Full Bloom (3 page)

"I see." She regarded him appraisingly. There was a long pause and then she asked quietly. "You never remarried?"

"No."

Emily heard the short, clipped word and wondered at its meaning. Some of the battle-ready anger in her was fading at last. It took energy to fuel that kind of fury, and she was tired. It had been a long day.

"That's right," she said grimly. "I seem to remember you gave me quite a lecture on the subject of marriage two years ago, right after you told me how quickly Brad Carlton had taken the money you offered."

"I was in the middle of a messy divorce," Jacob said bluntly. "The situation colored my opinion on the institution of marriage."

"I recall you telling me marriage was an idiot's invention. You told me you never intended to marry again and that if I had any sense, I'd never get married at all."

"I told you, I was biased against marriage at the time."

Emily shook her head slightly. "You were so very cynical in those days. I don't imagine much has changed."

Jacob drew a deep breath. "Do you really hate me so much, Emily?"

"Do you care?"

"Yes. I'd like to know exactly how you feel."

"Why?" she demanded.

"Because I want to know how far I'm going to have to go in order to change your mind."

"About you?" She was startled. "Why should it matter to you what I think?"

"If you're honest, you'll admit you already know the answer to that."

"I'm honest enough," she retorted, "but apparently I'm not too bright. I haven't the vaguest idea of what you're talking about or why you care what I think about you."

"Then your family is probably right. You're still very naive when it comes to men."

"Jacob Stone, what in the world are you trying to say?"

"I'm trying to tell you that I want you," he said roughly. "I've wanted you since I first met you five years ago, but it was always the wrong time and place and I always managed to convince myself I was the wrong man."

Emily was dumbfounded. "You want me? You wanted me five years ago? But that's impossible! Jacob, you never said anything, never implied…"

"What did you expect?" he muttered. "In the beginning, you were off-limits because I was married. Then, even when I knew my marriage wasn't going to last, I refused to let myself think I had a right to approach you. You were too young, too soft and gentle. I was too old for you, too battle scarred, and to top it all off I was about to be divorced. Besides, I knew your family would be furious if they realized I wanted you, and I knew you probably wouldn't have been able to take them on for my sake."

Emily sat frozen as she listened to him. Suddenly she could hardly catch her breath. "And after the divorce," she demanded tightly, "why didn't you say anything then?"

"After the divorce I was feeling bitter and disillusioned. I wanted my freedom again but I also wanted you. I was trying to figure out how to approach you when Brad Carlton came on the scene. Without any warning you were announcing your engagement, Your family asked me to get rid of Carlton and I was more than happy to do it. I delighted in doing it. But afterward I knew you hated my guts because I was the one who'd been sent to buy off the jerk. I felt like the guy who takes the little girl's teddy bear away from her and stomps it into the mud.

"I figured I'd get over you," Jacob admitted. "After all, there wasn't much to get over. We hadn't even been to bed together. And I knew you sure as hell weren't pining for me. Your heart was set on Carlton."

"You were right on that point!" Emily was seething again. He would never know that she had taken refuge in Brad's easygoing attentions because she had been so certain there was no hope for a relationship with Jacob. "I don't believe this. You have the nerve to sit there and tell me you'd like to have an affair with me?"

"Yes."

"After what you've done to me?" she demanded disbelievingly.

"I haven't done anything to you. But I've done a couple of very large favors for you. Twice I've saved you from getting married to men who only wanted you because of your connection to Ravenscroft International. One of these days you'll thank me."

Emily was almost speechless. He sounded so sincere. "Don't hold your breath waiting for me to throw myself at your feet in gratitude," she finally snapped.

"I won't." He smiled faintly. The pale glow of the dashboard instruments revealed the underlying grimness of his expression.

"Does my family know about your interest in me?"

"I haven't discussed it with them."

"I'm not surprised. They'd tear you to shreds."

He gave her an odd look. "Not likely. Who would they send to do the job?"

"What?" She was beginning to have a problem following this discussion. It dazed her to think that all this time Jacob might really have wanted her. It wasn't possible. It was some new game he was playing. It had to be.

"You called me an enforcer. Someone paid to intimidate and coerce others," he reminded her.

"Right," she agreed rashly.

"If your family wanted to intimidate or coerce me, who would they get to do it? Who do you send to intimidate a professional intimidator?"

It was too much. Emily began to feel a little lightheaded. "I don't think I want to talk about this anymore. This whole evening is beginning to take on a distinct air of unreality. I just want to go home and go to bed."

"I'll see to it," he promised softly.

"You do that." She was silent for a moment and then, frantic to change the subject in order to give herself time to think, she went on. "You said you hadn't worked for Ravenscroft for two months. Why did my family contact you to check out Damon Morrell?"

"Your father and brother knew I was back in the country looking into the possibility of establishing a consulting firm. They contacted me and asked me to do it as a favor. They didn't want to hire an outside investigator if they could avoid it. The fewer people who knew about the situation, the better, as far as they were concerned. They assumed you'd feel more comfortable knowing it was all being kept under close wraps."

"They thought I'd appreciate their thoughtfulness in using you again? They actually thought it would be easier to be humiliated twice by the same man than it would be to be embarrassed by two different investigators?"

"Emily, everyone knew it was going to be hard on you. Give your family credit for trying their best to handle things discreetly."

"What about you? Did you think it would be easier on me knowing you were the messenger boy in both cases?" she asked bitterly.

"Like I said. I did it for your own good."

"Do me a favor, Stone. If you promise not to tell me one more time that you were only involved in this for my own good, I will promise not to strangle you before we get to Seattle."

Jacob smiled his slight, faintly menacing smile. "It's a deal."

I
t was a long drive to Seattle. Emily wanted to nap and found it impossible to relax. Her thoughts were churning in the caldron of her mind as she tried to sort out the wholly unexpected twist her life had taken this evening. She had assumed she would probably never see Jacob again. She simply had not been prepared to encounter him tonight. Most of all, she found it difficult to believe that he actually wanted her the way she had been longing for him all these years. It was too much to absorb in one night.

Jacob drove with an expert's smooth touch, but Emily was still uncomfortable. It was his presence in the car, not his driving, that kept her awake. He dominated the small vehicle, filling it with his quiet male power. Emily's only means of retreat was into silence.

When he realized she was not going to respond to his efforts to continue the conversation, Jacob, too, fell silent. It wasn't until he neared the city that he spoke again.

"I have your address. It's downtown somewhere, isn't it? You'd better give me directions," he said.

Emily stirred and told him the route to her apartment building. He followed her instructions without comment. But when he drove the compact into the yawning mouth of the underground garage he glanced around disapprovingly.

"This isn't a good place for you to be arriving alone late at night."

"You sound like my parents and Drake. They came to visit once shortly after I moved in, and all they could talk about was the garage. I'll give you the same answer I gave them. I've survived so far."

She opened the car door as Jacob drove into the parking slot she'd indicated. As she pulled on her coat and retrieved her purse, she acknowledged privately that the garage did seem more than a little forbidding at this hour. Footsteps rang hollowly and the lighting was rather dim. But she was not about to admit the place made her nervous on occasion.

"You can't blame your family for wanting you to be safe," Jacob said as he climbed out of the car.

"My family has tried to protect me since the day I was born. It gets a little wearing at times."

"Sometimes you need protection. You've always had a talent for getting yourself into trouble." Jacob walked beside her toward the elevators. "Take this situation with Damon Morrell, for example."

"Stop worrying about Damon Morrell." Emily stabbed the elevator call button and then shoved her hands into the pockets of her green wool coat.

"When are you going to tell him you won't be seeing him again?" Jacob asked calmly as the elevator doors slid open.

Emily raised her eyebrows above the black frames of her glasses and asked smoothly, "Who says I'm not going to be seeing Damon again?" She was proud of the easy way that came out.

Jacob surveyed her with a cool-eyed gaze. "Don't play games, Emily. You're a little too innocent and naive for your own good at times, but you're no fool. You know that what you heard on that tape tonight wasn't faked. Nor was any of the other evidence your family produced."

"You mean the evidence
you
produced at their request. Why should I trust you, Jacob? Give me one good reason."

"You may not like me very much, Emily, but I think you know I wouldn't manufacture a pack of lies."

She eyed his stark features, vibrantly aware of the cold pride in his voice. "I don't know you very well at all, Jacob. At one time I thought I did, but that was a long while ago. Back in my innocent and naive days."

"You should know your own family well enough to know they wouldn't resort to lies. They may not be very subtle at times, but they're honest. And they wouldn't have asked my help if they didn't think they could trust me. Stop looking for excuses." His expression softened slightly. "And stop pretending you don't trust me. You know damned well I'd never do anything to hurt you."

"Unless, of course, it was necessary for my own good," Emily retorted smartly as she stepped off the elevator and into the gray-carpeted hall. She reached into her purse for her keys.

"Emily, I know you've had an upsetting evening, but that's no reason to act like this. Face facts and admit you got hoodwinked by Morrell."

Emily turned the key in the lock, pushed open the door and then turned to confront him from the safety of her own threshold. "It wasn't Damon who misled me, Jacob. It was my honest, well-intentioned, over-protective family. They're the ones who invited me down to Portland for the weekend for what I thought was supposed to be a business discussion about some plans I'm making. They're the ones who hoodwinked me. With your assistance, of course. But you've always been available when they needed help in saving me from myself, haven't you? Good night, Jacob. I won't say it was a pleasure seeing you again after all this time, but I'll admit it was something of a surprise."

"Emily, that wasn't the way it happened." Jacob caught the edge of the door as she tried to close it in his face. "Listen to me. No one lied to you. If you'd stuck around, you could have had the business discussion you wanted. But everyone felt it was best to get the matter of your relationship with Morrell out of the way first. Be reasonable. We only did it for your own—"

"Don't say it," she warned. "Don't you dare say it was for my own good. If I hear that one more time I won't be responsible for what happens, Jacob."

"Stop threatening me or I might be tempted to do something rash myself." Jacob sounded totally exasperated.

Emily could not resist taunting him. She had had enough for one evening, and Jacob was the logical target of her hostility. For five long years he had, in one
way or another, been the object of too many of her strongest emotions. No reason that should change now. "Such as, Mr. Stone?"

He thrust open the door and reached for her without any warning. His hands closed around her shoulders and he pulled her close. "Such as this," he muttered thickly and covered her mouth with his own.

Emily was too startled to offer any resistance at first. Whatever she had been expecting, she told herself, it wasn't this. Or was it? The tension between herself and Jacob had been sizzling just under the surface since she had first walked into the study in her parents' home and seen him waiting in the shadows.

She silently admitted that she had been far more shaken by seeing Jacob Stone again after two years than she had been by the news of Damon Morrell's duplicity.

She made a small sound as he took her mouth, but
whatever it was she was trying to say, and she wasn't too sure herself just what that was, it was lost in the intimate embrace. Jacob's mouth was warm and heavy and seductively demanding against her own. This was only the second time he had ever kissed her, and Emily knew now she had been quietly starving for him.

He kissed her as if he had been anticipating the prospect for a long, long time. There was a barely leashed hunger in him that told its own tale.

It was that hunger that made the biggest impact on Emily. It was the masculine version of her own long-suppressed desire, and it overwhelmed her. She had never experienced anything quite like it. She knew then that whatever else might be true about Jacob, one thing was certain. He had said he wanted her, and now, at last, as his kiss seared through her, she believed him.

"Say my name." Jacob's mouth slid tantalizingly over Emily's lips. Gently he outlined her full lower lip with the tip of his tongue until she gasped and parted her lips for him. "Say it, Emily. It's been so long since I've heard you whisper it the way you did that last night two years ago."

"Jacob." His name was a soft sigh of uncertainty and excitement and longing that had been pent up far too long. "Oh, Jacob."

"You've got a voice like raw silk. I've never forgotten it." Jacob lifted his head slightly so that his mouth hovered barely an inch above hers. He looked down into her bemused face and drew a slow, sensual finger along the delicate line of her jaw. "If I had taken you two years ago instead of trying to be so damned gallant, maybe everything would be different now."

"What would have been different?"

"You would already belong to me. We wouldn't have to waste any more time going through the rituals."

"What rituals?" Emily searched his cool gray eyes.

"The ones designed to bring you and me together. Emily, I walked away last time because I thought I was all wrong for you."

"Nothing's changed," she pointed out breathlessly. "You're still just as tough and ruthless and cynical as you always were."

Jacob's mouth tilted slightly at the corner. "I might not have changed, but you have. And that, I think, is going to make all the difference."

"What makes you think I've changed?"

His mouth curved faintly. "I saw you in action tonight when your father delivered the news about
Morrell. There's a new strength in you that wasn't there two years ago."

"Assertiveness training," she announced proudly. "I took some classes."

Jacob's eyes reflected his amusement. "I think it's more likely you've finally come into your own. Seeing you now after all this time makes me realize that I was wrong when I thought you needed someone softer and more easygoing than me. You need someone as strong or stronger than you are."

"If I'm so tough and strong, then it follows that I no longer need you or anyone else trying to run my life for me," Emily parried.

Jacob grinned. "You may be a lot stronger than you once were, but that doesn't mean you aren't still a little naive. Parts of you may have changed, Emily, but not everything. Not the basics. You're still very soft and sweet under that new veneer. The fact that someone like Morrell could come so close to using you proves that when it comes to judging people you're still innocent in a lot of ways. It's nothing to be ashamed of."

"Good, because I'm not feeling particularly ashamed." That was a lie. She was furious with herself for having been fool enough to get involved with Damon Morrell on even a limited basis. But she was not about to admit that to this man or to her family.

"Emily…"

"I think it's time you left. Good luck finding a hotel." She stepped out from under his hands and tried once more to force the door closed.

"I'll need to use your phone to make a reservation and call a cab," Jacob said calmly. He was already moving through the door and into her living room.

Emily gave an exclamation of disgust and stalked into
the
living room behind him. Imperiously she pointed toward the red phone that was sitting on a white lacquer table near the window. "There's the phone. Call. I'd like you out of here as soon as possible. It's quite late and I need my sleep."

He looked up as he dialed a number out of the phone book. "I'll be on my way as soon as possible. Wouldn't want to overstay my welcome."

"You've already done that."

"But just so you'll be prepared, I should warn you I'll be back soon."

"Without an invitation?"

He lifted one shoulder negligently. "With or without. I think you're going to need a little protection for a while. I promised your family I'd look after you."

"Protection!"

But he wasn't paying her any attention. He was too busy conversing with a hotel registration desk. Emily folded her arms and glared at him. He looked very solid and disconcertingly masculine standing in the middle of her white-on-white living room.

It was a room she had poured a great deal of time and attention into creating. On the surface it was very modern and very sophisticated with its white carpet, white leather couch, glass-and-white lacquer tables and white leather-and-chrome chairs. But there was color everywhere, in the endless bouquets of flowers that filled the place, and the natural beauty of the exquisite blooms made a mockery of the superficial sophistication of the apartment. It was a home that was completely different from the old-fashioned elegance of her parents' house.

Jacob finished his conversation with the hotel and then he called a cab. When he finally set down the receiver again, Emily was waiting to pounce.

"What did you mean by that crack about my needing protection?"

He stood with his feet slightly braced, regarding her with a speculative gaze. "Morrell is not going to be pleased when you tell him you won't be seeing him anymore. He won't like having his plans changed so drastically by a woman he thinks he's got in the palm of his hand. He'll probably assume he can change your mind by putting pressure on you. You're a tempting little fish, and he's not going to let you off the hook easily. He's liable to become difficult."

"He might or might not become difficult if I decided not to see him again. You, on the other hand, already are being difficult. If I have to choose, I'll take Damon's brand of being awkward, whatever that turns out to be. Basically he's a gentleman. I'm sure I'll be able to handle him. That's assuming I decide to end the relationship in the first place."

"You'll end it," Jacob said gently. "You're angry about the way your family and I handled the news this evening, but in the end you'll do what's best. Just do it quickly, Emily. The longer you put it off, the more difficult it's going to be. You heard what your father said earlier. Ravenscroft is preparing a bid against
Morrell's firm on the Fowler project down in Dallas. Morrell wants that job. It wouldn't surprise me if he's got plans to keep tabs on Ravenscroft's position through you."

"Now you're really clutching at straws," Emily scoffed. "Damon knows I have almost no idea what Ravenscroft International does on a day-to-day basis. I wouldn't be of much use to him as an industrial spy, even if I wanted to help him land that Dallas job. Stop trying to create monsters where there aren't any. I'm no longer a silly little fool who can be kept in line by dire warnings or heavy-handed guilt trips."

"I keep forgetting your assertiveness training," Jacob said dryly. "Did you graduate with honors?"

"Let's just say I learned a lot."

"I'll bet your instructor didn't teach you anything about handling a man like Morrell."

"I suppose it hasn't occurred to you or my family that I might enjoy having a casual association with a man like Damon? That I might not be planning on marrying him?"