Return of the Secret Heir
Return of the Secret Heir
Rachel Bailey
Tycoon JT Hartley is a success in his own right, yet he’s set on claiming his share of his late father’s legacy.But first he has to get past the estate executor – none other than Pia Baxter, a woman he’s never forgotten. Theirs had been a fast and furious union that ended all too suddenly.And though desire still courses between them, JT knows starting anything with Pia again is just asking for trouble.
Now it was time for the next phase in his plan.
Straightening his spine, he crossed the polished tile floor. He stopped behind her, within touching distance, his pulse thudding in his veins. She was picking up her messages from the receptionist, the husky undertones still there despite the professional voice she used.
This close, he could smell her—a perfume that reminded him of fresh mountain water, but through it, her own scent was palpable, and his head swam with its sweetness.
“Pia.” The word escaped his lips without thought.
She swung around to face him, her lips parted in surprise. For an extended moment, no one moved. JT stared into violet-blue eyes more familiar than his own even after the years apart.
He almost reached out to soothe the frown lines on her forehead … but the reality was, they were virtually strangers now.
Dear Reader,
I have to admit to being a bit sad writing this letter, because it will be my last contact with the three Bramson brothers. These three men have been living in my head and on my computer screen for a while now, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed having them there.
The final brother, JT Hartley, has been brought up away from the Bramson fortune and become a self-made man. If you’ve read the first two books, you’ll have briefly met JT’s heroine—the lawyer working on Warner Bramson’s estate (though if you haven’t read the first two, don’t worry, this one stands alone just fine). They were school sweethearts who were torn apart by circumstances beyond their control.
I love a reunion story, and I was thrilled to be able to give JT and Pia the ending I thought they deserved. For some behind the scenes glimpses into this book, drop over to my website, www.rachelbailey.com.
I hope you enjoy your time with JT and Pia as much as I did.
Cheers,
Rachel
About the Author
RACHEL BAILEY developed a serious book addiction at a young age (via Peter Rabbit and Jemima Puddleduck) and has never recovered. Just how she likes it. She went on to earn degrees in psychology and social work, but is now living her dream—writing romance for a living.
She lives on a piece of paradise on Australia’s Sunshine Coast with her hero and four dogs, where she loves to sit with a dog or two, overlooking the trees and reading books from her evergrowing to-be-read pile.
Rachel would love to hear from you and can be contacted through her website, www.rachelbailey.com.
Return of the
Secret Heir
Rachel Bailey
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
This book is for Amanda, my big sister, who won’t read
it but will cry when she sees this. Mandy, no matter
where we go in life, no matter what we do, you
will always be older than me.
Acknowledgements
With thanks to Barb, Robbie and Sharon for the pep
talks and the suggestions. And to Mum for
the cups of coffee and the quiet house.
And to Charles Griemsman for his skillful editing,
and Jenn Schober for her support.
One
As the elevator doors opened to reveal the twenty-third-floor offices, JT Hartley’s heart uncharacteristically lurched against his ribs.
She was there.
A mere ten feet away, standing at the reception desk with her back to him, her bright copper hair respectably pinned up. The body made for sin had become even more lush with maturity, her hourglass figure constrained beneath the buttoned-down cappuccino jacket and skirt. The air in his lungs evaporated as the years melted away. The need to grasp her, wrap her in his arms, was overwhelming, but he resisted. It’d been almost fourteen long years since she’d allowed him that right.
His attorney Philip Hendricks cleared his throat and JT glanced over, realizing that Philip was holding the elevator doors open, a question in his eyes. They’d waited in the downtown Manhattan car park for an hour for Pia to arrive before following her up. He’d gleaned the information from one of the receptionists that Pia had been off with a cold but was expected back today.
Now it was time for the next phase in JT’s plan to claim the money that was rightfully his. Straightening his spine, he stepped out and crossed the polished tiled floor. He stopped behind her, within touching distance, his pulse thudding in his veins. She was picking up her messages from the receptionist, the husky undertones still there despite the professional voice she used.
This close he could smell her—a perfume that reminded him of fresh mountain water, but through it, her own scent was palpable, and his head swam with its sweetness. A vision flashed in his mind of Pia on the back of his bike, her body pressed against his, the wind whipping past as he rode to their secret place out of town.
“Pia.” The word escaped his lips without thought.
A pen clattered to the desk and she swung around to face him, her lips parted in surprise. For an extended moment, no one moved. JT stared into violet-blue eyes more familiar than his own even after the years apart. She gripped a folder to her chest and it rose and fell with her breaths. He almost reached out to soothe the frown lines on her forehead, but reality was, they were virtually strangers now.
Philip’s voice came from beside him. “JT Hartley and Philip Hendricks to see Pia Baxter. We don’t have an appointment.”
Pia blinked slowly, then turned to her receptionist, obviously planning her escape. Since alerting her to his intention to challenge his biological father’s will, she’d refused five requests for a meeting. Avoiding him was understandable—the way they’d parted hadn’t been pretty—but he was determined to meet with the will’s executor, so he’d resorted to this plan of ambushing her when she arrived for work, before she became caught up in the day.
“I’m afraid I have another appointment,” she said with a polite smile and guarded eyes, “but if you’d care to make a time with my receptionist—”
He let an assured smile spread across his face. “We won’t take much of your time, Ms. Baxter.”
She tilted her head in polite sympathy—as if he were nothing more than a damn client. “It’s simply not possible at this time.”
She thought he’d get this far, then simply turn around and leave? When he’d discovered his biological father was a high-profile billionaire, he’d been furious that he and his mother had lived virtually on the bread line until he was old enough to get a job. JT might have made millions in property development as an adult, and was able to keep his mother comfortably now, but that was hardly the point. His mother had sacrificed too much just to give him a life—the least he could do was ensure she received what she deserved, albeit too late. So, no, he wasn’t leaving before he’d had this meeting.
“Pia,” he said, voice deep. “I’m asking nicely.”
Her eyes seemed to lose focus and her fingers gripping the folder turned white. There was a war going on behind her violet eyes. When they were younger, she’d had trouble refusing him anything … until the end. Would that be enough now to compel her to see him? He held her gaze and willed her to allow this.
She blew out a long breath and nodded. “Two minutes. Follow me.”
JT walked behind her down a hall, eyes irresistibly drawn to her swaying hips, the way her calves tapered down to elegant ankles above sensible fawn pumps. And just like that, he was craving her more than he remembered wanting a woman since … well … her.
Philip leaned over and whispered, “You’ve met her before. Anything else you’re keeping from me about you and Ms. Baxter?”
JT frowned. He’d spent almost half his life trying not to think about Pia. At seventeen, he’d tried alcohol, then tried reckless, adrenaline-fueled sports, but ultimately nothing had worked until he’d focused all his willpower on simply refusing to allow images of her to enter his head. So, yeah, there was a whole lot more he was keeping from his attorney, and it would stay that way.
Besides, he wasn’t in the habit of confiding anything of importance in another person. The woman swaying her hips in front of him had cured him of that impulse.
He shrugged. “It won’t affect this meeting.”
Grinning, Philip shook his head. “I should have known. A gorgeous woman and it turns out you have a history with her.”
At any other time, JT would have grinned back, but not today. Not about Pia. And history hardly described the complex relationship they’d had as teenagers. History— the way Philip meant the word—covered flings, one-night stands, meaningless entanglements. It didn’t come near to describing the only woman he’d let himself love, back when he’d been too young to understand the folly.
Philip leaned closer. “Why do I get the feeling I’m here as a human shield rather than for my expertise?”
JT didn’t look at him. “Take your cues from me.”
Pia walked through a door into an office decorated in stark minimalism. Chrome and glass, the opposite of what a sensualist like Pia should have. Which made no sense at all, so he stopped to really look at her—Pia as she was now.
Her body had ripened into a sensual woman’s figure, but she’d contained it—imprisoned it—within a business jacket and knee-length skirt. Her hair was similarly trapped by a stark bun and her lipstick was muted. Where were the bright colors? The luscious copper waves that had once reminded him of fire cascading to her shoulders? The sumptuous textures?
One other thing stood out. She was scowling at him. He clicked into charm mode and smiled. “Thank you for seeing us.”
Pia sat behind her desk and indicated for them to take their seats. “There is no point to this meeting, Mr. Hartley. As I’ve told Mr. Hendricks each time he’s requested one.”
JT sat back in his chair and rested an ankle on the opposite knee. “You’re the executor of my father’s estate. I think there are a few topics we could find to keep us entertained.”
“Mr. Hendricks informed me that you’re challenging Warner Bramson’s will.” Pia raised an eyebrow, clearly unimpressed with his charm. “When your challenge is lodged, it will be handled by the courts.”
And when he had his day in court, he’d win. No question. He’d get his fair share of Bramson’s billions, but in the meantime, there were a few questions he wanted answered.
He drew in a measured breath, knowing not to push too hard with her. “How are Warner’s sons feeling toward the challenge?”
“You’ll need to ask the beneficiaries that question,” she said, her face blank, giving away nothing. “I’m sure you’re aware I can’t discuss it with you.”
“My newfound brothers are refusing to meet with me.” Making it difficult to acquire information he wanted. If they had evidence that their father knew of his existence, he’d lose his standing in court. It would mean his father had deliberately left him out of the will. And if that was on the cards, he wanted to know now.
Her beautiful plump lips compressed into a straight line. “Legally we can’t call them ‘your brothers’ on your say so. We have no evidence you are a son of Mr. Bramson.”
She didn’t believe him. Years ago, they’d lain in each other’s arms, trying to outdo each other with suggestions of who his father could be—a president, a mobster in witness protection, a pirate king. And now he finally knew the truth—she didn’t believe him. The knowledge hit his chest with unexpected force, but he merely raised an eyebrow. “My word holds no weight with you, Pia?”
Back when she’d been the town’s princess and he’d been a boy from the wrong side of the tracks, she’d been the only one to have faith in him. Time changed everything.
Nothing was permanent—he should never have forgotten that for an instant.
“This has nothing to do with my opinions,” she said dispassionately, but a faint blush colored her cheeks. “This is a legal matter.”
He planted both feet on the floor and leaned forward in his chair. “Given that my alleged father is dead and my alleged brothers are refusing to provide a DNA sample, then you’d have to admit it’s rather difficult for me to prove a family connection.”
“This is really a matter for you and Mr. Hendricks to discuss and address when you contest the will. Now if you’ll excuse me—” she stood “—I’m late for a scheduled meeting.”
He didn’t move a muscle. “Answer me one question and I’ll leave.”
Pia looked from him to Philip and back again. “I think I’ve said enough,” she said, her voice tightly controlled.
“Any other questions, send them in writing and either my assistant or I will respond.”
“One question.” Still, he didn’t stand.
She held his gaze but made no reply—it was the closest he was going to get to assent, so he took it. “I want an assurance you won’t bias the people involved against me. Tell me that you won’t paint me in an unfair light.” Her wealthy socialite parents had called him a gold digger so many times that he wondered if she’d believed it when she broke up with him. And despite his current wealth, a reputation for that kind of personality could affect the way his brothers perceived him. “Tell me you’ll give them the chance to consider acknowledging me as a brother without biasing them. Make me a promise, princess.”
Her eyes flashed and she stood straighter. “My name is Pia. Actually, no, it’s Ms. Baxter to you. And you’ve used more than the time I had allotted you.” She pressed a button on her desk and a bespectacled man appeared at an internal door. “Arthur, please show these gentlemen out.”
Then she was gone through the same internal door. JT’s body urged him to give chase, but he knew it would be better to give her time. She’d had no warning about his arrival today—it made sense she was as rattled as he was.
He stood and nodded to Arthur. “We know the way.” Then he strode from the room, followed by his attorney who would be bursting with questions JT had no intention of answering.
Pia held herself together as she walked through the office of her assistant, Arthur, and down the hall to the women’s bathroom. She even managed to smile and exchange pleasantries with a colleague on the way, despite the sound of blood rushing in her ears.
The bathroom was empty. She went to the far cubicle, locked the door and leaned back against the cool laminate. JT Hartley had come looking for her. For close to fourteen years she’d half dreaded, half hoped for this day and now it was here, the timing couldn’t be worse. She pressed her hands over her face, trying to stem the emotional tide that was rising. The last thing she needed was a meltdown at work, especially with a potential partnership in the offing. She’d deal with the effects of JT’s reappearance later. For now, she needed to see her boss.
At the basin, she splashed cold water over her cheeks, patted them dry with a paper towel and straightened her jacket in front of the mirror. Then she headed for the senior partner’s office. She paced his reception room for five minutes while he finished a call before his secretary ushered her in.
“Pia, how can I help you?” Ted Howard asked. He pushed wire-rimmed reading glasses to the top of his salt-and-pepper hair and stretched his arms over his head.
“It’s about that matter we discussed a month ago,” she said, trying hard to stay focused on the legal implications and not letting her mind stray to how JT’s eyes had smoldered. She swallowed. “The new claimant to the Bramson will.”
“Ah, the man you once knew.”
She laced her fingers and regulated her breathing. “Yes.”
“We decided the issue was far enough in the past and not big enough to warrant your being removed from the case. Have you changed your mind?”
“No, I still want to see this case through.” She’d been the one to bring this account to the firm, and Ted had told her at the time that the other partners were impressed enough to put her in the running for a partnership if her work on the case was exemplary. Letting the case go was not an option, no matter what stunt JT pulled. “But you should know he was just here.”
Howard’s gaze sharpened. “Hartley came to your office?”
“He didn’t have an appointment and I saw him for approximately six minutes. There will be no further contact.”
“What did he want?” he asked as he pulled his glasses from his head and casually threw them onto his desk.
The same question had been in her mind during their pointless and frustrating meeting. That was, in the moments her mind had been able to operate instead of being stuck in stunned mode. “I think he was hunting for information to help his claim.”
Howard arched an eyebrow. “Did he succeed?”
“Of course not,” she said, lifting her chin.
He smiled. “Okay, I don’t think this changes anything. Just let me know if he makes any further contact.”
“I will,” Pia said and headed back out the door. Regardless of what JT may think, there would be no further contact to report.
That night, Pia knelt on the carpet in front of her bedroom cupboard, struggling to fill her lungs. She reached to the back—the box was in the far corner where she’d put it after moving in only eighteen months ago—behind the tightly bound rolls of felt and bags of netting. Out of sight but never completely out of mind.
Gently, she brought it forward, her heart jumping erratically, then sat back against the wall, the box on her lap unopened. It was just an ordinary shoe box, tied with a narrow red ribbon. Nothing more unusual than many women probably had pushed to the back of their cupboard, but the contents were far from ordinary.
She gripped the end of the ribbon between trembling fingers, yet hesitated. What good would it do to delve back into painful memories? Just because JT Hartley came calling unannounced, opening old wounds and sending her world off balance, didn’t mean she had to exacerbate the situation. But her fingers tugged and the ribbon fell away. She closed her eyes as she removed the lid, fortifying herself, then opened them and looked down.
There, lying on the top, was a photo of a seventeen-year-old JT, grinning crookedly around the tiny scar above his lip, his eyes full of the devil, his arm wrapped around a sixteen-year-old version of her. His body, encased in a carelessly rumpled black T-shirt, wasn’t as filled out as she suspected the one under the suit today had been. But the boy in the photo was her first love, her first lover, more dear to her than anyone or anything had ever been … except the other person remembered in this box.
The back of her eyes prickled with emotion. She looked so young. So naively happy, thinking they had the world at their feet. So often since then she’d wished for that same belief in the world, in herself, in another person.
But she and JT had lived in a false world of their own creation.
A second tattered-edged photo was behind the first—the two of them with his mother, Theresa Hartley. Theresa had welcomed her into their small family with wide open arms, and because Pia’s own mother had never been particularly maternal, Pia had adored having a loving mother figure. Theresa had been the one thing Pia had salvaged from the devastation of her breakup with JT—she and Theresa still met for lunch once or twice a year, a ritual Pia treasured.
She flicked the photos aside, gently sorting past dried wildflowers and other tokens of seventeen-year-old JT’s love, until she came to what she was looking for, the memories that haunted her dreams.
An unused pair of pink booties, a well-thumbed baby name book with a corner turned down on the B page, and a grainy ultrasound picture. She squeezed her eyes shut for a long moment against their power. Not much to remember a human life, but this little person had never drawn breath, so there hadn’t been much to leave behind.
Except a mother’s unending love.
Brianna.
A soft, purring body appeared out of nowhere and climbed into Pia’s lap. She hadn’t heard Winston approach, but she was grateful for his warmth in this moment. For his living vitality. She held him as tightly as he’d allow.
She remembered the look on JT’s face when she’d told him she was pregnant—he’d been over the moon and begun planning how he would support the three of them. They would have become a family.
As she clutched the booties to her chest, holding tight, the phone rang. She desperately wanted to leave it to ring out just this once, but her more important clients had her private number and she was so close to making partner that she couldn’t afford to let anything slip by. She pinched the bridge of her nose, gulped in some air, then reached up to her bag where she’d thrown it on her bed and pulled out her cell.
“Pia Baxter.”
“Pia,” a deep voice said, sending shivers of decadent remembrance through her body. She clutched tighter to the booties once meant for this man’s baby. A call from JT Hartley was the very last thing she needed while she felt vulnerable. While she could see the ultrasound of the life they’d created together.
“Are you there?” he asked when she didn’t respond.
She swallowed. “How did you get my number?”
“You’d be surprised how resourceful I can be when I set my mind to it.”
Actually, not much surprised her about this man at all. “First a visit and now a call. Must be my lucky day.”
He chuckled. “Still got your smart mouth, I see.”
She carefully put the booties back in the box and replaced the lid, shutting the door to their past. “Why are you calling?”
“You didn’t answer my question at the office.”
She turned her mind back to when—only hours ago—he’d sauntered back into her life. She could barely remember anything other than those vibrant green eyes fringed by long, dark lashes and his crooked smile, let alone an unanswered question. “You’ll need to remind me.”
“I asked for your assurance that you won’t prejudice Warner’s sons against me, even unintentionally through your own bias, during this challenge.”
She frowned. She hadn’t thought that question had needed an answer. That he’d know her better than that. “Why would I be prejudiced?”
There was a pause on the line. “Things didn’t end so well between us,” he said, the brashness not as strong in his voice.
“JT, regardless of what you might think, I don’t bear you any ill will. Besides, I’m a professional and I’ll carry out my duties as executor thoroughly, regardless of my personal feelings.”
Her ethics demanded no less. She had her obligations to the firm’s clients, and if Warner Bramson really was JT’s father, the last thing she’d want was to create more obstacles for JT. She would stay neutral, and simply carry out her duties.
“Then meet with me,” he said, voice pure temptation. “Now. Tonight.”
A shiver rippled across her skin. Meet with him again? “No.”
“Why not?”
Because you’re a danger to my equilibrium. Because you bring out the worst in me and I’ve worked far too hard to become the person I want to be. Because seeing you brings up memories of our baby and I can’t handle any more right now. But she wouldn’t risk letting him inside her head by telling him any of that.
She rubbed the heel of her hand over her eyes, trying to erase the memories he’d already evoked. “Because there’s no reason to meet.”
“We need to set some ground rules so we’re on the same page during this situation. Meet me once and I’ll leave you alone.”
She sighed. There was a logic to that. She had a few ground rules of her own, starting with no unannounced visits to her office. Make that no visits to her office at all. Her bid to make partner of the firm needed no surprises, no new connections between her and JT Hartley.
Still, was it worth the risk of seeing him alone? Would Ted Howard understand that one more contact might be in the best interests of keeping her distance? She let out a breath. “JT …”
“Just once, princess,” he said, voice as smooth as warm caramel.
Her heart clenched tight as a fist. When she’d been sixteen, she’d loved the way he’d called her princess—reverentially, tenderly. Now she was a grown woman and he was a virtual stranger, his saying it that way—and making everything inside her melt a little—was too much, too intimate. Another entry for the list of ground rules.
Maybe they did need to meet just once….
Dislodging Winston from her lap, she shoved the shoe box to the back of the cupboard, then leaned back against the wall. “Where?”
“Your office or mine. Your choice.”
Low key would be best while she decided what she’d tell Ted Howard about this. If JT came back to her office, word would spread around the firm that she’d again met with the claimant to the estate she was responsible for without the will’s beneficiaries’ permission. The same possibility was there if she went to his office because it was in a prominent building downtown—a place she’d always avoided. She silently groaned. Only one option presented itself to keep this private.
“My apartment in half an hour.” She gave him the address, knowing she’d regret it later. Hell, she regretted it now.
“I’ll be there.”
“This is a onetime deal, JT,” she said, then disconnected and thumped her head back on the wall behind her.
She’d agreed to let the devil into her home.
Two
At the deep hum of a motorbike pulling up on her street, Pia drew the curtain to the side, her pulse chaotic. JT sat with his strong, long legs astride the machine as he switched off the engine. Under the light of a streetlamp, he kicked down the side stand with a heavy boot and unbuckled the helmet, exposing his hair to the breeze. When he swung his leg over the side, she pressed a hand to her stomach to ease the flutters of trepidation.
JT arriving on a motorbike, stirring up memories. He was kitted up for a ride, looking sexy as hell…. About to march into her home. She groaned and rested her head against the windowpane. This had to be the stupidest idea she’d ever had.
The bike was a different model from the one he’d ridden when they were teenagers—that bike had been scrappy and built from bits he’d scavenged and traded. This one was sleek and silver and looked like it cost as much as her garden apartment.
From the ground floor window, she watched him make his way up the path to the apartment complex’s foyer and—heart lunging at her ribs—she buzzed him in.
Seconds later, she opened the front door to JT, larger than life in his black riding jacket zipped to his neck, dark jeans, boots and rumpled hair. She almost melted into the floor. He bore little resemblance to the man who’d been in her office this morning. He was more disheveled. Reckless. More like the young JT who’d stolen her heart and her virginity. She shivered.
“Nice bike,” she said in a voice she hoped was casual.
Looking around her living room, he unzipped his jacket to reveal a form-fitting white T-shirt, then slipped his arms from the coat and folded it over a forearm. “An MV Agusta. Haven’t ridden it in a while. It seemed somehow … appropriate.” One corner of his mouth hitched up around the small scar above his lip. She remembered his receiving that scar when he came off his bike doing a daredevil stunt that had scared her silly. And she remembered kissing the healed scar in the heat of passion.
Dragging her eyes from his face, she held out her hand. “I’ll hang up your jacket.”
“I appreciate the hospitality,” he said drily and handed it over.
Ignoring the barb about her reluctance to meet with him, she walked over to the coat stand. The jacket was warm with his body heat and she held it a moment too long before hanging it, then ironed her damp palms down her trousers and turned back to him.
He stood, dominating her living room without trying, hands slung low on his hips. “So tell me how we need to play this.”
“We’re not playing anything,” she said a little too sharply, still unsettled by his effect on her body. This would have been easier over the phone, where she could have focused more on the topic instead of the tower of testosterone in front of her. The lamplight from the corners of the room added too much atmosphere to his expression, so she stepped to the wall and switched on the overhead lights before trying again. “You just need to keep your distance.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Why so adamant?”
“Warner Bramson’s family has always attracted more than its fair share of media attention. You will too once you lodge your claim. You have to see that if it were known we were once involved, people would start to wonder about my ethics and bias.” Ted Howard already had, but luckily she’d been able to reassure him. “You wondered it yourself.”
He rocked back on his heels, eyes trained on her face. “But the only question could be that you’d be biased against me. No one who knew how our involvement ended would suspect you of aiding me. And because your job is to carry out terms of a will that neglects me, I don’t see the problem.”
“I’m sure the beneficiaries of the will would prefer to have someone with no connection to you. And my boss is watching me too closely on this case.” She would already need to conceal tonight’s visit from Ted Howard—somehow she didn’t think he’d understand.
“What’s the worst he’d do? Move you to another case?”
“Yes,” she said with certainty.
JT rubbed his thumb back and forth over his bottom lip as he surveyed her. “You badly want this case, don’t you?”
“More than any other I’ve handled.” More than anything in her life.
He cocked his head to the side and scrutinized her face. “Why?”
She sighed. How much should she tell him? Details about how she came to have the case were off-limits to JT, but perhaps it would help if he knew the stakes were high for her. If there was any of the JT she’d once known inside this man, surely he’d respect that?
She swallowed, then met his eyes. “Warner Bramson’s will is worth billions. It’s a big case. The senior partner of my firm indicated that if I carry this off smoothly, I’ll finally make partner.”
In actual fact, she’d chased this account, wanted to work on Warner Bramson’s will after JT’s mother had let slip on one of their annual lunches that JT’s father’s name was Warner. It was an unusual name, so Pia had done some digging and found that Theresa Hartley had worked in the secretarial pool of Bramson Holdings around the time JT was conceived. And Bramson was powerful enough to be the sort of man Theresa could be in hiding from all these years. Circumstantial evidence, for sure, but enough to convince Pia that it might be true.
She’d lobbied for the account to be brought to her firm in hope there would be something she could do to guide Warner to confirm JT was his son, and then to redress Theresa’s treatment. But Pia had failed—up until his death, Warner had denied there were any other children he’d need to make allowance for when she’d probed in her professional capacity.
She lifted her chin. “I’ve been working toward making partner since I started at the firm—I won’t risk being moved to another case because of a perceived conflict of interest.”
It was her big chance. The partners at her firm had been so impressed when she landed the account in the first place that they’d promised she’d likely make partner when it was all concluded. She might have been initially interested in the case for Theresa, but now it had dovetailed into her primary career goal—make partner.
He arched an eyebrow, the trace of a smile lurking on his lips. “You’ve got yourself a carrot and a stick on the one case.”
Was he taking this seriously? “JT, if you—”
The intensity in his eyes turned serious. “It’s okay, I get it. You followed your family into law and now you’re committed to making a success of it. Fair enough. We definitely need some ground rules to survive. Are you going to invite me to sit down?”
“No, you won’t be here that long.” She didn’t want him settling in—this had to be as quick as she could make it. If she’d been thinking straight, she wouldn’t have taken his jacket either. “What sorts of rules are you thinking?”
“We start with your agreeing you won’t be biased against me, or influence others to be.”
“I already told you I won’t—” she held up her hand to stop whatever protest his open mouth was about to voice “—but for the sake of these negotiations, I swear I won’t.”
He gave a satisfied nod. “I appreciate it.”
“In return, you’ll agree not to set foot in my firm’s offices or my apartment again.”
He looked at her from under heavy eyelids. “What if you invite me?”
He was flirting with her now? That’s where he thought their relationship was headed?
“I won’t,” she said firmly despite the heat creeping up her neck.
“But if you do?” He folded his arms across his broad chest and the action made his biceps strain against the sleeves of his T-shirt. Her mouth dried. His body had always been strong because he’d been active, but those arms were beautiful. She blinked. What were they talking about?
Invitations. She swallowed. “Okay, you agree not to set foot on the premises of my work or home without an invitation. And I want you to agree that in any contact we have—which should be minimal—we have no mention of the past.”
She knew he must have questions about their breakup—she hadn’t explained it well at sixteen. She probably couldn’t explain it well even now. And the guilt for hurting him then still lived in her gut like heavy, sticky molasses. Delving into that wouldn’t help anyone; it would only make things messier.
“Anything before this moment?” He arched an eyebrow. “What if it’s relevant to my claim?”
“No mention of our shared past. Our relationship.” She crossed her arms under her breasts, mirroring his pose, and his eyes followed the action, resting too intimately for her comfort level.
“Fair enough, princess,” he said with a rasp in his voice.
Her heart missed a beat. “Don’t call me princess.”
“Is that a rule or a request?”
“A ground rule, JT.”
“Sure,” he said too casually. “If you stop saying my name like that.”
She did a quick mental scan of how she’d been saying it, but couldn’t see anything to give offence. “Like what?”
“Say it,” he commanded in a low, seductive voice.
“JT,” she said.
A lazy smile spread across his face. “Yeah, like that.”
Pia stared at him, perplexed, but he didn’t explain why simply saying his name could be a problem.
“And while we’re at it,” he said, “that chain has to go.”
She glanced down at her necklace. A simple gold chain with a P that hung low. “I’ve always worn it.”
“I know, and it’s always driven me crazy. If you want our past off the table, then you need to remove it.” He blinked slowly. “It sits in your cleavage and you don’t want my mind going there any more than I can help.”
His gaze locked on hers and didn’t waver. Her pulse raced erratically. He’d cornered her with a few words and he knew it. If she refused, she’d be inviting his flirting and she was so close to doing that already that she couldn’t take the risk of sending the wrong signals. With trembling fingers she slipped off the chain. As soon as he left, she could put it back on—he’d never know because she shouldn’t be seeing him again. She dropped it on the coffee table.
“And,” he said, seeming to warm to his subject, “you need to keep your feet covered.”
Her mouth dropped open. “What?”
“You’re not the Pia I remember. You’re buttoned down and covered up. The only hint of my Pia is those brightly painted toe nails.”
A delicious shiver zipped across her skin at the way he said my Pia, but she ignored it as she looked down at the hot pink she’d painted on yesterday while she’d been home sick. “It’s just nail polish. Lots of women wear it.”
“But they wear it somewhere people can see. I’m guessing you never wear it on your fingers. Only on your toes, and then you always wear closed-toe shoes at work. No one sees your polish, do they, Pia?” he said, voice low.
She lifted her chin, not happy with his assessment—or its accuracy. “It’s not professional.”
“Then don’t flash your toes at me either.”
She moistened her lips. This was becoming ridiculous.
“You won’t be in my house again to see,” she said, but her voice wavered.
“Even so.” He left the thought hanging and her pulse hammered with the tension in the air.
“Then you keep your biceps covered,” she blurted.
“My biceps?” he said, his eyes widening.
She waved a hand in the general direction of his arms, trying not to look. “You swagger in here in a T-shirt that stretches tight over your arms, and then have the gall to tell me to have my toes covered and take off a chain.”
“My biceps?” he asked again, slowly, as if realizing that meant she’d noticed them. Awareness flashed in his eyes. “It sits better under the jacket if it’s firm,” he said absently.
Feeling edgy, she closed her teeth over a long index fingernail and watched him follow the move with his eyes.
He swallowed hard, then swallowed again. “And don’t do that.”
“Do what?” she whispered.
He took a step closer. “Touch your mouth.”
She lost her breath. He was so close.
“Why?” she said, heart racing, knowing to ask was playing with fire, but nonetheless helpless not to say the word.
JT looked down at that lush mouth and was tempted beyond endurance. He closed the last inches that separated them and brought his mouth down, groaning when he could feel the moist softness of her lips. His arms reached out and snared her waist, pulling her sumptuous curves against his body. No woman had ever felt like Pia against him.
He touched his tongue to her lips and she hesitated for a moment, then he felt her throw caution to the wind and part them, granting him access to the heated depths. A tremor ran through her body and he held her tighter, feeling her hands reach to twine behind his neck, holding him in place. There was no need—he wasn’t going anywhere. He hadn’t planned on kissing her, but there was nothing he wanted more in this moment. Her mouth, with its taste of ambrosia, moved under his, and she rubbed seductively against him, inviting. As he nipped at her bottom lip, his hands roamed down from her waist, over the flare of her hips, wanting more—
Pia wrenched her mouth away. “JT, I’m not doing this again,” she said breathlessly.
“Sure you are,” he said on a smile and lowered his mouth again.
She placed her hands on his chest, her features resolute. “No, JT, I’m not.”
Body screaming its protest, he drew in a lungful of air and released her. Then he took a step back and shoved his hands into his pockets to stop them reaching for her, seducing her into kissing him again. She’d said no.
When he had control, he thought back over her words. “Not doing what again?”
“This.” She waved a hand back and forth between them. “Getting involved.”
Involved? That’s where she thought he was going with this? He sobered. “Oh, princess, it’d be a cold day in hell before we got involved again.”
Her body stiffened. “Then don’t kiss me.”
“I like kissing you.” In truth, he’d like to do a whole lot more. For fourteen years, his memories of making love to Pia had been enveloped in a golden glow, no matter how hard he tried to stamp them out. He knew it was because she’d been his first love, but knowing wasn’t enough to fix the problem.
Now they’d stumbled across each other, maybe they should make love one more time—put their past into context and take the romantic luster from his memories. He could prove to himself she was just like any other woman. He could move on.
Although that didn’t seem like a plan she’d agree to from the annoyance on her face.
“I need a glass of water,” she said and walked away.
The curtains twitched and he looked up to find a large white cat with black patches gazing at him with feline disdain. Seemed he was striking out with all the residents of the apartment tonight.
He followed her into an adjacent kitchen of steel and chrome with white benches, and waited to see if she’d offer him a glass as well. He wouldn’t be surprised either way because adult Pia was a mass of mixed signals—reluctant to meet him and not letting him sit down in her living room, but kissing him like the world was about to end.
The ingrained hostess training that all the Baxter girls had been given won out—she poured him a glass from a jug in the fridge.
“Or would you like something stronger?” she asked.
“Water’s good.” He accepted the glass, took a drink, then put it on the counter. He gazed at Pia as she sipped hers and shook his head. “Look at us, standing in your kitchen, drinking water. JT and Pia fourteen years later.”
It wasn’t how he’d imagined their future back then. Factor in a brood of kids, a house with a yard, Pia a famous fashion designer and it’d be closer to the truth. Of course it probably would never have gotten that far—at the first sign of trouble she’d abandoned him, ripping his heart from his chest in the process, so better it had happened when it did than once they had a mortgage and three or four children. He’d never forget that when the going had gotten tough, she’d cut and run without a backward glance at him.
He’d dodged a bullet that day and he’d made damn sure never to get himself in the firing line again. He would never open himself to a woman—especially not this one.
Pia put her glass in the sink, then without meeting his eyes, she asked, “When did you start believing Warner was your father?”
JT leaned back on the counter behind him and sank his hands into his pockets. Probably much better to talk about this than where his mind had been going. “When his death appeared in the papers.”
“Your mother told you?” Genuine interest and concern filled her eyes. Pia and his mother had been close—she said she’d been able to talk to his mother in a way she never could with her own. And his mother, who’d always wanted a daughter, had been thrilled when she’d thought she was getting Pia for a daughter-in-law. From the little his mother told him, they still met occasionally for lunch, but details had been kept from him; he knew it was to protect him and had left it at that.
He dipped his chin in a short nod. “She’d been scared of him.”
Pia flinched. “She was hiding?”
He clenched his fists in his pockets. As a child, he’d thought his mother liked moving around, but in his teens he’d begun to suspect she was running from someone or something. Seemed he’d been right. “She was in the Bramson Holdings secretarial pool. They had an affair. He thought it was merely convenient. She was in love.”
“Oh, poor Theresa.” Pia’s eyes glistened with the sympathy his mother deserved. This was the first time he’d repeated what his mother had told him—besides the few dry details to his attorney—and it felt good to have someone react the same way.
“She fell pregnant, and when she told him, he said he was already engaged and nothing would get in the way of that wedding.” His jaw hardened, making it difficult to get the words out. “He told her to get an abortion.”
Her face paled. “She didn’t want one?”
“Apparently not, but Warner told her there would be consequences if she didn’t.” His throat was suddenly dry, and Pia pressed his glass of water into his hands. He frowned—he hadn’t noticed her pick it up—but took the glass and drank deeply.
When he handed the empty glass back, Pia asked gently, “Did she talk to Warner?”
He shook his head. “She went home, packed and ran.”
“That’s why you were always changing schools.” Pia moved closer, laid a hand on his arm, bringing all her softness and warmth to him. And without thinking, he took what she offered, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her close.
“You know, she never let on that she was scared—she made it feel like we were exploring new places all the time.” He still couldn’t believe his mother had been able to keep up that cover story to her own son for so long. He absently ran his thumb in circles on Pia’s hip.
“So why were you so close to Manhattan when we met?” she asked, her voice just above a whisper. “You’d lived all over the country—why come close to Warner again?”
He shrugged. “She said she thought I was old enough to be safe. But I think she might have been homesick, and a small town in New Jersey was as close as she dared come.” He looked down at her beside him, looked into her eyes.
She interlaced their fingers. “I truly hope for the sake of your challenge that he didn’t know you were his son, JT.”
He stilled. That was the information he’d wanted. Bramson’s heirs had no evidence that Warner knew he had another son—if they’d been able to prove Warner knew about him and deliberately left him out of the will, JT’s case would never even make it to court. His only chance was to claim that Warner was unaware of his existence and so leaving him out had been an accident of fate.
He should leave—he had Pia’s vow that she wouldn’t work against him, and he had the information he’d wanted. There was no other reason to stay. Yet his feet stayed firmly planted on her kitchen floor.
They stood in silence for long moments, JT’s thoughts drifting from his father to the warm body pressed against him. He’d know the feel of her blindfolded.
“Assuming Warner was your father,” she said carefully, and he almost smiled at her attempt to stay in her impartial role, “it’s impossible to justify that all the time your mother was struggling, your father was a billionaire.”
He’d spent several weeks being consumed by anger over that exact point. His mother had worked a succession of menial jobs to pay the rent, to ensure he had clothes to wear to school, never having new things herself, never feeling safe. All while Warner Bramson’s wife and his long-term mistress lived the high life, not needing to work, yet having jewels, the latest fashions, luxuries beyond belief. The injustice of it ate into his gut.
He set his shoulders. “That’s why I have to challenge. For her.”
“But you’re doing well now? Surely she’s stable?”
Of course she was stable now. It’d been soon after Pia had abandoned him that he and his mother’s boss had bought a rundown house together—because he was in real estate, Old Jack had been the eyes and the money, and JT had been the brawn and the spare time. He’d fixed up the place under Old Jack’s directions and they’d given it to his mother. He’d always suspected Old Jack was sweet on his mother, but being an employee, she’d been off limits.
Then they’d bought another run-down house and sold the finished product, then another. They’d avoided the real estate crash through Old Jack’s foresight and continued. He’d ended up in property development more by a random chain of events than design, but it was a good career built on solid, secure investments.
His mother now lived in the most expensive house he could talk her into, and had a regular monthly income that saw her well taken care of. But that wasn’t the point.
“This isn’t about the money,” he said, wanting Pia to understand this if nothing else. “The injustice of her life needs to be redressed. She lost so much for me to have life, the least I can do is see her receive what she deserves.” She needed to be acknowledged by the family whose patriarch had dismissed her like a dirty rag.
Pia disentangled herself from him, leaned back on the opposite counter and trained her steady analytical gaze on him. “You need to understand that just because you think you have the high moral ground here doesn’t mean you can win.”
Oh, he’d win. He may be illegitimate, but he was the eldest of Warner Bramson’s sons. The only time he’d ever lost a fight was when Pia had left him. And soon he’d rectify that, too. Now he’d seen her again, tasted her, he’d have her back in his bed one final time before this was over.
Three
Pia watched JT leaning back against a countertop in her kitchen and her heart ached for him. She didn’t doubt the story—she’d wanted Warner Bramson’s account because she’d suspected as much. But she hadn’t heard the details before, hadn’t known Theresa had been told to get an abortion. She shuddered.
JT had never had much of a family—he was an only child with a single mother. Now he’d discovered who his biological father was and had two newfound half brothers, but they didn’t want him. Were actually working to keep him locked out. He wouldn’t have expected to be welcomed into the family fold, but still the rejection had to hurt the lost boy deep inside him.
Once upon a time, they’d almost made a family together—JT and her, and their baby. They’d had such magnificent plans for their future, but she and JT had been apart for the fourteen years since then, and their baby had never drawn breath. The heavy emptiness of grief for that little life descended over her shoulders, pressing down.
“Do you ever think about our baby?” she whispered, leaning back against the kitchen counter across from him.
His eyes widened for a second and dark pain swam in their depths. She guessed this wasn’t a topic he usually talked about either. Perhaps she shouldn’t have brought it up—it was too intimate, they didn’t have that kind of relationship anymore.
He cleared his throat and jerked his head in a nod. “All the time.”
A little part of the wall she’d erected around her heart crumbled at his admission. That wall had been protecting her from the unbearable feelings of loss since the terrible day their baby died when she’d fallen from her bedroom window on her way to meet JT.
She’d been twenty weeks pregnant and had just told her parents. Their solution was to move her away for the rest of the pregnancy and then adopt the baby out. Frantic, she’d rung JT and they’d made a rushed plan to run far away that night. She’d packed a few things together, and on the climb out the second-story window—a climb she’d done hundreds of times before—she fell. Her parents rushed her to the hospital, but no one had been able to save her baby.
Afterward she’d pushed JT away—she’d had no choice. But having him here, their both feeling the same loss, made it a little safer to say the words she couldn’t say to anyone else.
“I’ve often wondered if I think about her so much because there was no closure. No body, no grave.” Her gaze drifted to her bedroom door, where her memory box was concealed at the back of the cupboard. “There was never a chance to grieve properly. My parents wanted the whole episode swept under the carpet.”
His eyes flashed fire at the mention of her parents. “They shouldn’t have done that,” he said, then his voice softened. “There might not have been a body or grave, but there is something.”
Something? Her heart missed a beat. “What do you mean?”
JT opened his mouth, then hesitated, as if engaging in an internal debate. Then, holding her gaze, he nodded, decision made. “Grab a coat. I’ll show you.”
“On your bike?” she said skeptically, looking out the window at the silver machine he’d ridden over.
He followed her line of vision and frowned. “Good point. I don’t have a second helmet. We’ll take your car.”
As he took a step toward the door, she held up a hand. This was going too fast; she couldn’t think straight. “Hang on. I haven’t agreed to go anywhere with you.”
With an alluring blend of sincerity in his eyes and a commanding set to his mouth, he reached out and took her hand, holding it loosely in his. “It’s something you’ll want to see, Pia.”
Her hand warmed from his and she sighed. After that kiss, her ground rule of keeping their distance was pretty much blown out of the water. And if he knew of something that related to their baby, then she wanted to see it.
She withdrew her hand and folded her arms under her breasts—keeping the temptation to touch him again at bay. “Where are we going?”
“I think it’d be better if I just show you.”
The JT she’d known was always teasing and playing games like this, but his expression was earnest, so she let it go. “Okay.”
She grabbed her bag and picked up her keys from the kitchen bench. JT had thrown his jacket on and held up the long mocha coat that had been beside his on the coat stand.
“Thank you,” she said as she slipped her arms through the sleeves, shivering as his hands brushed the hair at the base of her neck before he released the coat.
He held his hand out for the car keys. She looked from his empty hand up to his eyes. “You think I’ll let you drive my car? Remember I’ve seen you drive.”
“Not since I was seventeen,” he said, clearly unconcerned by her reluctance. “Besides you don’t know where we’re going.”
“You could simply tell me,” she pointed out.
“I could,” he said, but his crooked smile clearly said I won’t.
Shaking her head at how comfortable he seemed to be making himself in her life again, she handed over her keys. It was only one night, and then they’d go their separate ways. And in the meantime, she really wanted to see what his something was.
They climbed into her Mercedes Cabriolet and he drove them out of town, her Nina Simone CD providing background music. As the New York streetlights flashed by, she lost track of time and distance, absorbed in thoughts of their baby and what could have been. Perhaps they would have married and been raising Brianna together, living in a sweet little house with a garden out front. He’d greet her each night with the passion of—
No. She bit down on her trembling bottom lip. That was a fantasy. Their relationship would have self-destructed long ago. She would have self-destructed if she’d stayed with JT. Her hands gripped each other as if for dear life.
“You all right, princess?”
She jumped as his words cut into her thoughts. “You agreed not to call me that.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” But he didn’t look sorry. In fact he looked more like the young JT as his green eyes took on a twinkle.
She watched him from the corner of her eye as he expertly handled her car, his powerful arms turning the wheel to hug the corners. There was something about his profile, the shadow of the day’s beard on his cheeks, that screamed “danger.” And she knew exactly what that danger was—not him; no, he would never hurt her. It was in what he unleashed in her. All the bad traits, all the selfish, worst aspects of herself were magnified and harder to resist when he was nearby. It wasn’t how she wanted to live. It wasn’t the person she wanted to be.
When they were young, all he had to do was hold out an apple and she’d reach for the forbidden fruit, no questions, no self-control. Her parents had warned her that she was out of control, but she hadn’t listened. Her teachers had told her that her grades were dropping, but she’d much rather dream about JT than listen in class.
It had only been when her recklessness had cost her baby the ultimate price that she’d finally taken stock. The sole method available to pull back from the brink of self-destruction was to cut herself off from JT—to tear from her heart the almost-physical connection they had. Added to the grief of losing her daughter, she’d thought at the time the pain might kill her.
Over the years she’d found it grew easier to bury her wayward side. She’d gone to law school as her parents wanted and become a responsible adult. She dated several men—even became engaged to two—but there had always been something missing, so she’d ultimately broken things off with them. She might not be willing to touch the fire of a man like JT again, but she couldn’t live a lie and marry a man she felt nothing for beyond affection and friendship.
One day she’d find the perfect man—one about whom she could feel passionate, but who brought out the good aspects in her. Surely such a man existed?
Suddenly a familiar sign on the roadside caught her attention and she blinked and looked through the window at the scenery, her heart quickening with a strange mixture of dread and lightness. They were in New Jersey. In fact, they were on the outskirts of their hometown.
She turned in her seat to face JT. “We’re going to Pine Shores?”
“Yes,” he said, giving nothing else away.
They drove through the town, past the school where they’d met, past the road to his old house, past the diner where he’d taken her on dates, and then out the other side. He slowed at a turnoff to the secluded stretch of beach the locals called Bride’s Beach where the two of them had spent a lot of time together. Where they’d first made love.
He pulled up in the empty, unlit car park and switched off the engine. The silence was heavy as they both looked out through the windscreen at the dark trees that separated them from the beach. A tight band pressed around her chest, making it difficult for her lungs to draw air.
Then he disengaged his seat belt. “Come on,” he said.
She climbed out of the car and followed him as he walked down the path that led to the water, then turned left onto a barely visible track winding through the trees. Moonlight shone through trees with leaves that fluttered in the light breeze. The way was as familiar now as it had been then—indelibly etched into her consciousness. She used to sneak out her window at night and meet JT around the block, and he’d bring her down here on the back of his bike. They’d lie together, nestled in the trees that met the sand, looking out over the beach and water, sometimes talking, sometimes making love, always holding each other. In colder months, they’d bring blankets.
It was the spot where they’d conceived their baby.
Digging her nails into her palms, she looked out to see the view of the moonlight on the water, the shadows of the trees over the sand. The same haunting view that regularly featured in her dreams.
Ahead, JT crouched down and began clearing away a buildup of leaves and twigs from something, so she crouched beside him for a better look.
Her heart leaped into her throat. It was a beautifully carved wooden cross. “You made this?” she asked.
“I had to do something,” he said, voice rough. He cleared the last bit of debris and sat back on his haunches. “I usually bring flowers when I come.” He looked around as if hoping some of the trees would magically sprout flowers he could use.
She reached over to touch the cross and realized there were words carved on the front. She looked closer and saw “Brianna Hartley, Beloved.”
Her eyes filled with tears and JT reached for her hand, squeezing tight.
“Thank you,” she whispered, searching his eyes. And she saw something there that rocked her to her core. Fourteen years ago she’d been so grief-stricken, so young that she simply hadn’t had the emotional capacity to understand JT’s grief.
She’d known he loved their unborn daughter, but stupidly, she’d seen something different between mother-love—having the physical connection to their baby—and JT’s father-love.
Yet she could see now, in the depths of his haunted green eyes, that he’d suffered a grief as powerful as her own, that Brianna had been as much his baby as hers, that the pain of losing her was his as well.
And while her family had been pushing her to move on, to pretend it hadn’t happened, JT had made this simple, beautiful memorial. The craftsmanship was exquisite—made from one piece of wood, carved and polished with love.
Even after the way she’d shut him out, he’d shown her this, shared it with her as a gift, his solace to her. Her vision blurred and she was helpless to stop hot tears spilling down her face.
Silently, gently, JT wiped her cheeks with his thumbs, whispering soothing sounds and words, which only made her cry more. His arms came around her, wrapping her in his safe embrace and she leaned into his strength, needing it now more than anything. His black jacket was rough beneath her grip, his scent familiar, his body warm.
After endless minutes, her tears eased, but she couldn’t let him go. The comfort of the only other person who understood her pain was something she couldn’t yet step away from. His hands made long, reassuring strokes down her back, his breath warm near her ear.
She looked up, seeking his gaze and whispered, “I wish—”
“I know,” he said, placing a finger over her lips to silence the futile yearnings, then pressed his lips to her cheek. The touch of his mouth was so soft that she leaned further into him, needing the human contact, his living touch. She turned her face and sought his lips, and his hands cupped her face as he kissed her tenderly, no more than butterfly kisses that made her ache inside.
As his mouth moved to her jaw, her throat, she wound her arms around his waist, surrendering herself to him, needing to block out all else.
Yet, as hard as she tried, she couldn’t block it out. It was too much—seeing JT again this morning, opening the memory box for the first time in years, the cross for Briana, being with JT in the same place they used to come as teenagers. Too much to all happen in half a day. She didn’t have anything left to give, any defenses remaining.
JT slowed the trail of kisses, then looked down at her. “Is something wrong?”
“We’ve been here before, JT,” she said, laying a staying hand on his chest. “This isn’t good for either of us—”
“Pia,” he said softly. “You’re overthinking. If you want to stop, we’ll stop. But all that’s happening here is two people who have gone through a harrowing experience together, reaching out to each other for what comfort they can find.” He placed an exquisite kiss on her lips. “Let me comfort you, princess.”
If he’d tried to convince her with sensuality, she could have resisted. But the tenderness in his voice almost brought tears to her eyes once more.
“Yes,” she whispered.
All she needed in this moment was to escape in his arms. Moonbeams danced around them as she let him lead her to a place with no memories. No pain.
Four
As JT laid her down on a makeshift rug of their coats, Pia opened her arms to welcome him, the keen edge of anticipation making even the air feel electric. It was as if she’d waited fourteen years for this moment. Why was it only JT who could inspire this level of want within her?
He pulled her against his strong form and pressed a hot, velvet kiss to her throat. The feeling was so decadent that she moaned as he laid more kisses down her throat to the edge of her collarbone.
She’d missed this.
Needing to feel the heat of his skin, she fumbled for the hem of his T-shirt and pushed it up. When her hands made contact, she squeezed her eyes shut to savor the feeling. Her fingertips chased over the planes of his chest, greedy to make up for every moment she’d existed without his skin touching hers. It’d been too long. Unbearably long. She’d had her reasons, but now they seemed to evaporate into nothingness and float away.
As he claimed her mouth again in deep, hungry kisses, she felt the coil of arousal at her core pull tight. Despite lying on the ground with nowhere to fall, her hands gripped his waist, holding on, trying to stay anchored under the sensual onslaught. His mouth broke away, and she used the moment to drag air into her lungs, his labored breaths fanning over her cheek.
His thumb stroked over her bottom lip and sent tingles clear to her toes. She looked into his eyes and his name reverberated through her mind—part of her not quite believing it was JT here after all these years, JT who’d just kissed her senseless. The leaves crinkled beneath their coats as she linked her wrists behind his neck and brought his heated mouth back to hers.
“Pia,” he groaned against her lips as he unbuttoned her jacket and blouse without breaking the kiss. The pads of his fingers fanned across the sides of her breasts, moving to tease the undersides, and she tried to hold back a whimper of pleasure, unsure of whether she’d succeeded or not.
She threaded her hands under the edge of his shirt, running them over his back. How could someone be the most familiar person in her life, yet at the same time be so unfamiliar? Even the shape of his back had changed—newer, stronger muscles spread from the ridges of his spine—and she was desperate to know everything about the differences.
He kissed his way to her breasts, then took a beaded peak into his mouth. A hand cupped her other breast, the rough pad of his thumb stroking, while his tongue softly circled, then lightly bit. As she struggled to cope with the exquisite torment, her hands stilled on his upper back. Their surroundings vanished, all that existed in the universe was JT—his mouth, his hands, his heat. Just when she thought she’d dissolve, he moved back up her body and kissed the sensitive spot behind her ear.
“You’re more beautiful now than you ever were,” he whispered, then his tongue touched the shell of her ear and she sank still deeper into the sensations he evoked. The words, combined with his warm rapid breath in her ear sent a delicious shiver across her body.
She pushed his shirt up to his shoulders, watching the color of his chest change as it was exposed to the night’s pearlescent light. Absorbing the vague scent of soap that emanated from his skin, she whispered a kiss across his chest, and smiled when he shuddered. He’d always reacted intensely to her caress—strange that he was so changed in some ways, yet her memories of how he liked to be touched seemed as fresh as ever.
Filled with the power of her recovered knowledge, she pushed the T-shirt higher and he grabbed the fabric behind his neck and tugged it over his head. She touched everywhere she could reach, the ridges of his abdomen, the swell of his biceps, the crisp hair smattered across his chest. The more of him she touched, the faster her blood pumped, and she felt the answering beat of his heart thudding strongly under her hands.
She needed more, so much more. Desire smoldering in her belly, she reached into his jeans to find him straining and ready for her. The soft slide of him against her palm made her breath catch.
He groaned and pulled her hand back to slowly remove the rest of her clothes, peeling away fabric, kissing the skin he exposed as his fingers feathered across her belly, the satin of her thighs.
Instinctively his name slipped from her mouth as he covered her with his weight, and she was losing herself, melting into him. His mouth came down and kissed her with a consuming hunger and she pulled him closer against her. It wasn’t near enough. She wrapped her legs around his strong thighs, and his hand snaked between them and unerringly found the pulsing core of her, his other hand curled around her nape as his mouth sustained the kiss.
The moment after he entered her, his neck corded with tension and he held himself very still. A tear ran down her face—the beauty of finally being reunited with him was breathtaking, nothing could ever compare. JT leaned down and kissed the tear away, then began to move in a rhythm that she matched without thought.
His heavily lidded eyes were locked on hers as they climbed higher, his name on her lips, and higher still, the feel of him everywhere, and higher, before she broke free, released of earthly restraints, and felt him follow her, gripping her tight, calling her name.
She floated for an endless time, neither of them moving, as if not wanting to break the spell. Then, as she drifted back to earth and the hot pulse in her body slowly leveled, the outside world began to intrude. The leaf litter beneath their coats that rustled with every movement, the small stone digging into her arm, the light breeze on her naked leg.
And with the awareness of her surroundings also came awareness of what she’d done. Her stomach shrank to a cold, hard lump as the full folly of her actions came crashing down—she’d crossed a line. A professional and ethical line. But also a personal one…
She’d allowed herself to lapse from the person she’d worked so hard to become.
Although, perhaps it had been inevitable—a healing experience they’d both needed. And now they could move on. She released the breath she’d been holding, relieved to have understanding of what they’d done—she’d simply needed the closure and now she had it. She scrubbed a hand over her face.
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Rachel Bailey
Tycoon JT Hartley is a success in his own right, yet he’s set on claiming his share of his late father’s legacy.But first he has to get past the estate executor – none other than Pia Baxter, a woman he’s never forgotten. Theirs had been a fast and furious union that ended all too suddenly.And though desire still courses between them, JT knows starting anything with Pia again is just asking for trouble.
Now it was time for the next phase in his plan.
Straightening his spine, he crossed the polished tile floor. He stopped behind her, within touching distance, his pulse thudding in his veins. She was picking up her messages from the receptionist, the husky undertones still there despite the professional voice she used.
This close, he could smell her—a perfume that reminded him of fresh mountain water, but through it, her own scent was palpable, and his head swam with its sweetness.
“Pia.” The word escaped his lips without thought.
She swung around to face him, her lips parted in surprise. For an extended moment, no one moved. JT stared into violet-blue eyes more familiar than his own even after the years apart.
He almost reached out to soothe the frown lines on her forehead … but the reality was, they were virtually strangers now.
Dear Reader,
I have to admit to being a bit sad writing this letter, because it will be my last contact with the three Bramson brothers. These three men have been living in my head and on my computer screen for a while now, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed having them there.
The final brother, JT Hartley, has been brought up away from the Bramson fortune and become a self-made man. If you’ve read the first two books, you’ll have briefly met JT’s heroine—the lawyer working on Warner Bramson’s estate (though if you haven’t read the first two, don’t worry, this one stands alone just fine). They were school sweethearts who were torn apart by circumstances beyond their control.
I love a reunion story, and I was thrilled to be able to give JT and Pia the ending I thought they deserved. For some behind the scenes glimpses into this book, drop over to my website, www.rachelbailey.com.
I hope you enjoy your time with JT and Pia as much as I did.
Cheers,
Rachel
About the Author
RACHEL BAILEY developed a serious book addiction at a young age (via Peter Rabbit and Jemima Puddleduck) and has never recovered. Just how she likes it. She went on to earn degrees in psychology and social work, but is now living her dream—writing romance for a living.
She lives on a piece of paradise on Australia’s Sunshine Coast with her hero and four dogs, where she loves to sit with a dog or two, overlooking the trees and reading books from her evergrowing to-be-read pile.
Rachel would love to hear from you and can be contacted through her website, www.rachelbailey.com.
Return of the
Secret Heir
Rachel Bailey
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
This book is for Amanda, my big sister, who won’t read
it but will cry when she sees this. Mandy, no matter
where we go in life, no matter what we do, you
will always be older than me.
Acknowledgements
With thanks to Barb, Robbie and Sharon for the pep
talks and the suggestions. And to Mum for
the cups of coffee and the quiet house.
And to Charles Griemsman for his skillful editing,
and Jenn Schober for her support.
One
As the elevator doors opened to reveal the twenty-third-floor offices, JT Hartley’s heart uncharacteristically lurched against his ribs.
She was there.
A mere ten feet away, standing at the reception desk with her back to him, her bright copper hair respectably pinned up. The body made for sin had become even more lush with maturity, her hourglass figure constrained beneath the buttoned-down cappuccino jacket and skirt. The air in his lungs evaporated as the years melted away. The need to grasp her, wrap her in his arms, was overwhelming, but he resisted. It’d been almost fourteen long years since she’d allowed him that right.
His attorney Philip Hendricks cleared his throat and JT glanced over, realizing that Philip was holding the elevator doors open, a question in his eyes. They’d waited in the downtown Manhattan car park for an hour for Pia to arrive before following her up. He’d gleaned the information from one of the receptionists that Pia had been off with a cold but was expected back today.
Now it was time for the next phase in JT’s plan to claim the money that was rightfully his. Straightening his spine, he stepped out and crossed the polished tiled floor. He stopped behind her, within touching distance, his pulse thudding in his veins. She was picking up her messages from the receptionist, the husky undertones still there despite the professional voice she used.
This close he could smell her—a perfume that reminded him of fresh mountain water, but through it, her own scent was palpable, and his head swam with its sweetness. A vision flashed in his mind of Pia on the back of his bike, her body pressed against his, the wind whipping past as he rode to their secret place out of town.
“Pia.” The word escaped his lips without thought.
A pen clattered to the desk and she swung around to face him, her lips parted in surprise. For an extended moment, no one moved. JT stared into violet-blue eyes more familiar than his own even after the years apart. She gripped a folder to her chest and it rose and fell with her breaths. He almost reached out to soothe the frown lines on her forehead, but reality was, they were virtually strangers now.
Philip’s voice came from beside him. “JT Hartley and Philip Hendricks to see Pia Baxter. We don’t have an appointment.”
Pia blinked slowly, then turned to her receptionist, obviously planning her escape. Since alerting her to his intention to challenge his biological father’s will, she’d refused five requests for a meeting. Avoiding him was understandable—the way they’d parted hadn’t been pretty—but he was determined to meet with the will’s executor, so he’d resorted to this plan of ambushing her when she arrived for work, before she became caught up in the day.
“I’m afraid I have another appointment,” she said with a polite smile and guarded eyes, “but if you’d care to make a time with my receptionist—”
He let an assured smile spread across his face. “We won’t take much of your time, Ms. Baxter.”
She tilted her head in polite sympathy—as if he were nothing more than a damn client. “It’s simply not possible at this time.”
She thought he’d get this far, then simply turn around and leave? When he’d discovered his biological father was a high-profile billionaire, he’d been furious that he and his mother had lived virtually on the bread line until he was old enough to get a job. JT might have made millions in property development as an adult, and was able to keep his mother comfortably now, but that was hardly the point. His mother had sacrificed too much just to give him a life—the least he could do was ensure she received what she deserved, albeit too late. So, no, he wasn’t leaving before he’d had this meeting.
“Pia,” he said, voice deep. “I’m asking nicely.”
Her eyes seemed to lose focus and her fingers gripping the folder turned white. There was a war going on behind her violet eyes. When they were younger, she’d had trouble refusing him anything … until the end. Would that be enough now to compel her to see him? He held her gaze and willed her to allow this.
She blew out a long breath and nodded. “Two minutes. Follow me.”
JT walked behind her down a hall, eyes irresistibly drawn to her swaying hips, the way her calves tapered down to elegant ankles above sensible fawn pumps. And just like that, he was craving her more than he remembered wanting a woman since … well … her.
Philip leaned over and whispered, “You’ve met her before. Anything else you’re keeping from me about you and Ms. Baxter?”
JT frowned. He’d spent almost half his life trying not to think about Pia. At seventeen, he’d tried alcohol, then tried reckless, adrenaline-fueled sports, but ultimately nothing had worked until he’d focused all his willpower on simply refusing to allow images of her to enter his head. So, yeah, there was a whole lot more he was keeping from his attorney, and it would stay that way.
Besides, he wasn’t in the habit of confiding anything of importance in another person. The woman swaying her hips in front of him had cured him of that impulse.
He shrugged. “It won’t affect this meeting.”
Grinning, Philip shook his head. “I should have known. A gorgeous woman and it turns out you have a history with her.”
At any other time, JT would have grinned back, but not today. Not about Pia. And history hardly described the complex relationship they’d had as teenagers. History— the way Philip meant the word—covered flings, one-night stands, meaningless entanglements. It didn’t come near to describing the only woman he’d let himself love, back when he’d been too young to understand the folly.
Philip leaned closer. “Why do I get the feeling I’m here as a human shield rather than for my expertise?”
JT didn’t look at him. “Take your cues from me.”
Pia walked through a door into an office decorated in stark minimalism. Chrome and glass, the opposite of what a sensualist like Pia should have. Which made no sense at all, so he stopped to really look at her—Pia as she was now.
Her body had ripened into a sensual woman’s figure, but she’d contained it—imprisoned it—within a business jacket and knee-length skirt. Her hair was similarly trapped by a stark bun and her lipstick was muted. Where were the bright colors? The luscious copper waves that had once reminded him of fire cascading to her shoulders? The sumptuous textures?
One other thing stood out. She was scowling at him. He clicked into charm mode and smiled. “Thank you for seeing us.”
Pia sat behind her desk and indicated for them to take their seats. “There is no point to this meeting, Mr. Hartley. As I’ve told Mr. Hendricks each time he’s requested one.”
JT sat back in his chair and rested an ankle on the opposite knee. “You’re the executor of my father’s estate. I think there are a few topics we could find to keep us entertained.”
“Mr. Hendricks informed me that you’re challenging Warner Bramson’s will.” Pia raised an eyebrow, clearly unimpressed with his charm. “When your challenge is lodged, it will be handled by the courts.”
And when he had his day in court, he’d win. No question. He’d get his fair share of Bramson’s billions, but in the meantime, there were a few questions he wanted answered.
He drew in a measured breath, knowing not to push too hard with her. “How are Warner’s sons feeling toward the challenge?”
“You’ll need to ask the beneficiaries that question,” she said, her face blank, giving away nothing. “I’m sure you’re aware I can’t discuss it with you.”
“My newfound brothers are refusing to meet with me.” Making it difficult to acquire information he wanted. If they had evidence that their father knew of his existence, he’d lose his standing in court. It would mean his father had deliberately left him out of the will. And if that was on the cards, he wanted to know now.
Her beautiful plump lips compressed into a straight line. “Legally we can’t call them ‘your brothers’ on your say so. We have no evidence you are a son of Mr. Bramson.”
She didn’t believe him. Years ago, they’d lain in each other’s arms, trying to outdo each other with suggestions of who his father could be—a president, a mobster in witness protection, a pirate king. And now he finally knew the truth—she didn’t believe him. The knowledge hit his chest with unexpected force, but he merely raised an eyebrow. “My word holds no weight with you, Pia?”
Back when she’d been the town’s princess and he’d been a boy from the wrong side of the tracks, she’d been the only one to have faith in him. Time changed everything.
Nothing was permanent—he should never have forgotten that for an instant.
“This has nothing to do with my opinions,” she said dispassionately, but a faint blush colored her cheeks. “This is a legal matter.”
He planted both feet on the floor and leaned forward in his chair. “Given that my alleged father is dead and my alleged brothers are refusing to provide a DNA sample, then you’d have to admit it’s rather difficult for me to prove a family connection.”
“This is really a matter for you and Mr. Hendricks to discuss and address when you contest the will. Now if you’ll excuse me—” she stood “—I’m late for a scheduled meeting.”
He didn’t move a muscle. “Answer me one question and I’ll leave.”
Pia looked from him to Philip and back again. “I think I’ve said enough,” she said, her voice tightly controlled.
“Any other questions, send them in writing and either my assistant or I will respond.”
“One question.” Still, he didn’t stand.
She held his gaze but made no reply—it was the closest he was going to get to assent, so he took it. “I want an assurance you won’t bias the people involved against me. Tell me that you won’t paint me in an unfair light.” Her wealthy socialite parents had called him a gold digger so many times that he wondered if she’d believed it when she broke up with him. And despite his current wealth, a reputation for that kind of personality could affect the way his brothers perceived him. “Tell me you’ll give them the chance to consider acknowledging me as a brother without biasing them. Make me a promise, princess.”
Her eyes flashed and she stood straighter. “My name is Pia. Actually, no, it’s Ms. Baxter to you. And you’ve used more than the time I had allotted you.” She pressed a button on her desk and a bespectacled man appeared at an internal door. “Arthur, please show these gentlemen out.”
Then she was gone through the same internal door. JT’s body urged him to give chase, but he knew it would be better to give her time. She’d had no warning about his arrival today—it made sense she was as rattled as he was.
He stood and nodded to Arthur. “We know the way.” Then he strode from the room, followed by his attorney who would be bursting with questions JT had no intention of answering.
Pia held herself together as she walked through the office of her assistant, Arthur, and down the hall to the women’s bathroom. She even managed to smile and exchange pleasantries with a colleague on the way, despite the sound of blood rushing in her ears.
The bathroom was empty. She went to the far cubicle, locked the door and leaned back against the cool laminate. JT Hartley had come looking for her. For close to fourteen years she’d half dreaded, half hoped for this day and now it was here, the timing couldn’t be worse. She pressed her hands over her face, trying to stem the emotional tide that was rising. The last thing she needed was a meltdown at work, especially with a potential partnership in the offing. She’d deal with the effects of JT’s reappearance later. For now, she needed to see her boss.
At the basin, she splashed cold water over her cheeks, patted them dry with a paper towel and straightened her jacket in front of the mirror. Then she headed for the senior partner’s office. She paced his reception room for five minutes while he finished a call before his secretary ushered her in.
“Pia, how can I help you?” Ted Howard asked. He pushed wire-rimmed reading glasses to the top of his salt-and-pepper hair and stretched his arms over his head.
“It’s about that matter we discussed a month ago,” she said, trying hard to stay focused on the legal implications and not letting her mind stray to how JT’s eyes had smoldered. She swallowed. “The new claimant to the Bramson will.”
“Ah, the man you once knew.”
She laced her fingers and regulated her breathing. “Yes.”
“We decided the issue was far enough in the past and not big enough to warrant your being removed from the case. Have you changed your mind?”
“No, I still want to see this case through.” She’d been the one to bring this account to the firm, and Ted had told her at the time that the other partners were impressed enough to put her in the running for a partnership if her work on the case was exemplary. Letting the case go was not an option, no matter what stunt JT pulled. “But you should know he was just here.”
Howard’s gaze sharpened. “Hartley came to your office?”
“He didn’t have an appointment and I saw him for approximately six minutes. There will be no further contact.”
“What did he want?” he asked as he pulled his glasses from his head and casually threw them onto his desk.
The same question had been in her mind during their pointless and frustrating meeting. That was, in the moments her mind had been able to operate instead of being stuck in stunned mode. “I think he was hunting for information to help his claim.”
Howard arched an eyebrow. “Did he succeed?”
“Of course not,” she said, lifting her chin.
He smiled. “Okay, I don’t think this changes anything. Just let me know if he makes any further contact.”
“I will,” Pia said and headed back out the door. Regardless of what JT may think, there would be no further contact to report.
That night, Pia knelt on the carpet in front of her bedroom cupboard, struggling to fill her lungs. She reached to the back—the box was in the far corner where she’d put it after moving in only eighteen months ago—behind the tightly bound rolls of felt and bags of netting. Out of sight but never completely out of mind.
Gently, she brought it forward, her heart jumping erratically, then sat back against the wall, the box on her lap unopened. It was just an ordinary shoe box, tied with a narrow red ribbon. Nothing more unusual than many women probably had pushed to the back of their cupboard, but the contents were far from ordinary.
She gripped the end of the ribbon between trembling fingers, yet hesitated. What good would it do to delve back into painful memories? Just because JT Hartley came calling unannounced, opening old wounds and sending her world off balance, didn’t mean she had to exacerbate the situation. But her fingers tugged and the ribbon fell away. She closed her eyes as she removed the lid, fortifying herself, then opened them and looked down.
There, lying on the top, was a photo of a seventeen-year-old JT, grinning crookedly around the tiny scar above his lip, his eyes full of the devil, his arm wrapped around a sixteen-year-old version of her. His body, encased in a carelessly rumpled black T-shirt, wasn’t as filled out as she suspected the one under the suit today had been. But the boy in the photo was her first love, her first lover, more dear to her than anyone or anything had ever been … except the other person remembered in this box.
The back of her eyes prickled with emotion. She looked so young. So naively happy, thinking they had the world at their feet. So often since then she’d wished for that same belief in the world, in herself, in another person.
But she and JT had lived in a false world of their own creation.
A second tattered-edged photo was behind the first—the two of them with his mother, Theresa Hartley. Theresa had welcomed her into their small family with wide open arms, and because Pia’s own mother had never been particularly maternal, Pia had adored having a loving mother figure. Theresa had been the one thing Pia had salvaged from the devastation of her breakup with JT—she and Theresa still met for lunch once or twice a year, a ritual Pia treasured.
She flicked the photos aside, gently sorting past dried wildflowers and other tokens of seventeen-year-old JT’s love, until she came to what she was looking for, the memories that haunted her dreams.
An unused pair of pink booties, a well-thumbed baby name book with a corner turned down on the B page, and a grainy ultrasound picture. She squeezed her eyes shut for a long moment against their power. Not much to remember a human life, but this little person had never drawn breath, so there hadn’t been much to leave behind.
Except a mother’s unending love.
Brianna.
A soft, purring body appeared out of nowhere and climbed into Pia’s lap. She hadn’t heard Winston approach, but she was grateful for his warmth in this moment. For his living vitality. She held him as tightly as he’d allow.
She remembered the look on JT’s face when she’d told him she was pregnant—he’d been over the moon and begun planning how he would support the three of them. They would have become a family.
As she clutched the booties to her chest, holding tight, the phone rang. She desperately wanted to leave it to ring out just this once, but her more important clients had her private number and she was so close to making partner that she couldn’t afford to let anything slip by. She pinched the bridge of her nose, gulped in some air, then reached up to her bag where she’d thrown it on her bed and pulled out her cell.
“Pia Baxter.”
“Pia,” a deep voice said, sending shivers of decadent remembrance through her body. She clutched tighter to the booties once meant for this man’s baby. A call from JT Hartley was the very last thing she needed while she felt vulnerable. While she could see the ultrasound of the life they’d created together.
“Are you there?” he asked when she didn’t respond.
She swallowed. “How did you get my number?”
“You’d be surprised how resourceful I can be when I set my mind to it.”
Actually, not much surprised her about this man at all. “First a visit and now a call. Must be my lucky day.”
He chuckled. “Still got your smart mouth, I see.”
She carefully put the booties back in the box and replaced the lid, shutting the door to their past. “Why are you calling?”
“You didn’t answer my question at the office.”
She turned her mind back to when—only hours ago—he’d sauntered back into her life. She could barely remember anything other than those vibrant green eyes fringed by long, dark lashes and his crooked smile, let alone an unanswered question. “You’ll need to remind me.”
“I asked for your assurance that you won’t prejudice Warner’s sons against me, even unintentionally through your own bias, during this challenge.”
She frowned. She hadn’t thought that question had needed an answer. That he’d know her better than that. “Why would I be prejudiced?”
There was a pause on the line. “Things didn’t end so well between us,” he said, the brashness not as strong in his voice.
“JT, regardless of what you might think, I don’t bear you any ill will. Besides, I’m a professional and I’ll carry out my duties as executor thoroughly, regardless of my personal feelings.”
Her ethics demanded no less. She had her obligations to the firm’s clients, and if Warner Bramson really was JT’s father, the last thing she’d want was to create more obstacles for JT. She would stay neutral, and simply carry out her duties.
“Then meet with me,” he said, voice pure temptation. “Now. Tonight.”
A shiver rippled across her skin. Meet with him again? “No.”
“Why not?”
Because you’re a danger to my equilibrium. Because you bring out the worst in me and I’ve worked far too hard to become the person I want to be. Because seeing you brings up memories of our baby and I can’t handle any more right now. But she wouldn’t risk letting him inside her head by telling him any of that.
She rubbed the heel of her hand over her eyes, trying to erase the memories he’d already evoked. “Because there’s no reason to meet.”
“We need to set some ground rules so we’re on the same page during this situation. Meet me once and I’ll leave you alone.”
She sighed. There was a logic to that. She had a few ground rules of her own, starting with no unannounced visits to her office. Make that no visits to her office at all. Her bid to make partner of the firm needed no surprises, no new connections between her and JT Hartley.
Still, was it worth the risk of seeing him alone? Would Ted Howard understand that one more contact might be in the best interests of keeping her distance? She let out a breath. “JT …”
“Just once, princess,” he said, voice as smooth as warm caramel.
Her heart clenched tight as a fist. When she’d been sixteen, she’d loved the way he’d called her princess—reverentially, tenderly. Now she was a grown woman and he was a virtual stranger, his saying it that way—and making everything inside her melt a little—was too much, too intimate. Another entry for the list of ground rules.
Maybe they did need to meet just once….
Dislodging Winston from her lap, she shoved the shoe box to the back of the cupboard, then leaned back against the wall. “Where?”
“Your office or mine. Your choice.”
Low key would be best while she decided what she’d tell Ted Howard about this. If JT came back to her office, word would spread around the firm that she’d again met with the claimant to the estate she was responsible for without the will’s beneficiaries’ permission. The same possibility was there if she went to his office because it was in a prominent building downtown—a place she’d always avoided. She silently groaned. Only one option presented itself to keep this private.
“My apartment in half an hour.” She gave him the address, knowing she’d regret it later. Hell, she regretted it now.
“I’ll be there.”
“This is a onetime deal, JT,” she said, then disconnected and thumped her head back on the wall behind her.
She’d agreed to let the devil into her home.
Two
At the deep hum of a motorbike pulling up on her street, Pia drew the curtain to the side, her pulse chaotic. JT sat with his strong, long legs astride the machine as he switched off the engine. Under the light of a streetlamp, he kicked down the side stand with a heavy boot and unbuckled the helmet, exposing his hair to the breeze. When he swung his leg over the side, she pressed a hand to her stomach to ease the flutters of trepidation.
JT arriving on a motorbike, stirring up memories. He was kitted up for a ride, looking sexy as hell…. About to march into her home. She groaned and rested her head against the windowpane. This had to be the stupidest idea she’d ever had.
The bike was a different model from the one he’d ridden when they were teenagers—that bike had been scrappy and built from bits he’d scavenged and traded. This one was sleek and silver and looked like it cost as much as her garden apartment.
From the ground floor window, she watched him make his way up the path to the apartment complex’s foyer and—heart lunging at her ribs—she buzzed him in.
Seconds later, she opened the front door to JT, larger than life in his black riding jacket zipped to his neck, dark jeans, boots and rumpled hair. She almost melted into the floor. He bore little resemblance to the man who’d been in her office this morning. He was more disheveled. Reckless. More like the young JT who’d stolen her heart and her virginity. She shivered.
“Nice bike,” she said in a voice she hoped was casual.
Looking around her living room, he unzipped his jacket to reveal a form-fitting white T-shirt, then slipped his arms from the coat and folded it over a forearm. “An MV Agusta. Haven’t ridden it in a while. It seemed somehow … appropriate.” One corner of his mouth hitched up around the small scar above his lip. She remembered his receiving that scar when he came off his bike doing a daredevil stunt that had scared her silly. And she remembered kissing the healed scar in the heat of passion.
Dragging her eyes from his face, she held out her hand. “I’ll hang up your jacket.”
“I appreciate the hospitality,” he said drily and handed it over.
Ignoring the barb about her reluctance to meet with him, she walked over to the coat stand. The jacket was warm with his body heat and she held it a moment too long before hanging it, then ironed her damp palms down her trousers and turned back to him.
He stood, dominating her living room without trying, hands slung low on his hips. “So tell me how we need to play this.”
“We’re not playing anything,” she said a little too sharply, still unsettled by his effect on her body. This would have been easier over the phone, where she could have focused more on the topic instead of the tower of testosterone in front of her. The lamplight from the corners of the room added too much atmosphere to his expression, so she stepped to the wall and switched on the overhead lights before trying again. “You just need to keep your distance.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Why so adamant?”
“Warner Bramson’s family has always attracted more than its fair share of media attention. You will too once you lodge your claim. You have to see that if it were known we were once involved, people would start to wonder about my ethics and bias.” Ted Howard already had, but luckily she’d been able to reassure him. “You wondered it yourself.”
He rocked back on his heels, eyes trained on her face. “But the only question could be that you’d be biased against me. No one who knew how our involvement ended would suspect you of aiding me. And because your job is to carry out terms of a will that neglects me, I don’t see the problem.”
“I’m sure the beneficiaries of the will would prefer to have someone with no connection to you. And my boss is watching me too closely on this case.” She would already need to conceal tonight’s visit from Ted Howard—somehow she didn’t think he’d understand.
“What’s the worst he’d do? Move you to another case?”
“Yes,” she said with certainty.
JT rubbed his thumb back and forth over his bottom lip as he surveyed her. “You badly want this case, don’t you?”
“More than any other I’ve handled.” More than anything in her life.
He cocked his head to the side and scrutinized her face. “Why?”
She sighed. How much should she tell him? Details about how she came to have the case were off-limits to JT, but perhaps it would help if he knew the stakes were high for her. If there was any of the JT she’d once known inside this man, surely he’d respect that?
She swallowed, then met his eyes. “Warner Bramson’s will is worth billions. It’s a big case. The senior partner of my firm indicated that if I carry this off smoothly, I’ll finally make partner.”
In actual fact, she’d chased this account, wanted to work on Warner Bramson’s will after JT’s mother had let slip on one of their annual lunches that JT’s father’s name was Warner. It was an unusual name, so Pia had done some digging and found that Theresa Hartley had worked in the secretarial pool of Bramson Holdings around the time JT was conceived. And Bramson was powerful enough to be the sort of man Theresa could be in hiding from all these years. Circumstantial evidence, for sure, but enough to convince Pia that it might be true.
She’d lobbied for the account to be brought to her firm in hope there would be something she could do to guide Warner to confirm JT was his son, and then to redress Theresa’s treatment. But Pia had failed—up until his death, Warner had denied there were any other children he’d need to make allowance for when she’d probed in her professional capacity.
She lifted her chin. “I’ve been working toward making partner since I started at the firm—I won’t risk being moved to another case because of a perceived conflict of interest.”
It was her big chance. The partners at her firm had been so impressed when she landed the account in the first place that they’d promised she’d likely make partner when it was all concluded. She might have been initially interested in the case for Theresa, but now it had dovetailed into her primary career goal—make partner.
He arched an eyebrow, the trace of a smile lurking on his lips. “You’ve got yourself a carrot and a stick on the one case.”
Was he taking this seriously? “JT, if you—”
The intensity in his eyes turned serious. “It’s okay, I get it. You followed your family into law and now you’re committed to making a success of it. Fair enough. We definitely need some ground rules to survive. Are you going to invite me to sit down?”
“No, you won’t be here that long.” She didn’t want him settling in—this had to be as quick as she could make it. If she’d been thinking straight, she wouldn’t have taken his jacket either. “What sorts of rules are you thinking?”
“We start with your agreeing you won’t be biased against me, or influence others to be.”
“I already told you I won’t—” she held up her hand to stop whatever protest his open mouth was about to voice “—but for the sake of these negotiations, I swear I won’t.”
He gave a satisfied nod. “I appreciate it.”
“In return, you’ll agree not to set foot in my firm’s offices or my apartment again.”
He looked at her from under heavy eyelids. “What if you invite me?”
He was flirting with her now? That’s where he thought their relationship was headed?
“I won’t,” she said firmly despite the heat creeping up her neck.
“But if you do?” He folded his arms across his broad chest and the action made his biceps strain against the sleeves of his T-shirt. Her mouth dried. His body had always been strong because he’d been active, but those arms were beautiful. She blinked. What were they talking about?
Invitations. She swallowed. “Okay, you agree not to set foot on the premises of my work or home without an invitation. And I want you to agree that in any contact we have—which should be minimal—we have no mention of the past.”
She knew he must have questions about their breakup—she hadn’t explained it well at sixteen. She probably couldn’t explain it well even now. And the guilt for hurting him then still lived in her gut like heavy, sticky molasses. Delving into that wouldn’t help anyone; it would only make things messier.
“Anything before this moment?” He arched an eyebrow. “What if it’s relevant to my claim?”
“No mention of our shared past. Our relationship.” She crossed her arms under her breasts, mirroring his pose, and his eyes followed the action, resting too intimately for her comfort level.
“Fair enough, princess,” he said with a rasp in his voice.
Her heart missed a beat. “Don’t call me princess.”
“Is that a rule or a request?”
“A ground rule, JT.”
“Sure,” he said too casually. “If you stop saying my name like that.”
She did a quick mental scan of how she’d been saying it, but couldn’t see anything to give offence. “Like what?”
“Say it,” he commanded in a low, seductive voice.
“JT,” she said.
A lazy smile spread across his face. “Yeah, like that.”
Pia stared at him, perplexed, but he didn’t explain why simply saying his name could be a problem.
“And while we’re at it,” he said, “that chain has to go.”
She glanced down at her necklace. A simple gold chain with a P that hung low. “I’ve always worn it.”
“I know, and it’s always driven me crazy. If you want our past off the table, then you need to remove it.” He blinked slowly. “It sits in your cleavage and you don’t want my mind going there any more than I can help.”
His gaze locked on hers and didn’t waver. Her pulse raced erratically. He’d cornered her with a few words and he knew it. If she refused, she’d be inviting his flirting and she was so close to doing that already that she couldn’t take the risk of sending the wrong signals. With trembling fingers she slipped off the chain. As soon as he left, she could put it back on—he’d never know because she shouldn’t be seeing him again. She dropped it on the coffee table.
“And,” he said, seeming to warm to his subject, “you need to keep your feet covered.”
Her mouth dropped open. “What?”
“You’re not the Pia I remember. You’re buttoned down and covered up. The only hint of my Pia is those brightly painted toe nails.”
A delicious shiver zipped across her skin at the way he said my Pia, but she ignored it as she looked down at the hot pink she’d painted on yesterday while she’d been home sick. “It’s just nail polish. Lots of women wear it.”
“But they wear it somewhere people can see. I’m guessing you never wear it on your fingers. Only on your toes, and then you always wear closed-toe shoes at work. No one sees your polish, do they, Pia?” he said, voice low.
She lifted her chin, not happy with his assessment—or its accuracy. “It’s not professional.”
“Then don’t flash your toes at me either.”
She moistened her lips. This was becoming ridiculous.
“You won’t be in my house again to see,” she said, but her voice wavered.
“Even so.” He left the thought hanging and her pulse hammered with the tension in the air.
“Then you keep your biceps covered,” she blurted.
“My biceps?” he said, his eyes widening.
She waved a hand in the general direction of his arms, trying not to look. “You swagger in here in a T-shirt that stretches tight over your arms, and then have the gall to tell me to have my toes covered and take off a chain.”
“My biceps?” he asked again, slowly, as if realizing that meant she’d noticed them. Awareness flashed in his eyes. “It sits better under the jacket if it’s firm,” he said absently.
Feeling edgy, she closed her teeth over a long index fingernail and watched him follow the move with his eyes.
He swallowed hard, then swallowed again. “And don’t do that.”
“Do what?” she whispered.
He took a step closer. “Touch your mouth.”
She lost her breath. He was so close.
“Why?” she said, heart racing, knowing to ask was playing with fire, but nonetheless helpless not to say the word.
JT looked down at that lush mouth and was tempted beyond endurance. He closed the last inches that separated them and brought his mouth down, groaning when he could feel the moist softness of her lips. His arms reached out and snared her waist, pulling her sumptuous curves against his body. No woman had ever felt like Pia against him.
He touched his tongue to her lips and she hesitated for a moment, then he felt her throw caution to the wind and part them, granting him access to the heated depths. A tremor ran through her body and he held her tighter, feeling her hands reach to twine behind his neck, holding him in place. There was no need—he wasn’t going anywhere. He hadn’t planned on kissing her, but there was nothing he wanted more in this moment. Her mouth, with its taste of ambrosia, moved under his, and she rubbed seductively against him, inviting. As he nipped at her bottom lip, his hands roamed down from her waist, over the flare of her hips, wanting more—
Pia wrenched her mouth away. “JT, I’m not doing this again,” she said breathlessly.
“Sure you are,” he said on a smile and lowered his mouth again.
She placed her hands on his chest, her features resolute. “No, JT, I’m not.”
Body screaming its protest, he drew in a lungful of air and released her. Then he took a step back and shoved his hands into his pockets to stop them reaching for her, seducing her into kissing him again. She’d said no.
When he had control, he thought back over her words. “Not doing what again?”
“This.” She waved a hand back and forth between them. “Getting involved.”
Involved? That’s where she thought he was going with this? He sobered. “Oh, princess, it’d be a cold day in hell before we got involved again.”
Her body stiffened. “Then don’t kiss me.”
“I like kissing you.” In truth, he’d like to do a whole lot more. For fourteen years, his memories of making love to Pia had been enveloped in a golden glow, no matter how hard he tried to stamp them out. He knew it was because she’d been his first love, but knowing wasn’t enough to fix the problem.
Now they’d stumbled across each other, maybe they should make love one more time—put their past into context and take the romantic luster from his memories. He could prove to himself she was just like any other woman. He could move on.
Although that didn’t seem like a plan she’d agree to from the annoyance on her face.
“I need a glass of water,” she said and walked away.
The curtains twitched and he looked up to find a large white cat with black patches gazing at him with feline disdain. Seemed he was striking out with all the residents of the apartment tonight.
He followed her into an adjacent kitchen of steel and chrome with white benches, and waited to see if she’d offer him a glass as well. He wouldn’t be surprised either way because adult Pia was a mass of mixed signals—reluctant to meet him and not letting him sit down in her living room, but kissing him like the world was about to end.
The ingrained hostess training that all the Baxter girls had been given won out—she poured him a glass from a jug in the fridge.
“Or would you like something stronger?” she asked.
“Water’s good.” He accepted the glass, took a drink, then put it on the counter. He gazed at Pia as she sipped hers and shook his head. “Look at us, standing in your kitchen, drinking water. JT and Pia fourteen years later.”
It wasn’t how he’d imagined their future back then. Factor in a brood of kids, a house with a yard, Pia a famous fashion designer and it’d be closer to the truth. Of course it probably would never have gotten that far—at the first sign of trouble she’d abandoned him, ripping his heart from his chest in the process, so better it had happened when it did than once they had a mortgage and three or four children. He’d never forget that when the going had gotten tough, she’d cut and run without a backward glance at him.
He’d dodged a bullet that day and he’d made damn sure never to get himself in the firing line again. He would never open himself to a woman—especially not this one.
Pia put her glass in the sink, then without meeting his eyes, she asked, “When did you start believing Warner was your father?”
JT leaned back on the counter behind him and sank his hands into his pockets. Probably much better to talk about this than where his mind had been going. “When his death appeared in the papers.”
“Your mother told you?” Genuine interest and concern filled her eyes. Pia and his mother had been close—she said she’d been able to talk to his mother in a way she never could with her own. And his mother, who’d always wanted a daughter, had been thrilled when she’d thought she was getting Pia for a daughter-in-law. From the little his mother told him, they still met occasionally for lunch, but details had been kept from him; he knew it was to protect him and had left it at that.
He dipped his chin in a short nod. “She’d been scared of him.”
Pia flinched. “She was hiding?”
He clenched his fists in his pockets. As a child, he’d thought his mother liked moving around, but in his teens he’d begun to suspect she was running from someone or something. Seemed he’d been right. “She was in the Bramson Holdings secretarial pool. They had an affair. He thought it was merely convenient. She was in love.”
“Oh, poor Theresa.” Pia’s eyes glistened with the sympathy his mother deserved. This was the first time he’d repeated what his mother had told him—besides the few dry details to his attorney—and it felt good to have someone react the same way.
“She fell pregnant, and when she told him, he said he was already engaged and nothing would get in the way of that wedding.” His jaw hardened, making it difficult to get the words out. “He told her to get an abortion.”
Her face paled. “She didn’t want one?”
“Apparently not, but Warner told her there would be consequences if she didn’t.” His throat was suddenly dry, and Pia pressed his glass of water into his hands. He frowned—he hadn’t noticed her pick it up—but took the glass and drank deeply.
When he handed the empty glass back, Pia asked gently, “Did she talk to Warner?”
He shook his head. “She went home, packed and ran.”
“That’s why you were always changing schools.” Pia moved closer, laid a hand on his arm, bringing all her softness and warmth to him. And without thinking, he took what she offered, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her close.
“You know, she never let on that she was scared—she made it feel like we were exploring new places all the time.” He still couldn’t believe his mother had been able to keep up that cover story to her own son for so long. He absently ran his thumb in circles on Pia’s hip.
“So why were you so close to Manhattan when we met?” she asked, her voice just above a whisper. “You’d lived all over the country—why come close to Warner again?”
He shrugged. “She said she thought I was old enough to be safe. But I think she might have been homesick, and a small town in New Jersey was as close as she dared come.” He looked down at her beside him, looked into her eyes.
She interlaced their fingers. “I truly hope for the sake of your challenge that he didn’t know you were his son, JT.”
He stilled. That was the information he’d wanted. Bramson’s heirs had no evidence that Warner knew he had another son—if they’d been able to prove Warner knew about him and deliberately left him out of the will, JT’s case would never even make it to court. His only chance was to claim that Warner was unaware of his existence and so leaving him out had been an accident of fate.
He should leave—he had Pia’s vow that she wouldn’t work against him, and he had the information he’d wanted. There was no other reason to stay. Yet his feet stayed firmly planted on her kitchen floor.
They stood in silence for long moments, JT’s thoughts drifting from his father to the warm body pressed against him. He’d know the feel of her blindfolded.
“Assuming Warner was your father,” she said carefully, and he almost smiled at her attempt to stay in her impartial role, “it’s impossible to justify that all the time your mother was struggling, your father was a billionaire.”
He’d spent several weeks being consumed by anger over that exact point. His mother had worked a succession of menial jobs to pay the rent, to ensure he had clothes to wear to school, never having new things herself, never feeling safe. All while Warner Bramson’s wife and his long-term mistress lived the high life, not needing to work, yet having jewels, the latest fashions, luxuries beyond belief. The injustice of it ate into his gut.
He set his shoulders. “That’s why I have to challenge. For her.”
“But you’re doing well now? Surely she’s stable?”
Of course she was stable now. It’d been soon after Pia had abandoned him that he and his mother’s boss had bought a rundown house together—because he was in real estate, Old Jack had been the eyes and the money, and JT had been the brawn and the spare time. He’d fixed up the place under Old Jack’s directions and they’d given it to his mother. He’d always suspected Old Jack was sweet on his mother, but being an employee, she’d been off limits.
Then they’d bought another run-down house and sold the finished product, then another. They’d avoided the real estate crash through Old Jack’s foresight and continued. He’d ended up in property development more by a random chain of events than design, but it was a good career built on solid, secure investments.
His mother now lived in the most expensive house he could talk her into, and had a regular monthly income that saw her well taken care of. But that wasn’t the point.
“This isn’t about the money,” he said, wanting Pia to understand this if nothing else. “The injustice of her life needs to be redressed. She lost so much for me to have life, the least I can do is see her receive what she deserves.” She needed to be acknowledged by the family whose patriarch had dismissed her like a dirty rag.
Pia disentangled herself from him, leaned back on the opposite counter and trained her steady analytical gaze on him. “You need to understand that just because you think you have the high moral ground here doesn’t mean you can win.”
Oh, he’d win. He may be illegitimate, but he was the eldest of Warner Bramson’s sons. The only time he’d ever lost a fight was when Pia had left him. And soon he’d rectify that, too. Now he’d seen her again, tasted her, he’d have her back in his bed one final time before this was over.
Three
Pia watched JT leaning back against a countertop in her kitchen and her heart ached for him. She didn’t doubt the story—she’d wanted Warner Bramson’s account because she’d suspected as much. But she hadn’t heard the details before, hadn’t known Theresa had been told to get an abortion. She shuddered.
JT had never had much of a family—he was an only child with a single mother. Now he’d discovered who his biological father was and had two newfound half brothers, but they didn’t want him. Were actually working to keep him locked out. He wouldn’t have expected to be welcomed into the family fold, but still the rejection had to hurt the lost boy deep inside him.
Once upon a time, they’d almost made a family together—JT and her, and their baby. They’d had such magnificent plans for their future, but she and JT had been apart for the fourteen years since then, and their baby had never drawn breath. The heavy emptiness of grief for that little life descended over her shoulders, pressing down.
“Do you ever think about our baby?” she whispered, leaning back against the kitchen counter across from him.
His eyes widened for a second and dark pain swam in their depths. She guessed this wasn’t a topic he usually talked about either. Perhaps she shouldn’t have brought it up—it was too intimate, they didn’t have that kind of relationship anymore.
He cleared his throat and jerked his head in a nod. “All the time.”
A little part of the wall she’d erected around her heart crumbled at his admission. That wall had been protecting her from the unbearable feelings of loss since the terrible day their baby died when she’d fallen from her bedroom window on her way to meet JT.
She’d been twenty weeks pregnant and had just told her parents. Their solution was to move her away for the rest of the pregnancy and then adopt the baby out. Frantic, she’d rung JT and they’d made a rushed plan to run far away that night. She’d packed a few things together, and on the climb out the second-story window—a climb she’d done hundreds of times before—she fell. Her parents rushed her to the hospital, but no one had been able to save her baby.
Afterward she’d pushed JT away—she’d had no choice. But having him here, their both feeling the same loss, made it a little safer to say the words she couldn’t say to anyone else.
“I’ve often wondered if I think about her so much because there was no closure. No body, no grave.” Her gaze drifted to her bedroom door, where her memory box was concealed at the back of the cupboard. “There was never a chance to grieve properly. My parents wanted the whole episode swept under the carpet.”
His eyes flashed fire at the mention of her parents. “They shouldn’t have done that,” he said, then his voice softened. “There might not have been a body or grave, but there is something.”
Something? Her heart missed a beat. “What do you mean?”
JT opened his mouth, then hesitated, as if engaging in an internal debate. Then, holding her gaze, he nodded, decision made. “Grab a coat. I’ll show you.”
“On your bike?” she said skeptically, looking out the window at the silver machine he’d ridden over.
He followed her line of vision and frowned. “Good point. I don’t have a second helmet. We’ll take your car.”
As he took a step toward the door, she held up a hand. This was going too fast; she couldn’t think straight. “Hang on. I haven’t agreed to go anywhere with you.”
With an alluring blend of sincerity in his eyes and a commanding set to his mouth, he reached out and took her hand, holding it loosely in his. “It’s something you’ll want to see, Pia.”
Her hand warmed from his and she sighed. After that kiss, her ground rule of keeping their distance was pretty much blown out of the water. And if he knew of something that related to their baby, then she wanted to see it.
She withdrew her hand and folded her arms under her breasts—keeping the temptation to touch him again at bay. “Where are we going?”
“I think it’d be better if I just show you.”
The JT she’d known was always teasing and playing games like this, but his expression was earnest, so she let it go. “Okay.”
She grabbed her bag and picked up her keys from the kitchen bench. JT had thrown his jacket on and held up the long mocha coat that had been beside his on the coat stand.
“Thank you,” she said as she slipped her arms through the sleeves, shivering as his hands brushed the hair at the base of her neck before he released the coat.
He held his hand out for the car keys. She looked from his empty hand up to his eyes. “You think I’ll let you drive my car? Remember I’ve seen you drive.”
“Not since I was seventeen,” he said, clearly unconcerned by her reluctance. “Besides you don’t know where we’re going.”
“You could simply tell me,” she pointed out.
“I could,” he said, but his crooked smile clearly said I won’t.
Shaking her head at how comfortable he seemed to be making himself in her life again, she handed over her keys. It was only one night, and then they’d go their separate ways. And in the meantime, she really wanted to see what his something was.
They climbed into her Mercedes Cabriolet and he drove them out of town, her Nina Simone CD providing background music. As the New York streetlights flashed by, she lost track of time and distance, absorbed in thoughts of their baby and what could have been. Perhaps they would have married and been raising Brianna together, living in a sweet little house with a garden out front. He’d greet her each night with the passion of—
No. She bit down on her trembling bottom lip. That was a fantasy. Their relationship would have self-destructed long ago. She would have self-destructed if she’d stayed with JT. Her hands gripped each other as if for dear life.
“You all right, princess?”
She jumped as his words cut into her thoughts. “You agreed not to call me that.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” But he didn’t look sorry. In fact he looked more like the young JT as his green eyes took on a twinkle.
She watched him from the corner of her eye as he expertly handled her car, his powerful arms turning the wheel to hug the corners. There was something about his profile, the shadow of the day’s beard on his cheeks, that screamed “danger.” And she knew exactly what that danger was—not him; no, he would never hurt her. It was in what he unleashed in her. All the bad traits, all the selfish, worst aspects of herself were magnified and harder to resist when he was nearby. It wasn’t how she wanted to live. It wasn’t the person she wanted to be.
When they were young, all he had to do was hold out an apple and she’d reach for the forbidden fruit, no questions, no self-control. Her parents had warned her that she was out of control, but she hadn’t listened. Her teachers had told her that her grades were dropping, but she’d much rather dream about JT than listen in class.
It had only been when her recklessness had cost her baby the ultimate price that she’d finally taken stock. The sole method available to pull back from the brink of self-destruction was to cut herself off from JT—to tear from her heart the almost-physical connection they had. Added to the grief of losing her daughter, she’d thought at the time the pain might kill her.
Over the years she’d found it grew easier to bury her wayward side. She’d gone to law school as her parents wanted and become a responsible adult. She dated several men—even became engaged to two—but there had always been something missing, so she’d ultimately broken things off with them. She might not be willing to touch the fire of a man like JT again, but she couldn’t live a lie and marry a man she felt nothing for beyond affection and friendship.
One day she’d find the perfect man—one about whom she could feel passionate, but who brought out the good aspects in her. Surely such a man existed?
Suddenly a familiar sign on the roadside caught her attention and she blinked and looked through the window at the scenery, her heart quickening with a strange mixture of dread and lightness. They were in New Jersey. In fact, they were on the outskirts of their hometown.
She turned in her seat to face JT. “We’re going to Pine Shores?”
“Yes,” he said, giving nothing else away.
They drove through the town, past the school where they’d met, past the road to his old house, past the diner where he’d taken her on dates, and then out the other side. He slowed at a turnoff to the secluded stretch of beach the locals called Bride’s Beach where the two of them had spent a lot of time together. Where they’d first made love.
He pulled up in the empty, unlit car park and switched off the engine. The silence was heavy as they both looked out through the windscreen at the dark trees that separated them from the beach. A tight band pressed around her chest, making it difficult for her lungs to draw air.
Then he disengaged his seat belt. “Come on,” he said.
She climbed out of the car and followed him as he walked down the path that led to the water, then turned left onto a barely visible track winding through the trees. Moonlight shone through trees with leaves that fluttered in the light breeze. The way was as familiar now as it had been then—indelibly etched into her consciousness. She used to sneak out her window at night and meet JT around the block, and he’d bring her down here on the back of his bike. They’d lie together, nestled in the trees that met the sand, looking out over the beach and water, sometimes talking, sometimes making love, always holding each other. In colder months, they’d bring blankets.
It was the spot where they’d conceived their baby.
Digging her nails into her palms, she looked out to see the view of the moonlight on the water, the shadows of the trees over the sand. The same haunting view that regularly featured in her dreams.
Ahead, JT crouched down and began clearing away a buildup of leaves and twigs from something, so she crouched beside him for a better look.
Her heart leaped into her throat. It was a beautifully carved wooden cross. “You made this?” she asked.
“I had to do something,” he said, voice rough. He cleared the last bit of debris and sat back on his haunches. “I usually bring flowers when I come.” He looked around as if hoping some of the trees would magically sprout flowers he could use.
She reached over to touch the cross and realized there were words carved on the front. She looked closer and saw “Brianna Hartley, Beloved.”
Her eyes filled with tears and JT reached for her hand, squeezing tight.
“Thank you,” she whispered, searching his eyes. And she saw something there that rocked her to her core. Fourteen years ago she’d been so grief-stricken, so young that she simply hadn’t had the emotional capacity to understand JT’s grief.
She’d known he loved their unborn daughter, but stupidly, she’d seen something different between mother-love—having the physical connection to their baby—and JT’s father-love.
Yet she could see now, in the depths of his haunted green eyes, that he’d suffered a grief as powerful as her own, that Brianna had been as much his baby as hers, that the pain of losing her was his as well.
And while her family had been pushing her to move on, to pretend it hadn’t happened, JT had made this simple, beautiful memorial. The craftsmanship was exquisite—made from one piece of wood, carved and polished with love.
Even after the way she’d shut him out, he’d shown her this, shared it with her as a gift, his solace to her. Her vision blurred and she was helpless to stop hot tears spilling down her face.
Silently, gently, JT wiped her cheeks with his thumbs, whispering soothing sounds and words, which only made her cry more. His arms came around her, wrapping her in his safe embrace and she leaned into his strength, needing it now more than anything. His black jacket was rough beneath her grip, his scent familiar, his body warm.
After endless minutes, her tears eased, but she couldn’t let him go. The comfort of the only other person who understood her pain was something she couldn’t yet step away from. His hands made long, reassuring strokes down her back, his breath warm near her ear.
She looked up, seeking his gaze and whispered, “I wish—”
“I know,” he said, placing a finger over her lips to silence the futile yearnings, then pressed his lips to her cheek. The touch of his mouth was so soft that she leaned further into him, needing the human contact, his living touch. She turned her face and sought his lips, and his hands cupped her face as he kissed her tenderly, no more than butterfly kisses that made her ache inside.
As his mouth moved to her jaw, her throat, she wound her arms around his waist, surrendering herself to him, needing to block out all else.
Yet, as hard as she tried, she couldn’t block it out. It was too much—seeing JT again this morning, opening the memory box for the first time in years, the cross for Briana, being with JT in the same place they used to come as teenagers. Too much to all happen in half a day. She didn’t have anything left to give, any defenses remaining.
JT slowed the trail of kisses, then looked down at her. “Is something wrong?”
“We’ve been here before, JT,” she said, laying a staying hand on his chest. “This isn’t good for either of us—”
“Pia,” he said softly. “You’re overthinking. If you want to stop, we’ll stop. But all that’s happening here is two people who have gone through a harrowing experience together, reaching out to each other for what comfort they can find.” He placed an exquisite kiss on her lips. “Let me comfort you, princess.”
If he’d tried to convince her with sensuality, she could have resisted. But the tenderness in his voice almost brought tears to her eyes once more.
“Yes,” she whispered.
All she needed in this moment was to escape in his arms. Moonbeams danced around them as she let him lead her to a place with no memories. No pain.
Four
As JT laid her down on a makeshift rug of their coats, Pia opened her arms to welcome him, the keen edge of anticipation making even the air feel electric. It was as if she’d waited fourteen years for this moment. Why was it only JT who could inspire this level of want within her?
He pulled her against his strong form and pressed a hot, velvet kiss to her throat. The feeling was so decadent that she moaned as he laid more kisses down her throat to the edge of her collarbone.
She’d missed this.
Needing to feel the heat of his skin, she fumbled for the hem of his T-shirt and pushed it up. When her hands made contact, she squeezed her eyes shut to savor the feeling. Her fingertips chased over the planes of his chest, greedy to make up for every moment she’d existed without his skin touching hers. It’d been too long. Unbearably long. She’d had her reasons, but now they seemed to evaporate into nothingness and float away.
As he claimed her mouth again in deep, hungry kisses, she felt the coil of arousal at her core pull tight. Despite lying on the ground with nowhere to fall, her hands gripped his waist, holding on, trying to stay anchored under the sensual onslaught. His mouth broke away, and she used the moment to drag air into her lungs, his labored breaths fanning over her cheek.
His thumb stroked over her bottom lip and sent tingles clear to her toes. She looked into his eyes and his name reverberated through her mind—part of her not quite believing it was JT here after all these years, JT who’d just kissed her senseless. The leaves crinkled beneath their coats as she linked her wrists behind his neck and brought his heated mouth back to hers.
“Pia,” he groaned against her lips as he unbuttoned her jacket and blouse without breaking the kiss. The pads of his fingers fanned across the sides of her breasts, moving to tease the undersides, and she tried to hold back a whimper of pleasure, unsure of whether she’d succeeded or not.
She threaded her hands under the edge of his shirt, running them over his back. How could someone be the most familiar person in her life, yet at the same time be so unfamiliar? Even the shape of his back had changed—newer, stronger muscles spread from the ridges of his spine—and she was desperate to know everything about the differences.
He kissed his way to her breasts, then took a beaded peak into his mouth. A hand cupped her other breast, the rough pad of his thumb stroking, while his tongue softly circled, then lightly bit. As she struggled to cope with the exquisite torment, her hands stilled on his upper back. Their surroundings vanished, all that existed in the universe was JT—his mouth, his hands, his heat. Just when she thought she’d dissolve, he moved back up her body and kissed the sensitive spot behind her ear.
“You’re more beautiful now than you ever were,” he whispered, then his tongue touched the shell of her ear and she sank still deeper into the sensations he evoked. The words, combined with his warm rapid breath in her ear sent a delicious shiver across her body.
She pushed his shirt up to his shoulders, watching the color of his chest change as it was exposed to the night’s pearlescent light. Absorbing the vague scent of soap that emanated from his skin, she whispered a kiss across his chest, and smiled when he shuddered. He’d always reacted intensely to her caress—strange that he was so changed in some ways, yet her memories of how he liked to be touched seemed as fresh as ever.
Filled with the power of her recovered knowledge, she pushed the T-shirt higher and he grabbed the fabric behind his neck and tugged it over his head. She touched everywhere she could reach, the ridges of his abdomen, the swell of his biceps, the crisp hair smattered across his chest. The more of him she touched, the faster her blood pumped, and she felt the answering beat of his heart thudding strongly under her hands.
She needed more, so much more. Desire smoldering in her belly, she reached into his jeans to find him straining and ready for her. The soft slide of him against her palm made her breath catch.
He groaned and pulled her hand back to slowly remove the rest of her clothes, peeling away fabric, kissing the skin he exposed as his fingers feathered across her belly, the satin of her thighs.
Instinctively his name slipped from her mouth as he covered her with his weight, and she was losing herself, melting into him. His mouth came down and kissed her with a consuming hunger and she pulled him closer against her. It wasn’t near enough. She wrapped her legs around his strong thighs, and his hand snaked between them and unerringly found the pulsing core of her, his other hand curled around her nape as his mouth sustained the kiss.
The moment after he entered her, his neck corded with tension and he held himself very still. A tear ran down her face—the beauty of finally being reunited with him was breathtaking, nothing could ever compare. JT leaned down and kissed the tear away, then began to move in a rhythm that she matched without thought.
His heavily lidded eyes were locked on hers as they climbed higher, his name on her lips, and higher still, the feel of him everywhere, and higher, before she broke free, released of earthly restraints, and felt him follow her, gripping her tight, calling her name.
She floated for an endless time, neither of them moving, as if not wanting to break the spell. Then, as she drifted back to earth and the hot pulse in her body slowly leveled, the outside world began to intrude. The leaf litter beneath their coats that rustled with every movement, the small stone digging into her arm, the light breeze on her naked leg.
And with the awareness of her surroundings also came awareness of what she’d done. Her stomach shrank to a cold, hard lump as the full folly of her actions came crashing down—she’d crossed a line. A professional and ethical line. But also a personal one…
She’d allowed herself to lapse from the person she’d worked so hard to become.
Although, perhaps it had been inevitable—a healing experience they’d both needed. And now they could move on. She released the breath she’d been holding, relieved to have understanding of what they’d done—she’d simply needed the closure and now she had it. She scrubbed a hand over her face.
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Rachel Bailey
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Tycoon JT Hartley is a success in his own right, yet he’s set on claiming his share of his late father’s legacy.But first he has to get past the estate executor – none other than Pia Baxter, a woman he’s never forgotten. Theirs had been a fast and furious union that ended all too suddenly.And though desire still courses between them, JT knows starting anything with Pia again is just asking for trouble.