close to sincerity. With a few adjustments-and if Diddie hadn’t possessed such a hang-up about Atlantic City-that smile could have put something more impressive than a homecoming crown on her head. “I guess brains can only get a girl so far.”
Byrne had no intention of letting her sidetrack him. “Apparently you took off to Hollywood with your settlement money.”
“I earned every dollar of it.”
“But you weren’t flooded with movie offers.”
“And aren’t you just the sweetest thang, taking such an interest in me.”
“Surely I heard this wrong. Your second husband was some kind of Hell’s Angel?”
“That would have been more exciting, but I’m afraid Cy was just a stuntman for the movies. Extremely talented-right up to the day he killed himself trying to jump his bike from the Santa Monica pier onto the deck of a luxury yacht. It was a film about the evils of drug smuggling, so I tell myself he died for a good cause, not that I wasn’t smoking the occasional joint myself back then.”
“And more than a few in high school, as I recall.”
“A mistake, Your Honor. I thought they were just funny-smelling cigarettes.”
He didn’t smile, but she hadn’t expected it from that granite-jawed face.
She’d left Cy a few months before that fatal stunt. No girl on earth had a bigger talent for marrying cheating losers than she did. Emmett had been the exception, but then, he’d been seventy on their wedding day, and age begot wisdom.
“After that, people seemed to lose track of you for a while,” he said.
“I worked in the restaurant business.
She’d started off as a hostess at a decent L.A. restaurant but had gotten fired for mouthing off to a customer. Next she’d worked as a cocktail waitress. When she’d lost that job, she’d served up lasagna at a cheap Italian restaurant, then gone on to an even cheaper burger joint. She’d bottomed out the day she’d found herself studying a help-wanted ad for an escort service. More than anything else, that had made her realize it was long past time for her to grow up and take responsibility for her life.
“Then you snagged Emmett Hooper.”
“And you didn’t even need the Parrish grapevine to hear about that.” Her smile hid every drop of pain.
“The newspapers were quite informative. And entertaining. A twenty-eight-year-old waitress becomes the trophy wife of a filthy rich seventy-year-old retired Texas oilman.”
An oilman whose investments had gone belly-up even before he’d gotten sick. Emmett had been her dearest friend, her lover, and the person who’d helped her finish the job of growing up.
Byrne tipped his drink toward her, looking like a bored, but very masculine, Gucci model. “My condolences on your loss.”
The lump in her throat made it hard to come up with a smart-ass response, but she managed. “I appreciate your sympathy, but when you marry someone that old, you kind of know what’s coming.”
She welcomed the contempt in those jade eyes. Contempt trumped pity any damn day. She watched him cross his legs, the movement an unsettling combination of feline grace and male strength. “We used to call you the Duke behind your back,” she said. “Did you know that?”
“Of course.”
“We all thought you were a pansy.”
“Did you now?”
“And stuck-up.”
“I was. Still am, for that matter. I take pride in it.”
She wondered if he was married. If not, the single women of Parrish must be lining up at the door with coconut cakes and casseroles. She moved toward the fireplace and tried to look assertive. “I’m sure it’s just entertaining the knickers off you to block my driveway, but the fun’s gone on long enough.”
“As it happens, I’m still enjoying myself.”
He didn’t look as though he knew how to enjoy anything, except maybe conquering India. As she gazed at his immaculately tailored clothes, she wondered who’d done the dirty work of setting the posts in concrete on such short notice. “Don’t you think it might be embarrassing when I call the police?”
“Not at all. It’s my land.”
“And I thought you were such an authority on Parrish. My father deeded the carriage house to my aunt in the 1950s.”
“The house, yes. But not the driveway. That’s still part of Frenchman’s Bride.”
She snapped upright. “That’s not true.”
“I have an exceptionally fine lawyer, and he pays attention to things like property boundaries.” He rose from the chair. “You’re more than welcome to look at the survey yourself. I’ll send over a copy.”
Could her father have been that stupid? Of course he could have. Griffin Carey had been meticulous when it came to matters involving his window factory but notoriously lax regarding home and family. How careful could a man be who kept his wife and his mistress in the same town?
“What do you want, Mr. Byrne? Obviously not my apology, so you might as well spell it out.”
“Why, retribution, of course. What did you think I wanted?”
His softly spoken words sent a shiver down her spine. She resisted a longing glance toward the glass of scotch he’d just set down, but she hadn’t had a drink in nearly five years, and she wasn’t starting up again tonight. “Well, now, isn’t this going to be all kinds of entertaining. Exactly where do you expect me to park?”
“I couldn’t care less. Maybe one of your old friends will help you out.”
This was the perfect moment to throw a temper tantrum, but she’d forgotten how. Instead, she sauntered toward him, putting a little sway in her hips even though her bones felt a hundred years old. “See now, here’s where you’re not thinking straight. I’ve already lost three husbands and one set of parents, so if you want real retribution, you’ll have to dig deeper than a measly driveway.”
“Playing the pity card, are we?”
That’s exactly what it had sounded like, and she wanted to bite her tongue. Instead, she flipped up the collar of her jacket and headed for the door. “Fuck you, Mr. Byrne. And fuck your pity.”
She’d barely taken three steps before she caught a whiff of expensive cologne. Her heart bumped against her ribs as he caught her arm and spun her around.
“How about this for retribution, then?”
The cold, hard expression on his face reminded her of Darren Tharp’s right before he’d smacked her to kingdom come, but Colin Byrne had another kind of violence in mind. Before she could react, his dark head swooped, and he covered her mouth in a brutal, punishing kiss.
Kisses… So many of them. Her adoring mother’s cheek-smooches. Aunt Tallulah’s pursed dry-lipped ones. Those sex-drenched teenage kisses with Ryan. Darren had been a main-event man and a lousy kisser. Then there’d been Cy’s sloppy drunken kisses and her own gin-soaked ones in response. After that, the kisses of a string of men she barely remembered, except that all of them had tasted like despair. Salvation had arrived in the form of Emmett’s kisses, ones of kindness, need, fear, and, at the end, resignation.
The last kiss she’d received had come from his daughter, Delilah, who’d thrown her arms around Sugar Beth’s neck and left a wet track on her cheek.
All those kisses, and she couldn’t remember a single one that had felt like this. Cold. Calculated. Designed to humiliate.
Byrne took his time administering justice. He cradled her jaw, not hurting, but forcing her mouth open just enough so he could attack with his tongue. She didn’t respond, didn’t fight him.
He didn’t care.
She wasn’t surprised when his hand went to her breast. She even expected it.
Another clinical exploration, as if no real person lived under her skin, merely flesh and bone without a soul.
He held her breast in one of his big hands and rubbed the slope with his thumb. As he brushed her nipple, a pang of longing pierced her. Not desire-she was too empty for that, and this was about revenge, not sex. Instead, she experienced a bone-deep longing for simple kindness, an ironic wish for someone who’d doled it out so sparingly
