COUNTERPOINT
An original romantic serialFrom Alina Adams the author of "When a Man Loves a Woman" (DELL 4/00), "Annie's Wild Ride" (AVON 8/98), "Inside Figure Skating" (METROBOOKS 11/00 & 9/99), "Thieves at Heart" (AVON 12/95) and "The Fictitious Marquis" (AVON 6/95)
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CHAPTER ONE
When persistent knocking failed to arouse a response, Victoria Morgan cornered a room-service waiter wheeling his cart across the Fairmont Hotel hallway, and said, "I'm looking for Mr. Cooper."
"Mr. Robin Cooper?" The waiter folded his white linen napkins into triangles and laid out a silver knife, fork, and spoon alongside an ivory dish of black caviar and thinly sliced rye bread. He surveyed Victoria, taking in the indigo blazer and matching slacks, as well as the vibrantly auburn hair pulled back from her face with coral combs, the eyes so light blue they seemed nearly translucent, and, unimpressed, sniffed, "Take a number, Miss."
Victoria watched him unlock Robin Cooper's door and wheel in his cart, parking it beside an unmade, four-poster bed. A rumpled black tuxedo jacket and bow-tie dangled tossed over a carved post. She heard the shower running and, making an executive decision on the spot, informed the waiter, "I'll wait for Mr. Cooper in here."
He opened his mouth to protest. She countered by opening her purse and pressing a folded bill into his starched, left pocket.
Victoria Morgan had spent the first five years of her life in a trailer barely longer than Robin Cooper's hotel room. She spent the subsequent decade shuffling between foster homes, and the span between ages fifteen and twenty-two waiting tables to cover college tuition. As a result, she possessed an uncanny knack for figuring out just how much money to slip every member of the working class.
The same waiter who, a minute earlier, had judged her unworthy of soliciting Mr. Robin Cooper's company, now only peeled away his jacket pocket to confirm the amount deposited there, bowed his head respectfully and, sliding the breakfast tray off his cart and onto a table in front of the picture-window, silently exited the room.
Left alone, Victoria's confidence wavered. Officially, she'd worked under Robin Cooper for six months now. But, she'd never met the man, or even spoken to him on the phone. The closest they came to communicating was when the reports Victoria Federal Expressed to whichever French villa, Italian yacht, Monte Carlo casino, or Swiss Alp her alleged boss happened to be inhabiting that week, came back with Robert James Cooper's signature dashed across the bottom. In other words, she knew nothing about him. She certainly had no idea how he might react to finding a total stranger in his hotel room.
Well, ready or not, Victoria was about to find out.
She heard the water turn off, the mirror-door open and close, the swish of a towel sliding off the rack. Her poise of a moment earlier slipped away.
Victoria glanced around the room, wondering where she should stand. She didn't want to startle Robin when he first came out, but, then again, she didn't want it to look like she was hiding and spying on him, either. Frankly, if her early morning mission weren't such a matter of life and death, she might have seriously considered obeying her instincts, and getting the hell out of there. But, either way, it was too late now.
When Robin Cooper sauntered into his hotel suite's main room, he was still rubbing his dripping hair with an extra-thick, ivory towel, the ends obscuring his face and his line of vision. He wore a maroon bathrobe tied casually around the waist, so that the upper folds fell apart, revealing a slender, yet muscular frame heralding untold hours spent on such gentlemanly pursuits as squash and polo, then supplemented by the industrious efforts of a personal trainer. Even in bare feet, Victoria guessed Robin stood over six feet tall.
He slipped the towel from his head, and, in spite of herself, Victoria couldn't help swallowing hard. She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting. Presumably somebody like Douglas Cooper, Robin's father, the man who hired her. Someone dignified, stately, proper. Someone who looked like the heir to an international empire like Cooper Shipping. What she hadn't been expecting, was someone who looked like Robin Cooper.
Aesthetically, classically, logically, his facial features had no right fitting together as well as they did. For one thing, his eyes refused to commit to staying either emerald-green or bronzed-brown, teasingly shimmering between the alternatives. For another, the two sides of his face weren't even precisely symmetrical. They resembled two distinct pictures of the same person, sliced down the middle, then forced into a fresh whole. His smile diverged further up the right side of his cheek than it did his left, leaving the cleft in his chin jutting somehow off-center. And yet, in spite of what should have been visible flaws, the asymmetry granted Robin's face character, adding charisma and a sort of devilish roguery. A parallel that was only enhanced by his freshly scrubbed, sable hair horning up in a series of still-damp curls. As a result, there was something vaguely unnerving about his entire countenance. But, for the life of her, Victoria couldn't look away.
Robin spotted her as soon as he turned to toss his towel onto the bed, next to the discarded tuxedo. Rather than being startled, he only raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "I say, do you come with the Continental breakfast?"
His accent intrigued Victoria. From Douglas, she knew that his only son had been born in Maine, educated in Switzerland, then, reluctantly, subsidized to explore every decadent pleasure-site in Europe. What Victoria didn't know was how he'd managed to absorb and retain only the most charming aspects of each region's dialect.
She swallowed again in order to revive her voice. "I -- no."
"Pity." Robin padded over to the breakfast tray, critically lifting several of the silver lids and wrinkling his nose at their contents. He reached for the bottle of vodka tactfully positioned behind the water pitcher, peered at its label, unscrewed the cap, and splashed two fingers worth into a crystal tumbler. He offered the glass to Victoria. "Drink?"
"No. Thank-you. It's a bit early in the day for me."
He nodded understandingly, and briefly perused the remaining staples along his tray. Spotting a container of orange juice, he expertly mixed it with the vodka. "Breakfast?"
She had to smile, in spite of herself. "Mr. Cooper -- "
"Robin."
"Robin. I -- I'm Victoria Morgan."
"Is that a fact?" She watched him flip through what she could only presume was the little black book in his head, trying to match name to face and recall just how well acquainted they were supposed to be. It wasn't difficult to spot the exact instant when he made the connection. Robin's eyes darkened, abandoning both green and brown in favor of a murky, angry hazel. His flirtatious, lopsided smile of a second earlier coiled into an accusatory sneer. "You're with the Elizabeth Fund. What the hell do you want?"