“All locked up?”
She nodded and took his arm with her good hand.
“How’s your wrist today?”
She held up the bandaged appendage. “Much better today, thanks.”
“And the phone? It meets your needs?”
“Perfectly, thank you.”
They were at the car and he reached for the door, holding it open for her as she lowered herself to the passenger seat and drew her legs in. He tried not to stare but the sight of those long, slender, bare legs sent another jolt of pure male appreciation spearing through his body. He wished he knew her well enough that he could suggest skipping the show tonight and cutting straight to dessert at his place instead. But he appreciated there was a process to follow when it came to courting.
Was he courting her? he wondered as he closed her door and walked around to the driver’s side of the car. It was such an old-fashioned term. Certainly not one he’d ever considered in any of his previous relationships. But then again, he’d never felt about anyone the way he already felt about Chloe. The need to understand her and to share her thoughts and dreams had sneaked into his mind several times each hour of his working day. He’d always been able to compartmentalize before. Work life, personal life. They were two distinctly separate things. But when it came to this woman, everything was different.
By the time they reached the club, they’d covered every inane subject under the sun from Chicago’s public transport system to the current state of public school education in Illinois. She was a passionate advocate for her kids, he noticed, and he envied her students in some ways. To be the recipient of her love of teaching combined with a keen interest in the world around her that he knew would light fires of curiosity in many of her students, would be a precious gift indeed.
Miles got out of the car at the valet parking station and went round to the other side. Chloe’s door had already been opened for her and she was waiting on the sidewalk.
“I’ve heard about this place. Do you come here often?” she asked.
Miles nodded. “I love it. The atmosphere inside is second to none, and they always have great artists. We’re ahead of most of the crowd. I considered taking you somewhere else for dinner but they do great meals here, too.”
“Good,” she answered as she took his arm and they carried on inside the building. “’Cause I’m starved.”
“You look like you hardly eat at all,” he teased. “Or did you just save all your appetite for me?”
She stumbled slightly and he steadied her. She looked him square in the eye. “Oh, I’ve saved my appetite. I’ve learned never to let opportunity pass me by.”
Miles couldn’t help but wonder at the double entendre in her words.
“Is that what I am? An opportunity?” he probed.
“Well, that remains to be seen, doesn’t it?” she replied coyly.
Miles decided to shelve that train of thought for another time as the hostess came forward to greet them. She showed them to a cozy, private table for two, which also had a great view of the stage.
“Can I get you both a drink before I send your waiter across with menus?” the woman asked.
“Sure, I’m in the mood to celebrate,” Miles said, turning toward Chloe. “How about you? Champagne to mark our first date?”
A huge smile spread across her face. “Champagne? Really? We might hate each other by the end of the night.”
“Somehow, I doubt that. Besides, I’ve learned that you have to take time to stop and celebrate every facet of life. I think tonight is a good place to start.”
* * *
He’d surprised her. Again. She thought she’d done her background search on him quite thoroughly, but he continued to deviate from the type of character she thought he really was. She decided it was time to probe a little deeper.
After their champagne had been brought and poured, Miles handed her a glass, then held up his in tribute.
“To you,” he said simply.
Chloe felt a blush rise on her cheeks and bent her head in acknowledgment. No one had ever toasted her before. Not when she’d graduated college, not when she’d secured her first permanent teaching position—never. It was quite a rush, she decided, having someone appreciate you so openly. She took a sip of the golden, sparkling liquid in her glass and enjoyed the fizz on her tongue as she swallowed a mouthful. Oh yes. She could get used to this. But then again, wouldn’t she have been used to this if it hadn’t been for the Wingate family in the first place?
She wondered when the last time was that her mother had enjoyed something as simple as a glass of imported wine. In fact, when was the last time her mother had enjoyed anything? Chloe racked her brain and was shocked to discover that she barely remembered the last time she’d seen her mother smile, let alone laugh or simply bask in the joy of a sunny day. Loretta Fitzgerald’s entire life had become a bitter circle of distrust and regret. Which was precisely why Chloe was even here in the first place. She wasn’t supposed to be enjoying herself, and yet she couldn’t help but relish the attention Miles showed her, or the way he could coax a chuckle from her when she least expected it.
“Why so pensive?” he asked. “We’re celebrating, remember?”
“Oh, family stuff. You know what it’s like.”
Oh no, she thought. Had she just let slip that she knew more about his family than she ought to know?
“Families. Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em,” he said with a tone of inevitability she hadn’t heard from him before. “I chose to move away from mine. It was too hard trying to always live up to expectations that were unreasonable and didn’t take into account my own dreams for the future. I guess that makes me the black sheep of my lot.”
“Your lot? You have brothers and sisters?” she pressed, even though she knew the answer.
“Two of each, for my sins,” he said with a rueful smile. “And a couple of cousins who are like brothers to me as well.”
“Wow,” Chloe remarked, putting her glass down carefully on the table in front of her. She didn’t want to drink too much and potentially put her foot into what were undoubtedly treacherous waters. “I can’t imagine being part of a large family like that. Were you close as youngsters?”
Miles shrugged. “When my father wasn’t trying to pit us all against one another. Dad was a man driven to succeed, at any cost.”
Yes, even at the cost of another man’s life, Chloe thought bitterly.
“That must have been hard on all of you. Did your mom make up for that?”
“It had its moments,” he said sparingly. “And, actually, Mom isn’t too different. She’s always been driven to succeed and expected the same of all of us. Not the most maternal type.”
He cleared his throat, then went on. “Anyway, after college, I moved to Chicago to make my own way. And I have. Dad died a couple of years back. He never told me that he was proud of what I’d achieved. It wasn’t until after he’d gone that I realized how important that was to me, to actually hear him say the words. Now I’ve decided that his opinion doesn’t matter. I’m here for me. To live my best life. It’s why I go for what I want when I see it and I make no apology for that.”
“And why should you. Isn’t that how we should all live? Striving for what we want? Honestly, as long we don’t do harm to others, isn’t that the way to live our best lives?”
Miles cocked his head and looked at her carefully. “I’m more and more convinced that fate put you on that collision course with me yesterday. Does that sound corny?”
Oh, it was fate all right. A fate that had begun with his father’s ill treatment of hers. She tamped down the bright flare of hurt and anger that burned inside her and painted a smile on her face.
“Maybe it would to anyone else, but it doesn’t to me.”
Of course it didn’t sound corny to her, because she
’d orchestrated their meeting so carefully. She’d plotted and planned and it had almost gone awry. But out of nothing had come this growing connection with Miles Wingate. He was not the man she’d thought he was. After reading all the articles that had talked about how hardheaded he was and how successful his security business had become—she’d tarred him with his father’s brush. Chloe knew that success always came at a cost. Was she prepared to pay the price for hers?
She was powerfully drawn to Miles. It was there in the way her heart raced when she saw him. It was there in the way her body reacted with the age-old pull of desire that drew her insides into a knot at his touch. And that kiss of his? Well, that had stimulated a long-dormant libido that had sent her subconscious into overdrive during last night’s sleep.
If their circumstances had been different, she’d be able to allow herself to enjoy his company more. She wouldn’t have to remain on tenterhooks all the time, wondering if she was going to say or do something that might reveal her true intentions. And what were those exactly? She asked herself the question simply to remind herself to remain on track.
She wanted the entire Wingate family to feel the shame she’d been forced to grow up with. It had started already in the media, with the family’s jewel in the crown, WinJet—their private jet manufacturing company—in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. The scandal would be hurting them, even Miles. They were, historically, a family that couldn’t bear to be seen to be less than perfect. But the cracks were beginning to show, and when she uncovered new information about the family to give to the reporter and he took it—and her father’s story—public, that would blow those cracks wide-open.
Revealing that the patriarch of the Wingate family had driven a business colleague to suicide, then swept in and bought up what was left of that friend’s company in order to consolidate WinJet’s early entry into the aviation industry, would confirm to all the world that the recent incident at the WinJet plant was merely proof that the rot in the family and their companies was systemic.
“You’re not drinking your champagne. Is it not to your taste?” Miles asked, interrupting her reveries.
“It’s delicious. I just want to make it last so I can enjoy it longer.”
“I can make sure you enjoy it all night long. Just say the word.”
Chloe was saved from saying the word that hovered on the edge of her lips by the arrival of a waiter with menus. She took her time poring over the available selections. Her mind was so scattered by Miles’s comment, and her own willingness to say a categorical “yes” to whatever he suggested, that she had to get herself back under control. None of this was turning out how she expected it to.
She sighed. Wearing the vintage cocktail dress she’d picked up in a charity store near one of the more affluent suburbs in Chicago had been a calculated risk. He could have turned up in jeans and a T-shirt, geared up for a casual evening, but the moment she’d spied him through her living room window and seen the cut of his suit and the polish to his shoes, she’d known she’d done the right thing. The dress accentuated her good points and she’d seen the way he’d looked at her when she’d come out to greet him.
It did a woman’s soul good to feel appreciated. And he’d made her soul sing. Not just when he arrived but when he’d made that toast, too. From any other man it might have come across as orchestrated or false, but from Miles it felt right on an entirely instinctive level. She was wildy attracted to him. From his short, dark blond hair and green-eyed gaze, to the way his large, masculine hands so capably did whatever he set out to do.
She looked at those hands now. Remembered the punch of awareness that had rippled through her at his touch. Sex with him would be incendiary. She knew it as well as she knew the sun rose each morning. That pulse of lust deep in her lower belly pulled stronger. She dragged her gaze from his hands. What the heck was she doing thinking about sex with a man who was virtually a stranger to her? A man who was part of a family she’d loathed and envied for nineteen years of her life.
Things aren’t always as they seem.
One of her father’s favorite sayings slid through from the back of her mind, prompting her to wonder why on earth she had thought of that right now. Was it that Miles was not as he seemed? Or maybe it was that he was exactly as he seemed and her perception of his family was the part that was tainted.
Chloe had heard that revenge could be a double-edged sword but she never expected the execution of that revenge would cause her so much confusion. The waiter returned for their orders and she dragged her thoughts back to the menu in her hands.
“Look, I’m hopeless when I’m given too many choices. What do you recommend?” she asked of the young man standing patiently beside her.
“The lobster is always good, ma’am,” he said deferentially.
“Fine, I’ll have the lobster.”
“Make that two,” Miles said. “If we’re going to get messy, it may as well be together.”
There he was again, with a comment that was perfectly innocent, and yet not at the same time. Chloe involuntarily pressed her thighs together, the movement increasing rather than relieving the demand building in her core.
And so the evening went. A little conversation, the sharing of the occasional anecdote from childhood, the mutual enjoyment of their meals and the champagne that accompanied it. By the time the band began to set up for the show, Chloe was feeling relaxed and happy. Two states she didn’t usually indulge in.
She glanced across the small table at Miles, who was slightly sprawled on his chair and looking toward the stage.
“Thank you,” she said with a depth of feeling that made him sit up straight and look at her with a question in his eyes and one brow raised. “Tonight is perfect.”
Miles reached across the table and took her hand, his thumb brushing back and forth over her knuckles.
“Good. You deserve perfect.”
Just like that, he stole her breath away and, she suspected, a piece of her heart as well. The band began to play and the featured artist began to sing a smooth, slow bluesy number that spread from her ears to her muscles, making her feel lissome and sensual and craving a fulfilment that she knew would only come with total capitulation to her desires. Miles continued to hold her hand throughout the performance. The slow touch of his thumb across her knuckles just made her want more of him touching more of her. By the time he tugged her to her feet and led her onto the tiny dance floor and drew her close, she was primed for anything.
Dancing with him was an exercise in restraint—and temptation all rolled into one. When he bent his head and whispered in her ear, she felt his warm breath on her skin and suddenly the music she’d been aching to hear all day was replaced with a deeper ache that she knew only this man could assuage.
“I like the feel of you in my arms,” he said huskily.
She nuzzled the side of his neck and, suddenly emboldened, nipped the skin just beneath his ear.
“I like everything about you,” she replied.
She felt the shock of his reaction shudder through him and he stopped moving. Another couple on the dance floor bumped into them, but he was oblivious to anything but her. She discovered that she really liked being the center of his universe. Even if it was only for this moment.
“Let’s get out of here,” Miles ground out.
“Yes.”
Her response was short and sweet and thrilling all at the same time. Miles took her by the hand back to their table where she retrieved her evening bag and he went to settle their check. She met him by the front door. There was a fire burning in his eyes. Eyes which locked on her as she approached him. He smiled at her and she felt her entire body react at the promise reflected there in his face.
She knew they’d only met yesterday. She knew that she had an ulterior motive. But right now all she could think about was how much she wanted him. All of him.
“This is all yours?” she asked, looking around her at the quality furnishings and the high ceilings.
“Is that a problem?”
“No, not at all. It just seems like a lot of house for one person. That is, if you’re living here alone.”
Oh heck, she was messing everything up. The atmosphere that had enveloped them back at the club had cocooned them in a cloud of sensual promise. And now she was discussing his real estate?
“Yeah, it is. One day I hope to share it with a special someone and maybe fill it with kids, too.”
A deep sense of longing threaded through his words, and she felt an answering tug from deep in her chest. Those were the things she wanted most, too. That special someone. A family of her own. Growing up as an only child hadn’t been so bad, until her father had died. After that she’d been so afraid and felt so insecure. Having a sibling to share her feelings with would have meant the world to her. Instead, she’d had to be her mother’s support person, which, at eight years old, had forced her to grow up way too fast.
Miles reached a hand for her and she slipped her palm in his. Instant warmth flooded her. She liked the way his fingers curled around hers, infusing her with his strength and purpose. He turned to the stairwell and she followed him as he ascended to the next floor. Then he led her down a thickly carpeted corridor to a room at the end where he pushed open the double doors and led her inside.
A large master suite spread before her. Heavy drapes hung in the tall windows overlooking the back of the property and a massive bed dominated the center of the room. She looked from the bed to Miles. There was an unspoken question in his eyes. In response, she turned in his arms and lifted her face to his.
Black Sheep Heir Page 4
