by Leah Vale
Joseph had trusted her to keep this discreet. With that in mind, she pitched her voice low. "You can ask him yourself. I’m supposed to take you to see him right now. But I imagine he’ll tell you he’s bringing you into the fold, so to speak. because it’s the right thing to do."
"And he always does the right thing?"
She bristled. "As a matter of fact, he does."
"Ah." He crossed his arms over his broad chest. The muscles in his forearms, visible because of his rolled-up sleeves, corded. They’d discovered he was part owner of a construction company. Clearly, he was the working part.
He nodded sagely. "So you think paying a scared, young, pregnant woman to disappear and somehow convincing her to never reveal the identity of her baby’s father is the right thing?"
Despite her sympathy for what Cooper and his mother had gone through, she adamantly shook her head. "Joseph wasn’t a part of that. After the first time, Marcus kept--"
"Oh, yeah, because a million dollars is so easy to--The first time?" he nearly shouted. "There were other--?"
"Not here!" Sara grabbed his arm, his biceps thick and hard beneath her fingers, and pulled him away from the post office door. "I think it’s time I finish what I was sent to do and take you to see Joseph at The Big House--"
"Babe, I just escaped the risk of ending up in the big house." He aimed a thumb back at the county jail.
"No! The Big House is the name of the McCoys’ home on their estate."
"So there’re little houses?"
She shook her head in frustration. How had she allowed him to fluster her so? "Please, Cooper. Come with me and meet your grandfather. Then you’ll understand everything."
He dipped his shoulder and lowered his face close to hers again, his breath warm and frighteningly disarming on her cheek. "Honey, like I said before, I understand perfectly. And normally I’d be more than willing to let a cute thing like you drag me off somewhere more private. Hell, I’d let you drag me anywhere. But today is the beginning of what I was put on this earth to do."
Every bit of her that was forever in debt to the McCoys told her she didn’t want to know, but because of that debt, she had to ask, "Which is?"
"Bring the arrogant McCoy machine to its knees." He lowered his head yet farther, as if he really was going to kiss her, making the muscles low in her stomach contract. But this time she was prepared.
And mad.
She jerked away, releasing his arm. "How can you say such a thing'? Especially without even speaking to Joseph?"
He straightened and gave her an unconcerned shrug. "Easy. And I found out all I needed to know a long time ago. Thanks for bailing me out, babe." Saluting her, he started walking again.
Irritated that this was turning out so wrong, not to mention a little scared by the determination in his dark blue eyes, she called, "Where are you going?"
"To the office, babe. To the office."
Her heart pounding from fear that he had thought of some way to damage McCoy Enterprises so quickly, she spun away and ran to her car. She’d get to the McCoy corporate headquarters just outside of town before Cooper and figure out a way to bar his
entry without creating a scene.
Hopefully, she could defuse the situation and change Cooper’s mind about the McCoys before Joseph found out the grandson he was at home eagerly waiting to meet meant him harm. Because harming McCoy Enterprises was one and the same as harming Joseph personally. The company was his lifeblood, as it had been her father’s, Joseph’s right-hand man.
As it was hers.
Which made the fact that she was failing this seemingly simple assignment even worse.
How could the employee Joseph had placed so much trust in nearly melt beneath the hot gaze of the grandson who wished them ill?
CHAPTER TWO
"Joseph, I need to--" Sara broke off when she saw who stood next to the man who had stepped into her life and filled the void left by her father’s death. Cooper must have parked in front of the eight-car garage on the side of the house. He appeared far too satisfied at having his newly found grandfather's hand resting proudly on his shoulder.
While Sara had always seen Joseph as being a little larger than life, Cooper was a good head taller than him. Even so, their stature and stance--not to mention their arresting blue eyes and strong jaws--screamed family resemblance.
And Joseph’s misty gaze told her he was very happy to have Cooper with him. Her grip tightened on the handles of the doors to Joseph’s study.
Crap.
Cooper’s smile gave new meaning to the word gloating. "What took you so long, babe?"
His declaration of war on the steps of the county jail still rang in her ears. Despite the empathy she’d felt for him, she could barely keep from snarling. "I made it halfway to McCoy Enterprises headquarters before I remembered that the shabby little bar where you were arrested for brawling is named The Office."
Cooper shrugged and said to Joseph, "Had to get my rig."
Joseph raised his bushy gray brows and looked to her. "Sara was supposed to have driven you here."
Cooper shook his head. "I wasn’t sure my truck would make it through the night without being stripped or swiped from the bar parking lot. Fortunately, neither happened, but I didn’t want to leave it there any longer than I had to. And The Office is only a block off Main Street
, so not much of a walk."
Unfortunately for Sara, the McCoy estate was on the opposite side of town from what she considered the office, so she’d had to double back, allowing Cooper to get to the house first. As much as she admired Joseph for building his headquarters in a part of town that had needed revitalization, the extra time it’d taken to get back here had stretched her nerves to the snapping point.
When her father had died ten years after her mother and the McCoys had been so kind to Sara, she’d sworn she would do anything for them. A failure like this could cost her everything. She had to warn Joseph about Cooper Anders’s intentions.
She refused to consider the motivations behind those intentions. On the way here, she’d focused on steering her car down the tree-bordered road to the estate, not on her memory of the pain clouding his blue eyes, the hard line he’d pressed his sensuous mouth into, the poorly contained emotions in his gruff voice. Her own throat tightened. To be that adrift in the world...
She frowned fiercely and released her death grip on the door handles. Cooper had simply startled her. That was the only reason she’d been so affected by him.
Joseph gave Cooper an altogether too affectionate squeeze before releasing him. "You still should have let Sara drive you. That was partly why I sent her to the jail."
Cooper in turn sent her a look full of sexual innuendo and heat, to remind her exactly what he’d believed she’d been sent for. His mouth quirked. "You’re very thoughtful."
Sara’s mouth went dry. But she would not be attracted to him. Not after what he’d said, regardless of her compassion for him and her understanding of his reasons. She shot Cooper a glare before shifting her gaze to the older man’s. "Joseph, I need to speak to you immediately?
"What is it?"
She darted a glance at Cooper. who raised his eyebrows at her as if daring her to tattle on him.
She dropped her chin and asserted, "In private, please."
Joseph shook his head and placed a big hand on his grandson’s broad shoulder again. "Cooper is a part of my family now, Sara."
Her heart stuttered. A part of his family. Something Sara would never truly be. But that didn’t diminish her loyalty one bit, regardless of how much it had already cost her.
Joseph’s voice was thick with pride. "A McCoy by blood, if not name. Though I’ll want to discuss the name thing some time down the road."
She met Cooper’s gaze, but his hooded expression revealed nothing of the animosity she’d seen there when he’d speculated about being required to change his name. His ability to hide his true feelings hardened her resolve and drew he
r farther into the high-ceilinged room that was as much a library as a place for Joseph to work at home. "Joseph, please--"
"As such--" Joseph interrupted her and moved to stand behind the massive cherrywood desk he routinely ran an empire from. When he spread his hands wide on the gleaming wood and braced his weight on his fingertips, as he did now, he always reminded her of a captain taking the wheel of a great ship. "I expect you to speak freely in his presence, just as you would with Alexander or would have with my poor Marcus, God rest his soul."
Only a week had passed since Marcus’s death. But after the memorial service on Thursday, where Joseph had grieved so heavily Sara hadn’t been able to stop crying, Joseph had declared that because of the revelations in the will, it was time to move on. And he seemed to be doing just that, with his trademark gusto.
That didn’t mean he was seeing things clearly again, though. "But Joseph--"
He heaved a sigh. "Spit it out, girl."
She glanced at Cooper again and her gaze snagged on the challenge in his. He kicked up a corner of his way-too-sensual mouth in a silent I double-dare you.
She raised her chin, more than willing to meet his challenge now. "It seems Mr. Anders bears the McCoy family ill will."
Joseph scoffed. "Ill will? Whatever made you think that?"
She looked back at Joseph, the man her own father had admired more than anyone on earth, the man who’d always been there for her, and just said it. "He told me he plans to ruin the company."
Joseph chuckled. "You misunderstood him, Sara. Which surprises me. You’re normally such a good listener." He lowered himself into his large, dark brown leather desk chair.
Sara blinked. "l misunderstood him?"
Joseph nodded with certainty. "Cooper has already expressed to me his concern that his inexperience might harm the corporation. I was just reassuring him that he knows more about big business than he realizes."
To Cooper he said, "Your construction company is successful, is it not?"
Cooper tucked his thumbs in his back jeans pockets, drawing her attention unwillingly to the hard contours beneath the snug denim. She jerked her eyes upward, but landed on the muscular chest beneath his chambray work shirt before making it to his remarkably handsome face. That she noticed such things added to her growing frustration and incredulity. How could Joseph believe him over her?
·
Cooper said, "It’s not just my company. I have a partner, Ted Orson, who fortunately can handle things while I’m...otherwise engaged. But yeah, we’ve operated in the black for some time now, doing custom residential and small commercial remodels."
They were already aware of as much. In the few days since the reading of Marcus’s will, Joseph had employed a local private investigator he trusted to be unquestionably discreet to augment his lawyers. Their goal had been to learn everything possible about those now referred to as the Lost Millionaires.
Joseph nodded again. "So you know how to implement a viable and sustainable business model. You’ll be doing the same thing at McCoy Enterprises, only on a much larger scale, of course."
Cooper’s smile was tight. "By a few billion."
Sara shook her head. She was not going to let this happen. "No, that’s not what he meant--"
Joseph cut her off. "You can’t fault a man for nerves. But he doesn’t give himself enough credit. That’s become plain in the short amount of time he’s
been here." A look of pride softened the wrinkles on Joseph’s face. "Humility is a very admirable quality in a businessman."
Sara’s jaw went slack. In the space of, at most, twenty minutes, Cooper Anders had completely snowed Joseph McCoy, founder and chairman of the board of one of the most stunningly successful enterprises in the history of retail business.
Her heart started pounding hard enough to drum in her ears. Had he forgotten they’d begun the day with a phone call from the private investigator about the youngest of the Lost Millionaires landing himself in jail the night before? "But--"
Cooper spoke. "My grandfather is right, Sara." His already deep voice dipped further, and intimately, at her name.
·
He was trying to mess with her. Judging by her current state, he was succeeding.
He lowered his chin. "You misunderstood me."
She gaped at him, her earlier empathy disappearing as the anger and frustration rose like a tide of acid inside of her. "Misunderstood?" she choked out. "Why, you two-faced, lying--"
"Sara!"
The sharp edge to Joseph’s voice brought her up short, especially since she’d never heard that tone directed toward her before. Yet, she’d never lost her cool
in front of Joseph, either.
Joseph’s slow rise to his feet wasn’t a sign of age--he’d turn seventy-five in a matter of weeks--but rather a reminder that he expected to receive the respect he’d rightfully earned. "Cooper is a McCoy now. I want you to treat him as such."
She nodded curtly and kept her mouth tightly closed against all the reasons, heard straight from the source, that Cooper should not be given the same devotion she’d never questioned giving Joseph, Alexander or even Marcus on the rare occasions he’d been around before his unpleasant death. Joseph was, grieving for Marcus, and she understood his need to embrace a grandchild he hadn’t known he had.
Even if that grandson had the heart of a snake.
She looked at Cooper. He’d cocked an eyebrow and watched her with a casual--no, make that innocent air--but the shadow of pain in his eyes made her feel for him despite what she was thinking.
Okay. So she did empathize with him. She would acknowledge that and then get over it. She refused to fall under his spell. He was a snake with the ability to trick unsuspecting women into aching for what he’d gone through as a child.
Or so he thought, she forcefully amended. While what he’d threatened was far more serious than a little game-playing, she had his number and would do everything in her power to stop him. And she knew of one person who wouldn’t be so blinded by grief to not hear what she had to say.
Remembering his shock over one of the details of Marcus’s will, she gave Cooper her sweetest smile. "If you’ll excuse me, I just remembered I have something important to discuss with Alexander McCoy. Your brother," she added, launching a parting salvo of her own.
She left the study, her smile now one of grim satisfaction, certain his wide-eyed, slack-jawed look of surprise was more impressive than hers must have been after he’d dropped his bomb.
COOPER CLOSED HIS MOUTH with a snap.
Alexander McCoy was his brother?
He looked away from the door that Sara, the pretty piece of fluff who had to be old man McCoy’s personal secretary, had just sashayed through. He met Joseph McCoy’s gaze. ‘l myself must be having listening problems, because I could have sworn she just said that Alexander McCoy, your youngest son, is my brother."
Joseph blew out a breath and slouched back in his chair, something that didn’t look quite right on the old man. ‘Marcus turned more than a few lives upside down in his time."
Shock rocked Cooper back on his heels yet again that day. "Are you saying it’s true?"
Joseph ran a hand over his face, for the first time letting on that he wasn’t taking all the recent events in stride. "Yes. It’s true. Alexander is actually Marcus’s son, Your half brother."
His knees unsteady, Cooper took a seat in one of the chairs facing the big desk. "Tell me everything." He’d spent his entire life with so many questions, so many doubts, he wasn’t surprised his voice sounded strained.
Joseph rested his elbows on the arms of his chair and tented his fingers in front of him. "Marcus never really displayed the best judgment. Especially when it came to women."
Cooper involuntarily thought of the wet one he’d wanted to plant on Joe’s secretary, and the fact that he still wanted to do it. Heaven help him if bad judgment around women was hereditary.
Joseph continued, "He was only nineteen when he se
duced a young maid of ours. After the girl realized she was pregnant, everyone concerned felt it would be best if my wife, Elise, your grandmother, and I adopted the baby as our own rather than force Marcus
and Helen--"
"Whoa. wait a second, Helen? The lady who showed me in here said her name was Helen. And that she’s the housekeeper."
"Yes, Helen is still with us. By her choice, I might add."
Cooper had to physically shake off his disbelief. He did not get these people.
"As I was saying, we decided not to force Marcus and Helen to wed. And we would have had to. Marcus did not want to marry. A sentiment he never outgrew. So Helen and Elise went to Europe for an extended holiday--"
"And returned with Marcus’s new baby brother, thus avoiding any messy scandal that would have trashed your image."
