don’t want to take her, not from you. You’re all she’s got. I know it and you know it. That’s your ace in the hole and you can bet it’s a winning card. The last thing I would do to her, or to you, too, is take her away from you.”
“I know you, Jack. Everybody does. You use people. I wouldn’t trust you no matter what you said.”
“That’s the beauty of my plan. You don’t have to trust me.”
“If that’s supposed to ease my mind, you’re sadly mistaken. In fact, I’m not interested in anything you have to say.” She headed for the door.
“You’d better be interested.” He blocked her way.
The quickness of his move flashed a memory of his body, lithe and naked, blocking her way. Except she’d liked it then. It meant he hadn’t wanted her to leave, and she’d allowed him to catch her and kiss her and carry her back to his bed. The memory heated her body as surely as it froze her soul. How could she? How could she have done that with him?
“Katie will be protected at all costs,” he said. “You can’t tell me that doesn’t matter to you.”
She backed away from him. “I will not let you use me to get to my daughter.”
“I’ll sweeten the deal. Out of the goodness of my heart, Allen retains his official title as father. You won’t have to break the news to Katie or anyone else that I’m her real father. It can be our little secret.”
Unable to tear herself away from what she saw in his eyes, half promise and half challenge, Meg felt the solidity of the kitchen counter against her spine. “I’m listening.”
“I can see that. But you know me, Meg. I need complete capitulation. I need to hear you tell me you’re ready and willing to hear me out.”
It was so like him to do this, to force her to bend to his will. Meg couldn’t believe she once let this man get close enough to burn her heart. She jerked a chair out from the kitchen table and, seating herself, wrapped her hands protectively around her coffee mug. “Well?”
He chuckled. “Before we start, how about a refill on the coffee? You look like you could use one.”
He refreshed their mugs, and she couldn’t help but notice his hands, long-fingered and well tanned, and the image rose of how dark they had once looked on her skin. Her most intimate skin.
She gulped the coffee, hoping to sear some sense into herself. The steaming liquid burned her tongue, her throat, burned all the way down, and still the mere sight of his hands caused the warmth to spread, the warmth and wetness that kept her immobile and ashamed. How could this be happening? How could she be physically attracted to this morally bankrupt man?
He took the chair opposite her and reached for her hand. She refused to give it, keeping stubborn hold of her mug.
He peeled her fingers away one by one, and she let him, God help her, she let him, for more memories sprang to life, memories of Allen doing the exact same thing once, the day she was at her most desperate, the day he asked her to marry him.
Except Allen’s hands had been stubby, tentative and damp. And she hadn’t been gripping her mug as much as playing with it, using it as ballast, as a focal point, as she spilled her tale of woe to the boy she once knew as Al-the-pal Betz.
And the overeager and earnest sheen of Allen’s eyes. would have been lost on Jack, lost in the darkness of his soul. For he was after her daughter, claiming to care, claiming to know. As he once claimed her.
Allen had not been able to break that claim, despite his kind and generous heart. The only thing Allen claimed was that he wanted to help her, if only she would let him. He claimed she didn’t have to confess the shame of her pregnancy or name the baby’s father to another living soul. He would be the baby’s father. He would raise it as his own. Say yes to his proposal, he told her, and she would make him the happiest of men. That’s when Allen got down on his knees and begged her to marry him.
Jack Tarkenton wasn’t one to beg, however. He had gone on his knees before her, though, the first time they made love. He’d kissed her and stripped her and knelt at her feet, and she was haunted by needs she never knew she had. Jack satisfied every one of them, leaving her lost to Allen, lost to any other man.
Even now, Jack dared her with his wicked smile, the smile that once enticed her to be wicked, too, and guilt billowed inside her. Guilt chased by a terrible drenching of shame.
For if he proposed what Allen had, if Jack asked her to be his wife, Meg wanted, in her heart of hearts, she wanted, to her great and everlasting shame, to say yes.
Two
The day had taken its toll.
Subtle blue bruised Meg’s skin, especially under the eyes, those ocean blue eyes Jack had worked long and hard to forget. The ebony of her dress brought out the depth of their color, as did the mahogany frame of her hair.
Even in deepest mourning, she radiated an ethereal beauty. It showed in the elegance of her bearing, in the finely wrought bones of her face. Her milky skin heightened the bold contrasts in her coloring, emphasizing the lush rose of her lips set against the cool white of her smile.
Except she wasn’t smiling. And once he got through with her tonight, she wouldn’t be smiling for a long time to come.
Jack crushed the prickling of his conscience, the conscience he thought he’d lost on his first go-round with the lovely Meg Masterson. But her beauty had blossomed in the five years since he had last seen her, when she’d been fresh-faced, and willowy of body, packaged in a style and sophistication that came directly from Paris, France.
Later he learned that she had studied art there, and was as poor as she was proud. But when they first met, all he knew was that he must have her, and he targeted her like a hunter would, swift of speed and hard of heart.
And he did have her, that very night. Despite the family and festivities that surrounded them, she allowed him to woo her and lure her, until he spirited her to his hotel room where she stayed with him until dawn. He seduced her the next night, and the next, breaking his most cardinal of rules to not get too involved with any woman. Nobody on this earth had a right to expect a thing from John B. Tarkenton Jr.
Jack reached inside his jacket and pulled out the black velvet ring box. The sight of it made Meg feel something, that much was certain, but the expressive narrowing of her eyes told him it was anger more than anything else.
He couldn’t blame her. He’d done plenty of underhanded things in his life, but proposing marriage to his intended on the day of her husband’s funeral topped the list. Yet it couldn’t be helped. He’d wasted enough time as it was.
He opened the box, revealing the diamond solitaire ring inside. To her credit, her gaze never faltered, never even dropped to see what he offered.
“A gift,” he said, placing the open box on the table between them.
“No, it’s not. It’s a bribe. You want me to marry you.”
Baldly stated like that, he wanted to throw up his hands and say, Hey babe, you got it all wrong. But she wasn’t wrong. Meg had done more than grow up. “I’m impressed,” he admitted. “You
