Trust Me

the Wainwright clan, he would be sitting alone at home with a bottle of overpriced champagne, some goat cheese, and a too terse note from his bride. Which was exactly how he had spent his previous wedding night two years ago.
    Stark was accustomed to being alone when things went wrong. For that matter, he was accustomed to being alone when things went right.
    He had developed the habit of enduring defeat or celebrating triumph by himself long ago. It had become a way of life.
    In that moment when he’d known with icy certainty that Pamela wasn’t going to show, all he’d wanted was to be alone again. His immediate goal had been to get rid of the two hundred wedding guests, the catering staff, and all the trappings of the debacle as swiftly as possible.
    Virtually everyone, including Dane McCallum, his friend, best man, and vice president of Stark Security Systems, had taken the hint and departed. The exception had been the caterer, one Desdemona Wainwright. Stark had been forced to pay attention to her for the first time when she had charged into the house, hard on his heels, waving her bill.
    He had finally gotten a good look at her in his study. She had been dressed in a rakish little tuxedo not unlike his own, except that on her the style was a lot more interesting. Stark had been vaguely surprised to discover that even in the midst of his foul mood, he was capable of appreciating the sight.
    Desdemona was not very tall, and her breasts were definitely on the discreetly pert side, but she was nicely rounded lower down. As far as Stark was concerned, that was where roundness mattered in a woman.
    Her determination to get a check out of him had startled him initially. He had assumed that Pamela had taken care of the caterer’s bill along with all of the other wedding details. Pamela was well aware that he knew nothing about handling such matters and that he had no interest in learning. He had little patience with the social side of business or life.
    Unfortunately, his rapidly growing financial success had catapulted him into a whole new realm where social demands were inextricably entangled with business demands. He had concluded that he needed a wife, and he had set out to find one.
    Stark had learned the hard way that he did best with cool, unemotional undemanding women such as Pamela Bedford. Of course, judging by the day’s events, that wasn’t saying much. His best had obviously been a disaster.
    Tall, willowy, golden-haired, and blue-eyed, Pamela defined the phrase “cool blonde.” She had been endowed with the sort of aloof composure that was bred into the women of families whose money was old enough to have mold on it. She personified Stark’s notion of a cultured, refined female.
    She was just what he had been looking for in a wife, he had told himself three minutes after meeting her. With her background and family connections she was the perfect woman to deal efficiently with the increasing social obligations confronting him. She would know how to entertain his high-powered clients. She could handle the local politicos and the society ladies who were forever trying to get money out of him.
    Making casual conversation at a cocktail party or a charity event was Stark’s idea of a nightmare. Pamela, on the other hand, had grown up in a world where such skills were taught from birth. She knew the right thing to do and when to do it. Stark had looked forward to turning over to her all of the annoying details of his life outside of work.
    Pamela had seemed so wonderfully predictable.
    Abandoning her groom at the altar this afternoon was probably the first time in her life that she had ever done anything that would have offended Miss Manners or Emily Post.
    Stark suspected that Desdemona Wainwright was, on the other hand, a perfect example of chaotic dynamics in action. Expressions flickered across her features with the speed and volatility of weather fronts moving across the Seattle skyline. Not a good sign. He had made it a lifelong practice to avoid volatile women. He knew that he was no good with the emotional type, and they found him equally frustrating.
    The only sensible thing to do was steer clear of Desdemona, Stark told himself. He was intuitionally impaired, and he knew it. Sure, he could second-guess computer thieves with uncanny ease, but he had no talent at all for understanding the dynamics of interpersonal relationships. As far as he was concerned, human relationships, not the new