by Laura Moore
His laugh was rich and deep. It occurred to her that if he’d only stop directing it at her, she’d love the sound of it.
“Sure thing, Junior. And if I buy that one, no doubt you have a bridge somewhere near Brooklyn to sell me, too. Go on, give it your best shot,” he encouraged, a smile lingering. He hadn’t had this much fun in months.
“In case you didn’t know, we’re going to need as much ready cash as possible to reinvigorate this business. There are a lot of immediate expenditures facing us. Creditors. Major purchases. Employee payrolls.” She ticked off the items one by one, as a teacher would with a student who’d bombed a pop quiz. “And unless they’re antiques, even luxury cars depreciate in value. Naturally, they were the first things I sold.” Ty explained calmly. “The same, however, can’t be said for my Fifth Avenue apartment, but I was able to triple my initial investment on the sale. The market has been absolutely wild lately, don’t you think?”
Steve didn’t get a chance to reply, for she’d already turned and yanked open the back door, grabbing a hold of two more bulging grocery bags. “Anyway, I love my new bug. Who could possibly resist a car that has a built-in flower vase in its dashboard?” Gracing him with an “I don’t really give a damn what you think of me anyway” smile, she left him standing there in the dark. What in hell was that all about? Steve asked himself as he stared blankly at the ridiculously cute little car. The interior light of the VW shone brightly, providing the only illumination. One minute Ty Stannard had been doing a passable imitation of the Duchess of Windsor, the next she was lecturing him as if she intended to take over Alan Greenspan’s job at the Federal Reserve. What was all this babble about ready cash? As the daughter of a billionaire, didn’t that make her at the very least a multimillionaire? Why in blazes should someone as rich as she go and sell off her fancy cars, her apartment on Fifth Avenue, trade it all for a VW, and start lecturing him on fiscal responsibility?
It was absurd. She doubtless had millions—and millions to spare—even if this gamble with Southwind ended up a financial fiasco.
And what was he doing, believing anything she said, anyway? Most likely, it was nothing but a play for sympathy. She was merely concocting some sob story so that he’d back off and forget about regaining control of the farm. The truth of the matter was, she was his adversary in what had been the equivalent of a hostile business takeover. With instincts no doubt learned at her daddy’s knee, she’d figured out a stratagem to lure Steve into a partnership he didn’t want and now she had a fifty percent share in his dream.
Even if some part, some tiny part of her cock-andbull story were true, why should he care? It had nothing to do with him if she wanted to sell everything she owned. No doubt a lot of rich people were nutcases.
Yet an unexpected stab of guilt pierced him when he saw, to the right of the steering wheel, a slim black flower holder with a jaunty daisy nestled inside nodding back at him. And walking back toward the house, he found it impossible to chase away the memory of Ty Stannard’s subtly erotic beauty from his mind.
Or to check his growing need to experience the thrill of her body pressed close against his own. The tempting aroma of garlic and onions sauteing filled the kitchen as he carried in the last two bags and deposited them on the gleaming butcher-block counter. It was great to see the house clean again. The place was spic and span. She’d even thought of flowers, he noted, eyeing the vase of orange and yellow mums on the windowsill.
He’d been intending to tackle the mess himself, but that was before he’d been cornered into this partnership. Afterward, he’d come back to the farm, and the overwhelming filth, the destruction of Jase’s room, had taken on a new light. They could work to his advantage, be a definite plus. And so he let the dirt and disorder accumulate, avoiding the stench by spending as much time outside as possible. It seemed a small price to pay, as he’d half convinced himself it would do the trick and that Ty would wimp out immediately.
But no. She’d set the house to rights with the efficiency of a five-star general coordinating battle troops for a full-scale attack. Clearly, for “General” Tyler, failure was not an option. If she expected him to acknowledge this first success, she was sadly underestimating him.
But now she was cooking dinner.
Steve tried not to breathe, afraid he’d pass out from sheer olfactory pleasure. It had been almost a month since he’d eaten anything that involved more effort than opening a can of tuna or smearing peanut butter on bread. The bulk of his diet had been liquid, the main ingredients hops and malt. From the corner of his eye, he saw two thick steaks and a small mountain of sliced vegetables. Feeling his knees go weak, his stomach betrayed him, too, growling loudly enough to be heard over the sizzle and pop of rapidly cooking onions.
Worriedly, he glanced at her. Fortunately, she appeared not to have heard his stomach welcoming the prospect of a decent meal. She was standing over the stove, a long wooden spoon in her hand, gently stirring the onions. On the back burner, a heavy enamel pot was sitting over a high flame. Its lid rattled musically as jets of steam shot upward. He watched her grab a dishtowel, shift the lid to the side, and poke at the pot’s contents with a fork.
“What are you cooking?” he asked casually, as if he weren’t willing to sell his mother for a bite of homecooked food.
“Steak, stir-fried vegetables, boiled potatoes. If you’re interested in eating, you can set the table. There’s some salad in one of those bags that needs washing, too. Dinner should be ready in about twenty minutes.”
As she didn’t seem to be pouting or holding a grudge against him after their conversation by the car, the least he could do was to eat her food.
Awkwardly, they worked around each other, both doing their best to pretend the other didn’t exist. It was about as successful as putting out a forest fire with a water gun. Steve making the uncomfortable and unpleasant discovery that if he ventured anywhere too near his new partner, his system went haywire, his heart pounding as if he’d scaled Mount Everest. Unfortunately, because of the kitchen’s design, the cabinets holding dishes and utensils were clustered on either side of the stove. It had never been a problem before, but then he’d never had a woman who looked as good as Ty Stannard in his kitchen before, either. That being the case, whenever Steve reached for a dish or some cutlery and found himself mere inches away, all the oxygen whooshed right out of his brain, rendering him so witless, so stupid, he kept forgetting what he was doing. Again and again he’d come back to the same drawer, the same cabinet.
With each return trip, he found his body drifting closer, crowding her, until the rivets on his jeans were brushing up against her hip, and his eyes were straying, taking in the curves of her body, the delicate lines of her face. For the first time, he noticed the faint scar at the edge of her eyebrow. It did nothing to mar her beauty, only made it so she wasn’t perfect. It was sexy as hell. Far too much about Ty Stannard was sexy as hell.
For what had to be the umpteenth time, he yanked open the cabinet to the right of her head. If she’d only turn this way, they’d fit together like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. And wouldn’t that be nice. Nice: frigging understatement of the year.
“Excuse me, but what are you doing?” Her face was flushed, her smoky gray eyes round with confusion. And, he prayed, awareness.
“Salad bowl,” he mumbled in reply, so far gone he could have been speaking in Chinese. He inhaled deeply, trying to pull more air into his lungs and clear his head. Lord, she smelled good, all lemony and sweet, even better than the dinner cooking behind her.
He thought about what it would be like to kiss her. It wasn’t the first time the thought had crossed his mind. He’d been entertaining the idea with disturbing frequency since laying eyes on her at that meeting with the lawyers. Like a fine wine, the fantasy of kissing Ty Stannard got better, developing body, complexity, nuance, each time he indulged in it. Right now, what he wanted to do was to take her in his arms and let his body have what it craved: her soft curv
es pressed tight against him. His lips would explore the slender column of her throat, where the warmth of her skin mixed with the subtle scent of lemon, spices, and flowers. A slow, sensuous journey would lead him to her mouth, that mouth that he’d been looking at far too often. With a gentle caress, his tongue would greet those rosy pink lips, and they’d part for him, her soft moan of surrender inviting him in.
Steve’s head dipped toward Ty’s.
The shrill buzz of the stove’s timer rang loudly behind them, making Steve stumble quickly backward, nearly landing flat on his ass. He stared at her, appalled at what he’d almost done. If possible, Ty’s eyes had grown even wider than before, her breathing shallow. But that was nothing compared to him. He felt
as if his skin had shrunk two sizes. Probably caused by the killer erection that was about to bust the zipper on his jeans. Please, God, don’t let her look down.
Feeling like a horny creep in his own damned kitchen, he grabbed the salad bowl and slammed the cabinet door with enough force to rattle all the dishes inside. Ty gaped at him, her mouth a perfect Oh. She clearly thought he’d gone mad, which he had.
As he was trying to gather enough brain cells together to formulate a satisfyingly cutting remark, the two-note chime of the front doorbell rang, saving him. Steve rushed to answer it, escaping from the kitchen, getting the hell away from the woman who was turning practically every aspect of his life inside out.
By the time the delivery men hauled Ty’s new queensize bed up the stairs, Steve had recovered his scrambled wits enough to go back on the attack. He didn’t want her thinking that almost-kiss by the stove meant he was attracted to her or anything.
“Shoot, Junior,” he drawled as he shut the door behind the departing deliverymen, “when I saw you threw out Jase’s bed, I was convinced that was your subtle way of letting me know you wanted to share mine.”
“Don’t be absurd,” Ty shot back angrily, her face pale.
“Just as well. You’re not really my type.” With that, he grabbed a jacket from the hook on the wall, shrugging into it as he said, “Can’t stay for dinner after all. Forgot I had a meeting with a friend. Sweet dreams, partner.”
15
N estled in a corner of the Four Seasons grill room was a table set and permanently reserved for Tyler Stannard, Mr. Tyler Stannard. Its location was ideal, away from prying eyes and eavesdroppers yet close enough to the oversized tinted window that it was bathed in the soft golden light that streamed in during the day.
Sitting across the rectangular table from Douglas Crane, Tyler Stannard monitored the subtle but telling signs of the lawyer’s discomfort. His guest’s roast quail, surrounded by colorful wilted greens and nutted wild rice, sat untouched, the roll of french bread crumbled into tiny, unappetizing bits, equally neglected. The glass of red Bordeaux quickly drained for the third time.
“I can’t help but feel deeply disappointed by the recent turn of events. I keep wondering why it was left to my company to contact you, Douglas. Surely, after having directed business your way for so many years, I could have expected Crane, Adderson and White to mention that my daughter intended to enter into a business partnership without my having to go fishing for the information.” Like a telephoto lens, Stannard zoomed in on the involuntary tic that made Douglas Crane’s left eye quiver unpleasantly.
“Mr. Stannard, please understand, the swiftness of your daughter’s decision took us all, my associates and me, very much by surprise.” The lawyer hemmed, his throat working nervously. “I had anticipated that there would be at least a week’s worth of negotiating before anything was signed. With that in mind, the wisest course was to wait until the details became concrete. When your daughter informed me of her decision to sign the contract at once, I assure you I made every attempt to dissuade her.” Douglas Crane reached for his wineglass once again and drank thirstily. “What she did was pure folly,” he finished, not bothering to disguise the scorn in his voice.
“That shows how little you understand my daughter, your client,” Tyler Stannard replied coldly. “It was a serious error to underestimate her. Had the situation been carefully analyzed, you’d have realized what she already had, that the timing of the deal was crucial. If Stannard Limited had been alerted soon enough, we could have trumped her offer and still walked away with a more than comfortable profit margin. Now, not only have we lost that property, but my daughter is involved in a contractual arrangement that is unsuitable and unacceptable.” At the last, Tyler Stannard’s voice rose dramatically, as if someone had jerked the volume knob, a loss of control so rare that Douglas Crane involuntarily glanced left and right at other grazing billionaires and power brokers, acutely aware that conversation had abruptly died around their table.
“Mr. Stannard,” Douglas Crane offered hurriedly, “my partners and I did everything we could to . . .”
“Yes, yes, I know,” Stannard interrupted with a wave of his hand. His voice had returned to normal.
“You weren’t about to risk losing my daughter as a client.”
“Crane, Adderson and White prides itself on providing expert legal advice . . .”
“Indeed.” Stannard inclined his silver head in agreement. “It does. Only consider the damage your firm will suffer when I drop a few hints about my dissatisfaction with the firm’s recent performance. It’s astonishing how many connections to people and companies we have in common, isn’t it?” Tyler Stannard reflected, sounding far more friendly, even congenial. Over the years, he’d refined threat and intimidation to a subtle art. The smile on his face alone was enough to cause Douglas Crane’s palms to sweat. “Just so there won’t be any further regrettable misunderstandings, let me outline what I expect, Douglas,” Stannard continued smoothly, confident of who held the power and control here, knowing the prestigious law firm would scramble to grant his every wish. “I want copies of the contract, the financial statements from the banks and the mortgage companies. I want all the details regarding my daughter’s trust fund from her mother, how she financed the deal between her and this Steve Sheppard down to the last penny, how much money she has left to spend. I want everything. Have it delivered to my office this afternoon by four. And by tomorrow morning, I expect to find a memorandum waiting for me, from you, explaining exactly how you’re going to blast that contract to smithereens.”
“But, Mr. Stannard . . .”
“There are no buts. My daughter has recently become . . . misguided, influenced by the wrong people.”
Unbidden, Lizzie Osborne Strickland’s name flashed before him, accompanied by the specter of her pale face, her eyes staring at him, uncomprehendingly at first, dulled with hurt and despair, then filling with bitterness as understanding finally dawned. That meeting still clear and fresh in his mind, as though it occurred only yesterday rather than close to two years ago.
“I don’t make personal loans, Mrs. Strickland, especially when it’s obvious they don’t stand a chance of being repaid—this one certainly won’t be, given the size of your debts. My advice to you is to rethink this idea and try for a reconciliation with your husband. Although, after your disgustingly public display of na?vet?, I can’t imagine that he’d want you, even if you were to crawl on your hands and knees.”
Good, Stannard remembered thinking, watching Lizzie Osborne Strickland recoil at his words. The few previous occasions when he’d had to tolerate her company, Tyler Stannard had never detected any particular sign of intelligence in the young woman, but this time, she seemed to have grasped the essential message quite quickly. She wouldn’t be grubbing a nickel from him.
And then he’d gone in for the kill. “By the way, Mrs. Strickland, don’t be so foolish as to suppose my daughter will lend you that large a sum, either. It would be useless to run to her with your unsavory marital problems. You see, I control most of her funds. I believe my secretary can show you to the elevators. Have a pleasant day, Mrs. Strickland.”
Thinking back, Tyler Stannard acknowledged that refusin
g his daughter’s friend had been a gross mistake. Perhaps his biggest blunder. If he’d simply paid the lawyers’ fees, he’d have been in a position to determine the future of Lizzie and Ty’s friendship.
Or, rather, lack of it.
It would have been the perfect way to rid his daughter-of Lizzie’s undesirable presence for good. Instead, he’d erroneously assumed that not only could he thwart her but that Tyler wouldn’t be taken in by the woman’s self-induced and wholly deserved plight.
He’d been too sure of his daughter. And of the reach of his influence over her, especially in the months following his open-heart surgery. Once the initial gravity of his physical condition had passed, Stannard had recognized that his illness could be exploited to his advantage and bring his daughter into line. For directly after finishing college, there’d been a disturbing phase when Tyler had displayed increasing and unmistakable signs of restlessness. Rebelliousness. The quadruple bypass on his heart had stamped that out most satisfactorily. Without voicing a murmur of dissent, she’d assumed responsibility for the company while he recuperated from the operation at home in Greenwich. Her seeming acquiescence had lulled him into assuming she’d bend to his will indefinitely.
But no. Upon discovering his refusal to help Lizzie, Tyler had turned her back on him, her own father. Her parting words still rang loudly, echoing inside his head: “I’ll never forgive you for this, for the way you hurt my friend. How could you deny, then humiliate someone so important to me?”
“Lizzie Osborne has never been good enough for you. Her recent vulgar and exhibitionist behavior is precisely the sort she revels in. Moreover, she’s perfectly willing to drag others down into the mud alongside her. You, for instance. This misplaced pity on your part is making you forget who you are, Tyler. Who you are as my daughter and as heir to the company, to the fortune I’ve put in trust for you.”
“None of which means anything to me. Lizzie, however, is my oldest friend and one of the finest human beings I’ve ever met. I’m going to do everything I can to help her.”
