Full Bloom (17 page)

"I know how powerful they can be," she insisted. "I know how they can interfere in my life. They've done it often enough in the past. I don't want to run any more risks with our relationship than are absolutely necessary. I only had one bargaining tool and that was my stake in Ravenscroft International. The one time I tried to use that option to protect us, you were furious. When they find out I'm not really going to use the shares to keep them in line after all we'll be on borrowed time. Sooner or later everything will come crashing down around our ears." Her eyes brightened hopefully. "Maybe if you changed your mind and let me really use the threat…"

Jacob shook his head, disgusted as well as angry. "Forget it. I'm not going to let you threaten your family on my behalf. You're out of the blackmail business. It's not exactly a suitable sideline for a professional florist. I've come to a conclusion about those damned shares."

"What conclusion?"

"I suggest you sell them back to your family. Take the money and use it to open your second florist shop."

Emily's eyes widened. "I can't do that."

"Why not? You're not getting any income from them this way, and you don't like being tied to RI. Why are you hanging on to those shares?"

"I made a promise to Grandmother. Someday I'll tell you about it."

"All right, forget the shares, then. I don't care what you do with them so long as you don't use them as blackmail ammunition. That brings us back to us." Jacob started striding down the beach again, using his grip on Emily's arm to pull her along behind him. "Now let's deal with the main issue here. I assume we now have all the facts on the table? Your only reason for not accepting my proposal is that you think I'm such a wimp I can't stand up to your family?"

"That's not quite the way I would put it, Jacob," she retorted.

"I don't care how you phrase it, that's the bottom line, right?"

"Jacob, I'm trying to be reasonable."

"You're running scared," he corrected in a scathing tone. "You know, Emily, that's the one thing I wouldn't have expected from you. You've always at least tried to fight back."

"You know how much good it's done me in the past," she retorted. "I almost always lost and you know it. Sometimes you had a hand in my losing."

He winced. "The point is, you always tried. And you didn't always lose. You've been in business as a florist now for nearly two years, right? And you've told me yourself that your family has objected all along the way."

"That was different. I really wanted that shop. I wanted to run my own business and I loved flowers—" She broke off, biting her lip as she realized where that line of logic was leading.

"Exactly," Jacob said quietly as he watched her face. "You really wanted that shop and you loved working with flowers. When it came to getting what you really wanted and doing what you loved, you held your ground and your family hasn't been able to do a damned thing about it. Do you really want me, Emily? Do you want me as much as you wanted your own business?"

"Jacob," she whispered on a choked sob. She turned and crowded against him, burying her face against his shoulder. "I want you more than anything else in the world. But I'm so afraid of losing you."

His arms closed fiercely around her. "You say you want me more than anything else in the world. Then want me enough to take the risk of marrying me. Trust me, sweetheart."

Emily surrendered. There was no way out of the trap. She knew Jacob wasn't going to settle for anything less than marriage. She hugged him fiercely. "All right, Jacob." Somehow it was a tremendous relief to stop fighting him. Probably because deep inside she longed to believe that the marriage stood a chance.

"I think," Jacob said musingly as he pinned her close against him, "that we're going to make a slight detour from our original itinerary."

"A change of plans?" Emily looked up at him, her eyes still bright with tears. "Where are we going now?"

"Reno. We'll spend the night here and catch a plane to Nevada in the morning. It's my turn to limit my risks and I'm not taking any chances that you'll talk yourself out of this marriage."

Emily was still in shock the next day when the jet set down in Reno. She stayed in shock all through the short, assembly line wedding service and didn't show any signs of coming out of it when Jacob checked into the huge, plush casino hotel.

He kept a close eye on her at dinner that night. Her appetite seemed off. Emily normally enjoyed her food, but tonight she just played with it. She was tense, jittery and uncertain.

This was not a normal case of bridal jitters. Jacob finally realized she was scared to death. She wasn't thinking of her wedding night or their future. She was dreading having to tell her family that she was married. Part of him was furious, but another part of him acknowledged that she thought she had some genuine basis for her fears. After all, one way or another, her family had managed to destroy the few serious relationships she'd had. On two occasions, Jacob himself had helped bring them to an end. Small wonder she was nervous about the outcome of her marriage.

But the measure of understanding he was able to summon up for her did not do much to cut through Jacob's annoyance. He wanted Emily to believe in him. By forcing her into marriage he had intended to more or less force her to demonstrate some faith in him.

There were a lot of things you could accomplish by force, Jacob knew. But it was beginning to look as if making a wife trust her husband's strength was not one of them.

He tried to take her mind off the subject by encouraging her to do some gambling. She promptly lost fifty dollars at the blackjack table. When he bought her several rolls of coins for the garish slot machines, she managed to lose every single quarter. He took her to see the lavish floor show and she did not smile once.

Some wedding night, Jacob decided. Maybe he had been wrong to rush her into this. But he had been terrified she would change her mind about accepting his proposal if he did not seize the moment. The frustration, he realized, had driven him to the edge of his temper.

"It's not normal, you know," Jacob told Emily forcefully that night as they walked into the extravagantly decorated hotel room. All the decor in the hotel had obviously been designed to make the visitor think he had wandered into a fantasy land. Unfortunately, Jacob thought, Emily seemed immune. She was still dwelling within her own grim reality.

"What's not normal?" Emily frowned questioningly as he closed and locked the door behind them.

"Your fear of your family. They're not exactly a pack of cutthroat thieves and murderers. You've blown them up in your mind until they're out of all proportion."

She sighed and sank onto the bed, the skirts of her new red-and-gold dinner dress swirling out around her. She had bought the dress earlier in one of the well-stocked boutiques downstairs. It had not done much for her mood, Jacob had noticed, even though she looked very sexy and dramatic in it. She was peering at him now through her glasses, her eyes thoughtful.

"You're probably right," she agreed. "Force of habit. I used to think of you that way, too. Large, powerful, intimidating. You know what? You haven't changed."

Jacob walked to the bed and stood in front of her. "Emily," he said gently, "Something has changed. You're my wife and I'm on your side." He bent down and pulled her to her feet. "The truth is, I've always been on your side. I love you, sweetheart. I've loved you since the day I carried you out of that damned cabin where that lunatic was holding you prisoner. It tore my guts out then to think that I could probably never have you. Every time your father or mother mentioned a new boyfriend in your life, I sweated, You'll never know what it did to me to learn you were planning to marry Carlton. And when I came back this last time and found you mixed up with Morrell, I wanted to go for his throat."

She was staring at him. "You love me?"

Jacob glowered at her. "Of course I love you. Do you think I'd go through all this if I didn't love you? What's the matter with you, woman? You never used to be dumb."

"Jacob, you've never said it. All you ever said was that you wanted me. I knew you had to be feeling something more than that or you wouldn't have wanted to marry me, but you've never actually said you loved me."

He really was going to lose his temper, Jacob decided. The only thing that was restraining him was the dawning happiness in Emily's eyes.

"Emily," he began aggressively.

"I love you, Jacob. I've loved you for ages. The only reason I got engaged to Brad Carlton was that I thought there was no hope for you and me. I decided I might as well marry him as anyone," Emily admitted. "I didn't think I could ever have you. Later, when you told me you would never marry again I decided to adopt a similar attitude. I made up my mind that if I couldn't have you, I didn't want anyone. Then you went abroad and Grandmother died and I put all my energy into opening Emily's Garden."

"It's selfish as hell of me to say this, but the truth is, sweetheart, I'm very glad you took that vow and I'm very glad you got involved with Emily's Garden instead of another man. That way you were free to come to me when I finally decided to come back. I've loved you for so long, honey."

"Oh, Jacob," she breathed. For the first time that day, her eyes focused on him and him alone. "I loved you, too, right from the beginning, I think, even though you made me so mad at times. I was crushed when I learned you'd gone to work for the foreign operations department. I thought I'd never see you again. Then, when you showed up in my life playing the same old role for my family, I was furious and hurt. It seemed you only came back to interfere with my future again."

"I came back to see what had happened to you, Emily. I had to know if you'd changed. I knew you could never have handled marriage with me two years ago. Your family would have been able to pressure you into leaving me. Or they could have convinced me that I was no good for you. I already believed it myself."

"Jacob, how can you say such things?"

He shrugged. "Because they're true. But I've had two years to put the past behind me. You aren't the only one who's changed, honey. I've decided I'll make you a damned good husband, even with all my previously noted drawbacks."

She gave him a misty smile. "I never doubted it."

"Five years ago things were impossible for us. Two years ago we were both vulnerable in different ways," Jacob said softly. "But things are different now. I've decided I deserve you and as for you—"

"What about me?"

"You've come into your own. You're so much stronger now, Emily." Jacob smiled slightly. "I'm dealing with a full-blown passion flower, not a delicate, budding rose that can be crushed by a high wind or too much rain. I figure this passion flower can make up her own mind about me and stick to her decision. She won't let her family sway her."

Emily shook her head swiftly. "Never, Jacob. I would never let them change my mind about you. They wouldn't have been able to change it before if they had tried. I knew then that I wanted you."

Jacob nestled his face in her sweet-smelling hair. "Maybe I was the one who lacked faith two years ago. Don't make the same mistake now that I made then, Emily. Love me, sweetheart. Love me enough to trust me.

She looked up at him and he saw the flaring emotion in her eyes. He could see her sorting through the myriad hopes and uncertainties that had been plaguing her, and then she seemed to reach a conclusion. For the first time since he had asked her to marry him, she finally relaxed and surrendered to her love. Jacob felt something tight and dangerous unwind within himself at the same time. It was going to be all right, he thought. It was really going to be all right.

"I do love you, Jacob." Her smile was tremulous but very real and it caught at his heart. "And I do trust you. More than anyone else in the world."

He hugged her tightly. "Enough to believe I can handle your family if it comes to that?"

"I think you could handle just about anyone," she said softly. "You once asked me who they could send to intimidate a professional intimidator. I should have listened to you then. You're right. I've let my imagination run wild. My family is ruthless, stubborn and difficult, but—" she grinned "—you're even more so."

"I'll assume that's a compliment," he remarked dryly.

"Oh, it is. But underneath it all, none of you are monsters. It's going to be okay, isn't it?"

Jacob breathed a heavy sigh of relief. "It's going to be just fine." He rocked her gently in his embrace for a long, precious moment. "Everything is going to be fine."

"I can hardly believe this is my wedding night."

"It wasn't much of a wedding," Jacob muttered, feeling guilty for the first time. "But we'll make up for it when we get back to Seattle. We'll throw ourselves a huge reception and you can do all the flowers. How's that?"

She laughed softly. "Whatever you say, Jacob."

"I like a woman who knows when to give in."

"Beast."

Some of the humor went out of him. "I know. And you're Beauty. According to the fairy tale we should make a perfect couple."

"I think you're supposed to turn into a prince somewhere along the line."

"Details, details," he scoffed.

"It's the little things that count in life." Her hands moved over him and she smiled with sweet, enticing wickedness. "But there's nothing about you that's particularly little."

Jacob groaned as he felt her palm brush across the front of his slacks. He bent his head and kissed her forcefully. When she responded instantly, melting against him and parting her lips, the very blood in his veins seemed to roar as it began to heat.

"You're the best thing that ever happened to me, Emily," he confessed thickly. "Maybe that's why I was afraid to take you when you were younger. I didn't really believe anything that good could happen to me. And I'd made such a mess of my first marriage."

She touched his face with infinite compassion. "It's all in the past. Let it stay there. We have our future to think about now."