The Billionaire Date Read online

  She swallowed hard. It’s only a laugh, for heaven’s sake, she told herself. What’s the matter with you?

  Still, she felt almost disappointed when he stopped, even though humor still lurked in his eyes and in the curve of his mouth. “In that case,” Jarrett murmured, “I won’t bother to explain the rules.”

  She refused to take the bait. “That’s good, because I hate pretending to listen.”

  He settled to watch the game, and Kit turned her attention to the crowd, determined to ignore the fact that Jarrett was still holding her hand. Obviously, she told herself, he’d forgotten. He might as well have been toying with a soda can for all the attention he was paying to her.

  It’s probably an ingrained habit of his, she thought, to hold whatever feminine hand is nearby. Though she suspected the typical Lingerie Lady wouldn’t be pleased at coming in a poor second to a basketball game.

  While I, she told herself firmly, am delighted.

  Despite herself, however, she found his enthusiasm about the game contagious, and she was soon caught up in the drama taking place on the court. As halftime approached she had even started to scream now and then. Once, after a particularly tense moment, she sank back in her seat, feeling wrung out, and caught Jarrett looking at her with a tiny frown between his brows.

  “I thought you came to watch the game,” she shouted.

  “So did I,” he said. At least, that was what she thought he said. It was hard to tell above the roar of the crowd.

  Kit was feeling too hoarse to pursue the question, and in any case the action had picked up again. She said, “Sorry if my enthusiasm distracted you,” and turned her attention to the floor, determined to be a little less flamboyant in the future.

  At the halftime break, just as she was looking forward to a reduction in the noise level, a brass band took to the floor. Kit shook her head in disbelief. “It’s a wonder anyone can hear after an evening of this,” she said. “My ears are ringing.”

  Jarrett leaned closer. “Brace yourself. Here comes one of the vultures—otherwise known as Melinda Mason of the society pages.”

  Kit remembered the face from her news conference and from that evening’s newspaper. Melinda Mason wasn’t pretty, but she was certainly memorable, with her narrow triangular face and hard eyes. So this, she thought, was the woman who was calling up all of Chicago’s bachelors to ask about the auction.

  Kit drew a deep, sustaining breath, trying to make it as unobtrusive as possible.

  Jarrett sprawled a little lower in his seat. “Hello, Melinda. I had no idea they’d shifted you to the sports beat. Are you enjoying the game?”

  Melinda didn’t bother to answer. “Is it true the two of you are involved in a serious relationship?”

  “Oh, we’re quite serious about the dream dates,” Jarrett said easily.

  “But not about each other?”

  “Melinda.” Jarrett sounded almost sad. “You can’t expect me to answer that. If I say yes, I’m leaving myself open for a breach of promise suit if things don’t work out. And if I say no, the lady here will be very upset with me.”

  “And no doubt she won’t kiss you good-night,” Melinda said.

  Jarrett smiled at Kit. “Or something like that.”

  Kit had to admire him. Without saying a thing that he couldn’t deny, he’d left the distinct impression that they were lovers. The man was as smooth as oiled steel.

  Obviously the reporter agreed with Kit’s opinion, for she gave a little snort. “Is tonight just a publicity stunt, then?”

  “Oh, no,” Jarrett said airily. “We’re mixing work with pleasure. We’re going to try to convince some of the team members to auction themselves off.”

  “You could just issue orders, I suppose.” Melinda’s eyes, colder than ever, turned to assess Kit. “And how do you feel about Mr. Webster offering a date?”

  It was Jarrett who answered. “Oh, she thinks it’s wonderful. In fact, she’s planning to buy me, even if it costs a fortune.”

  “Is she, now?”

  “The trouble is,” he confided, “she wants me to offer a month in the South Seas—but I think she might be the only one interested in a trip like that. And if she was the only bidder she wouldn’t have to pay a fortune, after all, and the cause would suffer.”

  Kit decided it was time to take a hand. “So would Jarrett. He can’t stand the idea that he might go cheap.”

  “Inexpensive, darling. Nobody has ever accused me of being cheap.”

  The reporter sniffed and moved away. As soon as she was out of earshot, Kit said, “What did she mean, you could just issue orders? Do you own this team?”

  “Only part of it,” Jarrett said modestly.

  Kit’s heartbeat speeded up. “And you’re serious about asking your players to be involved in the auction?”

  “Of course I’m serious. I think at least half of them are eligible. Besides, why settle for raising a mere ten thousand when we could get into truly big money?”

  Kit felt a bubble of excitement rising within her. With Jarrett throwing his support behind her—real support—the auction would be an incredible success. “Jarrett, that’s wonderful! Now I’m really seeing stars.”

  “I thought you’d like the idea,” he said mildly. “And just think how impressed I’ll be with your skills when you manage to recruit all these guys without me even lifting a finger to help.”

  Jarrett kept up a steady stream of light comment all the way from the arena to Tryad. Finally Kit said coldly, “It seems to have escaped your notice that I’m not speaking to you.”

  “Oh, I noticed,” he said cheerfully. “I just decided to ignore it. Same time tomorrow?”

  “Are you joking?”

  “You don’t want my help?”

  “This is what you call help? With one sentence to your head coach you could solve the whole problem, but will you?”

  “Team manager.”

  “What?”

  “The coach wouldn’t go for the idea of the auction, but the manager might. And if I took over, it would violate the whole spirit of our agreement. It might even make me question whether you could have pulled it off alone, after all. Therefore, I believe I’ll just stay out of it and let you prove yourself. Front door or back?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Here we are,” Jarrett said patiently. “At Tryad. I was just asking where you left your car. I wouldn’t want you having to walk around the building at this hour of the night.”

  “What a gentleman you are.” Kit’s voice dripped sarcasm.

  “Of course. I simply couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to you.”

  She gave up. Jarrett had obviously been born with a better command of irony than she could acquire in a lifetime of effort. “Actually, I walked to work this morning.”

  “Which way?” He put the Porsche into gear.

  “You don’t have to deliver me. It’s only a few blocks.” But there wasn’t much conviction in Kit’s tone. The evening was cold and moonless, and she didn’t feel enthusiastic about a stroll. “But if you insist—turn left at the stop sign, and then take a right a couple of blocks up.”

  A smile tugged at his mouth. “I thought you might see the advantages of letting me take you home.”

  “Well, don’t get the idea that I’m planning to invite you in!”

  “Isn’t it funny,” he mused, “the sort of thing that obviously came to your mind under the heading of advantages when I was only referring to taxi service.”

  Kit clenched her teeth hard and only released the pressure when it was necessary to give him further instructions.

  The instant the Porsche drew up in front of her apartment house, Kit pushed her door open. She was standing on the sidewalk by the time Jarrett came around the car. He shut her door carefully and said, “You never did answer me, you know. Same time tomorrow? Maybe we can take in a male-strippers show.”

  She turned to face him and said sweetly, “Oh? Do you own
them, too? Or do you simply enjoy that sort of entertainment?”

  “Not at all.” He sounded unperturbed. “But I’d put up with it for your sake in case you want to invite them to entertain at the auction.” He waved two fingers in a casual salute and leaned against the car. “I’ll wait here till you’re safely inside.”

  He hadn’t even touched her, much less carried through the sultry promise he’d implied to the reporter earlier that evening. And that, Kit reminded herself, was perfectly fine with her.

  Of course she hadn’t wanted him to kiss her!

  The production room on the top floor of Tryad’s brownstone was quiet except for the hum of the computer and the soft, rasping purr of the calico cat who lay across Kit’s lap.

  Kit put the finishing touches on a computer-graphic image and clicked on the button that sent it to the printer. As she moved to insert a sheet of paper, the cat opened her eyes and protested sleepily, then climbed from Kit’s lap and plopped in the center of a puddle of sunshine to give her fur an indignant lick.

  Kit leaned back in her chair to enjoy the peaceful surroundings. She loved this part of the public relations business, taking an amorphous idea and translating it into a solid form—in this case, a campaign to promote the new hot line number for reporting child abuse. If the board in charge of the hot line liked her design, it would go to the printer and then out to the public in the form of posters, radio and television spots and billboards.

  Of course, the quietly technical side wasn’t the only thing Kit liked about public relations. Working with people was fascinating, too. She liked to listen to them, to figure out the difference between what they thought they wanted and what they really needed. That, Kit had found, was the key to long-term client satisfaction.

  Though why that should bring her thoughts to Jarrett as abruptly as a car smashing into a concrete wall was something she didn’t understand. There was no mystery about what he wanted. He wanted to destroy Tryad, and more specifically Kit.

  But why? The failure of the fashion show, of course—which he’d laid at her doorstep. What she didn’t understand was why he’d chosen this way to take revenge. For one thing, why had he given her the warning and the challenge to make good instead of acting on his displeasure?

  Wry humor stabbed through her. Maybe he’d been more impressed by her backward harem costume than she’d realized!

  Susannah came in and spread the contents of a portfolio on a worktable nearby. “Will you be finished with the computer soon?”

  Tugged back to reality, Kit sat up straight and reached into the printer tray for the finished graphic. “Right now, I think. Yes, it’s all yours, as soon as I save my files.”

  “No big hurry. I want Alison’s opinion, and yours, before I start. The paparazzo’s here again, by the way.” Susannah didn’t look up from the papers she was sorting. “I spotted him when I came back from lunch, lying in wait in the juniper bushes across the street.”

  “Sounds uncomfortable.”

  “It looked that way, too, so to cheer him up I told him what he missed out on last night.”

  “Sue—you didn’t. Now we’ll never get rid of him.”

  “Personally,” Alison said from the doorway, “I think we should consider renaming the business.”

  “What?” Susannah sounded shocked. “You’re the one who came up with Tryad, because you said Deevers, Miller and Novak didn’t have quite the sound we wanted.”

  “Well, now I think Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey would be closer to the mark. Not only did Kit make the papers again today, but in the sports section, not just the society pages. The phone’s ringing off the wall, and Rita’s tearing her hair out down there. She’s taken five calls today from men who want to be included in the auction. She said to tell you she’s keeping a list, Kit.”

  Kit snapped her fingers. “That’s how I’ll get rid of the paparazzo—I’ll just go ask him for a dream date, and he’ll probably take to his heels.”

  “I’m guessing he’ll agree,” Susannah said. “He seems a nice sort.”

  Alison grinned. “Then the question becomes whether anybody wants to bid on a day spent staked out in a juniper bush.”

  “It would certainly add variety to the auction,” Kit said.

  “And of course there’s no accounting for taste.” Alison moved across the room to look over Susannah’s shoulder at the presentation she’d laid out on the table.

  Rita appeared in the doorway, breathing a bit unsteadily after climbing two flights of stairs.

  Or perhaps, Kit thought, Rita was nervous rather than short of breath—for behind the secretary loomed a uniformed messenger carrying a bulky package.

  Kit frowned. No one but the partners were allowed in the production room. Not only was it more of a climb than most people wanted to make, but the presence of a client meant that pending projects for anyone else had to be concealed. It was easier to take materials downstairs to the conference room, or to clients’ offices.

  So why had Rita brought a messenger up?

  “The package is for you, Kit,” the secretary said. “And his orders are to deliver it to you personally.”

  Kit took the package reluctantly. Though it was big, it wasn’t as heavy as it looked.

  The messenger touched two fingers to his cap and departed as silently as he’d come. Rita hovered in the doorway.

  “Maybe we’d better duck under the table, Ali, in case it blows up when she opens it,” Susannah said brightly.

  There was no return address, and Kit didn’t recognize the handwriting on the label, though she had her suspicions—the ink was bold and black, the letters firm and upright and solid. It was not only a man’s script, she thought, but the script of a man who was almighty sure of himself.

  “If it does explode,” she said, “just remember there’s only one client lately who’s been getting on my nerves—and vice versa.”

  “We’ll engrave that on your tombstone if you like,” Susannah offered.

  Kit picked up an Exacto knife from the nearest drawing table and slit the heavy tape. Inside, wrapped in rigid foam packaging and more tape, was a large, unframed, full-length color photograph of Jarrett. He was wearing a tuxedo, and at the instant the shutter snapped, he’d been adjusting his bow tie and smiling at the camera.

  And across the bottom corner, just above his signature, he’d written, Isn’t this a much better target for your dartboard?

  CHAPTER SIX

  KIT SPENT almost twenty minutes constructing a message to leave with Jarrett’s secretary—a message that was ultrapolite on the surface but would leave no doubt in Jarrett’s mind about what she really meant. But when she called the number he’d given her, he answered the phone himself.

  Kit was so disappointed she didn’t bother to say hello. “What’s the matter with your secretary?”

  “Nothing, as far as I know. Shall I put her on the phone or just tell her you were asking about her health?”

  Didn’t the man ever miss a beat? “I figured, slave driver that you are, she must be having open-heart surgery, at least, in order to escape the telephone.”

  “I told you this is my private number. She only answers if I can’t. You should feel honored, you know. Not many people get this kind of service.”

  “In that case, I’ll start listing it in my biography under Honors Received,” Kit murmured. “Thanks for the new dartboard cover, by the way.” She leaned back in her chair and studied the board approvingly. The photograph fit nicely, with Jarrett’s heart dead center on the bull’s-eye.

  “My pleasure. I couldn’t help noticing that the other one was starting to look like Swiss cheese, and I’d hate for you to have to give up the game.”

  “Because if I don’t take out my frustration on something inanimate I might start putting dart holes in you?”

  “The possibility had occurred to me. Have you decided what we’re doing tonight?”

  “Well—no strippers, please.”

  �
��But how can you tell whether they’d be appropriate for the auction if you don’t go see their act?”

  “Oh, it isn’t that,” Kit assured him. “I just didn’t want you to compare yourself to them and feel inadequate.”

  “Why do you think I would?” He sounded interested and not at all offended.

  “Because you sent me a fully clothed picture. If you were truly confident, you’d probably have made it a swimsuit pose.”

  The silence that followed was brief but, Kit thought, telling. She thoroughly enjoyed it.

  “Kitten, darling,” he drawled, “if I’d only known you wanted one....”

  “I don’t. I was just saying—”

  “But since you’ve asked, I’ll look into getting one taken for you right away. In the meantime, I’m sure your imagination will be able to fill in the gaps quite adequately.”

  “You,” Kit said with an acid edge to her voice, “need a swift kick in the ego, Webster.” She hung up, cutting off his laugh.

  And since she apparently wasn’t going to be able to deliver the comedown he so desperately needed, she might as well quit trying.

  Of course, she told herself, part of the trouble was that where the strippers were concerned he was absolutely correct. He wouldn’t feel inadequate in comparison—not because of that all-consuming good opinion of himself but because, she suspected, he’d compare very well, indeed.

  There was the way he’d caught her when she slipped at the basketball game, without showing the least sign of effort. And before that, at the fashion show, she’d fallen against him and ended up feeling absolutely weightless. There was no doubt the man was strong. The time he spent on his sailboat was evidence of that, and something he’d said about playing racquetball implied that it was a regular activity, not an occasional pastime.

  And even though she’d never seen Jarrett less than fully clothed, there was something about the ease of his movements that spoke of strong muscles always warm and ready for action. Action of all kinds, whether it was sport or rescue or love...

  Wait a minute, she thought. What was it he’d said about using her imagination? Just what kind of gaps was she trying to fill in, anyway?