One person knows the truth that could ruin his family.
And he’s just brought her home.
Find Hanna Wilde. The order from Carter Jameson’s father will ensure Carter’s inheritance. Though reluctant to do the man’s bidding, Carter needs to see the girl he never forgot. But when Hanna returns to the estate where it all began, she wants answers as much as she wants Carter. And as their passion ignites, she’ll get them. No matter what.
“You do know I’m not getting anything out of this, right?”
No way did she believe that. “You poor thing.”
He laughed, and the rich, genuine sound washed over her. So much for having the upper hand. Carter didn’t seem to recognize that fact at all. He moved and it mesmerized her. He spoke and her brain replayed every word.
“I’m not my father, Hanna.”
The words shook her out of her stupor because she was starting to believe him. “That’s the only reason you’re still standing here.”
That and his eyes. And those impressive shoulders. That cool voice. Okay, she might have let him inside the shop to look at him for a while. She hadn’t expected the rest.
No, Carter Jameson was not what she’d expected at all.
* * *
The Reluctant Heir is part of the
Jameson Heirs series from HelenKay Dimon!
Dear Reader,
I know what it’s like being the youngest child in the family. I complain because there aren’t as many photos of me as there are of my elder brothers.
Carter Jameson might be rich and powerful, but his family problems run deeper than a few missing photos. There’s a family business in limbo and a father who thrives on causing trouble. Carter is temporarily back, but can he stay? He’s thinking no...until he sees Hanna Wilde again. She has him rethinking everything.
Hanna wants nothing to do with any member of the Jameson family. Her teen crush on Carter is long over, or at least she’s trying hard to pretend it is. She has family problems of her own and revenge on her mind. But Carter is convincing, and he’s even hotter now that he’s all grown up, so it’s hard to say no to his invitation to come back to Virginia. Now she just has to figure out if she can survive another round with the Jameson family.
All of this makes me think I should stop complaining about those photos...and call my mom more often.
I hope you enjoy Carter and Hanna’s story!
HelenKay
HelenKay Dimon
The Reluctant Heir
HelenKay Dimon is a divorce lawyer turned full-time author. Her bestselling and award-winning books have been showcased in numerous venues, including The Washington Post and Cosmopolitan. She is an RT Reviewers’ Choice Best Book Award winner and has been a finalist for the Romance Writers of America RITA® Award multiple times.
Books by HelenKay Dimon
Harlequin Desire
The Jameson Heirs
Pregnant by the CEO
Reunion with Benefits
The Reluctant Heir
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Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Excerpt from Playing Mr. Right by Kat Cantrell
One
This could not be happening.
Hanna Wilde disconnected the call with the dry cleaner next door and stared at her cell phone.
He was here, in Milton. Many miles and a few states away from his big fancy home—make that homes—in the Washington, D.C. area.
Not that he. Not the one who’d tracked her and tried to scare her months ago. Not the one who’d threatened and lied. No, the man in her building, on his way up to her apartment, was the son, not the horrible father.
Carter Jameson. Youngest heir to a vast real estate fortune. Grandson of a disgraced congressman. The boy whose family had employed hers back when they were kids.
Her unwanted teen crush.
Amazing how the last name Jameson could start a shake running through her that rattled right down to her bones. Her reaction arose out of anger, not fear. Though, if she were being honest, she’d have to admit to a mix of both.
His visit here meant his family had hunted her down and found her again. The last round of contacts started with letters from Carter’s father, Eldrick, then from his attorneys, all insisting she come in for a meeting. When she ignored those, the unwanted visits started. But she’d done what Eldrick ordered. She stayed away from Virginia and Carter and kept her mouth shut.
She’d already lost so much to the Jamesons—her father, her sister, her peace of mind. Now it looked like they were coming around again for one more shot.
She slipped her cell phone into her back jeans pocket and headed for the one closet in her studio apartment. It held her clothes, her cleaning supplies and, well, that just about constituted the entire list of what she owned. That and the photo album. If they were going to hound her it was easier to leave town for a while then go through it all again. She didn’t have any real connections here anyway, but the album was coming with her. It was all she had left of the past she tried so often to forget.
The knocking started as soon as she dropped to her knees. The rickety closet door with the broken slats screeched to a halt on the tracks. She usually shoved and pushed, half lifted the thing, to get it to open the whole way. But that would make noise and require her to move, and she seemed to be frozen in place.
Her heartbeat thundered in her ears. It was the only sound in the silent room.
Then the knocking started again.
“Hello?” A deep male voice, all silky and smooth, floated through the door.
She refused to fall for that sexy sound a second time. She wasn’t a teenage anymore. She knew better now...in theory. “What?”
“Hanna?”
He acted like he knew her but that had been years ago. Another time, almost another life.
“She’s not here.” She winced as she made the nonsensical remark.
For a second there was no response. Hanna scrambled to her feet and tiptoed to the door. She saw the shadow of Carter’s feet at the bottom. So, he still stood there, quiet now.
“Are you sure you don’t want to try another answer, Hanna Wilde? Maybe one a bit more believable?”
She couldn’t insist he had the wrong apartment. He remembered her name and he still had the same smiling lilt to his voice. This, the guy she’d been warned to stay away from was now hanging out in the hallway. Maybe he wanted to take a turn telling her not to disclose the misdeeds of his past. Either way, she refused to be blamed for being near him when he was the one who found her.
Taking a deep breath, she threw open the front door. Almost slammed it right into her own face but had the good sense to step back in the nick of time.
Her words cut off at the sight of him. A smile lit up his stupidly handsome face. He was tall, probably six-one or so, lo
oming over her by inches even though there was nothing tiny or petite about her.
A billionaire born into a family of extreme privilege, the type of people who did whatever they wanted, without consequence. A long line of Virginia landowners who considered themselves Southern gentlemen, a bloodline that had been broken only by a Japanese grandmother—or so said the nasty whispers of their fellow rich people. The same grandmother who had gifted Carter with the striking combination of glossy black hair and near black eyes.
Carter was the youngest of the Jameson sons. The playboy with the carefree reputation. The one not defined by the rules as much as his older brothers because no one expected or demanded anything of him. He was the “extra” child, or that was the joke his father used to describe him. She knew about the nickname because she’d watched interviews with Carter’s old man, hating him as much on-screen as she had in person.
Carter had been living in California for almost a year now—after he’d breezed through her sister’s life...and destroyed it.
“It’s been so long.” He sounded genuinely happy to see her.
Hanna ignored whatever traitorous emotion started jumping around in her stomach at the sound of his voice. “What do you want?”
“That’s an interesting welcome.”
She could have sworn his eyes actually sparkled. She glanced at the ceiling, figuring it had to be a trick from the hallway lighting. But no, the dude’s eyes looked sunny and warm and welcoming.
This guy, the one who wined and dined her sister, made promises then left town, now acted as if nothing had happened. As if he’d lost touch with Hanna by accident, not because his father cut off all contact. He’d never really noticed her before, certainly not when she was younger and desperate for his attention, which still haunted her, but now he pretended to.
“Why are you here?” Her fingers dug into the wooden door. She held on to it like a shield, positioning her body half behind it, ready to slam it shut if he moved even an inch.
Later she would assess why just seeing him touched off a spinning inside her. Why, after all this time, her heart still sped up when he shot her an inviting look. The reaction struck her as self-destructive and wrong but realizing that didn’t make it stop. It also made her wonder if she’d really overcome those feelings of not being good enough as she’d hoped.
The longer they stood there, the more those sparkly eyes dimmed. They started to narrow a bit. “Hanna? Do you remember me?”
She snorted. Little did he know she used to dream about him. “Of course.”
His gaze wandered over her head, into the studio behind her. “Are you okay?”
“I was up until three minutes ago.”
He let out a long, labored exhale. The kind that telegraphed a this-woman-is-working-on-my-nerves vibe. “Let’s start over. My father sent me.”
The memory of her youthful crush vanished. Her stomach squeezed and twisted until she had to fight the urge to yell. “To tell me to stay away? Well, I did that. If he’s ticked off it’s his own fault, or yours, because you came hunting me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Whatever he wants this time, the answer is no.” She gave in and shoved the door. Put her weight behind it and let it fly.
Carter grabbed the edge before it crashed into his shoulder. “Whoa. What do you mean by this time? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Yep, his reflexes were just as solid as the rest of him. All muscle and long legs and perfect cheekbones... Man, she hated the Jameson family and their hot-male genes.
“You need to go.” She’d said it in a few ways now. Maybe this time would sink in.
“What did he do? My father. Your reaction is...telling.”
Carter could not be this clueless. It wasn’t just his father. It was him, too. He’d created a mess and had his big ol’ rich daddy sweep the problem away.
That was almost a year ago. Now Carter showed up, taking the never-happened part a bit too far. “Oh, please.”
“Hanna.” This time there was a bit more oomph behind his tone when he said her name. “We haven’t seen each other in, what, ten years?”
True, and it managed to feel like both forever ago and like yesterday. “Your point?”
“Normally, I need to see a woman more often for her to be this angry with me.” One eyebrow lifted. “Or can I assume my father is responsible for your mood?”
Oh, this younger Jameson was a smooth one. Calm, standing there in his slim black pants with his hands in his pockets. A short gray winter coat highlighted his trim waist and likely cost more than her beat-up car with its side view mirror held on with electrical tape.
He rocked back on his heels, as if they were having a friendly chat. She had to give him credit. Carter Jameson had never tripped through that typical gawky preteen stage. Nope, he went from young and cute back then to all grown-up and hot now. Confidence pounded off him. The mix of perfect genes and I-know-my-place-in-the-world control proved pretty compelling.
Too bad he was a lying sack of garbage.
“The threats.” She stared at him, watching confusion sweep through his eyes. Yeah, nice try. “The baby.”
The color left Carter’s face. Drained away, leaving him pale and listing to one side. “Oh, damn. Please tell me you didn’t date my father and get pregnant.”
She almost gagged. “What?”
“Look...” Carter held up both hands. “He’s... I don’t know, charming? At least that’s what women have said. I don’t get it at all but—”
“Stop talking.” She grabbed a handful of his jacket when her nosy neighbor from across the hall opened his door. After a quick wave to send the guy scurrying away, she pulled Carter into her apartment and shut the door, trapping them inside. Together. Which was her nightmare.
“I did not sleep with your father.” She practically hissed the words at him.
“Good.” Carter visibly blew out another breath as a bit of color returned to his cheeks. “You said something about a baby?”
She shouldn’t have mentioned it. She refused to travel down that heartbreaking road. “How did your father find me?”
“Uh...” Carter closed one eye as if he were trying to reason something out in his head. “Were you lost?”
She didn’t buy the act. This errand had a purpose and Carter was the only one of the two of them who knew what it was. “Skip to the part where you explain how and why you’re here.”
“Okay.” His frown came and went. By the time he made eye contact again he seemed to have gotten control of whatever emotions were churning inside him. His expression morphed into a blank and unreadable one. “It’s a long story, but suffice it to say, my father asked me to come and see you. Specifically, to give this to you.”
He held out an envelope. Another envelope just like the ones his father had handed her and sent to her with messengers before. The idea of being told to stay away when she already had done just that didn’t make any sense. But the idea of reading through more correspondence from Eldrick Jameson exhausted her. She refused to do it. She would not give him or Carter the satisfaction of ordering her around and getting their way a second time.
The envelope might as well have been on fire because there was no way she was touching it. Never again. “Put that away.”
He flipped it around in the air a few times. “You don’t want it?”
He sounded stunned at the thought. She almost laughed at the reaction. It was as if he didn’t know his father and the old man’s schemes at all. There were always strings when it came to dealing with a Jameson.
“Save us both some time and just tell me what it says.”
Carter shrugged. “How should I know?”
“You’re telling me you didn’t open it? You flew here or took a million-dollar taxi ride or whatever and you never gave in to the itch t
o crack open the seal?” That seemed to defy human nature.
“Gotta say it sounds like you want to know what’s inside.” When she didn’t say anything, his hand dropped. “He left the envelope for you and said he wanted you to have it. My job was to deliver it.”
“Why?”
“I figured you knew.”
Anger whooshed out of her, but frustration quickly settled in its place. She had no idea what was happening. From the apologetic sound of his voice, she wondered if he did either. “Are you serious? You really don’t know what this assignment your father gave you is about?”
“Unfortunately, no.” Carter moved around the small space, careful to dodge the corner of her dresser and the edge of her bed, to stand by the window. “I’m not sure how to ask this, so I’m just going to blurt it out. I apologize in advance for the delivery.”
“That sounds ominous and—”
“Did you have a thing with my father? Maybe not sexual but...something?”
The question sounded just as horrifying the second time. The words had changed but the idea still screeched in her brain. “I don’t want anything to do with your father. Never did.”
“That’s new.”
“Meaning?”
Carter shook his head. “Well, he’s been married four times and had a series of mistresses and girlfriends, so I guess some women like him.”
She shivered. “I don’t get that.”
“On that, we agree.” A smile tugged on the corner of Carter’s mouth as he took a few steps around her small space.
That cocky walk, the self-assurance. The way he stepped into a room and owned it. He was older now, more attractive in the way age and life experience molded and changed a person. Defined his features. That firm chin. The sexy smile.
The teenaged version of her had suffered from a debilitating crush that made her stammer and stare at her feet during the few times he’d talked to her. The grown-up version of her, the one who had experienced nothing but grief and anguish at the hands of the Jameson family, appreciated the way he looked but was smart enough to be wary. To not get reeled in.
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