Full Bloom (16 page)

"M
arry you? You're serious?" Emily sat strapped into the passenger seat of Jacob's Mercedes, feeling bemused and totally disconcerted. She had been feeling that way since Jacob had made his unexpected announcement in the bathroom. Her stunned reaction had given him the advantage. Before she'd quite realized what was happening, she had found herself packed up and stashed in his car. Jacob had even handled the call to Diane, instructing her to take over at the shop until further notice.

Emily was beginning to realize why her father had relied on Jacob for so many odd jobs during the past few years. He was definitely the take-charge type.

"Of course I'm serious," Jacob said, easing the car through morning traffic. "What makes you think I'm not?"

She hedged. "Well, for one thing, you told me two years ago you'd probably never marry again."

"Emily, that was then and this is now. Two years ago I was ending a bad marriage and convinced I'd probably never be able to have you. I was angry at life in general, and I probably said a lot of things that I would now prefer to forget."

Emily shifted uneasily in the seat. "But why marriage, Jacob? We can be together, if that's what you want, the way we have been for the past few days."

"No," he stated bluntly, "we can't. You might be able to survive the strain but I won't."

"If you're talking about the situation with Damon Morrell and your suspicions about him, I don't think that constitutes a solid reason for something as drastic as marriage." Emily was feeling goaded. "I appreciate your loyalty to the family, naturally, but I think marrying me to protect me from Damon is going a little too far above and beyond the call of duty. I also doubt that in this case my family would appreciate your sacrifice. But the main point is that I don't need the protection. I have said it a thousand times in the past and I will say it again—
I can take care of myself
."

"Don't be ridiculous, Emily. You know damned good and well I'm not marrying you in order to protect you from Morrell. There are easier ways of handling him, believe me."

"Then why do you want to marry me?" she exploded.

"For the usual reasons," he shot back.

"Such as?"

He slanted her a narrow look and made an obvious bid for his patience. "Such as the fact that we are very strongly attracted to each other, although I'll admit a casual onlooker might not think so if he saw us bickering like this. What a mess. I never intended for it to be like this. I'd planned on a cozy fire, a nice glass of wine, maybe a few flowers. I was even going to wear a tie. I wanted it to be right."

Emily listened to him, her pulse pounding with awareness. "Attracted to each other." Surely that wasn't the extent of his feelings for her. She knew him well enough to know he would never marry her just to satisfy a physical attraction. Besides, it wasn't necessary to marry her for such a reason. She was more than willing to give herself to him out of marriage.

Her voice was a little unsteady as she said coolly, "If you wanted it to be right, you shouldn't have tried to kill two birds with one stone. Taking me away to the coast so that I'd be conveniently out of Damon's reach does not go well with the promise of a romantic interlude. I never did like my family's habit of mixing business with pleasure."

"
Business with pleasure
?" Jacob's grip on the wheel was savage. "Is that how you see it?"

"That's how it looks to me," she retorted.

"I don't believe this. I refuse to believe it. You're being deliberately obstinate and you know it. You and your damned assertiveness training. Why don't you just keep quiet for a while until you've had a chance to cool down and think things over?"

"Now you're telling me to shut up?" she asked with grave interest. "While you make sweeping decisions about my future? That has a familiar ring to it."

"Emily, I'm basically very tolerant when it comes to dealing with you. I don't think you have any idea of just how tolerant I am about your crazy ways. But right now you're coming very close to the line. I suggest we keep quiet for a while. Maybe we both need to cool down. Let me know when you feel like having an intelligent, reasonable discussion on the subject of marriage."

"I'll do that," she agreed far too sweetly. He could wait until hell froze over. She folded her arms and sat back in her seat, glaring out the window. She was determined not to break the silence he had imposed. She had apologized once to this man, even though she had done nothing that warranted it. She was not about to give in again. It was up to him to reopen the argument.

But it was a long drive to the coast, and Jacob seemed contented to concentrate on the road ahead. Emily was not nearly so sanguine. She was feeling put-upon and abused, and she was spoiling for a fight. Unfortunately she had been around Jacob long enough to know that her odds of winning were limited. One did not wage open warfare easily with a man like Jacob Stone. He was far too accustomed to winning.

Assertiveness did not always mean a confrontation, she reminded herself. Sometimes it meant biding one's time. She had plenty to think about before she made her decision.

Marriage.

Jacob's proposal staggered her. It would have been just as disconcerting even if it had been delivered under more romantic circumstances. Marriage was the one thing she had pushed to the back of her mind whenever she thought about her relationship with Jacob.

The raw fact was that she was still trying to work out a way to convince her family to tolerate her affair with Jacob. Marriage was simply out of the question.

Matters were moving much too fast, Emily thought. It was going to be difficult enough to conduct an affair. Until now she hadn't allowed herself to look very far into the future of her relationship with Jacob. She could only think of it on a day-to-day basis. Emily did not want to even contemplate how rough things might get if she told her family she was going to marry Jacob.

By the time they reached the coast and found accommodations in one of the cabins of a beachfront lodge, Emily was sick of being silent. She was also more confused and anxious than ever. It was clear someone was going to have to take the initiative.

Feeling more put-upon than ever, she opened the car door, got out and reached for her bag. "Nice spot," she muttered, scanning the windswept beach. There was a storm moving in from the ocean. It would hit land soon.

"Glad you like it," Jacob said laconically as he carried the luggage inside the small cabin.

Emily sighed and followed him inside. The cabin was surprisingly comfortable. There was a large fireplace built into one wall, a tiny kitchen and a sitting area near the window. The big bed occupied center stage in the room.

Jacob set the luggage down and turned to her. "Put on your jacket and we'll go for a walk on the beach. I could use the exercise after that drive."

"Please."

He cocked a brow at her. "Please what?"

"You're supposed to say please put on your jacket and then you're supposed to ask me if I would like a walk on the beach. You're not supposed to issue orders about
it."

"I get it. Not romantic, hmm?" But the hard line of his mouth had softened and his eyes were speculative.

"It's not a question of romance. It's a question of good manners."

"Someday I'd like to get my hands on whoever taught that class in assertiveness training you took. Okay, would you like to go for a walk on the beach?"

"That sounds nice."

"Then would you please put on your jacket?"

"Sure," Emily said, giving him a saucy glare. She shrugged into her lined yellow windbreaker. "Ready when you are."

"Such an accommodating woman." Jacob pulled on his slate-gray jacket and opened the door. "After you," he said with exaggerated politeness.

Head high, Emily walked back out into the gray afternoon. Neither of them said a word until they had reached the water's edge and turned to walk along the
packed sand. They paced side by side but they kept
their hands stubbornly thrust into the pockets of their
jackets. It was Jacob who spoke first.

"All right," he said, "tell me why you don't want to marry me."

"I never said I didn't want to marry you," Emily hedged.

He ignored that. "Is it because I'm not an especially impressive specimen at the moment? I know that if you look at me objectively, you could find some faults."

"For instance?" Emily challenged.

He shrugged. "I'm not currently employed, for one thing."

"True. But I could give you a job delivering flowers."

Jacob smiled briefly. "You'd like being in a position to give me orders, wouldn't you?"

"It's a tantalizing thought. Go on. What other faults do you have?"

"You're really getting into this, aren't you? Well, let's see, I was involved in a very unpleasant divorce."

"Not your fault," she told him magnanimously. "I remember Leanna. Nothing you did would have made her happy. Continue."

"I don't share your social background." He looked out to sea.

"I don't share it, either," Emily said with a grimace. "My social background, such as it is, is largely a product of my parents' imagination and wishful thinking."

Jacob nodded, accepting that. "There's something else."

"What?"

"For a long time you've viewed me as the enemy. I was always on your family's side. It always seemed to be a case of you against us."

"I'll grant you that point," she agreed with alacrity.

Jacob came to an abrupt halt and reached out to stop her. His hand clamped around her arm. "Is that the main problem, Emily? You still see me as the enemy?"

"I've never seen you as the enemy," she told him softly.

"But I was always the bad guy. What was it you called me? The family's enforcer?"

"Sometimes it seemed that way," she admitted.

"Is that why you're trying to wriggle out of marrying me? Because of the role I played for RI?"

"No." But she was beginning to get agitated. He was homing in on the truth. "Jacob, please, there's no point in this. Why don't we just enjoy what we have together for as long as we can?"

"You owe me an explanation. Apparently I'm good enough to sleep with but not good enough to marry you."

"That's not true!"

"Then why won't you marry me?" he said through gritted teeth. His eyes were cold gray, bottomless pools. Then his eyes narrowed as he promptly jumped to a conclusion. "Dammit, Emily, you don't think I'm after those RI shares, do you?"

"No!" She threw up her hands in genuine shock. "Of course not. I've never once thought you might be after a chunk of RI."

Jacob's response was a wry smile. "Sometimes you are so sweet and trusting it scares the hell out of me. It's a possibility, you know."

"That you're scheming to marry me for my shares? No, it's not. You'd never interfere with RI," she declared staunchly. "Even if you did, you'd never use me to do it."

"Thank you for that much, at least. So what's the real reason?"

She gave up trying to evade the question. He wanted an answer. She might as well spell it out for him. "Jacob, don't you see that the marriage wouldn't have a chance? It wouldn't last. We'll be lucky to get away with having an affair for a few weeks or months," she whispered miserably. "It's all we can hope for."

"Why, dammit? I'll make you a good husband. I'll be faithful. I'll take care of you. The unemployed status is temporary and you know it. I'm not marrying you for your family connections."

"It's got nothing to do with any of that," she cried. "Please, Jacob…"

"Why won't you marry me?"

"Because my family would find a way to destroy the marriage and I couldn't bear it!" Emily yelled as the sea wind whipped her hair. Tears burned in her eyes. "Now do you understand? I just couldn't bear to watch them drive you away from me."

Jacob stared at her in astonishment. "That's the reason? You're afraid your family will object?"

"I'm not afraid of their objecting to the marriage, I'm afraid of them doing something about it." Emily wiped the back of her hand across her eyes and cursed the dampness. "I've tried to tell you. They've always been able to do something about situations they don't like. You should know. You've been the means they've used to fix those situations often enough. If we got married, they would find a way to convince you to leave me. I know they would."

Jacob's astonishment was slowly metamorphosing into another expression altogether. His eyes were full of gray fire now and his face was set in rigid lines. He was coldly furious. "That's the real reason you won't marry me? You've still got it fixed in your head that your family will find a way to get rid of me?"

Emily nodded in mute despair. "I know they would. They like you as an employee, Jacob. You've been very useful to them. But they don't want you as a son-in-law. And you wouldn't let me use the one defense I had against them. You refused to let me threaten them with the shares. There's nothing else that will stop them from interfering in our lives. You know that better than most people do. You should know what they're capable of doing."

"I wonder if you have any idea of what I'm capable of doing to you at the moment," Jacob asked harshly.

She blinked through her tears. His tone made her uneasy. "Jacob?"

He stood looking down at her, his gaze shadowed and cold. "What it really comes down to is that you don't trust me."

"That's not true." She was shocked at his interpretation.

"It's true, all right. You don't trust me to be able to deal with a bunch of Ravenscrofts. You don't think I can protect both myself and you from them."

She realized just how offended he really was and she was instantly contrite. "Oh, Jacob, I never meant to imply you couldn't take care of yourself, but you know what they're like. They've intimidated union leaders, corporate presidents and even a few politicians. They've handled everything from kidnapping to industrial espionage and come out on top. Furthermore, they've run off every serious boyfriend I've ever had."

"And deep down you're scared to death of them."