“And anyway, if he cares so much, why hasn’t he called?” Keena’s green eyes flashed. “He could have spared time for a phone call.”
“He’s a busy man.”
“I’m busy, too,” Keena pouted. She sighed, the action gently rustling the blue striped scarf at her neck that complemented her navy pantsuit and white silk blouse. “He’s just sour because I’m not at his beck and call down here.”
“He’s jealous of James Harris, you mean,” Mandy remarked with a secret smile.
“There’s nothing to be jealous of. James hasn’t called. He hasn’t come by the house...” That rankled, too. She’d been a very young eighteen when she’d overheard that bitter speech of James’s, when she’d realized just how fully she’d been taken in by his teasing and flirting. She’d been too naive to realize the cruel game he was playing until it was too late. Part of her hadn’t grown past that day. And that part, the hurting part, wanted to bring the tall, blue-eyed lawyer to his knees. It was something inside her that she didn’t fully understand, but it was too strong to ignore. Nicholas might tolerate the thirst for revenge, but he wouldn’t tolerate its presence around him. He didn’t need it. Nick was above that sort of pettiness. But Keena didn’t find it petty, and she needed to see James Harris humbled, as she had once been. Now successful, full of confidence she’d never had as a teenager, she was desirable. And she wanted James to find her so, to satisfy a craving that had never completely died. She had to prove to herself that she could have him if she really wanted him. And no one, not even Nick, was going to stop her.
* * *
SHE’D JUST WORKED UP her nerve to call James and invite him over for a meal when she drove up in front of her house to find him waiting for her. Her heart jumped wildly at the sight of him in an expensive tweed coat with a sweater-vest and dark trousers. He looked sophisticated, handsome and not a day older than he had nine years ago.
“Speak of the devil,” Mandy murmured, rushing out of the car and up the steps before Keena had time to reply.
“So there you are.” James grinned, hopping down the steps as he used to, athletic and trim. “I thought you might invite me in for coffee if I showed up at your door. Quite a crowd of workmen you’ve got there,” he added, nodding toward the carpenters at work on the outside of the house.
“We’re adopting them. They’re orphans,” she told him with a straight face.
He threw back his head and laughed. It didn’t sound genuine somehow, but Keena laughed with him. “Uh, Jones said you’d borrowed quite a lot of money to accomplish this,” he added shrewdly.
She only smiled. She could have paid cash for the renovation, but it had done her good to borrow the money from Abraham Jones at James’s bank, leaving that priceless emerald bracelet as collateral. She’d expected it to get back to James. Now he was curious, and that was just what she’d wanted.
“That bracelet,” he murmured, looking at her with his head cocked to one side in that old, familiar pose. “It was real, wasn’t it?”
“Quite,” she agreed with a wry smile.
“A present?” he probed.
“No.”
He frowned, really puzzled now. “I can’t figure you out,” he admitted finally.
She smiled up at him, turning on every trace of charm in her slender body. “Can’t you really, James?” she asked softly.
Something kindled in his blue eyes, something new and pleasant. He moved toward her, removing his hands from his pockets to take her gently by the shoulders and study her lazily.
“You’ve changed so,” he remarked gently. “You were pretty before. But now...”
“Now, James?” she prodded, breathless.
He opened his mouth to speak just as the soft purr of an approaching engine broke into the silence between them.
Keena turned her head in time to see Nicholas bring the white Rolls to a gentle stop and get out, carrying a big leather suitcase in one hand and an attaché case in the other. He was dressed in an expensive tweed suit that flattered his massive physique, emphasizing his broad chest, flat stomach and powerful, muscular legs. He not only looked rich, he also looked imposing. His eyes punctuated the threat in the graceful way he moved, the way he looked at James, the way a hunter might glance toward a kitten on his way to shoot bear.
“I hope you’ve got a room ready,” Nicholas told Keena without breaking stride, “I’m in a hell of a tangle with my London office.”
She stared after him, her mouth slightly open.
“Who’s he?” James asked coolly.
Keena looked up at him helplessly. For one wild second she wondered if he might believe Nicholas was her insurance agent. But with a sigh, a shrug and an apologetic smile, she dismissed the thought.
“Nicholas,” she replied instead. “Uh, I’ve got to go, James, but do ring me later on.”
“Oh...of course,” he stammered. It was the first time Keena had ever seen him at a loss for words, as if he couldn’t believe any woman would willingly part with his company.
She turned and walked quickly up the steps with blood in her eyes. Now what was Nicholas up to? And where did he plan to stay?
She caught up with him at the foot of the staircase, oblivious to the stares of the two fascinated painters on ladders in the hall.
“Where do you think you’re going?” she demanded.
“To my room,” he said impatiently.
“You don’t have one,” she pointed out.
“Yet,” he admitted, taking another step.
“This is my house,” she told him, her voice rising shrilly. “You can’t just move in like this, without even asking!”
“Think you can stop me?” he asked politely, gazing at her with that level, devastating stare that made her want to back away slowly.
“I’m not alone and defenseless,” she reminded him, turning to the nearest painter, a rugged-looking individual about Nicholas’s age.
“That’s right, lady,” the painter agreed, pausing with his brush raised to give Nicholas his best threatening look.
Nicholas lifted his hard, broad face and stared up at the man unblinkingly. “I hope your insurance is current,” he remarked politely.
The painter turned back to his work and began painting with a vengeance. “Like I said, lady, I’d give the poor tired man a room,” he murmured sheepishly.
Keena glared at him before she transferred her irritated stare to the other painter, who pulled his cap low over his eyes and began to whistle softly.
Nicholas grinned at her before he turned and started up the staircase again.
She followed along behind him, her temper exploding like silent fireworks inside her taut body, watching helplessly while he peeked into the first room he came to, then the second, before he finally settled on the third. It was, as he had guessed, unoccupied, with bed linen neatly piled at the foot of the large, four-poster bed.
“This will do,” he murmured, glaring around him at the antique furniture. He set the suitcase down and went to the window. “Nice view. Does it have a bathroom?”
“In between this bedroom and the other one,” Keena said. “But that needn’t concern you. You aren’t staying.”
He turned around and let his eyes roam over her taut figure. “God, you’re pretty when you want to bite. Come over here and put up your fists, you little firecracker,” he taunted in a deep, velvety voice.
“What