“You have to.”
“Why? Why is it so clear-cut for you?”
Audrey met his gaze evenly, but if she’d hoped to stare him down, she failed miserably. “Because I knew someone exactly like you once and he was all wrong for me,” she finally murmured reluctantly. “I swore I’d never make a mistake like that again.”
“Someone you loved?” Blake could barely get the words past lips gone suddenly dry.
“I thought I did.” She shrugged as though it hadn’t mattered, but to Blake it was obvious that it had. She couldn’t hide that lost, sad expression in her eyes. It touched his heart and made him angry that someone had hurt her so deeply.
“Apparently I didn’t know the meaning of the word,” she added with a note of wistfulness.
“What makes you think that?”
“Everything I thought I loved in him turned out to be exactly the opposite of what I needed in my life. And I certainly wasn’t what he needed.”
Blake watched her with a perplexed frown. “I don’t understand.”
“Just like you, he was strong and self-confident, a real decision maker. He seemed to have all the answers. If he wanted something, he went after it. He took risks, business and personal risks. I don’t think I ever once saw him hesitate. I was attracted to those qualities, because they’re all the things that I find lacking in myself.”
Astonishment swept through him. “That’s how you see yourself?”
“Don’t you? I mean, what else could you think? I carried on about not going with you today and here I am. Doesn’t that tell you anything about the courage of my convictions? I’ve never taken a risk in my life.”
“What about leaving your home and starting over in California?”
“That wasn’t so much. It was just something I had to do.”
Blake shook his head impatiently. “Then let me tell you what I see. I see a woman who had the guts to tell off the president of the company she works for when she thought he was in the wrong. I see a woman who overcame her fear of ballooning and stuck with me. That’s two mighty big risks in just the past couple of hours.”
She waved the praise aside with a dismissive gesture. “I gave in, though. That’s the bottom line. When I refused to go, I should have stuck to it. I should have been more assertive.”
“Lady, if you’d been any more assertive, I’d have been out of this balloon headfirst. You were assertive enough. I just didn’t want to take no for an answer.” He noticed that his comment brought one of those wonderful smiles to her lips, but it faded almost instantly and it never quite reached her eyes. There were still shadows of uncertainty lurking in the violet depths.
This time he almost gave in when temptation called. He stepped toward her, wanting to soothe her, to make her his. His arms were desperate to hold her and a white-hot heat spread through him. Then, abruptly and regretfully, he reminded himself of the need for caution, and stopped. It took every bit of his strength.
“I would like very much to kiss you, Audrey Nelson,” he said softly. His gaze measured her reaction, searched her eyes for the unspoken truth he knew she couldn’t hide.
“But I won’t if you don’t want me to,” he promised. “Your choice.”
He stood and waited, his heart thundering in his chest, his pulse racing, and wondered what the hell he’d do, if she said no.
Five
The word no formed on her lips, but Audrey couldn’t quite get it out.
“You don’t seem to be concentrating very hard on the race,” she said instead. “Didn’t I just see Larry Hammond’s balloon go past overhead?”
“I didn’t notice,” he murmured, looking right straight into her eyes.
She swallowed nervously. Well, of course, he didn’t. He very definitely had other things on his mind. For example, in addition to that disconcerting, unrelenting gaze that was turning her blood into molten honey, he was moving determinedly and provocatively toward her. Her breath caught in her throat and she began to understand what animals felt like when they were being stalked by deadly hunters. The urge to run swept over her again, followed by the panicky realization that there was no place to go.
She held out a resisting hand, but he slipped past it and drew her tightly against him, sighing at the contact. Their thighs were pressed together, his fingers a barely proper hairbreadth below her breast. Her pulse took off like a well-trained thoroughbred heading into the homestretch.
Blake might still be giving her a choice, but he clearly had no intention of making it easy for her to keep either physical or emotional distance between them.
I ought to be flattered, she thought. The man could have any woman he wanted and, for the moment anyway, he seemed to want her. But instead of feeling good that a man with Blake’s limitless choices saw something special in her, she felt...overwhelmed. Again. It made her nervous.
If her own breathless reaction to their closeness was any indication, it was no wonder the race hadn’t crossed his mind in quite a while. He hadn’t even glanced away when she’d mentioned it. With that smoldering blue-eyed gaze of his fixed on her, she’d barely caught sight of the competing balloon. She’d discovered that looking up was far less terrifying than looking down and much less dangerous than meeting Blake’s heated glances. Once Blake did notice it, though, he was probably going to be very upset. It was her duty, she decided, to get his attention away from her and back where it belonged.
She tried to wriggle loose.
“Where are you going?” he murmured, his embrace enfolding her more tightly.
“I don’t want to distract you.”
“You’ll distract me no matter where you are.”
Under almost any other circumstances that might have been nice to hear. Up here at two thousand feet above solid ground with a man who made her head spin, it was simply heart-stopping. She didn’t want him distracted, not by her, not by anything. She wanted him to guide this blasted balloon wherever it was he wanted it to go, put it down and then take her out for a very large drink. She thought she deserved it for not killing him when she’d learned the truth about this trumped-up case of mistaken identity.
To be perfectly truthful, she also didn’t want him kissing her. Or maybe she wanted it too much. She thought about it and sighed. The real problem was that she’d discovered she wanted to feel those gentle, persuasive lips of his on hers again. Anything that tempting couldn’t possibly be good for her. It was bad enough that she was addicted to chocolate.
“Why don’t you want me to kiss you?” he said, as if he’d been reading her mind, instead of listening to the perfectly logical things she’d been saying aloud. She gulped.
“Who says I don’t want you to kiss me?”
“You haven’t said yes.”
There was definitely a trap here. No wonder the man was probably going to be a multimillionaire in no time flat. He had the sharp instincts of a predator.
“Exactly,” she said. “But I haven’t said no either.”
“Can’t make up your mind?” There was a teasing glint in his eyes that irritated the dickens out of her. That challenging question infuriated her, just as he’d known it would.
“Of course, I can make up my mind,” she snapped.
“Well? Yes or no.” He was standing perfectly still, his body heat firing the blood in her veins, encouraging a favorable response.
Audrey took the dare. She drew in a ragged breath and murmured, “Yes.”
Before he could take advantage of her reluctant agreement, she wrenched herself free of his embrace. She smiled boldly up into startled eyes. “Later.”
Blake groaned in frustration and muttered something about women who wanted to have their cake and eat it, too. Audrey was rather proud of her quick thinking, but a tiny part of her was labeling her a coward. It was probably nicer than any of the names Blake was calling her under his breath.
With his back straight and shoulders tense, he retreated to the controls of the balloon. He surveyed their sit
uation compared to the competition, then made several adjustments, pointedly ignoring her. The flames roared to life and the balloon shot up again.
Audrey knew she ought to be grateful that his attention seemed momentarily diverted by the race, but with the contrariness of a two-year-old, she began to feel neglected. Sitting here, surrounded by stony silence, gave her too much time to think—about herself, and about Blake. If she’d been on the ground, she could have gone for a nice long walk, maybe played a hard set of tennis. Even a game of solitaire would have been better than this thickening tension and this ridiculous, unwarranted feeling of nagging guilt.
Worse, now that Blake was tight-lipped and apparently determined to stay that way, she was already beginning to miss their sparring matches. She realized she had started enjoying his pursuit, the mild flirting that suggested more serious advances were in the offing.
For more than a year now, she’d been immune to romance and essentially numb to life. Derek’s abrupt departure, amid cruel taunts about her flaws, had left her with emotional scars, deep wounds that had made her question the type of woman she was. She was still asking those questions and, while she’d seen signs of improvement—up until yesterday, anyway—she still wasn’t very happy with the answers.
It was something of an irony that all of the generosity and understanding she had bestowed on Derek had been the very things he had turned against her. When he wanted space, she’d com plied. When he needed support, she had been there for him. When he strayed, she’d listened to his explanations, fought for understanding and forgiven him. She’d anticipated the man’s every need, welcomed his demands because they’d given her a sense of direction. She’d felt genuine joy in the giving.
In the end, he’d hated her for it. When he left, he’d told her he wanted someone with more gumption, more self-respect. She’d thought she’d been giving him love. He had twisted it into weakness. She’d hardened her heart and sworn it would never happen again.
A gentle caress of her cheek suddenly brought her back to the present. “Hey, sweetheart, where did you go?” Blake asked, concern shadowing his eyes to a darker, even more alluring shade of blue. His anger seemed to have dissipated while her thoughts whirled back in time.
“Just a little time travel,” Audrey said.
“Past or future?”
“Past.”
“That’s never good. Stick with the future. That’s where all the promise is.”
“Nice philosophy, but haven’t you heard that if you ignore the past, you’re destined to make the same mistakes over and over again?”
“And what mistakes have you made that were so terrible that the prospect of repeating them makes you so glum?”
“What is this? True confessions?” She tried for a light tone and a brilliant smile, but her effort didn’t banish his serious expression.
“I’m no priest, but I told you before, I am a good listener. No judgments. No advice, unless you ask for it. And I give bargain basement rates.”
“Isn’t there an old saying about getting what you pay for?”
This time he returned her grin with a wicked gleam in his eye. “In that case, we could negotiate terms.”
“Hmmm.” Audrey pursed her lips thoughtfully. “I didn’t bring along a lot of cash. Do you take credit cards?”
“Oh, I think we could work out better terms than that, say a kiss an hour.” At her immediate frown, he added, “To be collected at the end of treatment, of course, and only if you’re satisfied with the service.”
Audrey sighed. The easy bantering was drawing her in again, reawakening senses that had been hibernating far too long. Blake’s fingers had lingered on her cheek and his thumb brushed across her lips. The callused roughness set off a sharp tingling that was both exciting and oddly comforting. It was surprisingly good to feel alive again. She’d begun to dread the feeling, even as she’d wondered if it would ever happen again. She’d prayed her heart would never tumble crazily in her chest, that she would never experience the breathless anticipation or the heart-wrenching lows of an emotional roller-coaster ride.
Then she’d prayed she would.
Her eyes met his, caught and lingered as heat rose in her. She felt alive all right. Dangerously alive.
She blinked and asked in a husky whisper, “How are we doing in the race?”
His thumb brushed across her lips, silencing her. “Forget the race and don’t try to change the subject. I want to get to know you. I can’t if you keep cutting me off every time I start to get close.”
“Why does it matter?” She tried to maintain an air of disinterest, but it was rougher going than she’d imagined. “After today, you’ll go back to being a jet-setting playboy and I’ll go back to writing copy and dreaming up PR gim micks. Maybe we’ll bump into each other in the halls.”
He winked at her. “That raises some interesting possibilities.”
She shook her head. “Forget it, Blake. We lead very different life-styles. Nothing’s changed.”
“I don’t think so. After today, I think everything will be different,” he said with surprising gentleness. He smiled tenderly. “For both of us.”
Audrey captured the words in her heart and held them there. Even as she clung to the warm feelings they aroused, she shook her head adamantly. “That can’t be.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve already explained. I’m not the sort of woman for you.”
“I think you’re exactly the sort of woman for me. You don’t play games. You’re honest and witty and intelligent. Do you have any idea how rare that is?”
How she wished that were true. Even if it was, there were other, less attractive traits he seemed to be ignoring. It was time he faced up to them. “I’m a wimp, remember? You’ll walk all over me,” she blurted miserably.
He stared at her in astonishment. “Why on earth would I want to do that?”
“It’s not a case of your wanting to, it’s just what happens when a strong person and a weak one get together. Can’t you see that?”
“No, dammit.” He looked as though he wanted to shake her. “I can’t see it and I don’t understand where you got such a crazy idea about being weak. Who put it into your head? That man you were talking about before? He must have been a real louse.”
“He was right.”
“I don’t believe it,” he said impatiently. “I haven’t seen one shred of evidence to support it. Convince me.”
To her utter fury, Audrey felt tears brimming in her eyes. She didn’t want to play this game with him anymore. She’d opened up to Blake, shared all of her worst traits with him. If he refused to see the truth then that was his problem. It certainly wasn’t his place to try to convince her that she was someone she wasn’t. If she’d wanted a therapist, she would have hired one. She sure as hell didn’t want one who came with strings attached and who ought to be flying this damn balloon instead of kneeling down beside her, while she moped like some ninny.
“Just go and concentrate on winning the race,” she said. “Leave me alone.”
He didn’t budge. “I will not leave you alone. This is important. If we don’t get past this image hang-up of yours, we don’t stand a chance.”
“If this balloon crashes, we don’t stand a chance either,” she pointed out. “You can do more about keeping us aloft than you can about my problems.”
“We won’t know that until you tell me exactly what those problems are.”
“Dammit, I don’t want to talk about it.” She spit out each word emphatically. “Am I making myself clear?”
“Very,” he said slowly, standing up. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe you are a wimp after all.”
The words fell on her with the sharpness of a well-aimed dagger. Like something that happened when you least expected it, the unfairness of Blake’s comment incensed her. Instinctively, she reached out, grabbed a handful of denim and yanked him back down. She caught him off balance and he landed beside her in an awkward heap, his legs sp
rawled across hers in intimate abandon. She was so furious, she hardly noticed.
“I am not!” she shouted directly into his ear. With any luck it would make him go deaf. He deserved it after a crack like that. “How dare you say that? You don’t even know me.”
To her astonishment, instead of cowering beneath her fury the way he was supposed to, the irritating man was chuckling, his face split with a wide grin. He definitely looked like an Irish rogue on a winning streak.
“Apparently I know you better than you know yourself,” he said with annoying smugness.
“Are you trying to make a point?” she growled at him suspiciously.
“I just did.”
“Exactly what do you think you’ve proved?”
“You are a very unlikely wimp, Audrey Nelson. With that sharp tongue of yours you could strike terror into entire armies. Now, that’s the last I want to hear about it.” His implacable expression indicated he wouldn’t tolerate any argument on the subject. Audrey glowered back at him, until at last he grinned at her.
“Armies, huh?” she said.
“At the very least. Now stand up here with me,” he urged, getting to his feet with a quick, lithe movement. “Take a look around. Let’s stop all the heavy philosophical stuff and just concentrate on enjoying the day. When was the last time you simply relaxed and enjoyed yourself? Harvey probably hasn’t given you a vacation in years.”
“He gave me one,” she muttered dryly. “I’m supposed to be on it now.”
“What happened?”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I’m going to take a few days here, after the race.”
“Let’s start that vacation now.” He held out his hand. After an instant’s hesitation, she put her hand in his and allowed herself to be drawn up. They stood in silence. Toe to toe. Hand in hand. The air grew thick with a sweet, unbearable tension. With his free hand, Blake reached out a tentative finger to brush a stray lock of dark hair out of her eyes. That finger was warm and trembling as it skimmed her cheek.
“I know I promised it was going to be your choice, but I’m not sure I can keep from kissing you,” he said with such gentleness and longing that Audrey’s heart stilled.
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