The Millionaire's Secret Wish (3 page)

The cold cynicism of his words chilled her. It was almost as if he were warning her. She saw a stubborn hopelessness in his eyes and something inside her rebelled at it. He emanated anger, justified anger, and she felt the oddest desire to defuse it at the same time that she knew she couldn’t. Besides, he might as well have slammed the door in her face on the subject.

“I have an appointment in town,” he said. “Do both of us a favor and take it easy this afternoon.”

His directive took her by surprise. She felt her back stiffen. She didn’t like being ordered, even if it was
for her own good. “Thank you for your concern, and for taking me to my apartment,” she said, and walked toward the house.

“Alisa, don’t overdo it,” he warned, his tone serious.

“Don’t give me orders,” she tossed back. “That may have worked when I was a little girl when I had a hard case of hero worship, but it doesn’t work n—”

He was by her side and taking her arm before she could finish. It occurred to her that there were times she liked his height and times she didn’t. This time she didn’t. “This isn’t about hero worship,” he told her, his eyes glinting with anger. “I’m responsible for you.”

“I don’t need a baby-sitter or a nurse anymore.”

“Then act like it,” he said, and turned back toward the car.

Alisa fumed as she watched him get back in his car and pull out of the driveway. What a chauvinistic, heavy-handed jerk! She fought the undignified urge to stick her tongue out at him and yell,
bite me.
What made it worse was that he was right.

Pushing Dylan from her mind, Alisa went inside, fixed herself some lemonade and enjoyed a brief conversation with Dylan’s housekeeper/cook, Mrs. Abernathy, a shy, but kind woman in her sixties. After lying down for a nap that wouldn’t come, she rose and decided to explore the estate. From Mrs. Abernathy she’d learned a stable with horses was on the far west corner of the pasture.

The walk through his rolling fields stretched her a
little more than she’d expected, but the sight of a pony, a chestnut mare and a gelding rewarded her.

“Hello, beauties,” she said as she walked in front of the stalls.

“Good-natured, too,” a sturdy gray-haired woman said as she left the pony’s stall. “I’m Meg Winters. Dylan lets me keep the horses here for classes for handicapped children.”

“Really?” Alisa said, amazed. “He didn’t tell me about this.”

“I’m not surprised,” Meg said. “It doesn’t go with his image.”

Alisa nodded slowly. “Wealthy, indifferent, materialistic, doesn’t need anything from anybody,” she said, stopping when she heard her voice rising with emotion.

“How long have you known him?” Meg asked curiously.

“About twenty years.” Alisa introduced herself. “I’m a guest. I’m recovering from a too-long stay in the hospital. But I come bearing gifts,” she said, pulling apples from her small backpack.

Meg nodded in approval. “Go ahead. Do you ride?”

Alisa visualized herself on the back of a horse. “Yes,” she said. “But it’s been a while.”

“In that case, Sir Galahad would be a good choice. He’s well broken, well behaved and pretty much does all the work for you. If you want to take him for a
ride, he’s your man.” She cocked her head toward the door. “I’m headed home. Nice to meet you”

“And you,” Alisa said and turned to offer an apple to the pony. She petted him and fussed over him, then meandered to the next stall which housed Sir Galahad. He took the apple from her palm with only his lips. “What a gentleman,” she said, breathing in the scent of the clean barn and the horses. A lovely peace settled inside her as she stroked the horse. Her edginess and frustration seemed to drift away. It was a sweet temporary relief that her amnesia didn’t matter to Sir Galahad, she thought with a sigh. Maybe a ride would do her good.

Dylan got a creepy feeling down the back of his spine when he searched the house for Alisa and didn’t find her. The rain poured, thunder rolled, and dinner beckoned. He asked Ms. Abernathy if she knew where Alisa was.

“I’m sorry. The last time I saw her she was walking beyond the pool.” The woman frowned. “She did seem interested in the horses when I told her about them earlier today.”

His gut clenched. He glanced outside at the pouring rain. Surely she wouldn’t go horseback riding after he expressly told her to take it easy? Dylan felt the beginning of a headache. He’d clearly had no idea what he was getting into when he’d offered to allow Alisa to recover at his home. At this rate, watching over her would be the death of him.

Swearing under his breath, he grabbed a rain poncho from the hall closet and stomped out of the house. With the rain coming down in sheets, he ran toward the horse pasture. Seeing no sign of her, he felt his tension crank another notch tighter. He swung open the barn door and heard her gasp.

“Dylan!” She lifted her hand to her throat. “What are you doing out in this rain?”

He took a deep breath and waited for his rush of relief to reach his heart. “Making sure you’re okay,” he finally said.

She shrugged. “I’m fine. I’m dry, I’ve got Sir Galahad for company and my water bottle. What else do I need?” She watched the water dripping from his poncho, then her gaze met his. “Were you worried?”

“I told you that I’m responsible for you,” he said crossing his arms over his chest. “I didn’t know if you’d decided to do something stupid like go horseback riding during a thunderstorm.”

She lifted her chin. “Horseback riding during a thunderstorm,” she echoed. “You must be confused. I’m not crazy, Dylan. I have amnesia.”

“You also overdid it yesterday, had a nightmare last night and argued with me about taking it easy today.”

She waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “Anyone who wasn’t a wuss would have argued with you today. You were incredibly
difficult
and you didn’t even have the excuse of amnesia.”

Plagued by thoughts of her smart mouth and fan
tasy bed all afternoon, Dylan again thought of how he’d like to put her mouth to work on him in a much more satisfying way than talking.

“I love this horse. Sir Galahad. Such a gentleman,” she said, rubbing the animal’s neck, then turning back to glance at Dylan. “Unlike his owner.”

“He’s also a gelding,” Dylan informed her. “Unlike his owner.”

She ignored his warning and walked toward him. “I must confess I’m confused. Meg told me you allow her to hold riding classes for handicapped kids. So tell me the truth Dylan, are you an arrogant, heartless, materialistic millionaire? Or do you just like to keep the fact that you have a heart a secret?” she asked pointing a finger at his chest. “And maybe you give a damn after all?”

The combination of the last month of waiting for Alisa to get better, his struggle not to care that her interest in him would soon turn to disdain, the steamy memory of her bedroom, and her smart sexy mouth pushed him over the edge.

His gaze holding hers, he backed her against a beam. “Yeah,” he said. “Maybe I do give a damn.”

A
lisa’s heart hammered in her chest.
Oh, wow,
she thought, looking into a gaze that promised to eat her alive. Dylan was riding the razor’s edge of control, and heaven help her, she liked that she had put him there. Forbidden excitement shot through her like adrenaline. Her mouth went dry and she tried to swallow.

He deliberately lowered his head inch by excruciating inch. The anticipation was delicious torture. She felt his gaze on her lips, then his mouth took hers. With a confidence that shook hers, he consumed her. His lips caressed and conquered in a kiss that felt like sex.

Her knees grew weak. His tongue slid inside her
mouth, and Alisa felt a sensual weakness suffuse her. She inhaled a quick shallow breath and the scent of rain and his aftershave filled her senses. His chest brushed her breasts, and he slid his hand to the back of her waist to draw her lower body against his. He was hard with arousal.

Alisa couldn’t withhold a gasp. He deepened the kiss again, grinding himself against her, then pulling his mouth from hers. “Damn you, you’re supposed to be taking naps and lying by the pool, not driving me nuts.”

Alisa drew in a shaky breath, wishing for more starch in her knees and oxygen in her brain. She bit her lip at the power of her arousal and struggled for her equilibrium. “Well, the doctor did warn you I might be difficult,” she finally managed in a voice husky to her own ears.

Dylan stared at her in disbelief, then dipped his head and swore.

“I can’t help wondering,” she said. “Have you and I ever kissed before?”

“Yeah, but—”

“But what?”

“It’s been a long time,” he said, moving away from her.

Inexplicably bereft, she crossed her arms over her chest. “Oh, well then, I guess that blows my first theory.”

He met her gaze. “First theory?”

She shrugged. “Well, it was a pretty intense kiss.
Spontaneous combustion,” she said. Or nuclear fusion. “I thought that it was maybe a monstrous buildup of curiosity and tension over a lot of years. Like, say twenty. But if we’ve kissed before…” She frowned. “If we’ve kissed before, why did we stop?”

“Stop what?”

“Kissing before?”

He raked his hand through his hair. “Because you were fifteen, your mother got married and you moved away.”

Alisa searched her memory for one tantalizing crumb and came up empty. “I don’t remember,” she said, and wished with all her heart that she did.

He met her gaze, and she saw a sweet nostalgia come and go in his eyes. He gently chucked her chin. “That’s okay. Some things are best forgotten.” He dropped his hand, and his eyes grew serious. “In the meantime if you get bored while you’re trying to recover, read a book or turn on the TV instead of pushing my buttons.” He cocked his head to one side as if listening. “Sounds like most of the storm’s gone. Maybe we can go back to the house now.”

Still thinking about the heat of their kiss and the fact that she and Dylan had been teenage sweethearts, she watched him open the door.

“Looks safe to me,” he said, waving her toward him. “Come on.”

Alisa left the barn with him and walked silently. As they drew close to the house, she looked at him
curiously. “Are you saying you didn’t like it?” she asked.

He glanced at her in confusion. “Like what?”

“Kissing me,” she said, coming to a stop. “Are you saying you didn’t like kissing me?”

He stopped and shot her an impatient glance. “No, but you’re recovering from a serious accident, and even though you may not realize it,” he said in a dark voice, “you’re vulnerable. I’m not going to take advantage of you.”

“This is so confusing. One minute you’re the materialistic millionaire, the next you’re allowing handicapped kids to have horseback riding lessons on your property. One minute you’re kissing me like—” She faltered, unable to find a sufficient description.

His gaze was dark with an emotion she couldn’t quite name. “Like what?”

She lifted her chin. “Like you wanted to be doing a lot more than kissing. The next minute you’re brushing me off because of some sense of honor. Which one is the real Dylan Barrows?”

“All of the above,” he said, and led the way into the house.

Alisa stared after him, filled with frustration and questions. Damn her lack of memory. There was so much she wanted to know about herself and Dylan. The more she was around him, the more questions she had. She couldn’t help feeling like a shell of a woman, a faux human. Her skin, hair and body were pure human, but inside she felt empty. She might as
well be missing a limb. More than anything she wanted this lost feeling to go away. More than anything she wanted to remember everything about her, about Dylan.

Dylan left the house soon after dinner. He could rest easy that Alisa wouldn’t find any more trouble today. She’d nearly fallen asleep at the table. As he strode into O’Malley’s Bar to meet Michael and Justin, he tried to leave his concerns for her behind.

“How’s life in chicken pox land?” he asked Justin.

Justin made a face. “The twins are getting over it, but Emily came down with it today. The kids are hot and itchy, and the summer heat is just making it worse. But Amy’s great. She lets them swim in the little plastic pool in the backyard for half the day. I’m trying to talk her into a weekend away after the scourge has left us.”

“You’re welcome to my condo in Belize,” Dylan said.

“You bought one?” Justin said. “I thought you would choose one of the flashier spots.”

Dylan shook his head, thinking he’d grown weary of frantic nightlife. What he craved more than anything now was peace. “I’m turning into a crusty old bachelor. I like an island breeze, Beliken beer and a nice sunset.”

“Sounds good,” Justin said. “Add Amy to that picture and it would work for me.”

“Speaking of women,” Michael said, looking at Dylan curiously. “How’s it going with Alisa?”

“She still doesn’t remember much, and she’s very frustrated. We visited her apartment today, and that seemed to help a little.” He paused, leaning against the bar. “She’s more of a handful than I expected.”

“Alisa? She’s the sweetest girl in Virginia,” Michael said. “Aside from Kate, of course,” he added, referring to his wife.

Dylan shook his head, thinking of her sensual bedroom and the way she’d taunted him this afternoon. “She’s not the little cookie girl anymore.”

“What do you mean? She can’t make chocolate chip cookies anymore?” Justin asked in an appalled voice.

“I don’t know if she remembers how to make the cookies or not. I’m just saying she is more than I expected.”

“Is that good or bad?” Justin asked.

Dylan thought about the passionate way she’d responded to him and the way he’d wanted to take her right there in the barn. “Both.”

As the bartender delivered their beers, Michael and Justin looked at each other in confusion. “I can’t tell whether she’s coming on to you or spitting in your face.”

“Try both,” Dylan said, and took a long swallow of beer. “I can’t take advantage of her, because she’s still recovering.”

“Plus she’s gonna hate you when she remembers,”
Justin reminded him. He shook his head in commiseration. “I don’t envy you.”

“Yeah, well it’s not my job to seduce her or be seduced by her. It’s my job to provide a place for her to recover and that’s what I’m doing,” Dylan said.
Even if it kills me.
“But enough about that. I wanted to let you know I’ll be negotiating with Grant Remington soon about the bioengineering project.”

“Grant Remington,” Michael said. “Your half brother.”

Dylan gave a dirty chuckle. “He’d probably punch you for saying that.”

Michael lifted an eyebrow. “I’d say he’s damn lucky.”

“How?” Dylan asked. “For having his inheritance whittled down to accommodate his father’s slipup?”

“For getting you as his brother. He’s got money to burn.”

He tasted the familiar bitterness and shrugged. “I really don’t give a damn as long as I get what I want.”

The three men fell silent, but the noise of the bar lessened the impact. Michael cleared his throat. “In the meantime Kate told me to invite all of you to the house for a barbecue next Friday.”

“Works for me,” Justin said. “All the chicken pox should be gone by then.”

“Good,” Michael said, then glanced at Dylan. “Alisa’s invited, too.”

Dylan struggled with mixed feelings. Despite the
fact that Alisa was a handful, he liked having her to himself. It gave him a false sense of security, he realized wryly and nodded at Michael. Alisa would learn the truth sometime. Nothing was forever. “I’ll bring her if she’s still speaking to me,” he said, and lifted his beer in a salute.

Alisa turned her attention to regaining as much of her memory as she could. She tried her best not to think about Dylan, at least while she was awake. She’d started dreaming about him while she slept. Sensual dreams where he kissed her endlessly and aroused her to the brink of pleasure, but she always awakened before he thrust inside her and took them both over the edge. She also always awakened fully aroused. Alisa couldn’t decide which was worse—the nightmares or the erotic dreams.

She hitched a ride to her apartment with Dylan in the mornings while he went into work, then he gave her a return ride home at lunchtime. The past few days she’d eaten her lunch late, so she wouldn’t spend extra time with him. He was like a hot stove to her, his heat drew her, but she knew she could get burned. She had the sense that a woman could become fascinated with Dylan and forget that the man had a lot of closed doors. Although she found herself both emotionally and sexually seduced by him, Alisa didn’t want to fall into a trap.

After an endless weekend of looking through photo albums, listening to CDs she’d found at her apartment
and putting together small fragments of her history, she returned and crossed paths with Dylan as he was sorting his mail. “How’s it going?” he asked.

“Fine,” she said. “I’m down to thirty-minute naps in the afternoon.”

“No more nightmares?”

She shook her head, wishing she could shake the other dreams that made it too hot for her to sleep. Spotting an ivory invitation of some sort on the floor, she bent to pick it up. “You dropped it,” she said, scanning the invitation. “Cocktail party inviting the board of Remington Pharmaceuticals. Are you going?”

“Probably not,” he said, and tossed her a careless smile. “It’s on Thursday night. I think there’s a Braves game.”

Alisa rolled her eyes. “There’s always a Braves game. Will some of your half siblings be there?”

“Probably. Why?” he asked, looking at her.

“Just curious,” she said. “Have you ever met your half family in a social setting?”

“Not unless you consider the official reading of the will,” he said with a chuckle.

Alisa couldn’t help laughing with him. “Aren’t you curious how they’d act in a less formal setting?”

“No.”

“I am.”

“Then maybe you should go.”

“Okay,” she said without missing a beat. “What time should we leave?”

“What’s this ‘we,’ Tonto?”

A memory flashed through her. She stared at him. “You’ve said that to me before.”

He paused. “Yeah. About a hundred times.”

“Reruns of
The Lone Ranger
television series,” she said, the vague recollection strengthening. “That’s how I got you to teach me to catch.”

“You would sneak me into your house to watch the reruns while your mom was taking care of dinner at the cafeteria. The Granger boys had one television in the community room that was always breaking.”

“But my mother had a nice television. It was small but it always worked.” She shook her head. “I was so scared my mother would catch us. When she finally did—”

“I had to peel a zillion potatoes and take out the cafeteria trash for a month,” he said. “It could have been worse if the headmaster had found out.”

“I begged her not to tell him,” Alisa said, recalling pleading with her mother. “You didn’t stop teaching me to catch,” she remembered. “Why? I had lost my bribe appeal.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “You always had this combination of being determined as hell but nice. Tough on yourself, but kind to others. You were a loyal little thing.”

Just when she was ready to give up on Dylan, he provided her with a glimpse of herself that filled up some of her emptiness and gave her hope that she
could recapture her past. Every day she struggled with how someone without a past could make a future.

Realizing she’d been distracted from their original conversation, she switched gears with a smile. “What time do I need to be ready for the cocktail party?” she asked.

“Never o’clock,” he said, turning back to the mail.

“Hmm,” she said, thinking. “Are you afraid of your half brothers and sister?”

He looked up at her with more firepower in his eyes than a twenty-one-gun salute. “You have to care about something to fear it,” he told her in a too-calm voice.

“So there’s nothing you want from them?” she asked, unable to fathom the possibility. She would have given her eyeteeth for a brother or sister. “Nothing at all?”

“Nothing,” he said definitively, then paused and frowned. “Except…”

“Except what?”

He closed down. “It’s business,” he said.

Frustrated by the walls Dylan put up around himself, she sighed. Another childhood memory floated through her mind. He had always dared her to step a little further. “Well there’s only one thing I can say at this point. I triple dare you to go to the cocktail party,” she told him, drawing on the saying they’d used as children.

Dylan stared after her, taking in the sight of her backside as her taunting words reverberated in his
mind. Irritated, vaguely seduced, he dismissed her dare. When they’d been kids,
he
had always been the one to dare her. Had the accident made her more adventurous? he wondered. Or perhaps she had become more adventurous since they’d parted company in college. For all the time he’d known Alisa, he’d lost a lot of growing time with her. The loss gnawed at him.

She wasn’t nearly as acquiescent to him as she’d once been. She didn’t look at him with hero worship in her eyes anymore. She looked at him with a woman’s curiosity and fascination, and the change both unsettled and drew him. He was accustomed to women who were intent on his comfort and satisfaction. Alisa seemed more intent on knowing him and challenging him. Despite her current vulnerability, she’d grown much stronger during their years apart.