“I don’t think of you as one of my flunkies.”
“What do you think of me?” she asked, realizing she might not like the answer.
“The woman who’s going to teach me to love.”
It may have been a little thing, but for the first time he hadn’t said to convince him love existed. He’d said to teach him to love. Appealing to his mind was a tack that might convince him. Because beyond the monetary, she’d discovered that Preston liked things he could take apart and figure out how they worked. Like that expensive car of his. He knew it inside and out.
“Did you like the Balzac quote?”
“Which one was it?”
“‘Love is to the mortal nature what the sun is to the earth.’” It was one of her favorites, and she’d spent a lot of time finding just the right quote for him.
“Not particularly. The sun is eating through more of the ozone layer each year and bringing us closer to death.”
Sometimes he tried her patience. “The sun warms us in winter and gives us food in spring and summer.”
“You believe love provides that?”
“It provides the foundation for a happy life.”
“It also has that rare side effect of tearing someone’s life to shreds.”
She shook her head. “For every one person burned by love there are ten more who rejoice in it.”
“Some people live their entire lives without love.”
“Because they are afraid of it.”
“Are you calling me a coward?”
“No, I wasn’t thinking of you at all.” But she had been. He frustrated her sometimes, and her good nature only lasted so long.
“I think you were. You didn’t really wound me,” he said, but his eyes told another story. She forgot that Preston was good at hiding his real emotions, and she had lashed out when she shouldn’t have. She’d known from the beginning that he’d be a tough nut to crack.
“I haven’t given up on you yet,” she said.
“You will.”
His quiet confidence unnerved her, and she walked out of the room afraid to say anything else. But her heart was weary and her body was aching. Her instincts told her that if she was alone with him again, his belief in love might not matter to her body.
“How’s your wife, Jay?” Lily asked. They were sitting in one of the three gazebos that were behind White Willow House. It overlooked a man-made lake that Preston planned to stock with bass and offer water-skiing and fishing trips to his guests.
Lily had brought lunch back for the crew from town when she’d arrived with another truckload of antiques. The weekend had passed with lots of attempts on Lily’s part to involve him in her life, but Preston had remained resolute.
She was so open and friendly that he wasn’t surprised she knew about Rohr’s wife. Nor did it surprise him that she’d taken the time to bring po’ boy sandwiches for the crew. That was the kind of thing that Lily did.
Because she cared, he realized.
“Well, we’re in the homestretch. Thanks for those books you recommended,” Jay Rohr said. Jay was one of the most competent of Dexter’s vice presidents. He’d been with Preston from the beginning and though only two years older, Jay had been a mentor to Preston those first few years when he had more gumption than know-how.
“Homestretch of what, Rohr?” Preston asked. He vaguely recalled Rohr’s wife, a brown-haired woman who was as tall as Jay. They’d married a year and a half ago. Rohr hadn’t taken a vacation since his marriage.
Lily stared pointedly at him. The dappled sun made her red hair shine. “June’s pregnancy.”
Preston realized that Lily knew his people better than he did. It had never bothered him before and wouldn’t now if he hadn’t realized that Lily had found him lacking. He didn’t care what type of life his employees had away from the office. “Is that why you requested she accompany you down here?”
“Yes. June asked me to be active in the birthing.”
“How?” Preston asked. There was only so much a man could do.
“I asked the same thing. She wants me to be coaching her. I can’t explain it, but it makes her feel better to see me every night.”
Preston had no idea what else to say. None of his friends had kids or even wanted them. But as Lily picked up the conversation turning it away from Rohr’s upcoming fatherhood, he realized that the thought of Lily pregnant wasn’t an unwelcome one. Dammit, of course it was, he reminded himself.
But his mind lingered on the image of her swollen with his seed. Her hands cradling her belly while his child rested, safe within her womb.
“Preston?” Lily said, drawing his attention.
“What?” He didn’t want to be a father. He wanted Lily in his bed for the normal male reasons. Lust, desire and, well, affection. But he didn’t want a future with her or any other woman.
“Jay married his wife for love,” she said, with a smile that shot straight to his groin. He’d been walking around aroused for weeks and knew he was reaching the point where he’d have to take Lily to bed or leave entirely. He didn’t trust himself in this mood. His control was shaky and his emotions were in turmoil.
“You don’t say,” Preston said, dryly. He knew for a fact that Rohr loved his job more than any woman—even a wife.
“No, he does.”
“Only love, Rohr?” Jay straightened his tie and stood up.
“No, sir.”
“Oh, really, Jay,” Lily said as if she were heartbroken to hear the news.
“Sorry, Lily. June married me to escape her family. There were pressuring her to join the family law firm, and she wanted to be a housewife. So she made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
Preston bet the offer involved sex but hoped Jay knew enough not to say that to Lily. She had some strange notions about men and women but he didn’t want her disillusioned. That was the reason he’d returned every night to his cold, dark apartment, his body tormented by the memories of her in his arms.
“Do you love her now?” she asked.
“More than life itself.”
Preston felt a little sorry for Rohr and doubted the man knew what to say when Lily was questioning him the way a marine corps drill sergeant would a new recruit.
“I better be getting back to the office. I have a conference call in forty-five minutes with the Italians on that marble you wanted.”
Jay left, and Preston watched Lily tidy up her lunch bag and then pat her hair as if afraid a lock was out of place.
“Just because Jay didn’t marry for love doesn’t mean he wasn’t in love with her.”
“I think he was in lust with her.”
“Really. Do you think men focus on lust because it’s safer?”
“I don’t know. I do know that most of the men I know who are married are always vague about how they ended up in that state.”
“Do you think they were brainwashed, Pres?”
“No, I just think they wouldn’t have chosen to be there.”
“They weren’t forced to marry.”
“Who says a woman didn’t use emotional blackmail or maybe the enticement of a child.”
“Would that be enough for you? A child?”
“Hell, no. I’d be a lousy father but some men want to pass on their names.”
“You don’t?”
“I want the Dexter name to stand for first-class resort hotels. I’m not too concerned about a Preston, Jr., running around.”
“Children are the future.”
“I live in the present,” he said.
“Sooner or later we all have to look forward.”
“I do, just not personally.”
“Why not?”
“What will be will be.”
Lily didn’t say anything else, but he knew his life purpose differed greatly from hers. “If you decide to be with me in a relationship, Lily, it will be for now. For as long as we both are happy together.”
“Do I make you happy, Pres?”
He stared out across the lake and saw not the leisure boaters who’d bring him revenue but Lily and a small family picnicking on a sailboat.
“Preston?”
“Yes,” he said, standing up and walking away from both the woman and the image.
Eight
Watching Preston walk away, Lily knew that she wasn’t going to convince him love existed without loving him completely. He needed to experience it and learn to recognize it. Her feelings for him had been steadily increasing since the night they’d almost made love, and for once in her life she was ready to gamble. Ready for the adventure that seemed always on a distant horizon. But habits were hard to break, and she admitted to herself that she was afraid of getting hurt.
“Preston?”
He stopped outside the gazebo. Lily leaned over one of the walls so that she was closer to him. “Don’t run away.”
He pivoted on his heel, facing her with the pent-up fury of a god who’d been defied. She’d been playing with fire without even realizing it. He was a dangerous man, but because she’d cared for him, she’d never noticed.
“Lily, I’m damned tired of you accusing me of being a coward.”
“I’m not.”
“It sure sounds that way. I’m a man people are afraid of.”
“I understand,” she said, and for the first time she really did. If she was confused by what was happening between them, Preston would be doubly so. Lily had always believed in happy endings. He thought anyone who did was a few bricks short of a load.
“When I walk away from you, angel, it’s so that I won’t ruin your rose-colored vision of the world.”
That hurt. “I’ve seen plenty of reality.”
“Then where is the realism that comes with it?” He stalked closer to her. The white wood barrier of the gazebo was a scant one. She wanted to shrink away from him but at the same time was drawn closer.
“I don’t have to be cynical to have experienced pain.”
“No, but you should be practical enough to avoid the same situation.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“The truth you keep harping on.”
“What truth?” She feared his answer. Preston’s cold gray eyes were harder than the glaciers of the North Atlantic.
“That you haven’t been embracing love but hiding from it.”
Lily was stunned and silent. Was that true? She’d been busy the past few years. She’d never hidden from love, because she wanted to experience the beauty her parents had.
“You’ve used your brothers for an excuse to keep men at bay for the past few years, and now you’re using devotion as a reason to keep me away.”
“I’m not.” But Lily doubted herself for the first time. There was some truth to what he’d said. She’d never let anyone close to her after her parents’ deaths. But she wanted Preston closer to her. She’d done everything she knew to get him to be her man, and he’d walked away.
“Then why do you keep tying us both up in knots? Why do you fight the one thing that would convince me you feel some sort of affection for me?”
“What thing?” she asked, fearing the answer.
“Intimacy.”
“I don’t fear it any more than you do.”
“No, you just hide from it or run from it because you can’t control it, Lily.”
She had no answer for him. It was true she feared what Preston made her feel. Feared how out of his league she really was. Feared that she might never meet anyone again who would ever make her feel as alive as he did.
“I’m just—”
“Trying not to get hurt.”
“Is that what you’ve been doing? Is that why you always walk away when I get too close?”
“Yes.”
The sincerity in his voice struck straight through to her heart. Preston knew what she felt because he felt some of it, too. He walked away again, and this time she didn’t stop him.
Her emotions ricocheted through her like an out-of-control electrical wire. She wanted Preston with a passion that had to be experienced to be believed. But she liked him, too. The little idiosyncrasies that made him human. The things that the society pages never covered. Like his obsession with his car and his thirst for winning. The way he could make her see a side of life that she’d always trivialized.
Maybe it was time for another quote. She’d had greater success with them than with any of the real couples she’d introduced him to. Reaching into her purse, she pulled out the small book she’d been using as her main source. Thumbing through the pages she stood stock-still as she realized the answer was in her hands. Staring her in the eye as it were. A quote by Hannah More: “Love never reasons, but profusely gives, like a thoughtless prodigal, it’s all, and trembles then lest it has done so little.”
She closed her eyes and repeated the quote to herself. It felt like the answer but she wasn’t sure that it was. She had to give to Preston to make him realize that love existed. Give to Preston….
She gathered up the remains of their lunch and walked slowly back to the main house. She had no idea how to convince Preston. But she knew protestations of love weren’t going to get it done. It was going to take more than she’d ever given a man before. She wondered if being a virgin was going to hamper her efforts at breaking through the wall that Preston used to protect himself from the world.
Part of his problems lay in the past. She’d have to be blind not to notice the way he focused only in the now. She didn’t want to fix his life. She just wanted to find a way for them both to be happy. Find a place where they’d both be comfortable. She wasn’t ready to give her body and not her heart.
Seduction was the key, she realized. She’d have to plan carefully. She’d use everything at her disposal to convince him to love her. Frankly she was afraid to move forward, but she wasn’t one to back down from a challenge and Preston was right: it was time to face intimacy.
Preston stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows that lined the general manager’s office at White Willow House. He’d claimed the office as his own while the project was still in the production phase. The sun sank below the horizon and darkness fell. In the distance the Crescent City lights beckoned, promising revelry to all who entered its streets.
He hadn’t been this tense since Dexter Resorts had gone public his second year at the helm. The White Willow House was progressing on schedule, but his life was careening out of control. Everything he’d ever taken for granted now seemed different. For the first time ever he wanted to talk to someone, but he didn’t know whom to turn to.
He’d insulated himself from those around him so thoroughly that he’d never noticed the silence before. Never noticed the polite chitchat that masqueraded as conversation. New Orleans pulsed around him with a life force of its own. For once he wasn’t out enjoying the nightlife and the endless round of women it offered a man in his position.
The office door creaked open.
“You’re here late,” said Lily.
He watched her reflection in the plate-glass window. She looked pale and withdrawn. He’d almost sent her a dozen roses as an apology for his words yesterday afternoon, but if he apologized she’d realize how much she was coming to mean to him. And he couldn’t let that happen. He wouldn’t depend on anyone for anything.
He’d never been tempted to. Not since he was eight and his world had been shifted irreversibly. He’d done a good job at keeping his distance from many people. How had one small woman slipped through?
“You look so lonely tonight,” Lily said. He heard her footsteps and watched in the glass as she came closer to him. The light from the room shone through her thin cotton dress revealing her curvy female body.
He didn’t know if it was emotion he was battling or his conscience. Because he knew that he wanted her even if she was a virgin. He wanted to peel away the layers she kept between herself and the world and find the real Lily, the one he’d hurt yesterday. Then he wanted to put her back together aga
in.
“Preston?” She brushed her hand down his sleeve, stopping at his palm. Her long cool fingers gently caressing.
He grunted. Words were beyond him. He wanted her with the same soul-searching devotion that a preacher had to save sinners’ eternal lives. At that moment he shook with the need to pull her into his arms. To feel her mouth under his and tangle his tongue with hers. To press her soft body to his harder one until there were no lines left where he ended and she began.
“I’m sorry I let things go too far the other day,” she said. He knew he should say something, but he couldn’t concentrate. Her scent assailed him. Flowers and Lily. She smelled distinctly like woman. Not something that could be manufactured and bottled but an essence that spoke straight to his hormones and sent his testosterone level skyrocketing.
Blood rushed through him, hardening his groin. He wanted to move his legs, to shift his position, but she was too close. If he moved, he’d take her. Sweep her up over his shoulder and not stop until they reached his desk. He’d push that flimsy skirt to her waist and rip her panties out of his way. Then he’d slide home. Yes, home. He needed to be inside her and feel her wrapped all around him. Clinging to him as he moved with fierce thrusts until she exploded for him again.
“Preston, I’ve been thinking about something.”
He had no idea what she was talking about, only knew that he had to move away from her. Had to put some distance between them or he’d give in to his instincts. Yet his feet felt rooted to the ground.
“Preston, what is wrong with you?” she asked, cupping his face in her palm.
“Don’t touch me,” he ground out. It had been too long since he’d had a woman. Too long since he’d wanted any woman except Lily, and frankly he didn’t want to wait another night. But she deserved better than him for her first experience in the sensual arts. She deserved a man who could love her. A man who’d take that trip down the aisle with her.
The Tycoon's Temptation (HQR Silhouette Desire) Page 8