In Serena's Web (3 page)

And now—
now
—this enigma of a woman, this
gentle, kind, compassionate, sweet,
ruthless
woman had her sights set on the playboy of the Western world. She thought she’d get married. As simple as that.

Restless, Brian paced over to the sliding glass door leading out to his balcony. He went out into the warm night, leaning against the railing and gazing absently over the secluded garden three floors below. Moments later he stiffened unconsciously, his eyes following two people as they walked along one of the winding paths.

The man was tall but virtually unrecognizable in the soft lights concealed in the shrubbery, but Brian knew the woman; he would have known that midnight-blue evening gown anywhere.

He barely felt the railing cut into his hands as he gripped it, and only half heard the soft curses that escaped without his volition. Damn the woman, he thought, she was really going to do it.

She was going to try to catch a rake.

B
RIAN WASN’T QUITE
sure that Serena would show up as usual for their breakfast together. He was early himself, primarily because he’d decided to stay up until after five A.M., watching the sunrise with a jaundiced eye. That was sometime after he’d grown tired of reminding himself that Serena was certainly of age, and it was no business of
his
if she didn’t return to her room until after dawn….

If she returned to her room while he was staring moodily at a truly spectacular sunrise, he
didn’t hear her. And he had his door ajar. Accidentally, of course.

Showering and shaving had given Brian time for reflection, but it hadn’t really helped. After three weeks of Serena’s nerve-racking company, he could hardly feel anything other than a strong sense of responsibility toward her. She was, he told himself fiercely while narrowly avoiding the amputation of his right earlobe, as incapable of taking care of herself as a week-old kitten.

Never mind, his intellect sneered, that she appeared to have survived quite intact for twenty-six years. That was different.
He
hadn’t known her then.

He did now.

By the time Brian was dressed and on his way downstairs, however, he had realized—albeit reluctantly—that his responsibilities to Serena’s father had little to do with his own anxiety. The truth was, he conceded bitterly, he was more than just anxious. And for the simple reason that she had spent the night with another man. Period.

And even though he felt a strong measure of relief when the hostess took him directly to a table
in response to his question and he saw Serena waiting for him, Brian quite naturally greeted her with a scowl.

“Good morning, Brian.” Serena was cheerful, bright-eyed, and appeared to have slept a solid eight hours.

Brian knew better. With controlled violence, he took his seat, accepted coffee from an attentive waiter, then waved the young man away before he could offer to take their order. Barely waiting for the waiter to absent himself, Brian snarled, “Well, are you proud of yourself?”

“For what?” she asked innocently, sipping her coffee.

Belatedly remembering that they were in a restaurant that was rapidly filling with hotel guests, Brian lowered his voice. But the snarl, though muted, carried considerable force. “For handing Long another scalp to wear on his belt!” he snapped softly.

“Did I do that?”

“Dammit, Serena—”

“You have a very low opinion of my morals.”
Her voice was extremely quiet, but something about it drained Brian’s anger.

“You didn’t sleep with him?” he asked bluntly.

Being Serena, she didn’t blush or appear to resent the personal question. “No, I didn’t sleep with him. I came back to my room a little after midnight.”

Brian studied her downbent head, feeling suddenly as if he had wounded something small and defenseless. And the apology came unbidden. “I’m sorry, Rena,” he said gently. “I guess I was thinking more of Long’s reputation than of your … standards.”

“You don’t know what my standards are.” Clearly Serena was unwilling to forgive so quickly. The misty gray eyes lifted briefly to meet his, and there was something sad in them.

“Don’t look at me like that!” he exclaimed involuntarily.

She glanced around to summon the waiter. “Why don’t we have breakfast, Brian,” she suggested softly.

Since the waiter, no more immune than the rest of his kind to Serena’s glances, was already at
their table, pencil poised, Brian could do little but give his order after she had indicated her own choices. Then he stared at the top of her sable head for a few moments before he fully realized that he had irretrievably lost something by leaping to conclusions.

And it hurt, that loss. It hurt to realize that she would never again gaze at him innocently and confidingly, that she would now hesitate before reaching out to touch him. He had, with his accusation, lost a large portion of her trust.

Gone, he thought. Or was it? Serena was the most generous soul he had ever encountered, and perhaps … perhaps there would be no irretrievable loss.

Brian reached across the table to cover her slender hand with his own. “Rena”—his voice was very gentle—“I’m really sorry. After what you said last night, the only thing I was certain of was that you intended to marry Long. And I … I was angry. I’m so afraid you’ll be hurt, and I don’t want that to happen. I was worried about you, that’s all. Will you forgive me?”

The misty gray eyes lifted to his again, and they
were curiously shy this time. “I will. If … if you’ll help me.”

“Anything,” he promised rashly, even as a little voice in his head warned him desperately. Those eyes, he thought, mesmerized, those damned eyes.

In the sweet, gentle voice that sounded like satin and could stop an army in its tracks, Serena said, “Teach me how to seduce a man.”

She made it sound normal, he realized dimly. Ordinary. Not in the
least
dangerous. She made it sound matter-of-fact and innocent and entirely reasonable. She made it sound so reasonable, in fact, that Brian could not immediately think of a reason why he shouldn’t do it.

Brian took a deep breath. “Rena,” he said carefully, “there are some things you simply don’t ask.”

“Why not?”

He raked fingers through his hair. “Rena, you know damned well why not. You have to know. Asking me to teach you how to seduce a man is like—” Gazing into those inquiring eyes, Brian forgot what he was going to say. He cleared his throat and tried again. “You,” he said very dryly,
“are twenty-six. You’ve spent the better part of four years in Europe. Correct?”

Serena nodded, her brows still lifted inquiringly.

“You’ve certainly dated?” He waited for her nod, then nodded himself. “Then you have to know the effect you have on men. Most men, in fact.”

“But you’re my friend,” she said, as if that made a difference.

At the end of his metaphorical rope, Brian fell back on brutal honesty. “Rena, if I taught you how to seduce a man,
I’d
be the man you seduced.”

Serena didn’t respond for a few moments, since their waiter was busy placing their meal before them. Then, in her matter-of-fact way, she said cheerfully, “Well, that’s all right with me, Brian. I don’t think Josh would be pleased by a virgin in his bed anyway. So you can teach me how to seduce a man
and
please him in bed. And since we’re friends, you won’t be too rough with me, or—”

“Serena.”

She gazed at him, wide-eyed. Then those misty eyes grew even more misty, and her expression revealed how hurt she felt. “Oh. I see. I understand, Brian, really I do. You don’t have to say anything more.”

“I don’t think,” he said from between gritted teeth, “that you understand at all, Rena.”

“You don’t want me. I understand.”

“It isn’t that.” He swore roughly. “I’m responsible for you. How could I face Stuart after seducing his only daughter?”

“He wouldn’t have to know,” she offered, her tone one of anxious entreaty.

Brian stared at her for a long moment and then, very belatedly, remembered just who he was dealing with. A woman who had punched a policeman in the eye. A woman who had blithely jumped into the Mississippi River. A woman, he had learned, to his cost, who had taken the meaning of the phrase “iron hand in a velvet glove” to new and staggering heights.

He lifted his fork and began eating. Stalling for time.

“You
do
want me, don’t you?” Serena asked
with all the natural curiosity of a child. “I mean—the thought of seeing me naked isn’t giving you the horrors, is it?”

Brian choked on his blueberry pancakes and reached hastily for his coffee. “Will you”—he wheezed—“for heaven’s sake learn to give notice of loaded questions?”

“Well,
is
it giving you the horrors?”

Brian’s principal reaction to the image her words had instantly provoked was hardly one of horror or revulsion, but he didn’t think the breakfast table was quite the place to give vent to his emotions. Not, at least, in a restaurant.

“Serena,” he said in a tone that had been compared by various of his friends to the sound of a saw biting into wood, “if you say another word not directly related to breakfast, I won’t be responsible for my actions.”

She stared at him for a moment, then cleared her throat with an odd little sound and addressed herself to eating the meal before her.

Brian ate automatically. His bland expression was the product of stern control. But his thoughts—and his imagination—refused to be governed.
He had spent the past three weeks, he now realized, subconsciously reminding himself that Serena was, in the truest sense of the words, off limits. Not only was she the most enigmatic lady he’d ever met and completely out of his experience, but she was also the daughter of a man he greatly respected—and who trusted him implicitly.

Also, since her behavior had been as wayward, innocent, and troublesome as that of a child, he had been able to regard her, for the most part, in that light.

But since her incredible decision last night, Brian had found it impossible to think of her without remembering, however reluctantly, that she was very much a woman. And with that wall breached, he was painfully aware of just how attracted to her he was.

Attracted? he thought, with something akin to a mental groan. More than attracted. Fascinated. And she had only to smile at him to make him forget his name.

He didn’t have to look at her to see the delicate face and mesmerizing eyes, or the slender body
that her own words had stripped naked for him. Serena naked … God, he could see her that way so vividly that his entire body tensed and the blood began rushing hotly through his veins. His heart was pounding, his breathing roughening, and he fought the abrupt and primitive urge to snatch her up into his arms and …

Realization washed over him like an icy wave. Serena wanted Joshua Long. She had asked Brian to teach her how to seduce a man because she wanted Long. Asked him to teach her how to please a man because Long wouldn’t want a virgin in his bed.

Virgin?

Brian felt his throat tighten, and a knot formed somewhere inside him. He pushed his plate away with controlled violence, staring at her downbent head with a gaze he knew to be savage.

Hell, didn’t she know what she had asked of him?

He said nothing until the meal was finished, the check signed, and they rose simultaneously in unspoken agreement to leave the restaurant. Brian didn’t dare take her arm or touch her in any way,
but she remained silently beside him as they crossed the lobby and entered the elevator. And when they reached their floor, she unlocked the door to her room and preceded him inside.

Brian barely waited for the door to close behind him, but did manage to infuse his voice with dry mockery.

“So you’ve decided on a strategy, Rena? You plan to learn how to tempt Long into your … web, didn’t you call it?”

Serena sat down on the foot of her bed and stared up at him. Dressed in slacks and a silky blouse, she looked like a cross between temptress and teenager, and Brian was having a hard time keeping his urges leashed.

“I plan to learn,” she answered matter-of-factly. “If you—someone—will teach me.”

Brian paced over to the wide expanse of windows and stared out, unable to continue meeting her steady gaze. “And just how many lessons d’you plan to take, Rena?” he snapped. “How many nights? How many times would you sleep with me before going to him?”

“I suppose that would depend on how quickly
I learned, wouldn’t it?” she replied musingly, clearly undisturbed by the harsh questions.

He swung around to stare at her, his hands jammed in the pockets of his slacks. “Tell me something.” He forced the words out and kept his feet rooted to the floor. “Has it occurred to you that it requires a certain amount of desire between
two
people? I assume you want Long, but you haven’t said a damned word about wanting me.”

Serena blinked, then said reasonably, “Well, I can hardly be sure of that, can I, Brian? You haven’t even kissed me, for heaven’s sake. But I’m sure an experienced man like you knows very well how to … turn a woman on. Don’t you?” she added anxiously.

Brian knew that he should just leave her room. Immediately. He should have been able to treat this entire situation like the slightly amusing joke she probably intended it to be. He wanted to be able to do that. To laugh and speak lightly.

But he couldn’t. He couldn’t leave, and he couldn’t treat this like a joke because it wasn’t one to him. And because what she was offering him
was something he wanted with every screaming nerve in his body.

There had never been a lack of women in Brian’s life. He was attractive to women, he knew, and his personality was generally pleasant. Since he avoided long-term ties, his previous relationships could be summed up accurately as brief affairs. No strings, no promises, and no regrets when an affair was over.

So why, he wondered, was he hesitating now? Not, certainly, for the flimsy reasons he’d made up. Not because she was an enigma; that was, if anything, an inducement. And not because she was Stuart Jameson’s daughter; she
was
of age, after all, and Stuart was hardly the type of genius who kept his head buried in the sand.