LITMIR.BIZ

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in business.

      Barrie’s two companions seemed to shrink when he appeared beside them, a drink cradled in one big, lean hand. He didn’t drink often, and never to excess. He was the sort of man who never liked to lose control in any way. She’d seen him lose it just once. Perhaps that was why he hated her so, because she was the only one who ever had.

      “Well, well, what was Martha thinking, I wonder, that rules were made to be broken?” Dawson asked her, his deep voice like velvet even though it carried above the noise.

      “Martha invited me. She didn’t invite you,” Barrie said coldly. “I’m sure it was John. He’s laughing,” she added, her gaze going to Martha’s husband across the room.

      Dawson followed her glance to his host and raised his glass. The shorter man raised his in acknowledgment and, catching Barrie’s furious glare, turned quickly away.

      “Aren’t you going to introduce me?” Dawson continued, unabashed, his eyes going now to the two men beside her.

      “Oh, this is Ted and that’s…what was your name?” she somewhat abruptly asked the second man.

      “Bill,” he replied.

      “This is my…stepbrother, Dawson Rutherford,” she continued.

      Bill grinned and extended his hand. It was ignored, although Dawson nodded curtly in acknowledgment. The younger man cleared his throat and smiled sheepishly at Barrie, brandishing his glass. “Uh, I need a refill,” he said quickly, because Dawson’s eyes were narrowing and there was a distinct glitter in them.

      “Me, too,” Ted added and, grinning apologetically at Barrie, took off.

      Barrie glared after them. “Craven cowards,” she muttered.

      “Does it take two men at once to keep you happy these days?” Dawson asked contemptuously. His cold gaze ran down her dress to the low neckline that displayed her pretty breasts to their best advantage.

      She felt naked. She wouldn’t have dreamed of wearing clothing this revealing around Dawson normally. Only the fact that he’d come to the party unbeknownst to her gave him the opportunity to see her in this camouflage she adopted. But she wasn’t going to spoil her sophisticated image by letting him know that his intent regard disturbed her. “There’s safety in numbers,” she replied with a cool smile. “How are you, Dawson?”

      “How do I look?” he countered.

      “Prosperous,” she replied. She didn’t say anything else. Dawson had come to her apartment only a few months ago, trying to get her back to Sheridan to play chaperone to Leslie Holton, a widow and former actress who had a piece of land Dawson wanted. She’d refused and an argument had resulted, which led to them not speaking at all. She’d thought Dawson would never seek her out again after it. But here he was. And she could imagine that the widow was still in hot pursuit of him—or so her best friend Antonia Hayes Long had told her recently.

      He took a sip of his drink, but his eyes never left her face. “Corlie changes your bed every other day, hoping.”

      Corlie was the housekeeper at Dawson’s Sheridan home. She and her husband, Rodge, had been in residence since long before Barrie’s mother had married Dawson’s father. They were two of her favorite people and she missed them. But not enough to go back, even for a visit. “I don’t belong in Sheridan,” she said firmly. “Tucson is home, now.”

      “You don’t have a home any more than I do,” he shot back, his voice cold. “Our parents are dead. All we have left is each other.”

      “Then I have nothing,” she said harshly, letting her eyes speak for her.

      “You’d like to think so, wouldn’t you?” he demanded with a cold smile. And because the flat statement wounded him, he added deliberately, “Well, I hope you’re not still eating your heart out for me, baby.”

      The accusation made her feel even more vulnerable. Her hands clenched in her lap. In the old days, Dawson had known too well how she felt about him. It was a weapon he’d used against her. She glared at him. “I wouldn’t waste my heart on you. And don’t call me baby!”

      His eyes narrowed on her face and dropped to her mouth, lingering there. “I don’t use endearments, Barrie,” he reminded her. “Not in normal conversation. And we both remember the last time I used that one, don’t we?”

      She wanted to crawl under the stairs and die. Her eyes closed. Memories assailed her. Dawson’s deep voice, husky with feeling and need and desire, whispering her name with each movement of his powerful body against hers, whispering, “Baby! Oh, God, baby, baby…!”

      She made a hoarse sound and tried to get away, but he was too close. He sat down on the step below hers and settled back on his elbow, so that his arm imprisoned her between himself and the banister.

      “Don’t run,” he chided. “You’re a big girl now. It’s all right to have sex with a man, Barrie. You won’t go to hell for it. Surely you know that by now, with your record.”

      She looked at him with fear and humiliation. “My record?” she whispered.

      “How many men have you had? Can’t you remember?”

      Her eyes stared straight into his. She didn’t flinch, although she felt like it. “I can remember, Dawson,” she said with a forced smile. “I’ve had one. Only one.” She actually shivered.

      Her reaction took some of the antagonism out of him. He just stared at her, his pale eyes unusually watchful.

      She clasped her arms tightly over her breasts and her entire body went rigid from his proximity.

      He moved back, just a couple of inches. She relaxed, but only a little. Her posture was still unnatural. He wanted to think she was acting this way deliberately, in an attempt to resurrect the old guilt. But it wasn’t an act. She looked at him with eyes that were vulnerable, but even if she cared as much as ever, she was afraid of him. And it showed.

      The knowledge made him uncomfortable. More uncomfortable than he usually was. He’d taunted her with her feelings for him for years, until it was a habit he couldn’t break. He’d even done it the night he lost his head and destroyed her innocence. He’d behaved viciously to push away the guilt and the shame he felt at his loss of control.

      He hadn’t meant to attack her tonight, of all times. Not after the argument he’d had with her months ago. He’d come to make peace. But the attempt had backfired. It was the way she was dressed, and the two eager young men sitting like worshipers at her feet, that had enraged him with jealousy. He hadn’t meant a word he said, but she wouldn’t know that. She was used to having him bait her. It didn’t make him feel like a man to punish her for his own sins; it made him sick. Especially now, with what he’d only just found out about the past, and what had happened to her because of him…

      He averted his eyes to her folded arms. She looked like a whipped child. She’d adopted that posture after he’d seduced her. The image was burned indelibly into his brain. It still hurt, too.

      “I only want to talk,” he said curtly. “You can relax.”

      “What could we possibly have to say to each other?” she asked icily. “I wish I never had to see you again, Dawson!”

      His eyes bit into hers. “Like hell you do.”

      She couldn’t win an argument with him. It was better not to start one. “What do you want to talk about?”

      His gaze went past her, to the living room, where people were laughing and drinking and talking. Happy, comfortable people. Not like the two on the staircase.

      He shrugged and took another swallow from the glass before he faced her again. “What else? I want you to come home for a week or two.”

      Her heart raced. She averted her gaze. “No!”

      He’d expected that reaction. He was ready to debate

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