Wildest Hearts

to me.” Annie folded her hands in her lap. “And he's taking care of my brother's company until Daniel returns.”

    Jonathan frowned in concern. “Sybil mentioned that your brother died in a plane crash.”

    “They never found his body,” Annie said stoutly. “I believe he's still alive.”

    “I can understand your not wanting to give up hope,” Jonathan said quietly. “I lost my own brother several years ago. It was…difficult.”

    Annie smiled gratefully. “Daniel is all the family I have.”

    “You may be holding onto your hopes, Annie, but everyone else has given up,” Sybil said. Surprisingly, although the words were brusque, her voice was not totally lacking in sympathy. “Including the business community. And that is why Oliver has been so good to you, as you put it. He's merely looking after his investment in Lyncroft Unlimited.”

    Jonathan slowly stirred his coffee, his eyes troubled. “I'm afraid Sybil's right about one thing, Annie. I've been in Seattle long enough to have heard some of the gossip about Oliver Rain. They say he always has his own reasons for the things he does. The rest of the world rarely discovers what those reasons are until it's too late.”

    Annie carefully folded her napkin and put it down on the table. “Please excuse me. I must get back to work.”

    Sybil's head jerked up in alarm. “I hope you won't feel compelled to tell Oliver about this conversation, Annie. He'll accuse me of interfering in his private affairs. It will give him one more reason to despise me. God knows he hates me enough as it is.”

    Annie hesitated, not wanting to be sucked into even such a small conspiracy. Then she saw the earnest plea for understanding in Jonathan's eyes.

    “For Sybil's sake, Annie,” he murmured, “maybe it would be best if you didn't mention what was said here today.”

    “Is this how everyone handles Oliver?” Annie demanded. “They deliberately keep him in the dark?”

    “The less Oliver knows, the better for all of us,” Sybil said. “He uses every scrap of information for his own ends. You would do well to remember that, Annie.”

    Annie could find no adequate response to that. She got up and walked out of the restaurant without a backward glance.

    Three nights later Annie sat alone in the penthouse living room. Dressed in a pair of well-washed jeans and a green sweater, she was curled deep in a leather sofa. She gazed moodily out into the rainy night where a ferry glided across Elliott Bay. The lights of the vessel glittered like so many pearls strewn across the black velvet of the cold water.

    Annie was enjoying the view alone. For the past several days, ever since she had come to live here, Oliver had vanished into his study every night after dinner.

    She knew he was working. Oliver spent hours going over her brother's files and the reports submitted by Lyncroft's managers. If he followed his usual pattern tonight, he would be up long after she went to bed.

    Until tonight Annie had busied herself during the evenings just as she had when she had lived alone in her apartment. The monthly bookkeeping chores required of a small business such as Wildest Dreams were neverending. Tonight she had paid her taxes and the rent, gone over invoices, and written paychecks for herself and Ella. But she was deeply aware of Oliver's presence in the penthouse. She knew she would sleep restlessly again tonight until she heard him go down the hall to the master bedroom suite.

    Last night she had heard his footsteps pause briefly outside her bedroom door. She had held her breath, wondering what she would do or say if he opened it. But he had not. Her chief reaction had been an unnerving sense of disappointment.

    She wanted him, she thought with a shattering jolt of realization. She had never experienced such an intense physical and emotional desire. This was what had been missing in her relationships with men like Arthur Quigley and Melvin Finch.

    Annie knew now there was no way she could continue to ignore her reaction to Oliver. The elemental excitement he ignited within her had been there from the first time she had seen him. Proximity was doing nothing to squelch it. She had never been so deeply aware of a man in her life. Of course, she reminded herself, she had never lived in a man's home before, either.

    A marriage of convenience was proving to be a very strange and unsettling sort of relationship, not at all the casual, businesslike association