A Fortune's Children's Christmas

  If so, he would glower at her all day while making sarcastic remarks about her flaky absentmindedness. Joanna thought of the architect’s plans for the private executive suite and wished mightily that Ryder would give the go-ahead for the project. If there were four walls between them, the tension wouldn’t be so omnipresent, so unavoidable, whenever they were on the outs.

  “Aren’t you glad you came with us tonight, Joanna?” Jenny squealed happily.

  Joanna sighed. Going out on a cold night with Jenny and Wendi had been the last thing she’d wanted to do tonight, but she couldn’t even use visiting Julia and Michael as a reason to refuse because they were out of town with the children, vacationing in the Florida Keys.

  So here she was at Surf City, feeling overdressed in a short, gauzy, embroidered dress.

  Joanna watched one young woman—lithe and tall and tanned, in a bright red bikini—hop onto the surfboard. A group gathered around to cheer her on. “Charlotte! Charlotte!” they chanted. She stayed on longer than most of the previous candidates, before being flung off.

  Joanna grimaced as the young woman picked herself up amidst much laughter and shrieking. “Are we having fun yet?”

  She began to wind her way through the frenetic horde the moment Jenny jumped on the surfboard to try her luck. Surf City was as overcrowded as any beach resort on a holiday weekend, and it was easy to get lost in here. Joanna intended to do just that, to lose Jenny and Wendi and escape. She was glad she’d insisted on driving her own car here, glad that Jenny and Wendi had already arranged transportation home with some other friends.

  There had been a time when she would’ve loved this place, Joanna realized. The pulsing music and raucous crowd and over-the-top craziness would’ve thrilled her. She’d gone a bit wild after all those years in hospitals, feeling like she’d lost too much time and had to make up for it, but now it seemed that she had finally gotten all of that out of her system.

  Joanna was both relieved and a little forlorn. It was good to know she was maturing, but she really didn’t want to turn into a withdrawn hermit, either. She couldn’t even argue when Jenny and Wendi—and even Julia—pointed out that her social life was nonexistent.

  It truly was. Sometimes Joanna wondered why that didn’t bother her more. She supposed it should, yet it didn’t.

  For some reason she was content to spend hours working overtime for a boss who took her presence for granted. Except when she did something to try his patience—like not making plane reservations for an important conference, among other mishaps—and then he was quick to take her to task.

  Of course, she didn’t always screw up and he wasn’t always annoyed with her. Warmth surged through her. There were times when she and Ryder Fortune got along superbly well, when they were very much in sync, talking and laughing and—

  “Joanna!” A big hand fastened around her upper arm. “I thought it was you.”

  Because of the pressing crowd, Joanna couldn’t turn around, but she didn’t have to. She recognized the voice. It was downright spooky, as if her thoughts had somehow conjured up Ryder Fortune in the flesh, right in back of her.

  “I was watching those nitwits on the surfboards and saw my own sister hit the floor. And then I spotted you.” Ryder sounded both astonished and disapproving. “What are you doing here?”

  “I could ask you the same thing. I’d’ve never pegged you as a Surf City regular.”

  “Because I’m not one.” Ryder had to lower his head for her to hear him over the din. “My sister used emotional blackmail to get me here. What’s your excuse?”

  “Nothing dramatic like emotional blackmail. My roommates nagged me into coming. They claimed it would be fun.”

  “So did Charlotte. Which leads me to wonder—what exactly is ‘fun’ anyway?”

  “Not Surf City.” Joanna took a deep breath. “How was Washington?”

  “Oh, the city was great, the conference was great. It was the journey to and from that was a living hell. Three takeoffs and landings in three separate cities, layovers in crowded airports…Need I go on?”

  “I’m sorry, Ryder.”

  She sounded contrite, Ryder thought as he cast a sidelong glance down at her. She looked it, too. Oversights happen, he reasoned. It wasn’t as if she’d deliberately planned not to book his flight.

  “I accept your apology, Joanna. Just don’t let it happen again,” he felt obliged to add.

  Joanna heaved an exaggerated sigh. “Ah, the trenchant qualifier,” she mocked lightly, tilting her head. “A Ryder Fortune specialty.”

  “I was not being trenchant.”

  “Censorious, then?”

  “No.” She was baiting him, and Ryder knew it. Yet he leaped like a fish lunging at a shiny lure. “You might keep in mind that I am attempting to accept your apology, Joanna. Which was barely adequate, at best. Not even approaching anything similar to heartfelt or sincere.”

  Despite the ear-splitting din of Surf City, Ryder was startled by his own tone of voice. He sounded trenchant. And censorious. He was taken aback. Why was he giving Joanna a hard time? Why did seeing her here in her diaphanous little dress and slim bare legs, her cheeks flushed and eyes bright, make him want to—to—to scold her and drag her out of here?

  Joanna couldn’t see Ryder’s face, but she could well imagine his expression. A mixture of self-righteousness and annoyance. She’d seen it often enough directed at her. All at once a devilish impulse to drive him to sheer outrage was impossible to resist.

  “You know, if you ever decide to follow in the footsteps of all those other CEOs who’ve written bestsellers, you’d be a natural for a how-to book, Ryder. Something along the lines of How To Accept an Apology without Really Meaning It. You could do an audiotape version too, demonstrating your trenchant and cen—”

  “I would like to know why you are attempting to make me feel guilty for your oversight. Remember that I was the one inconvenienced by your negligence when you forgot to book my flight, Joanna.”

  “See, you threw my apology right back in my face, and so completely, too,” Joanna said gleefully.

  A trifle too gleefully, Ryder decided. He eyed her intently. “Exactly how much have you had to drink tonight, Joanna?”

  “If you’re implying that I’m drunk, I most certainly am not!” Joanna said indignantly.

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “Just one drink. A Surf City citrus slush. I have no idea what it was, but it tasted pretty good.”

  “Well, judging from the lack of inhibitions in this crowd, I’d say the drinks they serve here are about six hundred proof. Just one would have an effect on a little thing like you.” He frowned. “And it has. You can be something of a smart aleck at times, but you’ve never been quite this—outspoken.”

  “I’m not a smart aleck,” she defended herself. “Or a little thing, either.”

  “I said you were something of a smart aleck. And I’ll amend little thing to—uh—person of small stature and slender frame. Is that more acceptable?”

  Before Joanna could answer, a swell of people surged, nearly knocking her off her feet. She was forcefully propelled into him, and Joanna heard Ryder expel a gasp as she impacted against him. Another shove, and her knees buckled from the pressure.

  His arm came around her waist to steady her. “Aside from nearly being trampled, are you all right?”

  “Yes.” She managed to turn her head halfway and look up at him. His light brown eyes seemed to be boring into her. And she’d thought her brother-in-law had a laser stare! Suddenly, it was imperative that she get out of here, well away from Ryder Fortune. “I—I’ve had enough of this place. I’m leaving.”

  “You took the words right out of my mouth. Let’s go.”

  But they couldn’t move. Everybody around them had begun to slow dance, though the dance floor was—actually, it was anywhere the crowd decided it to be. Right now, it was right here.

  “This place is as packed as Times Square at midni
ght on New Year’s Eve,” Joanna complained, wriggling to make more room for herself.

  Plastered against him as she was, she both heard and felt Ryder’s sharp intake of breath. Her eyes widened, and she moved again. Was that what she thought it was?

  “Don’t,” Ryder whispered hoarsely, his lips against her ear.

  Joanna shivered at the feel of his warm breath caressing her skin. His body surrounded her completely, and there was no mistaking the hard bulge pressing insistently against her bottom.

  “Everybody is dancing.” Ryder’s voice sounded choked, and he turned her, maneuvering her body as easily as he would a doll. He didn’t remove his hands from her waist, and they naturally seemed to slide lower to her hips.

  She felt small and soft, and Ryder was stunned by the effect her petite but very feminine form was having on him. The result of his sustained period of abstinence, he decided frantically. Well, he had been abstinent too long, when merely touching his executive assistant—whom he was not attracted to!—turned him on faster and harder than anytime during recent memory.

  Joanna’s eyes were fixed on him. The jeans and rugby shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows, were a surprise. She stared at his bare forearms, strong and dusted with dark hair, at the virile fit of his jeans. In the office she’d seen him only in tailored business suits—except for that first memorable day when he’d stripped to show her his scar, of course. She thought of his well-muscled chest. Her memory might lag when it came to retaining sequential information, but she had perfect recall of that divinely masculine sight.

  Joanna felt her face growing hot. Her head was spinning. And not from the effects of her Surf City citrus slush, she was sure of that.

  Tonight Ryder looked very different from the formal, immaculately groomed executive she saw at the office every day. His hair was slightly mussed, a shadow darkened his jaw and chin. He looked…sexy. And if her body heat kept rising, she was going to melt into a puddle right here in the middle of Surf City.

  “Maybe we should dance.” Ryder’s eyes were glazed as he stared down at her.

  “To ‘Surfer Girl’?”

  “I know, it’s surreal. But consistent with the theme of this place, hmm?”

  It was surreal, all right, Joanna thought dizzily. The music, the people dressed for summer while temperatures hovered below freezing outside, the hungry glitter in Ryder Fortune’s eyes…

  Perhaps she was coming out of anesthesia, lying in the recovery room after yet another operation. She’d had some incredibly weird drug-induced dreams, and this one was right up there among the strangest.

  Whatever, she thought, deciding to go with it. Her arms crept up around his neck. She had to extend them because he was so tall, and her sandals didn’t provide even an extra inch of height. Their bodies were so close, each could feel the imprint of the other.

  Sandwiched in the crowd, they swayed to the music. Joanna laid her head against his chest. Suddenly she felt too weak, too languid to hold it up. She could hear his heart pounding in her ears, and her own heartbeat took up the rhythm. Her eyes closed and she clung to him.

  Ryder held her tight, resting his chin on the top of her head. She felt so good in his arms. His hands began to move slowly over her back. Joanna arched even closer.

  “Ryder,” she whispered urgently, her breathing as erratic as his.

  He began to knead the sensitive area at the base of her spine with one hand while his other slipped around to gently cup the underside of her breast. Joanna felt sensual lightning jolt through her. She jerked backward, blindsided by her volatile response to his nearness, to his caresses.

  There was a civil war going on inside her: common sense was beating a fast retreat while desire surged to win. “You have to remember to always stop and think before you act, Joanna.”

  The mantra penetrated her consciousness. Joanna remembered. She thought and did not act.

  “Ryder, stop!” she whispered desperately. She was trapped in a frustrating sexual paradox, needing him to stop as much as she needed him not to.

  “I can’t,” he fairly groaned the words. She was right, this was too much, it was too intense. And they were in public! But he couldn’t let her go. “I—don’t want to. Do you, Joanna? Do you really want me to let you go?”

  She raised her head to look up at him at the same moment he lowered his. The noise and the other people seemed to fade into the background. She was aware only of Ryder, of his big hands holding her, his lips so tantalizingly near. Another inch and their mouths would be touching, they would be kissing….

  “Hey, Ry, you’re kickin’ tonight!” Charlotte squealed, crashing into them.

  Joanna jumped away from Ryder. If she could’ve, she would have run out of the place, but she was trapped by the crowd. She stared dazedly at the bikini-clad young woman—one of the ones she had watched get tossed from the surfboard—who had draped her arms around Ryder.

  “This is my sister, Charlotte,” Ryder said stiffly, his jaw clenched. “Unfortunately, she’s the type of reckless reveler that a place like Surf City attracts.”

  He did not appear glad to see his sister. But Joanna felt inordinately grateful to Charlotte for literally falling upon them because she’d been on the verge of…she’d wanted to—

  “Aw, Ry, you sound like a school principal or somethin’,” Charlotte slurred her words and stumbled, as if unable to walk and talk simultaneously. It was obvious that she’d had one drink too many.

  Very obvious. She proceeded to accidentally spill the bright pink concoction she was holding onto Ryder’s shoes. “Oops!” Charlotte giggled. “Sorry about that, Ry-sie.”

  “You’re going home right now, young lady,” Ryder said sternly.

  “Now you sound like Daddy. Thank God you can’t ground me or cut off my allowance!” Charlotte hiccupped.

  Joanna couldn’t suppress her grin.

  Ryder noticed. “Don’t encourage her, Joanna. It’s not funny.” He glared from her to his sister. “Will you help me get her out of here?”

  She couldn’t refuse, Joanna decided. A woman in Charlotte’s impaired condition really shouldn’t be bouncing around in this free-for-all atmosphere. Especially not in such a brief bikini.

  “Okay. Let’s go.” Though the other woman towered above her, Joanna slipped her arm around Charlotte’s waist. Her action brought her within touching distance of Ryder once again. Their hands, their arms, brushed, and Joanna nearly succumbed to a sensual relapse.

  She cast a swift, covert glance at Ryder, whose face was set in a taut mask of disapproval. There was no sign of the man who’d held her, who said he didn’t want to let her go. He looked so cold, so forbidding. Clearly, he regretted their intimate little interlude. His scowl was directed at her as well as his inebriated sister.

  She’d almost kissed him! Looking at him now, Joanna could hardly believe it. Her boss had nearly kissed her, and she’d wanted him to. She shivered. That Arctic stare of his cleared her head like a blast of polar air. What if they had kissed?

  “I’m not leavin’, it’s too early,” protested Charlotte.

  Ryder ignored her complaints. “I assume you wore a coat. And shoes. Where are they?”

  “Over there,” mumbled Charlotte. “By the fruit smoothie snack bar. My flip-flops and Mommy’s old fur. Somebody dumped a piña colada on it. A peach one, I think.”

  Ryder’s expression spoke volumes. He looked the way he did when Joanna made a mistake. She felt instant sympathy for Charlotte.

  “I’ll go get her shoes and coat and meet you at the front door,” Joanna volunteered, pointing herself in the direction of the boardwalk. How hard could it be to find a fur coat reeking of peach piña colada?

  It wasn’t hard at all, and she soon rejoined Ryder and Charlotte, who was singing and dancing to “California Girls,” her exuberant spirits unquashed by her brother’s dour demeanor. Joanna helped Charlotte into her coat, then drew her own brown wool coat around her, belting it. They inched their way tow
ard the front door.

  “Thank you for your help,” Ryder said stiffly.

  “No problem. What’s an assistant for?”

  “Assistant?” Charlotte picked up on that. “The idiot assistant?” She blinked, trying hard to focus on Joanna. “Who? You?”

  “The idiot assistant,” Joanna repeated. So that was the way Ryder talked about her? And he must do it often and emphatically enough for the term to have stuck in Charlotte’s liquor-soaked memory. “Yes, that would be me.”

  She was angry. And after their near kiss tonight, she was hurt. That was the worst part.

  “You work for my brother,” Charlotte appeared to be concentrating very hard on putting together the facts. “And you’re here with him tonight…” She flashed a triumphant smile. “No wonder Ryder doesn’t mind stayin’ late at work these days. You two are having an office romance!”

  “No, we aren’t,” Joanna countered quickly. “Think about it, Charlotte. Would your brother romance an idiot?”

  “Joanna, I was—” Ryder began, looking chagrined.

  Joanna didn’t notice. She took advantage of a sudden opening in the crowd to move ahead of the pair. She’d reached the club’s front door, which led to the elevator banks of an indoor parking garage, when she nearly collided with a well-built, impossibly handsome man with a model-gorgeous woman on his arm. Both were dressed in designer-label, very skimpy beachwear that showed off their impressive bodies. The man flashed Joanna a charming smile.

  “That’s cousin Chad.” Charlotte snickered.

  Ryder didn’t speak at all. He hooked his fingers around the belt of Joanna’s coat and jerked her backward.

  She whirled around, startled by the possessive grab. Ryder used his grip on her belt to pull her back even closer to him.

  Ryder didn’t glance back. He thrust through the doors, out of Surf City, half dragging the two women toward the elevators. The abrupt switch, from noisy to quiet, from packs of people to deserted corridor was jarring. Joanna gazed about, trying to establish her equilibrium.

  Ryder was treating her as if she were a naive schoolgirl! Joanna was irked. “You didn’t have to hustle me away from him. I—”