An Independent Wife by Linda Howard Page B

"She won't talk to anyone but you, or so she says. Why does it have to be you? Do you know her personally?"

    Sallie grinned as she realized that her wishful thinking had come true-Marina had placed Rhy between a rock and a hard place, and he wasn't enjoying the situation.

    "Yes, she's a friend of mine," she admitted, and if Rhy thought it strange that she knew the gorgeous ex-model he said nothing. Now Marina was the wife of one of the most powerful men in Sakarya and in charge of the charity ball, and she could choose any reporter she wanted.

    "Talk to her, convince her to talk to Patricia King instead of you," Rhy ordered. "Or get the interview over the phone." The satisfaction in his tone revealed that he thought he'd just solved the entire problem and she bristled, but struggled to hide her temper.

    "I suppose when you're the wife of the finance minister you can give interviews or not, whichever you want," she said casually.

    "Sallie," Rhy infon-ned her with deadly calm, "I'm ordering you to get that interview over the phone."

    "But it won't work!" she said, widening her eyes in innocence. "Marina can talk to me whenever she'd like if that's all she wants. She wants to see me. And I have an invitation to the ball anyway," she finished smugly. She had been intending to take on part of her vacation next week and fly to Sakarya at her own expense, but now she saw a way of defeating Rhy and it was all she could do to stop herself from laughing aloud.

    "It won't work," Rhy warned softly. "I said no foreign assignments and I meant it. You can't go."
    Beside her, Greg cursed beneath his breath in frus-

    tration and got to his feet, shoving his fists into his pockets. "She's the best reporter I've got!" he said in restrained violence. "You're wasting her!"

    "I'm not wasting her," Rhy snarled, coming out of his chair with a lithe twist of his body that had him instantly poised, ready to react. In that instant Sallie read danger in his narrowed eyes. "I've told you before, Downey, she's off anything that even smells like it might be dangerous, and that includes any damned party in an oil-rich desert where every power in the world is jockeying around trying to figure out how to get control of that oil!"

    "Are you blind?" Greg bellowed. "She thrives on danger. She carries it around with her! Darnntit, man, she can't even catch a bus in a normal manner! Her everyday life would turn a sane person's hair gray!"

    Deftly Sallie put herself between the two big, angry men and tilted her delicate jaw at Rhy. "If Marina refuses to see Patricia I suppose you just won't get an interview," she said, bringing the conversation back to its original subject. Triumph gleamed in her dark blue eyes. "It's me or no one. How much of a newsman are you?"

    His jaw clenched in anger, but he shot a look at Greg. "Get out of here," he ordered harshly, jerking his eyes back to her. "My answer is still no."

    "Suit yourself." She left the office with more poise than she would have thought possible, but chuckled to herself as she collected her belongings and left the building.

    She wasn't surprised the next morning when she was directed to Rhy's office as soon as she entered the building. She stalled for a few moments, enjoying making him wait while she put up her shoulder bag and locked the manuscript in her desk, then she carefully wiped all traces of amusement from her expression as she went to meet him.

    Instead of the frustrated anger she'd expected to see on his face he wore a look of intense satisfaction, and she felt a twinge of uneasiness. "I've solved our problem," he almost purred, moving close to her and reaching out to stroke her hair.

    Diverted, she slapped his hand away in irritation. "I'm going to cut my hair!" she said curtly. "Maybe then you'll keep your hands to yourself."

    "Don't cut it," he advised. "You wouldn't like the consequences."

    "I'll cut my hair if I feel like it. It's nothing to you! "

    "We won't argue that now,