The Ruthless Caleb Wilde

by Sandra Marton

  He’d gone to bed with a woman he’d just met. God knew, he’d done that before.

  He’d spent the night in her bed. He’d done that before, too.

  His jaw tightened.

  Except, this time the bed wasn’t only the woman’s. It was the bed she shared with her lover.

  It made him shudder, thinking of it even now. How another man had lain between those sheets, taken the woman as he’d taken her, heard her cries, felt her heat all around him….

  “Goddammit,” Caleb muttered.

  He looked out the wall of glass, hands jammed into his trouser pockets.

  She had made a fool of him, letting him think of her as sweet, fresh and innocent when the ugly truth was that she had a lover, and they had an arrangement.

  The guy slept around, and so did she.

  Caleb shuddered.

  Maybe he had it wrong. Maybe he was the one who’d made a fool of himself.

  The deal she had with her lover was none of his business.

  It was nasty, yes. Enough to make him angry, but enough to have made him lose his self-control? To have slugged the guy?

  The SOB at the club had deserved a beating.

  Sage’s lover had simply walked into the right place at the wrong time.

  And his reaction, the violence of it, was all because he’d been taken in by Sage’s convincing act, by the humiliation of knowing he’d thought of taking her into his life.

  That idea hadn’t lasted long. How could it, when it had been so damned stupid?

  But that he’d considered it at all, that he’d been such an ass …

  That he still was, because he remembered what he’d felt, what he’d thought he felt, making love to her …

  “Something happened in New York.”

  Caleb swung around. Travis was standing beside the closed door, arms folded.

  “I thought you left.”

  “I shut the door but I’m still here.”

  “Well, open it again. And go.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. Not until you talk to me, not until you tell me what happened back east.”

  “I met with a client. I had a meal with an old friend. I went to a party I was too old for. Okay? You happy now?”

  Travis came slowly toward him.

  “I’m not a fool, Caleb. Something happened.” Travis paused. “That morning when you were in New York. You called me.”

  “Did I?” Caleb said, as if the moment weren’t forever burned into his memory.

  “It was early. Six-something, your time, and—”

  Caleb gave what he hoped was a casual shrug. “I don’t remember.”

  “You called,” Travis said flatly. “And you sounded … strange.”

  “Maybe because it didn’t happen.”

  “Oh, it happened.”

  “Look, this just isn’t a good day for—”

  “There haven’t been any. Good days, that is. Not with you. Not in a while.”

  “Are you done?”

  “Why’d you call me? You sounded, I don’t know, happy. Then, all of a sudden, you sounded—not so happy.”

  “Good thing you went into finance,” Caleb said coldly, “because you do a lot better with numbers than words.”

  “No more games, man. Something happened and we want to know what it was.”

  “Is that a royal we or are you a committee of one?”

  “That’s what I am. A committee of one. I’m here for me. Jacob. Addison. That scary-as-hell dragon who guards your kingdom.”

  “You have too much time on your hands.” Caleb went to his desk, straightened a stack of papers that didn’t need straightening, eyed the manila envelope and shoved it toward his brother. “You all do, this client included. Your imaginations are working themselves into the ground.”

  “Did you go to see a doctor?”

  Caleb looked up.

  “What?”

  “Some kind of specialist? Was that the reason you went east?”

  Oh, hell. Caleb rubbed his forehead. “Travis. Listen—”

  “Goddammit, how come that just hit me? The phone call. The way you’ve acted ever since …” Travis let out a long, suddenly shaky breath. “Are you sick? Sweet Jesus, if you’re—if you’re battling a disease and you haven’t told us …”

  “Ah, man.” Caleb sank down in the chair behind his desk. “No,” he said in a low voice. “It’s nothing like that. And I’m sorry if …” He looked up, saw the worry in Travis’s eyes and hated himself for having put it there. “I’m fine, Trav. I swear it. I’m just—I’m just …”

  “Just what?”

  Caleb stared at his brother. Then he sighed. Maybe if he talked about it, he’d get the whole ugly mess out of his system.

  “Sit down,” he said gruffly. “And I’ll tell you.”

  And he did.

  It didn’t take very long. How could it, when the facts were so simple?

  He omitted nothing.

  He said he had gone to a woman’s rescue and offered to see her home. It turned out she lived in a bad neighborhood—there’d been an incident in the entryway of her building that could have turned nasty and after that, he’d been reluctant to leave her alone, particularly after what she’d gone through earlier.

  Travis kept nodding his head. Well, why wouldn’t he? It was all logical …

  “I bunked on the couch in the living room,” Caleb said.

  So much for logic.

  “And?”

  “And, she woke up and I did, too, and—and—”

  “You ended up sleeping with her.”

  “Yes. Exactly.”

  Travis shrugged, a one-guy-to-another kind of shrug.

  “Yeah, well, these things happen.”

  “Right. It happened. And then, the next morning …” Caleb cleared his throat. “The next morning, a guy walked in, looked kind of surprised to see me there. And then—and then he figured out I’d slept with what turned out to be his woman, and he apologized for walking in on us.”

  “Crap,” Travis said, through his teeth.

  “I decked him.”

  “Of course you did.”

  “I don’t even know why I decked him.” Caleb rose to his feet and began pacing. “I mean, it was his place. His woman. I was the intruder, not him.” He ran a hand through his hair, looked at Travis. “Man, I just lost it, you know?”

  “Who wouldn’t?”

  “It was just—it was so—so—”

  “Ugly. They have an open relationship, whatever you want to call it, and that’s not you.”

  “No. Hell, no. I mean, if I’d known I was in another man’s bed, with another man’s woman—”

  “You thought she was all about you,” Travis said gently, “but it was all about variety.”

  Caleb winced. “Exactly.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “I don’t understand why I let it bother me so damned much.”

  Travis stood up, clapped his brother on the shoulder.

  “Don’t let it. Not anymore. It was just a one-night stand. A little fun, a good time … It wasn’t going to be more than that anyway. Right?”

  “Right,” Caleb said briskly, blocking out the rest of it, the uncomfortable realization that he’d been out of control that night, first taking Sage to bed, then punching out her lover …

  … Feeling as if he’d been standing on the threshold of something new when he’d awakened with her in his arms that morning.

  “Hey,” Travis said. “I mean it. This was just something that happened. Put it behind you.”

  It was good advice, and Caleb nodded. “Everything you said makes sense.”

  Travis nodded, too. Looked solemn. “Travis Wilde, SPE, to the rescue.”

  “SPE?”

  “Shrink Par Excellence. And here you thought I was only a genius when it comes to money.”

  Travis grinned. Caleb grinned back.

  “Thank you, Dr. Wilde, “he said.

  “Oh, no. You don’t get off that easy. Yo
u want to show your appreciation, at least read through that file.”

  “What …? Oh. Your client. The one who wants to steal a baby from his dead son’s mistress.”

  “Now, Caleb—”

  Caleb laughed. “Just joking. Okay. I’ll take a look. Maybe I can think of somebody to recommend because there’s no way I can take this on. If nothing else, I don’t have the expertise.”

  The men walked to the door. Smiled, shook hands, and then Travis left. Caleb sighed and went back to his desk.

  Amazing, he thought as he sank into his chair, how much better he felt for having talked about New York.

  He’d blown the entire incident out of proportion. Now, thanks to Travis, his head was on straight again.

  A one-night stand. Nothing more, nothing less. And it was history.

  Caleb opened the manila envelope. Dumped the contents on the desk. A couple of eight-by-ten glossies tumbled out, landed face-first. No matter. He was only interested in the contents of the thin file folder.

  He flipped it open. Gave the first page a quick read. It was a listing of the parties involved in what was probably going to be a nasty court case.

  Thomas Stinson Caldwell. Age sixty-two. Park Avenue address. Founder and president of a real estate empire valued at … Caleb gave a soft whistle. No wonder the man thought he owned the universe. Caldwell was a widower. He was the father of David Charles Caldwell, deceased. Aged twenty-eight at the time of his death eight weeks ago.

  Okay. Page two. The woman …

  The woman’s name was Sage Dalton. She was twenty-four.

  Caleb’s pulse skittered. Sage? Sage and David? No. It was impossible.

  He reached for the glossies. Turned them over.

  The blood drained from his face.

  One photo was of the guy he’d laid out in Sage’s apartment.

  The other—

  The other was of Sage.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE ladies’ lounge of the St. Regis on the Park was a sea of gilt and marble, its mirrored walls seemingly held in place by fat, obscene-looking cherubim.

  An attendant, clad in a white-and-gold uniform, hovered discreetly in the background.

  “If you need anything, miss, just ask,” she’d said when Sage had entered a little while ago.

  Sage had thanked her. Then she’d looked into that wall of mirrors …

  And shuddered.

  She looked awful. Or maybe that was too generous a word.

  She was pale. Her eyes were huge and shadowed. Except for the slight rounding of her belly, which you couldn’t see under the suit jacket she was wearing—except for that, she looked painfully thin.

  Until a couple of days ago, she’d been the cliché of all clichés, tossing her cookies every morning.

  And she was tired—from her pregnancy and from working double shifts at the Greek diner near her apartment in Brooklyn.

  “You work double,” the owner had told her bluntly, “or I get different girl.”

  So she worked double shifts.

  She needed the money. She’d gone back to the club to collect her things and her pay, and to tell the owner she was quitting, but she didn’t get the chance.

  “I heard you made a scene last night,” he’d said, almost as soon as she came through the door. “I don’t tolerate prima donnas, Dalton. You’re fired.”

  It would have been funny but nothing had seemed funny that day, or any day since.

  She was, to put it nicely, a mess.

  And she worried. A lot. The fact was, she worried all the time.

  She had to find a safer place to live. That was priority numero uno. The second was to build up her savings. The pitiful amount she’d stashed away would never cover the expenses of the baby …

  The baby.

  Her baby.

  When had those words gone from making her sick with fear to filled with hope?

  She’d found out she was pregnant the old-fashioned way. First, no menstrual period. Then mornings spent bowed over the toilet.

  Finally, she’d bought an early-pregnancy test kit.

  “No,” she’d said when she saw the results.

  Half a dozen tests later, she knew there was no sense in denying reality.

  The man she despised most in the world had left her with a parting gift.

  Her own fault: A, for sleeping with him—not that they’d done much sleeping, she thought, her throat constricting at the memory, and, B, for not realizing you couldn’t take a birth control pill on, say, Monday morning and then not take another until Tuesday late afternoon no matter how busy you were with auditions and work and classes …

  But then, she hadn’t been on the pill for sex, she’d been on it to regulate her cycle.

  And she had certainly done that.

  Sage gave a strangled laugh, saw the attendant’s face in the mirror and changed the laugh to a cough.

  “Summer cold,” she said.

  The woman didn’t look convinced but then, she didn’t look convinced someone like Sage should be in these plush surroundings in the first place.

  Once she’d known she was pregnant, she’d paced back and forth, night and day, a caged tiger searching desperately for a way out.

  She couldn’t have this baby.

  She had no money. No defined future. No plans beyond how to get through tomorrow.

  That was the reasonable approach.

  The unreasonable approach was that this tiny life was hers. It meant she’d never be alone again, meant she could bring up her child as she wished she’d been brought up, with love and hope instead of bitterness and despair.

  Decision made.

  She was going to have her baby.

  Her baby. Only hers.

  The child, the decision, had no connection to the stranger who’d made her pregnant.

  Her knight-errant had turned out to be a vile, judgmental stranger, willing to think the worst of her, not even taking the time to let her explain.

  Not that she’d owed him an explanation.

  What had happened between them had been just—just a one-night adventure. Never mind that she’d never had a one-night adventure before, never mind that she’d hardly ever had sex before.

  She was a grown woman.

  And he—he was a sperm donor.

  Except his “donation” had not come from a test tube but from time spent in his arms, from caresses and sighs and pleasure….

  Sage glared at herself in the mirror.

  Pathetic to think about any of it. Stupid and pathetic, and proof, if she needed it, that the books she’d been reading were right.

  Pregnant women were often at the mercy of their hormones and their emotions.

  She took her lipstick from her purse. She was going to need more than lipstick. Good thing she’d brought blusher and a compact of pressed powder.

  It was time to disguise the pallor, the dark circles, and to transform herself into a woman Thomas Caldwell could not intimidate.

  She might be stupid about men and sex but she wasn’t stupid about everything else. She knew why he’d chosen the St. Regis for their meeting.

  In a city of elegant hotels, the St. Regis was in a class all its own. The place damn near smelled of arrogance and money.

  If you were a one-percenter, it reminded you that life was good. If you were stuck with the rest of the world in that ninety-nine-percent slot, it humbled you. Put in your place.

  No question, David’s father was certain he knew where she belonged. To him, she was a scullery maid straight out of a bad nineteenth-century novel: broke, unwed, pregnant and desperate.

  Well, three out of four wasn’t bad.

  But she wasn’t desperate.

  Things would be difficult but they’d be doable. Everything was doable, if you tried hard enough.

  Bottom line? Caldwell didn’t know her at all. He hadn’t known his own son, not the real David, or he’d have admitted that he could never have fathered her baby.

  Thomas
Caldwell wasn’t big on truth.

  She had no idea how he’d found out she was pregnant, either.

  She suspected he’d had private detectives doing their best to dig up dirt about her, once he saw how close she and David were. Maybe he’d kept them on, after David’s death. And they’d followed her. Tapped her phone. For all she knew, they could have dug through her trash, found the discarded pregnancy tests.

  It didn’t matter.

  She knew only that Caldwell had started phoning weeks ago, demanding she admit she carried his grandson—God, what a terrible thought!—and that she agree to sell the baby to him.

  Of course, he wasn’t fool enough to phrase it that way.

  He talked about Providing What David Would Have Wanted For His Child. You could almost see the caps in the air.

  When that hadn’t worked, things got grim. How much did she want for the baby? One million? Two? Four? Five?

  Sage dabbed blusher on her cheeks. The effect, bright pink against fish-belly white, made her look even worse. The attendant must have thought so, too, because she stepped up, silently offered a handful of tissues.

  “Thank you,” Sage said, and wiped the stuff off.

  She’d given up telling Caldwell how wrong he was, that the baby was not David’s. She’d stopped taking Caldwell’s calls. Ignored the messages he left.

  And it had paid off.

  Last week, he’d couriered her a letter.

  You win, Ms. Dalton, he’d written. I’m done trying to change your mind. My attorney has drawn up a document stipulating that you absolve me of any and all present and future claims of lineage and inheritance. Sign it in his presence and mine, and in the presence of witnesses, and you will not hear from me again.

  Which was why she was here today. And if Caldwell wanted the pleasure of seeing her in a setting she might find daunting, so be it.

  He was in for a disappointment.

  She would not be intimidated. She would only be relieved to get him out of her life forever.

  A swipe of lipstick? Not bad. Adjust the pins that held her hair back from her face.

  Sage turned and looked at the attendant.

  “How do I look?”

  The attendant hesitated. “Um, uh …”

  “‘Um, uh’ is absolutely right.” Sage dug in her handbag, extracted a dollar bill, hesitated and took out another. “Thank you,” she said.