The Best is Yet to Come Part 6

"Let it go," he said, his whole look a challenge. "See you tomorrow."

"All right." He was obviously in a hurry to leave. She got out, and he deposited her bag on the front porch, barely staying long enough to exchange greetings with Jean before he got back into his car and drove off.

"Did you have fun?" Jean asked with a smile after she'd hugged her daughter warmly.

"It was work, Mama," Ivy reminded her, "not a vacation. But, yes, I did have a good time."

Jean didn't ask any more questions, and Ivy didn't volunteer any more information. She didn't really want to talk about it.

Ryder had one of the women from the secretarial pool work with Ivy the next day to help her catch up, and he managed time himself to show her the more important aspects of her work. He was at least a little more approachable, for which she thanked her stars.

"I know it seems like a lot," he said when she had a good idea of what her duties would involve. "But you'll have help for a while, and you'll adapt."

"Of course I will," she agreed. She was wearing a simple business suit with a pink blouse, and her hair was in a neat French twist. She looked elegant and professional, all at once.

"I like the way you look in pink," he murmured absently, letting his pale eyes wander over her exquisite complexion, the faint pink of her soft mouth. "Very, very pretty."

She colored, enhancing her complexion, and smiled up at him. He towered over her, big and strong and deliciously masculine. Her eyes went to his wide, chiseled mouth and she wanted to reach up and put hers against it. The fierce, unexpected need made her pulses race.

"Thank you," she said breathlessly.

He couldn't drag his eyes away. She made him helpless. At the same time, she made him ten feet tall and bear-strong. He sighed angrily at his own vulnerability.

"Did I do something wrong?" she faltered. That scowl made her uneasy, and the other people in the office were beginning to murmur a little at the tableau.

"What do you mean?" he asked absently.

"You're glaring at me."

"Am I?" He shrugged and averted his gaze. "Well, if you've got the hang of it, I've got a board meeting."

"I think I can cope," she said. Her dark eyes ate him for an instant before she quickly lowered them. "Thanks for the tour."

"My pleasure." He started past her and abruptly stopped, looking down straight into her eyes. He was wearing a dark vested suit, without a hat, and he looked every inch the businessman. The fabric was expensive enough to fit properly, and it molded the powerful lines of his body. Ivy almost groaned aloud at the sheer masculine perfection of him.

"I'd take you to lunch," he said softly, "but we'd raise eyebrows."

"Yes." She smiled shyly. "Thanks for the offer, anyway."

"You have to come over Sat.u.r.day."

"Why?" she asked, stunned by the sudden change of subject.

"Salmon croquettes," he said simply.

"You mean, like in that Walt Disney movie? You got Kim Sun started and now you can't stop him?" she asked with a gleeful laugh.

"That's right. You have to teach him how to make something else before I sprout gill slits and scales."

"All right."

"No argument?" he murmured.

She shook her head. "Kim Sun is a very apt pupil. I like him."

"He likes you, too." He made a sound deep in his throat and smiled faintly. "See you later."

He walked away and she watched him go. He had to be the world's most puzzling man. He looked, she thought, so alone. Even in a crowd, even in the office, he was remote. She wondered if she was ever going to get close enough to really know him.

One of the other a.s.sistants called to her and she went to answer a question about the Arizona project, mentally consigning her worries about Ryder to the back of her mind.

After all, she was here to work, not daydream about the boss.

Chapter 5.

It was a good thing that Ivy enjoyed traveling, because the very next week, Ryder had to fly down to Jacksonville. He took Ivy with him, checking them into a luxurious hotel right on the St. Johns River, in a suite this time. The bellboy came right out to the rental car Ryder had hired at the airport, got the luggage, and carried it up to the room for them. Ivy wasn't used to such grand treatment, but Ryder seemed to take it for granted. It was one of the many differences between her lifestyle and his.

They ate in a restaurant just down the street from the hotel, a fabulous place that looked as if the whole thing had been carved out of a gigantic tree. It featured some of the best seafood Ivy had ever tasted, and the service was wonderful. Afterward, Ryder walked with her beside the river on the way back to the hotel, silent and brooding, as he'd been ever since their arrival. They were both in casual clothes-dark slacks and a pale yellow pullover sweater for him, a simple oyster-white dress with a colorful burgundy patterned scarf for her. She wondered how many other women he'd been here with, because he seemed to know his way around very well. But she didn't dare ask him such a personal question.

A couple with three small children came toward them, and as they watched, a well-dressed little boy made a sudden dash toward the river. The mother screamed, but Ryder was quicker than the overweight father. He caught up with the boy and lifted him in big, secure arms, laughing as he carried him back to his horrified parents.

"He's quick," he told the couple, who were closer to Ivy's age than his.

"Quicker than you know!" the mother laughed with pure relief. "Thank you very much! We'd never have reached him in time."

"I guess I'll have to lose a few pounds," the father said as he added his grat.i.tude to his wife's. He took the squirming child from Ryder. The little boy had blond hair and blue eyes and a purely mischievous smile. He squirmed trying to get down again.

"Fish," he told his father. "Mama says the river has fish. I want to see."

"You almost got a firsthand look, tiger," Ryder murmured, smiling gently at the child. "Better stick to aquariums for now."

"I'll see that he does," the boy's father promised. He greeted Ivy as she joined them, his eyes all too appreciative on her slender figure. He noticed Ryder's sudden rigidity and the set of his head in the nick of time and turned his attention back to the threatening taller man. "Are you and your wife here on vacation?" he asked with a nervous cough.

"A working vacation," Ryder replied tersely before Ivy could contradict the man. He slid an arm around her thin shoulders and drew her closer. "We'd better get to it. Good night."

"Good night," they echoed.

Ryder watched them walk away, and under the streetlight, Ivy saw something like anger on his lean, dark face.

"What is it?" she asked. "You look irritated."

"You didn't notice that he was undressing you with his eyes?" he asked, his tone mocking and faintly savage. His own eyes slid down her body with a look she couldn't make out in the spa.r.s.e light from widely placed street lamps.

"Ryder, he had three children..." she protested.

"He was a man, wasn't he?" he demanded. He took a slow breath. This was getting out of hand. He couldn't afford to show that kind of jealousy, it might frighten her off.

He lifted his shoulders. "Nice little boy, though," he said, changing the subject. "A real character."

"You like children, don't you?" she asked, smiling up at him as they walked on. She didn't object to his arm around her shoulders, and he didn't offer to move it. She felt its warm weight with pleasure, measuring her steps to his as they walked along the wide sidewalk and traffic came and went on the street beside it.

"Yes, I like kids." He glanced down at her. "You don't really know much about me, do you?" he asked.

"Well, I know that you like to eat, that you make a lot of money, that you're always busy and that you have a big heart." She smiled self-consciously. "But, no, I guess I don't know a lot about you." Except that I love you, she could have added.

He stopped walking and turned her toward him, his big hands gentle on her shoulders, while around them Jacksonville's night lights shone colorfully and the noise of the traffic seemed to dim suddenly.

"Stop running," he said unexpectedly.

She couldn't see his eyes in the dim light. She wished that she could, because his voice sounded strange.

"I...I don't understand," she said.

"Yes, you do." His chest rose and fell heavily. "Ivy, I know that I hurt you, all those years ago. But now that you're older, maybe you understand a little better that men can be unreasonable when they're aroused and frustrated."

The feel of his warm, strong hands biting into her shoulders made her feel giddy. She stared up at him in the darkness, wanting to take that one step that would bring her body into close contact with his. She wanted him to hold her, so that she could deal with all the fierce emotions he aroused. Ben had never made her feel any of the confusion and delight that Ryder did.

"That was a long time ago," she said, choosing her words. She stared at the front of his sweater. "Ryder, it's still...early days."

"Ben again, is that it?" His hands tightened. "By G.o.d, I'll knock him out of your head...!"

He bent, finding her mouth with his. He was rough without meaning to be. The feel of her soft, warm body in his arms stirred him almost beyond bearing. He groaned harshly against her shocked mouth, lifting her higher, devouring her in a silence where the loudness of her heartbeats drowned out the traffic.

Ivy felt hot all over as he kissed her, and she wanted so desperately to give in to the sensations he was arousing. But he gave her no room to respond. And when she felt the faint tremor in his bruising arms, she pushed at his shoulders. His ardor frightened her because it was violent. Violent, like Ben...

Ryder heard her say the other man's name and drew back instantly, putting her back on her feet with a jerky movement. His face was suddenly hard. "d.a.m.n Ben!" he ground out.

He turned away, ramming his hands into his pockets. His heartbeat was choking him. He was on fire, and all she could manage was Ben's name, Ben's memory. He wanted to hit something.

Ivy realized belatedly what she'd done. She hadn't meant to blurt out her dead husband's name, it was just that Ryder's violent behavior brought back nightmarish memories.

She moved toward him, but he wouldn't face her. She reached out and gently touched his spine above his belt buckle. He stiffened at the light contact.

"I know what you think," she began softly. "But you're wrong. It wasn't because..."

A huge tractor trailer roared past, drowning out what she was trying to say. By then, Ryder was walking again, impersonally drawing her along by her elbow, back to the hotel.

"Ryder," she tried again when they were in the lobby.

He handed her the key to the suite. "You might as well go on up," he said tersely. "I've got a stop to make."

Before she could argue, he was gone, in the general direction of the hotel lounge, taking his misapprehensions with him. Ivy threw up her hands and went up to the suite.

Perhaps they were fated to be apart, she thought as she lay sleepless in bed. She wanted so badly to give in to Ryder, to get close to him, to love him. But she didn't understand his anger, his roughness with her. He couldn't know that when he was rough, he reminded her of Ben, and she couldn't tell him. As long as there were secrets between them, there was no hope of loving.

That night, the old nightmare came back. Ben was looming over her, shaking her, accusing her of cheating on him with Ryder. He stripped her, laughing drunkenly, and forced her down into the mattress with hands that hurt. He smelled of whiskey, and she began to scream.

"Ivy, wake up!"

She shuddered as the feel of real hands shaking her got through the fog of sleep. She jerked up, her eyes wide open and tear filled, her body sweaty in its white cotton gown.

"Are you all right?"

Not anymore, she could have said. He'd been in bed, judging from the navy-blue silk pajama bottoms clinging to his lean hips. His torso was bare, his dark, hair-roughened chest exposed to her fascinated eyes. His hair was tousled, his face hard as he stared down at her with glittery gray eyes.

"You were screaming like a banshee," he muttered, his gaze drawn involuntarily to the darkness of her nipples under the thin gown as he stood over her, both hands propped on his lean hips.

The wedge of black hair on his chest arrowed down toward his flat stomach, and that was sensually revealed by the low waist of his pajamas. He looked big and s.e.xy and dangerous, here in her bedroom, and the sight of him was making her mouth dry. Incredible how his half-nude body affected her, when she'd never liked looking at Ben when he was that way. But Ryder was different. It made her tingle all over to look at him. She frowned slightly. Would he know?

Nervously she raised her drowsy, fascinated eyes to his. "I had a nightmare," she said.

He nodded. "About Ben, I gather."

"Yes."

"It simply amazes me that you still care that much, after everything he did to you."

She lowered her eyes to his bare chest, involuntarily sketching the perfection of it. "He was my husband," she said huskily. "I owed him fidelity, if nothing else."

He started to speak, but the words choked him. "Even after death?" he bit off.

She closed her eyes. How could she tell him what her obsession for him had done to Ben, to her marriage? There was simply no way to put it into words.

"Get up," he said unexpectedly, running an irritated hand through his already ruffled dark hair. "I'll pour you a drink."

He'd had some brandy and snifters sent up earlier, she knew. But she didn't like liquor. It had caused her too much pain.

"You know I don't drink," she began.

He glared at her. "Well, I do when the occasion calls for it. And you can't tell me you don't need something to help you sleep. Come on."

She got up without wanting to. She didn't have a robe and she hesitated, standing nervously beside the bed in the thin white cotton gown that molded her b.r.e.a.s.t.s gently before falling to her ankles. With her long hair loose around her shoulders, bare save for the spaghetti straps of the gown, she looked like a fallen angel.

"I'll try not to stare," he said quietly. He turned away, leaving her to follow him into the suite's luxurious living room, complete with sofa, chairs and coffee table.

He poured brandy into two snifters and handed one to her before he joined her on the sofa. She was curled up in one corner of it, her legs under the gown.

"Still afraid of me?" he asked, sprawling back against the other end of the sofa. "I'm no more dangerous than any other man. But in my case, I'd need a blatant invitation. Does that rea.s.sure you?"

She stared down into the brandy snifter at the pale amber liquid. It was probably some rare, expensive vintage, but she wouldn't have known. When Ben had gone on binges, plain bourbon had suited him.

"I'm afraid of most men," she said after a minute. The nightmare had knocked the stuffing out of her, and she felt so tired of the pretense. "You try living with threats and violence for three years and see how it affects you."