The Texas CEO's Secret

by Nicole Foster

  “If there are problems, I’ll take care of them,” Blake said, getting to his feet, deliberately ignoring the familiar criticism of his father. He, better than anyone, knew how many millions Devon had squandered on maintaining the lavish lifestyle he thought he was entitled to. “I always do.”

  “Blake—”

  “I have to go. I have a full schedule and a board meeting at the hospital this morning,” he explained referring to his seat on the board at Dallas Children’s Hospital.

  “Will Katie be there?” Eleanor asked.

  At the mention of his brother’s former fiancée, Blake retreated further behind carefully constructed indifference. “I would assume so. She is a board member.”

  “You’re working together planning the Halloween ball, aren’t you?” At Blake’s curt nod, Eleanor appraised him in silence for a moment, then gave a small sigh. “It’s a shame she and Tate couldn’t have worked things out, they were so well suited. Although he and Tanya seem very happy together, so I suppose it’s all for the best. I wonder about Katie, though, if she’s been accepting of their breakup and Tate becoming engaged again so quickly as Tate claims.”

  Blake sensed his mother still harbored reservations about Tate’s romance with Tanya Kimbrough. Scant weeks had passed between Tate breaking his engagement to Katie and deciding Tanya, the McCord’s housekeeper’s daughter, was the love of his life. Blake had doubts, too, but he kept them to himself, not wanting to encourage any hopes his mother might have that Tate and Katie would reconcile.

  “Katie appears to be handling it well,” Blake said dismissively.

  On the road to his office a few minutes later, he wished his mother hadn’t mentioned Katie. With everything demanding his attention, he didn’t need another distraction and yet he found himself too often thinking about the one woman who never should have entered his mind—his brother’s ex.

  For months now, and especially since the night of the Labor Day party, he’d caught himself watching her, finding reasons to talk to her, thinking about her even before she and Tate split up and when his focus should have wholly been on business.

  And that night…The memory still had the power to eclipse all others despite his best attempts to exorcise it and reject it as nothing more than a fleeting impulse on his part.

  He had told himself his offer to take her home was a friend’s gesture, to help ease her awkwardness at being the center of speculation at the party, the hurt she denied but he had to believe she felt seeing Tate in love with another woman. He could make a case for that up until the moment he touched her. Then he’d kissed her, his fingers tangled in her dark, thick hair, her soft curves pressed against him, and he knew he shouldn’t have, but damn it, it had felt too good, too right to stop.

  Before, as Tate’s girlfriend, then fiancée, she’d been off-limits. He still wasn’t allowed to want her, though she was no longer his brother’s woman. She was vulnerable after her breakup with Tate and he had no business exploiting it to satisfy his own desires. Katie needed someone who would cherish her, commit to a loving, lasting relationship. In that respect, he was definitely not the man for her, or anyone else.

  Despite that, he couldn’t seem to control his feelings when it came to her and his lack of control irritated him. It also made him more determined to act the strict professional today at the board meeting. Most likely, she’d decided the same thing. They could ignore what had happened and go back to being friends working together to accomplish a common goal.

  He convinced himself of it as he strode into the boardroom, ready for business.

  Except, following him inside was an invisible companion that taunted him for his prick of disappointment when he didn’t see her among the group, an inner voice that called him a liar and questioned whether forgetting was going to be as easy as he expected.

  Chapter Two

  Where was she? Blake tugged the white cuff of his shirtsleeve back and for the third time in ten minutes glanced at his watch. Would Katie actually skip the board meeting to avoid seeing him?

  It was only a kiss.

  If that were true, then why did his insides still turn at the memory of her willing lips? Why did his fingers ache for the feel of her hair twined between them, his senses yearn for the scent of her musky perfume?

  “I’m sorry to keep everyone waiting.”

  The rich melody of her voice brought his eyes up, meeting hers. She stood across from him at the massive boardroom table; their eyes caught and held moments too long. A fact he knew didn’t go unnoticed by the other board members.

  Katie broke their gaze, glanced quickly around the room. “I had a last-minute delay,” she said, smoothing her black pencil skirt to her slim thighs before taking her seat opposite Blake.

  She looked perfect, as usual, he noted, the teal of her silk blouse accenting her dark eyes and hair, the sensual curve of her mouth as she spoke drawing the attention of every male in the room, an observation that made Blake both jealous and proud—though he realized one touch to those lips gave him no right to be.

  At the head of the table, the board president called the meeting to order and laid out the agenda. Blake heard him drone on, but only from a distance. He couldn’t manage to focus on anything but the woman sitting in silence, quietly stealing his attention, too far away to touch, close enough to capture his every thought.

  “Blake, you will take care of those paintings for the silent auction, won’t you? Blake—are you with us?”

  Katie’s eyes fixed on him. “Blake,” she whispered across the table. “Evan is talking to you.”

  “Of course I will.” Blake turned sharply toward the man at the head of the table and said tersely, “I told you I would a month ago, didn’t I?” He hoped his tone would be a save for his embarrassingly distracted state.

  “Good. Sorry, I didn’t think you were listening,” Evan Rutherford returned, matching Blake’s insolence.

  Blake faced Katie. “You and your family know the Kenningtons better than I do. They might be more generous with their donations if you joined me when I go talk to them.”

  Katie’s lashes fluttered once as she blinked back a look of awkward surprise that amused Blake. “I—of course, I’ll be happy to visit them with you. I’m quite familiar with their collection.”

  “Thank you.” He’d put her on the spot publicly and after the barest hint of a falter, she’d responded with her usual grace. But the look she gave him now said he’d be hearing about this later.

  “Very well,” Evan pronounced with typical condescension. “I trust you two will manage to secure a few excellent pieces for the auction. Now moving on to the remainder of the donations…”

  Again Blake tuned Evan out. With a flip of his BlackBerry, he could call in favors across the country to bring in a number of high-ticket items for the auction, in addition to the Kenningtons’ artworks and he hardly needed Rutherford to tell him how to do it.

  What he did need was time alone with Katie. Seeing her again after spending too much time wondering what she’d been thinking, feeling since that night they’d kissed intensified his need to know. Damn this meeting, anyway. It was taking forever. They’d all done these charity events dozens of times before. Why were they wasting his time on details he knew by rote memory, wasting hours he could be using much more productively? He had to get back to the office soon. Deciding to take control of the situation, he motioned to Evan.

  “Are we about done here? I have another meeting.”

  Rutherford cleared his throat loudly. “Well—er…”

  “Good.” Blake shoved his chair back and turned from the older man to Katie. “May I have a word with you before I leave?”

  Again, Katie shielded her thoughts from the rest of the room, allowing for his eyes only a flash of agitation. “Certainly. Will you all excuse me for a moment please? Obviously, Blake is on a tight schedule. As usual.”

  He followed her out into the hallway of the administrative wing of the hospital. The secon
d he closed the door behind them, she planted the palms of her perfectly manicured hands on the curves of her hips and fixed him with a frown.

  “If you weren’t a McCord, Evan would have kicked you off the board by now, you know that? He doesn’t take well to interruptions or usurpations of his authority. Yet you manage to pull them off at nearly every board meeting.”

  “Evan can go straight to hell.”

  “Well, you’re certainly in a mood today.”

  “So I’ve been told. Is there some reason you’ve been avoiding me?”

  She glanced away, letting her palms slide from her hips down the front of her skirt. “I haven’t been avoiding you.”

  “It’s interesting, then, that I haven’t heard a word from you since the Labor Day party. We are supposed to be working together on this fund-raiser.”

  “That doesn’t mean we need to be in constant contact, does it?”

  “Are you angry about that night?” Blake asked her bluntly. “Angry I kissed you?”

  Her eyes brightened, her lips parting for a too-light and casual laugh that sounded forced. “What, that? Oh, Blake, really. I’m not a schoolgirl. It was a simple kiss good-night. Nothing more. We both know that.”

  His eyes narrowed on her. “You’re lying.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself.”

  “I don’t have to. I’ve known you since you were a schoolgirl, remember?”

  Her bravado left her then. “Touché.” She paused and took a deep breath. “No, I’m not angry,” she said softly. “It was…I don’t know—nice.”

  “Nice?” She nodded and he scowled. “I don’t think I’ve ever been told that before.”

  “Well, I’m sorry if that doesn’t flatter your ego, but somehow I think it will survive intact without my stroking it.”

  Blake found himself taking a step closer. “You think so?”

  “I doubt my opinion of you matters,” she said levelly, but he noticed the quickened pace of her breath, the slight flush in her face.

  “It matters.” Gently, he traced his knuckles down her cheek. “It matters a lot.”

  She looked back at him, her dark eyes pooling with a mixture of emotions, drawing him to plunge in.

  Then the schedule alarm on his BlackBerry beeped, breaking the mood. Blake swore under his breath.

  “You’d better go or you’ll miss your meeting,” Katie said.

  “I’ll call you later today about meeting with the Kenningtons.”

  “No rush,” she returned lightly, renewing the tension Blake had been battling for the last week.

  “Just keep your phone on.” Irritated and feeling she’d somehow taken control and gotten the best of him, he turned on his heel, determined to ensure the next round with Miss Cool and Collected Whitcomb-Salgar would be his.

  When the last trace of his broad shoulders disappeared around the hallway corner, Katie released the breath she’d been holding and leaned against the wall. Had she succeeded in hiding the past week’s daydreams, memories, questions, guilt and desire his single kiss evoked in her? Judging from his reaction, she’d have to guess she had. So why didn’t it feel more satisfying to know she’d fooled him into thinking that night—that kiss—didn’t matter?

  She glanced at her watch. She should get back to her office, too, but she’d told the other board members she’d rejoin the meeting. Desperately wanting to escape, she reluctantly went back into the boardroom to face a dozen sets of curious eyes.

  The rest of the meeting passed in a blur, her thoughts unresolved, miles away in a different moment and place.

  As if the day hadn’t been long and difficult enough, Blake’s arrival home only added pressure on pressure.

  “So I heard you walked out on the board meeting at the hospital today and pissed everyone off, particularly Evan,” Tate said as he met Blake in the library of the McCord mansion, drink in hand. “Everyone but Katie, that is.”

  Blake poured himself a scotch on the rocks. “If our company worked as efficiently as the gossip mill around here did, we’d be thriving instead of drowning.”

  Tate’s brows drew close. “So no progress yet.”

  “All I can say is the PR campaign had better work miracles, and Paige had better get busy finding the Santa Magdalena Diamond, or we’re sunk.”

  He was relying on his younger sister, the geologist and gemologist, to locate the famous canary diamond as part of his efforts to restore the McCord fortunes. The diamond was supposed to be hidden in an abandoned mine on Travis Foley’s ranch, which made the task of retrieving it all the more difficult. Though the McCord family held the deed to the ranch, if the Foleys got wind of what they were up to, Blake was certain they’d find a way to sabotage his plans. He hated having to depend on Paige, but this was one element of his master plan he couldn’t pull off himself.

  He downed the shot of scotch. It burned slightly as it slid down his throat, but the pain was a welcome distraction from the pain in his head. “Speaking of that, is Paige around?”

  “I haven’t seen her yet this evening.” Tate paused, swirling the ice in his glass. “So what’s this I hear about you and Katie whispering in the hospital hallway?”

  Blake jerked back a little. “What’s it to you who Katie’s whispering to? You broke things off with her.”

  “I did not and you know it. It was mutual—and it was her idea first. Katie’s free to whisper to anyone she cares to. But it just looks strange for my brother to be disrupting a meeting to pull my ex out into the hall for a little tête-à-tête.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” he said, knowing it was a lie. “Who’s been talking to you?” Though he’d rather walk on hot coals than admit he had any interest in Katie, internally he tensed. The truth was he couldn’t get her off his mind and a part of him felt oddly guilty because of it.

  When he’d seen her today, his first thought was to taste those tempting lips again. His second was to get her alone and taste a lot more than that. That’s where he’d stopped himself from mentally drifting any further into fantasies about his brother’s former fiancée.

  “To me?” Tate was saying. “No one. But Evan called Mom after the meeting and apparently he was pretty put off about the whole thing.”

  “Evan needs to get a life. And so does everyone else who’s trying to make something out of nothing. I had to leave and before I did I needed to make plans with Katie to help me wring a few pricey paintings out of the Kenningtons. End of story. Not that it’s any of your business.”

  “What’s none of his business?” Paige asked, waltzing into the room. Blond and beautiful as her mother and her twin, Penny, Paige’s eyes sparked mischief as she perched on the edge of an armchair.

  “Don’t you start, too. Isn’t any damned thing private around here?” Blake muttered, refilling his glass.

  “Are you kidding?”

  “Right. What was I thinking?”

  “So, what’s the big secret Tate isn’t supposed to know?” she asked.

  Blake skipped answering her question. “I needed to talk to you. I’ve got some new information on the mine. It’s not much but I thought I’d pass it on in case it helped.”

  “Really?” Paige asked, looking interested. “What?”

  “It has to do with the interior configuration and passages. I have the specifics at my office. Drop by tomorrow and I’ll show them to you.”

  “Sure. I have to run now, though. I want to catch a lecture on a rare Chinese black pearl at the museum of gemology.”

  “Sounds thrilling,” Tate teased.

  “Beats the heck out of scrubs, blood and needles,” she quipped in reference to Tate’s position as a surgeon at Meridien General Hospital.

  “Okay, okay, point taken.”

  Paige waved a hand goodbye and left the room, humming some new tune Blake had heard on the radio but couldn’t name. He was counting on his little sister to come through for him and secure the Santa Magdalena Diamond or—or nothing. He didn’t want to think about the
or because at this point there wasn’t one.

  Tate finished his drink and flipped open his cell, punching in a number, smiling when the person at the other end picked up. “Hey, babe, you ready? I’m done here.” He paused, listening, then with a “Love you, too,” punched the off button.

  “How’s Tanya?” Blake asked since it was obvious Tate had been making plans with his new love. Though he couldn’t resist giving Tate some grief over his treatment of Katie, actually Blake was happy his brother seemed to have found a true soul mate in Tanya.

  “Great. Perfect. We’re meeting some friends for dinner at that new bistro downtown so I need to get going.”

  “Give her my best,” Blake offered, glad to see his brother relaxed and enjoying his new relationship, despite the pain and awkwardness the whole breakup with Katie had created.

  That was in the past and Tate now seemed genuinely satisfied. Katie, on the other hand, seemed conflicted. Suddenly he remembered he’d told her he’d call before the day’s end. He checked his watch. Eight o’clock already. Too late to call? Probably, but somehow he didn’t care. He wanted to see her as an antidote to the day’s tensions, though, through no fault of her own, she’d been a contributing cause.

  “Sorry it’s so late,” he said when he heard her soft voice at the other end of the line.

  “I thought you’d forgotten.”

  “No, just a long day. How about a nightcap?” He threw out the invitation casually, then waited, hoping the long pause wasn’t a signal he was wasting his time.

  At the other end of the line Katie considered his offer. All afternoon she’d been haunted by confused feelings, conflicting emotions of guilt over the chance that she might be attracted to Tate’s brother and excitement over the possibility that Blake might be attracted to her.