by Brenda Novak
She looked quite thin, he noticed, and hoped she’d be happy about that—because there wasn’t much else in the article that would please her. It painted her as another gullible woman taken in by his “almost hypnotic charm.” Which, of course, he employed only when he wanted to lure some young thing into his bed. But the story didn’t stop there. It implied that not only was he using Dakota for her body, he expected her to care for the child he’d fathered with the last woman in his life.
Nice…
“We live in a crazy world when a woman can get away with this, you know that?” Greg said.
Tyson didn’t answer. He was afraid if he ever really started to vent, his emotions would get the best of him and he’d wind up hurting somebody.
“Rachelle’s psycho, man! Yet everyone is feeling sorry for her and rallying to her defense.” Greg pivoted and headed toward the window. “Makes me sick.”
The phone rang before Greg could pass in front of Tyson again. Tyson hadn’t been accepting any calls. His lawyer had instructed him not to respond to the many journalists who were hot on his trail. He wasn’t eager to talk to the press, anyway. They were doing their best to crucify him without even allowing that there might be another side to the story.
He planned to ignore this call, too, but his housekeeper knocked softly before poking her head into the room.
“Mr. Garnier?
“Yes?”
“A man named Howard Schilling insists you speak with him.”
Tyson met Greg’s eyes. His agent wasn’t pacing anymore. He was standing in the middle of the room, looking like he’d just swallowed a golf ball. “Strive Athletic Equipment,” he managed to whisper. “It’s starting.”
Wrestling with the flood of anger coursing through his body, Tyson reached across the desk, punched the blinking light and spoke into the receiver. “Tyson Garnier.”
“Tyson, what the hell is going on?”
Dropping his head in his hand, Tyson pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m being accused of a crime I didn’t commit, that’s what.”
“Of course you didn’t rape this woman. It’s got to be some kind of money grab, right? But I have to be honest: She’s got you by the balls. I don’t know how much she wants, but pay her off and do it fast, damn it, before this thing gets any more out of hand.”
“I’ve already given her a million dollars.”
“So? That was for the baby. You think I don’t know what’s been going on?”
A headache started behind Tyson’s eyes. “But this isn’t about money. It’s about revenge.”
“Revenge for what?”
“I don’t know! For refusing to let her screw up my son’s life. For refusing to let her take over my own life.”
“Are you telling me you can’t solve this problem, Tyson? Because that’s what I’m hearing.”
Rocking back, Tyson leaned his head on the soft leather of his chair and closed his eyes. “I’m telling you it’s up to the legal system now. I’ve done everything I can.”
“You can sign over custody of Braden!” Greg cried, standing over him.
Tyson opened his eyes and gave his agent a menacing look designed to shut him up. But it was too late. Howard had heard.
“Who’s that?” he asked.
“Greg.”
“Put him on.”
Tyson nearly handed the phone to his agent. Howard and Greg were the ones who usually dealt with the business end of his endorsements, anyway. It was Tyson’s job to show up at a few cocktail parties, shake hands and smile for the cameras. But he wasn’t going to allow these two men to decide what should happen to a baby in whom they had no real interest. His baby. He knew they’d gang up and try to pressure him into giving Braden back to Rachelle, and he wouldn’t allow them to do that, not after witnessing firsthand what kind of person she was. “No.”
Dead silence met this response. “That’s not the answer I was expecting,” Howard said at length, and Tyson thought Greg might expire right there on the floor.
“This is my decision,” he said, “and I won’t allow her to coerce me into giving back a child she wasn’t taking care of in the first place. If I did, it’d only be the beginning of future problems, because this isn’t really about Braden. It’s about me—or she would’ve called me and begged me to let her see her son instead of refusing to speak with me.”
“Come on, Ty—” Greg started, an irritating whine in his voice, but Howard was talking at the same time.
“That’s unfortunate. I wish there was something I could do to help you, but…”
He was backing away from the situation, getting ready to drop the ax. Tyson could feel it. He stood up, trying to prepare himself for the blow. Once Strive pulled their support, the others would follow. “There is,” Tyson interrupted. “Stick by me, Howard.”
The other man clicked his tongue. “I wish I could, Ty. But you know how it is. In advertising, perception is everything.”
Tyson’s headache grew to new dimensions. “If perception is everything, how about giving off the perception that you believe in me? That you won’t allow a liar and a cheat to make you scramble and run for cover?”
Evidently, his words made some impact because Howard didn’t respond right away.
“You still there?” Tyson asked.
Howard let go of an audible sigh. “You’ve got a week, Tyson. If this nightmare doesn’t end by then, there’s nothing I can do,” he said and hung up.
As Tyson put the phone down, Greg’s mouth went as round as his eyes. “You saved Strive?” he breathed.
Tyson rubbed his temples. “Unless something changes, I just postponed the inevitable.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Grandpa Garnier: If you’re riding ahead of the herd, take a
look back every now and then to make sure it’s still there.
DAKOTA FINGERED THE PACKAGE in her purse. She’d had to drive to Boise to pick up Tyson today, so she’d asked Hannah to watch Braden and left a little early. Tyson had mailed her her second paycheck, and she was planning to do some shopping with it. She needed to buy some clothes that fit her. And she wanted a new outfit for the party—something stunning, if possible. But once she’d arrived in Boise, she’d spotted a Planned Parenthood clinic, and it was almost as if the Ferrari had turned into the parking lot of its own accord.
After spending the whole two hours she’d reserved for shopping in a six-by-eight cubicle, getting her blood pressure checked and receiving advice about safe sex, she had a month’s worth of birth control in her possession. She wasn’t sure she’d ever need it. She couldn’t imagine getting that intimate with one of Tyson’s friends at the party next weekend. But the clinician said she wouldn’t be fully protected until she’d been on the pill for five days—and it seemed pointless to sacrifice a good shopping trip unless she was going to make use of what she’d just gotten. So she’d gone through a drive-through restaurant to get a glass of ice water and swallowed her first pill. Now she was officially a modern woman, prepared to be as spontaneous, sexually, as any other modern woman. But she had no clothes for the party, and she was out of time. Providing it was on schedule, Tyson’s plane had already landed.
“Oh well, a girl’s gotta have priorities,” she muttered as she turned onto the road leading to the airport.
Tyson was waiting in front of the terminal when she arrived. Dressed in worn jeans and an Abercrombie T-shirt, he was wearing a baseball cap, a pair of sunglasses and sporting a goatee—and he didn’t look happy.
Dakota didn’t typically like facial hair. But Ty could’ve shown up in an ape suit and she would’ve found him attractive.
“God, I’m falling in love with him,” she said hopelessly, trying to shake off the sudden “sinking in quicksand” sensation that came over her as she pulled to a stop.
“Where were you?” he asked, shoving his seat forward so he could stow his bag behind it.
She didn’t want to tell him she’d spent two hours at Planned
Parenthood and started on the pill, as he’d suggested. She was still in denial about maybe needing the protection. “Shopping for clothes for the party.”
His irritation immediately cleared and the scent of male and leather that lingered in the car grew stronger as he climbed in. “Find anything?”
“No.” She shot a second glance at his goatee and touched her chin so he’d know what she was talking about. “Going for a new image?”
“More or less. It’s not much fun to be recognized right now.” He frowned as he strapped on his seat belt, and she knew he had to feel as though he had a big target painted on his back.
“Is Braden with Hannah?” he asked.
Dakota adjusted the air-conditioning vents. “Yeah.”
“When do we have to be home?”
She checked for oncoming traffic, then merged into the passing lane. “She didn’t give me a set time.”
“Maybe I’ll call her to see if we can stay in Boise for another couple of hours.”
Dakota felt her eyebrows inch up. “What for?”
“Unless we want you wearing a pair of Wranglers, we’ll have a lot better chance of finding you something to wear here than in Dundee. And I’m starved.”
* * *
“YOU’RE GOING TO NEED more than one outfit,” Tyson said, marveling at the amount of weight Dakota had lost.
“I’ll pick up a few things when I get the chance.” She hiked up her old jeans as she came around the front of the car, but two steps later, they sagged low again, hitting her a little below the hips like before.
When she passed him, he grabbed a handful of loose fabric and pulled her backside up against his front. “A slight tug would drop them to your ankles,” he murmured in her ear. He’d just wanted to rile her up a little, see her blush. Oddly enough, he’d really missed her while he was gone, spent most of his time thinking about her. But she didn’t act the slightest bit ruffled. She leaned into him, causing his knuckles to graze the smooth skin of her lower back.
When she turned her head, their lips were only centimeters apart. “Don’t worry, I can keep them up,” she said, then she tossed him a cocky grin and pulled away.
Tyson’s jaw sagged in surprise. What was this? Dakota was flirting with him? Teasing him? Judging by the extra wiggle she put in her walk, he was convinced she was.
“You’re asking for trouble,” he told her as she walked into the store ahead of him. But he liked it. He liked the new Dakota. He liked her a lot.
“Can I help you?”
A tall woman approached, wearing a lot of makeup and expensive clothes and offering them a polite smile.
“We’re just looking, for now,” Dakota said, and the woman nodded and moved away.
Tyson stood watching as Dakota sorted through the racks. Occasionally, she’d pull out a pair of pants or a top, but after checking the tag she’d invariably put the item back.
Finally he reached around her, reclaimed the jeans she’d returned a second earlier and handed them to her. “Try these on.”
She lowered her voice. “They’re too expensive.”
“I want to see them on you.” Their eyes met, and Tyson let his hand rest on the bare part of her hip revealed by the pants she was wearing now.
Catching sight of the hanger in Dakota’s hand, the woman immediately came toward them. “Those jeans are some that fit really well,” she said. “Shall I start a dressing room for you?”
“That’d be great.” Tyson intervened before Dakota could refuse and passed the jeans over to her. Then he selected a gray spaghetti-strap top made mostly of lace and a thin, matching button-up sweater. “And these.”
The woman’s smile widened. “Excellent choices. These will go together perfectly!”
Dakota scowled at him as the woman disappeared into a dressing room. “Those jeans are a hundred and sixty dollars,” she whispered. “And who knows how much those tops are! You didn’t even look!”
“I gave you plenty of money.”
“But I’m not going to let you pay for my clothes.”
“Why not?”
“Why should I?”
“Because the party was my idea. And I want to decide what you wear.”
“You want to decide?”
“It’s a small concession to make,” he said with a wink.
A leery expression darkened Dakota’s features, but she grabbed another top, a black one, and ducked into the dressing room while the salesclerk held open the curtain.
“Did you get the package I sent you from L.A.?” Tyson called after her.
“What package?”
Evidently not. He was sort of glad about that. The way they were flirting with each other, the bra and panty gift wouldn’t come off like the favor it was intended to be. “Never mind.” It’d come tomorrow or the next day. Hopefully, he could snag it and throw it away.
“What package?” she asked again, but he didn’t answer. He was too busy trying not to gawk at the sliver of bare back he could see through the crack between the curtain and the wall.
“Those jeans will be stunning on her figure,” the salesclerk predicted, folding her arms.
Tyson nodded and grabbed for a magazine. But even though the salesclerk had warned him, he wasn’t prepared for the sight Dakota made when she emerged from the dressing room. The jeans were tight and low—a definite improvement on loose and low—and showed off her feminine curves to perfection. He liked the way she looked in them, but the gray sweater was made of such thin fabric he could almost see through it, and the lacy undershirt showed a lot of cleavage.
“What do you think?” Dakota turned in a circle.
His mouth had gone so dry he had to swallow, hard, to be able to speak. “The jeans might work, but we definitely need a new top.”
She and the salesclerk exchanged surprised glances. “You don’t like this one?” Dakota asked, disappointment threading through her words. “You picked it out.”
“It looks different on.”
The salesclerk looked offended. “What do you mean? It’s lovely!”
Tyson refused to let his gaze fall below Dakota’s neck. He knew how his friends would react to seeing her in a top like that. They’d be more than eager to spend some time with her. But what if they didn’t realize she needed more than someone to show her a good time?
“That top will only bring the wrong kind of attention,” he said.
“What are you talking about?” Dakota asked.
The salesclerk smiled nervously. “I’ll give you two a few minutes alone,” she said and hurried across the room.
“Tyson?” Dakota said when the woman was straightening racks beyond earshot.
He lowered his voice. “There won’t be a man in the place who’ll be able to take his eyes off you.”
“You’re kidding me, right? Isn’t that the point?”
It was the point. Originally, anyway. But she needed the right man, someone who would love her and take good care of her. Any red-blooded heterosexual male would want a few minutes alone with her after seeing her in that outfit. “Just take it off. We’ll find something else.”
Her eyebrows knitted in apparent confusion. “I don’t understand. You tell me I’m too conservative, that I need to take some chances. So here I am, taking chances. This isn’t even a big chance. This top has a sweater over it, for heaven’s sake. And I’ve already gone too far?”
“It shows too much.”
“It only shows a little!”
“That sweater…clings!”
“Clings,” she repeated, shaking her head. “That’s what this kind of sweater is supposed to do. Good thing I didn’t tell you I went on the pill today!” With that she pivoted and headed back to her dressing room. The chain scraped across its track as she jerked the curtain closed, but he couldn’t let the argument end there. Didn’t she understand he was trying to help her?
Getting up, he went after her before she could remove anything. “You don’t get it,” he said as he sli
pped inside.
Her troubled gaze met his in the mirror. “What I get is this, Ty. You need to decide what role you want to play in my life. Do you want to be my employer, my social director or my overprotective big brother?”
Turning her around, he used one finger to tilt up her chin. “You know what I want.”
“No, I don’t!”
“I want you. I want to be your lover,” he whispered.
Her liquid chocolate eyes looked deep enough to drown in. “You turned me away.”
He ran his thumb across her bottom lip, slid the tips of his fingers down the column of her throat. “I’m damn proud of that. It was one of my better moments.”
“Better moments? You humiliated me!”
He let his fingers continue their downward travels and curl around one full breast. “I gave up what I wanted because of what you want.”
Her eyelids lowered to half-closed, and she put a hand on his chest as if to steady herself. “And what do I want?”
“A husband. A family.”
She said nothing.
“Am I right?” He hoped she’d deny it. Then maybe he could justify letting their relationship develop in a different direction. But she didn’t.
“Eventually.”
Knowing he had only one more shot, he flicked his thumb over the tip of her breast. He was no longer playing fair, but he was getting desperate. “And for now? Are you interested in a brief but torrid affair?”
Standing on tiptoe, she brushed his lips with hers. He thought that meant she was going to tell him yes and brought his arms around her so he could kiss her more deeply. He craved the taste of her like he’d never craved another woman—but she broke away before their tongues could meet.
“What?” he said, feeling deprived.
“I couldn’t survive brief,” she said intently. “Not with you.”
Before he could formulate a response, the voice of the salesclerk came from outside. “So…how are you doing in there? Are you going to get the whole outfit?”
Tyson stepped out to respond. He didn’t want to get the tops. They were too sexy. Or maybe not. It wasn’t the tops that were bothering him—it was the intent behind Dakota wearing them. His idea to pass her off to someone else might have been a good one in theory, but it wasn’t so easy in practice.
