by Sandra Field
From the minute he’d seen her in that turquoise dress he’d resolved to possess her. He hadn’t, however, thought beyond possession. He’d never had to before, so why would he have done so yesterday?
He’d even talked, in the heat of anger, about taming her. But to have used such a word when Devon had lain in his arms would have been an obscenity. Both of them had behaved with a wildness that, for him at least, was totally out of character.
How could he know what Devon was like with anyone else? She was an unknown quantity, a woman he hadn’t even met twenty-four hours ago.
He’d also wanted revenge. As clearly as though she were in front of him, he could remember Devon’s small smile of triumph when he’d first seen her in that glorious dress. So had he carried her to his bed solely from motives of revenge? In the cool morning light, Jared didn’t think so. He’d taken her to bed because he hadn’t been able to help himself.
Because he’d liked her.
His jaw dropped. Liked her? He’d lusted after her, that was all.
Both, he thought slowly. Her intelligence had invigorated him, her temper had sparked his own, her sense of humor had amused him. Genuine liking coupled with a depth of passion new to him.
He must have been out of his mind.
Yeah, he thought. Now you’re getting close. You were out of your mind, your famous, analytical, cold-blooded mind. Devon Fraser bewitched you. Seduced you. Enchanted you. And the revenge, if he was to use that word, had been hers when he’d woken to an empty bed.
Anger seethed to life, roiling in his chest. She’d used him. Used him and sneaked off in the night without as much as a thank-you-very-much-it-was-nice-meeting-you.
If she was after his money, she was screwing up big time.
Or had she not liked what they’d done together in his big bed? Perhaps he’d bored her so she hadn’t wanted to hang around for any repetition. Certainly his technique had been shot to hell. Usually he prided himself on prolonging his seductions, step by step ensuring that his partner received as much pleasure as he was prepared to give; and, of course, he always made sure she was fully satiated.
Technique? With Devon he hadn’t had any technique. He’d abandoned himself to a passion that had made nonsense of rules and well-timed moves. Of detachment and restraint.
Perhaps she’d faked all her responses, those broken cries of pleasure, the strength with which she’d held him close. After all, what did he really know about her? It was entirely possible that she took a new lover every week, and discarded each of them just as heartlessly.
But her eyes—those dazzlingly blue eyes—she couldn’t have faked the joy and warmth that had shone from them. Could she?
Desperately Jared fought back all the other memories that began flooding back as irrevocably as an ocean tide. Devon’s luscious pink-tipped breasts, the inflammatory movements of her hips, the incredible length of her legs… As he rubbed his palms over his face, he suddenly realized that the very scent of her had been absorbed into his hands and his body, and that he wanted her right now just as compulsively as he had last night.
As furious with himself as with Devon, he stalked to the bathroom, stripped off his trousers and stepped under the shower, pummeling his muscles with hot water, then with cold. There, he thought grimly, grabbing the nearest towel. She was gone. The last trace of her.
Now all he had to do was forget her. Put her out of his mind as if he’d never met her, let alone taken her to bed. Although there was one other thing he should do, he thought with angry accuracy: pray that she did indeed go to Antarctica for Christmas.
Ten days later, Jared was sprawled on his leather chesterfield in the study of his Upper East Side penthouse, reading the weekly newsletter from a brokerage firm. It was ten p.m. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the tree-dark spread of Central Park, shone the lights of Manhattan, more numerous than the stars and bright enough to blank them out. He underlined a couple of sentences, frowning. He’d do well to take that piece of advice, he thought, and frowned more deeply as the phone rang.
Who was calling him at this hour?
It had better not be Lise. He wasn’t in the mood for Lise. He’d stuck to his word and taken her to the Plaza last Friday when he’d returned from Tokyo, and subliminally, for the entire evening, he’d wanted her to be Devon.
“Hello?” he said curtly.
“Jared…”
“Dad…so you’re back?”
“Got in last night. Had a wonderful time, and Alicia loved Paros and Ikaria.”
I bet she did, Jared thought sourly. “Are you at ‘The Oaks’? Or staying in Toronto?”
“We’re home. Devon’s still in Chile, so there was no point in hanging around Toronto. She gets back Friday night.”
“Chile,” Jared repeated noncommittally.
“Yeah…something to do with copper. She flies home via New York. Maybe the two of you could connect.”
No bloody way, thought Jared, and said, “What airline?”
Benson said casually, “I wasn’t sure at the wedding if the two of you were hitting it off?”
“Oh, well, you know weddings…right up there on the stress list. It’d be nice to see her, even if it’s only at the airport. For the sake of family solidarity and all that.”
I’m turning into one helluva liar, Jared thought, and heard his father say, “Just a sec, then, I’ll put Alicia on. She knows all the details… Honey, have a word with Jared, would you?”
“Hello, Jared,” Alicia said cautiously.
Jared said heartily, “Hi, Alicia, glad to hear you had a good time. Dad said Devon might be passing through on Friday. Have you any idea when?”
“I’ve got it right here…I always like to know her itinerary. I worry about her dreadfully in all those awful places; I only wish she’d quit that darn job. Here it is.” Alicia reeled off the flight times.
Jared jotted them down, wondering why he was having this conversation. There’d be no secrets with Alicia. Devon would soon know he’d been asking about her. He said with false joviality, “Guess I won’t be able to see her…I have tickets for Yo-Yo Ma that night.”
“You do?” Alicia squeaked. “How bizarre! Devon adores cello music, but she was in Borneo when the tickets went on sale and they were all gone by the time she got back. Well, never mind. You and she will have to get together some other time.”
“Do me a favour, then, Alicia? Don’t mention it to her. I wouldn’t want to disappoint her further.”
“You’re right, of course,” Alicia said, clearly flattered to have been taken into his confidence.
A few minutes later Jared put down the phone. So Devon liked cello music. One more facet to a woman he’d been unable to exorcise from his daytime thoughts or his dreams at night.
He picked up the report again. But ten minutes later he was still reading the same paragraph, not one word of which was making any sense at all.
He tossed the newsletter on the table. The brief time Devon had spent in his bed at “The Oaks” had merely whetted his appetite. He still wanted her. Craved her body night and day. But this time, he thought, he was going to get her on his terms. He’d be in control. He’d be the one to decide when she’d leave.
Last leg of the journey, Devon thought thankfully, smiling at the customs officer as she handed over her passport to be stamped. She was feeling good. All her meetings had gone extremely well, the black-tie reception had been great fun, and she’d taken a day at either end of her assignment to wander the museums and art galleries of Santiago. Still, she’d be glad to be home. She always was.
She had lots of time to get a cab from Kennedy to LaGuardia for her Toronto flight. But as she waited patiently for her bags to be checked, she was smiling for quite another reason. Now that she was on her way home, she realized she’d cured herself of Jared Holt.
At first she’d carried him with her everywhere; even in the eddying crowds of Santiago she had unconsciously singled out all the tall, da
rk-haired men, and her heart had automatically speeded up. But somehow as the days had passed in a foreign country, speaking another language, she’d managed to distance herself from him, and to thank her lucky stars she’d escaped when she had. She had more than that to be thankful for. She’d also been—inadvertently—protected against pregnancy.
Seven months ago she’d met a man called Peter Damien in Bangkok; she’d liked him very much. While the head office of his pharmaceutical company was based in London, he had made occasional trips to Toronto. They’d dated several times. Almost certain she wanted an affair with him, Devon had planned to meet him in London. She’d visited a gynecologist there, and, because in her early twenties she’d had problems with the pill, had had an IUD inserted.
Then she’d discovered from an associate that Peter had been engaged to a woman in Sydney, Australia, for the last ten months. She’d been deeply upset, not so much by Peter’s perfidy, although that had been bad enough, as by its unnerving recall of her longtime affair with Steve all those years ago.
Steve Danford. Cultured, good-looking, a cardiologist with an international health agency. Devon had fallen in love with him at the age of twenty-two, had had a long distance affair with him for three years—and quite by chance had found out he’d been married for the last eight years. She’d been devastated.
Men weren’t to be trusted. That was his legacy. A legacy her mother’s multiple marriages had done nothing to assuage and that Peter had reactivated. But—and this was where Devon was truly grateful—the night she’d spent with Jared she’d still been safeguarded against pregnancy. The last thing on her mind when Jared had, literally, swept her off her feet had been birth control. She now understood how women had unplanned pregnancies. She might have had one herself if it hadn’t been for Peter.
Politely Devon answered the customs officer’s rote questions, watched him stamp her documents, and then walked through the frosted glass doors into the waiting area, where she edged around the crowd toward the taxi signs. A tall, black-haired man moved to intercept her. “Hello, Devon,” he said.
Devon almost dropped her laptop computer. Gaping upward, she said foolishly, “J-Jared,” and not for anything could she have masked the joy that whirled through her body in all the colors of the rainbow.
His lashes flickered. “Come along, we haven’t got much time.”
Cured? Talk about self-deception, she thought, and stammered, “I—I beg your pardon?”
“We haven’t got much time. The concert starts at eight. By any chance have you got a decent dress in that bag?”
“Concert?” she repeated blankly.
“Yo-Yo Ma.”
Trying desperately to gather her wits, swept by a host of memories, not one of which was suitable for a busy airport, Devon said the first thing that came to mind. “I couldn’t get a ticket.”
“Are you okay?”
It was exactly the same question he’d asked her after their first, tumultuous lovemaking. Hot color crept up her cheeks. “It’s just—I wasn’t expecting to see you,” she said in magnificent understatement. Come on, Devon, pull yourself together. Do you have to make it so glaringly obvious that the sight of him has bowled you over? Cool it!
“The limo’s waiting for us,” he said, and took her suitcase from her unresisting fingers.
Devon planted her feet and said, “Hold on, I’m missing something here. I’m on my way to Toronto, Jared. My flight leaves in a couple of hours.”
“I’ve rebooked you. You’re leaving on the first flight in the morning.”
“You can’t have,” she squawked. “I’ve got my ticket right here in my purse.”
“I play squash with the president of the company.”
His smile was perfunctory, his shoulders every bit as broad as she remembered them, and clearly he was expecting her to fall flat at his feet in gratitude. “You can’t go rearranging my life like that!”
“I already have. Two of the Bach cello suites are on the program.”
“Bribery,” she snorted.
“Persuasion.”
“How did you know I was landing in New York?”
“Your mother.”
“I’ll throttle her!”
“Have you got a dress?”
“Not the turquoise one,” Devon said in outright defiance.
“Just as well, wouldn’t you say?” Jared answered smoothly.
“Let me get this straight. You—along with the president of the airline—have canceled my flight out of LaGuardia.” Jared nodded. “Without even asking my permission.”
“You were in Chile,” Jared said with a crooked grin.
“Jared, I am never going to bed with you again,” Devon announced loudly. To her mortification, a couple of passengers turned their heads, staring at her.
“I haven’t asked you to. The limo’s this way.”
And Devon, fighting the twin urges to hit Jared over the head with her computer and to burst out laughing, found herself trotting beside him through the crowds.
CHAPTER SIX
THE limo had a chauffeur named Hubert; the limo belonged to Jared. Well, of course, thought Devon. Jared’s rolling in money. What’s a limo here or there? She was only surprised he didn’t own the whole darned airline.
She thanked Hubert for taking her bags and with outward composure slid into her seat. Her pantsuit was both elegant and uncrushable, and she’d brushed her hair smooth and replenished her make-up before they’d landed. For all of which she was extremely grateful. Now all she had to do was enjoy a concert she’d longed to attend, and stay out of Jared’s bed.
No problem. She might not be cured of him to quite the extent she’d thought, but she did have a policy of never making the same mistake twice.
He was sitting at least a foot from her in the back seat and showed no signs of wanting to close the gap. He hadn’t even tried to kiss her at the airport. Maybe the shoe was on the other foot and he was cured of her. In which case, she wasn’t in the slightest danger. Not if he no longer wanted to go to bed with her. Devon’s lips compressed. Then she heard him say, “I’ve laid on a light snack at my place…I made a reservation for dinner after the concert. Hubert will drive you to LaGuardia in the morning.”
“From my hotel.”
“My penthouse has a guest suite.”
She said coolly, “How nice for you.”
“Don’t be bitchy, Devon. It’s not your style.”
“How would you know?”
“Oh, I know a lot about you,” he said softly, his eyes wandering the length of her body in its forest green suit. “Except for one thing. Why did you leave in the middle of the night?”
“Are you sure you want the answer?”
“I asked.”
Assailed by a blast of horns from the traffic tie-up on the other side of the street, Devon said deliberately, “I was ashamed of what I’d done. I felt cheap, as though I’d betrayed all my principles.”
“How very high-minded of you.”
“How very old-fashioned of me,” she responded tightly. “I’ve never done that before—climbed in the sack with a man I’d scarcely met.”
“So what’s so special about me?”
She’d walked right into that one, and had no intentions of answering him. “You said at the time that we had one night. No tomorrow. Why the postmortem, Jared?”
“I don’t like loose ends.”
“Hardly a flattering description of me.”
“I hate flattery. Don’t you?”
They were fencing with each other, thought Devon, and felt vibrantly alert, as if she were fighting for her life. Even though he was wearing a tailored business suit, Jared looked as dangerous as any musketeer. She’d crossed him. She’d left “The Oaks” before he’d given her permission to leave. She said coolly, “Is there a lock on the guest suite door?”
“There is. And an antique desk you can pull across it.”
“Cat and mouse, Jared…you sure like to play gam
es.”
For the first time he laughed. “You’re no mouse, Devon Fraser.”
“Just as you’re no tabby cat. A mountain lion, more likely.”
“You flatter me.”
Suddenly breathless, Devon muttered, “I never dish out flattery and I hope that desk’s heavy.”
“Solid oak.”
She loved crossing swords with him; for if she felt alert, she also felt fully alive. Yet she knew in a flash of intuition that the blades were sharp, and any duel with Jared could be lethal. “You’re not used to women who act on their own initiative.”
“You make a pleasant change.”
“A diversion,” she said with a touch of bitterness. “I had an affair once with a man who thought of me as a diversion. And a while ago I nearly did it again. Silly me. Don’t you do that to me, Jared.”
He shifted restlessly in his seat. “The traffic’s heavier than I’d expected.”
All Devon’s vitality drained away. She got the message: for Jared she was a diversion. A woman interestingly different, amusing, and easily discarded. History repeating itself. The concert had better be good, she thought, leaned back in her seat and shut her eyes, closing him out.
The limo gathered momentum, then stopped and started at a series of lights. Wishing she could doze off, Devon eventually felt Jared squeeze her elbow. He said formally, “We’re here.”
Moments later she was entering the foyer of an elegant stone building overlooking Central Park. Jared had the whole top floor; the guest suite did indeed have a key and the desk looked immovable.
“Why don’t we eat first?” Jared said easily. “Out on the roof garden, whenever you’re ready.”
The door shut behind him. Devon put down her computer and looked around.
The room had spare, clean lines, the colors were vibrant, the floor a gleaming expanse of parquet, and the furniture an eclectic mixture of antique and modern. The bedroom, all cool blues and whites, charmed her in its simplicity, while the bathroom was total luxury. Swiftly she hung up her dress, replenished her lipstick, and left the suite.
