Fine Madness Page 2

  Tears and all, his Kelly went off to Switzerland a little girl who loved him and came back a woman who didn't like him very much at all.

  He thought back on the last twenty-nine years of her life and he couldn't blame her one bit. He'd been an absentee father, an occasional breadwinner, and not the greatest role model to come down the pike.

  Yet when the chips were down it was Kelly he called and, to his constant amazement, it was Kelly who always showed up.

  But if the truth came out, he'd lose her forever and Sean knew he would do anything--anything--to keep that from happening.

  No matter what the cost.

  No matter how high the consequences.

  Ten years ago it had seemed a perfect solution to problems that threatened to devour him. A crime, perhaps, but a victimless one.

  Just the simple passing of information from one interested party to another.

  But that had been a different decade--and he was now a different man. Kelly was carving a place for herself in the world and the responsibilities of fatherhood preyed less heavily upon his mind. In the age of computers and FAX machines and electronic libraries of information that could dance on the head of a pin and still leave room for a host of cherubs, couriers like Sean Ryan were passe.

  How unfortunate his superiors did not see fit to look at it that way.

  "It's so simple," said one, eyes glittering with greed. "Just a matter of choice."

  Sean Ryan closed his eyes and prayed the whiskey would kill him before he had to make the final choice.

  Chapter Two

  Hawaii - Thanksgiving Day, now

  The sun slid along the length of her body like a lover's caress and Kelly Madison was about surrender to it heart and soul when she felt herself thrown suddenly into shade.

  "I thought blondes couldn't take the sun." The man's voice carried the sound of too much heat, too much vodka, and too many years spent in Brooklyn.

  Go away, she thought. Talk to me when I'm back in New York. After six years of non-stop work, she had finally decided Madison Dynamics was on solid enough ground that she could take the vacation her assistant Natalie had told her was long overdue and there she was, five thousand miles away from home, doing her best to have a good time.

  She wanted to hear Hawaiian love songs not the sound of a New York cabbie whispering in her ear.

  Her eyes flickered open behind her sunglasses and she saw a large man in a very small bikini looming over her. An absurd Pilgrim hat of black and white crepe paper rested atop his perfectly permed hair. Drops of condensation from his Mayflower Punch fell upon the bare, heated skin of her abdomen, making her shiver.

  Leaning up on one elbow, she pushed her glasses back on top of her head and fixed him with the cool stare that, despite the Hawaiian sun, had frozen better men than he.

  "Do you mind?" She pointedly glanced from his drink glass to his face then back again. "You're blocking the sun."

  He hesitated as if uncertain if he were being dismissed or invited to sit down. She put her sunglasses back on and stretched out once again so he'd have no doubts. She should have known better. Fat men in skimpy swim trunks rarely understood body language and he hunkered down next to her. A day's booze had accumulated on his breath and she could feel his eyes roaming the expanse of flesh laid bare by her red bikini.

  "Hot day," he said. "You can get quite a burn out here."

  Not even his accent was interesting. Simple Flatbush with a touch or two of the Bronx thrown in for good measure, hidden behind the careful speech patterns of the native New Yorker who is trying to sound anything but.

  If it weren't eighty degrees in the shade, she'd don a pair of ear muffs.

  "How about sharing a vodka with me?" A pause. "A tonic? A swim?"

  She sat up and faced him. "Please understand that it's nothing personal, but I'd rather be alone."

  His grin widened. "No one wants to be alone. If you wanted to be alone you wouldn't be out here by the pool."

  "Perhaps you should have checked the brochure before you came here," she said. "This is Maui, not Club Med, and I'm not looking for vodka or tonic or company. I just want privacy. Thank you very much."

  He muttered something beneath his breath and walked away toward the bar where a phalanx of newly-divorced women sat nursing pina coladas and giant settlement checks. Men were a strange lot, Kelly mused as she settled back down, adjusting the curves of her body to the curves of the chaise longue. Show them a lone woman minding her own business and every single--and sometimes married--man within a ten mile radius flocked to her side.

  Put that same woman at a resort bar with a pina colada and high expectations and she'd go home alone every time.

  The men she'd seen there at the Kaanapali Inn had left their inhibitions back at the office along with their three-piece suits and Kelly wondered if Hawaiian sunshine did something to their hormones as well as their tans.

  Not that men were particularly rational in the best of times. Growing up as Sean Ryan's daughter, she'd seen first-hand the way the male of the species could be led around by the genitals and she'd been pushed aside more than once as ambitious starlets and star-mad socialites vied for his affections.

  When her mother died just after Kelly's fourth birthday, Sean had tackled the role of parent with the same zeal he brought to a John Huston movie. Everything he did, he did for Kelly and those years as his little shadow were golden in her memory.

  She'd sit on a tiny canvas director's chair on movie sets in Rome and Paris and Hong Kong, watching her father grow bigger than life right there before her, saving the world with acts of courage and daring that thrilled audiences everywhere and won a little girl's endless devotion.

  It was an idyllic time and even once she began going to school, she had the summers to look forward to. Long, golden summers sailing around the Greek isles or museum hopping in London. She'd been awash in the sights and sounds and smells of other cultures, other worlds that were more fascinating than anything found in a book.

  But it all came to an end the summer she turned eleven when he remarried the first in a series of women who broke both his heart and his bankbook and sent him sliding down into despair.

  She remembered that as the last summer she called him Daddy.

  Men were weak, fickle, spineless creatures best left to their own devices. She'd spent her life picking up after Sean, cleaning up his messes, paying his bills, making excuses where no excuse could possibly serve.

  At eighteen she had fallen into marriage when Sean's money ran out and she was asked--oh, so politely--to leave Vassar. Terrified and alone with no skills, no money, and no one to care, she'd confused need with love and the results were devastating. The marriage was a consummate disaster and, alone again at nineteen, she had capitalized on her one asset and signed up with a modeling agency in Paris.

  Kelly quickly earned more money than she'd ever dreamed possible. Her knack for language and dialect, discovered and honed during the years she traveled with Sean from one movie set to another, made her very popular with the would-be actresses and she spent her free time teaching Georgia girls to sound like New Yorkers and vice versa. It wasn't long before her sharp mind caught on to the fact that this talent would last far longer than her beauty.

  New York City was ripe for the picking, a garden of diplomats and actors and rising corporate executives eager to learn the secrets of verbal success.

  Madison Dynamics was born and she never once looked back.

  She didn't dare.

  Looking back meant admitting loneliness. Looking back meant admitting fear.

  Looking back meant admitting that sometimes the brightest stars burned out long before they died.

  And that terrified her most of all.

  A cooling trade wind drifted lazily across the pool, lifting the long strands of her pale blonde hair and blowing them gently across her face. At last! Not even watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade from her living room window could compete.
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br />   Now this was what a Hawaiian vacation was all about...

  She was about to drift off into a delightful dream when she caught the sound of her name.

  "Kelly? She's over there." The woman's voice--light, regretful--floated over the enormous pool, her diction clear and precise and utterly midwestern.

  "Good luck." A man laughed. It was the Flatbush specimen she'd just dismissed. "She's thrown back three bigger than you already today."

  She heard a deep throaty male voice murmur something but she could catch neither words nor accent. A twinge of curiosity tempted her to open one eye and see who owned that voice but she pushed it aside.

  If her guess was right, he'd be next to her in a few moments, asking her to have a drink, have a swim, share his bed and she'd have his accent analyzed in the time it took to tell him to take a hike.

  She could wait.

  More than a few moments went by and still no one approached her. Kelly shifted position in the lounge chair, trying to get comfortable again but it was useless. Out there somewhere was a man with one thing on his mind and the sooner she dispatched him, the better. She had only two more days of vacation left and she'd be darned if she spent them fending off hungry males.

  Propping herself up on one elbow, she peered through the white-hot sunshine toward the pool. Could he have paused for a drink or--

  "Please? A moment."

  The man's voice, deep and smoky, startled her. She turned quickly to her left, eyes still blinded by the glare, and made out a male form sitting on the edge of the bench next to her.

  "You startled me." She sat up and ran one tanned hand quickly across her forehead to straighten her bangs.

  "It was not intended. I thought you were sleeping."

  "Relaxing," she corrected. "May I help you?" Good grief! What an absurdly formal response from a woman in a red bikini.

  "I believe so."

  His voice was liquid smoke, fluid and elegant. There was something vaguely Spanish about his accent, a certain hint of the exotic that baffled her. She inclined her head toward him and waited for him to continue.

  "You are Kelly Madison of Madison Dynamics?"

  "Yes." My God, that voice. The way he caressed the L's and rolled over the R's. Incredible. Her eyes slowly readjusted to the alternating demands of sun and shadow and she could see the clean outline of a chiseled jaw and the full head of dark brown hair shot through with lighter strands of chestnut.

  "I would like to speak with you about doing an assignment--"

  "I'm sorry," she interrupted,, "but I'm on vacation right now."

  "--on doing an assignment for me beginning next month." He leaned forward, elbows resting on his thighs, his cream-colored silk shirt gapping open at the throat and exposing a tan the men at the bar would sell their gold chains for.

  "I'm sorry." She met his eyes which, like hers, were hidden behind dark sunglasses. "As I said, I'm on vacation right now. If you wish to talk business, call my office in New York after the 25th of the month."

  "I need to make my arrangements now, Ms. Madison."

  A tiny muscle at the base of her jaw tightened. "And I need my rest. I'd be perfectly willing to speak with you when I'm back at work, but right now I intend to enjoy the sun." She stretched back out on the chaise longue, battling a strange mixture of fierce attraction and equally fierce indignation. What on earth was going on? She couldn't remember a time when a man's look had brought about such a strongly physical response.

  "Five minutes of your time. Surely you can spare that." The bench next to her shifted and before she could react, the man leaned over and removed her sunglasses.

  Her eyes flashed open. "Give them back."

  "After." He sat next to her on the chaise, the soft light wool of his pants touching the bare skin of her thigh. "I find it difficult to speak to a woman whose eyes stay hidden from me."

  Impulsively she reached up and yanked off his sunglasses, laying them on her abdomen. "And I find it impossible to listen to a man whose eyes stay hidden from me."

  He smiled at her, his full lips exposing a line of even white teeth that were a dentist's dream. "You have beautiful eyes," he said, matter-of-factly leaning toward Kelly and looking at her face.

  "That's not a particularly businesslike statement," she said, painfully aware that her bikini put her at a distinct disadvantage.

  His eyes, an incredible bottle-green tinged with golden flecks, crinkled at the corners. "But you said you are not at business now, yes?" She refused to return the smile on principle. Men that handsome needed to know they weren't invincible. "That hasn't stopped you from pursuing the subject." She leaned over and looked at the gold watch on his left wrist. "Three minutes then I'm back on vacation."

  "Pode ajudar-me, por favor?" Can you help me, please.

  "South American dialect," she said, more to herself. "Brazilian?"

  He smiled. "You have a good ear for accents."

  This time she couldn't help smiling back at him.

  "And you have two minutes left."

  "I need your help, Miss Madison. I need your undivided attention for one month to learn to do business in your country."

  "I'm afraid you have the wrong party. I'm not a business coach." She thought about her own fluctuating bottom line. "I don't know a great deal about finance." If he'd seen last month's fiscal report he would know how ridiculous his request was.

  The look he gave her was indecipherable. "The business is my job." That incredible accent of his made each word a delight. "Your job will be to help me communicate my intent."

  "Your English is quite good," she said, fingering his sunglasses which rested against her stomach. Those deep green eyes of his caught each rise and fall of her breasts and it took a tremendous effort to keep from reaching down for her towel and shielding herself from his gaze.

  "I don't see why you would need my help." She looked at his watch again. "Twenty seconds."

  He shrugged and the silk shirt rustled against his skin. "It cannot be explained in so short a time. Perhaps we could continue?"

  Kelly was tempted but the need for rest was too urgent--and the instinct for self-preservation too intense. "Not today," she said firmly. "You obviously know where my office in New York is. Make an appointment for any time after the 25th."

  He moved a fraction closer to her. His deeply tanned skin carried the scent of citrus and spice and radiated a heat not unlike that of the sun. Her stomach clenched as he plucked the sunglasses from atop her abdomen.

  His long fingers never touched her flesh yet she had the sensation of being branded.

  "I need your help," he said softly, "and I will have it."

  She glared at him, exposed and vulnerable without the shield of her sunglasses. He slipped on his own and she saw the reflection of her body, long and sensually curved reflected in the lenses, and the knowledge of how she must appear to him was an unexpected and potent aphrodisiac. "I'm sure you always get what you want," she said dryly.

  He smiled and handed her back her own glasses. "Usually," he agreed as she slipped them on. "Usually I do."

  "And it's business help you want, is it?"

  He nodded.

  She sat up and faced him. "I'll give you a bit of free business advice. This macho approach might work like gangbusters in your country but this isn't your country and if you expect to get ahead, you damn well better tone down the machismo a few degrees. American women don't like to take orders."

  He stood up and she watched as he slid one hand down the side of his pale beige pants. She could almost imagine the resilience of the body beneath and she shook her head hard against the disturbing images that flashed through her mind like heat lightning.

  Too much sun, she thought. One too many rum punches.

  "You're time is up," she managed finally. She would have said anything to break the strange spell she was falling under.

  His laugh made her body tremble with fierce, unexpected desire. "You'll call me, Miss Madison."
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  She looked up at him. "You're very sure of yourself, aren't you?"

  "In this, yes. I am."

  "You might be disappointed."

  "I do not think so."

  "Arrogance is a highly overrated attribute in a man."

  "And so is a sharp tongue in a woman, Miss Madison. Sharp tongues are better suited to a viper."

  "You've had your free advice. Now, if you don't mind, I'm still on vacation."

  She closed her eyes behind the dark lenses of her sunglasses and stretched out but could feel him watching her, those incredible eyes of his lingering on all her secret womanly places.

  "Call me after the 25th," she said again. "Perhaps then we can do business."

  "You are a hard woman," he said softly. "You will be difficult to tame."

  "I can't be tamed," she said, risking the temptation in his eyes. "I won't allow it."

  "Sometimes we have no choice."

  "There's always a choice," she said. "Always."

  He said nothing this time, simply ran the tip of his finger lightly across her cheek then turned to leave.

  Once again the sun beat down unmercifully but this time Kelly didn't notice it: she was already on fire from within.

  Chapter Three

  "I need a beer."

  Max slumped into the back seat of the massive Rolls-Royce and tossed his shades into the console.

  "I don't like the sound of that," said Ryder O'Neal from the driver's seat. "She give you trouble?"

  Max groaned and plucked a Coors from the bar. He popped the top, took a long draught then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Why didn't you tell me she was beautiful?"

  "I told you she was smart," Ryder said, grinning at him through the rear view mirror.

  "Smart isn't beautiful." "Smart's more important."

  "Smart I can handle," Max said, swallowing another mouthful of beer. "Beautiful gives me a real problem."

  "We're not asking you to marry her, friend. Just kidnap her."

  Max polished off the beer and squelched the urge to crush the can. Old habits died hard. "How long you been married, O'Neal? One years? Two?"