A Very Private Merger

by Day Leclaire

  Right until it had crashed and burned this morning.

  “Nikki?” he called out.

  He heard swift footsteps coming from the general direction of the kitchen. A second later Nikki appeared. She’d changed from her business suit into some sort of light, filmy cover-up. He remembered it from one of the occasions when she’d spent the night at his beach house. It had been no more than a brief glimpse all those weeks ago, just the amount of time it took to see the tantalizing way it clung to her lush figure and the additional few seconds it took to strip it off her.

  She paused a dozen feet away from him and stared for an endless moment, her eyes black in the dusky light. His expression must have given her some clue as to why he was there. With a small exclamation, she flew into his arms.

  He held her tight, catching himself inhaling her unique fragrance, as though stamping it onto some primal memory that told him that this was his mate, the only woman who would ever be his mate. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. She simply shook her head, burrowing against him. It took him a split second to realize she was crying. “Oh, God, don’t, Nikki. I’m so sorry.”

  When she still didn’t answer, he swept her into his arms and carried her upstairs to her bedroom. After toeing off his shoes, he climbed into bed with her and simply held her against his chest until she finished weeping.

  “You okay now?” he asked gently, brushing back her fringe of bangs and kissing her forehead.

  She ducked her head. “Don’t look at me. I’m not one of those sweet Southern belles who cries without smudging their makeup. I’m one of those whose nose turns red and runny and whose face gets all blotchy. Mother blames my Thomas blood since apparently a Beaulyn wouldn’t dare do the ugly cry.”

  His mouth twitched in amusement. “So noted. I’m now too terrified to look.”

  To his relief a small hiccupped laugh escaped. “Okay, now I have to know.” A hint of tension rippled through body. “Why are you here, Jack?”

  “Do I really have to say it?”

  He despised postmortems after an argument. How many of them had he been privy to whenever his parents fought and reconciled? Too many to count, their passion loud and messy, spilling over onto those too close to escape. No wonder he and Alan were so screwed up, though in totally opposite ways. His Sinclair half brother had always been appalled by the excess of emotion—emotion their mother, Angela, had never shared with Alan’s father, Richard Sinclair.

  Had Alan resented that fact? Jack had never considered the possibility before. Considering how protective Alan was toward their mother, the likelihood existed, despite the loving relationship he claimed to share with Jack’s father, Reginald Kincaid. While Alan clung tighter to his parental relationships, Jack had closed himself off from others, building a protective wall around his emotions. Refusing to allow others to stir the sort of intemperate passion his parents shared, a passion that had destroyed so many lives.

  Nikki released a long sigh, interrupting his musings. “Did you expect to waltz in here after everything that happened today and just pick up where we left off?”

  He winced at the stinging note in her voice. “Expect? No. Hope? You’re damn right I did.”

  “Jack.”

  “Okay, you want to hear it again? I’m sorry.”

  She peeked up at him through damp, spiky lashes. “Why are you sorry?” she asked suspiciously.

  “I’m afraid—seriously afraid—that I might be like Craig,” he confessed.

  Nikki must not have anticipated that particular answer. She pulled back another couple of inches, confirming that she’d been dead serious about her crying jags. She wasn’t a pretty crier. For some reason, it endeared her to him all the more. “Craig?” she asked in confusion. “You’re nothing like Craig.”

  “I’m not sure your father would agree.” He brooded over it for another moment. “I suspect if you told me you worked for TKG, I’d have used our relationship to convince you to spy on the Kincaids.”

  Her eyes narrowed a trifle, a steely gleam glittering through her tears. “FYI, you wouldn’t have succeeded.”

  “Don’t be so sure.” He deliberately feathered his hand along her cheek and down the length of her neck, eliciting a helpless shiver. “I can be pretty persuasive when I choose.”

  She gave herself a little shake and pulled back farther still as though a few more inches of distance would improve her chances of resisting him. He’d have laughed if not for the hint of shrewdness in her gaze. “Just out of curiosity, what information would you have had me turn over to you?”

  The question caught him totally off guard. Okay, so maybe his powers of persuasion were on the fritz. They certainly seemed to be tonight. “I don’t know. Information I could use to gain control of The Kincaid Group.”

  “Jack, the only way you can gain control of TKG is if you also control the majority of the shares. The same goes for RJ. And since you asked me to find out who the missing shareholder is when you didn’t know I worked for the Kincaids, and that’s the same information you’d have wanted if you did know I worked for the Kincaids, I don’t see how you could have used me.”

  It took him a moment to work through her reply. “Convoluted, but true,” he conceded. “But what if I’d asked you to give me any defamatory information about RJ or Matt or one of their sisters? Information I could have used against them at the annual meeting?”

  “I’d have said no,” she retorted with a hint of exasperation. “Besides, there is no defamatory information. Jack, your brothers and sisters are nice people. If you’d only give them a chance you’d discover that for yourself.”

  His jaw set. “I have no intention of discovering that for myself.”

  “Oh, Jack.” It was her turn to shift closer, to stroke a gentle hand along his raspy cheek. For some reason her powers of persuasion were working much better than his, damn it. “They’re as innocent in all this as you are.”

  “That doesn’t change their attitude toward me.”

  “Their father had just been murdered, a man they’d loved and respected all their lives,” she shot right back. “A man they thought they knew as well as they knew themselves. Instead of being able to mourn him, they’re faced with the news that he’s been keeping a second family hidden away. That the pillar of Charleston society has feet of clay. It takes time to come to terms with that.”

  “They’ve had five months,” he insisted stubbornly.

  “Jack, they’re no more responsible for the family dynamics than you are. Your life and how you were forced to spend it was your mother and father’s responsibility. They’re the ones who should be held accountable, not your brothers and sisters.”

  He was being unreasonable and knew it. That didn’t change the fact that he’d lived his entire life in the shadows, had never known the acceptance his Kincaid kin had experienced from the moment they’d entered the world, all because he’d had the misfortune to be born a bastard. For years he’d competed head-to-head with The Kincaid Group, fighting and clawing for each and every sale, while his brothers had been handed their positions on a silver platter. Soon all that would change. Soon they’d be forced to answer to him. That moment couldn’t come any too soon. Nor would it be any too sweet.

  Nikki sighed, breaking the silence growing between them. “All I’m saying is that you might consider giving them a chance.”

  “Fine.” He dismissed his relatives without the least hesitation. “Next problem.”

  “The missing shares,” she said unhappily.

  She keyed in on the remaining issue standing between them with unerring accuracy. He’d always admired her focus and logic, even if it was all too often coated with an unfortunate sentimentality.

  He nodded. “Eventually you’re going to find out who owns them, Nikki. How will you handle the information when you do?”

  “To be honest, I don’t know,” she confessed.

  “At the very least I hope you’ll give both RJ and me the information at the same time
so neither of us has an unfair advantage.”

  She wiggled against him, confirming how uncomfortable the subject made her. She’d always been that way about it, even before he’d discovered she worked for the Kincaids. Invariably, she’d change the topic whenever it came up in casual conversation. He’d always assumed it wasn’t something that interested her. Now he realized it struck too close to home.

  “I’ll think about it,” she finally conceded.

  He’d have to be satisfied with that. “I have one more request.”

  “I’m almost afraid to ask… .”

  He caught the wary tone in her voice and suspected he’d pushed her about as far as she’d be pushed. Still, this was important. More than important. “I read through the reports you brought to my office. They were excellent, by the way. Very fair and accurate.”

  “Thanks. I try.”

  He winced at the chill that iced her words. “I noticed that Charles McDonough was your father’s former partner.”

  She confirmed it with a quick nod. “Our families have maintained a close friendship. What’s this about, Jack? What do you want?”

  Time for dead honesty. “I need to clear my name,” he stated tersely. “And I need you to help me do it.”

  Three

  Nikki’s expression softened. “Jack, I know you didn’t kill your father. I wouldn’t be in bed with you if I had the least doubt.”

  “You’re the only one who doesn’t have the least doubt.” He yanked at his tie to loosen the knot. For some reason it threatened to choke him. “The police are looking my way. McDonough has already interviewed me a couple of times. I have a feeling I’m his most likely suspect.”

  “Looking is a long way from arresting you for the crime and even further from convicting you.” But she sounded uneasy.

  “I understand all that. Right now the evidence is barely circumstantial. My car parked near TKG the night of the murder is hardly persuasive evidence. That doesn’t change the fact that someone killed my father. I want you to help me find out who. Or if we can’t find out the actual identity of the murderer, at least help me prove it wasn’t me.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t and won’t interfere with an ongoing police investigation. Charles may be a close family friend, but he won’t tolerate that, not even from me,” she warned.

  “I’m not asking you to interfere. Nikki…your reports were brilliant.” When she started to deny it, he stopped her. “No, truly. They were logical, careful, thorough. You have a very analytical mind and a knack for sifting through large amounts of data and extracting key nuggets of information. I need that sort of help.”

  She gave a helpless shrug. “I don’t know what you think I can uncover that the police can’t.”

  “I don’t know if it’s that they can’t or if they simply choose not to, at least not when they have a convenient suspect at hand.”

  “Oh, no, Jack.” She rolled onto her hip to face him and cupped his face. “Charles isn’t like that, not at all.”

  He planted a kiss in the palm of her hand, the gesture taking on a symbolic feel. “The Kincaids would be delighted to have the police pin my dad’s murder on me,” he said. “In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they weren’t nudging McDonough in my direction. Not only would it take care of the problems I’m causing at TKG, it also sweeps the bastard son out of sight so the Kincaids can pretend I never existed.”

  “First, Charles can’t be nudged. If he could, he’d never have arrested Reginald’s wife for the murder. It wasn’t until Elizabeth allowed Cutter Reynolds to step forward and admit that she was with him that night at the time of the murder—that they’d been having an affair for three years—that she was released.”

  Jack reluctantly nodded. “Fair enough. That doesn’t change the fact that over the past five months the suspect pool has gotten smaller and smaller. Hell, right now it’s barely a puddle and I’m the only one left splashing around in it. I flat-out refuse to sit around and wait for them to find some trumped-up piece of evidence with which to hang me. Even if you refuse to help, I plan to look into this on my own.”

  Nikki frowned. “You’re not giving me much choice, Jack.”

  “It’s the Craig coming out in me.”

  To his relief, her frown eased then evaporated like morning fog hovering over the Cooper River. “You will never be like Craig,” she informed him.

  She spoke with such tenderness that it left him speechless…though not motionless. Gently, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. His mouth drifted across hers, slow and easy. He nibbled at her bottom lip, running his tongue along the seam before dipping inward for a leisurely taste.

  “Have I ever told you that you have the most perfect lips of any woman I’ve ever kissed?”

  Her smile melded with the kiss. “Do I?”

  “Mmm. They’re just the right size and shape. Plump without suffocating a man. Wide without swallowing a man whole.”

  Her laughter rang out. “Heaven forbid.”

  “And best of all they’re clever. Very, very clever, just like the woman who possesses them.”

  “Well, allow me to return the compliment. I just happen to think that not only are your lips perfect, but so is the way you use them.” She ran a finger along his mouth, giving his bottom lip a little pinch similar to the nibbling bite he’d given hers. “Unlike some men who are long forgotten, you don’t just dive in and attack my mouth.”

  For some reason his voice deepened, turning rough and gravelly. “I seem to remember attacking it a time or two.”

  “Only when the occasion called for it,” she assured him. “The rest of the time you start slow and teasing, and oh, so tempting. Like this…” She gave him a vivid demonstration, one that had his mind clouding over and blood pooling in an area of his body nowhere near his mouth. “And then you slip in, like the sun slipping from the ocean and turning everything golden. You steal my breath, Jack. I don’t understand how or why, but you do. And then you give me yours so I can breathe again.”

  He closed his eyes, more moved than he could ever remember. “Nikki…”

  “Make love to me, Jack. Steal my breath and turn my world golden again.”

  Jack didn’t need any further prompting. Rearing back, he knelt above Nikki and stripped away his suit coat and tie. The buttons of his shirt proved beyond his ability to manipulate and he dealt with them in the easiest possible way. He ripped his shirt open and tossed it aside, while she tackled his trousers, her hands as clumsy as his own in her haste to deal with his belt buckle and zipper. Though it seemed endless, it couldn’t have been longer than a minute before all he wore was skin. And then he turned his attention to Nikki.

  Her cover-up was a pale gleam, the color indeterminate, in the dimness of the bedroom. Beneath it she wore the royal blue bra and panties he’d had the pleasure of watching her slip on just that morning. Now he’d have the greater pleasure of removing them. He caught the hem of the semitransparent scrap of silk in his hands and drew it up and off.

  She emerged, a bit more rumpled, but infinitely more beautiful. She’d let her hair down after she left his office and it flowed to her shoulders in an ebony curtain, the ends curving inward to cup her shoulders. The darkness of the color made a delicious contrast to her pearlescent skin, giving a richness to the sepia overtones. She fell back against the pillows and offered her siren’s smile, a silent promise of pleasures to come.

  For a split second, time froze, tilted. From the moment he’d first seen Nikki at the Read and Write auction, striding across the grounds of the Colonel Samuel Beauchamp House, her lean, shapely figure encased in form-fitting black wool, he’d wanted her. And when she’d paused to stare up at where he stood on a balcony overlooking the impeccably landscaped backyard and patio, he’d desired her with a ferocity he’d never experienced with any other woman.

  She’d stood so fearlessly beneath him, gazing up with those stunning sapphire eyes and then she’d shocked him by bidding, offering a t
housand dollars for the pleasure of his company for one night of dinner and dancing, when all those around her had refused to make a single offer, despite the fact that the event was for charity. Even more fascinating, she’d demanded an additional incentive—a single wish to be collected at a time of her choosing. She never collected on that wish, though he didn’t doubt she would at some point. But he’d collected their very first kiss that same night, tracking her down and pulling her into his arms, driven to put his stamp of possession on her.

  Instead, she’d put hers on him.

  Ever since that first kiss he’d been connected to her in a way he didn’t understand and couldn’t begin to explain. The depths of his feelings bothered him, perhaps because they were too close an echo of what he suspected his father felt for his mother. Worse, it disturbed the even tenor of his life, upset the clear-cut goals he’d set for himself. Disrupted the urges that had driven him for most of his life. She made him question himself, to look far too closely at his motivations. And he didn’t like it. Not that his displeasure changed a thing. He still wanted her with a desperation he couldn’t deny or sate.

  “What’s wrong?” Nikki asked, her voice soft and gentle, filled with a perceptiveness that arrowed straight through to the core of who and what he was.

  “You have a knack for knocking me off balance and keeping me there.” The words were dragged from him with an unwillingness he couldn’t disguise.

  “Should I apologize?” she asked gravely.

  “Yes.”

  “A shame since I quite like having you off balance.”

  As though to prove her point, she took his hand in hers and gave it a yank, catching him by surprise. He fell forward, supporting his weight with hands he braced on either side of her head. “You’re trouble,” he informed her. “I knew it when you bid for me.”

  “You’re mine. I made sure of it when I won you.” She tugged at his shoulders, pulling him downward so skin pressed intimately to skin. She hesitated, her expression turning unusually serious. “I would never betray you, Jack. I want you to know that.”