found himself drawn to the dulcet confection with which Roc was preparing to tempt him. Lindsay’s sweetness wasn’t like that of the others. Those women would have bored him silly in three days flat, their incessant, unrelieved goodness acting like a sickening surfeit of cotton candy. But Lindsay…well, she was a more complicated dish, sweet, but with the suggestion of subtle spices that would please a far more discriminating palate.
But wait…Daniel sat on the edge of the bed, horrified. What insufferable, arrogant nonsense was this?
Disgusted with his own thoughts, he shoved his feet into his loafers with such force that he nearly tore the leather. Who the devil did he think he was, contemplating this perfectly decent young woman as if she were the latest delicacy served up on his table? Had he begun, God help him, to think like Roc?
He ran frustrated hands through his hair and then re fused to comb it again as a dumb but nonetheless gratifying symbolic gesture of renunciation. He descended the stairs, his determination renewed. He was not going to act like the wicked wolf, feasting shamelessly on the honeyed goodness of little Lindsay Blaisdell while she was lost in his snowy forest.
Besides, Lindsay Blaisdell was already on to him, and might not make such easy pickings as all that anyway. She had decided three years ago that Daniel was a self-centered bastard, and he was not going to try to change her mind.
Why should he? She was right.
DINNER was tense but mercifully uneventful, thanks to Roc, who, as if he sensed Lindsay’s discomfort, kept up a colorful monologue about dirty politics in some country she had never heard of. A country, she suspected, that he had invented on the spur of the moment.
When Roc left the table to do the dishes, forbidding Lindsay to follow him, she had a moment of panic, but without skipping a beat Daniel smoothly segued into a discussion of the weather. Gratefully Lindsay followed his lead, and they managed to make the subject last, though by coffee they were practically down to naming individual snowflakes. As soon as civility allowed, Lindsay excused herself, pleading exhaustion, and fled upstairs.
Her room was large, warm and surprisingly welcoming. The pale green linens Roc had put on the bed matched the flowered drapes, honey-gold wood paneling lined the walls and built-in bookcases, and a small fire was already chattering away in the hearth. Someone had thoughtfully laid an oversize white sweatshirt across the bed, and, not even bothering to wonder who it belonged to, she shrugged out of her uncomfortable business suit gratefully and slipped the sweatshirt on. It came down almost to her knees.
The relief was instant and overwhelming. Her defenses down, the stressful day finally overtook her, and she realized that, though it was only seven o’clock, she could hardly keep her eyes open. She slid under the eiderdown comforter and felt her body relax for the first rime today. She tried to worry about Christy, or Robert, or the future of Hamilton Homes, but she simply wasn’t up to it. Shutting her eyes, she promptly fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
She should have known she’d have to pay for that craven escape, and the bill came due at 3:00 a.m., when she woke with a start, wondering where she was and why she was so cold.
When she remembered, it didn’t make her feel one bit better.
Three o’clock was the most godawful lonesome corner of the night, she decided, sitting up in bed and hugging her pillow against the homesick ache under her breastbone. The fire had burned itself out, one halfcharred log still lying among the pile of sickly gray ashes. Her clothes, which she had so carefully draped across the chair last night, looked weirdly empty, as if their owner had vaporized, leaving them behind.
Worst of all, when she stood up and peered out the window, she saw by the illumination of the yard lights that the blizzard had not subsided at all. If anything, it was whiter and angrier than ever, with snow flying in so many directions at once it was impossible to tell which way the wind was blowing. Her heart dragged at her chest as she reluctantly faced the truth: she probably wouldn’t be going home today, either. She didn’t know how she would face Christy’s tears.
She felt a little like crying herself, though weeping was a weakness she despised and rarely indulged in, at least not since her parents had died. Though she had been only twenty years old at the time, that catastrophe had taught her a lot about survival. She had realized then that happiness was a trophy, not a gift—and that weepers rarely carried the trophy home.
But damn, damn, damn, damn! She pressed her hands over the frigid glass, letting the snowflakes beat their silent tattoo against her palms. She lowered her forehead to the window, too, though she shivered as the cold seeped into her skin. She felt so impotent, trapped here in this luxurious prison when Christy needed her.
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