Swept Away. Gwynne Forster

way you do, but you’re going to force me to let it go.” He flexed his shoulders in a quick shrug. “And that may be for the best. But hell, it sticks in my craw like cracked glass.”

      She didn’t attempt to coat the truth. “You’re right. We have to let it go, because it spells nothing for us but misery.”

      He wanted more. “Will you admit, as I do, that under better circumstances, we…we…might have made memorable music together?”

      She noticed that when he said it, he grinned as though savoring a delightful thought. And she knew she should be as honest as he, but no other man had exposed her naked need as he’d done, and she felt too vulnerable and finessed her reply.

      “You’re attractive in many ways, Schyler. I respond to that.”

      He laughed aloud. “I don’t suppose I had a right to expect more. We’d better get back. Dad’s got that chocolate soufflé ready by now.”

      She gulped. “Chocolate soufflé? He can make that?”

      “Yeah,” he said in a voice tinged with pride. “And does every time he cooks dinner.”

      Her eyes widened. “Why?”

      His laughter wrapped around her like a blanket of contentment. “Veronica, I love chocolate. I would eat chocolate soup, chocolate bread, chocolate anything for as long as anybody would give it to me or I could get it for myself. Dad humors me. I expect he’s tired of it. Every dessert cooked in that house has chocolate in it, and a lot of it.”

      She couldn’t believe it. “He spoiled you.”

      They reached the car, and he opened the door for her. “Yes, he spoiled me. When he met me, I was almost ten years old and couldn’t remember ever having heard the word love directed at me. He knew that.”

      There it was again, and it would always be there, looming like a gallows between them. Her joviality was gone.

      “Dad’s going to enjoy impressing you with his soufflé.”

      His words penetrated her conscious thought only vaguely. Growing up, she hadn’t known chocolate soufflé existed and didn’t get a taste of chocolate unless one of her schoolmates shared a piece of candy with her. Her mother and stepfather hadn’t been able to afford the luxury of chocolate. But the man who’d given her the seed of life had lavished it on a child he didn’t sire, catering to that child’s need and whims. Bitterness simmered within her, rising like bile on her tongue, eating away the rapport she had achieved with Schyler and her father. The hurt came back with the strength of a gale-force storm, beating back the passion that Schyler had dragged from the very bowels of her being.

      “I don’t think so,” she said, almost absentmindedly. “I’d better be going. Be seeing you.” She wanted to run, but controlled the urge and walked as rapidly as she could, leaving him standing there. She didn’t look back. She couldn’t.

      Chapter 4

      With his feet glued in their tracks, Schyler watched Veronica go. He could call her or with his longer legs he could catch her. He did neither. What good would it do? He just stood there. One minute she’d been locked to him body and soul, fire and spirit, giving him all the sweetness a man could want—her heat and passion and the promise of her body. No point in thinking about the pain that seared through him as she practically galloped out of sight. He’d had pain before, and he’d feel it again. That didn’t bother him; he knew he could handle it. But when had a woman stood toe-to-toe with him, taking his passion and demanding that he take hers and give her more of himself in even greater measure? He wanted the ultimate experience with her. Even as he stood there in the dying daylight, everything in him down to the recesses of his loins wanted him to go after her and have her for his own. But he doubted he’d ever release himself within her. And maybe it was for the best; if he went that route, she’d own him, and from where he stood, he couldn’t see a future for them.

      He glared at the stars that mocked him with their hollow, twinkling promises. The water lapped loudly at the cove nearby, reminding him of his loneliness. He’d been hearing that same noise for twenty-six years, and for generations to come, his descendants—if he had any—would know its steady, sometimes soothing, sometimes disquieting rhythm. He’d wanted her to share it with him. He flexed his right shoulder in a quick shrug. A relationship with her was hopeless, had been from the minute he’d first looked into her wide, long-lashed eyes.

      He knew now that the prospect of their being more than adversaries—in court or out—had just plummeted to nil. He had only to mention his father’s name and her passion for him disappeared like smoke in a windstorm. And what could he do about it? He loved his father. He picked up a stone, sent it skipping across the water and headed back to his car. So what? He’d known plenty of disappointments. He shook his head as he unlocked the car. He wouldn’t lie to himself. This one was a Goliath. She was in him, and he knew she’d stay there. But what the hell! It wouldn’t kill him.

      “Where’s Veronica?” Richard asked him when he walked into the house.

      He never lied to his father, and he wouldn’t do it then. “I’m sorry, Dad. She decided not to come back.”

      Richard stared at him, obviously speechless. “Did you have an argument?”

      He heard the dread in his father’s voice and knew that he anticipated the truth. “No, we didn’t.”

      “Then what happened?”

      He had to tell him sometime, to let his father know the circumstances under which he’d first met Veronica, and he’d better do it right then. He sat in the brown leather recliner, leaned back and closed his eyes.

      “Dad, I didn’t meet Veronica for the first time this afternoon. I—”

      Richard dropped into the nearest chair and leaned forward. “You knew her? And you never told me?”

      “I knew her, yes, But I didn’t know she was your daughter until I opened the front door for her this afternoon.”

      He described his acquaintance with Veronica, told his father about Veronica’s extended leave from her high-profile job and of the part he’d played in it.

      The right hand Richard raised when Schyler began to talk stayed where it was. Frozenlike. He parted his lips as if to speak but didn’t make a sound, merely shook his head as though denying the possibility of what Schyler’s words implied. Schyler wondered about his father’s thoughts while the man he loved so dearly stared at him for long minutes. Without warning, he slumped in the chair.

      Schyler lunged out of the recliner and rushed to his father. “You all right?”

      “No, I’m not.” The words struggled up from Richard’s throat as if they’d had to pull themselves out of him. He sat up straight. “Did you…did you tell…is that all of it?”

      He went back to the recliner and sat there. “I’m not sure you want to hear all of this, but if I tell you everything now, you’ll know where you stand with her.”

      “Go ahead. I can take it.”

      Schyler ran the tips of his fingers back and forth against his chin. Pensive. He didn’t like revealing his most private feelings to another man, not even if that man was his father. But his father deserved any truth that might comfort him.

      “I fell for her hook, line and sinker the minute I laid eyes on her, and nothing that’s happened since has abated it one iota.”

      He imagined his father’s whistle could be heard half a block away. “And you went ahead with that case against her?”

      “Worse. I brought the second suit two weeks later.” He leaned back, locked his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. “She’s a fighter. Man, does that woman have a set of guts. She’s not afraid of anybody or anything. If those daggers she pitched at me while she was on that witness stand had been real, I’d be pushing up daisies this minute.”

      He