inside it when she turned it on.

Instead, the pink Cadillac purred into life.

The way she once had, beneath that same hand.

Attempting to clear her mind, Caitlin blew out a breath.

The ride was so smooth that if she closed her eyes she couldn't tell

that they were actually moving out of the lot.

But eyes closed or not, she couldn't forget that she was sitting beside Graham.

Though they weren't touching, she could feel his presence engulfing

her.

So," she began a little too brightly, a little too forced, you've acquired a career, a car, so to speak- " she didn't bother hiding the smile that rose to her lips " -and a family since I last saw you."

She slanted a glance in his airection.

"You've been busy."

"You didn't hurt at all, did you, Gray?

Not likeme.

Damn you.

She struggled to maintain an impersonal expression.

If he could seem unaffected, so could she.

He spared her a look.

Only the tight hold on the steering wheel warned him that his feelings

were rising to the surface.

He consciously relaxed his fingers.

"So have you. The store yours?"

Naughty But Nice.

It seemed fitting.

The store was her pride and joy.

It was a nice, safe topic.

"Yes, the store's mine."

"Doing well?"

The car in front of him was doing twenty in a forty-five-mile zone.

Graham signaled and switched lanes.

"Although, I guess that wouldn't matter."

His comment got under her skin.

She looked at him, wanting to jump on something, wanting to vent the

wronged feeling inside her."Why? Why wouldn't it matter?"She sounded offended.He lifted a shoulder carelessly, then let it drop."It's not as though you needed the money."Money.She wondered how high a priority it held in his life these days.It certainly had been paramount once."Maybe I need the respect it affords me."Full, sensuous lips pulled back into almost a grin."Lingerie?"@ Was he ridiculing her? The way her mother had when she had learned about the undertaking? Indignation coaxed the words from

her." Earning my own way.

As if she had to.

He raised a brow.

"What's the matter, mother cut you off?"

She heard the animosity.

She supposed he had a right.

God knew she did.

"No, I cut her off."

There was surprise on his face when he turned to look at her, but he said nothing, waiting for an explanation.

Caitlin sighed.

Maybe in some strange way she owed him this much.

"If she didn't control the purse strings, she couldn't feel as if she

could control me."

Caitlin shrugged.

"Or, at least, that was the message I..-was attempting to send."

Her mother would always think she could control her life.

Regina Cassidy felt she had the God- ' iven right to control everyone's life.

Manipulation had'always been second nature to her.

Graham waited for an opening, then maneuvered his car back into the

right lane.

He had to make a right turn at the next corner.

"Then how did you get the store?"

He was conscious of her sitting up a little straighter in her seat.

"My father left me some money in his will when he died."

Jonathan Cassidy had hardly ever opposed his wife outright, but he

still knew what she was like.

"It didn't all go to Mother."

The revelation took him by surprise.

He'd known that Cassidy was ill, but he hadn't thought it was anything

serious.

"He died?"

"Yes."

Even now, after all this time, she could feel tears gathering at the