Jared's Love-Child

CHAPTER TWO

AT ONE minute to six Alicia tapped on Devon’s door. “Are you ready, darling?”

Devon was standing in front of the full-length mirror outlining her mouth in Luscious Pink. “Come in, Mother. Two seconds more,” she called, and swiftly filled in the outline. Then she inserted long drop earrings made of Australian opals, deeply blue and iridescent.

“I’m a nervous wreck,” Alicia babbled. “I know this is my fifth wedding, but I truly love Benson and I really want this one to last forever. For all of us to be one happy family. Do you think I should marry him, Devon, or do you think I’m making another terrible mistake?”

As Devon had yet to meet Benson, she could scarcely answer this question. Although if Benson was anything like Jared, her mother was making the biggest mistake of her marital career. And “one happy family” was sure to be a pipe dream. Christmas with Jared Holt? Devon would rather die. “Of course you’ll be happy,” she said soothingly, seeing with a twinge of compassion that her mother’s lips were quivering. Briefly she tucked Alicia’s arm in hers and said, gazing at their joint reflections in the mirror, “Come on, Ma, let’s go knock ’em out.”

“The flowers are on the table in the hall…we do look rather nice, don’t we?” Alicia said naively.

“Nice” wasn’t the effect Devon had been aiming for. Her dress, a long shimmer of turquoise Thai silk, was artfully simple, its neckline cut so that it cupped her breasts, its slim-fitting skirt slit to the knee. Another opal nestled in her cleavage; her shoes were thin-strapped sandals with very high heels. She’d piled her hair on her head, a few curls casually caressing her neck and her cheeks. “We’re gorgeous,” Devon said. “And don’t you dare let Jared Holt ruin your wedding day; he’s not worth it.”

“I won’t,” Alicia said, and gave her daughter a militant smile. “I’m learning a few things, Devon. I told Benson I wouldn’t promise to obey, I was too old for that. He just laughed and said he didn’t want a doormat for a wife. He’s a very nice man; you’ll like him.”

The romantic Italian, the British aristocrat and the Texas oilman, husbands two, three and four, had all been introduced to Devon in a similar manner; Alicia always wanted her daughter to like the prospective groom. Devon said diplomatically, “I’m looking forward to meeting him.”

The flowers were clusters of pale orchids and the photographer was waiting for them. Feeling her heart begin to beat uncomfortably fast, Devon picked up the smaller of the two bouquets and smiled obediently into the camera. Then she walked down the stairs at her mother’s side. As they reached the bottom step, Alicia said, “I did ask you to give me away, darling, didn’t I?”

Devon almost tripped over the faded Ushak runner on the hall floor. “Nope.”

“Benson’s brother-in-law was to have done it. But he had an operation for varicose veins two weeks ago. The only other choice was Jared. Please say you’ll do it, Devon!”

Allow that cynical, overbearing creep to escort her mother up the aisle? No way. “Sure I will,” said Devon.

After they’d emerged into the sunshine on the front step, the photographer took several shots of them gazing in a heartfelt manner into their bouquets. Devon in the meantime was sneaking peaks at the set-up. White awnings stretched between the trees, providing shade from the sun. Baskets of mock-orange, roses and delphiniums flanked the array of wicker chairs where the guests were seated, and the soft ripple of harp music fell over their chatter.

Finally the photographer was satisfied. As Alicia and Devon approached the chairs, the harpist drew one last chord from her instrument and fell silent. From an organ near the white flower-bedecked altar came the first notes of the wedding processional. It was being played, Devon noticed abstractedly, with very little regard for either rhythm or accuracy.

Alicia whispered, “That’s Benson’s sister at the organ. She insisted. Benson didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Oh, Devon, I’m so nervous. I should never have agreed to marry him. Why do I keep getting married? I’m not young, like you; I should know better.”

“Come on, Mother, it’s too late now. So let’s do it in style,” Devon said, took her mother’s hand and drew it through her arm, and then struggled to establish some kind of accord between their steps and the music. It wasn’t easy. But it did take her mind off the array of guests, the waiting clergyman, and the two men standing in front of the altar. Benson, the groom, and Jared, his son. Both had their backs to the two women pacing up the green carpet that had been laid over the grass.

Benson was shorter than his son and had a well-groomed crop of gray hair. As the organ hit a sharp instead of a flat, he turned, saw Alicia walking toward him and smiled at her. He wasn’t as handsome as Jared and his waist had a comfortable thickness. He looked human, thought Devon. Unlike Jared. And his smile was both loving and kind. Also unlike Jared.

Kindness was right up there on Devon’s list of virtues. She had long ago decided you couldn’t fake it.

Well, she thought, how interesting. And not at all what I was expecting. She whispered into her mother’s ear, “I think you picked a good ’un, Mother,” and was rewarded with a watery and grateful smile from Alicia.

The organ emitted an uncertain twiddle, then managed to land on a chord that was loud, triumphant and startlingly off-key. Devon shuddered. And finally Jared turned his head.

He didn’t even look at Alicia. His gaze went straight to Alicia’s daughter, and for a most satisfactory moment that she knew she wasn’t imagining Devon saw blank shock rigidify every muscle of his face. She lowered her lids demurely, as befitted a woman with very little experience. A woman whose packaging, to quote him, didn’t warrant a second look. Then she allowed the most innocent of smiles to play on her lips.

But when she looked up, her smile was directed solely at Benson.

Right up until the last minute, Jared had thought he’d have to give Alicia away: a duty he would have performed punctiliously and with genuine loathing. But as he and Benson had left the house via the conservatory, his father had said, “Alicia’s going to ask Devon to give her away. So you’re off the hook.”

Annoyed with himself for having made his distaste for the task so obvious, Jared said shortly, “I met her. The daughter, I mean. She’s not what I’d expected. She’s tall and frumpy with a tongue like a chainsaw.”

“Really? Alicia showed me a photo—I thought she was very pretty.”

“A good photographer can make a rose out of a cactus.”

Benson said abruptly, “Have you got the ring?”

“Yes, Dad—you’ve asked me that twice already.”

“There’s Martin, waving at us. Time to take our places.”

Martin was the butler; his signal meant that Alicia was ready. Jared glanced at his watch. Seven minutes past six. Devon Fraser was remarkably prompt. For a woman.

He followed his father under the shade of the awning, nodded at the clergyman and studiously avoided looking at the guests. Lise was presumably somewhere in that crush. She’d cajoled him for an invitation, and he’d made the mistake of sending her one. He was going to have to decide what to do about Lise, he thought, and winced as Aunt Bessie attacked the portable organ with her usual gusto and total disregard for the printed score. If he, Jared, were ever foolish enough to get married—a stupid proposition; he had no intention of allowing himself to be tied for life to one woman—he’d get married on his yacht. Aunt Bessie suffered from seasickness. Aunt Bessie wouldn’t set foot on anything remotely resembling the deck of a ship.

From the corner of his eye he saw his father turn and smile at his prospective bride. He was about to become her fifth husband. Anger coiled tight in Jared’s gut. He’d done his best to talk his father out of this ill-advised wedding, and then he’d tried a little judicious bribery of Alicia. Neither of which had worked. Even though he’d offered Alicia a very considerable sum.

She could get more from a divorce settlement; that, he was sure, had been her reasoning.

He was damned if he was going to smile at Alicia. At least the clergyman had insisted the photographer keep his distance during the ceremony. So if he, Jared, didn’t feel like smiling at anyone, he didn’t have to.

Devon Fraser had claimed he was sulking because he hadn’t gotten his own way. Had he ever known a woman to get so quickly and so thoroughly under his skin?

Another of Aunt Bessie’s chords screeched along his nerves. Surely Alicia and her daughter were nearly at the altar—they could have walked from Central Park to the Bronx by now. Fighting down his impatience, Jared looked around to check on their progress.

A tall woman in a shimmer of turquoise was walking toward him, looking straight at him, her head held high.

Her beauty slammed into his chest as though he’d been punched, hard, on the breastbone.

Her hair was heaped on her head, and shone like ripe wheat, baring the slim line of her throat. Her shoulders rose from her dress in impossibly elegant curves; the swell of her breasts made his heart thud as though he’d dropped a twenty-kilo weight. Ripe breasts. Full breasts. Voluptuous breasts, their pale sheen like the petals of the orchids she was carrying. In her cleavage a blue stone shot sparks of fire.

Her hips swayed gracefully as she walked; under the gleaming silk skirt her legs seemed to go on forever.

But it was her eyes that held him. Those exquisitely wide-spaced eyes that had so disconcerted him when he’d pulled off her sunglasses on the front step. He’d been expecting mousy brown, or light gray. Anything but irises the brilliant blue of a tropical sea. Eyes he could drown in.

As his groin tightened involuntarily, Jared knew with every fiber of his being that he wouldn’t rest until he had Devon Fraser in his bed. Until he possessed her in the most primitive of ways.

This was the woman whose packaging he’d derided? The woman he’d labelled a frump? Was he losing his marbles?

With a faraway part of his brain, the only part that still seemed to be functioning, Jared suddenly realized that Devon was fully aware of the effect she was having on him, and that his response had pleased her enormously. Then she dropped her lids, the smallest of smiles playing on the soft pink curves of her mouth.

A kissable mouth. A deliciously seductive mouth.

Damn you, Devon Fraser, Jared thought vengefully. You took me in with your high-necked blouse and your rumpled suit and your washed-out cheeks. Took me in but good. But you won’t do it again. Not twice in one day.

Because I’m going to teach you a lesson. I don’t know how yet. But I’ll figure out something.

I don’t like being jerked around by a woman. Made to look like a fool. I don’t like that at all. Before this farce of a wedding’s over, you’re going to wish you hadn’t done it.

With a small jolt he realized the clergyman was clearing his throat, and that the four of them were now neatly lined up in front of all the guests. Pay attention, Jared. Forget Devon Fraser, at least for the next few minutes. You’re supposed to be the best man.

May the best man win.

He didn’t know where that line had come from. But he did know he meant it as far as Devon was concerned. She might have won the first round. She wasn’t going to win the second. He was going to get his revenge one way or another.

Revenge was a strong word.

The sonorous, old-fashioned words of the marriage service rolled over him. Devon’s profile was turned to him: a straight nose and decided chin, the gleaming weight of her hair. He wanted to pull out the pins and let it tumble to her shoulders. He wanted to thread his fingers in its soft sheen, and through it caress the rise of her breasts. He wanted to push her flat on satin sheets and lower his body onto hers until… He was doing it again, he thought viciously. What the hell was wrong with him? She was a woman, that was all. One more woman.

She’d be willing. Of course. They all were.

Which was the crux of the problem.

He was an extremely rich man. He wielded a lot of power in the places where it mattered. Plus there was something about his looks and his body—he knew this without vanity—that women found attractive. Add to that the fact that he was unmarried and what did you have? A challenge that every female between the ages of eighteen and forty-five thought they should take up.

It would be a change, he thought cynically, to be seen for once as a man. Just a man. Instead of a corporate figurehead wrapped in thousand dollar bills.

Some chance. Women didn’t operate that way.

Trouble was, he was also bored to the back teeth with all the games. He knew every move from beginning to end. The first date, the artful questions, the intimate dinner—during which he always made his boundaries plain: the relationship had to be on his terms or not at all. But very few of them listened, and if they did they took it as another challenge—to achieve what other women hadn’t been able to. Then there was the first kiss, the gifts he got his secretary to send, the flowers. The lovemaking, the pouting when he made it plain that, no, he wouldn’t stay overnight; he never did. The inevitable expectations of commitment. The anger or the weeping—depending on the woman—when for the second time he made it clear that he didn’t share those expectations, he wasn’t into commitment. Never had been, never would be. Then, last of all, the break-up.

The last few years he’d played the game less and less. Lise was an example of his breaking of the pattern. He was honest enough with himself to know he was using Lise as protective coloration: if his social circle assumed he was having an affair with her, it kept the majority of the other women at bay, as well as the gossip columnists. Very few of his compatriots would have believed he wasn’t sleeping with Lise. She sure wasn’t going to tell them; he knew that much. She was using him just as blatantly as he was using her. To be seen as the mistress of Jared Holt was a boost for Lise’s ego—and for her career.

As for his sexual needs, he’d been subduing those for months in a ferocious focus on his far-flung business empire, and by engaging in strenuous athletic pursuits in various untamed parts of the world.

In the last few minutes Devon Fraser had put paid to all that. Since his first glimpse of her in that dress his sexuality had been running rampant. He knew what he wanted. And he wanted it soon.

Her dress, he thought caustically, had cost money. Big bucks. That stunning combination of elegance and provocation didn’t come cheap. So was she also after him, one more woman chasing after the security of a big bankroll? Like mother, like daughter?

Except the daughter was twenty years younger and ten times more beautiful.

Alicia had snagged Benson with very little effort. So now was it Devon’s turn to get the head of the company, the one with the real bucks? She was just being a little more subtle about it than all the other females of his acquaintance.

Subtle? Or downright devious? Keep on track, Jared, he told himself. After all, Devon could scarcely be said to have encouraged him on the front steps of his father’s house. Neither in her dress or her conversation.

Could he be mistaken? Was she genuinely as antagonistic toward him as she’d seemed?

“Who gives this woman to be married to this man?”

Devon said clearly, “I do,” gave her mother a smile that made Jared’s heart lurch in his chest, and stepped a little to one side. He fought to pay attention to the service: he’d really look an idiot if he flubbed his own cue.

He’d already made an idiot of himself once in front of Devon Fraser. He was damned if he was going to do it twice in one day.

Devon had been to lots of weddings, for by now most of her contemporaries were married. She’d thought she was immune to the whole ritual. Yet today for some reason the words, so simple yet so powerful, had gone straight through her. “To love and to cherish…” Who, except for her almost forgotten father, had ever cherished her? Not Alicia, she’d been too busy chasing romance from one continent to the next. Not any of her stepfathers. Certainly not Steve, who’d been her lover for over three years. Or, more recently, Peter. Who, luckily, hadn’t become her lover.

So what? She didn’t need cherishing; she was an independent, intelligent, thirty-two-year-old woman who excelled at a difficult job and who’d constructed her whole life so as to avoid intimacy and long-term relationships.

Then why was she feeling as weepy as any bride?

“…till death do us part.”

Alicia had been parted from Devon’s father by death. Devon’s father, according to Alicia, had been the love of her life—a story clung to more obsessively with every ensuing divorce. Devon had been seven when he died. She could remember as clearly as if it were yesterday that she’d been out in the garden when her mother had told her. The blackberries had been ripe and a thrush had been singing in the walnut tree…

Oh God, she felt far weepier than any bride. She wouldn’t cry; she wouldn’t! Apart from anything else it would only confirm Jared Holt’s low estimation of women. Emotional basket cases, that was how he saw the female sex. Irrational, completely at the mercy of their feelings. Not like him.

Jared had passed his father the ring and the clergyman was intoning the age-old symbolic words. Nervously Devon eased Benson’s ring from her thumb. Suddenly it slipped through her fingers and fell into the midst of the orchids. She scrabbled for it, bruising the sleek, expensive petals; when it didn’t emerge, she gave the bouquet a shake, and with an inward moan of dismay watched the ring plummet to the ground and roll along the green carpet. Toward Jared.

He moved very swiftly for so big a man. Stooping, he grabbed the ring and passed it to her. His eyes were looking straight into hers. They weren’t black, as she’d thought when she’d been standing on the front step. They were a dark midnight blue, impenetrable and cold as a winter sky. Her lashes flickered. Gingerly, trying not to touch him, she plucked the ring from his open palm, hearing the low murmur of amusement from the congregation. Blushing scarlet, she passed the ring to her mother.

Let this be over soon, please, she prayed. Let me get out of here without disgracing myself. Without revealing to anyone—especially Jared—how fragile I feel.

He probably already knows. He doesn’t miss a trick, that man.

Benson kissed his new wife with decorum. Her mother, Devon noticed distantly, looked flushed and very happy. Then Aunt Bessie swung into action again, pulling out all the stops. Benson took Alicia’s hand in his with a big grin, and started down the aisle between the ranked chairs. Now it’s our turn, Devon thought. Mine and Jared’s.

She turned to him with a brilliant smile, resting her fingers on the arm he was proffering, not at all surprised to feel the muscles taut as stretched cable.

With a deliberation that was somehow terrifying, he put his own hand on top of hers. The heat of his skin burned into her flesh like a brand; the raw hunger in his eyes filled her with panic. Then, suddenly, the hunger was gone, vanished as if it had never been.

Turned off, as though by a switch.

Every nerve in her body screamed at her to beware. She dragged her gaze away from his and smiled into the sea of faces, dimly rather proud of her composure. With a super-human effort she retrieved her voice, saying lightly, “Your aunt is excelling herself.”

“You got a real kick out of shoving that dress in my face, didn’t you?”

He towered over her, even when she was wearing high heels. Devon looked up at him limpidly and said in a voice as smooth as cream, “At this precise moment we’re being observed by a couple of hundred socialites, some of whom I assume are friends of yours…do try and control your temper. As for your aunt, any musician worth her salt should be able to improvise.”

“She never does anything but improvise, and I really hate being made a fool of.”

The photographer planted himself in front of them and angled the camera at their faces. “Just a little closer to her, Mr. Holt. Big smile—that’s great.”

Blinded by the flash, horribly aware of the jut of Jared’s hip and the hard line of his shoulder, Devon stumbled on a fold of the carpet. Quickly Jared’s arm went round her waist, and for a moment all her weight was resting on him. Instinctively she knew that with very little effort he could have picked her up and carried her the rest of the way. One arm around her hips, the other pressing her to his chest…

Was she losing her mind?

She pushed free of him, struggling for composure, and with huge relief saw that Benson and Alicia were waiting for them. “Mother, congratulations,” Devon said warmly, kissing Alicia on the cheek. Then she held out her hand to Benson. “I’m so happy to meet you,” she said. “I’m only sorry I had to wait until you were all the way to the altar.”

Benson planted a kiss on her cheek. “Devon…a pleasure. You’re almost as beautiful as your mother.”

Alicia gave a delighted giggle, and Devon heard Jared’s breath hiss between his teeth. “You’re much better-looking than your son,” she responded cordially. “I wish you both every happiness.”

As Alicia hugged her again, spilling out how nervous she’d been and how relieved she was that the ceremony was over, Benson drew his son aside. “You need glasses, boy,” he said in a jovial undertone. “A frump? The girl’s gorgeous!”

“You should have seen her,” Jared muttered. “It looked like she’d slept in her suit for a week and her hair was—”

“Bifocals,” Benson interrupted, clapping Jared on the arm.

Jared bit his tongue. Bad enough that Devon had made a fool of him; he didn’t need his father rubbing it in. But he’d get even, he thought, if it took him the rest of the day. Devon had used her sexuality—not to mention that blue dress—to get at him; he just might use his own sexuality in revenge. God knows enough women had made it clear how attractive he was.

He would show Devon Fraser she shouldn’t play with fire. And what enormous pleasure that would give him.

“You’re very quiet, Jared,” Alicia said provocatively.

Jared gave himself a mental shake, pasted a smile on his face, and with impeccable good manners congratulated his new stepmother and his father on their marriage. An ordinary observer couldn’t have faulted him. But Devon, attuned to him in a way that disconcerted her, could see the stiffness in his shoulders and hear the reservations in his voice. He was playing to the audience. And he didn’t mean a word of it.