Deep Waters

you deal with me, Charity, it's that when I'm feeling aggressive, there's nothing passive about it."
    "You know something? I believe you. That still leaves manipulative and sneaky. And I warn you, Mr. Winters, I know everything there is to know about manipulative and sneaky. I grew up in the corporate world."
    "I appreciate the warning," Elias said softly. He liked the way the skirts of her gauzy, white cot ton dress billowed and snapped around her gently rounded calves. Only a short while ago when she had arrived to introduce herself, those same skirts had floated discreetly, even protectively about her legs. Now she was angry, and she and her skirts had both thrown discretion to the winds.
    The deep sensual hunger rising within him made him uneasy. An attractive, strong-minded woman in a summer dress and strappy little sandals was always an appealing sight, but his reaction today was definitely over the top. What was wrong with him?
    Perhaps he shouldn't be too hard on himself, he thought glumly. It had been a long time since he had been involved with a woman. His long-planned vengeance had become an all-consuming passion during the past few months as his grand scheme moved into its final phase. It had become so strong that it had temporarily blotted out even the desire for sex.
    And then Hayden Stone had died, and everything had changed forever. Ever since Hayden's death he had felt as if he had been cut adrift on a dark, roiling sea. None of his reactions seemed quite normal. He had lost his sense of internal balance. This intense response to Charity Truitt was a good example.
    She was not the sort of woman who normally aroused his interest. For years he had been drawn to the cool types found in film noir movies. Savvy, sophisticated women who wore a lot of black. Women who moved in the high-stakes world of the Pacific Rim trade, either as power brokers or as powers behind thrones. Some had been attracted to him because of the contacts and connections he could offer. Some had simply wanted the satisfaction of being seen with a man who was as powerful as themselves. Others had been intrigued by the perception of danger. Whatever the terms of the sexual bargain, Elias had always made certain that the exchange of favors had been equal.
    But Charity was different. He sensed intuitively that if he pursued the relationship, there would be no simple, straightforward arrangement with her. She would be demanding and difficult in ways that he had al ways avoided.
    "Are you or are you not connected to Far Seas?" Charity fumed.
    Elias flattened his hands on the glass counter in front of him. "I am Far Seas."
    "Is this a joke?"
    "No." He considered briefly. "I don't think I know any jokes."
    "Well? Where's the rest of the company?"
    "The rest of it?"
    She threw up her hands. "Secretaries, clerks, managers, and assorted flunkies."
    "My secretary took another job a few months ago. I didn't bother to replace her. There are no clerks or managers, and I never could get any reliable flunkies."
    "That is not funny."
    "I told you, I don't do jokes."
    "Assuming you're telling me the truth, why were you so secretive about the fact that you now own the pier?"
    "I learned a long time ago never to initiate a business discussion. The clear spring waters of open dealing and plain-speaking are too often mistaken as evidence of weakness. I was taught to let others come to me."
    Charity came to a halt in front of the counter. "You mean you prefer to hold the advantage. I get the point. But for the record, I never took any of those expensive seminars from rip-off management consultants on how to do business according to the principles of the Tao. I prefer to do business the old-fashioned way. Level with me, Winters. Do you really own Crazy Otis Landing?"
    "Yes." Elias looked into her huge hazel eyes and wondered at the deep wariness he saw beneath the anger. He recalled vague gossip about the chaos that had followed a failed merger between Truitt and a company called Loftus Athletic Gear. There had been an abrupt resignation of Truitt's CEO. Rumors of a problem with said CEO's nerves. He had paid little attention because neither Truitt nor Loftus were involved in Pacific Rim trade. "Well?"
    "Hayden Stone did not leave only Charms & Virtues to me," Elias said. "He left me the whole pier."
    "Plus the cottage on the bluff." She narrowed her eyes. "That's a lot of real estate. Why would he leave so much to you?"
    Elias chose his words carefully. "I