Authors: Shirley Wine
His tone worried her. Would knowing this family damage Connor? "You don't get on with Caine?"
"We have an armed truce now I’m running the firm."
The undercurrent of violent emotion in his tone made no sense.
"So why come back?" She was curious and more than a little surprised given his hostile attitude toward his family.
He gave another of those comprehensive shrugs. "Someone had to run Donovans. It’s been a family concern for four generations. The CEO was stepping down. Dad was considering merging the firm with another company. He's never been interested in finance, horses were his thing."
"You’ve always been in business?"
He laughed, the first genuine laugh she’d heard from him. This was more like the man she’d once known.
"My grandfather lived and breathed business. I spent a lot of time with him. He used to tease me, saying I had ledger ink in my veins."
Victoria could understand Keir gravitating to someone other than his father. She’d always known he was passionate about business. A wistful longing sneaked up on her.
Once, she’d planned a career in business and finance until Connor curtailed her dreams.
Or did that summer with Keir persuade me to tailor my dreams to align with his?
That thought pulled her up short.
Was I so easily swayed?
Finance had been only one of many career options she'd considered before she went to university. But was it her driving ambition? Was she so enthralled as she listened to Keir that her dreams had morphed into his?
"You love your work?"
"I didn't feel comfortable with Donovans going out of family control."
"That brought you back?" she asked, disbelieving. "But it's more or less been out of your immediate family control for years."
He frowned at her obvious curiosity, and his fierce expression made her realize something weighed heavily on his mind.
"My marriage was over," he said, goaded. "And I was tired of the madness that was New York."
Victoria felt as though a knife had slipped between her ribs.
"Married?"
Stunned, she stared at him, her breath hitching in her throat. "You've been married?"
"Why are you surprised?" he asked, an edge to his soft tone. "I'm a normal heterosexual male."
How could she answer?
Jealousy and disillusionment fought for supremacy. While her life had become very circumscribed, Keir obviously had few qualms getting on with his.
"What happened? Why did your marriage end?"
His silence lasted so long she thought he wasn’t going to answer. He rocked back on his heels. "It’s not important."
And she knew he’d lied.
Chapter Five
"Y
ou’re divorced?" Victoria asked, her tone waspish. "So it's off with the old, on with the new?"
Keir’s lips thinned. He looked at her, his expression one of acute dislike. "Donovans wanted a married man for CEO."
"So you obediently fell in love with an iceberg."
As soon as the acid words escaped, she wanted to claw them back. A furtive glance surprised a flush of ruddy color on his face. She sensed he resented her stinging sarcasm.
As they walked, they’d veered from the track toward the stables and were now shrouded in the foggy depths of a small woodland dell.
Keir turned her to face him, guiding her back against the trunk of a towering oak.
"I don't break promises," he said with chilling softness. "I could love you and drain all your sweetness but I won't renege on my promise to marry Davina."
Her lashes dropped to conceal hurt then, determined to meet his gaze, she lifted her chin with pride. "I will never take
another woman's man as a lover, Keir."
"Then why come here? You’ve admitted Logan wasn't the attraction. That leaves only me." His cynical smile left her flayed. "How did you discover my relationship to Logan?"
"I didn't know, and that’s the truth."
Anger flared at his mockery, but she couldn’t silence her own suspicions. While she didn't know he was Logan’s brother, had Logan guessed Keir was Connor’s father?
It was a notion she could no longer easily dismiss.
"Are you like every other woman and color the truth to suit the situation? Do you deal in lies, half-truths and deception?"
His bitter question had guilt spiraling through her, digging into her flesh as sharp as any spur, her damning secret a heavy weight.
A lie by omission is still a lie.
Unable to meet his laser sharp gaze, she knew a moment’s bitter regret at not leveling with him earlier when she’d had the chance.
And now, it's too late for me to go back and start over.
Keir lifted her chin. She refused to look at him; sure he’d see the sick guilt she couldn’t disguise.
With a sharp imprecation he caught her arms, lifting her slightly. She gasped and he laughed softly as he looked down at her. His arms moved between her and the tree.
She gasped again—and clutched wildly instead of pushing. The steely arms tightened, and suddenly only her toes touched the ground. Victoria dragged in a breath—one too shallow to steady her whirling senses. Her lungs seized; her wits skittered wildly, informing her, in vivid detail, that she was being held hard against the body of the man she'd never stopped loving.
"Put me down." Her breathless words lacked conviction
He heard them, angled his head, one black brow rising, and then a slow smile curved his lips. "In a minute."
Victoria heard the intent in his deep voice, and her eyes opened wide.
"But first—"
Unable to think, to protest, she shivered at the intimate way his gaze caressed her face. It distracted her, and his lips completed her defeat—as arrogantly confident, his mouth settled over hers.
The initial chill of his lips gave way to heat, a heat so intense it stunned her. She ceased to breathe and soon breathing became unimportant.
She stirred in his encircling arm. It locked tight about her, denying her half-hearted attempt at escape. His heat surrounded her—even through the thickness of their jackets.
It reached her, enveloped her, warming the place inside her that had been so cold and lonely it seemed like forever. The heat between them grew, built.
His hot, hungry mouth would not be denied.
With a belated effort she tried to hold back, tried to deny the reality of the moment and dampen her desire.
And couldn’t.
Victoria knew she was facing ignominious defeat—with not one clue of where they would go from here.
And then she was beyond thinking. She surrendered to the burning hunger of his kiss. Hands buried in his silky hair, she kneaded and reacquainted herself with every once familiar contour.
Her surrender increased his confidence.
Temptation streaked through her. A moan escaped only to be swallowed by his ravenous mouth. She writhed against his hard body, needing to be so much closer, and her clothes were now a serious impediment.
His arms tightened, crushing her closer, imprinting her soft flesh with his male hardness. He opened her coat, his hand delving and insinuating itself against her warm flesh. Its chill made her shudder.
Her involuntary reaction was enough to make him break the kiss. He lifted his head, h
eated
eyes raked her face. "Still adamant you won't be my lover? I could take you right here, right now, against this tree."
The cynical mockery was a douche of icy water, freezing tender emotions.
She struggled to escape arms that were now a prison.
Slowly, he let her slide down the full length of his very aroused body leaving her in no doubt where he wanted this encounter to go.
"You don't play fair." She moved away, mortified to find she was as helpless now against his potency as she’d been at eighteen.
"When was life ever fair? When my mother abandoned me? When your mother died leaving you alone and bereft?"
The hard words left her shaken and she picked up the end of her plait, running it past her lips in a defensive gesture.
"Keir." It was a struggle but she forced herself to meet his eyes. Pride stiffened her spine. "You're engaged to Davina, and on your own admission, you have no intention of breaking your engagement. So leave me alone."
Conflicting emotions crossed his face, lips twisted with self-contempt. He looked at her, put a finger beneath her chin and forced her to meet his eyes.
"I can't deny my attraction to you but I stand by my promise to Davina. I'm not unfeeling. You’re young and will meet some man worthy of you. Don't build up false dreams. He won't be me."
Every word knifed her soul, shredding it a little more. Keir didn't know just how permanent was her memorial of their summer tryst.
Anger and resentment made her come out fighting.
"Who're you trying to convince, Keir? You or me?" Her voice was soft and very tart. "I wasn't the only person lost in that kiss."
His sharp inhalation, the ruddy color in his cheeks, was enough to let Victoria know her barb had hit home.
"That was a mistake."
Victoria couldn't help it, a scornful laugh escaped. "Some mistake."
He walked across the small clearing and then walked back to face her, and aimed a vicious kick at a clod of grass. "Laugh if you want, but I promise to leave you alone."
"You promise?" She jabbed a clenched fist at his chest. "Your promises aren't worth spit. You've promised to marry Davina and yet have few qualms about kissing me senseless."
Keir stiffened as if he's been jabbed with a poker. "You've developed a waspish tongue."
Victoria inhaled sharply, the faint smell of mothballs from the borrowed jacket mingled with the sharp odor of horse sweat and stables hanging heavy on the cold, damp air.
"Did you still expect a besotted teenager, a woman who never questioned your actions?" She shook her head and glared. "Well you know something Keir, your actions suck."
"Maybe." His dark eyes glittered, mouth thinned to an unforgiving line. "But you created the problem by visiting Darkhaven with Logan."
An explosive huff of breath created a cloud of white vapor around his head, giving him the appearance of a fire breathing dragon.
"I created the problem?" Victoria shook her head, the long braid of her sugar brown hair swinging over one shoulder. She caught it and rubbed it past her lips in a defensive movement. "Did you really imagine we would never meet in a town as small as Cambridge?"
Keir pushed a hand through his dark hair leaving it rumpled and standing in spikes, giving him a rakish air.
"What is it you want from me?" His chocolate eyes gleaming slits through the extravagant fan of his lashes. "And why settle here in the first place?"
The question brought her up short.
Why had she settled in Cambridge, a small satellite town south of Hamilton and not gone further afield?
As the answer came, she crossed arms over her chest, afraid Keir would guess her thoughts.
When she'd first discovered she was pregnant, she'd come to Cambridge in the hope she'd run across Seth Donahue. In an unguarded moment, Seth had once mentioned his father owned a racing stable not far from the town. But she'd been looking for Seth Donahue not Keir Donovan, and of course she was doomed to fail.
And she'd returned here to open her florist shop.
Sure it was a good business move. The town was well-to-do and gave her access to a wealthy clientele.
Was I hoping to run across Seth? Indubitably.
Now, in this intimate space, so near to her son's father, Victoria knew her actions couldn't bear too close a scrutiny.
As clear as if it was written in huge neon letters, she knew she'd chosen Cambridge to open her business because of this man. She lived with the hope that one day
her Seth
would walk through the doors of
Victorian Grace.
But as a married man?
The shiver that ghosted through her had nothing to do with the cold. Could she continue to live here, knowing her son's father was married to another woman?
"Now the truth comes out," he taunted.
Heat flooded her cheeks. She walked away from him, paced across the small woodland dell and turned to face him.
"No, you have that wrong," she denied, her voice filled with quiet vehemence.
In two strides, Keir crossed the space and caught her shoulders in a firm grip. "Now who's coloring the truth?"