“What?” My brows came together. That was not what I wanted to hear. “Stay a little longer.”
She sighed. “I wish I could, but I still need to move all that stuff out of my living room. I was planning to do it today.”
“Do it tomorrow. In fact, I’ll help you.”
“I couldn’t ask that.”
“Sure you can. I want to help.”
Her walls were crumbling but not enough. I needed more time with her. “Stay,” I said, then thought of something that might convince her. “We never did watch another movie. In fact, there’s a copy of Pirates of the Caribbean here.”
“You’ve really never seen it?”
“I never have. I’m a… pirate virgin, if you will.”
She laughed and then bit her lip. “Okay, maybe I could stay a little longer.”
It was dusk when we went inside the house. I didn’t see any sign of my sister or Gavin, but I figured they were downstairs. I grabbed a couple more beers for us while Claire went to the bathroom.
Soon we were settled on the couch together, snacking from a bowl of potato chips, as the movie played on the large flat-screen in front of us.
I tried to concentrate on the film. I honestly tried. And for about fifteen minutes, I managed it. But then my eyes began to go to Claire sitting next to me, my gaze discreetly roaming the length of her. She was barefoot with her feet up on an ottoman. That blue top dipped low enough to show a nice eyeful of cleavage, smooth and slightly sunburned. I wanted to lick every sun-kissed part of her—including the parts that had never seen the sun.
Images from the other night were coming back, turning me on even more.
“Are you taking notes?” she asked, glancing at me.
“Huh?” My gaze quickly moved to her face, and I hoped she hadn’t noticed me staring at her breasts. “Taking notes on what?”
“There’s some real pirate stuff in these movies.”
“There is?”
She nodded. “You can learn what life was like for your infamous great-grandfather.”
Claire turned back to the screen, and I took a draw from my beer, trying to put my sexual frustration aside and focus on the movie. I was sure Quicksilver—God rest his blackened soul—would understand if I was more interested in her than him.
Eventually, I leaned back and stretched my arm out, using a move I hadn’t had to utilize since high school. It came down directly behind her, and my eyes kept going to her profile. I watched her smile at something on screen. My pulse kicked up. She was so damned cute. That dimple and those braids would be the death of me.
Somehow I’d become an awkward fool around this woman. It was crazy. I was turning into Doug.
I didn’t get to mull over this strange notion, because Claire asked, “You’re not watching the movie at all, are you?”
“I’m trying,” I said. “But I’m too distracted.”
“By what?”
“You.”
She turned to look at me. “How could I be a distraction? All I’m doing is sitting here next to you.”
“Believe me, that’s enough.”
Her eyes stayed on mine, and something in her gaze softened. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I leaned in and kissed her, brushing my lips over hers.
Her body stilled, but then she shifted position, angling toward me. “Don’t you want to watch the movie?”
“I do,” I murmured. “But I can’t resist you.”
She seemed to consider this, and then she slid her arms around my neck, a teasing smile on her face. “I don’t know if Quicksilver would approve of us ignoring your heritage.”
I snorted. “Trust me, he’d approve.” And then I bent down and kissed her again.
Right away she opened to me, and I couldn’t stop the low rumble of pleasure in my throat. I wanted her. I wanted her so damn bad. My hands slid down her body, enjoying every sensual curve.
Thank God for bike shorts. Thank God for tight women’s clothing too. And most of all, thank God for the way they looked in a pile on the floor when they hopefully came off.
We went at it for a while. Tongue kissing each other, teasing and rubbing our bodies together. Necking like a couple of teenagers in the back seat of a car. Normally the women I slept with were aggressive, and we got to the sex fast. I imagine it was what they thought I wanted, and usually it was, but this was different. I enjoyed taking my time with Claire. I wanted to savor her—just like the other night.
It wasn’t long before I had her on her back on the couch, the movie long forgotten. Her soft body was luxurious beneath me. My hard-on felt heavy pressing against her. We were still fully clothed, but I wanted to explore every inch of her. In the back of my mind, I knew we couldn’t stay out here in the living room like this. Gavin and Eliza could walk in on us any minute.
“Let’s go upstairs to my room,” I breathed. “We need more privacy.”
“Your room?”
I chuckled. This whole thing really was starting to feel like high school. “I’d invite you to my house, but it’s a plane ride away.”
“You have a house?”
“Yeah, of course.”
She smiled and stroked my hair. “I haven’t really thought about where you live. Isn’t that weird?”
I kissed her again, then nuzzled her neck. “You’ll have to come visit. It overlooks Puget Sound.” I knew Claire would enjoy that. “Plenty of sailboats for your viewing pleasure.”
“Maybe.” She smiled up at me. “It depends on my work though.”
“Sure. We’ll figure it out.” I went back to her neck, then slid my mouth down to her cleavage, caressing her breast over the top she was wearing. “Come on, let’s go upstairs.”
“Oh, I almost forgot to tell you,” she said, sitting up a little. “I found a lawyer.”
“Great,” I murmured, wanting to get her out of her clothes.
“He seems good, and his prices are reasonable. He thinks he can help me with the lawsuit.”
“Lawsuit? You don’t have to worry about that anymore.” I slide my fingers over her top. The problem with all this tight fabric was I couldn’t get my hands underneath it.
“Of course, I do.”
“No, sweetheart, I fixed it.” I kissed her throat again, inhaling the scent of sweat and arousal clinging to us both. If I’d been a little less turned on, a little less caught up in my own lust, I would have stopped talking, but I didn’t. “I already took care of the whole thing.”
Claire went still against me. “What do you mean, you took care of it?”
“Just what I said. You don’t to have to worry about that lawsuit anymore. By next week it’ll be dismissed.”
She stared at me with confusion, her hands still on my shoulders. That was when it dawned on me that I might have made a mistake.
“What exactly are you talking about?”
“It’s nothing,” I tried to backpedal. “I just made a quick phone call to one of our lawyers.”
“You did what?”
She pushed away from me and brought herself to a sitting position. My lust haze was clearing. “Look, it was no big deal. One phone call, that’s all.”
“You told them about my lawsuit, and they’re going to make it go away?”
“Basically.”
“But how would they even know the details?”
“I emailed them a copy of the letter.”
Those gold flecks in her eyes caught fire, and I knew I was fucking this whole thing up.
“How?”
“You left it on the kitchen counter, and I took a picture with my phone.” My gut could always tell when a deal was going south, and this one was going south faster than a sleigh ride to hell.
She gawked at me. “Are you crazy?”
“No, I’m not. I was helping you out.”
“Helping me out? I didn’t ask for your help.”
I thought back to the way she’d been crying that morning, hugging me tight. Every instinct in my body to
ld me I needed to fix it for her. “Look, I promised you I’d take care of it, and that’s exactly what I did. You told me those women were bullying you.”
She didn’t seem to hear me though. “This is my business, and you had no right to interfere. I can’t believe you’d do that!”
I rolled my eyes. “Stop being so stubborn. You think you’re the only one who’s ever needed help? You think most people got to where they are alone? Hell, you think no one ever helped me?”
“I don’t care. I didn’t ask for your help!”
“Maybe not, but you needed it.” My voice grew quiet. “No offense, but you fucked up, Claire. Dropping your liability insurance was a rookie mistake. All I did was get you back on track.”
Her mouth opened and then closed. “You’re an asshole!” She pushed past me and scrambled up from the couch.
I got up too, stood there watching as she stomped around the room, grumbling about finding her socks and shoes.
“Come on, don’t be angry.”
She ignored me and sat down in one of the dining room chairs, pulling her socks on.
I went over to her. “Don’t you think you’re being a little unreasonable? All I did was make your lawsuit go away.”
“You really are a control freak, you know that?”
“I wasn’t trying to control you.” I gripped my hair in frustration. “I was trying to help you. I didn’t want to see your business fail.”
She yanked on her shoes. Her innocent braids swung against her shoulders. Didn’t she understand the world was big and ugly? That little mom-and-pop companies like hers were chewed up and spat out all the time? They were a dime a dozen and sank every day. One misstep. That was all it took.
She stood up and glared at me. “My business wasn’t going to fail. I had it under control. And even if it did fail, then it’s on me.” She pointed at her chest.
The two of us stood there, eyes locked. I wanted to reach for her, to dial this whole conversation back. She was breathing hard, and even though she was furious, I still wanted her. I wanted her more than ever. I liked how she didn’t back down from me, how she held her ground. I understood where she was coming from, but I wasn’t going to apologize for something I didn’t regret.
“You should be thanking me,” I said. “I saved your ass, and you know it.”
“It’s too much, Philip, and you can’t even see it.” Her voice shook. “It was a mistake getting involved with someone like you. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“What?” I blinked at her in shock. “Are you kidding?”
“No, I’m not kidding.” She reached over to grab the small backpack she wore biking earlier and slipped it over her shoulder. “I’m going now. Please don’t call me anymore.”
“Claire, this is absurd.”
But she walked past me, walked straight out of the room until I heard the front door slam.
It was like a blow to the chest. “Jesus….” I could barely believe it.
What the hell just happened?
I was in a black mood the next day, blacker than my ancestor’s infamous soul. I tried calling Claire and then texting her, but she ignored every message. I was tempted to drive over there and plead with her, but I still had a little pride left.
“What did you do to her?” the pest wanted to know. “Are you still being a dog? How could you chase her off like that? You’re hopeless!”
“I didn’t do anything to her,” I said, irritated that I was being blamed. “All I did was help her with a problem.”
The three of us—Eliza, my mom, and I—were all in the beach house’s living room. I had my computer open in front of me, not that I could concentrate on work. I tried to explain what had happened, but neither of them seemed to hear me.
I told Gavin about it before he headed back to Seattle, but he only shook his head with disappointment. “Dude,” he said, “she was great.”
“Claire is not like all these other women you’re used to dating,” my sister ranted. “She’s the real deal. You have to treat her differently!”
“I treated her just fine.” Or at least I thought I had. Maybe I did come on too strong sometimes, but I wasn’t used to holding back when I wanted something.
My mom studied me. “I’m sorry this happened, Philip. I really like Claire.”
“Me too,” I said.
“Maybe you could try calling her again?” she suggested. “Or send her an email explaining yourself?”
“Yeah,” Eliza said. “Send her an email explaining what an idiot you are. And then you need to apologize.”
I scowled. “I’m not apologizing. That’s not going to happen.”
“See? You’re still acting like an idiot.”
“Eliza,” my mom reprimanded her. “That’s enough. There’s no reason to be insulting.”
My sister huffed and then sat on the couch. She seemed to calm down a little before turning to me again. “Look, Claire’s just not used to you yet. She doesn’t understand your control-freak nature like we do. That it’s endearing, and one of the things we love about you,” she added quickly after my mom frowned at her.
I shook my head. “Why should I apologize for something I don’t regret?”
“The problem is you never regret anything,” the pest shot back.
“That’s not true.”
“Oh really? When’s the last time you regretted something? Anything at all?”
I regretted this conversation, but I figured there was no point in mentioning that. “Who cares? I don’t want to live a life regretting my decisions. The fact is my decisions are typically excellent.”
My sister rolled her eyes. “See? It’s like I said. Hopeless!”
Despite my protests, I did send an email to Claire. I didn’t apologize, but I explained my actions—or my interference, as she saw it. Not that I’d admit it to anyone, but I was hurt that she was angry at me. I figured she had trust issues from that bonehead ex-husband of hers, but I wasn’t that kind of man, and I thought we’d spent enough time together that she could see that, could see I was only trying to protect her like I protected everyone I cared about.
She never responded.
And so my mood remained dark. I threw myself into work for the next few days: studying the marketing data on Drink Virtue and speaking with their CEO, going over the numbers on some start-ups an angel sent me, speaking with our investors. I flew up to Vancouver, BC, for the day to meet with that tech company that needed capital to move into the States.
On Wednesday afternoon, just as I was getting ready to fly back from Canada on a private charter, there was a call from Doug.
I stared at my phone for a few seconds and then declined it.
I’m making him plenty of money, I told myself as the plane took off, so I have nothing to feel guilty about.
That night I got an email from my assistant, Sam. I’d almost forgotten about my instructions to send me everything he could find on my father’s company. But there it was—Geldnor Investment Group’s entire portfolio, along with every scrap of data Sam could dig up.
I spent all night reading and crunching numbers, a change of pace from brooding about Claire. It was oddly fascinating to see what my father had been up to all these years, and I had to admit, he’d made a lot of money. Geldnor had some impressive holdings. The closer I looked though, I noticed strange irregularities—too many. Finally, I discovered what he’d managed to hide from his own investors.
He was in trouble.
Geldnor was leveraged to the max. They’d made a string of bad purchases over the last five years, bad real estate deals and some overseas junk bonds once worth millions that were now worth nothing.
He needed this current land deal. He’d have to sell and leverage every piece of property he could to come up with the cash, and even then I doubted it would be enough. If he lost, he’d be bankrupt.
I leaned back in my chair.
Sonofabitch.
After everything he put us thro
ugh—my mom especially—I didn’t want to say I was gleeful to discover he was on the verge of bankruptcy, but I didn’t feel sorry for him. That bastard deserved to be miserable.
I decided to sit on this information. I could do nothing and let the dice fall, or I could bring the full weight of NorthStone back in and crush him.
There was no way he could outbid us.
Friday afternoon I drove through town in Doug’s old pickup truck, hopeful and eagerly on the lookout for Claire’s little turquoise car.
Pathetic, yes, but I missed her. I missed those rainbows and unicorns.
I kept noticing a bright yellow Ferrari driving around town. Apparently the head coach for the Seattle football team owned a vacation home here, so I figured it belonged to a player.
Imagine my surprise when I pulled up to the beach house and discovered that same yellow Ferrari sitting in our driveway. I got out and studied it. I liked the look of a nice car as much as anyone, but flashy automobiles had never impressed me. They were a lousy investment.
I didn’t see him until I was nearly up to the front door. He was sitting on one of the porch chairs. It took me a moment to put it together who he was, which was strange as I’d just finished reading about him.
It had been well over a decade since I’d last seen my father. And as far as I was concerned, that wasn’t long enough.
Chapter Twenty
~ Claire ~
I spent the next couple days using the energy from my anger to help move all the boxes of cleaning supplies into my spare room. Philip kept trying to contact me, but I didn’t want to talk to him.
It sucked, but this whole thing brought back too many bad memories.
When it came out that Ethan was cheating on me, it seemed like I was the last person to know. I felt deeply betrayed, but I also felt stupid. Completely blindsided. And I told myself I never wanted to feel that way again. I didn’t want anyone going behind my back, making decisions about me or my business without my knowledge.
As Philip liked to say, it was unacceptable.
So I avoided his messages.
After I moved the boxes, I stood in my small living area with my arms stretched out. There was so much space now. Granted, my house was tiny by most people’s standards, but it seemed huge to me. Even my birds seemed pleased, twittering and flying from one perch to the next.
Truth About Men & Dogs Page 24
