She shook her head. “That’s why they’re drinking.” She motioned downstairs. “That’s not why you are. Of course it’s none of my business. For that matter if you want me to go…” She made to get up again but his long arm reached out, a mammoth hand enclosing hers in a small, unexpectedly sensual little prison.

“Stay.” The please was there, though he didn’t say it. She felt loneliness-something she understood very well. She had the impulse to flee. This man spelled danger. She was out of her league. But the urge faded and she had the strange desire to comfort and soothe.

He took so long to answer that she was certain he wasn’t going to. When he did, his voice was gruff and impatient. “I’ve just had enough of cement and pollution…of using people like rungs on a ladder.” He was looking out over the lake, not at her. “But in a year or two I very well may not care anymore. There was an article in yesterday’s paper. My company, taking over another. A ‘financial coup’ they labeled it.” He shook his head. “What it was was taking advantage of another man when he’s down.”

He talked-a world completely foreign to her, but it didn’t matter. She was listening to him on another level entirely. So cynical, so hard, the words spit out from him as if he’d forgotten how to talk about his feelings. “Don’t do it then,” she said simply. “Do something else. Something that you want-that you need.”

“God, you sound young,” he said dryly. He reached beside him to switch on a small table lamp. She felt his eyes sweep over her as if they were fingers, assessing the quality of her dress, her hair, her skin. She shivered uncomfortably, wary of the sensual appraisal again and yet strangely compelled to sit still for it. He had admitted he was a predator, but she did not feel like prey. His face seemed to soften the more he stared. “It isn’t just young in years, is it?” he asked, probing quietly. “It’s in those bright eyes. We still believe in rainbows, do we? Happy endings? Love?”