Dear Reader,

I really can’t express how flattered I am and also how grateful I am to Harlequin Books for releasing this collection of my published works. It came as a great surprise. I never think of myself as writing books that are collectible. In fact, there are days when I forget that writing is work at all. What I do for a living is so much fun that it never seems like a job. And since I reside in a small community, and my daily life is confined to such mundane things as feeding the wild birds and looking after my herb patch in the backyard, I feel rather unconnected from what many would think of as a glamorous profession.

But when I read my email, or when I get letters from readers, or when I go on signing trips to bookstores to meet all of you, I feel truly blessed. Over the past thirty years I have made lasting friendships with many of you. And quite frankly, most of you are like part of my family. You can’t imagine how much you enrich my life. Thank you so much.

I also need to extend thanks to my family (my husband, James, son, Blayne, daughter-in-law, Christina, and granddaughter, Selena Marie), to my best friend, Ann, to my readers, booksellers and the wonderful people at Harlequin Books—from my editor of many years, Tara, to all the other fine and talented people who make up our publishing house. Thanks to all of you for making this job, and my private life, so worth living.

Thank you for this tribute, Harlequin, and for putting up with me for thirty long years! Love to all of you.

Diana Palmer

DIANA PALMER

The prolific author of more than a hundred books, Diana Palmer got her start as a newspaper reporter. A multi–New York Times bestselling author and one of the top ten romance writers in America, she has a gift for telling the most sensual tales with charm and humor. Diana lives with her family in Cornelia, Georgia.

Visit her website at www.DianaPalmer.com.

The Princess Bride
Diana Palmer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Matt and Elisha

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 1

Tiffany saw him in the distance, riding the big black stallion that had already killed one man. She hated the horse, even as she admitted silently how regal it looked with the tall, taciturn man on its back. A killer horse it might be, but it respected Kingman Marshall. Most people around Jacobsville, Texas, did. His family had lived on the Guadalupe River there since the Civil War, on a ranch called Lariat.

It was spring, and that meant roundup. It was nothing unusual to see the owner of Lariat in the saddle at dawn lending a hand to rope a stray calf or help work the branding. King kept fit with ranch work, and despite the fact that he shared an office and a business partnership with her father in land and cattle, his staff didn’t see a lot of him.

This year, they were using helicopters to mass the far-flung cattle, and they had a corral set up on a wide flat stretch of land where they could dip the cattle, check them, cut out the calves for branding and separate them from their mothers. It was physically demanding work, and no job for a tenderfoot. King wouldn’t let Tiffany near it, but it wasn’t a front-row seat at the corral that she wanted. If she could just get his attention away from the milling cattle on the wide, rolling plain that led to the Guadalupe River, if he’d just look her way…

She stood up on a rickety lower rung of the gray wood fence, avoiding the sticky barbed wire, and waved her creamy Stetson at him. She was a picture of young elegance in her tan jodhpurs and sexy pink silk blouse and high black boots. She was a debutante. Her father, Harrison Blair, was King’s business partner and friend, and if she chased King, her father encouraged her. It would be a marriage made in heaven. That is, if she could find some way to convince King of it. He was elusive and quite abrasively masculine. It might take more than a young lady of almost twenty-one with a sheltered, monied background to land him. But, then, Tiffany had confidence in herself; she was beautiful and intelligent.

Her long black hair hung to her waist in back, and she refused to have it cut. It suited her tall, slender figure and made an elegant frame for her soft oval face and wide green eyes and creamy complexion. She had a sunny smile, and it never faded. Tiffany was always full of fire, burning with a love of life that her father often said had been reflected in her long-dead mother.

“King!” she called, her voice clear, and it carried in the early-morning air.

He looked toward her. Even at the distance, she could see that cold expression in his pale blue eyes, on his lean, hard face with its finely chiseled features. He was a rich man. He worked hard, and he played hard. He had women, Tiffany knew he did, but he was nothing if not discreet. He was a man’s man, and he lived like one. There was no playful boy in that tall, fit body. He’d grown up years ago, the boyishness burned out of him by a rich, alcoholic father who demanded blind obedience from the only child of his shallow, runaway wife.

She watched him ride toward her, easy elegance in the saddle. He reined in at the fence, smiling down at her with faint arrogance. He was powerfully built, with long legs and slim hips and broad shoulders. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him, and with his checked red shirt open at the throat, she got fascinating glimpses of bronzed muscle and thick black hair on the expanse of his sexy chest. Jeans emphasized the powerful muscles of his legs, and he had big, elegant hands that hers longed to feel in passion. Not that she was likely to. He treated her like a child most of the time, or at best, a minor irritation.

“You’re out early, tidbit,” he remarked in a deep, velvety voice with just a hint of Texas drawl. His eyes, under the shade of his wide-brimmed hat, were a pale, grayish blue and piercing as only blue eyes could be.

“I’m going to be twenty-one tomorrow,” she said pertly. “I’m having a big bash to celebrate, and you have to come. Black tie, and don’t you dare bring anyone. You’re mine, for the whole evening. It’s my birthday and on my birthday I want presents—and you’re it. My big present.”

His dark brows lifted with amused indulgence. “You might have told me sooner that I was going to be a birthday present,” he said. “I have to be in Omaha early Saturday.”

“You have your own plane,” she reminded him. “You can fly.”

“I have to sleep sometimes,” he murmured.

“I wouldn’t touch that line with a ten-foot pole,” she drawled, peeking at him behind her long lashes. “Will you come? If you don’t, I’ll stuff a pillow up my dress and accuse you of being the culprit. And your reputation will be ruined, you’ll be driven out of town on a rail, they’ll tar and feather you…”

He chuckled softly at the vivid sparkle in her eyes, the radiant smile. “You witch,” he accused. “They’d probably give me a medal for getting through your defenses.”

She wondered how he knew that, and reasoned that her proud parent had probably told him all about her reputation for coolness with men.

He lit a cigarette, took a long draw from and blew it out with faint impatience. “Little girls and their little whims,” he mused. “All right, I’ll whirl you around the floor and toast your coming-of-age, but I won’t stay. I can’t spare the time.”

“You’ll work yourself to death,” she complained, and she was solemn now. “You’re only thirty-four and you look forty.”

“Times are hard, honey,” he mused, smiling at the intensity in that glowering young face. “We’ve had low prices and drought. It’s all I can do to keep my financial head above water.”

“You could take the occasional break,” she advised. “And I don’t mean a night on the town. You could get away from it all and just rest.”

“They’re full up at the Home,” he murmured, grinning at her exasperated look. “Honey, I can’t afford vacations, not with times so hard. What are you wearing for this coming-of-age party?” he asked to divert her.

“A dream of a dress. White silk, very low in front, with diamanté straps and a white gardenia in my hair.” She laughed.

He pursed his lips. He might as well humor her. “That sounds dangerous,” he said softly.

“It will be,” she promised, teasing him with her eyes. “You might even notice that I’ve grown up.”

He frowned a little. That flirting wasn’t new, but it was disturbing lately. He found himself avoiding little Miss Blair, without really understanding why. His body stirred even as he looked at her, and he moved restlessly in the saddle. She was years too young for him, and a virgin to boot, according to her doting, sheltering father. All those years of obsessive parental protection had led to a very immature and unavailable girl. It wouldn’t do to let her too close. Not that anyone ever got close to Kingman Marshall, not even his infrequent lovers. He had good reason to keep women at a distance. His upbringing had taught him too well that women were untrustworthy and treacherous.

“What time?” he asked on a resigned note.

“About seven?”

He paused thoughtfully for a minute. “Okay.” He tilted his wide-brimmed hat over his eyes. “But only for an hour or so.”

“Great!”

He didn’t say goodbye. Of course, he never had. He wheeled the stallion and rode off, man and horse so damned arrogant that she felt like flinging something at his tall head. He was delicious, she thought, and her body felt hot all over just looking at him. On the ground he towered over her, lean and hard-muscled and sexy as all hell. She loved watching him.

With a long, unsteady sigh, she finally turned away and remounted her mare. She wondered sometimes why she bothered hero-worshiping such a man. One of these days he’d get married and she’d just die. God forbid that he’d marry anybody but herself!

That was when the first shock of reality hit her squarely between the eyes. Why, she had to ask herself, would a man like that, a mature man with all the worldly advantages, want a young and inexperienced woman like herself at his side? The question worried her so badly that she almost lost control of her mount. She’d never questioned her chances with King before. She’d never dared. The truth of her situation was unpalatable and a little frightening. She’d never even considered a life without him. What if she had to?

As she rode back toward her own house, on the property that joined King’s massive holdings, she noticed the color of the grass. It was like barbed wire in places, very dry and scant. That boded ill for the cattle, and if rain didn’t come soon, all that new grass was going to burn up under a hot Texas sun. She knew a lot about the cattle business. After all, her father had owned feedlots since her youth, and she was an only child who worked hard to share his interests. She knew that if there wasn’t enough hay by the end of summer, King was going to have to import feed to get his cattle through the winter. The cost of that was prohibitive. It had something to do with black figures going red in the last column, and that could mean disaster for someone with a cow-calf operation the size of King’s.

Ah, well, she mused, if King went bust, she supposed that she could get a job and support him. Just the thought of it doubled her over with silvery laughter. King’s pride would never permit that sort of help.

Even the Guadalupe was down. She sat on a small rise in the trees, looking at its watery width. The river, like this part of Texas, had a lot of history in it. Archaeologists had found Indian camps on the Guadalupe that dated back seven thousand years, and because of that, part of it had been designated a National Historic Shrine.

In more recent history, freight handlers on their way to San Antonio had crossed the river in DeWitt County on a ferryboat. In Cuero, a nice drive from Lariat, was the beginning of the Chisolm Trail. In nearby Goliad County was the small town of Goliad, where Texas patriots were slaughtered by the Mexican army back in 1836, just days after the bloodbath at the Alamo. Looking at the landscape, it was easy to imagine the first Spanish settlers, the robed priests founding missions, the Mexican Army with proud, arrogant Santa Anna at its fore, the Texas patriots fighting to the last breath, the pioneers and the settlers, the Indians and the immigrants, the cowboys and cattle barons and desperadoes. Tiffany sighed, trying to imagine it all.

King, she thought, would have fitted in very well with the past. Except that he had a blasé attitude toward life and women, probably a result of having too much money and time on his hands. Despite his hard work at roundup, he spent a lot of time in his office, and on the phone, and also on the road. He was so geared to making money that he seemed to have forgotten how to enjoy it. She rode home slowly, a little depressed because she’d had to work so hard just to get King to agree to come to her party. And still haunting her was that unpleasant speculation about a future without King.

Her father was just on his way out the door when she walked up from the stables. The house was stucco, a big sprawling yellow ranch house. It had a small formal garden off the patio, a swimming pool behind, a garage where Tiffany’s red Jaguar convertible and her father’s gray Mercedes-Benz dwelled, and towering live oak and pecan trees all around. The Guadalupe River was close, but not too close, and Texas stretched like a yellow-green bolt of cloth in all directions to an open, spacious horizon.

“There you are,” Harrison Blair muttered. He was tall and gray-headed and green-eyed. Very elegant, despite his slight paunch and his habit of stooping because of a bad back. “I’m late for a board meeting. The caterer called about your party…something about the cheese straws not doing.”

“I’ll give Lettie a ring. She’ll do them for her if I ask her nicely,” she promised, grinning as she thought of the elderly lady who was her godmother. “King’s coming to my party. I ran him to ground at the river.”

He looked over his glasses at her, his heavily lined face vaguely reminiscent of an anorexic bassett hound; not that she’d ever have said anything hurtful to her parent. She adored him. “You make him sound like a fox,” he remarked. “Careful, girl, or you’ll chase him into a hollow stump and lose him.”

“Not me,” she laughed, her whole face bright with young certainty. “You just wait. I’ll be dangling a diamond one of these days. He can’t resist me. He just doesn’t know it yet.”

He only shook his head. She was so young. She hadn’t learned yet that life had a way of giving with one hand, only to take back with the other. Oh, well, she had plenty of years to learn those hard lessons. Let her enjoy it while she could. He knew that King would never settle for a child-woman like his beautiful daughter, but it was something she was going to have to accept one of these days.

“I hope to be back by four,” he said, reaching down to peck her affectionately on one cheek. “Are we having champagne? If we are, I hope you told the caterer. I’m not breaking out my private stock until you get married.”

“Yes, we are, and yes, I told them,” she assured him. “After all, I don’t become twenty-one every day.”

He studied her with quiet pride. “You look like your mother,” he said. “She’d be as proud of you as I am.”

She smiled faintly. “Yes.” Her mother had been dead a long time, but the memories were bittersweet. The late Mrs. Blair had been vivacious and sparkling, a sapphire in a diamond setting. Her father had never remarried, and seemed not to be inclined toward the company of other women. He’d told Tiffany once that true love was a pretty rare commodity. He and her mother had been so blessed. He was content enough with his memories.

“How many people are we expecting, by the way?” he asked as he put on his Stetson.

“About forty,” she said. “Not an overwhelming number. Just some of my friends and some of King’s.” She grinned. “I’m making sure they’re compatible before I railroad him to the altar.”

He burst out laughing. She was incorrigible and definitely his child, with her keen business sense, he told himself.

“Do you reckon they’ll have a lot in common?”

She pursed her pretty lips. “Money and cattle,” she reminded him, “are always a good mix. Besides, King’s friends are almost all politicians. They pride themselves on finding things in common with potential voters.”

He winked. “Good thought.”

She waved and went to call Lettie about doing the cheese straws and the caterers to finalize the arrangements. She was a good hostess, and she enjoyed parties. It was a challenge to find compatible people and put them together in a hospitable atmosphere. So far, she’d done well. Now it was time to show King how organized she was.

The flowers and the caterer had just arrived when she went down the long hall to her room to dress. She was nibbling at a chicken wing on the way up, hoping that she wouldn’t starve. There was going to be an hors d’oeuvres table and a drinks bar, but no sit-down dinner. She’d decided that she’d rather dance than eat, and she’d hired a competent local band to play. They were in the ballroom now, tuning up, while Cass, the housekeeper, was watching some of the ranch’s lean, faintly disgusted cowboys set up chairs and clear back the furniture. They hated being used as inside labor and their accusing glances let her know it. But she grinned and they melted. Most of them were older hands who’d been with her father since she was a little girl. Like her father, they’d spoiled her, too.

She darted up the staircase, wild with excitement about the evening ahead. King didn’t come to the house often, only when her father wanted to talk business away from work, or occasionally for drinks with some of her father’s acquaintances. To have him come to a party was new and stimulating. Especially if it ended the way she planned. She had her sights well and truly set on the big rancher. Now she had to take aim.

Chapter 2

Tiffany’s evening gown was created by a San Antonio designer, who also happened to own a boutique in one of the larger malls there. Since Jacobsville was halfway between San Antonio and Victoria, it wasn’t too long a drive. Tiffany had fallen in love with the gown at first sight. The fact that it had cost every penny of her allowance hadn’t even slowed her down. It was simple, sophisticated, and just the thing to make King realize she was a woman. The low-cut bodice left the curve of her full breasts seductively bare and the diamanté straps were hardly any support at all. They looked as if they might give way any second, and that was the charm of the dress. Its silky white length fell softly to just the top of her oyster satin pumps with their rhinestone clips. She put her long hair in an elaborate hairdo, and pinned it with diamond hairpins. The small silk gardenia in a soft wave was a last-minute addition, and the effect was dynamite. She looked innocently seductive. Just right.

She was a little nervous as she made her way down the curve of the elegant, gray-carpeted staircase. Guests were already arriving, and most of these early ones were around King’s age. They were successful businessmen, politicians mostly, with exquisitely dressed wives and girlfriends on their arms. For just an instant, Tiffany felt young and uneasy. And then she pinned on her finishing-school smile and threw herself into the job of hostessing.

She pretended beautifully. No one knew that her slender legs were unsteady. In fact, a friend of one of the younger politicians, a bachelor clerk named Wyatt Corbin, took the smile for an invitation and stuck to her like glue. He was good-looking in a tall, gangly redheaded way, but he wasn’t very sophisticated. Even if he had been, Tiffany had her heart set on King, and she darted from group to group, trying to shake her admirer.

Unfortunately he was stubborn. He led her onto the dance floor and into a gay waltz, just as King came into the room.

Tiffany felt like screaming. King looked incredibly handsome in his dark evening clothes. His tuxedo emphasized his dark good looks, and the white of his silk shirt brought out his dark eyes and hair. He spared Tiffany an amused glance and turned to meet the onslaught of two unattached, beautiful older women. His secretary, Carla Stark, hadn’t been invited—Tiffany had been resolute about that. There was enough gossip about those two already, and Carla was unfair competition.

It was the unkindest cut of all, and thanks to this redheaded clown dancing with her, she’d lost her chance. She smiled sweetly at him and suddenly brought down her foot on his toe with perfect accuracy.

“Ouch!” he moaned, sucking in his breath.

“I’m so sorry, Wyatt,” Tiffany murmured, batting her eyelashes at him. “Did I step on your poor foot?”

“My fault, I moved the wrong way,” he drawled, forcing a smile. “You dance beautifully, Miss Blair.”

What a charming liar, she thought. She glanced at King, but he wasn’t even looking at her. He was talking and smiling at a devastating blonde, probably a politician’s daughter, who looked as if she’d just discovered the best present of all under a Christmas tree. No thanks to me, Tiffany thought miserably.

Well, two could play at ignoring, she thought, and turned the full effect of her green eyes on Wyatt. Well, happy birthday to me, she thought silently, and asked him about his job. It was assistant city clerk or some such thing, and he held forth about his duties for the rest of the waltz, and the one that followed.

King had moved to the sofa with the vivacious little blonde, where he looked as if he might set up housekeeping. Tiffany wanted to throw back her head and scream with outrage. Whose party was this, anyway, and which politician was that little blonde with? She began scanning the room for unattached older men.

“I guess I ought to dance with Becky, at least once,” Wyatt sighed after a minute. “She’s my cousin. I didn’t have anyone else to bring. Excuse me a second, will you?”

He left her and went straight toward the blonde who was dominating King. But if he expected the blonde to sacrifice that prize, he was sadly mistaken. They spoke in whispers, while King glanced past Wyatt at Tiffany with a mocking, worldly look. She turned her back and went to the punch bowl.

Wyatt was back in a minute. “She doesn’t mind being deserted,” he chuckled. “She’s found a cattle baron to try her wiles on. That’s Kingman Marshall over there, you know.”

Tiffany looked at him blankly. “Oh, is it?” she asked innocently, and tried not to show how furious she really was. Between Wyatt and his cousin, they’d ruined her birthday party.

“I wonder why he’s here?” he frowned.

She caught his hand. “Let’s dance,” she muttered, and dragged him back onto the dance floor.

For the rest of the evening, she monopolized Wyatt, ignoring King as pointedly as if she’d never seen him before and never cared to again. Let him flirt with other women at her party. Let him break her heart. He was never going to know it. She’d hold her chin up if it killed her. She smiled at Wyatt and flirted outrageously, the very life and soul of her party, right up to the minute when she cut the cake and asked Wyatt to help her serve it. King didn’t seem to notice or care that she ignored him. But her father was puzzled, staring at her incomprehensibly.

“This party is so boring,” Tiffany said an hour later, when she felt she couldn’t take another single minute of the blonde clinging to King on the dance floor. “Let’s go for a ride.”

Wyatt looked uncomfortable. “Well…I came in a truck,” he began.

“We’ll take my Jag.”

“You’ve got a Jaguar?”

She didn’t need to say another word. Without even a glance in King’s direction, she waved at her father and blew him a kiss, dragging Wyatt along behind her toward the front door. Not that he needed much coaxing. He seemed overwhelmed when she tossed him the keys and climbed into the passenger seat of the sleek red car.

“You mean, I can drive this?” he burst out.

“Sure. Go ahead. It’s insured. But I like to go fast, Wyatt,” she said. And for tonight, that was true. She was sick of the party, sick of King, sick of her life. She hurt in ways she’d never realized she could. She only wanted to get away, to escape.

He started the car and stood down on the accelerator. Tiffany had her window down, letting the breeze whip through her hair. She deliberately pulled out the diamond hairpins and tucked them into her purse, letting her long, black hair free and fly on the wind. The champagne she’d had to drink was beginning to take effect and was making her feel very good indeed. The speed of the elegant little car added to her false euphoria. Why, she didn’t care about King’s indifference. She didn’t care at all!

“What a car!” Wyatt breathed, wheeling it out onto the main road.

“Isn’t it, though?” she laughed. She leaned back and closed her eyes. She wouldn’t think about King. “Go faster, Wyatt, we’re positively crawling! I love speed, don’t you?”

Of course he did. And he didn’t need a second prompting. He put the accelerator peddle to the floor, and twelve cylinders jumped into play as the elegant vehicle shot forward like its sleek and dangerous namesake.

She laughed, silvery bells in the darkness, enjoying the unbridled speed, the fury of motion. Yes, this would blow away all the cobwebs, all the hurt, this would…!

The sound of sirens behind them brought her to her senses. She glanced over the seat and saw blue bubbles spinning around, atop a police car.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, where did he come from!” she gasped. “I never saw the car. They must parachute down from treetops,” she muttered, and then giggled at her own remark.

Wyatt slowed the car and pulled onto the shoulder, his face rapidly becoming the color of his hair. He glanced at Tiffany. “Gosh, I’m sorry. And on your birthday, too!”

“I don’t care. I told you to do it,” she reminded him.

A tall policeman came to the side of the car and watched Wyatt fumble to power the window down.

“Good God. Wyatt?” the officer gasped.

“That’s right, Bill,” Wyatt sighed, producing his driver’s license. “Tiffany Blair, this is Bill Harris. He’s one of our newest local policemen and a cousin of mine.”

“Nice to meet you, officer—although I wish it was under better circumstances,” Tiffany said with a weak smile. “I should get the ticket, not Wyatt. It’s my car, and I asked him to go faster.”

“I clocked you at eighty-five, you know,” he told Wyatt gently. “I sure do hate to do this, Wyatt. Mr. Clark is going to be pretty sore at you. He just had a mouthful to say about speeders.”

“The mayor hates me anyway,” Wyatt groaned.

“I won’t tell him you got a ticket if you don’t.” Bill grinned.

“Want to bet he’ll find out anyway? Just wait.”

“It’s all my fault,” Tiffany muttered. “And it’s my birthday…!”

A sleek, new black European sports car slid in behind the police car and came to a smooth, instant stop. A minute later, King got out and came along to join the small group.

“What’s the trouble, Bill?” he asked the policeman.

“They were speeding, Mr. Marshall,” the officer said. “I’ll have to give him a ticket. He was mortally flying.”

“I can guess why,” King mused, staring past Wyatt at a pale Tiffany.

“Nobody held a gun on me,” Wyatt said gently. “It’s my own fault. I could have refused.”

“The first lesson of responsibility,” King agreed. “Learning to say no. Come on, Tiffany. You’ve caused enough trouble for one night. I’ll drop you off on my way out.”

“I won’t go one step with you, King…!” she began furiously.

He went around to the passenger side of the Jag, opened the door, and tugged her out. His lean, steely fingers on her bare arm raised chills of excitement where they touched. “I don’t have time to argue. You’ve managed to get Wyatt in enough trouble.” He turned to Wyatt. “If you’ll bring the Jag back, I think your cousin is ready to leave. Sorry to spoil your evening.”

“It wasn’t spoiled at all, Mr. Marshall,” Wyatt said with a smile at Tiffany. “Except for the speeding ticket, I enjoyed every minute of it!”

“I did, too, Wyatt,” Tiffany said. “I…King, will you stop dragging me?”

“No. Good night, Wyatt. Bill.”

A chorus of good-nights broke the silence as King led an unwilling, sullen Tiffany back to his own leathertrimmed sports car. He helped her inside, got in under the wheel and started the powerful engine.

“I hate you, King,” she ground out as he pulled onto the highway.

“Which is no reason at all for making a criminal of Wyatt.”

She glared at him hotly through the darkness. “I did not make him a criminal! I only offered to let him drive the Jaguar.”

“And told him how fast to go?”

“He wasn’t complaining!”

He glanced sideways at her. Despite the rigid set of her body, and the temper on that lovely face, she excited him. One diamanté strap was halfway down a silky smooth arm, revealing more than a little of a tip-tilted breast. The silk fabric outlined every curve of her body, and he could smell the floral perfume that wafted around her like a seductive cloud. She put his teeth on edge, and it irritated him beyond all reason.

He lit a cigarette that he didn’t even want, and abruptly put it out, remembering belatedly that he’d quit smoking just last week. And he was driving faster than he normally did. “I don’t know why in hell you invited me over here,” he said curtly, “if you planned to spend the whole evening with the damned city clerk.”

“Assistant city clerk,” she mumbled. She darted a glance at him and pressed a strand of long hair away from her mouth. He looked irritated. His face was harder than usual, and he was driving just as fast as Wyatt had been.

“Whatever the hell he is.”

“I didn’t realize you’d even noticed what I was doing, King,” she replied sweetly, “what with Wyatt’s pretty little cousin wrapped around you like a ribbon.”

His eyebrows arched. “Wrapped around me?”

“Wasn’t she?” she asked, averting her face. “Sorry. It seemed like it to me.”

He pulled the car onto the side of the road and turned toward her, letting the engine idle. The hand holding the steering wheel clenched, but his dark eyes were steady on hers; she could see them in the light from the instrument panel.

“Were you jealous, honey?” he taunted, in a tone she’d never heard him use. It was deep and smooth and low-pitched. It made her young body tingle in the oddest way.

“I thought you were supposed to be my guest, that’s all,” she faltered.

“That’s what I thought, too, until you started vamping Wyatt whats-his-name.”

His finger toyed with the diamanté strap that had fallen onto her arm. She reached to tug it up, but his lean, hard fingers were suddenly there, preventing her.

Her eyes levered up to meet his quizzically, and in the silence of the car, she could hear her own heartbeat, like a faint drum.

The lean forefinger traced the strap from back to front, softly brushing skin that had never known a man’s touch before. She stiffened a little, to feel it so lightly tracing the slope of her breast.

“They…they’ll miss us,” she said in a voice that sounded wildly high-pitched and frightened.

“Think so?”

He smiled slowly, because he was exciting her, and he liked it. He could see her breasts rising and falling with quick, jerky breaths. He could see her nipples peaking under that silky soft fabric. The pulse in her throat was quick, too, throbbing. She was coming-of-age tonight, in more ways than one.

He reached beside him and slowly, blatantly, turned off the engine before he turned back to Tiffany. There was a full moon, and the light of it and the subdued light of the instrument panel gave him all the illumination he needed.

“King,” she whispered shakily.

“Don’t panic,” he said quietly. “It’s going to be delicious.”

She watched his hand move, as if she were paralyzed. It drew the strap even further off her arm, slowly, relentlessly, tugging until that side of her silky bodice fell to the hard tip of her nipple. And then he gave it a whisper of a push and it fell completely away, baring her pretty pink breast to eyes that had seen more than their share of women. But this was different. This was Tiffany, who was virginal and young and completely without experience.

That knowledge hardened his body. His lean fingers traced her collarbone, his eyes lifted to search her quiet, faintly shocked face. Her eyes were enormous. Probably this was all new to her, and perhaps a little frightening as well.

“You’re of age, now. It has to happen with someone,” he said.

“Then…I want it to happen…with you,” she whispered, her voice trembling, like her body.

His pulse jumped. His eyes darkened, glittered. “Do you? I wonder if you realize what you’re getting into,” he murmured. He bent toward her, noticing her sudden tension, her wide-eyed apprehension. He checked the slow movement, for an instant; long enough to whisper, “I won’t hurt you.”

She leaned back against the leather seat as he turned toward her, her body tautening, trembling a little. But it wasn’t fear that motivated her. As she met his smoldering eyes, she slowly arched her back, to let the rest of the bodice fall, and saw the male desire in his dark eyes as they looked down at what the movement had uncovered.

“Your breasts are exquisite,” he said absently, that tracing hand moving slowly, tenderly, down one tip-tilted slope, making her shudder. “Perfect.”

“They ache,” she whispered on a sob, her eyes half closed, in thrall to some physical paralysis that made her throb all over with exquisite sensations.

“I can do something about that,” he mused with a brief smile.

His forefinger found the very tip of one small breast and traced around it gently, watching it go even harder, feeling it shudder with the tiny consummation. He heard the faint gasp break from her lips and looked up at her face, at her wide, misty eyes.

“Yes,” he said, as if her expression told him everything. And it did. She wanted him. She’d let him do anything he wanted to do, and he felt hot all over.

She moved against the seat, her body in helpless control now, begging for something, for more than this. Her head went back, her full lips parting, hungry.

He slid his arm under her neck, bringing her body closer to his, his mouth poised just above hers. He watched her as his hand moved, and his lean fingers slowly closed over her breast, taking its soft weight and teasing the nipple with his thumb.

She cried softly at the unexpected pleasure, and bit her lower lip in helpless agony.

“Don’t do that,” he whispered, bending. “Let me…”

His hard lips touched hers, biting softly at them, tracing them warmly from one side to the other. His nose nuzzled against hers, relaxing her, gentling her, while his hand toyed softly with her breast. “Open your mouth, baby,” he breathed as his head lowered again, and he met her open mouth with his.

She moaned harshly at the wild excitement he was arousing in her. She’d never dreamed that a kiss could be so intimate, so sweetly exciting. His tongue pushed past her startled lips, into the soft darkness of her mouth, teasing hers in a silence broken only by the sounds of breathing, and cloth against cloth.

“King,” she breathed under his lips. Her hands bit into his hair, his nape, tugging. “Hard, King,” she whispered shakily, “hard, hard…!”

He hadn’t expected that flash of ardor. It caused him to be far rougher than he meant to. He crushed her mouth under his, the force of it bending her head back against his shoulder. His searching hand found first one breast, then the other, savoring the warm silk of their contours, the hard tips that told him how aroused she was.

He forgot her age and the time and the place, and suddenly jerked her across him, his hands easing her into the crook of his arm as he bent his head to her body.

“Sweet,” he whispered harshly, opening his mouth on her breast. “God, you’re sweet…!”

She cried out from the shock of pleasure his mouth gave her, a piercing little sound that excited him even more, and her body arched up toward him like a silky pink sacrifice. Her hands tangled in his thick black hair, holding him there, tears of mingled frustration and sweet anguish trailing down her hot cheeks as the newness of passion racked her.

“Don’t…stop,” she whimpered, her hands contracting at his nape, pulling him back to her. “Please!”

“I wonder if I could,” he murmured with faint self-contempt as he gave in to the exquisite pleasure of tasting her soft skin. “You taste of gardenia petals, except right…here,” he whispered as his lips suddenly tugged at a hard nipple, working down until he took her silky breast into his mouth in a warm, soft suction that made her moan endlessly.

His steely fingers bit into her side as he moved the dress further down and shifted her, letting his mouth press warmly against soft skin, tracing her stomach into the soft elastic of her briefs, tracing the briefs to her hips and waist and then back up to the trembling softness of her breasts.

She found the buttons of his jacket, his silk shirt, and fumbled at them, whimpering as she struggled to make them come apart. She wanted to touch him, experience him as he was experiencing her. Without a clue as to what he might want, she tugged at the edges until he moved her hand aside and moved the fabric away for her. She flattened her palm against thick hair and pure man, caressing him with aching pleasure.

“Here,” he whispered roughly, moving her so that her soft breasts were crushed against the abrasive warmth of his chest.

He wrapped her up tight, then, moving her against his hair-roughened skin in a delirium of passion, savoring the feel of her breasts, the silkiness of her skin against him. His body was demanding satisfaction, now, hard with urgent need. His hand slid down her back to her spine and he turned her just a little so that he could press her soft hips into his, and let her know how desperately he wanted her.

She gasped as she felt him in passion, felt and understood the changed contours of his body. Her face buried itself in his hot throat and she trembled all over.

“Are you shocked, Tiffany?” he whispered at her ear, his voice a little rough as if he weren’t quite in control. “Didn’t you know that a man’s body grows hard with desire?”

She shivered a little as he moved her blatantly against him, but it didn’t shock her. It delighted her. “It’s wicked, isn’t it, to do this together?” she whispered shakily. Her eyes closed. “But no, I’m not shocked. I want you, too. I want…to be with you. I want to know how it feels to have you…”

He heard the words with mingled joy and shock. His whirling mind began to function again. Want. Desire. Sex. His eyes flew open. She was only twenty-one, for God’s sake! And a virgin. His business partner’s daughter. What the hell was he doing?

He jerked away from her, his eyes going helplessly to her swollen, taut breasts before he managed to pull her arms from around his neck and push her back in her seat. He struggled to get out of the car, his own aching body fighting him as he tried to remove himself from unbearable temptation in time.

He stood by the front fender, his shirt open, his chest damp and throbbing, his body hurting. He bent over a little, letting the wind get to his hot skin. He must be out of his mind!

Tiffany, just coming to her own senses, watched him with eyes that didn’t quite register what was going on. And then she knew. It had almost gone too far. He’d started to make love to her, and then he’d remembered who they were and he’d stopped. He must be hurting like the very devil.

She wanted to get out of the car and go to him, but that would probably make things even worse. She looked down and realized that she was nude to the hips. And he’d seen her like that, touched her…

She tugged her dress back up in a sudden flurry of embarrassment. It had seemed so natural at the time, but now it was shameful. She felt for the straps and pulled the bodice up, keeping her eyes away from her hard, swollen nipples. King had suckled them…

She shuddered with the memory, with new knowledge of him. He’d hate her now, she thought miserably. He’d hate her for letting him go so far, for teasing him. There were names for girls who did that. But she hadn’t pulled away, or said no, she recalled. He’d been the one to call a halt, because she couldn’t.

Her face went scarlet. She smoothed back her disheveled hair with hands that trembled. How could she face her guests now, like this? Everyone would know what had happened. And what if Wyatt should come along in the Jaguar…?

She looked behind them, but there was no car in sight. And then she realized that they were on King’s property, not hers. Had he planned this?

After another minute, she saw him straighten and run a hand through his sweaty hair. He rebuttoned his shirt and tucked it back into his trousers. He did the same with his evening jacket and straightened his tie.

When he finally turned back to get into the car, he looked pale and unapproachable. Tiffany glanced at him as he climbed back in and closed the door, wondering what to say.

“I’ll drive you home,” he said tersely. “Fasten your seat belt,” he added, because she didn’t seem to have enough presence of mind to think of it herself.

He started the car without looking at her and turned it around. Minutes later, they were well on the way to her father’s house.

It was ablaze with lights, although most of the cars had gone. She looked and saw the Jaguar sitting near the front door. So Wyatt was back. She didn’t know what kind of car he was driving, so she couldn’t tell if he’d gone or not. She hoped he had, and his cousin with him. She didn’t want to see them again.

King pulled up at the front door and stopped, but he didn’t cut the engine.

She reached for the door handle and then looked back at him, her face stiff and nervous.

“Are you angry?” she asked softly.

He stared straight ahead. “I don’t know.”

She nibbled her lower lip, and tasted him there. “I’m not sorry,” she said doggedly, her face suddenly full of bravado.

He turned then, his eyes faintly amused. “No. I’m not sorry, either.”

She managed a faint smile, despite her embarrassment. “You said it had to happen eventually.”

“And you wanted it to happen with me. So you said.”

“I meant it,” she replied quietly. Her eyes searched his, but she didn’t find any secrets there. “I’m not ashamed.”

His dark eyes trailed down her body. “You’re exquisite, little Tiffany,” he said. “But years too young for an affair, and despite tonight’s showing, I don’t seduce virgins.”

“Is an affair all you have to offer?” she asked with new maturity.

He pursed his lips, considering that. “Yes, I think it is. I’m thirty-four. I like my freedom. I don’t want the commitment of a wife. Not yet, at least. And you’re not old enough for that kind of responsibility. You need a few years to grow up.”

She was grown up, but she wasn’t going to argue the point with him. Her green eyes twinkled. “Not in bed, I don’t.”

He took a deep breath. “Tiffany, there’s more to a relationship than sex. About which,” he added shortly, “you know precious little.”

“I can learn,” she murmured.

“Damned fast, judging by tonight,” he agreed with a wicked smile. “But physical pleasure gets old quickly.”

“Between you and me?” she asked, her eyes adoring him. “I don’t really think it ever would. I can imagine seducing you in all sorts of unlikely places.”

His heart jumped. He shouldn’t ask. He shouldn’t… “Such as?” he asked in spite of himself.

“Sitting up,” she breathed daringly. “In the front seat of a really elegant European sports car parked right in front of my house…”

His blood was beating in his temple. She made him go hot all over with those sultry eyes, that expression…

“You’d better go inside,” he said tersely.

“Yes, I suppose I had,” she murmured dryly. “It really wouldn’t do, would it, what with the risk of someone coming along and seeing us.”

It got worse by the second. He was beginning to hurt. “Tiffany…”

She opened the door and glanced back at his hard, set face. He was very dark, and she loved the way he looked in evening clothes. Although now, she’d remember him with his shirt undone and her hands against that sexy, muscular chest.

“Run while you can, cattle baron,” she said softly. “I’ll be two steps behind.”

“I’m an old fox, honey,” he returned. “And not easy game.”

“We’ll see about that,” she said, smiling at him. “Good night, lover.”

He caught his breath, watching her close the door and blow him a kiss. He had to get away, to think. The last thing he wanted was to find himself on the receiving end of a shotgun wedding. Tiffany was all too tempting, and the best way to handle this was to get away from her for a few weeks, until they both cooled off. A man had to keep a level head, in business and in personal relationships.

He put the car in gear and drove off. Yes, that was what he should do. He’d find himself a nice business trip. Tiffany would get over him. And he’d certainly get over her. He’d had women. He’d known this raging hunger before. But he couldn’t satisfy it with a virgin.

He thought about her, the way she’d let him see her, and the aching started all over again. His face hardened as he stepped down on the accelerator. Maybe a long trip would erase that image. Something had to!

Tiffany went back into the house, breathless and worried that her new experiences would show. But they didn’t seem to. Wyatt came and asked where she and King had been and she made some light, outrageous reply.

For the rest of the evening, she was the belle of her own ball. But deep inside she was worried about the future. King wasn’t going to give in without a fight. She hoped she had what it took to land that big Texas fish. She wanted him more than anything in the whole world. And she wasn’t a girl who was used to disappointments.

Chapter 3

“Well, King’s left the country,” Harrison Blair murmured dryly three days after Tiffany’s party. “You don’t seem a bit surprised.”

“He’s running scared,” she said pertly, grinning up at her father from the neat crochet stitches she was using to make an afghan for her room. “I don’t blame him. If I were a man being pursued by some persistent woman, I’m sure that I’d run, too.”

He shook his head. “I’m afraid he isn’t running from you,” he mused. “He took his secretary with him.”

Her heart jumped, but she didn’t miss a stitch. “Did he? I hope Carla enjoys the trip. Where did they go?”

“To Nassau. King’s talking beef exports with the minister of trade. But I’m sure Carla took a bathing suit along.”

She put in three more stitches. Carla Stark was a redhead, very pretty and very eligible and certainly no virgin. She wanted to throw her head back and scream, but that would be juvenile. It was a temporary setback, that was all.

“Nothing to say?” her father asked.

She shrugged. “Nothing to say.”

He hesitated. “I don’t want to be cruel,” he began. “I know you’ve set your heart on King. But he’s thirty-four, sweetheart. You’re a very young twenty-one. Maturity takes time. And I’ve been just a tad overprotective about you. Maybe I was wrong to be so strict about young men.”

“It wouldn’t really have mattered,” she replied ruefully. “It was King from the time I was fourteen. I couldn’t even get interested in boys my own age.”

“I see.”

She put the crochet hook through the ball of yarn and moved it, along with the partially finished afghan, to her work basket. She stood up, pausing long enough to kiss her father’s tanned cheek. “Don’t worry about me. You might not think so, but I’m tough.”

“I don’t want you to wear your heart out on King.”

She smiled at him. “I won’t!”

“Tiff, he’s not a marrying man,” he said flatly. “And modern attitudes or no, if he seduces you, he’s history. He’s not playing fast and loose with you.”

“He already told me that himself,” she assured him. “He doesn’t have any illusions about me, and he said that he’s not having an affair with me.”

He was taken aback. “He did?”

She nodded. “Of course, he also said he didn’t want a wife. But all relationships have these little minor setbacks. And no man really wants to get married, right?”

His face went dark. “Now listen here, you can’t seduce him, either!”

“I can if I want to,” she replied. “But I won’t, so stop looking like a thundercloud. I want a home of my own and children, not a few months of happiness followed by a diamond bracelet and a bouquet of roses.”

“Have I missed something here?”

“Lettie said that’s how King kisses off his women,” she explained. “With a diamond bracelet and a bouquet of roses. Not that any of them last longer than a couple of months,” she added with a rueful smile. “Kind of them, isn’t it, to let him practice on them until he’s ready to marry me?”

His eyes bulged. “What ever happened to the double standard?”

“I told you, I don’t want anybody else. I couldn’t really expect him to live a life of total abstinence when he didn’t know he was going to marry me one day. I mean, he was looking for the perfect woman all this time, and here I was right under his nose. Now that he’s aware of me, I’m sure there won’t be anybody else. Not even Carla.”

Harrison cleared his throat. “Now, Tiffany…”

She grinned. “I hope you want lots of grandchildren. I think kids are just the greatest things in the world!”

“Tiffany…”

“I want a nice cup of tea. How about you?”

“Oolong?”

She grimaced. “Green. I ran out of oolong and forgot to ask Mary to put it on the grocery list this week.”

“Green’s fine, then, I guess.”

“Better than coffee,” she teased, and made a face. “I won’t be a minute.”

He watched her dart off to the kitchen, a pretty picture in jeans and a blue T-shirt, with her long hair in a neat ponytail. She didn’t look old enough to date, much less marry.

She was starry-eyed, thinking of a home and children and hardly considering the reality of life with a man like King. He wouldn’t want children straight off the bat, even if she thought she did. She was far too young for instant responsibility. Besides that, King wouldn’t be happy with an impulsive child who wasn’t mature enough to handle business luncheons and the loneliness of a home where King spent time only infrequently. Tiffany would expect constant love and attention, and King couldn’t give her that. He sighed, thinking that he was going to go gray-headed worrying about his only child’s upcoming broken heart. There seemed no way to avoid it, no way at all.

Tiffany wasn’t thinking about business lunches or having King home only once in a blue moon. She was weaving dreams of little boys and girls playing around her skirts on summer days, and King holding hands with her while they watched television at night. Over and above that, she was plotting how to bring about his downfall. First things first, she considered, and now that she’d caught his eye, she had to keep it focused on herself.

She phoned his office to find out when he was coming back, and wrangled the information that he had a meeting with her father the following Monday just before lunch about a stock transfer.

She spent the weekend planning every move of her campaign. She was going to land that sexy fighting fish, one way or another.

She found an excuse to go into Jacobsville on Monday morning, having spent her entire allowance on a new sultry jade silk dress that clung to her slender curves as if it were a second skin. Her hair was put up neatly in an intricate hairdo, with a jade clip holding a wave in place. With black high heels and a matching bag, she looked elegant and expensive and frankly seductive as she walked into her father’s office just as he and King were coming out the door on their way to lunch.

“Tiffany,” her father exclaimed, his eyes widening at the sight of her. He’d never seen her appear quite so poised and elegant.

King was doing his share of looking, as well. His dark eyebrows dove together over glittering pale eyes and his head moved just a fraction to the side as his gaze went over her like seeking hands.

“I don’t have a penny left for lunch,” she told her father on a pitiful breath. “I spent everything in my purse on this new dress. Do you like it?” She turned around, her body exquisitely posed for King’s benefit. His jaw clenched and she had to repress a wicked smile.

“It’s very nice, sweetheart,” Harrison agreed. “But why can’t you use your credit card for lunch?”

“Because I’m going to get some things for an impromptu picnic,” she replied. Her eyes lowered demurely.

“You could come to lunch with us,” Harrison began.

King looked hunted.

Tiffany saw his expression and smiled gently. “That’s sweet of you, Dad, but I really haven’t time. Actually, I’m meeting someone. I hope he likes the dress,” she added, lowering her head demurely. She was lying her head off, but they didn’t know it. “Can I have a ten-dollar bill, please?”

Harrison swept out his wallet. “Take two,” he said, handing them to her. He glared at her. “It isn’t Wyatt, I hope,” he muttered. “He’s too easily led.”

“No. It’s not Wyatt. Thanks, Dad. See you, King.”

“Who is it?”

King’s deep, half-angry voice stopped her at the doorway. She turned, her eyebrows lifted as if he’d shocked her with the question. “Nobody you know,” she said honestly. “I’ll be in by bedtime, Dad.”

“How can you go on a picnic in that dress?” King asked shortly.

She smoothed her hand down one shapely hip. “It’s not that sort of picnic,” she murmured demurely. “We’re going to have it on the carpet in his living room. He has gas logs in his fireplace. It’s going to be so romantic!”

“It’s May,” King ground out. “Too hot for fires in the fireplace.”

“We won’t sit too close to it,” she said. “Ta, ta.”

She went out the door and dived into the elevator, barely able to contain her glee. She’d shaken King. Let him stew over that lie for the rest of the day, she told herself, and maybe he’d feel as uncomfortable as she’d felt when he took his secretary to Nassau!

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