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Cheyenne wanted only her precocious son.
She wanted peace and solitude.
And safety.
For an instant she remembered Cutter’s dark, tortured face when he’d held and soothed Jeremy so tenderly right after his birth. The baby had taken to him, cooing and gurgling happily almost instantly. Cutter’s expression had softened when Jeremy had wrapped his little hand around Cutter’s finger. She had thought then how warm and lovely it had been to have his child. She had wanted the moment to last forever. When Cutter had looked abruptly from the baby to her, she had wanted him in her life so much, she had begun to weep. Even now she still wondered what might have happened if Martin had not been there.
No.
She wanted a magnolia tree without blossoms.
Theodora West left before the auction started. The Jacksons sat in the row behind Cheyenne. Chantal West vanished into the crowd just as the auctioneer began the sale with Martin’s valuable Tang horse, which went quickly.
A few lots later, the gavel pounded down so hard Cheyenne could almost feel sparks flying. Soon she forgot all about Chantal.
“Sold to the highest bidder,” cried the skinny auctioneer with the vulgar yellow tie.
Again all eyes turned to the dazzling redhead in black cashmere, who paled, the words having stung her like a whip.
Cheyenne felt as if she was dying by inches as two men rolled up a Persian carpet that had been in her bedroom and dragged it off the stage. But she kept her expression a careful blank as the bidding resumed.
She felt numb, so numb that the sounds and visions blurred. Would this nightmare that had become her life never end?
“Do I hear a thousand—”
Only a thousand.
Cheyenne, who was sitting in the center of the first row, flanked by her son and bodyguard, jumped up. She seized the microphone and began to describe how she and Martin had come to possess the particular antique crystal vase on the block. As she spoke, guests suddenly saw or thought they saw dozens upon dozens of tall yellow roses blooming and growing ever taller in the vase that now looked both magical and wonderful.
When she handed the microphone back to the auctioneer, the bidding leapfrogged as it always did after such a poignant anecdote and strange occurrence.
Cheyenne’s green eyes glassed over again as she sank into her chair once more and folded her perfectly manicured hands together with a pretense of calm.
She was used to pretending. She had grown so very, very good at it during the seven years of her miserable marriage, which had been one of public glitter and private humiliation.
But ever since Martin’s murder—no, even six months before that, when the telephone death threats had begun—it had grown harder to pretend.
It was on that day that the magnolia tree had first started to shed its blossoms. It became totally bare the day Martin had been found.
A single magnolia petal had fluttered downward outside the window as Martin had answered that first call in their dining room with its soaring columns and its Steuben chandeliers and the table that was encircled by eighteen antique gilt chairs. She had watched the magnolia petal until it disappeared. Then she focused on Martin’s eyes, which had dilated with fear. Immediately after the brief call Martin had been gray and silent.
“Martin. Please, Martin. Tell me what is going on,” she had pleaded as another white petal slid lazily to the ground.
“It’s none of your damn business.” As his voice echoed with cold finality, white petals began falling like rain.
“But you’re my husband.”
“Am I?” He came to her then, raised his hand and lifted her chin in a proprietary manner. “In what sense?” he sneered. “I never think of myself as your husband. I’m surprised you do.”
Somehow she managed not to flinch as his hand stroked her. “Why won’t you give me a divorce then?”
His gaze was level and hard. “Because you are my only asset that my brother covets. Besides, of course, our son—the genius.”
“Don’t call him that!”
“Have you forgotten our little bargain—darling?”
Words from the past, Martin’s proposal, came back to her.
We both hate him. There’s only one way to get even with the bastard—by marrying each other.
Martin had referred to their bargain, and she had replied, “Never...for a moment.”
But she hadn’t hated Cutter. She had merely felt lost and afraid. For the sake of her son, Jeremy, she, who had wanted to be loved and valued, had settled for so much less.
“Good.” His voice had softened when he saw that he had her under control once more. He had even smiled at her. Something he had rarely done when they were alone. “Relax, darling. Go outside and pick flowers. Work in your garden. Baby Jeremy. Or let him read to you. Damn it. Do what you do.” He touched her again, indifferently, his fingertips moving from her chin to her throat in a sinister caress. “This trouble is temporary. I’ll bring Kurt home to look after you and Jeremy. He’s been around. You’ll be safe with him.”
Even though Kurt was a top man in Martin’s business, she hadn’t liked him. Kurt had a brutish face with a smashed-in nose and cold eyes. His overlarge head seemed to melt into his powerful, barrel-like torso without benefit of a neck. Every time she thought of him, red roses blackened, mosquitoes grew to the size of bumblebees and kittens quit purring.
“I’m afraid of him.”
Martin’s caressing fingertips combed her hair dismissively. “He’s fine.”
“Martin, in the name of God, what’s going on?”
“Why should I tell you?” Martin withdrew his hand.
She felt numb and blank with regret as Martin grabbed his briefcase and newspaper and went past her out of the house. Not that such feelings were new. Every morning since she’d first discovered him with Chantal and had realized that he hated her, Cheyenne had awakened with the same blank feeling of hopelessness and the same dull ache of despair. Later, when the numbness became punctuated with fear, she had known that as long as Martin had refused her a divorce, there was nothing she could do about it.
They had never really been married. She had always been his prisoner, his hostage in the psychological war he waged against his brother.
If Martin had hated her for sleeping with Cutter and giving birth to Jeremy, he hated her a hundred times more for costing him control of his fortune. All Martin’s problems had stemmed from his borrowing money to prove to her and the world that he was as financially brilliant as Cutter.
When Martin had suddenly died, she had felt that her longed-for release had come—but at a terrible price. She had been shaken to the core by the savage nature of his murder and by how utterly alone she felt in her dangerous trap. Jeremy had been devastated. The little boy had loved Martin in spite of Martin’s mood swings from indulgence to sarcasm and neglect. Immediately after his funeral the phone calls had begun, and she had discovered that Martin’s death had put Jeremy in terrible jeopardy.
As she sat among the guests and listened to the auctioneer offer her cherished possessions for sale, she wondered if the person making the threatening calls was here, too—watching her. Watching...Jeremy. Waiting for the right moment?
Dear God.
She forced herself to hold her head high, even though her regal posture just made her feel more exposed.
She kept twisting her diamond rings. She kept patting Jeremy’s silky, black head, reassuring herself that as long as her precocious darling was beside her with his nose in an encyclopedia, he was safe.
But she couldn’t be with him all the time.
She kept remembering the caller’s scratchy voice. His terse warning that afternoon.
“You know what I want. If I don’t get it, Jeremy’s next.”
As always the voice had been emotionless and deadly.
“I don’t have five million!” she had screamed.
“I like passion in a beautiful woman,” he had murmured. “I look forward to meeting you in person.”
“Never.”
“Soon.” He had hung up, but his final threat had replayed itself in her mind dozens of times.
Dear God.
What had Martin gotten them into?
What was she going to do about it?
Run away? Start over? As she had when she’d left Westville all those years ago?
Dear God, how she wanted to.
But where?
How?
With the police interrogating her?
With Martin’s creditors hounding her?
With her own career in jeopardy because of the negative publicity? Not that she could concentrate enough to experiment with recipes, plan parties or write. Not that she could ever, if she worked the rest of her life, make enough to pay what Martin owed.
When she had cautioned Jeremy to beware of strangers, he hadn’t understood the danger. Laughing, he had said, “If one tries to get me, I’ll bash him with an encyclopedia or climb up the magnolia tree.”
If anybody other than Martin or herself was responsible for her terrible predicament, it was Cutter Lord. She would never have had to marry Martin, if it hadn’t been for Cutter who had used her as he had used so many women. She had been so hurt and afraid, she had made a terrible mistake. Martin would never have had to live so high, if he hadn’t been trying to prove himself to Cutter.
How she wished she could loathe Cutter. From the beginning, his behavior had been despicable. Incapable of love or honor, he had seduced her and abandoned her. Then when she’d found out she was pregnant and married Martin, Cutter had been apoplectic.
For Jeremy’s sake, Cutter could have helped Martin when he’d asked for help shortly before his death. Instead Cutter had stuck to the brutal terms of their father’s will and said he would keep control of Martin’s fortune until Martin was thirty-five. She had gone to Cutter and pleaded with him, too, pointing out that Cutter had taken everything from Martin.
Cutter had seized the gigantic rose she’d worn in her hair, and brought it to his nose. He inhaled deeply. “No, Cheyenne. Martin took everything from me. And you helped him do it.” He had paused, studying her face and then the rose. “But, hey, sure, I’ll be glad to help.” Another pause. “For a price. If you ask me sweetly.” Then Cutter had put his hands on her in a hateful, intimate way and propositioned her.
Dear God, she had wanted him to love her.
All he had ever wanted was to use her.
The auctioneer’s cry never ceased. An hour later Jeremy’s book lay closed on the floor. He began to droop sleepily against her arm. When he tugged at her sleeve and pleaded in a whining tone that he wanted to go home to bed, she kissed his brow and reluctantly ordered Kurt, whom she had never had the courage to fire, to drive him.
As always Kurt’s cold stare before he took Jeremy by the hand unnerved her. She felt as if it were winter, and every blade of grass, every leaf, and even the root systems, had withered and died in her garden.
But she stayed.
For she had been told that her presence at the auction added substantially to the money her belongings would bring.
Hour after dreadful hour she sat ramrod straight in her hard-backed, gilt chair.
When the intermission came, she was too exhausted to make small talk. Jeb and Megan Jackson escorted her to a shadowy corner of the bar. Then mercifully they left her to talk to Amy and Nick Browning, and she found herself alone.
But not for long.
For suddenly Cutter Lord was there.
Two
Maybe it was the booze.
Whatever. Cutter Lord was unaccustomed to the sense of uncertainty that filled him the minute he saw her heading toward the bar where he’d been hiding for more than an hour.
Pale, creamy skin.
Black cashmere over softly swelling breasts and taut nipples.
So many years.
And he still felt the same.
Cheyenne’s eyes were warm and welcoming to everyone she saw and spoke to on her way toward him.
But that would change, the minute she saw him.
He swallowed what was left of his drink.
He should pounce on her now.
Instead he clung to the safety of the shadows and wondered what the hell to do next. The only other times in his life he had been at such a complete loss had been that moment just before dawn on the island when he’d known he’d fallen in love with her and then that single other time when he’d held his tiny son in his arms in the hospital and stared at her with such fury and longing that he’d made her cry.
Suddenly the happier memories of that long-ago night on the island swamped Cutter. He had awakened just before dawn to find her naked body curled trustingly in his arms. He had gotten up, feeling excited and surprised at the strange tenderness he felt toward her, at the regret to leave her in bed alone, even so briefly.
In confusion he had stared out at the ghostly glimmer of gray fog that shrouded the island. Then she had padded silently across the room and gently taken his hand.
At the touch of her slim fingers closing around his, his spirits had rocketed, and all his loneliness, as well as the certainty that she was the wrong woman for any Lord, especially him, had vanished.
Even as he had fought the power she had over him, he had wondered why he had ever thought she was unsuitable when she was the only woman who would do for him. He had kissed her forehead, her drowsy, thickly lashed eyes, her tousled red hair. He had wondered why he had ever thought money could matter between a man and a woman who had felt and shared what they had felt.
Then they had begun to talk as if they had known each other their entire lives. She had told him of growing up in a small Texas town, of having a father who would not claim her, of having a half sister who hated her and who had been determined to best her, of having a beautiful, wild mother the whole town sneered at, of learning to like books with happy endings because her own life had not been so happy.
And he had told her something of his life, too—of the great loneliness he had known ever since he’d been a boy. In fact, he had shared so much in those swift, fleeting moments, telling her everything about himself that had really mattered—except his real name.
They had scampered down to the kitchen as if they were children and made a hasty breakfast of cold biscuits and milk and orange juice. And that simple shared meal had been wonderfully exciting because she was there, feeding him with her fingers.
Then they had raced back to bed and made love again.
He had known then, that for better or for worse, he had fallen head over heels in love with her.
Then she had used her love to destroy him.
Now it was his turn.
Normally Cheyenne didn’t drink, but tonight she felt like it. She was ordering Scotch on the rocks, when Cutter’s silken baritone came from behind her.
“Make mine a double.”
Her smile vanished. Her green eyes turned to shards of ice.
“The wages of sin must be paid, Cheyenne. The devil always claims his due.”
But did he have to show up at the worst possible moment?
For an instant the world stopped spinning.
She whirled.
There—behind her in the shadowy dark stood the devil himself. He was twirling a twin red rose to the one she’d worn in her hair the last time she’d seen him.
Cutter’s obsidian black eyes locked with hers as he handed her the rose. In his gaze she saw the same bleak, unforgiving emotion she’d seen on her wedding day. The same bleak, loveless emotion she’d seen that last afternoon when she’d begged him to save Martin and he’d seized her rose and then leaned forward and unbuttoned her jacket.
“Sure. I’ll be glad to help,” he’d murmured in that same softly rough tone. “For a price. If you ask me sweetly.”
He’d twisted her second button loose, and she’d felt his warm fingers against the swell of her breasts. She’d gasped and grown instantly hot from his touch.
Some part of her had wanted him to strip her there and then. It had taken her a second or two to gather her wits. She had grabbed the gaping edges of her jacket, and tried to run. But he’d seized her, and pinned her between a wall and his long lean body, until she’d gone limp and breathless from his nearness. Only when her lips had parted, inviting his mouth to touch hers, had he laughed softly and let her go.
He seemed even more hatefully dangerous now.
Never in a million years could she ever forgive him.
Not that he cared.
Tall and broad-shouldered, he loomed over her.
A drop of blood bubbled from the tip of her finger where a thorn from his flower had pricked her. Angrily she threw the rose at him, but it just bounced off the lapels of his tuxedo.
Reality was back with a vengeance.
“My darling sister-in-law,” he purred. “You’re hurt.” Before she could resist, he had her injured finger in his grip and had lifted it to his lips and kissed it.
Dear God. The tenderness of his mouth stung her fingertip with pleasurable shock.
She blushed.
“You look even lovelier than you did the last time I saw you.” He brought the scarlet blossom to his nose and inhaled.
As he had done before.
“Your face is as red as my rose,” he murmured with insolent mischief.
Her heart pumped wildly. She was too furious to speak, so she tried to run.
He held on to her hand. “Easy does it.” He smiled lazily. “Remember me. I’m all bark and no bite.”
If only he were so harmless.
He was tough as nails. In his whole life he had never loved another human being. He used women for sex. He stomped on any man who opposed him. Especially his own brother.
Cutter’s face looked harder and leaner than it had been seven years ago, but he was still sinfully handsome. The sheer, raw animal magnetism he projected in his black evening clothes left her breathless.
“How did you get in?” Pulling her hand free, she fell backward against the solid oak of the bar. “I gave very specific orders—”
“I’m sure you did.” He shot her that hot, beguiling pirate’s grin that had seduced so many women. “You forget. I prefer to give women orders, not serve them.”
“You...” The vile word didn’t come easily. “You...bastard.”
“No, honey—” His charming, piratical grin broadened, reminding her of her own questionable parentage.
While he ordered drinks, Cheyenne’s mind flashed backward.
“Mexican!” the kids had jeered on her first day of school, making her conscious of how dirty and ragged she was. Only they’d said something that sounded more like, “Mez-kin.”
“She’s the witch’s bastard,” Chantal had taunted.
Through her tears, Cheyenne had stared at the ground, which was dry and cracked and covered with a fine pink dust that dusted the scuffed toes of her brown boots. Thus, she hadn’t seen the tall, black-haired boy, pushing his way through the other children. Thus, her first awareness of Jack West, her first playmate and friend as well as first love, had been his rough, yet strangely pleasant voice.
“Leave her alone!”
“Stay out of this!” Chantal had cried.
Jack, whose blood was half Mexican, too, whose parentage was even more questionable than Cheyenne’s, Jack, who had had to fight for his own precarious social position in Westville even harder than Cheyenne, had yanked Chantal’s red braids hard. “Cállate, celosa. You’re just jealous ‘cause she’s your sister.”
“She’s not my sister! I hate her! I hate you, too. She’s just like you—a barrio brat!”
“No. She looks like your father. Just like you, too, gringa. That’s why you hate her.”
“No! No!” Chantal covered her ears with her hands.
The bartender set down their drinks.
The adult Cheyenne froze as Cutter placed a crystal glass of straight whiskey into her shaking hand.
“Cheers, Cheyenne. You’ve come a long way...since Westville. Since my island. Since your marriage to my brother. This may be your best party yet. I find I’m enjoying it way more than your wedding even though I haven’t yet had the pleasure of kissing you.”
Cutter’s gaze lingered on her lips, and she remembered her wedding day. Her heart had felt about to break when he’d angrily kissed her. She’d fainted with joy and hope only to be cast down into despair when she regained consciousness to find him gone and Martin there, demanding to know if she wanted to chase Cutter or stay with him.
What choice had she ever had?
Cutter had wanted her, but for sex, not for marriage.
“You look good in emeralds. Too good,” Cutter said. “Widowhood becomes you. Too bad you’re not yet desperate enough to sell me what I want.” He picked up his rose and twirled it. He brought it to his lips and then took a deep breath, drawing in its scent before setting it down again.
His heavy-lidded eyes slid lazily from the rose to her lush mouth, down her body, admiring her generous curves and slim waist.
Even the odd, tentative flicker of desire that went through her annoyed her. He was a sexist, arrogant bully! How could he have this sensual effect on her?
Please, God. Not sensual. Not tonight!
She balled her hands into fists. He read her flushed face like a book and laughed, his overabundant conceit and good humor restored. Without a word he threw his dark head back and easily tossed down his own drink.
“Cheers,” she muttered shakily as she tried to toss her drink down with equal aplomb. But the whiskey strangled her and made her cough.
With an excessive pretense of polite concern, he whipped out a monogrammed handkerchief, and then pounded her hard on the back, and yet not too hard.
When his warm hand stayed in the center of her back, her bare skin beneath the soft black cashmere began to itch and burn.
She sputtered, swallowed more of the awful whiskey and caught another drowning, scalding breath.
“You shouldn’t have come,” she rasped.
“I was worried about you. I came to offer my services.”
The innuendo in his low voice further infuriated her. Rudely she snatched his handkerchief and dabbed at her sweater.
“No. What’s more likely is that you couldn’t bear to miss my social execution. How did you get a ticket anyway?”
“Chantal.”
“I should have known. She’s always made my life miserable the same way you did Martin’s.”
Cutter frowned. “Is that what you think?”
“What do you really want?”
“Many things.” His eyes were hot.
He picked up the rose. This time he trailed the soft petals across her lips. “Your body is at the top of my wish list. So is your soul.”
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