Jared's Love-Child

“You know what you need? Taming, Devon Fraser—”

“Are you trying to tell me that any woman with the guts to say no to you needs fixing?”

“—and I’m the man to do it.”

“Go tame Lise! Go tame any other woman on this dance floor who’s stupid enough to get within ten feet of you! But don’t you dare talk about taming me, as though I’m some kind of a pink poodle that’s up for grabs. You’re just not used to a woman saying no. It’s a very simple word. One syllable, two letters—I don’t know why you have such a problem with it.” Briefly she paused for breath. “Thank heavens, there’s Patrick. Goodbye, Jared. It’s been most instructive meeting you. And you can bet your bottom dollar that this is the year I’ll be spending Christmas in Antarctica.”

She marched off the dance floor toward the table where Patrick and his friends had ensconced themselves with three bottles of wine and a candle whose flame wavered in the summer breeze. They were all delighted to see her. When next she looked around, Jared was nowhere to be seen. Good riddance, she thought, and hoped her mother and his father had been too wrapped up in each other to see the way she’d kissed Jared.

For the briefest of moments Jared contemplated going after Devon. Seizing her in his arms, regardless of the wedding guests, and kissing her into submission in the middle of the dance floor. Because he could. He knew it. He’d felt her delicious surrender through the whole length of his body: so sudden and so complete.

She wanted him just as much as he wanted her.

So why was he standing all by himself on the dance floor?

Was she an extremely clever tactician, dishing out just enough of her sexual lures to keep him interested and then removing herself? There were words for that kind of behavior, very crude words. Or did she really want nothing to do with him?

Christmas in Antarctica. Dammit, she’d liked being kissed by him! He’d swear to it on every fence post on his father’s land.

Tension thrummed in his shoulders. His fists, he realized, were clenched at his sides, and a few of the guests were starting to eye him curiously. Jared let out his breath in a long swoosh and went in search of Lise.

He’d been avoiding Lise, no question of it. But when he approached the group of which she was part she greeted him with her usual provocative smile, and it would have taken a keener ear than his to detect any annoyance in her voice.

She was a very good actress. And he knew for sure she was interested in him. He’d swear to that on a whole stack of Bibles.

Grimly he strove to enjoy himself, but it was as though Devon was hovering beside him in her turquoise gown the whole time, listening to every platitude, counting how many times Lise called him darling. A word he hated, he decided with the calm of extreme rage. Alicia used that particular endearment for Devon all the time.

Would he ever forget Devon’s childlike pleasure when she’d seen the dance tent? What had she called it? Enchanting?

If she’d faked that, she was the one who should be playing on Broadway. Not Lise.

Enchanting. It was he who’d been enchanted, Jared thought with an honesty he couldn’t gainsay. He’d intended, when he’d kissed Devon’s hand, that it be the equivalent of her turquoise dress: a slap in the face. But when he’d kissed her on the dance floor he’d forgotten all about teaching her a lesson. All he’d wanted to do was seduce her.

Lise tugged at his sleeve and Jared struggled to pay attention to what everyone was saying. But, in spite of himself, his thoughts kept marching on. When he met a new woman, one he desired, he always felt very much in control of the situation. He knew all the moves: they’d never failed him. He always got what he wanted, and he got it on his own terms.

He could have Lise on his terms. Any time he liked.

Maybe that was why he didn’t want her.

Despite the fact that they’d been dating for the last couple of years, he’d never once gone to bed with her. There’d always been a reason for delaying that particular move—a sudden trip to inspect a resort in Kenya, a crisis in the Canadian oil fields, a slump in the stock market. Excuses, he thought savagely. Excuses to hide the uncomfortable truth that what was so easily achieved wasn’t worth having.