Bride of the Tiger Read online

  Rafe shook his head impatiently. “I gave up working because Dad died and someone had to run his empire. I might have been a wanderer, but he always knew I’d come back when I was needed. And Jimmy was my brother, Myrna. My little brother. I promise you—I’d never be able to rest if I didn’t follow every damn possibility.”

  She was still looking at her hands, and nodded miserably.

  Rafe stood. He’d been fifteen years old when his father had married Myrna; her son, Jimmy, had been only seven at the time. But a tie had formed between them instantly, and in the years that followed, the stepbrothers had become closer than those bonded by blood.

  “One more shot of bourbon, Myrna,” Rafe said. “Then off to bed with you. You could use some sleep.” He brought her a second drink and watched while she swallowed it. Then he helped her to rise and led her to the door. He kissed her forehead. “Get to bed.”

  She lifted her huge blue eyes to him, eyes that still brimmed with tears. “You’ve been the very best son, Rafe. The very best.”

  “Hey, you’re a damn good stepmom, too.”

  Her smile warmed; her tears seemed to dry a little. “Good night, Rafe. I’m in control, I promise. And I’ll—I’ll trust you.”

  “Thanks, Myrna. This will take a little time, and you can’t make yourself crazy, right?”

  She nodded, stronger now. With a smile and a little wave, she moved down the darkened hall to the suite she still maintained in the Tyler mansion on Long Island.

  Rafe closed his study door, turned out the lights and went through the connecting door to his bedroom.

  He didn’t turn on the light. Wearily, he stripped and headed for bed, then paused and turned to the mullioned floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on the gardens. There was a full moon tonight. There was a breeze, too. The moon’s glow fell on the water splashing in the main fountain and made fantasy diamonds of it against the velvet of the night.

  A perfect setting for a Galliard girl, Rafe found himself thinking. Not just any Galliard girl. Tara Hill.

  Dressed in something flowing, something almost translucent—chiffon silk. A gown that was soft yet would mold to her hips and breasts with each fluid movement of her long legs. Its color would be somewhere between blue and silver, like her eyes. Good God, he could almost see her walking the path, almost smell the fragrance of her perfume and her flesh....

  He turned away from the window and angrily padded over to the bed, ripping the covers away with a vengeance. Damned bloody moon! It had been proved centuries ago that the moon gave rise to fantasies.

  Rafe slammed a fist into his pillow and curled onto his side. Still she remained with him, her scent seeming to linger on his flesh. He closed his eyes tightly but could not dispel the vision of her in his room, walking toward him. He could discern her figure beneath the diaphanous gown, the lush round rise of her breasts, the shadow between, the dark, entrancingly peaked circles where her nipples rose in anticipation of his touch. The sway of her walk, the length of her thighs, the moon-touched silver of her eyes as she looked at him, the feel of her fingers as they rested first against his cheek and then on his chest. He could even hear her whisper to him....

  He sat up, grunting between clenched teeth, holding his head between his hands. Had he been awake or asleep? That touch of her fingers had been nothing but a layer of sweat beading onto his naked flesh as he dreamed.

  He closed his eyes tightly and vehemently shook his head. He finally banished her presence and brought to mind his stepmother’s glistening tears, recalling the agony in her voice. He thought of his brother Jimmy. Young, good-looking, happy-go-lucky. Sensitive and courteous, and such an easy mark when it came to a beautiful woman. One who might have cried, clung to him, used him.

  Tara Hill—pretty poison. Or was she?

  It didn’t matter. He lay down again, very aware that he could not fall in love with a fantasy. But he smiled grimly in the night. He intended to have that fantasy. She would be dealing with Rafe Tyler this time.

  Not Jimmy.

  And by God, he meant to have the truth. The whole story. It mattered not one whit how he went about procuring it.

  He closed his eyes once more, finally exhausted by his determination. But his dreams wouldn’t quit. It seemed that he was plagued by whispers moaning in the wind, clarified by the moon.

  Whispers hinting again and again that, despite the odds, despite the facts, she might be innocent. As real and innocent and beautiful as the shimmering silver of her eyes....

  CHAPTER 4

  Tara arrived fifteen minutes late for her fitting, and George wasn’t about to let her get away with it.

  “Tara, back to work means back to work! Either you’re with us or you’re not. You don’t want a job? Fine—I’ve got dozens of girls who would die for the opportunity. Girls not yet a quarter of a century old, if you get my meaning, ma petite!”

  Tara winced slightly behind her sunglasses and gritted her teeth. George had been really angry at first; he hadn’t even bothered feigning his French accent through the first two sentences. And George liked to “be French.” He might have been born in Brooklyn, but he was convinced that American women wanted French fashions. Maybe he had a point. He had managed to make his name synonymous with fashion the world over.

  But he didn’t fool her. Not anymore. She had known him too long now. They had been friends; they had endured their squabbles. They had undergone an investigation together—he’d been dragged into it, all because of her! But still, he had tried to shield her, had tried to talk her out of running away. And he had taken her back without blinking when she had squared her shoulders and determined to work again.

  “I’m sorry,” Tara murmured, lowering her head and trying not to show her grin. His toupee was slightly awry—and he was a man who did not admit to baldness. He was of medium height, with a wiry build, and his manners were perfect—when he wanted them to be.

  He was also cruel at times. He liked to remind Tara that he had taken her on as a dirt-poor ragamuffin and changed her into a priestess of high fashion.

  Tine had been worse! she reminded herself abruptly, and felt suddenly frozen. In her two years of solitude she thought she had matured. She thought she had faced all the facts and learned to live with them. But just as she had done through all the previous night, she was reliving the past. Yes, Tine had enjoyed his moments of mastery. Reminding her that even with her scholarships, she would never have been able to leave her parents to go to college. That if it hadn’t been for him, she wouldn’t have been able to give them relief in their last days. That they would have died in pain and dirt and filth, and she would have wound up just like her mother—except healthier. She would have raised a passel of lice-ridden brats, scrounging in the welfare lines.

  Tears pricked her eyes behind her glasses; it hurt even now. She wanted to fight, just as she had always fought Tine. She wanted to rage out that her mother had been one of the kindest women on earth, that she had always been poor because she had taken in any stray, any child, and that her father’s only crimes had been his lack of education and tireless efforts to make other men rich by his labor and sweat....

  “Mon Dieu! Take those glasses off and get over to see Madame Clouseau! Schedules, schedules! Ma chérie, we leave in ten days!”

  His tone had grown gentle, and Tara sighed, aware that George really did care for her; it was just that he had become accustomed to treating his models either like little children or slaves. He had a remarkable ego—and perhaps it was justly deserved, for it was his fashions that had given them all their tenuous claims to fame.

  “I’m going, George,” she began. “And I really am sorry—”

  “Tara!” he exclaimed, looking at her closely for the first time and frowning. “What have you done to yourself? You look like—like absolute hell!”

  She grimaced dryly—she didn’t look great, but she didn’t look all that bad, either! She hadn’t slept more than an hour the night before and had a few sh
adows under her eyes. All because of that damned Rafe Tyler! He had triggered something in her, and all she had done, hour after hour, was toss and relive her life and...

  Dream. Dream of something different from anything she had ever known. A man with the grace and power and fluidity of a tiger—who loved her with the gentle, tender manner of a kitten.

  “I, uh, I slept badly last night, George, that’s all. I’ve only been back about a week now; my apartment still seems a little alien and—”

  “Alien!” George snorted in disgust. “It has been yours for eight years! Tonight you will take the pills I give you—they will ease you into sleep.”

  Tara sighed wearily. “I don’t take sleeping pills, George.”

  “You will not work, Tara, unless you learn to sleep. Now, I am serious—I cannot have you looking like a refugee! Like an emaciated pauper. Like—”

  “All right!” Tara snapped. “I’ll sleep, I promise! But no pills!” She continued to mutter her opinion of sleeping pills as she stepped past him to the rear of the showroom, then to the fitting rooms beyond. He chuckled softly behind her. If nothing else, she was at least off the hook for her tardiness, she thought.

  Madame Clouseau was there amid a tangle of measuring tape and sporting a mouthful of pins as she worked over Cassandra Law, a stunning young woman with a headful of nearly blue-black hair. Perhaps, Tara mused, George had taken her back as an employee only because she was a blonde. George, as well as having a flair for color in clothing, loved to play the artist with his models’ hair. There would be only four of them on the trip, and they were entirely different in their natural coloring. There was Cassandra, with her raven locks and indigo eyes; Ashley, with her brilliant red curls and green eyes; Mary Hurt, a brunette with deep mahogany eyes; and Tara, with light-blond hair and silver-tinted eyes. Colorful, different—just the way George liked things.

  Cassandra was standing on a stool, a white satin strapless gown molding itself around her luscious form and ending elegantly in a froth of rhinestoned tulle around her ankles. She grimaced at Tara in pain as Madame stuck her with one of her countless pins.

  “It sounded loud out there,” Cassandra murmured, looking anxiously at Tara. “You okay?”

  Tara nodded. “Fine, thanks. I’ve learned to weather the storms around here quite well.”

  “You’re late!” Madame Clouseau snapped, pushing a straying tendril of steel-gray hair behind her ear.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Start with the black velvet evening gown, please,” Madame said. “Cassandra, get this off. Now where is Ashley?”

  “I’m here, I’m here! And I’m not wearing this!”

  Ashley appeared in a burnt-orange concoction that clashed horribly with her hair. She didn’t wait for a reply—Ashley was marvelous at ignoring Madame’s imperious manner—but smiled at Tara. “You’re late! Does that mean that something erotic happened last night?”

  “No, it means I overslept.”

  “You will wear the dress! George has said so!” Madame exclaimed angrily.

  “Damn!” Ashley swore to Tara. “I certainly will not!” she told Madame. “I shall go see George right away and handle the situation myself!” She started for the front, then turned back. “Tara, I want to hear all about it later!”

  “I’m dying to hear about it, too!” Cassandra laughed.

  “Will you please get to work!” Madame called out, clapping her hands sharply.

  “What a wonderful kindergarten teacher you would have made!” Tara told her sweetly, then, secretively smiling and giggling to one another, Tara and Cassandra hurried to the back. They passed Mary on the way; she was mumbling under her breath as she tripped over the hem of the elegantly seductive peignoir she was wearing.

  It was a long day. Tara went through outfit after outfit and appeared before George—pinned to perfection by Madame—with a multitude of purses, evening bags, shoes, coats, hats and stockings. He picked everything apart and redesigned each complete ensemble until he was satisfied. He did the same with the others. Ashley and Cassandra complained, while Tara and Mary remained silently amused. In between, Ashley described the tiger-man to Cassandra, and the two of them plagued Tara to death with questions regarding her few minutes alone with the man. Cassandra swore that Tara led the most exciting life, and Tara silently reflected that excitement had brought her nothing but misery before. Mary seemed to be on her side, though.

  “Don’t ever trust a man like that! If he’s that devastating to you, he’s that devastating to all women. And he probably keeps a scorecard of his conquests!”

  Ashley shook her head vehemently. “Not this guy. He would only be interested in the crème de la crème!”

  “Ah, but he needs his crème all the time!”

  “It doesn’t matter, anyway!” Tara said at last. “I’ll never see the man again. Let’s drop it, shall we? Please?”

  She counted herself grateful that they did. Mary was taking classes at Columbia, determined to be an architect when her days as a model came to an end. She began to talk enthusiastically about a certain professor, and Tara found herself swept into the mood, laughing with the others. She longed to agree to Ashley’s suggestion that they all go out to dinner at the end of the day. But she remembered what George had said. She would have to get some sleep.

  “I’ve got to go home,” she said with a sigh. “Sorry—I’ve just got to get some rest.”

  Ashley instantly looked contrite and worried. “Are you all right, Tara? Want me to come with you? I can make you something to eat. You can shower and go straight to bed.”

  Tara shook her head. “No, thanks, Ashley. I’m capable of making my own dinner—honest! Go, have a good time!”

  They parted on the street. Tara let the others get the first cab, and, to her frustration, it took her almost half an hour to get another. It was nearly seven when she reached her apartment.

  She kicked off her shoes by the door, sighed softly and went into the kitchen to put on a kettle for tea. While she waited for the water to boil, she drew a hot bubble bath. When her tea was made, she took it and a paperback thriller into the bathroom, where she relaxed in the tub, while a frozen dinner cooked in the oven.

  She couldn’t seem to get into the book. It was wonderful—but her mind was a mess. She didn’t want to think about the past, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. She kept remembering that she was going to Caracas again. And she kept seeing that city, and then Tine, herself—and Jimmy.

  Tara sighed, sipped her tea and set it down on the tile floor, gave up on the book—and settled back into the bubble bath, closing her eyes.

  Caracas...

  It had been all over by then. All over between her and Tine. She had met him at seventeen, fallen in love with him before she was twenty.

  By the time they had reached Caracas, she had almost hated him.

  She wasn’t quite sure when the beginning of the end had come. She had adored Tine at first. He had been like a benevolent magician, come to turn her world around, to offer her money to ease her family’s distress, to give her fame and glamour. He had asked nothing of her—not at first. He had been tall and slim and capable of the slowest, sexiest smile in the universe.

  Tine had known how to bide his time. She had been raised rigidly and morally. But on her twentieth birthday she had gone to him, and before her twenty-first birthday they were living together.

  The trouble had started in small ways. Her family had embarrassed him; she had been fiercely loyal. He wanted to control her contracts. He didn’t want her sending money home; he didn’t want her creating scholarships for the local high school students who were caught in the same economic prison in which she herself had been confined. He didn’t want her to have lunch with her friends—not even to make phone calls!

  When he had begun to insist that she marry him, she had backed away, already disillusioned. When she had begun to fight—he’d eased off, and reminded her that he had made her. Very subtly, he’d rem
inded her that he could also break her. And, of course, he had still been Tine. So good-looking, so male, so capable of overpowering the staunchest convictions that she could muster.

  But in Caracas she’d escaped him. And, wandering through the city streets, joining a tour of the old cathedral, she’d realized that she really was coming to hate him, and that she couldn’t stay with him a minute longer. He meant to rule her—and she wasn’t about to be ruled or imprisoned by anyone.

  On that same afternoon, walking past the shops, she had suddenly paused, caught by the reflection in a window of a young man’s eyes.

  She had turned quickly to meet him face-to-face. He didn’t turn away. He had been young and handsome and more. She was accustomed to men’s looks, accustomed to sighing with the realization that they were usually interested in just one thing.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t display that same hunger. But it was tempered somehow with laughter and humor. His eyes had held a wistful appreciation, and he’d smiled so nicely that she discovered herself smiling back.

  They talked as they walked along, and they wound up having dinner. He told Tara that he was a tourist. She told him her business. He said that he knew her business—any man with life and breath in him knew who she was.

  And somehow she had poured out her story to him. And in speaking to him, she’d realized uneasily that she was afraid of Tine.

  “If you need help, if you’re ever afraid, just call me. I’ll be there, understand?”

  She knew his offer was honest. He really didn’t want anything; he wasn’t making any demands. He was actually offering to be her friend.

  That night she’d told Tine that she was leaving him. First he’d reminded her harshly that they were both working. Then he’d tried his subtle magic on her.

  And she had known that it was truly over, because she felt nothing for him. When she had told him that, he’d called her a liar, but it had been true.

  Sitting in the tub now, she clenched her fingers tightly. Tine had been convinced of his sexual mastery. She didn’t think she would forget, no matter how long she lived, how he had forced her that night. And how incredulous and furious he had been when he realized at the end that she had meant it—he could not move her, and she hated him.