An Irresistible Bachelor

by J. R. Ward

  “I believe you.”

  “So talk to me.”

  She started to shake her head. “It’s not that simple.”

  “You say you love me, but how can you if you don’t trust me enough to share all the parts of your life with me? Are you worried something will change my opinion of you? Because nothing will. There isn’t anything you could tell me that would make me pull back.”

  She glanced down at her hands and wondered whether she was really worried about that. Did she honestly think he would bolt just because she was a bastard? Of course not.

  Jack’s voice darkened. “I’ll tell you what, though. This silence could drive me away.”

  Callie looked up, searching his face for the courage she knew she needed to find in herself. She took a deep breath.

  This was Jack, she told herself. This was Jack. This was Jack. This was—

  Feeling like she was leaping into a black hole, she blurted out, “My father and mother were never married.”

  His face changed instantly. It was as if he’d relaxed and become saddened for her at the same time.

  “My father was married to another woman. He had a family, a whole life, outside of my mother and me, and we were the lesser of the two. He never acknowledged me in any formal way; his name’s not even on my birth certificate.”

  Jack came over and she felt his strong hand on her shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I—I grew up knowing that we were always second best. That he loved my mother just enough to never let her go free.” She leaned into him, resting her head on his hip. As she did, he made some sort of quiet noise, an encouragement to keep talking mixed with the regret he was obviously feeling. “I watched his burial from a stand of birches, fifty yards away from the gravesite. I only knew about the ceremony at all because I followed my half sister without her knowing it.”

  He brushed her hair back.

  “I . . . This is hard to talk about for me because I’ve never told anyone before. I was taught to keep quiet. It was the only way he would stay in our lives.” She tried to smile but couldn’t pull it off. “Old habits and all that.”

  “I’m glad you told me.”

  Wrapping her arms around his waist, she murmured, “So am I.”

  Jack’s hand rubbed her back in circles.

  She tilted her head so she could look up into his eyes. “I don’t know what I thought would happen if I actually told someone. If I told you. It’s not like my head exploded or anything. I suppose I thought it might.” She tried to laugh a little, but the sadness she felt came out raggedly instead. “It was hard growing up. Other girls talked about their fathers with such . . . ownership. My father did this. My father did that. I had a father. After a long time of hoping he’d come around and be who I wanted him to be, I realized I was never going to make the possessive pronoun fit. Talking about him as my father was like claiming something that wasn’t there.”

  Jack took her hand and urged her out of the chair. “Come over here. I want to hold you for a while.”

  Which was what she wanted, too.

  They settled on the couch, and he pulled her onto his lap. “You know your father’s bad judgment was not your fault, right?”

  “I know.”

  “You deserved a hell of a lot better.”

  She hadn’t really thought about that much. Growing up, she’d been too busy trying to please. As an adult, she’d been preoccupied with trying to forget.

  “So am I forgiven?” she said against his shoulder.

  “Absolutely.”

  “Because I don’t want to lose you.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” His hand stroked the back of her neck.

  “I really wanted to tell you, but—”

  He silenced her with a soft kiss. “Don’t worry. I understand completely. And when it comes to the election, I don’t want you to be concerned. This is not going to be a problem.”

  She pulled away. “Excuse me?”

  “The press would only care if your father was someone already in the public eye. We can easily protect you and argue there’s nothing newsworthy in your past.”

  “I can’t possibly be hearing you right,” she muttered in disbelief.

  “Callie, I’m not downplaying the effect this had on you,” he said. “Not at all.”

  She started shaking her head. They were back to square one. “You don’t get it. I still don’t want to answer anyone’s questions, especially not a journalist’s.”

  “But you don’t have to worry. It’s going to be okay. Nothing is going to get out in the media.”

  Callie gripped his shoulders. “Yes, it will.”

  Jack’s eyes narrowed. “Who exactly was your father?”

  She dropped her hands. She couldn’t go that far. Even with Jack. “Isn’t it enough to know what happened?”

  “Clearly not. Who was he, Callie?”

  She broke free and walked across the room.

  “You’re shutting me out again,” he said darkly.

  “Stop pushing me, okay?”

  “Callie,” his voice was sharp, “if I’m pressuring you, it’s because I only have half the story. You’re leaving out the most important part.”

  She wheeled around. “I would have hoped the most important part was me.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “But you do, Jack. You truly do. You’re trying to force me to fit into your plans.”

  “Because I want you in my life,” he said, throwing up his hands.

  “On your terms.”

  “Don’t hit me with that, Callie. I’m trying to make this work and you’re putting up an obstacle. Something that seems fairly arbitrary to me, I might add, unless you’re willing to tell me the whole story.”

  “Can’t you just trust me?” she whispered.

  He put his hand on his chest. “How about you trusting me?”

  She looked away.

  He let out a curse. “So what are you telling me? If I run for governor, you’re out of here?”

  She closed her eyes, thinking, Oh, God, was that where they were headed?

  “I don’t know, Jack. I just don’t know.”

  When she didn’t see him for the rest of the day, and he didn’t come by her room that night, she figured he was cooling off and giving her an opportunity to do the same. But after a couple of days passed with no more than cursory meetings in the kitchen, or hallway, she knew Jack was avoiding her.

  She put down the wooden stick and cotton bud she was working with and checked her watch again. It was late, very late, and Jack still wasn’t back from the office. He’d taken to coming home well into the night and he disappeared into his study as soon as he walked in the back door, even if it was nine or ten o’clock. She kept hoping he’d come to her room, but every morning she woke up having spent the night alone.

  The night before, she’d cracked. She’d sat in the kitchen, halfheartedly doing a crossword puzzle and prepared to wait until dawn. When he’d finally come through the door, she’d followed him down the hall, trying to get him to talk about something, anything. He’d been silent, but at least he’d made eye contact with her as he’d poured himself a bourbon.

  She’d been on the verge of steering the subject to them when he’d sat down and started flipping through the piles of documents that had sprung up all over his desk. When she’d asked what he was doing, he’d given her a curt answer, something about that blood company deal he’d been working on.

  She’d lingered in the doorway, willing him to look up at her again, but he’d been lost in his papers. Going by the furrow in his forehead and his single-minded focus, he’d clearly not been prepared to be interrupted by anything. Or anyone.

  When she’d finally turned away, after he’d seemed to have forgotten she was there, she’d been on the verge of tearing up.

  Callie closed up her jar of solvent and shut off the light, knowing that she was looking at another dinner alone. Another night spent tossing
and turning in an empty bed. Another dawn that held the promise of a day she could only hope to limp through.

  She couldn’t go on like this. Tonight, she wasn’t going to play it soft. She was going to demand they talk. She might have had trouble opening up to him, but he was shutting her out completely.

  She went back to the house and was fixing herself something to eat in the kitchen when the back door was thrown open and a tall man walked inside.

  It was Jack. She squinted. Well, not really. The long hair and the roughed-up leather jacket were nothing like the man she loved, but pretty much everything else was.

  “Hello there,” he said, in a low, appreciative tone. “Who are you?”

  She looked out the windows behind him, at an old Saab that was parked cockeyed between the coach lights in the driveway.

  “I’m Callie. You must be—”

  “Nate.” He stuck his hand out. “Jack’s brother. Is he around?”

  As they shook hands, she thought there was something instantaneously likable about him. Maybe it was the rakish grin. Or the fact that she was looking into a pair of familiar hazel eyes without seeing cold reserve in them.

  “He should be home any minute.”

  “Working his tailbone off as usual. I’ve got to get that boy loosened up.” Nate cocked his head and regarded her seriously. “Are you his . . .”

  The question dangled between them and she forced a smile, trying to keep her emotions in check. “Well, that all depends on the noun you were going to finish up with. Employee fits. I’m working on a portrait.”

  “That’s right, the Copley.”

  She nodded and he smiled.

  “And how long have you been with my brother?” Nate cut off her stammering with a shake of his head. “Don’t bother with the denials. You’re wearing one of his shirts under that sweater. I can tell by the monogram on the cuff.”

  She looked down and knew she’d been caught. She’d put the shirt on that morning, figuring no one would notice if she covered it up. Jack had left it in her room the other night, before things had gone badly, and she’d put it on because it was the closest she could seem to get to him.

  “No offense,” Nate said, “but you don’t seem like Jack’s type. Which is a really good thing.”

  She was shaking her head and smiling when Mrs. Walker’s Jaguar pulled into the garage. She tensed up, and tried to feign nonchalance as Jack came striding toward the house. As he walked inside, she thought he looked exhausted, but he grinned as soon as he saw his brother.

  The men embraced, clapping each other on the back. Jack spared her a nod and then focused on his brother.

  “It’s good to have you home, Nate.”

  “Happy to be here. You’ve clearly gotten into some trouble.” He nodded at the cast.

  “Ah, hell, it doesn’t hurt much anymore. And it makes an excellent weapon. I threatened a securities and exchange lawyer with it today. You eat yet?”

  “Two hot dogs and a bag of licorice since Rhode Island.”

  Jack rolled his eyes. “And I thought you were a gourmand.”

  “Got to keep my nitrate level up and Twizzlers are an acceptable substitute for sorbet if you have to clean your palate on the road. Is Thomas here?”

  When Jack nodded toward the ceiling, Nate shouted upstairs, “Hey, where’s the cook in this place?”

  As Thomas bolted down the back way, Callie met Jack’s eyes.

  She was determined to make him talk tonight. She’d had it with the silence.

  With Nate and Thomas catching up in the kitchen while Callie ate, Jack changed into a pair of running shorts and a ratty T-shirt and headed down to the basement. He’d installed a gym there ten years ago, when his schedule had started getting really hectic. He worked out on a regular basis at dawn and sometimes again at night, especially when he had a lot on his mind.

  And he sure as hell did now. Things were going south in his personal and his professional lives, and the raging storm of disasters was making him feel like he’d lost control of things.

  Which was not something he tolerated well under the best of circumstances.

  Of the host of problems he had, his estrangement from Callie bothered him most. He hadn’t expected her to have something to hide or for there to be problems between them if he ran for governor. He’d figured the hardest part was over. He loved her, she loved him, and even if he was still gun-shy on marriage, he was making future plans with her in mind.

  Instead, everything was a fucking mess. He wanted to talk to her, but his emotions were about as level as his temper. One minute he was mad enough to walk out on the relationship; the next he was having trouble not begging at her door just to hold her. He knew the former wasn’t something he really wanted to do. It was out of frustration and . . .

  God, hurt was the word. The fact that she didn’t trust him enough to take care of her, to guard her secret, stung like hell.

  Looking into the future, he had to assume things were over between them if he ran for office. Other than keeping her a secret, which was not only disrespectful but also impractical, there seemed to be no other alternative. God knew he’d been searching for days for some sort of solution.

  Going over to the treadmill, he fired the thing up to a rubber-burning pace and pounded himself into the ground. Forty-five minutes and six miles later, he was covered with sweat, his thighs were on fire, and his shoulder was screaming from having to support the weight of the cast. He juiced up the machine a little more and did his last mile at breakneck speed.

  When he stepped off, he sucked back half a liter of water and sat down on a bench. Leaning his head against the wall, he felt the sweat dripping off him and hoped his physical exhaustion would give him some clarity.

  Clear thinking had been elusive for him lately. Courtesy of all his emotions about Callie and their situation, he was looking at a lot of things in really weird ways. It was as if he couldn’t turn his feelings off anymore about anything, so the unfettered objectivity he was known for was difficult to get ahold of.

  At an earlier stage in his life, he would have been convinced he was losing his edge.

  Hell, for the first time in his professional life, he was torn as to the appropriate course of action in a deal when all the financial indicators were clear. It was that damn blood processing company. The technology the McKay brothers had patented could truly improve the delivery of blood products around the globe, helping thousands and thousands, maybe millions of people. But the two inventors had seriously diluted the company by having given shares of it away to what sounded like every conceivable member of their family.

  The McKays needed a big influx of cash if they were going to succeed, but if Jack put his money into the company with all of those people holding an interest, he might as well bury the stuff in the yard for all the return he was going to get on the investment. There were just too many fingers in the same pie.

  He knew no other venture capitalist was going to touch them for the same reason, but nonprofit grant support and government funding could take them only so far. To succeed, the brothers needed the kind of money only a Walker Fund could provide.

  As recently as six months ago, the solution would have been totally obvious to him. A no-brainer. Hands down he’d have passed on the deal and found something that would make him the kind of returns he demanded.

  Now? He was torn.

  Hell, maybe it wasn’t just Callie who was getting him to think differently. His general counsel’s daughter had taken a turn for the worse. The little girl was receiving hospice care at home now and Jack had taken to occasionally stopping by the house on his way back to Buona Fortuna at night.

  Between watching that family mourn, dealing with the dilemma with the blood brothers, and trying to decide if he would run for governor even if it was going to kill his relationship with Callie, Jack felt like he was about to explode.

  Damn it, he was back to grinding his teeth at night. One of his molars had started to ache
and he recognized the sign. Two years ago, when he’d gone to war over a bioengineering firm and almost lost his shirt, he’d chewed up his teeth so badly he’d had to get two caps put in back on the left side.

  Jack opened his mouth and prodded the tooth, feeling it answer the inquiry with a shot of pain into his jaw.

  Christ. The last thing he needed was a trip to the dentist.

  “Hey, brother,” Nate said, ducking to get under the low clearance of the door. “How’re you doing?”

  Jack wiped his face off with the bottom of his shirt, shrugged, and lied.

  “Well enough. And yourself?” he asked. “To what do we owe this visit? Did Thomas call you in as reinforcement for the party?”

  “Thomas called me, all right.” Nate sat down next to him on the bench. “But it was about you.”

  Jack frowned. “Oh, really.”

  “He’s a little worried.”

  “About?” Jack took a long slug of water, feeling a strong urge to walk out of the room.

  “He says you’ve been working yourself to the bone.”

  Jack lowered the bottle. “Like that’s a big news flash?”

  Nate shrugged casually, but was obviously choosing his words. “He said you ended your engagement. Got into a car accident. Haven’t slept in your room in nights because you’re at your desk until dawn. What’s going on?”

  Jack stared over at the treadmill, wondering if he could squeeze another couple of miles out of his legs.

  “Talk to me, Jack. Or I’m going to have to go big brother all over your ass and get it out of you myself.”

  Jack finally looked across the bench. “I’m in love.”

  Nate smiled slowly. “Really. With the redhead?”

  He nodded.

  “Very nice, brother.”

  Jack stretched and tossed the empty water bottle across the room. It bounced on the rim of the trash bin and for a moment he thought it was going to go in. When it rolled off and hit the floor, he watched the drops shimmer inside the plastic.