The Tycoon's Virgin Bride (15 page)

Her chin was raised. But beneath the defiance in her blue eyes, fear lurked. She was afraid of the answer, he realized, afraid of what he might—or might not—say. His suspicion that she had indeed fallen in love with him
deepened to something very near conviction. He tamped down a rising anger and in a hard voice repeated, “Just don't push me, okay?”

With a superhuman effort, she swallowed the retort that was hovering on her tongue. “Okay,” she said. “I can't be pushed into painting something I'm not ready to paint…the same would apply to you, I suppose, about your parents.”

Bryce hadn't expected such understanding. He said roughly, “You're a remarkable woman.”

Her eyes suddenly swam with unshed tears. “I'm a pushy and opinionated artist who hasn't got a clue what she's going to paint next…nothing very remarkable about that.”

“You're honest and you listen, and if Travis and Julie weren't about to walk in the door, and if there wasn't a baby in the middle of the bed, guess where I'd be taking you?”

So, for now, their affair had as its boundaries the bedroom, Jenessa thought. That was what he meant. But for how long could she accept such boundaries? She said lightly, “I'm going to try and catch up with that pile of newspapers on the coffee table.” Sitting down on the couch, she picked up the top one and buried her face in it.

As it happened, Travis and Julie didn't arrive for another hour. They walked up the path hand in hand, and once in the house they didn't linger; Bryce didn't have to be a genius to see that Travis had passion on his mind. He called after them, “Hope Samantha stays asleep,” and was rewarded with a grin from his old friend.

Then he turned to Jenessa, swung her up into his arms, carried her into the bedroom and made love to her in utter silence and with a kind of desperation. Afterward, his heart still pounding in his chest, he said, “I'm going back to Boston now, Jenessa—I've got appointments all day tomorrow, then I'm meeting with the architect at five—
he said he'd have some blueprints ready. But I'll call you before the weekend.”

In the semidarkness his eyes were like black pits; and their tumultuous lovemaking had, for the first time, left Jenessa unsatisfied. Not physically, that was impossible. But her heart felt empty and cold. She was also very frightened. Doing her best to mask this fear, which was as strong as it was irrational, she said evenly, “Do I have any say in that decision?”

“I'm doing the best I can—that's all I can tell you,” Bryce said in a raw voice; and with that she had to be satisfied. She stood by the front window, watching his taillights disappear into the night, aware of a crushing loneliness. How could she be lonely when she'd just spent the better part of twenty-four hours with Bryce?

If he wouldn't share his joys and sorrows with her, his fears and dreams, then she was lost. Loving him as she did, how could she be satisfied with less than all of him?

Loving him as she did…perhaps, she thought, standing still in the middle of the kitchen, trust was an integral part of love. She simply had to trust that Bryce would, sooner or later, open his soul to her.

What other option did she have?

The scent of his body was imprinted on her skin; just to recall his touch, the huskiness in his voice, his face convulsed at climax, made Jenessa long for him all over again. She prowled around the kitchen, washing a few dishes, tidying, her mind far from what she was doing. Then she walked into the studio, picked up her sketch pad and let the charcoal cover page after page. It was well after midnight when she went to bed.

She woke at first light. Chewing on a banana, she went into the studio and stationed herself in front of a blank canvas. She stared at it for a long time before she picked up the first tube of paint and squeezed some onto her palette. And even then, she waited to pick up her brush.

Utterly absorbed, occasionally stopping to stretch her
legs or her back and wander around the house, Jenessa worked the whole day; and had she been asked, couldn't have described the emotions and ideas that she was painting. When the light began to fade, she made a few last adjustments; and then stood back.

It was finished. It was, she thought slowly, the most significant painting she'd ever done; it was unquestionably a complete break from her previous work. Abstract, yet with recognizable elements, full of color and infused with joy: there wasn't a trace of the menace that had haunted her work for months…exhaustion washed over her in a great wave. She cleaned her brushes, made sure all her paints were capped, and fell into bed. Within moments she was deeply and dreamlessly asleep.

B
RYCE
pushed open the screen door. He'd knocked twice, with no result. Neither the screen nor the front door was locked. Sure, Jenessa lived in the country and knew all her neighbors; but she should be more careful, particularly now that the sun had set, darkness hovering in the corners of the porch. He stepped inside.

The house was bathed in shadows and silence. There were dirty dishes on the counter, dishes left from yesterday, he realized. He should have checked the garden first, she might be lingering outside where it was cooler.

To go out the back, he had to walk past Jenessa's bedroom. The door was ajar. She was sprawled, facedown, on the covers, wearing paint-streaked trousers and an old shirt; she was sound asleep, her breathing even and quiet. The soles of her bare feet filled him with any number of emotions that he didn't want to label. Instinctively he headed for the studio and switched on the light.

The wide pine floorboards creaked underfoot. The single painting on the easel caught him by the throat. Beauty was an overused word, so Bryce had sometimes thought; but, without a doubt, the wild mélange of color and motion in front of him was beautiful. He stood still, letting it speak to him, allowing its joy to penetrate his pores, a joy that was almost sacred in its intensity.

Then, very slowly, the joy subsided, to be replaced by a deep unease. He'd been right, he thought. All those little signals he'd been picking up had been dead on target. Although until now, Jenessa's paintings had lacked something, but this one was complete. She wasn't stuck any more. It was all very obvious: Jenessa had fallen in love
with him. And, in her usual fashion, she'd used the medium of paint and canvas to pour out her feelings in a way that was tangible.

Dimly, from behind him, he heard the pad of her feet crossing the old floorboards. He turned to face her; it wasn't until he spoke that he realized the depth of his feelings. “You're in love with me,” he accused.

She stopped in her tracks, pushing her hair back from her face. “Yes,” she said, “I am.”

For once, her honesty appalled him. “From the beginning, I warned you against that.”

“You did, yes.”

“I told you this was an affair! That I wasn't into commitment or marriage.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Why are you so angry?”

His breath hissed between his teeth. “Because you've known this for some time and haven't said anything.”

“Only since I brought you in out of the rain and we fell asleep in each other's arms.”

“Since I told you about my parents—so you feel sorry for me.”

“The one thing I do not feel is sorry for you! And kindly explain why I'm supposed to tell you I've been stupid enough to fall in love with you when you won't even tell me how you feel about your father and mother?”

He said savagely, “Everything's happened too fast. You and me. This affair. I don't know what the hell I'm doing in bed or out. With you or without you.”

“You won't allow yourself to know.”

Her logic infuriated him. “I need time away from you, Jenessa.”

“You're ending our affair?” she said in a strained voice. “I don't know why I'm surprised—I always knew you would.”

“I'm not ending it! But I've got to get away for a while. I need a break. Breathing space.”

“So that's what you came to tell me?” she flashed. “All the way from Boston?”

Why had he come? Because he'd worked all day, and he'd needed to meander the peace of her garden? Because the architect's plans had excited him and he'd wanted to tell her about them?

Or was it because the only man he felt sure of right now was the man he became in her bed?

He said flatly, “Do I have to have an explanation for everything? The city was stifling, and I'd had enough of it. What more do you want?”

Her face very pale, she took a step backward. “I want a man with the courage to share more than his body.”

“Then let me tell you what I did after my meetings this morning,” he grated. “I looked up back issues of the newspaper for the dates around my mother's death. She warranted one small paragraph the day after she died—it said she'd been found with a broken neck at the foot of the stairs, and that the police were looking for Fletcher Laribee to help with their enquiries. No further mention after that. Not one word. She was dirt poor. Expendable. No one wanted to read about her life or her death.”

“Maybelline did.”

“Then she was the only one. Unless you count Fletcher. So then I went to the police, asked to see the file. Fletcher was never located, and the case is considered closed for lack of evidence.”

“You could hire someone to track him down.”

“That won't bring my mother back.”

Jenessa spoke the obvious. “So you're convinced Fletcher pushed her down the stairs?”

“You're damn right I am. My mother was light on her feet, nimble. Sometimes, when Fletcher was gone for the day, she'd turn on the radio and dance around the room—I remember her doing that once, she was wearing a blue skirt and her hair was tied back with a ribbon.”

“That's a lovely memory,” Jenessa said softly.

His face hardened. “She'd learned how to dodge him, to stay out of the way of his fists. She's the last person who'd fall down a flight of stairs. You asked yesterday how I felt about my parents. How do you think I feel, knowing that my stepfather killed my mother and got away with it?”

“It's tragic, Bryce—truly tragic,” she whispered. “But at least you know Fletcher wasn't your real father.”

“He's the only father I ever knew. He's the one who shaped me.”

“I don't believe that!”

Bryce suddenly stepped closer to her, wrapping his fingers around her arms with bruising strength. “What if you screamed now, Jenessa? Would your neighbors hear? Or are you too far away from the nearest house?”

“Stop it!” she cried. “I've never once been physically afraid of you, I told you that before…you'd never strike me or push me around, you're not that kind of man.”

“How do you know?” he asked very softly. “How well can you ever know another person?”

She loosened his fingers with her own, pulling free. “Are you trying to frighten me so I'll send you away? So you can keep a safe distance from intimacy, and you won't ever have to confront your feelings?”

“I'm warning you against easy sentimentality, that's what I'm doing. Love—it's the most abused word in the language.”

“Don't you dare cheapen my feelings! Or belittle them. I'm twenty-nine years old and you're the first man I've ever fallen in love with. There's nothing remotely cute or sentimental about the love I feel for you. It's elemental. And utterly real.”

“Then you picked the wrong man,” Bryce said.

Jenessa took another step away from him, rubbing her arms where he'd gripped her; but even then she didn't give up. “Do you want to be alone for the rest of your life, Bryce—unmarried, no children, no one to love you?
Do you think that's what your mother would want as her legacy?”

“You leave my mother out of this.”

“How can I? She was a woman who could still dance, even though she was in that awful situation. She had more guts than her son!”

Fury surged through his body. “I'm not staying here to listen to this,” he said with lethal softness.

“She didn't abandon you, Bryce—she loved you.”

“I know that now,” he rasped. “But for thirty-two years I didn't.”

Jenessa said steadily, “You've never told me where you lived from the time you were four until you went to Travis's school.”

“Foster home number one. They fed me pop and chips and pocketed the care money. That fell apart when I started school and arrived hungry every day. In foster home number two, I was bullied for a solid year by three of the older boys in the house. So I ran away. They put me in a group home. I ran away. At ten I was caught stealing and sent to reform school. I ran away. Then, finally, someone got the message and put me in a half-decent place; although by then, of course, I wasn't about to let my guard down. But I did go back to school on a regular basis, and the rest you know—computers, a scholarship, and Travis.”

“When you said Travis saved your life, you meant it,” Jenessa faltered.

There were tears in her eyes. Bryce didn't want to see them. “Quit feeling sorry for me.”

“Quit simplifying all my emotions!”

Aware of a flash of admiration for her stubbornness, Bryce said, “I'm backing off, Jenessa. I've got to get away from you for a while and figure out what's going on.”

“Why not figure it out with me?”

“Because you're in love with me,” he said with brutal honesty.

“So it's all my fault.”

“I warned you not to fall in love. In no way did I deceive you.”

“I'm caught, aren't I?” Her shoulders drooped. “If I say I won't wait for you, then I'm proving what you already believe—that love isn't to be trusted, it's not steadfast. But if I do wait for you, then I'm doing just that—waiting. My life on hold until you decide that running away is the same thing as being stuck.”

She was using his own words against him. Bryce said furiously, “I wish to God I'd never seen that painting.”

Jenessa folded her arms across her chest. “You can't hide from the truth forever.”

“From your version of it,” he snarled. While he was driving out here, he'd pictured a calm, rational discussion in which he'd explain why he needed to retreat for a while. If he'd imagined Jenessa's reaction at all, he'd seen her peacefully agreeing that his course of action was indeed the best one for both of them. The reality had been excruciatingly different. He was angrier with Jenessa than he'd been with anyone for a very long time. Simultaneously, of course, and making nonsense of everything he'd said, he wanted to take her to bed. Right now.

Sure, Bryce. She'd scratch your eyes out if you tried.

“I'm not ending our relationship,” he repeated in a voice from which he did his level best to remove any emotion. “I go to Paris and Hamburg next week. But I'll be in touch on the weekend when I get back.”

This was Thursday. So for nine days she wouldn't know her own fate; worse, she'd begin to understand the cost of waiting.

Jenessa tossed her head. “I'm not going to sit by the phone all weekend, if that's what you expect.”

The words dragged out of him, Bryce said, “Take care of yourself.”

“I've managed to do that for twenty-nine years without you. I'm sure I can manage another week and a half.”

“You're determined to have the last word!”

“It's all I'm getting, isn't it, Bryce?” she said in a low voice. “But I don't want the last word. I want you.”

It took every ounce of Bryce's willpower not to take her in his arms and kiss her with all the passion of which he was capable. Passion that she herself had unleashed. Knowing that if he touched her, he'd be lost, he said tightly, “I'll talk to you when I get back. 'Bye, Jenessa.”

Then he wheeled and headed out the door. After taking the front steps two at a time, he ran toward his car.

Who was he running away from? Jenessa? Or himself?

 

Left alone, Jenessa clenched her nails into her palms so hard that it hurt. She wouldn't cry. She wouldn't.

How dare Bryce imply she had an adolescent crush on him? That her love was nothing but cheap sentimentality? How dare he turn his back on her, even though she'd fought for him with every weapon at her command?

Except her body. She'd disdained to use that.

But nothing she'd said had made any impression on him. He was locked in the past, determined to run his life by those old scripts. She couldn't change that. Only he could.

And he wasn't willing.

For all his denials, was he, deep down, intent on abandoning her?

She grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl and dug her teeth into it. Hungry? How could she be anything so mundane as hungry when her heart was breaking? When she was so angry she could throw the apple clear across the room? All her movements jerky and uncoordinated, Jenessa made some toast and ate it with a chunk of cheese and the apple. Then she stalked into the studio. The painting that had caused all the trouble was the first thing she saw; cursing it under her breath, she stacked it uncere
moniously on the floor against some other canvasses and picked up her sketch pad.

She had to do something with the turmoil in her breast. Because below the anger, she knew, lay hurt, a hurt deeper than words. Bryce had left her. Temporarily, so he'd said. But then everything about this love affair was temporary.

She was beginning to hate the sound of the word.

Would he be back? Or would he take this opportunity to end their affair? Clamping down on terror, she began to draw; then she made a preliminary oil on a small board. Drained, she turned out the light, fighting back tears.

She had to get some sleep.

She did sleep fitfully, waking at dawn from a nightmare where she was being bullied in a group home that was stashed wall-high with computers. After forcing herself to eat some breakfast, Jenessa went back into the studio.

She worked like a woman possessed for nearly five hours, until intuition warned her that she'd done all she could. Standing back, she gazed at what she'd produced.

The whole painting spoke of the temporary. Love, happiness, life itself, were all transitory and soon to be lost.

Her back aching, Jenessa cleaned her brushes. Then, moving like a much older woman, she walked stiffly into her bedroom and lay facedown on the bed. Clutching the corners of the pillow in her clenched fists, she felt sobs crowd her throat, forcing their way upward. She wept for a long time, out of a loneliness blacker than any she'd ever known.