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A Scandal So Sweet
Ann Major
“Damn you for this,” he muttered. “You’re not the only one who can’t forget.”
Even if she hadn’t felt his powerful arousal against her, his blazing eyes betrayed his potent need. Then his gaze hardened with determination, and she watched breathlessly as he lowered his mouth to hers.
“I shouldn’t do this,” he whispered fiercely, bending her backward, molding her even more tightly to the hard contours of his body. “God help me, I know what you are, what you did.”
“You did things too …” He’d hurt her terribly. Yet she wanted him, ached for him.
“But I can’t stop myself,” he muttered. “But then I never could where you were concerned.”
Dear Reader,
When you’re an author, occasionally you write a story that grips you more profoundly than some of your others. A Scandal So Sweet is such a book.
When I read, I enjoy escaping to worlds of grand passion and enduring romance. Maybe that’s why I’ve written so many stories of reunited lovers.
We all have those people in our lives we never forget. My lovers in A Scandal So Sweet have never succeeded in forgetting one another. Torn apart by scandal and betrayal in their youth, they become driven people who are both immensely successful in their careers, but their lives feel incomplete until they meet again.
Their passion reignites in an instant, and despite all the reasons they should remain apart, they find themselves irresistibly attracted to the love that is most dangerous for them.
Ann
About the Author
ANN MAJOR lives in Texas with her husband of many years and is the mother of three grown children. She has a master’s degree from Texas A&M at Kingsville, Texas, and is a former English teacher. She is a founding board member of the Romance Writers of America and a frequent speaker at writers’ groups.
Ann loves to write—she considers her ability to do so a gift. Her hobbies include hiking in the mountains, sailing, ocean kayaking, traveling and playing the piano. But most of all, she enjoys her family. Visit her website at www.annmajor.com.
A Scandal
So Sweet
Ann Major
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
A special thank-you to Stacy Boyd, my editor,
for her patience and brilliance.
A special thank-you to Nicole, a fan who sent me
an e-mail encouraging me while writing this book.
And a thank-you to Ted.
Prologue
Houston, Texas
A man’s life could change in a heartbeat.
Seven days ago Zach Torr had been in the Bahamas, elated to be closing the biggest deal of his career. Then he’d received an emergency call about his uncle.
The one person who’d held Zach’s back these past fifteen years was gone.
Now, still dressed in the suit he’d worn to give his uncle’s eulogy, Zach stood on the same narrow girder from which his uncle had fallen. He stared fearlessly down at his contractors, bulldozers, generators, cranes and men, big tough men, who appeared smaller than ants in their yellow hard hats sixty-five stories below.
Zach was a tall man with thick black hair and wide shoulders; a man his competitors swore was as ruthless as the fiercest jungle predator. The women he’d left behind agreed, saying he’d walked out on them without ever looking back.
Normally, his eyes were colder than black ice. Today they felt moist and stung. How had Uncle Zachery felt when he’d stood here for the last time?
A shudder went through Zach. Men who walked iron were no less afraid of heights than other men.
The chill breeze buffeting him whipped his tie against his face, almost causing him to step backward. He froze, caught his balance … hissed in a breath. A sneeze or a slip—was that how it had happened? Up here the smallest mistake could be fatal.
Had Uncle Zachery jumped? Been startled by a bird? Been pushed? Suffered a heart attack? Or simply fallen as the foreman had said? Zach would never know for sure.
As Uncle Zachery’s sole heir, Zach had endured several tough interviews with the police.
The newspaper coverage had been more critical of him than usual because he’d stayed in the Bahamas to close the deal before coming home.
He hated the invasion of the limelight, hated being written about by idiots who went for the jugular with or without the facts.
Because the fact was, for Zach, the world had gone dark after that phone call.
When he’d been nineteen and in trouble with the law for something he hadn’t done, Uncle Zachery had come back to Louisiana from the Middle East, where he’d been building a city for a sheik. Uncle Zachery had saved him. If not for his uncle, Zach would still be serving hard time.
Houston-bred, Zach had been cast out of town by his beautiful stepmother after his father’s death. Her reason—she’d wanted everything. His father had naively assumed she’d be generous with his sixteen-year-old son and had left her his entire fortune.
If it hadn’t been for Nick Landry, a rough Louisiana shrimper who’d found Zach in a gutter after he’d been beaten by his stepmother’s goons, Zach might not have survived. Nick had taken Zach to his shack in Bonne Terre, Louisiana, where Zach had spent three years.
It was in Bonne Terre where he’d met the girl he’d given his heart and soul to. It was in Bonne Terre where he’d been charged with statutory rape. And it was in Bonne Terre where the girl he’d loved had stood silently by while he was tried and condemned.
Fortunately, that’s when Uncle Zachery had returned. He’d discovered his sister-in-law’s perfidy, tracked Zach to Louisiana, gone up against the town of Bonne Terre and won. He’d brought Zach back to Houston, educated him and put him to work. With his powerful uncle behind him, Zach had become one of the richest men in America.
His cell phone vibrated. He strode off the girder and to the lift, taking the call as he descended.
To his surprise it was Nick Landry.
“Zach, I feel bad about your uncle, yes. I be calling you to offer my condolences. I read about you in the papers. I be as proud as a papa of your accomplishments, yes.”
So many people had called this past week, but this call meant everything. For years, Zach had avoided Nick and anything to do with Bonne Terre, Louisiana, but the warmth in Nick’s rough voice cheered him.
“It’s good to hear from you.”
“I’ve missed you, yes. And maybe you miss me a little, too? I don’t go out in the boat so often now. I tell people it be because the fishin’ ain’t so good like it used to be, but maybe it’s just me and my boat, we’re gettin’ old.”
Zach’s eyes burned as he remembered the dark brown waters of the bayou and how he’d loved to watch the herons skim low late in the evening as the mist came up from the swamp.
“I’ve missed you, too, yes,” he said softly. “I didn’t know how much—until I heard your voice. It takes me back.”
Not all his memories of Bonne Terre were bad.
“So why don’t you come to Bonne Terre and see this old man before he falls off his shrimp boat and the crabs eat him?”
“I will.”
“We’ll go shrimpin’ just like old times.”
After some quick goodbyes, Zach hung up, feeling better than he had in a week.
Maybe it was time to go back to Bonne Terre.
Then he thought about the Louisiana girl he’d once loved—blonde, blue-eyed, beautiful Summer, with the sweet, innocent face and the big dreams. The girl who’d torn out his heart.
She lived in New York now, a Broadway actress. Unlike him, she was the press’s darling. Her pictures were everywhere.
Did she ever come home … to Bonne Terre?
Maybe it was time he found out.
One
Eight Months Later
Bonne Terre, Louisiana
Zach Torr was back in town, stirring up trouble for her, and because he was, a tumult of dark emotions consumed her.
Summer Wallace parked her rental car in front of Gram’s rambling, two-story home. Sighing because she dreaded the thought of tangling with her grandmother and her brother over Zach, she took her time gathering her bag, her purse and her briefcase. Then she saw the loose pages of her script on the floorboard and the slim white Bible she kept with her always. Picking them up, she jammed them into her briefcase.
When she finally slammed the door and headed toward the house she saw Silas, Gram’s black-and-white cat, napping in the warm shade beneath the crape myrtle.
“You lazy old thing.”
A gentle wind swayed in the dogwood and jasmine, carrying with it the steamy, aromatic scent of the pine forest that fringed her grandmother’s property. Not that Summer was in the mood to enjoy the lush, verdant, late-August beauty of her childhood home. No, she was walking through the sweltering heat toward a sure argument with Gram. About Zach, of all people.
Fifteen years ago, when she’d run away after her mother’s death, she’d felt sure he was out of her life forever.
Then Gram had called a week ago.
It had been late, and Summer had been dead on her feet from workshopping an important new play.
“You’ll never guess who’s making a big splash here in Bonne Terre, buying up property to develop into a casino,” Gram had said in a sly tone.
Gram had a habit of calling late and dropping her little bombs in a seemingly innocent way, so, wary, Summer had sunk into her favorite chair and curled up to await the explosion.
“And who do you think bought the old Thibodeaux place and hired your brother Tuck as his pool boy and all-around gopher?” her grandmother had asked.
Tuck had a job? This should have been good news. Gram had been worried about him after his latest run-in with Sheriff Arcenaux. But somehow Summer had known the news wouldn’t be good.
“Okay! Who?”
“Zach Torr.”
Summer had frozen. Her brother, who had poor judgment in nearly every area of his life, could not work for Zach, who couldn’t possibly have her family’s best interests at heart. Not after what had happened. Not when their names would be forever linked in the eyes of the media and, therefore, the world.
She’d become too famous and he too rich, and their tragic youthful love affair was too juicy. And every time the story was rehashed, it always surprised her how much it still hurt, even though she was seen as the innocent victim and he the villain.
From time to time, she’d read about how hard and cold he was now. She’d never forget the story about how ruthlessly he’d taken revenge on his stepmother.
Any new connection between Zach and her family was a disaster in the making.
“You’re not the only former resident of Bonne Terre who’s famous, you know.”
Summer’s breath had caught in her throat as she’d struggled to take the news in.
“Zach’s a billionaire now.”
Summer had already known that, of course. Everybody knew that.
“Even so, he’s not too busy to stop by to play Hearts with an old lady when he’s in town … or to tell me how Tuck’s doing on the job.”
Zach had been taking the time to play cards with Gram? To personally report on Tuck, his pool boy? This was bad.
“Gram, he’s just trying to get to me.”
“Maybe this isn’t about you. You two were finished fifteen years ago.”
Yes, it had been fifteen years. But it was about her. She was sure of it.
Summer had tried to make Gram understand why Tuck had to quit his job, but Gram, who’d been exasperated by all the stunts Tuck had pulled ever since high school, had refused to hear anything against Zach, whom she now saw as her knight in shining armor. Then she’d punched Summer’s guilt button.
“You never come home, and Zach’s visits are fun. He’s awful good with Tuck. Why, the other night he and Nick took Tuck shrimping.”
“A billionaire in a shrimp boat?”
“Yes, well he did buy Nick a brand-new boat, and his men are remodeling Nick’s shack. And you should see Zach. He’s lean and fit and more handsome than ever.”
Lean and fit. Rich and handsome. She’d seen his photos in the press and knew just how handsome he was. Oh, why couldn’t he be the no-good homeless person her stepfather had predicted he’d be?
“Rich as he is—an old lady like me with a beautiful, unmarried granddaughter can’t help wondering why a catch like him is still single.”
“Gram! We have a history. An unsavory, scandalous history that I’m sure he wants to forget as much as I do! Not that that’s possible when there are always reporters around who love nothing better than to rehash the dirt in celebrities’ lives. Don’t you see, I can’t afford to have anything to do with him.”
“No, your stations in life have changed. You’re both enormously successful. Your career would threaten most men, but it wouldn’t threaten Zach. Whatever happened to letting bygones be bygones?”
“Not possible! He hates me!” And with good reason.
“Well, he’s never said a word about that scandal or against you. You wouldn’t be so dead set against him, either—if you saw him. The townspeople have changed their narrow minds about him. Well, everybody except Thurman.”
Thurman was Summer’s impossible stepfather.
There was no arguing with Gram. So here Summer was—home in Bonne Terre—to remove Tuck from his job and, by doing so, remove Zach from their lives. She didn’t want to confront Zach, and maybe, if she could get through to Tuck and Gram, she wouldn’t have to. All it had ever taken for Summer to remember the secrets and heartbreak of her past, and the man who’d caused them, was to visit Gram.
Nothing ever changed in Bonne Terre.
Here, under the ancient cypress trees that edged the bayou, as she listened to a chorus of late-summer cicadas and endured the stifling heat, the wounds to her soul felt as fresh and raw as they had fifteen years ago.
Unlike Tuck, Summer had been an ambitious teen, one who’d decided that if she couldn’t have Zach Torr, she had to forget him and follow her dreams. That’s what had been best for everybody.
She’d worked hard in her acting career to get where she was, to prove herself. She was independent. Famous, even. And she was happy. Very happy. So happy she’d braved coming back to Bonne Terre for the first time in two years.
Summer pushed the screen door open and let it bang behind her.
“I’m home!”
Upstairs she heard a stampede of footsteps. “Gram, she’s here!”
Yanking earbuds from his ears, Tuck slid down the banister with the exuberance of an overgrown kid. She was about to cry out in fear that he’d slam into the newel post and kill himself, but he hopped off in the nick of time, landing on his feet as deftly as a cat.
“Come here and give me a hug, stranger,” she whispered.
Looking sheepish, with his long hair falling over his eyes and his baseball cap on backward, Tuck shyly obliged. But then he pulled away quickly.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were even taller,” she said.”
“No, you’re shorter.”
“Am not!” she cried.
“God, this place is quiet without you here to fight with.”
“I do have a career.”
“It must be nice,” he muttered. “My famous sister.”
“I’m doing what I love, and it’s great,” she said much too enthusiastically. “Just great. I’m here to try to teach you about ambition.”
“I got a job. Didn’t Gram tell you?”
Gram walked into the room and took Summer into her arms before Summer could reply.
“I was wondering what it would take to get my Babygirl home.”
“Don’t you dare call me that!” Summer smiled, fondly remembering how she used to be embarrassed by the nickname when she was a teenager.
“Set your bag down and then go sit out on the screened porch. Tuck, you join her. I’ll bring you something you can’t get in that big city of yours, Babygirl—a glass of my delicious, mint-flavored tea.”
Summer sighed. “Gram, I don’t want you wearing yourself out waiting on us. Tuck, we’re going to help her, you hear?”
Tuck, who was lazy by nature, frowned, but since he adored his big sister, he didn’t argue. He trailed behind them into the kitchen where he leaned against a wall and watched them do everything.
“At least you’re going to carry the tray,” Summer ordered as she placed the last tea cup on it.
Tuck grabbed a chocolate-chip cookie instead.
Then the phone rang and he shrugged helplessly before disappearing to answer it.
As Summer took the tray out to the porch and set it on the table, she sank into her favorite rocker, finally taking the time to appreciate the deep solitude of the trees that wrapped around Gram’s big old house. In New York or L.A., Summer’s phones rang constantly with calls from her agent, producers and directors … and, especially of late, reporters.
She was A-list now, sought after by directors on both coasts. She’d worked hard and was living her dream.
She had it all.
Or so she’d believed. Then her costar and sometimes lover, Edward, had walked out on her. The night their hit play closed, he’d declared to the entire cast that he was through with her. That had been a month ago. Ever since, nosy reporters had been hounding her for the full story, which she still didn’t want to share. That night, back in her apartment after the wrap party, she’d tried to tell herself that Edward’s departure hadn’t made her painfully aware of how empty her personal life had become.
No well-known Broadway actress was ever alone, especially when she was under contract for a major Hollywood film. Even when she was between shows and movies, she couldn’t walk out of her apartment without some stranger trying to take her picture or get her autograph. She was always multitasking—juggling workshops, PR events, rehearsals and script readings. Who had time for a personal life?
She was thirty-one. Forty, that age that was the death knell to actresses, didn’t seem quite so far away anymore. And Gram, being old-fashioned and Southern, constantly reminded Summer about her biological clock. Lately, Gram had started emailing pictures of all Summer’s childhood girlfriends’ children and gushing about how cute they were.
“Where would I be without you and Tuck? Mark my words, you’ll be sorry if you end up old and alone.”
Gram’s longings were part of the reason Summer had let Hugh Jones, the hottest young actor on the west coast, rush her into a new relationship not two weeks after Edward had jilted her so publicly. Had she actually felt a little desperate at realizing how alone she was?
Not wanting to think about her personal life a moment longer, Summer picked up her glass and drank some of her iced tea.
Where was Gram? And what was taking Tuck so long on the phone?
Was he talking to Zach?
She took another sip of tea.
Reporters constantly asked her if she was in love with Hugh. But unfortunately for her, it wasn’t Hugh who came to mind at the mention of the word love. No, for her, love and Zach would always be tangled together like an impossible knot. Her chest tightened. She’d only felt that exquisitely painful rush of excitement once.
She never wanted to feel it again.
She’d been sixteen, and he nineteen, when their romance had ended in unbearable heartbreak. For a brief moment she allowed herself to remember New Orleans and the terrible, secret loss she’d suffered there, a loss that had shattered her youthful illusions forever, a loss that had taught her some mistakes could never be made right.
Zach was the reason why she almost never came home. Bonne Terre was a small, gossipy Cajun town. If she hadn’t forgotten her past, the town wouldn’t have forgotten it, either. Even if the town’s citizens didn’t ask her about him, she always felt him everywhere when she was home. She had too many painful memories and … secrets.
Here on this very porch he had kissed her that first time.
Just as she was remembering how her mouth had felt scorched after he’d brushed his lips against hers, her grandmother’s low, gravelly whisper interrupted her thoughts.
“You’re not the only person who loves to sit in that chair.”
The sly, mischievous note in her grandmother’s tone sent a frisson of alarm through Summer.
“Oh.” She didn’t turn and smile because her cheeks were still burning.
“Zach always sits there.”
Summer stiffened.
“I can’t believe you allow him to come over, much less allow him to sit in my chair. What if someone tips off the press about his visits to see my grandmother and this causes another nasty story to be published about us? And why is he developing in Bonne Terre anyway? In all these years he’s never once come back, until now.”
“When his uncle died back in the fall he came to visit Nick. When he saw the land prices, he started talking to people. He already has a casino in Vegas. One thing led to another. The city fathers decided to court him….”
When Summer noticed the ice cubes in her glass tinkling, she set the glass down with a harsh clink.
”Careful, dear, that’s your mama’s best crystal.” They paused, as they both reflected on the sweetness of Anna, Summer’s dear, departed mother, whom they would miss forever. “Zach’s bought up all that land across from our place.”
“I still can’t believe that with his history, with so many in this town set against him, Zach would come back here.”
“He says it’s time to set the record straight. He’s certainly winning the town over.”
How exactly did he intend to set the record straight? Summer thought of the one secret she’d kept from him and trembled. “He’s made a fortune in Houston. Isn’t that vindication enough? Why would he care what the people here think of him?”
“They nearly sent him to prison.”
Because of me, Summer thought with genuine regret.
“Old wounds run deep sometimes … and need healin’. He’s got everybody around here excited. His casino’s going to be a fancy riverboat.”
“Gambling? It’s a vicious, addictive sport.”
“Gaming will bring jobs…. And jobs will buy a lot of forgiveness. Bonne Terre’s fallen on really hard times of late.”
“Gram, you sound brainwashed. It makes me wonder how often Zach comes by.”
“Well, he dropped by the first time because he wanted to see if I’d sell this place to him.”
Summer would watch the swamp freeze over before she let that happen.
“Zach’s been by about once a week ever since. We have coffee and cookies. Chocolate chip are his favorite.”
Summer took great pains to center her glass in its condensation ring on the coaster. “I hope you didn’t tell Zach you might sell or that I was coming to see you about all this.”
Her grandmother hesitated. “I’m afraid I might have told him he could make me an offer. And … You know how I can never resist bragging about you. I’ve shown him my scrap-books.”
Summer frowned. “I can’t imagine I’m his favorite subject.”
“Well, like I said, he’s always ever-so polite. He’s been especially interested in your romance with Hugh.” Gram smiled. “Asked me whom I thought was more fun—Hugh or himself?
I said Hugh was a rich movie star, who probably wouldn’t waste his time on an old lady. I told Zach he had nothing to worry about.”
Summer squeezed her eyes shut and counted to ten.
Kneading the knot between her eyes, she said, “Did you or didn’t you tell him I was coming home because I’m upset about Tuck’s job?”
“It’s hard for me to remember exactly what I do or say these days, but if I did tell him, what can it matter? You said that what happened between you two was over a long time ago.”
Summer frowned. Yes, of course, it was over. So, why was she obsessing about him?
“I think Thurman had Zach all wrong. I told your stepfather he was too hard on the boy at the time, that you were just youngsters in love. But Thurman doesn’t ever listen to anybody.”
He hadn’t listened when Summer and her mother had begged him to drop the charges against Zach, and the stress of that time had ended her mother’s remission. Her mother’s death was just one of the reasons Summer was estranged from him. The other had to do with a tiny grave in New Orleans.
But Summer didn’t want to think about that. “Okay, back to selling this place to Zach. That can’t happen.”
“I can’t help it if I’m not averse to moving into a modern condo, if Zach comes up with some favorable financin’.”
“But I love this house,” Summer protested. “I can’t believe you’ve actually gone this far with a deal without once mentioning it to me. What’s his next move?”
“He said he’d put an offer together, but so far he’s been too busy.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll stay busy,” Summer muttered, squeezing her eyes shut.
Somehow she didn’t really think Zach, who could be relentless, would leave her grandmother alone until he got exactly what he wanted. Had he hired Tuck to win over Gram? So she’d sell him her home, which had been in the family for more than a hundred years?
“Word has it he closed on that tract across from us just yesterday. That’s where he’ll build the dock,” Gram said. “So he’d like to control this property. He definitely doesn’t want me selling to anybody else.”
Inspiration struck.
“Gram, I’ll buy the house from you. Then you can live here or in a condo. Your choice.”
“Oh?”
“I want you to call Zach and tell him you won’t sell. Hopefully, when he learns I’m here checking up on you, he’ll back off.”
Her grandmother watched her intently for a long moment. “You never looked at Edward the way you used to look at Zach. Fifteen years is a long time for you to still be bothered by a man,” said her grandmother wisely. “Have you ever asked yourself why?”
“No.” Summer yanked her scrunchy out of her hair and pulled her ponytail even tighter. “Because I’m perfectly happy with my life as it is. Can we quit talking about him and not start on your dissatisfaction with my single state?”
“Oh, all right, dear. I won’t bring him up again—or the fact that you’re an old maid—not unless you do.”
“Old maid? Gram, there’s no such thing anymore.”
“Maybe that’s so in Manhattan, but that’s definitely not so in Bonne Terre. Ask anybody.”
Gram’s set expression stung way more than it should have.
Tuck stuck his head out the door. “Zach called and needs me to come in, so I’ve got to get to work.”
“Hey, Tuck, your job is one of the reasons I came home. Can we talk?” Summer said.
“Later. He needs me to run an errand.”
Summer ground her teeth as she watched her brother lope out the door.
Tuck refused to quit his job. Summer and he had quarreled about it briefly, but Zach had just promoted Tuck to full-time status and he now spent his whole day running errands for Zach’s contractor.
As for Gram, she was as good as her word. Two whole days had passed without her ever once mentioning Zach.
She was the only one silent on the subject, however. The whole town was buzzing because Summer and Zach were both in town. Whenever Summer went shopping, the curious sneaked sidelong glances at her. The audacious stopped her on the street and demanded to know how she felt about Zach now.
“Do you regret what you and Thurman did—now that Zach’s so rich and nice and set on saving this town from economic disaster?” Sally Carson, the postmistress, had demanded.
“Your grandmother told me he’s been real sweet to her, too,” Margaret York, one of Gram’s oldest friends, said with a look of envy.
“Well, his return to this town has nothing to do with me,” Summer replied.
“Doesn’t it?” Margaret’s face was sly and eager. “Men don’t forget….”
“Well, I have.”
“I wonder how you’ll feel when you see him again. We all wonder.”
One of the worst things about fame was that it made everyone think they had a right to know about her private life. Some things were too personal and painful to share with anyone, even well-meaning neighbors.
So Summer stopped going into town. Instead, she stayed at the house to work on her script and formulate a new way to approach Tuck.
On this particular afternoon she’d set a plate of cookies and a glass of tea garnished with a sprig of mint beside a chaise longue on the screened veranda. She paced in frustration, gesturing passionately as she fought to discover her character, a young mother. The role eluded Summer because, for her, young motherhood was a painful theme.
But today she did something she’d never let herself do before—remember how she’d felt in New Orleans when she’d been expecting her own child. Suddenly, she broke through the protective walls inside her, and grief washed over her in waves.
Her eyes grew wet, and she began to tremble, but she didn’t relent. So deeply was she immersed in painful memories, she didn’t hear the hard, purposeful crunch of gravel beneath a man’s boots until he was nearly upon her.
A low vicious oath startled her. Expecting Tuck, Summer whirled, dabbing at her damp eyes with the back of her hand.
And there he was.
At the sight of Zach’s hard, chiseled features swimming through her tears, the pages she’d been holding fell to the wooden floor.
“Well, hello there,” he said.
“Zach.” She hated the way his low, velvet voice made her heart accelerate, made the air feel even hotter. Frantically, she dabbed at her eyes so he wouldn’t see her tears. “Gram said you’d been visiting a lot.” Her voice sounded choked and unnatural.
“Did she?” Black eyes narrowed as he pushed the screen door open. “She told me you were coming home.” Zach scowled. “You’re pale, and your eyes are red. Have you been crying?”
“No! It’s nothing,” she whispered. “I was just acting out a part.”
His lips thinned. “You always were damn talented at that.”
Good, he bought it.
Tall and dark in a long-sleeved white shirt and jeans, and as lethally handsome as ever, Zach’s tight expression told her he wasn’t happy to see her.
As she bent over to retrieve her script, his insolent dark eyes raked her body in a way that made her aware of how skimpily clad she was in her snug blue shorts and thin, clingy blouse.
Feeling strangely warm and too vulnerable suddenly, she bristled and sprang to her feet. “I told Gram to tell you. If she decides to sell, she’ll sell to me. So, why are you here now?”
“I haven’t spoken to her. My secretary arranged my appointment with your grandmother,” he said, striding closer. “When I saw you in those shorts, I imagined she told you I was coming and you were lying in wait….”
“As if I’d do—and, hey, it’s August. I … I have a perfect right to wear shorts,” she sputtered.
“Yes.” His gaze drifted over her appreciatively. “You look good in them. Too good—which I’m sure you know.”
“Gram didn’t tell me you were coming.”
“And she didn’t tell me to cancel my visit. I wonder why. Maybe she likes my company. Or maybe she’d prefer to sell to me. This old place and that brother of yours are way too much for her.”
“None of that is any of your business.”
“Your Tuck was running pretty wild, got himself fired from a bar because money went missing.…”
“As if you know anything about Tuck. He doesn’t steal!”
Zach’s black brows arched. “Still thinking the worst of me while you defend everybody else. Your stepfather’s been giving me hell, too.”
The comparison to her stepfather cut her … deeply. Zach hadn’t been there for her when she’d needed him either, had he? He hadn’t cared….
Maybe because he hadn’t known.
“As a matter of fact, I like your grandmother. That’s why I hired Tuck. When I happened on him late one night, he’d had a flat tire. He didn’t have a spare or money or a credit card, and his phone was dead. So he accepted my offer to haul him to a service station and buy him a new tire on the condition that he become my pool and errand boy and work it off.”
“I see through your Good Samaritan act.”
“I was sort of suspicious about it myself.”
“You’re just using Tuck to get at me in some way. So go,”she whispered. “You are the last person I want involved with my family, especially with Tuck, who’s extremely vulnerable.”
“Well, sorry if my return to Bonne Terre upsets you, or if Tuck’s being my employee bothers you,” he said, not sounding the least apologetic. “But since I’ve got business in this town for some time to come, and Tuck works for me, I suppose you and I were bound to meet again … sooner or later.”
“Gambling? Is that your business?”
“Yes. What of it? You’re an actress, someone skilled at weaving seductive illusions. You sure seduced me with your little act. And I let you off easy. You should feel lucky. I’m not known for lenience with people who betray me.”
Easy? Lucky? New Orleans lay like a weight on her heart.
“All you see is your side.”
“I was the one who damn near got strung up because of your lies,” he said. “I’m the one who’s still found guilty every time some reporter decides to write another story about us.”
“Well, maybe you don’t know everything!” She stopped. She would never make the mistake of trying to confide in him. But despite her best intentions, she said, “You … you can’t believe I ever wanted to accuse you, not when I begged you to run off with me, and when it was my idea to …”
“To seduce me?” he finished.
His silky whisper and the intense fire in his black eyes rubbed her nerves raw.
“It wasn’t like that and you know it. I … I couldn’t help it if Thurman hated you for what I did.”
“Let’s not kid ourselves. You did what you did. I don’t give a damn anymore about why you did it.”
Shame and some darker emotion she didn’t want him to sense scorched her cheeks as she turned away from the coldness in his face. “If I could have undone what I did or said, or what I caused people to believe about you, I would have.”
“Hollow words … since you could have stepped up and cleared my name at any point. You didn’t. Like a fool, I waited for you to do just that. I was young. I believed in you back then.” His mouth tightened into a hard, forbidding line. “But, no, you ran off to New Orleans where you probably seduced somebody else.”
“There was never anyone but you….” She swallowed tightly. “I—I tried to apologize … and explain. You refused to take my calls. I even went to Houston looking for you after your uncle took you away, but you wouldn’t see me.”
“By then I knew what a talented manipulator you were.”
At his dark, unforgiving scowl, she sucked in a tortured breath. “If you hate me so much, why won’t you just go?”
“I don’t hate you. Frankly, I don’t consider you worth the waste of any more emotion. What I’m doing here isn’t about you. I’ve made a name for myself in other places. When Nick called me a few months ago, I realized I’d never let go of what happened here and neither have the people of this town or the media. Maybe I’ve decided it’s time I changed a few people’s minds.
“Your stepfather used to be the biggest man in these parts. Not anymore. I intend to be bigger than he ever was. I intend to make him pay for what he did—to kill him with kindness, bestowed upon his town.”
“I want you to leave Gram and Tuck alone. I’m buying this property from her because I won’t have you cheating her to get back at me.”
“You’d better not make accusations like that in public.”
“And you’d better stop trying to make me look bad to my grandmother, who’s started nagging me about not coming home often enough!”
“Haven’t you been neglecting her?”
“Well, if I don’t come home, it’s because of you. I—I can’t forget … when I’m home,” she finished raggedly.
Dark hurt flashed in his eyes but was gone so fast she was sure she’d only imagined it.
When he stomped toward the front door, she blocked his way. At her nearness, his hard body tensed. When their gazes locked, a muscle in his jawline jerked savagely. His breathing had roughened.
He wasn’t nearly as indifferent as he’d said.
Nor was she.
“Move aside,” he muttered.
Hurt, she lashed out. “No—this is my grandmother’s house. I won’t allow you to use her to get at me. So—leave.”
“Like hell!”
When she stood her ground, his hands closed over her forearms. But as he tried to edge her aside, she stomped down on his foot with her heel.
Cursing, he tightened his grip and crushed her against his muscular length.
Despite the unwanted shiver of excitement his touch caused, her tone was mild. “Would you please let me go?”
A dozen warring emotions played across his dark face as she struggled to free herself.
“I don’t think I will.”
Locking her slim, wriggling body to his made their embrace even more alarmingly intimate.
“You’re trembling,” he said. “Why? Are you acting now? Or do you feel what I….” He broke off with a look of self-contempt.
“Damn you for this,” he muttered. “You’re not the only one who can’t forget.”
Even if she hadn’t felt his powerful arousal against her pelvis, his blazing eyes betrayed his potent male need. Then his gaze hardened with determination, and she watched breathlessly as he lowered his mouth to hers.
“I shouldn’t do this,” he whispered fiercely, bending her backward, molding her even more tightly to the hard contours of his body. “God help me, I know what you are, what you did.”
“You did things, too….” He’d hurt her terribly. Yet she wanted him, ached for him.
“I can’t stop myself,” he muttered. “But then I never could where you were concerned.”
No sooner did his warm mouth close over hers than she turned to flame. If he’d flung her onto the chaise longue and followed her down, she would have forgotten the hurt that had turned her heart to stone for fifteen years. She would have ripped his jeans apart at the waist, sliding her hands inside.
She wanted to touch him, kiss him everywhere, wind her legs and arms around him and surrender completely—even though she knew his need was based on the desire to punish while hers was due to temporary insanity.
On a sigh, her arms circled his tanned neck, and she clung, welding herself to his lean frame in a way that told him all that she felt. She was a woman now, a woman whose needs had been too long denied. When he shuddered violently, she gasped his name.
“Zach … I’m sorry,” she murmured as warm tears leaked from her eyes and trickled down her cheek. She feathered gentle fingertips through his thick, inky hair. “I wronged you, and I’m so sorry. For years I’ve wanted to make it up to you.” She hesitated. “But … You hurt me, too.”
For fifteen years, she’d been dead in the arms of every other man who’d held her.
She hadn’t felt this alive since she’d last been in Zach’s embrace.
His hand closed over her breast, stroking a nipple until it hardened. The other hand had moved down to cup her hip.
Next he undid the buttons of her blouse so that it parted for his exploration. For one glorious moment she was her younger self and wildly in love with him again. Back then she had trusted him completely. She’d given him everything of herself. With a sigh, she leaned into him as he stroked her, and her response sent him over some edge.
He rasped in a breath. Then, in the next shuddering instant, he ended their kiss, tearing his lips free, leaving her desolate, abandoned.
Loosening his grip, he let her go and staggered free of her as if he’d been burned. He raked a large, shaking hand through his hair and swore violently, staring anywhere but at her.
“Damn you,” he muttered, inhaling deeply. “I see why you do so well on Broadway. You’re like a tigress in heat. Is that why Hugh Jones took up with you so fast?”
Summer was about to confess she felt nothing when Hugh kissed her—nothing—but Zach spoke first.
“Brilliant performance,” he said. “You deserve an Oscar.”
“So do you,” she whispered in breathless agony as she dried her cheeks with the back of her hand. She couldn’t let him know that for a few magical seconds she’d actually cared.
“I’d better go before I do something incredibly stupid,” he said.
“Like what?” she murmured, feeling dazed from his mesmerizing kiss and savage embrace.
“Like take you back to my house to do whatever the hell I want to do with you … for as long as I want.”
“Oh?”
“Don’t look at me like that! I know what you are. Damn you for making me want the impossible,” he muttered.
She clenched her fists, not any happier than he was to realize that she wanted the impossible, too.
He didn’t like her. With good reason. Their past was too painful to revisit. What burned inside her, and in him, was lust—visceral and destructive.
Gram opened the front door. Her violet, silver-lashed eyes wide, she peered out at them with excessive interest, causing Summer, whose blouse was still unbuttoned, to blush with shame even as she quickly pulled the edges back together. The last thing she wanted to do was get Gram’s hopes up about a romantic reunion with Zach.
“Oh, my go-o-o-d-ness.” Gram worked hard to hide her pleasure at the sight of Zach’s blazing eyes and her granddaughter’s scarlet face and state of dishabille. “I’m so sorry.” In a softer voice directed toward Summer, she said, “And I thought you told me you wanted nothing more to do with him.” There was that sly note of satisfaction in her tone again.
“I don’t,” Summer cried, but the door had already closed behind her triumphant grandmother. “Why didn’t you tell me he was coming over?” she called after Gram. Then Summer turned and said to Zach, “Why did I even ask, when I specifically ordered her not to mention you?”
Zach’s eyes went flat and cold. “As far as I’m concerned, this never happened. But—if you see me again—you’d better run. You and I have more unfinished business than I realized. Don’t give me any more reasons to come after you and finish what you started.”
Suspecting he must want revenge, she swallowed. “Don’t threaten me.”
“It’s not a threat. It’s a promise, a warning. If you’re smart, you’ll stay away from me.”
As if to emphasize his words, he strode over to her. Reaching up his hand, he ran a calloused fingertip along her damp cheek, causing her to shiver involuntarily.
“I want you in my bed. I want you to pay for what you did. In every way that I demand.”
Startled, because the image he painted—of lying under him on a soft bed—aroused her to such a shocking degree, she jumped back. Out of his sensually lethal reach, her voice was firm. “I won’t be seeing you again.”
“Good. Tell your grandmother I’ll call her after you leave town.”
His gorgeous mouth curled. Looking every bit as furious and ashamed as Summer was beginning to feel, Zach turned on his heel and strode down the gravel drive, leaving her to wonder how she could have stood there like a besotted idiot and let him touch her again after sharing such an embarrassing kiss.
“None of this happened,” Summer whispered consolingly to herself when she finally heard the roar of his car. Too aware of gravel spinning viciously, she sank down onto the steps and hugged her knees tightly.
She felt cold and hot at the same time.
It was all a horrible mistake. Zach didn’t like that it had happened any more than she did.
She was glad he felt that way.
She was glad!
Somehow she had to make Gram and Tuck understand that Zach was dangerous, that he’d threatened her.
Tuck, who’d gotten in trouble too many times to count, could not continue to work for Zach, who would use whatever her brother did to his own advantage.
Squaring her shoulders, Summer got to her feet and picked up the remaining pages of her script. Then she ran into the house and up the stairs where she took a long, cold shower and brushed her teeth.
Not that she could wash away his taste or the memory of his touch or the answering excitement in her system.
That night, when she awoke, breathing hard from a vivid dream about Zach kissing her even more boldly, it was impossible to ignore the hunger that was both ancient and familiar lighting every nerve ending in her being.
Wild for him, she sat up in the darkness and pushed her damp hair back from her hot face. “It was just a stupid kiss. It doesn’t matter! Zach can’t stand me any more than I can stand him.”
So, why are you dreaming about him, aching for him, even when you know he despises you?
Two
One month later
Once back in New York, Zach’s kiss lingered on the edges of Summer’s consciousness almost all the time, despite the fact that she’d willed herself to forget him. Despite the fact that she’d decided it was best not to obsess over things she couldn’t control, like Tuck’s refusal to quit his job and Gram’s support of his decision.
And because the memory of Zach’s kiss lingered, she drove herself to work harder than ever.
Summer read every script her agent gave her. She auditioned tirelessly for any part that was halfway right for her. When she was home alone she compulsively cleaned and dusted every item in her already immaculate apartment in a vain attempt to shove Zach Torr and his stupid kiss and his ridiculous threats back into the past where they belonged.
Not that she could stop herself from calling certain gossips in Bonne Terre to get a picture of what he was up to back home or stop herself from reading her hometown’s newspaper online to get the latest news about his riverboat gambling project. Everything she read was annoyingly favorable. People were more impressed by him every day. He was the town’s favorite son. Rumors abounded about the lavishness of the riverboat he was building and the luxurious amenities and hotels he was constructing onshore.
On impulse, maybe to prove to those blockheads back home how little she cared for Zach, she let Hugh Jones join one of her interviews.
Naturally, the young, bright-eyed journalist went gaga over beautiful, golden Hugh, whose immense ego was hugely gratified at being fawned over.
At first, the young woman’s eager questions had been standard fare. Summer tossed off her ritual answers.
Her favorite role was the one she was creating. She was always nervous opening nights. And, yes, the play she was workshopping today was ever-so exciting.
Naturally, when the journalist wasn’t entirely focused on Hugh, he grew bored.
Hugh shuffled from one foot to the other and yawned, and the reporter laughed and leaned into him so her breast brushed his elbow.
“Okay, let’s talk about this hot new man in your life. Every woman in America is dying to be you, Summer.” The woman was staring into Hugh’s baby-blues as if she’d been hypnotized.
Idiotically, the phrase hot new man put Summer back on Gram’s screened porch, in the arms of that certain individual she would give anything to forget.
Again she tasted the sweet, blistering warmth of Zach’s mouth and felt his muscular length pressing her close. At the memory of his big hands closing over her breast and butt, the dark, musty corner she shared with Hugh and the reporter felt airless.
“So, what’s the latest with you and Hugh?” the reporter asked. “If you don’t mind my saying so, you two are the most exciting couple these days.”
“I’m a pretty lucky guy.” Hugh squeezed Summer closer before launching into a monologue about himself.
Summer was wondering if she and Hugh had ever once had a real conversation about anything else.
“I don’t think Summer’s got any complaints,” the reporter said when Hugh finally ended the everybody-loves-me monologue.
Hugh laughed, pulled Summer closer and planted his mouth on hers just as a flash blinded her.
Infuriated at his brashness, Summer thumped her fists on his chest. Luckily, her cell phone vibrated and blasted rap music from her pocket.
“Excuse me,” she whispered, desperate for an excuse to be done with the reporter and Hugh.
Sliding her phone open, she read the name, Viola Guidry. “Sorry, guys, it’s my grandmother. I have to take this.”
“So—that kiss makes me wonder how serious you and Hugh are?” the reporter asked.
“We’re just good friends,” Summer snapped in a flat, cool tone.
“That’s all you’re going to give me—”
Nodding, Summer smiled brightly as she shook the woman’s hand. “Thanks so much.” Cupping the phone to her ear, Summer walked away.
“Hey, girls, much as I loved doing this interview, I’ve got a meeting before I catch my plane to L.A.,” Hugh said carelessly, blowing Summer an air kiss. “See you, angel.”
Summer waved absently and fought to concentrate on her grandmother’s frantic words.
“You have to come home! Tuck’s in the hospital. He’s going to be okay, but Sheriff Arcenaux says he may have to arrest him!”
“For what?”
“Tuck invited some friends over to Zach’s and they got into his liquor. When Zach came home, Tuck was so drunk he’d passed out. Two of Zach’s cars were missing, and Tuck’s friends were busily looting the place.”
“Oh, my God! Did I warn you or not?”
“Zach’s threatening to press charges. So—you’ve got to come home.”
Fear was a cold fist squeezing Summer’s heart so tightly she could barely breathe. Practically speaking, she didn’t have time for this. Her calendar was jam-packed with work commitments. Emotionally, she knew her family needed her.
“Zach wants to meet with you. He gave me his attorney’s number and told me to have you call him. He said maybe he’d be willing to work something out with you, instead of pressing charges, if you meet with him. But he’ll only meet with you.”
Summer felt so frustrated and panic-stricken it was all she could do not to throw the phone.
Zach had her right where he wanted her—cornered.
In a soft voice, she said, “I’m on my way, Gram.”
She was late.
Zach hated wasting time, and that was exactly what he was doing as he waited for Summer, a woman he’d spent years trying to forget. His empire should be his focus, not some woman from his past.
Hell, he’d wasted too much time worrying about her ever since he’d seen her on Viola’s porch. She’d looked so sad and fragile before they’d spoken. He was almost sure she’d been crying. The pain in her eyes had been so profound he still wanted to know what she’d been thinking.
Then, like a fool, he’d kissed her.
Her mouth had been hot and yielding, almost desperate with pent-up passion. But tender, too. Ever since that kiss, it was as if her lips and her taste and her softness and her sweet vulnerability had relit the passion he’d once felt for her. It seemed nothing, not all the ugliness or news coverage or even reason, had been able to destroy his desire for her.
The woman’s kiss had made him remember the girl he’d loved and trusted.
She didn’t matter; she couldn’t ever matter again.
Summer had been a virgin when she’d given herself to him. His one and only. Never would he forget how lush, lovely and shyly innocent she’d been, nor how her shy blue eyes had shone. He’d been deeply touched that such a beautiful girl with such a radiant soul had chosen him.
For the first two years they’d known each other, his focus had been their friendship and protecting her from her controlling stepfather. Then they’d fallen in love during her senior year, so he’d stayed in Bonne Terre to wait for her to graduate. He hadn’t pushed for sex, but somehow, after they’d run away together, she’d gotten through his defenses.
One night when they’d been alone in that remote cabin, she’d cried, asking him what she should do about her stepfather. What would happen if they didn’t go back, if she didn’t finish school? Would he come to New York with her?
He’d realized then that Summer saw him as part of her future; saw her stepfather and Bonne Terre as something she was finished with forever.
Intending to comfort her, to reassure her that he wanted her in his future as well, he’d gone to the bed, taken her in his arms and held her close. Her hair had smelled of jasmine, so he’d nuzzled it. Then she’d kissed him, her soft mouth open, her body pressing against his eagerly. She probably hadn’t understood how she’d tempted him.
He’d stroked her hair, caressing her, and she’d moaned. Her tears had stopped, but she’d clung anyway. Then they’d come together as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Their union had been both sexual and spiritual. He’d believed they’d marry after she graduated, that they would be together forever.
Never again had he felt like that about a woman.
Forget it.
Zach forced his mind to the present. He couldn’t afford to reminisce. Time was more precious than money. His uncle’s death had taught him that.
Zach had his briefcase stuffed with foreclosure cases he’d intended to review as he sat in his attorney’s sumptuous conference room. Waiting for her. Plate-glass windows afforded him an excellent view of the bayou four stories below. Not that he was enjoying the scene of cypress and dogwood trees. No, he couldn’t stop thinking about her.
Why was she late? Was she remembering their last encounter and his promise to make her pay?
When he heard the desperate click of her high heels in the hall, he glanced up, tense with expectation. Even as he steeled himself to feel nothing, his heart began to race.
The door opened, framing her slim, elegant body before she entered. Her delicate, classical features and radiant complexion were too lovely for words.
He wanted her so much he couldn’t breathe.
They looked at each other and then away while the silent tension between them crackled. On some deep level, she drew him. Her incredible blond beauty alone made her unforgettable. Then there was her fame. Hell, how could he forget her when her face was plastered on the covers of gossip magazines and cheap, weekly newspapers?
She was everywhere.
Only a few days ago he hadn’t been able to resist reading the latest about her budding romance with Hugh Jones in one of those sensational newspapers he despised. He’d grabbed it off a wire shelf in a drugstore and jammed it into his briefcase. He’d carried it up to his office and pored over the story that went with the front-page photo of the famous couple sharing a kiss. Summer had claimed they were just friends, but Jones had expounded about how crazy they were about each other. Which one of them was lying?
Probably her.
Zach had wadded the newspaper and thrown it in the trash. In his penthouse suite, staring out at the city of Houston, which was littered with the skyscrapers he’d built and owned, he’d never felt more isolated.
She had a life—perhaps she even loved that famous, egotistical movie star—while he had only his fierce ambition and immense wealth. He’d gone through his contact list on his smart phone, called a beautiful blonde who resembled Summer and asked her out. But that night, after dinner, when she’d invited him up to her loft, he’d said he had to work. Driving home, feeling empty and more alone than ever, he’d burned for Summer.
So, he’d seized his opportunity. He’d used her brother to get her here.
“Coffee?” His attorney’s pretty secretary offered from the doorway.
“No,” Zach thundered without even bothering to ask Summer, for whom he felt irrational fury because she wouldn’t stop consuming his thoughts.
He wasn’t in the mood for niceties. When the secretary left and Summer’s long-lashed, legendary violet-blue eyes flicked in alarm, he felt as if she’d sucker punched him in the gut. Damn her, for having this much power over him.
His heart hardened against her knockout beauty even as other parts of his body hardened because of it. He wished he could forget the softness of her breast and the firmness of her butt and the sweet taste of her lips. He wished he didn’t ache to hold her and touch her again. He wanted to kiss her and force her to forget all about Jones.
How many others had there been in her bed since Zach? Legions, he imagined with a rush of bitterness. A Broadway star with a face and figure like hers, not to mention a budding movie career, could have anybody—directors, producers, actors, fans.
Hell, she had Hugh Jones, didn’t she? But was she as responsive when Jones touched her? Had Zach only imagined she’d been pushing against Jones, trying to free herself, when that picture had been taken?
None of it mattered. Zach wanted her in his bed with an all-consuming hunger. And he was determined to have her.
As if she read his thoughts, she flushed and glanced down, staring at her white, ice-pick heels rather than at him. Still, her sultry voice made him burn when she whispered, almost shyly, “Sorry I’m late. Traffic. I had to go by Gram’s first … to check on Tuck.”
“How’s he doing?” Zach asked, standing up and placing his hand on the back of the chair he intended to offer her.
He’d found Tuck drunk and unconscious on the living-room floor of Zach’s new house. The garage doors had been open, and Zach’s Lamborghini and second Mercedes had been missing.
Fortunately, Zach had come home unexpectedly and had caught two of Tuck’s friends, also drunk, ransacking his house, or he might have suffered worse losses. Since then, the automobiles had been found abandoned in New Orleans.
Zach blamed himself, in part, for not having hired an appropriate staff for the house.
“Tuck’s doing okay.” Summer answered his question as she stepped farther into the room, her legs as light and graceful as a dancer’s, her silky white dress flowing against her hips. He remembered how sexy she’d looked when she’d bent over in her short shorts on her grandmother’s porch.
And why shouldn’t she be graceful and sexy? She was a performer, a highly paid one. Everything she did was part of a deliberate, well-rehearsed act. Maybe the kiss they’d shared when she’d seemed to quiver so breathlessly had been a performance, as well.
She sat down in the chair he’d indicated and crossed her legs prettily. He stayed on his feet because staring down at her gave him the advantage.
Even though he knew what she was, and what she was capable of, the years slid away. Again he was sixteen, the bad new homeless kid in school with the sullen, bruised face. Everybody had been scared of him. Summer had been the popular, pampered high-school freshman, a princess who’d had every reason to feel superior to him.
People talked in a town the size of Bonne Terre. Everybody knew everybody. Nobody approved of Nick dragging such a rough kid home and foisting him upon the school. Thurman Wallace had even demanded Zach be thrown out.
Only Summer, who’d been a precocious thirteen and two years ahead of her age in school, hadn’t looked down on Zach. Not even when all the other kids and her step-daddy thought she should. No, even on that first day, when Roger Nelson, a football star, had demanded to know what Zach had done to make a guy hate him so much he’d beaten him nearly to death, she’d butted in and defended him.
“Maybe that’s not what happened,” she’d said. “Maybe Zach was in the right, defending himself, and the other guy was in the wrong. We don’t know.”
“So what happened, Torr?” Nelson had demanded.
“Why should I tell you?”
“See, he’s trash, Pollyanna,” Nelson had jeered. “Anybody can see that!”
“Well, then maybe I’m blind, because I can’t,” she’d insisted. “I see a person who needs a friend.”
Not long after that Summer had become his secret best friend.
The memories slipped away, and Zach was heatedly aware of the woman seated before him.
As if she couldn’t resist using her power on him, Summer tipped her head his way, sending that thick curtain of blond hair over her shoulders as her blue eyes burned into the center of his soul.
“Zach, thanks for getting Tuck medical attention so fast. They said you had specialists flown in from Houston.” Her face was soft, beguilingly grateful.
Clenching a fist, he jammed it in a pocket. He wasn’t buying into her gratitude. Not when he knew she’d do anything to keep her brother from being arrested.
“The doctors are personal friends of mine in Houston. It was either fly them here or airlift him to New Orleans. He was out cold. He had a bump the size of a hen’s egg on his head and a gash that needed stitches, so I wanted to make sure he was just drunk and that there was no serious head injury involved.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“I don’t see any need for us to make a big deal about something anyone would have done.”
“You paid for everything, too. We have insurance. If you’ll invoice me, I’ll—”
“You’ll pay me. Fine,” he growled.
He was blown away by his feelings. He wanted her so badly he could think of nothing else, and she was coldly talking money.
“You said you wanted to see me. I’ve talked to Tuck, and he feels terrible about everything that happened. He had no idea those boys were going to steal anything or tear up your house. The last thing he remembers is hearing a noise in the garage and stumbling across the living room to check it out. Then he must have tripped.”
“Oh, really? What about the money that went missing when he was fired from his last job? Your brother’s been running pretty wild all summer. He’s nineteen. Old enough to know what the guys he runs around with are capable of.”
“He was just showing off. They said they’d never seen a billionaire’s place. He wanted to impress them.”
“He shouldn’t have invited them over or given them my whiskey.”
“I agree, and so does he … now. He just didn’t think.”
“Your Tuck’s had too many run-ins with the law for me to buy into his innocence. He’s been indulged in Bonne Terre. Maybe because he’s a Wallace.”
“That’s what this is about, isn’t it—his last name? You were hoping something like this would happen. You deliberately hired my trouble-prone brother, set him up, so you could get back at me.”
He tensed at her accusation. “Since you’re so quick to blame others for his actions, I’m beginning to see why he’s so irresponsible.”
Heat flared in her eyes. He noted that she was breathing irregularly, that her breasts were trembling.
“You have no right to use him this way. He’s practically an orphan. I was twelve when he was born. He was two when our father ran off, four when Mother married Thurman and he adopted us. If my stepfather was hard on me by pushing me in school, demanding I excel and graduate two years ahead of my class, he constantly browbeat Tuck, calling him a wimp and a sissy who’d never amount to anything. I was the favorite. Tuck could never measure up.
“After our mother died, he was raised by a stepfather who disliked him and then by aunts who cared more for their own children, and later by his grandmother, who’s become too old and lenient. And I admit, I don’t come home often enough.”
Zach had figured all that out for himself. The kid had no direction. She and Viola were protective of Tuck, but didn’t demand enough responsibility from the boy.
“And what do you do—you put him in temptation’s way so you can get at me,” she repeated in a shaky tone. “Since he’s been in trouble before, if you press charges and he’s tried and convicted, he could be locked up for a long time. You knew that when you hired him. If this gets out to the media, there will be a frenzy.”
Zach paced to the window. “If you believe I deliberately used Tuck to hurt you, you wouldn’t believe anything I told you to defend myself. So, I won’t bother.”
“Oh, please. You threatened me the last time I saw you. I think you’ve ordered me here because you intend to make good on that threat!”
Yes, he wanted to yell.
I want to sleep with you so badly I’d do almost anything to accomplish that!
But then the intensity of her pleading look made him jerk his gaze from hers.
She was afraid of him.
He didn’t want her fear. He wanted her warm and passionate and wild, as she’d been the first time.
He strode back to the table and picked up the legal documents in which he’d accused her younger brother of a felony.
When he saw his grip on the papers made his tendons stand out, Zach knew he was dangerously close to losing control. What was her hold over him?
By all rights he should have the upper hand in this situation. Her brother had brought thugs to his home to rip him off. He had every right to demand justice. But Tuck, who’d trusted him, needed help. He needed direction. Zach remembered how he himself had been derailed as a kid due to vengeful adult agendas.
Feeling torn between his ruthless desire and his personal code of ethics, Zach threw the documents onto the table. Then he glared at Summer fiercely, willing revulsion into his gaze.
But she was wide-eyed, vulnerable. Her perfect face was tight-lipped and pale; her shoulders slumped. She’d said she never wanted to see him again, but she’d come today. With a career like hers, she’d probably been busy as hell, but she’d come because she was genuinely worried about her brother and wanted to help him.
When she’d thanked Zach for getting the right doctors, he’d seen real gratitude in her eyes. And he’d liked pleasing her. Too much. In that white dress, which clung in all the right places, she looked young and innocent—not to mention breathtakingly sexy.
He wanted her in his bed. He wanted revenge for all that she’d done to him.
Do what she’s accused you of. Use Tuck. Make your demands.
Yet something held him back.
For years, he’d told himself he hated her, had willed himself to hate her. But when he’d held her and kissed her at her grandmother’s house, his hate had been tempered by softer, more dangerous emotions.
He’d once believed that if he had enough money and power, he would never be vulnerable to the pull of love again.
But now here she was, with her golden hair smelling of perfume and shimmering with coppery highlights so bright they dazzled him, with her lips full and moist, with her long-lashed eyes smoldering with repressed need.
Was she lonely, too? He wanted to hold her against his body and find out.
But more than that, fool that he was, he wanted to protect her. And her idiot brother.
He had to get out of here, go somewhere where he could think this through.
To her, he snarled, “This meeting’s canceled.” Then he punched the intercom and spoke to his lawyer’s secretary. “Tell Davis to take over.”
“I don’t understand,” Summer whispered. “What about Tuck?”
“I’ll deal with you two later.”
She let out a frightened sigh that cut him to the quick. “Zach, please …”
He wanted to turn to make sure she was all right.
Instead, he shrugged his broad shoulders and sucked in a breath.
To hell with her.
Without a backward glance, he strode out of the room.
Three
He was impossible! Arrogant! Rude!
If he’d slapped her, Zach couldn’t have hurt Summer more than he had when he’d turned his back on her and walked out.
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