The Tycoon's Virgin Bride

“Perhaps open books aren’t worth reading.” She gave a sudden chuckle. “Which sounds like a Japanese koan, doesn’t it?”

“Mysterious? Paradoxical? You’re both.” He grimaced. “I’ll be back in New York in a couple of months. Will you give me your phone number?”

“No.”

Her answer, like everything else she’d done in the last hour, had been instinctive. Bryce said flatly, “You really are into control.”

Suddenly exhilarated as much by their verbal fencing as by his physical presence, Jenessa said provocatively, “Is there any reason why I shouldn’t be?”

Deliberately he took his hand from the wheel and slid it up her stockinged thigh, bared by her miniskirt. “I hope neither of us regrets this.”

“There’s no reason why either of us should,” she said, as much to herself as to him; and made no attempt to hide her shiver of response.

Leaving his hand heavy and warm on her thigh, he said, “Two more blocks.”

Ten minutes later, Bryce was ushering her through the double doors of the penthouse suite in one of the city’s most prestigious hotels. She gained a quick impression of gleaming parquet and opulent Chinese carpets before Bryce said with the underlying impatience she was already realizing was characteristic of him, “Do you want anything to eat? Or drink?”

The courage that had preserved her time and again in her childhood came to the fore. She slipped her feet out of her shoes and stood on tiptoe to kiss him. “You and you,” she whispered.

With a strength that intoxicated her, he lifted her in his arms and carried her the width of a richly furnished living room, its tall windows jeweled with the lights of the city. His corded muscles were hard against her body; she could hear the heavy pounding of his heart, an intimacy that made her faint with longing. He pushed the bedroom door open, strode across a thick carpet to the bed and lowered her onto it. Then he straightened and yanked at the knot of his tie.

Mesmerized, Jenessa watched as he hauled off his jacket, tie and shirt. He kicked his shoes to one side. Socks and trousers followed. His watch, whose price tag would probably have paid her entire year’s tuition, he placed on the bedside table. Then, wearing only a pair of dark boxer shorts, he said softly, “Take off your clothes, Jan.”

Jan, she thought. Jan. Another woman, a fictional woman. When all she wanted was to be herself.

She sat up, unzipping her black jacket. Her brief camisole, skintight, joined his clothes on the floor. Her bra was also black. She eased out of her skirt and drew her stockings slowly down her legs, her eyes glued to his face; scarcely able to breathe, she murmured, “I want you to take off the rest.”

For a moment his gaze roamed the pale curves of her body. “You’re so beautiful,” he said huskily.

Wondering if she could die of waiting, Jenessa opened her arms to him. He plummeted to the bed, enveloping her in the heat of his body, flicking open the clasp of her bra and tossing it to the floor. Her breasts were firm, delicately pointed. With his tongue he found the soft peak, hardening it within seconds. Jenessa gave a startled gasp of pleasure, her body arching toward him. He circled her waist, lifting her so that they fitted together as though made for each other.

Against her pelvis she felt the hardness that was his essence: proof of his desire. Then he was kissing her, plundering her mouth for all its sweetness, his hands roaming her body. She tangled her fingers in the hair that curled on his chest, wanting to delay an exploration that melted every nerve she possessed, yet driven toward a completion she could only imagine.

Glorying in her nudity, she pressed thigh to thigh, hip to hip. He sank lower, his lips tracing the swell of her breasts, the sweet concavity of her navel and belly. Then he opened her legs, plunging to find all her sensitivities. She cried out his name, writhing beneath him, losing herself in rhythms that were sheer delight.

With a muttered exclamation, Bryce reached for the small envelope by the bed. “Wait for me,” he said roughly, “I want us to come together.”

She had been waiting for him for months, ever since she’d fled the house where she’d grown up, she thought dazedly; waiting for a lover capable of unleashing a passion she hadn’t known was hers. As she opened her thighs, he thrust between them, brushing her breasts with the hard wall of his chest.

Then she felt resistance, a sudden shaft of pain; despite herself, she flinched. With a suddenness that shocked her, Bryce pulled back. He said sharply, “Jan—you’re a virgin.”

“Yes. But I want you so much, I don’t care if—”

He was holding his weight on his palms, his elbows taut; he looked appalled. “You’ve never done this before?”

“No…so what? What difference does it make?”

He said, each word falling like a stone on the bed, “You told me you were experienced.”

“I didn’t!”

“Not in so many words. But that’s the impression you gave me. I don’t have one-night stands with virgins, Jan Struthers. It’s not my style. I want a woman who knows the score.”

There was a sharp pain in Jenessa’s belly; her skin was suddenly so cold that she was shivering like a half-drowned kitten. “You wanted me, you can’t deny that. Experienced or not, you wanted me.”

“I’m glad you put it in the past tense,” he said savagely.

She wrapped her fingers around his arm. “Please, Bryce, don’t stop now…I’ve waited all term to meet someone like you, someone who brings me to life and makes me realize why I’m made the way I am. I want you to be the first to make love to me. Please.”

He picked up her fingers and removed them from his arm, as though her touch disgusted him. Then he rolled off the bed, the hall light falling smoothly over the planes of his back. Picking up his clothes, he said, “Get dressed. I’ll drive you home.”

His muscles flowing like those of a jungle cat, he walked toward the bathroom. The door closed behind him with a decisive snap. Slowly Jenessa sat up.

It was over. He no longer wanted her.

With a whimper of distress she grabbed her scattered garments and pulled them on, her fingers trembling with haste. Her lacy underwear mocked her, as did her tight sweater and minuscule leather skirt. As a lover, she was a failure. As a woman, laughable.

She was fumbling with the zipper on her skirt when Bryce marched back into the bedroom, fully dressed. He said with cold precision, “So what was this really about? Were you planning a little blackmail? Well-known tycoon rapes virgin?”

She paled, her eyes huge. He was like Charles, she thought, misjudging her totally, always assuming the worst. Were all men like that? All except her brother, Travis: who was, of course, Bryce’s best friend.

What was she going to do next? Collapse in tears? Or call upon the pride that had been her salvation for the last many years?

She wasn’t going to cry in front of Bryce Laribee. That much she knew. Standing tall, Jenessa spat, “Don’t judge me by the standards of your other women!”

“Then what did you do this for?”

“If you don’t understand, there’s no point in me trying to explain,” she snapped, thrusting her arms into her jacket. “I’ll get a cab and you’ll never hear from me again. Goodbye, Bryce. It’s been instructive.”

“It certainly has. How old are you?”

She raised her chin, glaring at him. “Seventeen,” she said. “But still old enough to know better.”

“Seventeen?”

“That’s what I said.”

“And I believed every word you told me…you should be studying drama, not art.”

She said flatly, “If you think I’m going to stand here half the night while you insult me, you couldn’t be more wrong. Get out of my way.”

He seized her by the elbow. “I said I’d drive you home.”

“The only way you’ll do that is with me kicking and screaming every inch of the way—is that what you want?”

“You little hellcat,” he said with reluctant admiration, “you would, wouldn’t you? Have you got enough money for a cab?”

She raised her chin another notch. “You’re not the only person in the world with money.”

“You’re certainly behaving like some rich guy’s spoiled brat.”

He couldn’t have said anything more calculated to hurt: spoiled brat had been one of the phrases her father used to fling at her when she was little. She said steadily, knowing she had to get out of here, “Stick to your own league, Bryce—women who don’t challenge you.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” he said softly.

Fear trickled like ice water down her spine. Her mind blank, she walked past him out of the bedroom, all her nerves straining to hear if he would follow her. The living room seemed endless, the green carpet as vast as a football field. Then, finally, the penthouse door clicked shut behind her. The elevator arrived, she walked in and was carried down to the lobby. Chin still high, she crossed it and let the doorman hail her a cab. It wasn’t until she got into her own little rented room in a very different area of town, the door latched and chained, that she allowed her pride to dissolve into tears of humiliation and pain.

Slowly Jenessa came back to the present. A hermit thrush was piping from the pines in her neighbor’s lot, clear, silvery notes that brought an ache to her chest; she had, without even knowing what she was doing, weeded the entire row of green beans. Twelve years had passed since that evening, and yet her humiliating dismissal was as fresh as if it had happened yesterday. No wonder she couldn’t bear the thought of going to Samantha’s christening.

She got up, gathered the wilting weeds into her bucket and dumped them on the compost. The late May sun felt warm on her back; she should have put on shorts and a sleeveless top instead of her old gardening trousers and a baggy shirt.

Trying to shake off her mood, Jenessa looked around appreciatively. Her little peak-roofed house with its weathered, unpainted shingles and neat white trim, her tangled flower garden and tidy vegetable patch were where she belonged: haven and inspiration, the place where she could be herself. Five years ago, Travis had loaned her the money for the down payment; when she turned thirty, in a few months, she would receive her share of her grandfather’s trust fund, and the place would really be hers.

She glanced at her watch. Another fifteen minutes weeding, then she’d head indoors and make something for supper.

Jenessa sank to her knees. Tomorrow she must start her next painting; she’d already done some sketches, although nothing about them had hardened into certainty. Idly the images began drifting through her mind, one after another, colors shifting and changing in the light…

“Excuse me,” a man’s voice said, “I’m looking for Jenessa Strathern.”

That voice. That deep baritone voice. She’d have known it anywhere. And it was all too real: not part of her earlier reverie. The color draining from her face, Jenessa pushed herself upright and turned to face the intruder.

Bryce Laribee was standing on the garden path, not ten feet from her. He’d pushed dark glasses up into his sun-streaked blond hair; his eyes were still the unrevealing gray she remembered so well. Her throat dry, her cold palms pressed into her trousers, she croaked, “Who did you say?”

“I’m sorry,” he said quizzically, “I didn’t mean to startle you. I called out from behind the back porch, but you didn’t hear me. I’m looking for Jenessa Strathern.”

She hadn’t heard because she’d just had a brain wave for the background of the painting. For a wild moment she contemplated lying to him, telling him she had no idea who Jenessa Strathern was or where he could find her. But Wellspring, the village in which she lived, was too small for her to hide. Any one of her neighbors would direct him back to the little Quaker house on the lane.

And then he’d know she’d been lying, and would wonder why.

She faltered, “I’m Jenessa. Who are you?”

He grinned down at her dirt-stained fingers. “I hope I won’t insult you if I don’t offer to shake hands. I’m Bryce Laribee, your brother Travis’s friend.”

Through a jumble of disconnected thoughts, Jenessa gave thanks that she was in her most disreputable clothes, her curls jammed under her straw hat, her face innocent of makeup. She couldn’t look more different from the spike-haired, leather-clad siren she’d been at seventeen. “Oh,” she said, “hello,” and stretched her mouth in a smile that felt completely artificial.

He was wearing faded jeans and an open-necked checked shirt, the sleeves rolled up to the elbow. At his throat she saw his tangled body hair, on his arms blond hairs that caught the sun. As inevitably as one of her roses opening to the morning sun, desire blossomed in her belly, so impelling and ungovernable that she was terrified it would show in her face. She still wanted him, she thought with a sick lurch of her heart. Just as much as she had twelve years ago.

How could she?

Thank heavens for the dirt on her fingers; if he’d shaken her hand, she’d have been lost.

He said easily, “I can see I’ve interrupted you.”

“Oh, no, that’s all right,” she stumbled. “I was going to stop soon anyway.”

“You have a lovely spot here.”

“Yes. I’m very lucky.”

“Is there somewhere we can sit down? You’ve probably already guessed that Travis sent me.”

She hadn’t. Wiping her palms down her trousers, Jenessa indicated the wooden benches under the old apple tree. “We can sit there,” she said. Not for anything was she going to invite him indoors.

The tree was still in bloom, the pink and white flowers delicately scenting the air. Petals had collected on the flag-stones in drifts, like snowflakes. Jenessa sat down, the wood hard against her thighs. Think, Jenessa, she told herself. Think.

Bryce said pleasantly, “Travis phoned me last night after he’d spoken to you. Let me put my cards on the table. He’s hoping I can persuade you to come to the christening—despite the fact that it’s on Manatuck, and that your father, stepmother and mother will all be there.”

At any other time, Jenessa might have been amused by Bryce’s directness. She said with some semblance of spirit, “I told Travis I couldn’t come because of the pressures of work.”

Pointedly Bryce looked around the peaceful garden. “You don’t look particularly pressured to me.”

Her cheeks warmed with anger. “The reason I didn’t hear you calling me, Mr. Laribee, was because I was thinking about my next painting, which I have to start tomorrow morning. I have a major show in Boston in a few weeks, and I can’t afford the time to travel up to Maine and back. It’s that simple.”

“Travis told me about the show. You’re doing well.”

“If I am, it’s because I work hard. You’re a businessman, aren’t you? I’d have expected you to understand that.”

Bryce fished in his pocket and brought out a folded cheque. Holding it out, he said, “From Travis. To pay for your airfare.”

She kept her hands firmly at her sides. “I already told him I couldn’t take any more money from him. I owe him too much as it is.”

“Then I’ll pay your way.”

She raised her brows. “If I won’t take money from my brother, I’m not likely to take it from a complete stranger.”

“I’m Travis’s best friend. Scarcely a stranger.”

“This is about time, not money,” Jenessa said, her voice rising. “Can’t you understand that?”

“Okay, let’s cut out the euphemisms,” Bryce said evenly. “This discussion isn’t really about a christening. It’s about a whole lot more—you know that as much as I do.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Listen to me,” he said grimly, “and you will. Travis is your brother, he’s been very good to you over the years, and he loves you. You didn’t bother going to his wedding…God knows why. Surely you can understand how much Julie means to him, how important that ceremony was to both of them. Besides, Julie wants to get to know you. She’s a real sweetheart and deserves a lot better than being ignored.”

Jenessa hadn’t gone to the wedding because Bryce had been best man. “This isn’t about Travis. It’s about Charles and—”

“All right, so you don’t get along with your dad, your stepmother or your mother. Not one of them. But to stay away from Travis’s wedding because you can’t be civil to your family for the space of one day doesn’t wash with me. And now you’re doing the same thing all over again. Although this time you’re using your painting as an excuse. Your painting and money.”

“I have to earn my living,” Jenessa put in hotly.

But Bryce overrode her. “Julie nearly lost Samantha midway through her pregnancy—I’m sure you’re aware of that. So that little baby is the apple of their eye. They dote on her, they adore her…and now they’ve asked you to be her godmother. But do you care? No, ma’am. You can’t even spare a day to fly up there.”

Put like that, it sounded horribly selfish; no wonder Bryce couldn’t condone her behavior. Knowing she was probably only going to dig herself deeper into trouble, Jenessa said weakly, “Of course I know how much they love Samantha. But the timing’s as bad as it could be. A show at the Morden is a huge accolade, I can’t afford to play around right now.”

His jaw hardened. “The message I’m getting is that you’re totally self-absorbed. It doesn’t matter that your brother loves you and his wife wants to get to know you, and that by inviting you to be Samantha’s godmother they’re asking you to be an important part of their lives. You’ve shut yourself up in an ivory tower called art. And you’re far too pure-minded to descend to the level of ordinary people.”

With a gasp of pure rage Jenessa said, “What gives you the right to speak to me like this?”

“My friendship with Travis does. You say you owe him money. Well, I owe him my life,” Bryce announced in a voice like a steel blade. “If it wasn’t for him, I’d be on the streets, in jail or dead.”

He broke off so abruptly that Jenessa said flatly, “You didn’t mean to tell me that.”

“You don’t deserve any information about my private life.”

“It’s wasted on me anyway,” she said, not altogether truthfully. “My mind’s made up.”

“So I’m supposed to stand by and do nothing while you ignore what’s most important to Travis—his wife and his child?”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to. Because it’s not your decision.”

“Do you really think you can do exactly what you please without hurting their feelings? Because that’s the bottom line, isn’t it? You’re disappointing both of them.”

Unerringly Bryce had found her most vulnerable spot. “Once the show is over, I’ll go and visit them,” Jenessa said in a thin voice. “I told Travis I would. In the meantime, I’ll thank you to mind your own business.”

“Frankly, having met you, I have no idea why he bothers to keep in touch.”

Jenessa stood up. “I’m sorry you came all this way for nothing, Mr. Laribee,” she said tightly. “But you’re wasting your time and mine as well.”

“So that’s your last word?”

“Yes.”

“Fine. Then you’d better go back to thinking about your painting, hadn’t you, Miss Strathern? I’ll tell Travis that daubing oil on canvas is more important to you than celebrating family occasions. Although I bet he’s already gotten that message.”

Bryce turned on his heel and strode along the path, disappearing around the corner of the house. A few moments later, Jenessa heard the sound of a car engine accelerating down the lane. Then, once again, silence fell over the garden. The only sound she could hear, apart from the drone of insects, was the thick pounding of her own heart.

He’d gone. He hadn’t recognized her. Hadn’t connected Travis’s sister with a young art student he’d gone to bed with many years ago, and then ruthlessly dismissed.

She sank back down on the bench, pulling her hat off and shaking out her mass of blond curls. Through the turmoil of emotion in her breast, one conclusion was clear: Travis must really want to see her to send his good friend Bryce to plead his cause.

Once again, she was disappointing her brother. Just as she had at his wedding.

Maybe she should tell Travis the truth, she thought, trying to ease some of the tension out of her shoulders. Confess what had happened—or rather, what hadn’t happened—all those years ago between her and Bryce. Get it over with. Surely such a confession wouldn’t damage his friendship with Bryce, not after this long. And it would put things straight between her and Travis, something she craved with all her heart.

But wouldn’t Travis then connect her confession with the lack of suitors in her life, with her continued refusal to become involved with someone, or to get married? He’d assume she’d been in love with Bryce. That Bryce had repudiated a lot more than her body. She couldn’t bear it if that happened. One humiliation was enough.

More than enough.

Jenessa staggered out of bed at eight-thirty the next morning. At two, three and four she’d been wide awake, staring into the darkness: her body craving the touch of the only man who’d ever swept her off her feet, her mind racing between a hotel room in New York City twelve years ago and her own garden the evening before. At three-thirty she’d gotten out of bed and gone to her studio, where she’d produced a series of very unsatisfactory sketches for her new work, tossed them aside and covered page after page with sketches of Bryce. Bryce in her garden, Bryce naked in the shadows of a luxurious bedroom, Bryce in her arms. These, too, she’d tossed aside. Finally, about five-thirty, she’d fallen into a dead and unrefreshing sleep that had mercifully been dreamless.

Coffee, she thought, yawning, stretching to get the aches out of her limbs. Coffee and a shower. Maybe then the day would seem worth beginning.

While the coffee dripped through the grinds, she wandered to the kitchen window. A sudden movement caught her eye. Her whole body stilled.

A man was hunkered down in the vegetable garden, weeding, his shirt stretched tight across the muscles of his back, the early sun glinting in his blond hair. He looked very much at home and completely at ease, and it was this that made Jenessa forget any vestige of caution. She slammed her empty mug down on the counter, marched through the mudroom and hauled the back door open. The hinges squealed. The man looked up.

CHAPTER THREE

THE sun was behind Bryce, shining full on the woman on the porch. She looked utterly magnificent, he thought, brushing the dirt from his hands. She also looked extremely angry.

Good. He was all too ready to take her on.

She ran down the board steps in her bare feet, her cream silk pajamas brushing the swell of her breasts and clinging to her thighs. Her hair was a wild tangle of curls, her eyes bluer than the sky and her cheeks the pink of the apple blossoms on the tree just behind him. To his dismay, his groin tightened involuntarily.

How could he desire a woman he so thoroughly disliked?

Was that one reason he was so angry with her? A reason that had nothing to do with Travis or Julie.

Standing up, he said cordially, “Good morning, Jenessa.”

She stopped three feet away from him, her hands on her hips. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”

“Weeding…isn’t it obvious?”

She glanced downward. “Weeding?” she squeaked. “You’ve just pulled up three-quarters of the beet seedlings.”

“You’re kidding. You mean those funny little red-colored things would have turned into beets?”

“If you hadn’t hauled them up by the roots, they would have!”

Realizing he was thoroughly enjoying himself, Bryce said, “You should have got up earlier…I thought you had a painting to start. Then I wouldn’t have done so much damage.”

“You should have gone back where you belong yesterday evening,” she stormed. “Why don’t you head back there right now? Ten minutes ago wouldn’t be too soon.”

“Boston’s where I belong,” he said. “I decided I’d given up entirely too easily yesterday, so I stayed in a charming bed-and-breakfast down the road. Whose owner, by the way, gave me the lowdown on you—on the lack of men in your life, and on the peculiarities of modern art as exemplified by your paintings.”