Full Bloom

want a real Ravenscroft in your bed, is that it? You want sweet, pliable little Emily who can't handle her own life and who needs someone around to tell her what to do. You want the Emily who
surrenders
when you make love to her. You want the old Emily. I'm not her, Jacob. I've changed. I guess you hadn't realized that until tonight."
    "You're wrong," Jacob said as he parked in front of a large downtown hotel near the river. "I want the strong new Emily who isn't intimidated by her family or anyone else. I want the Emily who has built a business for herself without her family's help. I want the Emily who has the courage to become involved in an affair with me even though she knows her family won't approve. But I won't let that new Emily use me the way she did tonight."
    Tom between fury and despair, Emily choked on useless words as Jacob removed her small overnight case from the trunk of his car and escorted her into the hotel. She continued to say nothing as he booked a room for her at the front desk and walked her to the elevators. When he deposited her in front of a door, her overbright eyes met his, her lashes glistening with tears. She knew he was not going to stay with her.
    "So this is how it ends?" she asked, her nails digging into her palms as she fought for composure. This was so much worse than the night he had put her in a cab after kissing her to the point of abandon.
    But Emily refused to cry in front of him. She had her pride. It was all she had left, and she was grimly determined to hang on to it. The old Emily would have been in tears by now.
    Jacob watched her with a hooded gaze. He was hard, implacable, immovable. A tough, dangerous man, just as Drake had warned.
    "No," Jacob said calmly, "this is not how it ends. With any luck, someday we'll look back on this moment as a beginning."
    Emily was suddenly excruciatingly weary. "I don't understand."
    He framed her face with his strong hands. "Try thinking about it, Emily, instead of reacting with raw emotion. Try to get past that damned Ravenscroft pride of yours and think about what you did to me tonight. I've got my pride, too, you know. I don't need your protection, and I will not tolerate being used, not even by you. You had no right to pull that stunt in your father's study this evening."
    Anger and confusion welled up within her. "What do you want from me?" she said.
    "An apology."
    "An apology!"
    "For a start," he confirmed.
    "Never!" Emily exploded as fury overwhelmed all the other emotions in a white-hot, cleansing fire. "I don't have anything to apologize for. What I did, I did for your sake. I was not using you to take my revenge, dammit."
    "And after you've apologized," Jacob continued, ignoring her heartfelt protest, "you and I are going to sit down and have a long, calm discussion about the ground rules for this affair of ours."
    "Why, you overbearing, conceited, arrogant bastard. Who do you think you are?"
    His eyes flared but he didn't respond to the wild, emotional accusation. "When we're done with that discussion we'll have a little talk about the future. Good night, Emily. Call me when you're ready to admit you used me tonight to carry out a personal vendetta against your family. When you're ready to give me your word of honor you won't ever try a stunt like that again, we'll work out the rest of this relationship."
    Dazed with shock and anger Emily stared after Jacob as he turned away and walked down the corridor to the elevators. Within seconds he was gone.

SEVEN
    « ^ »
    S he'd had the nerve to claim she had been trying to protect him. Jacob did not know which infuriated him most—having Emily use him and her RI shares to threaten her family, or having her claim afterward that she had only done it to protect him from Ravenscroft wrath.
    He could not believe she had actually thought he needed protecting, so he dismissed her claim out of hand. That meant his initial analysis had to have been right. She had finally taken her stand against her family in a big way, and Jacob found himself being used as a pawn.
    It was the only logical explanation, he told himself over and over again. She could not possibly have been so witless as to actually think she had to do something that dramatic to protect him.
    Could she?
    Several hours later, at two in the morning to be exact, Jacob was awake, pacing the living room of his apartment and agonizing over the way he had handled Emily's bold act of assertiveness.
    It was unlike him to agonize