For Now and Forever by Diana Palmer

Author:Diana Palmer [Palmer, Diana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HQN Books
Published: 2019-07-29T18:30:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

JOLANA KNEW NO one at the party except for Margery and her husband. And although Nick’s mother and the other three couples did their best to make Jolana welcome, she was uneasy at best. Nick was attentive, as if he were trying to win her all over again. But Margery was eying him covetously, obviously. And as she expected, eventually, Margery managed to finagle a dance with him. And, minutes later, they disappeared.

Without knowing why, Jolana found herself standing beside Margery’s thin husband, Andrew, at the punch bowl.

“Nice party,” she murmured drily, lovely in her strapless white gown, with her hair loose.

“Is it?” Andrew scoffed. He looked down at her with a sigh. “You’re very beautiful. Why is it that Nick can’t see it?”

“See what?” she asked hesitantly.

He lifted his glass to his lips. “Never mind. Doesn’t matter.” He sighed heavily. “Not anymore, it doesn’t matter. How do you compete with a guy like that, when he gets thrown up to you every day, every night?” He took another swallow from the glass. “Damn Nick!”

She knew just how he felt, but there was nothing she could do. And anything she said would only make it worse. “Does that help?” she asked quietly, nodding toward the drink in his hand.

He stared at her. “No. It makes it worse. But I’ve fallen on hard times and bad habits,” he said ironically as his eyes wandered over her face. “Is there any chance that he’ll marry you?”

She smiled sadly and shook her head. “No, I shouldn’t think so. He isn’t a marrying man.”

“You couldn’t really believe that,” he asked.

“But I do,” she replied. She poured herself a small glass of punch and sipped it. “Have you known him a long time?”

“Since we were teenagers. I took Margery away from him.” He laughed coldly. “But although I won the battle, he won the war. He’s as cold as ice, your Nick, except where Margery is concerned. But don’t let that stop you from trying. Who knows? Maybe you’ll succeed where all the others failed. At least you’ve got some brains. That alone sets you apart.” His eyes held hers. “Don’t let him get you caught in the middle. Look what it’s done to me.”

She started to pursue that, but Nick was suddenly back. “Hello, Andrew,” he said coldly. “Let’s dance, Jolana.”

He tugged her onto the dance floor, and she frowned as she saw the look on his face. He seemed pale, and tense, and oddly taciturn. Nick, who usually laughed and talked incessantly. She looked around for Margery, but the woman was nowhere in sight. Perhaps she’d been wrong. Perhaps they hadn’t gone off together, she told herself, grasping at straws.

“What were you saying to him?” he asked coldly.

“Just party talk, Nick, that’s all.”

Unthinking, she pressed close to Nick in conciliation and was shocked to find his body already aroused. His hand contracted around her waist, holding her to him, and his legs trembled.

“Nick!” she whispered, shaken by the sudden force of his passion, by a need that she’d never felt in him before.

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