The lights flickered and Mandy squeezed her eyes shut at the intrusion.
Lights? Real lights?
Electricity?
Shock, sharp and acerbic ricocheted through her and sliced apart the pleasure she had been totally wrapped in only seconds before.
“Power!” She bolted upright, kicking Tate in the process.
“Jeez, is that any way to thank a guy.”
Mandy looked at him, confusion whirring in her brain as she struggled to bring thought and word together. “Sorry, but can’t you see,” she said scrambling for her ruined dress. “We have power. We can get out, go home. Leave,” she said in a rush of words all clamoring one after each other.
“Great.”
Mandy stilled and turned, her dress still in her hands. Tate levered himself upright. He didn’t look too happy, or comfortable.
“You don’t sound pleased?”
He held up a silencing hand.
Sounds. A voice. They echoed through the empty store. Tate spun away from her and grabbed at his shirt and quickly tossed it over his head. Once on, Mandy realized what he’d done. By covering himself, at least he looked semi-decent and his arousal hidden, while the quivers of her orgasm still racing through her, were thankfully unseen.
“Mr. Sullivan, Mr. Sullivan.” Fraser Maxwell came panting through the store, his ample girth jiggling as it hung over his trouser belt. The man did not look like a manager of a prestigious store. How the heck he held his job, a job he wasn’t particularly good at, she had no idea.
Mandy threw on her dress, closing the zip as a breathless Maxwell came to a halt in front of her and Tate. He reached podgy hand out. “So sorry, sir, but I thought security had ensured all staff were gone.”
Tate shook Maxwell’s hand, but tension was etched across his face. “Don’t worry about it. Security passed the key over, but by the time we exited, the snow had ploughed down and going anywhere wasn’t an option, so we bunked down here for the night.”
“Dear Lord,” Maxwell wheezed, “And it’s Christmas too, I’m sure you have family to go home to.”
“Some,” Tate nodded.
“Please be sure to give them our regards, and I will talk to security. This won’t happen again, Mr. Sullivan.”
It started with prickles on the back of her neck and across her scalp, her hair rising on end as gooseflesh dotted her arms. Mandy frowned. Something wasn’t right here. Maxwell never enthused over staff, and Santa, well he was just a fill in—right? The man was bowing and scraping for all his worth.
“Allow me to escort you to your car, Mr. Sullivan, and let me assure you, Wentworth’s is run in tip top order.”
“I’m sure it is, Maxwell. Your assistant Ms. Brooks has done a fine job.”
Maxwell tossed Mandy a scathing look over his shoulder. “Has she?” The way he said it clearly indicated he didn’t believe it. “Cover yourself up Ms. Brooks. No need to flaunt yourself. You won’t get promotion that way. Mr. Sullivan will not take kindly to that kind of behavior in his staff.”
Ice-cold dread wrapped itself around Mandy’s heart and squeezed tight. Her throat constricted, blocking off her airwaves. “His...staff,” she said stumbling over the words. Two words she really didn’t want to hear, to say, or to suddenly believe.
Maxwell turned to her. “Tut, tut Ms. Brooks. Do you not keep up with the goings on in Wentworth’s? Surely not the way for a prospective manager,” he admonished as if she were a recalcitrant child. He shot her a pitying glare from his watery gray eyes. “We’ll have to discuss this in the office, Ms. Brooks,” he censured.
But Mandy wasn’t having any of it and stalked up to Maxwell. “Are you saying he...,” she spluttered, fury rising by the second, “that he is the new boss?” She thumbed a finger towards Tate.
“Of course. Everyone knows Mr. Sullivan is our buyer.”
“Our...” Mandy slammed a hand across her forehead. “Boss? He’s the owner.” She spun round then, anger burning acidic in her belly. “You bastard. You lied to me. You. You tricked me.” Hands curled into fists, she pummeled Tate’s chest. Heat rose from him, to her. Almost. She shut it off and closed her heart.
“Ms. Brooks. Ms. Brooks,” Maxwell’s squeal sliced across her anger. “How dare you.”
“Shut up, Maxwell. Just shut up. This has nothing to do with you.”
Maxwell’s cheeks puffed scarlet, his fleshy mouth opening and closing, eyes bulging. Mandy ignored his blustering. She wanted to see Tate grovel, apologize, a hint of guilt. Anything. But he said nothing and her hands dropped to her sides. She took a step back. “You lied to me, Tate.”
“You didn’t ask what I did for a living.” He simply shrugged, an action that cauterized Mandy’s heart. He didn’t care.
“But we talked about why you were back.”
“It’s Christmas.”
“So it’s okay not to tell the truth because the questions weren’t exactly specific? When were you going to tell me?” she rounded on him.
Then it hit her. “This is all about the past, isn’t it?”
He remained silent, but his eyes had darkened, hard and cold, the desire only moments ago burning in them, now obliterated.
“This is about revenge isn’t it? You figured you could come in, upset the proverbial apple cart, and walk out again.”
“And is the cart upset?”
Mandy drew in a deep breath, desperate to control her fury. She failed. “Damned right I am,” she snapped. He had made her loose her body to him as payback for dumping him at the altar. “I didn’t think you’d stoop so low. But then it just goes to show, I didn’t really know you did I? Not the real Tate Sullivan.”
As she spoke, Mandy witnessed flickers of anger...and yes, guilt rush across Tate’s strained expression. His eyes had become hooded, dark lashes shadowing them as he stood stiff and unyielding, the pulse in his throat beating a rhythmic tattoo.
“You know nothing about me, Mandy. Nothing.”
“Obviously.”
Maxwell took his opportunity and stepped in. “Mr. Sullivan is the owner of Wentworths. Surely you have heard of Southern Developments.”
Mandy’s jaw dropped. She looked from Maxwell to Tate. “You are Southern Developments?”
He gave her a curt nod. “Is it so hard to believe? Did you expect me to limp away five years ago with my tail between my legs and simply curl up and wallow in self-pity? Life’s been good, Mandy. Very good.”
Had she? Did she think Tate would do nothing while she had dumped him because she desperately needed to stand on her own, be someone, and not simply the girl from the trailer park? The girl his mother didn’t want around.
“I’m glad, Tate. Really.” And she was. But she also had to get out of there. Right now. She needed to think. Sort out everything that had happened and was going on in her brain. She stepped back and crossed her arms across her middle. “Now, since this is officially still Christmas and my day off, I’m out of here. Goodbye, Tate.”
Tate’s brow puckered. “Don’t you mean see you tomorrow? I’m your boss, remember.”
“But... You mean you’re going to be in-house?”
“Exactly.” And he offered her a smile, a cat who had got the cream sort of smile.
Mandy’s body burned, only to be doused by a wave of icy fear. Dear Lord. Tate Sullivan had become her boss and she’d just had sex with him...in his store.
Her heaven had just become hell.
Chapter Five
Fool!
He thought he could handle it. Big time business guy!
He should have known, should have listened to his instincts. But oh no, he had to do it. Had to relive the memory. Just once.
Huh, and you reckon you can walk away!
Memories stirred and Tate bit down hard on instincts that urged him to hold her tightly in his arms and make love to her, again and again.
Won’t work, buster. You’ll never be rid of that smell. The just made love to smell of her.
Damn it. The voice in his head countered every levelheaded thought he could come up with.
Ever since that day two months ago when he’d come back home. It’d been hard, but necessary. Death did that. It forced a person to do things they’d avoided for years.
He’d tried to argue that he’d been busy and put off his mother’s constant pleas to come home. He’d always had an excuse, until the time came when even they wouldn’t work.
He had to come home. No choice. His father had died.
Autumn in Oakville came swift, every color of the rainbow strewn across the city with the falling leaves blowing through the wide thoroughfares that made up the stately town. A town made up of old money; Wentworth’s had become a focal part of the city’s heritage.
Just like his mother. Old money that had disappeared.
Belle Sullivan had always belittled his father for not being part of what she considered gentry, and yet she herself had nothing but a heritage of lost wealth which she clung to like a limpet floating adrift.
After the funeral he’d driven the streets of the city, lost in memories forced to the fore by his visit. Then he’d seen Mandy. She’d been walking with a child. A boy about five. At first it hit Tate so bloody hard he almost chucked up. Who was the child? His?
The thought scared him, and then riled him. She had his child and hadn’t told him.
But a moment later her brother strode up and the child ran into his open arms. Then a woman joined the happy picture, kissing Mandy’s brother Chris, and the child. A happy family scene, but not his.
The realization caused him instant pain, and a loss that had been totally and utterly unexpected. Confusing. Even frightening.
He hadn’t thought about children, about being a father. Not for five years at least.
Tate slammed that thought down instantly. But Mandy, the woman he had wanted to marry all those years ago, wouldn’t dislodge from his brain. The wanting hadn’t gone away, despite his best efforts at denial.
“Fool!” he muttered again as he exited the store he’d bought on a whim. He strode out into the snow-laden street on a lonely Christmas morning. But nothing could be as lonely as that Christmas gone by.
Why the hell had he come home?
You know, buster. You know exactly.
He did. And that was the problem. He should have kept on driving.
Chapter Six
Outside the store, Tate lifted his head to the cascade of snow falling from the heavens. Mandy watched him as the icy flecks swiftly formed a cape across his shoulders. But it was the thought of heaven that yanked Mandy back to reality. She needed to escape, and fast. She didn’t know whether to be sick or laugh, but the hysteria building at volcanic proportions threatened to explode. “I’ve got to go,” she muttered with grim determination.
Tate’s response was instant, though he didn’t even turn to face her. “I’ll drive you.”
“No!” Her refusal erupted as almost a shout. She didn’t want him anywhere near her right now, his blatant betrayal a stinging lash to her self-esteem. “I don’t need your help. I’m quite capable of managing to get home.”
He turned to face her then and she so very much wished he hadn’t. The haunted eyes, the handsome face she thought she knew so well, but now almost a stranger. “I know you are, but you’ve had a shock.”
A choking gurgle of laughter spilled from her lips. “You’re right, I have. But then you had to know once the truth came out I wouldn’t be a happy camper, Mr. Sullivan.” She had her coat on now and pulled the edges of the hounds tooth garment together, shivering despite its one hundred percent Woolmark. “Or perhaps you weren’t going to tell the truth. Keep the lies going as long as you could, so you could...” Her gaze shifted uneasily toward Maxwell. Damn the man, he’d followed them out, his ruddy face almost glowing with enjoyment at her discomfort. Her shoulders sagged. “I can’t do this. Not now. I’m tired. I’m going home.”
Tate’s mouth thinned.
“Alone,” she reiterated.
Turning from him, and from Maxwell’s curious stare, she walked away. Away from humiliation, and betrayal. Away from her heart, and running away from her past. Again.
Jamming her seat belt on, Mandy stared through the torrent of tears streaming down her face into the stark white snowy world.
“Why? Why did he do it? Why now?” Her voice rang through the unquenchable sobs, circling the confines of her small Honda. Wind whipped around the car, causing it to shudder as the flurry of snow thickened. She had to get home. Get out this dress.
And she definitely didn’t want to do Christmas ever again.
Christmas hadn’t been a problem. Her mother had moved to Florida with her latest beau, while her brother and his family now lived in California, though their visit two months ago a fleeting one had been when Tate had spied her.
Starting up her car, she made her way through the city. She wanted to go home. Stay home. She wanted to lick her wounds.
With the central heating turned up full blast, Mandy did what any self-respecting girl would do when betrayed. She took to her bed. Loaded with a hot chocolate and a super-sized bag of Oreos, she snuggled beneath her comforter, switched on the television, only to have soppy Christmas love stories playing on every channel.
“Fools,” she castigated them all. “Stand up and be counted, make a life for yourself,” she advised the flickering screen of characters. None of them seemed to want to stand on their own two feet, be themselves before they latched onto the nearest male.
And hadn’t you been about to do the same?
She had. But she didn’t...not in the end. In the end, the realization that she was about to rely on someone else for her own power had been too much.
The trouble was she had started her road to independence and strength by imitating her mother, the one thing Mandy had declared she would never do. She had been weak.
They were to have a Christmas wedding. The day dawned clear and blue, the sort of sky where it’s so pure it’s almost white. Birds circled the church as the limousine edged to the curb. The more they circled, the more her nerves tightened in the pit of her stomach.
She loved Tate. She loved him. It had become her mantra for the days leading up to the wedding.
She really did, but ultimately it hadn’t been enough. Belle Sullivan ruled Mandy’s wedding, the same as she had ruled everything and everyone around her. And that had brought Mandy to the decision she did not want to make, but knew she had to.
At twenty-one she thought she was ready for everything. Fresh out of college, about to marry her sweetheart.
But Tate’s mother ruined it all.
At first Mandy thought it was just the wedding. The woman was a perfectionist. But the closer the wedding day came, the more she realized Belle wanted to control. Her. Tate. Their lives. Everything about what they would do, say, live...love.
The woman didn’t approve of Mandy. Sly innuendos, hints she wasn’t up to scratch, her heritage in no way equal to that of Belle’s enriched past.
And then there were those birds. Ever circling. Ready to attack their prey.
Mandy tried to ignore them. Finally, fear set in. Irrational perhaps, but so real and potent it swamped her, choking any residue of confidence she had precariously clutched to.
Marriage versus career. She couldn’t do it. Couldn’t be consumed by control and as the buzzards continued their vigil above, she gave way to the warring in her brain, her reasoning no longer able to counter-attack.
And she ran.
The chocolate cookie wrapper twisted between her chilled fingers. Mandy switched off the television and in minutes her eyes drifted closed. Lack of sleep, and too much loving a man she thought gone from her life, brought a deep need for sleep. Oblivion. It also brought far too many dreams.
“I know you’re in there, Mandy. Open up.”
What? Mandy struggled to waken, pushing herself up on her elbows, eyes barely open. Someone was hammering at her door. She glance
d sideways at her bedside clock, the fluorescent green digital numbers blinking in the dim light of her shadowed room.
2:28pm. She’d slept solidly for three hours. She wished it were longer. Her body and brain definitely wished it had been longer.
“Mandy. Open up.”
Mandy struggled to focus on the sound at her front door. Tate? Here? Why?
Tossing the bed covers aside, she swung her legs from the bed and with the tip of a finger pulled one of the slats of her Venetian blinds down and peered out onto the street. Tate stood on her doorstep!
“Go away, Tate. We’ve nothing to say to each other.”
“You may think that, Ms. Brooks, but I have, so open up unless you want me to shout it out so the entire neighborhood can hear our intimate details.”
Intimate?
On knees that were at best jelly-like, she made her way down the hallway of her small house and fumbled with the double bolt. She opened the door and stood back.
The Santa suit had been replaced by a pair of dark washed jeans that molded to his long muscular legs while his black polo neck sweater had her salivating. Damn he looked good, which to her way of thinking just wasn’t fair.
She felt like crap, and the quick glimpse she’d had of herself in the hall mirror through sleep-crusted eyes confirmed she looked the same as she felt. Dark circles rimmed her eyes, and her makeup which she’d left on had smudged adding to the panda bear eye look.
And now he was here seeing what she saw.
Sh...! Life definitely wasn’t fair.
She rubbed the back of her hand across her face as if it would make a scrap of difference.
Not likely!
So much for her pride. Her hand dropped to her side while the other clutched the sides of her silk wrap with virginal angst. “What do you want?”
“To talk.”
“I’m tired. Besides, we’ve nothing left to talk about?”
“Really? Mind you, you weren’t much for discussion five years ago either.”
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