Summer Mahogany

by Janet Dailey

  His harsh statement hit her with the force of a body blow. "What?" she gasped.

  "That was perjured testimony I gave under oath," he said coldly. "Technically it invalidates the annulment. Which means, Gina, that you are still my wife."

  "No," Gina protested widly. "It can't be true! How? Why?"

  His gaze narrowed to piercing steel, slicing over her white face. "To put it delicately, I swore that our marriage was never consummated."

  Gina pivoted from him, her fist clenched against her stomach. "Why? Why did you do it?"

  "It was the quickest way to end our marriage," Rhyder snapped. "And the cheapest. Divorce can be too complicated and prolonged. You were willing to accept a relatively small settlement and I didn't want to take the chance you would change your mind and ask for more or decide not to end the marriage at all. It wasn't until later that I learned how precarious the separation was."

  She closed her eyes, trying to pretend it was all a bad dream if only she could wake up. A vise was clamped on her forearm. The brutal pressure jerked her to face him, snapping her eyes open to be subjected to the harsh glitter of his.

  "Are you trying to convince me that you didn't know this?" Rhyder twisted Gina's arm in front of him to draw her nearer.

  "I didn't know," she insisted, caught between confusion, anger and fear. "I didn't think." Realization dawned on the reason behind his question. Indignation surfaced. "You believed I intended to blackmail you with the fact that our marriage might possibly be invalid because of your testimony, didn't you?"

  "I expected it, yes," he admitted without a trace of apology in his condemning tone. "You weren't above blackmailing for money once. Why shouldn't you do it again?"

  "Because—" violence stormed within, emotions whipped and churning from a blacklash of guilt and flaring at his unwarranted accusation "—all I wanted was to eliminate you from my life. I took your money because it's the only thing men like you value and I wanted to make you pay for what you had done to my grandfather and me! I wanted you gone!"

  Shooting fire flamed from her imprisoned arm as Rhyder increased the pressure of his grip. Her fragile bones threatened to snap under his crushing hold. Gina reacted instinctively, fighting and straining against the steel trap of his fingers, suffering the madness of a wild animal that would destroy itself rather than submit to capture.

  Holding her easily, Rhyder tightened his grip fractionally. Pain weakened her legs, allowing him to pull her closer. The ruthless set of his jaw was menacingly grim with purpose. Fear ran unchecked as Gina struggled in wild desperation.

  "So you wanted to eliminate any trace of me from your life?" he mocked her cruelly. His other hand closed around her throat, digging into the tender flesh beneath her jaw. "Wipe away this if you can."

  The force of his hand stretched her neck as he lifted her face to receive the descending fury of his mouth. Her free arm came up to rigidly brace her hand against a muscled shoulder, holding him away.

  But her lips were brutalized by his savage possession. She strained away to avoid the punishment and degradation he intended to inflict. To a small degree she succeeded, not allowing him to crush her stiff lips.

  "I despise you for this." She choked out the words his mouth tried to smother.

  It angered Rhyder that she was capable of any resistance. Gina felt it in the rippling muscles of his shoulder. His strangling fingers left her throat and shifted their biting grip to the back of her neck.

  The stiffened arm that had kept him at arm's length from her gave way under his renewed assault. Overpowered by his brute strength, she was jerked against him.

  The sudden contact with the rock wall of his chest knocked the breath from her lungs. His mouth smothered hers, not allowing Gina to regain it. Blackness swirled behind her closed eyes, weakening her resistance.

  His shoulders seemed to wrap around her, dwarfing her with their breadth. She couldn't stop the hands that molded her curves to fit the hard contours of his male length.

  Something melted—not in Gina but in Rhyder. The feel of her soft flesh pressed against him stole his wrath. He was no longer ruled by vengeance. The hardness of the arms around her and the bruising pressure of the mouth claiming hers didn't lessen, but subtly changed to exert mastery rather than punishment.

  A clock inside her head started to turn backward. The years began to roll away until she was carried back in time. Embers of desire that she had believed were dead ashes were rekindling. Their glowing heat spread through her veins, her heart throbbing with a song she had thought forgotten.

  Sensual longings flamed under the expert persuasion of Rhyder's mouth. In moments she would be lost, completely under his control. It would be the final humiliation. Gathering the last remnants of her pride, she wrenched free of his arms, nearly stumbling in the shaky steps she took to put distance between them.

  Hugging her arms around her waist, she tried to assuage the empty ache in the pit of her stomach. Her back was to him. She couldn't risk looking at him; the rough carving of his dark features was too rawly virile and handsome. A tremor of vulnerability shivered down her spine as she sensed him moving toward her. She had to deny the way he aroused her.

  "The only thing I want from you is to get out of my life and stay out. It's all I've ever wanted!" she declared hoarsely when Rhyder stopped behind her.

  For nine years Gina had convinced herself that she hated him. But if he touched her now, her heart would overrule her mind just as it had before. Closing her eyes tightly, she prayed he wouldn't, her nerves tensing under the regard of his eyes.

  Something brushed the tapering shortness of her dark hair near the back of her neck. Gina flinched, taking a quick step forward to elude his fingertips. Her heart fluttered wildly as she swallowed the soft moan in a faint sigh.

  "When did you cut your hair?" Rhyder's musing voice inquired—distant yet warm. An underlying hardness in its tone kept it from suggesting a caress.

  "Some time ago." She tried to sound indifferent, but she couldn't match his remoteness.

  "Why?" He persisted in the subject, ignoring her previous disclaimer that she wanted him out of her life.

  And Gina couldn't find the words to remind him of it. He was standing too close for her to think clearly. An inner radar was conscious of the scant distance that separated them.

  "It was impractical," she answered nervously. "Besides, long hair went out of style."

  "It never goes out of style," Rhyder corrected her with dry mockery. The inflection of his voice changed as he commented absently, "Your hair always reminded me of midnight satin. Sleek and shiny with blue-black lights."

  A compliment from him was more than the disturbed state of her nerves could handle. There was no protection in not facing him, so Gina turned around, his electric blue gaze jolted through her, charged with the high voltage of his physical attraction.

  For a numbed moment, she could only stare at him. His ebony hair grew with wayward thickness, falling carelessly across his tanned forehead. Dark brows almost levelly curved above the deeply brilliant blue of his eyes. Slanting away from the faintly patrician bridge of his nose was the chiseled prominence of his cheekbones. The aggressive thrust of his jaw and chin accented the cynical lines carved on either side of his hard, sensual mouth.

  Over it all was a mahogany mask to conceal his thoughts. Vitally male, his strength, power and determination were etched in his features for anyone to see. Gina was shaken by the discovery that he would allow nothing to stand in his way. She recoiled from the ruthlessness she knew was there.

  "Why did you have to come to Maine? Why couldn't you have bought property someplace else?" Gina protested in angry despair. "I don't want you here! All I want to do is forget!" She could have if he hadn't come back. "Why couldn't you stay away? Why couldn't you forget about me?"

  The mask was discarded and seething rage tempered his gaze with the fine edge of cutting steel. It sliced over Gina's face, pinning her on its sharp point and refusing
to let her turn away.

  "That's what you were hoping, wasn't it?" Rhyder accused. "When I met you at the clambake, you were hoping I wouldn't recognize you." His nostrils flared in contempt as Gina shook her head mutely, unable but wanting to deny he spoke the truth. "Don't bother to lie," he hissed. "I saw it in your eyes that day." A fury seemed to build within him as soon as he said that. "Damn those eyes!" It exploded from him as he spun to the side.

  At the last moment he had controlled the violence of his emotion, and Gina shuddered, not understanding what had caused it and only guessing she was somehow to blame. Her legs felt weak beneath her. "Those eyes of yours have haunted me from the first time I saw you," Rhyder began to explain, his voice vibrating huskily with the tautness of his control. "Green as the ocean. Dangerous, uncharted, and as enthralling as the sea. Do you think I didn't try to forget you?" His gaze slashed to her, cutting her to ribbons.

  Yet a part of her thrilled to the negative implication of his question. Rhyder had found her as impossible to forget as she had found him. But it seemed unlikely that it could be true when he had been so eager to get rid of her nine years ago.

  "I don't believe you." Gina blinked her widened eyes, trying to armor herself with pride.

  He studied her in silence. "My boat could have been named after you," he said with cynical bitterness. "The Sea Witch. That's what you were and that's what you are. You're some kind of a witch that drives a man mad. That spell you cast was potent. Nine years, and it still has the power to dull my reasoning."

  "I don't know what you're talking about," she murmured, chilled by the icy loathing in his voice.

  "Don't you?" Rhyder jeered. "For the last nine years, every time I saw the ocean, it was the liquid green of your eyes before me. Night darkness was the black of your hair. Sunlight, the pale golden shade of your skin. Its warmth like when you touched me."

  "No, it can't be true," Gina protested in a helpless whisper.

  He continued as though he hadn't heard her. "I heard about this property for sale. It was ideal for the diversification we'd planned, but I found myself rejecting it because it was in Maine and that's where you were. I didn't come to find you or persecute you. I came to put your ghost to rest. Within hours of my arrival, who is the first person I see?"

  Gina swallowed. His anger was closer to the surface again, transmitting its changed vibrations to her already raw and sensitive nerve ends. She felt defensive and knew she had no reason to be.

  "I was just as stunned to see you," she insisted stiffly

  "Were you? It didn't show." The gibe rolled caustically from his thinning lips. "You greeted me very calmly with another man's arm around your waist, denying that you ever knew me and informing me that your name was Miss Gina Gaynes. Do you know what my first reaction was?"

  "No." Gina shook her head briefly, wanting to stop the acid flow of explanation that was burning her ears.

  "That you were trying to conceal from Justin the fact that you'd been married before. I felt sorry for him until you walked into the office the next morning. When I realized you were a lawyer, I knew I was the one being set up again. You thought I was an easy target, didn't you?" challenged Rhyder.

  "That isn't true." She averted her gaze, running a hand through the short hair near her ear. "I tried not to think about you at all."

  "Were you hoping I'd married again? That would have been perfect for your scheme, wouldn't it? Then you could have confronted me with bigamy charges."

  "I didn't hope you were married," strangely, Gina had never pictured him marrying another woman during the nine years. The thought now churned her stomach. "I didn't want to know about you or your life after…" she couldn't finish that. "And I told you I didn't know about the annulment. I never had any intentions to threaten you with anything, I swear!"

  Rhyder laughed harshly in disbelief. Gina felt herself bridling at his continued failure to accept her word. It was his testimony that had voided the annulment.

  "When you found out we were still legally married, you should have contacted me," she accused, taking the offensive. "I would have gladly given you a divorce."

  "For how much?" he flashed savagely.

  "Money! It always comes down to money with you, doesn't it?" Gina stormed.

  "You started it." Rhyder towered before her, his hands on his hips as he glared coldly. "You were the one to put a price tag on the annulment. It was your suggestion, not mine."

  "No, it wasn't," she denied coolly, secure in the truth of what she was saying. "You were the one who mentioned it first."

  "That's a lie!"

  Gina lifted her chin, meeting the blue contempt of his gaze. "I heard you on the terrace talking to Pete the morning after we were married. You said you would have paid anything not to marry me." The humiliating words were branded into her memory. "And you would write a check for any amount to get rid of me. After all the other degrading things you said to Pete, do you honestly think I would have wanted to stay married to you?" she demanded bitterly.

  "You didn't hate me so much that you wouldn't take my money," he reminded her arrogantly.

  "Yes, I took it," Gina admitted, breathing with difficulty. "You couldn't understand anything that wasn't measured by money. But it never restored my grandfather's honor because my behavior had shamed him. And he thought he'd failed me. That's why he died, because of you. He wanted me to be married and happy, as happy as he was with my grandmother." Anguish was strangling her voice. "How could I be happy with you when you kept calling me a teenager and a child bride?" For an instant she had the strength to run, but his hands reached out, catching her by the hips and forcing her to remain in place. She tried to push them away, but he held her firmly.

  "For God's sake, how do you think I felt?" he demanded angrily. "You were only sixteen! I was an adult, supposedly possessing a certain amount of decency. Do you know how disgusting it was to discover I hadn't the self-control to keep my hands off an innocent, if bewitching, young girl? You chased me—you know that. It was almost a game with you. You invited me to kiss you, to make love to you, while only half knowing what it was about."

  Her cheeks crimsoned at his words, in shameful awareness of the truth. His hands burned into her hips, reminding her that even now his touch could enflame her with desire.

  "But you weren't the first young girl to pursue me, Gina." As if he read her thoughts, his hands tightened on her hips, drawing her fractionally closer to him. "The others I ignored very easily. With you, it was impossible. I kept reminding myself that I was the adult, the one who had the sense to not let things get out of hand. But I didn't. When I was with you, I never felt any decency or consideration for your tender age, only lust."

  His hands slid to her waist, holding her for a second while her pulse raced at the darkening light in his eyes. She was a willing prisoner of his touch, pliantly allowing herself to be drawn against him. The hardness of his muscular length supported her as she leaned on him.

  Her dark head was tipped back to gaze at his face. The warmth of his breath fanned her cheeks. Beneath her hand, resting on his chest, she could feel the drumbeat of his heart, in tempo with her own.

  "The only thing that's changed in nine years—" Rhyder spoke slowly, his eyes shifting their attention to her lips "—is that now you're a woman. Everything else is the same. You'd think after all this time I would find that I wouldn't want to make love to you. But I do."

  "Rhyder, no—"

  He covered her lips with his open ones. They parted of their own volition, inviting the mind-shattering exploration of his mouth. He devoured their sweetness for spellbinding minutes, then moved with tingling ease to the sensitive lobe of her ear.

  "Please, don't do this," Gina murmured. Lacking the will power to resist and knowing she would hate herself for being weak, she pleaded with him in hopes that he would have the decency to stop.

  "You know you want me to," he answered complacently, certain now of the power he had over her.

&nbs
p; "Pete, Justin, they could come any minute," she protested as she fought through the waves of sensual pleasure for some lifeline to keep her from drowning.

  "No, they won't." Rhyder brought his lips to the corner of her mouth. "The only meeting I had planned was between you and me."

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  Chapter Eight

  GINA TWISTED SLIGHTLY to elude the fire of his lips, her mind already dizzy from their warmth. "But you said—" she murmured bewilderedly.

  "—that I wanted to arrange a meeting for tonight. I made no mention of anyone attending it except you and me," Rhyder finished.

  His caressing fingers slipped the impeding collar of her flowered overblouse aside as he sought the base of the sensitive cord at the crook of her neck. His light nibbling sent quivers through her flesh.

  "That isn't fair," she protested, although primitive yearnings made her voice breathless with surrender.

  She was molded to the male contours of his length, it was impossible for her to be unaware of his need for her, and it intensified the throbbing ache she felt. Rhyder caught her chin and lifted it to gaze deeply into her eyes.

  "What is fair, Gina?" he demanded, his low voice raw with desire, its unspoken message quaking through her. "Was it fair for you to haunt me for nine years? Has it been fair these last few days to see you and never have the chance to touch you to find out if the fire in my soul was for a ghost or a woman?"

  His features were set in uncompromising lines. There would be no turning back for Rhyder. Gina saw this as her heart swelled to the rough handsomeness of his face, so very strong and so very male.

  "You tricked me," her mind forced her to murmur as it continued its war with her emotions.

  The cobalt blue of his eyes, smoldering and compelling, held her gaze effortlessly while his hands slipped from her chin to join his other hand in sliding the overblouse from her shoulders to fall to the floor at her feet. Rhythmically he stroked her bare arms in an arousing manner.

  "Yes, I tricked you," he agreed. Exploring fingers left her arm to find the neckline zipper of her tunic. A thumb trailed along her spine as he unzipped it. The sensous caress played havoc with her senses. "I had to see you tonight. I couldn't wait any longer. If you hadn't come, I would have been at your apartment, battering down the door. You hated me nine years ago for taking your innocence and you've damned me for your grandfather's death. What difference does it make now if I add another item to the list of reasons to hate me?"