Trust Me Read online

  Books by Jayne Ann Krentz

  The Golden Chance

  Silver Linings

  Sweet Fortune

  Perfect Partners

  Family Man

  Wildest Hearts

  Hidden Talents

  Grand Passion

  Trust Me

  Absolutely, Positively

  Deep Waters

  Sharp Edges

  Flash

  Eye of the Beholder

  By Jayne Ann Krentz writing as Jayne Castle

  Amaryllis

  Zinnia

  Orchid

  Published by POCKET BOOKS

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  Copyright © 1995 by Jayne Ann Krentz

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7434-9641-4

  ISBN-10: 0-7434-9641-8

  POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Visit us on the World Wide Web:

  http://www.SimonSays.com

  For my husband, Frank,

  the one I love and trust

  1

  You're a woman, Miss Wainwright. Give me your honest opinion.” Sam Stark paused briefly to drink from the glass of brandy in his hand. “Do you think it was the prenuptial agreement that spooked her?”

  Desdemona Wainwright followed Stark's gaze. His attention was fixed on an object two floors below his study window. She had an uneasy feeling that he was brooding on the three large ice swans that were presently melting on the lawn of his austere garden.

  By now her staff had probably finished clearing away most of the evidence of the abruptly cancelled wedding reception. Fifteen pounds of cold tortellini salad, two hundred miniature asparagus tarts, three platters of herbed goat cheese, and a hundred and fifty spring rolls had no doubt been loaded back into the Right Touch Catering van.

  The cake, an elaborate five-tiered affair decorated with palest mauve and creamy white roses, would have been safely stowed in its special carrying crate.

  But the ice swans were a problem. Not only were they extremely heavy, by now they would be getting quite slippery.

  The swans would definitely be a write-off. Desdemona had taken an assessing glance at them as she had hurried to follow Stark into the concrete, steel, and glass fortress he called home. The swans' beaks had already begun to droop, and their tail feathers were blurred. Even if rushed immediately back to the Right Touch freezer, they couldn't be salvaged. Desdemona knew there was no way she could save them to use at the charity event her small business was scheduled to cater on Tuesday.

  A dead loss, just like the Stark-Bedford wedding.

  The easiest thing to do with the massive ice sculptures was to let them remain where they were until the late spring sun dissolved them. It wouldn't take long, a couple of days, perhaps. Seattle was enjoying a rare streak of sunny weather.

  But Desdemona felt a pang of guilt at the thought of leaving the swans behind in Stark's coldly elegant garden. It seemed a bit callous to stick the abandoned groom with three such vivid reminders of the humiliating experience he had endured this afternoon. Especially since she was in the process of trying to stick him with the tab for the expensive debacle as well.

  Desdemona set her jaw determinedly. She must not allow her natural empathy to weaken her resolve. She could not afford to be swayed by sympathy. There was too much cash at stake. She had gone way out on a financial limb to handle the Stark-Bedford reception.

  She struggled to find a diplomatic response to Stark's question.

  “I couldn't say whether or not Miss Bedford was concerned about a prenuptial agreement,” Desdemona said gently. She leaned forward until she was sitting on the very edge of her chair.

  She kept an eye on Stark's incredibly broad shoulders, making certain that he did not turn around as she reached across his glass and steel desk.

  Quickly she edged Pamela Bedford's apologetic note aside. Then she carefully positioned the catering invoice so that Stark would be sure to see it when he came back to his chair.

  “I just wondered,” Stark said, his attention still on the swans. “I've always made it a practice to conduct a detailed failure analysis when things have gone wrong.”

  “Failure analysis?”

  “It's standard procedure after a disaster.”

  “Oh. I see.” Desdemona cleared her throat. “Well, it's not really any of my business, Mr. Stark. I'm just the caterer. Now, then, I believe my invoice is completely self-explanatory. If you'd care to look it over?”

  “I made it clear right from the start that there would be one.” Stark braced one big hand on the windowsill and continued to study the swans down below.

  “A failure analysis?”

  “A prenuptial agreement. Do you think she thought I'd change my mind at the last minute?”

  “I have no idea, Mr. Stark.” After a couple of seconds of further consideration, Desdemona reached across the desk again and flipped Pamela's short note facedown. “Unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to freeze the tortellini salad. And I don't have another menu featuring asparagus tarts scheduled for this week. I'm afraid I'm going to have to charge you for everything that Miss Bedford ordered.”

  “Damn it, what the hell was so unreasonable about asking her to sign a prenuptial agreement? What did she expect me to do? Did she actually think I'd trust her to stick around for the next fifty years?”

  The bleak outrage in Stark's voice made Desdemona turn to stare, astonished, at his broad back. She realized he was genuinely baffled by his ex-fiancée's behavior. Amazing. The man was reputed to be brilliant. She had overheard one of the wedding guests refer to him as a human computer. But apparently he was quite dense when it came to the important things in life.

  Even Desdemona, whose only association with Pamela Bedford had been the series of consultations regarding the reception arrangements, knew very well how Stark's fiancée had reacted to the notion of a prenuptial agreement. Last month Pamela had broken down and sobbed in Desdemona's office. They had been in the middle of choosing between the asparagus tarts and miniature mushroom quiches.

  “A prenuptial agreement,” Pamela had wailed into a tissue. “Can you believe it? He doesn't love me, I know he doesn't. Isn't that an awful thing for a bride to discover four weeks before the wedding? What on earth am I going to do?”

  “Uh, the asparagus tarts are very popular—”

  “No, don't answer that. It's not your problem, is it? I'm sorry to burden you with this, Desdemona. It's just that I've got to talk to someone, and I don't want to worry my parents. They're so happy about this wedding.”

  “Are you thinking of calling it off?” Desdemona had asked anxiously. “If so, please let me know now. I'll be ordering ingredients and supplies and hiring extra help soon.”

  “Of course I'm not going to call it off.” Pamela had blown her nose one last time and then wadded up the tissue. She had straightened her shoulders and given Desdemona a brave look. Joan of Arc on her way to the stake. “I'll have to go through with the thing, of course. One doesn't cancel an affair of this magnitude at the last minute, does one? It isn't done. The family would be horrified.”

  “Perhaps you should go home and think about this,” Desdemona had said. “Marriage is an awfully big step.” And it's impossible
for me to return fresh asparagus and basil to my supplier.

  Pamela had heaved a small, tragic sigh. “He's a nerd, you know. Or maybe an android would be a more accurate description. He's got the brain of a computer and the body of a hunk. What a waste.”

  “Miss Bedford, I don't think we should be discussing this. Your fiancé's body doesn't have a whole lot to do with our menu decisions.”

  “He spent several years with a think tank in Colorado called the Rosetta Institute, you know. He specialized in applications of chaos theory. Some of his work was very hush-hush.”

  “I see.” Desdemona did not know what she was supposed to say in response. Her definition of chaos was what happened at Right Touch when a member of her staff, many of whom were involved in the theater world, was unexpectedly called to an audition just before an important catering event.

  “He has absolutely no sense of style. He wears running shoes, jeans, and an old corduroy jacket to work every day.” Pamela blotted her eyes. “And little round nerdy glasses and, oh, God, a plastic pocket protector full of pens and pencils. It's so embarrassing.”

  “I guess it works for him.”

  “I've been doing my best to upgrade him, but it's very difficult. You have no idea of how hard it was for me to get him to buy a tux for the wedding. He wanted to rent one, can you believe it?”

  “The mushroom quiches are nice, too, of course, but—”

  “He's utterly bored by social events.” Pamela gave Desdemona a mournful look. “He detests cocktail parties and charity affairs. He never goes to the opera or the theater. He even tries to avoid routine business entertaining.”

  “But I think the asparagus tarts would be more visually interesting,” Desdemona said quickly.

  “It's not as if I haven't tried. God knows, I've tried. After all, I'm the one who has to be seen in public with him.” Pamela had sniffed back more tears. “But I'm not sure it's possible to change him. He simply isn't interested, you see, and you have to get Stark's full attention before you can do anything with him.”

  “On the other hand, we could go for an entirely different effect, here,” Desdemona said. “Shrimp toasts, for example.”

  “I'm sorry, this isn't your problem, is it?” Pamela had said again, smiling bravely. “I have to remember that this marriage is not a life sentence. I can always get a divorce if things don't work out. Life goes on, doesn't it?”

  “Right. Tomorrow is another day,” Desdemona muttered.

  “Let me see that menu again. Do you think we should go with the asparagus tarts or mushroom quiches?”

  “The asparagus tarts,” Desdemona said swiftly. “They're quite distinctive. A little more expensive, however.”

  “Cost is not a problem. As I told you, Stark will be picking up the tab for the reception. He insisted.” Pamela's mouth had twisted bitterly for an instant. “I'd say that he offered to cover the costs of the wedding because he felt guilty about that damned prenuptial agreement, but the truth is, I don't think he felt at all guilty. A computer doesn't have emotions, does it?”

  Looking back at that awkward scene in her office, Desdemona realized she should have heeded her intuition and declined to handle the reception. Stark was not an android, and he definitely possessed emotions. She could feel them swirling about somewhere deep inside him in the same way one could feel an approaching storm long before one got drenched.

  In spite of her doubts, she had gone forward with the wedding plans. She was businesswoman enough to put intuition aside in favor of the practical benefits to be had from catering a major social event. The bride's impeccable family connections and the groom's swiftly evolving financial profile made the Stark-Bedford wedding the wedding of the season. As the caterer for the gala event Desdemona stood to reap a gold mine of publicity and contacts.

  Business was business, after all.

  But, Desdemona reminded herself, it was folly to ignore the Wainwright intuition. It was never wrong.

  Stark took off his round, gold-framed glasses and polished them absently on the sleeve of his pleated shirt. “I'm trying to approach this problem in a logical, analytical manner, Miss Wainwright. I would appreciate your input.”

  Desdemona stifled a groan. “Perhaps the prenuptial agreement struck Miss Bedford as a little, shall we say, unromantic?”

  That was putting it mildly. It didn't take a clairvoyant to realize that Pamela, blond, beautiful, and the apple of her parents' eyes, had grown up in a privileged world. It was a world that had always given her everything she desired. She had been crushed to learn that the man she was to marry had no intention of giving her his unqualified love and trust.

  As the date of the wedding had neared, Pamela had grown increasingly tense. Desdemona had seen the mounting anxiety in her client each time they had met to go over the reception arrangements, but she had optimistically chosen to ignore it. The future happiness of the bride and groom was not her problem.

  Desdemona had told herself that all she had to do was pull off a wildly successful reception, and that would be the end of her concern with the Stark-Bedford marriage.

  Unfortunately, she had miscalculated. Pamela had panicked at the last minute, leaving not only Stark, but Right Touch, in the lurch.

  “Unromantic? Unromantic?” Stark put on his glasses and swung around to confront Desdemona. His riveting green eyes glittered with an unsettling intensity. “What the hell kind of answer is that?”

  “Well, I'm not sure,” Desdemona admitted weakly.

  “Probably because it's a useless, meaningless, illogical answer.” Stark shrugged out of the black tux jacket and tossed it aside with a gesture of chilling disgust.

  The movement made Desdemona grip the arms of her chair very tightly. The fact that Stark appeared to have his emotions under an ironclad self-control only served to make them seem all the more dangerous.

  She was rapidly learning that Stark did not show his feelings the way the men in her family did. Wainwright men were volatile, exuberant, and flamboyant. So were the women, for that matter. Wainwrights were theater people, after all. They relished emotion.

  But Stark was a different breed. His emotional depths were dark and murky. He was difficult to read.

  For some inexplicable reason, she found him fascinating. She sensed that he was her exact opposite in many ways, and yet there was something oddly compelling about him. Part of her was drawn to him. She wondered rather wistfully what might have happened had they met in another place and another time.

  She had become aware of him as a person only an hour ago when it had finally dawned on everyone that he had been abandoned at the altar. Until that point she had been too frenetically busy behind the scenes to pay any attention to the groom. She had not even caught sight of him until his best man, Dane McCallum, had made the dreadful announcement that had sent the guests home.

  She could say one thing for certain about Stark, Desdemona decided. The man did look good in a tux.

  He had the body of a medieval knight. Not overly tall, a shade under six feet, perhaps, but very hard and very solid. He was sleekly muscled, with no sign of flab anywhere.

  He moved the way that a well-trained actor did, with grace and an instinctive sense of presence. When Stark entered a room, you would know he was there. Desdemona sensed that it was all unconscious on his part, however, not a carefully honed tactic to gain attention. He seemed completely unaware of the intensity that he projected. He simply was what he was, a self-contained force of nature.

  The tails of his black bow tie hung down the front of his crisply pleated shirt. He had undone the tie a few minutes ago when he had stalked into his study. Now, as Desdemona watched apprehensively, he yanked open the collar of his shirt, exposing the strong column of his throat.

  She stared in mute amazement as he impatiently ripped off his gold cuff links and tossed them onto the glass-topped desk. The twin spheres danced and skittered on the slick surface. Stark rolled up his sleeves, revealing sinewy fore arms
and a large, stainless steel digital watch that was adorned with a lot of miniature keys. It was the sort of watch that looked as though it could provide weather information, stock market reports, and breaking headlines in addition to the time of day. It was a high-tech gadget-lover's watch.

  From what Desdemona had seen, everything in the fortress was a high-tech-lover's dream. Lights came on automatically when you walked into a room. The kitchen was state-of-the-art. A household computer regulated everything, from the inside air temperature and the blinds that opened and closed according to the angle of the sun, to the extremely sophisticated security system.

  Even the art on the walls looked as though it had been generated by a computer. The pictures were brilliant explosions of light and color formed into complex, surreal designs.

  Desdemona struggled to change the subject. “A prenuptial agreement does seem to make a business deal out of a marriage, doesn't it? But that's neither here nor there. You'll be glad to know that the champagne can be returned to the supplier. I've deducted the amount from the total, as you can see.”

  “What's wrong with treating marriage as a business deal? We're talking about a major financial commitment here, not some short-term affair. It's an investment, and it should be handled like one.”

  Desdemona wished she had kept her mouth shut. It was obvious that Stark had been looking for a target, and she had made the mistake of providing him with one. She hastily tried to backpedal.

  “Right. A serious business,” Desdemona said.

  “Damn right. I thought Pamela understood that.” Stark paced back to his desk and threw himself down into his chair. Amazingly enough, the chair did not so much as squeak beneath his not inconsiderable weight. Stark did not glance at the invoice. “I thought I'd made a good choice this time. She seemed so stable. So sensible. Not one of those temperamental, emotional types who drive a man crazy with one scene of psychodrama after another.”

  Desdemona arched a brow. “I don't know about that. I'd say Miss Bedford has a nice touch when it comes to dramatic scenes. Abandoning a man at the altar is definitely a colorful way to stage an exit.”