Man of Ice by Diana Palmer Page B

Barrie will help, too, won’t you?” he added with a smile in his fiancée’s direction.
    “Certainly,” Barrie replied in a lackluster voice.
    “I have some wonderful CDs, just perfect for dancing to,” Leslie added. “Including some old forties torch songs,” she added flirtatiously. “Do you dance, Barrie?” she asked.
    “I haven’t in quite some time,” the other woman replied politely. “But I suppose it’s like riding a bicycle, isn’t it?”
    “It will come back to you,” Dawson assured her. His eyes narrowed as he stared at her. “If you’ve forgotten the steps, I’m sure I can teach you.”
    She glanced up, flushing a little as she met his calculating stare. “I’m learning all the time,” she said shortly.
    He lifted an eyebrow and grinned at Leslie. “We’ll have a good time,” he promised her. “And now, suppose we go over that contract I had my attorney draw up, just to make sure it’s in order? Barrie, you won’t mind, will you?” he added.
    Barrie lifted her chin proudly. “Certainly not,” she replied. “After all, it’s just business, isn’t it?”
    “What else would it be?” he drawled.
    What else indeed! Barrie thought furiously as she watched him close the study door behind himself and the widow Holton.
    She went up to her room and locked the door. She’d never been so furious in all her life. He’d wanted her to come here and pretend to be engaged to him to keep the widow at bay, and now he was behaving as if it were the widow he was engaged to! Well, he needn’t expect her to stay and be a doormat! He could have his party Friday, and she’d be on her way out of town first thing Saturday morning. If he liked the widow, he could have her.
    She lay down on the bed and tears filled her eyes. Who was she kidding? She still loved him. It was just like old times. Dawson knew how she felt and he was putting the knife into her heart again. What an idiot she’d been to believe anything he told her. He was probably laughing his head off at how easily he’d tricked her into coming here, so that he could taunt her some more. Apparently she was still being made to pay for his father’s second marriage. And she’d hoped that he was learning to care for her. Ha! She might as well cut her losses. She’d tell him tomorrow, she decided. First thing.

Six
    B ARRIE told Dawson that she’d be leaving after the party. Her statement was met with an icy silence and a glare that would have felled a lesser woman.
    “We’re engaged,” he said flatly.
    “Are we?” She took off the emerald ring and laid it on his desk. “Try it on the widow’s finger. Maybe it will fit her.”
    “You don’t understand,” he said through his teeth. “She’s only selling me the tract. There’s nothing to be jealous of.”
    Her eyebrows lifted. “Jealous?” she drawled sarcastically. “Why, Dawson, why should I be jealous? After all, I’ve got half a football team of men just panting to take me out back in Tucson.”
    He hadn’t had a comeback. The remark threw him completely off balance. By the time he regained it, cursing his own lack of foresight, she’d gone out the door. And until the night of the party, she kept him completely at bay with plastic smiles and polite conversation.
    * * *
    It had been a long Friday evening, and all Barrie wanted was to go back to her room and get away from Dawson. All night she’d watched women, mostly Leslie Holton, fawn over him while he smiled that cynical smile and ate up the attention. He wasn’t backing away from Leslie tonight. Odd, that sudden change.
    Barrie had been studiously avoiding both of them all night, so much so that Corlie, helping serve canapés and drinks, was scowling ominously at her. But Barrie couldn’t help her coldness toward Dawson. She felt as if he’d sold her out all over again.
    The surprise came when Leslie Holton announced that she was going to leave and went to her car instead of her room. Barrie watched from the