The Collector's Edition Volume 1 (46 page)

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Authors: Emma Darcy

BOOK: The Collector's Edition Volume 1
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H
EAT flooded through Beth. She hadn’t anticipated this—this sizing her up as a bed-worthy woman. He must have interpreted her staring at him as a come-on. Her stomach squirmed. Her mind whirled into a chaos of embarrassment.
To find him scrutinising her had been a heart-thumping shock. At first she’d thought... But he hadn’t recognised her. Not so much as a glimmer of anything familiar to him. Then somehow, she hadn’t been able to tear her eyes away. The pull was too strong to resist, to look for something left of the boy she had known.
Jamie, Jamie,
her mind called to him, willing him to hear, to see, to remember. She had believed so strongly the bond between them would never be broken. Yet he hadn’t come to her as he vowed he would.
Where did it go, the feeling they’d shared? What forces had severed it for him? She didn’t understand. Never would. It had been too real to her. Even though she had been little more than a child when they’d parted, the certainty had been deep and abiding that they were meant to be together.
Eight years they had known each other, their understanding growing, deepening, a love that was more than love though they had never acknowledged it in words. It went beyond words. An intermingling of spirits or an intuitive communion of minds.
But there was nothing now. Nothing coming back from him except the kind of interest a man took in a woman he found attractive. Or were his instincts picking up something else, undefined yet tantalising enough to want to dig deeper?
He moved, coming straight at her, and she found it impossible to look away or turn aside. Her feet seemed rooted to the floor. Her pulse was drumming in her ears. Her mind couldn’t come to grips with what she should do.
He was no longer the Jamie who had lived in her memory. Far from it. Fifteen years and an entirely different range of experience separated them from the childhood they’d shared in the valley. The last time she’d seen him in the flesh he was fifteen, she thirteen. And he was so different now. Not even the photographs had prepared her for this much difference.
His eyes locked onto hers, hard and compelling, sizzling with sexual signals. In some weird way it both frightened and excited her. No escape from a direct confrontation. He was not going to let her go easily. She was his quarry at the moment, and his concentration on her was like a magnetic force.
She could sense the dangerous, ruthless edge to him, the steely will of a survivor, a mind constantly watchful, determined on knowing, sifting, acting. It completely unnerved her. Yet she should have realised it had to be there in him to get where he was.
All the clippings Aunty Em had sent from newspapers and business magazines, reporting on the spectacular rise of Jim Neilson in financial circles, the man with the Supercray computer mind, the analytical genius, always one step ahead of market trends... It had surely been implicit in those columns if she’d been objective enough to read between the lines.
He was always referred to as Jim. Never Jamie. Never any mention of his earlier life. It was Aunty Em’s opinion he had comprehensively blocked that out, and he wouldn’t welcome any reminder of the past. It was behind him. Dead and deeply buried. If he’d wanted to reconnect with Beth or any of the Delaney family, he’d had more than enough years—and money—to do so.
She had accepted that long ago, yet she’d still been drawn to take this chance of having a look at the man he had become. More than look, if she was ruthlessly honest with herself. The need to know, finally and conclusively, had to be laid to rest.
Suddenly challenged with meeting him face to face, she frantically fretted over what to say. He might hate her for bringing his valley life back to him. Might also put all sorts of false interpretations on her coming here to see him, now that he was regarded as someone worth knowing. She inwardly recoiled from such an outcome.
Let it go,
her mind screamed, even as he spoke and forced her to meet the immediate present.
“Can I offer you a glass of champagne?”
Her throat was dry. “Yes. Thank you,” she managed to say huskily. He was so close to her. Couldn’t he see Beth in her eyes?
He smiled as he handed the glass to her, a winning smile designed to charm a woman he was meeting for the first time. “You have the advantage over me.”
His voice had deepened since he was fifteen. His tone was low, sexy, seductive. It had a mesmerising effect on her. She didn’t catch his meaning. “Pardon?”
“You know who I am,” he stated, his eyes subtly challenging her to deny it.
“Yes,” she admitted. Stupid to pretend otherwise. Her smile was wry. “I know many things about you. But that’s not really knowing you, is it?”
He laughed. It was a dark sound. Her skin prickled, instinct warning her to beware. This was not Jamie. This was very much a predatory male on the prowl.
“Media reports on me are usually slanted to suit the journalist,” he said mockingly. “Much better to do your own personal research.”
Blatant suggestiveness. Beth tried to push aside the disturbing physical element to satisfy some of her curiosity about him. “Do you ever let anyone into your private world?”
“I’ve just opened my door to you. Would you like to progress to, shall we say, a more intimate level?”
The sexual magnetism he was projecting took her breath away. Almost everything about him took her breath away. He was a head taller than she was, and she was above average height. His once slight and wiry physique was now solid with hard muscle, exuding masculinity.
His face no longer had a lean and hungry look. It was filled out in a strikingly handsome way, strong and firm, aggressively male, the brilliant intelligence in his dark eyes adding a dynamic quality that made it difficult to look away from him. His thick black hair was closely cropped, like a shiny helmet, emphasising a sleek animal appeal that was highlighted by his black leather jacket.
Beth found herself wondering whether his expertise as a lover would live up to the pulse-quickening promise of his looks. He was arrogantly confident of his attraction. No doubt he had every reason to be. But what did he deliver when it came to intimacy?
She sipped the champagne, giving her heart time to calm down while she considered how best to handle what was happening. It was totally outside any scenario she had imagined.
“Come now, don’t go shy on me,” he chided. “I much prefer spontaneity to calculation.”
Hard cynicism behind his surface amusement. The impulse to probe a little spurred her to ask, “Do you make a habit of picking up women on a whim?”
“No. I tend to be very selective. Consider yourself an exception to the rule.”
The hope that wouldn’t be stifled kicked through her heart. “Why make an exception of me?” Did he feel something? A faint thread of familiarity teasing his mind?
“I was bored with women in black. Your yellow suit caught my eye. Then you caught my eye. Are you going to tell me your name?”
She shook her head, knowing it would bring an abrupt end to this strangely piquant encounter. To tell him would shame her. If he didn’t feel it...
“What point is there in remaining a mystery woman?” His eyes narrowed. “Are you married?”
“No.”
“Attached?”
“No.”
She thought of Gerald and felt only relief that she had ended their relationship. She’d found his academic world too constricting in the end, and Gerald too full of himself and his life to see anything else. Besides, meeting Jim Neilson was an object lesson to her. Even if nothing came of it, the sheer physical stimulation he generated showed her what she’d been missing out on. Next time she wouldn’t settle for anything less. If there was a next time.
Her left hand was suddenly grasped and lifted, strong, purposeful fingers running over hers, feeling for indentations. Her skin seemed to spring alive under the cursory touch. She quelled the impulse to snatch her hand away, a silly overreaction.
“Satisfied?” she asked, realising he’d been checking for rings and ring marks.
His eyes blazed into hers. “No. We’ve a long way to go before I’m satisfied, golden girl. Come and have dinner with me.”
He didn’t wait for a response. He set off, weaving through the crowd, pulling her after him, her hand firmly wrapped in his. Without staging a public scene, Beth had little option but to follow, her mind whirling over his arrogant assumption she would fall in with his wishes, her heart fluttering at the thought of being alone with him. A flash came to her of Jamie pulling her after him up the bush track to the old quarry, saying she was safe with him. He’d look after her.
But this wasn’t Jamie.
Confusion roared through her in turbulent waves. She felt she was being tugged in all sorts of directions—memories, needs that had never been answered, dreams that were suddenly all awry and permeating everything, an acute awareness of the strength of the hand, the strength of the man who was making her follow him, his powerful aura of decision, action, command holding her more captive than the fingers clamped around her wrist.
They reached the steps leading to the entrance of the gallery. Jim Neilson paused to hand his glass to the attendant who’d let Beth in. “Nice showing,” he said. “Mind taking care of these for us?”
“My pleasure, Mr. Neilson,” came the obliging reply, the attendant swiftly relieving Beth of her glass, as well. “See anything you like?” A hopeful inquiry.
“Another time.” The dismissal discouraged further conversation.
Jim Neilson was already on the move again, sweeping Beth down the steps to the door. He hustled her out to the dark, tree-lined street, then adjusted his pace to a side-by-side stroll, his hand still firmly possessing hers. They were effectively alone together.
Beth struggled with a sense of disbelief. She and Jamie after all these years. Except he didn’t know who she was. Didn’t care. It was crazy to go along with this virtual abduction. There was not the slightest possibility of reviving their old relationship. He was different. He made her feel different. She should ask him to let her go.
She glanced at their hands, feeling the physical link tingling up to her brain and down to her toes. What did he want satisfied? Maybe he did feel something.
Beth was acutely conscious of never having felt satisfied herself. The bond with Jamie had spoiled any chance of a sense of rightness with anyone else. She’d tried with Gerald, tried to fool herself it was good enough. Had Jim Neilson found satisfaction with the women there must have been in his life?
He certainly wouldn’t have been celibate all these years. What would it be like to feel all of him touching all of her? It was madness to be even thinking about it. Yet she wanted to know. This was the man Jamie had become. Long, powerful legs. Her gaze travelled to the broad shoulders that needed no padding to make them look as though he could easily heft her over one of them and carry her off.
Her heart skipped into a faster beat. Effectively he was doing that right now. She lifted her gaze to his face, wishing she could read his mind. The shadows of the night frustrated her. She could trace Jamie in his profile, the resolute set of his mouth and the determined jut of his chin. He’d been a fighter, never lacking the courage to stand up for himself, a proud boy, driven through the crucible of his grandfather’s cruel meanness. What else had he survived to forge the dominance he’d achieved in his present world?
So much she wanted to know.
“Where are you taking me?” Her voice came out thin and wispy, reflecting her feeling that she was caught in two time frames, lost and treading uncertain ground.
A brief glance, a glitter in his eyes that ignited the sense of danger. Madness to feel so drawn to him in a situation that reeked of potential damage. To both of them. This meeting couldn’t lead to any fruitful future. Their paths would inevitably diverge.
“My car is parked a couple of blocks away,” he answered. “It’s not far to walk.”
His car. Part of his new life. “What make is it?” she asked, still riding the temptation to learn more about him.
A sardonic smile. “Didn’t your research pick that up?”
She frowned, jolted by the cynical tone in his voice. Her admission of knowing who he was must have prompted an assumption she knew more than she did. Research suggested he thought she was a journalist. Or worse, a gold-digger out to latch onto a wealthy meal ticket.
Should she correct him? But what could she say? How to explain her interest without revealing the truth?
The irony was, her so-called research consisted of a few articles and a couple of mentions in social columns, including an abbreviated guest list for tonight’s exhibition. It wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. Having dinner with him would tell her much more. He’d set this ball rolling. She didn’t want to stop it. Not yet.
“It’s a Porsche.” Another glittering glance. “Satisfied?”
A sexy sports model, sleek, powerful, capable of devouring whatever road he chose to take, driving past everyone else. Probably black, too. “It fits,” she said, more to herself than to him.

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