digging into his private life.” She felt herself tense as she remembered the blazing heat of Blake's anger. “I didn't mean anything.”
“You didn't know about Della?” he asked softly.
She gaped up at him. “Della who?”
“Della Ness. He just broke it off with her,” he explained.
A pang of something shivered through her slender body, and she wondered why the thought of Blake with a woman should cause a sensation like that. “Were they engaged?”
He laughed softly. “No.”
She blushed. “Oh.”
“She's been bothering him ever since, calling up and crying and sending him letters…you know how that would affect him.” He whirled her around in time to the music and brought her back against him loosely. “It hasn't helped his temper any. I think he was glad for the European trip. She hasn't called in over a week.”
“Maybe he's missing her,” she said.
“Blake? Miss a woman? Honey, you know better than that. Blake is the original self-sufficient male. He never gets emotionally involved with his women.”
She toyed with the lapel of his evening jacket. “He doesn't have to take his irritation out on me,” she protested sullenly. “And at my homecoming party, too.”
“Jet lag,” Phillip told her. He stopped as the music did and grimaced when the hard rock blared out again. “Let's sit this one out,” he yelled above it. “My legs get tangled trying to dance to that.”
He drew her off the floor and back to the open veranda, leading her onto the plant-studded balcony with a friendly hand clasping hers.
“Don't let Blake spoil this for you,” he said gently as they stood leaning on the stone balustrade, looking out over the city lights of King's Fort that twinkled jewel-bright on the dark horizon. “He's had a hard week. That strike at the London mill wasn't easily settled.”
She nodded, remembering that one of the corporation's biggest textile mills was located there, and that this was nowhere near the first strike that had halted production.
“It's been nothing but trouble,” Phillip added with a hard sigh. “I don't see why Blake doesn't close it down. We've enough mills in New York and Alabama to more than take up the slack.”
Her fingers toyed with the cool leaves of an elephant-ear plant near the balcony's edge as she listened to Phillip's pleasant voice. He was telling her how much more solvent the corporation would be if they bought two more yarn mills to add to the conglomerate, and how many spindles each one would need to operate, and how new equipment could increase production…and all she was hearing was Blake's deep, angry voice.
It wasn't her fault that his discarded mistresses couldn't take “no” for an answer, and it was hardly prying into his private life to state that he had women. Her face reddened, just thinking of Blake with a woman in his big arms, his massive torso bare and bronzed, a woman's soft body crushed against the hair-covered chest where muscles rippled and surged…
The blush got worse. She was shocked by her own thoughts. She'd only seen Blake stripped to the waist once or twice, but the sight had stayed with her. He was all muscle, and that wedge of black, curling hair that laced down to his belt buckle somehow emphasized his blatant maleness. It wasn't hard to understand the effect he had on women. Kathryn tried not to think about it. She'd always been able to separate the Blake who was like family from the arrogant, attractive Blake who drew women like flies everywhere he went. She'd kept her eyes on his dark face and reminded herself that he had watched her grow from adolescence to womanhood and he knew too much about her to find her attractive in any adult way. He knew that she threw things when she lost her temper, that she never refilled the water trays when she emptied the ice out of them. He knew that she took off her shoes in church, and climbed trees to hide from the minister when he came visiting on Sunday afternoon. He even knew that she sometimes threw her worn blouses behind the door instead of in the clothes hamper. She sighed heavily. He knew too much, all right.
“…Kathryn!”
She jumped. “Sorry, Phil,” she said quickly, “I was drinking in the night. What did you say?”
He shook his head, laughing. “Never mind, darling, it wasn't important. Feeling better now?”
“I wasn't drunk,” she said accusingly.
“Just a little tipsy, though,” he grinned. “Three glasses of punch, wasn't it? And mother emptied the liquor cabinet into it with our hostess's smiling approval.”
“I didn't realize how strong it was,” Kathryn admitted.
“It has a cumulative effect. Want to go back in?”
“Must we?” she asked. “Couldn't we slip out the side door and go see that new sci-fi movie downtown?”
“Run out on your own party? Shame on you!”
“I'm ashamed,” she agreed. “Can we?”
“Can we what?”
“Go see the movie. Oh, come on, Phil,” she pleaded, “save me from him. I'll lie for you. I'll tell Maude I kidnapped you at gunpoint…”
“Will you, now?” Maude laughed, coming up behind them. “Why do you want to kidnap Phillip?”
“There's a new science fiction movie in town, and…” Kathryn began.
“…and it would keep you out of Blake's way until morning, is that how this song goes?” Phillip's mother guessed keenly.
Kathryn sighed, clasping her hands in front of her. “That's the chorus,” she admitted.
“Never mind, he's gone.”
She looked up quickly. “Blake?”
“Blake.” Maude laughed softly. “Cursing the band, the punch, the politicians, jet lag, labor unions, smog and women with a noticeable lack of tact until Eve almost wept with relief when he announced that he was going home to bed.”
“I hope the slats fall out under him,” Kathryn said pleasantly.
“They're box springs,” Maude commented absently. “I bought it for him last year for his birthday, remember, when he complained that he couldn't get any rest…”
“I hope the box springs collapse, then,” Kathryn corrected.
“Malicious little thing, aren't you?” Phillip asked teasingly.
Maude slumped wearily. “Not again. Really, Kathryn Mary, this never-ending war between you and my eldest is going to give me ulcers! What's he done this time?”
“He told her she couldn't be promiscuous,” Phillip obliged, “and got mad at her when she pointed out that he believed in the double standard.”
“Kathryn! You didn't say that to Blake!”
Kathryn looked vaguely embarrassed. “I was just teasing.”
“Oh,
