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“It’s none of your damn business.” As his voice echoed with cold finality, white petals began falling like rain.
“But you’re my husband.”
“Am I?” He came to her then, raised his hand and lifted her chin in a proprietary manner. “In what sense?” he sneered. “I never think of myself as your husband. I’m surprised you do.”
Somehow she managed not to flinch as his hand stroked her. “Why won’t you give me a divorce then?”
His gaze was level and hard. “Because you are my only asset that my brother covets. Besides, of course, our son—the genius.”
“Don’t call him that!”
“Have you forgotten our little bargain—darling?”
Words from the past, Martin’s proposal, came back to her.
We both hate him. There’s only one way to get even with the bastard—by marrying each other.
Martin had referred to their bargain, and she had replied, “Never...for a moment.”
But she hadn’t hated Cutter. She had merely felt lost and afraid. For the sake of her son, Jeremy, she, who had wanted to be loved and valued, had settled for so much less.
“Good.” His voice had softened when he saw that he had her under control once more. He had even smiled at her. Something he had rarely done when they were alone. “Relax, darling. Go outside and pick flowers. Work in your garden. Baby Jeremy. Or let him read to you. Damn it. Do what you do.” He touched her again, indifferently, his fingertips moving from her chin to her throat in a sinister caress. “This trouble is temporary. I’ll bring Kurt home to look after you and Jeremy. He’s been around. You’ll be safe with him.”
Even though Kurt was a top man in Martin’s business, she hadn’t liked him. Kurt had a brutish face with a smashed-in nose and cold eyes. His overlarge head seemed to melt into his powerful, barrel-like torso without benefit of a neck. Every time she thought of him, red roses blackened, mosquitoes grew to the size of bumblebees and kittens quit purring.
“I’m afraid of him.”
Martin’s caressing fingertips combed her hair dismissively. “He’s fine.”
“Martin, in the name of God, what’s going on?”
“Why should I tell you?” Martin withdrew his hand.
She felt numb and blank with regret as Martin grabbed his briefcase and newspaper and went past her out of the house. Not that such feelings were new. Every morning since she’d first discovered him with Chantal and had realized that he hated her, Cheyenne had awakened with the same blank feeling of hopelessness and the same dull ache of despair. Later, when the numbness became punctuated with fear, she had known that as long as Martin had refused her a divorce, there was nothing she could do about it.
They had never really been married. She had always been his prisoner, his hostage in the psychological war he waged against his brother.
If Martin had hated her for sleeping with Cutter and giving birth to Jeremy, he hated her a hundred times more for costing him control of his fortune. All Martin’s problems had stemmed from his borrowing money to prove to her and the world that he was as financially brilliant as Cutter.
When Martin had suddenly died, she had felt that her longed-for release had come—but at a terrible price. She had been shaken to the core by the savage nature of his murder and by how utterly alone she felt in her dangerous trap. Jeremy had been devastated. The little boy had loved Martin in spite of Martin’s mood swings from indulgence to sarcasm and neglect. Immediately after his funeral the phone calls had begun, and she had discovered that Martin’s death had put Jeremy in terrible jeopardy.
As she sat among the guests and listened to the auctioneer offer her cherished possessions for sale, she wondered if the person making the threatening calls was here, too—watching her. Watching...Jeremy. Waiting for the right moment?
Dear God.
She forced herself to hold her head high, even though her regal posture just made her feel more exposed.
She kept twisting her diamond rings. She kept patting Jeremy’s silky, black head, reassuring herself that as long as her precocious darling was beside her with his nose in an encyclopedia, he was safe.
But she couldn’t be with him all the time.
She kept remembering the caller’s scratchy voice. His terse warning that afternoon.
“You know what I want. If I don’t get it, Jeremy’s next.”
As always the voice had been emotionless and deadly.
“I don’t have five million!” she had screamed.
“I like passion in a beautiful woman,” he had murmured. “I look forward to meeting you in person.”
“Never.”
“Soon.” He had hung up, but his final threat had replayed itself in her mind dozens of times.
Dear God.
What had Martin gotten them into?
What was she going to do about it?
Run away? Start over? As she had when she’d left Westville all those years ago?
Dear God, how she wanted to.
But where?
How?
With the police interrogating her?
With Martin’s creditors hounding her?
With her own career in jeopardy because of the negative publicity? Not that she could concentrate enough to experiment with recipes, plan parties or write. Not that she could ever, if she worked the rest of her life, make enough to pay what Martin owed.
When she had cautioned Jeremy to beware of strangers, he hadn’t understood the danger. Laughing, he had said, “If one tries to get me, I’ll bash him with an encyclopedia or climb up the magnolia tree.”
If anybody other than Martin or herself was responsible for her terrible predicament, it was Cutter Lord. She would never have had to marry Martin, if it hadn’t been for Cutter who had used her as he had used so many women. She had been so hurt and afraid, she had made a terrible mistake. Martin would never have had to live so high, if he hadn’t been trying to prove himself to Cutter.
How she wished she could loathe Cutter. From the beginning, his behavior had been despicable. Incapable of love or honor, he had seduced her and abandoned her. Then when she’d found out she was pregnant and married Martin, Cutter had been apoplectic.
For Jeremy’s sake, Cutter could have helped Martin when he’d asked for help shortly before his death. Instead Cutter had stuck to the brutal terms of their father’s will and said he would keep control of Martin’s fortune until Martin was thirty-five. She had gone to Cutter and pleaded with him, too, pointing out that Cutter had taken everything from Martin.
Cutter had seized the gigantic rose she’d worn in her hair, and brought it to his nose. He inhaled deeply. “No, Cheyenne. Martin took everything from me. And you helped him do it.” He had paused, studying her face and then the rose. “But, hey, sure, I’ll be glad to help.” Another pause. “For a price. If you ask me sweetly.” Then Cutter had put his hands on her in a hateful, intimate way and propositioned her.
Dear God, she had wanted him to love her.
All he had ever wanted was to use her.
The auctioneer’s cry never ceased. An hour later Jeremy’s book lay closed on the floor. He began to droop sleepily against her arm. When he tugged at her sleeve and pleaded in a whining tone that he wanted to go home to bed, she kissed his brow and reluctantly ordered Kurt, whom she had never had the courage to fire, to drive him.
As always Kurt’s cold stare before he took Jeremy by the hand unnerved her. She felt as if it were winter, and every blade of grass, every leaf, and even the root systems, had withered and died in her garden.
But she stayed.
For she had been told that her presence at the auction added substantially to the money her belongings would bring.
Hour after dreadful hour she sat ramrod straight in her hard-backed, gilt chair.
When the intermission came, she was too exhausted to make small talk. Jeb and Megan Jackson escorted her to a shadowy corner of the bar. Then mercifully they left her to talk to Amy and Nick Browning, and she found herself alone.
But not for long.
For suddenly Cutter Lord was there.
Two
Maybe it was the booze.
Whatever. Cutter Lord was unaccustomed to the sense of uncertainty that filled him the minute he saw her heading toward the bar where he’d been hiding for more than an hour.
Pale, creamy skin.
Black cashmere over softly swelling breasts and taut nipples.
So many years.
And he still felt the same.
Cheyenne’s eyes were warm and welcoming to everyone she saw and spoke to on her way toward him.
But that would change, the minute she saw him.
He swallowed what was left of his drink.
He should pounce on her now.
Instead he clung to the safety of the shadows and wondered what the hell to do next. The only other times in his life he had been at such a complete loss had been that moment just before dawn on the island when he’d known he’d fallen in love with her and then that single other time when he’d held his tiny son in his arms in the hospital and stared at her with such fury and longing that he’d made her cry.
Suddenly the happier memories of that long-ago night on the island swamped Cutter. He had awakened just before dawn to find her naked body curled trustingly in his arms. He had gotten up, feeling excited and surprised at the strange tenderness he felt toward her, at the regret to leave her in bed alone, even so briefly.
In confusion he had stared out at the ghostly glimmer of gray fog that shrouded the island. Then she had padded silently across the room and gently taken his hand.
At the touch of her slim fingers closing around his, his spirits had rocketed, and all his loneliness, as well as the certainty that she was the wrong woman for any Lord, especially him, had vanished.
Even as he had fought the power she had over him, he had wondered why he had ever thought she was unsuitable when she was the only woman who would do for him. He had kissed her forehead, her drowsy, thickly lashed eyes, her tousled red hair. He had wondered why he had ever thought money could matter between a man and a woman who had felt and shared what they had felt.
Then they had begun to talk as if they had known each other their entire lives. She had told him of growing up in a small Texas town, of having a father who would not claim her, of having a half sister who hated her and who had been determined to best her, of having a beautiful, wild mother the whole town sneered at, of learning to like books with happy endings because her own life had not been so happy.
And he had told her something of his life, too—of the great loneliness he had known ever since he’d been a boy. In fact, he had shared so much in those swift, fleeting moments, telling her everything about himself that had really mattered—except his real name.
They had scampered down to the kitchen as if they were children and made a hasty breakfast of cold biscuits and milk and orange juice. And that simple shared meal had been wonderfully exciting because she was there, feeding him with her fingers.
Then they had raced back to bed and made love again.
He had known then, that for better or for worse, he had fallen head over heels in love with her.
Then she had used her love to destroy him.
Now it was his turn.
Normally Cheyenne didn’t drink, but tonight she felt like it. She was ordering Scotch on the rocks, when Cutter’s silken baritone came from behind her.
“Make mine a double.”
Her smile vanished. Her green eyes turned to shards of ice.
“The wages of sin must be paid, Cheyenne. The devil always claims his due.”
But did he have to show up at the worst possible moment?
For an instant the world stopped spinning.
She whirled.
There—behind her in the shadowy dark stood the devil himself. He was twirling a twin red rose to the one she’d worn in her hair the last time she’d seen him.
Cutter’s obsidian black eyes locked with hers as he handed her the rose. In his gaze she saw the same bleak, unforgiving emotion she’d seen on her wedding day. The same bleak, loveless emotion she’d seen that last afternoon when she’d begged him to save Martin and he’d seized her rose and then leaned forward and unbuttoned her jacket.
“Sure. I’ll be glad to help,” he’d murmured in that same softly rough tone. “For a price. If you ask me sweetly.”
He’d twisted her second button loose, and she’d felt his warm fingers against the swell of her breasts. She’d gasped and grown instantly hot from his touch.
Some part of her had wanted him to strip her there and then. It had taken her a second or two to gather her wits. She had grabbed the gaping edges of her jacket, and tried to run. But he’d seized her, and pinned her between a wall and his long lean body, until she’d gone limp and breathless from his nearness. Only when her lips had parted, inviting his mouth to touch hers, had he laughed softly and let her go.
He seemed even more hatefully dangerous now.
Never in a million years could she ever forgive him.
Not that he cared.
Tall and broad-shouldered, he loomed over her.
A drop of blood bubbled from the tip of her finger where a thorn from his flower had pricked her. Angrily she threw the rose at him, but it just bounced off the lapels of his tuxedo.
Reality was back with a vengeance.
“My darling sister-in-law,” he purred. “You’re hurt.” Before she could resist, he had her injured finger in his grip and had lifted it to his lips and kissed it.
