Guardian Groom Page 6

  “Excess?” Grant said carefully.

  “Yes. As soon as she…matured, she showed a disturbing habit of forming…” Blackburn paused delicately. “I suppose one might call them unfortunate relationships.”

  “I see.” A muscle knotted in Grant’s jaw. “With men, you mean.”

  Blackburn shrugged. “Looking the way she does, living in Greenwich Village—I shudder to think what kind of life she’s leading.”

  Grant frowned. “She’ll be twenty-one in—what did she say? Three months? Hell, it would take a miracle worker to make her develop a more responsible attitude by then.”

  Blackburn sighed with resignation. “I suppose you’re right.”

  “Of course I’m right! And I want nothing to do with any attempts at turning a sow’s ear into a silk purse!”

  “Very well. I’ll file a motion to request that someone else be put in your place.”

  “Good,” Grant said. He could feel the weight lifting from his shoulders. “I’m certain there must be someone else. A family friend, or—”

  “Oh, I’ll take on the job myself.” Blackburn rose to his feet and walked toward Grant, an oily smile curling across his mouth. “Actually,” he said, “once I got a look at the girl today, I found myself rather envying you.”

  Grant’s eyes narrowed. “There was nothing to envy, Blackburn. As her guardian, I’d have had only the most superficial dealings with Miss Adams. You know that.”

  “Of course.” Blackburn closed one eye in a wink, and Grant thought once again how much the man resembled a rabbit. “But there’s more than one way to—”

  “No,” Grant said with sudden coldness. “There’s only one way—unless a man is ready to face the ethics committee and a disbarment hearing.”

  And, on that note, without so much as offering Horace Blackburn his hand, Grant stalked from the office.

  By early evening, a cool breeze had blown away the rain clouds, although there was an almost unpleasant tension in the air, the sort that often precedes a storm. Grant was on the terrace of his penthouse, recuperating from the daily wars of his profession as the setting sun cast long shadows over Central Park.

  He had traded his suit, wing-tip oxfords, pima cotton white shirt and maroon silk tie for softly faded jeans, a pair of beat-up running shoes, and a long-sleeved, ivory cotton sweater. He was sitting in his favorite bentwood chair, his feet propped on a hassock, and he had just taken what should have been the first satisfying swallow from a bottle of chilled India Pale ale.

  But it wasn’t satisfying. Nothing had been, the entire day. He’d felt overwound and irritable ever since that miserable meeting with Horace Blackburn.

  And Crista Adams.

  Grant put the bottle of ale on the table beside him and got to his feet. He sighed, walked to the railing, and gazed out over the park.

  He had made his decision this morning.

  “I’m not going to be Crista Adams’s guardian,” he’d told Horace Blackburn, and that was that.

  So why was he still thinking about it?

  Because he felt guilty as hell, that was why. It was bad enough that he’d come on to the woman in the first place, all but making love to her in an elevator. An elevator, for God’s sake, he thought with a groan. He’d made a complete ass of himself. He knew it and Crista Adams knew it—and now he was going to make things even worse by walking away from his responsibility and tossing her to the wolves.

  Or to the rabbits. It all depended on how you viewed Horace Blackburn.

  “Hell!”

  Grant reached for the bottle of ale and tilted it to his lips, relishing the sting of the chilled liquid as it slid down his throat.

  What did it matter? He didn’t like Crista; he didn’t owe her anything. And he had the definite feeling she was more than capable of handling Blackburn.

  Grant shut his eyes. Blackburn’s oily smile bloomed against the darkness of his lids and his beady little eye closed in a man-to-man wink.

  “Damn!” Grant slammed down the ale bottle, and made his way through the apartment.

  His driver was in the kitchen having after-dinner coffee and a slice of apple pie with the housekeeper, who looked up as Grant entered the room.

  “Did you want your dinner now, sir?”

  “No, thank you, Mrs. Edison, I’m not hungry. But I will need you for a while, Patterson.” Grant took the Manhattan directory from next to the telephone and thumbed it open. Adams, he thought, Adams… Yes. There it was. “We’re heading downtown, Patterson, to Greenwich Village.”

  Patterson’s bushy eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch. “To the Village, sir?”

  “Yes. To—” He frowned at the page. “To Thaler Street. Do you know it?”

  “I do, sir.”

  Patterson’s face revealed nothing, but Grant heard the careful shading in the man’s voice.

  “I take it that Thaler Street is not on the mayor’s list of recommended tourist walks,” he said dryly.

  Patterson suppressed a grin. “You might say that, sir.”

  Grant sighed. “Take your time finishing your coffee, Patterson. It’ll take me a few minutes to change.”

  In his bedroom, exchanging his jeans and sweater for a fresh white shirt and dark suit, Grant planned what he would say to Crista Adams.

  Look, he’d tell her, it’s obvious you’re too old to be saddled with a guardian, and I certainly have no interest in telling you how to run your life. So let’s behave like adults. For the next three months, if you make reasonable requests regarding your legacy, I’ll approve them without hesitation. We won’t even have to set eyes on each other. Everything can by done by telephone.

  Yes, he thought, as he knotted his tie, that would do it. She would stay out of his way and he would stay out of hers. On her twenty-first birthday, they could shake hands, walk away from each other, and never look back.

  Thank God he’d calmed down enough to view the situation logically.

  “How much money did you say you inherited?”

  Crista sighed. Until a few minutes ago, Danny hadn’t known a thing about her past. But she’d blurted out the whole story when he’d stepped out of his bathroom, wearing nothing but a pair of snug-fitting jeans and a look of surprise at finding her home at six in the evening.

  “Crista?” he’d said. “What’s the matter?”

  And she’d told him about her rich uncle and her inheritance, and now she was almost sorry she had because Danny was looking at her as if she were a weed that had suddenly turned into a rare orchid.

  Still, who could blame him? It was all so fantastic and impossible. She’d tried her best not to think about it, to concentrate on work instead, but finally she’d tossed aside her order pad and told Gus she didn’t feel well—which wasn’t really much of an exaggeration, considering that her head had been pounding all day—and now here she was, trying to sound casual about having inherited a fortune…and having inherited Grant Landon’s guardianship along with it, although she’d yet to tell Danny about that.

  It was enough to make you laugh—or to make you cry, depending on your point of view. How could Fate do this, hand you enough money so you’d never have to worry about where the rent was coming from again and at the same time demand you give up your independence? Hand yourself over, mind and soul, to the one human being you most despised in the world—

  “Crista?”

  She blinked. Danny was sitting on the edge of the sagging sofa across from her, his eyes fixed on her face.

  “How much did you say your uncle left you?”

  “Millions,” she said with a sigh. “Millions!”

  “Yeah.” Danny laughed and shook his head. “That’s what I thought you said. So why do you look so upset?”

  “Well,” she said as she eased off her boots, “for one thing, I never expected it. Uncle Simon made it clear he’d never even look at me again if I left him.” She rose and padded barefoot to the bedroom with Danny trailing after her. “And then—well, there
’s this weird condition…”

  Danny stopped in the doorway, turned his back to the room, and leaned against the jamb.

  “What weird condition?”

  Crista hesitated. It sounded so ridiculous even to think it…With a sigh, she peeled off her T-shirt and her leather skirt, then slipped a crimson-and-gold caftan over her head.

  “Uncle Simon named a guardian to look after me.”

  Danny spun around. “You’re joking!”

  “I wish I were—but it’s the truth.” She flashed a weak smile over her shoulder as Danny followed her to the kitchen. “I’ve got a watchdog to make sure I stay on the straight and narrow until I turn twenty-one.”

  Danny straddled a chair and folded his arms along the back.

  “Just like this old flick with James Mason,” he said seriously. “Or was it Charles Laughton? There’s this blonde babe, see, and—”

  “I hate to disillusion you,” Crista said with a little smile, “but this isn’t a late-night movie.” She reached under the sink, took out the kettle, and held it under the tap. “It’s real life. My life!” Shaking her head, she set the kettle on the stove and turned on the burner. “Can you just picture it? I’m supposed to clear everything I do for the next three months with some iron-jawed guardian who’s got a checkbook where his heart’s supposed to be—”

  “Hey, ease up. ‘Guardian’ is one of those code words, you know? Like ‘stepmother’. People hear it, they think the worst. At least wait until you meet the guy. He’s probably some harmless old dude who—”

  “I have met him.” Crista leaned back against the sink and dug her hands into the pockets of her caftan. “And I hated him on sight!”

  Danny grinned. “Charles Laughton, not James Mason, huh?”

  Crista thought of Grant’s tall, imposing figure, his harshly handsome face, and she had to laugh.

  “Well, in spirit,” she said, “if not in body.”

  “Yeah, but so what? For three months you say ‘may I?’ and ‘please’, ‘yessir’ and ‘nosir’, and then, on your birthday, you say ‘goodbye’ and that’s that.”

  “I suppose. It’s just that this man—he—he…”

  She frowned and gnawed lightly on her bottom lip. What could she say about Grant that wouldn’t make her feel stupid? That he’d made love to her minutes after they’d met? That she didn’t even like him, yet she’d trembled in his arms when she should have punched him in the jaw, that she’d come closer to surrender in that damned elevator than she’d ever come in her entire life…

  “Crista?” Danny’s eyes were riveted to hers. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  She hesitated. Danny was her friend. Her best friend. Maybe—maybe if she talked to him…

  The downstairs bell shrilled, and Danny shot a glance at his watch.

  “That’s for me.” He got to his feet. “I was supposed to meet some people…Look, babe,” he said over his shoulder, “just give it a chance. Everything will work out.”

  Crista sighed as she followed after him. “I suppose.”

  “Just think how nice it’s gonna be when you’re rich,” he said as he pressed the buzzer and then undid the lock and chain.

  Her answering smile was tentative. “Well, I suppose. But—”

  Danny put his hands lightly around her waist and turned her toward him.

  “You could open a soup kitchen! The Village Community Center’s been trying to do something like that for months. Or open a shelter and pick up every abandoned dog and cat you find.”

  Her smile grew. “I could, couldn’t I?”

  Danny went on with a smile, “And then you could tell Gus what he could do with his stupid restaurantheck, you could buy the restaurant! Even turn it into a jewelry shop.”

  “Oh, Danny, you’re right! I was so busy feeling sorry for myself…” Crista threw her arms around his neck just as the doorbell rang. “Thank you!”

  Danny grinned mischievously. “You might even want to send a struggling young actor to England for the summer.”

  “You,” Crista said, smiling up at him.

  “Me,” he said modestly as he reached behind her and threw open the door. “Hey, babe, now that you’re gonna be filthy rich—”

  “I wouldn’t count on it.”

  The angry male voice drove the breath from Crista’s lungs. She went still in Danny’s arms, then spun around.

  Grant was standing in the open doorway. For just an instant, her heart kicked against her ribs at the sight of him, tall and dark and so overwhelmingly masculine—but then she saw the look of distaste on his lips and her spine straightened.

  “What are you doing here?” she said coldly.

  “Such a warm welcome, Crista.” His eyes narrowed as he took in the scene. “I can see I’ve come at an inopportune time.”

  Hell, he thought, that was one way of putting it. The little tableau before him was about as intimate as possible—Crista in that silky robe in colors that should have been garish but instead only made her look more beautiful, the man holding her with all that bare skin and muscle showing above a pair of unfastened jeans.

  A cold knot tightened in his belly. Were Crista and her lover coming from bed? Or were they on their way to it?

  Grant’s lips drew back from his teeth. “Perhaps you’d like to introduce me to your—friend.”

  A flush rose in Crista’s face. “I asked you a question, Grant. What are you doing here?”

  “Crista?” Danny’s voice was low. “You want me to tell this guy to beat it?”

  Crista lifted her hand and put it over Danny’s.

  “Danny,” she said quickly, “this is Grant Landon.” She swallowed dryly. “My—my guardian.”

  She could feel Danny’s jolt of alarm. “This guy is your guardian?”

  “Yes.” She tilted her chin up. “And he was just about to tell me why he’s come here—weren’t you, Mr. Landon?”

  Grant took a deep breath. It took effort, but he finally managed what he hoped was a smile.

  “I came to discuss some important business with you.”

  “Business? You and me?” Crista laughed with derision. “I don’t think so.”

  Grant’s mouth thinned. “It would be to your advantage to listen to what I have to say, Crista.”

  “Have you decided to sign off as my guardian?”

  “If I did, someone else would take my place.”

  Crista shrugged off Danny’s hands and took a step forward. “Even that would be an improvement.”

  “Dammit, Crista! Stop being such a little fool and—”

  “That’s enough, pal!” Danny’s words were a growl of warning.

  Grant’s eyes shot to the man’s face. “If you’re smart, pal,” he said, his voice very soft and very cold, “you’ll keep out of this.”

  “If you think you can come down here and push Crista around…”

  “This matter doesn’t concern you. It’s between my ward and me.”

  “I am not your ward,” Crista said fiercely.

  “But you are. The sooner you get that through your head, the better.”

  “And don’t use that tone with me!”

  Grant’s brows rose. “What tone?”

  “The one that makes it sound as if I need humoring!” Crista’s hands balled into fists. “There’s nothing in my uncle’s will that gives you the right to—to come barging into my home! You are not welcome here. Furthermore, I’m—I’m busy!”

  “Yes.” Grant’s gaze swung from Crista to Danny. “I can see that.”

  “Good.” Crista put her hands on her hips. “Then you won’t mind leaving.”

  “After we’ve talked. In private.”

  “Crista,” Danny muttered, “I swear, if you want me to take care of this guy—”

  “Take care of me?” Grant said very softly. His lips drew back from his teeth in a quick, feral smile. “What a quaint phrase. What, exactly, did you have in mind?”

  “Stop it!” Crist
a blew out her breath. “This is ridiculous. Grant, if you’ve anything to say, say it now.”

  Grant’s muscles tensed with rage. Jesus, what was happening to him? The boy was Crista’s lover; it didn’t take a genius to figure that out. And he had every right to want to protect her—hell, in another life, Grant would have commended him for it…

  But not in this life. Not while Crista was standing so close to him that he could smell the faint scent of violets that clung to her skin, not while he could see the little pulsebeat in her throat…

  He gave Danny a smile that was easy, almost lazy. “Did you know that she’s not yet twenty-one?”

  “Dammit, Grant! I am of age to—to—”

  Crista bit her lip. I am of age to choose my own friends, she’d almost said—but suddenly she realized how this must look to Grant, she in her robe and Danny in those jeans—and it was perfect. Perfect! She might be Grant Landon’s ward—but she was not a child he could intimidate.

  And what better way to remind him than to make sure he went on thinking exactly as he was?

  With a look of defiance, she half turned to Danny and put her hand lightly on his bare chest.

  “I am of age to choose my own lovers!”

  She felt Danny’s body twitch with surprise, but—bless him—he kept silent.

  “Of course,” Grant said. “You are, indeed, old enough to make certain choices.” His smile sent a flicker of warning up her spine. “Just as it is my duty to make others.”

  “Dammit, don’t talk in riddles! Say what you came to say and then go!”

  Grant looked at Danny. “Do you live here, Mr…?”

  “Amato.” Danny smiled contemptuously. “Of course I live here.”

  “You don’t have to answer any of his questions,” Crista said sharply. “Where you live isn’t his concern.”

  “Ah, but as your guardian, the expenditure of your funds is very much my concern.” Grant smiled politely. “If you were the sole occupant of this apartment, Crista, we’d have to find a tenant to take over your lease. You do have a lease, don’t you?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  The simple question almost stopped Grant in his tracks. What in hell was he talking about? He had come to tell Crista that he was not going to interfere in her life, to assure her that he would be nothing more obtrusive than a voice on the phone for the next three months.