Apparently he was even more like the old man than he’d always thought.
After he took Becky back to the nursery, he went down to the basement and spent an hour and a half in the gym. He gave the heavy punching bag a major workout. It helped.
But only a little.
Sunday night, when he came to Becky’s room for her late feeding, Hannah was already there, rocking Becky in the rocker—dressed in khaki slacks and a T-shirt. She was even wearing shoes. He hadn’t seen her with her shoes off since the night he’d had her in his bed.
He didn’t know why, exactly, but that really got to him. That she took such obvious care against the possibility that he might catch her barefoot now.
The moment he walked in the room, she raised Becky to her shoulder and rose from the rocker. “Here you go.” She handed him the baby. “I was just about to get the bottle ready. I’ll do it now.”
Damned if he’d keep her here if she didn’t want to stay. “Don’t bother. I can handle it. You can go.”
She flashed that phony smile. “All right. Good night, then.”
He held Becky’s squirming body a little closer and turned away without another word. Hannah went to her room, which infuriated him, though it was only what he’d more or less told her to do. He fed Becky, and changed her, his anger on a short leash through the whole procedure.
Becky seemed to sense the tension in him. She fussed more than usual, and cried when he tried to put her back in her bed. He sat up with her until long after midnight, thinking of all the cruel things he’d like to say to a certain Okie social worker. Then, when Becky finally conked out and he went to bed, he couldn’t sleep.
By daylight, he knew he wasn’t letting Hannah go without telling her a few of the things he had on his mind.
He liked the new nanny. Mrs. Bridget O’Hara was a plump, good-hearted widow with grown children.
Hannah took her to the nanny’s bedroom first, no doubt to drop off her things. Then the two of them came directly to the playroom, where Cord had lingered with his daughter after her morning meal.
Bridget beamed at him and stuck out her very capable looking hand. They shook. Her grip was firm and warm. He knew immediately that Becky would quickly grow to love this woman. The nanny problem had at last been resolved.
He handed Becky to Bridget. She went without a peep. Then he and Bridget talked for a few minutes, while Hannah lurked a few feet away, just waiting for him to get lost.
Too bad. He wasn’t going anywhere.
Not until he’d said what he had to say.
He turned to her. “I’ll need a few minutes. I’m sure Bridget can handle Becky. Let’s just go on over to the sitting room.”
Something flashed in those green eyes. Maybe fear—or possibly defiance. But then she nodded. “Of course.”
They left the nursery for the room across the hall.
He ushered her in ahead of him, and shut the door once they were both inside. “Have a seat.”
She perched on the edge of a leather wing chair. The sight of her there was pure déjà vu. It was the same chair she’d sat in that first day she’d come to stay at the mansion. Exactly two weeks ago now.
Two weeks. Was that all it had been? It seemed to him he had known this woman all his life—and yet, by the same token, their time together felt so brief. The space of a heartbeat.
And now, she was going.
He waited, just looking at her, longer than he should have. He wanted to see if she’d break a little, maybe make a small, nervous sound, shift in her chair—even start talking in that too-cheerful voice she put on whenever she had to deal with him now.
She didn’t. She just sat there, waiting, utterly still.
And he remembered. He’d tried silence on her two weeks ago, to see if she’d squirm. It hadn’t worked then, either.
Déjà vu all over again, as Yogi Berra would have said.
Best to stop trying to break her. Best to get to the point.
“Time to settle up, Hannah.”
She granted him the tiniest of nods.
He’d already made out her check. He took it from his pocket. She gave him the wary-bird treatment, turning her head a little, looking at him sideways.
“Take it. It’s only the amount we agreed on. Fourteen days at the rate you named yourself.”
Gingerly she held out her hand. He passed her the check. Her shirt had a breast pocket. She stuck it in there without even glancing at it. “Thank you.” She stood.
“Not so fast.”
She dropped to the edge of the chair again, her composure visibly slipping. “Cord, I don’t—”
“This won’t take long. Just a few questions.”
“What questions?” Her hand flew to her throat. The sight heated his blood.
He was getting to her. The thought shouldn’t have pleased him as much as it did.
He asked her the most important question—the one that had been eating at him all weekend. “Why are you walking out on me?”
She looked left—and then right. As if by looking anywhere but at him, she could avoid the necessity for a reply.
He pressed on. “I have a theory.”
Her gaze snapped back to him again. Her eyes were wide and very worried. He was certain she’d stop him, say she didn’t want to hear any theories. That she was leaving. Now.
But she didn’t. “All right.”
So he laid it on her. “It’s revenge, isn’t it?”
She shook her head, a quick movement, not in negation—but as if what he’d said made no sense to her. “Revenge? I don’t—”
“Are you getting even, damn it?”
She winced and jerked back.
He realized he must have spoken too curtly. He forced himself to breathe, to relax a little, to speak more softly. “Come on. I’m not an idiot—though I have to admit, I’ve acted like one with you. I can see the parallels, between a rich boy and a wealthy man. A baby you lost—and Becky. You seem to have accepted the fact that Becky stays here, with me. But is there some…satisfaction for you, in dumping me?”
“What?” She looked honestly bewildered. “Satisfaction? In dumping you?”
Impatience knotted his gut. “Yes, Hannah. Dumping me. Walking out on me. Leaving me cold. Are you taking your own brand of revenge, that’s what I’m asking, taking it out on me for what some other guy did to you when you were seventeen?”
“No,” she said, very low, more a shaping of her lips than a sound. “Oh, Cord.” She canted toward him in the chair. “Honestly. No. I told you Thursday night, and I meant it when I said it. I don’t want revenge, not in any form, for what happened all those years ago. I truly do not.”
“Then what?”
She swallowed, dropped her hand—and immediately raised it to her throat again. “It’s…us. Becoming lovers. It shouldn’t have happened. It was wrong. And I have to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
“Why?”
She let out a small sound, something midway between a laugh and a sob. “You would ask that. To you, what happened the other night was an everyday occurrence, something you do all the time.”
The hell it was, he thought. But he kept his mouth shut. She had it right, up to a point. What they’d done was nothing new to him. It was the way he had felt while they were doing it. That had been different.
That had rocked his world.
She went on. “Yes, I’m the one who’s doing the leaving here. You’re not ready to let go yet. And I’m sorry to hurt you that way. But it’s not about revenge. It’s about…my dream. My dream for my life. My secret hope for myself, that I’ve never given up, no matter how bad things got.”
She was still leaning toward him, and her eyes were shining now. She looked earnest and infinitely sweet. It was the hardest thing he ever did, not to reach out and pull her into his arms.
“Cord, I want what my parents had. I want forever. I want real love, true love. With one man. And you’ve, well, you’ve said it yourself
, and you’ve said it more than once. Forever is a word you never use.”
Was it? Right now, he wasn’t so sure. Right now, he would gladly take a run at forever. Hell, he would say anything, promise anything, to get her to stay. He would offer it all: the diamond ring, the preacher, the vows ending in “I do.”
The words were there, pushing to get out.
Marry me, Hannah. Let’s give it a try, at least.
He stepped back.
She was right, damn it.
Never once, until this moment, had he let himself think about forever. He didn’t do forever. He was who he was.
Hannah deserved someone better. And as soon as she got away from him, she’d have a chance at finding that someone.
He said, “I’ll miss you, Hannah. I’ll miss you like hell.”
She stood, drawing herself up tall, aiming her chin high. “I’ll miss you, too, Cord. You’ll never know how much.”
Then stay, damn it, he thought. But he didn’t let those words get out.
He said, “Goodbye, Hannah. And good luck with that dream of yours.”
Chapter Nineteen
On Tuesday, July 3, a week and a day after Hannah moved out of the mansion, a five-page spread appeared in Inside Scoop magazine: The Playboy Tycoon And The Unexpected Bundle Of Joy.
The article described Cord’s short-lived “liaison” with the unfortunate Marnie Lott. It included the medical particulars of Marnie’s early demise, and then went on to wax eloquent about how the wealthy scion of one of Texas’ first families had learned he had a child—and immediately took steps to claim the baby he hadn’t even realized he’d fathered.
Maya Revere brought the article to Hannah’s attention. She read it at her desk at Child Protective Services, during a rare coffee break. The tone, Hannah supposed, could be considered positive. The article made it touchingly clear that the Texas tycoon hadn’t hesitated. He’d stepped right up to take responsibility for the unanticipated addition to the Stockwell clan.
Still, Hannah felt certain that Cord would be furious.
He’d hate such private stuff to become public knowledge—for Becky’s sake, mostly. He wanted the very best for his daughter. And the best did not include having the details of his brief relationship with Becky’s mother bandied about in the press.
There were lots of pictures—mostly of Cord at different social functions, dressed to the nines, with various glamorous ex-girlfriends draped over his arm. Looking at those pictures hurt. Hannah knew she had no right at all to think of Cord Stockwell as her personal property, but that didn’t stop her from longing to grab each gorgeous woman by her slender throat and strangle her stone dead.
And the pictures of him with all those beautiful women weren’t the worst.
Not by a long shot.
The worst were the three photos taken on the mansion grounds—obviously by a hidden photographer. Photos of Cord and Hannah and a baby stroller. Two of the pictures showed them walking side by side along the path beneath the sweet gum trees. And one showed them sitting on the stone bench under the willow by Stockwell Pond.
There was one caption for all three photos: The Playboy, The Baby—And The Nanny. More Love In The Air?
That was all. There was nothing in the body of the article linking Hannah and Cord romantically. Her name hadn’t even been mentioned. Evidently the reporter hadn’t worked very hard to gather his facts—if he had, he probably would have learned that Becky’s Child Protective Services worker was the nanny in question. So it could have been worse—or at least, that was what Hannah tried to tell herself.
Once she’d read to the end, she reached for the phone. She had to call Cord, to swear to him that she had never talked to any reporter about him or about Becky.
But she stopped herself.
If he thought she’d had something to do with this, well, so be it. She had no right to call him. She had walked out of his life and she owed it to both of them to stay out.
Her phone rang right then. An emergency, as always. Hannah put Cord from her mind and concentrated on her work.
At Stockwell Mansion, Cord was furious. So were Jack and Kate—Rafe was still out of town. The three of them retired to their father’s library to discuss whether a lawsuit for invasion of privacy might be the way to go.
Cord, after all, did have a reasonable expectation of privacy when it came to the intimate details of his life. He wasn’t running for office and he wasn’t an actor; he didn’t have the kind of job where a judge might say the very nature of the work he did made his life an open book.
But Jack said, “If we sue, we’ll only make the story all the more interesting.”
And Cord knew he was right. “What we need to do is find out who let a damn photographer onto the grounds—and then make sure whoever it is never gets a chance to do that again.”
Jack said he’d look into it. He wasn’t having much luck with his in-depth search of their father’s papers. The checks to Clyde Carlyle and the letters from Gabriel Johnson remained their only real leads to whatever had happened in the distant past.
“I’d be glad for the break,” Jack said. Then he added,
“I hate to say it, but do you think Hannah might have had something to do with this?”
Hannah.
The name ripped through Cord like a serrated knife. He had been trying not to think about her. It was no easy task—especially not right at that moment, with the photos of the two of them in happier times staring him in the face.
“No way.” Cord grabbed the open magazine off the library table and tossed it into a nearby wastebasket. The action did nothing to improve the situation, but throwing the thing in the trash provided a surge of satisfaction nonetheless. “Not Hannah,” he said. It hurt, just saying her name. “She wouldn’t talk to a reporter about Becky. Not in a million years.”
Kate backed him up. “Cord’s right. That’s just not Hannah. It’s not Hannah at all.”
Jack put up both hands, palms out. “All right, all right. Sorry I suggested it.”
Cord moved the discussion along—and away from the subject of the woman he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about. “Check with Emma first,” he advised Jack. “She handles most of the help. She might know if any of the maids or gardeners have been nosier than they needed to be.”
“But be gentle,” Kate said.
“Gentle?” Jack was puzzled. “With Emma?”
Kate nodded. “This is the toughest time of the year for her. In case you haven’t noticed, the Independence Day party is tomorrow. The poor woman is working practically around the clock.”
“She is?”
“Jack, you are so oblivious sometimes. There’s a bandstand being constructed on the backyard grounds as we speak. And have you noticed the four food tents that are ready to raise? And the barbecue hut? And what about the caterer and the party planner trooping in and out—not to mention that woman from the agency where we get our extra staff, and the guy from the party equipment supply house?”
“Okay, okay. I’ve noticed that the big party’s tomorrow. I just didn’t think about the fact that Emma might be under pressure.”
“That’s exactly my point. You didn’t even consider her.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You should be. Every year, Emma knocks herself out to make everything just right.”
“I wasn’t planning to abuse her. I just want to talk to her.”
“Gently.”
“I swear it.”
Kate’s brows drew together. “Maybe I ought to give Hannah a call.”
Cord wished he had a muzzle—no, make that two muzzles—one for his sister and one for his older brother. What the hell was their problem? Why wouldn’t they stop saying her name?
Kate was still talking. “I don’t like the way she just ran out on us and I—”
Cord cut her off before she could finish. “No.”
“But, Cord, if I could just talk to her, I’m sure she would—”
His sister stared at him. He stared right back. Kate blinked first.
“Stay away from her, Kate. Just leave her alone.”
“All right, all right. Whatever you say.”
Kate showed up on Hannah’s doorstep at eight the next morning. “It’s the Fourth of July,” she announced when Hannah peered around the door at her. “Don’t try to tell me that you have to work.”
“I’m on call. All the time.”
“So unhook the phone. We have to talk.”
“Kate—”
“Come on. Let me in. Don’t make me stand out here on your cute little porch to say what I have to say.”
With a sigh, Hannah pulled the door open all the way. “I knew I should have told the phone company I didn’t want my address listed.”
“Too late now.” Chic as always in fuchsia capris and a funnel neck silk T-shirt, Kate strolled across the threshold. She looked around at Hannah’s living room, which had more houseplants than furniture. “This is cozy.”
“I like it. Have a seat.”
“Don’t mind if I do.” Kate sank to the sofa and got right down to business. “Cord is miserable. And so are you.”
“What? Now you read minds?”
“I don’t have to read minds. I can see it in your eyes. And as for my brother, every time someone mentions your name, he looks as if he could kill whoever dared to utter that forbidden word.”
Hannah dropped into the Mission-style easy chair she’d bought at a yard sale. “He hates me.”
“Oh, please. It’s not hate. I promise you it’s not.”
“Kate, it can’t work between Cord and me.”
“Why not?”
“Well, he…he’s one of the richest men in America.”
“Yes. Isn’t that lovely? Money isn’t everything, but one does learn to live with it.”
“Well, all right. I guess you have a point. I could…get used to the money.”
“Of course you could.”
“But the women, Kate. That’s the major thing. He just doesn’t have it in him to stay with one woman.”
The Tycoon's Instant Daughter Page 19
