The Art of Deception

unfortunate memory. “Then I came up with the solution. Papa is a sucker.”
    “Is that so?”
    “That is, he just can’t resist a bet, no matter what the odds.” She touched the wood again, knowing she’d have to come back to it later. “My language was, let’s say, colorful. I can swear eloquently in seven languages.”
    “Quite an accomplishment.”
    “It has its uses, believe me. I bet Papa ten thousand dollars that I could go longer without swearing than he could without smoking. Both my language and the ozone layer have been clean for three months.” Rising, Kirby circled the table. “I have the gratitude of the entire staff.” Abruptly she dropped in his lap. Letting her head fall back, she wound her arms around his neck. “Kiss me again, will you? I can’t resist.”
    There can’t be another like her, Adam thought as he closed his mouth over hers. With a low sound of pleasure, Kirby melted against him, all soft demand.
    Then neither of them thought, but felt only.
    Desire was swift and sharp. It built and expanded so that they could wallow in it. She allowed herself the luxury, for such things were too often brief, too often hollow. She wanted the speed, the heat, the current. A risk, but life was nothing without them. A challenge, but each day brought its own. He made her feel soft, giddy, senseless. No one else had. If she could be swept away, why shouldn’t she be? It had never happened before.
    She needed what she’d never realized she needed from a man before: strength, solidity.
    Adam felt the initial stir turn to an ache—something deep and dull and constant. It wasn’t something he could resist, but something he found he needed. Desire had always been basic and simple and painless. Hadn’t he known she was a woman who would make a man suffer? Knowing it, shouldn’t he have been able to avoid it? But he hurt. Holding her soft and pliant in his arms, he hurt. From wanting more.
    “Can’t you two wait until after lunch?” Fairchild demanded from the doorway.
    With a quiet sigh, Kirby drew her lips from Adam’s. The taste lingered as she knew now it would. Like the wood behind her, it would be something that pulled her back again and again.
    “We’re coming,” she murmured, then brushed Adam’s mouth again, as if in promise. She turned and rested her cheek against his in a gesture he found impossibly sweet. “Adam’s been sketching me,” she told her father.
    “Yes, I can see that.” Fairchild gave a quick snort. “He can sketch you all he chooses after lunch. I’m hungry.”

Chapter 4
    F ood seemed to soothe Fairchild’s temperament. As he plowed his way through poached salmon, he went off on a long, technical diatribe on surrealism. It appeared breaking conventional thought to release the imagination had appealed to him to the extent that he’d given nearly a year of his time in study and application. With a good-humored shrug, he confessed that his attempts at surrealistic painting had been poor, and his plunge into abstraction little better.
    “He’s banished those canvases to the attic,” Kirby told Adam as she poked at her salad. “There’s one in shades of blue and yellow, with clocks of all sizes and shapes sort of melting and drooping everywhere and two left shoes tucked in a corner. He called it Absence of Time. ”
    “Experimental,” Fairchild grumbled, eyeing Kirby’s uneaten portion of fish.

    “He refused an obscene amount of money for it and locked it, like a mad relation, in the attic.” Smoothly she transferred her fish to her father’s plate. “He’ll be sending his sculpture to join it before long.”
    Fairchild swallowed a bite of fish, then ground his teeth. “Heartless brat.” In the blink of an eye he changed from amiable cherub to gnome. “By this time next year, Philip Fairchild’s name will be synonymous with sculpture.”
    “Horse dust,” Kirby concluded, and speared a cucumber. “That shade of pink becomes you, Papa.” Leaning over, she placed a loud kiss on his cheek. “It’s very close to fuchsia.”
    “You’re not too old to forget my ability to bring out the same tone on your bottom.”
    “Child abuser.” As Adam watched, she stood and wrapped her arms around Fairchild’s neck. In the matter of love for her father, the enigma of Kirby Fairchild was easily solvable. “I’m going out for a walk before I turn yellow and dry up. Will you come?”
    “No, no, I’ve a little project to finish.” He patted her