Banish Misfortune by Anne Stuart

tempt her appetite and trick her stomach into accepting nourishment. The merger was coming down to the wire, Lincoln was becoming more and more difficult to put off, and Peter was only an added note of confusion to the whole mess. He had finally formally proposed, suggesting they wait till after the merger for an official announcement. Jessica could recognize Jasper Kinsey's fine hand in that—he wanted to make sure his son would have an out if the deal fell through. She should have a lovely time tonight, she thought cynically, seated between Lincoln and Peter, their hands on either knee. Damn them all, anyway.
    She had no intention of sleeping with Rickford Lincoln. She had come to that irrevocable decision when she woke up late the next morning two weeks ago and found that Springer MacDowell had decamped. Not that his abrupt departure had anything to do with it, she told herself righteously. She had merely come to the belated realization that yes, she was worth more than a corporate hustler. She was more than capable of leading one lecherous old man along without getting caught.
    Peter, however, was another matter. Without examining her motives, Jessica had done everything she could to avoid sleeping with her finac6. She had never been enthusiastic about the idea, and the night she spent with Springer somehow put the seal on it. She hadn't told him about it, as Peter had made it more than clear that he didn't want to know. And he hadn't pushed her into bed—he'd been, as always, a complete gentleman, willing to accede to her needs and demands. If his high, aristocratic brow wrinkled in confusion more often, Jessica ignored it with an unaccustomed cowardice. He had waited months to sleep with her, he could certainly wait a little while longer.
    With the grace that she had taught herself and was now second nature, she weaved her tall, slender body between the tables at Cassin's, following Elberto's military bearing as he led her. She knew she was looking her best. The simple gray silk sheath had been taken in that afternoon to fit her diminishing contours, her wheat-colored hair hugged her beautifully shaped head, the mauve shadows around her fine eyes only made them bluer.
    The warm strains of music accompanied her journey, and inwardly Jessica flinched. That was the one drawback with Cassin's: the small, intimate dance floor. She had no doubt that Lincoln loved to dance, and she resigned herself to a period of groping later that evening. She would have to be very careful to be just encouraging enough to keep him on the fine edge of bewitched, without pushing him over into impatience and near-assault. Peter could be counted on to help in that matter—his emotions were clearly tangled every time he chaperoned Lustful Lincoln, as Jessica privately termed him. On the one hand he was quite unaccountably, endearingly jealous of the old man. On the other, he was obviously terrified that something might jeopardize the merger. He hadn't come right out and asked Jessica to bed Lincoln, but she had the melancholy suspicion that the moment might come.
    "There you are, darling!" Peter rose with his usual fluid grace, and Lincoln lumbered up beside him. "I was worried about you. I can't imagine why you wouldn't let me pick you up."
    "Because I like my independence at times," she replied lightly, giving Lincoln her perfect smile, cool, with just a promise of banked fires. Fires that would fizzle out, she realized with cynical amusement, the moment he breathed that Scotch-laden breath on her. "How are you, Mr. Lincoln?"
    "How many times have I asked you to call me Line?" he said plaintively, his eyes gleaming beneath the bushy gray eyebrows. It was a game they played, and she positioned the appropriate simper on her face.
    "How are you, Line?" she said. Honestly, at times it was like taking candy from a baby. Men were so damnably transparent, most of them. Maybe that's why the chase had lost its savor. They were all the same, she thought