- -
- 100%
- +
www.millsandboon.co.uk
To Patience—
for her compassion, perseverance,
and…well, patience!
Thanks so much.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
EMPTY offices were dark and spooky at night.
Callie Stevens took the stairs. She didn’t want to use the elevator. Too noisy, and the last thing she wanted was to draw any attention from the night watchman.
By the time she’d climbed to the fifth floor of ACW Properties, she was beginning to rethink that position. But she had to be careful. After all, she’d just been fired by Harry Carver, the elderly CEO. She wasn’t supposed to be here at all.
Reaching the sixth-floor landing, she stopped to catch her breath and listen for signs of life. Glass sconces lined the hallways giving off a dim light, but nothing was stirring. A sigh of relief and she made her way toward the area where her little cubicle stood among all the rest.
The light from the hallway cast an eerie spell over the room, lengthening shadows and making hiding places where they weren’t meant to be. She stopped for a moment, orienting herself and feeling a sharp pang of regret. She’d liked this job. She was going to miss it—and the money that went with it.
Looking around quickly, she finally saw the object of her quest—her treasured orchid plant. She’d left it behind during the hectic ten minutes they’d given her to clean out her desk before escorting her off the premises. She’d been afraid someone might have thrown it in the trash, but there it was up on the high corner of a metal bookcase.
She glanced around quickly for something to climb on. There was no stepladder, so she pushed a chair over and hopped up, stretching high. Her fingers could barely reach. She’d just made contact with the ceramic pot that held her floral darling when the lights of the room snapped on and a deep male voice sent a shock wave slicing through her.
“Looking for something, Ms. Stevens?”
She screamed.
It wasn’t a very loud scream, more of a yelp, really. But it was enough to cause her to lose her balance. She grabbed at the edge of the shelf, but it was too late. She was falling and so was the ceramic pot with the orchid she’d come back to rescue.
She hit bottom with a thud, but not the sharp, painful smack she’d expected. It took a couple of seconds for her adrenaline to fade and her mind to register that the man who’d startled her had stepped forward and tried to break her fall, and that she’d smashed him to the floor for his trouble—and now they were locked together in an embarrassing tangle of hair and limbs.
This was not good.
“Oh!”
She scrambled to her feet and looked down at him. It was Grant Carver—her ex-supervisor—nephew of the CEO who’d fired her and just about the last person she wanted to see.
He looked a bit dazed. She could probably make a run for it and get away. She drew in a sharp breath, wondering….
But then she saw the ooze of blood at the corner of his mouth and she gasped. The back of her head must have hit him in the face.
“Oh!” she cried again, dropping to her knees beside him. “Are you all right? Oh my God, you’re hurt.”
His deep blue eyes opened and regarded her coolly from beneath thick, dark lashes. “Ya think?” he murmured. Grimacing, he reached up to touch his lip and drew back a bloody hand.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said. “What can I do?”
“Here’s what you can do,” he said, his voice husky. “You can walk over to that desk.” He gestured toward the supervisor’s desk.
She jumped up and did as he suggested, looking back at him questioningly. “This one?”
“Yes.” He nodded, and winced in a way that made her bite her lip in regret. “Now you can pick up that phone.”
She did so, still watching him for directions.
“And you can dial 9 for building security. Tell them to call the police. We’ve got an intruder who needs arresting.”
“Oh!” She slammed the phone back down.
She should have known. All her compassion drained away. She’d worked with Grant Carver quite a few times in the year and a half she’d been here and she had yet to figure him out. Though he was cool and somewhat sardonic on the surface, she’d often sensed an underlying current in him that disturbed her. The man had secret demons.
Most of her female co-workers tended to swoon as he passed, but she’d never been one to fall for wide shoulders and crystal-blue eyes. She knew from experience that male beauty could hide a shriveled soul.
Still, did it matter? She didn’t really believe he would have her arrested. Tongue-lashed, certainly. But arrested? No.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” she said, walking slowly back to stand with hands on her hips over where he’d pulled himself up into a sitting position on the floor.
He was rubbing the back of his dark head as though he’d hit it hard enough to get a lump. He was still dressed in suit pants and a white shirt, though that was open at the neck and his tie and suit coat were missing. She couldn’t ignore the fact that he was a very large, very handsome man. But that hadn’t mattered when she’d worked for him. Why should it matter now?
“You’re not going to have me arrested,” she told him firmly, watching as he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and held it to his cut lip.
He looked skeptical. “I’m not?”
She shook her head. “No, you’re not.”
“I don’t know,” he said doubtfully, looking up at her. He began counting off the charges on his fingers. “Trespassing. Possibly breaking and entering. Definitely assault and battery. Assault with a deadly…” He frowned. “What is that thing?”
She picked the remnants up off the floor. The purple glazed pot was in pieces, but the inner plastic container looked unharmed. It held a couple of leathery leaves and a long stalk with a full violet blossom wobbling giddily at the end of it.
“It was an orchid pot.”
“Okay. Assault with an orchid pot.”
He considered that for a moment, frowned slightly, then shook his head. “On second thought, maybe we ought to skip the phone call,” he said, rising effortlessly to his feet and towering over her. “I can exact my own brand of punishment.”
That gave her a momentary shiver, but she would rather eat dirt than let him see her squirm. She tried to tell herself that his height was partly exaggerated by the finely tooled cowboy boots he wore, but she knew the truth. He was tall.
“I hardly think that will be necessary,” she said, holding his gaze with her own, no shivers showing.
“And I hardly think you’re in the position to make these decisions,” he shot back.
“Look, the only reason I fell was because you startled me.” A thought occurred to her and she frowned. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
He stared at her. “What am I doing here? It’s my family’s company.”
She shrugged. She wasn’t going to give up any ground if she could help it. “I thought you were off in West Texas somewhere for the week.”
“I’m back.”
So it seemed. Just more of her bad luck. “It’s after hours. This building is supposed to be empty.”
He looked at her as though he’d decided she had a screw loose after all. “Oh, I see. So I’m the one not following rules.”
Ridiculous. She knew that. But what the heck—the best defense was a good offense. She’d heard that many times. And she certainly had no intention of begging for mercy. So what else could she do?
“Exactly,” she said, holding his gaze. “You’re certainly the one who caused all the trouble.”
He stared at her and suddenly, he grinned. And then he laughed.
She stepped back, startled again. Who knew he even had a sense of humor? She felt hesitant, thrown off guard. She was perfectly comfortable defending herself against a strong man, but she wasn’t sure what to do with a man who laughed.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he drawled at last, eyes sparkling. “I say we blame it on the orchid. That makes about as much sense.”
She looked down at what she’d gathered in her hands. Watching her, he held back a chuckle. She seemed to be taking him so seriously. And that reminded him of what he’d always liked about her. She wasn’t a flirt.
He’d had his fill of flirts. Women sometimes seemed to respond to him like flowers opened to the sun. There’d been a time when he’d reveled in it. But that time had long since passed. Now it just got in the way.
Not that he was dead to physical appeal. With her thick blond hair and her large dark eyes, Callie Stevens was a looker and he had the same involuntary attraction to her any normal man would have. Still, he was experienced enough to know it didn’t mean a thing. It would never touch him where he lived. Nothing much did anymore. Life was more tolerable that way.
“Orchids are plants,” Callie was saying, looking at him with a crease between her brows that told him she knew he’d been teasing her, but wanted to challenge him anyway.
“Agreed. So what?”
She looked triumphant. “No free will. You can’t assign blame to them. They have no choice in how they’re flung about.”
He had the grace to pretend chagrin. “I’ll have to admit, you’ve got a point there,” he said.
She hesitated only briefly. If he was admitting things, it was definitely time for her to make a grand departure.
“Of course I do,” she said regally. “Now if you’ll excuse me…”
She turned to go, but his hand on her arm brought her to a halt before she’d made a convincing attempt at a getaway. She looked up at him, wishing she could read the intentions in those clear blue eyes.
“Hold it,” he was saying. “We’re not finished here.”
For the first time, she really did feel uneasy. She was alone in a darkened building with a man she really didn’t know all that well. She’d been one with six others in the research group under Grant Carver, but they were only one of four groups he supervised. She had worked closely with him on a couple of projects, but there’d been a natural reserve between them and it hadn’t only come from her end of the relationship.
She’d had a strange encounter with him once, months ago, where he’d made a proposal that was so off-the-wall, she sometimes wondered if she’d dreamed it. She’d turned him down and he hadn’t seemed to hold it against her. But it had made her wonder about him. She knew there was tragedy in his life. If she hadn’t known it from the office buzz, she would have recognized it in the depths of his eyes.
But that was all he’d ever revealed. In fact, she’d probably seen more honest emotion from him tonight than she’d seen in over a year of working for him.
For some reason, her attention dropped to his open shirt and stuck there for a beat too long. It wasn’t as though she could actually see anything. The lighting cast dark shadows on his chest. But the fact that the crisp white fabric that was usually closed behind a tie now lay open, exposing something mysterious, was somehow intimate and exciting in a way she hadn’t expected. Her pulse stuttered in surprise and began to race.
But she couldn’t let him know.
“I’m finished,” she responded, looking back up quickly. “I came for my orchid and I’ve got it.”
“There must have been an easier way,” he noted dryly.
“Probably,” she said. “But I never seem to do things the easy way.”
He nodded. “You do things in a pretty good way, from what I’ve seen. As I remember it, you worked on the Ames Ranch project last year, didn’t you?”
Work. Yes, if he kept this on a professional level, she could handle it. If only he weren’t touching her. His fingers had curled around her arm in a casual grip, but when she tried to pull away, he didn’t budge. For all intents and purposes, he had her trapped.
“Yes, sir, I did,” she said stoutly.
“And quite handily, too.” His handsome head tilted as he studied her from narrowed eyes. “You were the only one on the staff who seemed to understand what the hell was going on most of the time.”
You actually noticed? She didn’t really say it, but it was on the tip of her tongue. But she would have followed that up with, Why didn’t you give me any credit for that at the time?
He was gazing at her speculatively. “I think we could do some good work together. I’ve got a new project coming up…”
Her eyes widened. Tossing her thick blond hair back, she stared right into his deep eyes.
“Too late. Your uncle fired me today. Didn’t you know?”
She’d expected him to react with surprise. Maybe even shock. After all, he’d just admitted she was one of the best employees he had. When he realized what had happened surely he would do something to straighten things out. Surely he would tell her he’d reprimand whomever it was that put her on the list for layoffs. Maybe he would invite her to come back and even give her a nice fat raise to make up for…
Her head jerked as she came out of her dream and heard how he actually responded to her announcement of her firing.
“Yes, I know.”
“You know?” she echoed stupidly.
He knew. He’d probably put her on the list on purpose. Hey, fire the blond chick—she’s good but she gets on my nerves. Smart is one thing, smart aleck is another. Get rid of her.
Suddenly she was furious—as angry as she’d been when she’d first heard she was a goner. Pulling away from his grip on her arm, she turned on him fiercely.
“But you think you know everything, don’t you? Did you also know I just lost my second job, the one I use to help get out of a mountain of debt that’s about to eat me alive? Did you also know that I’m about to be evicted from my apartment because I can’t pay the rent? Do you ever think about things like that when you casually toss people overboard? Or are we just like chess pieces in a big, careless game that doesn’t mean a thing to you?”
His handsome face could have been cut from stone. “Are you finished?”
“No! There are others just like me. Everyone in the research department, in fact. We were all living by the skin of our teeth, paycheck to paycheck…because you don’t exactly pay a lot to your lower-level employees, do you? And now every one of us is out on her ear, wondering where the next meal is coming from….”
“Okay, enough,” he demanded, stopping the words in her throat. “Can the outrage, Norma Rae. We don’t encourage peasant rebellions around here.” He’d pulled out another handkerchief and was wiping at the blood on his face and dabbing at the mess it had made on the front of his shirt.
“Imagine the damage you could have done with a pitchfork,” he muttered.
A sharp retort sprang to her lips, but before she could get the words out, she noticed that the bleeding was worse than she’d thought. She had to bite her lip to hold back a small cry. Every instinct in her wanted to leap forward and do something about the wound. Heal him. Maybe even comfort him. After all, it was pretty much her fault, no matter what she said to him.
The funny thing was he’d never looked more attractive to her. His dark hair was mussed, some of it falling down over his forehead. And there was a sort of vulnerability to him because of the cut and the blood and all. He usually looked so invincible. It was a refreshing change in a way.
And then he ruined it all by looking up with his mouth twisted in the usual sardonic style.
“Come along, my little attempted murderess,” he said, turning toward the corridor. “You’re going to have to fix what you’ve broken.”
She followed willingly enough as he led the way to his office. Guilt was making her pliable for the moment.
She hadn’t been in his office very often. She knew women who looked for any excuse to make a visit here, but she wasn’t one of them. As the best-looking unattached male—and the CEO’s nephew—he was considered quite a catch.
She’d never found him all that attractive herself. Too much arrogance there. That take-charge attitude did nothing but put her off. It reminded her too much of her short but miserable marriage. Not that Grant was anything like Ralph, really. At least Grant’s arrogance was based on a certain level of competence. Ralph’s had been mostly bluster.
Still, she’d vowed she would never again let a man rule her life the way her husband had tried to rule hers all those years and she tended to stay clear of men like Grant.
His office was a lot like him—handsome and well-maintained. Plush carpeting muffled sound; leather, wood and black glass provided a rich atmosphere. One framed photograph, set high at the back of the office, immediately drew the eye. The beautiful dark-haired woman holding an even more beautiful dark-eyed toddler had to be the wife and child she knew had died in a horrible car accident a few years ago.
The tragedy of losing a child—she could hardly bear to think of it. They said he’d changed after the accident. That he became a completely different person. She had no way of knowing what he’d been like before, but she found it hard to believe he’d been full of joy and laughter and the milk of human kindness in his earlier incarnation. The man she knew was totally focused on business and success and not much else.
So…just as she was a widow, he was a widower. She’d never put those two identities together like that before. Just the thought made her jump back mentally, as though she’d put her hand on a hot stove. No, she didn’t want to go there.
“So, where is your first-aid kit?” she asked. She put the pieces of her orchid pot on the desk and turned, noting there was a door leading to a private bathroom.
“I’ll take care of the cut,” he said, beginning to shrug out of his shirt. “You take care of the bloodstains on this.”
He held out the shirt to her but she had a hard time noticing. Her attention was caught and held by the incredible sight of his beautiful torso.
Men his age weren’t supposed to look this good. He had to be in his thirties. By then, most males she knew had started to let lust for potato chips and beer overcome the desire to work out at the gym. Somebody had forgotten to clue Grant in to the routine. He was as gorgeous as a Greek statue.
And just as cold, she reminded herself quickly, working hard to keep her breathing steady.
She felt numb as she took the shirt and started toward the sink in the bathroom. Had she stared too long? Had he noticed? Oh please, don’t let him have noticed! She turned the faucet up high and began scrubbing at the shirt with all her might.
“I don’t know,” he was saying, and there he was right behind her again, looking into the mirror over her head and dabbing at the wound. “What do you think? Iodine? Mercurochrome?”
She turned to look at his cut, but he was standing much too close and all she could look at was the golden skin, the stunning muscles. Could she actually feel the heat from his body? He smelled so good, like soap and fresh-cut grass. For just a moment, she was overwhelmed by the need to touch him. It swept over her in a choking wave and she felt herself yearning toward him. Every part of her wanted to feel that beautiful flesh.
It had been far too long since a man had held her in his arms.
“Oh!” she cried, turning back. “Go out,” she ordered, staring down at the white shirt still in the sink and pointing toward the door.
“What’s the matter?”
“You’re like…naked!”
“I’m not naked. I just don’t have a shirt on.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “You’re naked. Either you go out or I will.”
He was about to say something. She could feel him revving up for it. He was either going to blast her for being ridiculous or tease her for being a ninny. She gritted her teeth, getting ready for it.
But to her relief, he resisted the temptation and quietly left the room. She sighed, knowing she’d given the game away. But there had been nothing else she could have done, except maybe to run screaming from the room herself.
It wasn’t really him, she told herself a bit hysterically. It was just…well, she was a woman, after all. And he was the most gorgeous man she’d been this close to in a long, long time. Still, she wished she hadn’t revealed herself that way.
She finished washing his shirt and when she came out into the office, she found him pulling on a T-shirt he’d found somewhere. It hugged his bulges and emphasized his assets, but it was better than his being naked.
“I hung your shirt on a hook in the bathroom to dry,” she told him without meeting his gaze.
He turned to look at her, reminded immediately of what he liked about her. She was efficient and to the point. Her smile didn’t drip with saccharin and she didn’t bat her eyes. He’d been surprised at the way she’d reacted a few minutes before. Usually she was almost as careful and controlled as he was.
And that was why he’d thought she might be interested in a business proposition he’d put to her a few months before. She’d responded as though he’d asked her to sign over her soul to him and he thought she’d overreacted. Still, he hadn’t been able to get the possibility out of his mind ever since.
“Am I allowed this close to you?” he teased.
“As long as you’re dressed,” she said calmly, flashing a sharp look his way. “Naked men make me nervous.”
“Me, too,” he said. “Naked women, on the other hand…”
“Should obviously be kept out of your reach.”
He laughed. “Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m just a tame family man.” Reality flashed into his mind and his smile faded. He had no family anymore.
“Or at least I used to be,” he murmured softly, staring into space.
Funny. It had been almost two years since Jan had died. There were now times when he could go a few days without the wave of nausea, the sharp pain in his heart and the cramping of his stomach muscles at the thought of her and what he’d lost. And then it would come again, slapping him in the face when he least expected it. Like now.
She was the only woman he’d ever loved or ever could love. And because of that, he almost welcomed the pain. Anything that would bring her closer for a moment. He would never get over it. He didn’t want to get over it. Jan was still his wife, now and forever.
On the other hand, he ached for a child. His little Lisa had been as beloved as a baby could be and he missed her almost as much as he missed Jan. But over the last year or so, the need for another child had been growing in him. He wanted a son. A baby to fill up the hole in his heart. A child to give him a future.
“Are you thinking this way because of Granddad?” his sister, Gena, had asked him just the other day when he’d hinted at his longing. “I know he’s on all the time about wanting you to marry again so you can have a son to carry on the name.”
“‘Grant Carver, the name of Texas heroes’,” he quoted his grandfather in a voice very like his, and they both laughed. “No, this has nothing to do with getting married.”
“Children usually come with mothers attached,” she’d warned him.
She meant a wife, of course. She thought he ought to look for someone to marry.
“I’ll find a way around that,” he’d told his sister artlessly.
“You can’t have a baby without getting married,” she’d insisted.
“Oh, yeah? Watch me.”
But he wasn’t as confident as he pretended. He’d looked into the various options open to him and had found it wasn’t as easy as you might think. You couldn’t just order up a new kid the way he’d bought his new Lamborghini. Not if you wanted the child to actually carry your genes.