The Bride Means Business Read online

  Their personalities, though, couldn’t have been more different if they’d been born on separate planets. Marina was calm, Jillian was lively. Marina was quiet; Jillian was gregarious. Marina was even-tempered; Jillian was exuberant and bouncy—or a raging storm. With Jillian, there was no in-between. You either got kissed or killed.

  Marina exuded genteel elegance, her clothing always attractive but restrained. But vivacious Jillian couldn’t walk into a room without every man in the place taking note of her seductive aura. Which was usually enhanced, he thought sourly, by her, “Notice me,” clothing.

  At the funeral, a part of him had wanted to wrap his jacket around that too-short skirt and those too-long legs that every man there had been eyeing when their wives’ backs were turned. Another part of him had enjoyed the view.

  Why couldn’t he have had the hots for Marina? She was his age, his friend, but he’d never felt more than an appreciative twinge of enjoyment for her. Jillian, on the other hand... From the time she was about fourteen, when Jillian came around, his adolescent self had practically quivered with lust. Not a lot different from now, he thought wryly. He could hate her for that alone.

  He dipped a hand into the cool water. The very first time he’d made love to her, they’d been beside this pool, lying in the cool grass just off the apron. God, his father would have killed him. And hers would have cut him into small pieces for the barbecue pit. It was an uncomfortable thought, and his fatherly ire rose immediately as he imagined himself in the same situation. Amazing what a few decades could do to your perception.

  Of course, he hadn’t thought of that at the time. No, all he’d thought about was getting that body-hugging bathing suit off her. They had been dating for two months, since the very day he’d come home early from his year in Europe because she was all he could think of. Since he’d come back, they had spent every available minute together. And although they’d steamed up the windows in his car more than a few times, he’d always backed off when she stopped him. Half the time he was the one who stopped. He’d decided to wait until he could ask her to marry him and get a ring on that flirty little finger. Every time they resisted temptation and the yearnings of young, hot blood, he felt pretty damned noble about the sacrifice.

  But on the night of her sister’s twenty-third birthday, he’d forgotten every promise he’d made to himself.

  Her folks had had a birthday supper for Marina, with a few of the girls’ mutual friends. Afterward, the whole group had gone swimming up at his house, but one by one, they’d gone home, until only he and Jillian, and Marina and her date, had remained.

  And then those two had gone, leaving Jillian and him alone. He remembered how charged his body had gotten when he’d realized that they were going to be alone. They hardly ever spent time alone, partly because she was just too damned tempting, and partly because they went practically everywhere with their small circle of friends, which included his brother and her sister.

  As Marina disappeared up the path toward the driveway, Jillian had splashed water in his face, laughing. “Race you.”

  He’d laughed, too. “When are you going to realize you’ll never beat me?”

  She’d stuck out her tongue, tagged the wall and taken off. He’d quickly followed, overtaking her with his more powerful strokes just before they reached the shallow end of the pool. He’d grabbed her ankle and dragged her to him as she squealed and wriggled, and he’d wrapped his arms tightly around her, to hold her still as well as—okay, admit it—to cop a feel.

  He’d gotten hard the moment he touched her.

  The unexpected privacy was a potent aphrodisiac, the knowledge that they were alone sending lusty images dancing through his head. When she’d slid her arms around his neck and pressed her pert, pretty breasts against him, he’d gone wild.

  And she hadn’t been far behind him. They’d stroked, touched, explored. Groaned, sighed and startled at the sensation of hands on throbbing flesh.

  “Dax?” she whispered.

  “What?” He had managed to get the little racing suit down to her waist and was suckling a breast, while her hands fluttered up and down over his shoulders as she sagged against him.

  “Please, will you...can we...do it?”

  The stammered question brought his head up. He looked down at her, nestled in his arms, her tightly budded nipples pressing into the hair furring his chest, and his body answered for him. But he’d hesitated, as his conscience reminded him of his promises to himself. His response was a compromise. “We could, but we don’t have to. We can just...play.”

  And then he was lost as she looked up at him, pressed herself even more closely against him, so that his erection was pressed hard against her belly. “But I want to. Make me yours.”

  Blood rushed to his head. He carried her up the steps and out of the pool, and set her on her feet only long enough to spread out a towel on the grass in the dark shadows beside the pool. Moments later, he had her naked and though he’d touched practically every part of that seductive young body before, seeing her nude, spread out before him with her arms reaching up, made him shake with lust.

  He was so hard that getting his own clothes off was agony, and he didn’t given her nearly the time and attention he should have. Still, she wrapped her legs around him even as she winced at the discomfort, and responded to his wild kisses fervently as he stroked steadily to his own satisfaction, blind to everything but the need driving him.

  It had taken them a few months to figure out how to make it fun for her, and he’d gotten better at waiting for her to join him in her own pleasure. After that, she’d been more woman than any man deserved, and he’d gotten plenty of practice trying to keep up with her.

  Shifting his butt on the edge of the pool again, Dax pulled his swimming trunks into a more comfortable position around the arousal that the memories had brought. He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, then scrubbed both hands over his face. What the hell had happened to them?

  Suddenly, his trip through the past vanished and he remembered, with a clarity he didn’t particularly want, what had happened when Christine appeared.

  Arousal died a quick death at that memory. What he wanted to find out was what in God’s name had been going on in Jillian’s head. Correct that last: he needed to find out.

  There was no mistaking the devastation that had ripped through her when she first saw his daughter. In those first unguarded moments, he’d watched myriad expressions chase each other across her face: shock, disbelief, recognition, incredulity, quickly followed by a hefty hit of agony she couldn’t cover. Her eyelids had fluttered and he’d thought for a moment his indestructible Jillian might just faint.

  When he’d reached for her, the reaction he got was damn near as shocking as her silent pain. She’d backed away from him, almost in panic, her face drained of all color and her eyes wide and hunted. She’d scared the hell out of him—he’d been certain she was going to back right over the railing.

  The message had been clear. Even so, he might have ignored the Do Not Touch signs, except that she looked so fragile and damaged that he couldn’t bring himself to hurt her more.

  And he had hurt her, of that he was sure. But it wasn’t intentional. Just like that damned kiss hadn’t been intentional. He was going to tell her about Christine right before dinner, before his daughter came in, but talking had quickly dropped to the bottom of the list of things he wanted to do with Jillian. Thinking had been low on the list, too.

  He’d initially been as shocked as she to hear that voice interrupt the best thing that had happened to him in...a while. No way was he going to think about the implications of how good she’d felt in his arms. Apparently, she’d felt better in his brother’s arms.

  The thought didn’t bring the usual red mist of rage; Jillian’s words were still ringing in his head. If you came back here to punish me, Dax, consider the job done.

  She’d looked every bit as sick as he’d felt seven years ago, as if she’d
just received a gut-punch and was struggling not to throw up. He’d wanted to punish her, to hurt her, true. But he had succeeded too well; the intensity of the pain that had torn her apart in front of his eyes had left the foul taste of a hollow victory in his mouth.

  Only hours ago, he’d had a flash of the furious rage which had propelled him clear to Georgia all those years ago. But he couldn’t summon up more than a weary regret at the moment. Maybe his successful quest for vengeance had been satisfied.

  Though he hated to think he was that petty, that shallow. He hadn’t thought clearly since he’d stood in the hallway outside her bedroom door listening to his brother tell her how much he loved her. Now he could see; the murky feelings swirling in his head had settled.

  He knew instinctively that she’d never accept his apology. Not after the way she’d reeled and nearly fallen to pieces in front of him. Her nemesis.

  But then she’d done something incredible. Something a lot of strong men would never be capable of after a body blow that knocked the wind clear out of them. Just when he thought she was going to dissolve right there in front of him, she’d regrouped. He’d watched her withdraw, hide herself away somewhere in that complicated brain of hers, and silently do some kind of deep meditation. When she looked up again, she’d been calm. Not untroubled, not carefree, but the mere fact that she could pull herself together at all amazed him.

  The calm facade had lasted long enough to get her out of the room. He didn’t think she’d expected him to chase her down and she didn’t have the strength to project her usual air of insouciant self-reliance. It was like two people lived inside her head, and he wondered which one he’d loved all those years ago.

  The old Jillian would have thrown the nearest object at him. She would have ranted and raved, screamed and sworn, scared the hell out of poor little Christine. When he’d first seen her the other day, he’d have sworn the woman he knew hadn’t changed one iota, except for acquiring the veneer of sophistication that she’d grown into with adulthood. She’d parried his verbal thrusts skillfully, getting in a few jabs of her own along the way, and he’d sensed the spirit in her.

  There was no spirit in the wooden woman who’d walked out of his house tonight.

  This new Jillian had damn near cried. He hadn’t seen Jillian cry since old Crinkles, the Shar-pei who’d been her childhood companion, died. And that had been when she was fifteen.

  Guilt swooped back down from its temporary perch and settled on his shoulders, digging in its claws to roost. He knew the feeling well. He’d felt guilty ever since the day Libby Garrison had knocked on the door of his cheap apartment in Atlanta and told him she was pregnant...less than a year after he’d left Butler County and his bride-to-be.

  It didn’t help to tell himself he’d been out of his mind, crazy with rage and grief, deliberately trying to erase Jillian from his mind with the willing flesh of other women. What he’d done was wrong. He’d wronged Jillian, and Libby, and most of all, he’d wronged innocent Christine.

  His child had deserved a happy, secure home with two parents who loved her and each other...a father who had loved her mother. Dax had never imagined himself a father to any child that wasn’t Jillian’s, also. A thousand times he’d caught himself comparing Libby to Jillian, wishing for something that would never be.

  Yeah, he and guilt had been on pretty intimate terms for a long time.

  And now he had a new guilt to live with. Jillian had been more than simply hurt by her unexpected meeting with his child; she’d been decimated. A long time ago, he’d had vengeful dreams of throwing his infidelity in her face. The only thing that had stopped him was uncertainty. She hadn’t wanted him any more; why would she care that he’d found other women to replace her?

  Tonight, without planning it, he had carried out the satisfying cruelty in that dream. And after seven years, she’d nearly cried tonight...because he’d been unfaithful? But that made no sense given the affair in which he’d caught her with his brother.

  He was going to know why if he had to stick to her until he was ninety.

  The impact hit him again, as he slipped into the cool, clear water for his daily laps, that punishing her had receded to the back of his mind. Experimentally, he probed at the edges of his old anger. Still there. But it didn’t consume him as it had since the day he’d planted himself at her side at the funeral. He still wanted to hear her tell him why she’d led him on when it was really Charles she wanted—and he would—but for the first time since he’d walked away from her, he didn’t feel driven by the need to make her suffer.

  He already had.

  No, he didn’t want to make her suffer any more. But he needed her to salvage his family’s business, his child’s heritage. She owed him her cooperation, damn it. And he would do whatever he had to, to ensure that she did exactly that.

  She was arranging an adorable autumn outfit custom-made by her friend Deirdre on one of the dolls in her display window when she saw him coming. Through the glass, their eyes met for an instant. Jillian forced herself not to look away, and when his gaze finally dropped, she was gratified.

  Until she realized Dax was looking at the cleavage exposed by the open neck of the blouse she wore. She glared at him, but he didn’t look up again, so it was a waste of a good evil eye.

  Why was he here? Did he plan to rub more salt in the wound? She swallowed. Every time she thought about that evening two weeks ago, the knot in her stomach rose to her throat, almost choking her. How could he? How could he have thrown his child in her face?

  Then again, why wouldn’t he? In his eyes, she had a lot to pay back. Despite his protests, she was sure he’d arranged the “chance” meeting with his daughter.

  His daughter. Dax had no reason to know how shattering it had been to come face-to-face with a child of his. He wasn’t the one whose biological clock had nearly deafened him with its ticking in recent years. She’d been feeling the emptiness of her life more acutely ever since she’d seen the evidence that Dax’s life hadn’t stopped as hers had when he’d left her.

  He reached for the door and the bell above it trilled to announce his coming. She backed out of the display hastily, aware that in her present position the short pink leather skirt she’d worn probably wasn’t covering nearly enough of what it was supposed to cover. Ten minutes earlier, she’d been the only one in the store, so it hadn’t mattered.

  He walked around the display of teddy bears created by a local crafter just as she was tucking her blouse back in more securely.

  “Hello, Jillian.”

  Even the sound of his voice was studded with sharp points that dug into her painfully. She couldn’t look at him, so she turned and gathered the unfinished display into a basket she had carried up front, letting the straight bell of her hair swing forward to obscure her face.

  “Hello. Is there something I can help you with today?” The hell with cool and polite, she decided. Everybody knew it was better to attack than defend. “Maybe something for that little girl you’re so proud of?”

  He didn’t respond.

  Finally, when the cutting response she expected didn’t come, she glanced at him.

  Dax was studying her soberly, with something that looked suspiciously like compassion replacing the usual onyx glitter in his eyes. “I’d like to talk to you. Here, if that’s what you want, or somewhere else after you close.”

  She shook her head vigorously. “No. You and I have only business concerns, and those can be addressed at board meetings with the other stockholders. We have nothing to talk about.”

  “Have you eaten lunch?”

  It was typical Dax, ignoring anything he didn’t want to hear.

  “No,” she said, “And I’m not taking a lunch hour.”

  “Why not?” For the first time, he surveyed the rest of the store. “I thought your sister worked with you.”

  She gave him a look that she hoped indicated her assessment of his substandard intelligence quotient. “Do you mean my sis
ter who had a baby four weeks ago and is nursing him around the clock? It’s slow in here until about the middle of October, and then things get busy and stay that way until Christmas.”

  “Don’t you have other help?”

  “Two part-time girls. And I need to hire more, since Marina won’t be working for a while longer.” She suddenly realized she was answering his questions as if he were her third-grade teacher, and she turned her back and marched toward the rear of the store. “Goodbye, Dax.”

  “Do you want to save Piersall Industries?”

  The questions stopped her in her tracks. “Of course,” she said slowly, wondering where in the world he was going with that question. Obviously he hadn’t believed her when she’d told him she hadn’t been involved in Charles’s business world. She shot him another glare. “I already told you, I don’t have anything to do with—”

  “I think I can do it but I need your help.”

  She stared at him for a second, then cupped her left hand around her ear lightly, as if her hearing was faulty. “Say that again.”

  “I want you to help me save Piersall Industries.”

  “No. You go right ahead. Hop on your white horse and charge off to the rescue yourself. I have a life of my own to run.”

  “If you won’t help, I don’t think I can keep the business from going under.” He shook his head.

  “You do not need me to help with your business empire.”

  “Yes, I do.” He spread his hands on the counter behind which she’d retreated, studying the backs of his big, broad hands. “I want you to marry me. Together, we control enough stock to be sure the company can be managed the way I have in mind.”

  It was possible to be truly speechless. She cast around for words, but not a single phrase floated by. Could he be any more insulting?