you, Mrs. Dade.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow morning, then.”
Dismissed, Meredith got her light jacket and walked to the bus stop, laughing softly to herself. She wondered what the businesslike Mrs. Dade would say if she knew how her erstwhile employee really was. It was like having a secret identity, and she loved the subterfuge. Of course, it wouldn’t do for her to lose sight of the reason she was here, she reminded herself, and the smile faded. The acquisition of those mineral rights was the bottom line, and she had to remember it. If Cy Harden and his mother got their noses bloodied in the fight, that wouldn’t bother her in the least. But she was holding the reins of Henry’s domestic operation. It wouldn’t do to let things get too personal. She had to keep her mind on the objective, without allowing herself to be too much diverted by the past. There were hundreds of Tennison International employees whose jobs hinged on the decisions she made. It was an awesome responsibility, and it allowed little leeway for personal revenge.
The wind was picking up, and it felt cool. Meredith closed her eyes, drinking in the feel of the breeze on her face. Until she’d come home to Billings, she hadn’t even realized that she’d missed it. Despite the long hours and hard work, this job was like a vacation, a safety valve from the pressure that had jeopardized her health. The aftereffects of pneumonia—the weakness and cough—had already disappeared. She felt stronger by the day, perhaps because she was finding her roots all over again. It felt good to be home, except that she missed Blake so terribly.
The bus was late, and Meredith was the only person waiting for it. When a sleek, light gray car pulled up beside her with the window down, she almost jumped out of her skin. Then she recognized the driver and her teeth clenched.
“You don’t need to be out here alone at this hour of night,” Cy said curtly. “It’s dangerous.”
“This is Billings, not Chicago,” she said without thinking.
He scowled, and she felt her heart stop, because she’d given away a tidbit of information she’d never meant to divulge.
“Know Chicago, do you?” he asked softly.
She smiled. “I know a lot of cities. Chicago is one, yes.” She put her hand on her hip and moved it suggestively. “One city is pretty much like another, if you know which streets are the best pickings.”
His eyes flashed as the insinuation penetrated. “And you did?”
She tossed back her long hair and gave him a blank look. “What do you think?”
His face hardened even more. The thought of Meredith having to go on the streets to stay alive at the age of eighteen made him sick, even sicker than the certainty that he’d condemned her to it. He had to block out the images of other hands touching her…
“Oh, for God’s sake,” she said harshly, borrowing one of Henry’s favorite euphemisms, “I didn’t become a streetwalker!”
He relaxed visibly, and she hated herself for reacting to that horrible expression in his eyes. She should have let him think what he liked.
“Get in,” he said, weary with relief. “I’ll drive you to the house.”
She didn’t argue. It was a dark and lonely night, and she’d never liked being on her own after dusk. Usually she wasn’t; Mr. Smith was always somewhere nearby.
“Who is he?” he asked as the powerful car purred away from the curb and down the long, wide street.
“He?”
“Don’t play games. The man leaving your house that morning.”
“His name is Mr. Smith,” she said simply.
“Is he your lover?”
She leaned her head back against the seat with a long sigh. “Isn’t it a nice evening?” she mused. “I always did love Billings at night.”
“You haven’t answered me,” he said impatiently.
“I won’t, either,” she replied. She turned toward him, her eyes steady and accusing. “You have no right at all to ask anything about my personal life. Not after what you did to me.”
He didn’t look at her. His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Why didn’t you go with him?”
“He works in Chicago,” she said. “I work here. For the time being.”
His dark eyes narrowed angrily. “Is it serious?”
Her thin shoulders rose and fell. “Not really. He’s a friend.”
He let out a held breath.
“Why would it matter to you?” she asked, conversationally. “What we…did was over long ago.”
He looked at her while he stopped for a traffic light, his gaze slow and possessive. “I burn every time I look at you,” he said gruffly. “I ache for you. There hasn’t been one woman who could block you out of my mind for five minutes.”
Her face burned. “That’s lust,” she said, enunciating the word clearly. “That’s all it ever was to you. You wanted me. You couldn’t get enough. You’d have come to me from your deathbed if I’d asked you, and we both know it. But it wasn’t enough then, and it isn’t now.”
“I don’t remember you having so many moral scruples at the time,” he said mockingly.
Her head lowered. “I had none at all. I was in love with you.”
He made a sound. The flat statement had shocked him. He’d never really questioned Meredith’s motives for the affair. He’d always assumed that she felt the same helpless, raging desire that he did.
“Sure,” he said after a minute, his voice harsh. “That’s why you fell into bed with Tony.”
She tilted her head toward him and smiled coldly. “I went to you a virgin. I was so besotted with you that I couldn’t have given myself to another man if I’d been stinking drunk.”
“Maybe that was how you got him to help you steal the money,” he persisted, his eyes calculating.
She laughed. “Tony gave all the money back, though, didn’t he?” she asked icily. “And if you’d pushed him hard enough, he’d have told you that we never had either a conspiracy or a relationship.”
Cy looked straight at the road. “Tell me, Meredith,” he said unexpectedly.
“Tell you what?”
“The truth.” He looked at her. “Tell me all of it.”
She smiled, unblinking. “I offered it to you six years ago and you didn’t want it.”
“Now I do.”
“Then ask your mother,” she said. “Ask Myrna Harden for it.”
“You won’t get anywhere by trying to drag my mother into this,” he said. “We both know she disapproved of you.”
“She
