Anne Winston - The Bride Means Business

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 on, honey-bunch.” He used the endearment deliberately, and her eyelids fluttered once, a subtle flinch that he might have missed if he hadn’t been looking for it. He’d noticed yesterday that the expression he’d once used with tenderness got her back up like a threatened cat’s. “It’s only natural that I want to see how my former fiancée is living. After all, if we’d married, I’d have been saddled with your taste in furnishings for life.” He put his hands on her waist and set her aside, striding into the foyer of her condo, where he made a show of looking around. But his body was doing its Jillian-thing again, and he had to take a few deep breaths to calm the shaky feeling that touching her had produced in his gut. His fingers tingled and his blood felt as if it was racing through his veins. And unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot he could do about the heavy stirring in the part of his body that hadn’t listened when he told himself it was over with her.

This really sucked. He’d met dozens—no, hundreds of beautiful, sexy women over the years. And not one of them could arouse even a fraction of the desire that rode him when he so much as thought about Jillian.

“I’d really like to get this over with. I have to work tomorrow.”

“At your store.” Leisurely, he strolled through a stark, white kitchen that looked as if it didn’t get much use. The only personal touches were a couple of pictures of children—Manna’s? —held on the refrigerator with magnets, and a clumsily painted clay bowl that looked like it had been made by a child. The other items on display looked like they’d been placed there by a decorator for effect. He ran a finger over a blue glazed bowl with apples in it, mildly surprised when he realized the apples were real.

He inspected the dining room, with its smoked glass table and chrome-and-leather chairs. The room was dominated by a huge painting of... “What is that?”

She’d been trailing after him, looking distinctly pouty and disgruntled. At his words, a small smile curled the edges of her lips up in amusement. “It’s a painting.”

He gave her a narrow-eyed look.

She raised both palms and shrugged. “I don’t know what it is. Some days, it looks like a tiger wearing green socks, other days it resembles a garden of orange lilies. Vaguely. It was a gift from an artist and I don’t want to hurt his feelings.”

“His?” He mentally kicked himself the moment the word came out. It certainly wasn’t what he’d intended to say. What had he intended to say, anyway?

Jillian crossed her arms and leaned back against the door frame. “Yes, his, as in male, man, masculine gender. Believe it or not, Dax, I’ve had a life of my own since your exit, complete with a few—gasp!—relationships along the way.”

He ignored the sarcasm, heading into the next room, which must be her formal living room. An enormous baby grand occupied the alcove in the corner, and sheet music for a complicated arrangement of the love theme from Titanic was open above the keys. Jillian had loved to play, he remembered. Apparently, at least that hadn’t changed. He wandered past the piano to where a tasteful grouping of white love seats and chairs were set before a brassscreened fireplace with white marble columns.

Who did she share that love seat with now? Rationally, he knew she had had no reason to suspend her life after he’d left, but when he thought about Jillian with another man, his irrational side wanted to smash a few pieces of her Lladro collection against the far wall.

A group of brass-framed photos displayed on the mantel caught his eye, and he went closer. Her sister’s family smiled contentedly into the camera in the first one. There was a dark-haired little girl cradled in Ben Bradshaw’s arm and an obviously pregnant Marina glowed with happiness. Regret rose at the cozy family scene, and he swallowed it, moving on to the next image. Slightly behind the first, a second photo showed Marina snuggled against a big blond guy.

Before he could voice a question, Jillian said, “That was her first husband. He was killed in the accident.” There was a soft, sad note in her voice that made him want to reach out and cuddle her, comfort her, but he resisted such a stupid impulse.

The third photo arrested his attention, as did two others following it. The photographer apparently had been waiting for the shot, because the three photos were a sequence. In the first, taken near someone’s pool on a bright, sunny day, an enormous hulk of a guy in nothing but a pair of blue denim cutoffs that bared bulging biceps and thighs like tree trunks was sneaking up behind Jillian. Meanwhile, another broad-shouldered dark-haired man in swim trunks stood with his arm around her naked waist. She was wearing what had to be the skimpiest bikini on the East Coast and even though the man’s hand was only splayed against her back, Dax’s blood pressure rose.

In the second photo, the Hulk had snatched her off her feet and was holding her cradled against his chest as he stood on the edge of the pool. He was grinning like the Cheshire cat. Jillian had his ears in her hands, tugging, her head thrown back and her mouth open in a scream. The third was a marvelous action shot of the pair in midair, free-falling into the pool as sprays of water froze forever for the camera’s lens.

Jillian had moved up beside him. She reached up to trace a delicate finger over the glass, sliding around the outline of the big man. She heaved an exaggerated sigh.