Tempting Fate by Nora Roberts Read Free Book Online

slickly run a hotel as any her aunt would have patronized. The food, the service, the ambience, all catered to the wealthy and the successful. It became obvious that though Justin might have started his career as a penniless teenager, he had made the most of the time in between. She told herself she could respect him for that, even cautiously admire him, without involving herself. She wasn't willing to take the risk of looking closely—Diana had never considered herself a gambler.
    Justin was invariably polite when they met, but if she had been more open-minded, she might have seen he was as cautious as she.
    Despite herself, Diana learned more about him—the ingrained integrity she would never have associated with a gambler, the shrewd, sharp brain he had honed on the streets, the flashes of vulnerability only Serena could bring out in him. Her brother was a man, she discovered, who would have held her interest and affection if it hadn't been for the years she couldn't erase.
    Of Caine she saw little, deliberately. He had, in a very short space of time, been witness to too many of her private emotions. She could almost accept that he'd been there to comfort her when she had wept because he was sensitive and kind. But those few moments on the windy beach played in her head too often.
    That kind of passion, the depth and suddenness of it, held its own special danger. She could remember it too easily, feel it again too effortlessly. If he could stir her by a look, or the mere speaking of her name when they were in a room full of people, Diana was well aware of what would happen if they were alone. She made certain it wasn't an issue.
    Then there was the anger. How easily he strained her temper! Diana had always been pleased with her ability to control or channel her more violent emotions. She'd had years of practice concealing fury and frustration from her aunt in order to avoid the inevitable lecture. Somehow Caine could bring her to the boiling point with a casual sentence.
    It wouldn't pay to dwell on it, Diana told herself as she finished dressing. They might run into each other in Boston occasionally, but that was her turf. His, too, she reminded herself. With a shrug, she ran a hand over the hip of her grey flannel slacks. In any case, Boston would be professional ground. She knew exactly who she was and where she was going. She'd never been a woman ruled by mood, she reminded herself. She was much too disciplined for that. Once she was back in
    Boston, back to work, she wouldn't be so susceptible to these wide emotional swings.
    She didn't want them, she told herself almost violently. She didn't know how to deal with them. What she wanted, what she intended to have again, was the calm order she'd maintained for herself. As long as she was here, she felt like something was tearing at her, ripping at her. Threatening her.
    Justin, and all those memories, all those emotions he brought back to her—she didn't want to remember or to feel what she'd once felt.
    Caine was widening an opening she hadn't been aware existed. He was playing on vulnerabilities she shouldn't have, on passions she didn't want. When she was near him she needed… needed what she couldn't afford to need.
    On a long breath she fought back the rage and the confusion. She could still control it, she told herself. She would control it. And when she was back in Boston, she would go on with her life just as she had before.
    Absently, she adjusted the cowl collar of her dark rose sweater. She was glad she had come. Now that she had seen Justin face to face, she would stop wondering about him and that part of her life would be at rest. She'd also grown to love Serena quickly. It wasn't characteristic of her, Diana admitted. She had learned to be very careful about sharing her affections. They had always been too easily tapped and, she felt, too easily rejected. For the first time in her life, Diana knew the pleasure of having someone who could be both family