Okay, he was officially not tracking this conversation. "But we've given him that. You know, guarding the house, chasing the ducks. Even hanging with Barton to keep the poor kid from being so lonely with his dad moving out."
"What about your sister?"
He ran a hand through his hair. "How Harvey could help her?"
"I think you're being deliberately obtuse."
Okay, Courtney had money issues. He could understand that. Apparently she felt a bit uncomfortable with large amounts of money. Maybe McKinsey's offer to go shopping with her had made her uncomfortable. "I can pay you more if you'd like."
Her mouth turned down at the corners--definitely a bad sign.
"For helping with Harvey, of course." He spoke fast, trying to head off an explosion. "Not for being my girlfriend, dammit. Marcel Dupois was charging me more than you quoted me. It would only be fair--"
"Shut up."
She looked like she wanted to throw something at him. Even Harvey picked up her mood, clambering out from under the table and glaring at Tyler.
"I'm just trying to understand why you're mad."
"You really don't get it, do you? Harvey has been misbehaving and what did you do? You threw money at him. Your sister is acting out, over-spending a thirty thousand dollars a month allowance and you try to solve it by throwing even more money at her. Your mother acted out night before last--and you throw half a million dollars at her favorite charity. Aren't you sensing a pattern here?"
Obviously Courtney didn't understand the dynamics of his family. They'd been raised, as he had been raised, with the firm certainty that the male's job is to provide. What was he supposed to do, tell his fifty-five-year-old mother that she was on her own and needed to get a job now? How selfish was that? It wasn't like he couldn't afford to take care of his family. That was the point of having money in the first place.
Still, Courtney meant well. And maybe she was right. Maybe if his father had treated the women as responsible adults, he could have controlled his own debts. And if he had, maybe he would have been more careful flying is private plane. But being right about the past didn't mean there was anything Tyler could do about it now.
"Amanda's death is a constant reminder to me of how short life can be." Surely she could understand what it would mean to lose a sister--especially the older sister who had done so much to raise him while his parents had flittered around the world doing social things.
"It's important to me that my remaining sister and my mother are happy," he continued. "I've got plenty of money. Why not spend it on something that gives them pleasure?"
* * * *
Tyler was right, of course. Courtney had no business projecting her own feelings, her own experience, onto his. McKinsey might be spoiled rotten, but she hadn't turned out badly. Not compared to Courtney's brother, anyway.
Still, Courtney needed to get away. If she stayed here, she'd end up back in Tyler's bed. And while her body cried for just that, she needed to digest this new insight into Tyler before she committed herself more deeply--if she wasn't committed too deeply already.
"I've got to go out for a while."
Tyler's eyes seemed able to strip away her pretenses. "Don't you think we should talk about what's bothering you?"
All right, maybe talking was the rational adult approach. But Courtney didn't want to talk now. She wanted, needed, to get away before Tyler captured her heart completely. "Not now."
"Well, it wouldn't hurt me to head down to the plant for a couple of hours. And I've got some business at the bank and with the lawyers. Do you want to take Harvey, or should I?"
She wasn't used to a man who was considerate of others. Certainly, she wouldn't have thought a billionaire would care about what she wanted, or yield to her requirements.
"I'll take him."
He breathed out a small sign. Could it be relief? Had he been worried that she was running away and would disappear from his life?
A part of her wanted to do just that. Things had gone too fast. Last night, after a couple of glasses of wine, Courtney had been able to persuade herself to be brave, to take risks, to seek after physical sensation without guarantee that her heart would always been protected. In the light of day, especially after seeing Tyler with his sister and a child, she knew she'd taken a bigger risk than she could afford.
"I've got to go. Now."
She gathered up Harvey's leash, pulled on her coat, and headed for the outside.
A storm had rolled in while they'd been at breakfast. Two hours before, Philadelphia had been a muddy gray sludge. Now, snow was transforming it into a fairyland of glistening white.
Harvey bounded through the drifts, rolled in snow until it stuck to his fur, chased after a couple of brave squirrels who had emerged from their dens to dig up some hidden acorns, and generally had a fabulous time.
Which made one of them.
She walked for about an hour, wandering aimlessly through the streets of Philadelphia, letting Harvey explore what curious smells he found and introduce himself to the other dogs they met. While he romped, she kept busy feeling sorry for herself.
While Courtney's mind settled into depression, the rest of the city took on a carnival atmosphere. The weekend snowfall blocked the roads and encouraged people to head out from their homes or shops, greet one another in the roads, and exchange comments about the Eagles football team, which had made the playoffs, or about the coming holiday season. Children seized control of entire city blocks, mapping out improvised hockey fields played with booted feet and rubber balls.
She stopped in at a coffee shop and ordered a latte and biscotti although she wasn't hungry after the mountain of waffles that Tyler had forced on her.
The manager, a kid who looked barely old enough to be out of high school, gave Harvey a suspicious look. "There was a dog who looked like that in here a few days ago. He ate the Ethernet cables that connect our PCs to the web. The boss was big-time pissed even though the man wrote a big check."
That figured. Harvey hadn't constrained his acting out to Tyler's home.
"Does this dog look like he's going to cause trouble?"
"Dunno. He sure looks like that other dog to me."
"Lots of dogs look like this." She didn't like to lie and was happy when the manager let things go. "This one is a good boy. He won't eat your Ethernet." Whatever that was.
She took her time with her coffee, warming herself up and letting Harvey have a couple of the treats she always carried with her. He'd had enough people food to last him for a long time and, she thought, really preferred knowing that he was getting his own things.
Harvey knew his place, she realized. It was just when they tried to put him in a place where he knew he didn't belong that he had trouble.
Just as she had. What possible business did she have thinking of herself as a billionaire's girlfriend? What arrogant nonsense had let her fantasize about being a family with Tyler? A casual sexual fling, sure. But relationship? Hell, she hadn't been able to have a decent relationship since she'd broken up with her first boyfriend at the age of five. Realistically, Tyler was just another billionaire making time with the help. She had to face that reality.
"I'm going to remember my place," she assured Harvey.
"You say something?" The manager looked up from a graphic novel.
"Nothing."
"Oh. Hey, your dog is nice. Uh, listen. I was wondering, if maybe you'd like to go out some time?"
She should probably take the date. A coffee shop manager was a lot more in her social range than a billionaire. But after spending a night with Tyler, she couldn't summon up even a drop of enthusiasm. "I appreciate the offer. I'm sort of involved right now, though."
"Okay. Well, let me know if that changes."
She shrugged. "Maybe I'll see you around."
She'd made it all of twenty feet back toward Tyler's house when a blue and white pulled alongside of her.
"Ms. Courtney Zane?"
She nod
ded to the cop leaning out the open window. Oh, God. Her brother. Something must have happened to Pete!
"You're wanted downtown. Why don't you come along peacefully?"
* * * *
Harvey wasn't happy.
Apparently he'd taken his guard duties seriously and felt he was letting Courtney down when he allowed the cops to hustle her into their squad car.
She managed to get him into the car with her, but with his howl in full swing, they hadn't needed the police siren to stop traffic.
"Can you tell me what this is about?" she had to shout over the distraught animal. She should have asked them before they'd gotten her into the car, but she'd been too numb with shock.
"A detective will explain everything when we get to headquarters."
With that, the cops shut up. Harvey didn't.
Once at the police station, she and Harvey were separated. Courtney didn't like that any more than Harvey did, but the cops insisted and she figured they probably had that right. Not many prisoners had dogs.
After parking her for an hour in a ten-by-ten ugly gray room with a table and three chairs, two plainclothes cops joined her. She was already regretting the coffee she'd drunk at the coffee shop. A few years earlier, she'd gotten hooked on true crime shows on Court T.V. She knew how polite requests to step down the hall would be treated.
"Ms. Courtney Zane? I'm Detective O'Bannon and this is Detective Sobolewski. You have the right to remain silent."
They read her rights from a card, and then Sobolewski got in her face.
"All we want to know is where you put them."
"I'm sorry. Nobody has explained what you're looking for."
"Ms. Zane," O'Bannon started.
"Can it, Zane," Sobolewski interrupted. "You know what we're after. Turn over those bonds now and things will go easier. Who knows, maybe it'll be no harm, no foul. Make it hard for us, we'll make it hard for you."
The only bonds Courtney knew anything about were the savings bonds her aunt had sent her for college--and that her father had made her sign over as soon as she'd gotten them.
"I still don't understand."
"We're talking about two hundred million dollars, Ms. Zane. And if you don't join the conversation soon, you're going to be very sorry."
The number clicked. "Do you mean the two hundred million Mrs. Atwood wants for the symphony?"
The two cops exchanged a glance.
"What the hell are you talking about, Zane?" That was O'Bannon. "What goddamned symphony?"
"So you do know about the bearer bonds after all? I thought so." That was Sobolewski.
"Eve Atwood was pushing Tyler to fund some major endowment for the Philadelphia Symphony," Courtney explained. "She wanted him to donate the entire two hundred million the symphony supposedly needs for a new fine arts center and permanent endowment. But Tyler refused. That's the only two hundred million I know anything about."
"Atwood didn't say anything about his mother, did he?" To her surprise, Sobolewski seemed to believe her more than O'Bannon. Then it sank in. Tyler had sicced the cops on her. But why? Because she'd wanted to go for a walk when he wanted sex? He couldn't be that vindictive, could he? What in the world was going on?
O'Bannon stood. "I want you to give Detective Sobolewski a minute-by-minute account of how you spent the past forty-eight hours. I'll follow up with Atwood on this mother angle."
He walked out, leaving Courtney alone with the offensive cop.
"Let's get started," Sobolewski ordered. "I want every breath you took, every time you scratched an itch. You may think it had nothing to do with the missing money but that's up to me to decide."
Courtney felt the heat on her cheeks. There was no way she could tell this detective every detail of her forty-eight hours. Given that Tyler had obviously thrown her to the cops, she shouldn't feel any obligation to keep any of his secrets. Still, she had spent a good chunk of those hours making passionate love with Tyler. How could she share those memories with a foul-mouthed cop?
Chapter 7
"When, exactly, was I supposed to have broken into your wall safe, taken the key to your safety deposit box, rifled through it, and stolen two hundred million dollars worth of bearer bonds, whatever they are?"
They were sitting on a park bench across the street from the police station and Courtney had been letting Tyler have it for about ten minutes. It wasn't what he really wanted from Courtney, but he couldn't blame her for being mad.
Anger gave Courtney a glow, her deep breathing giving her sexy curves an extra measure of thrust--not that she needed anything extra to look good to Tyler. Her anger certainly deserved his full attention, but he found himself distracted by her pure desirability. Of course, letting her know that would be suicide.
"I checked the safe after Dupuis left," he explained patiently. "The key was there. And you were the only stranger in my house after that."
"So I'm a stranger now?" Despite the cold and despite the fact that her car was back at his house, Courtney had refused to get into his car with Tyler, let alone have him bring her back home. Which led to this uncomfortable impasse.
"You know I didn't mean it that way, Courtney. You're not a stranger. You're a friend. But you were the logical suspect. Who would guess that my mother would do something like that?"
"But I sure crossed your mind. You didn't even have to think hard about it before you called the police on me."
Who could blame him? Women he dated were always at least as interested in his money as anything else. It was natural to assume a possibility that Courtney could be tempted. Two hundred million dollars would tempt a lot of people.
"I'll make it up to you," he suggested. "How about we take the corporate jet to New York. We can catch a show and have an after-theater dinner at Tavern on the Green."
She swiped a tear from one eye. "You can't buy me, Tyler."
There are time when you've got to retreat in the face of attack. Tyler remembered that from a military history class he'd taken. This was clearly one of those.
"I was wrong, Courtney. I should have trusted you. I should have guessed my mother was up to something breaking into the house in the middle of the night. I bought into McKinsey's theory about her wanting to inspect the woman living under my roof. But in my own defense, I never told the police to arrest you. When they asked if there had been anyone new in my house, I merely mentioned you, and they jumped all over it."
"You could have stopped them."
"Yes, I could have," he agreed. "I should have."
* * * *
Courtney knew she was being unfair. Tyler had known his mother all of his life. Of course he would suspect the stranger rather than his flesh and blood. But Tyler's distrust hurt more than she wanted to admit. She didn't want to be fair; she wanted to be mad.
"Let me make it up to you," Tyler offered.
"Okay. Get out of my life."
He considered, then shook his head. "I'm fascinated by you. I don't understand you, but I want to. I'm not going to let a horrible misunderstanding get in the way of exploring an attraction we both feel."
"I'll get a court order against you."
Tyler had been moving closer to her on the park bench, but now he pulled back. "I won't stalk you. But I am going to do my best to persuade you to give me another chance."
Another chance to what? Make her fall more deeply in love with him? To completely destroy the wreckage that had once been her heart? Courtney couldn't afford that. But what choices did she have?
"I will continue to work with Harvey," she finally said. "But I'm not going back to bed with you."
Tyler's smile lit his face.
"I said I'm not--"
"You're going to give me another chance. Believe me, Courtney, I'll make sure you don't regret it."
Before she could think, he pressed his lips to hers.
He was probably planning a quick lets-be-friends peck.
Courtney ordered herself to be unresponsive, to let her l
ips passively accept what he wanted to give.
Her body betrayed her, again.
Her lips softened under his touch like snow melting in the sun. Her mouth opened, accepting, receiving. Her tongue met his like it was seeking a long-lost part of itself. Her arms wrapped around him, pulling him close to herself.
Time collapsed into pure sensation. Nobody should be able to kiss like that. It was too dangerous. It simply wasn't fair.
He'd lied about not hurting her, of course. She already regretted agreeing to continue with this impossible job, already regretted the pain she knew was inevitable. But she could no more pull away from him than a moth can ignore the hypnotic allure of a flame.
"Let's go home," Tyler murmured when he pulled away, finally. "We've got a dog to take care of."
"No sex," she whispered. She'd decided that could be her new mantra. Even if she couldn't trust herself, she knew she could trust Tyler this much. If she said no, no matter how much she wanted to make it a yes, Tyler would respect her answer.
"No sex until you ask for it," he agreed.
"That'll be the day."
He gave her his sexy smile. "That's the day I'm looking forward to."
* * * *
Tyler opened his door and sniffed. Something wasn't right.
Harvey had regressed.
The dog had used his new trick of opening doors to raid the refrigerator. He lay in the middle of the kitchen, wallowing in a mound of food.
Clarence, the cop who had brought Harvey home from the police station, snoozed in front of the television oblivious to the destruction behind his back. Apparently he'd believed that his job ended when he'd gotten Harvey home.
"I'll give the mutt a bath," Courtney grabbed Harvey by the collar and tugged.
The dog gave a piteous moan. His distended stomach indicated that he'd eaten too much of the food before he'd destroyed the rest.
"Let me get rid of Clarence and I'll come help you."
"I don't need your help, Tyler."
She almost certainly didn't need his help. Tyler had discovered that Courtney was a surprisingly self-reliant person. Anyone who could make even a modest living as a pet psychologist had to be self-reliant. It was the kind of job that he would have considered a joke--before he'd desperately needed one. But whether Courtney needed his help or not, she was going to get it.
CEO's S.O.S. Page 8
