The music came to a slow sensual conclusion. For an instant Chance couldn’t bring himself to release her. He had the feeling he’d just glimpsed heaven, but it was elusive yet. Another minute, maybe two, and he was all but certain it would be his.
“Chance?” she murmured.
“Hmm?”
“The music’s over.” There was a breathless catch in her voice.
He grinned, aware she couldn’t see it. “I know.”
“Shouldn’t we go back to the table? People are staring.”
“Don’t tell me the infamous Jenny Adams is scared of being the talk of the town.”
She sighed and her breath feathered against his throat. “Being talked about is the least of my concerns.”
“Oh?”
She tilted her head and gazed at him innocently. “It’s just that I’m getting a really desperate need to strip naked and have my way with you.”
Chance fought the urge to shout, “Hallelujah!” and bolt from the restaurant with Jenny in his arms. Instead, he met her gaze and said, “If that’s a genuine offer, darlin’, we can be out of here before the next tune starts.”
A trace of worry skittered across her face, but she never lowered her gaze. “Without dinner?” she asked, then added in a tone usually reserved for seduction, “I’m starved.”
Very brave, very cool, he thought. Only a faint tremor in her voice suggested she was at all fearful about his possible response. He grinned. This tit-for-tat banter was escalating nicely. It would be interesting to see which of them backed out of the game first. His money was on Ms. Adams. She was good, but it was clear to him she was new to the technique. He doubted she’d have the nerve to stay the course.
“Now that you mention it, sustenance is probably a good idea,” he said softly, “especially if this evening’s destined to end the way you’ve been hinting.”
Turning, he kept one hand clasped firmly in his and led the way back to their table. As he seated her, he bent down and brushed a kiss across the nape of her neck. She gave a start as if he’d touched her with a branding iron.
“You’re a little jumpy, darlin’. Anything wrong?”
She swallowed hard. “Not a thing,” she said, her voice breathless.
“Good. I’d suggest you go for a nice big steak. That ought to tide you over till morning, no matter how much activity the night holds.”
“I’ll have a salad,” she said, her expression defiant. “A small house salad.”
“At the rate things are going, that won’t sustain you through foreplay.”
“It will sustain me just fine,” she insisted stubbornly.
He shrugged. “Suit yourself. How about an appetizer at least? Maybe some oysters?” he suggested. “I hear they have some interesting side effects.”
“Don’t you ever think about anything except sex?” she muttered.
“Not when someone’s signaling the way you’ve been tonight,” he replied blandly. “Once that track’s been laid down, I’m more than willing to ride it to the end.” He regarded her innocently. “Unless, of course, you’ve been playing some sort of game here. Have you?”
“No, of course not,” she said firmly.
He gave her an encouraging smile. “Good.”
She met his gaze boldly. “Have you?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Fine.”
When their waiter came, Chance ordered a beer for himself and white wine for Jenny. While they waited for the drinks, he let the silence linger and swell. He wanted her to sit and worry about just what she’d gotten herself into. In truth he could use the time to try to figure out just how far he was going to press this game she’d started.
On a purely physical level he wanted her so badly he ached. That much was straightforward and clear-cut. On an emotional level it was a hell of a lot more complicated. Why? Because something told him that once he slept with Jenny Adams, nothing would ever be simple again.
* * *
Jenny had recognized the mistake she’d made the minute she’d seen the flare of heat in Chance’s eyes as she’d walked across the parking lot. Everything that had happened since pretty much proved she had dangerously miscalculated.
All she’d intended was to throw the man off-kilter, maybe get the upper hand for the first time since they’d met. She’d planned on engaging in a little light flirtation, a little blatant seduction, maybe even indulging in a breath-stealing kiss or two just for the pure exhilaration of it.
It had stopped being fun and started throwing up very serious warning signals the minute she’d seen that avid look in his eyes. He was a whole lot better at flirtation and seduction than she was. She’d turned weak-kneed and muddle-brained the minute he’d touched her. It had required every ounce of willpower she possessed and then some to insist on having dinner, rather than racing him to the nearest bed.
And then, out of pure cussedness, she’d ordered an itty-bitty house salad. How long could it possibly take to eat a handful of lettuce leaves and a couple of cherry tomatoes? Fifteen minutes if she dragged it out? She should have ordered a half-dozen courses, starting with an appetizer and going all the way through to dessert and coffee.
Well, there was still time to insist on looking over the dessert cart. Maybe she’d order a huge bowl of fresh strawberries with whipped cream and linger over them for at least an hour. She glanced up at Chance and noted that he was watching her with his usual amused expression. Forget the whipped cream, she thought, as a vision of Chance slowly licking it off her surfaced and shot her temperature up several degrees.
“Something worrying you?” he inquired.
Jenny smiled brightly. “Not a thing.” She lifted her wineglass, the only one she intended to allow herself all evening. “Nice wine.”
“We should have ordered a bottle,” Chance said.
“One glass is plenty. I’ll nurse it.”
“You’ve already finished all of it but the last swallow,” he pointed out.
Jenny stared at the glass in astonishment. The wine was gone. She must have tossed back most of it when her throat went dry under Chance’s intense scrutiny.
“Oh, well,” she said with a shrug. “I guess it’s water for me for the rest of the meal.” She picked up her glass and drained it, then glanced around desperately for a waitress to refill it with lots and lots of ice.
“You’re sure?” he asked.
“Absolutely. I never drink more than one when I’m driving.”
He nodded. “Smart thinking. Too bad we didn’t come together. Then I could be the designated driver. Maybe, though, if you had another glass of wine, you’d relax.”
Relax? No way. In fact, Jenny thought, coming separately might have been the one bright decision she’d made all day. Surely whatever amorous notions either of them entertained would die out on the long lonely drive back home. That was her safety net, her one guarantee that no matter how far she went flirting, she could get home without giving in to his lust and her increasingly persistent hormones.
He sat back in his chair and observed her with that all-too-familiar irritatingly smug expression. Jenny resisted the urge to squirm.
“Okay,” she finally said. “Just spit it out.”
“What?”
“Whatever’s on your mind. You’re the one who insisted on getting together for dinner.”
“And you’re the one who was supposed to come prepared to answer a question,” he reminded her. “Have you thought about it?”
Jenny decided to be deliberately dense. She’d thought about his proposal until her head was spinning. She hadn’t come up with an answer she could live with, not without feeling as if she was betraying someone, either her family or herself.
“What question?” she asked.
He shook his head, his expression sorrowful. “Oh, darlin’, you can do be
tter than that.”
“No,” she said stubbornly. “I think you ought to repeat the question just so I’m sure you haven’t changed your mind or something. Spell out all the terms so we’re clear on what sort of arrangement you’re making.”
“Arrangement? I suppose that’s one word for it,” he said. “Okay. Whatever you say, darlin’.”
Before she realized what he intended, he was out of his chair and down on one knee next to her. He had a small jewelry box in one hand. When he flipped open the lid, the most gorgeous diamond ring she’d ever seen was displayed. The sight of its glittering beauty took her breath away. The implication of it left her speechless. She had never really expected him to carry things this far. She’d all but convinced herself he’d been teasing her.
She sighed at the folly of her thinking. That ring was no joke.
“Jenny Adams, will you marry me?” he asked loudly enough to draw attention.
Jenny could feel at least a dozen pairs of eyes turn toward the two of them expectantly. Silence fell in their corner of the restaurant. She wasn’t absolutely certain, but she was relatively confident this was the most humiliating moment of her life. She’d been at the center of a fair amount of gossip over the years, but this scene promised to be the story that lingered.
“Get up,” she hissed under her breath.
“Not until you give me an answer.”
“Please,” she begged.
“Only if you take the ring and try it on,” he said.
“That’s blackmail.”
He grinned. “Yep. As you’ve reminded me more than once, I’m good at it.”
Jenny debated doing absolutely nothing and seeing how long Chance would stay right where he was. This had to be humiliating for him, too.
Apparently not, she realized when he still hadn’t budged a couple of minutes later. Unfortunately, she wasn’t made of the same stuff. The attention from all the other diners was way too embarrassing. She wanted to get this farce over with. Her left hand trembled, but she held it out.
Chance took the ring out of the box and slowly slid it onto her finger. The contrast of cool metal and his warm skin set off gooseflesh. His gaze locked with hers and she found she couldn’t quite bring herself to look away. Chance, however, did. He gazed at the ring, which sparkled brightly even in the dimly lit restaurant.
“A perfect fit,” he murmured.
Jenny choked back a bubble of panic deep in her throat and followed the direction of his gaze. The ring was spectacular and fit as if it had been made for her hand. She recalled how many times as a girl she’d taken out the engagement ring her mother had put away after her divorce from Jenny’s father. She had slipped it on and imagined the day when she would have a ring of her own, given to her by a man who worshiped her. Now that moment was here, and the man cared more about her prospective inheritance than he did about her. Rather than the ecstasy she’d once imagined feeling, she wanted to cry.
Before she could make a complete fool of herself by bursting into tears, everyone surrounding them assumed that her decision had been given. They all broke into applause. A bottle of champagne arrived at the table, a gift from the management. Jenny felt like the worst kind of fraud, but at least Chance made good on his promise. He went back to his seat. He just didn’t release her hand. For some reason, the warmth of his grip felt reassuring.
Now that she’d gotten her way, Jenny was almost tempted to rip the ring from her finger before she became too comfortable wearing it. Something in Chance’s expression stopped her. He looked almost shaken, as if he, too, was being torn by unexpected emotions.
“Don’t take it off,” he said quietly as if he’d guessed her intentions.
“Chance—”
“Please. Think it over at least.”
“I’ve been thinking it over.”
“Doesn’t the fact that you couldn’t say no outright tell you something?”
“It tells me that I love my family, that I would do almost anything in the world to prevent them from being hurt.” Her voice broke as she again fought back tears.
“Is that all?” he asked doubtfully.
She stared back at him defiantly. “What else could it be?”
“Maybe, just maybe, there’s a part of you that wants to marry me for your own sake.”
“Marry a man who’s blackmailing me?” she asked incredulously. “You must be crazy.”
“I don’t think so. The attraction’s there, darlin’. If you’re honest with yourself, you can’t deny it.”
“Attraction’s not a reason to get married. Attraction can burn itself out way too fast.”
“You want love, then? I’m surprised. I didn’t peg you as a romantic.”
“Every woman’s a romantic.”
“I don’t know. I’ve met a few who were driven more by ambition and greed. Their matches weren’t made in heaven. They were mergers. That’s what ours could be. We’d be great partners, Jenny.”
Her heart sank at the cool assessment of their future, the bland definition of their relationship. She didn’t want a partner, at least not a business partner. She wanted a man in her life who loved her. She wanted passion and excitement.
Chance could give her the passion. She had very little doubt about that, but would it be enough if there was no love behind it? No matter how desperately she wanted to help her family, she couldn’t compromise on that. Deep in her heart, she knew her father would understand and forgive her.
She took one last longing look at the ring Chance had given her, then slowly twisted it off and held it out in the palm of her hand. “I can’t accept it,” she said quietly.
“Not even to save White Pines,” he said, clearly stunned.
With tears in her eyes she shook her head. “God help me, not even for that.”
12
Chance watched in stunned silence as Jenny picked up her purse and left the steakhouse. One part of him wanted desperately to stop her. Another part told him he’d escaped disaster by the skin of his teeth. The contrary forces kept him immobilized as she walked away.
“Sir, is there anything I can get you?” the waitress inquired solicitously. Her tone held just a hint that she could cure all his ills.
Chance tried to work up some enthusiasm for that possibility, but he couldn’t. Mindless mutually satisfying sex wasn’t the answer to what ailed him. Nor was alcohol, though he did gaze longingly at the row of liquor bottles behind the bar.
“Just the check,” he told the obviously disappointed waitress. He read her name tag for the first time. “Thanks, Thelma.”
“You bet, handsome. If you change your mind, let me know. I know all about making a man feel better.”
Responding automatically, Chance grinned. “I’ll bet you do, sweetheart, but it would be wasted on me tonight.”
Thelma left and returned in minutes with his check, then asked, “Mind if I give you some advice?”
Chance figured he was at such a low point he’d take advice from wherever it came. “Go right ahead.”
“Forget about her. She looks a little stuck-up to me, like she’s better than the rest of us.”
Chance thought about Jenny turning down marriage and a chance to save her family’s ranch, all because she still believed in the happily-ever-after kind of love.
“Maybe she is,” he said quietly.
Maybe his priorities were the ones that were all messed up. There’d been a time when he’d been lucky enough to love a woman and have her love him back, heart and soul. With his beloved Mary he’d known the joy of that kind of marriage firsthand. What kind of man would trade that for a piece of land he’d never set eyes on until a few months back? What kind of man expected a woman to sacrifice such deep emotions? He wasn’t crazy about the answer that came to him.
He tossed a handful of bills on the table. “See you
,” he said to Thelma as he slid away from the table.
“Anytime, lover. You know where to find me.”
Chance appreciated the invitation, but he knew he’d never take her up on it. Unfortunately, the woman who’d taken him totally by surprise and managed to get under his skin had just walked out on him. And he had some long hard thinking to do before he made up his mind what—if anything—to do about it.
* * *
“How was your date with Chance?” Lizzy demanded before Jenny was even through the front door.
Jenny frowned. She really didn’t want to do a postmortem of the evening, not with her curious younger sister. She didn’t want advice or pity or sympathy. She didn’t want to have to explain her decision, not when she wasn’t entirely sure she understood it herself.
“Were you waiting up for me?” she asked testily. “Don’t you have better things to do?”
“Who’s waiting up?” Lizzy retorted, instantly defensive. “It’s barely ten o’clock.” She studied Jenny worriedly. “Didn’t it go well? Did you two fight? Or did you finally come to your senses?”
Jenny thought back over the evening, from its promising, even stimulating beginning, all the way to the disastrous ending when she had made her decision and walked out on Chance. She could still remember the way that diamond ring had felt on her finger and the husky note in Chance’s voice when he’d slid it on. If only...
She brought herself up short. There were no if onlys here. Chance wanted White Pines, not her, and she wasn’t about to become a pawn in his game. That was that. Sooner or later she would have to tell her father what had happened. She would have to warn him that Chance might be more vindictive than ever since she’d thwarted his scheme.
Just not tonight. Tonight she didn’t want to think any more about Chance Adams at all. She wanted to sink into the oblivion of sleep. Maybe if she slept deeply enough, she wouldn’t dream about the promise and hope that ring could have represented if their lives had been different and both their last names hadn’t been Adams.
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