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“Oh, Shane,” she murmured, but his face remained tense. She swallowed with difficulty, and said, with as much professional aplomb as possible, “I’m sorry. But as I told your counsel, Mr. Henderson, the company is not for sale.” She tried to quell the anger that was beginning to boil within her. Anger that he had left her, anger that he had come back into her life without so much as an explanation or an apology, anger that the only thing he wanted from her was the Wilcox family business, and anger with herself for still loving him. She had dreamed about him, relived the violent nightmare of his death, but never had she realized how desperately she still loved him . . . a love that was just as it had always been—unreturned. And now the cold betrayal. He had left her without so much as a second glance, until now, when he wanted something.

“Isn’t the price high enough?” he asked, breaking into her thoughts.

She shook her blond head and lowered her gaze to meet his directly. “It has nothing to do with money. The company is not for sale. Period! Now, if there’s nothing more . . .” She left the sentence dangling between them and without words invited him to leave. Her throat tightened at the thought that he would walk away from her, but she knew she had no choice—she was much too vulnerable to him. And, after all, what he wanted from her was business—pure and simple. She needed time to think things out and get her tangled thoughts in order. As much as she feared being separated from him, she knew it was the wisest course of action. She had to find the courage to tell him those things that he would need to know, now that she knew that he was alive.

His dark eyes narrowed, he rubbed the back of his neck thoughtfully, and he paced restlessly before her. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Like what?” she asked, perplexed.

“You’d like to be able to just turn me down and send me packing,” he accused. “Well, it won’t work.” A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “I want this company, and I intend to have it!”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that!”

“But I’m not selling . . . remember?” Mara’s temper was barely under control. “I don’t see how you think you’ll be able to persuade me to change my mind!” Despite her strong words, she felt herself beginning to tremble.

“Maybe I won’t have to,” Shane mused, pulling thoughtfully on his lower lip. “As I understand it, you didn’t inherit all of the stock of the company. You don’t even have controlling interest. Perhaps some of the other members of the Wilcox family would be interested in my proposition . . .” he suggested.

A picture of a triumphant Dena entered Mara’s mind. Unconsciously she pursed her full lips, and her eyes held steadily to Shane’s. “Am I to assume that you’re threatening me?” she asked in a voice that she hoped showed no strain of emotion. His dark head cocked with interest. “I really don’t know what it is that you expect of me,” she accused, tossing up her hands in exasperation. “First, you come marching in here, right from the grave, I might add, and nearly shock me to death. And, secondly, you try to intimidate me into selling something to you that is definitelynotfor sale! I don’t know how I can make my position any more clear! The company is not for sale.” Her eyes had turned to chips of blue ice. “I’m sorry if my response disappoints you!”

Shane laughed, and the familiar sound destroyed all of Mara’s resolve. “You haven’t disappointed me, Mara. I thought that maybe you had changed, but I was wrong. Thank God!” The severity of his gaze eroded, and for the first time that afternoon Mara saw kindness in his eyes—the kindness that she remembered.

He reached for her hand and held it lightly in his. “It’s good to see you again,” he whispered honestly.

“But Shane . . . why?” She tried to ignore the tingling of her fingertips where they touched his. “Why?”

“Shh . . .” He placed a sensitive finger over her lips to quiet the questions that were uppermost on her mind. “Have you had dinner yet?” Shane asked, still holding her fingers.

“At six o’clock in my office?” Mara inquired, feeling the tension begin to leave her body. “Not hardly.”

“Then let’s have it together.”

“Now?”

“This evening.”

Mara began to shake her head. Everything was happening too quickly and she was beginning to feel claustrophobic, caught in the same emotions that had trapped her four years ago. He was pushing, and she needed time to think. It was too easy to fall under his magic all over again. She ached to fall into the seduction of his onyx eyes, but she couldn’t allow it. It was too late.

“Why not?” he asked smoothly. Too smoothly.

“I . . . I have plans tonight.” It wasn’t a lie. There was Angie to consider. Shane’s hot hand closed more firmly over hers, and she felt as if she were beginning to melt. “And,” she withdrew her hand shakily, “I don’t think that it would be a very good idea . . .”

“Why not?” he interjected. His dark eyes deepened as they found the blue of hers.

“You sound like a broken record . . .”

“Well?”

“I’m . . . really . . . very busy,” Mara stammered, and knew in an instant that it sounded very much like the lie it was.

“Trying to maintain the image of the suffering widow?” Mara’s back stiffened, but a crooked smile slashed wickedly across Shane’s tanned face. For a moment, Mara could see him as she remembered: younger, softer, and . . . warmer. That was it. Even when he grinned, she could sense a brooding coldness lying under the surface of his smile.

Unconsciously, Mara rubbed the warm spot in her palm that could still feel his touch. “It has nothing to do with images,” she retorted. “I really am swamped.”

“Oh?” his dark eyes moved over the top of her desk, which was barren except for a few shipping invoices.

“Yes,” she replied hastily, feeling a compulsion to explain. “We’re a little late with some of our shipments. . .”