Night of the Cotillion: Georgia (The Americana Series Book 10)

by Janet Dailey

  The two men were discussing the contents of the papers Jarod was studying, but Amanda was in too much of a daze to hear what they were saying. Someone knocked at the office door and she nearly jumped out of her chair.

  “Can I see you a minute, Mr. Bennett?” a man requested, opening the door but not entering the room.

  “Is it important, Joe?” her father asked.

  “Yes, sir."

  Her father darted a look to Amanda, then brought his gaze back to Jarod, who was concentrating on one of the papers. “Excuse me a minute, Mr. Colby."

  “I'm in no hurry, Sam,” Jarod replied, glancing briefly from the papers on the desk.

  When the door closed behind her father, the room became uncomfortably still. Amanda sat hesitantly on the edge of her chair, afraid to breathe and draw those dark eyes her way. Then Jarod thrust his hands in his pockets and walked around to the front of the desk, where he leaned against it and let his eyes wander calmly over her bare legs to her face.

  “Hello, Amanda,” he said.

  “Mr. Colby,” she murmured, dipping her head self-consciously in greeting.

  “The last time we met, I think we went beyond the point of ‘Mister.'” One side of his mouth lifted in a mirthless, almost derisive smile.

  “Please, I'm ... I'm not proud of the way I acted that night,” Amanda protested. Her cheeks felt hot and flushed and she bent her head to conceal them from his penetrating gaze. “After the way I behaved, it was natural for you to get the wrong impression. If you'll excuse me,” she said, rising agitatedly to her feet, “I'll wait for my father in the car."

  “No, wait,” he commanded.

  “Look,” she began nervously, “I didn't know you were going to be here. If I had, I wouldn't have come in."

  “I know,” Jarod replied with the same blandness as before. “I came in as your father was phoning home to have someone come to get him. I had a feeling it would be you, so I waited."

  Her brown eyes rounded with surprise. “You waited? Why?"

  “I discovered that I wanted to see you again.” His gaze was making another cool appraisal of her.

  For a moment Amanda couldn't breathe. The blood raced in her temples, sounding like a thousand snare drums in her ears. She could sense he was gauging her reaction to his statement. She had humiliated herself once and she wasn't going to do it again.

  Drawing herself up to her full height, which still left her several inches shorter than him, she replied, “You were correct the last time when you said the less we saw of each other, the better."

  He leisurely crossed the small space between them. “When you deprive yourself of chocolate, you always remember the sweet taste. But if you stuff yourself with it until it makes you sick—” there was a hard, mocking glint in his eyes “—then you lose your craving."

  “I'm not a piece of chocolate!” she declared, taking a step backward as he took another forward.

  Jarod kept advancing and Amanda kept retreating until she felt the metal of a filing cabinet behind her.

  “The principle is the same. I want to see you again."

  When she started to move sideways, he placed an arm on each side of her, blocking the path of escape.

  “I don't want to see you,” she stated firmly, pressing herself against the metal cabinet, her fingers clutching the smooth sides in desperation.

  “You've felt the force of the attraction we hold for each other,” Jarod murmured. “You can't bury your head in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist."

  That languorous weakness was flowing through her again, but she grimly clung to her self-respect, fighting off the rush of desire his nearness was causing. As if he guessed the power he held over her senses, he moved closer, the pressure of his thighs against her adding fuel to the raging fire in her veins. The male smell of him was an erotic stimulant, arousing her and reminding her that she could never be indifferent. She closed her eyes against the arrogant dark head moving inexorably toward hers.

  His mouth traveled lightly down the side of her face to her lips. “Friday night we'll drive to Atlanta, take in a show.” The movement of his lips as he spoke sensually teased the sensitive corner of her mouth.

  “No,” she whispered weakly, twisting her head away, only to have him pursue.

  “There's a dance at the club on Saturday,” he murmured. The width of an angel's hair was all that separated her from the promising ardor of his kiss. She lacked the strength to turn away again as his mouth continued the tantalizing movement against the trembling weakness of hers. “On Saturday we'll drive to the coast and spend the day."

  It was becoming increasingly impossible not to make that one tiny movement that would give him possession of her lips. “I have to work on Sunday,” Amanda declared breathlessly, fighting through the blackness swirling around her to cling to her sanity.

  Soft laughter fanned her face. “I own Oak Run,” Jarod reminded her. “I can close it for the day. We'll swim in the Atlantic and sunbathe on the beach—with clothes, if your modesty demands it."

  A sighing moan quaked through her at the same moment that footsteps sounded outside the office door, followed immediately by the rattle of the knob. Prior to the door's opening, Jarod levered himself away, letting one arm fall to his side as he half turned toward her father. The gold tips of her lashes fluttered upward, disturbed brown eyes immediately focusing on the implacable profile of the man leaning beside her. A darting glance at her father caught the quizzical expression in his gaze. Her cheeks colored in a rare blush.

  “I'll ... I'll wait for you in the car, dad,” Amanda stammered, eluding the darkness of Jarod's gaze as she hurried for the door.

  When she reached the car, her breath was coming in jerky gulps. Another minute—another second and she would have given in. She bit hard into her trembling lips, still afire from the tantalizing feather caress of his. He was playing at a game of which he was master. It was of little consequence that she affected him physically, too, because she didn't possess the power to annihilate his control, while he completely swamped hers.

  Her breathing had regained a degree of normalcy when the two men walked out of the office. Without a glance in her direction, Jarod walked by the car to his own. Involuntarily her eyes watched as he drove away before she became aware of her father sitting behind the wheel of the car, his hand outstretched for the ignition keys.

  “You look tired, dad,” she murmured with a false smile as she handed him the keys from her pocket. “Did you have a rough day?"

  The corners of his mouth lifted in wry amusement. “I didn't think you'd noticed me at all, but yes, it was a long day."

  Amanda shifted uncomfortably, her eyes straying toward the dust cloud left by Jarod's car. “That's not true,” she protested, but without conviction.

  “Isn't it? I had the distinct impression that I was creating an unwanted crowd of three."

  “Did Jarod—I mean, Mr. Colby say that?”

  “The only comment Mr. Colby made—” his voice gave extra inflection to the “Mister” “—was that I had a strong willed and beautiful daughter."

  That statement did nothing to untangle the knots her stomach was in. Her gaze shifted self-consciously to the slowly passing scenery outside the window of the now moving car.

  “What do you think of him, daddy?” she asked quietly.

  There was a pause before her father answered, then it was with deliberation. “You're an adult, Amanda. What do you think of him?"

  “That he's out of my class,” she sighed heavily.

  “Inverted snobbery?"

  He had misinterpreted her reply and she was just as glad. It would be difficult to explain the physical impact Jarod made on her. It was something she wasn't used to herself.

  “I suppose you could call it that,” she agreed. “You have to admit the world of Colby Enterprises is far removed from ours."

  “No so far that we're not a part of it,” he reminded her. “If you want to see the man again, don't
let feelings of inadequacy stop you."

  That was easily said, she thought. Inadequacy walked hand in hand with inexperience in this case. There was frightened triumph in knowing he wanted to see her again, but Amanda wasn't convinced that she could emerge unscathed from another encounter with Jarod Colby. Rather than be trapped by an emotional upheaval she couldn't control, she decided it was best not to go out with him again, no matter how much she was drawn to him.

  Chapter Six

  HER DECISION WAS TESTED later that evening when the telephone rang and Bonnie announced that it was for her. Before she reached the receiver, Amanda guessed it would be Jarod.

  “Is seven o'clock too early for Friday night?” his voice asked the minute she had identified herself.

  “I'm not going with you,” she answered in a low voice.

  “Saturday?"

  “No."

  “Don't play hard to get, Amanda.” The telephone lines didn't soften the harshness in his tone.

  “I'm not.” She had to make her replies short and clipped in order to conceal her shaking voice. “The answer is no. Tomorrow. Next week. Next month. No!"

  She heard the savage intake of breath. “I don't accept that. And you don't want me to,” he snapped. “You proved that today."

  There was no answer to that statement. He was too accustomed to overcoming a woman's objection not to know he had been on the brink of succeeding that afternoon. Very slowly Amanda replaced the receiver on the hook, afraid that if she talked to him any longer, he would somehow still succeed.

  “That was Jarod Colby, wasn't it?” The sound of her sister's voice brought Amanda round. “And you just turned him down? You're either insane or ingenious!"

  Amanda's lips tightened fractionally. “I don't want to get on board a fast train going nowhere, Bonnie,” she replied. “If he calls back, tell him I'm not here."

  But Jarod didn't call back. With each day that passed, Amanda became more convinced that he had taken her answer as final. Yet her second meeting with him had effectively diminished the humiliating recriminations of the first. By turning him down, she had thought to bolster her pride and her sense of integrity. Instead she found herself wishing she hadn't been so adamant in her refusal. He had wanted to see her again, and if she was honest with herself, she wanted to see him.

  It wasn't so important anymore that any relationship with him would be doomed to failure at the start. If marriage figured anywhere in his plans for the future, it wouldn't be to a small-town girl like her. Nor would he be satisfied with an innocent and compared to the relationships he undoubtedly had with other women—what would amount to a platonic association with her. Amanda had considered herself a liberated woman, intent on a career that she planned to continue after she was married, and open-minded toward her friends’ more intimate relationships with their boyfriends. Her own chaste state she had marked off to the fact that she had never met a man she cared for deeply enough, and experimenting for the sake of experience wasn't one of her traits.

  Faced with the alternative of having an affair with Jarod Colby should she see him again, which looked unlikely with each passing day, Amanda wondered how deeply she cared for him. Was she still wrapped up in her illusions of the past? Was the attraction purely physical between them? Or was there a chance of deeper emotions being involved? If there was, she had the depressing feeling that it would only be on her side.

  Such gloomy thoughts, she chided herself idly. But they matched the day, gray and dreary with a slow drizzle coming out of the overcast sky, the misty rain alleviating none of the sticky humidity. Few tourists would be tramping around this afternoon in such dismal weather.

  “Pam.” Amanda turned from the window to the trio of girls chattering in the corner. “Why don't you and Susan go on home? Linda and I will stay until closing. I don't expect a sudden deluge of visitors to appear."

  “Great!” Pam replied as she and Susan rose eagerly to their feet. “I have to wash my hair. Heaven only knows if it'll dry in this weather."

  “A car is pulling up out front,” Linda announced with a sigh. “Wouldn't you know there'd be some fools wandering around in this gluck!"

  Amanda sighed, too, but in relief. She didn't like having so much time on her hands to think. Everyone in town knew she had gone out with Jarod Colby, including her three co-workers. Each time she had tried to join in the light conversations about clothes or music or men, they shifted the subject to Jarod, exhibiting curiosity, envy and a touch of malice that Amanda hadn't been out with him again. Not even for the sake of her pride would she confide that she had turned him down. It was something they wouldn't understand or believe.

  “How many people are there?” Amanda asked, nodding to the departing girls moving down the hall as she sifted through the brochures that were given to each visitor.

  “Two. A man and a woman,” Linda answered, peering through the sheer folds of the curtain. Then she gasped loudly. “Amanda!” she squeaked excitedly. “I think it's Jarod Colby!"

  Unconsciously Amanda stiffened, half noticing that the other two girls had stopped to turn around, their eyes staring at her to see her reaction. Blood rushed quickly into her face and just as quickly receded as the front door opened.

  Jarod was not the first one to walk in. A stunning brunette preceded him wearing a pantsuit Amanda knew she could never afford if she saved a whole year. It didn't help to notice the material was a perfect match for the sapphire blue eyes. The woman was more than beautiful, with the sophistication of a model, and it was evident that she was very well acquainted with Jarod.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Bennett.” His jeering voice swung her eyes around to him, pain in their brown depths as she met the hard indifference of his gaze. He was casually dressed in close-fitting black trousers and a silk shirt in swirling shades of gray.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Colby. What a surprise to see you here.” Even to her own ears, her voice sounded brittle and false. Amanda didn't need to glance around to feel the unconcealed interest of the other girls in the exchange between her and Jarod.

  His gaze turned to the brunette securely attached to his arm. “Vanessa has never been through Oak Run. I thought this would be a perfect day for her to take a leisurely tour of the plantation house, considering the shortage of visitors you seem to have."

  “The weather is keeping them away,” Amanda murmured defensively. “You and—” she stopped and regathered her wits “—the two of you will have the place to yourselves. I hope you enjoy your tour.” The last comment was directed to the brunette, who was regarding her with ill-concealed amusement.

  There was a sardonic glint in Jarod's eyes as he brought them to bear on Amanda. “I believe you've misunderstood me, Miss Bennett,” he said dryly. “I'll be using your office to make a few phone calls. Rather than have Miss Scott become bored waiting for me—"

  “As if I could, darling!” the woman murmured, smiling provocatively into his face.

  “—I thought to keep her amused with a tour of Oak Run,” Jarod finished after returning the inviting smile.

  “Of course,” Amanda agreed tightly. Her fingernails were making marks in her palms. Every nerve end in her body screamed with jealousy. There was a primitive urge to scratch at those sparkling blue eyes gazing so rapturously at Jarod. Stiffly Amanda turned to Linda, her mouth forming the words to order her to conduct the brunette through the house. “Linda, would you—"

  Jarod's voice broke in. “As you're the senior guide, I would prefer that you show Vanessa around, Miss Bennett."

  Her head jerked back to him, indignant anger blazing in her eyes. “Is that an order, Mr. Colby?” she demanded.

  She didn't need to hear the sudden intake of breath from her fellow guides to know that her tone of voice was not one that she should use to address her employer. The aloofly cynical mask had fallen from Jarod's face as his nostrils flared in anger. Black fire flamed in his eyes.

  “Yes, Miss Bennett, it is,” he snapped.


  Fighting off the desire to run from the house rather than escort his mistress, or whatever she was, through the building, Amanda moved to comply with his edict. The long skirt of her ruffled gown gave a regal grace to her carriage and added to the proudly defiant tilt of her head.

  “Will you come this way, Miss Scott?” she requested in a coolly polite tone, not waiting for the girl's amused nod of assent as she started down the hall.

  The need to escape the lacerating sardonicism of Jarod's gaze prompted Amanda to change the usual procedure of the tour, which had always begun with the first-floor rooms, by leading the woman to the staircase. In her best professional voice, she began her recitation.

  “As we go up the stairs to the second floor, you will notice indentations and scars on the original oak steps. These disfiguring marks are believed to have been caused by Union soldiers riding their horses through the house when it was first taken."

  The tour of the second floor took very little time, with Vanessa Scott exhibiting only desultory interest in the priceless furniture and the ornate canopy beds. The woman's attitude seemed to be one of indifference until Amanda led her back down the stairs.

  “Which room is the ballroom?” the woman inquired, glancing idly around at the various doors that led off the main hall. “I'd like to see it."

  Usually that was one of the last rooms shown before a tour was taken upstairs, but since Amanda had already rearranged the route once, she saw no point in not doing it again.

  “It's through these doors,” she said, walking ahead of the girl to open them. She opened her mouth to begin describing some of the antiques in the room when she was interrupted.

  “Is this where the cotillion is held?"

  “Yes,” Amanda answered politely. “Since the early 1900s, there's been a dance, or cotillion as we call it, in celebration of Jefferson Davis's birthday."

  “Have you ever been to one?” For the first time since the confrontation in the hall, Vanessa's blue eyes turned their speculative gleam away from her surroundings to study Amanda.