Wildest Hearts

Rain conceded.

    “Keep in mind that the elephant is functional as well as ornamental,” Annie said in an instinctive, last-ditch effort to salvage the sale. “There's a little hidden drawer in the base. Very useful for small objects.”

    “I don't think he fits into this room,” Rain said diplomatically.

    Annie wondered privately if anything except Oliver Rain himself would look at home in the ebony, gold, and gray study.

    She had been almost certain Rain wouldn't like the elephant. The two-foot-high cloisonné figure with its scarlet toenails and purple trunk looked cheerfully ridiculous standing next to Rain's Zen rock garden.

    The garden, which occupied a large corner of the study, was not a true garden, at least not to Annie's way of thinking. It contained no hint of green. Not a single leaf, let alone any colorful blooms, married the pristine perfection of the pearl gray sand.

    The sand was encased in a low black wooden frame. It had been meticulously raked into abstract designs around five rocks. Annie suspected Rain had spent hours contemplating exactly where to put the rocks on the sand. It was undoubtedly just the sort of emotionless problem in aesthetics that would appeal to him.

    The designer whom Rain had hired to do the interiors of the spacious new twenty-sixth-floor suite had sized up her client with unerring accuracy. All the rooms afforded seemingly endless views of Seattle, ElliottBay, and the Olympics, and they were all done in the same forbidding tones of ebony, gold, and gray that dominated the study.

    The end result was an austere, elegant lair perfectly suited to a man whom many people considered to be a dangerous predator.

    No, Annie decided, the elephant was a handsome creature, but he certainly didn't fit into the disciplined, restrained decor of Rain's newly completed suite. She could not imagine anything from her boutique full of wildly whimsical one-of-a-kind items that would look right here.

    Oliver Rain was clearly not much given to whimsy of any kind.

    “I'm sorry the elephant isn't quite right,” Rain murmured.

    “Don't worry about it. I didn't think it would work. To tell you the truth, I haven't been able to interest any of my clients in him.” Annie frowned. “Something about that elephant seems to put people off. I wonder if it's the toenails.”

    “Quite possibly.”

    “Well, it's not a big deal.” So much for unloading the elephant on Oliver Rain. “You insisted I bring something else by, so I decided to try him out in here.”

    “Very kind of you. I appreciate your perseverance. Let me pour you some more tea.” Rain reached for the black-and-gold-enameled teapot that sat on the nearby black lacquer tray.

    Annie watched, fascinated, as he refilled her cup. The bright white cone of light from the halogen lamp on his desk revealed the sinewy strength of his hands. Rain's hands were not those of an ordinary business executive. They were rough, even calloused in places, as if he made his fortune working in rich soil rather than in gilt-edged investments.

    He managed to imbue the delicate act of pouring tea with a riveting masculinity. Each motion was one of disciplined strength and grace.

    Annie had learned that any movement Rain made, no matter how small, captured her full attention. Perhaps it was because each ripple of restrained power stood in such stark contrast to the vast, deep stillness that emanated from him when he was not moving. Annie had never met a man who was so completely in control of himself.

    She eyed him warily as she accepted the teacup from him. “To be perfectly honest, I don't think I have anything in Wildest Dreams that will suit you.”

    Rain contemplated her as if she presented a curious but not unsolvable dilemma. “Just because the elephant doesn't work, I don't think we should assume that nothing else from your shop will work, either.”

    “You didn't like the carousel I brought on Monday,” Annie reminded him.

    “Ah, yes, the carousel. I'll admit it had a certain charm, but somehow the rather bizarre creatures on it seemed wrong in here.”

    “Depends on your point of view, I suppose,” Annie muttered. Personally, she thought the beautifully gilded carousel with its collection of strange mythological animals had been a nice touch in a room that already contained the eminently unusual, near-mythic Oliver Rain.

    No one knew much about Rain. But that tended to be the case with most legends, she reflected. The