The Bride Means Business. Anne Marie Winston

was cautious, wondering what kind of trap this was.

      “In trouble,” he repeated. He stepped out of the deepest shadows and his eyes were deadly serious. “That stock you hold won’t be worth the paper it’s printed on if something isn’t done to turn Piersall around.”

      “Something like what?” She didn’t care about the stock, nor the profits from it; she’d succeeded in making her life comfortable without it so far. But as a businesswoman, the idea of a company closing, putting who knew how many people out of work, was anathema to her. And this was the only link she had now with Charles; she wasn’t ready to toss it aside, even to spite Dax.

      Without answering her question, he said, “Tomorrow night. Seven. Dress is casual.” He stepped over to her door and twisted the key, opening the door before withdrawing the keys and tossing them into her lap. “Go to bed. You look like hell.”

      She couldn’t just sit there and take more of his insults; it had been a long time since she’d allowed any man to get the better of her. “If I look like hell, it’s from having the misfortune to be in the same city with you again.”

      She was still sitting in the rocker when he turned the corner and vanished into the parking lot.

      Two

      She can still wrap you up in more knots than a sailor could, Dax thought. He leaned his head against the back of his seat, putting off the moment of ringing Jillian’s doorbell and seeing the ice in those blue eyes.

      He’d been well-prepared for their first meeting yesterday ...he’d thought. Until she’d sprung her little coup on him. He still couldn’t believe she controlled twenty-three per cent of the company’s voting stock now.

      Ever since he’d received the brief, stilted facsimile telling him Charles was dead, he’d imagined that first meeting with her. Dax had been shocked to his shoes when he’d seen Jillian’s name on the letterhead; he’d almost conditioned himself to stop thinking of home, and of anyone connected to his past.

      Especially her. God, how he’d hated her. It had taken years for him to stop thinking of her every minute, years, and with one damned piece of paper, she was back in his head as if she’d never left. When he’d flown up here from Atlanta, the man he’d hired to investigate her met him at the airport with everything he’d dug up. And as he scanned the doings of Jillian Kerr through the past seven years or so, he’d known he wasn’t going to walk away this time without wringing some answers out of her. Maybe once he knew why she’d agreed to marry him when she’d obviously wanted Charles, maybe then he could finally forget.

      A few more phone calls had put him in exactly the position he wanted, and he’d strolled off to the funeral yesterday feeling pretty pleased with himself and primed for a fight. When he’d made his way through the crowd, he’d been ready to rip her to shreds, exactly the way she’d ripped his heart out once.

      Only he hadn’t bargained for the compelling reaction his body and his emotions had experienced when he sat down beside her at the service. He hadn’t gotten a good look at her face right away, and it was just as well. He’d been so fixated on the sight of her slender thighs beneath the short black skirt, and the way she’d kept her legs pasted together, with her long, narrow feet in their elegant, unsuitable shoes cuddled side by side on the ground, that he couldn’t have spoken if he’d had to. Memories had swamped him. He could still see her long, slender body, feel the way she’d yielded beneath him, hear the sweet little whimpers she made when he was touching her.

      It had taken him every minute of the rest of that eulogy to battle the need back into submission, to keep his hands from reaching out and yanking her against him. And then, when she’d stood and he’d looked directly at her for the first time, he’d been poleaxed by her glowing, youthful appearance. The woman was thirty-two years old, for God’s sake. He knew she’d been around the block more times than a kid on a new bike, and yet she still looked fresh as a flower on a dewy morning.

      She’d barely seemed to notice him; he had felt her grief and the determined way she was clinging to control. It only served to enrage him all over again. Apparently, she’d stayed close to Charles all these years; Dax doubted she’d be so emotional if he were the one in that coffin.

      That coffin. Regret halted his tumbling thoughts. Somehow, he’d always assumed he and Charles would speak again some day. Dax could never forgive Jillian, but Charles was another story.

      He, Dax, knew firsthand just how seductive and irresistible she could be. As a hormone-laden kid, he’d been deeply, profoundly jealous of Charles and the special connections his brother had shared with her. Charles and Jillian were thick as thieves, had been since they were old enough to ride their bikes up and down the hill from one house to the other. They touched each other casually, easily, and even though she’d belonged to Dax since their first kiss, she and Charles had some unspoken relationship that didn’t include him. Their closeness had bothered him more than he’d wanted to admit, even to himself.

      Still, he wished he had taken the time to contact Charles during these recent years, when his brother had popped into his mind more and more frequently. He hadn’t even come home for their mother’s funeral four years ago, a move he still regretted. And he’d fully intended to get back in touch with Charles. He’d considered it a dozen times, had told himself tomorrow would be time enough. Now tomorrow had arrived, but time had run out.

      Charles...his baby brother. Gone. In his mind’s eye, Dax watched Jillian lay a yellow rose atop the white coffin. A numbing regret swept over him. He’d missed Charles these past few years.

      And he’d have liked to have met his brother’s wife. He would have applauded anyone who could steal Charles out from under Jillian’s nose.

      He unfolded himself from the sleek little Beamer that had been left at the house since his mother’s death and walked to her door. She opened it after the first ring, as if she’d been standing on the other side waiting on him. Good. He hoped she’d stood there a while.

      The punch of awareness slammed into him again at the sight of that angelic face and even though he’d been expecting it, he still could only stare for a moment, drinking in the porcelain beauty that had once been his. She was wearing a fairly sedate, un-Jillian-like twin set and stylish trousers. She’d always dressed to entice, to arouse...before. Of course, that could have changed over the years.

      He recalled the curve-hugging black suit she’d worn to the funeral, the suit with the tight skirt that had shown off her slender little butt and lots of long, slim leg. He’d been watching from his car when she’d been helped out of the hearse by two exceedingly attentive men, and he’d endured the painful twist in his gut when she’d clung to one of them as she started across the cemetery. And he’d been mildly surprised to note that her figure had looked every bit as good as he remembered...though “surprise” hadn’t been the primary feeling he’d experienced.

      And afterwards, when he’d introduced himself to her family, he’d been shocked as hell when she’d deliberately closed the space between them and pressed herself against his side as if they were intimate companions who touched each other every day. Even though he knew she’d done it to head off more hard words between him and her overbearing brother-in-law, he hadn’t been able to prevent himself from touching her once he’d recovered his wits. He’d slid a hand around her still-slender waist and checked out the firm curve of her hip, and it had been all he could do to stand there when all he wanted was to pull her against him and fill his hands with her.

      He suspected that this sudden switch to conservative clothing was for his benefit. She’d probably had to run out and buy it today.

      The idea made him smile as he started forward—but she blocked his way. “I’m ready.”

      That was it. No greeting, no civil conversation. The imp of perversity that she brought out in him popped up, and he merely stood there, blocking her way, now. “Invite me in.”

      “No. You asked me to dinner. Let’s go.”

      “Come