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Piano Player.
    While giving Lauren a tour of their formal gardens, he "accidentally" tripped her and sent her sprawling into a huge bed of thorny roses. A half hour later, after Lauren had changed her dirty, torn dress, Carter abjectly apologized and offered to show her the family dogs.
    He seemed so sincere and so boyishly eager to show her his dogs that Lauren instantly decided the rosebush incident must have truly been an accident. "I have a dog at home," she had confided proudly, hurrying to keep up with him as he stalked across the lush manicured lawns toward the rear of the estate. "Her name is Fluffy, and she's white," she'd added as they came to a clipped hedge, which concealed a huge dog pen enclosed by a ten-foot-high chain-link fence. Lauren beamed at the two Doberman pinschers and then at Carter, who was removing the heavy padlock from the gate. "My best friend has a Doberman pinscher. He plays tag with us all the time, and he does tricks too."
    "These two know some tricks of their own," Carter promised, opening the gate and stepping aside for Lauren to enter.
    Lauren walked into the pen without fear. "Hi, dogs," she said softly, approaching the silent, watchful animals. As she stretched out her hand to pet them, the gate clanged shut behind her and Carter ordered sharply, "Hold, boys! Hold!"
    Both dogs stiffened instantly, baring their gleaming white fangs and snarling as they advanced on a petrified Lauren. "Carter," she screamed, backing away until she was pressed against the fence, "Why are they doing that?"
    "I wouldn't move if I were you," Carter mocked silkily from behind her on the other side of the fence. "If you do, they'll go for your throat and tear out your jugular vein." With that he sauntered off, whistling cheerfully.
    "Don't leave me here!" Lauren screamed. "Please—don't leave me here!"
    Thirty minutes later, when the gardener found her, she was screaming no more. She was whimpering hysterically, her eyes riveted on the snarling dogs.
    "Get out of there!" the man ordered, flinging open the gate and striding angrily into the pen. "What's the matter with you, stirring up these damned dogs!" he snapped, catching her arm and practically dragging her out.
    When he slammed the gate shut, something about his total lack of fear finally registered on Lauren, freeing her paralyzed vocal chords. "They were going to rip my throat open," she whispered hoarsely, tears racing unchecked down her cheeks.
    The gardener looked at her terror-glazed blue eyes, and his voice lost some of its irritation. "They wouldn't have hurt you. Those dogs are trained to raise an alarm and to frighten off intruders, that's all. They know better than to bite anyone."
    Lauren spent the rest of the afternoon sprawled across her bed contemplating a variety of bloodthirsty ways to get even with Carter, but while it was immensely satisfying to imagine him on his knees, begging for her mercy, all of the schemes she devised were highly impractical.
    By the time her mother came upstairs to get her for dinner that night, Lauren was resigned to the fact that she was going to have to swallow her pride and pretend that nothing had happened. There was no point in telling her mother about Carter, because Gina Danner was an Italian American who possessed the deep, sentimental Italian devotion to family, no matter how distant and obscure that "family" relationship might be. Her mother would charitably assume that Carter had merely been playing some boyish pranks.
    "Did you have a nice day, honey?" her mother asked as the two of them descended the curving staircase toward the dining room.
    "It was okay," Lauren mumbled, wondering how she was going to restrain the urge to give Carter Whitworth a good swift kick.
    At the bottom of the stairs, a maid announced that a Mr. Robert Danner was on the telephone. "You go on ahead," Gina told her daughter with one of her gentle smiles as she reached for the telephone on the small table at the foot of the