The Bride Means Business. Anne Marie Winston

studied accounting, remember?” she said examining the numbers with growing dread. “I’ve kept my C.P.A. certification even though I don’t practice any more.”

      “Any more?”

      She looked up, shooting him a grim smile. “I worked for Arthur Andersen for almost five years before Marina and I opened our store.”

      One black eyebrow rose. “I’m impressed.” But his tone was mocking.

      Refusing to respond in kind, she said, “Thank you.” Then she waved the report at him, concern mounting. “I’d have to see a lot more than this to get the whole picture, but it does look as if Piersall is in trouble.”

      “In trouble?” Dax snorted. “If something isn’t done, this company will have to declare bankruptcy by the end of the year.”

      She was shocked and for a minute she simply gaped at him. “My God, Dax. Do you realize how many people will lose their jobs if Piersall sinks?”

      He pivoted and picked up another piece of paper from the desk top. “Four hundred, more or less, with about ninety per cent of them full-timers who would lose benefits.”

      “I had no idea,” she whispered.

      “Apparently, neither did Charles.” For once, Dax appeared unconcerned about continuing their verbal battles. “I was hoping you could shed some light on this.”

      She started to shake her head, and then the light dawned. “No, you weren’t.” She drained her glass of sherry and set it on the table beside her with a snap. “You didn’t see my name on the list of employees, and you wanted to know if I’d been helping Charles to mismanage his funds. You jerk.”

      Springing out of the chair, she stalked toward the door, but she’d forgotten how fast he could move. He was laughing as he took her elbow and steered her toward the dining room. “Caught by a master of deception. What can I say?” He barely twisted out of the way when she rammed her elbow backward toward his ribs. “Calm down, honey-bunch. I don’t recall making any accusations.”

      “Then you had a memory lapse.”

      “Anyway,” he said, staying out of range, “You can relax. I don’t think you had anything to do with the company’s problems.”

      “How generous of you,” she said bitterly. “You’ll have to excuse me for thinking that you assessed my reaction before rendering such a magnanimous opinion.”

      “But I need you to help me solve them.” He went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “There’s been a little movement of the company’s stock in the week since Charles died. Probably normal reaction, but it bears watching. In the meantime, I’ve been looking over the minutes from recent board meetings and I can’t say I’m impressed with the general direction they’ve been going.”

      “And naturally, you have a solution.” She couldn’t resist.

      “I do.” He picked up his drink and took a slow sip, watching her over the rim of the glass before he spoke again. “But it may not be one that the current board will embrace unless I can force them to yield by outvoting them at the table.”

      Comprehension began to glimmer in the back of her mind. “Just how much stock do you own, Dax?”

      “Together, the family held fifty-one percent,” he said. “Now that Charles has left his shares to you, I still control twenty-eight percent.”

      “So...” She made a show of crossing her legs and settling back in her chair. “Without my votes, you can’t be sure of enough support to control the board.”

      Dax’s mouth was a grim line. “No. I can’t.”

      She raised one brow in a mocking manner as she made a production out of recrossing her legs the other way. “Ah. How...interesting.”

      “‘Interesting’ isn’t quite the word I’d use,” he grated. “God, I could kill you. And I could kill Charles for creating this mess if he weren’t dead already.”

      Abruptly, any satisfaction she’d found in the verbal sparring drained away. Sorrow and a profound depression filled her. She’d worked so hard to make a life for herself after Dax had left, and now she felt as if she had moved no farther in time than mere hours from the day he’d gone.

      She almost demanded that he take her home then, but she knew it would only give him pleasure to refuse. So when he set his glass on the desk and motioned for her to precede him, she moved ahead of him into the dining room without a protest. There were three places set, and despite her irritation with him, she was touched. She knew Charles and Alma had taken most of their meals in the kitchen with Mrs. Bowley. It was thoughtful of Dax to include her.

      As they cleared the doorway, she moved to the far end of the room and through the open French doors. Being so close to him was torture. Half of her wanted to kill him, but the other half ... the other half wished in vain that she could walk into his arms and let him touch her with those long magic fingers that wreaked havoc on her system.

      A gentle evening breeze wandered across the pretty stone patio. Beyond a green carpet of lawn, the pool reflected evening’s approach on its smooth face. The sight of that pool brought memories flooding back...more of the uncomplicated happy moments from childhood, anxious yearnings from adolescence as she wished Dax would notice her in her newest bathing suit, and other memories—giddy, heady, heart-pounding recollections that were better left forgotten.

      Would this evening ever end? she thought in despair. They hadn’t even eaten yet and already she felt like someone had flayed every inch of her skin with a cat-o’-nine-tails. She turned to move from the view, desperately seeking some innocuous subject that wouldn’t carry any more bits of her past.

      Dax was standing directly behind her.

      She barreled into him with a muffled exclamation of surprise; his hands gripped her upper arms to steady her. But when she automatically tried to step back, he held her against him. His big body, where hers was pressed into it, was achingly familiar and enticingly strange. Her breasts knew the planes of his torso, his hips found their old familiar pillow just below her navel. She sucked in a breath of dismay and delight, her body arrested in motion, quivering with the wondrous feel of his form against hers again.

      This was what they’d had between them. Since the first time he’d taken her into his arms to dance on her seventeenth birthday, they’d had this. She could still remember the look on his face that night, the stunned need that accompanied his body’s unmistakable response. And she could remember the helpless, melting feeling she’d known, along with the heady sense of power she’d felt when his lips had descended on hers right there on the dance floor.

      “You’re too young,” he’d growled against her skin. And despite her protests, he’d stayed away, even going to Europe to do his graduate work at a university there. He had never even asked her out until the summer he’d turned twenty-four.

      He’d come to her house the day he’d returned from Europe, and they’d dated steadily from that point on. It had been two months before he’d made love to her for the first time. Two long months, when the only thing that had saved her virgin state was Dax’s self-control. She’d had none. And it was a not-quite-pleasant realization to recognize that she still didn’t.

      She could have stood there all day. She barely resisted her body’s pleas to rub herself against him in surrender. Dignity had no place here. Elemental recognition flowed between them. Rib of my rib, bone of my bone—she was his missing half, he was the answer to the unfinished equation in her life.

      Above her head, Dax muttered something, and she lifted dazed eyes to his. “What?”

      “I said, ‘Damn.’” His thumbs lightly rubbed over the soft flesh he had seized to steady her, flesh he had yet to release. His eyes searched hers. “My life would be easier without this.”

      When he spoke, her gaze moved to watch the fascinating