“I’ll admit that I was surprised to get your phone call.” Judson shoved his fingers through his messy hair. Wrath was surprised his fingers didn’t stick in the hair product he had obviously slathered on. Then Judson gave Wrath a sort of sideways look of apprehension before speaking to Tegan once again. “So, who is this guy and why would you bring him to dinner?”
“Oh, him?” Tegan waved her hand dismissively in Wrath’s direction. “That’s a sort of funny story anyway. He’s my bodyguard. You know how it is when your father is up to his neck in business deals. Pierson Financial is having some issues with threats and that sort of thing. My father hired a security firm, and Wrath here is my personal bodyguard.”
“Fascinating.” Judson was now staring at Wrath as though he were some kind of zoo exhibit. “So, he would really take a bullet for you and all of that nonsense?”
“Absolutely,” Tegan bragged. “He actually has—taken a bullet for me, I mean. Someone shot at me the other night. Wrath saved my life.”
For just a moment, there was something else in her expression. It was something more than the empty, almost insipid look she was putting on for Judson’s benefit. What was she playing at anyway? But only a moment later it was gone and there was no trace of anything other than the society princess.
Mac the bartender put a glass of ginger ale on the bar by Wrath’s elbow. “Isn’t that the moron who picked a fight with you the other night?”
“Yes.” Wrath nodded his thanks for the drink. “What happened after we left that night?”
Mac snorted and began using a towel to wipe down the bar. “I dumped a pitcher of water on him and his cronies. They woke up. Then they started blustering about how they could have kicked your ass if you hadn’t cheated by throwing the first punch with no warning.”
Wrath took a long drink of ginger ale. Unfortunately, it did nothing to cool the irritation he was currently experiencing. “Seriously? That’s almost a cliché for losers at large. It was a mistake to leave them breathing.”
“You know, I would have thought that night that the girl had a thing for you,” Mac said in a mild tone. “You work in a bar long enough and you learn to spot that kind of thing.”
“Yeah?” Wrath didn’t really know what to say. So, he went with the obvious. “Let’s just say I can’t support her in the style to which she’s accustomed.”
“I heard the guys that night going on and on about her trust fund,” Mac mused. “I wouldn’t think a girl like that would need a man to support her.”
“You think I want to be taken care of by my woman?” Wrath swung around to stare at Mac. “Would you want a woman to pay your bills?”
“So, pay your own damn bills and let her pay hers.” Mac made it sound simple. “Life is too short to let money—too much or too little—keep you from someone you really want to be with.” Mac made a face. “Unless you were going to sit on your ass and just let her take care of you. That’s a whole other thing.”
Wrath would rather have his balls cut off. “I’m a fucking marine. I don’t know how to sit on my ass.”
“So, then there’s not much chance of you being an ass and doing it now, is there?” Mac teased.
“Enough about this heart-to-heart bullshit,” Wrath growled. “What do you know about Ivan Sokolov?”
Mac pursed his lips. “I know that he’s a reclusive bastard with a penchant for holding a grudge.”
“So, nobody ever sees him?” Wrath found this truly hard to believe.
“Oh, there are all kinds of stories about why that is,” Mac explained. He kept wiping for a few more moments before picking up the threads of what he’d been saying. “Everything from some industrial accident that left him horribly disfigured to him being so paranoid of assassination attempts that he never goes out in public. It’s hard to say what the truth might actually be.”
“Since I’m not actually from Boston,” Wrath reminded Mac, “humor me with your personal theory.”
“I think he knows that he’s a target,” Mac reasoned. “He probably goes out in public all the time, but he does it in a way that doesn’t draw attention. I’ve even wondered if he has a second identity. Like his second-in-command is actually him or something. You know, he pretends to be someone else just to keep up the mystery.”
Wrath considered this notion. “You have a good brain, Mac. I’ll have to remember that the next time I have a little puzzle that needs solving.”
“Just remember that if you really want Sokolov, you have to remember that he rarely leaves South Boston. That’s where his ties are. He grew up down there in a Russian immigrant community. It’s not like he sprang out of the earth. Right? So there are people down there who know what he looks like. There has to be a way to get one of them to talk.”
TEGAN COULD NOT stop staring at Wrath. He was talking to the bartender as if he had completely forgotten that Tegan existed. Great. So her entire plan to make Wrath realize that he was jealous and really wanted her for himself had backfired completely. Now Tegan was stuck here with Judson the moronic groom-to-be while Wrath had a nice heart-to-heart with the bartender.
“So, what were you thinking in terms of our engagement,” Judson asked.
Shit. He was talking again. Tegan was going to have to pay attention or risk committing herself to something that fell under the heading of completely out of the question. “Engagement,” she said slowly. “Well, we don’t really know each other that well. I know that money and connections are important, but if we truly cannot stand each other, then all the rest is a moot point. Don’t you think?”
“I suppose that makes good sense.” Judson snapped his fingers at the waitress. “I asked for my burger medium rare. This is medium well. Take it back and make it right.”
Tegan stared at the man as he scoffed at the waitress’s back once she had left with his plate in hand to fix the order. Obviously, Judson had little to no respect for anyone of a different social class than himself. That was pleasant.
Judson offered her a toothy grin. “You know how it is with the help. You can’t let them get away with anything or they’ll try to run right over you.”
“Is that right?” Tegan murmured. “I must say I’ve never had that problem.”
“No doubt your father only hires the best of staff.” Judson rolled his eyes. “My mother is notorious for being too soft with her household servants. She coddles them and lets them get away with the most atrocious acts of laziness you could imagine. It’s annoying as hell. My father and I are always having to fire the people she hires and then find better workers ourselves.”
“Your household must go through a lot of staff members,” Tegan wondered out loud. She could not imagine just firing people without trying to talk to them or work out their differences first.
“No more than the usual, I’m sure.” Judson sighed. “It would have been so much easier to live back in the eighteen hundreds or something with indentured servants that could be whipped for insolence. Nowadays, you have to make sure nobody is going to file a complaint against you for letting them go, especially without a reference.”
Tegan instantly remembered Wrath’s comment about how this was not the eighteen hundreds and nobody could make her marry a man she didn’t want. She sighed now. She didn’t have to marry Judson. But sometimes she wondered if there was really any point in not going through with it. It wasn’t like she was going to do any better with someone else.
“I think we should date for a few months,” Tegan said spontaneously.
A slow smile spread across Judson’s face. “Oh, I agree. We should most definitely be seen at social events together. That would be a great way to see if we were compatible. You know. We can let our friends have a say as well. Besides, being seen together will do wonders for the stock prices of both companies.”
“The stock prices,” Tegan repeated. “Is that a large concern of yours?”
“Well, if I thought the stock price of our company would go down by my marrying you
, then I wouldn’t have asked,” he explained. “It would be irresponsible to do so. Don’t you think?”
“Oh, of course,” Tegan said quickly. Not! What was this guy thinking? Would he seriously divorce her if stock prices dropped at some point because of something she did? It was a sobering thought.
“Have you—uh—mentioned this to your parents?” Tegan moved quickly to another topic. “I was wondering what their thoughts were on the topic.”
“Oh, my father is the one who suggested it in the first place,” Judson admitted. His burger suddenly came back to the table. The waitress gently set the plate down and then set down a couple of drink refills as well. Tegan thanked her in a low voice. Judson frowned at Tegan. “That really wasn’t necessary,” he said once the waitress was gone. “You’re just making things harder for her in the long run.”
“How so?” Tegan couldn’t wait to hear this rationalization.
Judson jerked his chin in the direction of the kitchen. “If the help ever believes that they’re your equal, they might decide they deserve more wages or more compensation of another kind. The list goes on, really.”
“You’re an insufferable snob, you know that?” Tegan didn’t change her tone. It was very matter-of-fact.
Judson smirked. “And my mother feels that you’re not quite polished enough for a bride.”
“Well, my mother thinks you’re a moron and will consider it a horrible decision if I choose to marry you. She laughed her head off when I told her that you’d proposed.” Tegan knew as soon as the words were out that she’d been wrong to say them. Judson’s face turned from red to a sort of puce color.
“I think we’re done here,” he grit out. “You can pay your own check since you’re just so close to the help.”
He stormed out of the Foursquare without looking back. What was it about Tegan that made men seem to want to do that? It was getting more than a little irritating.
Chapter Eighteen
Tegan slumped into the passenger seat of Wrath’s car. She was feeling very, very low. Her father wanted her to marry a moron who was such a snob that Tegan was pretty damn certain she couldn’t stand to be in the same room with him for more than ten minutes at a time. She didn’t seem to fit in with the group she was trying to be part of—her father’s company. Her mother was always telling her to follow her instincts. So, what happened when her instincts told her to turn tail and walk away from her father and the job offer at Pierson Financial?
Wrath glanced over. She could see him staring at her from the corner of her eye. She might have been wrong. She hoped that she was, but he looked kind of smug. “So, when is the wedding?” he finally asked. “Are you two lovebirds going to marry as quickly as possible? Or are you going to wait and do the big society spectacle?”
“No!” Tegan sat up straight in her seat and turned toward Wrath. She pointed her index finger at him with such emphasis that she got awfully close to his nose. “You don’t get to talk to me like that! You don’t get to judge me either. Just because you don’t want to be with me beyond one night doesn’t mean that nobody else ever will.”
“Is that what you think?”
Wait. Was he angry? She blinked in surprise as she realized that there was a definite growl to his voice. He was. He was angry with her because of what she’d said. How dare he be angry! He didn’t get to be mad at her over this. He was the reason she was all messed up to begin with!
“I don’t know what I think anymore,” Tegan said through clenched teeth. “You kissed me. You had sex with me. You make me feel like I can fly. And then you walk away as if I’m nothing more than a toy! What else am I supposed to think or do? Please, oh wise man of the world. Tell me what it is you think I should do.”
Wrath jerked the wheel so hard that she could have sworn the car went up on two wheels. Horns blared and traffic around them scattered as he swerved to the side of the road. He pulled haphazardly into the parking area of an office building, and they screeched to a halt at the back of the lot.
“Now you listen here.” He turned to face her, his forearm braced on the steering wheel and his aura so big that he filled the car. “I don’t know why you’re even entertaining the notion that the two of us would ever have more than casual sex. Do you have any clue what being with a guy like me would be like for a girl like you?”
Well, no, but Tegan resented the hell out of the notion that she couldn’t decide for herself. “Oh, please enlighten me!” she shot back.
“I’m not rich. I get by, but I don’t have a fucking trust fund or a townhouse. I don’t even have an apartment. I have a storage unit, a ten-by-six little windowless room where I keep what little I have. I stop there every once in a while to get some different clothing or a new pair of boots. I don’t have a wardrobe. I would never fit into your lifestyle, and I could never be that guy who supports you the way your father has!”
“Okay, for starters,” she snarled. She was practically vibrating with aggression. “My father hasn’t supported me since I was six and my mother left him. He’s never supported her either! Why can’t people get that? Just because people have money doesn’t mean that their family members or their children get to share in it. What I have is from my mother’s family. She had a trust from her grandparents, just like I have one from her parents. They were on the fringe of Boston society. Maybe in the old days it would have been said that their income was from trade. I don’t know. But they aren’t like the Hyde-Piersons.”
He looked taken aback. “I knew your father made you apply for your job at his company like everyone else, but I didn’t realize he hadn’t helped you at all.”
“Why? Because I live in a brownstone in Back Bay?” She hated that assumption. “It belonged to my mother’s sister. She died and left it to me because she hated my brother and had no children of her own.”
“Why do you want anything to do with your father’s company, Tegan?” Wrath murmured. He reached out and gently touched her cheek with the backs of his fingers. The gentle touch surprised her. “If that man hasn’t done anything for you but give you his name, which in turn makes people assume a lot of incorrect things about you, then why work for him?”
His words bothered her. A lot. They raised questions that she didn’t want to answer. She didn’t even want to think about it. No. Her father didn’t ever really seem to respect her. Not the way that she longed for. He had never taken much of an interest in her growing up. Not like he had her brother, Ralston. Now it was becoming apparent that he saw her value when she could connect him to another wealthy Boston family. Was that really what she wanted?
I just want him to accept me.
WRATH COULD SEE every thought that crossed her mind displayed plainly on her face. She was confused and hurt and so very, very frustrated with her family situation. He sighed. He remembered how much he had wanted his father to be proud of him. It hadn’t ever happened, but it had been decades before Wrath had come to understand that his father wasn’t capable of giving Wrath what he needed.
“I don’t mean to poke at you so hard,” Wrath said suddenly. He realized that he had in effect been poking some pretty harsh holes in her life plans.
“I always thought that if I worked at Pierson Financial, I would be able to show my father that I’m smart and capable. I thought I could impress him. Being in his company, helping him make money, helping him grow the business, that would be me trying to gain his approval.” She gave a bitter laugh. “I think we both know that’s a pipe dream.”
“I wouldn’t say it’s a pipe dream.” Wrath disliked the way she managed to minimize herself with those words. “I would say you want something completely reasonable from your father and he’s either unwilling or unable to give it.”
She was silent for a moment. Wrath knew they were sitting in a parking lot, completely exposed in a not-so-great spot. They needed to get moving, or they ran the risk of having one of Sokolov’s goons take another shot. A half decent sniper would have been able to pick th
em off from a rooftop. And they’d given the tall man plenty of time to find a vantage point. Wrath comforted himself with the knowledge that, so far, the tall man had shown a preference for having prior knowledge of his vantage points.
“So, what am I supposed to do?” Tegan put her hands over her face. Her expression was almost panicky. “If I don’t start the job at Pierson Financial, I’m basically back at square one.”
“So, what does square one look like?” Wrath tackled this the same way he would have handled a problem in the field. “Step one is to identify the goal. What is it you want to do?”
“I want to build the financial side of a business,” she told him. “I want to look at investments and contracts and the rest of the nuts and bolts of making a business profitable, and then feel a sense of satisfaction when my plans work and the money comes rolling in.”
Wrath’s brain immediately started running scenarios where Tegan worked for Nash and ran the business end of things. Nash was great with logistics, but he wasn’t so great with financial stuff. It wasn’t that he wasn’t capable. He was busy. That meant paychecks could be late occasionally just because he’d forgotten to write them.
“So if I worked for some small-time fledgling firm, would you go out with me?” Tegan whispered.
Wrath opened his mouth, but no words came out. No matter what her job was or would be, there was still a vast financial gulf between them. “You’d get tired of always having more money than I do,” he told her in a flat tone.
“You can’t say that for sure.”
“Why do you want me in your life anyway?” Wrath shook his head. He could not wrap his mind around what she seemed to be suggesting. “I’m a fling for you. This was just a fling. It was never meant to be more than that. Why would you want to make it more? You have the opportunity and the financial freedom to do what you want. You can take a job that’s fulfilling and then find some idealistic guy to share that townhouse.”
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