RYING NOT TO MAKE A SOUND, COREY REPOSITIONED AN antique candelabra on the dining room table. From the head of the table, out of range of the shot she was setting up, Spence said, “Don’t worry about making noise. Do what you need to do.”

He had brought his paperwork there so they could be together while she worked. Corey was afraid to admit to herself how much she loved his company and how wonderful it felt to have him pursuing her after all these years. “I don’t want to distract you.”

A lazy, intimate smile swept across his handsome face. “In that case, you’ll have to pack up and leave Newport.”

Corey knew exactly what he meant, but the sweetness of flirting with him, and even getting the upper hand, was too tempting to pass up. “Be patient. We’ll be out of here Sunday morning, and you’ll have this ramshackle old house all to yourself again.”

“That isn’t what I meant, and you know it,” he said calmly, refusing to participate in her game.

That surprised her. Sometimes, she was positive they were indulging in a long-overdue flirtation, but just when she’d adjusted to that and tried to play by the rules, he ended the game and turned serious on her.

“Can you stay a few days longer?”

Corey hesitated, struggling to resist the temptation. “No, I can’t. I have assignments already booked for the next six months.”

She waited, half in hope, half in fear, that he’d urge her to stay longer and she would agree. He didn’t. Evidently he wasn’t that serious. Refusing to acknowledge that it hurt her, Corey turned her attention to safer matters and glanced at the papers spread out in front of him. “What are you working on?”

“I’m considering the pros and cons of a business deal; weighing all the alternatives, balancing the element of risk with the possibilities of gain; going over the research. The usual process of decision making.”

“It isn’t usual for me,” Corey admitted, crouching down and eyeing the effect of the flower arrangement with the candles and heirloom china. “If I went through all of that, I’d never be able to make any decision at all.” Satisfied, she walked over to the tripod and took the picture, then she adjusted for a slightly different angle that would catch the rays of the sun dancing off the crystal and snapped off two more shots.

Spence watched her, admiring her deft skill for a moment, then turning his attention to her other more alluring attributes. He studied the curve of her cheek, the generous softness of her mouth, and watched the sunlight dancing on her hair. She’d pulled the wavy mass up into a ponytail with tendrils at her ears, and it made her look about eighteen years old again. She was wearing white shorts and a T-shirt, and he indulged himself with a leisurely visual caress of her long slim legs and her full breasts while he imagined how she was going to feel in his arms in bed tonight.

She could set him on fire with a kiss, and tonight he intended to fan that fire and let it blaze out of control until it consumed them both. And then he was going to build it up again. He was going to make love to her until she pleaded with him to stop, and then he was going to make her plead for him to start again.

They were meant for each other, he knew that now just as surely as he knew Corey didn’t want to trust him with her heart again. He could persuade her to give him her body tonight, but he needed time to persuade her to give him her heart, and she was trying not to give him that time. He already knew how amazingly steadfast she was once she made up her mind; she had been steadfast in her devotion to him years ago, and now she was just as dedicated to keeping her emotional distance from him. For the first time in his adult life, Spence felt powerless and fearful, because short of tying Corey up, he couldn’t think of a way to make her give him the time to prove himself.

“Stop staring at me,” she said with a smothered laugh, without glancing in his direction.

“How do you know I am?”

“I can feel your eyes on me.”

He heard the tiny tremble in her voice, and he smiled, then he returned to the discussion they’d been having about decision making. “What method do you prefer for making your decisions?”

Corey looked over her shoulder. “Seriously?”

“I’m very serious,” he said, his voice deep with meaning.

Corey ignored that. “For the most part, I act on instinct and impulse. I seem to know in here” – she touched her heart – “what decisions are best. I’ve learned that from expereince.”

“That’s a risk way to handle important things.”

“That’s the only way I can handle them at all. The truth is, if I spend too much time weighing alternatives, balancing the risk against the gain, I become paralyzed with uncertainty, and I end up making no decision at all. My judgment is best when I rely on impulse and instinct.”

“That’s probably a part of your artistic nature.”

Corey smiled. “Maybe, but it’s just as likely that it’s genetic. My mother is the same way. If you give either of us too much time to think, or offer us too many possibilities, we don’t act at all. She told me once that if my stepfather hadn’t rushed her into marriage before she could sort out all the drawbacks from the benefits, if she hadn’t been forced to act on instinct instead of logic, that she wouldn’t have married him at all.”

Mentally, Spence filed that revealing information about Corey away for future use.

“Is that why you’re never married – too many possibilities for failure and too much time to think about all of them?”

“Could be,” Corey evaded, and quickly turned the discussion back to him. “What happened to your marriage?”

“Nothing happened to it,” he said dryly, then he realized that he wanted her to understand. “Sheila’s parents had died the year before my grandmother died, and neither of us had anyone else. When we realized we had only that in common and very little else, we decided to get a divorce while we were still able to be civil to each other.”

Corey opened her camera case and carefully slid the camera into its compartment, then she turned around and leaned against the dining room table, her forehead furrowed into a frown. “Spence… speaking of marriage, I wanted to talk to you about Joy. I don’t know that she’s certain she’s doing the right thing. Does she have anyone she confides in? I mean, where are her friends, her bridesmaids, her fiancé?”

She half expected him to wave the matter off; instead he leaned his head back and ran his hand around behind his neck as if the subject somehow made his muscles tense. “Her mother has picked her frineds, her bridesmaids, and her fiancé,” he said bitterly. “Joy isn’t stupid, she’s simply never been allowed to think for herself. Angela has made every decision for her and then inflicted them on her.”

“What’s her fiancé like?”

“In my opinion, he’s a twenty-five-year-old egomaniac who is marrying Joy because she’s piable and will reinforce his own inflated opinion of himself. I also think he likes having a connection through marriage to German nobility. On the other hand, the last time I saw the two of them together, Joy seemed to like him very much.”

“Will you talk to her?” Corey asked as she turned back and finished packing up her equipment.

“Yes,” he said, his voice so near that his breath stirred the hair on her nape, then his lips grazed her skin and Corey felt an alarming jolt from even that simple contact. “Will you mind having a late dinner? Although I don’t give a damn about any of these people, I do have a duty as host to fulfill at the rehearsal dinner.”

He’d asked her to join him downstairs during the rehearsal festivities, but she’d declined. Corey knew it was insanity to have dinner with him in her room, but she told herself she’d keep things under control, and that they weren’t even eating on the bed, they were eating on the balcony – “A late dinner is fine. It will give me a chance to take a nap.”

“That’s a very good idea,” he said, and with such emphasis that Corey turned around and tried to see his face. He looked completely innocent.