Читать онлайн книгу «Guardian Groom» автора Sandra Marton
Guardian Groom
Sandra Marton
LANDON'S LEGACY When a will leads to a wedding… This is Grant's story: "What a legacy for my father to leave me. Crista Adams - my ward! But the woman is no more a child than I am. In fact, with her lifestyle, I doubt Crista ever was a child. Why is it, then, that I, who've never let a woman get under my skin, am so jealous of every man in Crista's life?That's why I've decided to really act as her guardian. I've demanded that she move in with me. But that's surely the craziest idea I've ever had! Now I have the feeling that nothing in my life will ever be the same again… .The second story in Sandra Marton's gripping new series, Landon's Legacy - where four hearts are unleashed by one man's bequest.
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#uedddf466-44d6-5543-8b2e-b97965f94aaa)
Excerpt (#u4c9c33b0-19e1-58b9-b3e1-872b3904c990)
Dear Readers (#u6cff2a42-3703-5892-b625-13ee8ab99d42)
Title Page (#ue71b4a2e-23e9-5259-bf89-a5d627d0ed92)
Prologue (#uff1a1cb3-11b8-5a5b-a67d-d1d849d149d6)
Chapter One (#u5b97c403-7f1b-5b7b-a325-f810512cdd30)
Chapter Two (#u060c5808-e30d-5da4-8522-1dc767f5a1c6)
Chapter Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
When Charles Landon dies, the legacy he leaves behind has very different implications for each of his four children. For sophisticated GRANT LANDON it means that CRISTA ADAMS, his ward, is more than he’d bargained for! What all of the Landons find through Landon’s legacy, though, is the key that finally unlocks their hearts to love…
Dear Readers,
Welcome again to the exciting world of the Landons, and to the legacy that changes the lives of an entire family.
The idea for these books came to me when a friend and I met for lunch at a restaurant in New York. I overheard some women talking at the next table. They were discussing what makes a man exciting. “He has to be gorgeous,” said one. “And a rebel,” said another. “And not the least bit interested in being tamed,” said a third. The next thing I knew, Cade, Grant and Zach Landon sprang to life inside my head. They were certainly handsome, rebellious and untamable, and when I wondered what kind of women could possibly put up with them, their beautiful sister Kyra materialized and said, well, she’d always loved them, even if they were impossible!
This month, let me introduce you to Grant Landon in Guardian Groom. Grant’s a New York attorney. Master of any situation, he’s never at a loss…until he finds himself the unwilling guardian of Crista Adams, who has the face of an angel and the soul of a gypsy.
Settle back and enjoy four months of love, laughter and tears as you discover the full meaning of the Landon legacy.
With my warmest regards,
Sandra Marton
ALSO AVAILABLE IN HARLEQUIN PRESENTS
Landon’s Legacy
1808—AN INDECENT PROPOSAL
Guardian Groom
Sandra Marton
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
PROLOGUE (#ulink_93d1090f-9a34-56ad-a10f-1be3b355d103)
IT WAS late on an unseasonably warm Friday afternoon in September, and all was right in Grant Landon’s world.
The deal The New York Times had called “impossible” was almost wrapped up, the weekend stretched ahead, and tonight a long-legged beauty whose face graced half the magazine covers in the city was dining with him at his Fifth Avenue apartment—which didn’t dim his growing interest in the blue-eyed blonde seated on the other side of his desk.
They had been dueling for the past several hours, each trying to gain the upper hand, but Grant knew better than to allow his attention to be diverted by something other than the intricacies of contract law. Now, with the deal concluded, he could see that she was all the diversion one man could handle.
Alicia Madigan was bright, sophisticated, and coolly elegant. A woman to his liking—and Grant knew just the way she’d like to be handled. A shadowy smile curved across his mouth at the thought, softening the hard, handsome lines of his face.
The Madigan woman noticed.
“Don’t look so pleased with yourself,” she said lightly. “I’ll begin to worry that I gave away too much.”
Grant laughed softly. “Come now, Miss Madigan. You know what they say about the fine art of negotiating. You give some, you get some.”
She smiled, sat back, and crossed her legs. Her demure suit skirt inched above her knees. Grant’s eyes narrowed. Was that a flash of black lace, or was it his imagination?
“I wasn’t born yesterday, Mr. Landon. We both know what the ‘fine art of negotiating’ really means. Her eyes met his. “Get as much as you can, while you can. Isn’t that right?”
Were they still discussing the intricacies of contract negotiations? Or had they moved on to an entirely different sort of negotiation?
“Perhaps.” Grant smiled. “But I’ve never taken pleasure in an arrangement that wasn’t mutually agreeable.”
Alicia Madigan gave a throaty laugh. “So I’ve heard.” Her long legs scissored again. There was no mistaking the flash of black lace this time. “You know,” she said softly, “I was as excited at the prospect as I was wary of the consequences of dealing with the famous Grant Landon.”
Grant’s smile tilted. “I have difficulty envisioning you as wary of anyone, Miss Madigan.”
“Alicia, please. Surely, we don’t have to be so formal now.” The tip of her pale pink tongue peeked from between her teeth and slicked across her bottom lip as she rose from her chair. “In fact, I was thinking we might have a drink together. Perhaps dinner. And then—well, who knows?”
Grant felt his body tighten as she came toward him. He looked her over slowly, his hazel eyes moving the length of her body in frank appraisal. Instinct told him that he could take her now, that she wanted to be taken now. All he had to do was go to her, put his hands under that seemingly demure skirt, shove it above her thighs…
“You’re very direct,” he said, his voice a little thick as he pushed back his chair and got to his feet.
“I am.” She put her hand on his arm; he could feel the heat of her fingers through the soft wool of his jacket. “Does it offend you?”
“On the contrary. I find it admirable.” He lifted his hand to her cheek and stroked his forefinger across the prominent arch. “I’m a believer in honesty in relationships.”
“So I’ve heard.” She smiled. “It’s a trait I admire.”
Grant smiled, too. “But I should warn you that I am old-fashioned about some things.”
“You’re not going to tell me that it would be a conflict of interest for us to cultivate our friendship, are you?” Alicia Madigan said with a little laugh.
Slowly, his eyes never leaving hers, Grant reached out and cupped his hand lightly over her breast. He heard her catch her breath, the sound loud as a gunshot in the silence.
“Actually,” he said, his tone almost conversational, “I was thinking about the concept of giving and taking.” She gave a choked moan of pleasure as his thumb swept lightly across her breast; he felt the swift hardening of her nipple beneath her suit jacket. “And you ought to know that I prefer to be the one who decides what to give.” His thumb moved again. “And what to take. Is that a problem?”
“Oh no,” she said. He could see her fighting for control of herself. “No, that’s not a problem at all. You can—”
His hand moved. Her fingers clamped tightly around his wrist as he stroked her; he could feel the sudden fierce tremor of excitement that swept through her body.
The realization that he’d so quickly cut through her cool, assertive exterior was almost as pleasing as it was disappointing. What she promised now didn’t matter. Later, she would want something more, something he could not give.
There had been women who’d accused him of having no heart, but it wasn’t true. He could take pleasure in a relationship—but love? Love was a word invented by greeting-card makers. It was not real. Any sensible man knew that, and Grant had always been a sensible man.
Suddenly, he felt weary, far older than his thirty-two years, and tired of this game he had played so many times before. He stepped back, took Alicia Madigan gently by the shoulders, and smiled at her.
“Give me your number,” he said. “I’ll call you.”
“But…” Her blue eyes clouded. “I thought—”
“Not tonight,” he said gently. “But soon. I promise.”
There was a moment’s silence, and then a tight smile curled across her mouth.
“I suppose I should be insulted—but I think I’d rather consider it a challenge.” She bent and picked up her briefcase. “My number’s in the book,” she said. Her voice was cool, and gave no hint of what had just happened. “Please have the contract changes in my office first thing Monday morning.”
Grant nodded, smiled, and watched as she made the long walk to the door. Once it shut after her, he blew out his breath.
“Hell,” he muttered, as his gaze swept across the clock on his desk. He was running late. By the time he shaved, showered, then dressed, his date would be here. Kimberly would not like having to cool her heels, he thought as he took off his jacket and laid it neatly over the back of his desk chair.
But she’d wait.
They always did.
Crista Adams was running late, too, and she felt terrible about it—especially since she’d promised Danny she’d be on time tonight.
She paused to catch her breath on the fifth-floor landing of the Greenwich Village tenement. At least she’d remembered to stop for a bottle of wine. As for being late—well, that hadn’t been her choice. Gus had asked her to stay an extra hour to fill in for one of the other girls and she’d ended up with a tableful of beer guzzlers who thought waitresses had been put on this planet for their amusement.
Crista grimaced as she headed toward her apartment. It wasn’t worth thinking about. Getting hit on went with the territory down here, especially when Gus insisted that his waitresses wear short leather skirts, knee-high boots, and T-shirts that clung like a second skin. But the tips were good, you could work just about as many hours as you could handle and, slowly but steadily, she was beginning to save money toward the future.
Some day, she thought as she dredged out her keys, she’d have enough to open a little shop where she could sell the silver jewelry she loved to create. Until then, this life wasn’t so bad. At least she was answerable to no one but herself. And if the loudmouths and wise guys got the wrong idea about her and tried to push the issue…Crista smiled as she unlocked the apartment door. Well, she had her own security system just inside.
What fool would try any funny stuff, once he saw Danny?
“It’s me,” she called as she stepped into the postage-stamp-size living room. A gray cat with a mangled ear came hurrying toward her, meowing plaintively. Crista smiled and bent to pat its head. “Hello, Sweetness,” she cooed. “Did you miss me?”
The cat wove through her ankles as she walked to the kitchen where a pot simmered on the old-fashioned gas stove, a delicious aroma of garlic floating into the air. She put down the wine, scooped the mane of silky black hair away from her high-cheekboned face, and leaned down for a look.
“Mmm,” she sighed.
Danny’s sauce was always wonderful. Crista grinned as she shrugged off her jacket and tossed it across a chair. What more could a woman ask of the person who shared her apartment? Danny could cook, he loved animals, he didn’t mind the fact that she spent her spare time fashioning jewelry out of silver and beads—and he had more muscles than Sylvester Stallone.
That was the first thing she’d noticed about him, the day he’d shown up in answer to her ad—the day she’d been determined to turn him away.
“I want a female roommate,” she’d said firmly. “My ad specifically said—”
“The ad says two bedrooms, doesn’t it, Ms. Adams?”
“Yes, but—”
The gray cat had chosen that moment to come strutting in.
“Hey,” Danny had said, “you’ve got a cat.” He’d shot her a grin as he squatted down beside Sweetness. “I love cats.”
Crista’s smile had been politely dismissive. “That’s very nice, Mr. Amato. But my ad distinctly said ‘Single female to share 2 bedroom Village walk-up—’”
“Nice earrings. Never saw anything like ‘em before.”
She’d touched one of the little clusters of silver bells hanging from her lobes and then she’d frowned.
“Thank you. But—”
“Listen, Ms. Adams. I know what you’re thinking.”
Crista’s violet eyes had been cool. “I doubt it.”
“You’re thinking,” he’d said pleasantly, “this guy moves in here, he’s gonna hit on me.”
Crista hadn’t flinched. “And won’t you?”
“Tell me the truth, Ms. Adams. Am I your type?”
He wasn’t. Oh, he was handsome, but the fact was that Crista had yet to meet a man who was her typebut that was nobody’s business but her own.
“No,” she’d said bluntly, “you’re not.”
“And you’re not mine, Ms. Adams. You’re certainly a looker, but the vibes are all wrong—if you know what I mean.”
Crista had hesitated. Every loony in New York seemed to have answered her ad. This guy, at least, wasn’t mumbling about trips back home to Mars. He’d already shown her his references—and, she’d suddenly realized, sharing an apartment with a man who looked like Mr. Muscle might turn out to be an unexpected bonus.
To her surprise and his, Crista had agreed to a week’s trial—and she’d never regretted it, she thought as she filled a pot with water and set it on to boil. If Danny had one failing, it was that he was sometimes behind on his half of the rent payments, but struggling actors were not known for their wealth.
Anyway, there were more important things than money. Crista’s smile dimmed. She knew that better than anyone. She’d spent her teen years in the lap of luxury, the ward of a coldhearted uncle she’d never known existed until her parents’ deaths. Simon had wasted no time in telling her how her mother had lured her father from the bosom of his family.
“And you,” he’d snapped, “are her very image, in looks and in temperament.”
He had spent the next years determinedly trying to remake that image through private schooling and cultural tours of Europe. Shortly before Crista’s twentieth birthday, the situation had become intolerable. She’d moved out, and Simon had washed his hands of her.
That had been months ago. Still, when she’d read of his death in the paper a few weeks before, she’d gone to his funeral. Simon would have laughed; he’d have called her sentimental, a vulgar emotion he’d abhorred. But he was all the family she had, and sometimes, in the darkest moments of the night, she thought about how alone she was…
“Hey.” She looked up. Danny was standing in the doorway, his hair damp from the shower. “Why the long face?”
Crista cleared her throat. “What long face?” she said briskly.
“Did you hear the one about the camel and the goat?”
She groaned. “Only a thousand times.”
“I’ve got a new version, guaranteed to make you smile.”
He was right; the joke did make her smile. In fact, she almost forgot the brief sense of despair that had engulfed her moments ago…
Almost. But not quite.
Grant stood on the terrace of his Fifth Avenue penthouse, sipping a glass of Dom Pérignon from a Baccarat flute, waiting for Kimberly to reappear.
“Such a glum expression,” she’d said in a little-girl voice, just before she’d traipsed off to the powder room. “Don’t worry, darling. When I come back, I’ll make you smile.”
He doubted that, Grant thought grimly. He was bored, he was tired of watching Kimberly watch herself in every reflective surface, and he was hungry. What had his housekeeper left in the kitchen? Canard a l’Orange? Whatever it was, it had to wait until Kimberly put in an appearance.
He shot another look through the open terrace doors into the elegant white-on-white living room. Where the devil was she? She’d said she needed to fix her face—although what you could fix on that face was beyond him. It was so perfect it was almost expressionless, something he’d never noticed before tonight.
“Hell,” Grant muttered, and put the champagne flute down none too gently on a glass-topped table.
What was wrong with him? The feeling of disquiet that had begun late this afternoon had grown so that now he felt edgy and irritable. A premonition, his sister, Kyra, would have said.
He frowned. Kyra? What did she have to do with anything? Why was he thinking of her when—
The telephone on the table beside him shrilled. He picked it up.
“Yes?” he said brusquely. It was Jane, his secretary.
A shape materialized at the far end of the living room. Kimberly was sauntering toward him, her hips swinging as if she were on a modeling runway. She was wearing a scarlet teddy, a sultry pout, and nothing else.
Grant’s breath caught, but not because of Kimberly. He turned away and pressed the phone more tightly to his ear.
“I see. Thank you, Jane. You did the right thing. I can make it. Would you phone my sister and tell her I’m on my way? And my brothers. You have Zach’s Boston number. Cade is in the Middle East. Ask Zach if—Fine. I’ll be in touch.”
He hung up the phone, cleared his throat, and turned to face Kimberly, who was breathing moistly against his neck.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but something’s come up.”
She giggled and put her hand on him. The scent of her perfume, sweet and cloying, filled his nostrils.
“Not yet it hasn’t,” she purred. “But it will.”
Grant’s hand clamped hard around her wrist. “I have a plane to catch,” he said. “Take your time dressing. The doorman will put you in a taxi when you come down.”
“A plane?” Kimberly said, her voice filled with bewilderment. “But I thought we…” Her voice rose as he brushed past her. “Grant, what’s so important that…?”
He wondered what she would say if he told her what was so important, if he said, well, Kimberly, if you must know, my father—a man I feel less for than I would for a stranger—my father, Charles Landon, is dead.
But he only turned and strode through the perfect living room, up the curved staircase to his bedroom. By the time he came down again, carrying a leather weekend bag, he had forgotten Kimberly existed.
In the taxi to the airport he puzzled, briefly, over the sense of disquiet that had plagued him all day. He wasn’t about to give any credence to the idea of premonitions. Still…
Grant sighed wearily, sat back and closed his eyes.
In Greenwich Village, Crista paused with a forkful of pasta halfway to her lips.
“What’s the matter?” Danny asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Just—just a funny feeling…”
“A goose walked over your grave.” He grinned at the look on her face. “Listen, when you have a grandmother from the Old Country, you pick up all kinds of weird stuff.”
“A goose, huh?” Crista laughed, stabbed her fork into her spaghetti, and began to eat her dinner.
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_eac5d8d8-82c9-5cdd-8d8c-ab140adaeae9)
THE sun was coming up fast over the Rocky Mountains, but the highest peaks were still shrouded in mist and the wind blowing across Emerald Lake was chill. Grant, who’d worked up a sweat during his five-mile run, shivered a little as he entered the aspen grove that led to the Landon mansion.
Gravel crunched under his Nikes, the sound a gritty counterpoint to the rasp of his own breath. He’d run this distance every morning for almost as long as he could remember, but it was a long time since he’d done his running at this altitude. His hard muscles ached, his heart was pounding, his lungs were working hard…
And he was loving every minute of it.
How could he have forgotten how peaceful it was here? Except for a pair of startled mule deer, Grant had the lake and the slopes all to himself. No cars, no trucks, no people, nothing but the deer, the sky, and the mountains.
Damn, but this was one hell of a beautiful spot.
Grant’s mouth twisted in a grimace. Except for the mansion rising just ahead, it was perfect.
The house was monstrous in size and in pretension. It should have been made of fieldstone and glass, with soaring, clean lines. Instead, it was massive, built of concrete and brick, and as out of place as it was opulent. The mansion didn’t harmonize with its setting, it competed with it—and lost, Grant thought as he slowed to a walk. Hell, it was no contest.
His lips twisted again. “Be it ever so humble,” he muttered as he trotted up the steps to the flagstone terrace, “there’s no place like home.”
He smiled bitterly as he snatched his towel from the lounge chair. If there was one thing this place had never been, it was a home. He’d hated the house when he was a boy and he hated it still.
It was a damned good thing he was leaving today. A week in this place was about all he could manage and still remain sane.
Grant wiped his face with the towel. He hadn’t shaved since yesterday and the stubble of his dark beard rasped across the soft cotton. Tossing the towel aside, he reached for the Columbia Law School sweatshirt that lay on the chair, and yanked it down over his head. With a sigh, he raked his hair back from his forehead, turned and walked slowly across the terrace, and stood looking out at Emerald Lake, glittering like the jewel it had been named for under the first rays of the sun.
What a hell of a week this had been! He’d ended up having to install a private phone line, just so he could keep in touch with his New York office. The mansion’s own lines, all eight of them, had been jammed with incoming calls and faxes from newspapers and wire services and what seemed like every moneyman, politico, and bigwig industrialist from coast to coast.
“It’s a goddamned circus,” Zach had muttered one morning, after the three Landon brothers had spent a frantic hour fielding calls.
“Yeah,” Cade had said with a thin-lipped smile, “and the old man would have loved it.”
Grant shook his head as he leaned his arms on the stone wall that surrounded the terrace. Cade was right. The old man certainly would have loved it—the fuss, the media attention, the brouhaha the day of the funeral, when vans from the TV stations, the limos, and the mourners’ cars had caused a massive traffic jam on the roads leading to the cemetery where Charles had been laid to rest—oh yeah, he’d have loved that most of all.
Grant had hated every minute of it. Hell, he’d almost come to blows with a scum-sucking, freelance photographer who’d tried to slip inside the mausoleum to snag a shot of the old man’s mahogany casket as it came to rest beside Ellen Landon’s. Zach and Cade had damned near had to pull him off the guy.
Grant blew out his breath. That had been the only time he’d felt anything. First, rage at the intrusiveness of the photographer, and then a fierce stab of pain at the sight of his mother’s casket, which was ridiculous. Not that Grant hadn’t loved her—he had, of course. But Ellen had died years ago, when he was just a boy; his memories of her were dimmed by the passage of time, and besides, he was not the sort of man given to sentimentalizing the past.
His overreaction—obviously the result of exhaustion—must have shown in his face, because Kyra had slipped her hand in his and leaned into his shoulder.
“Hey,” she’d whispered, “are you okay?”
Grant, feeling foolish, had nodded and squeezed her hand in reassurance.
“I’m fine,” he’d whispered back. “What about you, Sis? How are you bearing up?”
Kyra had looked up. Her face was pale but, to his surprise, her eyes were clear and cool.
“Don’t worry about me,” she’d said. “I’m fine.”
Afterward, the crowd of mourners had gathered at the mansion to offer condolences to Grant, Cade, Zach, and Kyra.
“It must be a comfort to you,” old Judge Harris had said, his jowls quivering with solemnity, “to see how many of Denver’s finest citizens have come to pay their last respects to your dear father.”
“What he means,” Zach had murmured as soon as the judge was out of earshot, “is that Denver’s finest citizens have come to size up the new Landon regime.”
Cade had grinned. “What he really means,” he’d said, “is that they’ve decided to waste no time kissing ass.”
His kid brother had been right, Grant thought as he straightened up and turned his back to the lake. Crossing the terrace, he snatched up his towel again and made his way through the French doors that opened into the library.
It was cool inside, almost cold; the heavy red leather chairs, massive oak tables, and book-lined walls looked particularly ugly in the pale morning light. Everything was silent. The only hint of life was in the rich aroma of freshly brewed coffee that drifted in the air.
Grant smiled tightly to himself as he made his way across the Aubusson carpet. If his father could see him now, the old man would frown and tell him that he was to use the back door in the future, when he came in all sweated up from something so stupid as running. And then his lip would curl with disdain at the sight of the sweatshirt and he’d launch into the speech he always made about fancy-pants schools, when what he really meant was that it enraged him that his eldest son had chosen to defy him.
A plump figure suddenly stepped out in front of him. Stella, who’d been the Landon housekeeper for as long as Grant could remember, gasped and pressed her hand to her ample bosom.
“My goodness, Mr. Grant, you did give me a start!”
“Good morning, Stella.” Grant smiled. “I was just on my way to the kitchen. That coffee smells wonderful.”
“Why didn’t you let me know you were up? I’d have been down sooner, made you a proper breakfast. You go in the dinin’ room and sit down while I make you somethin’ to tide you over until the others come down.”
Grant had a swift vision of the gargantuan breakfasts still laid out on the sideboard every morning, despite the fact that neither he, his brothers, nor Kyra ever put a dent in them.
“No,” he said quickly, “thank you very much, Stella, but I’m afraid I haven’t the time. I’ve an appointment in—” he frowned at his watch “—in less than an hour. But I will take a cup of coffee upstairs with me.” He smiled and looped his arm lightly over her shoulders. “Did I ever tell you that you make the best coffee in the entire world?”
Color bloomed in her cheeks. “Go on,” she said, but she smiled. “You just wait here, Mr. Grant, and I’ll get you some.”
“Don’t be silly.” Grant began walking slowly down the hall. “I know how to find the kitchen.”
“Yes, but it’s not right. Your father says—”
“My father’s not master of this house anymore.” He knew he’d spoken more sharply than he’d intended, and he softened the words with a quick smile. “Tell you what. I’ll walk you to the kitchen and we’ll get that cup of coffee together.”
How long would it take everybody to get used to the change? he wondered moments later as he set his mug of coffee on the nightstand in his old bedroom.
Charles Landon wasn’t master here anymore. The old man wasn’t master of anything, he thought as he stripped off his shorts and shirt. The grim proof of that lay in what had happened yesterday, after the formal reading of the will.
Nothing in it had been a surprise. Charles had left his private fortune to Kyra, along with the house and its enormous land holdings, and he had left Landon Enterprises, the vast, multimillion-dollar conglomerate he had built, to his three sons.
The sun, streaming through the windows, felt good on Grant’s naked body. He stretched his arms, flexing the muscles that bunched beneath his taut, tanned skin. Purposefully, he made his way into his private bathroom and turned the shower on to full.
The old man would have exploded if he’d seen what had happened once the reading of the will had ended. The lawyers had barely been out the door before Zach had spoken.
“Man, what a gift,” he’d said sarcastically. “Just what I’ve always wanted—a piece of Landon Enterprises.”
Cade had wasted no time. “I’ll pass,” he’d said. “You guys can keep my share.”
Grant had bared his teeth in what he’d hoped was a smile. “Hell,” he’d said, “don’t be so generous, pal!” He’d gone to the cherry-wood bar, uncapped a bottle of Jack Daniel’s bourbon, poured generous shots into heavy Waterford tumblers and said what he’d always known in his heart. “I’d steal hubcaps for a living before I had anything to do with Landon Enterprises.”
Zach and Cade had both laughed, and Zach had raised his glass of bourbon high in the air.
“Okay,” he’d said, “it’s unanimous. The new directors of Landon Enterprises met and made their first, last, and only decision.”
“Yeah,” Grant had said, as the three tumblers clinked against each other. “By unanimous vote, the directors agreed to divest themselves of the company.”
Within minutes, they’d agreed to put Landon’s on the market and give the proceeds to charity. Then they’d raised their glasses again, this time in bittersweet celebration of finally admitting what they’d all always known.
Charles Landon’s sons had, over the years, ignored their father, argued with him, feared him and despised him—but they had never loved him.
Grant stepped from the shower, toweled himself dry, then strolled naked into the bedroom. And so it was all over. Within hours, he’d be in New York, Zach would be in Boston, and Cade would be in London. Kyra, of course, would remain here, where she belonged and where she was happy.
Hell, he couldn’t wait to get back to his own world, and his own life. There were the loose ends of that contract to tie up—and there were other loose ends, too. He smiled a little as he drew his shirt over his broad shoulders. He’d certainly been abrupt with Kimberly—Kimberly and that red teddy. But he’d been abrupt with women before, when the demands of the law had gotten in the way of his private life. A couple of dozen long-stemmed red roses, a box of Godiva chocolates…
Grant’s smile tilted. Kimberly would come around.
And then there was the Madigan woman and that tantalizing glimpse of black lace she’d flashed each time she’d crossed those long legs.
He grinned as he stepped into his trousers. What a dilemma, to have to choose between the two—or not to choose. There were lots of women in New York. Beautiful women. A man could spend his life sipping nectar from all those sweet flowers. Not that he didn’t believe in fidelity.
Grant looped his tie under his collar and knotted it. He was always faithful, he thought, smiling again—for as long as an affair lasted.
He looked into the mirror as he put on his jacket. The runner in shorts and sweatshirt was gone, replaced by a meticulously groomed man in a Savile Row suit, but then, that was who he was. The man who’d come into this bedroom with an unshaven face, grungy shorts, and a sweatshirt was just a leftover from a life he’d long ago put behind him.
Why he even kept his old running clothes was beyond him; they were so beat up that they should have been tossed out years ago.
With a grimace, Grant stuffed the shirt and shorts into a pocket of his weekend bag. This was not the time for philosophical musings. He had an appointment to keep—a breakfast meeting requested by Victor Bayliss, who’d been Charles’s number one yesman.
“You meet with the guy,” his brothers had said with unseemly haste. “It takes a lawyer to talk to a lawyer.”
Heartless bastards, Grant thought with a fond smile as he closed the bedroom door after him. Not that he minded. Bayliss undoubtedly wanted this meeting so he could cozy up to the new Landon management.
Grant could hardly wait to see the man’s face when he heard the news.
A couple of hours later, Grant threw open the massive front door to the Landon mansion, slammed it shut behind him, and strode down the hall to the dining room. They were all gathered there, just as he’d expected. Cade and Zach were horsing around as if they hadn’t a care in the world while a smiling Kyra looked on.
Hell, Grant thought angrily, why did he have to be the one to drop the bombshell?
“Dammit,” he snapped, “what’s going on here? We’re not kids anymore, in case you’ve forgotten.”
Cade and Zach swung toward him, their faces registering surprise.
“Grant?” Kyra said. “Are you okay?”
He dropped the manila folder filled with bad news on the table, walked to the sideboard, and poured himself a cup of coffee.
“I’m fine,” he said, but he knew, from the looks on their faces, that he wasn’t fooling anybody.
“So?” Cade asked after a minute. “What did Bayliss want to talk about?”
A muscle knotted in Grant’s jaw. “Trouble,” he said grimly. “That’s what he wanted to talk about.”
Zach frowned. “What kind of trouble?”
Grant picked up the file folder. There was no point in beating around the bush; this would have to be dealt with quickly.
“See for yourselves,” he said. He pulled papers from the folder and handed one stack to Cade, the other to Zach. Kyra looked at him, her brows raised, and he smiled reassuringly. There was nothing here to worry his little sister, thank goodness. After a moment, she turned toward the window.
Cade was the first to react.
“According to this report,” he said, looking at Grant, “this Dallas oil company Landon owns—Gordon’s, it’s called—is going to go under any minute.”
“What oil company?” Zach said, his expression puzzled. “I just read a profile on a Landon acquisition called Triad. It’s some kind of Hollywood production outfit—and it’s gonna sink like a stone.”
Grant nodded grimly. “You’re both right. Landon bought both firms to bail them out. Instead, we seem to have helped them get into worse condition.”
Cade bristled. “What’s this ‘we’ stuff, big brother?”
“Are you forgetting, Cade?” Grant swung toward him. “It’s us, as of yesterday. Like it or not, we’re Landon Enterprises. And we will be, until we find a buyer.”
Neither Zach nor Cade needed to be force-fed reality. Grant saw the understanding dawn in both their faces.
If either Gordon Oil or Triad Productions went under, selling Landon would become a nightmare. The company would have a hole in its balance sheet large enough to sink a battleship. Only a fool would buy it then.
Grant’s jaw clenched. His hand went to his pocket, where a scrap of paper lay. The paper was yet another problem, one so ridiculous he couldn’t bring himself to mention it. Not now anyway; not until they’d figured a way out of this mess.
“Tell Bayliss to deal with this,” Cade said.
“Bayliss retired as of this morning. He said he was too old to face another Colorado winter.” Grant smiled tightly. “Seems we read him wrong. He’s going to spend the rest of his days in the Virgin Islands, sipping piña coladas.”
“Goodwin, then. Bayliss’s second in command. He can—”
“Goodwin’s got a dozen things on his plate already.”
“Then what—”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” The brothers swung around. Kyra was glowering at them with a look on her face that said all three of them were fools. “What’s with you guys? Are you stupid, or what? A ten-year-old could figure this out!” She turned an angry glare on Zach. “You’re the financial whiz, aren’t you? Surely you could fly out to the coast, take a look at Triad’s books, and decide what can be done to help it.”
“Me? Don’t be silly. I’ve got people waiting for me in Boston. I can’t just—”
“And you,” she snapped at Cade. “You’re the genius who knows all about oil. And here’s this little company having a problem.” She slapped her hands onto her hips. “Would it be too much to hope that maybe you might be the one to check things out in Dallas?”
“It’s out of the question! I’ve business in London. I can’t—”
“She’s right,” Grant said brusquely. “You guys could get a handle on things faster than anybody else.”
There was a moment’s silence. Cade and Zach looked at each other, and then Zach threw up his arms in defeat.
“Two days,” he said, “and not a second more.”
Cade nodded. “Okay. Two days, and then…Wait just a minute.” He swung toward Grant. “What about you? Don’t tell me you’re the only one of us who gets to walk away from this mess?”
Grant’s hand clamped tightly around the paper in his pocket. Cade was flying to Texas to find out why an oil company was going under; Zach was heading for California to get a handle on a film outfit. And he—he was going back to New York to—to—
Jesus. It was ridiculous, but he was stuck with it. He took a deep breath.
“I’ve got my own mess to deal with. It seems some old pal of Father’s named him guardian of his twelve-year-old kid.”
“And?”
“And,” he said through his teeth, “until she turns twenty-one, I seem to have inherited her.”
He saw the smiles begin to curve across his brothers’ faces, saw even Kyra try, and fail, to maintain a neutral expression. But what choice was there? He was an attorney, he lived and practiced in New York. The girl lived there, too—it was no contest, he thought grimly. The child was his burden by default.
His brothers were looking at each other, their smiles rapidly becoming grins, and he glowered at them.
“You guys think this is funny? Listen, we can always swap jobs. I’ll take on Hollywood, or Dallas, and one of you can—”
“No,” Zach said quickly, “no, that’s okay, old buddy. I’ll deal with Hollywood, Cade’ll handle Dallas.” His lips twitched. “And I bet you’re going to make one hell of a terrific baby-sitter.”
Cade suppressed a snort of laughter. Grant swung toward him.
“This—this is not funny,” he choked, and then, suddenly, the grim look left his face and he burst out laughing. “Hell,” he said, “I can’t believe it, either.”
Laughing, the three men moved into a tight circle, clapped each other on the back, then joined right hands as they had when they were kids.
“To the Deadeye Defenders,” Cade said.
“To the Deadeyes,” Grant echoed, and they grinned happily at each other.
Cade stepped back. “Time to get started.”
Zach nodded. “Yeah. I’ll see you guys before I leave.”
They both hurried from the room. Grant was following after them when Kyra caught his sleeve. “Grant?”
He looked down at her and smiled. “Hey, princess, I almost forgot you were here!”
Kyra gave a short, sharp laugh. “Isn’t that the truth!”
“Well, what is it, sweetheart?”
“I wonder…” She hesitated. “I was wondering how you feel about this place. Is it important to you?”
At first, the question puzzled him, but then he understood. Kyra was worried that her brothers might feel cheated because their father had left the mansion solely to her. Grant put his arm around her shoulders.
“This house will always be important to me,” he said, “with you living in it.”
“I don’t mean that.” Her tone was impatient. “This isn’t about me, Grant, it’s about you. And Cade. And Zach. I need to know if you care about the house, and the grounds, and—”
“I’m certain they feel as I do,” Grant said in a kindly voice. “This place makes you happy, and your happiness is all that matters to us.”
Kyra wrenched free of his arm. “Dammit,” she said, her face flushed, “sometimes you all remind me of Father!”
Grant drew back. “What in hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means—it means none of you listens. You hear what you want to hear, what you think you ought to hear, what—” Kyra blinked. “Sorry. I must be tired. It’s been a long week.” She smiled, reached up, and laid her hand against his chest. “I bet you’ll be a fine guardian for this girl.”
He frowned. “I’ll do my duty, of course.”
“But if she needs a friend…”
Grant laughed. “I am not about to be a ‘friend’ to this child. I will pay her bills, see to it that her future is secure—those are the responsibilities of a guardian.”
Kyra sighed. “I suppose you’re right.” She stood on her toes and pressed her lips to his cheek. “I’m sorry I jumped on you a few minutes ago, Grant. I love you. I love all my brothers—and I always will.”
Grant hugged her. “And we love you, princess.” He kissed her forehead, then made his way past her. When he reached his room, he closed the door and let out a long sigh.
Kyra was sweet and wonderful, and he’d have willingly given his life for her—but did she really think he’d play big brother to—what was her name? Crista, that was it. Crista Adams.
One of his law partners had a daughter Crista’s age; from what Grant had seen, the poor guy was adrift in a sea of orthodontia, acne, and adolescent angst.
But he wouldn’t face any of those problems. As Crista Adams’s guardian, he’d simply be responsible for approving her expenses and signing the checks to meet them. Now that he thought about it—although he’d be damned if he’d ever admit as much to Cade and Zach—he was getting off easy.
Crista Adams’s guardian, hmm? He zipped shut his weekend case, picked it up, and walked out of the room.
What could be simpler?
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_d40c3dfc-8c13-53e9-ba08-9b39a58613ae)
GRANT generally liked Mondays. They put a clean start to the week ahead, but somehow this one already had the feel of disaster.
Why wouldn’t it? he thought, glaring at himself in the bathroom mirror as he shaved. He was about to meet the child who had become his unwanted responsibility, like it or not.
What had seemed a minor inconvenience last week in Denver was looking more and more like a catastrophe waiting to happen. A little judicious checking of guardianship laws suggested that he’d have to do more than sign checks. He might have to offer advice. Even guidance.
Grant’s mouth thinned as he rinsed off his razor. What he knew about children could fit in a pea pod with room left over. And he didn’t know a damned thing about Crista Adams.
He had phoned Simon Adams’s attorney right away but Horace Blackburn was out of the country, his holiday guarded with almost religious fervor by an iron-willed secretary who’d agreed to set up this meeting on her boss’s first day back only after Grant’s growing exasperation had become evident.
But she’d steadfastly refused to release the Adams file so that he could, at least, familiarize himself with the simple details of his ward’s life.
Grant splashed some cologne on his face and strode from the bathroom. Was the child living in her uncle’s house with a governess or was she away at boarding school? Was she a snot-nosed brat or a wellbehaved young lady? Had she been traumatized by the loss of her uncle?
Did she expect her new guardian to take her uncle’s place?
Jaw set, Grant undid the towel knotted at his hips and tossed it aside. The child would simply have to realize that her entire situation had changed, and if she couldn’t cope with that change, she’d be in for a rough ride.
At eight-thirty, just as he was about to leave, the telephone rang. It was his driver, calling to tell him that his car had a flat.
“No problem,” Grant said. “I can grab a taxi.”
But it had started to rain. Finding a cab was impossible at rush hour on a rainy Monday. With a muttered curse, Grant gave it up and sprinted for the nearest subway station.
The platform was crowded and he paced its length with growing irritation. When a train finally came shrieking into the station, the crowd surged forward as if it were the last train anyone would ever see. Grant set his jaw and shouldered his way inside.
By the time he emerged on Wall Street, his mood had gone from bad to grim. Finding that he had at least another three blocks to go in the rain without an umbrella did not improve it.
“Dammit,” he snarled to no one in particular. He turned up the collar of his jacket, ducked his head against the rain, and hurried down the street.
Crista was walking as fast as she could toward the building that housed Blackburn, Blackburn, and Katz but it wasn’t easy when the ridiculously high heels on her boots kept slipping on the slick pavement.
She sighed, thinking how much better she’d feel if she were wearing her own clothes to this meeting. But the meeting was at nine, and she had to be back in the Village to start work by eleven. There wasn’t any choice, except to wear this silly getup under her raincoat.
The letter from her uncle’s attorney had arrived by registered mail on Saturday.
Dear Miss Adams,
Your presence is required at this office Monday morning promptly at nine regarding the provisions of your late uncle’s will.
It was signed by Horace Blackburn, LL.B., J.D.
Crista had frowned. What was this about provisions in Uncle Simon’s will? There wouldn’t be anything in the will that concerned her. Simon had made that clear when she’d moved out of his home.
“You will not get one penny from me, young woman,” he’d said shrilly, wagging a bony finger in her direction. “I’m going to cut you off without a cent!”
“I never wanted anything from you, Uncle,” she’d responded—nothing he’d wanted to give her, at any rate.
So what could the estimable Horace Blackburn, LL.B., J.D., be talking about? Did some kind of legal mumbo jumbo require him to inform her that Simon had written her out of his will?
Well, she’d thought as she dialed Blackburn’s office, he could just tell her that over the phone.
A recorded voice had informed her that the offices were closed until Monday morning at nine.
Crista had grimaced. She’d just have to wait until then to make the call…
Maybe it was impulsiveness. Maybe it was stubborn pride and the determination not to be intimidated by anyone, traits that had always infuriated her uncle. But sometime between Saturday afternoon and Sunday evening, she’d changed her mind.
Crista had decided to keep the appointment.
She’d met Horace Blackburn once when Simon had consulted him about transferring her from one boarding school to another. A prissy man with the same icy bearing as his client, Blackburn’s disapproval of her had been written all over his face.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to smile sweetly at him and tell him where to get off after he’d read the words he undoubtedly hoped would bring tears to her eyes?
The more she’d thought about it, the more she’d looked forward to the chance.
But reality wasn’t measuring up to the fantasy, Crista thought glumly as she turned down Canal Street. Things had gone wrong from the minute she’d awakened this morning. She’d slept through the first jangling call of her alarm clock, and then the gray cat had managed to get himself stuck behind the refrigerator. By the time she’d finally dashed from the apartment, Crista had been running late.
The bus had pulled out just as she’d reached the stop, and neither frantic shouting or jumping up and down had slowed it down or brought it back. So she’d caught the crosstown instead, intending to transfer to a downtown bus at Broadway, but somehow she’d miscalculated.
Now she was walking the last four long blocks in the rain, wondering why on earth she’d ever thought a face-to-face confrontation with Horace Blackburn would be a good idea.
She hunched deeper into the collar of her raincoat. The wind was picking up now, driving the rain before it. Her hair would be as tangled as a bird’s nest by the time she reached Blackburn’s office, and whatever rain-defeating abilities her thin coat once had were long gone. She didn’t even want to think about what the dampness seeping through it might be doing to her already snug T-shirt.
Crista sighed as she stepped off the curb. She’d have been better off sticking to Plan A, she thought as she hurried across the intersection. She could have phoned Blackburn this morning and told him, in her best lockjawed, boarding-school accent, that she didn’t give a fig for whatever it was he had to tell her, that he could either make his little speech over the phone or he could—
“Look out!”
The warning came too late. Crista’s head came up just as the man barreled into her. Her right foot, already up on the curb, slid out from under her. She gave an outraged cry, windmilled her arms in a desperate attempt to keep her boots from bidding a fast farewell to the pavement, and went stumbling backward into the street just as a truck, horn blaring, came racing into the intersection.
The man’s arms swept around her. “I’ve got you,” he said, swinging Crista off her feet and onto the pavement as the truck thundered past, drenching them both in a spray of water.
They stood looking at each other in shocked silence and then Crista let out a long, shaky breath.
“Ohmygod,” she whispered as she clung to the hard, broad shoulders of her rescuer.
“Oh my God?” Her rescuer’s voice was deep and harsh and very angry. “Oh my God? Is that all you can say after you almost killed us both?”
Crista blinked. His face, as harsh and as angry as his voice, was inches from hers; his eyes—some strange combination of blue and brown and green—were cold with fury.
“Me?” she said. Her head lifted. “Me?” she repeated, her voice shooting up the scale in indignation. “I almost killed us both?” She glared back at him, shoved her drenched hair back from her eyes, and twisted free of his grasp. “You ran into me, remember?”
“Where are you from, lady? Didn’t anybody tell you that you’re supposed to watch where you’re going in the big city?”
“I was watching where I was going,” Crista said in her best New York fashion. “You were the one who was tearing along like a linebacker for the Jets.”
The man’s eyes grew flinty. “Thank you for the apology. And now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get by.”
“That makes two of us,” Crista said, her tone as nasty as his.
She stepped to her right. The man stepped to his left. They glared at each other, then made the same moves in reverse. He shook his head, muttered something, then made a mock-chivalrous sweeping gesture with his arm.
“Ladies first,” he said, his tone heavy with sarcasm.
Crista sniffed. “Try keeping that in mind. It might save another woman from almost getting knocked down.”
It was, she thought, a fair exit line—but as she started past him, her right ankle buckled. With a cry of alarm, she stumbled—and was caught in the man’s arms again.
“What now?” he demanded.
Crista’s brows drew together. “I don’t know,” she said. “I was fine until I put weight on my foot. But when I did, it just—”
“Hell, I get it.” She gasped as his hands dug into her forearms. “What comes next? An ambulance ride to the nearest emergency room, where you suddenly develop an incurable headache and back pains?”
“What are you talking about? I never said—”
“I warn you, you’re wasting your time trying a scam like this on me. I’m an attorney, and—”
“An attorney!” Crista twisted away from him and slapped her hands on her hips. “Of course,” she said, her lip curling, “I might have known.”
“Spoils your little scheme, doesn’t it?” Grant smiled tightly. “Trust me, madam. There’s nothing you can try that I haven’t seen before.”
No, he thought, with a catch of his breath, no, he had not seen a face like hers before.
Her eyes were enormous, the color of violets. Her mouth was rosy and heart-shaped, centered between a small, slender nose and a feminine, yet determined, chin. Clusters of tiny silver bells swayed from a pair of delicate ears that were framed by a silky tumble of ebony hair in which raindrops glistened like tiny jewels.
For a man who had seen everything, Grant was suddenly speechless.
“What’s the matter?”
Grant blinked. She was eyeing him narrowly, her face tilted at a questioning angle. The anger was still there but something else was there, too. Wariness? Suspicion?
He sighed. Hell, she was right to look at him like that. Only a nut—or a man in a very bad moodwould go off the deep end the way he had.
She’d run into him, or he’d run into her—who could tell? And what did it matter? The one indisputable fact was that their collision had been forceful. For all he knew, she damned well might have twisted her ankle when she fell back off the curb.
“Nothing’s the matter,” he said. “Look, I’m sorry I’ve been so—”
“Unpleasant?” That determined chin shot forward. “Hostile? How about just plain nasty?”
He tried a polite smile. “I was just heading into that building,” he said, and nodded toward an entryway on his right. “Why don’t we step inside the lobby? You can get off that foot and I’ll check to see if—”
Her hand drove into his belly, hard enough to make the breath shoot from his lungs.
“That’s the most pathetic come-on I’ve ever heard,” she snarled. “Next you’re going to ask me to come up to your office so you can examine me on your couch.”
“Don’t be a fool. I simply meant—”
“Oh, I know exactly what you meant.” Crista’s chin lifted. “First you knock me down, then you accuse me of faking an injury, and now you’re trying to—to—”
“Listen, lady—”
“I’m on my way to a meeting with my attorney this very minute. I swear, I’ll tell him to sue you for—for—”
“The charge is stupidity, lady. First degree stupidity,” Grant said coldly. “Go on, limp your way to wherever it is you’re going. And good luck to the next poor chump you run into.”
“The same to you,” Crista said, and flounced past him.
She didn’t get very far. This time, she didn’t so much stumble as drop to her knees.
“Oh,” she said in surprise.
“Give me a break,” Grant said wearily, stooped, and swung her up into his arms.
“Hey,” she said, “what are you doing?”
Being a glutton for punishment, Grant thought as he carried her toward the building where Horace Blackburn’s office was located. Hell, he thought grimly, at least he was getting closer to that damned meeting.
“You put me down!”
She was beating her fists against his shoulder, but Grant ignored her. At some later point, he thought with bemused detachment, he’d probably laugh at all this, especially at how a woman who felt so soft and smelled so good could land such solid, uncompromising punches.
Right now, all he could hope was that none of the passersby tossing amused smiles in his direction was Horace Blackburn.
Grant shouldered open the lobby door and made for a marble planter that held a scrawny rubber tree trying to survive. With a grunt, he dumped his burden unceremoniously on the planter’s edge.
“No couch,” he said briskly as he knelt down before her. “But then, you can’t have everything in this life, can you?”
“Let me alone,” she snapped as he reached for her foot.
“I’m checking to see what you’ve done to yourself.”
“What I’ve done? You’ve got to be kidding! You ran me over, you called me a swindler, you—you kidnapped me—”
“I told you,” he said pleasantly as he grasped her ankle. “Sue me. But first you’re going to have to take this boot off.”
“Not on your life! Dammit, I didn’t ask you to—” The furious words ground to a halt. “What’s so funny?”
“You won’t need an ambulance or an orthopedist.” Grant looked up at her, his lips twitching. “What you will need is a shoe repair shop.”
Crista frowned as she leaned forward. “What?”
“It’s your heel. It broke when you—when we—collided. That’s why you had trouble keeping your balance.”
Crista shut her eyes as the man began to chuckle. But she couldn’t blame him. What a fool she’d made of herself, starting the minute they’d bumped into each other and going straight through to that performance she’d put on as he carried her inside this lobby.
She was in a terrible mood, angry at herself and the world, but he had no way of knowing that. He was just a stranger and she’d let it all out on him.
She took a deep breath. “Look,” she said, and opened her eyes…
The apology died on her lips. He was still holding her foot, but he wasn’t smiling any longer. Instead, he was taking a slow, steady inventory, that topaz gaze of his sweeping up the length of her inch by inch.
Crista knew, with awful certainty, what he was seeing. The T-shirt. The ridiculous leather skirt. The stupid boots…
Those incredible boots, Grant thought. They were the sexiest things he’d ever seen. And that skirt—it was leather, like the boots, and it barely came to midthigh. Above it, a wide belt cinched an impossibly slender waist and above that…
Oh yes. Above that, her breasts rose in exquisite fullness, rounded and high and encased in a pale pink cotton shirt that had been dampened by the rain. He could see the outline of her nipples so clearly defined that the need to reach out and touch them, to stroke them until they hardened in need, was almost overpowering.
“Well?” Her voice was low pitched, controlled, and very cold. “Have you had a good look, little boy?” She pulled her foot free of his hand and, with a lurch, got to her feet. “Then run home to Mama and I’ll be on my way.”
Grant rose, too. Her eyes had gone from violet to plum. She was angry at him again, which was laughable—almost as laughable as her pretended outrage when she’d thought he was coming on to her a few minutes ago.
Why would a woman dress this way unless that was exactly what she wanted from every man she met?
“Of course,” he said silkily. “I wouldn’t want to keep you. An appointment with your—ah—your attorney, isn’t that what you said?”
Crista drew her raincoat around her. “You go to hell,” she said. With as much dignity as she could manage, considering the broken boot heel, she turned and walked toward the door.
Damn him, she thought, trying not to tremble. And damn herself even more for letting him do that to her. It was a long time since she’d cared how men looked at her in this awful outfit.
But this man, the arrogant bastard, had more than wanted her. He had judged her. Not that she was surprised. Even soaked to the skin, he wore his money and his breeding like a badge of office. People who didn’t meet his hard-hearted standards, who didn’t measure up to some rigid set of rules of his own making, were beneath his contempt.
He didn’t even believe her story about having a meeting to attend. Well, for all she knew, she didn’t. She was so late now that…
Crista stopped as the directory on the wall caught her eye. Blackburn, Blackburn, and Katz were located in this building, on the twentieth floor.
She spun around. There were two elevators, and the doors of both were just shutting. The man might be in either one.
So what?
“Hey,” she yelled, “wait!”
The doors jerked, stopped, then slid open. Crista hurried into the car. There were two occupants. A middle-aged woman with a briefcase—and him.
Crista shot him a cold look, then turned and folded her arms across her breasts. The elevator climbed slowly. At the third floor, the doors opened. The woman with the briefcase stepped out, and the doors closed again.
Crista counted silently as the car moved upward again. At the sixth floor, it stopped. She turned and glared at the man, who was leaning back against the wall, his feet crossed at the ankles.
“Sorry,” he said with a contemptuous smile. “I’m not getting out yet—but feel free to choose any floor you like.”
Crista’s jaw tightened. “Don’t I wish I could!”
“Following me is pointless. I don’t know what you want, but—”
“Don’t flatter yourself, mister! I have as much right to be here as you do. I have—”
“An appointment. Sure.”
Crista heard the disdain in his words. She told herself it didn’t matter, that the opinion of this stranger meant less than nothing to her—but she was already swinging toward him.
“Has anybody ever told you what an absolutely vile human being you are?”
His eyes narrowed. “Listen, lady. You’ve pushed your luck about as far as it goes. If I were you—”
“You are the most—the most arrogant, insolent, coldhearted, unfeeling son of a bitch—”
She cried out as he grabbed her and drew her to him. Her hand flew toward the control panel but he slammed his fist against it first.
The car shuddered to a halt.
“Hell,” he growled, “I’ve taken just about enough from you!”
Deep inside, Grant could hear a cold, rational voice warning him that he was going over the edge—but he wasn’t listening. No woman who looked like this should blame a man for looking at her, for wanting her—for needing to silence her in the most primitive way.
Grant gave up the battle and plunged into a time when men fought saber-toothed tigers.
He pulled her into his arms, ignoring the beat of her fists against his chest, his mouth dropping to hers in a kiss that demanded not just repentance but submission.
Crista offered neither. When he lifted his head, she spat a name into his face that the voice inside him assured him he more than deserved.
Let her go, Grant told himself. Dammit, man, let her go.
But the darkness reached for him again.
His hands fisted in her hair and his mouth descended toward hers. Again, he kissed her, branding her with his anger. Again, she fought back.
Grant went still. What in hell was he doing? He was not a man who took without giving. He was not a man who wanted without being wanted in return. And, God, that was what he needed from this woman. He needed her to want him, to part her lips for his kiss, to reach out to hold him and turn to fire in his arms.
Slowly, he bent his head, brushed his mouth against hers in soft, gentle strokes. His hands shifted, his fingers threading into the spill of her hair so that her head was tilted back and she was captive to his kiss. He kissed her again and again, each kiss tender and sweet, until he felt the tension and the fear leaving her body, until he felt it being replaced by something else.
She made a little sound, one the tiny bells of her earrings seemed to echo. Grant felt her body soften, felt the sudden heat of her, and he whispered words of reassurance against her mouth.
Crista swayed forward. Her lips parted; she whimpered as his mouth slanted over hers, hungry now, and demanding. Slowly, she rose toward him, she lifted herself to him…
The car lurched to life and Grant and Crista fell away from each other. In the silence, Grant could hear nothing but the rasp of his own breathing, the dull droning of the elevator’s motor, and then the sound of the car stopping and the doors opening.
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Sandra Marton
LANDON'S LEGACY When a will leads to a wedding… This is Grant's story: "What a legacy for my father to leave me. Crista Adams - my ward! But the woman is no more a child than I am. In fact, with her lifestyle, I doubt Crista ever was a child. Why is it, then, that I, who've never let a woman get under my skin, am so jealous of every man in Crista's life?That's why I've decided to really act as her guardian. I've demanded that she move in with me. But that's surely the craziest idea I've ever had! Now I have the feeling that nothing in my life will ever be the same again… .The second story in Sandra Marton's gripping new series, Landon's Legacy - where four hearts are unleashed by one man's bequest.
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#uedddf466-44d6-5543-8b2e-b97965f94aaa)
Excerpt (#u4c9c33b0-19e1-58b9-b3e1-872b3904c990)
Dear Readers (#u6cff2a42-3703-5892-b625-13ee8ab99d42)
Title Page (#ue71b4a2e-23e9-5259-bf89-a5d627d0ed92)
Prologue (#uff1a1cb3-11b8-5a5b-a67d-d1d849d149d6)
Chapter One (#u5b97c403-7f1b-5b7b-a325-f810512cdd30)
Chapter Two (#u060c5808-e30d-5da4-8522-1dc767f5a1c6)
Chapter Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
When Charles Landon dies, the legacy he leaves behind has very different implications for each of his four children. For sophisticated GRANT LANDON it means that CRISTA ADAMS, his ward, is more than he’d bargained for! What all of the Landons find through Landon’s legacy, though, is the key that finally unlocks their hearts to love…
Dear Readers,
Welcome again to the exciting world of the Landons, and to the legacy that changes the lives of an entire family.
The idea for these books came to me when a friend and I met for lunch at a restaurant in New York. I overheard some women talking at the next table. They were discussing what makes a man exciting. “He has to be gorgeous,” said one. “And a rebel,” said another. “And not the least bit interested in being tamed,” said a third. The next thing I knew, Cade, Grant and Zach Landon sprang to life inside my head. They were certainly handsome, rebellious and untamable, and when I wondered what kind of women could possibly put up with them, their beautiful sister Kyra materialized and said, well, she’d always loved them, even if they were impossible!
This month, let me introduce you to Grant Landon in Guardian Groom. Grant’s a New York attorney. Master of any situation, he’s never at a loss…until he finds himself the unwilling guardian of Crista Adams, who has the face of an angel and the soul of a gypsy.
Settle back and enjoy four months of love, laughter and tears as you discover the full meaning of the Landon legacy.
With my warmest regards,
Sandra Marton
ALSO AVAILABLE IN HARLEQUIN PRESENTS
Landon’s Legacy
1808—AN INDECENT PROPOSAL
Guardian Groom
Sandra Marton
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
PROLOGUE (#ulink_93d1090f-9a34-56ad-a10f-1be3b355d103)
IT WAS late on an unseasonably warm Friday afternoon in September, and all was right in Grant Landon’s world.
The deal The New York Times had called “impossible” was almost wrapped up, the weekend stretched ahead, and tonight a long-legged beauty whose face graced half the magazine covers in the city was dining with him at his Fifth Avenue apartment—which didn’t dim his growing interest in the blue-eyed blonde seated on the other side of his desk.
They had been dueling for the past several hours, each trying to gain the upper hand, but Grant knew better than to allow his attention to be diverted by something other than the intricacies of contract law. Now, with the deal concluded, he could see that she was all the diversion one man could handle.
Alicia Madigan was bright, sophisticated, and coolly elegant. A woman to his liking—and Grant knew just the way she’d like to be handled. A shadowy smile curved across his mouth at the thought, softening the hard, handsome lines of his face.
The Madigan woman noticed.
“Don’t look so pleased with yourself,” she said lightly. “I’ll begin to worry that I gave away too much.”
Grant laughed softly. “Come now, Miss Madigan. You know what they say about the fine art of negotiating. You give some, you get some.”
She smiled, sat back, and crossed her legs. Her demure suit skirt inched above her knees. Grant’s eyes narrowed. Was that a flash of black lace, or was it his imagination?
“I wasn’t born yesterday, Mr. Landon. We both know what the ‘fine art of negotiating’ really means. Her eyes met his. “Get as much as you can, while you can. Isn’t that right?”
Were they still discussing the intricacies of contract negotiations? Or had they moved on to an entirely different sort of negotiation?
“Perhaps.” Grant smiled. “But I’ve never taken pleasure in an arrangement that wasn’t mutually agreeable.”
Alicia Madigan gave a throaty laugh. “So I’ve heard.” Her long legs scissored again. There was no mistaking the flash of black lace this time. “You know,” she said softly, “I was as excited at the prospect as I was wary of the consequences of dealing with the famous Grant Landon.”
Grant’s smile tilted. “I have difficulty envisioning you as wary of anyone, Miss Madigan.”
“Alicia, please. Surely, we don’t have to be so formal now.” The tip of her pale pink tongue peeked from between her teeth and slicked across her bottom lip as she rose from her chair. “In fact, I was thinking we might have a drink together. Perhaps dinner. And then—well, who knows?”
Grant felt his body tighten as she came toward him. He looked her over slowly, his hazel eyes moving the length of her body in frank appraisal. Instinct told him that he could take her now, that she wanted to be taken now. All he had to do was go to her, put his hands under that seemingly demure skirt, shove it above her thighs…
“You’re very direct,” he said, his voice a little thick as he pushed back his chair and got to his feet.
“I am.” She put her hand on his arm; he could feel the heat of her fingers through the soft wool of his jacket. “Does it offend you?”
“On the contrary. I find it admirable.” He lifted his hand to her cheek and stroked his forefinger across the prominent arch. “I’m a believer in honesty in relationships.”
“So I’ve heard.” She smiled. “It’s a trait I admire.”
Grant smiled, too. “But I should warn you that I am old-fashioned about some things.”
“You’re not going to tell me that it would be a conflict of interest for us to cultivate our friendship, are you?” Alicia Madigan said with a little laugh.
Slowly, his eyes never leaving hers, Grant reached out and cupped his hand lightly over her breast. He heard her catch her breath, the sound loud as a gunshot in the silence.
“Actually,” he said, his tone almost conversational, “I was thinking about the concept of giving and taking.” She gave a choked moan of pleasure as his thumb swept lightly across her breast; he felt the swift hardening of her nipple beneath her suit jacket. “And you ought to know that I prefer to be the one who decides what to give.” His thumb moved again. “And what to take. Is that a problem?”
“Oh no,” she said. He could see her fighting for control of herself. “No, that’s not a problem at all. You can—”
His hand moved. Her fingers clamped tightly around his wrist as he stroked her; he could feel the sudden fierce tremor of excitement that swept through her body.
The realization that he’d so quickly cut through her cool, assertive exterior was almost as pleasing as it was disappointing. What she promised now didn’t matter. Later, she would want something more, something he could not give.
There had been women who’d accused him of having no heart, but it wasn’t true. He could take pleasure in a relationship—but love? Love was a word invented by greeting-card makers. It was not real. Any sensible man knew that, and Grant had always been a sensible man.
Suddenly, he felt weary, far older than his thirty-two years, and tired of this game he had played so many times before. He stepped back, took Alicia Madigan gently by the shoulders, and smiled at her.
“Give me your number,” he said. “I’ll call you.”
“But…” Her blue eyes clouded. “I thought—”
“Not tonight,” he said gently. “But soon. I promise.”
There was a moment’s silence, and then a tight smile curled across her mouth.
“I suppose I should be insulted—but I think I’d rather consider it a challenge.” She bent and picked up her briefcase. “My number’s in the book,” she said. Her voice was cool, and gave no hint of what had just happened. “Please have the contract changes in my office first thing Monday morning.”
Grant nodded, smiled, and watched as she made the long walk to the door. Once it shut after her, he blew out his breath.
“Hell,” he muttered, as his gaze swept across the clock on his desk. He was running late. By the time he shaved, showered, then dressed, his date would be here. Kimberly would not like having to cool her heels, he thought as he took off his jacket and laid it neatly over the back of his desk chair.
But she’d wait.
They always did.
Crista Adams was running late, too, and she felt terrible about it—especially since she’d promised Danny she’d be on time tonight.
She paused to catch her breath on the fifth-floor landing of the Greenwich Village tenement. At least she’d remembered to stop for a bottle of wine. As for being late—well, that hadn’t been her choice. Gus had asked her to stay an extra hour to fill in for one of the other girls and she’d ended up with a tableful of beer guzzlers who thought waitresses had been put on this planet for their amusement.
Crista grimaced as she headed toward her apartment. It wasn’t worth thinking about. Getting hit on went with the territory down here, especially when Gus insisted that his waitresses wear short leather skirts, knee-high boots, and T-shirts that clung like a second skin. But the tips were good, you could work just about as many hours as you could handle and, slowly but steadily, she was beginning to save money toward the future.
Some day, she thought as she dredged out her keys, she’d have enough to open a little shop where she could sell the silver jewelry she loved to create. Until then, this life wasn’t so bad. At least she was answerable to no one but herself. And if the loudmouths and wise guys got the wrong idea about her and tried to push the issue…Crista smiled as she unlocked the apartment door. Well, she had her own security system just inside.
What fool would try any funny stuff, once he saw Danny?
“It’s me,” she called as she stepped into the postage-stamp-size living room. A gray cat with a mangled ear came hurrying toward her, meowing plaintively. Crista smiled and bent to pat its head. “Hello, Sweetness,” she cooed. “Did you miss me?”
The cat wove through her ankles as she walked to the kitchen where a pot simmered on the old-fashioned gas stove, a delicious aroma of garlic floating into the air. She put down the wine, scooped the mane of silky black hair away from her high-cheekboned face, and leaned down for a look.
“Mmm,” she sighed.
Danny’s sauce was always wonderful. Crista grinned as she shrugged off her jacket and tossed it across a chair. What more could a woman ask of the person who shared her apartment? Danny could cook, he loved animals, he didn’t mind the fact that she spent her spare time fashioning jewelry out of silver and beads—and he had more muscles than Sylvester Stallone.
That was the first thing she’d noticed about him, the day he’d shown up in answer to her ad—the day she’d been determined to turn him away.
“I want a female roommate,” she’d said firmly. “My ad specifically said—”
“The ad says two bedrooms, doesn’t it, Ms. Adams?”
“Yes, but—”
The gray cat had chosen that moment to come strutting in.
“Hey,” Danny had said, “you’ve got a cat.” He’d shot her a grin as he squatted down beside Sweetness. “I love cats.”
Crista’s smile had been politely dismissive. “That’s very nice, Mr. Amato. But my ad distinctly said ‘Single female to share 2 bedroom Village walk-up—’”
“Nice earrings. Never saw anything like ‘em before.”
She’d touched one of the little clusters of silver bells hanging from her lobes and then she’d frowned.
“Thank you. But—”
“Listen, Ms. Adams. I know what you’re thinking.”
Crista’s violet eyes had been cool. “I doubt it.”
“You’re thinking,” he’d said pleasantly, “this guy moves in here, he’s gonna hit on me.”
Crista hadn’t flinched. “And won’t you?”
“Tell me the truth, Ms. Adams. Am I your type?”
He wasn’t. Oh, he was handsome, but the fact was that Crista had yet to meet a man who was her typebut that was nobody’s business but her own.
“No,” she’d said bluntly, “you’re not.”
“And you’re not mine, Ms. Adams. You’re certainly a looker, but the vibes are all wrong—if you know what I mean.”
Crista had hesitated. Every loony in New York seemed to have answered her ad. This guy, at least, wasn’t mumbling about trips back home to Mars. He’d already shown her his references—and, she’d suddenly realized, sharing an apartment with a man who looked like Mr. Muscle might turn out to be an unexpected bonus.
To her surprise and his, Crista had agreed to a week’s trial—and she’d never regretted it, she thought as she filled a pot with water and set it on to boil. If Danny had one failing, it was that he was sometimes behind on his half of the rent payments, but struggling actors were not known for their wealth.
Anyway, there were more important things than money. Crista’s smile dimmed. She knew that better than anyone. She’d spent her teen years in the lap of luxury, the ward of a coldhearted uncle she’d never known existed until her parents’ deaths. Simon had wasted no time in telling her how her mother had lured her father from the bosom of his family.
“And you,” he’d snapped, “are her very image, in looks and in temperament.”
He had spent the next years determinedly trying to remake that image through private schooling and cultural tours of Europe. Shortly before Crista’s twentieth birthday, the situation had become intolerable. She’d moved out, and Simon had washed his hands of her.
That had been months ago. Still, when she’d read of his death in the paper a few weeks before, she’d gone to his funeral. Simon would have laughed; he’d have called her sentimental, a vulgar emotion he’d abhorred. But he was all the family she had, and sometimes, in the darkest moments of the night, she thought about how alone she was…
“Hey.” She looked up. Danny was standing in the doorway, his hair damp from the shower. “Why the long face?”
Crista cleared her throat. “What long face?” she said briskly.
“Did you hear the one about the camel and the goat?”
She groaned. “Only a thousand times.”
“I’ve got a new version, guaranteed to make you smile.”
He was right; the joke did make her smile. In fact, she almost forgot the brief sense of despair that had engulfed her moments ago…
Almost. But not quite.
Grant stood on the terrace of his Fifth Avenue penthouse, sipping a glass of Dom Pérignon from a Baccarat flute, waiting for Kimberly to reappear.
“Such a glum expression,” she’d said in a little-girl voice, just before she’d traipsed off to the powder room. “Don’t worry, darling. When I come back, I’ll make you smile.”
He doubted that, Grant thought grimly. He was bored, he was tired of watching Kimberly watch herself in every reflective surface, and he was hungry. What had his housekeeper left in the kitchen? Canard a l’Orange? Whatever it was, it had to wait until Kimberly put in an appearance.
He shot another look through the open terrace doors into the elegant white-on-white living room. Where the devil was she? She’d said she needed to fix her face—although what you could fix on that face was beyond him. It was so perfect it was almost expressionless, something he’d never noticed before tonight.
“Hell,” Grant muttered, and put the champagne flute down none too gently on a glass-topped table.
What was wrong with him? The feeling of disquiet that had begun late this afternoon had grown so that now he felt edgy and irritable. A premonition, his sister, Kyra, would have said.
He frowned. Kyra? What did she have to do with anything? Why was he thinking of her when—
The telephone on the table beside him shrilled. He picked it up.
“Yes?” he said brusquely. It was Jane, his secretary.
A shape materialized at the far end of the living room. Kimberly was sauntering toward him, her hips swinging as if she were on a modeling runway. She was wearing a scarlet teddy, a sultry pout, and nothing else.
Grant’s breath caught, but not because of Kimberly. He turned away and pressed the phone more tightly to his ear.
“I see. Thank you, Jane. You did the right thing. I can make it. Would you phone my sister and tell her I’m on my way? And my brothers. You have Zach’s Boston number. Cade is in the Middle East. Ask Zach if—Fine. I’ll be in touch.”
He hung up the phone, cleared his throat, and turned to face Kimberly, who was breathing moistly against his neck.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but something’s come up.”
She giggled and put her hand on him. The scent of her perfume, sweet and cloying, filled his nostrils.
“Not yet it hasn’t,” she purred. “But it will.”
Grant’s hand clamped hard around her wrist. “I have a plane to catch,” he said. “Take your time dressing. The doorman will put you in a taxi when you come down.”
“A plane?” Kimberly said, her voice filled with bewilderment. “But I thought we…” Her voice rose as he brushed past her. “Grant, what’s so important that…?”
He wondered what she would say if he told her what was so important, if he said, well, Kimberly, if you must know, my father—a man I feel less for than I would for a stranger—my father, Charles Landon, is dead.
But he only turned and strode through the perfect living room, up the curved staircase to his bedroom. By the time he came down again, carrying a leather weekend bag, he had forgotten Kimberly existed.
In the taxi to the airport he puzzled, briefly, over the sense of disquiet that had plagued him all day. He wasn’t about to give any credence to the idea of premonitions. Still…
Grant sighed wearily, sat back and closed his eyes.
In Greenwich Village, Crista paused with a forkful of pasta halfway to her lips.
“What’s the matter?” Danny asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Just—just a funny feeling…”
“A goose walked over your grave.” He grinned at the look on her face. “Listen, when you have a grandmother from the Old Country, you pick up all kinds of weird stuff.”
“A goose, huh?” Crista laughed, stabbed her fork into her spaghetti, and began to eat her dinner.
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_eac5d8d8-82c9-5cdd-8d8c-ab140adaeae9)
THE sun was coming up fast over the Rocky Mountains, but the highest peaks were still shrouded in mist and the wind blowing across Emerald Lake was chill. Grant, who’d worked up a sweat during his five-mile run, shivered a little as he entered the aspen grove that led to the Landon mansion.
Gravel crunched under his Nikes, the sound a gritty counterpoint to the rasp of his own breath. He’d run this distance every morning for almost as long as he could remember, but it was a long time since he’d done his running at this altitude. His hard muscles ached, his heart was pounding, his lungs were working hard…
And he was loving every minute of it.
How could he have forgotten how peaceful it was here? Except for a pair of startled mule deer, Grant had the lake and the slopes all to himself. No cars, no trucks, no people, nothing but the deer, the sky, and the mountains.
Damn, but this was one hell of a beautiful spot.
Grant’s mouth twisted in a grimace. Except for the mansion rising just ahead, it was perfect.
The house was monstrous in size and in pretension. It should have been made of fieldstone and glass, with soaring, clean lines. Instead, it was massive, built of concrete and brick, and as out of place as it was opulent. The mansion didn’t harmonize with its setting, it competed with it—and lost, Grant thought as he slowed to a walk. Hell, it was no contest.
His lips twisted again. “Be it ever so humble,” he muttered as he trotted up the steps to the flagstone terrace, “there’s no place like home.”
He smiled bitterly as he snatched his towel from the lounge chair. If there was one thing this place had never been, it was a home. He’d hated the house when he was a boy and he hated it still.
It was a damned good thing he was leaving today. A week in this place was about all he could manage and still remain sane.
Grant wiped his face with the towel. He hadn’t shaved since yesterday and the stubble of his dark beard rasped across the soft cotton. Tossing the towel aside, he reached for the Columbia Law School sweatshirt that lay on the chair, and yanked it down over his head. With a sigh, he raked his hair back from his forehead, turned and walked slowly across the terrace, and stood looking out at Emerald Lake, glittering like the jewel it had been named for under the first rays of the sun.
What a hell of a week this had been! He’d ended up having to install a private phone line, just so he could keep in touch with his New York office. The mansion’s own lines, all eight of them, had been jammed with incoming calls and faxes from newspapers and wire services and what seemed like every moneyman, politico, and bigwig industrialist from coast to coast.
“It’s a goddamned circus,” Zach had muttered one morning, after the three Landon brothers had spent a frantic hour fielding calls.
“Yeah,” Cade had said with a thin-lipped smile, “and the old man would have loved it.”
Grant shook his head as he leaned his arms on the stone wall that surrounded the terrace. Cade was right. The old man certainly would have loved it—the fuss, the media attention, the brouhaha the day of the funeral, when vans from the TV stations, the limos, and the mourners’ cars had caused a massive traffic jam on the roads leading to the cemetery where Charles had been laid to rest—oh yeah, he’d have loved that most of all.
Grant had hated every minute of it. Hell, he’d almost come to blows with a scum-sucking, freelance photographer who’d tried to slip inside the mausoleum to snag a shot of the old man’s mahogany casket as it came to rest beside Ellen Landon’s. Zach and Cade had damned near had to pull him off the guy.
Grant blew out his breath. That had been the only time he’d felt anything. First, rage at the intrusiveness of the photographer, and then a fierce stab of pain at the sight of his mother’s casket, which was ridiculous. Not that Grant hadn’t loved her—he had, of course. But Ellen had died years ago, when he was just a boy; his memories of her were dimmed by the passage of time, and besides, he was not the sort of man given to sentimentalizing the past.
His overreaction—obviously the result of exhaustion—must have shown in his face, because Kyra had slipped her hand in his and leaned into his shoulder.
“Hey,” she’d whispered, “are you okay?”
Grant, feeling foolish, had nodded and squeezed her hand in reassurance.
“I’m fine,” he’d whispered back. “What about you, Sis? How are you bearing up?”
Kyra had looked up. Her face was pale but, to his surprise, her eyes were clear and cool.
“Don’t worry about me,” she’d said. “I’m fine.”
Afterward, the crowd of mourners had gathered at the mansion to offer condolences to Grant, Cade, Zach, and Kyra.
“It must be a comfort to you,” old Judge Harris had said, his jowls quivering with solemnity, “to see how many of Denver’s finest citizens have come to pay their last respects to your dear father.”
“What he means,” Zach had murmured as soon as the judge was out of earshot, “is that Denver’s finest citizens have come to size up the new Landon regime.”
Cade had grinned. “What he really means,” he’d said, “is that they’ve decided to waste no time kissing ass.”
His kid brother had been right, Grant thought as he straightened up and turned his back to the lake. Crossing the terrace, he snatched up his towel again and made his way through the French doors that opened into the library.
It was cool inside, almost cold; the heavy red leather chairs, massive oak tables, and book-lined walls looked particularly ugly in the pale morning light. Everything was silent. The only hint of life was in the rich aroma of freshly brewed coffee that drifted in the air.
Grant smiled tightly to himself as he made his way across the Aubusson carpet. If his father could see him now, the old man would frown and tell him that he was to use the back door in the future, when he came in all sweated up from something so stupid as running. And then his lip would curl with disdain at the sight of the sweatshirt and he’d launch into the speech he always made about fancy-pants schools, when what he really meant was that it enraged him that his eldest son had chosen to defy him.
A plump figure suddenly stepped out in front of him. Stella, who’d been the Landon housekeeper for as long as Grant could remember, gasped and pressed her hand to her ample bosom.
“My goodness, Mr. Grant, you did give me a start!”
“Good morning, Stella.” Grant smiled. “I was just on my way to the kitchen. That coffee smells wonderful.”
“Why didn’t you let me know you were up? I’d have been down sooner, made you a proper breakfast. You go in the dinin’ room and sit down while I make you somethin’ to tide you over until the others come down.”
Grant had a swift vision of the gargantuan breakfasts still laid out on the sideboard every morning, despite the fact that neither he, his brothers, nor Kyra ever put a dent in them.
“No,” he said quickly, “thank you very much, Stella, but I’m afraid I haven’t the time. I’ve an appointment in—” he frowned at his watch “—in less than an hour. But I will take a cup of coffee upstairs with me.” He smiled and looped his arm lightly over her shoulders. “Did I ever tell you that you make the best coffee in the entire world?”
Color bloomed in her cheeks. “Go on,” she said, but she smiled. “You just wait here, Mr. Grant, and I’ll get you some.”
“Don’t be silly.” Grant began walking slowly down the hall. “I know how to find the kitchen.”
“Yes, but it’s not right. Your father says—”
“My father’s not master of this house anymore.” He knew he’d spoken more sharply than he’d intended, and he softened the words with a quick smile. “Tell you what. I’ll walk you to the kitchen and we’ll get that cup of coffee together.”
How long would it take everybody to get used to the change? he wondered moments later as he set his mug of coffee on the nightstand in his old bedroom.
Charles Landon wasn’t master here anymore. The old man wasn’t master of anything, he thought as he stripped off his shorts and shirt. The grim proof of that lay in what had happened yesterday, after the formal reading of the will.
Nothing in it had been a surprise. Charles had left his private fortune to Kyra, along with the house and its enormous land holdings, and he had left Landon Enterprises, the vast, multimillion-dollar conglomerate he had built, to his three sons.
The sun, streaming through the windows, felt good on Grant’s naked body. He stretched his arms, flexing the muscles that bunched beneath his taut, tanned skin. Purposefully, he made his way into his private bathroom and turned the shower on to full.
The old man would have exploded if he’d seen what had happened once the reading of the will had ended. The lawyers had barely been out the door before Zach had spoken.
“Man, what a gift,” he’d said sarcastically. “Just what I’ve always wanted—a piece of Landon Enterprises.”
Cade had wasted no time. “I’ll pass,” he’d said. “You guys can keep my share.”
Grant had bared his teeth in what he’d hoped was a smile. “Hell,” he’d said, “don’t be so generous, pal!” He’d gone to the cherry-wood bar, uncapped a bottle of Jack Daniel’s bourbon, poured generous shots into heavy Waterford tumblers and said what he’d always known in his heart. “I’d steal hubcaps for a living before I had anything to do with Landon Enterprises.”
Zach and Cade had both laughed, and Zach had raised his glass of bourbon high in the air.
“Okay,” he’d said, “it’s unanimous. The new directors of Landon Enterprises met and made their first, last, and only decision.”
“Yeah,” Grant had said, as the three tumblers clinked against each other. “By unanimous vote, the directors agreed to divest themselves of the company.”
Within minutes, they’d agreed to put Landon’s on the market and give the proceeds to charity. Then they’d raised their glasses again, this time in bittersweet celebration of finally admitting what they’d all always known.
Charles Landon’s sons had, over the years, ignored their father, argued with him, feared him and despised him—but they had never loved him.
Grant stepped from the shower, toweled himself dry, then strolled naked into the bedroom. And so it was all over. Within hours, he’d be in New York, Zach would be in Boston, and Cade would be in London. Kyra, of course, would remain here, where she belonged and where she was happy.
Hell, he couldn’t wait to get back to his own world, and his own life. There were the loose ends of that contract to tie up—and there were other loose ends, too. He smiled a little as he drew his shirt over his broad shoulders. He’d certainly been abrupt with Kimberly—Kimberly and that red teddy. But he’d been abrupt with women before, when the demands of the law had gotten in the way of his private life. A couple of dozen long-stemmed red roses, a box of Godiva chocolates…
Grant’s smile tilted. Kimberly would come around.
And then there was the Madigan woman and that tantalizing glimpse of black lace she’d flashed each time she’d crossed those long legs.
He grinned as he stepped into his trousers. What a dilemma, to have to choose between the two—or not to choose. There were lots of women in New York. Beautiful women. A man could spend his life sipping nectar from all those sweet flowers. Not that he didn’t believe in fidelity.
Grant looped his tie under his collar and knotted it. He was always faithful, he thought, smiling again—for as long as an affair lasted.
He looked into the mirror as he put on his jacket. The runner in shorts and sweatshirt was gone, replaced by a meticulously groomed man in a Savile Row suit, but then, that was who he was. The man who’d come into this bedroom with an unshaven face, grungy shorts, and a sweatshirt was just a leftover from a life he’d long ago put behind him.
Why he even kept his old running clothes was beyond him; they were so beat up that they should have been tossed out years ago.
With a grimace, Grant stuffed the shirt and shorts into a pocket of his weekend bag. This was not the time for philosophical musings. He had an appointment to keep—a breakfast meeting requested by Victor Bayliss, who’d been Charles’s number one yesman.
“You meet with the guy,” his brothers had said with unseemly haste. “It takes a lawyer to talk to a lawyer.”
Heartless bastards, Grant thought with a fond smile as he closed the bedroom door after him. Not that he minded. Bayliss undoubtedly wanted this meeting so he could cozy up to the new Landon management.
Grant could hardly wait to see the man’s face when he heard the news.
A couple of hours later, Grant threw open the massive front door to the Landon mansion, slammed it shut behind him, and strode down the hall to the dining room. They were all gathered there, just as he’d expected. Cade and Zach were horsing around as if they hadn’t a care in the world while a smiling Kyra looked on.
Hell, Grant thought angrily, why did he have to be the one to drop the bombshell?
“Dammit,” he snapped, “what’s going on here? We’re not kids anymore, in case you’ve forgotten.”
Cade and Zach swung toward him, their faces registering surprise.
“Grant?” Kyra said. “Are you okay?”
He dropped the manila folder filled with bad news on the table, walked to the sideboard, and poured himself a cup of coffee.
“I’m fine,” he said, but he knew, from the looks on their faces, that he wasn’t fooling anybody.
“So?” Cade asked after a minute. “What did Bayliss want to talk about?”
A muscle knotted in Grant’s jaw. “Trouble,” he said grimly. “That’s what he wanted to talk about.”
Zach frowned. “What kind of trouble?”
Grant picked up the file folder. There was no point in beating around the bush; this would have to be dealt with quickly.
“See for yourselves,” he said. He pulled papers from the folder and handed one stack to Cade, the other to Zach. Kyra looked at him, her brows raised, and he smiled reassuringly. There was nothing here to worry his little sister, thank goodness. After a moment, she turned toward the window.
Cade was the first to react.
“According to this report,” he said, looking at Grant, “this Dallas oil company Landon owns—Gordon’s, it’s called—is going to go under any minute.”
“What oil company?” Zach said, his expression puzzled. “I just read a profile on a Landon acquisition called Triad. It’s some kind of Hollywood production outfit—and it’s gonna sink like a stone.”
Grant nodded grimly. “You’re both right. Landon bought both firms to bail them out. Instead, we seem to have helped them get into worse condition.”
Cade bristled. “What’s this ‘we’ stuff, big brother?”
“Are you forgetting, Cade?” Grant swung toward him. “It’s us, as of yesterday. Like it or not, we’re Landon Enterprises. And we will be, until we find a buyer.”
Neither Zach nor Cade needed to be force-fed reality. Grant saw the understanding dawn in both their faces.
If either Gordon Oil or Triad Productions went under, selling Landon would become a nightmare. The company would have a hole in its balance sheet large enough to sink a battleship. Only a fool would buy it then.
Grant’s jaw clenched. His hand went to his pocket, where a scrap of paper lay. The paper was yet another problem, one so ridiculous he couldn’t bring himself to mention it. Not now anyway; not until they’d figured a way out of this mess.
“Tell Bayliss to deal with this,” Cade said.
“Bayliss retired as of this morning. He said he was too old to face another Colorado winter.” Grant smiled tightly. “Seems we read him wrong. He’s going to spend the rest of his days in the Virgin Islands, sipping piña coladas.”
“Goodwin, then. Bayliss’s second in command. He can—”
“Goodwin’s got a dozen things on his plate already.”
“Then what—”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” The brothers swung around. Kyra was glowering at them with a look on her face that said all three of them were fools. “What’s with you guys? Are you stupid, or what? A ten-year-old could figure this out!” She turned an angry glare on Zach. “You’re the financial whiz, aren’t you? Surely you could fly out to the coast, take a look at Triad’s books, and decide what can be done to help it.”
“Me? Don’t be silly. I’ve got people waiting for me in Boston. I can’t just—”
“And you,” she snapped at Cade. “You’re the genius who knows all about oil. And here’s this little company having a problem.” She slapped her hands onto her hips. “Would it be too much to hope that maybe you might be the one to check things out in Dallas?”
“It’s out of the question! I’ve business in London. I can’t—”
“She’s right,” Grant said brusquely. “You guys could get a handle on things faster than anybody else.”
There was a moment’s silence. Cade and Zach looked at each other, and then Zach threw up his arms in defeat.
“Two days,” he said, “and not a second more.”
Cade nodded. “Okay. Two days, and then…Wait just a minute.” He swung toward Grant. “What about you? Don’t tell me you’re the only one of us who gets to walk away from this mess?”
Grant’s hand clamped tightly around the paper in his pocket. Cade was flying to Texas to find out why an oil company was going under; Zach was heading for California to get a handle on a film outfit. And he—he was going back to New York to—to—
Jesus. It was ridiculous, but he was stuck with it. He took a deep breath.
“I’ve got my own mess to deal with. It seems some old pal of Father’s named him guardian of his twelve-year-old kid.”
“And?”
“And,” he said through his teeth, “until she turns twenty-one, I seem to have inherited her.”
He saw the smiles begin to curve across his brothers’ faces, saw even Kyra try, and fail, to maintain a neutral expression. But what choice was there? He was an attorney, he lived and practiced in New York. The girl lived there, too—it was no contest, he thought grimly. The child was his burden by default.
His brothers were looking at each other, their smiles rapidly becoming grins, and he glowered at them.
“You guys think this is funny? Listen, we can always swap jobs. I’ll take on Hollywood, or Dallas, and one of you can—”
“No,” Zach said quickly, “no, that’s okay, old buddy. I’ll deal with Hollywood, Cade’ll handle Dallas.” His lips twitched. “And I bet you’re going to make one hell of a terrific baby-sitter.”
Cade suppressed a snort of laughter. Grant swung toward him.
“This—this is not funny,” he choked, and then, suddenly, the grim look left his face and he burst out laughing. “Hell,” he said, “I can’t believe it, either.”
Laughing, the three men moved into a tight circle, clapped each other on the back, then joined right hands as they had when they were kids.
“To the Deadeye Defenders,” Cade said.
“To the Deadeyes,” Grant echoed, and they grinned happily at each other.
Cade stepped back. “Time to get started.”
Zach nodded. “Yeah. I’ll see you guys before I leave.”
They both hurried from the room. Grant was following after them when Kyra caught his sleeve. “Grant?”
He looked down at her and smiled. “Hey, princess, I almost forgot you were here!”
Kyra gave a short, sharp laugh. “Isn’t that the truth!”
“Well, what is it, sweetheart?”
“I wonder…” She hesitated. “I was wondering how you feel about this place. Is it important to you?”
At first, the question puzzled him, but then he understood. Kyra was worried that her brothers might feel cheated because their father had left the mansion solely to her. Grant put his arm around her shoulders.
“This house will always be important to me,” he said, “with you living in it.”
“I don’t mean that.” Her tone was impatient. “This isn’t about me, Grant, it’s about you. And Cade. And Zach. I need to know if you care about the house, and the grounds, and—”
“I’m certain they feel as I do,” Grant said in a kindly voice. “This place makes you happy, and your happiness is all that matters to us.”
Kyra wrenched free of his arm. “Dammit,” she said, her face flushed, “sometimes you all remind me of Father!”
Grant drew back. “What in hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means—it means none of you listens. You hear what you want to hear, what you think you ought to hear, what—” Kyra blinked. “Sorry. I must be tired. It’s been a long week.” She smiled, reached up, and laid her hand against his chest. “I bet you’ll be a fine guardian for this girl.”
He frowned. “I’ll do my duty, of course.”
“But if she needs a friend…”
Grant laughed. “I am not about to be a ‘friend’ to this child. I will pay her bills, see to it that her future is secure—those are the responsibilities of a guardian.”
Kyra sighed. “I suppose you’re right.” She stood on her toes and pressed her lips to his cheek. “I’m sorry I jumped on you a few minutes ago, Grant. I love you. I love all my brothers—and I always will.”
Grant hugged her. “And we love you, princess.” He kissed her forehead, then made his way past her. When he reached his room, he closed the door and let out a long sigh.
Kyra was sweet and wonderful, and he’d have willingly given his life for her—but did she really think he’d play big brother to—what was her name? Crista, that was it. Crista Adams.
One of his law partners had a daughter Crista’s age; from what Grant had seen, the poor guy was adrift in a sea of orthodontia, acne, and adolescent angst.
But he wouldn’t face any of those problems. As Crista Adams’s guardian, he’d simply be responsible for approving her expenses and signing the checks to meet them. Now that he thought about it—although he’d be damned if he’d ever admit as much to Cade and Zach—he was getting off easy.
Crista Adams’s guardian, hmm? He zipped shut his weekend case, picked it up, and walked out of the room.
What could be simpler?
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_d40c3dfc-8c13-53e9-ba08-9b39a58613ae)
GRANT generally liked Mondays. They put a clean start to the week ahead, but somehow this one already had the feel of disaster.
Why wouldn’t it? he thought, glaring at himself in the bathroom mirror as he shaved. He was about to meet the child who had become his unwanted responsibility, like it or not.
What had seemed a minor inconvenience last week in Denver was looking more and more like a catastrophe waiting to happen. A little judicious checking of guardianship laws suggested that he’d have to do more than sign checks. He might have to offer advice. Even guidance.
Grant’s mouth thinned as he rinsed off his razor. What he knew about children could fit in a pea pod with room left over. And he didn’t know a damned thing about Crista Adams.
He had phoned Simon Adams’s attorney right away but Horace Blackburn was out of the country, his holiday guarded with almost religious fervor by an iron-willed secretary who’d agreed to set up this meeting on her boss’s first day back only after Grant’s growing exasperation had become evident.
But she’d steadfastly refused to release the Adams file so that he could, at least, familiarize himself with the simple details of his ward’s life.
Grant splashed some cologne on his face and strode from the bathroom. Was the child living in her uncle’s house with a governess or was she away at boarding school? Was she a snot-nosed brat or a wellbehaved young lady? Had she been traumatized by the loss of her uncle?
Did she expect her new guardian to take her uncle’s place?
Jaw set, Grant undid the towel knotted at his hips and tossed it aside. The child would simply have to realize that her entire situation had changed, and if she couldn’t cope with that change, she’d be in for a rough ride.
At eight-thirty, just as he was about to leave, the telephone rang. It was his driver, calling to tell him that his car had a flat.
“No problem,” Grant said. “I can grab a taxi.”
But it had started to rain. Finding a cab was impossible at rush hour on a rainy Monday. With a muttered curse, Grant gave it up and sprinted for the nearest subway station.
The platform was crowded and he paced its length with growing irritation. When a train finally came shrieking into the station, the crowd surged forward as if it were the last train anyone would ever see. Grant set his jaw and shouldered his way inside.
By the time he emerged on Wall Street, his mood had gone from bad to grim. Finding that he had at least another three blocks to go in the rain without an umbrella did not improve it.
“Dammit,” he snarled to no one in particular. He turned up the collar of his jacket, ducked his head against the rain, and hurried down the street.
Crista was walking as fast as she could toward the building that housed Blackburn, Blackburn, and Katz but it wasn’t easy when the ridiculously high heels on her boots kept slipping on the slick pavement.
She sighed, thinking how much better she’d feel if she were wearing her own clothes to this meeting. But the meeting was at nine, and she had to be back in the Village to start work by eleven. There wasn’t any choice, except to wear this silly getup under her raincoat.
The letter from her uncle’s attorney had arrived by registered mail on Saturday.
Dear Miss Adams,
Your presence is required at this office Monday morning promptly at nine regarding the provisions of your late uncle’s will.
It was signed by Horace Blackburn, LL.B., J.D.
Crista had frowned. What was this about provisions in Uncle Simon’s will? There wouldn’t be anything in the will that concerned her. Simon had made that clear when she’d moved out of his home.
“You will not get one penny from me, young woman,” he’d said shrilly, wagging a bony finger in her direction. “I’m going to cut you off without a cent!”
“I never wanted anything from you, Uncle,” she’d responded—nothing he’d wanted to give her, at any rate.
So what could the estimable Horace Blackburn, LL.B., J.D., be talking about? Did some kind of legal mumbo jumbo require him to inform her that Simon had written her out of his will?
Well, she’d thought as she dialed Blackburn’s office, he could just tell her that over the phone.
A recorded voice had informed her that the offices were closed until Monday morning at nine.
Crista had grimaced. She’d just have to wait until then to make the call…
Maybe it was impulsiveness. Maybe it was stubborn pride and the determination not to be intimidated by anyone, traits that had always infuriated her uncle. But sometime between Saturday afternoon and Sunday evening, she’d changed her mind.
Crista had decided to keep the appointment.
She’d met Horace Blackburn once when Simon had consulted him about transferring her from one boarding school to another. A prissy man with the same icy bearing as his client, Blackburn’s disapproval of her had been written all over his face.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to smile sweetly at him and tell him where to get off after he’d read the words he undoubtedly hoped would bring tears to her eyes?
The more she’d thought about it, the more she’d looked forward to the chance.
But reality wasn’t measuring up to the fantasy, Crista thought glumly as she turned down Canal Street. Things had gone wrong from the minute she’d awakened this morning. She’d slept through the first jangling call of her alarm clock, and then the gray cat had managed to get himself stuck behind the refrigerator. By the time she’d finally dashed from the apartment, Crista had been running late.
The bus had pulled out just as she’d reached the stop, and neither frantic shouting or jumping up and down had slowed it down or brought it back. So she’d caught the crosstown instead, intending to transfer to a downtown bus at Broadway, but somehow she’d miscalculated.
Now she was walking the last four long blocks in the rain, wondering why on earth she’d ever thought a face-to-face confrontation with Horace Blackburn would be a good idea.
She hunched deeper into the collar of her raincoat. The wind was picking up now, driving the rain before it. Her hair would be as tangled as a bird’s nest by the time she reached Blackburn’s office, and whatever rain-defeating abilities her thin coat once had were long gone. She didn’t even want to think about what the dampness seeping through it might be doing to her already snug T-shirt.
Crista sighed as she stepped off the curb. She’d have been better off sticking to Plan A, she thought as she hurried across the intersection. She could have phoned Blackburn this morning and told him, in her best lockjawed, boarding-school accent, that she didn’t give a fig for whatever it was he had to tell her, that he could either make his little speech over the phone or he could—
“Look out!”
The warning came too late. Crista’s head came up just as the man barreled into her. Her right foot, already up on the curb, slid out from under her. She gave an outraged cry, windmilled her arms in a desperate attempt to keep her boots from bidding a fast farewell to the pavement, and went stumbling backward into the street just as a truck, horn blaring, came racing into the intersection.
The man’s arms swept around her. “I’ve got you,” he said, swinging Crista off her feet and onto the pavement as the truck thundered past, drenching them both in a spray of water.
They stood looking at each other in shocked silence and then Crista let out a long, shaky breath.
“Ohmygod,” she whispered as she clung to the hard, broad shoulders of her rescuer.
“Oh my God?” Her rescuer’s voice was deep and harsh and very angry. “Oh my God? Is that all you can say after you almost killed us both?”
Crista blinked. His face, as harsh and as angry as his voice, was inches from hers; his eyes—some strange combination of blue and brown and green—were cold with fury.
“Me?” she said. Her head lifted. “Me?” she repeated, her voice shooting up the scale in indignation. “I almost killed us both?” She glared back at him, shoved her drenched hair back from her eyes, and twisted free of his grasp. “You ran into me, remember?”
“Where are you from, lady? Didn’t anybody tell you that you’re supposed to watch where you’re going in the big city?”
“I was watching where I was going,” Crista said in her best New York fashion. “You were the one who was tearing along like a linebacker for the Jets.”
The man’s eyes grew flinty. “Thank you for the apology. And now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get by.”
“That makes two of us,” Crista said, her tone as nasty as his.
She stepped to her right. The man stepped to his left. They glared at each other, then made the same moves in reverse. He shook his head, muttered something, then made a mock-chivalrous sweeping gesture with his arm.
“Ladies first,” he said, his tone heavy with sarcasm.
Crista sniffed. “Try keeping that in mind. It might save another woman from almost getting knocked down.”
It was, she thought, a fair exit line—but as she started past him, her right ankle buckled. With a cry of alarm, she stumbled—and was caught in the man’s arms again.
“What now?” he demanded.
Crista’s brows drew together. “I don’t know,” she said. “I was fine until I put weight on my foot. But when I did, it just—”
“Hell, I get it.” She gasped as his hands dug into her forearms. “What comes next? An ambulance ride to the nearest emergency room, where you suddenly develop an incurable headache and back pains?”
“What are you talking about? I never said—”
“I warn you, you’re wasting your time trying a scam like this on me. I’m an attorney, and—”
“An attorney!” Crista twisted away from him and slapped her hands on her hips. “Of course,” she said, her lip curling, “I might have known.”
“Spoils your little scheme, doesn’t it?” Grant smiled tightly. “Trust me, madam. There’s nothing you can try that I haven’t seen before.”
No, he thought, with a catch of his breath, no, he had not seen a face like hers before.
Her eyes were enormous, the color of violets. Her mouth was rosy and heart-shaped, centered between a small, slender nose and a feminine, yet determined, chin. Clusters of tiny silver bells swayed from a pair of delicate ears that were framed by a silky tumble of ebony hair in which raindrops glistened like tiny jewels.
For a man who had seen everything, Grant was suddenly speechless.
“What’s the matter?”
Grant blinked. She was eyeing him narrowly, her face tilted at a questioning angle. The anger was still there but something else was there, too. Wariness? Suspicion?
He sighed. Hell, she was right to look at him like that. Only a nut—or a man in a very bad moodwould go off the deep end the way he had.
She’d run into him, or he’d run into her—who could tell? And what did it matter? The one indisputable fact was that their collision had been forceful. For all he knew, she damned well might have twisted her ankle when she fell back off the curb.
“Nothing’s the matter,” he said. “Look, I’m sorry I’ve been so—”
“Unpleasant?” That determined chin shot forward. “Hostile? How about just plain nasty?”
He tried a polite smile. “I was just heading into that building,” he said, and nodded toward an entryway on his right. “Why don’t we step inside the lobby? You can get off that foot and I’ll check to see if—”
Her hand drove into his belly, hard enough to make the breath shoot from his lungs.
“That’s the most pathetic come-on I’ve ever heard,” she snarled. “Next you’re going to ask me to come up to your office so you can examine me on your couch.”
“Don’t be a fool. I simply meant—”
“Oh, I know exactly what you meant.” Crista’s chin lifted. “First you knock me down, then you accuse me of faking an injury, and now you’re trying to—to—”
“Listen, lady—”
“I’m on my way to a meeting with my attorney this very minute. I swear, I’ll tell him to sue you for—for—”
“The charge is stupidity, lady. First degree stupidity,” Grant said coldly. “Go on, limp your way to wherever it is you’re going. And good luck to the next poor chump you run into.”
“The same to you,” Crista said, and flounced past him.
She didn’t get very far. This time, she didn’t so much stumble as drop to her knees.
“Oh,” she said in surprise.
“Give me a break,” Grant said wearily, stooped, and swung her up into his arms.
“Hey,” she said, “what are you doing?”
Being a glutton for punishment, Grant thought as he carried her toward the building where Horace Blackburn’s office was located. Hell, he thought grimly, at least he was getting closer to that damned meeting.
“You put me down!”
She was beating her fists against his shoulder, but Grant ignored her. At some later point, he thought with bemused detachment, he’d probably laugh at all this, especially at how a woman who felt so soft and smelled so good could land such solid, uncompromising punches.
Right now, all he could hope was that none of the passersby tossing amused smiles in his direction was Horace Blackburn.
Grant shouldered open the lobby door and made for a marble planter that held a scrawny rubber tree trying to survive. With a grunt, he dumped his burden unceremoniously on the planter’s edge.
“No couch,” he said briskly as he knelt down before her. “But then, you can’t have everything in this life, can you?”
“Let me alone,” she snapped as he reached for her foot.
“I’m checking to see what you’ve done to yourself.”
“What I’ve done? You’ve got to be kidding! You ran me over, you called me a swindler, you—you kidnapped me—”
“I told you,” he said pleasantly as he grasped her ankle. “Sue me. But first you’re going to have to take this boot off.”
“Not on your life! Dammit, I didn’t ask you to—” The furious words ground to a halt. “What’s so funny?”
“You won’t need an ambulance or an orthopedist.” Grant looked up at her, his lips twitching. “What you will need is a shoe repair shop.”
Crista frowned as she leaned forward. “What?”
“It’s your heel. It broke when you—when we—collided. That’s why you had trouble keeping your balance.”
Crista shut her eyes as the man began to chuckle. But she couldn’t blame him. What a fool she’d made of herself, starting the minute they’d bumped into each other and going straight through to that performance she’d put on as he carried her inside this lobby.
She was in a terrible mood, angry at herself and the world, but he had no way of knowing that. He was just a stranger and she’d let it all out on him.
She took a deep breath. “Look,” she said, and opened her eyes…
The apology died on her lips. He was still holding her foot, but he wasn’t smiling any longer. Instead, he was taking a slow, steady inventory, that topaz gaze of his sweeping up the length of her inch by inch.
Crista knew, with awful certainty, what he was seeing. The T-shirt. The ridiculous leather skirt. The stupid boots…
Those incredible boots, Grant thought. They were the sexiest things he’d ever seen. And that skirt—it was leather, like the boots, and it barely came to midthigh. Above it, a wide belt cinched an impossibly slender waist and above that…
Oh yes. Above that, her breasts rose in exquisite fullness, rounded and high and encased in a pale pink cotton shirt that had been dampened by the rain. He could see the outline of her nipples so clearly defined that the need to reach out and touch them, to stroke them until they hardened in need, was almost overpowering.
“Well?” Her voice was low pitched, controlled, and very cold. “Have you had a good look, little boy?” She pulled her foot free of his hand and, with a lurch, got to her feet. “Then run home to Mama and I’ll be on my way.”
Grant rose, too. Her eyes had gone from violet to plum. She was angry at him again, which was laughable—almost as laughable as her pretended outrage when she’d thought he was coming on to her a few minutes ago.
Why would a woman dress this way unless that was exactly what she wanted from every man she met?
“Of course,” he said silkily. “I wouldn’t want to keep you. An appointment with your—ah—your attorney, isn’t that what you said?”
Crista drew her raincoat around her. “You go to hell,” she said. With as much dignity as she could manage, considering the broken boot heel, she turned and walked toward the door.
Damn him, she thought, trying not to tremble. And damn herself even more for letting him do that to her. It was a long time since she’d cared how men looked at her in this awful outfit.
But this man, the arrogant bastard, had more than wanted her. He had judged her. Not that she was surprised. Even soaked to the skin, he wore his money and his breeding like a badge of office. People who didn’t meet his hard-hearted standards, who didn’t measure up to some rigid set of rules of his own making, were beneath his contempt.
He didn’t even believe her story about having a meeting to attend. Well, for all she knew, she didn’t. She was so late now that…
Crista stopped as the directory on the wall caught her eye. Blackburn, Blackburn, and Katz were located in this building, on the twentieth floor.
She spun around. There were two elevators, and the doors of both were just shutting. The man might be in either one.
So what?
“Hey,” she yelled, “wait!”
The doors jerked, stopped, then slid open. Crista hurried into the car. There were two occupants. A middle-aged woman with a briefcase—and him.
Crista shot him a cold look, then turned and folded her arms across her breasts. The elevator climbed slowly. At the third floor, the doors opened. The woman with the briefcase stepped out, and the doors closed again.
Crista counted silently as the car moved upward again. At the sixth floor, it stopped. She turned and glared at the man, who was leaning back against the wall, his feet crossed at the ankles.
“Sorry,” he said with a contemptuous smile. “I’m not getting out yet—but feel free to choose any floor you like.”
Crista’s jaw tightened. “Don’t I wish I could!”
“Following me is pointless. I don’t know what you want, but—”
“Don’t flatter yourself, mister! I have as much right to be here as you do. I have—”
“An appointment. Sure.”
Crista heard the disdain in his words. She told herself it didn’t matter, that the opinion of this stranger meant less than nothing to her—but she was already swinging toward him.
“Has anybody ever told you what an absolutely vile human being you are?”
His eyes narrowed. “Listen, lady. You’ve pushed your luck about as far as it goes. If I were you—”
“You are the most—the most arrogant, insolent, coldhearted, unfeeling son of a bitch—”
She cried out as he grabbed her and drew her to him. Her hand flew toward the control panel but he slammed his fist against it first.
The car shuddered to a halt.
“Hell,” he growled, “I’ve taken just about enough from you!”
Deep inside, Grant could hear a cold, rational voice warning him that he was going over the edge—but he wasn’t listening. No woman who looked like this should blame a man for looking at her, for wanting her—for needing to silence her in the most primitive way.
Grant gave up the battle and plunged into a time when men fought saber-toothed tigers.
He pulled her into his arms, ignoring the beat of her fists against his chest, his mouth dropping to hers in a kiss that demanded not just repentance but submission.
Crista offered neither. When he lifted his head, she spat a name into his face that the voice inside him assured him he more than deserved.
Let her go, Grant told himself. Dammit, man, let her go.
But the darkness reached for him again.
His hands fisted in her hair and his mouth descended toward hers. Again, he kissed her, branding her with his anger. Again, she fought back.
Grant went still. What in hell was he doing? He was not a man who took without giving. He was not a man who wanted without being wanted in return. And, God, that was what he needed from this woman. He needed her to want him, to part her lips for his kiss, to reach out to hold him and turn to fire in his arms.
Slowly, he bent his head, brushed his mouth against hers in soft, gentle strokes. His hands shifted, his fingers threading into the spill of her hair so that her head was tilted back and she was captive to his kiss. He kissed her again and again, each kiss tender and sweet, until he felt the tension and the fear leaving her body, until he felt it being replaced by something else.
She made a little sound, one the tiny bells of her earrings seemed to echo. Grant felt her body soften, felt the sudden heat of her, and he whispered words of reassurance against her mouth.
Crista swayed forward. Her lips parted; she whimpered as his mouth slanted over hers, hungry now, and demanding. Slowly, she rose toward him, she lifted herself to him…
The car lurched to life and Grant and Crista fell away from each other. In the silence, Grant could hear nothing but the rasp of his own breathing, the dull droning of the elevator’s motor, and then the sound of the car stopping and the doors opening.
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