Free Fantasy 02 - Forbidden Fantasy by Cheryl Holt

whom he enjoyed and understood.
    The dust settled, and Caro broke the jarring silence. "Well, that was unpleasant." "It certainly was. I'm sorry." "Are you?" "Of course I am."
    The ice queen had returned with a vengeance. She was coldly furious, but only a person who knew her intimately—such as himself—could detect it
    "In the past," she charged, "you castigated me because I held my tongue in ugly circumstances, or because I was calm in the middle of discord. Were you implying I should be more like Mrs. Blake? Is she the sort of female you relish?"
    There were a dozen replies he could make as to why he persisted with Rebecca. He liked her fire and sass, her spirit and audacity. She was wild in life and wild in bed, and in light of his current attempts to regularly offend others, it was enormously entertaining to observe as she thumbed her nose at Caroline's society, but he doubted Caroline would appreciate any candor on the topic.
    "I've known her a long time, Caro," he quietly stated.
    "Have you?" She smiled the frosty smile that could set grown men to trembling. It was her mother's smile, her aristocrat's smile, her wealthy, spoiled earl's daughter smile.
    "Good-bye," she said.
    She tried to step around him, but he moved into her path, a hand on her waist.
    "I don't want you to leave. Not when you're so angry."
    "I'm not angry"
    "You can't he to me. I know you too well."
    "No, you don't. You don't know me, at all. Nor do I know you." She yanked away so that he wasn't touching her. "Occasionally, I'm lonely and frightened, and I allow my low feelings to push me into foolish predicaments. I sit in my empty bedchamber, and I pine for you, and I convince myself that you're missing me, too. I forget that you have an entire existence that doesn't include me—just as I have one that doesn't include you and never will."
    "That's not true, Caro. We're old friends. You said so yourself."
    "I didn't mean it," she cruelly retorted. "I apologize for pestering you. It won't happen again."
    "You haven't been a bother. You're welcome to stop by whenever you like."
    "Don't start being kind to me. Courtesy doesn't become you."
    She walked down the hall, toward the rear door, and he called, "Wait, Caro. Let me take you home."
    "I can find my own way—as your mistress can. I'm not helpless and never have been. No one seems to realize that about me."
    Then she was gone, and he slumped against the wall.
    It had been the worst afternoon of his life, and it
    wasn't even three o'clock. If he had a hundred years to try, he wouldn't be able to fix this for either woman.
    He proceeded to the dining room, poured a whiskey, and began to drink.
     
     
     
    Chapter Six
     
    Remove your hand before I break your arm," Rebecca warned.
    Being his typical, annoying self, Jack didn't heed her command.
    "I'm not afraid of you," he blustered.
    "You're not?"
    "No."
    "Let me demonstrate why you should be."
    She'd been an orphan raised by distant cousins— who'd had six boys. They'd all been bigger and meaner. She'd learned the hard way how to scrap and brawl, how to defend herself and win.
    She whipped around, ready to bloody his nose, when she came face-to-face with his fabulous blue eyes. In the past few days, she'd been haunted by those eyes, and she didn't want to be gazing into them now. They were too piercing, too astute, and they seemed to delve through muscle and pore, down to the center of her miserable black heart.
    "What will you do, Rebecca?" he taunted. "Will you fight the entire world?"
    "If I have to."
    "I'm not the enemy."
    "You couldn't prove it by me."
    She couldn't bear having him so close, and she stomped to her carriage and climbed in.
    She was still trying to figure out what had transpired between them in Ian's dressing room. Jack had come upstairs to inform her that Ian was gone, he'd aggravated and insulted her, and the next thing she knew, she was riding him like a mare in heat.
    After the life she'd led, she had few scruples and