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  “I suppose the ladies have been calling, asking about borrowing jewelry for the ball,” she said. Elena DiFrenza had initiated a policy that the store’s best customers could borrow jeweliy to wear to special events. It provided publicity for the store, and a nice percentage of the time it also supplied sales from indulgent husbands whose wives decided, having once worn the jewels, they couldn’t live without them. “Is there a problem?”

  “No, not at all. I simply wanted, first of all, to make sure the ball will be going off as scheduled.”

  He felt slighted, she realized, because she hadn’t informed him of the event herself. Instead, he had probably read it in the paper last week along with everyone else. He had reason to be miffed. These occasions did cause him extra work. She made a mental note to make arrangements with Judith so that it wouldn’t happen again. “I’m sorry I haven’t had time to speak with you before, but everything is falling into place beautifully. The ball should be a big success.”

  “In that case, the second reason I wanted to speak with you this morning was to give you first opportunity to choose from our inventory. I have an exquisite emerald necklace that you should definitely consider. It would go beautifully with your ring.”

  He gestured toward the Colombian square-cut emerald on her hand that her father had given her on her twenty-first birthday. "That’s very considerate of you to think of me, Mr. Breckinridge, but I won’t need anything from the store.”

  His forehead lifted. “Then you’re not attending?”

  “No, no, I will definitely be there. But I’ve decided to wear one of the sets from the vault, the rubies that belonged to Leonora Deverell. I fell in love with them when I first saw them, and their unique red-violet color stayed with me. Luckily I found some material to complement the color, and I’ve had a ballgown specially made to wear with them.”

  Obvious distress overrode the formality of his tone. “Are you sure it's wise to wear them?”

  “Why wouldn’t it be? You saw to the cleaning and repair of the whole Deverell collection just three months ago, right after Caitlin and I inspected them. The rubies are all right, aren’t they?”

  His already rigid spine straightened. “Most certainly. All of the Deverell jewelry has been checked and their appraisals updated. I was thinking of something else entirely.”

  “What?”

  He took a step closer to the desk. “The Deverell rubies are so extraordinary with their violet cast and the fact that they are perfectly matched. The necklace is one-of-a-kind, really. Its value as a work of art alone is incomparable. And then there are the earrings and the bracelet.” He waved a vague hand. “I could never live with myself if anything happened to them, and I’m not sure security is sufficient—”

  “Security,” she said, taking the word and mulling it over thoughtfully. “You’re quite right, Mr. Breckinridge. Perhaps additional security would be a good idea.”

  He closed the distance to the desk and bent toward her, his expression earnest. “Security can do only so much. I can’t help but worry—”

  She lifted her hand, effectively cutting off his protest. If it had been any other day, she would have given him all the time in the world to express his views, but not this day. “I know how seriously you take your responsibilities, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it. I would be as appalled as you, perhaps more so, if anything happened to the rubies.” She arched a dark brow as a gentle chastisement to Breckinridge for thinking she would be irresponsible, plus as a reminder to him that she had every right to wear the jewelry. “I can assure you eveiy contingency will be covered. Caitlin and I discussed it before she left for Europe. Jewels as exquisite as those in the bank vault should be worn and enjoyed, not hidden away. The rubies belonged to Leonora Deverell, who, as I’m sure you know, was my great-great grandmother. It's very exciting for me to be wearing something that belonged to her, particularly something so beautiful.”

  He straightened and backed away from the desk. “Very well. Miss DiFrenza.”

  She noted the heavy lacing of disapproval in his voice and determinedly gave him a bright smile. “We’re going to make a great deal of money for the Children’s Fund and have a lot of fun in the bargain. Can I count on you?”

  “Of course. And if you will see to the necessary bank authorization. I'll be glad to retrieve the rubies for you. Then, as I’ve done in the past, I will accompany all the jewels to the site of the ball, stay until after it’s over, and see to it they are all returned safely here.”

  “Thank you. That will be a great help and one less thing I have to worry about.”

  With a nod, he left, and she rose and shut the door behind him. Once more back at her desk, she returned her gaze to the phone.

  She was sure Amarillo would be in his office by now. Should she call him? Their kisses had been tumultuous and so hot, she was surprised they hadn’t burned the fog away. But the fog had stayed, enclosing them, concealing them. They could have made love right there and no one would have known.

  Except the two of them.

  With a moan of distress she dropped her head into her hand. She was incredibly lucky it hadn’t happened, she told herself. She simply wished she had been the one to break it off instead of Amarillo.

  Her pride had been badly damaged. She still could not believe he had broken away from her so abruptly, then walked away with barely a word. Her system had gone into shock and had not recovered. And there was no way they could simply forget last night and go about their business as If it had never happened. Dammit, she couldn’t. Not without a word of explanation.

  She reached for the phone. It rang.

  “Angelica DiFrenza.” A silence followed her statement. She was trying to decide whether to hang up or repeat her name when she heard Amarillo speak.

  “Good morning, Angelica. How are you?”

  Her stomach clenched and unclenched. Inconsequentially, she remembered that she had rushed out of the house without breakfast. She would have to make do with the candy bars in her desk drawer. “I’m fine.”

  “Good.” There was a long pause. “Angelica, I called to apologize about last night, and I wanted you to know that I take full responsibility.”

  She was stunned. Whatever she had expected, it certainly wasn’t an apology. Her blood pressure began to rise. “That’s extremely gallant of you. By the way, what exactly are you taking responsibility for? The coffee? The fog? It can’t be the food. That was Beau Hamilton’s doing."

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about. That kiss—it never should have happened. It was a mistake.”

  She sat forward in her chair, and her hand tightened around the receiver. “And why is that, Amarillo? Did you hate kissing me so much?”

  “No. Of course not. But—”

  “Then you did enjoy kissing me?”

  “Stop it, Angelica.”

  “I think it’s a pretty easy question. Did you or didn’t you?”

  He gave a low-throated groan. “You know I did.” The knuckles of the hand holding the phone turned white.

  “Then why are you calling it a mistake?”

  “Because it was.”

  “Would you like to explain that to me?”

  “It—it’s complicated."

  Something was hurting near her heart. Absently, she picked up a pencil and began playing with it. “It’s complicated. It’s a mistake. I see. By the way, I totally agree with you.”

  “Dammit, I should never have kissed you!"

  The pencil snapped in two. Tears welled in her eyes. “Kiss me? What you did, Amarillo, was nearly undress me. Then you caressed my breast as if you were dying to feel me. Now that I think about it, you said you’d been wanting to do it forever. I know it was a line said in the heat of passion, but it was very effective. You really should be congratulated on it. You took my nipple into your mouth. You—you made me feel things that—” She stopped and squeezed her eyes shut, absolutely appalled at what she had said.

 
“Angelica?”

  She opened her eyes but didn’t see anything. “I accept your apology,” she said woodenly. “Don’t give the matter another thought.”

  He uttered a potent expletive. “I have a day filled with meetings, but I’ll cancel—”

  “It’s not that Important, Amarillo.”

  He uttered another curse beneath his breath. “Meet me tonight at my place, seven o’clock. We need to talk about what happened.” His normal, growllike way of speaking sounded rawer, rougher, as if he had gargled with gravel.

  “Why? So that you can smooth last night over and make me believe it never happened?”

  “I’m not that good, honey.”

  Her skin tingled at the endearment, and her lips firmed with displeasure. No matter what he said, she was sure his purpose was to ensure that In the future when they saw each other, she wouldn’t remember she would have made love with him on the hood of her car if he had wanted to. Just thinking about it made her flush red with embarrassment. “I can’t think of one single reason why we should meet."

  “Because I want to—how’s that for a reason?”

  “Selfish.”

  “Angelica, it would probably be much better for you if we never saw each other again, but we both know that’s very near impossible.”

  “Because of Nico.”

  “Because of last night, dammit.''

  Judith stuck her head in the door, waved good morning, then shut the door again.

  “Please, Angelica.”

  She didn’t think she had ever heard him say please to anyone unless it was a waiter or a waitress. She was tired, she realized, and the day hadn’t even begun. She wanted nothing more than to see him again; and on the other hand, she couldn’t think of anything worse than seeing him again. “All right."

  “Seven o’clock.”

  As the day passed, Angelica’s energy grew, and so did her nerves. By the time she knocked on Amarillo’s door at seven that evening, she was a basket case. As soon as he opened the door and stepped aside to allow her to enter, her doubts about the wisdom of coming expanded until she thought she would choke with them.

  There was an emotional danger in simply being near him. On some level there always had been. Tonight the danger seemed to be intensified by the jeans molding his strong thighs and the gold shirt opened at the collar and leaving bare his strong brown throat.

  Outside, twilight had fallen. Inside, a single light softly illuminated a circled area that included a green cut-velvet couch. But she chose not to sit. Relaxing even a little was out of the question.

  To her overly charged senses, the interior of the large warehouse seemed layered with intimacy, and the air was absolutely electric. She could feel herself withdrawing, pulling her emotions inward.

  trying to lessen the chance that In some way he might affect her as he had last night. She was convinced one touch from him and she would go up in flames. It was her greatest fear.

  “I’m sorry this is so awkward for you,” he said suddenly.

  Startled, she looked up and saw him watching her. She wondered what kind of expression had been on her face. “For me? This isn’t awkward for you?”

  “Of course it is. Hell, awkward doesn’t even begin to cover it.” He took several steps away, then turned and came back.

  He reminded her of a caged wildcat, she thought. The muscles of his body were coiled and tensed, the angles of his face were sharp, almost diamond-edged, his hands were balled into fists. She didn’t think she had ever seen him less than calm and self-possessed. Except last night.

  “Just do me a favor, Amarillo. Don’t apologize to me again.”

  He stopped, and she found his stillness even more threatening than his movement.

  “I have to do something, Angelica. If not an apology, then something. We’ve got to settle this.” “I don’t know what you mean by settle this,” she said carefully, “and I don’t know what you want from me.”

  “Want?” A strange expression flickered over his face. He reached out a hand toward her, then quickly pulled it back. “I don’t want to hurt you. ” He easily could if she let him, she thought, and immediately denied it. “You’re giving yourself an awful lot of credit.”

  He rubbed his eyes with a thumb and finger, then looked at her again. “This isn’t going well, is it? Let’s start over.”

  “You mean like, ‘Hello, Amarillo. How are you? Nice night.’ What would that accomplish?”

  “You were angry this morning when we talked. I don’t want to leave it at anger.”

  She laughed incredulously. “And that’s why you asked me to come over here this evening? Please, Amarillo. I’m a big girl now. I can get over being angry all by myself. And if you’re worried about Nico, don’t be. He stopped defending my honor long ago.”

  “Nico is the last thing on my mind, believe me.” "What’s the first?”

  He sent her a look that nearly seared the skin from her bones.

  “You know what?” she asked shakily. "I still don’t understand what happened last night, but I’m not up for a post mortem. Maybe it would be best to think of it as an aberration. For some reason, we acted irrationally, and the whole thing was a quirk, a peculiar happening, an abnormality. Perhaps the moon was in the wrong position.”

  “There wasn’t any moon, Angelica.”

  “There was a moon,” she said with determination. “We couldn't see it."

  “We couldn’t see it because we were too busy looking at each other.”

  “We couldn’t see it because of the fog,” she said explosively. “Why are you being obstinate? I just gave you a nice justification for what happened. It may not be the best justification possible, and it may not make perfect sense, but I can live with it.”

  “Dammit, it won’t wash, and you know it." The gold of his eyes glittered in the growing dark. Warmth spread along her skin. She walked to a table and switched on a light. “I think I should go.”

  “I’ve always known kissing you would be like that," he said, his tone and expression brooding. She was thrown off balance. “Like what?”

  “Like pure fire.”

  “Then why hadn’t you ever kissed me before?”

  “Because,” he said, his voice a hard growl, “I knew It would be like that.”

  Suddenly it was all too much for her—Amarillo, the puzzle of what had happened between them, the emotions she had felt and was feeling now. Tears flooded her eyes. Embarrassed, she tried to brush them away, but one escaped and slid down her cheek.

  “Lord, Angelica, don’t cry.” He drew in a deep, ragged breath, fighting the urge to take her into his arms and comfort her. But if he did . . .

  She quickly pulled herself together. “Don’t wony, I’m not going to embarrass you by crying. And something else I’m not going to do is stay here a minute longer. You haven’t said one thing since I’ve been here that’s made any sense, and—”

  He drove his fingers through his hair. “Dammit, you’re right, and I think I’ll stop trying.” The air turned flammable in the space of a second, and the suddenness of the change left her without defense. Her heart pounded, heat began to twist through her Insides. All of that—and nothing had happened yet.

  Then he moved, coming toward her, intent in every taut line and muscle of his body, a predator with one thing on his mind: Her.

  She felt as if the breath had been squeezed from her lungs. She struggled for air, for resolve, for determination that would make her turn and leave. She didn’t stir from where she was.

  He halted in front of her, and the heat sparking off his body touched her and started her burning.

  He reached out his hands and framed her face. “Do you have any idea how beautiful I think you are?”

  His deep voice rolled over her, through her— a crashing wave of heated emotion. Something momentous was about to happen, an explosion was building, and she felt helpless to stop it. Her lips parted. “You think I’m beautiful?"

  He shifted
his weight; somehow he was closer to her. “You have no idea.”

  She felt his breath on her face, his hands on her skin. She tilted her head back and gazed up at him. His golden eyes were ablaze.

  “What do you feel like on the Inside?” he whispered.

  A cry left her lips. He captured the sound with his, and then he was kissing her with a completeness she felt to her toes. She didn’t think she’d ever had such a kiss before. It was a possession, a ravagement, and, she sensed, it was only a small preview of the lovemaking that would come. Her legs turned to water at the thought.

  He pulled his mouth from hers to graze his lips up and down the smooth, silky skin of her neck. “What do you feel like on the inside?" he asked again. “Am I going to be able to stand it or am I going to go up in flames and be consumed?”

  She had no answer and he didn’t expect one, she realized with a thrill. Neither one of them had any control over what was about to happen. The course of a hurricane couldn’t be changed. A tornado couldn’t be made to turn in the opposite direction. She and Amarillo could not be stopped.

  “I think I'll go up in flames,” he muttered roughly, answering his own question. He reached behind her and unzipped her dress, then he swung her into his arms and strode to the sofa. He put her down, and came down next to her. Passion gripped his body, frustration hammered in his head. There were things he should think about, do, say, but something primitive was driving him. The process of undressing became an excruciating task. He couldn’t bear the intricacies of hooks and buttons or wasted time.

  “These damn clothes.” He pulled at her dress, managing finally to slide the top of it from her shoulders and halfway down her arms. Similar effort managed to get her panties off. Then he parted from her for only a moment to undo his jeans, push them down his hips and free himself.

  She tried to help, attempting to unbutton his shirt, but in her hurry she ended up tearing buttons off. It didn’t matter. Her hands discovered his chest and the springy texture of the hair that covered the broad expanse.