“What’s your latest game?”
“Will you go to the highest bidder?”
Backed up against the buffet table, Diana Windsor forced herself to tune out the almost rude questions the reporters surrounding her were asking. At the moment she owed herself a small celebration. Smiling privately, she toasted the end of her long search with a sip of champagne. The expensive wine had an odd sharpness she knew she’d never acquire a taste for, and the bubbles tickled her nose, making her want to sneeze. It was worth drinking the stuff, though, Diana thought as she absently adjusted her wire-rimmed glasses on her nose. She’d just found the perfect face. Now all she had to do was persuade its owner to loan it to her.
“Is your appearance here an indication that Princess Di is on the market for the software companies?” a persistent reporter asked.
Diana wrinkled her nose at the nickname. A few years ago someone in the press had christened her with it, as she not only had the same first name as the Princess of Wales, but also the royal British family was the House of Windsor. She was well aware that the nickname was a nasty inside joke too. The last person she resembled was the elegantly cool blonde princess. Glancing down at her navy skirt and white blouse, she decided she probably looked just like the out-of-touch hermit everyone in the computer industry thought she was. Should she have bought a new blouse or something for this reception? she wondered as she gazed around the luxurious, three-storied, glass-enclosed room. Everyone was more dressed up than she. It had been a long time since she’d attended a social event in the computer industry. Years ago the correct dress had been T-shirts and jeans, and this morning she had feared she would be overdressed in a skirt and blouse.…
The Face! Diana realized she was forgetting about the man whose face she needed. Rising on tiptoe, she tried to catch a second glimpse of the man, but it was impossible to see over the heads of the reporters, who kept her crowded against the buffet table.
“Darn it!” she muttered under her breath, wishing the pesky journalists would go bother someone else. She just had to have that face to study so she could get it exactly right. The Face was her Sir Morbid.
It really was odd, she thought, that the Face didn’t resemble the type she’d originally been searching for. But the moment she had seen it, something inside her had known this was it. From her first glimpse of the man standing in a quiet spot by a window, she’d been inexplicably drawn to his craggy, virile features and his crooked smile.
She wondered what kind of man was behind that smile.…
“Excuse me,” she murmured, setting her glass down on the buffet table. She began to gently squeeze her way between a man and a woman who were firing questions at her.
They jostled her back.
As she was pushed into the table, Diana realized two things at the same moment. One was that the reporters wouldn’t allow her to escape without answering their questions. And two was that she was practically sitting on a large platter of shrimp pâté. She knew it had to be the shrimp, since she’d been standing next to the gooey stuff when the reporters had surrounded her. Now she could feel the wet mass beginning to seep through her skirt.
She tried to shove herself away from the table, but the reporters, almost shouting their questions now, had drawn even closer. One more time she attempted to move, but failed again:
Firmly settling onto the shrimp dish, Diana sighed. Something told her she was better off sitting unobtrusively in the hors d’oeuvres and answering a few questions. She certainly wasn’t getting any closer to the Face and its owner by fighting the reporters.
“I’m here,” she finally said to them, “because this is a reception to introduce the Omega computer to the public. Its chief designer, Bill Osmond, is an old friend of mine, and the computer’s extraordinary breakthrough graphics and multitasking capabilities are a giant step forward in the industry—”
“Are you designing software for the Omega?” one reporter interrupted, and shoved a microphone in her face.
She blinked at the microphone, then began a cautious reply. “Probably—”
The reaction was instant and complete. Shouting to one another, the reporters turned with cattlelike grace and stampeded across the enormous reception room toward a small group of men, one of whom was Bill Osmond.
Diana blinked again, having no idea what she had said to make them so excited. She couldn’t remember having said anything, and certainly nothing important. She’d only intended to say that the software companies who bought her programs would probably port them over to the Omega. Oh, well, at least she wouldn’t be bothered by them anymore. Maybe shrimp pâté was an as yet undocumented lucky charm. And now that the reporters had left she could concentrate on the Face and the completion of her latest adventure game.
She grinned, pleased she’d finally be finishing months of concentrated and painstaking work. With each game she had created, she had challenged herself and, she hoped, the future players, by using new and different devices. But this time she’d done something no one had ever done before. She’d added voices that replied to the players’ questions, and even gave hints when necessary. But she’d never been able to “draw” human features very well on the computer, so she’d hit upon the idea of using real faces for the program graphics. The face for Sir Morbid, her hero, had eluded her, though … until now.
Suddenly she remembered she still hadn’t made contact with the man whose face she wanted to use. Groaning at her worse-than-usual absent-mindedness, she began to look around the crowds of people, trying to spot him again.
“Excuse me.” said a deep, gravelly voice.
Startled, Diana glanced up, then gaped in astonishment as she stared into the Face’s deep brown eyes.
The man stared back at her, his straight, nearly black brows drawn together in a frown. As she’d first noticed, he was not truly handsome, but was extremely virile. His face was lean, rugged. Up close, she could see he was in his thirties. There was a cleft in his chin and his nose had a little bump that marred its straightness, indicating it had once been broken. The smile lines at the comers of his eyes and bracketing his mouth stood out sharply against his tan. His brown hair, brushed back from his forehead, had red and gold highlights.
As Diana gazed at the Face, a potent sensation sizzled along her nerve endings, accompanied by an awareness she’d never before felt. She found her attention focusing on the man’s faintly musky scent, his tall, hard body under the three-piece beige suit, his fingers gently clasping the wineglass.…
“Do you know you’re sitting in the shrimp pâté?” he asked, jarring her from her mesmerized perusal.
“It keeps the reporters away,” she said, not moving. Now that she’d been reminded of what she was sitting on, she noticed the damp chill spreading ever farther across her derriere. At the same time she felt a hot blush creeping up her neck. Of all the times to be caught in the shrimp! This really was beyond embarrassment, she thought. She decided the best way to save herself from her ridiculous situation was just to bluster her way through it. Besides, if she left to clean off her skirt, she might lose the man in the interim.
Politely she asked, “Why? Did you want some pâté?”
His face went blank for a moment; then he replied, “Maybe later.”
“Good.” She took a deep breath for courage and leaned closer to him. “Could I ask a favor of you? What I want isn’t difficult, but it will be tiring.”
“You want me to rescue you from the shrimp and carry you off into the ladies room, right?”
She chuckled. He even thought like a knight. “Forget the shrimp. What I need is you. It’s very important to me, and I promise to give you credit when it’s done. You’re perfect, absolutely perfect. I’ve been searching for you all over, and I was getting desperate, but now I’ve found you. I’ll pay, too. After all, it will take up several hours of your time. Just please say yes, because I don’t know what I’ll do if you say no.”
It was his turn to gape in astonishment at her.
“Please,” she repeated, smiling, hoping her rambling speech hadn’t repelled him. “I’ve just got to have your face.”
His face!
Adam Roberts shook his head in bewilderment. Whatever he’d been expecting her to ask of him, it certainly wasn’t to borrow his face. In fact, he’d had the distinct impression she’d been asking for something entirely different. And that request would have been even more improbable than this one, considering what his brother Dan had told him about Diana Windsor.
According to Dan, who owned a software company, Diana Windsor was a brilliant, much-sought-after, yet hermitlike computer-games designer whom the media had dubbed Princess Di. Computer-software companies competed almost viciously to have a Diana Windsor game, as she had a reputation for producing best sellers. Dan claimed her “Space Pirates” had sold in the millions and was still in the top twenty on software charts after five years. Diana Windsor, it seemed, was the crown jewel of programmers.
Dan had also said she was called the Virgin Queen.
As Adam gazed at her sweet heart-shaped face and huge, guileless violet eyes, he silently cursed whoever had given her that particular nickname. Still, he had to admit there was something virginal about her. He’d been watching her ever since Dan had pointed her out among the reception guests. In her plain skirt and blouse, she stood out like a peahen among the expensively and lavishly dressed peacocks here. And she wasn’t beautiful. Other than her eyes, there was nothing striking or exotic about her features, although he readily admitted he did like the way her nose turned up at the end. He also liked the dimple that had appeared when she smiled.
She had an aura of innocence, in spite of the most spectacular female body he’d ever seen. Her breasts were high and full, the rounded slopes beckoning to a man. Her waist was tiny, her stomach flat. Her hips flared dramatically, and her legs were shapely, her ankles trim. She had had her back to him at one point earlier, and he would have given a fortune to see her sable-brown hair let loose from its bun to tumble down the perfect line of her spine. More worldly females seemed to pale in comparison to her virginal allure, and he’d been drawn to her for that reason.
There was something very intriguing, too, about a woman blithely sitting in shrimp pâté while telling a man she wanted his face.
Naturally it was intriguing, he thought. It made one wonder whether she really was Diana Windsor or a psychiatric-ward escapee.
“Well, yes or no?” she asked.
No, Adam told himself. He was better off staying away from women who sat in shrimp and asked men for their faces. The whole business was crazy, and, besides, he still had no idea what she wanted with his face. But still …
“Yes,” he said, acknowledging that intrigue did win over common sense sometimes.
“Wonderful!” she exclaimed, smiling at him. “This is great! I finally have my Sir Morbid.”
“Sir Morbid?”
“That’s you.”
Before Adam could question her further, she rose from her squishy seat. He watched in amusement as half the shrimp pâté rose with her.
“Yuck,” she said, trying to see over her shoulder to access the damage. “I think I was better off staying put.”
“Probably,” he agreed, and reached for the serving knife next to the platter. “Shall I scrape?”
Diana hesitated for a moment, not sure what would be the least dumb thing to do right now. Then she realized the man was perfectly at ease with his suggestion. Sighing inwardly, she attempted to match his aplomb by giving him a lopsided grin. “Scrape away,” she said. “Please.”
He spread one hand across the back of her waist to keep her skirt steady, and Diana instantly felt the temperature in the room rise at least twenty degrees. She forced herself to stand as still as possible and ignore his almost intimate touch.
As he leaned forward and began removing the muck off her skirt, Adam realized she hadn’t allowed him to do the dirty work as a kind of male/female game playing. There had been too much amusement in her eyes when she’d said “please.” Sexually aware and interested women usually signaled something else, and Diana hadn’t.
Lord, he thought, what if she really and truly were a virgin?
“Well, Diana, you’ve done it again.”
Adam instantly stop scraping at the sound of a stranger’s voice. Straightening, he saw a man smiling smugly at Diana, who let out a loud groan.
“Jim Griegson! You would have to show up now,” she said in a disgusted tone, shaking her head.
“Problem?” Adam asked, coldly eyeing the man. Inwardly he was surprised at the sudden urge to protect his shrimp-sitting possible virgin.
“No problem,” Griegson replied, raising his eyebrows. He pointed to the hors d’oeuvres now littering the floor. “What is that stuff, anyway?”
“Shrimp pâté,” Diana said. “I suppose I’ll be reading about this in ‘The Last Byte.’ ”
Griegson laughed. “Definitely. Actually, Diana, rumor has it that you’re writing programs exclusively for the Omega.”
“I am?”
“That’s what the reporters who talked to you are saying. Bill Osmond was very excited to hear it too. Seems even he didn’t know anything about it.”
“But I never said anything like that to them!” Diana wailed, throwing her hands up in exasperation. “They just shouted questions at me, pushed me into the shrimp pâté, then took off.”
“So that’s how it happened,” Adam murmured as he watched consternation pull her forehead into a frown. He turned to the other man. “Obviously they didn’t give her a chance to fully explain when they crowded around her earlier.”
“So I realize. Who are you?”
Adam almost laughed at Diana’s look of anticipation. He wondered if she was just realizing she’d never asked “Sir Morbid” his real name. “Adam Roberts.”
Diana smiled.
“Adam Roberts …” Griegson said musingly. “Are you the new production manager with Peach Computers?”
“Not me. I barely know where a computer’s ‘on’ switch is.” He returned Diana’s smile. “I’m an architect, and just a guest of a guest today. Who are you?”
Griegson raised his brows as if insulted by the question. “I’m Jim Griegson, and I write the ‘Last Byte’ column for CompuWorld magazine.”
Adam’s smile widened as Griegson then gave him a dismissive nod and turned back to Diana. “Well, you’d better remember whatever it was you didn’t say, Diana, because they’ll be back.”
She rolled her eyes. “Wonderful. I’ll just have to tell them it was all a mistake.”
Griegson wagged a finger at her. “They’ll never believe you didn’t accidentally spill the beans. After nine years in this business you really ought to know how to handle the press. You old college hackers fall apart once the companies let you loose on the world.”
“That’s very funny coming from an old hacker like you, Jim. So what do I say to them?”
He grinned. “You don’t have to tell them anything … if you give me the exclusive that you will be doing software for the Omega.”
“But I—”
“You’ll tell him nothing,” Adam broke in, deciding she’d been badgered enough by Griegson. This was probably how she’d gotten into trouble with the other reporters. In her naïveté she would no doubt say something she didn’t mean to—again. “What you will do, Ms. Windsor, is get the hell out of here. Then you don’t have to say anything at all to anybody.”
“But—”
“No buts.” He took off his suit jacket and draped it around her shoulders. It fell to the middle of her thighs. “There. No one will notice you’ve given new meaning to the term doggie bag. Let’s go.”
Taking her elbow, Adam began to lead her away from the table. Griegson blocked them.
“Here we go again,” Diana muttered to Adam.
“Diana,” Griegson began in a soothing voice, “wait a minute. I really do want to help you. I can calm down the others and make sure they don’t start any false rumors. My column may contain occasional ‘rumors,’ but you know they’re only facts leaked by the companies themselves. All I’m asking in return for the favor is that you answer a few of my questions. It will be good publicity for you.”
Not giving Diana a chance to reply. Adam said, “I’ll bet many a sucker has heard that before. But it is up to Ms. Windsor to decide who she will—or won’t—talk to.”
“Who the hell are you? Her bodyguard?” Griegson asked indignantly.
“It certainly looks that way,” Diana said without rancor.
“And, as your new bodyguard, I suggest we get moving,” Adam said, noticing several reporters closing in on them from the left. “The rest of the press is heading back this way.”
“Bandits at two o’clock,” Diana said, pointing out two more on their right.
“Surrounded by the Indians!” Griegson said gleefully, and began laughing.
One glance at Diana’s worried face, and Adam knew she’d be scalped by those “Indians.” He wondered what Sir Morbid would do to rescue the princess from fire-breathing dragons, then realized there was only one answer to that question.
He pushed Diana away from him and “accidentally” bumped into Griegson. With a loud squawk Griegson tripped, and banged into the buffet table. The buffet table, in turn, shuddered backward several feet across the marble floor. Unfortunately several plates and glasses decided to stay where they were. As they crashed on the floor, drawing everyone’s attention, Adam stepped over to Diana and took her arm again. Her mouth was open in an O of astonishment.
“Let’s go!” he ordered, pulling her away from Griegson.
Coming out of her shock, she half-ran with him past the rest of the surprised reporters and behind the buffet table to the nearest exit. In the ensuing commotion, nobody tried to Stop them.
“Thank you,” Diana said breathlessly as the double steel doors banged shut behind them. “I think.”
“Believe me, you’re welcome,” Adam said, staring down the long, cinder-brick-lined corridor.
“I’m not very good with reporters,” she admitted. “And I have no idea where we are. I came in through the hotel lobby to the reception.”
Adam nodded, having used the same entrance. In the distance he could hear voices and the clatter of dishes. “This way sounds like the kitchen,” he said. “We ought to be able to get out through there.”
“But I really should say good-bye to a few people.”
He turned to her in shock. “After what I just went through to rescue you?”
Diana groaned at the idiotic words that had just emerged from her mouth. She’d only been thinking of several people with whom she hadn’t yet spoken. Somehow she wasn’t managing to look like a mature, normal woman with this man. Shrugging, she said, “I guess we did say our good-byes, didn’t we?”
“Damn straight we did.”
Adam knew he should have curbed the impatience in his voice, but an unreasonable anger was building up inside him. He’d made a complete fool of himself in there by bumping the reporter into the buffet table. He’d never done anything like that before. His brother would probably disown him for humiliation by association. When Dan had asked him to come along with him today, Adam had only thought it would be interesting to see how a reception for a computer was conducted. If only he’d known what kind of trouble he’d be getting into.…
Damn his curiosity! He never should have approached Diana in the first place. He just couldn’t understand his attraction to her, or his urge to protect her. Maybe agreeing to be this Sir Morbid—whoever he was—had brought out an old-fashioned streak of chivalry in him. Modem men didn’t go around rescuing women on first meetings. The whole thing was so damned bizarre.
Suddenly Diana started to chuckle. “What you did to poor Jim Griegson! I know at least a dozen company presidents in there who are probably wishing they’d been the one to push him into the table. Jim’s announced quite a few projects and rumors in his column that they’d love to strangle him for. Not all company ‘leaks’ are from top management, and most of Jim’s aren’t.”
“I take it he’s not a popular guy,” Adam said, beginning to feel a little less angry. After all, none of what had happened was Diana’s fault.
“Jim’s extremely popular,” she corrected him. “Everyone reads his column first in CompuWorld every week. They just hate to see themselves in his hot seat. I know I do.”
“After what just happened, you’ll probably be feeling the flames in his next column,” Adam said with a wry smile.
“Along with himself falling into the buffet table.” She chuckled. “I doubt he’ll even mention it.”
“Good.”
“Well, I guess we should get going,” she prompted.
He nodded. As they continued down the corridor, he told himself Diana was just a naive programmer who’d never gotten used to the publicity her work generated. She really had needed rescuing today, and he’d been stuck as rescuer. No big deal. After all, it was only one rescue.
In the kitchen they found their way blocked again.
“Sorry. Can’t go through here,” a burly waiter said as he stood in the center of the aisle. The chefs and assistants glanced in their direction, but returned to their work when they saw someone was dealing with the intruders.
“Give us a break, pal,” Adam said in frustration. Not again, he thought.
“Sorry.”
Adam ground his teeth together in aggravation. Then an idea popped into his head. He leaned forward and said in a low voice. “You’d really be doing Ms. Streep a favor by letting her out through the kitchen. The reporters out there saw through her disguise and now they’re on to her. She has to get to a producers’ meeting right away.”
“Ms. Streep?” the waiter said with a gasp. “You mean Meryl Streep, the actress?” He peered intently at Diana.
Adam smothered a grin when she looked as surprised as the waiter. Diana certainly didn’t know how to give an Academy Award performance.
“She’ll be staying here while they film her latest picture in San Francisco,” Adam added, hoping the waiter would believe him. “I’m sure the hotel’s management would appreciate your helping us out.”
Evidently the mention of the management was the deciding factor for the waiter. With a final, somewhat puzzled glance at Diana, he stepped aside and said, “Just go straight through and turn right. The door will let you out in the back parking lot.”
“Thank you,” Diana murmured as they hurried past the man.
“You’re welcome, Miss … Streep,” the waiter called out.
Dragging Diana with him, Adam started running. He was positive he wouldn’t be able to contain his laughter until they were out of hearing distance. Diana was already giggling.
When the second set of double steel doors they’d encountered that day clanged shut behind them, Adam halted their escape run. He collapsed back against the doors, laughing.
“Meryl Streep!” Diana said, leaning next to him against the doors. “You really ought to warn a person before you turn her into a movie star.” Considering her less-than-spectacular performance since she’d met Adam, she hoped she hadn’t scared him away. Aside from needing his face, she really liked him. Vowing to act her age with him from now on, she continued, “I was so shocked when you said ‘Ms. Streep,’ I thought I’d give it all away!”
“You almost did with that look on your face,” he said, chuckling. “Fortunately the thought of getting into trouble with higher-ups meant more to that guy than letting a couple go through the kitchen.”
“You know, this was exactly like the adventure games I do. You had to figure out logically how to get us past one blockade, and then the next. It even had a touch of a maze when we went down the corridor, made a turn, and ran up against another obstacle in the form of a waiter. And you got us past that one too.”
With a charming grin she added, “You’re going to make one heck of a Sir Morbid.”
Adam groaned to himself as her smile triggered very unknightly urgings inside him. Diana might think he’d make a great Sir Morbid, but he had the uneasy feeling that he was going to have one hell of a time with his sword.