“You can’t stop me, Rafe. Oh, I know I let you coerce me into coming down here. But we both know you can’t make me stay against my will. And the truth is, there’s nothing I can do here, anyway. I’ve seen for myself that my father is happy with your mother. I would hurt him by trying to interfere. And if he wants to sell Lark Engineering to you, that’s his business. It’s clear you’re not trying to cheat him out of the firm.”
“I didn’t bring you down here so that you could protect your father. We both know he can take care of himself. I got you down here so that we could start over again, Maggie, and you know it. Furthermore, if you’re honest with yourself for once, you’ll admit that’s why you used that ticket so damn fast once I’d given you a good enough excuse.”
He was right and that jolted her. She had known all along that her father could take care of himself, even against the likes of Rafe Cassidy. Everyone involved had politely let her pretend that she had rushed down here to rescue Connor but everyone knew the truth.
“This is extremely humiliating,” Margaret said.
“If it makes you feel any better, take it from me you don’t know what I was going through yesterday morning at the airport waiting to see if you were on that flight. I was afraid to even call your apartment in Seattle in case you answered the phone. How’s that for proof that you have an equal ability to make me feel like an idiot?”
The intensity of his words shook her. She bit her lip and then reached out hesitantly to touch his hand. When he glanced down she withdrew her fingers immediately. “Rafe, it won’t work. We might have managed a long-distance affair. For a while. But we’ll never manage a marriage. Your mother was right all along.”
“Stop saying that, damn it. She was wrong and she admits it. Why do you keep quoting something she said a year ago as if it were carved in stone?”
“Because she was right a year ago. You’re a driven man when it comes to business or anything else you decide you want. This morning she told me more about why you’re driven but that doesn’t change anything. It just helps explain why you are the way you are.”
Rafe swore in disgust. “She gave you some tripe about me being somewhat, uh, aggressive in business because I had to work so hard to rescue Cassidy and Company, didn’t she? Julie says that’s her current theory on my behavior.”
“Well, yes. And you’re not somewhat aggressive, Rafe, you’re a real predator. What’s more, you get downright hostile when someone steals your prey the way you think I helped Moorcroft do last year.”
“Look, maybe I’d better make one thing clear here. My mother likes to think I’m the way I am—I mean, was—because of what happened after Dad was killed. But the truth is, I was like that long before I took over Cassidy and Company. Dad knew it. Hell, I was born that way, according to my father. Same as he was.”
Margaret nodded sadly. “You didn’t change so that you could salvage the company, you managed to salvage the company because you were already strong enough and aggressive enough to do it.”
“But things are different now. I’ve changed. I keep telling you that. Give me a chance, Maggie.”
“Last night I thought I could.”
“You call having an affair with me giving me a chance?” he demanded incredulously.
She nodded. “It was a way to try again. A way that left us both free to change our minds without breaking any promises. It would have given us time to observe each other and reassess the situation.”
“Hell.” He ran his hand through his hair in a gesture of pure frustration. “I don’t need any more time, Maggie. I’ve been reassessing this damned situation for months.”
“Well, I do need time.”
“This isn’t just a question of my work habits, is it?” he asked shrewdly. “The truth is you aren’t going to forgive me for what happened between us last year, are you?”
“You’ve never asked me to forgive you, Rafe.” She smiled bleakly. “You’re much too proud for that, aren’t you? Oh, you very generously forgave me, but you don’t think you need to be forgiven. It’s all black and white to you. You were right and I was clearly in the wrong.”
“You made a mistake. Conflicting sets of loyalties, as I said. You were under a lot of pressure at the time and you got confused.”
“So confused I’d do it again if I had to. I didn’t like being used, Rafe.”
His jaw tightened. “I did not use you.”
“That’s not the way I saw it. You knew I was working for Jack Moorcroft when you started dating me, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, but damn it …”
“I, on the other hand, did not have the advantage of knowing you were a business rival of his. I didn’t even realize you two knew each other, let alone were fierce competitors. You kept that information from me, Rafe.”
“Only because I knew you’d have a problem dating me in the beginning if you knew the whole truth. I didn’t want to lose you by telling you Moorcroft and I were after the same prize. You’d have felt guilty going out with me. And if you’ll recall, I never tried to pump you for inside information.”
“You let me talk about my job,” she accused. “You let me tell you about the projects I was working on. You showed so much interest in me. I was so terribly flattered by that interest. It makes me sick to think how flattered I was.”
“What was I supposed to do? Tell you not to talk about your work?”
“Yes. That’s exactly what you should have told me.”
“Be reasonable, Maggie. If I had tried to explain just why you shouldn’t talk to me about your job, you’d have very quickly figured out who I was. I couldn’t let that happen.”
“Because you needed the inside information in order to beat Moorcroft to Spencer.”
“That’s a lot of horse manure,” he told her roughly. “I didn’t tell you to shut up about your work because I’d have lost you if I had. If it makes you feel any better, you can rest assured I had all the information I needed to beat Moorcroft to the punch from other sources. Nothing you told me made any difference in my plans.”
“Oh, Rafe.”
“You want the flat honest truth? Moorcroft’s the one who got the advantage out of our relationship. You ran to him that morning and warned him I was after Spencer. Thanks to you, he was able to move his timetable ahead fast enough to knock me out of the running. I was the one who lost out because I was sleeping with a woman who felt her first loyalty belonged to another man.”
Margaret looked up at him appealingly, longing to believe him and knowing she should not. “Rafe, is that the full truth? Really? You didn’t use any of the information I accidently gave you?”
His mouth twisted ruefully. “It’s the truth, all right. If you’d known everything in the beginning, you’d have assumed I’d started dating you because of your connection to Moorcroft and you’d have backed right off. Don’t try to deny it. I know you. That’s exactly how your brain would have worked—exactly how it did work when you finally discovered who I was.”
Margaret felt cornered again. He was right. She would have been instantly suspicious of his motives if she’d known who he was back at the beginning. “And you really didn’t need inside information from me?”
“I already had most of it. Nothing you told me was particularly crucial one way or the other. In fact, if you’ll stop and think about it, you’ll recall that you didn’t talk all that much about your job. You mostly talked about the career in writing that you were working on. I heard all your big plans to work two more years in the business world and then quit to write full-time.”
“I wish I could believe that.” She clasped her hands in front of her, remembering her terrible feeling of guilt at the time. “I felt like such a fool. I felt so used. I went over and over every conversation we’d had, trying to recall exactly what I’d told you. I knew I had to go straight to Moorcroft, of course. He had trusted me. I had to make up for what I’d done to him.”
“You didn’t do one blasted thing
to him,” Rafe roared. “I was the one you screwed.”
She frowned in annoyance. “You don’t have to be quite so crude about it.”
He spread his hands in a disgusted movement and made an obvious grab for his self-control. “Forget it. I’m sorry I mentioned my side of the story. I know you aren’t particularly interested in it. You’re only concerned with your side.”
Tears welled in Margaret’s eyes. She blinked them back as she sank down onto a bale of hay and tried to think. “It was such an awful mess at the time,” she whispered. “And when I tried to do the right thing by warning Moorcroft about you, you turned on me like a … a lion or something. All teeth and claws. The things you said to me … You ripped me to shreds, Rafe. I wasn’t certain for a while if I was ever going to recover.”
“You weren’t the only one who felt ripped up.” Rafe sat down beside her, elbows resting on his knees, his big hands loosely clasped. He stared straight ahead at a pretty little gray mare who was watching the proceedings with grave curiosity. “I wasn’t sure I was going to make it, either.” He paused for a moment. “My mother says it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“She said what?”
“She said I needed a jolt like that to make me pay attention to something else in life besides business.” His smile was ironic. “Believe me, after what happened last year, you had my full attention. I couldn’t stop thinking about you no matter how hard I tried. I’ve put more energy into getting you back than I’ve ever put into a merger or a buyout.”
Margaret thought she really would cry now. “Rafe, I don’t know what to say.”
He turned his head, his eyes glittering with intensity. “Say you’ll give me a chance, a real chance. Let’s start over, Maggie. For good this time. Give me the next two weeks and be honest about it. Don’t spend the time looking for excuses and a way out.”
The love for him that she had been forced to acknowledge to herself last night made Margaret light-headed. She looked into his tawny eyes and felt herself falling back into the whirlpool in which she had nearly drowned last year. “You are a very dangerous man for me, Rafe. I can’t go through what I went through last time. I can’t.”
He caught her chin on the edge of his hand. “You’re not the only one who wouldn’t survive it a second time. So there won’t be a second time.”
She searched his eyes. “How can you be so certain?”
“Two reasons. The first is that we learned something from that fiasco. We’ve both changed. We aren’t quite the same people we were last year.”
“And the second reason?”
He smiled faintly. “You aren’t working for Moorcroft or anyone else, so the pressures you had on you last time don’t exist.”
“But if they did exist?”
Rafe’s smile hardened briefly. “This time around your commitments are clearer, aren’t they? This time around you’d know your first loyalty belongs to me.”
“What about your loyalty?” she challenged softly, knowing she was sliding deeper into the whirlpool. In another moment she would be caught and trapped.
Rafe cradled her face between two rough palms. “You are the most important person in my life, Maggie, love. My first loyalty is to you.”
“Business has absolutely nothing to do with this?”
“Hell, no.”
“If there were to be a conflict between our relationship and your business interests, would our relationship win?”
“Hands down.”
Her fingers tightened around his wrists. Everything in her wanted to believe him. Margaret knew her future was at stake. If she had any sense she would get out while she still could.
“Rafe …”
“Say it, Maggie. Say you’ll stay here and give me a real chance.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “All right.”
He groaned and pulled her close against him, his arms locking around her. His mouth moved against her sleekly knotted hair. “You won’t regret it, Maggie. This time it will work. You’ll see. I’ll make it work. I’ve missed you so much, sweetheart. Last night …”
“What about last night?” she asked softly.
“Last night was like taking the first glass of cool water after walking out of the desert. Except that you’re never cool in bed. You’re hotter than the sun in August. Lord, Maggie, last night was good.”
She hugged him, her head resting on his chest. “Yes.”
“Maggie?”
“Um?”
“You said a few minutes ago that I’d never asked for forgiveness because I was too arrogant to think I needed it. But I’m asking for it now. I’m sorry I was so rough with you last year.”
She took a breath. It was probably as much of an apology as she was likely to get. “All right, Rafe. And I’m sorry I assumed you’d been using me to beat Moorcroft. I should have known better.”
“Hush, love. It’s all right.” His hands stroked her back soothingly. “We’ll make this a fresh start. No more talk about the past.”
“Agreed.”
For a long while they sat on the bale of hay, saying nothing. If anyone came or went in the barn, Margaret didn’t notice. She was conscious only of the feel of Rafe’s hands moving gently on her. With a deep sigh of newly found peace, she gave herself up to the luxury of once more being able to nestle in Rafe’s strong arms. A fresh start.
For the first time in a year something that had felt twisted and broken deep inside her relaxed and became whole again.
“Boss?” Tom’s shout from the far end of the barn had a trace of embarrassed hesitation in it. “Hatcher’s here. Says he needs to talk to you.”
Rafe slowly released Margaret. “Tell him I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Right.”
Rafe looked down at Margaret, his expression rueful. “Sorry about this. Hatcher’s timing isn’t always the best. Want to come say hello to him?”
“Okay. But he probably doesn’t want to say hello to me.”
“Maggie, love, you’re getting paranoid. You thought my mother wouldn’t want to see you again, either, but she could hardly wait for you to get down here, right? Don’t worry about Hatcher’s opinion. He works for me and he does what I say.”
Shaking her head, Margaret let Rafe tug her to her feet. He draped an arm possessively around her shoulders and guided her out of the barn. She blinked as she stepped out into the hot sunlight. There was an unfamiliar car in the drive.
Doug Hatcher was already standing in the doorway of Rafe’s home, a briefcase in one hand. Rafe’s chief executive assistant looked very much as Margaret remembered him from the occasions he had accompanied his fast-moving boss to Seattle.
Hatcher was in his early thirties, a thin, sharp-faced man with pale eyes. He was dressed in a light-colored business suit, his tie knotted crisply in defiance of the heat. He did not seem surprised to see Margaret coming out of the barn with his boss.
“Good morning, Miss Lark.” Hatcher inclined his head politely. “Nice to see you again.”
“Thank you, Doug.” She knew he was lying through his teeth. The poor man was no doubt struggling mightily to maintain a polite facade. There was little chance he was actually glad to see her. Hatcher was fiercely loyal to Rafe and he probably blamed her for the collapse of the Spencer deal last year. She was not at all certain his opinion of her would have changed just because Rafe ordered him to change it.
Then again, when Rafe gave orders, people tended to obey.
“What’s up, Hatcher?” Rafe asked easily. “I’m on vacation, remember?”
“Yes, sir.” Hatcher indicated the briefcase. “I just need to update you on a couple of things. You said you wanted to keep close track of the Ellington deal. There have been a couple of recent developments I felt you should know about. I also have some figures to show you.”
Rafe released Maggie abruptly. His good mood seemed to have suddenly evaporated. She recognized the signs instantly. She could
almost feel him shifting gears into what she always thought of as his “business alert” mode. He was fully capable of remaining in it for hours, even days, on end. When he was caught up in it nothing else mattered to him. He brooked no distractions, not even from the woman he was currently bedding.
“Right,” Rafe said. “Let’s go inside and take care of it. Maggie, why don’t you take a swim or something?”
Her first reaction was a rush of anger. Same old Rafe. As soon as business reared its ugly head, he was like a hunter who had caught the scent of prey. He was already dismissing her while he took care of more important things.
Then she looked at his face and saw the tension in him. He knew what she was thinking. The fact that her incipient disapproval had gotten through to him was something, she told herself. Last year he wouldn’t have even noticed.
“I don’t really feel like a swim, Rafe.”
“Honey, this won’t take long, I swear it. I guarantee I’ve developed some new ways of working lately, but I can’t just let go of everything, you know that. I’m still responsible for my family, the ranch and a heck of a lot of jobs at Cassidy and Company. Be reasonable.”
She relaxed slightly as she saw the expression in his eyes. “I know, Rafe. It’s all right. I understand. I think I will have that swim, after all.” Of course he couldn’t let go of everything. She didn’t expect him to abandon his business altogether. She just wanted him to learn to put things in perspective. He was trying, she realized. And that was the first step.
Rafe nodded once, looking vastly relieved. “Thanks. Let’s go, Hatcher. I want to get this over with as fast as possible. I’ve got other things to do today. More interesting things.”
“Yes, sir.”
Margaret preceded both men into the house and was turning to go down the hall to her bedroom when Bev Cassidy came through the patio doors. Connor Lark was right behind her. They both looked anxiously first at Margaret and then at Rafe.
“You two get this marriage business settled?” Connor demanded aggressively. “Bev and I aren’t takin’ off for Sedona day after tomorrow the way we planned if you two haven’t worked this out.”