As though rooted to the hardwood floor Serena stood, stunned, appalled, confused. It was only the gentle reminder at her temple, the soft throbbing echo of yesterday's headache, that finally freed her from the spot and turned her toward the kitchen. When Tom emerged from the bathroom ten minutes later she had regained a semblance of composure. Nothing had been resolved; the situation hadn't changed. But for the moment she was unable to do anything about it, and making breakfast seemed the only plausible course of action.

"You showered and shaved?" She looked up in surprise at his well-groomed visage as he entered.

Tom grinned. "I hope you don't mind, I helped myself to your things. There's nothing worse than feeling grubby."

"You had enough hot water?" She thought of the indecently long shower she'd taken not terribly long ago.

"Hot water wasn't what I wanted. Except for the shave. And the last of the shower. After the cold water had done its thing." The mischief in his eye did its thing, stirring Serena afresh. "But, yes, I had enough hot water for my needs. Thank you."

Serena shrugged, then turned silently to put the eggs and toast on a plate, which she handed to him. Then she reached for the coffee. She kept her eyes averted, refusing to let his physical appeal blow her mind again. It was only after she'd slid onto the chair opposite his that she dared to look at him again.

"Mmmm, these eggs are just right," he said, ignoring the tension between them.

"You really didn't remember me, did you?" Serena refused to evade the issue.

"Any salt?"

"Tom..."

"The salt?"

She sighed in defeat and reached for the shaker. She watched him sprinkle the salt on his eggs, then start eating again. After several mouthfuls he looked up in surprise.

"You're not eating?" he asked innocently.

"I have toast," she said with a glance to her plate, "and coffee. That's all I ever have."

"Not healthy."

"Neither is salt."

"Touche." He returned to the serious business of eating, undaunted by her claim.

"I didn't even call your bluff." She took a different tack, shaking her head in self-disgust. "You were just fishing for information and I gave it to you."

"You were upset. I'm sure that you're usually much sharper."

"Oh? Now why would you be so sure?" she prodded.

"I looked at you. Your shop. Your apartment. Your life. You must be a very efficient-and sharp-lady to manage everything on your own."

"A person does certain things because she has no other choice."

"You didn't have to open a shop of your own. You could have chosen to go through life without that responsibility."

She held his gaze more confidently. "Sweet Serenity means a lot to me. I need it."

"And you've made a success of it, which makes my point. If you had nothing on the ball"-he tapped his head-"the shop would have folded long ago."

Serena nibbled absently on her toast. "Tom, why did you come to the store yesterday? If you honestly didn't make the connection between the past and me, why did you come?"

"I told you that yesterday. You intrigued me. I wanted to find out who you were."

"And now that you know," she said uneasily, "what do you intend to ... to do with that information?"

"With what information?" He seemed genuinely puzzled.

"The Strickland connection."

He looked at her as though she were warped. "Absolutely nothing! Is there something I should be doing with it?" When Serena didn't reply but merely looked away, he put down his fork. "Serena, that's ancient history. It's a closed book. You seem to be the only one aware of any 'Strickland connection.'"

Her gaze shot back to his. "Not exactly."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," she spoke quietly, tempering the hurt that still lingered, "that some information has a way of finding itself in the wrong people's hands. It's happened before and it could happen again."

"Explain." He rested his chin in the crook between his thumb and forefinger, stroking his jaw thoughtfully.

Suddenly realizing that she had opened up much more than she'd wanted to, she demurred. "Never mind; you were right. It's past history."

But Tom wouldn't let her off the hook. "Finish what you've begun, Serena. What happened?"

Strangely, Tom was the first person to know enough about her past for her to speak freely about the pain of it. Even more strangely, she heard herself telling him about Michael Lowry.

"When I was a senior in high school-I was living with an aunt and uncle in New York at the time-I became involved with a fellow." Her voice lowered with her eyes. "He was in college. Older. More worldly. From a prominent family."

"That mattered to you?"

"No! I couldn't have cared less! But it mattered to him. He let me know in no uncertain terms just how prominent his family was."

"What happened?"

She hesitated, feeling awkward. It was only the compassion on Tom's face that gave her the courage to continue. "As I said, we became involved. It went on for several months. I had been accepted at Duke University, but I wasn't sure I wanted to leave him. So ... I confronted him about it."

"You wanted him to marry you?"

"No, not really. I just wanted him to give me some indication of his feelings. If he had felt that we might marry one day I would have gone to school in New York."

"And...?"

Again she paused, frowning at her clenched hands, swallowing convulsively. This time it was the sight of Tom's hand and its warmth enveloping hers that buoyed her. "He made it very clear that he could ... never marry me. After all," she mimicked Michael's long-ago statement of what he saw as the obvious, "what with my family history, his parents would never have even considered the match."

Tom's body stiffened as his hand tightened over hers. "He was using you all that time?"

"No, I can't really say that." Her gaze was sad but sincere. "We both enjoyed the relationship. He never made any promises. It was me-me who needed the reassurance-me who needed the..."

"... love?"

Her soft-whispered "perhaps" was another beginning. "It had been a very lonely time for me. Once I left California I needed someone to take the place of my family. Oh, I had my aunt and uncle, but there was something strange about their attitude toward me. I've never been able to figure them out-they seemed torn between duty and conscience. They were warm and caring enough, but I can't go so far as to say that they loved me." She shrugged off that particular hurt. "At any rate, Michael filled a need. I thought he loved me. I guess I was simply imagining much more than there was."

For a time there was silence. Tom stood to pour them each more coffee, put the pot back on its warmer, walked to the window, then returned to where Serena sat. "That has to be over ten years ago. Were there any other incidents?"

Serena's laugh held a wealth of bitterness. "You can be sure I never put myself in that position again."

"You haven't been with a man since?"

She ignored the implication. "I haven't looked for anything more than an evening's fun."

"A night's fun?"

"An evening's fun." She sighed. "No, Tom, I sleep alone. That avoids a lot of pain."

"It also rules out fulfillment."

Threatened anew, she looked away. "I fill my life with ... other things."

"Is that why you responded to me the way you did a little while ago?"

"Tom..." she protested.

"No, Serena, don't stop me. You opened up to me as a very passionate woman. Can you really keep all that stopped up inside?"

"I don't."

"But you just implied..."

"No, I don't sleep around. But I don't suffer from pent-up frustration, either. Much as you men would like to believe that every single woman could have all her problems cured by a man, it just isn't so."

"I should hope not." He sipped his coffee slowly, absently. "But the passion's there, Serena. In you. Maybe not for just any man. But it's there for me."

"No," she lied, unwilling to face that fact herself.

Tom didn't push her on it. "Let me ask you something." He hesitated for a moment to gather his thoughts. "Why have you told me all this-about that guy in New York and all?"

Lashing out in self-defense, Serena grew more tense. "Perhaps I wanted you to know some of what I went through as a result of what you did."

"So we're back to that?"

"Always! When I see your face," she lied again, "I see the man who was responsible for all the torment my family suffered. Oh, I know it was my father who committed the crime. You don't have to remind me of that. But you were the one who exposed him so cruelly. You were the one who put him on the front page. You were the one who publicized his error. You were the one who magnified the humiliation for all of us!" In her anguish she bolted from the chair and stormed into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her much as she had done last night, though this time not seeking darkness. On the contrary, it was the light she sought. Reality. Awareness. It was all too easy to forget what Tom Reynolds had done to her family. In his arms it was all too easy to forget everything.

"Serena?"

Whirling around, she found him in her room, not an arm's length away. "Please, Tom. Enough's been said. I've got to get dressed and get to the shop. Please leave."

"All right, Serena. I don't want to upset you. Believe me, it gave me no pleasure to see what I'd done to you last night. But I want you to know that I'm not giving up." Suddenly his quiet air took on an edge.

Her eyes widened fearfully. "What are you talking about?"

"You and me. I didn't spend the whole of last night on your sofa just to wake up this morning, say good-bye, and walk out of your life."

"You have to."

"I don't have to do anything. And"-his gaze narrowed-"I don't think you really want me to vanish."

"Yes I do!"

"Do you?" He tipped his head in skepticism. "Can you deny what happened before? Wouldn't you like to follow it through, to see where it will lead?"

"No!" she whispered on the fragment of a breath.

His hands came down firmly on her shoulders, holding her still when she might have run from him. "Listen to me, Serena." He spoke more softly. "I've been burned, too. My life hasn't been the song and dance you'd like to believe. I've had my share of heartache. And, to be perfectly honest, I don't know what the hell I'm doing telling all this to you. But I spent last night fighting the frustration of wanting you and not knowing why. And if there's one thing I've learned in my business it's that when a hot tip comes in I owe it to myself to follow it. I'm going to follow this one, Serena. It may be a dead end. But somewhere in my gut I have a feeling..."

"No!" she murmured in a half-cry, slowly shaking her head.

"Yes. I'll see it through."

Serena tried to pull away from him, but his grip merely tightened. "No ... no..." He was close and alluring; the battle was now within herself.

"Serena," he moaned with an agony that stilled her. Again she felt herself falling under his spell. "Serena..."

He caught her lips quickly, as though afraid she'd fight. But the devil within her had taken temporary advantage, stirring up her need to the exclusion of reason. His clean scent pervaded her being; his body offered its protection; his lips consumed hers with a hunger that surmounted the purely physical. Serena fought to stay above the tide of passion, but its force quickly overpowered her and, with a soft cry from the back of her throat, she yielded to its drive and was lost.

Or was she? Was this surrender, or victory? Defeat, or discovery? Once more Tom's seductive prowess flooded her with delight, drowning any resistance she might have intended to make. Was she weak in capitulation, or strong in the height of the passion he evoked so easily? It was raw pleasure she felt at his touch, and she thrilled to it.

Eager to explore the glory of her womanhood, she wound her arms over his shoulders and around his neck, thrusting her fingers through the fullness of his hair as she urged him closer. Tom sensed the change and his fierceness eased, calming to a more seductive exploration of her mouth, her eyes, her cheeks. His tongue found her ear and traced its intricacies, sending ripples of excitement from one cell to the other.

Serena glowed, blooming beneath the nourishment of his affection. She reveled in his care, savored his appreciation, all the while seeking more and more from him. Her lips explored the rougher texture of his skin, kissing, nipping, tasting his unique flavor while her hands discovered his manly shape.

The sounds of the morning were gentle ones, soft sighs and breathy moans of delight. When Tom swung around and sat on the edge of her bed she was drawn to him still, held between the strength of his thighs with her arms draped over his shoulders.

"Mmm, Serena," he rasped, trailing the fire of his tongue from her ear to her neck and into the hollow of her throat. She pressed the flush of her cheek against his hair, holding him against her, wanting this joy to continue. Long ago, in another's arms, she had known the pleasures of love, but there was something different now. There was maturity behind it all, a finer realization of the pinnacle of ecstasy to be shared between a man and a woman. Suddenly she wanted to see it through. Suddenly she needed to assuage the taut yearning at her core.

"Yes, Tom," she whispered in a haze of passion as she arched instinctively toward him. She framed his face and tipped it up, lowering her own to kiss him with the heat of the fire that flamed from within. As his mouth covered hers his fingers found the tie to her robe, easily releasing it, pushing the soft fabric aside, trembling as he spanned the flesh of her waist then moved upward.

"Ahhh," Serena whimpered, acutely aware of the throbbing knot inside. "Oh, Tom..."

Her breasts swelled beneath his touch, filling the hand that covered the delicate lace of her bra. The finger that slid within had the gentle roughness of a cat's tongue, driving her to distraction as it worked its way to a pebbled crest tipped with rose. Again she called his name, wanting him, needing him, aching for more than the demands of the morning would allow.

Her impassioned trance was so thick that she wasn't aware of his tension until his hoarse-muttered "Damn it" tore through her. "Damn it," he growled a second time, more vehemently now and with the intent of distracting himself from the love-play that was nearly out of hand.

Gasping for breath, Serena allowed herself to be pushed away. "Tom?"

"Damn it! I don't want this!" he fairly screamed. "I won't do this!"

His face was a sudden mask of anger, terrifying Serena. "What is it?" she asked, frantic. But he wouldn't say anything more. Instead he pushed himself from the bed, headed for the door and disappeared toward the living room, leaving her a shaky melange of desire, frustration, and outright perplexity. "Tom?" she called a final time, but quietly, because something held her back. When she finally dared to venture from her room and searched the apartment he was gone.

Dazed, she returned to her room and sank into her Bentwood rocker, moving absently back and forth to the rhythm of defeat. As it slowly circled the room her eye fell on the clothes she'd discarded so carelessly last night, the bed still mussed from her drugged sleep, the family photo atop her dresser. Despite what he had done to her in the past, and whatever his motives for leaving had been just now, Serena was grateful to Tom for his exit. He'd been only partly right earlier, she mused sadly. For not only would she have hated him had he taken her, as she had all but begged him to do, she would have hated herself forever. And that would have been, by far, the worst.