if the chemistry of her physical response to him was written on her skin, as if it had made her whole body turn blue.
She froze, unable to pull away as she needed to, unable to stop looking at him or hide her reaction. It scared her to feel like this, when she so seriously didn’t want to, when she had so many reasons not to.
Whatever had happened to the strength of the human will?
“What do you want from me, Jared?” It came out on a whisper.
There was a tiny beat of silence before he spoke. “I’m just trying to do my job.”
“No. I don’t think you are.” She snatched her arm out of his grip, about thirty seconds too late. “I think there’s something more.”
And it wasn’t the princess thing.
“Do you?” His lids flickered, and a shuttered look came onto his face.
He was lying, evading the truth in some vital area, only she didn’t know what. The whole way he held himself right now, so stiff and wary and closed, reluctant and almost angry, in such contrast to the bland professional bearing he’d seemed to have in the beginning.
Everything had changed with her mention of the Grand Regency Hotel. The air itself seemed electric, crackling with complex tensions she couldn’t read.
“If you want me to tell you that I forgive you, and that Linnie and Ryan forgive you, and it’s all water under the bridge and we know you’ve changed, that’s not going to happen,” she told him. “If that’s what this is about, then you can have it straight, without the sandwich lunch.”
“Why, thank you, ma’am,” he drawled.
She ignored him. “I don’t believe you have changed. If you could behave that badly six years ago, on Linnie’s wedding day, you could behave that badly still. I love my sister, and she’s hurting right now, over Gram’s death and—and—other stuff. If she has anything whatsoever to do with why you’re back in town for the next six—”
“She doesn’t,” he cut in, hard and fast. “Okay? Let’s get that on the table right now. She doesn’t have anything to do with my being here.”
“No? Good.” If she believed him. What had she seen in his eyes? “Because some mistakes you just have to live with. You have to live with this one, Jared. Linnie doesn’t, Ryan doesn’t and I don’t.”
“I guess not.”
“We’re done here.”
“Sure…”
“Thanks for your time.”
He put on a crooked, cynical smile. “Thanks for the insights.”
“You’re more than welcome, if they’ve gotten through.”
“Oh, they have.” He glanced behind him toward the shelf where various polished trophies gleamed, as if reminding himself that he was still a winner. “I’ll keep you and your mother posted on how I’m doing with the estate.”
“Sure. And I can leave any messages or papers with your secretary.”
“Right. No personal contact necessary.”
But Shallis didn’t reward this barbed observation with a reply. She simply snapped her briefcase shut, picked it up and left.
Jared watched her go—the graceful walk, the squared yet feminine shoulders, the pretty, bouncing hair.
“You are such a damned idiot, Jared Starke,” he muttered to himself seconds after the door shut behind her.
It didn’t slam, because Jared couldn’t imagine that Shallis Duncan, ex Miss Tennessee, would ever slam a door.
She was far too perfect for that.
As perfect as a splinter stuck under his thumb. As perfect as a melody in his head that wouldn’t go away. As perfect as some twisted form of hell, in which a man didn’t see a certain woman for six years and when he did, he discovered that he still hadn’t gotten over a gut-level response to her that he’d never wanted, that maddened him and embarrassed him and confused him to the point where he could barely walk straight.
He ought to feel proud of his performance this morning. Professional and courteous and pleasant. Bland as vanilla pudding. For most of their meeting, he was positive she’d had no idea. Even when his guard had slipped a little and she’d seen something, she’d gotten it wrong. She still thought he was on some twisted quest to change the balance of power between himself and Linnie.
Thank heaven, he wasn’t. One thing to be grateful for, at least.
He’d behaved despicably toward Melinda Duncan Courcy in the past—twice—his arrogant ultimatum on her wedding day wasn’t the first time—but he was in no doubt as to how he felt about her now.
There remained a brotherly sort of affection which she’d probably never know about and wouldn’t value if she did. There was also a recognition that her wedding day had started a chain reaction of questions inside him that he was still trying to deal with.
But nothing more.
Nothing like what Shallis feared.
It was Shallis herself who twisted him up inside, and he was as appalled about it as she would be, too, if she knew.
Apparently she didn’t know, and he would make sure he kept it this way until he could somehow delete the unwanted attraction from his emotional hard drive like deleting a piece of e-mail spam.
“Yeah, and how’re you going to do that, tough guy, if you have to have a half dozen meetings with her over her grandmother’s estate,” he muttered again.
He should have let her go to Banks and Moore.
It was the same problem he’d always had. Against all good judgment, against everything the rational side of his brain understood, and even with the odds stacked monumentally against him, his instinct was always to try to win.
Frowning, he stepped over to the breakfront and moved the Sore Loser trophy to a more prominent position on the shelf, right next to his favorite golfing photo of Grandpa Abe, himself and Dad.
Chapter Three
“L innie, oh, no, what is it?” Shallis gasped out as soon as she saw her sister. “What’s happened?”
It was five-thirty in the evening, and Linnie had just opened the front door of her modest ranch house for Shallis, her pretty gray eyes reddened and swollen, and tears streaming down her cheeks. Her shoulders shook with suppressed sobbing.
“Oh, it’s just the usual,” she said, trying to smile. “Not pregnant. Again. Come in.” Her voice cracked into a high-pitched squeak as she struggled for normality. She looked down at the decorative wicker basket in Shallis’s hands. “Oh. Nice. You’ve brought fruit.”
“Left from a conference at the hotel on the weekend.”
“You’re
