New York Times bestselling author Diana Palmer delivers two classic tales of unexpected love

A Waiting Game

After getting her heart broken seven years ago, Keena Whitman fled town. Now she’s back, and a successful designer at last. But when she sees Nicholas Coleman again, all the feelings she’d tried so hard to forget come rushing back. Letting Keena go was the biggest mistake Nicholas ever made. This time he’s ready to prove he’s her perfect match—in love and business.

A Loving Arrangement

As Greyson McCallum’s longtime assistant, Abby is used to his irascibility. But when a dangerous figure from her past reappears, Greyson offers to protect her in an unexpected way and Abby can’t resist. As desire ignites and danger looms, can Greyson and Abby find their happily-ever-after?

Also by Diana Palmer

Long, Tall Texans

Fearless

Heartless

Dangerous

Merciless

Courageous

Protector

Invincible

Untamed

Defender

Undaunted

Unbridled

Wyoming Men

Wyoming Tough

Wyoming Fierce

Wyoming Bold

Wyoming Strong

Wyoming Rugged

Wyoming Brave

The Morcai Battalion

The Morcai Battalion

The Morcai Battalion: The Recruit

The Morcai Battalion: Invictus

The Morcai Battalion: The Rescue

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Any Man of Mine

A Waiting Game

A Loving Arrangement

Diana Palmer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09544-0

ANY MAN OF MINE

A Waiting Game © 1982 by Diana Palmer A Loving Arrangement © 1983 by Diana Palmer

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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Praise for the novels of New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author DIANA PALMER

“The popular Palmer has penned another winning novel, a perfect blend of romance and suspense.”

—Booklist on Lawman

“The story follows a complicated tale of tangled relationships full of angst, love, friendship, kindness, loss and betrayal. It takes time, but eventually leads to a happy ending.... Wyoming Winter has some terrific characters.”

—Romance Reviews Today

“Readers will be moved by this tale of revenge and justice, grief and healing.”

—Booklist on Dangerous

“Diana Palmer is one of those authors whose books are always enjoyable. She throws in romance, suspense and a good story line.”

—The Romance Reader on Before Sunrise

“Lots of passion, thrills, and plenty of suspense... Protector is a top-notch read!”

—Romance Reviews Today

“A delightful romance with interesting new characters and many familiar faces. It’s nice to have a hero who is not picture-perfect in looks or instincts, and a heroine who accepts her privileged life yet is willing to work for the future she wants.”

—RT Book Reviews on Wyoming Tough

“Palmer proves that love and passion can be found even in the most dangerous situations.”

—Publishers Weekly on Untamed

Table of Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

A Waiting Game

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

A Loving Arrangement

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

About the Publisher

A Waiting Game

To Mary and Georgia, with love

CHAPTER ONE

KEENA WHITMAN’S DAY had gone backward from the moment she got out of bed. Two of her best sketches had been destroyed when Faye turned a cup of hot coffee over on them. Naturally, the sample-room staff had been livid when they had to wait for Keena to redo the sketches so that they could make up the rush samples for the salesman. Like all salesmen, he was impatient and made no attempt to disguise his annoyance. She’d missed her lunch, the seamstresses had missed theirs and to top it all off, she’d gotten the specifications wrong on a whole cut of blouses, and they had had to be redone with the buyers incensed at the holdup. By the time Keena was through for the day and back home in her Manhattan apartment, she was smoldering.

She kicked off her high-heeled shoes and threw herself down on the long, plush, blue-velvet couch with a heavy sigh. How long ago it seemed that she’d worked at textile design and dreamed of someday working for a big fashion design house. And now she had her own house and was one of the most famous designers of casual wear in the country. But the pleasure she should have been feeling simply wasn’t there. Something was missing from her life. Something vital. But she didn’t even know what. Perhaps it was just the winter weather making her morose. She longed for the freedom and warmth of spring to get her blood flowing again.

She lay on her back and stared at the ceiling. She was slender with short black hair and eyes as green as spring leaves. Her complexion was peachy, her mouth as perfect as a bow. At twenty-seven, she retained the fresh look of innocence, despite her sophistication. At least Nicholas said she did.

Nicholas. She closed her eyes and smiled. How long ago had it been when Nicholas Coleman had offered her the chance to work as an assistant designer in his textile empire? It was well over six years ago.

She’d been utterly green at twenty-one. Fresh out of fashion design school in Atlanta and afraid of the big, dark man behind the desk of Coleman Textiles in his Atlanta skyscraper.

It had taken her a week to get up enough nerve to approach him, but she’d been told that he was receptive to new talent, and that he was a sucker for stray animals and stray people.

Even now she could remember how frightened she’d been, looking across the massive desk at that broad leonine face that looked as if it had never smiled.

“Well, show me what you can do, honey,” he’d dared with a cynical smile. “I don’t bite.”

She’d spread her drawings out on the glass surface of the cluttered desk, her hands trembling, and watched for his reaction. But nothing had shown in his dark face, nor in his dark brown, deep-set eyes. He’d nodded, but that was all. Then he’d leaned back in his swivel chair and stared at her.

“Training?” he’d shot at her.

“The—the fashion design school, here in town,” she’d managed to get out. “I...that is, I worked on the third shift at the cotton mill to pay my way through. My father works for a textile mill back home—”

“Where is back home?” he interrupted.

“Ashton,” she replied.

He nodded, and waited for her to continue, giving every impression of being interested in her muddled speech.

“So I know a little about it,” she murmured. “And I’ve always wanted to design things. Oh, Mr. Coleman, I know I can do it if someone will just give me the chance. I know I can.” Her eyes lit up and she put her whole heart and all her youthful enthusiasm into her words. “I realize there’s a lot of competition for design jobs, but if you’ll give me a chance, I promise I won’t let you down. I’ll design the sharpest clothes for the lowest cost you’ve ever seen. I’ll work weekends and holidays, I’ll—”

“One month,” he said, cutting into her sentence.

He leaned forward and pinned her with his level gaze. “That’s how much time you’ve got to prove to me that you can stand the pace.” He threw out a salary that staggered her, and then dismissed her with a curt gesture and went back to his paperwork.

He’d been married then, but his wife of ten years had died shortly thereafter of a massive heart attack. Rumors had flown all over the main plant, where Keena worked, but she ignored them. She didn’t believe that an argument had provoked the heart attack, and she told one of the women so. Mr. Coleman, she assured her tersely, wasn’t that kind of man. He had too much compassion and, besides, why would he keep a picture of his wife on his desk if he didn’t love her?

Somehow the innocent little speech had gotten back to him and the next week, he’d sought her out in the canteen on the pretense of asking how everything was going.

“I’m well on my way to making you fabulously wealthy,” she assured him with an impish grin as she held her plastic coffee cup between her hands.

“I’m already fabulously wealthy,” he replied.

She sighed. “In that case, you’re in a lot of trouble.”

He’d smiled at that—the first time she’d seen him smile since his wife’s death. The late Mrs. Coleman had been a beauty—blond and delicate, a perfect foil for his size and darkness. Since her death he’d been strangely lost, and his temper had become legendary. He spent more time at the plant than at his office, and threw himself into the accumulation of other plants to complement it. His holdings and his wealth had mushroomed in the months between, and the pressure was telling on him. His hair was growing silver at the temples; his eyes were boasting dark shadows. His tireless business dealings were becoming the talk of the plant. Mr. Coleman was out to become a billionaire, some said. Mr. Coleman was after a business rival, others said. Mr. Coleman was going to make his empire the biggest in America, if he lived, others commented. But only Keena seemed to see through the relentless businessman to the lonely, grief-stricken man underneath. The other employees might think Mr. Coleman was indestructible, but Keena was certain that he wasn’t. She would run into him occasionally in the elevator or in the cafeteria. She recalled one time in particular when his eyes had seemed to seek her out. With his coffee in hand, he strolled over to her table and sat down beside Keena and her friend Margaret as naturally and easily as if the three met for a coffee break every day.

“How’s it going, Miss Future Famous Designer?” he asked Keena with an amused glance.

Keena had laughed and given him a flip reply, something about an interview in Women’s Wear Daily. Hadn’t he seen it? Margaret finished her coffee and excused herself quickly.

“Did I say something I shouldn’t have?” Nicholas asked, staring after the young woman.

“The company brass makes most employees want to run for cover,” Keena explained in a dry tone.

“You aren’t running,” he observed.

“Ah, yes,” she agreed. “But then, I’ve never had much sense.”

He chuckled into his coffee, taking a long sip of it. “The patternmakers sing your praises, by the way. They told me your specs were the first they’d had in five years that were written in English.”

“High praise, indeed, and I hope I’m going to get a ten thousand dollar a year raise as an inducement to keep them in a good mood?” She grinned.

“Cheeky, aren’t you?” he asked with narrowed eyes.

“It’s my dimple,” she replied in all seriousness.

He shook his head in mock despair. “Incorrigible.”

She looked at him—so businesslike and somber in the vested gray business suit that strained against his massive, muscular frame—and dropped her eyes almost at once.

After that day he’d made a point of having coffee with her once in a while. Infrequently, he’d invited her out for a meal, and they’d talk a great deal. She’d asked him once if he had any family, and he’d replied stiffly that what there was of it wasn’t to his liking.

“It still hurts, doesn’t it?” she had asked quietly then.

He stared at her, his face closed up. “I beg your pardon?”

She met his eyes with compassion and utter fearlessness. “You miss her.”

He seemed to see right into her mind in the long minute that followed, and the hauteur slowly drained out of him.

“I miss her like hell,” he admitted finally and with a faint, fleeting smile. “She was the loveliest creature I ever knew, inside and out. Generous to a fault, shy.” He sighed heavily, his face darkening. “Some women can tear a man down with every word. But Misty made me feel every inch a man every time she looked at me. We married because it was necessary to keep the businesses in the family. But we grew to love each other desperately.” He glanced at her. “Yes, I miss her.”

She smiled at him. “You were lucky.”

He scowled. “Lucky?”

“Some people go through life without ever touching or being touched emotionally by another human being. To love and be loved in return must be magic,” she finished gently. “And you had that for ten years.”

His eyes had searched hers before they fell. “I never thought of it that way,” he said simply.

“Shouldn’t you?” Her voice had been gentle and low. And while he was still thinking about it, she changed the subject completely, telling him about some ridiculous mix-up that had occurred in the cutting room that afternoon.

It was sad that he and Misty hadn’t been able to have children, she had always thought. They would have made him less lonely. But she could see that he seemed to find solace in her company, and they had worlds of things in common, from a mutual love of ballet and the theater to classical music and art. She found in him a mentor as much as a friend, a tutor and a protector. Nicholas never made a pass at her himself and was fiercely protective. He scrutinized the few suitors she had over the years and gave her his advice, welcome or not, on the men she went out with. If she had to work late, he escorted her home himself. And when he felt that she was ready, he’d found her a job as an apprentice designer in one of New York’s grandest fashion houses. He’d encouraged her, pushed her, bullied and chided her, until she climbed straight to the top, which was quite a climb for the only child of a poor, widowed textile worker in the small Georgia town of Ashton. She didn’t like to remember her childhood at all. In fact, Nicholas was the only person she’d ever told about it. But then, Nicholas was like no one else. In a real sense he was the only true friend she’d ever had since she left Ashton. And shortly after she’d come to New York, she was relieved to know that Nicholas maintained an apartment in the city.

The phone rang, and she barely heard it, so deeply was she immersed in memory. She was used to Mandy getting the phone, making coffee, serving meals, but this was Mandy’s day off, and it took her five rings to realize it. She dragged herself to the end table and picked up the receiver.

“Hello?” she murmured, stifling a yawn.

“That kind of day, was it?” came a deeply amused voice from the other end of the line. “Get on something pretty and I’ll treat you to dinner at The Palace.” She felt her spirits revive. “Oh, Nicholas, we haven’t gone there in months! And they make the most marvelous chocolate mousse.”

“Can you make it in half an hour?” he asked impatiently. “I’ve got to catch the eleven o’clock plane to Paris, and we won’t have much time.”

“Has anyone ever told you that people who don’t slow down get ulcers?” she asked, exasperated.

“They would have to catch up with me first,” he told her. “Half an hour.”

She stared at the dead receiver. “Nicholas is an enigma,” she muttered as she slipped into a long green velvet gown with a deep V neckline and a side slit. He was every inch the high-powered executive, and he had millions, but he wouldn’t delegate any responsibilities. If a deal had to be closed, he’d close it. If there was a labor relations problem at one of his plants, he’d negotiate it. If there was an innovative process being presented, he’d go to see it. He pushed himself relentlessly even now, a habit left over from those first horrible weeks after Misty’s death. He wouldn’t slow down; he wouldn’t take time off. It was as if he was afraid to stop, because if he did, he’d have to think and that wouldn’t please him. He had too much that he wanted to forget.

Keena was dressed and waiting when the doorbell rang. She opened the door and mentally caught her breath at the sight of Nicholas in evening clothes, as she always did. With his dark hair and eyes, his bronzed complexion in that leonine face, his towering, wrestler’s physique, he was the stuff of which feminine dreams were made. And perhaps if Keena hadn’t been so wary of men, so unforgetting of that humiliating adolescent romance and the humiliating incident that had followed it, she might have fallen head over heels in love with him. But she’d seen Nicholas in action, and she knew the effect his dark charm had on women. She’d seen his occasional conquest swoon, fall, succumb and be heartlessly discarded too many times to risk joining that queue herself. Nicholas had found safety in numbers since Misty’s death, and he was apparently risking no emotional involvement by confining himself to one woman. Keena preferred the position of being just Nicholas’s friend and confidante. It was much safer than being added to the notches on his bedpost.

His own eyes were busy, sliding up and down her body with his usual careless appraisal.

“Delightful,” he said with a cool smile. “Shall we go?”

“I’m starved,” she told him as they got into the empty elevator and Nicholas pressed the main floor button. “I feel as if I haven’t eaten for days.”

“You look it, too,” he growled, eyeing her from his lounging position against the rail. “Why the hell don’t you give up that diet and put some meat on your bones?”

“Look who’s talking!” She glared. “It would take a forklift to get you up a hill!”

He moved toward her with a dark look in his eyes under that jutting brow. “Think it’s fat, do you?” he taunted. He caught her hands and dragged them to his shoulders. “Feel. Show me any flab.”

It was like discovering fine wine where she had expected to taste water. She’d never noticed just how broad Nicholas’s chest and shoulders really were, or how the scent of tobacco and expensive cologne clung to him. She’d never noticed how chiseled his mouth was, or how exciting it could be to look into his dark eyes at close range. It had been safer not to notice. But her hands touched him through the smooth fabric of his evening jacket and lingered there when she felt the hard muscles under it.

“Well?” he asked, a strange huskiness in his deep voice as he looked down at her.

“You... I never realized how strong you were,” she stammered. She looked up into his eyes and time seemed to stand still for a space of seconds while they looked at each other, discovering facial features, textures, expressions, in an unfamiliar intimacy, in the quiet confines of the elevator.

It took several seconds for them to realize that the elevator had stopped and the door had opened. Self-conscious and a little clumsy, Keena managed to get out a little ahead of him and lead the way to the front of the building where his white Rolls-Royce waited with Jimson at the wheel, staring straight ahead stoically.

“Doesn’t Jimson ever get a day off?” she asked Nicholas when they were inside the car with the glass partition up, giving them total privacy.

“Not lately. I’ve been working twenty-five-hour days,” he replied.

“I’ll never get used to this car,” she sighed, leaning her dark head contentedly back against the leather as he was doing.

“What’s wrong with it?” he asked curtly.

“Nothing! It’s just that few people ever get to ride around in a Rolls—white, no less.” She laughed.

He half turned in the seat, one big arm over the back of it, his eyes gleaming, though his smile had not completely disappeared. “And what’s wrong with that?” he asked with deliberate slowness.

She braved his glittering eyes. Why did he look so suddenly predatory to her? So dark and menacing? “Nothing—except that I feel as if I were on display every time I ride in it. That’s all.”

“You should be on display, Keena.” Something in the way he fairly growled her name sent a warm, unfamiliar tingle up her spine.

“Because I’m rich and famous now, you mean, and everyone back in Ashton would hardly recognize this Keena Whitman?” She laughed shortly, her words underscored with a note of self-derision.

Her answer hadn’t pleased him. It was in the hard lines of his face, the narrowing of his eyes. “No, not at all, though you needn’t take that little-Miss-Nobody-from-Ashton tone with me. You know what you are and what you’ve accomplished. And that you’re a very beautiful woman,” he said in that hard, matter-of-fact way of his.

If he had been looking at her, then he would have seen the shock register on every feature. Keena was suddenly thankful for the darkness between them and the sudden blare of a horn that had broken Nicholas’s steady gaze for just that instant.

“Damn city traffic,” he muttered half to himself. When he turned back to her, it was with a faintly puzzled expression. “Surely, you’ve had men tell you that before, that you’re beautiful? Scores of them, I’m afraid.” His words broke off abruptly, his gaze dropping to her slender body, outlining it with a masculine approval that was new and frightening.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked in a faint whisper.

His dark, quiet eyes eased back up to meet hers. “I was wondering what it would feel like to make love to you.”

CHAPTER TWO

HER TOES TINGLED. She’d never felt such a wild surge of emotion and it came up suddenly, stunning her.

Nicholas began to chuckle, the deep sound of it faintly irritating.

“My God, what an expression,” he murmured, leaning back against the seat with a heavy sigh. “I thought that would get your attention.”

She glared at him. “Now that you’ve got it, what are you going to do with it?” she asked grumpily.

He glanced at her. “Get you back to the present. I loathe self-pity. Wait until I’m in Paris. I’ve got enough problems of my own without your dragging new ones from the past.”

“What kind of problems?” she probed.

His lips compressed. “Maria.”

Maria was his mistress. Keena had read about the relationship in the gossip columns long before Nicholas had introduced the two of them. It shouldn’t have bothered her. He was, at forty, an active, virile man, and it would have been absurd to expect him not to have women. But one evening soon after he’d picked up the volatile brunette, Keena had seen them together in a popular night spot dancing so close that the fabric between them seemed to burn. And she’d begged her escort, a harmless young man who’d only lasted one date, to take her home. She couldn’t bear the sight. She’d hated the surge of jealousy, but it had persisted until even now she could hardly bear to hear Maria’s name.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, trying to sound casual.

“She won’t believe it’s over,” he said curtly. “She’s calling me in tears twice a day, moaning over the lonely life I’ve condemned her to. Lonely, my foot, with two diamond necklaces, a new Porshe and an ermine coat!”

“Maybe she really does miss you,” she muttered, able to be generous now that she knew he’d lost interest. She felt strangely relieved.

“She misses the Rolls, honey, not me.” He laughed shortly.

“Was it good in bed?” she asked, tongue in cheek, and darted a glance at him.

“The Rolls or me?” he replied, refusing to be ruffled.

“I imagine she misses the warmth,” she retorted, grinning at him.

His dark eyes smiled at her. “Do you think I’d be warm?”

“Like a blast furnace, I’d imagine,” she said demurely. “Is that why you’re going to Paris, to escape Maria?”

“It isn’t funny,” he said, the smile fading.

“No, I don’t suppose it is, to you.” She shot him a teasing glance. “But your love life is like one ongoing adventure to me. I really think you should assign the girls numbers or something so you can keep things in order.”

“I’m delighted that my private life amuses you so,” he said in a chilling voice.

“You could always tease me about mine,” she said grandly.

His dark eyes cut around toward her. “You don’t have one,” he said. “Not a love life, anyway.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “What makes you so sure?”

“I keep a sharp eye on you, little one,” he said with a somber tone that startled her. “Sharper than you know. You don’t sleep around.”

She glared at him. “Maybe I should hire a private detective of my own!”

“What do you want to know?” he asked with a wicked grin. “Go ahead, ask me. I’ll tell you.”

She glared at him again. “I’d just love to ask you something so personal it would embarrass you to the roots of your hair.”

“Dream on, honey,” he returned with a smile.

She sized up his muscular, imposing physique. “I’ll bet you crush them,” she murmured absently.

He lifted an eyebrow. “Is there only one position?” he asked in all innocence.

The blush started at her hairline, worked down into her cheeks, seeped into her throat and down into the plunging neckline of her dress. And he sat there and watched her and laughed softly, lazily, as if the sight delighted him.

“Instead of the theater, I’d better start taking you to some X-rated movies,” he murmured. “Your education is sadly lacking.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could manage a retort, he picked up her hand and pressed her palm to his lips. It was unexpected, and the sensation it caused made her heart turn over wildly. He caught her eyes, holding them in the dim confines of the car until she felt as if she’d never get her breath again.

He drew her forearm against his lips, sliding it past his rough cheek, holding her eyes the whole time, studying her like some rare and beautiful thing he’d captured.

“I use my elbows,” he whispered, drawing her imperceptibly closer, his voice caressing, seductive. “And I’ve never had a single complaint. Would you like me to prove it?”

Her heart was hammering wildly in her trembling body. She stared at him and couldn’t look away, and she was suddenly afraid.

“Little coward,” he murmured, watching the expressions chase each other in her eyes. “Are you really afraid of me?”

She cleared her throat. “I’m hungry,” she lied.

“For me?” he asked humorously.

She tore her hand out of his grasp and edged back into the corner by the door, glaring at him like some fierce little animal.

“You’re priceless,” he chuckled. “Did you think I was going to make a pass at you in front of Jimson?”

“Jimson is trained not to look,” she reminded him, her voice strangely breathless. “And it’s not kind of you to make fun of me.”

“I can’t help it. You rise to the bait so sweetly.” He cocked his head at her, his eyes watchful. “Haven’t you ever wondered in all these years what kind of lover I’d be?”

She averted her eyes then dropped them. “Yes,” she said finally, because she’d never made a habit of lying to him.

“Well,” he prodded. “What did you think?”

She glanced at him with unfamiliar shyness. “That you’d be heavy,” she grinned.

He laughed softly. “And what else?” he persisted.

She shrugged. “Tender,” she said softly. Her eyes met his across the space. “Patient. A little rough.”

“Not demanding?” he asked quietly, and there were deep undercurrents in the conversation.

“Are you?” she asked involuntarily.

“It depends on the woman,” he replied. “But I can be patient. And tender, when I need to be.”

“How...how do you like a woman to be?” she asked breathlessly.

He stared at her, his eyes darkening, his face hardening with emotion, and there was an electricity between them like nothing Keena had ever experienced.

“The Palace, sir.” Jimson’s pleasant voice interrupted their wordless communication as he stopped the car in front of the exclusive restaurant.

Keena drew in a breath in relief, wondering what had gotten into her to make her ask such an intimate question. It must be my age, she thought wildly, waiting for him to come around and open her door.

“I think we’re going to have to do some talking when I come back from Paris,” he said on the way inside, “I’ve got something in mind that might benefit us both.”

“You want me to design you a wardrobe!” she said with mock enthusiasm. “Something suitably flashy, but elegant, to go with this car. Frankly, I don’t think the job’s for me, but...”

“Damn you!” He burst out laughing in spite of himself. “Come on and feed me before I take a bite out of you!”

It was impossible not to notice as they made short work of filet mignon and lobster, buttery rolls, a salad and rich red wine that he was paying more attention to Keena than he was to the food.

She stopped in the act of lifting a piece of steak to her mouth, staring across the white linen-covered table at him. “Why are you watching me so closely?” she asked with a faint laugh. “Afraid I’m going to try to walk out with the silver?”

“You remind me of a pixie,” he murmured absently. “Mischievous little face, teasing eyes slanted just a bit at the corners, perfect little mouth. You look as if you’re out of place in this setting, and I’ve only just noticed it.”

“I’m twenty-seven,” she reminded him, “and I’d hardly fit under a leaf in somebody’s forest.”

“Twenty-seven,” he echoed quietly. His dark eyes narrowed. “And you barely seem half that to me.”

“It’s because you’re so old,” she told him with mock seriousness. “Entering the golden years, where your bones creak and your eyesight is slowly dimming...”

“Damn you,” he growled harshly. “Shut up!” His tone was venomous, so controlled that it seemed to shudder with sudden rage.

It was unexpected, and it silenced Keena immediately. She’d always teased Nicholas, from the beginning, and often about his age. He’d always laughed. But tonight she’d caught him on the raw for the first time, and he wasn’t laughing. His face had snapped closed like something untamed. His eyes were the only things in his broad, hard face that seemed alive, and they were blazing with menace. She’d only seen Nicholas this angry once, when one of her coworkers had gotten miffed when she refused his advances. Nicholas had intended to surprise her in the office that day and had come in on them unexpectedly. Keena was sure that she could have subdued the young man without any help. But Nicholas, summing up the situation with a glance, had not stopped to ask for an invitation to rescue her. She’d learned later that he’d broken the young man’s jaw. And ever since she’d carefully avoided antagonizing him.

Until now. And it hadn’t been deliberate. “Nicholas, I was only teasing,” she said softly.

That didn’t calm him a bit. He picked up his wineglass with a grip that threatened to snap the slender stem and drained it in one huge gulp.

“Nicholas, please,” she whispered, shivering a little in the face of his white-hot anger. “Don’t be angry with me.”

He set the wineglass down with slow, deliberate movements before he pinned her with his eyes. “I’m forty, not eighty, and all the parts still work. If you don’t believe that, ask Maria,” he added icily.

She chewed on her lower lip. She hadn’t meant to pull the lion’s tail, but he was reacting in a way she’d never expected. Amazingly, she felt tears prick at her eyes and that was new, too. She hadn’t cried for years. But she felt tears damming up in her eyes now.

She put her napkin down very gently, avoiding Nicholas’s blazing eyes. “Uh, if you don’t mind, I’ve an early start tomorrow,” she managed in a shadow of her normal tone.

“Would you like dessert?” he asked with glacial courtesy.

She stared at him with a brave but trembling arch in her chin. “Only if I get to pour it over your head,” she managed with dripping sweetness.

For an instant, amusement vied with anger in his face, but it was quickly subdued. “Let’s go, then,” he said.

She preceded him out of the restaurant after he’d paid the check, walking quickly, her slender legs rippling the sensuous velvet of her dress, her head held as regally as a princess’s.

“Careful you don’t sprain your neck,” he chided.

“Your temper’s more in danger of a sprain than my neck is,” she countered coolly. “If you’d rather brood for a while, I can get a cab back to my apartment,” she added. “I’ve had a pretty rotten day so far, and tonight isn’t making up for it.”

“Stop it,” he growled, nodding to Jimson as they reached the car. He opened the door for Keena as Jimson got in under the wheel and cranked the engine.

“I didn’t start it,” she returned, avoiding his hand as she got into the seat that he was holding the door open to. She moved as far away from him as possible when he got in beside her and closed the door.

“Don’t pout, for God’s sake,” he shot at her with a hard glare.

She returned the glare with interest. It was the first major argument they’d had, and it was beginning to set records for antagonism.

“I’ll pout if I damn please!” she flared up, hunched in her corner. “Why don’t you go find Maria if you want a sparring partner? I didn’t try to lure you into my bed and then refuse to let you go when you were tired of me.”

“You wouldn’t know what to do with me if you got me into your bed,” he returned with malice.

She started to make a smart remark back, but she was suddenly too tired to make the effort. It had been a perfectly horrible day; and it was just getting worse. Now her only friend was furious with her, and she wanted to wail.

They rode in a tense silence until Jimson pulled up at the curb in front of her apartment house and sat looking straight ahead while Keena reached for the doorknob.

But a big, warm hand got there first, holding hers where it rested on the handle.

“Not like this,” he said heavily, his tone strained. “I can’t leave for Europe tomorrow with a sword between us.”

“Why not?” she countered, not looking at him. “I’ve seen you walk away from worse—and laugh.”

“Not you,” he said quietly. “Never you.”

The tone of his voice more than the words calmed her. She turned slowly and looked up at him. He was closer than she’d realized, his dark eyes only inches away, the warmth and fragrance of his big body permeating her, drowning her in sensation.

“I don’t think you’re old,” she whispered unsteadily, affected by him as she’d never been before. “I’ve never paid any attention to the age difference. It never mattered.”

His dark eyes searched hers with a scrutiny that made her nervous. “Tease me about my size, or my money, or my temper. But leave birthdays out of it from now on.”

She swallowed. “All right, Nicholas.”

He removed his hand from hers as if it burned him. “I’ll see you when I get back. It may take two weeks to close this deal, so don’t expect me before the middle of February.”

Two weeks without him. The bleak winter was going to move even slower until he returned, and she was just realizing how empty her life was going to be without those unexpected visits and phone calls. He’d been away from the city for long periods before and it hadn’t bothered her. But suddenly it did, and she looked up at him with a curious frown above her pale green eyes.

“You look strange,” he remarked.

“We haven’t argued in a long time. In fact, I don’t really think we ever did,” she said gently, her eyes troubled.

“Perhaps we’re more aware of each other now,” he said, his voice unusually quiet as he looked down into her eyes.

“Aware?” she whispered.

His breath came hard and quick as he looked down at her soft mouth with an intensity that made her heart race. It was as if he was kissing it, and her lips parted involuntarily, her eyes half-closed at the intensity of the gaze.

“I can almost feel your mouth under mine. Do you know that?” he murmured in a voice like deep velvet. “Your lips trembling, your breasts swelling against me...”

“Nicholas!” she burst out, half gasping, half angry, at the intimacy of it.

“If Jimson wasn’t sitting up front trying not to see us, I’d give you a damned sight more than words to remember me by,” he growled harshly. “I’d wrestle you down on the seat and teach you things about your body you’ve never dreamed it could feel. And you want it,” he added with a level gaze that made her knees melt. “Don’t you?”

Her body was trembling madly. She gaped at him, hating her own reactions, hating him for sensing them.

“You’re my friend,” she choked.

“I’m going to be your lover,” he replied curtly. “Think about that while I’m gone.”

She got out of the car quickly, almost tripping in her haste while Nicholas sat there and watched her with unholy amusement, his eyes glittering with triumph. He knew how he affected her. He had too much experience, damn him, not to know.

“Maybe I won’t be here when you get back,” she cried with a pitiful attempt at self-preservation, at pride.

“You’ll be here,” he said, and closed the door.

“You’ll be lucky,” she muttered as the elegant taillights of the Rolls disappeared into the night. She didn’t realize how prophetic the words were. The next morning her father’s doctor called to tell her that her only surviving relative had been found dead in his bed. Her father was gone.

* * *

THE FUNERAL HAD been harrowing, and Keena was grateful when it was over at last, when her father’s few well-meaning friends had gone and the house was finally peaceful.

She thumbed through the documents on his desk with a faint smile. It had been so like him to leave everything neat, in order. It was almost as if he’d expected the massive coronary that had taken his life.

The will was just as straightforward as Alan Whitman had always been. It left the house to Keena, along with pitifully few possessions. It saddened her that the entire estate barely amounted to the profits her business realized in one day.

She got up from the desk and stood at the window. Her father had never allowed her to give him any money to provide him with even a new car. He and his daughter had been close, but like her he valued his independence. He wanted nothing that he hadn’t earned himself, although he was pleased with her success and frequently told her so.

She looked through the window at the narrow road that ran by the front of the house to the small town beyond. How many of her old classmates would know her now? she wondered. In adolescence she’d been a gangly, painfully shy girl with clothes that always seemed to hang on her, and an eternal slump. Most of the other students had laughed at her, boys and girls alike, and had made fun of the way she dressed, the walk that they said had the grace of a pelican running. She was as out of place in the small town as a sparrow would have been in a den of hawks. Alan Whitman had moved here from Miami, settling in this pleasant section of south Georgia with a mind toward starting his own business. But illness had slowed him down, diminished his resources, and he’d had a daughter to support. So he’d taken a job at the local textile mill, just until he could get on his financial feet again. But he’d been trapped by house payments and car payments and doctor bills into keeping the hated job, and he’d found all too soon that there was no way out. He was stuck.

His spirit was all but broken by the long hours, and there was no laughter in the big house he’d spent his life savings on. He had dozens of get-rich-quick schemes that fell through quickly. He spent his life looking for the rainbow, but all he found was the pants line of the manufacturing company.

Keena sighed bitterly at the irony of life. Her father had gotten poor making clothes, while she’d gotten rich. Even now she looked the part of the wealthy career woman in her chic designer jeans and wide-sleeved silk blouse. The emeralds on her ears and her wrist were real, not the paste ones she’d loved to wear as a poor teenager.

How long ago it all seemed now, those brief, secret meetings with him in the woods, the first few kisses that led a naive Keena to an apartment owned by one of James’s friends. Tall, dark-headed, with vivid blue eyes under thick black lashes, James Harris had been the darling of the social set, a young attorney with promise. Keena had known that it was disastrous to care about him, but her heart had ignored her mind and gone end over end every time it saw him. She couldn’t begin to look at another boy, or even Larry Harris, who worshipped her.

If only she’d realized that he had never had any intention of marrying her. She’d been too blinded by her own feelings to realize that James was keeping his relationship with her a secret from everyone. He’d never even stopped by the house to see her, or pick her up there for one of their few dates, and he was careful to stay away from public places. They spent long hours in his car at the local lover’s lane, necking, until one night when the kisses grew suddenly longer and slower and deeper, and he suggested that they go to his friend’s apartment to have a snack before he took her home. They both knew why they were going, and it had nothing to do with food. Keena, young and naive and with her first passion for a man in full bloom, went trustingly.

She was expecting all the fiery passion and tenderness of every romantic novel she had read. But James, for a supposedly practiced lover, was carelessly intent on his own satisfaction. He hadn’t even bothered with taking time to study the softly curving young body he’d taken so quickly and roughly.

“Get your clothes on fast,” he’d said the minute he was through, leaving Keena confused, frustrated and ashamed of her easy capitulation. He didn’t even look at her as he dressed. “Hurry!” he’d called over his shoulder. “Jack could come in any minute. He told me I could only have the apartment for an hour.”

She’d dressed hurriedly, tears streaming from her eyes, her body feeling bruised, violated. She’d expected a loving word or two, but there had been none of that.

She’d followed him to the door, and he’d taken her back to the end of her driveway, careful to stop the car in the privacy of the alley so that no one would recognize it.

“Sorry I had to be so quick,” he’d said with a half smile. “Next time it will be better. I’ll find another place.”

There wasn’t going to be a next time, and she’d told him so, her voice shaking with disappointment.

“Well, what did you expect, rose petals and fireworks?” he’d burst out. “I thought you cared about me.”

“I did,” she’d wept.

“I don’t want any part of your fears, Keena. There are too many willing girls.” And he’d driven away.

Keena had sweated out the next few weeks, and she hadn’t relaxed until she knew she wasn’t pregnant. But her love for James hadn’t eased. She watched for him; she listened for the phone. But he didn’t even try to get in touch with her. In desperation she accepted his brother Larry’s invitation to a party at the Harris home, hoping for just a sight of James, a sign that he wasn’t really through with her. It had just been an argument, after all. He’d talked about marriage, about an engagement. Perhaps he was giving her time to think. Of course, that was why he hadn’t called. And all that gossip about James and Cherrie was just that—gossip. So what that Cherrie was the daughter of a prominent local attorney, and a voluptuous blonde? It was Keena whom James really cared for.

She accepted Larry’s invitation, wondering if he knew how she felt about his brother, if that might account for that odd, vague pity she often read in his eyes. In later years she’d wondered, because Larry had seemed to wait deliberately until she was in earshot to talk to James the night of the party.

She’d worn a dress of white crepe, which she’d made from material bought with money she earned working in the local grocery store at the checkout counter. Even then she’d had a flair for fashion, creating her own design. The dress had caused a mild sensation, even on a mill worker’s daughter. But James had only spared her a sharp glance when she’d walked in on Larry’s arm. He hadn’t asked her to dance or greeted her. Neither had his father or mother, in fact, unless those cold smiles and curt nods could be classified as such.

She’d been only a few feet away when she heard Larry ask James, “Doesn’t Keena look like a dream tonight?”

“I hadn’t noticed,” came the terse reply. “Why in hell did you have to invite her here tonight? Mother may play Lady Bountiful to the workers, but she won’t care much for her son dating one,” James reminded him with a short, cold laugh. “Keena’s father is, after all, just one of our spreaders. He isn’t even an executive.”

“He’s nice,” Larry had defended.

“My God, maybe he is, but he’s as dull as a winter day, just like his skinny daughter. She’s plain and stupid, and she’s practically flat-chested to boot. Believe me, it was like making love to a man...”

She’d felt Larry’s shock, even at a distance. “Making love?” he breathed.

Keena hadn’t stayed to hear any more. With her eyes full of tears and her makeup running down her white face, she’d left the house and walked every step of the way home in the dark without thinking about danger. And those cold, hurting words had stayed with her ever since. They’d been indirectly responsible for her success, because her hatred for James Harris and her thirst for revenge had carried her through the lean, hard times that had led up to her enrollment in the fashion design school. All she’d wanted in life from that terrible night forward was to become something more than a mill worker’s daughter—an outsider. And she had.

There was a discreet tap on the door before Mandy came in like a small, dark-haired whirlwind, her dark eyes sparkling.

“Brought you some coffee,” she said, placing a tray on the coffee table. A plate of doughnuts rested temptingly beside it. “Come on, you’ve got to eat something.”

Keena grimaced at her housekeeper. “I don’t want food,” she said. “Just coffee. You be a love and eat the doughnuts.”

“You’ll blow away,” the older woman warned. “Why bother to bring me down here with you if you aren’t going to let me cook?”

“It gets lonely here,” she replied. She gazed around her at the towering near-ruin of a house. It must have been a showplace years before her father bought it, but lack of care and deterioration had taken their toll on it. Without some substantial repairs, it was going to fall in.

“Did you reach the construction people?” Keena asked as she stirred cream into a cup of steaming coffee.

“Yes,” Mandy replied, looking disapproving. “Look, it’s none of my business, but why are you going to funnel good money into this white mausoleum?”

Keena ran a lazy hand over the faded, worn brocade of the antique sofa. “I’ll need to have the furniture redone, as well. See if you can find an upholsterer while you’re at it.”

“How long are we going to be here?” Mandy asked curiously.

“A few weeks.” She laughed at Mandy’s obvious shock. “I need a break. I can run the company from here. Ann can call me if she needs help. And meanwhile, I’ll play with mending this pitiful house.”

“I wish I knew what you were up to,” Mandy sighed.

“It’s a kind of game,” Keena explained with a smile.

“And is Nicholas going to play, too?”

Keena glared at her. She didn’t want to think about Nicholas right now. “He’s a friend, nothing more. Just because we go out once in a while...”

“Twice a week, every week, and he protects you like a mother hen,” Mandy corrected.

Keena shifted uneasily. “Nick’s like a brother. He feels responsible for me.”

“Some brother,” Mandy scoffed. “You should have noticed the way he was watching you at that Christmas party we gave. He started scowling every time another man came near you. He’ll be along, Miss Independence, or I miss my guess. No way is Nicholas going to let you spend several weeks down here without doing something about it.”

“What do you expect him to do, come and drag me back home?” Keena asked curtly.

“I wouldn’t put it past him,” came the equally brusque reply.

“You,” Keena told her with a mock scowl, “are a professional busybody.”

Mandy grinned. “Thanks. About time you paid me a compliment or two for these gray hairs you’ve given me.”

Keena laughed, studying the little salt-and-pepper head. “Not so gray,” she returned.

“You going to see that Harris man?” Mandy asked suddenly with narrowed eyes.

Keena met that gaze levelly. “Maybe.”

“Good thing, too. Get him out of your system once and for all.” She wiped her hands on her apron. “Memories are dangerous, you know. They’re always better than reality.”

“That’s why I came back to face them,” Keena admitted.

She stretched hugely and got up from the sofa. “We’ve been getting some interested glances since I had the corral and stable fences repaired and bought that mare.” She smiled. “I think I’ll go for a ride.”

“Didn’t you tell me once that this property joins the Harrises’?” Mandy asked.

“In back,” Keena agreed. “I used to rent a horse to ride. I saved all my money just to catch a glimpse of James Harris in the woods. Maybe I’ll get lucky today,” she added with a smile and a wink.

* * *

IT WAS CHILLY in the woods, and Keena was glad of her jodhpurs and boots, the thick cashmere sweater she put on over her silk blouse, the warm fur-lined gloves on her hands and the thick tweed hacking jacket. She’d never been able to afford a decent kit in her youth, so it was something of a thrill to be able to wear it now. It almost made up for those rides she’d gone on with Jenny Harris, James’s sister, in worn jeans and a denim jacket that Jenny was too sweet to make fun of.

She paused by a small stream, her eyes closed, taking in the cold, sweet peace of the woods, the sound of water running between the banks, the sudden snapping of twigs nearby.

Her eyes flew open as another horse and rider came into view. A big black horse with a slender man astride him, a dark-haired man with blue eyes and an unsmiling face. He was wearing a tweed jacket, too, over a turtleneck sweater. The hands on the reins were long-fingered, and a cigarette dangled in one of them.

“You’re trespassing,” the man said. “This is private property.”

She lifted an eyebrow at him, ignoring the wild beat of her heart as she felt the years between her last sight of him fall away.

“The property line is two paces behind you,” she replied coolly. “And if you care to look, there’s a metal survey stake—quite a new one. I had the property lines resurveyed two days ago.”

His eyes narrowed as he lowered them to her slender body, past her high, firm breasts to her small waist and flaring hips, clearly outlined by her tailored riding gear.

“Keena?” he asked as if the thought was incredulous. His eyes came back up to her lovely, high-cheekboned face framed by black hair that feathered around it, her pale green eyes like clear pools under her thick lashes.

She allowed herself a smile. “That’s my name.”

“My God, you’ve changed,” he murmured. His eyes went to her wrist, and he smiled faintly. “Except for that habit of wearing gaudy costume jewelry. I’m glad something about you hasn’t changed.”

She wanted to hit him with the riding crop, but that would have been more in character in her adolescence than it was now. She’d learned control, if nothing else.

“Old habits die hard,” she replied with a bitter smile.

“How true,” he murmured. “I was sorry to hear about your father. He was a good worker. There’s a small insurance policy, of course. You might check with the personnel office about that. You got the flowers we sent? A potted plant, I think...”

“They were very nice, thanks,” she replied.

“Are you still living in Atlanta?” he asked politely.

“New York,” she corrected.

He made a distasteful face. “Nasty place. Pollution and all that. I prefer Ashton.”

She stared at him, letting the memory merge with the reality. He’d changed. Not just in age, but in every other way. He looked older, less imposing, less authoritative.

“How’s Jenny?” she asked quietly.

“Doing very well, thanks. She lives with her husband and son in Greenville. Larry’s married,” he added pointedly. “He lives in Charleston.”

“I heard that you and Cherrie married,” she said.

His face drew up. “She and I were divorced two years back,” he said coldly.

She shrugged. “It happens.”

He was staring at her again, his eyes thoughtful. “I can’t get over the change. You’re different.”

“I’m older,” she replied.

“Married?” he asked, openly curious.

She shook her head. “I have a career.”

“In textiles?” he asked with a faint smile.

She paused. “In a matter of speaking, yes.”

He laughed shortly. “Sewing, I suppose.”

“That, too.” She patted the mare’s mane. “I’ve got to get back. Nice seeing you,” she said with a parting smile.

“I’ll drop by before you leave for home,” he said unexpectedly.

She gave him her best smile. “That would be nice,” she managed huskily. “But you needn’t rush. I’ll be here for several more weeks.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Can you spare that long from your job?”

“I have a wonderful, understanding boss,” she returned. “See you.”

And think about that, she laughed to herself as she let the mare have her head on the way back to the stable.

What Ashton needed, she decided, was a party. A big, lavish, New York, society-type party, so that she could show her dear old friends how much the gangly textile worker’s daughter had changed. Just thinking about it brightened her dark mood. Before she got back to the house, she was already planning her strategy, from redecorating and renovation, to the caterers. This was going to be an absolute delight.

* * *

IT WAS LIKE having a houseful of relatives come to stay when the carpenters and decorators descended on them. Keena couldn’t move without bumping into a ladder or a pile of lumber.

“They’re multiplying,” Mandy moaned one morning, watching two carpenters hard at work trying to replace a portion of the kitchen ceiling. “And how can I cook?”

“Make two plates full of sandwiches.” Keena laughed. “Maybe if we feed them enough, they’ll work faster. And don’t spare the coffee.”

“You’re the boss,” Mandy sighed, shaking her head as she moved toward the cupboard.

“Hey, lady, somebody’s at the door!” one of the electricians called, pausing with a length of cord in one hand.

She squeezed past a painter on a ladder, her jeans and pale blue T-shirt making her look younger than her years, clinging outrageously to her long, graceful legs and the soft, full curves of her body. Her hair was curling softly around her face, and some of the strain of big business had fallen away despite the grief this trip had started with. She felt younger, more relaxed and more feminine.

“Hey, guys, there’s a Rolls-Royce out there!” one of the carpenters whispered to his friends, stunned.

Keena paused with her hand on the doorknob. It couldn’t be James Harris, even though that was whom she’d expected after their confrontation two days ago. The Harrises had money, but not enough to run a Rolls. She knew only one man with that kind of careless wealth, and she hadn’t dreamed—despite Mandy’s prediction—that he’d come here.

She twisted the crystal doorknob and pulled the wide door open. The man standing there towered over her, as broad as a wrestler, all hard muscle and determination, with a craggy face and dark eyes that were devouring every inch of her.

“So here you are,” he growled, his voice reminiscent of the last time she’d seen him, and remembering it made her flush slightly. “I’ve had a hell of a time finding you. Mrs. Barnes said you called the apartment to see if I’d come home, but all you told her was that you were going home to Georgia.”

“And you couldn’t remember where that was?” she asked with a sweet smile.

“It’s a damned big state,” he replied curtly, staring past her at the gaping workmen who were openly curious about the newcomer in the gray suit. “I had to hunt through your old personnel file to find out your hometown. I couldn’t remember it.”

“You didn’t think to call my office?” she asked.

“I got back only yesterday,” he said under his breath. “Sunday, madam, and your people don’t work on Sunday.”

She drew in a steadying breath. Seeing him again was causing her heart to do acrobatics. “My father died,” she said quietly.

“I’m sorry,” he said curtly. “Was it quick?”

She nodded. “Very.” She looked up at him with sad eyes, and wished she could have run to him when they’d called to tell her. His arms would have felt so good, and she could have cried in them. “Did you think I was in hiding?” she added with a mirthless laugh.

“Hide, here?” He glared at the workmen. “You’d have hell trying with this crowd. It looks like a damned construction site in here.”

“Would you like to come in?” she asked.

“My insurance company wouldn’t like it,” he said bluntly, with a wary eye on the two carpenters up on ladders just inside the open door.

“Well, we could sit in the porch swing,” she suggested, gesturing toward it.

His eyes followed hers. Two boards were missing in strategic places. His dark eyes danced and just for an instant she caught a glimpse of something different in them.

“Not unless you want to sit on my lap and give your audience something to stare at,” he replied. “Besides that, it’s blasting cold out here, and you aren’t dressed for it.” He caught her arm. “We’ll sit in the car and talk for a minute.”

“Lecherous thing,” she murmured, following him to the car quickly to get out of the biting cold. “You’ll probably lock me in and try to seduce me.”

“There’s an idea,” he agreed, putting her in the passenger side of the Rolls. “Slide over.”

She made room for him, feeling swallowed as he slid one huge arm around her and gave her the benefit of his warmth against the faint chill of the car.

“Some idea,” she murmured. “You’ve never even made a real pass at me.”

He leaned down, his face suddenly closer than it had ever been before, so close that she could see the tiny lines at the corners of his eyes, the thickness of his eyelashes, the faint shadow around his firm, chiseled mouth. An expensive fragrance, a familiar fragrance, clung to his big, warm body.

“You never wanted it before,” he reminded her. His eyes went to her mouth, pale without lipstick, and her heart rocked at the sensuous look in his glittering eyes. “Not until the night I left for Paris. But this is as good a time as any to satisfy your curiosity, little Miss Purity. Let me show you how I kiss.”

He leaned closer, brushing his parted lips against hers before she had time to protest. The tenderness of the action paralyzed her, and in a trance, she watched his mouth touch and lift and brush against hers in a silence that was suddenly sparkling and alive with new sensations, new awareness.

His strong white teeth nipped softly at her lips, tugging them deftly apart as his tongue tasted, slowly, the inner curve of her upper lip.

She gasped at the contact, her eyes looking straight into his, seeing shadows that had never been there before.

“You taste of coffee,” he said in a deep, sensuous tone.

“I...had it...for breakfast.” Was that her voice, that high-pitched, husky stammer? She felt as rigid as a board, tense, waiting for something with a hunger that was as shocking as the look on Nicholas’s face.

“I think I’ll have you for breakfast,” he murmured, and she watched his mouth open slightly as it fitted itself expertly to her soft, tremulous lips. “Open your mouth,” he whispered against the silken softness. “Don’t make me force you.”

“Nicholas?” His name came out as a gasp when she felt his big, warm hands cupping her face, barely aware of his body half covering hers, crushing her back against the soft leather in a warm, breathless embrace.

He didn’t answer her. His mouth was hard and warm and faintly cruel as it moved with slow deliberation deeper and deeper into hers. Her heart felt as if it were on a merry-go-round. She was spinning, flying.

“Oh,” she whispered, shaken, into the hard mouth laying claim to her lips.

His tongue went into her mouth, teasing, withdrawing, causing sensations she’d only dreamed about before. Something devastating was happening to her.

One of his big, warm hands left her cheek and eased down to the soft cotton fabric over her breast. He took the weight of it into his cupped palm, savoring its softness, testing its firmness, and she gasped at the newness of his touch, drawing back to look into his dark eyes.

“You don’t wear a bra, do you?” he asked in a slow, tender voice. “You don’t need one, either. Your breasts are so soft, Keena, firm and soft and warm under my hands.”

“Nick...” she gasped, drowning in the sure touch of his fingers, probing, caressing.

She caught his hand and stilled it, half-frightened.

“Please, don’t,” she whispered. “Nick...”

“I like the way you say my name,” he murmured deeply. “Say it again.”

She felt like a fish out of water, floundering. She couldn’t get her breath at all, and her mouth throbbed with both his possession of it and her own hunger to have him do it again. She lowered her eyes to his white shirt.

“Shy of me?” he asked softly. “After all these years?”

She looked up at him warily. “We’ve never made love before,” she whispered unsteadily, keenly aware of his fingers still resting lightly on her breast.

“I wouldn’t call this making love,” he corrected quietly, studying her wild eyes. “Why don’t you want me to touch you?”

She blushed furiously, hating her foolishness, her lack of sophistication, hating his mocking laughter.

“You liked it, didn’t you?” he asked, removing his hand to ruffle her dark hair.

“I’ve got to go back inside,” she ground out.

“Not yet. When was the funeral?”

“A week ago.”

He scowled. “And you’re still here?” His eyes narrowed. “Why?”

Her lips compressed stubbornly. She wasn’t going to be talked out of this, not now. She told him why she was staying, in no uncertain terms, tacking on, “And the first guest I’m inviting to the party is James Harris.”

His dark eyes seemed to burst with flame as he stared down at her.

He knew that Keena had loved James Harris and that he had hurt her badly because Keena had cried her heart out on his shoulder one night after too many whiskey sours on an empty stomach—one of those rare occasions when she drank hard liquor. But he’d never learned exactly what Harris had done to her to cause her so much pain. All he knew was that he’d never let James Harris hurt her again.

“You’re crazy as hell if you think I’m going to let that creep get his hands on you,” he said in a cutting voice.

“And just what do you think you’re going to do about it, Nicholas?” she demanded with more courage than she felt. The long, searching kiss and the touch of his big hands had knocked half the fight out of her.

He moved away from her, got out of the car and stood back to let her get out of the car. “I fight with no holds barred,” he reminded her with a strange, cool smile. “And I’ve put in a lot of years on you. I’m not about to stand by and watch you put your pretty neck into a noose.”

“It’s my neck,” she murmured.

He tilted her chin up and bent down to her, brushing his mouth slowly, softly, against hers with something like possession in his dark eyes. He watched her helpless reaction with a smile. “I told you before I left for Paris that one day I was going to be your lover. That day’s closer than you think, sweetheart, and you’re hungrier for me than I’d imagined. Ripe, ready to be picked.”

“I’m not an apple,” she ground out.

“No, you’re a peach,” he corrected with a last, soft kiss. “A sweet, juicy little peach that I could eat. But first, I’m going to have to knock you out of the tree.”

She glared at him as he went around the elegant hood of the Rolls and got in under the steering wheel. “You’d better get a big stick, Nicholas Coleman!” she cried.

He only laughed. “No, honey, you had. I’ll be back.”

And before she could fire a retort, he drove off in a cloud of dust, leaving her standing there in the cold.

CHAPTER THREE

MANDY GLANCED UP from the rolls she was making in the kitchen as Keena walked through.

“Flames,” she murmured, muffling a grin.

“What?” Keena asked absently, unaware of the picture she made with her hair mussed from Nick’s big fingers, her eyes wild, her lips swollen and red.

“Coming from you,” Mandy commented drily. She started laying the rolls into a pan. “Seen Nick, have you?”

“Seen him?” she burst out. “You should have heard...” She flushed. “On second thought, you shouldn’t have heard him. But he’s absolutely unreasonable!”

“How?”

“He doesn’t want me to stay here, for one thing,” she muttered darkly, her lovely eyes narrowing. She folded her arms across her throbbing chest and leaned back against the counter. “As if he had any right, any right at all, to order me around. The nerve, talking about knocking me out of trees and getting sticks...”

“You feel all right?” Mandy asked pleasantly.

“No. Yes. I don’t know.”

“That’s what I’ve always liked most about you—your definite answers.” Mandy grinned.

Keena, not even half hearing her housekeeper, turned in a daze and walked under the ladder where two painters were busy on the walls and ceiling of the dining room. She was confused as she’d never been, as shy as a girl when she thought about seeing Nicholas again after that ardent kiss. He’d touched her...

She sighed, walking aimlessly up the stairs with dreams in her eyes. In all those years, not a single pass, not a touch out of the way, but overnight her whole relationship with Nick was different, exciting. He’d been her friend, but now what was he? She was going to have to rethink her entire relationship with him after today.

Funny, she hadn’t really taken him seriously the night he left for Paris, when he’d said that he was going to be her lover. Reflecting on it, she’d decided that he’d been teasing. But today was no joke. The tenderness of the mouth he’d kissed so thoroughly was very real, and her chest tingled from the long, hard contact with his big body, from the touch of his experienced hands.

Part of her, a small, vague part, was afraid of Nicholas. He wasn’t the kind of man to do anything halfheartedly. He wouldn’t stop at acquiring her for his bed. He’d want nothing less than possession. Keena liked her independence; she wasn’t sure she was ready to give it up. In that, she must have been like her mother, who died giving her birth. Alan Whitman had always spoken fondly of his late wife’s bullheaded independence. Keena was like that herself. She’d been on her own for so long, an achiever without props. Oh, there had been men; charming, attractive companions that she had always managed to keep at a safe distance—no ties, no commitments. She’d let them know that it would be on her terms, or not at all. No, she wasn’t at all sure she could manage a full-time man in her life, especially a man like Nick, in an intimate relationship. She had no doubts at all after today that he’d be everything her body would ever want. But what about the rest of her? Would he try to take her over the way he took over businesses? And if she let herself be drawn into his life, would she ever be able to break away before it was too late? She was afraid to let him close enough to find out. Perhaps it was just as well that he’d gone back to New York. But it wasn’t like Nicholas to give up without a struggle. She had a feeling she hadn’t heard the last of it, either.

* * *

“HOW OLD WERE you when you left here?” Mandy asked several days later when Keena was driving her through town in the rented car, pointing out the small high school, the public library and the modest shopping center near the house.

“Eighteen,” Keena said, veiling the memories that the admission dredged up. They weren’t pleasant ones, for the most part.

“You must have missed it.” Mandy smiled, watching two young boys ride their bicycles along the sidewalk, bundled up from head to toe against the February chill. “It’s a lovely little town.”

“Lovely,” came the absent reply.

The older woman glanced at her. “You’re quiet lately. Brooding because Nick hasn’t come back?” she probed drily.

Keena’s face toasted. “Of course not!”

“Don’t run over the curb, love. You’ll crease the tires,” Mandy pointed out.

Keena steered the car back onto the road, hating that momentary, telling lapse. “Why should I care that he comes storming down here, threatens me and then vanishes into the woodwork? It’s no worry of mine!”

“Oh, that’s obvious.”

“Besides, it’s my life,” Keena added firmly, shifting uneasily behind the wheel. “I can do what pleases me.”

“Sure you can.”

“If I want to decorate the house and give a party, it’s my own business.”

“That’s right, dear.”

“And anyway, if he cares so much, why hasn’t he called?” Keena’s green eyes flashed. “He could have spared time for a phone call.”

“He’s a busy man.”

“I’m busy, too,” Keena pouted. She sighed, the action gently rustling the blue striped scarf at her neck that complemented her navy pantsuit and white silk blouse. “He’s just sour because I’m not at his beck and call down here.”

“He’s jealous of James Harris, you mean,” Mandy remarked with a secret smile.

“There’s nothing to be jealous of. James hasn’t called. He hasn’t come by the house...” That rankled, too. She’d been a very young eighteen when she’d overheard that bitter speech of James’s, when she’d realized just how fully she’d been taken in by his teasing and flirting. She’d been too naive to realize the cruel game he was playing until it was too late. Part of her hadn’t grown past that day. And that part, the hurting part, wanted to bring the tall, blue-eyed lawyer to his knees. It was something inside her that she didn’t fully understand, but it was too strong to ignore. Nicholas might tolerate the thirst for revenge, but he wouldn’t tolerate its presence around him. He didn’t need it. Nick was above that sort of pettiness. But Keena didn’t find it petty, and she needed to see James Harris humbled, as she had once been. Now successful, full of confidence she’d never had as a teenager, she was desirable. And she wanted James to find her so, to satisfy a craving that had never completely died. She had to prove to herself that she could have him if she really wanted him. And no one, not even Nick, was going to stop her.

* * *

SHE’D JUST WORKED UP her nerve to call James and invite him over for a meal when she drove up in front of her house to find him waiting for her. Her heart jumped wildly at the sight of him in an expensive tweed coat with a sweater-vest and dark trousers. He looked sophisticated, handsome and not a day older than he had nine years ago.

“Speak of the devil,” Mandy murmured, rushing out of the car and up the steps before Keena had time to reply.

“So there you are.” James grinned, hopping down the steps as he used to, athletic and trim. “I thought you might invite me in for coffee if I showed up at your door. Quite a crowd of workmen you’ve got there,” he added, nodding toward the carpenters at work on the outside of the house.

“We’re adopting them. They’re orphans,” she told him with a straight face.

He threw back his head and laughed. It didn’t sound genuine somehow, but Keena laughed with him. “Uh, Jones said you’d borrowed quite a lot of money to accomplish this,” he added shrewdly.

She only smiled. She could have paid cash for the renovation, but it had done her good to borrow the money from Abraham Jones at James’s bank, leaving that priceless emerald bracelet as collateral. She’d expected it to get back to James. Now he was curious, and that was just what she’d wanted.

“That bracelet,” he murmured, looking at her with his head cocked to one side in that old, familiar pose. “It was real, wasn’t it?”

“Quite,” she agreed with a wry smile.

“A present?” he probed.

“No.”

He frowned, really puzzled now. “I can’t figure you out,” he admitted finally.

She smiled up at him, turning on every trace of charm in her slender body. “Can’t you really, James?” she asked softly.

Something kindled in his blue eyes, something new and pleasant. He moved toward her, removing his hands from his pockets to take her gently by the shoulders and study her lazily.

“You’ve changed so,” he remarked gently. “You were pretty before. But now...”

“Now, James?” she prodded, breathless.

He opened his mouth to speak just as the soft purr of an approaching engine broke into the silence between them.

Keena turned her head in time to see Nicholas bring the white Rolls to a gentle stop and get out, carrying a big leather suitcase in one hand and an attaché case in the other. He was dressed in an expensive tweed suit that flattered his massive physique, emphasizing his broad chest, flat stomach and powerful, muscular legs. He not only looked rich, he also looked imposing. His eyes punctuated the threat in the graceful way he moved, the way he looked at James, the way a hunter might glance toward a kitten on his way to shoot bear.

“I hope you’ve got a room ready,” Nicholas told Keena without breaking stride, “I’m in a hell of a tangle with my London office.”

She stared after him, her mouth slightly open.

“Who’s he?” James asked coolly.

Keena looked up at him helplessly. For one wild second she wondered if he might believe Nicholas was her insurance agent. But with a sigh, a shrug and an apologetic smile, she dismissed the thought.

“Nicholas,” she replied instead. “Uh, I’ve got to go, James, but do ring me later on.”

“Oh...of course,” he stammered. It was the first time Keena had ever seen him at a loss for words, as if he couldn’t believe any woman would willingly part with his company.

She turned and walked quickly up the steps with blood in her eyes. Now what was Nicholas up to? And where did he plan to stay?

She caught up with him at the foot of the staircase, oblivious to the stares of the two fascinated painters on ladders in the hall.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she demanded.

“To my room,” he said impatiently.

“You don’t have one,” she pointed out.

“Yet,” he admitted, taking another step.

“This is my house,” she told him, her voice rising shrilly. “You can’t just move in like this, without even asking!”

“Think you can stop me?” he asked politely, gazing at her with that level, devastating stare that made her want to back away slowly.

“I’m not alone and defenseless,” she reminded him, turning to the nearest painter, a rugged-looking individual about Nicholas’s age.

“That’s right, lady,” the painter agreed, pausing with his brush raised to give Nicholas his best threatening look.

Nicholas lifted his hard, broad face and stared up at the man unblinkingly. “I hope your insurance is current,” he remarked politely.

The painter turned back to his work and began painting with a vengeance. “Like I said, lady, I’d give the poor tired man a room,” he murmured sheepishly.

Keena glared at him before she transferred her irritated stare to the other painter, who pulled his cap low over his eyes and began to whistle softly.

Nicholas grinned at her before he turned and started up the staircase again.

She followed along behind him, her temper exploding like silent fireworks inside her taut body, watching helplessly while he peeked into the first room he came to, then the second, before he finally settled on the third. It was, as he had guessed, unoccupied, with bed linen neatly piled at the foot of the large, four-poster bed.

“This will do,” he murmured, glaring around him at the antique furniture. He set the suitcase down and went to the window. “Nice view. Does it have a bathroom?”

“In between this bedroom and the other one,” Keena said. “But that needn’t concern you. You aren’t staying.”

He turned around and let his eyes roam over her taut figure. “God, you’re pretty when you want to bite. Come over here and put up your fists, you little firecracker,” he taunted in a deep, velvety voice.

“What are you doing here?” she challenged, feeling the ground slowly being cut from under her feet.

He shrugged. “What does it look like? I’m moving in.”

“For how long?” she demanded fiercely.

“For as long as it takes to bring you to your senses,” he replied calmly. His dark eyes searched her flushed face. “You can’t go back, honey,” he added quietly. “I won’t let you.”

Her color deepened. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do.” He moved forward, one corner of his firm, chiseled mouth going up as he noticed her involuntary step backward. “Don’t panic. I’m not going to throw you on the bed. Not now, anyway. I’ve got work to do. Is there a study?”

“Downstairs,” she managed through her fury. “But it’s full of painters.”

“So is the rest of the house. Are they leaving, or are you adopting them?”

“They’ll be gone tomorrow,” she replied. “Nicholas, you can’t stay here,” she added, trying to reason with him. “It’s a small town. People will go wild gossiping. They’ll think you’re my lover!”

“They might be right,” he said, moving forward again. “Come here.”

“Nicholas!” She backed right up to the closed door.

He trapped her there with his big arms on either side of her head, his eyes dancing with devilish amusement, the shimmering depths secretive, mysterious. “Shy?” he murmured. “You were flirting with Harris for all you were worth. Why not try it with me?”

“Because I don’t want to be fitted with a straitjacket, and how did you know it was James?” she asked nervously. The deliciously expensive scent of his cologne settled around her like a sensuous mist, and she tried not to be so aware of the size and strength of his body, the heat of it warming her in the faint chill of the room.

“I recognized the sickening adoration in your eyes, little fox,” he murmured. His dark eyes pinned hers. “You may think you can pick up where you left off all those years ago, but you’re going to find that it’s not possible.”

“It’s my life, Nicholas,” she reminded him.

“So it is,” he agreed. “But I’m not going to let that anemic snob cut you up a second time.”

She tried to get closer to the door, but the cold wood wouldn’t give under her shoulder blades.

“I do appreciate the thought,” she said. “But how are you going to spare the time?” She didn’t like the look in his eyes. It was frankly predatory. “As you’re so fond of telling me, you’re a busy man.”

His eyes glittered with amusement. “All work and no play...” he murmured, bending.

She watched his face come closer with a nervous sense of inevitability. No wonder he’d gotten so far in business, she thought dimly as his mouth brushed lightly against her forehead. He was unstoppable, like a runaway locomotive.

“You’ll go through that door in a minute,” he murmured lazily. “Why don’t you move toward me instead?”

“You’re making me nervous,” she choked. Her lovely eyes had a faintly haunted look; her black hair was brushed with fiery lights in the glare of the window.

“Is that what it is?” he murmured. He moved, holding her eyes while he eased the full weight of his flat stomach and powerful thighs down against her as he guided her slender body down on the bed. She felt the warm, heavy crush with a sense of awe. She’d never been so close to him before, felt so overwhelmed by him. The kiss they’d shared in the Rolls, as ardent as it was, couldn’t compare with the sensations this was causing. She’d never dreamed that she could drown in her awareness like this.

His powerful arms bent, and his chest gently flattened her soft breasts. His watchful eyes never left hers, reading signs in them like a Native American after tracks.

She began to tremble under the contact. He had to feel it, too.

“Nick...” she whispered brokenly.

“Fire and kindling,” he whispered deeply, shifting his powerful body sensuously against hers. “We make flames when we touch like this.”

A wave of intolerable sensation washed the length of her trapped body. Her hands, pressed helplessly against the warm front of his white shirt, began to move slowly, caressingly, against the smooth, hard muscles.

“Nick,” she moaned, her eyes half-closed, her body suddenly, involuntarily, answering his. She pressed closer, molding her body to fit the hard, sensuous contours of his. Her fingers curled under the top button of his shirt.

“Unbutton it, Keena,” he murmured deeply, searching her eyes in the blazing, throbbing silence that stretched like a blanket around them. “Touch me.”

Her eyes wandered in his while she took the pearly button out of the buttonhole and lightly touched the warm, hair-covered flesh underneath it. She felt the powerful muscles contract beneath her hands.

“You...feel like...warm stone,” she whispered unsteadily, burying her fingers in the thick curling hair on his chest.

“I feel like a damned blazing inferno,” he breathed, shifting his chest to enlarge the pattern of her caressing fingers. “My God, I’ve never wanted a woman’s hands on me so much!”

She flinched at the sound of another voice merging with his, shattering like brittle glass as the spell was suddenly broken.

“Keena, I’ve got lunch!” Mandy was calling from the hallway.

A tiny sound burst from her tightly held lips, her eyes telling him how she felt about the intrusion.

His breath was coming as roughly as hers. “There’ll be another time,” he said tautly.

She managed a slow nod. He levered his body away from hers and moved to open the door.

“What are we having?” he asked Mandy, as composed as ever, one big hand unobtrusively closing the buttons Keena’s searching fingers had loosed.

Mandy grinned at him, her hands buried in a dishcloth. “Your favorite,” she said drily, hiding a smile when she caught a glimpse of Keena’s flushed face and wild eyes. “Beef Stroganoff, homemade rolls, a potato casserole and fresh apple pie.”

“Remind me to pry you away from Keena,” he told her with a lazy wink.

“Can’t split the set,” came the murmured reply.

He chuckled. “I’m working on that.”

Keena, a little more recovered now, moved around him and followed Mandy down the hall on rubbery legs without looking back. She couldn’t meet Nicholas’s mocking, confident gaze.

* * *

JAMES CALLED LATER in the day to invite Keena to supper that night, his voice faintly caressing on the other end of the line.

“If your houseguest doesn’t mind, of course,” he added waspishly.

Keena’s hand clenched on the receiver. “My...houseguest doesn’t tell me what to do.” She crossed her fingers involuntarily. “Nicholas is only a friend.”

“If you say so. Does six o’clock suit you?” he added, a purr in his pleasant voice. “I thought we’d dine at the Magnolia Room.”

She remembered the exclusive restaurant well. She’d ridden the bus past it on her way to Atlanta at the age of eighteen, when she’d left Ashton behind. She’d been crying, and through her tears she’d strained for a sight of James as the bus passed his favorite eating place.

“I’d like that,” she murmured.

“See you at six, then.”

She stared at the receiver when he hung up, wondering how she was going to explain it to Nicholas. She had a feeling it wasn’t going to improve his mood.

* * *

NICHOLAS SET UP shop in the study and tied up the phone for the rest of the day. Keena could hear him growling through the closed door, and she was careful to keep out of his way. So were the painters, she noticed. Everyone walked wide around the study except Mandy, who darted in and out with coffee and pastries.

“Do you have to encourage him?” Keena asked once, only to be met by an innocent stare and raised eyebrows.

She went downstairs just five minutes before James was due to arrive, wearing a gown that she’d originally designed for a well-known actress—and then decided that something a little flashier would suit her client better. It was a green—more olive than emerald—deep, soft velvet with short puffed sleeves, an empire waist and a low neckline that relied on a hint of cleavage for its charm. The color mirrored that of her eyes, adding to the flush of her lips and cheeks, and the highlights in her freshly washed, curling short hair, an effect achieved with a blow-dryer to make the ends turn toward her face. She eyed herself critically in the hall mirror. If this dress didn’t set James on his ear, nothing would.

“Bewitching,” Nicholas murmured from the doorway of the study.

She turned around, glaring at him. He was wearing his tweed slacks, but he’d discarded the jacket, and his silk tie hung loose across his chest, the top few buttons of his shirt undone. It was one of the few times she’d seen him when he didn’t look impeccable and businesslike. His dark, shaggy mane was faintly rumpled and a forgotten cigarette smoldered in one big hand. Her fingers itched to touch him.

“Going somewhere?” he asked pleasantly.

She swallowed and straightened her elegant figure. “Out. With James,” she added defiantly.

One dark eyebrow curled upward. “Oh?”

She stiffened at that mocking reply. Only Nicholas could mingle distaste, contempt and reprisal in a single sound.

“He asked me out to dinner,” she elaborated.

He studied the wisps of gray smoke that came between them. “I hope you don’t plan on being out late,” he remarked. “Waiting up for people makes me cranky.”

“I’m twenty-seven,” she reminded him. “Nobody waits up for me anymore, not even Mandy.”

“Well, honey, I’ll have to do something about that, won’t I?” he asked with a mocking smile.

“Mandy will fix you something to eat,” she replied.

“So she told me.”

“There’s James,” she murmured, her ears picking up the sound of an approaching car.

He shouldered away from the door facing. “Have fun. While you can.”

He went back into the study and closed the door.

* * *

THE RESTAURANT WAS the very best Ashton had to offer, spacious, elegant, with a hint of grandeur that would have taken Keena’s breath away nine years ago. As it was, she murmured suitably as James seated her. But the sophisticated woman she’d become wasn’t overly impressed, despite the company she was keeping.

James stared at her across the table when the waiter had brought the menus, frowning thoughtfully, his blue eyes approving.

“What a change,” he murmured softly, turning on the old charm she remembered so well.

A tiny thrill shot down her spine, but it was hardly the surge of pleasure she’d once imagined it would be to see that particular look in James’s eyes. It was disappointing. She’d halfway expected the earth to move.

She shifted restlessly in her chair. Nicholas had upset her in more ways than one. What in the world was she going to do about him? By tomorrow his presence in her house would be the subject of early-morning gossip over half the coffee cups in town. Not that she minded gossip ordinarily, but she had plans, and Nicholas was going to upset them all if she didn’t find some way to pry him out of her guest room.

“Did I say something wrong?” James asked, his tone one of concern.

She mentally pinched herself. “Of course not.” She created just the right smile and reached out boldly to touch his long-fingered hand. “I’m having a marvelous time. Remember when this restaurant first opened? Mayor Henderson cut the ribbon, and the lieutenant governor was the first guest...”

“He was a friend of Max’s,” he recalled, referring to the restaurant’s owner, Max Kells.

And not in my league back then, she thought drily. “Tell me, how is Max?”

He shrugged. “Fine, I suppose. I’ve been too busy lately to socialize much.” James stared at her thoughtfully across the table, breaking the gaze only long enough to give the waiter their order.

“You really have changed.” He repeated himself. “Velvet gowns, sophisticated, worldly. Do you really work in textiles?”

“I started out there,” she admitted. “But not on the floor. I’m a fashion designer now. My casual line sells to some of the most exclusive stores in the country—and abroad.”

“So it isn’t your...houseguesťs money that’s keeping you up?” he asked with careless bluntness.

It would be an obvious conclusion for someone who didn’t know about her unusual relationship with Nicholas, but it brought back James’s cruelty of years past with full force.

“No,” she replied coolly. “Nicholas doesn’t keep me.”

“Nicholas?” he fished.

“Coleman,” she provided. Her long, well-manicured fingers toyed with her crystal water glass. “Of Coleman Textiles,” she added.

Both his eyebrows arched toward the ceiling. “Exalted company,” he murmured.

“Isn’t it?” she replied with a smile. Nicholas’s vast holdings were hardly fair comparison for James’s small company, which he ran along with his modest law practice. In fact, Nicholas could have bought it all out of what he’d term petty cash, and James knew it.

“Is he your lover?” James persisted with an interest that seemed casual, but that Keena knew wasn’t. His fingers were idly rearranging his silverware, his blue eyes glancing at hers restlessly.

She only smiled. “How have things been with you?” she replied, ignoring the question.

He shrugged, acknowledging the slight with that tiny gesture. “With the factory? Well, it could be worse. With me?” he added with a soft laugh. “Life can be lonely.”

“Can it?” she asked absently. “I don’t have time for loneliness. I’m much too busy.”

“Are you staying for good, Keena?” he asked suddenly.

She met his eyes. Along with the cruelty, memories came back of the few good times, of James laughing, teasing her, of the first time he’d kissed her, of long walks in the woods. And then inevitably she recalled that last evening, her initiation into womanhood at his careless hands...

“Goodness, Keena, I’ve missed you,” he said gently, reaching for her hand. Smiling, he caressed it slowly.

Don’t fall for it, she told herself firmly. Don’t listen. But the pull of the past was strong, and James was handsome, and she was falling ever so gently under his spell. More by the minute.

“I’ve...missed you, too,” she replied hesitantly.

The waiter, standing patiently with his tray, finally caught James’s eye and began to serve the oysters Rockefeller that James had ordered along with a magnificent salad, filet of sole and dainty little croissants with butter.

James cleared his throat, his long face betraying his obvious interest in Keena to an outsider. Keena looked up from her salad, her eyes wary as they searched his intent face. He was looking at her in a new and exciting way. She smiled at him. The evening was suddenly full of promise.

“After we leave here,” James murmured sensuously, “how would you like to drive over to the lake?”

That had been one of their favorite haunts years ago when he took her out. Her eyes involuntarily sought his mouth. He had nice lips. Almost too soft to be a man’s, and she remembered the faintly chaste feel of them. She wondered if he’d learned to be more patient with women. Involuntarily, her mind went back to the way Nicholas had kissed her in the Rolls, and she flushed suddenly.

James, thinking the blush was due to the question he’d asked her about the moonlight drive along the lake, smiled confidently.

“How about it?” he murmured over his wineglass.

“Uh—” she began.

“Excuse me, sir,” the waiter interrupted delicately, “there’s a call for you.”

James muttered under his breath as he got to his feet. “Excuse me, darling?” he asked possessively.

Darling! “Of course,” she murmured breathlessly.

Her eyes followed him to the phone at the desk. She studied his long, elegant back while he spoke into the receiver, made a sharp gesture and hung up. His face was troubled when he came back to the table.

“We’ll have to leave, I’m afraid,” he muttered, pausing long enough to take one last sip of wine before he helped Keena out of her chair. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am. I’ll drop you off on my way to the plant.”

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“There’s been some problem at the plant,” he sighed. “Strange, I don’t remember my night watchman having a cold, but I suppose the line could have been bad.”

She thought about that on the way out. “Did he have an unusually deep voice, you mean?” she asked with dawning curiosity.

“Deeper than normal,” he replied absently. He paused to pay the check. “That company has been nothing but a headache to me since the day my father died. There are times when I wish...” He shrugged. “Never mind. Maybe it’s fate. An albatross around my neck to curse me.” He smiled down at her. “And maybe a beautiful fairy can break the spell.”

She smiled back as she followed him out to his car. All the way home she thought about that strange phone call. She didn’t mention her suspicions to James, but she had a sneaking hunch that he wasn’t going to find any trouble at his plant at all.

James pulled up at the steps behind the elegant Rolls-Royce.

“How about tomorrow night? Oh, damn, no, I’ve got a business meeting with a client in Atlanta. Thursday, for dinner?” he asked with flattering eagerness.

“I’d like that,” she agreed.

“Sorry about this,” he murmured, leaning toward her. But a second before he could kiss her, the front porch light blazed on and James drew back abruptly.

He cleared his throat. “Well, good night,” he said reluctantly.

“Good night,” Keena replied, forcing herself not to explode with the rage she was feeling. When she got inside that house, she was going to shoot Nicholas Coleman!

“Is he staying more than a day?” James added, nodding toward the Rolls with a distasteful look.

“No,” she said firmly. She got out of the car and waved him off. When she turned toward the house, there was fury in every slender line of her body.

She took the steps two at a time and blazed through the front door, her dark hair curling softly around her face like a halo, her green eyes glittering with anger.

Mandy turned from the door into her own quarters at the foot of the staircase, her eyebrows risen. “Home so early?” she asked.

Keena glared at her. “Did Nicholas make any phone calls tonight?”

“He always makes a lot of phone calls,” Mandy replied smoothly, “I’m sorry about the porch light,” she added sheepishly. “I thought I heard a car, and it didn’t occur to me that it would be you so soon...”

Keena waved the apology off. “Where’s Nicholas?”

“Upstairs, I guess. I heard water running a minute or so ago.”

“Getting ready for bed, no doubt,” Keena growled, tossing her coat and purse onto a chair in the hall before she stalked up the staircase. “He is not getting away with this. I will not have my life controlled by that...that tyrant!”

Mandy only grinned as she went into her room.

Keena marched up the steps to the room Nicholas had commandeered and, without thinking, threw open the door and walked in.

The first thing that caught her eye was Nicholas. He was standing in front of his chest of drawers combing his dark, still-damp hair into place. The second thing that caught her eye was the fact that he didn’t have a stitch of clothing on his powerful, dark, hair-covered body.

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