An Independent Wife by Linda Howard

slits.

    "Uh-oh, trouble," Chris muttered to her, then gave her a grin. As the elevator opened and Rhy stepped in Chris compounded his sins by hugging her close and kissing the top of her head. In the last glimpse Sallie had of Rhy before the doors closed and hid him from view he looked murderous.

Chapter Five
    "You fool," Sallie whispered to Chris, torn between laughter and genuine concern. Rhy was a dangerous man when he was angry. He was strong enough and wild enough and mean enough to handle just about anyone he wanted to handle, and he'd taken a lot of specialized training. Underneath his perfectly tailored three-piece suits Rhy was a half-civilized commando and he could hurt Chris badly. "Are you trying to get yourself killed? Rhy has a hair-trigger temper!"

    "I didn't want him to take you for granted," Chris explained lazily. He gave her a crooked grin. "Feel free to use me any time you need the safety of numbers, the least I can do is return the favors you've done me. I use you, you use me in return."

    Sallie drew in her breath. The idea was tempting, to pretend to Rhy that she was wildly in love with Chris, except that she didn't think she could act well enough to make it convincing and she would hate to push Rhy far enough that he lost his temper and hurt Chris.

    "Thanks for the offer, but I don't think it'd be very smart to act out our charades in front of him," she declined. "I like your face as it is. But if you don't mind I'll throw up your name as a smoke screen to hide behind."

    "Okay by me." He regarded her seriously. "Why are you trying to get away from him? He's got everything a man---or a woman--could want."

    "I knew Rhy before he bought the magazine," Sallie explained with caution, not wanting to tell him too much. "He wants to renew the relationship and I don't. It's that simple."

    "Except for the feeling that you're leaving a lot untold, I believe you," Chris mused almost to himself and left her with a smile.

    After returning to her desk Sallie waited all afternoon for a call summoning her to Rhy's office, but the call didn't materialize and she finally realized that he was more subtle than that. He'd let her worry about it, become anxious and vulnerable. She'd show him!

    With a flourish she pushed aside the article she'd been working on and rolled a clean sheet of paper into the typewriter. If Rhy wanted to play dirty, then she had no scruples about not doing her work.
    Instead of concentrating on that stupid article she'd begin her memoirs! If she wrote her life story down as it happened, when she got old it would be finished and she wouldn't have to try to remember all of the details!

    Adrenalin flowed through her veins and her fingers flew over the typewriter keys. For the first time in weeks words spitted out of her brain and she scarcely paused to get them in order. She felt elated, alive again. Enthusiasm pulsed through her body.

    Suddenly she dropped her hands, staring at what she'd written. Why play around with her memoirs?
    Why not take her own experiences and weave them into a novel? She'd always wanted to write a book but she'd never had the time. Now she had the time, and she wanted to laugh aloud at the thought of using Rhy's time and money to begin a new career for herself.

    Feverishly she put a fresh page in the typewriter, then sat for several minutes, stumped by her first problem-what name should she use for her heroine? Could she just leave a blank space and insert the name later? Then she realized that she had to have a name before she could visualize her character, and that thought led her to ponder the physical attributes of her creation. Writing a book was different from writing an article of an eyewitness report. Then she had facts to deal with, but with fiction she had to create the details herself. Except for that first creative writing course she was trained in facts and this was harder than she'd imagined.

    But before the day was over she had sweated eight pages