by Robyn Grady
He felt as if a furnace were burning inside of him. Her brow and the valley between her breasts were damp, too. He pushed inside of her, closing his eyes and tilting his face toward the ceiling as he buried himself to the hilt.
Her legs coiled around the back of his and she whispered to him how wonderful he felt, how she never wanted this to end. He built the friction as they moved together until he felt as if he was a part of her and she a part of him.
He was aware of her inner walls squeezing, of her fingers digging into his shoulders and her head rocking back. He watched the line crease between her brows, studied the smile lifting the corners of her parted lips. As he upped the tempo and force of each thrust, he felt her panting breath warm on his face. He lowered his mouth close to hers at the same time her legs clamped down hard.
Then he closed his eyes and held her tight as they both let go at once.
Fifteen
“You’re not going to believe this,” Becca said, gaping at a message on her smartphone.
Jack rolled over and stole another glorious morning kiss and then murmured against her lips, “You’ve decided you want to order in Danishes?”
“All my cravings have been well and truly satisfied.” She tasted his lips again then amended, “For now.”
They had stayed in Jack’s penthouse the entire day and night. They’d ordered in dinner and had devoured barbecue ribs and butter pecan ice cream sitting out on the balcony, their feet propped up on the railing. Around ten, they’d fallen asleep on a soft-as-clouds leather lounge while they watched Forrest Gump. An hour ago they’d taken a long, sudsy shower together before Jack had dialed up the AC and pulled her under his duck-down duvet.
Becca hadn’t checked back in with Sarah. Worse, she’d turned off her phone until now. She’d had an amazing time playing hooky with her bad boy, but it seemed lots had happened while she’d been away.
“Sarah says word is out about Angelica being reinstated as CEO. With you out of the picture, donations are already pouring back in.” She sent Jack a sympathetic look. “No disrespect intended.”
“None taken.” He snuggled into her neck, tickling and arousing her as he nuzzled. “And so, all is right with the world.”
Sighing, she beamed up at the ceiling while he nibbled her shoulder. “This has all turned out so well. I’m waiting for the bubble to burst.”
He looked into her eyes. A soft, sexy smile tugged one corner of his mouth. “I guess sometimes there are happy endings.”
“I guess there really are.”
He kissed her again, long and slow and deep, before sitting up against the headboard alongside of her. “What are you doing Thanksgiving?”
“Are you asking me on a date?” she teased.
“I’m not sure. Is a family occasion classified as a date?”
“You don’t have any family.”
“As of yesterday, I officially do.”
He passed on everything that had happened between himself and David Baldwin this past week. Jack Reed had a brother? Nieces and nephews?
“My God, Jack. That’s fantastic. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“I wanted this other Lassiter stuff to be settled first.” He lifted her hand and dropped a kiss on the underside of her wrist. “One victory at a time.”
“You’re not an only child anymore. How does it feel? Amazing, right?”
“The truth?”
“Of course.”
“It feels almost too good.” He leaned in to kiss her shoulder. “Like it feels almost too good to be holding you again.”
She moved to run her fingers through his hair. “We should accept good things when they come our way.”
“I’m beginning to understand that.”
Their next kiss felt like the first of all their tomorrows. Which was thinking too fast, too soon. But she couldn’t help wanting to take a hold of this fantasy and actually believe they could live it.
As the kiss broke, she curled into his arm and leaned her cheek against his chest.
“So, what’s happening with your brother’s business?” she asked.
“Take a guess.”
“You’re going to become partners.”
“Uh-huh.”
Her jaw dropped. “You’re kidding.”
“I offered to gift him the funds. He refused. Then he put it in a way I couldn’t turn my back on. He said that through no fault of our own we were separated. Now it was within our power to be close, and stay close. Working together, becoming partners, would mean we’d be in touch most days, not just holidays. He doesn’t want to simply maintain the connection. He wants to build on it. So do I.”
“You’re really going to be building a company up?” She laughed. “Call a medic!”
He tickled her until she begged him to stop.
“It’s time we got something clear,” he said, bundling her up in those big beautiful arms again. “I may make money out of applying a keen business eye to enterprises that can provide a larger profit operating as smaller entities.”
“Say that again slowly.”
“That does not, however, make me Scrooge.”
“I know, I know. You give to charity. In fact, Sarah mentioned in her text that Reed Incorporated had made the biggest of the foundation’s recent donations so far.” She dropped a kiss on his scratchy chin. “Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome. And I want you to know that this latest, shall we call it coming together of minds, had no influence on the size of that donation. Although, it would be remiss of me not to mention that I am open to bribes.”
“Like this?”
She shifted to straddle his lap all the while kissing her way slowly and thoroughly around his neck and chest. He groaned.
“Exactly like that. Keep it coming.”
As his fingers trailed up and down her back, a thought popped into Becca’s head. She’d wondered about it last night halfway through the movie, but it had drifted off again until now. When she felt him growing harder against her belly, she straightened. If she didn’t ask this minute, she might never get around to it.
“I’m not sure on one thing,” she said, as his palms trailed down her sides.
“What’s that?”
“Your job was to keep pushing Angelica toward a takeover bid, right?”
“Right.”
He leaned in to draw a nipple into his mouth. She quivered and closed her eyes. It was hard to think straight when he did that.
“You’ve been actively acquiring shares and positioned your company so it would be ready to move,” she said. “I would have thought very soon.”
He was running his tongue around her other nipple now. “These things take time.”
“It’s just...Jack, what would have happened if Angelica hadn’t backed down? What if she’d gone ahead with the takeover and you both won?”
“Then she and I would have become partners.”
“And you’d have managed all the Lassiter interests together.” When he didn’t answer, she looked down.
“Jack?”
“We would have worked together, yes.”
She waited for him to add something more. Like, But I would never turn around and do what I’ve done with every other company I’ve obtained through fair means or foul. When nothing came, every hair on her head stood on end. Damn it! She knew this was too good to be true.
She shifted off of him and scrunched the duvet up under her arms.
“You were planning to sell off parts of Lassiter Media, weren’t you?”
He scratched his head. “I can’t say it didn’t cross my mind that we could make a huge fortune without a whole lot of work.”
“You mean by ripping apart someone else’s work of a lifetime.”
<
br /> “There would have been discussions.”
Oh, come on. “Angelica is no match for you.”
“You’ve said that before but what about the way she stood up to me yesterday? Her father would have been proud.”
Becca’s throat was aching now. Suddenly she felt empty. Betrayed. Or was that merely foolish?
“You would have made it difficult, made it ugly, then you would have talked her into folding before the selling price was affected.”
“You give me too much credit and Angelica not enough.” He sat up straighter.
“What would have happened to the foundation?”
“We would have worked something out there.”
“An offer I couldn’t refuse?”
“I’m not a criminal, Becca. I’m only being honest with you. It doesn’t matter now because the game is played out and Angelica is where she was always meant to be.”
“She’ll never know how close she came to bringing it all down on her head.”
“And that’s the end of it.” He reached for her. But his smile didn’t look sexy now; she imagined it looked patronizing. Predatory.
She edged away and got to her feet, dragging the duvet along to cover herself. “There is no moving along until we get past this.”
“Why worry about something that cannot, will not, happen? This, you and me, we’re not about business.”
“I know what I’m about. Ethics. Principles. Making the tough decisions so I can wake up in the morning and look at myself in the mirror. Guess what? That’s gotten harder since I hooked up with you.”
He opened his mouth, shut it again and then stood, too. “Shine a little light on something for me here. You never liked me, and you don’t like me now because I’m a selfish, money-hungry, insensitive moron.”
“You’re not a moron.”
“Thanks for clarifying that.” He skirted the end of the bed until he stood an arm’s length away. “Tell me, how could you lower yourself to sleep with me? And not just once. I must be losing my mind because I thought it was good. No. I thought it was great. The best.”
That took her aback. She struggled for a response.
He moved closer, looming. “You know more about me than anyone. You might not trust me but, damn it, Becca, I trusted you. And for my trouble, you want to rake me over the coals.”
She huffed. He would see it that way. “This isn’t about you. Not anymore. It’s about my feelings, my future, my decisions.”
“Right, because my feelings don’t count.”
“You don’t have feelings.” She winced. That was going too far. “Or not like you should. If you did, you wouldn’t be arguing with me now.”
“You think J.D. was an angel?” he drawled. “Do you want to hear about the low deals he cut so that you could crow about all the great works your charity does? There has to be a take in order to have a give. Someone has to make the money to give it away, and no one makes money, real money, by sitting on a delicate behind letting other people make the choices that need to be made.”
She spoke through her teeth, which had to be a damn sight better than speaking through tears. “Don’t try to justify your behavior.”
“I’m not. I won’t. Not to anyone.”
She marched toward the bathroom.
He called after her. “Where are you going?”
“Back to reality. My reality. Where people own up to their flaws and maybe try to do something about them.”
He slapped his thighs. “Right. Good. I’m evil because I had good parents, was born with a brain and a drive to succeed.”
“You were born with a will to dominate.”
He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe it. “I’m not wrong about most things,” he said quietly. “But I was wrong about you.”
“You thought you could convert me.”
“I thought you could care about me.” He stabbed a thumb at his chest. “Me. Not the money or connections or the name, Jack Reed.”
Tears were so close, she could taste them. “Well, whaddya know?” The door swung shut as she finished. “You were wrong!”
Sixteen
“If I’m your sidekick, I hope this doesn’t make me Friar Tuck.”
Standing at the shooting line on the back lawn of his Beverly Hills house, Jack spun around and frowned. What was Sylvia doing here?
He lowered his bow as she crossed over to join him. She was right to carry her shoes. Those high-priced heels would ruin his lawn—not that he imagined for a minute that had been her motive for taking them off.
“Merv the Man let me through,” Sylvia let him know.
“What’s up?”
She eyed the distant target. Arrows were scattered all over the place. The bull’s-eye, however, remained untouched.
“I was wondering when the boss might be coming back in,” she said.
“You don’t need help running the office. You have one of the most efficient business minds I know.”
“Flattery doesn’t work with me, Jackie boy.”
“I’m doing other things.”
“Like building boats with David Baldwin?”
Sylvia knew that story.
“That’s the one good thing to come out of this month’s firestorm.”
Sylvia offered him a genuine smile. “No one’s happier for you than I am.”
He redirected his attention to the target. He and Sylvia did bottom-line analysis, not deep and meaningful conversation.
He sucked air in between his teeth. “I have other projects I’m working on.”
“Any involve Becca Stevens?”
Eye still on the target, he growled. “No.”
“You’ve been in contact with her, though.”
“After I made myself clear, she made herself crystal clear.”
In the briefest of summaries, he had also let Sylvia know that, due to the fallout surrounding the twist in J.D.’s will, his and Becca’s “challenge” had come to an acrimonious end. He hadn’t given up the finer details.
“I admitted to her that I would have followed through with the Lassiter Media takeover if Angelica hadn’t changed her mind.”
Of course, Sylvia didn’t look the least bit surprised. “And since she ditched you, you haven’t been able to think straight, right?”
“It’s a matter of willpower.”
He strode back to the line and fired a shot—which sailed over the top.
Damn!
Sylvia crossed over to join him. She took a long moment to study the target.
“Silly idea,” she said, “but why don’t you call her?”
Don’t you know I want to?
“Sometimes in a relationship,” he explained, “we say things we don’t mean. Words can hurt. They can cut to the bone. But people can apologize, deeply, sincerely, and then get back to the good stuff. Becca and me...we went way beyond that.”
Sylvia examined his face, particularly his mouth.
“Wait a minute,” she said, and wriggled a finger. “Your bottom lip. Is that a pout? Are you pouting, Jack?”
Sylvia was like that. She never let herself, or anyone else on her radar, feel sorry for themselves. She could give a friend money, advice, she would work through the night if a job needed to be done. But no one could ask her for pity.
Jack crossed to the bench and sat down heavily. He swallowed against the lump lodged in his throat and then dealt out the bottom line.
“Becca told me exactly what she thinks of me. I could get over the argument, but she never will. She could never reconcile who she is, what she stands for, with being with a wrecking ball like me.”
Sylvia sat down beside him.
“I could chase her,” Jack said. “We’d fal
l into bed again. It’d be good for a while. Then she’d remember who I am, what I’ve done and the shame would creep back in. The guilt. She’d resent our being together. She’d resent me.” He let his bow drop to the ground. “Not a recipe for happiness.”
“Sorry,” Sylvia said. “I was wrong. I thought you must really care for that woman. I thought she was the reason your schedule has been up the creek and we haven’t seen your designer pants in the office for weeks.”
“I’m the same Jack Reed,” he said. But that was a lie.
“You’re hiding.”
“I am not hiding.”
“What are you so afraid of?”
“I’m not afraid.”
“C’mon. Spit it out.”
“No.”
“Do it.”
Fine! “I’m afraid I’ll destroy her. That I’ll let her down. I’ll let her down and then...” He sighed. “Then I’ll have made things even worse. I’m not good at long-term, Sylvia. I’m controlling. I have a controlling personality.”
“I bet she’d like the chance to work things out.”
His grin was entirely humorless. “I humbly disagree.”
“She’s taking a sabbatical from the foundation. Rumor is she’s going to work in a mission overseas.”
“What’s the plan, Sylvia? I pack a bag, follow her and we save the world together?”
“I thought you might like to say goodbye at least.”
“Why the hell would I want to do that?”
She gave a wry grin. “I’ve known you to be flippant, ruthless, but never cruel. Never stupid.”
“I so don’t need this.” He pushed to his feet.
She got to hers. “I’m trying to help you.”
“I don’t need help.”
“Everyone needs help sometime, for some reason. Some of us are even big enough to accept it. Don’t be a dope. Go to Becca before she leaves, even if she slams the door in your face.” She touched his arm, lightly at first and then more firmly. “Take the word of a lonely woman who always needs to be right. Talk to her. You’ll regret it if you don’t.”
