Tempting Fate (7 page)

"I'm not certain I do, either," he murmured, then found himself turning her to face him. "Vulnerability's difficult to resist" He ran a thumb down her cheekbone, following the movement with his eyes. She was soft in the way of a woman but with an underlying toughness he thought she hadn't even begun to tap. They were only two of the layers he was determined to explore.

"Don't." Diana whispered the word as his eyes came back to hers. In them she saw both desire and decision.

"I make a habit of touching what I mean to have, Diana." He ran both hands up her cheeks, combing his fingers through her hair until her face was unframed. "You stir something in me," he told her before his mouth reached hers.

She could have stopped it. As her arms drew him closer, Diana knew she could have pulled away and ordered him from her room. She still had the strength to do it. But his lips were so clever, so tempting. They whispered at hers, nibbling kisses, promises of endless delight as his hands slid beneath her sweater, up the smooth skin of her back.

He knew how to pleasure a woman. Perhaps the largest part of his appeal was that Caine wanted to give pleasure as much as receive it. He knew all the tricks, the slow subtle moves of seduction. But now, with her pliant in his arms, her mouth growing hungrier on his, he forgot them. Her scent was clouding his mind until he was crushing her against him with too much need for finesse. She was luring him, and it was he who was seduced before he knew the rules had changed.

He heard a moan, low with longing, and dimly realized the sound had been pulled from him. His hands were in her hair again, fingers grasping, unaware of their strength as he drew in all the hot, honeyed tastes of her mouth. And she met him fire for fire, touch for touch.

Diana knew nothing beyond the tide of sensation. The taste and feel of him dominated everything and still wasn't enough. Her tongue met his again and again, deeper intimacy, hotter passion, but she only hungered for more. For the first time, she fully understood the power and allure of greed.

His hands ran down her body, lingering at the sides of her breasts before they continued on over her waist and hips. He moulded her like a sculptor learning the life and feel in his clay. And somehow she knew he understood her body as clearly as if she had been naked.

Caine tore his mouth from hers to stare down at her with eyes dark and fiercely intense. It seemed this time he'd been hit with the unexpected; aching desire when he'd have chosen careless, carefree passion. "I want you." His breath came fast as he smothered her lips again. "Now, Diana. Right now."

It was his anger that excited her—and that made her break free. "I…" Turning away, she pushed her hands through her hair. "I'm not ready for this. Not with you."

"Damn it, Diana!" Churning with needs, he spun her around.

"No." She shoved at him, gaining a few inches of distance. "I don't know what's going on inside of me right now. Everything's happening too fast. But I know I won't be one of Caine MacGregor's women."

His eyes narrowed, but he made no move toward her. "You don't stop putting people into slots, do you?"

"I'm going to put my life back together, Caine, I'm not going to let you complicate it."

"Complicate it," he repeated with soft, deadly control: "All right, Diana, you do what you have to do." He stepped toward her then but still didn't touch her. "But Boston isn't such a big town and this case is a long way from closed."

Though her throat was dry, she spoke evenly. "Is that a threat, counsellor?"

He smiled then, slowly. "It's a promise." Cupping her chin, he gave her a hard, brief kiss, then turned and left the room. Diana didn't let out her breath until she heard the door close behind him.

This was all she needed, she thought as she looked at her tangle of half-packed clothes. He'd only gotten to her because her emotions were so confused and close to the surface. If there was one thing she'd learned to do over the years, it was to hold her own with men—in the courtroom and the bedroom. Caine MacGregor would have been no different if he hadn't been there when she'd already been vulnerable.

She wouldn't think of it now. Diana closed her eyes and waited for her system to calm. If they were to meet again in Boston, she'd be more steady on her feet. Now she had to face herself and her brother, and twenty years of deceit. Before she could weaken, Diana hurried out of the suite and down the hall toward the penthouse.

He might not be back yet, she thought as she lifted her hand to knock. If he's not, she told herself, I'll go down to his office and wait. It has to be now. Her hand hesitated and nearly dropped. I have to do it now. Straightening her shoulders, Diana knocked, then held her breath.

Justin opened it, bare-chested, a shirt slung over his shoulder and his hair still damp from a shower. "Diana? Were you looking for Serena?"

"No, I—" Her eyes were drawn to the jagged white scar along his ribs. Painfully, she swallowed. "May I come in?"

"Of course." After closing the door, he watched her fingers lace and unlace as she walked to the centre of the room. "Would you like some coffee? A drink?"

"No, no, nothing." She gripped her fingers together again and let them fall in front of her. "You go ahead."

"Sit down, Diana."

"No, I…" Her voice trailed off and she shook her head helplessly. "No."

"What is it?"

It would be easier if she didn't have to look at him, she thought. Easier if she could be a coward and turn away as she said the words. Diana kept her eyes on his. "I want to apologize."

Justin lifted a brow as he started to slip on his shirt. "What for?"

"For everything I haven't done or said since I came here."

He watched her as he buttoned his shirt, but his eyes told her nothing. He knew how to keep his thoughts to himself, she realized. That was why he was a gambler, and a success at it. "You have nothing to apologize for, Diana."

"Justin." His name came out in a plea as she stepped toward him. Stopping herself, Diana turned away a moment "I'm not doing this well. Strange, I make my living stringing the right words together, but I just can't find them."

"Diana, you don't have to do this." He wanted to touch her, but thinking she'd only stiffen, he slipped his hands into his pockets. "I don't expect you to feel anything."

Gathering her courage again, she faced him. "I owe you," she said quietly.

Instantly, his eyes were remote and unfathomable. "You owe me nothing."

"Everything," she corrected. "Justin, you should have told me!" she said with sudden passion. "I had a right to know."

"To know what?" he countered coolly.

"Stop it!" she demanded and grabbed his shirtfront with both hands.

He thought as he looked down at her that there was more of the girl he remembered than he'd realized. Here was the verve and the fire. Lifting a brow, he studied her stubborn, furious face. "You always were a brat," he murmured. "Perhaps if you calm down, you might tell me what's on your mind."

"Stop treating me as though I were still six years old!" she demanded as her fingers tightened on his shirt.

It amused him to hear her shout, and wiped away the image of the cool sophisticate who had walked back into his life a few days before. "Stop behaving as though you were," he advised. "There've been things you've wanted to say to me since I walked into this room and found you here. Say them now."

Diana took a deep breath. She'd wanted to apologize, not to shout and accuse. But the control she'd practiced so scrupulously for so many years was lost. "All those years I resented you, even tried to hate you for forgetting me."

"I think I understand that," he said steadily.

"No." Shaking her head, she dug her fingers into his shirt in frustration. Tears began to gather and spill, but she didn't wipe them away because she didn't feel them. "How could you when I could never tell you? I lost everything so quickly, Justin. Lost everyone." Her voice trembled, but she couldn't steady it. "I thought at first all of you had left because I was too much trouble."

He made a soft sound and touched her for the first time—a hand absently passed through her hair as he had done from time to time so many years before. "I didn't know how to make you understand. You were so small."

"I understand now," Diana began. "Justin—" She broke on the word, fighting off a sob. She had to say it all, even if he turned away after she was done. "Everything you did for me—"

"Was necessary." He cut her off and was no longer touching her. "No more, no less."

"Justin, please…" She didn't know how to ask for love. If she had one lingering fear, it was to try and to fail. While he watched, she struggled for words. "I want to thank you," she managed. "You've every right to be angry, but—"

"There's nothing I've done you have to thank me for."

She bit down on her lip to stop the trembling. "You felt obligated," she murmured.

"No." He touched her again, just the tips of her hair. "I loved you."

Her lips parted, but there was no sound. He was offering her love… He wouldn't accept gratitude. She wouldn't give him tears. Instead, Diana reached for his hand. "Be my friend."

Justin felt something unknot in his stomach. Slowly, he brought her hand to his lips, then spreading her fingers, he placed her palm to his. "We're blood, little sister. I've always loved you. From today, we're friends."

"From today," she agreed, and curled her fingers around his.

Chapter Four

It was bitterly cold. In defence, Diana had the car heater turned up full as she fought her way through sluggish Boston traffic. Oncoming headlights glared off her windshield so that she kept her eyes narrowed and tried not to remember that her ankles were freezing. By the time her car warmed up, she thought fatalistically, she'd already be inside the restaurant.

She considered it a wise move on her part to meet Matt Fairman for dinner. As assistant district attorney, he had his ear to the ground. In her current professional position, she didn't think it prudent to refuse the offer of a casual dinner date, even when she'd rather be home huddled in a warm robe drinking tea and watching an old movie. Diana didn't feel she could afford to offend anyone with Mart's kind of connections or to pass up the opportunity to make a few points on her own behalf. In any case, she was confident she could handle him on a personal level. She always had. And he was nice enough, she mused, shivering inside her coat, if you overlooked the fact that his mind worked on two levels. The law and women.

Matt was a good lawyer, she reminded herself. She thought, but couldn't be sure, that her feet were beginning to thaw. Pushing this aside, she concentrated on Matt. Besides being a good lawyer, and a shrewd politician, Matt had the inside story on every important case being tried or pending in the Boston area. He was also a gossip. If Diana wanted it known that she was now out on her own, she'd do better with a few words in Mart's ear than a full-page ad in the
Boston Globe.

She'd resigned from Barclay, Stevens and Fitz the week she had returned from Atlantic City. It had been her way of making a stand against her aunt's manipulating. Diana knew she was taking a chance, both financially and professionally, and in the two weeks following the break she'd had her share of small panic attacks. Barclay was security, not only a steady paycheck, but a steady stream—well, at least a trickle—of cases. But Barclay had been her aunt's choice. She considered the abrupt termination her first real step toward independence. She didn't regret the decision or the twinges of doubt about the future.

On a bad day, she pictured herself sharing office space with another struggling lawyer, waiting for the phone to ring, hoping to defend someone over a speeding ticket. On a good day, Diana told herself that she was going to fight her way up the ladder, rung by rung.

If Diana had a regret, it was that she'd had so little time with Justin once they'd made peace—but she had felt it was essential that she get back to Boston and sort out her professional life. Resigning from Barclay had to be done while the heat of anger, the sting of betrayal, was still fresh—before, Diana had thought, she'd reasoned it out too well. It was too easy to be nervous, to think of all the consequences. Instead, she convinced herself that she was in a hurry to start carving out a place and a name for herself. And, she discovered, she was in a hurry to start exploring Diana Blade—all the parts of herself she had tucked away for so many years.

There'd been another reason for her leaving Atlantic City a few days ahead of schedule: Caine MacGregor. Diana acknowledged the fact that she had wanted to put some distance between them—particularly after that last emotional interlude before she had spoken to Justin. Caine was getting to her.

A man like Caine made an art out of getting to women, she mused. Smooth one minute, rough-edged and arrogant the next. It was a hard combination to resist, and she was certain he knew it. His reputation with women had been well circulated since his college days. Circumstances, or perhaps fate, had dictated that she had heard of his exploits through her years at Harvard, and then through their mutual associates in Boston. Diana had already known too much of Caine MacGregor before they'd ever come face to face—but it'd been then that the problem had jelled.

If it had been simply a physical attraction, Diana felt she could have handled it well enough. She was used to practicing self-denial, and an affair with Caine was out of the question. They had too many ties, both in business and now in family. He was, by choice and reputation, a womanizer. She was, by choice and reputation, cautious.

But it was more than desire. He kept reaching inside her and stirring emotions she couldn't define. She wasn't ready to define them. So Diana approached the problem logically—first by admitting there was one, then by removing herself from it. Now, she considered it solved because it was past.

Launching her own practice would take all her time and energy for months to come. The prospect unnerved her, excited her, though she'd yet to find suitable office space and her list of clients was still pitifully short. She'd been alone before, she reminded herself—alone and without resources. This time, there wouldn't be an Aunt Adelaide to trade security for obedience. This time, she'd make her own decisions, her own mistakes, her own triumphs. She knew exactly what she wanted: work, challenge, success. All she needed was the chance to find it.