Inner Harbor
Page 50

Standards, he thought. Integrity. She had them. And he believed that she had heart as well.
Sybill offered a thin smile as she came back out. "Well, that's the first time I've seen a notary's eyes nearly pop out of her head. I think that should--"
The rest of her babbling statement was lost as his mouth rushed to cover hers. She lifted a hand to his shoulder, but her fingers only curled into the soft material of his sweater.
"You looked like you needed it," he murmured, and skimmed a hand over her cheek.
"Regardless--"
"Hell, Sybill, we've already got them talking. Why not add to the mystery?"
Her emotions were rocking, making it difficult for her to hold on to any threads of composure. "I've no intention of standing here making a spectacle of myself. So if you'll--"
"Fine. Let's go somewhere else. I've got the boat."
"The boat? I can't go out on the boat. I'm not dressed for it. I have work." I need to think, she told herself, but he was already pulling her to the dock.
"A sail will do you good. You're starting on another headache. The fresh air should help."
"I don't have a headache." Only the nasty, simmering threat of one. "And I don't want to--" She nearly yelped, so stunned was she when he simply plucked her off her feet and set her down on the deck.
"Consider yourself shanghaied, doc." Quickly, competently, he freed the lines and leaped aboard. "I have a feeling you haven't had nearly enough of that kind of treatment in your short, sheltered life."
"You don't know anything about my life, or what I've had. If you start that engine, I'm going to--" She broke off, grinding her teeth as the motor putted to life. "Phillip, I want to go back to my hotel. Now."
"Hardly anybody ever says no to you, do they?" He said it cheerfully as he gave her a firm nudge onto the port bench. "Just sit back and enjoy the ride."
Since she didn't intend to leap overboard and swim back to shore in a silk suit and Italian shoes, she folded her arms. It was his way of paying her back, she supposed, by taking away her freedom of choice, asserting his will and his physical dominance.
Typical.
She turned her head to stare out over the light chop. She wasn't afraid of him, not physically. He had a tougher side than she'd originally thought, but he wouldn't hurt her. And because he cared for Seth, deeply, she'd come to believe, he needed her cooperation.
She refused to be thrilled when he hoisted the sails. The sound of the canvas opening itself to the wind, the sight of the sun beating against the rippling white, the sudden and smooth angling of the boat, meant nothing to her, she insisted.
She would simply tolerate this little game of his, give him no reaction. Undoubtedly, he would grow weary of her silence and inattention and take her back.
"Here." He tossed something, making her jump. She looked down and saw the sunglasses that had landed neatly in her lap. "Sun's fierce today, even if the temperature's cooling. Indian summer's around the corner."
He smiled to himself when she said nothing, only slid the sunglasses primly on her nose and continued to stare in the opposite direction.
"We need a good hard frost first," he continued conversationally. "When the leaves start to turn, the shoreline near the house is a picture. Golds and scarlets. You get that deep blue sky behind them, and the water mirror-bright, that spice of fall on the air, and you could start to believe there's no place else on the planet you'd ever want to be."
She kept her mouth firmly shut, tightened the fold of her arms across her br**sts.
Phillip merely tucked his tongue in his cheek. "Even a couple of avowed urbanites like you and I can appreciate a fine fall day in the country. Seth's birthday's coming up."
Out of the corner of his eye he saw her head jerk around, her mouth tremble open. She shut it again, but this time when she turned away, her shoulders where hunched defensively.
Oh, she felt all right, Phillip mused. There were plenty of messy emotions stewing inside that cool package of hers.
"We thought we'd throw him a party, have some of his pals over to raise hell. You already know Grace bakes a hell of a chocolate cake. We've got his present taken care of. But just the other day I saw these art supplies in this shop in Baltimore. Not a kid's setup, a real one. Chalk, pencils, charcoal, brashes, watercolors, paper, palettes. It's a specialty shop a few blocks from my office. Somebody who knew something about art could breeze in there and pick out just the right things."
He'd intended to do so himself, but he saw now that his instincts to tell her about it had been true. She was facing him now, and though the sun flashed off her sunglasses, he could see from the angle of her head that he had her full attention.
"He wouldn't want anything from me."
"You're not giving him enough credit. Maybe you're not giving yourself enough either."
He trimmed the sails, caught the wind, and saw the instant she recognized the curve of trees along the shore. She got unsteadily to her feet. "Phillip, however you may feel about me right now, it can't help the situation for you to push me at Seth again so soon."
"I'm not taking you home." He scanned the yard as they passed. "Seth's at the boatyard with Cam and Ethan, in any case. You need a distraction, Sybill, not a confrontation. And for the record, I don't know how I feel about you at the moment."
"I've told you everything I know."
"Yeah, I think you've given me the facts. You haven't told me how you feel, how those facts affect you personally, emotionally."
"It isn't the issue."
"I'm making it an issue. We're tangled up here, Sybill, whether we like it or not. Seth's your nephew, and he's mine. My father and your mother had an affair. And we're about to."
"No," she said definitely, "we're not."
He turned his head long enough to shoot her a glittering look. "You know better than that. You're in my system, and I know when a woman's got me in hers."
"And we're both old enough to control our more basic urges."
He stared at her another moment, then laughed. "Hell we are. And it's not the sex that worries you. It's the intimacy."
He was hitting all the targets. It didn't anger her nearly as much as it frightened her. "You don't know me."