Full Bloom

this. She would undoubtedly be furious if he stepped in again, uninvited.
    Jacob leaned against the partition that separated him from Emily and Morrell and made himself stay where he was. He could monitor the situation from there. If Morrell turned nasty, there would be plenty of time to move in on him. Jacob gritted his teeth and swore he would give Emily her chance to handle the man.
    Emily had been so astonished to see Damon waiting for her near her car that she nearly dropped her keys.
    "What on earth are you doing here?" she demanded.
    Morrell watched her through hooded eyes, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his fashionable jacket. 'It was the only way I could think of to see you alone. I've been watching you for three days, waiting to find you alone. That damned husband of yours hardly lets you out of his sight. When you're not with him, you're at the shop with Diane and a bunch of customers."
    "How would you know what I'm doing with my time these days, Damon?" Something in his eyes made Emily wary. She kept her distance, not going any closer to the car.
    "I told you, I've been keeping an eye on you."
    "Why, Damon?"
    "You have a lot of nerve asking a stupid question like that." Damon's voice didn't rise, but there was a savage rawness in it that told its own story. "You've ruined everything. You know that, don't you?"
    "If you're talking about what happened between you and RI over that Fowler deal—"
    "That was only part of it. But it was a big part. I should have had that project, Emily. It should have been mine. I needed it badly to cover some recent losses. RI stole it from me. This isn't the first time they've stolen something from me."
    "Come off it, Damon, we both know how business is done these days. You play just as rough as RI does. If you'd had the right contacts down in South America you would have used them, just as you used your friends in the Middle East last year to secure that airport project. I had nothing to do with your winning or losing, and I don't want to have anything to do with it. The truth is, I don't like the way international business is done and I prefer to be left out of it entirely."
    Damon stared at her, his eyes hot with repressed fury. "If I had married you, everything would have been different. I would have had RI right where I wanted it. I could have controlled the company through you. Do you know what I was going to force your family to do, Emily? I was going to make them merge with my company. I was going to create the most powerful construction firm in the Northwest, maybe on the whole West Coast, and in the process, RI would have effectively ceased to exist."
    Emily caught her breath, realizing at last the extent of his frustrated anger. "You were willing to use me to break RI and to build your own firm into this superpower?"
    "You were the key, Emily. I realized that months ago when I found out you were living here in Seattle. I knew then what I had to do. It was so easy at first. I had you eating out of the palm of my hand."
    "Damon, for heaven's sake, we never even went to bed together," Emily protested, thoroughly exasperated. "How can you imply a serious relationship? I've told you before that I considered us casual friends, that's all. I resent the fact that you think you could have married me."
    "I could have had you if that bastard Stone hadn't arrived on the scene."
    "Not a chance." Emily was infuriated. "We've already been through this. Why does everyone and his brother think I'm a chunk of clay he can mold to his own purpose? Believe it or not, I have a few personal goals myself. I am not as malleable as everyone seems to think."
    Damon did not appear to hear her. He was too involved in rehashing what he thought he had lost. "You were no problem. I had you under control. It was Stone and your family who screwed it all up. I guess your family figured it was safer to have you married to him than me."
    "You're crazy, Damon."
    "You think so? You're the one who's out of her mind if you really think you're making your own decisions these days. I did a little research on Jacob Stone. He's RI's man right to the core. He'll do whatever your family tells him to do, up to and including marrying you. When your people started getting nervous about the fact that you were seeing me, they took steps to pick out a nice safe husband for you. How does it feel to be married off to someone your family can control, Emily?"
    "You've got it all wrong, Damon," she