Wildest Hearts

just as she had said she would be.

    Oliver released the intercom switch. Christ, his hand was trembling. He glowered at the offending fingers as he deliberately flexed them. From somewhere he dredged up the will to crush the incipient panic that had threatened to twist his insides into jelly.

    It was all right; Annie hadn't left him.

    Of course she hadn't left him. She still needed him, he reminded himself.

    Oliver walked to the window. He stood gazing unseeingly out into the darkness and wondered what the hell to do next. He could not recall the last time he had found himself at such a complete loss.

    There was no need to rush into a decision, he told himself. Annie was safely at hand. There was time to think this through, time to figure out how to handle his wife.

    “Damn it to hell.”

    The fact that his first instinct was to rush down-stairs and retrieve Annie only went to show that he had been letting her influence him far too much lately. Her tendency toward rash, unpredictable behavior was starting to rub off on him.

    The woman was invading every corner of his life. She was taking over, interfering in his most private affairs. She was causing him to do things he would never have done if she were not around.

    He had never realized that marriage to Annie would turn out like this. Nothing was going the way it was supposed to.

    Oliver turned and walked out of the study. He went down the hall to the steps that led to the rooftop greenhouse. He needed to think.

    Outside on the roof he paused beside the control panel and switched on the lights inside the greenhouse. Then he opened the door and went inside.

    At once he felt calmer, more in control. The warm, humid scents of his own private jungle soothed him as nothing else could have done.

    Here in the greenhouse time felt different than it did outside. This was a different place, a different world. Here he could recover his sense of direction, his patience, his control. Here he could refocus on his goals and lay plans for reaching them. Here among his precious ferns he could make clear-sighted, rational decisions.

    Oliver walked through his green world, losing himself in the incredible lushness of it, letting himself absorb the ancient aura of living things that had defied time for over three hundred million years.

    He stopped at the small grotto and stood looking down at the mat of green ferns that floated on the surface of the water. He wanted to think about the past and how it affected the future.

    But all he could think about was Annie waiting for him downstairs in Bolt's apartment.

    He could not believe that she actually expected him to apologize. After what she had done today, she should have been on her hands and knees trying to make amends. She should have been frantic at the possibility that he might abandon her brother's company to its creditors.

    She needed him, damn it, and she knew it. She had come to him. She had practically pleaded with him to marry her and save Lyncroft Unlimited. He was the one holding the power in this situation.

    He always held the power. It was the only safe position to occupy.

    Oliver picked up a small trowel, realized that he wanted to hurl it against the greenhouse wall, and willed himself to put it carefully back down on the bench.

    He moved on to a bank of staghorns and wondered at the coldness in the pit of his belly.

    He had learned one thing today and that was that Annie could not be easily bluffed. She hadn't believed for one minute that he would actually toss Lyncroft Unlimited to the wolves.

    She had been right. He had been trying to intimidate her, but he'd never had any intention of destroying Lyncroft Unlimited. He had made a commitment and he would fulfill it. Daniel had been a good friend, one of the few Oliver had ever had.

    He should have remembered his own rule, Oliver thought. Never make threats. Make promises.

    His mouth twisted into a humorless smile. If he went downstairs and apologized, Annie would probably revel in the proof of her growing power over him.

    Then again, maybe she wouldn't. Oliver frowned at that thought. Annie would not take an apology as a sign of victory for the simple reason that she did not use power with the same cold, conscious awareness that he himself used it. She did not take satisfaction in the development of strategy or in the manipulation of means to achieve ends. Annie would never know the icy pleasure of revenge.

    Annie was not like him. Her motives