Entangled With The Heiress (Louisiana Legacies Book 1)

by Dani Wade

  Hooking the fabric in his thumbs, Rhett pulled her panties down. He watched their slow progress beneath her skirt, down her legs, his body throbbing its approval. Somehow knowing she was naked yet still clothed blew the top off what seemed so simple. So sexy.

  Her naked toes dug into the duvet. He wanted to touch them again, kiss them. But urgency pushed him higher.

  Just as he had done with his own shirt, he unbuttoned hers one button at a time. Her pale skin peeked out between the parting fabric. Ribs and stomach trembled with her rapid breathing. He peeled back the layers, groaning at the sight of her breasts encased in pale pink lace. Trinity was a lady down to her skin. But her watchful gaze told him he held the key to turning this proper lady into the woman she ached to be.

  He buried his face in the smooth skin of her stomach, taking in her sweet smell accented with a hint of need. She pressed against her heels, raising her body to meet him. He traced her contours with his lips, then nestled his face between her breasts. He let his body ease down onto her, testing her tolerance for his weight. There were no protests, only clutching hands and tilting hips.

  She felt incredible beneath him. Her tiny gasps told of her aching need, ratcheting his own higher and higher. Her fingers dug into his back, urging him to give her more.

  He tried to hold out, tried to make himself wait so he could indulge in this experience as long as possible. He popped open the front clasp of her bra, then swept one cup aside to free the trembling mound beneath. Her skin was so pale he was almost afraid of leaving marks. But he couldn’t stop himself from touching her. He followed her lead, learning what made her gasp, what made her moan and what made her beg.

  Only when he couldn’t ignore the urgent pull of his own body did he finally slip his hand beneath the flimsy barrier of her skirt once more. Lying on his side next to her, he could watch her face as he found her most precious of spots. Knowing he might not be able to control himself later, he forced himself to lock down his desires and focus on hers. With exquisite expertise and a dawning wonder, he teased her body.

  Her expressions of surprise and excitement fascinated him. He could have gotten drunk off the headiness of pleasuring her. Her cries echoed the thunder. When he could hold himself back no longer, he pressed his fingers urgently against her. The firm lift of her hips and her silent scream only fed his own pleasure as he slid his fingers firmly inside of her.

  He didn’t expect the resistance, the tightness, the way her pleasure turned to a gasp of pain. He immediately froze.

  She didn’t move, so he tried again. This time, she let out a cry of discomfort.

  “Trinity?”

  He wasn’t prepared for her to squeeze her thighs together, to force him out. She shook her head. “I didn’t realize...” she moaned. “I’ve never...”

  Virgin. The word echoed through his brain. That couldn’t be right. There was no way—

  Virgin. Rhett pulled back, from her, from the bed... How was this possible? He’d done his due diligence. He’d asked the common questions about her marriage. He’d watched her, spied on her, seen how they’d lived. Nothing too unusual for the rich types he’d spent his life watching. Nothing to indicate...this.

  Virgin. She hadn’t been intimate with Michael as his wife. Their marriage hadn’t been normal...real. Did that mean the Hyatts were right, in a way? Had she somehow duped Michael into an arrangement that gave her access to his fortune...but no intimacy in return? What had she been to Michael, if they hadn’t fully consummated the marriage?

  Memories of being duped into what would have been a similar relationship flooded his mind. The hurt. The betrayal. Had Michael known before he married Trinity? Had she tricked him into marriage, then reneged on the deal later?

  Rhett suddenly realized that he was now standing beside the bed, staring down at Trinity. His heart raced. No desire remained, only a growing wave of betrayal. The realization that Trinity hadn’t told him the real truth. How had he let this happen to him again?

  With that thought echoing in his brain, he met Trinity’s look with his own and said, “How could you keep this from me? Let me think that...” He ran a harsh hand through his hair. “Let me think your marriage was real. That your relationship with Michael was real.”

  He ignored the frantic shake of her head, the way she sat up and wrapped her shirt tightly over her nakedness. Instead he let that sense of betrayal build, connecting with the remnants from that confrontation with his fiancée so long ago. He’d told himself he would never be vulnerable to a woman again. Yet here he was.

  Now another woman had drawn him in with her sweetness and charm, feeding him the bits and pieces she wanted him to see to gain his help and favor with the Hyatt Heights board. He thought back to his ex-fiancée, how she’d been gaming him for his fortune. He’d narrowly escaped her scheming but it had left a permanent scar.

  Rhett had spent the rest of his adult life making sure other people didn’t get scammed like he had. Like his father had. Now look at him.

  The first woman to make him question the convictions built by years in this job had proven that she wasn’t what she seemed. She wasn’t a devoted, grieving widow in the true sense. She could very well be someone who’d scammed Michael out of his fortune.

  It was the first time Rhett had ever turned his back on those instincts. He’d believed Trinity wasn’t capable of deceiving him, wouldn’t even want to. And yet, here they were.

  A flash of heat swept over his skin—a mixture of anger and embarrassment. He wanted answers, but couldn’t even formulate the questions. He paced back and forth, needing an outlet for the emotions ricocheting inside of him. Finally, he halted next to the window, pivoting to stare at the woman still sitting on the bed.

  Her expression had smoothed to a blank mask, just as he’d seen it do in times past. But this time, he wondered what she was hiding beneath the smooth façade. Trinity just sat like a blank doll in the middle of the bed.

  Silent.

  Deep inside, the urgent need to know the truth she’d been hiding from him spread. He didn’t care how dark or ugly her secrets were. He needed to know the scope of the deception that had broken every last instinct he’d relied on to guide him for years. He had believed in her and she’d let him down.

  * * *

  “Tell me the truth. The real truth,” Rhett demanded from across the room, running a rough hand through that silver-streaked hair.

  Trinity had felt a slight relief as he’d moved away from her. Common sense told her she had nothing to fear from him. At least, physically. But then again, she’d never seen him under this amount of pressure, expressing this much emotion. And life had made her cautious.

  Her vocal chords remained frozen. She should have accepted the inevitable and kept Rhett firmly at arm’s length. But she hadn’t. She’d been greedy, wanting something for herself.

  And ended up in this nightmare.

  There was no going back. But how could she explain the truth she’d been living? Rhett saw her marriage as a lie. Michael had seen it as security. For Trinity...it had been the only way to say thank you to the man who had saved her life.

  “I should have trusted my instincts,” Rhett said as he paced across the room. “People said you were a gold digger. How could I have just brushed that aside? Your marriage was a lie. I want to know just how much of one.”

  In an instant, the deep freeze inside Trinity melted. Gathering a cloak of stoicism around her, she eased herself to the edge of the bed and rearranged her skirt over her legs. To the best of her ability, she blocked out Rhett’s critical presence across the room. With steady effort she put her bra back on, then buttoned up her shirt.

  Only when she’d finished did she realize he’d stopped speaking, stopped pacing.

  She turned her gaze in his direction, thankful for the shadowy room and the sense of protection it gave her. She doubted she could
have handled this conversation in a spotlight of sunshine.

  “What do you want to know?” she asked.

  Her voice wasn’t as steady as she would have liked, but at least she wasn’t going to break down crying. Showing weakness never led to anything good.

  His voice was low, but gravelly with emotions. “Why are you a virgin?”

  “Because I’ve never had sex, of course.”

  She couldn’t interpret what his grunt meant. That she was telling him something obvious? Couldn’t they just skip to the part where this conversation was over and they both knew where they stood? That would be great. Yeah...

  “You were married to Michael.”

  She nodded, not trusting her voice. The next question was a given.

  “So why are you a virgin?”

  “Because Michael wasn’t able to consummate our marriage.”

  Rhett’s deep intake of breath told her he was going to demand more answers, so she plunged forward, hoping not to have to break her final promise to Michael. “Even if he’d been able to, Michael would not have wanted to have sex with me. I told you, and everyone else who would listen... Michael was my best friend. We were friends since I was a kid. But he was not romantically interested in me.”

  “Then why on earth would he marry you?”

  Trinity buried the sting of those words deep down inside.

  “Michael wanted to protect his estate from his aunt and uncle. He knew their interests in his assets stemmed from their desire to sell them off. The only way to keep that from happening was to have another heir.”

  “It’s not the only way...he could have simply willed it to you.”

  “Which he was doing. But Michael wasn’t taking any chances. He knew they would challenge whatever he put in place. The more ties he could create, the better chance his choice would be honored in court.”

  “So he planned to what? Use you as a surrogate?” His incredulous tone wreaked havoc on her nerves. “Have children but not sex?”

  This time she couldn’t hold back a wince. It was never nice to know that someone thought you were good enough to be used, but not worthy of the true experience of love.

  “I never said that.”

  Not that Michael had meant it that way. But Trinity had known that by doing as he asked, she was giving up on her own dream of a family in her own way. Not that prospects had been beating down the door of Maison de Jardin to date her. Yet another reason why she was having this conversation...

  She tried to distract him instead. “We didn’t share a room. You knew that.”

  “Lots of couples do that. But they still have sex. Especially on their honeymoon. You were married a week, for Christ’s sake. Hell, you’d known each other a whole lot longer. Why wouldn’t he—”

  The urgency in his voice told her his frustration was growing. How long could she hold the questions at bay? Was it a betrayal of her dead husband if she told the truth? The whole truth?

  His next question was delivered with very tight control. “Why did you marry him?”

  Trinity pressed her feet together, wishing she had shoes on. Then she pressed her knees together, and her thighs. The precise movements distracted her from her acute distress. “Because he asked me to.”

  “This wasn’t a simple marriage, a normal marriage.”

  “No,” she finally conceded. “Michael had very specific demands for our marriage. It was my job to fulfill them, whether he was here or not.”

  “Job. So this was a business arrangement? I should have known.”

  More of a legacy.

  She tilted her head back to meet his gaze. That direct confrontation was hard for her, but she knew better than to avert her gaze. That would just make her look even more guilty.

  “So he paid you?” he persisted.

  She could feel her mind pulling away, shrinking away from the implications of his words.

  But Rhett wasn’t backing down. “Did he pay you to pretend to be his wife?”

  “Not in the way you think,” she answered, hating how small her voice sounded next to his.

  Only then did she notice the coolness streaking down her cheeks. Tears. Trinity wasn’t sure when they’d started, only that they were gathering along the curve of her jaw and falling to her shirt below. She refused to reach up and brush them away. That would only highlight their existence.

  “Enlighten me,” Rhett said. “I refuse to be fooled again. Not in this lifetime. Not by you.”

  Just like that, her heart cracked. Weariness seeped out to spread through her body and flood her system. It was all she could do to keep herself upright. She’d spent her life supporting others. It was her purpose, her calling. First her mother, the women at the shelter, Michael.

  For one glorious moment, she’d thought she’d found someone who could be there for her, with her, in Rhett. Now she knew that wasn’t going to happen. Not the way she wanted.

  After this, he’d never feel the same way about her again.

  So why continue to fight the inevitable? Weariness weighed her down. Maybe if she told him the truth, he’d leave her to grieve in peace.

  “Michael needed a wife very quickly.”

  “And he chose you?”

  “He knew he could trust me.”

  Rhett shook his head, denying the truth. “Why would a man in his position trust you? Why would he let himself get into a situation where he had to?”

  “There are things in life even the rich can’t control.” Still her loyalty refused to give in, to unlock the words held inside for so long.

  “Such as?”

  It took some effort to force the forbidden words past the tightness in her throat. “Michael was very sick.”

  Rhett froze. “How sick?”

  Trinity squeezed her eyes closed, then broke her promise to her best friend. “Stage four pancreatic cancer.”

  Fifteen

  Rhett heard the words but felt them more like a blow. The knowledge that Michael had been that sick, facing his own mortality, could support either interpretation of Trinity’s motives...depending on which side he wanted to take.

  “There were no remains left to test,” he said.

  Trinity shook her head. At least the tears seemed to have stopped for the moment. He hadn’t liked how the sight of them softened him.

  “No,” she said. “Dying in the helicopter crash meant no true evidence of his illness except protected medical records. No way to prove he was dying already. No way to judge the severity of his illness. And no way for the Hyatts to claim he wasn’t in his right mind when he chose to marry me to protect his charity. Unless the judge could get the medical records released...if he even knew to ask.”

  “Was he?”

  Trinity glanced up at him, her expression resigned. “Was he what?”

  She knew what he meant, but she was going to force him to state the obvious, huh? “Was he in his right mind?”

  “Right until the last minute. I was on the phone with him just minutes after the helicopter took off. Though luckily not when they went down. According to the investigation, the accident was a mechanical malfunction...not deliberate tampering.”

  Despite his roiling emotions, Rhett was glad Trinity hadn’t been on the line to hear it as it happened. It was something he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy.

  “Michael knew exactly what Richard and Patricia would do with his estate once they had their hands on it. His doctor had only given him a month, at best. He wanted everything in place before he announced our marriage.”

  Her shaky breath brought on a mixture of guilt and skepticism Rhett still couldn’t quite suppress.

  “I promised Michael I would protect his secrets and protect his vision for the future of the charity. He knew the board would help me run the companies, though he’d hoped to make his own annou
ncement about me taking his place...closer to time.”

  “So why open up about this at all?” Rhett didn’t like the hoarseness of his voice, the hint that he might be buying a tale he couldn’t corroborate with the man himself. His demands would not have made her tell him this sacred of a truth if she’d been determined to keep the secret from him.

  For just a brief moment, a grief so visceral flashed through her stoic expression that Rhett actually took a step back. But that didn’t protect him from her words.

  “You’re the only person who has seen every part of me. What’s the point of holding back anymore?”

  In that moment, Rhett knew that words would never have convinced him. Neither would papers or files or signatures. That one flash of emotion proved to him that Trinity was on the level.

  And that he was a total asshole.

  Simply because experience—the very thing that had warned him not to trust her—had taught him that emotions that intense could not be faked. There was always a hint of insincerity. Something Rhett was a master at sniffing out. But with Trinity, there had been nothing to hold that grief back...and to know that he had caused at least part of it meant he was lower than low.

  Rhett usually trusted his instincts. The fact that he’d been warring with them the whole time he’d been with Trinity had worn him down. But this time, he would listen without hesitation.

  He crossed the last few steps to her side, noting for the first time how he’d pressured her. Oh, on some level, he’d surely known that, but only now did he acknowledge it.

  So when he reached her, he knelt down, forcing himself to look up at her instead.