by Diana Palmer
Ariel gave her a long, insolent look and made an amused sound before she went running to Connor. She wrapped her arms around him and drew his head down to kiss him expertly.
“It’s so good to see you, lover,” she said huskily. “I’ve missed you!”
He chuckled. “I’ve missed you, too. What are you wearing?”
“Over? Or under?” Her voice dropped suggestively.
He pursed his lips. “Come walk with me. You can describe it to me.”
“I’d love to!”
She took his hand and pulled him toward the door. Emma ground her teeth together. The woman was going to unbalance him and he’d fall. She had no idea how to guide or direct him. But Connor didn’t seem to mind. He went along with her.
She didn’t realize that she was glaring after them.
“You need a pin and a voodoo doll to do that properly, you know,” a British-accented voice said from behind her.
She turned abruptly, catching her breath. “Oh. Mr. Sims.” She laughed. “You startled me.”
“Sorry,” Alistair Sims said, smiling. He was tall, with a receding hairline and nice dark eyes. “You were rather giving her the evil eye.”
“It’s not my place to approve of the boss’s friends,” she said softly.
“She’s a gold digger of the worst sort,” he replied somberly. “He sent her packing a few weeks ago. I can’t imagine why he’s letting her back into his life. She’s a lawsuit looking for a place to happen.”
“A lawsuit?”
“If she can entice him, and then claim to be pregnant...” He stopped at once when he saw her face. “Sorry. That was blunt. Comes from too many hours spent in court as a prosecuting attorney.”
“I thought you were a...a corporate attorney,” she stammered.
He laughed. “I am now. But I was an assistant DA in Fulton County before I moved up here, after my wife died.” His face hardened with grief.
She moved a little closer. “Marie told me about her. I’m so sorry.”
He grimaced. “It’s been years, you know,” he said. “But I never got over her.”
“My grandparents were like that,” she recalled. “She died first. He mourned her for years. Then one morning, he sat up in bed, smiling, and he said, ‘Anita’s coming to get me today!’ None of us understood what he meant. But that afternoon, he just...went to sleep and didn’t wake up.” She smiled sadly. “We figured Granny came back for him. There was an old saying when I was a child, that the person who loved you most would be sent to fetch you when it was your time to go.”
“That’s rather a nice thought,” he mused.
“It’s time.”
He blinked, then raised both eyebrows.
“Time is all that separates us from the people we loved who have left us. If I could go back twelve years, my grandparents would be still alive.”
He cocked his head. “If I could go back, my wife would be here.”
She smiled sadly. “Now, if we could only find a way to move time,” she began.
He chuckled. “So they say.”
Car doors slammed outside, followed by the sound of voices.
“Company’s here,” Alistair Sims said with a long sigh. “I hate these parties he gives. I’m not a social animal. I wish I had an excuse to leave, but I’m needed for contract negotiations, I’m afraid.”
“And I’m needed for note-taking,” she added.
“Kindred spirits.” He chuckled.
She just smiled. But her heart wasn’t in it.
* * *
Ariel never left Connor’s side for a minute. She might as well have been glued to him, and he seemed to dote on her. The only time they were apart was when one of them had to use the restroom. Not only that, Connor made a point of talking about her wonderful attributes anytime he thought Emma might overhear.
Marie shot her sympathetic glances. The older woman never interfered, but Emma thought she might have suspected what happened. She knew Connor a great deal better than Emma did, and she’d know how he reacted to being rejected.
The sad thing was that Emma hadn’t wanted to reject him. She just had a belief system that didn’t allow for casual relationships. Connor wasn’t a forever kind of man. He was a here-and-now man. He needed women. He went through them like potato chips. Emma wanted a home and a family. Connor couldn’t give her that. She knew why, and she didn’t blame him.
All she could think about lately was how it had felt to be held and caressed by him, to be needed, wanted, by him. He was probably a fantastic lover, judging by the tenderness he’d shown her. He was experienced. Emma wasn’t. But even she could recognize the sophistication of his touch. She thought of the women who’d given him that sophistication and tamped down a surge of jealousy.
It was ridiculous to be jealous of a playboy, she told herself firmly. He’d never be able to settle for just one woman. He’d probably start wandering the minute the ring was on her finger. He wouldn’t like captivity.
Emma would have loved it. Just Connor and a house on the lake and several children playing around her. She closed her eyes. Wish for the moon, you fool, she told herself. You’d have a better chance of getting it!
She went into the study he used for an office and closed the door to drown out the buzz of conversation in the living room. He’d invited several people who hadn’t even shown up yet, so it was going to get crowded. She hoped the next few days wouldn’t drag on. She wanted things back to the way they had been, when it was just Marie and Barnes and Emma and Connor. But those days seemed gone forever.
He didn’t say a word to Emma if it didn’t concern some aspect of the work she did for him. The rest of the time, he and Ariel were inseparable. Emma watched them with agony in the eyes that Connor couldn’t see. If he continued to treat her this way, she was going to have to leave.
That might not be a bad idea, either. Because sooner or later, his memory was going to come back. And then all her troubles would begin.
Eight
The music was almost drugging to Emma, who’d rarely heard a live band. She smiled as she listened, thinking it helped soothe the pain of watching Connor smooth his big hands over Ariel’s bare back while they danced lazily to the music. Even though he couldn’t see, he moved with sensuous grace.
She turned away from him and moved closer to the band, her smile faintly dreamy as she thought back to happier times at the lake house. Times when Connor liked her. When he wanted to be with her. When she was enough, without a house full of people, and one especially glittery woman.
“You look lonely,” came a friendly voice from behind her.
She turned. The man was one of Connor’s new business associates, she supposed. She didn’t recognize him, and he’d come late, arriving just before the band did. He was lean and rangy, and he had a way of looking at women that made Emma uneasy. She could see the faint contempt on his hard features as he looked at her. She pegged him as a player who found little mystery left in women, but was always on the lookout for a midnight snack. His very experience was threatening to her. So she used her best defense. Humor.
“Loneliness is a state of mind,” she returned in a pleasant, but not encouraging, tone. “I don’t live in that state. The property values are far too high for my purse.”
He blinked as if he hadn’t heard her right. Then, when what she’d said sunk in, he started laughing. “That’s a good one.”
“Thank you,” she replied with an exaggerated, simpering look. “I do try so hard to fawn over rich people. Are you rich? Because I really don’t want to waste my time on you if you turn out to be just a cowboy or something.”
The twinkle in her eyes gave away her mood. He chuckled. “Well, I’ve met my match,” he mused.
“Sorry, I don’t marry men I’ve just m
et,” she mused.
He frowned. Then he got that remark, too. His whole mood lightened. “Are you sure?” he asked. “Because I think I’ve got more than enough money to appeal to you, and I still have most of my own teeth.”
She grinned at him. He turned out to be more interesting at closer acquaintance. “I’ll reconsider you between sips of coffee,” she promised.
Now his eyes were twinkling, too. “Do you dance?”
“Sorry,” she said. “I have two left feet.”
He looked down. “They look all right to me. I won’t even complain if you stand on my boots.”
She looked down, too. He was wearing very expensive cowboy boots. He had big feet.
“Stop comparing my feet to shoe boxes,” he chided.
She laughed. “Was I that obvious?”
He just grinned. “Who are you?”
“I’m Emma.”
He moved a step closer. That made her nervous. She laughed a little hollowly and moved a step back.
“Who are you?” she replied.
“Cort,” he told her, and now he was plainly interested.
The name went right by her. She was intent on his feet. “Those are really nice boots.” She was a connoisseur of boots, having lived in a town full of cattlemen who only wore the most expensive, hand-tooled ones.
“I could buy a car for what I paid for them,” he returned. “I own a purebred Santa Gertrudis ranch in West Texas.”
“I have...” She stopped. She couldn’t tell him her father had a ranch in Comanche Wells, Texas, when she’d told Connor he lived in North Carolina. “I have a cousin in Comanche Wells, south of San Antonio,” she amended.
“I don’t like East Texas,” he drawled. “Too much grass and trees and flat land.”
“We have mountains,” she protested.
“You have molehills,” he shot back.
“You have dirt and salt,” she returned.
His dark eyes had grown warmer in his deeply tanned, lean face, and the smile got bigger, displaying perfect teeth. “Would you like to learn how to dance? I’m no expert, but I could teach you the basics.” His deep voice had dropped into a purr.
Emma was so intent on him that she didn’t hear the couple coming to a halt behind her.
He’d had Ariel search for Emma. She’d described Emma’s chumminess with her new friend, and he was livid.
“Emma!”
Connor’s voice shocked her so much that she jumped and almost spilled her cup of coffee. She turned quickly, flushing. “Yes, s-sir?” she stammered.
Connor was glaring toward the man he couldn’t see. Beside him, the brunette was holding his hand, obviously guiding him around the room. “I need you to take some notes for me. If you’re not too busy,” he added sarcastically, glaring at where he hoped her companion was.
“Yes, sir,” she replied in a subdued tone.
“Emma’s my secretary,” he added, obviously having been told about Emma’s new acquaintance by his companion. “She isn’t here to mingle with the guests.”
“Well!” the ranch owner said heavily. “When you said you had a homely little assistant, I took you at your word.”
Emma flushed at the description Connor had given of her. It was unkind. A lot of what he said to her lately was unkind, and she was getting tired of it.
Connor’s face grew harder. He recognized the voice. He knew the man from business connections with a mutual friend. “Cort Grier, isn’t it?” he asked the cattleman.
“Yes.”
Emma’s heart jumped. Cash Grier had a brother who ranched in West Texas, and everyone called him Cort. She’d heard Connor talk about him, in Nassau. She’d been so intent on his boots that she hadn’t recognized his name.
“I think the man you came to see is Matt Davis. He’s interested in that mining consortium you belong to. He’s over by the punch bowl.” Connor’s deep voice was cutting.
“Then I guess I’ll look him up. It was nice to meet you, Emma,” he added softly, and with a genuine smile. “I hope I’ll see you again later.”
“Thank you.” Her reply was friendly, but not overly so. She hadn’t given him her last name, and she hadn’t confided in Cash and Tippy, whom she wrote infrequently, that she was working for Connor. Hopefully, her secret was safe. If anyone mentioned her ranching connections to Connor, who thought her family was from North Carolina, he might make some uncomfortable connections between the Emma who worked for him and the woman he’d called down on the lake for speeding in the motorboat who was from Texas.
“She’ll be busy later,” Connor said icily.
The rancher’s sensuous lips pursed and he glanced at Emma with a knowing smile. “Too bad.” He put just enough feeling into the words to make Connor’s broad face contract with anger. “See you, Connor,” the rancher added, and gave Emma a wistful look as he passed.
Connor was seething. Emma tried not to notice, because it was affecting his companion, who suddenly saw her as a rival.
“Well, he did like you, didn’t he?” the brunette asked with a little laugh. “He was just eating you up with his eyes.” She gave Emma a taunting look that Connor didn’t see.
Connor’s pale gray eyes flashed, unseeing. “Was he, now?” he snapped. “Just for the record, Miss Copeland, these are my guests, not yours,” Connor told Emma firmly. “I pay you to work, not flirt with rich cattlemen!”
Emma managed not to flinch. She was flushed and shaken, but she wasn’t breaking down in front of that brunette. “Yes, sir,” she said curtly.
Connor was almost vibrating with bad temper. But even angry, he was devastating. He looked elegant in evening clothes. They outlined his muscular body without being too obvious. The white shirt he wore with a black bow tie emphasized his olive complexion. He was a handsome man who didn’t begin to look his age.
“Ariel, get me a refill, will you?” he asked. He held out the glass that contained what looked to Emma like a whiskey sour. It wasn’t like him to drink so much hard liquor. Maybe the throng of people unsettled him.
“Where are you, Emma?” Connor asked her a minute later.
“Right here, sir.”
He followed the sound of her voice. One big hand caught her around the waist and pulled her close to his broad, warm chest. When she just stood there, he guided her arms up around his neck.
“If you want to learn to dance, I’ll teach you. Dancing is easy,” he said at her ear, his deep voice slow and sensual. She could feel his warm breath against her skin when he spoke. “You just let go and listen to the music. You don’t even have to look at your feet.”
“Please,” she whispered, almost panicking at the pleasure that shot through her at the almost intimate contact. “I... I really...don’t want to dance...!”
He nuzzled his cheek against hers and both big hands slid up and down her waist, smoothing her body against his. “Shut up, Emma,” he said, but his voice was deep and soft, the words sounding far more like an endearment than a command.
Her body, starved of him, shivered a little and suddenly went soft in his arms. She felt him stiffen for just a second before his hands slid around her and held her closer. She felt his thighs brushing hers as they moved to the lazy rhythm like one person. His breath at her temple was whiskey scented and it came a little too fast. His fingers bit into her back, involuntarily contracting as the feel of her began to arouse him.
Emma felt him reacting to her closeness. She tried to pull away, but his big hands spread out on her back and pulled her back.
“No, you don’t,” he whispered, his voice deep and just faintly unsteady. “Move with me.”
She really wanted to jerk away and run, but it would have caused a scandal. She’d never felt such sensations in her life. Her body reacted to him involuntarily as they move
d to the music. She had to bite her lip to keep herself from moaning. She wanted to kiss him. She wanted to feel that chiseled warm mouth biting into hers as it had the night when they’d lounged on the divan at his Nassau home. She wanted to strip off her black cocktail dress and his shirt and feel his bare skin under her hands. She wanted to lie down with him and let him do anything he liked.
It was one long, slow ache to feel him moving her lazily to the music, to feel his breath on her forehead, her nose, her lips, as he bent his head toward her while they danced. Desire seemed to be addictive. She didn’t want to feel it, because he was playing with her. She knew this wasn’t romance. It was revenge. She’d been socializing with one of his rich male guests and he didn’t like it. He didn’t want her. But Emma belonged to him. He was proving it to her.
She shivered as his hand fell to her hip and moved her against him with blatant seduction. He felt her helpless response. He hated her for it. She’d been flirting with the cattleman from Texas. He didn’t like that. She was his. She was off-limits to other men, to any other men. His hands moved to her waist and began to move up and down in a lazy, expert caress, his thumbs dragging up just below her breasts in a move that made her want to moan out loud.
His mouth hovered just over hers. “I thought you wanted him,” he whispered huskily. He laughed, deep in his throat. “But you don’t, do you, Emma? You want me.”
“M-Mr. Sinclair,” she stammered, trying to draw back.
“Don’t be shy with me. Come closer,” he whispered. His mouth taunted hers as he moved against her. “Do you like this?” he asked as his thumbs found the silky soft underside of her firm breasts and touched them.
“Oh, please,” she bit off, glancing around worriedly. “People will see...!”
His cheek rubbed against hers. “Come outside with me,” he bit off. “I’ll ease that silky dress down around your waist the way I did in Nassau, and suckle your pretty little breasts until you scream!”