may come as a shock, Garth, but I'm twenty-nine years old, and I haven't lived in a cocoon all my life. This isn't the first pass I've had made at me. I was dealing with the situation."

"You didn't look like you were dealing with it very well." He took a long swallow of the whiskey. "Kenyon was all over you, and you weren't exactly screaming for help."

"Of course I wasn't screaming for help! My God, Garth, think of the scene that would have caused. A woman doesn't scream when she finds herself in that sort of mess. She deals with it as an adult. We were at a party and one of the men got drunk and made a pass. I was about to walk away from him when you arrived. It was a very simple if not particularly pleasant situation. It did not require you to order me out of the house and into the car as if I were a misbehaving child."

"Your behavior wasn't exactly childlike, I'll grant you that." He finished the rest of the whiskey while Shannon stared at him in outrage. 'Those kinds of games are strictly for grown-ups."

"Garth, stop it. You have no reason to be angry. I wasn't doing anything wrong. For heaven's sake, do you think I deliberately got myself cornered by Kenyon?"

"No."

Shannon closed her eyes briefly in relief. "Well, thanks for that much faith, at any rate."

"I think," Garth continued bluntly, "that you got yourself trapped because you were naive and a little foolish. You don't know this crowd, Shannon. You live in a different world. People such as Kenyon are barracudas. They'll turn on anything that looks like it might be food."

"Damn it, Garth, I am not a silly, naive female. I know about the real world."

"Is that right? Then that only leaves us one other explanation for your behavior, doesn't it?"

Shannon paled. "What are you talking about?"

He crossed his arms over his chest and studied her coolly. "If you didn't get into that clinch with Kenyon because you were too naive to avoid him, then we have to assume you were in it because you were enjoying the situation."

Shannon felt as though everything around her was starting to crack. Desperately she fought to hold on to the fracturing pieces. "Garth, you must know better than that. I would never betray you. I'm not your ex-wife. I'm not Christine."

He went very still, his eyes frozen. When he spoke, the words were chips of ice. "You were very busy tonight, weren't you? Who told you about Christine?"

Belatedly, Shannon wished she had kept her mouth shut. It was too late now. Wearily she replied. "Mrs. Hutchinson mentioned her." There was no need to bring up the fact that Kenyon had also mentioned Christine. Matters were bad enough as it was.

"Ellen Hutchinson never could keep her mouth shut. Did she tell you all the grim details?"

Shannon shook her head in quick denial. "She… she only mentioned that you had been married and that there had been a divorce."

"She obviously told you more than that." Garth turned around to pour himself another drink. "Did she mention James Brice?"

Feeling as if she were stepping into a quagmire, Shannon clasped her hands in front of her and answered in a soft voice, "Ellen said Christine had left you to marry someone named James. That was the end of it, Garth. That's all I know. I shouldn't have said anything. It's just that you're making it sound as if I was planning to run off with Kenyon or something, and it was so absurd that I couldn't think of any way to defend myself."

Garth swung around again, pinning her with a savage look. "James Brice was my partner and I thought he was my friend. Christine was my wife. They were having an affair. The situation is as old as the hills, but I didn't even see it coming until it was all over. That was five years ago, Shannon, and I was not exactly a naive innocent myself at the time. I had already built up a successful, highly competitive business, and you don't do that around here unless you're capable of watching your own back while you go after someone else's throat. I had met my share of women who use their bodies as bargaining tools. And I had seen enough friends and partners turn on each other to know you couldn't trust very many people. I thought I was fairly street-wise, but Chris and Jim still managed to take me by surprise. And you tell me you can handle someone like Ed Kenyon? You don't know what the hell you're talking about. Your idea of sophistication is having a couple of friends who have decided to have a baby without getting married and going to feminist performances of The Taming of the Shrew. You're a babe in the woods here in my world."