She'd been lying about having another appointment but the tick-tick of dog paws announced a walk-in.
She looked up from her desk in time to see Harvey bound into her lap.
"Hey, boy. You're too heavy for me."
She turned a scowl in the direction of her office door but it hit the wrong victim. Tyler was nowhere in sight. Instead, McKinsey grinned at her.
"Hey, girlfriend."
"What are you doing here, McKinsey?"
"Tyler is busy at the plant. Since mother stole fifty million, he's having to scale down his expansion plans."
"I thought she stole two hundred million."
"Yeah, but she's maybe giving some back. Working a deal."
It figured that Tyler would try to pay off his mother--just as he'd tried to buy her. "So, you're here to help Harvey with his issues?"
McKinsey shrugged. "Hey, if you want to talk about a dog I guess I'm game. But I really thought we could chat about snakes. I mean, men."
Courtney must be getting slow. The flowers, the food, then the sister. Tyler was playing to win and sending his sister was just the next move.
"Why would I want to talk about that liar?"
"Why not? He hurt your feelings and he can be a jerk, like any other guy. Of course you'll want to gush about that."
"To his sister?"
"You don't think he's hurt my feelings? Because he's older than me, and because my father was always drunk, I looked up to Tyler. We were allies, us against the parents with Amanda being too much of a suck-up to help. But then he started working to save the steel plant, and he never had time for me anymore. He thought a condo and a car and more shoes than Imelda Marcos would take the place of him actually being there. He didn't even see that he was doing exactly what we used to criticize my dad for. So, yeah, if you've got anything to say, I think I'd be someone who would understand."
Courtney felt a stab of sympathy for McKinsey. But once burned, twice shy. "And you'd take the message right back to him, wouldn't you?"
McKinsey's grin showed thousands of dollars of straightened and whitened teeth. "I don't know. Why don't you try me?"
"Did he tell you what he did?"
McKinsey nodded. "He bought your building to be able to spend time with you." She pushed both hands to her heart. "That is so incredibly romantic. I wonder if anyone will ever do anything like that for me."
"He bought my building to get my help for his dog. And since I was there, he decided sex was a fringe benefit."
McKinsey's eyes widened. "Is that what you think? That he fell for you because you were convenient?"
Courtney had whipped herself up into a serious mad because of Tyler's high-handed behavior. To the point where she hadn't really looked at the question from that perspective. Did Tyler really think of her as a sexual add-on to his building purchase and dog care?
"I don't know what to think."
"I'll give you a couple of data points, then." All of a sudden, McKinsey didn't sound like a ditz. She sounded like an accountant or something as she ticked off her message. "First, Tyler is a serious hunk. He's never had problems getting sex. Even when we lost everything and the four of us had to move into this dinky apartment, Tyler still had about six women calling him every day. And they weren't looking for money because we didn't have any."
"But--"
"And since he made all that money, he's had even more. It's almost like he's a rock star. He can step into a party, wave the keys to his private jet, and have eight girls who'll go with him, even if they have to share him with the other seven."
"Gross."
"It's every guy's fantasy, except Tyler's been there, done it, and so it's not a big romantic ideal to him anymore."
The thought of Tyler with all of those women made Courtney just a little ill. "Okay, I take your point."
McKinsey pulled a lipstick from her purse, applied it expertly, then studied herself in her compact mirror. "I don't think you do. Because about a year ago, when Amanda got really sick, Tyler gave it all up. He concentrated on his company, on making sure Amanda got the best care, but he became almost a monk when it came to women. You're the first woman he's spent any time with since then."
"Rebound. After your sister's death--"
McKinsey cut her off. "Save your analysis for your four-legged friends. I don't need it. Nobody says you've got to date my brother. But don't go assigning smutty motives to him. He's a good guy, and he likes you a lot. You hurt him when you left and he'd like a chance to start over. Not to justify what he did, because he knows that he should have been straight with you from the beginning, but because you touched a part of him that he thought was dead.
"And I want to see my brother happy." McKinsey brought a high-heeled shoe up and put it on Courtney's desk. "Of course, I wouldn't mind someone to go shopping with, either."
"I can't afford to shop in the kind of places you like. And I'm not taking Tyler's money."
McKinsey's smile indicated she'd heard only half of what Courtney had said. "Cool. So you'll see him, give him a chance?"
Courtney nodded slowly. Tyler had hurt her feelings, but she still cared for him. What McKinsey had shared with her, even her father's research into Tyler, let her see different sides to Tyler. He was a more complex person, even a more interesting person than she had realized.
"I'm not making any promises."
"Just call him. Let him make the promises."
* * * *
Tyler looked up from the computer.
In the background, the familiar rumbles of the plant went on like a heartbeat.
He rubbed his eyes and glanced at his clock. Midnight. And he felt as if he had as much work ahead of him as when he'd started.
A faint swish of movement from his admin's office distracted him. "Mary, are you still there."
Nothing.
He'd never wasted any of the company's money on security the way some companies did but, for the first time, he wondered if he might have made a mistake. If he called for help, no one would be able to hear.
He grabbed a small stainless steel bar--a keepsake from the first pour they'd made after he'd bought the bankrupt plant--and stood. "Come in with your hands up. I'm armed."
The intruder entered--and he dropped the steel ingot. "Courtney. What are--"
"I thought we should talk. And Harvey missed his dad."
It was like Courtney to think of the dog as someone who deserved simple consideration, just like anyone else.
"I've missed you."
"You've spent ridiculous amounts of money on flowers. Did you really think you could buy me back?"
He shrugged. "McKinsey warned me that was a stupid idea, but I've heard that every woman likes getting flowers. I figured it was worth a chance."
Courtney sat down on one of the chairs around a table and he got up from his desk to join her.
"I shouldn't have just walked out on you this morning without giving you a chance to talk," she admitted, finally. "It was childish of me. I think I was justified in being pissed, but I owed it to you to hear you out, to let you try to explain what you'd done."
It couldn't be this easy. He wondered how many pair of Italian shoes he owed McKinsey for this. "Okay."
She shook her head. "Oh, no, you're not off the hook. I'm waiting for some groveling. You acted like a typical selfish billionaire who thought he could buy his way out of trouble and who would rather spend money than an ounce of his time and energy on solving a problem.
He opened his mouth to argue and nothing came out. Courtney was right.
If the designer Italian shoe fit, Tyler had to wear it. Courtney was right: he had been going about things wrong--with Courtney, of course, but with his mother and with his sister too. No wonder his relationships were so messed up. She'd been trying to tell him from the very beginning. Let him know that he was headed in the wrong direction, that Harvey's problems were symptomatic of Tyler's own mistakes.
With a flash of insight, he saw that C
ourtney had given him an incredible gift--a gift that would help him with his family, his dog, and maybe even with her.
"You're right. It's what you've been saying from the beginning, too and I only thought I understood. I threw money at Harvey when he needed attention and love. Same with my mother and sister. I tried to do it to you, too, didn't I?"
"Not that I have a problem with an occasional fancy dinner out," Courtney said.
But Tyler was on a roll. He was enamored of Courtney's body, the way her voice seemed to resonate directly to his sex, and with her beautiful dark hair. But he had fallen in love with her mind--a mind brilliant enough to cut through smokescreens and recognize real issues for what they were. And a mind kind enough to find the words to explain problems and solutions in ways that even pet-loving clients would understand and agree to rather than bristle at her clear identification of their flaws.
Courtney had seen through him. In the reflected light, she had shown him something he didn't like.
"Starting now, we're starting over. I think we've made real progress with Harvey but if it comes down to a choice between you as my pet psychologist or you as my girlfriend, I'm going to pick girlfriend, every time."
Courtney got up and walked to the door--classic flight mechanism. "Remember what your mother said about ready-to-wear, Tyler. I'm afraid I don't fit--"
"I know you're afraid. But you don't have to be. I think my mother will come to accept you--you're smart, attractive, and kind. But if she doesn't, it's her loss. I spend more time with the guys from the old local than I do with my mother or her friends. And they'll love you."
He could tell he was getting through to her but she was still nervous. Which made sense. Dating him would put her in the public eye, expose her to criticism, give every gossip rag an excuse to snap photos of her when she went out without makeup or wore an unflattering outfit. But there wasn't anything Tyler could do about that--not without letting down a lot of people. And much as he wanted Courtney to be a part of his life, he wouldn't be the person he was if he could walk away from the commitments he'd made to Atwood Steel and to the hundreds of employees who had risked so much coming to work for him when the startup had seemed like such a terrible risk.
He knew it was cheating to use the physical attraction that bound them together but he couldn't help himself. He took Harvey's leash from her hand and then tugged her close to him.
She smelled of cinnamon and orange peel--a strange mix but sexy.
Her head tilted back as he brought her near and that was all the invitation he required.
He pressed his lips to hers, kissed her hard--wanting to communicate messages he couldn't send with words alone. He needed her to understand that he wanted her by his side, her to be a part of his life--and he a part of hers.
She melted into him, her body almost liquid as it touched his own, conformed around the hardness of his muscle with that mysterious feminine flexible softness that disguised her strength but couldn't completely hide it.
Courtney's lips, tongue, body joined in his kiss, transformed it into something more powerful and complete than even the mind-shattering kisses and lovemaking they'd experienced the previous weekend.
Time lost meaning as he traced the curve of her spine with his hand and savored her taste, touch, scent.
If Harvey hadn't gotten bored and tugged on the leash, Tyler could have kissed Courtney until morning.
But the animal was insistent and Harvey was his buddy--even if he was a mood-breaker. Tyler pulled away slightly. "Guess I should take him out for a walk."
"I'll come with you."
Those were the first words Courtney had said in a very long time. He looked at her eyes and saw what he hoped for. She wasn't just talking about now, about a brief relief walk for his dog. She meant she'd take the chance, be his girlfriend, explore the feelings, the desire, the emotional attachment that had so quickly grown between them.
They walked outside the plant, the glow of the city and the flare of fiery steel furnaces providing all the light they needed as they stepped through the crunchy white of the ice and snow.
* * * *
She'd been right to take the chance. Courtney could hardly believe how close she had come to letting Tyler out of her life. If Tyler hadn't sent McKinsey, she would have continued to reject his apologies--not because he was wrong, but because of that same foolish pride that had gotten her in trouble so many times before.
Tyler slipped his arm around her shoulder and she put a hand in his pocket, each holding the other close, creating heat between them that could hold off the bitter cold of winter.
Tyler kicked a hunk of ice that had fallen off a car and stopped when Harvey found a light post that desperately needed sniffing. "I don't know if you remember, but I mentioned the possibility of taking a few days and heading for the Caribbean. It would be fun to get someplace warm for a while. And if you don't have one, I'm sure I could find you a sexy bikini."
"Are you still trying to buy me?" She tried to make it sound like a joke, but only partially succeeded. A part of her still feared.
He grinned. "I can see why you'd take it that way, but believe me, the treat would be mine."
Her father had always told her that she asked too many questions, that she never left things alone when they were going well. Right now, she suspected her dad might be right, but she couldn't help pushing. She had fallen in love with Tyler, was prepared to make a commitment even bigger than the one he was asking for, but her fears hadn't simply vanished. Tyler had grown up in a family where spending money was the accepted way to deal with problems. He claimed he had turned over a new leaf, but could she really know? Could even he really know?
"What are you going to do next time McKinsey comes to you wanting to go on a shopping trip to Europe or Singapore or wherever it is that the cool chicks are heading for the season?"
Tyler gave Harvey a tug and the animal responded by leaving his calling card on the light pole and trotting up to his human. "Are you testing me?"
"Maybe. Would you be angry if I was?"
He shook his head and stepped toward the line of trees that completely surrounded his steelworks and that absorbed some huge percentage of the carbon dioxide created during the steel-making process.
"You've earned the right to be doubtful. And the answer is, I don't know. I've let McKinsey down by not spending time with her and I'll try to fix that. Did you know that she has a Master's degree in Physics? She shouldn't be wasting her life as a worthless society girl. But she was useless when she worked for the company. Maybe she needs to do something on her own, like you did."
Courtney looked away wishing that fair skin did a better job at hiding blushes. "As if I'm such a great role-model. My best month ever, I earned eleven hundred dollars."
"You're doing what you love and you're helping people. That's worth more than eleven hundred dollars right there."
"Okay."
Tyler squeezed her shoulder. "My mother, though, is another issue. Thanks to you, I finally know the right thing to do."
Courtney didn't think she'd offered Tyler any guidance on how to handle his mother. For sure, she didn't have a clue. She'd never set any records on solving family problems.
Tyler fished his cell phone from his pocket and punched a speed dial. "Barney? It's Atwood."
A brief pause, then: "Yeah, I know it's the middle of the night. But I've made up my mind. Screw my mother's so-called deal. Let's press charges. Let her see how ordinary people who steal get to live."
Tyler hung up the phone and grinned at Courtney. "That wasn't easy but it was the right thing to do. Thanks, darling."
He bent to kiss her and Courtney couldn't help herself. She punched him straight in the nose.
"Don't you dare touch me." She was screaming but she couldn't help it and didn't want to. "You just sold out your own mother to the police. And you expect me to be happy?"
Tyler rubbed his damaged nose. "You've taught me something about myself, Cour
tney. Ever since my father's accident, I've felt responsible. Responsible for failing him, and responsible for making up for his inability to support my mother and sisters in the style to which he'd accustomed them. But he wasn't doing them any favors, and I haven't been either. Just like Harvey, with his destructive patterns, my mother and sister have used my money to enable their self-destructiveness. Harvey destroyed a hundred thousand, quarter of a million tops in furnishings and home repair. But my mother stole two hundred million and her so-called deal is going to cost a thousand people their jobs. It isn't right and I'm not going to stand for it. It's your example, your strength, that opened my eyes to this."
"Oh, no, you can't blame this on me, Tyler." It was the type of thing her father would have done--selling out anyone who could get him ahead, clear him a few bucks. Just as he had urged her to sell herself to Tyler in exchange for the money he figured would flow his way. In fact, she wasn't sure even her father would send his mother to prison.
Tyler looked confused. "I'm not blaming you, I'm thanking you. You don't have to worry about my mother. She's--"
"She's your mother, Tyler. And you've abandoned her like she was used kitty litter. It really does all come down to money for you, doesn't it? Your own mother is costing too much so you toss her to the cops. Do you seriously think I could spend my life with someone who could do that? If you'd abandon your mother to the police, what would you do to a woman who wasn't even flesh and blood? Toss me in one of your blast furnaces, maybe."
"Spend your life?" He smiled. "I figured I would wait a while before I asked for that kind of—"
"I don't think you're listening."
Tyler's brown-black eyes glowed with reflected light from a flame coming from the steel mill. "It's funny that you see so clearly when it comes to pets. When it comes to people, you have your blinders on, don't you?"
CEO's S.O.S. Page 14
