So much for good intentions.
She’d been so focused on blocking out the impact of his touch, his scent, his sexy drawl—and that damn lopsided smile!—that she’d allowed herself to be sucked into this dialogue with less resistance than she’d given his request for a dance.
Now she waltzed on with her heart in her throat, dreading an offhand and meaningless apology as much as she feared further harsh words. But he didn’t reply for a long while, during which he turned her expertly to avoid another couple—Zack and Skylar, she noticed, absorbed in their own conversation—and in the process he managed to shift his grip and ease her closer into the protective shield of his body.
For a moment she forgot herself and her resistance in the smooth slide of his jacket beneath her fingers and the memory of his smooth, hot skin beneath. Then he spoke, so close to her ear that the deep timbre of his voice took on a life of its own in her blood. Battling her way back from those sensory depths, it took a little while for the ambiguity of his response to register.
I’ll keep that in mind.
That’s what he’d said. But what did he mean? That an apology wouldn’t be worth the effort…or that he’d need to put in more effort?
Diana wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer, yet not knowing left her feeling off-kilter and dissatisfied, like when a movie ended too suddenly without tying up all the threads. For a while she fostered that resentment of a story left unfinished. Would it have hurt him to explain himself and his changed attitude? Would it have been too much for him to attempt an apology?
Honestly? Yes. She knew him well enough to answer her own questions. Max Fortune had never been one for fake sentiments or for long-winded explanations. He made decisions, he acted, and those actions did the speaking for him.
Perhaps he didn’t have an agenda.
Perhaps, because of their errant partners, he’d simply found himself in a situation where he felt he should ask her to dance. Except asking would have resulted in a rebuff so he’d acted….
“It’s only a dance,” she murmured, repeating his earlier words to close the conversation in her own mind.
But he’d heard, apparently, because he leaned back a little, enough that he could look down into her face. “I’ve changed my mind about that,” he said. “It’s not only a dance. It’s our first dance.”
“Is it?” she asked, as if she hadn’t known, as if that hadn’t registered the instant he’d swung her into his arms.
“Yeah.” The same crooked smile as earlier touched his lips, but there was a dark gravity in his expression that caused her heartbeat to slow and deepen. “Seems we never got around to actual dates. Maybe that’s something else I need to apologize for.”
“That’s not necessary,” she told him.
Dating hadn’t been necessary, either, she thought with a bittersweet jab of memory. She’d fallen straight into his bed the night they’d met. Sure, they’d gone out for plenty of meals but those had always ended in a giddy rush home when they couldn’t keep their hands off each other any longer.
It was only after her return to New York, when she’d waited anxiously for a call that never came, that she’d taken an unblinkered look at her status in his life. No visits to meet his family. No double dates with his friends. Dancing with Zack earlier, she’d been stunned to learn that he and Max had been friends since university. As entrepreneurial partners they’d started up a range of ventures from the time they graduated, and yet she’d never met Zack and he knew nothing of her.
What a way to be reminded of her place in Max’s life!
It helped, reminding herself that their relationship had started and ended between the sheets. It even helped that she knew the same attraction still existed. She’d matured enough to recognize the chemistry for what it was and to handle it with her poise intact.
The past ten minutes had proven that, if nothing else. She could dance with him, trade quips with him, stand her ground with him, and walk away at the end of a dance.
It is just a dance, she told herself with a new and confident resolve.
And although the physical responses she felt with every brush of his thigh and every tightening of his hand around hers were real and strong and underpinned by memories of her first love affair—her only love affair—they were only physical responses. That was all she would allow them to be. She would walk away with her shoulders straight and her head held high.
In less than a week Max Fortune would be gone and her life would continue, as it had done all those years ago, except this time there would be no regrets.
The dance ended a few minutes later with the announcement that Mr. and Mrs. Case Fortune were leaving the reception to start their new life together as man and wife. The promise in those words hit Diana hard. It was, she realized with chagrin, compounded by the fact that Max had not let her go when the music ended.
While the M.C. took the mic and called for the guests’ attention, his hand was doing this stroking thing across the small of her back. For some silly reason that heedless caress intensified her ache of aloneness and she had to fight the urge to turn into his solid strength.
But she didn’t. She wouldn’t.
Extricating herself from his hold, she managed a smile and a polite thank you for the dance before they were joined at the edge of the gathering guests by Eliza and Jeffrey.
“There you are. I thought I’d lost you.” Her boss/friend/date claimed her side with a possessiveness that caught Diana by surprise. What was he up to? Eyebrows raised, his gaze slid from her to Max and back in a way that begged an introduction.
Eliza obliged and they swapped small talk about the evening’s success and then about Max’s travels in the weeks he’d been in America. Despite Jeffrey’s proprietary grip on her arm, Diana started to relax. Perhaps she’d looked in need of rescuing. Perhaps Eliza had set him up to act the role of neglected date.
Looking on the bright side, she could now say good night and escape Max’s company. That had to be a good thing.
“Not entering into the spirit of the bouquet toss?” Jeffrey asked, startling her out of silent contemplation. Then she realized his question was for Eliza who, unusually, seemed lost for an answer.
“A public tussle for a bunch of flowers? I can’t imagine that being Eliza’s thing. Much too undignified.” Max slung a friendly arm around his cousin’s shoulder. “Am I right, Blondie?”
Eliza narrowed her eyes at him. “Did you just call me Blondie? Because that’s something I might get into a public tussle over!”
Laughter and more teasing followed, but Diana noticed that Max squeezed his cousin’s shoulder before he let her go. It seemed a small thing, that gesture of support, but it took a special empathy to detect the need for comfort and that reminded Diana of the man she’d fallen for all those years ago. Not the man with the smooth seduction skills, not the ardent, patient, skillful lover, but the man who knew how to sooth a nervous woman as easily as he soothed a fractious horse.
A loud cheer went up, signaling that one of the singletons had won the tussle for Gina’s bouquet and allowing Diana the moment she needed to swallow the bittersweet taste of regret.
“The party here will be winding down now the formalities are over,” Eliza said brightly. “Why don’t you come back to the estate? I’m sure we can scare up a liqueur or a coffee or even another bottle of champagne.”
“What do you say, Diana?” Jeffrey asked. “Shall we kick on for a bit or would you prefer to go straight home?”
It shouldn’t have been a difficult question. Jeffrey had presented two clearly-stated choices. Problem was, she felt the weight of Max’s silent scrutiny and her simple decision grew infinitely more complex. From Eliza she’d learned that he was staying at the big house, in a spare apartment on the third floor. Which meant he would, most likely, be at the small after-party gathering.
“Well?” Eliza prompted, “what do you say, Diana?”
There was something in her friend’s tone
of voice that reminded Diana that she’d vowed to make decisions based on her own desires. She’d proven during the dance that she didn’t have to avoid him. She could handle the heat of attraction and she could handle the emotional backdraft, and it felt good to acknowledge that strength in herself. Her self-confidence had taken too many knocks for her not to celebrate its moments of power.
“I say it’s much too early to call it a night.” With a smile, she linked her arm through Jeffrey’s. “We’d love to come out to the estate,” she told Eliza. “Especially if you can scare up that champagne you mentioned.”
It was well past midnight and the informal party had thinned to a sprinkling of family and close friends, most of them gathered around the stone fireplace in the Fortune’s great room. Max would have called it a night himself if not for one small detail.
Diana.
All he needed was a piece of her time, alone, to deliver an apology and whatever else was needed to convince her it wasn’t over between them. He could have done the first during their dance, while the indignation flared in her eyes and stiffened her pretty spine. But she’d demanded more than I’m sorry and it had taken a while to figure out what he could offer.
Now he was impatient to put his strategy into action.
Half an hour earlier Diana had left the great room with Eliza and Sasha, apparently to inspect one of Eliza’s interior design projects. Nash had returned early to check on his wife’s health as a headache had caused her to leave the reception before him. Maya’s departure a short while ago—after an intense head-to-head with Creed over his half brother, Blake—left an all-male group and the conversation, naturally, had turned to sport. Not that he didn’t appreciate the hell out of sports, but the discussion had shifted from football to hockey and he was well and truly in the dark.
“Hockey not your game?”
Max turned to find Creed at his elbow. “It’s not big in Australia,” he told his cousin. “We don’t have the ice.”
“The game goes better on ice,” Creed deadpanned. Then, “I was talking to your friend Zack at the wedding. He said you both played football, back in your college days.”
“That’s how we met,” Max confirmed. “On opposing sides of a ruck.”
Creed raised his eyebrows at the unfamiliar word.
“A rugby term,” Max explained. “That’s the football we played, first on opposing teams and later we played together…which proved much better for our friendship.”
“I expected to see Zack out here tonight.”
“So did I, but he flies home tomorrow. I guess he decided he needed an early night.”
Max swallowed the last of his port and put down his glass.
“Are you heading upstairs?” Creed asked.
“Soon.” Max’s gaze drifted to the door, to where the women had disappeared earlier. “After I say my goodnights.”
His cousin’s eyes narrowed astutely as he read between the lines. “Ah.” He nodded solemnly. “Good luck.”
Had his interest in Diana been so obvious? By the knowing—and possibly sympathetic—twinkle in Creed’s eyes, the answer was yes. And Max didn’t much care. He grinned and clapped his cousin on the back. “Thanks, mate. I think I’m going to need that luck and then some.”
The lilting warmth of female laughter led him straight to the library room, where the three women looked up guiltily at his arrival. Eliza gave an audible sigh of relief. “Thank heavens it’s not Creed.” She waved a hand at the album open on her lap. “He’d have a cow if he knew I was showing Sasha his nude-on-a-rug baby pictures.”
“I thought I’d find you oohing and aahing over cushions and curtains and color schemes,” he said, “not baby pictures.”
“And yet you still came through the door?” Eliza’s brows arched in faux shock. “My, but you’re brave.”
“Is the party breaking up?” Sasha asked.
“Winding down. Unless you have an opinion on this year’s Stanley Cup. That’d kick things on a bit longer.”
“You walked out on a sports discussion?” Eliza shook her head. “Are you ill?”
“I wanted to catch Diana before she left.”
His gaze shifted to where she sat on the deep red sofa, shoes kicked off, long legs tucked up beneath her. If his request alarmed her, it didn’t show. She looked comfortable, poised, and so damn beautiful he felt the kick in his solar plexus.
“Well, Sasha, do you want to brave the hockey debate?” Eliza closed the thick book and set it aside. “If that’s all right with you, Diana?”
“Of course it is,” she affirmed after the briefest hint of hesitation. “But please let Jeffrey know I’ll be ready for home in a few minutes.”
Max waited by the door while the women slipped on shoes and said their farewells. On her way out Eliza paused, and in the guise of bussing his cheek murmured, “Behave yourself, cousin.”
He had little choice, given Diana’s reminder that her date-on-a-leash was waiting the command to take her home. That message might have been directed to Eliza, but Max knew the point was aimed right at him. He knew and it sat all kinds of uncomfortable as he closed the door behind Eliza.
“A few minutes,” he mused, turning to Diana who sat straight-backed, shoes now on her feet, hands folded primly in her lap. No longer relaxed but still kick-gut beautiful. “Is that all the time you have for me, Diana?”
She lifted her chin, as cool and regal as any princess. “What do you want, Max?”
Right at that minute, he wanted to muss up her ice-princess demeanor. Preferably with his hands and his mouth. He debated telling her so, but decided that it wouldn’t help his cause. He wanted to smooth things over, to win back some measure of her trust, not resume their verbal fisticuffs. “I want to talk.”
“About?”
“The other morning, at the stables.” Their eyes locked and held. He hated explanations and justifications, but this had to be done. “You caught me off guard, turning up as you did. I didn’t even know you lived in Sioux Falls.”
“You’d seen me at the party weeks before.”
“I thought you were visiting Eliza.”
A frown of annoyance drew her serious dark brows together. “If you’d bothered to stay long enough to speak to me, you’d have found out otherwise.”
“So tell me now,” he said evenly, ignoring the bite in her voice. “How long have you lived in Sioux Falls?”
“I moved here three years ago.”
“May I ask why?”
She lifted a shoulder, then let it drop. “After my husband died, I wanted a change.”
“I guess you got that.”
Her eyes narrowed, suspicious of his meaning. “I’ve gotten exactly what I was looking for when I decided to leave Beverly Hills. Sioux Falls is quiet and relaxed and friendly, yet it has every service and facility a person could ask for.”
“It’s a long way from Manhattan and Beverly Hills.”
“Yes, but I never enjoyed living in either of those places. And if I do need to visit, we do have an airport here.”
“You can go anywhere from here,” he said, quoting a slogan he’d heard more than once during his travels.
“I prefer to take that as a positive.”
“Hey, I agree.” Max held up his hands in mock protection against her sharp tone. Like a tigress defending her adopted home. He liked that a whole lot more than the ice-princess act. “That’s how Nash convinced us to stay here. By private jet we can fly pretty much anywhere for the day.”
Mollified, she settled back in her corner of the sofa but her eyes remained wary as they watched him move closer. “Did that work out?” she asked after he’d settled his hips against the mahogany table in the center of the room.
“Better than expected. We’ve had no delays or shutdowns.”
“Then you have been lucky. That’s part of winter in South Dakota.”
“Part of the appeal?” he asked, tongue-in-cheek.
A small smile curved her lips
but he sensed a seriousness in her eyes as she said, “Yes, as it happens.”
“Too much California sun?”
“Too much California.”
The comment, delivered as a breezy counter to his quip, seemed to develop weight and significance in the beat of silence that followed. Her mouth tightened with vexation, as if she regretted giving away something telling. Something Max had to follow up…“You weren’t happy living there?”
She puffed out a small breath. “Does that please you?”
“Should it?”
“Given the tone of your commentary on my marriage last week at the stables, I’d say yes.”
“I don’t want to talk about your marriage,” he said shortly. Hell, he couldn’t think about it without feeling the bitter jab of betrayal. Knowledge of her unhappiness did nothing to ease that.
“You said you wanted to talk about the other morning, at the stables.”
“Correct.” Max pushed his hands into his trouser pockets and fixed her with an unflinching look. “You were engaged by Sky to do a job. You should have had the chance to complete it.”
Mention of the photography job had thrown her. He could see that in her eyes, in the frown between them. “From memory,” she said slowly, “I chose to not take the job.”
“You said you weren’t the right person.”
“Because that’s the impression you gave when you questioned my suitability. Good grief, Max, you even had the nerve to pass judgment on my choice of clothing!”
“So, you do want the job?”
Caught out by his question, she blinked slowly. “I thought you would have found someone else by now.”
“No.”
She moistened her lips and Max smiled with satisfaction deep inside. She wanted the job, all right. He saw it in that unconscious gesture and in the equally hungry glow in her eyes. Pride—and wariness of his motives—might not allow her to admit it, however.
“When do you want the work done?” she asked.
“I need the prints by Friday.”
She nodded. “Eliza said you were going home next weekend.”
Back in Fortune's Bed Page 4
