Nobody's Child

Dear God. The tenderness of his mouth stung her fingertip with pleasurable shock.

She blushed.

“You look even lovelier than you did the last time I saw you.” He brought the scarlet blossom to his nose and inhaled.

As he had done before.

“Your face is as red as my rose,” he murmured with insolent mischief.

Her heart pumped wildly. She was too furious to speak, so she tried to run.

He held on to her hand. “Easy does it.” He smiled lazily. “Remember me. I’m all bark and no bite.”

If only he were so harmless.

He was tough as nails. In his whole life he had never loved another human being. He used women for sex. He stomped on any man who opposed him. Especially his own brother.

Cutter’s face looked harder and leaner than it had been seven years ago, but he was still sinfully handsome. The sheer, raw animal magnetism he projected in his black evening clothes left her breathless.

“How did you get in?” Pulling her hand free, she fell backward against the solid oak of the bar. “I gave very specific orders—”

“I’m sure you did.” He shot her that hot, beguiling pirate’s grin that had seduced so many women. “You forget. I prefer to give women orders, not serve them.”

“You...” The vile word didn’t come easily. “You...bastard.”

“No, honey—” His charming, piratical grin broadened, reminding her of her own questionable parentage.

While he ordered drinks, Cheyenne’s mind flashed backward.

“Mexican!” the kids had jeered on her first day of school, making her conscious of how dirty and ragged she was. Only they’d said something that sounded more like, “Mez-kin.”

“She’s the witch’s bastard,” Chantal had taunted.

Through her tears, Cheyenne had stared at the ground, which was dry and cracked and covered with a fine pink dust that dusted the scuffed toes of her brown boots. Thus, she hadn’t seen the tall, black-haired boy, pushing his way through the other children. Thus, her first awareness of Jack West, her first playmate and friend as well as first love, had been his rough, yet strangely pleasant voice.

“Leave her alone!”

“Stay out of this!” Chantal had cried.

Jack, whose blood was half Mexican, too, whose parentage was even more questionable than Cheyenne’s, Jack, who had had to fight for his own precarious social position in Westville even harder than Cheyenne, had yanked Chantal’s red braids hard. “Cállate, celosa. You’re just jealous ‘cause she’s your sister.”

“She’s not my sister! I hate her! I hate you, too. She’s just like you—a barrio brat!”

“No. She looks like your father. Just like you, too, gringa. That’s why you hate her.”

“No! No!” Chantal covered her ears with her hands.

The bartender set down their drinks.

The adult Cheyenne froze as Cutter placed a crystal glass of straight whiskey into her shaking hand.

“Cheers, Cheyenne. You’ve come a long way...since Westville. Since my island. Since your marriage to my brother. This may be your best party yet. I find I’m enjoying it way more than your wedding even though I haven’t yet had the pleasure of kissing you.”

Cutter’s gaze lingered on her lips, and she remembered her wedding day. Her heart had felt about to break when he’d angrily kissed her. She’d fainted with joy and hope only to be cast down into despair when she regained consciousness to find him gone and Martin there, demanding to know if she wanted to chase Cutter or stay with him.

What choice had she ever had?

Cutter had wanted her, but for sex, not for marriage.

“You look good in emeralds. Too good,” Cutter said. “Widowhood becomes you. Too bad you’re not yet desperate enough to sell me what I want.” He picked up his rose and twirled it. He brought it to his lips and then took a deep breath, drawing in its scent before setting it down again.

His heavy-lidded eyes slid lazily from the rose to her lush mouth, down her body, admiring her generous curves and slim waist.

Even the odd, tentative flicker of desire that went through her annoyed her. He was a sexist, arrogant bully! How could he have this sensual effect on her?

Please, God. Not sensual. Not tonight!

She balled her hands into fists. He read her flushed face like a book and laughed, his overabundant conceit and good humor restored. Without a word he threw his dark head back and easily tossed down his own drink.

“Cheers,” she muttered shakily as she tried to toss her drink down with equal aplomb. But the whiskey strangled her and made her cough.

With an excessive pretense of polite concern, he whipped out a monogrammed handkerchief, and then pounded her hard on the back, and yet not too hard.

When his warm hand stayed in the center of her back, her bare skin beneath the soft black cashmere began to itch and burn.

She sputtered, swallowed more of the awful whiskey and caught another drowning, scalding breath.

“You shouldn’t have come,” she rasped.

“I was worried about you. I came to offer my services.”

The innuendo in his low voice further infuriated her. Rudely she snatched his handkerchief and dabbed at her sweater.

“No. What’s more likely is that you couldn’t bear to miss my social execution. How did you get a ticket anyway?”

“Chantal.”

“I should have known. She’s always made my life miserable the same way you did Martin’s.”

Cutter frowned. “Is that what you think?”

“What do you really want?”

“Many things.” His eyes were hot.

He picked up the rose. This time he trailed the soft petals across her lips. “Your body is at the top of my wish list. So is your soul.”