by Linda Conrad
“What are you doing here?” he asked with a forced grin. “I thought we’d agreed to start on the books first thing in the morning?”
“I need to talk to you, Chase.” She raised her chin in that smug little way she’d had as a girl and took a tentative step closer.
“Talk? I’ll just bet you have a lot to say now.” He turned his back on her and spread his feet for the balance he badly needed at the moment. “You’re ten years too late. You have nothing to say that I care to hear anymore.”
“Please,” she whispered from behind him. “This isn’t about the mill. I’m hoping that will be strictly business with you. But what I wanted to talk about tonight was…”
“Not about the past, I’d wager.” He spun around and glared down at her in the slanted light. “I’d give better than even odds that you’d rather die than have to face your past sins tonight. Am I right?”
She was a good half foot shorter and the shadows cast by the back light kept him from seeing her face clearly. But he did manage to catch the anger in her glinting stare, and he watched her work her slender white throat as she swallowed back a nasty remark.
Tempting, this ghost from his past. Too tempting.
Kate shook her head and straightened her shoulders. “I don’t think it would serve any purpose to go over our mistakes at this late date.”
Just to please himself, to give in to the urgent need to arouse her, Chase moved closer. She backed up a step and he took another in her direction, deliberately pushing her and limiting her personal space.
“My only mistake was in trusting you once, telling you that I loved you.” He heard the evil chuckle coming from his own lips and wondered at just how far he had come away from the naive young kid he had been back then. “It’s a mistake I never intend to repeat.”
Her eyes closed and he heard her soft sigh. Regrets? From the ice princess, Kate Beltrane?
The silent whiff of her perfume reached icy fingers into his soul. The smell of camellias and gardenia that he’d once imagined he would never be able to get out of his mind took a swift sledgehammer to his heart.
He felt that soft underbelly of pity and desire creeping up on him again as he reached a hand toward her shoulder. Before he could give her comfort, her eyes popped open and determination narrowed those full tantalizing lips.
“I didn’t come here tonight to rehash old wounds,” she told him with sudden fervor. “I came to ask…explain really…about Live Oak Hall.”
“You came here…in the rain…to explain about that broken-down old plantation?” He allowed himself a sneer, but didn’t back away from her.
“It’s about the guest cottage. My friend, I don’t know if you remember her, Shelby Rousseau?”
When he just squinted at her, Kate rushed ahead. “Well, she’s a single mother now and trying to get a business started. And…I’ve been letting her trade out cleaning and cooking to stay in the guest cottage. She can’t afford to pay rent, you see, and I thought…”
“You have to start remembering that Live Oak Hall is mine now.” He shook his head and grimaced. “No rent? You must’ve inherited your father’s great business sense.”
The humiliation ran through Kate’s veins. She couldn’t stop it from smarting. But she could hold her place and not let Chase see how badly he was getting to her.
He would have no way of knowing how she had begged and pleaded with her father to let her help make the business decisions for the mill. Two years of business college didn’t make her an expert, but she’d seen what a mess he had been making of the fiances. How he’d run off the best customers and overpaid the farmers for their rice in years when crops were plentiful.
But her father had quite typically berated her back then. Reminded her that a girl could not know what was best in business. He’d relegated her to the accounting pool, telling her account books were for females. And if she would ever have the sense to marry, her husband could give the advice while she gave him the grandchildren.
“This isn’t about business or revenge,” she told Chase with a surprisingly steady voice. “It’s about friendship and love. Please…”
Chase took her chin with a firm grip, frightening her at first. Then he leaned close enough that she could hear his ragged breathing and could smell his desire. The man still wanted her. After everything she’d done.
The shock of realization and the breathlessness of staring into his deep-gray eyes kept her silent too long. Chase must’ve sensed the weakness and moved in.
“Friendship and love, huh? And those are things the poor kid from the bad side of town would know nothing about, is that it?” He inched even closer.
She wanted him to kiss her. They were so close that another centimeter would bring their lips together. Dreams of one more kiss from Chase had kept her going in the darkest hours.
But tonight it wouldn’t be the same as in her dreams. Tonight the rage in them both would make it all wrong.
The panic drove her back in time to become once again the ten-year-old girl who’d run away from home and found a scary but perfectly safe shelter with an old drunk and his twelve-year-old son. She’d wanted Chase to kiss her then, too, because he’d been her white knight and savior.
But he hadn’t kissed her that night. It wouldn’t have been right when they were children—and it wouldn’t be right now when they were both so tense.
She reared back out of his grasp and shoved at his arms. The coffee mug he’d been carrying all this time slipped to the granite tile floor and shattered into a million pieces.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she cried as she kneeled to clean up the mess. She quickly gathered up a few broken shards and then looked around for some kind of cloth to wipe up the cold coffee and the tiny silvers.
“Just let it go, Kate.” He was kneeling beside her and took her arm. “Are you all right?”
“Huh?” She must be in some kind of desire-filled daze, because she couldn’t quite understand his meaning.
He gently pried the broken ceramic from her hand and put it aside. “You’re bleeding.” His big hand encompassed her smaller one, but with a touch so light it nearly brought tears to her eyes.
“It’s nothing.” She tried to tug her hand away, but he tenderly turned it over to reveal the jagged cut on her middle finger.
Chase’s gaze locked with hers as his hard, glinting concern turned in seconds to pure lustful longing. “You need to stop the bleeding first, then clean the wound.”
Turning his attention back to her bloody cut, Chase lifted her hand to his lips and slipped the oozing finger into his mouth before she could stop him.
She heard herself gasp and then moan as the sensation of his tongue and lips on her finger became sensual and demanding. Everything else but the two of them and this minute faded into the background.
But a boom of thunder cracked through the air just then and the skies opened up for one more splash of rain. The sound and the chill dragged her back to the present in a hurry.
She tugged on her hand again, and Chase released her. “I’ll have it bandaged when I get home.”
He stood and pulled her to her feet. “Come under the terrace cover, Kate. You’re getting soaked.”
“I won’t keep you much longer. It’s getting late,” she told him as they ran for a drier spot. “But I…I still have to plead with you to let Shelby and her daughter continue to stay in the guest cottage. I don’t care about myself. I can find somewhere else to go, but for them…”
Dragging her up close to his body, he leaned down to whisper in her ear so that she could hear him over the noise of the rain. “What’s it worth to you, chère?”
She stiffened and looked up at him. Their bodies were touching. Sweat, heated rainwater and passion came off them in waves, steaming up the air between them. Coming here tonight had obviously been a big mistake.
But she had to keep trying, for Maddie’s sake. “I beg you, Chase. Please just consider it.” She looked down between them, away f
rom his demanding gaze. But one look made it clear that her aching breasts were peaked and pushing against her cotton blouse, begging for his touch.
Chase saw it as well and leered down at her. “Ah, yes, bébé, I can feel the heat between us, too. Odd isn’t it, that an ice princess could flare so easily for a ghost?”
He didn’t know? He couldn’t just look at her and see that her heart still longed for him and that her body still responded to his with no provocation at all?
Her heart pounded in her chest, but she pushed away from him. “Dammit. Tell me what I can do to make you change your mind and let Shelby and the baby stay.”
“Do?” he asked thoughtfully after a minute. “Ante up, Kate. It’s time to put in or fold. I want you.”
“Me?” Her knees were wobbling now and she was becoming light-headed. “You mean to be your maîtresse?”
He chuckled at her use of the old-fashioned word. “A mistress? Now wouldn’t that be an amusing form of revenge.”
She scowled and clutched his arm. “You can’t mean that. You don’t even know who I am anymore.”
Kate clearly understood that Chase was her biggest weakness. She wanted him to want her. But she would never give up independence—not even for him. If he asked for her body, fine. She would be all for it.
He would never take her soul.
“No?” Chase said with a chuckle. “Well, let’s start with dinner, then. Tomorrow night. And wear something sexy. I think I’ll be needing a lot of persuasion.”
Three
Chase knelt beside Kate under the low-hanging branches of a willow tree that was all decked out in its June finest. Silvery light from the full moon shone through the leaves in platinum streaks and illuminated Kate’s sweet, smiling face. Taking his time, he unbuttoned her blouse and ran a finger over the rise of her creamy breasts, peeking out from under the soft, white bra.
Kate, his wonderful darling. Tonight wouldn’t be the first time that they’d made love, but this time he would go slow. He would manage to ignore the hard, burning heat in his groin long enough to make it good for her, too. Tonight he would show her…tell her with both his touch and his words how much a part of him she had become.
“I love you, Kate,” he whispered as he bent to place a kiss against her tender neck. “You are my everything.”
“Chase,” she groaned. “That feels so good. But I have something important to tell you.”
“Tell me, chère,” he mumbled against her lips. “Tell me how you feel.”
She opened her mouth to speak, and he held his breath, expecting to hear words of love for the very first time in his whole nineteen years of life.
“Whoohoo. Just looky what we’ve got here.”
The sudden deep catcall from behind his back shot a spear of fear straight to his gut. But before he could cover Kate and turn around, rough hands grabbed them both and pulled them out from under their shelter.
Chase shot up out of bed with a start. His hands were fisted, the sweat poured off his forehead and the sheets lay on the floor in a tangled knot.
Dammit. He hadn’t had that dream in years.
Looking around the bedroom of his suite at the B&B, he tried to get his bearings—tried to remember how to breathe. He grabbed his slacks off the back of a chair, pulled them on and opened the French doors out to his private balcony.
In three long strides he was outside, holding on to the railing with a deadly grip. He stared unseeing out at the pearly gray predawn that was casting quiet shadows over the southern Louisiana swamp.
He took a deep breath and blew it out. It hadn’t occurred to him that coming back here and facing his past would bring back that dream. He should’ve known.
In fact, he should welcome the old dream, though it always left his body aching for Kate and his soul starved for words that never came. The familiar dream scene was not the worst thing that had happened that fateful June night so long ago. The pain of betrayal was much harder to live with. But the dream of Kate lying under him and looking up with what should’ve been love in her eyes was the memory that hurt the most.
That look had been all a lie. And he needed to keep the pain fresh in his mind when he dealt with Kate now.
A lone Snowy Egret caught his attention as it swooped low in the skies between the B&B and the swamp. It was a beautiful and graceful sight with its white plumes and its slow, gliding movements. But all the bird’s solo flight succeeded in doing was driving home the point that Chase had lived with for most of his life.
He was a loner and had been happily content with his own company for as long as he could remember. A solitary man who needed no one and should expect nothing that he didn’t make for himself.
Kate stopped walking and looked up, watching the Snowy Egret as it glided past and headed out toward the Gulf. It was exactly this kind of beautiful sight she would miss the most if she had to leave town and her home to find work in the city.
She lowered her head and trudged on down the ancient path, leading between Live Oak Hall and the mill. How many more times would she be allowed to make this trip in the quiet early hours? How many more times would she make the return trip, watching as the sunset streaked its fantastic rose and gold hues over her plantation home?
Everything depended on Chase now. Her father had never let her contribute ideas concerning her own destiny. Now it looked as if Chase was going to do the same thing.
When the outline of the mill came into view, she forced her slumping shoulders back into some semblance of a straight line. It had been a very long night, tossing and turning with the erotic flashes of Chase taking her into his arms and running his hands over her body.
She hadn’t allowed herself to dream or even to think of those things in so many years it seemed like forever. But that whole scene with Chase on the B&B’s terrace last night had stirred up more than just the dreams.
Taking her hands out of her jacket pockets, Kate looked down on her bandaged finger and thought about the sensual sensations that had rolled over her in waves as he sucked her finger into his mouth. It gave her chills even now as the sun was beginning to warm the landscape and the morning mists disappeared back into their hiding places in the dismal swamp.
If Chase was serious about making her his mistress in payment for letting Shelby stay in the guest house, she would happily jump right in. There wasn’t much she could ever hope to do to repay him for the wrongs that had been done to him so long ago. The wrongs that she had helped create with her own stupid mistakes.
Seeing him make a success of the mill and living happily in Live Oak Hall wasn’t anything she could have a real part in. Those were the kinds of things he would have to get for himself. Though he probably deserved to be given those things and much more from the town that had deserted him when he needed them the most.
But if he really still did want her…body, she would give it gladly. She knew herself well enough to know she would never let on to him that he could also have her heart—did have her heart—and always would. No, that would be giving him too much power. The two of them weren’t meant for a future together, a fact she had accepted long ago with regret.
Kate stepped into the mill’s office and removed her jacket. Listening for sounds that would tell her that Chase was already at work, the sound she heard instead was a soft crying sob. She followed it around a corner and found her secretary, sitting at her desk and bent over in tears.
“Rose? What’s wrong?” Kate went to her and began patting her back.
“He’s going to deliberately ruin us,” Rose sobbed. “None of us will have a job. We’ll all have to leave our homes.”
“Shush, shush, chère. What makes you say these things? Is Chase here?”
Rose shook her head and looked up into Kate’s eyes. “No, not yet. But the word is all over town. He’s come for revenge and means to get even with everyone in Bayou City for how they treated him as a kid.”
Kate leaned over to put an arm around her secretary’s sh
oulders. “Nonsense, Rose. You’ve lived in this place all your life. I can’t imagine you’d start believing the town gossip at this late date when I’m positive you know better than that.”
Besides, Kate thought grimly, the only people left here that Chase had a real reason to hate were her father and herself. And her father was beyond his reach now.
“Chase is obviously a successful businessman, Rose. I don’t believe he would deliberately throw money away just to even an old score. He’s much smarter than that.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, chère.” The deep sound of Chase’s voice came from the doorway.
Kate twisted around to see him leaning against the threshold with his arms folded across his chest, studying her. “Chase. I didn’t hear you…”
“But I don’t need your support,” he interrupted.
She stood up and sighed silently to herself. No, he would never allow her to give him anything. She knew that, but it stung all the same.
He narrowed his eyes to scrutinize her, and the close survey began to make her feel all itchy, like she’d forgotten to wash.
Chase took a couple of steps into the room toward her. “In fact, judging from how you look, I won’t need anything from you today.” He turned to address Rose. “Do you think you can show me where the files are without dissolving into a weepy mess, young woman?”
Rose sniffed once and nodded without opening her mouth.
“Fine.” He turned back and lowered his voice to a growl. “Go home, Kate. You look terrible. I’ll expect you to appear rested and at your best for our appointment this evening.”
“But, Chase…”
“Go home. There’s nothing you can do for me—until tonight.”
Kate fisted her hands at her side and bit her tongue to keep from saying something she would forever regret. Chase was acting like a real jerk, but she knew he was a different person deep inside. He just couldn’t have changed that much in ten years. But he did have reason enough to hate her, and there was nothing she could ever do or say to fix things.
