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 met,” 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 moved 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!”
“Connor...” she whispered.
“You want me. I want you,” he said at her ear. “Let’s get out of here!”
Emma was desperate to get away from him. She had no pride, no sense of self-preservation. She wanted what he wanted. Her body ached to know him, to lie with him, to be under him...
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” the brunette said harshly as she came back with Connor’s drink. “You can’t imagine how the two of you look!”
Emma flushed and jerked away from Connor.
“How do we look?” he asked Ariel with a rakish grin. “Jealous, honey?” he teased.
The brunette glanced from Emma’s flushed, embarrassed face to Connor’s taunting one.
“Yes, I’m jealous,” the brunette muttered.
He chuckled. He let go of Emma and turned toward the brunette. “Then come show me,” he said huskily. “Got my drink?”
“Yes, darling. Here it is.” She thrust it into his hands, disconcerting him. Emma eased things into them. Ariel didn’t have a clue how to deal with a blind man. But he had to put on a good act. He could imagine how Emma looked. He knew that he was much harder for people to read, even at close quarters.
“Dance with me,” he told Ariel, and slid an arm around her and pulled her close while he took a large swallow of the whiskey and felt it sting on the way down. He could have gone through a bottle at the moment. Emma was that potent.
Emma turned away as Ariel pressed herself even closer to Connor. “Why, darling, you’re so hungry!” She laughed, her voice sultry.
“Starving.” He chuckled, and moved with her to the music.
Emma slipped away from the party and into her room, sitting on the foot of her bed, shivering. She was appalled at how easily he’d controlled her.
She had to get herself together. He hadn’t meant it. It wasn’t even personal, and that was the most sickening thought. He didn’t like other men flirting with her, and he was showing his dominance. Emma loved birds. She spent her life watching them. It was the same principle as what birders called “pushing” with doves. Male doves used it to control their mates around other male doves. It was natural. But it felt uncomfortable between a man and a woman.
If Connor had meant the things he said, if he’d really been jealous and he wanted her that much...
But he hadn’t. He was only showing her that he could control her—not only in working hours, but after them. He was making a public statement that she was his possession. Which meant hands off as far as other men were concerned.
Her face burned, like her temper. He had no right! She should march right back out there and dance with Cort Grier and dare Connor to do anything.
Sure, she thought with a sigh. That was Ariel’s sort of tactic. It just wasn’t Emma’s, as much as she might have liked it to be. And if she started something with Cort, he might mention her to Cash. She couldn’t risk having anyone know that Emma’s father had a ranch in Texas, especially Connor.
She dangled her feet from the high bed with a sigh. If only she could just go to bed and plug her ears to the music coming from the living room. If only. But Connor would miss her and send someone to get her. She was working, as he’d reminded her. No matter how much it hurt to see him with Ariel and know they were lovers, she had no choice if she wanted to keep her job. He probably knew how much it hurt her. After all, her emotions were not easily concealed, and he knew how she reacted to him.
She got off the bed, fixed her face, checked her hair and reluctantly went back into the living room.
* * *
Ariel came looking for her. The older woman was wearing a very contented smile. “Connor wants to see you,” she said. “There are some notes he wants you to take down. He was very angry that you’d run off somewhere.”
“All right,” Emma said, without looking at the other woman.
“As if he’d want you,” the older woman said with a disparaging laugh. “He told Cort you were homely, and he didn’t mean it in a nice way. You aren’t even pretty. Not many men would find you interesting. Especially not one of the richest men in the world. You’re just poor white trash.”
Emma just looked at her. She didn’t say anything. Her expression was more of pity and sorrow than of anger.
It made the other woman so uncomfortable that she walked off without another word.
Emma made her way through the crowd of partygoers to Connor, her heart in her shoes. Nothing like having the truth rammed in your face to change your perspective on life, she thought philosophically. She’d been dreaming if she thought Connor would find anything about her attractive except her body.
“I found her, darling,” Ariel said with a purr in her tone, curling under Connor’s shoulder.
Connor’s face was hard. “Cort went missing when you did. Were you luring him into your bedroom?” he asked with icy sarcasm.
“I haven’t seen Mr. Grier,” Emma said softly. “I had to go to the bathroom.”
Connor was almost vibrating with frustration. Just the sound of her voice filled him with desire. He wanted her so much. More than he wanted anyone since his first marriage, so long ago. She’d been engaged. She knew the score. If she was keeping him at arm’s length, it couldn’t be for any religious reason, despite her often quoted moral principles. She wanted something from him. That had to be it. She was bargaining with her body. It made him furious.
“Matt Davis has some figures on the mining consortium he wants to buy into, along with Cort Grier. I’m interested in it myself. Go and talk to him and let him give you the cost estimates and stock projections he’s come up with.”
“Yes, sir.” Emma wouldn’t have dared tell him that she had no idea what he was talking about. She hoped Mr. Davis was a kind man who wouldn’t gallop through all sorts of numbers without explaining what he was talking about. Connor did that sometimes, and he was impatient when Emma had to stop and ask him to translate it.
“Tell him you don’t know anything about finance,” Connor added reluctantly, “so he won’t go too fast for you.”
“I will, sir.”
“And stop calling me sir, damn it!” he snapped.
“Yes...” She swallowed, aware of the brunette’s amusement. “I will.”
“Go on,” he muttered, pulling Ariel close as the music started up again.
* * *
Emma found Matt Davis to be elderly, kind and patient.
“You don’t know a lot about this, do you, young lady?” he asked when he’d helped her get his facts and statistics into some order that she could type up later.
“No, sir, I don’t.” She laughed. “I’m very grateful to you for being patient. Mr. Sinclair can be... Well, he sometimes goes a little fast for me when he’s dictating.”
“You haven’t worked for him long, have you?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“He has a secretary at his headquarters office in Chicago,” he replied. “Antonia. We call her Tonia. She’s been there for twenty years, knows the business inside and out. Have him give you her number, and call her if things get too much for you. She’ll help. She’s got a kind heart.”
“I do know about her,” she chuckled. “But I wouldn’t have dared asked him for her number tonight. I’m afraid my ears wouldn’t withstand the request.”
He chuckled softly. “Gives you a hard time, doesn’t he?” he mused.
“I’m afraid so. I’m sure it’s mostly my fault. Until now, the dictation I took was always in the form of letters and—” She caught herself before she blurted out “fiction manuscripts” and gave herself away. “Well, what I did wasn’t financial stuff.”
“Connor loves numbers. Always did. He loves the marketing people. He loves cost projections and sales estimates, things like that. He handpicks his tech reps. He wants young people, people who think outside the box, who are innovators. He’s thinking of going into aerospace, space shuttles, things like that.”
“Wow!” she said softly. “I didn’t know. He never talks about it. Well, why would he? I mean, I’m just an assistant.”
He pursed his lips. “I’ll take that with a grain of salt,” he mused as he sipped his drink.
Emma didn’t understand. “Sir?”
“You didn’t see him while you were talking to Cort Grier. I thought he was going to explode. He’s quite possessive of you, isn’t he?”
Emma, flustered, searched for words.
Matt Davis saw more than she realized. He became serious. “He isn’t a man who wants a settled future. He’s dated many women since his wife died. He was very young, and he’s cloaked himself in the illusion that it was the greatest love ever.” He shrugged. “She was a rounder, like that saucy brunette he’s parading around the dance floor right now. Her family had money, but not like his. She loved life in the fast lane, and she married him more for what he had than who he was. I’ve never mentioned it, and you mustn’t. But he’s feeding himself on illusions.”
“He said he hated children. She died in pregnancy. He blamed the baby.”
“She died because she was a foolish, young woman,” he returned. “She knew the risks. She talked Connor into going to some romantic primitive island where they could be alone. When complications arose, there was no help. He’s blamed himself for years. That’s why he doesn’t want children. He uses the baby as his excuse for avoiding commitment. But the truth is, he doesn’t like being reminded that the trip was as much his choice as hers. It’s guilt that makes it hard for him to leave the past behind.”
She raised her eyebrows. “You see deeply.”
He nodded. “I’m old,” he said, smiling. “I’ve lived hard, and I’ve learned a lot in my life. Connor is a fine man. He’s running away from himself, with women like that party decoration he’s squiring about. But she’d only last as long as the money did, just like the other handful that came before her.” He was watching the brunette with cold eyes. “She’s the worst kind of opportunist.”
Emma bit her lip. She wondered if he was thinking the same thing about her.
He looked down and saw that expression. He laughed. “Not you, young woman,” he said softly. “You’re the sort who would go into battle with her husband. Did you know that Libbie Custer lived with Colonel George Custer right on the battlefield during the Civil War?”
“No! But isn’t it General...?”
“The General part was a brevet promotion that he got on the battlefield. His actual rank when he died was Colonel.”
“I don’t know much about him,” she confessed. “But his wife sounds very interesting.”
“My grandmother was from Michigan, and she actually knew Libbie. The Custers lived near her family home. She always said it was her claim to fame.” He chuckled. “I have autographed copies of every book Libbie wrote. She lived through some fascinating times during her travels with her husband. Good reading.”
“I’ll have to check those out.”
“She was far more competent than she’s made out to be. Not a pretty wallflower at all. She was a woman with grit.”
“I can see why, if she lived on the battlefield with her husband!”
He smiled. “You should get out there and dance. The party’s winding down. You’ve done enough work for one night, haven’t you?”
She grimaced. “Mr. Sinclair wouldn’t like that. He’s already said that he doesn’t want me mingling with the guests.”
Mr. Sinclair was jealous as hell, was what Matt Davis thought. But he didn’t say it out loud. Instead, he went over his figures again with Emma, so that she’d have them down precisely when she transcribed them.
* * *
The band was packing up. Connor looked odd. Worn. Ragged. But his temper hadn’t calmed a bit when he told Emma she could go to bed.
“Just in case you wondered, Cort Grier’s on his way to the airport,” he told her with a cold smile.
Ariel was still hanging on his arm, her head against his broad shoulder. “Too bad, dear,” she told Emma with taunting eyes.
“He was a very nice man,” Emma said involuntarily.
“Nice?” Connor asked, scowling.
“Very nice. He told me about West Texas and his ranch.”
Connor seemed perplexed. Nice. Emma hadn’t been impressed by the cattleman, who drew women in droves everywhere he went? It surprised him.
On the other hand, he was still trying to forget the way she felt in his arms. He couldn’t get Nassau out of his mind. Her response had driven him mad. It had been the longest, most anguished night of his life. She’d tricked him. He hated her for that. It was cheap. Somehow, it was unlike Emma. She was straightforward. She didn’t play games like all the other women in his life.
Nevertheless, he didn’t like his body’s immediate reaction to even her lightest touch, and he was smarting because he couldn’t control it. For the first time in his life, he was at the mercy of his own raging hormones, and he didn’t have youth as an excuse.
“I’ll want those notes you got from Matt Davis transcribed first thing in the morning,” he told Emma curtly.
“Yes, sir.”
“Make sure the band has a check and that the caterers get the mess cleaned up before they’re allowed to leave.”
That was more Marie’s duty than Emma’s, but he was obviously bent on making as much work for her as he possibly could. Maybe he thought Cort Grier might suddenly fly back and ask to stay the night.
The thought amused her, but it wasn’t worth her job to voice it, or show any humor. “Yes, sir,” she said instead.
“Have Barnes make sure he’s hired enough limos to get my guests to the airport in the morning in time to catch their flights,” he added.
Emma was making notes on her iPhone, the one he’d purchased for her. So they were leaving tomorrow. About time. Thank God! “I will.” He could have just asked Barnes, but that would make less work for Emma.
“Make sure that damned chair in my office hasn’t been accidently moved again,” he added curtly. “I meant what I said about the woman losing her job.”
“I know that, sir. I’ll make sure.”
“What chair is this?” Ariel, being sidelined, made sure he knew she was still there.
“Someone in the cleaning crew moved my damned chair around in the office. I tripped and almost fell over it.”
“Careless, dear,” she said to Emma. “You should watch when you’re cleaning things.”
Emma started to tell her that she wasn’t the cleaning lady, but Connor beat her to it.
“Emma is my personal assistant,” he said shortly. “She doesn’t do cleaning.”
“Oh. I must have misunderstood. Sorry, dear.” The words were only on her lips, certainly not in those cold, cobra eyes.
Emma didn’t answer her.
“Go to bed,” he told Emma. “We’ll start early tomorrow, so don’t think you’ll get to sleep in.”
“No, sir,” Emma agreed meekly.
Her complacence seemed to infuriate him. “Go on, then.” He turned to Ariel. “We can have a nightcap. Everyone else has gone to bed, so we’ll have the living room to ourselves.” His voice was almost purring.
“How delightful!” she whispered huskily.
Emma turned and went into her room, red-faced and furious. Connor had sent the brunette to her room the other nights she’d been here. Now, it seemed, he had something besides sleeping on his mind.
She couldn’t bear the thought of that glittery brunette wrapped around him like a body stocking. She couldn’t bear it!
Tears ran down her cheek. She couldn’t stop them. They were hot and wet and copious.
She got up to find a tissue. There were voices outside the door, loud enough for her to hear inside her room.
“Now that your tedious little secretary has gone to bed, we can have some fun.” Ariel was laughing. “Are you hungry, lover? Oh, yes, you are!”
He laughed, too. “My secretary is just temporary. She’d never manage to handle anything more complicated than correspondence, and she lives in some dreamworld of her own. The sooner she’s gone from here, the happier I’ll be.”
“Poor girl, are you going to fire her?”
“Sooner or later,” he muttered. “I don’t want to talk about Emma. She’s the most boring woman I’ve ever known. I want to talk about you, sexy. Come here...”
Emma felt her heart drop. Boring. Lives in a dreamworld. Couldn’t manage anything more complicated than correspondence. Going to fire her.
The phrases ran around in her mind like rats on a treadmill. But far and above those cold insults were the sounds of kissing right outside her bedroom. She couldn’t bear it!
She went into her bedroom and closed the door, drowning it out. She couldn’t stay here another day. She had to leave. It was going to hurt, but it would only be worse the longer she put off the decision.
Connor didn’t want her. She’d known it, of course she had, but it hurt to have it put so bluntly, and in front of that brunette who wanted nothing more than what was in his wallet. Just the same, he was taking her to his room. He did it deliberately, pausing by her door so Emma would know.
Well, let him wallow with his special woman. Emma wasn’t going to take it anymore.
She got down her suitcase and started packing.