by Bryce, Megan
She raised an eyebrow and he said, “You only have to say yes one time for me to win this game.”
“What if I said yes one time and then no again?”
“I would love to see you try.” He leaned in close. “Love to see you try.”
Her lips pinched together, trying to keep from laughing at him. She said, “Have you really thought this through? If we’re engaged and you can’t get me on my back, your social life is going to take a hit.”
“If, if, if. I’m willing to roll the dice.”
He could have said his social life couldn’t take any kind of hit, it was already dead in the water. He worked eighty hours during the week, slept in a trailer steps from his office, and came home on the weekends to rest, to take a break from sweaty, cursing men.
Maggie put the papers into her briefcase. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Cole only smiled.
He said, “What about your social life?”
She gave a humorless laugh. “I’m trying to fend off bankruptcy. I don’t have time for a social life.”
Good. He wouldn’t say it out loud, he wouldn’t say it. It didn’t need to be said. But, “Good. Don’t start having one. Not while we’re engaged.”
“You mean ‘engaged’.”
He grabbed her fingers, stopping the air quotes she was making. “No. I mean engaged. This will be real for everyone else, it’ll be real for us, too.”
She yanked her hands back, but all that did was pull him closer.
“I mean it, Maggie. You need a date to a function, I go. You need a scratch itched, I scratch it. No one else.”
She said softly, “You know I wouldn’t do that to you.”
He did know that. He let go of her fingers.
She said, “And I won’t need any scratch itched. But thanks for the offer.”
“It’s on the table.”
“You’ve made that pretty clear. I only wonder what would happen if I actually took you up on it.”
He dipped his head, put his hand on her stool, not touching her, but close. So close. “You think I’m bluffing here? Think I wouldn’t take you right now, here, any way I could.”
She leaned back and he followed. “Think I wouldn’t reach around you and rip that slit all the way up? Put you up on this counter, my hands around your ankles, and spread those long legs?”
She didn’t try to get away from him again. Wouldn’t back down from him, from anyone. She leaned forward and whispered, “You forgot about the shoes.”
“I didn’t forget the shoes.”
Those shoes would have a starring role.
He said, “We going to do that, Maggie?”
It took her a second. He watched the pulse pound in her neck, inhaled the warming, rising scent of her.
She finally said, “I was only wondering what you would do.”
“Now you know.”
She murmured, “Yeah.”
He waited, gave her one last chance to change her mind, then took a small step away from her. “If we’re not going to do that, let’s go visit some creditors then.”
She didn’t even blink. “You don’t need to come. I can handle them.”
“What’s the point of having me if you’re not going to use me?”
He smiled.
And she bristled. “Should I sit there quietly while you work out repayment plans with my creditors?”
“Could you? I can’t even imagine it.” He was lost in thought trying to imagine Maggie sitting next to him quietly, letting him run the show.
He finally shook his head. “No. I thought I’d come and sit there threateningly. To show how happy I’d be if the people who owe me money, the people who handle my lots of money, would work it out with my fiance. And how unhappy I’d be if they didn’t.”
“Don’t say it like that. My fiance.”
He wrapped his hand around the back of her neck. He whispered, “My fiance. Mine.”
She whispered back, “Your fiance, yours is going to bite you.” When she saw the gleam in his eye, she added, “And it’s not going to be the kind of bite you like.”
“I’d like any bite you cared to bestow upon me.”
“Would you?”
He nearly said yes, God help him. But then he pictured meeting her creditors missing a finger or part of his ear and backtracked.
“Maybe later. After you take a few bites out of your creditors and aren’t so hungry anymore.”
A tigress only made a good pet when she was nice and fed. Cole squeezed Maggie’s neck slightly, imagining what she’d do to him if he called her pet out loud, then let go.
She smiled. A smile that would make any man with a lick of sense grab his balls and cower in fear.
Cole obviously had no sense whatsoever because his balls were jumping up and down and shouting me next, me next.
He’d never had any sense when it came to Margaret Caldwell.
“Come on, Maggie. You can’t go without me. I want to watch.”
She headed for the door and he followed.
She said, “You can come. If you sit there quietly.”
He’d sit there quietly and watch her make those bankers bend over. And say thank you after. The Caldwell name and a Montgomery’s money? They didn’t stand a chance.
She headed for her car and he snorted. “We’re not going in a Hyundai. I wouldn’t even fit.”
“You’d be surprised.”
“No. I’m driving, and we’re going in the truck.”
She turned to look at his truck, her fists on her hips, and laughed. “Because that’s better?”
“And you’re going to sit in the middle, right next to me.”
Maggie Caldwell in the bitch seat, her legs open wide, the stick shift nestled between them. . .
God, he wished he had a stick shift.
She said, “Get in the car, Cole.”
He shook his head. “The truck.”
“Then I guess we’re taking both.”
He held his fist up in front of her face.
She looked at it. “What, are we fourteen?”
“If we can’t come to a decision logically and rationally, then we’ll do it this way.”
“If you win, I’m not sitting in the middle.”
“Yeah, I don’t think I could handle it any better than you could.”
Maggie sighed, shook her head at him, and held up her fist.
He smiled at her because he knew. She always picked scissors.
Virginia Caldwell sat in the plush armchair she’d dragged into her father’s room right after he got sick and read the society pages to him.
It wasn’t his favorite. But he’d never minded listening to gossip.
She’d work her way to the business news, give him something meaty to mull over at the end.
Because she knew he was still in there. Trapped in this room, in his dying body. But still here. She could only think that he was still alive because he willed it. He was still in there, wanting to be alive.
Ginny read a baby announcement, then paused.
Daddy had always liked to think about things. To savor that moment that came right after new information. He hadn’t really cared if it was good information or bad.
He’d liked the pause. To feel everything in that moment, because it would never come again.
Unfortunately, it also forced her to pause and she didn’t want to think about baby announcements.
She looked out the window, at her husband still sitting by the pool. She wanted to go out to him, sit in his lap, wrap her arms around him, and wipe all his hurts away.
But she couldn’t.
If she went out to him, he’d jump up and try to get away from her. Not want to hold her, not want to look at her. Because he saw a failure when he looked in the mirror and thought that was what she saw, too.
She didn’t know how to help him. She wasn’t sure she could.
She looked down at the paper again and read a marriage announcement.
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She gave Daddy time to think about the impending union of the daughter of an old golfing buddy of his, then said, “You’re not going to like this next announcement. Remember your blood pressure, okay?”
His machine beeped at her.
“Maggie asked Cole Montgomery to help us.”
And her father might be comatose but Ginny decided not to tell him she’d been the one to suggest it.
“He agreed. So. . . they’re engaged.”
She listened to his machine beeping, trying hard to tell if it had sped up any. If anything could make Sam Caldwell take up his bed and walk, it would be the thought of one of his daughters marrying a Montgomery.
But his eyes didn’t open and his machine continued its endless steady march.
Ginny couldn’t help Maggie. Not again. She’d sided with Maggie against her husband once and she wouldn’t do it again. If she could go back, she would let their family business fail, let them all fall. Because it would have been better to fall with her husband than to watch him fall by himself.
She would give anything to be with him in that dark place.
But the only thing that could rival seeing her husband so depressed was seeing her sister edging to that same cliff.
They had both looked so hopeless, so lost. Alone.
Ginny had thought that asking Cole for help might just give their business a chance. If he would agree to help them.
That she had never been sure about. Cole was. . . unpredictable. Except for his ruthlessness. And two members of her little family had already crossed him.
But mentioning Cole had given Maggie an enemy to engage with. To focus on. To spar with.
Maybe an enemy wasn’t the best solution to the alone problem but Ginny knew her sister. Maggie needed someone who would push at her, irritate her, not coddle her.
Cole would never coddle her sister.
In the days since Ginny had mentioned his name, Maggie had become revitalized. Not only had Cole given her hope, his name had snapped her out of her funk. She might still fail but if Cole was watching her, she’d do it with her head held high.
And now Ginny only had to worry about her husband again. Because if Maggie and Cole saved the business, Tanner would be the only failure.
Ginny wasn’t sure he would survive that.
She looked out the window again. Tanner wasn’t alone; he just wanted to be.
“Oh, Daddy. What do you do when someone you love hates who he is?”
She paused, waiting. But her father never answered.
Maggie looked over at Cole glaring out the window of her Hyundai, his arms crossed. She said, “You’re pouting.”
He looked at her. “You cheated.”
“You cheated. I just didn’t let you win this time.”
“You always pick scissors.”
“Really, Cole. I always pick scissors?” She laughed, shaking her head. “Boys are so easy. Especially when they’re underestimating a girl.”
“You’re telling me you did it on purpose the whole time? I don’t believe you.”
It had started on accident but she’d found it useful. When she was a child.
She said, “You let me win most of the time and it was interesting to see when you really wanted it.”
“I figured if you won most of the time, you’d keep picking scissors.”
She smiled. “You figured right.”
The traffic into Dallas was busy and when Maggie got downtown she didn’t even bother looking for a parking space, just went straight to a garage.
Oh, how she missed her dedicated spot at her old building.
But that had gone awhile ago. They’d had to find cheaper rent on the outskirts of town, away from the central business district.
She wasn’t sure if advertising their financial troubles had been the best idea but it had been necessary. To save a sinking ship, you had to plug holes and start bailing. Cut costs and increase revenue.
Cole sat firmly in the cut costs category. Bankruptcy really was a last resort, for everyone involved, and if Cole Montgomery made her creditors think they could get more for her debt by sticking with her than the pennies they’d get after she declared bankruptcy, they’d work with her on the repayment terms. If she could cut her debt payments enough, she might stop going into more debt with every passing month.
Maggie thought Cole might even sit in the increase revenue category, if he could be persuaded to take on a partner out in Midland.
One step at a time. Maggie could only focus on one impossible mission at a time.
Plus, she was pretty sure she knew what he would want in exchange for a partnership. And if she ever ended up in Cole’s bed again, it wouldn’t be because of a deal.
Which meant she wasn’t getting back in his bed.
Cole unfolded himself out of her little car and she said, “See. It’s bigger than it looks.”
“I very nearly fit. But my truck is more comfortable.” He stretched and eyed her. “And it has bench seats.”
“Oh, why didn’t you say so? We could have stopped for a little afternoon delight if we’d only had bench seats.”
He matched her long stride easily, taking her free hand and pulling it through his arm.
His muscles were hard against her fingers, his skin hot through his shirt. She stopped and turned toward him. Their bodies were close and she could smell his Irish Spring.
Too many memories. Like he’d said, not all of them bad. But they were all distracting.
She took a deep breath, not trying to pull her hand away. He was a predator, snapping at her heels, trying to make her run.
And if she knew one thing, it was that you didn’t run from a predator.
You pushed back. You made him run.
And if it was anyone but Cole she would have closed that distance between them. Pressed her body into his, rubbed her hand up and down his arm, lowered her voice, and erased every thought in his head but the one she put there.
She wasn’t above using everything she had to win.
She just hated when it backfired. Because she still had the image of him lifting her onto his counter, his hands on her ankles.
He’d painted a picture, dammit. And she couldn’t get it out of her head
She looked down at her arm entwined with his and said, “I don’t need an escort.”
“I’m not escorting you. I’m accompanying you.”
“You don’t need to be touching me to be accompanying me.”
He was the one that closed the distance between them. He was the one who pressed his body against hers, who lowered his voice.
He said, “I’m just playing the part, Maggie. And if this was real, I’d be touching you.”
She whispered, “You’re going to push this as far as you can, aren’t you?”
“Yep.”
“You’re really starting to irritate me.”
Cole said, “I know. I like you irritated.”
“You think I won’t take it out on you?”
“I’m hoping you will.”
A laugh escaped, her belly pulsing against his, and then she narrowed her eyes. “Are you distracting me?”
He put his lips on hers, making her stomach wobble, her breath hitch.
She kept her eyes open, her lips shut.
He pulled back and smiled. “Is it working?”
She did step back then. But she kept her arm linked through his.
“I don’t need your help, Cole. You’re only here to look pretty.”
He chuckled and covered her hand. “I’m only here for the show. And I want to see a tigress hunting her dinner, not a lamb afraid of the slaughter.”
She stopped again. “Do I look like a lamb?”
“I can see if etched between your eyes. There was no if when you came to see me and I’ll be damned if this yahoo gets an if.”
“There was no if with you because I didn’t want you to go along with my plan.”
He started walking again, dragging her
along with him. “And you don’t want this yahoo to go along with your plan either.”
She walked beside him in silence, her heels clicking loudly in the garage.
She finally conceded defeat. “I’m not following you.”
“It’ll come to you.”
She turned her head to glare at him. He didn’t look at her but he did smile.
If she wasn’t a lady she would tell him where he could shove it.
But she was a lady. Which meant she could think it all she wanted, she just wouldn’t say it.
Cole lost the smile before they entered the gleaming glass building. He strode in with her on his arm, his jeans clean and neat but still jeans, his boots minus the mud but still boots. His expression said that they would accommodate him, not the other way around.
It had been a long time since she’d felt like that. A long time since she’d strode into any building knowing she owned it.
Did she have an if etched between her eyes?
With Cole she’d been fearless. But he was Cole. And a Montgomery.
You didn’t if a Montgomery. They’d play you along just for the fun of it.
She wouldn’t if Cole. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
They rode the elevator up in silence. As the doors opened, he turned to her. His blue eyes clear, cold, calculated.
She knew no one would see the humor. No one ever had.
He waited for her to exit, waited for her to lead.
She handed her card to the woman manning the front desk and said, “Margaret Caldwell and Cole Montgomery. Gary Irvine will see us.”
She looked at Cole beside her. Quiet. Unsmiling. Fearsome.
Ruthless.
In that moment, it clicked.
He was the tiger and she was the one who held the thin leash.
She didn’t want this yahoo to give in now. She’d wanted him to make arrangements with her months ago.
Now she wanted Cole to eat him.
She turned back to the secretary. And she smiled.
They hadn’t bothered to sit, just waited to be escorted back.
The secretary had made one short call and then taken them down the hall where they were met by Gary’s personal administrator and escorted straight into his office.
Maggie had said, “I brought my fiance, I hope you don’t mind,” with a smile that said all too clearly she hoped he did.
