Fire in the Wind by Alexandra Sellers Read Free Book Online

eyes were darkly cruel. "If you want to offer to bind my wounds, however, I'll take you up on it. I'm sure I can dredge up a scar or two for you to weep over."
    He spoke lightly, cynically, but he was trying to hurt her. Vanessa looked at him without speaking. We all have our own Keep Off signs, she thought. And this is yours, and you are lying to me. Someone has hurt you—and you want to take it out on me.
    Vanessa lifted her small silver spoon and tasted the avocado's crab-meat filling. It was delicious.
    "Do you really own the hotel, or was that another of Louisa's little flights of fancy tonight?" she asked him, though she knew the answer, and she was rewarded when Jake relaxed.
    "Does Louisa have flights of fancy? Yes, Conrad Corporation owns controlling interest in the hotel."
    "And Designwear, too?" That was the name of the fashion company Gary had told her Jake owned.
    "That, too."
    "Then what do you actually do for a living?" She had never met anyone before with a diversity of interests like this.
    Jake laughed. "I make money."
    "Jace worked for his father's trucking company, didn't he?" she observed. "How did you start?"
    He paused. "After the operation—after Jace's death, I bought out my uncle in the trucking firm. He wasn't very imaginative and he wasn't ambitious. The trucking firm made him a nice little income and he would have been satisfied with that."
    "I suppose after Jace's death there didn't seem much reason to work hard," she said. Jace had been an only child, she knew, and his mother had left him and his father when he was only a child. It had scarred Jace; she had known that, though he had not said much about it.
    "I suppose not," Jake agreed. "After that I bought a trucking firm in Seattle and then a chip-barge outfit in Campbell River.... I was lucky a lot of the time. I've got very diversified interests now."
    "Any gold mines?" she asked with a little laugh. Jace had wanted to own a gold mine one day. She looked up, finishing the last of the avocado with an appreciative flick of her tongue over her lips. He was staring at her, and he was suddenly demon-ridden again.
    "God, you're just like a cat!" He dragged in a ragged breath. "I've never seen a woman eat the way you do."
    His sudden intensity took her aback. "What do you mean?" she faltered.
    He said, "Has no man ever told you that you are completely sensuous? Why do you think I can't keep my hands off you?"
    "Oh... I...." Vanessa blinked.
    "Did you ask if I own any gold mines?" he continued harshly. "I own two, in Northern Ontario—small but promising. Do you want one? I'll give you one if you'll come to bed with me."
    The little spoon clattered against china, and then an electric silence settled between them. Jake Conrad's dark eyes watched her intently, unnerving her. Vanessa lost all power of breath and speech. Finally she shook herself and straightened her shoulders.
    "You look as though you expect me to consider that suggestion seriously," she said with a faint, catty little laugh she was surprised she could produce.
    Jake Conrad inhaled and his eyes lost some of their intensity. But he still watched her. "And won't you?" he queried. "Most women would."
    "Most women would what ?" she snapped.
    His lips twitched. "Would consider the proposition seriously," he said slowly, as though he were talking to a child or a half-wit.
    A slow anger burned in Vanessa. She wasn't going to take this. She drew a deep breath.
    "Look," she said, "I know what you want, and I think I know why. But it's nothing to do with me, so kindly keep your personal demons to yourself. If there was a woman once who thought money was more important than you, then I am sorry for you, but it is manifestly not my fault."
    She would have stopped there, but he was looking arrogantly, cynically amused, and unaccountably she wanted to break through his defences, to reach his real emotions, even if only his answering anger.
    "However, having seen the kind of women you seem to