Undaunted

by Diana Palmer

  “Maybe some other time, then,” she said, and tried not to let the relief she felt show in her voice. “Oh, we’re here!”

  * * *

  She held Connor’s hand unobtrusively, and whispered directions to him. The contact was electric. Just touching him made her giddy. He was broad-shouldered and husky. His presence made him seem much taller than he was. She loved the faintly callused touch of his big hand in hers, the spicy scent of his cologne. His hands were perfectly manicured, as well. He was a fastidious man, for all his ruggedness.

  As they walked, heads turned toward them. Connor drew women’s eyes. One of them, a gorgeous blonde, gasped and made a beeline for him.

  “Connor!” she exclaimed, and grasped his arm so hard that she almost overbalanced him. “It’s so good to see you! How have you been?”

  “I’ve been well, Grace, how about you?” he asked, smiling toward the sound of her voice. “Sorry, but we’re short on time. I’m showing Emma the casino.”

  “Oh.” The blonde’s perfect mouth pouted as she met Emma’s eyes. “Well, I’ll just get back to my friends. So good to see you! Call me!”

  “Sure,” he said.

  She dashed off as quickly as she’d bounded up to them. “Sorry,” she said softly. “I didn’t see her in time to warn you.” She knew that suddenly being clutched was unnerving to sightless people.

  “It’s okay.” He drew in a steadying breath. “She didn’t notice that I can’t see, did she?”

  “No.”

  “I’ve kept it quiet. Reporters love to pounce on imperfections,” he added coldly. “I don’t want to feed the gossip mill.”

  “I’ll make sure nobody notices,” she promised, and whispered instructions that took them to the one-armed bandit.

  “Here,” he said, tugging a twenty-dollar bill out of his pocket. He’d had Barnes slip several in a clip for him earlier. “Get some quarters and go to work. I’ll wait right here.”

  He leaned up against the vacant machine while she ran to get change. It only took a minute. Then she sat down.

  “Here goes nothing.” She laughed.

  “Good luck.”

  She fed it and fed it, pulling the handle and hoping for success. She lost more than she won. But she kept getting free rounds with matches, which let her play for a longer time than she’d expected. Then, on her last quarter, the machine rang wildly and flashed the winnings.

  Connor laughed. “Jackpot.”

  “Yes! Oh, my!” She was beaming from ear to ear. “It’s a fortune!” she exclaimed.

  “How much?”

  “Five thousand dollars!”

  He was thinking that it was pocket change, but Emma seemed to think her ship had come in. He laughed indulgently. “Ready to cash in, or want to play some more?” he teased.

  “No, I’m done. This is great!”

  “Okay. Let’s go.”

  She held his hand and guided him unobtrusively through the crowd to the payout booth, where she handed them the ticket and collected her winnings.

  “Now that you’re rich, are you planning to leave me?” he teased as they walked out into the warm, breezy night air.

  “Not at all.” She laughed. “In fact, I know exactly what I want to do with this. Can the driver take us into downtown Nassau?”

  “Of course,” he said, letting her guide him into the waiting car. “Tell him where you want to go. But most of the shops aren’t going to be open this late...”

  “It’s not a shop.” She told the driver her destination before she let him put her in beside Connor.

  “I couldn’t hear what you told him. Where are we going?” he asked.

  “It’s a little church, right downtown,” she said. “I noticed it when we drove by.”

  “A church.”

  “Yes. It will have a poor box inside,” she added. “That’s where I’m going to put my winnings.”

  He was silent for so long that she thought she’d said something wrong. “It’s...it’s all right, isn’t it?” she asked after a minute.

  “Why don’t you want to keep it?” he asked.

  “Because it was easy money,” she returned. “I put in twenty dollars and won five thousand dollars. I like working for what I get. My mother taught me that things you get without effort aren’t worthy of you.”

  He let out a breath. In his entire life, he’d never taken a woman to a casino and had her offer to even share her winnings, much less want to give them away.

  “You aren’t mad?” she added, worriedly.

  “I’m not mad, honey,” he said softly.

  * * *

  He was silent the rest of the way into the city. He stayed in the car while Emma went inside the small church and stuffed her winnings into the poor box. He said very little all the way back to the estate.

  “I’ve upset you,” she worried when they were inside the house.

  He found her shoulders and rested his big hands on them. They were warm and comforting. “The sort of women I’m used to don’t share anything,” he said quietly. “They take.”

  “Mama always said that giving was much more noble than taking.”

  He smiled gently. “I think your mother must be a wonderful woman.”

  “She was,” she said.

  “Dead?”

  “Long ago,” she replied.

  He frowned. “I thought you told me that your parents both lived in North Carolina.”

  She’d told him that her father lived there. She knew she’d told him that her mother died in childbirth. “My father has a girlfriend,” she said. Well, he did have that woman living with him. “She’s very nice,” she added, hoping that wasn’t a lie. She’d never met the woman.

  “I see.”

  “Thank you for taking me to the casino. It was really exciting!”

  “I’m glad you liked it. Tomorrow, we’ll make time for one of the other tourist traps.”

  “That would be great!”

  “But we’ll have to do some work first,” he said, smiling in her general direction.

  “God forbid that I should become a worthless layabout,” she agreed.

  He chuckled. “Sleep tight.”

  “You, too.”

  She watched him go down the hall with soft eyes. She didn’t care so much for bright lights, but she loved going places with Connor. She slept soundly all night.

  * * *

  The next morning, she found a growling grizzly bear in the study. He was on the phone, obviously furious.

  “I told you,” he was raging at someone. “The cost overrun was unavoidable! If we hadn’t made the design change, the jet would never have passed inspection! I was barely able to land it myself, and I’ve been flying for twenty years!...Yes. Yes! I know all that. You tell the board of directors that if they can find someone to replace me who can guarantee the profit I’ve given them, go for it. And that’s my final word.” He cut off the phone and tossed it onto his desk, where it landed with a thud. Foul language ensued.

  “Boss?” she asked hesitantly.

  His black mood began to fade. He grimaced. “Damned pencil-pushing, backbiting sons of larceny,” he muttered. “Questioning a decision I made that sent profits up ten percent, and they’re angry about a cost overrun! In this economy, they’re lucky they have a company to employ them!”

  “We all have these difficult times to get through. Why don’t you come walk on the beach and pretend you’re a vagrant with no money?”

  He hesitated, then suddenly burst out laughing. His pale eyes were alive with humor. “A vagrant with no money?”

  “Sure! Then you can enjoy the beach with no money worries to haunt you.”

  He drew in a long breath. “Why not? Lead on.”

  S
he took his hand and tugged him along with her, describing the lay of the land and the distance to the beach.

  “You’re really quite good at this,” he remarked.

  “Necessity is the mother of invention,” she quoted. “Now. Just stand here with your feet in the surf and drink in that delicious air!”

  He did. He seemed to relax more with every breath. “I never have time to spend like this,” he remarked after a minute. “There’s always a meeting or a dinner or a working conference or a phone call...”

  She looked up at him and was glad that he couldn’t see her face. She absolutely adored him, and it showed. He was the most masculine man she’d ever seen in her life, and it wounded her that she could never have him. Over and above her feelings, there was always the fear that one day he’d learn her true identity. She knew how vindictive he was. There would be no place she could run where he wouldn’t find her. Retribution would be terrible.

  She bit her lower lip. They said confession was good for the soul, didn’t they? Perhaps now would be the time to tell him the truth, and throw herself on his mercy. If he didn’t already know what sort of person she was, he never would.

  “There’s something I need to tell you,” she began hesitantly.

  He turned to her, big and sensuous and teasing. “Is it something shocking?”

  She shifted. “Well...”

  His hands went out to her waist and he lifted her off her feet, holding her up against him—close, very close—and nuzzled her face with his.

  “You can tell me anything, Emma,” he whispered. His lips smoothed down her soft cheek to the corner of her mouth. “Anything at all.”

  Her heart raced like a wild thing. She slid her arms around his neck, just to hold on so he didn’t drop her, she rationalized. “I can?” she whispered back.

  The sound of the surf was very loud. Or was it the loud beat of her heart, echoing so that he could hear it.

  “Yes,” he murmured as his lips feathered across her mouth. “You can.”

  The teasing motion made her hungry. Unconsciously, she began to follow his lips with her own, tempting them to press down harder.

  His hands tightened on her waist. He let her slip, just enough to let her feel his thumbs teasing under her breasts, to make her arms pull him closer.

  She was barely breathing. She was afraid to move, afraid to break the spell. He smelled of coffee and spicy cologne, and she wanted nothing more than to feel his sensuous mouth open, pressing her lips apart, grinding into them in the silence that hung like a silken veil around them.

  “Hungry, Emma?” he whispered at her mouth.

  She swallowed. “Yes,” she admitted.

  “Show me...” His mouth opened on her lips, pressing them apart, and he groaned as the hunger mushroomed inside him. “Emma!” His arms went completely around her, and he kissed her with such anguished desire that she moaned under the crush of his mouth.

  He heard the hunger in her tone and felt it to his bones. “It aches, doesn’t it, Emma?” he breathed into her mouth.

  “Aches,” she whispered as he kissed her again.

  His body was making an emphatic statement about what it wanted. It wanted hers. He didn’t try to hide it, although he felt her gasp softly and resist him, just for a few seconds. He was curious about her reticence. She’d been engaged. She knew the score. He was imagining things.

  “Connor,” she moaned as he deepened the hard kiss.

  “Soon, baby,” he breathed into her mouth. “Soon!”

  Soon...what?

  But before she could ask, before he could turn toward the house, Marie’s voice called out from the tree-lined arches.

  “Mr. Sinclair, there’s a call for you from the States!”

  “Oh, damn,” he ground into Emma’s welcoming mouth.

  She drew in a shaky breath. “They want you to save the world,” she teased on an unsteady breath.

  “I’d give it away to carry you to bed, Emma,” he breathed into her lips. “I want you. God, I want you!”

  She shivered a little. “Oh, but—”

  “Mr. Sinclair, are you out there?” Marie persisted. “They say it’s urgent!”

  He muttered under his breath as he put Emma back on her feet. “Okay, lead the old blind horse back to the barn, Emma,” he muttered.

  “You’re not old,” she said huskily. “You’ll never be old.”

  He chuckled and his gray eyes twinkled. “Oh?”

  She cleared her throat. “We should hurry.”

  “Just what I was thinking,” he said, and the tone of his voice was enough to make her feel panicky. What had she done?

  Seven

  Unfortunately, the phone call led to two more phone calls, and those led him to a meeting in downtown Nassau with a group of investors who wanted Connor to join their ranks.

  “I’d love to be able to turn it down,” Connor said as he waited for the limo. “But it sounds like a good investment opportunity, and with the cost overrun, I can’t really afford to ignore it.”

  “Do you want me to come and take notes?” she asked.

  He reached out and clutched her hand tight in his. “Not this time, honey. They have a stenographer with them.” He lifted her hand to his lips. “I hated being interrupted,” he whispered. “But we’ve got all night, haven’t we?” he purred.

  “About that...” she began.

  “No more teasing, Emma,” he said quietly. “You can have anything you want. I mean that.”

  “But I don’t want anything,” she protested.

  “Diamonds?” he tempted. “Emeralds? A beach house down here and free frequent flyer miles so that you can come whenever you like?”

  “I don’t want anything,” she repeated.

  He tugged her closer. “You want me,” he said under his breath, bending his head toward her face. “You want me as badly as I want you.”

  “I can’t,” she moaned.

  “You know you want to,” he said softly. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise.”

  Her face flamed. He was talking about preventing a pregnancy. Heavens, what had she led him to think?

  “It was just a kiss,” she faltered.

  His fingers linked slowly with hers. “You told me yourself that you missed the closeness you had with your fiancé. I don’t have a woman in my life right now.”

  “You have...her.”

  “Her?”

  “That glittery brunette you took out on the town and stayed all night with.” She tugged her hand free and stepped back.

  “Ariel?” He remembered he’d had Emma send her flowers and chocolates, wanting Emma to believe he’d been sleeping with Ariel, that he was getting what Emma denied him somewhere else. His chest rose and fell. “She’s like all the others, Emma,” he said after a minute. “They numb the ache for a little while. Then they’re gone.”

  “Like I’d be gone. After I numbed the ache.”

  He scowled as he heard the car stop at the front steps. “We can talk about it later. I have to go.”

  He turned and went out the front door, allowing the driver to help him inside the limousine.

  Emma went back inside and jotted down talking points from the emails he’d received during the morning.

  * * *

  He didn’t come back to the house until after dark. He bypassed dinner, assuring Marie that he’d had dinner with the other investors.

  “Emma, have you eaten?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” she said. She’d eaten very little. She’d spent the day brooding, worrying about what he was going to expect from her when he came home. She adored him, but she wasn’t going to sleep with him. She knew he thought she’d been intimate with Steven. She’d have to tell the truth. It was
the only thing that might keep him at bay. She’d give in if he put on the pressure, and she couldn’t afford to. Her heart was involved, but his definitely wasn’t. It was his body that ached for her, and only until it had the satisfaction it craved. He’d said as much. He wanted her to numb the pain. Nothing more. And then she’d be gone, as all the others were gone.

  But Emma...loved him. She loved him. She knew that now, and she couldn’t give in to him, then just go on with her life. Not only would it go against everything she believed in, it would be a memory that would haunt her for the rest of her life. He’d go on to the next woman, but Emma would be bound to the memory. Without him, she would have no life.

  “I need to dictate a letter to the investors. I’ll meet you in the office. Barnes! Come and help me get changed.”

  “Yes, sir,” the older man said at once.

  * * *

  Connor had two letters to dictate, both about the investment group—one to the chairman of the board of his aircraft corporation, the other to his stockholders. It was an explanation of why he was going to tie up some of the company profits in a new, innovative software that might revolutionize cockpit navigation.

  He also named some of the other investors. One was a man from West Texas with a name that Emma recognized. It was Cort Grier, Cash’s brother. If he was in Nassau, she had to make sure that she didn’t meet him. He’d never seen her, but she was certain that he’d have heard about her from Cash and Tippy. That would never do. If he mentioned the connection to Connor, he might remember the troublesome neighbor who’d almost hit him with a speedboat. That might jog his memory in a deadly way.

  He didn’t remember who hit him, who caused his blindness. But once he knew who Emma really was, it would be easy for him to make the connection and then make other connections. Hit-and-run was a felony, and that’s what she’d done. She’d hit him on the lake and hadn’t stopped to see if he was all right. Worse, he might think she’d done it on purpose, which could lead to another felony charge. He could have her arrested and prosecuted, and what defense would save her? It had been foolish, taking this job. She should have gone back to Texas at once.

  “You’ve gone quiet again, Emma,” he teased.