'I'M OUT of here!'

The terse announcement from Sue sliced through the dark maelstrom of Barbie's thoughts. She lifted her head from the pillow where it had been buried for some time and tried to focus on her friend. 'Where are you going?'

'To a movie. Anywhere.' Her eyes flicked over Barbie's dishevelled state. 'It's obvious you don't plan on going out with Nick, and I'm not sticking around to be hit by flack from the showdown. The Anne Shepherd thing was your idea, not mine.'

'I can't go out with him. Not with this between us.'

'He's coming here,' Sue tersely reminded her. 'What are you going to do? Shut the door in his face?'

'I don't know. I don't know what I'm going to do,' she cried in anguish.

'Well, Nick Armstrong didn't strike me as the kind of guy who accepted having doors shut in his face, so I'm out of here. It's almost a quarter to seven, Barbie. You'd better start shaping up.'

Having delivered this last admonition, Sue was on her way, leaving Barbie to conduct her private business strictly on her own.

A quarter of an hour to go...

Pride forced her off the bed to tidy up her appearance. She exchanged her crumpled clothes for freshly laundered jeans and a blue-and-white checked shirt which she deliberately left hanging loose instead of tucking it in. She didn't want to emphasise her curvy figure, didn't want to look the least bit s.e.xy to Nick's eyes.

She brushed her hair but didn't apply any makeup. Barbie Lamb, au naturel, she thought mockingly, staring at her reflection in the mirror. Nick couldn't say she was coming to him in different guises and playing roles tonight. Nothing fake about a bare face.

The doorbell rang.

Her heart, which had been a dead weight all afternoon, leapt to painful life, catapulting around her chest. The unconscionable rat, who'd knowingly given her enough rope to hang herself with, had come for another bite of her, loaded with the certainty she was here for the taking.

He'd known, before he'd swept her into his bedroom, that she was Barbie Lamb. Nothing that had happened there had anything to do with Anne Shepherd-a woman he'd just met and strongly desired. The admissions he had ripped from her in the heat of intimacy had been cold-bloodedly calculated to give him the upper hand in any further encounter with him.

She'd wanted him.

She'd begged for him.

She'd made love to him.

Burning with these humiliating memories, Barbie forced her legs to carry her through the apartment to the door Nick Armstrong was standing behind. She didn't want to open it, but Sue was right. He wasn't going away. And she was bitterly curious to know how he would explain his behaviour this time around.

There was no younger brother Danny lurking in the wings, providing some excuse for playing his game how he'd chosen to play it. And why he'd brought his sister into it today made no sense at all. He hadn't needed Carole's confirmation of her ident.i.ty. It had been a cruel ploy, like a cat playing with a mouse before he pounced. Just as he had on Monday night.

On a burst of seething anger at his duplicity, Barbie unlocked the door and pulled it open, determined on blasting Nick Armstrong's confidence in manipulating what he wanted. Her grey eyes were as hard and as lethal as silver bullets, but the bullets. .h.i.t a totally unexpected shield before they reached their target.

Her wings!

He was holding out her fairy princess wings...and they were fully restored to their former glory...no trace of damage at all!

One look at Barbie was enough to tell Nick there would be no playing happy families tonight. Tension whipped through him at the obvious evidence that all the female tools for generating s.e.xual attraction had been abandoned. No makeup. Not even a dash of lipstick. And her clothes were more suitable for housework or gardening than for greeting a man whose interest she wanted to keep.

Wipe-out was telegraphed to him loud and clear.

Which meant she had been stringing him along to deliver the hardest, punch-in-the-heart rejection she could.

Anger pumped into a fierce wave of aggression.

He didn't deserve this.

And he wouldn't stand for it.

'Open the door wider so I can bring these wings in for you,' he instructed, determined to catch her off guard long enough to get inside. 'Don't want them damaged again.'

Apparently stunned by seeing them fixed, she stepped aside and let him in. Nick carried them right through the small living area and propped them against the wall next to a hallway which obviously led to bedrooms. He was now in the heart of her private territory and he wasn't about to give up the ground he'd made.

Barbie closed the door automatically, standing against it as she watched the unbelievable proof that he had cared enough to actually follow through on his declared intention. But when had he had the time to mend the broken wings? She felt as confused as she had at seeing them in his office on Monday.

'How did you do it?' she demanded, still seized by a sense of disbelief.

He swung to her with an ironic little smile. 'I contacted a fancy dress costume-maker on Monday afternoon and pa.s.sed everything over to her.'

Her confusion flattened out. 'Someone else did it.'

'I wanted them to be perfect again.'

'Cost no object,' she muttered, remembering Sue's cynical att.i.tude towards his fixing the wings. 'I guess you've found that money smooths the way to anything you want.'

His chin lifted slightly, his eyes narrowing into slits at her unappreciative reception of his effort. 'I simply wanted to give you pleasure.'

'Take it, you mean,' Barbie snapped. 'A whole lot of secret pleasure in leading Barbie Lamb up the garden path and seeing how far she would go.'

His head jerked in surprise at that accusation.

The fury that had been forcibly stored up inside her all afternoon, broke its banks and spilled forth, her eyes blazing contempt for his trickery. 'Don't think you can fool me anymore, Nick. I know you know who I am. I can pinpoint precisely when you realised who I am. Your comment on my eyes over dinner...'

'So why didn't you come out with the truth then?' he shot back at her. 'Why lie in the first place, and why continue the lie, despite every opening I gave you to admit who you are? Seems to me I was the one being set up as the fool.'

She folded her arms protectively, armouring herself against any firepower he thought he had against her. 'I didn't want you to connect me to any memories you had of Baa-Baa Lamb.'

'I never called you that, Barbie.'

'You thought it of me, always following you around whenever I was given the chance. So much so I caused a problem for you and you had to put a stop to it.'

His mouth thinned, biting back any further denial.

'Anne Shepherd let me be me now,' she cried, hating the knowledge he'd hidden to pursue his own way with her. 'It let me meet you without you thinking of me like that. Me now, Nick, and when it stopped being me now, you should have told me. Instead of which you chose to play your own secret game.'

'It was your game,' he retorted, anger blazing into his eyes. 'And I didn't know what the h.e.l.l you were up to.'

'If it worried you, why didn't you come straight out with it?

'And have you walk away from me?'

'As you did from me? Bit of guilt there, Nick? Did you decide I was out to get you and dump you?'

Heat speared across his cheeks. 'It was a possibility,' he answered tersely.

'So instead of risking that possibility, you set out to colour the past differently, spinning me that story about Danny, making yourself out to be the n.o.ble older brother, standing aside for him to step in.'

'It was the truth,' he a.s.serted emphatically.

She tossed her head in scorn for his truth. 'Well, you certainly weren't standing aside for anything this time. It was straight up to your apartment, into your bedroom...'

'You could have stopped it anytime,' he sliced in, the air between them sizzling with a ferment of cross-currents.

'So could you,' she hurled back, and out poured the tumult of bitter feelings his deception had stirred. 'You were getting too much of a kick out of it, weren't you? Remembering I'd once had a crush on you, and here I was, all grown up enough to whisk off to bed. Did it feel great, getting me to admit I wanted you, driving me to the brink, then holding off to make me beg for you...'

'd.a.m.n it!' he exploded, his hands whipping up in an emphatic gesture of frustration. 'You're twisting everything around. I just wanted you to admit who you were. I wanted it to be real between us.'

'How much more flesh-and-blood real can you get?'

'I didn't think you'd go that far and when you did, still without identifying yourself-and I gave you every chance to, Barbie-' He started walking towards her, his hands spreading in appeal.

'You stop right there, Nick Armstrong!' she commanded, her eyes flaring a fierce warning. 'I'm calling the shots now!'

He stopped, his hands falling to his sides, clenching. 'You were calling them all along, Barbie. The fairy princess act you played was designed to stir me up, and don't you deny it.'

'Yes.' Her chin went up in belligerent pride. 'I wanted to get a different reaction from you than I got at your twenty-first birthday party.'

'A sweet slice of revenge.' He nodded as though he'd known it all along, his eyes glinting accusingly as he read more into it. 'Did it give you a kick, doing the walking away after you'd sung to me this time around?'

Barbie refused to feel guilty. He'd made her pay for what little vengeance she'd taken on him. 'That was the intention,' she frankly acknowledged. 'But when you kissed me...' The memory of her response caused a rush of hot blood to her cheeks. '...it stirred everything up for me and I wished I hadn't done it.'

'Until you had second thoughts and came to my office to see if there was more reaction to be had,' he bit out grimly. 'And when there was, you carried it further...and further...taking me where you wanted it to go. And don't you deny that, either.'

'I didn't know you had Barbie Lamb in your mind,' she flung back at him in a fury of resentment.

'But you had me in your mind.' He started walking towards her, seething with the accusations he continued to hurl. 'You were remembering. All the time you were remembering. Questioning me. Putting me on trial. Do you think I didn't feel it?'

'I didn't mean you to feel it,' she countered, although what he said was true, making her feel uneasy about her own private agenda and prompting a defence. 'I just wanted to find out where I stood with you.'

'Without letting me know where I stood with you,' he mocked. 'And just how long was that to go on for, Barbie? When was Anne Shepherd going to turn into you? When you'd had enough of me so you could do what you meant to do in the first place? Leave me wanting you and walk away?'

'I wasn't out for revenge. Not after the fairy princess thing. I just wanted to be sure I wasn't some fly-by-night affair to you before I laid myself on the line. I would have told you once I felt safe with you,' she defended, drawing herself up tautly, unfolding her arms, ready to fight as he closed in on her.

He came to a halt directly in front of her, using the power of his physique to make her feel she was on the judgement stand. His eyes glittered a savage challenge as he continued his cross-examination.

'So why treat my sister as you did...if you really wanted some future with me? You rejected her attempt at reviving an old friendship and her invitation to a family celebration.'

'I was in shock. The coincidence...except it wasn't a coincidence,' she threw at him bitterly. 'You shouldn't have dragged your sister into it.'

'It was the only way I could think of to make you stop hiding from me. And to flush the truth out of you. I needed to know what was in your heart...hope for some future with me or vengeance for what you obviously perceived as my rejection of you.'

It had been hope. But it was painfully obvious there was no hope of any understanding between them now. The situation was irreparably damaged by her deception and his reaction to it, making it impossible to see where the truth lay anymore.

His eyes raked derisively over her clothes. 'Seeing you dressed like this, the answer is clear. You're even standing by the door to show me out.'

Was this the end of what had started so promisingly on Monday night? Was this the end she wanted? Her sinking heart screamed no. Her mind scrambled to find some saving grace. Before she could say or do anything he moved. His hands fell on her shoulders, curling around them as though he was going to shake her.

'But not quite yet, Barbie. Before I leave...I'll give you the sweetest revenge of all.'

His face was so close to hers, his eyes were like magnets, drawing on her soul. Her mind was torn, wanting to deny she'd ever set out to be vengeful, yet guiltily aware that she had secretly revelled in scoring off him.

His grasp loosened and his hands slid along her shoulders, up her throat, cupping her face as he spoke with an intensity that gripped her heart and squeezed it. 'I want you, Barbie Lamb. Even knowing you're intent on twisting the knife and turning me out of your life, I still want you.'

His fingers stroked slowly up her cheeks, into her hair above her ears, raking it behind her lobes. 'Is that sweet to hear?' His eyes burned into hers. 'Let me make it even sweeter for you. Much better to taste the wanting, feel the wanting.'

Her heart was pounding so hard she couldn't think. Couldn't move, either. His head was bending and she knew he was going to kiss her. The sizzle of challenge was in his eyes, heating her blood, stirring needs she couldn't repress, memories of how it had been together.

Then his mouth was covering hers, his warm lips grazing seductively, igniting tingles of excitement, his tongue tantalising, not forcing an opening but holding out the tempting promise of deeply plummeting pa.s.sion surging between them.

Would it happen again? Even now? With so much negative turmoil still churning away inside her? Helplessly distracted, Barbie couldn't resolve what was right and wrong. And her mouth craved a deeper kiss, a more telling kiss. No conscious decision was made. Her lips parted of their own accord and let Nick Armstrong in.

Instantly sensation swamped her. From the top of her scalp to the extremities of her toes every nerve came alive with excitement and the antic.i.p.ation of more excitement. His kiss was so powerfully invasive, so pa.s.sionately penetrating, resisting it was utterly impossible. Any such thought didn't even enter her mind. There was no thought, only a wild surge of need to possess him just as pervasively. It triggered a fierce response.

Her hands flew around his head, fingers clawing through his hair, holding him to her. He dropped his arms, wrapped them around her back and hauled her body into hard-pressed contact with his. There could be no mistaking his arousal, his desire for her. The wanting was not a lie. She could taste it, feel it, and again Barbie revelled in it, exulting in his taut masculinity, every bit of him straining to satisfy his need to capture and possess the whole sense of her.

She felt his hand move under her shirt, sliding up her bare back, unclipping her bra, and the instant loosening of her clothing shot a spear of alertness through the haze of her own urgent wanting. Was this right...this mind-blowing drive for s.e.xual release?

Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were aching for his touch. She was acutely aware of his hand gliding under her arm, reaching the soft swell of her flesh, nudging aside the unfastened bra, fingers encircling, softly squeezing, thumb fanning her nipple which was so hard and sensitised, the shock of pleasure had her moaning for more. She didn't want to stop it, didn't want to pause to consider anything.

Until he stopped it, dropping his hand to the waistband of her jeans, seeking to pull open the stud fastening. The realisation that he meant to take her right here, up against the door, shook Barbie out of her complicity in the intimacies that were fast leading to absolute commitment to the desire raging through her. Was this the only level of wanting Nick felt for her? Was he using s.e.x in a last drive to keep her with him...for more s.e.x?

The sudden pain in her heart eclipsed the needs pounding through the rest of her body. Her hands shot from his hair and slammed against his shoulders as she wrenched her mouth from the pa.s.sionate persuasion of his.

'No!' It was a raw gasp. She threw back her head, gulping in more air. 'No!' It was an anguished cry, vehemently denying the physical upheaval pleading against this enforced parting.

'This is the you now, Barbie. The me now. You feel it. I feel it. Give it a chance,' Nick pleaded hoa.r.s.ely, his eyes blazing conviction.

His arms wrapped around her again, hands curling around her b.u.t.tocks, lifting her into an intimate fit with his erection, blatantly reminding her of what they had shared before. 'What we have together is very special,' he declared, his voice throbbing in her ears. 'You know it is. And I won't let you walk away from it, just because I did what I thought was best for you nine years ago.'

Best for her!

The cruellest cut of all...without so much as a word of kindness to soften it?

He was lying!

The wanting now was no lie, but he was trying to manipulate her feelings, just as he had manipulated them on Monday night. Today, as well, arranging the confrontation with his sister. This was Nick wanting his own way, getting his own way, never mind what she felt. Just like nine years ago.

She slammed her hands against his chest and pushed with all her strength. 'Let me go! Get away from me!'

The violence of feeling in her voice and action effected separation from him. He stepped back, releasing her and lifting his hands in vehement appeal, his face expressing angry bewilderment at her rejection. 'Why?' he demanded. 'You were with me. Just as you were when we made love on Monday night. I wasn't forcing myself on you.'

'No. But s.e.x doesn't override everything else. Not for me it doesn't,' she cried, her eyes accusing him of taking unfair advantage of her vulnerability.