Читать книгу The Bride Means Business - Anne Marie Winston - Страница 9

Two

She can still wrap you up in more knots than a sailor could, Dax thought. He leaned his head against the back of his seat, putting off the moment of ringing Jillian’s doorbell and seeing the ice in those blue eyes.

He’d been well-prepared for their first meeting yesterday ...he’d thought. Until she’d sprung her little coup on him. He still couldn’t believe she controlled twenty-three per cent of the company’s voting stock now.

Ever since he’d received the brief, stilted facsimile telling him Charles was dead, he’d imagined that first meeting with her. Dax had been shocked to his shoes when he’d seen Jillian’s name on the letterhead; he’d almost conditioned himself to stop thinking of home, and of anyone connected to his past.

Especially her. God, how he’d hated her. It had taken years for him to stop thinking of her every minute, years, and with one damned piece of paper, she was back in his head as if she’d never left. When he’d flown up here from Atlanta, the man he’d hired to investigate her met him at the airport with everything he’d dug up. And as he scanned the doings of Jillian Kerr through the past seven years or so, he’d known he wasn’t going to walk away this time without wringing some answers out of her. Maybe once he knew why she’d agreed to marry him when she’d obviously wanted Charles, maybe then he could finally forget.

A few more phone calls had put him in exactly the position he wanted, and he’d strolled off to the funeral yesterday feeling pretty pleased with himself and primed for a fight. When he’d made his way through the crowd, he’d been ready to rip her to shreds, exactly the way she’d ripped his heart out once.

Only he hadn’t bargained for the compelling reaction his body and his emotions had experienced when he sat down beside her at the service. He hadn’t gotten a good look at her face right away, and it was just as well. He’d been so fixated on the sight of her slender thighs beneath the short black skirt, and the way she’d kept her legs pasted together, with her long, narrow feet in their elegant, unsuitable shoes cuddled side by side on the ground, that he couldn’t have spoken if he’d had to. Memories had swamped him. He could still see her long, slender body, feel the way she’d yielded beneath him, hear the sweet little whimpers she made when he was touching her.

It had taken him every minute of the rest of that eulogy to battle the need back into submission, to keep his hands from reaching out and yanking her against him. And then, when she’d stood and he’d looked directly at her for the first time, he’d been poleaxed by her glowing, youthful appearance. The woman was thirty-two years old, for God’s sake. He knew she’d been around the block more times than a kid on a new bike, and yet she still looked fresh as a flower on a dewy morning.

She’d barely seemed to notice him; he had felt her grief and the determined way she was clinging to control. It only served to enrage him all over again. Apparently, she’d stayed close to Charles all these years; Dax doubted she’d be so emotional if he were the one in that coffin.

That coffin. Regret halted his tumbling thoughts. Somehow, he’d always assumed he and Charles would speak again some day. Dax could never forgive Jillian, but Charles was another story.

He, Dax, knew firsthand just how seductive and irresistible she could be. As a hormone-laden kid, he’d been deeply, profoundly jealous of Charles and the special connections his brother had shared with her. Charles and Jillian were thick as thieves, had been since they were old enough to ride their bikes up and down the hill from one house to the other. They touched each other casually, easily, and even though she’d belonged to Dax since their first kiss, she and Charles had some unspoken relationship that didn’t include him. Their closeness had bothered him more than he’d wanted to admit, even to himself.

Still, he wished he had taken the time to contact Charles during these recent years, when his brother had popped into his mind more and more frequently. He hadn’t even come home for their mother’s funeral four years ago, a move he still regretted. And he’d fully intended to get back in touch with Charles. He’d considered it a dozen times, had told himself tomorrow would be time enough. Now tomorrow had arrived, but time had run out.

Charles...his baby brother. Gone. In his mind’s eye, Dax watched Jillian lay a yellow rose atop the white coffin. A numbing regret swept over him. He’d missed Charles these past few years.

And he’d have liked to have met his brother’s wife. He would have applauded anyone who could steal Charles out from under Jillian’s nose.

He unfolded himself from the sleek little Beamer that had been left at the house since his mother’s death and walked to her door. She opened it after the first ring, as if she’d been standing on the other side waiting on him. Good. He hoped she’d stood there a while.

The punch of awareness slammed into him again at the sight of that angelic face and even though he’d been expecting it, he still could only stare for a moment, drinking in the porcelain beauty that had once been his. She was wearing a fairly sedate, un-Jillian-like twin set and stylish trousers. She’d always dressed to entice, to arouse...before. Of course, that could have changed over the years.

He recalled the curve-hugging black suit she’d worn to the funeral, the suit with the tight skirt that had shown off her slender little butt and lots of long, slim leg. He’d been watching from his car when she’d been helped out of the hearse by two exceedingly attentive men, and he’d endured the painful twist in his gut when she’d clung to one of them as she started across the cemetery. And he’d been mildly surprised to note that her figure had looked every bit as good as he remembered...though “surprise” hadn’t been the primary feeling he’d experienced.

And afterwards, when he’d introduced himself to her family, he’d been shocked as hell when she’d deliberately closed the space between them and pressed herself against his side as if they were intimate companions who touched each other every day. Even though he knew she’d done it to head off more hard words between him and her overbearing brother-in-law, he hadn’t been able to prevent himself from touching her once he’d recovered his wits. He’d slid a hand around her still-slender waist and checked out the firm curve of her hip, and it had been all he could do to stand there when all he wanted was to pull her against him and fill his hands with her.

He suspected that this sudden switch to conservative clothing was for his benefit. She’d probably had to run out and buy it today.

The idea made him smile as he started forward—but she blocked his way. “I’m ready.”

That was it. No greeting, no civil conversation. The imp of perversity that she brought out in him popped up, and he merely stood there, blocking her way, now. “Invite me in.”

“No. You asked me to dinner. Let’s go.”

“Come on, honey-bunch.” He used the endearment deliberately, and her eyelids fluttered once, a subtle flinch that he might have missed if he hadn’t been looking for it. He’d noticed yesterday that the expression he’d once used with tenderness got her back up like a threatened cat’s. “It’s only natural that I want to see how my former fiancée is living. After all, if we’d married, I’d have been saddled with your taste in furnishings for life.” He put his hands on her waist and set her aside, striding into the foyer of her condo, where he made a show of looking around. But his body was doing its Jillian-thing again, and he had to take a few deep breaths to calm the shaky feeling that touching her had produced in his gut. His fingers tingled and his blood felt as if it was racing through his veins. And unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot he could do about the heavy stirring in the part of his body that hadn’t listened when he told himself it was over with her.

This really sucked. He’d met dozens—no, hundreds of beautiful, sexy women over the years. And not one of them could arouse even a fraction of the desire that rode him when he so much as thought about Jillian.

“I’d really like to get this over with. I have to work tomorrow.”

“At your store.” Leisurely, he strolled through a stark, white kitchen that looked as if it didn’t get much use. The only personal touches were a couple of pictures of children—Manna’s? —held on the refrigerator with magnets, and a clumsily painted clay bowl that looked like it had been made by a child. The other items on display looked like they’d been placed there by a decorator for effect. He ran a finger over a blue glazed bowl with apples in it, mildly surprised when he realized the apples were real.

He inspected the dining room, with its smoked glass table and chrome-and-leather chairs. The room was dominated by a huge painting of... “What is that?”

She’d been trailing after him, looking distinctly pouty and disgruntled. At his words, a small smile curled the edges of her lips up in amusement. “It’s a painting.”

He gave her a narrow-eyed look.

She raised both palms and shrugged. “I don’t know what it is. Some days, it looks like a tiger wearing green socks, other days it resembles a garden of orange lilies. Vaguely. It was a gift from an artist and I don’t want to hurt his feelings.”

“His?” He mentally kicked himself the moment the word came out. It certainly wasn’t what he’d intended to say. What had he intended to say, anyway?

Jillian crossed her arms and leaned back against the door frame. “Yes, his, as in male, man, masculine gender. Believe it or not, Dax, I’ve had a life of my own since your exit, complete with a few—gasp!—relationships along the way.”

He ignored the sarcasm, heading into the next room, which must be her formal living room. An enormous baby grand occupied the alcove in the corner, and sheet music for a complicated arrangement of the love theme from Titanic was open above the keys. Jillian had loved to play, he remembered. Apparently, at least that hadn’t changed. He wandered past the piano to where a tasteful grouping of white love seats and chairs were set before a brassscreened fireplace with white marble columns.

Who did she share that love seat with now? Rationally, he knew she had had no reason to suspend her life after he’d left, but when he thought about Jillian with another man, his irrational side wanted to smash a few pieces of her Lladro collection against the far wall.

A group of brass-framed photos displayed on the mantel caught his eye, and he went closer. Her sister’s family smiled contentedly into the camera in the first one. There was a dark-haired little girl cradled in Ben Bradshaw’s arm and an obviously pregnant Marina glowed with happiness. Regret rose at the cozy family scene, and he swallowed it, moving on to the next image. Slightly behind the first, a second photo showed Marina snuggled against a big blond guy.

Before he could voice a question, Jillian said, “That was her first husband. He was killed in the accident.” There was a soft, sad note in her voice that made him want to reach out and cuddle her, comfort her, but he resisted such a stupid impulse.

The third photo arrested his attention, as did two others following it. The photographer apparently had been waiting for the shot, because the three photos were a sequence. In the first, taken near someone’s pool on a bright, sunny day, an enormous hulk of a guy in nothing but a pair of blue denim cutoffs that bared bulging biceps and thighs like tree trunks was sneaking up behind Jillian. Meanwhile, another broad-shouldered dark-haired man in swim trunks stood with his arm around her naked waist. She was wearing what had to be the skimpiest bikini on the East Coast and even though the man’s hand was only splayed against her back, Dax’s blood pressure rose.

In the second photo, the Hulk had snatched her off her feet and was holding her cradled against his chest as he stood on the edge of the pool. He was grinning like the Cheshire cat. Jillian had his ears in her hands, tugging, her head thrown back and her mouth open in a scream. The third was a marvelous action shot of the pair in midair, free-falling into the pool as sprays of water froze forever for the camera’s lens.

Jillian had moved up beside him. She reached up to trace a delicate finger over the glass, sliding around the outline of the big man. She heaved an exaggerated sigh.

He couldn’t take it, even though he knew she was baiting him. “Someone special?”

“Two someones,” she corrected, smiling fondly at the photo. “Other than my brother-in-law, Jack and Ronan are the men I love most in the world. Even when they conspire to throw me into the pool.”

He gritted his teeth, aware that if he moved right now, it only would be far enough to get his hands around her unfaithful throat. “You never were satisfied with just one of anything.” He hadn’t meant the words in an intimate sense, but as he glanced at her, he suddenly realized they applied to their shared past in another way.

And in the sudden aura of awareness that the words dropped over them, he saw in her eyes that she was thinking the same thing he was. Their lovemaking had always been intense and primitive, and they’d both been young, healthy, in love with lust when they’d been together. A single episode of sex had never been enough for her. As if she were speaking, he could hear her husky voice urging him on and on, begging him for more and more, and protesting that she really couldn’t without meaning it when he moved over her, giving her a second satisfaction only moments after the first.

He looked at her lips. They were slightly parted, the edges of her perfect teeth—courtesy of the braces he still remembered—showing. She was breathing in quick, shallow gulps. He could practically smell the scent of her arousal, and the erection that had been teasing him since she opened the door roared to full, throbbing life. His hand reached for hers, their gazes locking in a desperate, wordless exchange. Taking her small hand in his, he carried it to his chest.

She sucked in a strangled breath, her eyes darting to their hands—

And the tidal wave of sudden, rigid-muscled, bodyshaking rage that possessed him when he thought about her running straight from his arms into those of his brother blasted through him without warning, knocking down any fragile barriers he’d sandbagged against it.

“How many men have those hands touched?” he demanded, as he flung her hand from him.

For an instant, he thought he saw anguish pass over her features. Then, if it had ever been there at all, the desperate emotion in her eyes vanished. Tossing her head to throw back her hair, she smiled. “Dozens. And every single one of them tells me I’m the best thing he’s ever known.”

He could kill her. He really could kill her.

Reading his eyes correctly, she hastily stepped back. But she just couldn’t shut that smart mouth of hers. “You asked for that, Dax. You know you did.” She paused, and weariness drew at her pretty face; again, for a moment, she looked so sad that a little part of his heart almost reached out for her before he shoved it back into hiding. “If I told you the truth, you’d think I was lying, anyway.”

“You aren’t capable of telling the truth,” he snarled. Truth? What truth?

In self-preservation, he transferred his attention to the last photo.

And was shocked speechless for a moment. It was a close-up of Jillian. She was cradling an infant in her arms, a newborn whose blond fuzz barely dusted the tiny head. She was holding the child up close to her, looking into its face, and the tenderness in her expression dug into him like a sharp blade. His hands were shaking and he shoved them into his pockets. Was it hers? Where was it? The sight sent sharp arrows of pain through him again.

That should have been my child.

But she hadn’t loved him enough to have his babies.

As if she’d followed his thoughts, she said quietly, “That’s my friend Deirdre’s first child. He’s a whole lot bigger and a whole lot livelier now, but he sure was precious then.”

His shoulders slumped as the tension leached out of him, and with a small shake of his head for what should have been and never would be, he gave up the inspection and escorted her out the door.

As Dax drove up the hill and pulled into the circular driveway fronting Charles and Alma’s house—or was it Dax’s now?—Jillian steeled herself. The last time she’d been here had been the day after they’d died, when the funeral director had asked her to pick out clothing in which the couple could be buried. God save her from ever having to choose another loved one’s final attire.

“Why are we stopping here?”

Dax gave her an unreadable glance as he killed the engine. “We’re dining here.”

She stared at him a minute. “I hope you’re joking.”

He looked puzzled. “Do I look like I’m joking?”

She couldn’t eat here. No. Absolutely no way. “Dax...the past few times I’ve been in this house haven’t exactly been easy moments for me. I thought you meant we were eating out or I’d never have agreed to come with you.”

He uncoiled himself from the driver’s seat and came around the car to open her door. “Get out.” His voice was clipped.

He was determined to make her life a living hell, she thought in resentment. She never should have told him coming to the house bothered her; he was far to quick to seize on things and rub them into her skin.

“Get out or I’ll get you out.” The menace in his voice convinced her he meant it.

Slowly, she swung her legs out of the car and stood, ignoring the hand he extended, and walked up the wide, shallow flagstone steps before he could touch her.

Following her up, he reached around her to open the door. As he turned the knob, he hesitated and looked down at her.

She averted her eyes, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing the pain she was feeling, and after a moment, he pushed the door inward and she preceded him into the spacious foyer. Mrs. Bowley, the housekeeper who’d been there since they were small, bustled through the swinging door from the kitchen and hurried down the hall, wiping her hands on her apron.

“Jillian!” The older woman enfolded her in a warm, cinnamon-y smelling embrace that catapulted her back in time. Funny how some smells always made you remember certain things. Mrs. Bowley’s scent always relaxed her and gave her the warm, secure feelings she’d known in childhood. When the housekeeper stepped back, her faded blue eyes were swimming with tears. “How are you, honey?”

“I’m fine.” She gripped Mrs. Bowley’s hands. “I’ve been worried about you. Have you been all right?”

The housekeeper gave her a watery smile. “It’s been hard. I keep expecting Miss Alma to come flying down the steps, or Charles to come out of his study with his nose buried in the paper.”

“I’m sure.” Jillian draped an arm around her sloping shoulders. “I can’t quite accept it yet, either.”

“Having Dax come home has been wonderful. And of course, there’s—”

“Mrs. Bowley.” Dax’s voice was warm but firm. “Could you please bring us the hors d’oeuvres?”

“Right away, dear.” The older woman gave Jillian one last fond smile as she turned away.

Dax crossed the hall and opened the door of Charles’s study. Only she supposed it was his study now. She looked at him, uncomprehending, before she realized he wanted her to go into that room, rather than into the parlor opposite it, where guests were usually entertained. Or at least, where Charles, and Dax’s parents before him, had entertained. It was difficult to remember that this was Dax’s home now.

As she passed him and entered the room, he asked, “Would you like a drink?”

“A glass of sherry would be nice,” she said. He disappeared again, and she dropped her purse in a wing chair as she idly walked to the window and pulled back the heavy drapes. She couldn’t stand to sit in here in the dark, and it was still light outside. Perching on the wide ledge, she stared at the familiar scene without really seeing it.

Crossing her arms, she lifted each of her hands to the opposite shoulder and massaged her neck for a moment. If she spent much more time in Dax’s company, she was going to need a massage therapist on a permanent basis.

He returned with her drink, and one of his own, and walked across the rug to hand it to her. At the same moment, Mrs. Bowley bustled in with a small tray. She deposited it on the table beside Jillian and left again.

As he switched on the floor lamp behind the desk, Dax said, “Come sit down. There are some things I want to ask you about.”

She frowned as she settled into the wing chair, trying to ignore the way his casual olive pants pulled across his thighs when he propped one hip on the edge of the massive cherry desk. Across his definitely-all-man thighs. She swallowed. She should have smacked his face when he’d taken her hand in her condo.

Why hadn’t she? She couldn’t explain it, even to herself. It was as if she’d lost all willpower, all independent thought, when he’d looked at her with those lazy, sexy eyes of his. They’d told her, without words, that he was remembering how wild and incredible their lovemaking had been. And she’d felt her body softening, yearning for him even though she knew he despised her.

And she despised him, of course.

But it stung her pride that he’d been the one to move away. He’d been quick to spoil the magic in the moment, too, and old hurt rose in her throat. Why was he so determined to think the worst of her? It struck her that he’d been just as determined to condemn her seven years ago. It was almost as if he wanted to believe she was a woman with fewer morals than the owner of the infamous Chicken Ranch.

“What do you know about Piersall Industries?” The curt question scattered her whirling thoughts, and she had to consider it for a minute.

“Other than the fact that it’s your family’s business that manufactures steel beams for construction?” She shrugged. “Not much. If you’re hoping I’ll walk you through the family finances, you’re out of luck.” And she couldn’t resist adding, “Charles and I didn’t talk much about business when we were together.”

“Don’t be childish,” he told her. “You don’t need to prove anything to me. I already know about your affection for my brother. What I want to know is whether or not you can explain to me how Charles dug this company into a hole so deep I may not be able to get it out.”

She had been staring at him angrily until his last words penetrated, and she sat up straighter, unable to believe her ears. “What? You must have misread something. The company should be in great shape. Charles was always looking for charitable causes that would help offset the chunk of change the IRS demands. He’s been one of Baltimore’s most generous patrons of a number of community projects.”

Dax smiled grimly. “Yeah? Well, it looks like he’s been a little too magnanimous. Although it’ll be a while before I know for sure. He seems to have been the world’s worst record-keeper.”

“He hated that end of it,” she admitted. “Charles was a people person, remember? But he had employees to manage the finances. Have you talked with Roger Wingerd about this?”

“Not yet. I wanted to get familiar with the current setup before I started questioning people.” Dax rubbed the back of his neck as he picked up a thick sheaf of papers and handed them to her. “You probably won’t understand this, but it’s a copy of the quarterly financial report. It’s not good.”

“I studied accounting, remember?” she said examining the numbers with growing dread. “I’ve kept my C.P.A. certification even though I don’t practice any more.”

“Any more?”

She looked up, shooting him a grim smile. “I worked for Arthur Andersen for almost five years before Marina and I opened our store.”

One black eyebrow rose. “I’m impressed.” But his tone was mocking.

Refusing to respond in kind, she said, “Thank you.” Then she waved the report at him, concern mounting. “I’d have to see a lot more than this to get the whole picture, but it does look as if Piersall is in trouble.”

“In trouble?” Dax snorted. “If something isn’t done, this company will have to declare bankruptcy by the end of the year.”

She was shocked and for a minute she simply gaped at him. “My God, Dax. Do you realize how many people will lose their jobs if Piersall sinks?”

He pivoted and picked up another piece of paper from the desk top. “Four hundred, more or less, with about ninety per cent of them full-timers who would lose benefits.”

“I had no idea,” she whispered.

“Apparently, neither did Charles.” For once, Dax appeared unconcerned about continuing their verbal battles. “I was hoping you could shed some light on this.”

She started to shake her head, and then the light dawned. “No, you weren’t.” She drained her glass of sherry and set it on the table beside her with a snap. “You didn’t see my name on the list of employees, and you wanted to know if I’d been helping Charles to mismanage his funds. You jerk.”

Springing out of the chair, she stalked toward the door, but she’d forgotten how fast he could move. He was laughing as he took her elbow and steered her toward the dining room. “Caught by a master of deception. What can I say?” He barely twisted out of the way when she rammed her elbow backward toward his ribs. “Calm down, honey-bunch. I don’t recall making any accusations.”

“Then you had a memory lapse.”

“Anyway,” he said, staying out of range, “You can relax. I don’t think you had anything to do with the company’s problems.”

“How generous of you,” she said bitterly. “You’ll have to excuse me for thinking that you assessed my reaction before rendering such a magnanimous opinion.”

“But I need you to help me solve them.” He went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “There’s been a little movement of the company’s stock in the week since Charles died. Probably normal reaction, but it bears watching. In the meantime, I’ve been looking over the minutes from recent board meetings and I can’t say I’m impressed with the general direction they’ve been going.”

“And naturally, you have a solution.” She couldn’t resist.

“I do.” He picked up his drink and took a slow sip, watching her over the rim of the glass before he spoke again. “But it may not be one that the current board will embrace unless I can force them to yield by outvoting them at the table.”

Comprehension began to glimmer in the back of her mind. “Just how much stock do you own, Dax?”

“Together, the family held fifty-one percent,” he said. “Now that Charles has left his shares to you, I still control twenty-eight percent.”

“So...” She made a show of crossing her legs and settling back in her chair. “Without my votes, you can’t be sure of enough support to control the board.”

Dax’s mouth was a grim line. “No. I can’t.”

She raised one brow in a mocking manner as she made a production out of recrossing her legs the other way. “Ah. How...interesting.”

“‘Interesting’ isn’t quite the word I’d use,” he grated. “God, I could kill you. And I could kill Charles for creating this mess if he weren’t dead already.”

Abruptly, any satisfaction she’d found in the verbal sparring drained away. Sorrow and a profound depression filled her. She’d worked so hard to make a life for herself after Dax had left, and now she felt as if she had moved no farther in time than mere hours from the day he’d gone.

She almost demanded that he take her home then, but she knew it would only give him pleasure to refuse. So when he set his glass on the desk and motioned for her to precede him, she moved ahead of him into the dining room without a protest. There were three places set, and despite her irritation with him, she was touched. She knew Charles and Alma had taken most of their meals in the kitchen with Mrs. Bowley. It was thoughtful of Dax to include her.

As they cleared the doorway, she moved to the far end of the room and through the open French doors. Being so close to him was torture. Half of her wanted to kill him, but the other half ... the other half wished in vain that she could walk into his arms and let him touch her with those long magic fingers that wreaked havoc on her system.

A gentle evening breeze wandered across the pretty stone patio. Beyond a green carpet of lawn, the pool reflected evening’s approach on its smooth face. The sight of that pool brought memories flooding back...more of the uncomplicated happy moments from childhood, anxious yearnings from adolescence as she wished Dax would notice her in her newest bathing suit, and other memories—giddy, heady, heart-pounding recollections that were better left forgotten.

Would this evening ever end? she thought in despair. They hadn’t even eaten yet and already she felt like someone had flayed every inch of her skin with a cat-o’-nine-tails. She turned to move from the view, desperately seeking some innocuous subject that wouldn’t carry any more bits of her past.

Dax was standing directly behind her.

She barreled into him with a muffled exclamation of surprise; his hands gripped her upper arms to steady her. But when she automatically tried to step back, he held her against him. His big body, where hers was pressed into it, was achingly familiar and enticingly strange. Her breasts knew the planes of his torso, his hips found their old familiar pillow just below her navel. She sucked in a breath of dismay and delight, her body arrested in motion, quivering with the wondrous feel of his form against hers again.

This was what they’d had between them. Since the first time he’d taken her into his arms to dance on her seventeenth birthday, they’d had this. She could still remember the look on his face that night, the stunned need that accompanied his body’s unmistakable response. And she could remember the helpless, melting feeling she’d known, along with the heady sense of power she’d felt when his lips had descended on hers right there on the dance floor.

“You’re too young,” he’d growled against her skin. And despite her protests, he’d stayed away, even going to Europe to do his graduate work at a university there. He had never even asked her out until the summer he’d turned twenty-four.

He’d come to her house the day he’d returned from Europe, and they’d dated steadily from that point on. It had been two months before he’d made love to her for the first time. Two long months, when the only thing that had saved her virgin state was Dax’s self-control. She’d had none. And it was a not-quite-pleasant realization to recognize that she still didn’t.

She could have stood there all day. She barely resisted her body’s pleas to rub herself against him in surrender. Dignity had no place here. Elemental recognition flowed between them. Rib of my rib, bone of my bone—she was his missing half, he was the answer to the unfinished equation in her life.

Above her head, Dax muttered something, and she lifted dazed eyes to his. “What?”

“I said, ‘Damn.’” His thumbs lightly rubbed over the soft flesh he had seized to steady her, flesh he had yet to release. His eyes searched hers. “My life would be easier without this.”

When he spoke, her gaze moved to watch the fascinating motions of his lips as he formed his words. She knew, with no explanation, exactly what he meant. “A lot easier.” She sighed. “Of all the men in the world, why are you the only one?”

“Because you were made for me.” His voice was a guttural acknowledgment as his head slowly lowered.

She lifted her face the barest increment, knowing it wasn’t smart, unable to resist.

Their lips met. Shivers of wild excitement connected that point of contact with a dozen others, all descending to the junction where her legs met.

In one instant, she forgot every hurtful lesson she’d learned from this man. Her arms came up to his shoulders as he pulled her against him. One big hand swept across her back and the other splayed wide just above the swell of her buttocks. She sank against him in total surrender, a surrender he recognized and accepted without a word passing between them. He couldn’t get her any closer to him; her fingers speared into his short hair and cradled his scalp as his tongue renewed every intimate motion, explored every silken corner of her mouth.

She was a twig, carried away in the raging winds of a hurricane; a hapless pebble in the path of an avalanche. When he dragged his mouth down her neck, her head dropped back helplessly, though her hands pressed him to her.

“Do you remember our first time?”

The low words were punctuated with kisses that strayed down over her sweater to the tip of her breast. His hand left her back and came around, sliding surely onto the slight mound that already begged for his attention.

She moaned. “Down by the pool.”

A chuckle of breath huffed over her. When he pulled the thin sweater away from her waistband and put his hand beneath it, against her skin, she jumped and moaned. His palm left a trail of heat behind, and as it traveled inexorably upward, she pressed her lips to the black silk of his hair.

“Daddy?”

Dax jerked away from her in one shocking movement, yanking his hands from beneath her clothing and holding her arms in an iron grip. He pivoted, placing his body between Jillian and the doors behind them, and pressed her head into his chest with one strong hand.

Ordinarily, she might have protested. But speech was beyond her.

“Just a minute, Christine.” His voice was a deep growl, and she could still feel the hard strength of his desire pressing into her. Tremors began to shudder through her.

But the childish voice came again. “Who is that, Daddy?”

Dax sighed and released her. Jillian straightened her clothing with trembling hands. Slowly, she forced herself to turn around.

Dax stepped aside, and if she’d been shocked before, every thought fled now. Shock dribbled ice down her neck, sending goose bumps up her arms, leaving a cold ball of lead in the pit of her stomach. The world swam and she instinctively put out a hand, then snatched it away again when it landed on his forearm.

Distantly, she saw him turn, heard him say, “Christine, this is my friend Jillian.”

The child was fair, the straight, shaggy strands as blond as Jillian’s own. There was no mistaking her parentage, though. Dax’s dark eyes under identical brows, drawn now into a suspicious scowl, studied her resentfully. She had his lean frame as well, though on his child it was going to translate into a killer pair of legs one of these days.

How could it hurt so much? She’d put Dax behind her, buried all her imaginings of a family of her own with the remnants of her love for a man who hadn’t trusted her enough to believe in her. Now she realized that in holding herself aloof from the possibilities of another love, she’d been punishing herself, not Dax, all these years. She was the one who’d been alone for the past seven years, while Dax clearly hadn’t spent his life in misery over her.

Her breast heaved; a sob burst out without warning and she only kept another from erupting by clamping one hand over her mouth. Abruptly turning from his daughter, Dax reached for her.

But she reared back as if he were a poisonous snake, continuing to inch her way backward until the cold marble of the low railing around the patio kept her from going farther. He stopped and raised his hands as if to reassure her that he wasn’t coming any closer, and she stared at him, futilely battling an agony as deep as she’d known the day he’d stared at her with hot rage and hatred burning in his eyes before he’d walked away forever.

She bowed her head and closed her eyes, taking the deep breaths that had gotten her through Charles’s and Alma’s funeral and a thousand other moments of despondency over the years.

A self-protective wall slammed down. Blessed numbness descended, and she was grateful. Emotion, feeling, was gone. Nothing could hurt her now. Later, maybe, she’d think of this, but right now all she prayed for was the fortitude to deflect this shattering blow that threatened to break her into a thousand shards of desolation.

Summoning what she hoped looked remotely like a smile, she walked toward the little girl. As she extended her hand like an automaton, she gave Dax a wide berth. “I’m Jillian Kerr.”

The child stared at the hand as if she wasn’t sure what to do with it. Finally, she put out her own and dutifully shook Jillian’s hand. “I’m Christine.”

It was slightly sullen, but Jillian barely registered the tone. “I knew your father when we were kids, even younger than you are. And despite what you just saw, we aren’t really friends at all. We had some business to discuss and I’m going now.”

Slipping past the child—Christine—she made her way out of the dining room with its three place settings and walked directly to the hall table. She picked up the phone and called a cab, telling them she’d pay double fare for immediate pickup.

As she opened the heavy front door, she heard Dax call her name. She closed the door gently and kept going. She was almost at the end of the circular driveway when he caught up to her. Walking beside her, he said, “Jillian?”

She didn’t respond. She couldn’t. Tears beat at the backs of her eyes; every ounce of her willpower was directed at holding them back. Silently, she concentrated on the meaningless task of counting her measured steps. As she turned left, she started down the street in the direction she knew the cab would be coming.

“Jillian, we have to talk.”

She walked on, putting a hand to her mouth when her breath hitched and another sob threatened.

“You can’t walk home, honey. Let me drive you home.” His voice was surprisingly gentle, but she supposed he could afford to be gentle now.

The cab turned the corner at the bottom of the hill. She stopped to wait for it.

Dax stopped, too, stepping in front of her. “I meant to tell you about Christine. I wanted you to meet her this evening but not—”

“And I’ve met her.” Her eyes focused on him, and she reached for the imaginary wall she envisioned between them. “If you came back here to punish me, Dax, consider the job done.” Even she could hear the distress she couldn’t quite control in her shaking voice. “If I had one wish, I’d wish that you were the Piersall who’d been in that car last week.”

His features went from concern to stone-solid stoicism. The cab slowed to a stop at her hail and she opened the door and slid into the back seat while he watched with clenched fists. As she lay her head against the seat back, she gave the driver her address and concentrated anew on forcing back the tears.