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  Jett was making note of each detail before he finally returned her look. The black fires leaping in his eyes ignited an answering spark in the lower half of her body, aroused by the rapacious hunger in his gaze. Glenna swayed toward him. There was a slight tremor in his hands as he reached out to loosely grip the sides of her waist.

  "How can I persuade you to change your mind, Jett?" Her voice was one step away from a whisper.

  Her fingers were splayed across the front of his shoulders. Beneath the material of his shirt, she could feel the tautness of his muscles, as if he was holding all his instinct in check.

  "This is an appeal to the lascivious side of my nature, isn't it?" he asked as his wandering gaze noted the uneven rise and fall of her breasts beneath the lace bodice of her nightgown. "You came here tonight to convince me to help by tempting me with your body. Are you prepared to carry it through?"

  His bluntness seemed to cast a sordid light on her behavior. She lowered her gaze to the unbuttoned collar of his shirt as she struggled to defend her present action. "I love my father. I can't stand by while he's being destroyed without trying to save him. It doesn't matter what I have to do in order to accomplish that."

  "Why did you think you could change my mind?" His breath fanned her temples, warm and tangy with tobacco Smoke, while his hands inched her closer to him.

  "You once said that I tempted you. I wasn't sure whether you meant it or if it was just a line you'd used many times before," Glenna admitted on a breathless note because his mouth was nuzzling her cheek and ear.

  "You're not tempting," Jett murmured, working his way to the curve of her neck. "You're irresistible. You knew exactly what would happen when you knocked on my door."

  "I hoped." She tipped her head to one side, giving him more access to the sensitive areas he sought and inviting him to continue the stimulating exploration.

  From the base of her throat, he nibbled up the other side of her neck. A soft moan escaped her lips as they sought the satisfaction of his kiss. His mouth hardened on hers, spreading a hot and brilliant glow through her body. The pressure of his hands increased, threatening to crack her ribs as the intensity of his need engulfed him. His tongue probed apart her lips and teeth to unite with her tongue.

  Her hands slid around his neck, her fingers seeking the thickness of his lustrous black hair. A fiery heat seemed to turn her bones to liquid as the crush of his hands fitted her to his length. The sleek material of her gown was a thin barrier, blocking out none of the sensations of his hard embrace. His caressing hands made restless forays over her shoulders, back and hips, relentless in their need to touch and possess every possible inch of her.

  Slowly Jett dragged his mouth from hers while raising his head no more than a breath's reach from her lips. "You know I want to make love to you." His low husky voice was a rough caress. "I can feel the way you're vibrating. You knew this was going to happen when you came; that it would ultimately come to this moment."

  "Yes." Her face remained uplifted, her eyes trained on the tantalizing nearness of his mouth, her lips parted in an aching invitation for his possession.

  "And your sole reason is because of your father. Would you be here now; Glenna, if I was a fat old man?" Jett mused.

  "I don't know," she admitted, because she had not been presented with that situation. Jett was a virile, exciting man who desired her, and who was in a position to help her father.

  "Your loyalty to your father runs deep, but I'll never believe that you would have considered using sex as a bargaining tool if I hadn't aroused you." His mouth brushed her lips as he spoke the words, claiming them at the end of the sentence.

  The tidal wave of passion that flooded through her veins made it impossible for Glenna to argue with his statement. His arms shifted to scoop her off the floor and hold her cradled against his chest.

  The door to a bedroom was standing ajar. Jett kicked it the rest of the way open and carried her into the lightless room. Slowly lowering her feet to the floor, he stood her up beside the bed. His hands glided up her sides, pulling her gown with them and lifting it off her head. The room was all in shadows with only a glimmer of light shining in from the sitting room as he began unbuttoning his shirt. Glenna could barely see what he was doing. A wild anticipation licked along her veins, sending tremors over her skin.

  "You are going to help my father, aren't you?" That was still the motive for her presence. It was where she got her strength. Discretion would have sent her from the room, long ago.

  His arms clasped her shoulders to draw her naked body to the hair-roughened bareness of his chest. Despite the dimness, his mouth found her lips and locked sensually over them. His kiss gave Glenna her answer.

  "No more talking," he murmured and leaving her standing beside the bed, he began to shed his clothing.

  Everything was going to be all right, thanks to Jett. Her father was not going to lose his purpose in life, his will to live. Jett was giving it all back to him. Something wet trickled down her cheekbone. Tears that had been forbidden to fall for so long were now slipping out of her eyes. It seemed right, somehow, that they were being shed in happiness.

  Her arms opened to Jett now undressed, gathering his muscled torso into her embrace. Her breast swelled as his hand took its weight in his palm. A muffled groan escaped his throat before his mouth claimed her yielding lips but then he dragged his mouth from hers and stiffening, lifted his head.

  "Are you crying?" His puzzled question indicated that he had tasted the saltiness of her tears on her skin.

  "Yes." She smiled while her hands glided over the steel smoothness of his shoulders. Glenna knew she had to explain. "I can't help it. I'm happy. You've made everything all right again. I can see dad's face when I tell him that you have changed your mind."

  There was a long silence during which Jett remained perfectly still, looking at her in the darkness. Then, with a heavy sigh, he turned away from her. "I can't help your father, Glenna." An iron thread ran through his low statement.

  It gripped her by the throat, numbing her with disbelief. "What?" It was barely a whisper.

  "I can't help him," Jett repeated his statement more forcefully.

  All she could see was the dark silhouette of his back. "You let me believe you were going to so you could make love to me," she accused in a voice that ached with his betrayal.

  "Yes, I did," he muttered tersely. "And I wish to hell that I'd kept my damned mouth shut!"

  "But I thought we made a bargain." Glenna saw him bend to pick up his pants. She heard the rustle of the material as he stepped into them and zipped them up.

  "I never agreed to it," he reminded her. He tossed something at her in the darkness. It landed at her feet. "You'd better put that on."

  The touch of her fingers recognized the material of her nightgown. When she looked up, Jett was vanishing through the doorway into the sitting room.

  Chapter Eight

  HER FINGERS CURLED into the material of the gown, its silken texture contrasting with the rawness of her nerves. A desperate kind of angry confusion pushed her into action as Glenna picked up the gown and slipped it over her head. She tugged its length down over her hips and hurried after Jett.

  She paused in the doorway, her gaze sweeping the sitting room to find him. Shiftless, he was standing at the table, lighting a cigarette. Glenna seethed with the knowledge of how very close he had come to tricking her.

  "Why did you do it?" Her voice shook on the hoarse demand.

  His dark gaze sliced to her, slashing over the provocative nightgown that covered her shapely form. With a disregard for the order of the papers stacked on the tabletop, he snatched the robe she had laid on them and lobbed it across the room to her.

  "You'd better put that on, too," he snapped.

  She was forced to catch it as it swirled around her middle. Jett half turned away, tense muscles rippling and flexing along the back of his shoulders as he ran a hand over his rumpled black hair. Acting out of i
nstinct, Glenna slipped her arms into the sleeves of the robe.

  "Why?" she repeated her question with the insistence of hardness.

  "My God, surely you can guess!" Jett retorted with a fury that was barely contained. "Let me run through the scene for you. A sexy redhead knocks on my door in the middle of the night, dressed in a clinging negligee. When I let her in, she asks for my help. And in return, she'll go to bed with me. Since I want to go to bed with her, I take advantage of the situation—the same as any man with a normal sex drive would do."

  The anger of shame scalded her. "I trusted you, but it was all a deception." Glenna choked on a bitter laugh. "God, you must have been laughing at how gullible I was!"

  "If that was true, we'd be in that bedroom right now making love!" The partially smoked cigarette was crushed in the ashtray and left to smolder. With long impatient strides Jett crossed the width of the room to a credenza and opened a door to take out a decanter of Scotch and a glass. "The deception worked, but unfortunately, I couldn't go through with it."

  At the moment Glenna found no consolation in that fact as she watched him splash a jigger of Scotch in the glass and bolt it down. She was too filled with degradation because she had nearly sold herself for nothing. The loss of self-respect was shattering.

  "Whatever gave me the ridiculous idea that you would agree to help my father? I should have realized what kind of man you are when you admitted you knew he would be financially ruined if you turned him down this afternoon." Glenna had realized, but she had been too filled with her foolishly noble purpose to notice it at the time. "You weren't interested in helping him—only yourself."

  "I can't help him!" Jett angrily stressed the verb, slamming the glass down on the Credenza.

  "Ha!" It was a scornful sound. "You won't help him because it doesn't suit you to do so. You can't get any bigger than Coulson Mining. I'm not an expert, but even I know that!"

  "Do you think your father is the only one in the industry who suffered financial problems during that long strike a year ago?" he challenged. "Multiply his problems a hundredfold and that's what I had. My company lost money then, too, because the overhead and management went on. My stock of coal supplies was exhausted because I had contracts to deliver coal. When that ran out I had to buy coal to make the shipments, which meant paying a higher price. My firm is recovering just as your father's would have if he hadn't ran afoul of the safety regulations. I can't absorb his losses without risking my company. I can't do that. It's his life versus hundreds. Can you understand that?"

  His harshness, his roughness made Glenna see how impossible it had been from the outset—how hopeless. She burned over the way he had dangled them on a string, letting them think he might save them when he knew all along he couldn't.

  "It was cruel to let us think you were considering dad's proposal," she accused.

  "I did consider it…very seriously." Jett was gritting his teeth as if suppressing the urge to retaliate with matching anger.

  "Do you expect me to believe that?" she taunted. "Why would you? You've already made it clear that it was impossible from the beginning."

  "Why?" He repeated her question while he began taking ominous steps in her direction, his dark eyes blazing. "I can answer that in one word—you. It has to be obvious that I'm attracted to you, that I was from the moment I met you. When I found out how much trouble your father was in, I wanted to believe there was a way I could help because I cared about you. Why the hell do you think I stayed up all night, walking and thinking and scheming?"

  "You knew this morning what the answer would be, didn't you? But you made us wait all day!" Glenna was near tears again, her eyes luminous with the gray green color of storm-tossed seas. "Why didn't you put us out of our misery? Why did you drag it out?"

  "If I told you this morning, what would you have done?" he challenged coldly, coming to a stop in front of her. The intimidating breadth of his naked shoulders and chest towered before her eyes. "You'd be hating me—the way you are now. The name Coulson Mining means dollar signs to you. Even now after I've explained to you, you still believe I could have helped your father. I would end up getting blamed for your father's failure. So I stole this morning. And I would have taken tonight with you. I should have. You were more than willing."

  He raked her with a look that reminded Glenna just how willing she had been. She was sickened by the way she had bartered herself, and subsequently embittered that he tread on her unsuspecting nature.

  "You don't have to remind me of that," she protested huskily.

  "You aren't going to give me credit for telling you the truth, are you?" he declared with disgust. "I didn't carry out the deception. I could have."

  "I'm amazed that you didn't." Sarcasm crept into her voice as she blindly turned away. "I can't believe how incredibly naive I was. For my father's sake I was going to give myself to you, so certain that you would appreciate my gallant gesture. But I forgot I was dealing with a ruthless magnate instead of a gentleman."

  "I can't prevent your father from losing what he has, but if you need anything, Glenna—" Jett began, ignoring her insulting words.

  "I'll never come to you," she flared. "I never want to hear your name again."

  Because she knew it would always remind her of the way she had opened herself to humiliation. She had lowered herself—cheapened her father's name—with her foolish tactics. She could never forgive Jett, because she couldn't forgive herself.

  With hot tears filling her eyes she hurried toward the door. Jett called her name, but she didn't pause. Afraid he would pursue her, she rushed down the hallway to her suite, breathing in sobs. Tears were streaming down her cheeks when she slipped, inside the room and closed the door.

  "Glenna? Glenna, is that you?" Her father's voice called to her from the open door to the adjoining suite.

  Quickly she swallowed the sobs in her throat and wiped hurriedly at hot moisture on her cheeks. "Yes." There was a thready sound to her voice. Footsteps approached the doorway. She sniffed back some tears and tried to sound calm. "Did you want me, dad?"

  "Where have you been?" The forlorn question was echoed by his expression when he appeared in the opening. "I called several times but you weren't here."

  Glenna was careful not to face him directly as she turned down the covers of her bed and took her time plumping the pillows. "I'm sorry. Did you need something?" Although she tried hard to conceal it, there was a definite waver in her voice.

  "Where were you?" His attention sharpened at the way she avoided his question.

  Hesitating, she realized she couldn't hide the truth from him. "I went to talk to Jett," she admitted thinly. "I thought I might persuade him to change Iris mind."

  There was an awkward silence. "In your nightclothes?"

  The accusal struck a raw nerve and lifted her hurt gaze to his paling face. The tiredness and defeat became mixed with dismay.

  "Yes," Glenna whispered as she began to shake with the sobs she could no longer hold back. "I'm sorry, dad, but I just couldn't stand by while you lost everything." It seemed to take him a long time to cross the room to where she stood. Intense sadness gleamed in his eyes. Quietly he studied her wretched expression.

  "What happened, baby?" he asked with grim concern.

  "Nothing," She shook her head in a mute kind of pain and shuddered when his arms went around her to comfort her. "He insists that he isn't in a position to help you."

  "Then he didn't—" Her father paused, not needing to finish the sentence.

  "No." It was a rasped answer as Glenna began to cry softly. "I wanted to make things right for you. Instead I've hurt you more, haven't I?"

  He gathered her into his arms and hugged her close. "This is all my fault," he murmured.

  "No. You aren't to blame." She refused to let him take that burden as she rested a wet cheek against his flannel robe. "It was all my idea. I was so desperate that I didn't stop to think how embarrassing it might be to you. On top of losing everyth
ing you have worked all your life to build, now I've let you down."

  "I'm afraid I let you down," he sighed heavily. "I had given up because I thought I had lost everything in life that mattered. But I still have you, Glenna. I should have remembered that."

  She closed her eyes. "Can we leave first thing in the morning? I can't face Jett again."

  "You were beginning to like him, weren't you?" He drew his head back to look at her.

  "I could have, if he had been different." But that wasn't exactly the truth. "If circumstances had been different," she corrected.

  He patted her gently. "You climb into bed. Maybe tomorrow morning things won't look as bleak as they do now." With an arm around her shoulder, he urged her toward the bed.

  "Are you all right?" Self-consciously she wiped at the tears on her cheeks and lifted her head to study him.

  "I will be," he promised, but he looked exceptionally tired when he smiled to reassure her.

  After she was in bed he tucked the covers around her and bent stiffly to brush a kiss on her forehead. Before he left the room he turned off the light. Lying beneath the covers in the dark, Glenna thought about the episode with Jett and how much worse it could have been. He hadn't carried out the deception to its final conclusion. Her anger had been a face-saving device to salvage her pride. Knowing that did not improve Glenna's opinion of herself.

  A HAND shook her awake. She groaned a protest, weighted by some sleepy depression that she didn't understand. But the hand on her shoulder was insistent that she should wake up. Finally she rolled onto her back and opened her eyes. Memory rushed back with the sunlight flooding the room. First, Jett's announcement that there would be no merger, then her father's despondency, followed by her disastrous attempt to appeal to Jett to reconsider. Pain sawed on her nerve ends.