Читать книгу The Millionaire's Secret Baby - Crystal Green, Crystal Green - Страница 8

“You’re going to get burned, darlin’.”

At first, Emmylou Brown thought the voice—a rough drawl scratching along the low, smooth edges of Texas Hill Country—was just part of the blank sleep she’d drifted into.

Disoriented, she opened her eyes and stared at the endless blue sky. The limestone ridge overlooking the swimming hole abraded her bare back, and her head swam from the heat of the sun.

The voice continued, tinged with wry amusement. “You might want to turn over. The weather’s got some scorch to it.”

Okay, this was no figment of her imagination.

She settled herself up on her elbows, glanced in the direction of the voice. Caught her breath.

The man sat on top of a chestnut quarterhorse, forearm propped on his saddle horn as he inspected her lazily. Scuffed boots with the heels hinged in stirrups, faded jeans stretching the length of his legs, a denim shirt covering wide shoulders and a powerful chest, a Stetson tipped over his cocked brow. Pure cowboy.

Except Emmy knew better.

She gulped, unable to say a word, a ridiculous attraction from years past freezing her in place.

Deston Rhodes.

Did he know who she was, even though they hadn’t been on the ranch at the same time in twelve years?

Her stomach somersaulted, scrambling itself into a mishmash of jubilation. His attention warmed her through and through. She’d fantasized about him since childhood: Deston, sweeping her into his arms like she was a blessed princess, him murmuring, “I always did have my eye on you, Emmylou.”

But as he grinned at her, she realized what he must really be seeing.

A pint-sized twenty-four-year-old waif in frayed jean shorts, the ones she’d torn the legs off of when they’d become too holey to wear in public. A girl wearing a too-tight, worn hankie top purchased from a last-chance sale in a San Antonio mall seven years ago—before she’d left Wycliffe, Texas, to expand her culinary horizons.

She sat up, crossing her arms over her clothes. But she couldn’t hold back a vulnerably hopeful smile. The boss’s son had finally taken note of her, had finally seen past her dull sheen of poverty. Hallelujah!

It was almost too much to wish for.

His horse shifted, and Deston moved with the disruption, his thigh muscles flexing as he controlled the animal without much effort.

“They told me you were somewhere on the property, and it’d be polite to reintroduce myself,” he said. “I’m Deston. The grown-up version, that is.”

So he did recognize her.

He waited, obviously expecting her to return the greeting.

But she was still tongue-tied. The Deston Rhodes was talking to Emmy as if they’d been pals, as if she wasn’t the daughter of the late Nigel Brown, Mr. Rhodes’s personal butler, or as if she wasn’t the girl who’d take over for her mother, Francesca, in the kitchens someday.

Odd. Life on Oakvale Ranch usually didn’t work this way. The upstairs people didn’t consort with the ones downstairs, especially if they were the daughter of a man who had lost his family’s nest egg in bad investments. A good man who'd left a wife and child to keep on struggling in debt, even after his death.

Oh, my.

Deston's gaze was coasting over her body, and the hairs on Emmy’s limbs tingled with the thrill of it.

Was he checking her out?

She needed to act as if this were an everyday occurrence.

Coolly tilting her head toward the sun, she said, “It’s good to see you again, Deston.”

“Likewise.” He paused, burning her with his direct stare, his topsy-turvy charm. “You know, I’m trying to think of why I ever called you Lemon Face.”

Emmy’s wishful thinking burst. He’d had a secret nickname for her and it was… “Lemon Face?”

“Don’t look so thunderstruck. Don’t you remember? I used to tease you about, well, everything, and you’d make this awful expression. Like you were sucking on lemons.”

Wait. Deston had never teased Emmylou Brown. Ever.

They’d never even exchanged a word. She’d been just one of many servants’ children, and he’d been a future millionaire in the making. Heck, she’d never even made eye contact with him, afraid of what she’d find embedded in his gaze: derision, distance, emptiness.

All the hope, all the happiness of finally being acknowledged by her childhood crush abandoned her in one big sigh.

He thought she was someone else. Some lucky socially-equal playmate from days gone by.

Of course, that’s it. You’re nothing but a convenience to all the Rhodes family. They don’t even know you exist except for your cooking.

But she knew better. She could be so much more than that. Someday.

Emmy closed her eyes, blocking him out. For a second there she’d preened under his girl-you-grew-up-good gaze. She’d been someone who mattered to him.

Well, it was time to set him straight, to go back to reality. She prepared to tell him who she was, to watch as disinterest stiffened his spine to a more Rhodes-like posture of entitlement. Wasn’t it unfortunate that she couldn’t be his old friend, the woman who’d caught his eye? A person who’d probably never had to hide hole-gouged sneakers under a school desk in utter shame. A girl who’d probably never had a teacher try to slip her lunch money because she’d “forgotten” it three days in a row—when, actually, Emmy had stuffed the dollars her mama had given her back into her parents’ stash, knowing it’d do more help there than in her stomach.

Even now she appreciated the irony. A cook’s daughter, going without a meal.

When she opened her eyes again, he was still watching her, and Emmy almost melted all over the rock.

“Damn,” he said. “You went and got prettier on me. You’re sure not the Lemon Face I recall.”

She sure wasn’t.

With a this-could-have-been-so-beautiful grin, she turned over on the rock, away from him, resting her chin on her fist. “I’m not the girl you think I am.”

She heard him chuckle, slide off his mount, rustle around as he secured the horse to a tree. “All right. So maybe you’ve grown out of the nickname. Hell, a lot of things have changed since we were kids.”

Well, that hadn’t worked. She was talking literally, and he wasn’t.

His boots crunched over the fallen oak leaves, the birds cutting off their warbling as he passed them. “My parents said you’re leaving the ranch today. I’m sorry I haven’t been to many dinners in the big house or barbecues on the back lawn. Business swallowed me right up. But you understand, I’m sure, being a Stanhope.”

Stanhope? The name sounded vaguely familiar, probably because it denoted one of a thousand guests who’d stayed at the ranch. Emmy spared him a glance from her prone position, her heart clenching.

The man of her youthful dreams, framed by a thicket of juniper and a passel of butterflies dancing around a tuft of hackberry. A knotted rope that the servant kids had used long ago to swing into the spring-fed pond dangled in front of him, and he reached out for it, fisting the hemp. The tendons in his forearm strained, leading up to the bunched muscles disappearing beneath his rolled-up sleeves. With the other hand, he whipped off his Stetson, revealing brown hair, green eyes. A football-hero grin.

“At least you recognized the old swimming hole,” he said.

Would he be standing here, shooting the breeze, flirting, by gosh, if he knew she was below him?

No. The senior Mr. Rhodes would never stand for it. And neither would her self-confidence, actually.

But this was a moment she’d always fantasized about. Could she get away with just talking with him, living a dream for a harmless few minutes?

She swallowed. What the heck. She’d never get this chance again.

“I thought this place might offer some peace and quiet.” Was that her with the siren voice? It was so easy to be someone other than Emmy. “But then you appeared.”

Deston pretended to stumble back, hand over his heart. “Hey, if I’m infringing on your good time, I’ll get going. But at least I got you to turn over before your front was fried to a crisp.”

“I’m much obliged.” See, this was no big deal, having a normal conversation with a demigod.

“Don’t mention it.” He stepped out of the shade, into the sunlight, nearer to her. “Anything else I can do?”

“You can fetch my water.” What a fun turnabout. A Rhodes serving her. This had to be the first sign of the world’s demise.

He shrugged, came closer, grabbed the bottle and held it out.

Emmy hitched in a breath. She’d never seen him this close before. Sure, she and her friends—other kids whose parents served on the ranch—had peeked through bushes at the Rhodes boys: Harry, with his untamable cowlick, Deston, with his shirttail always trailing out of his pants until Mrs. Rhodes would tuck it back in and shake her head at his carelessness. The girls would giggle to each other, every one taking a turn at imagining ways that Harry or Deston would propose to them.

In a jet to Monte Carlo? On a ballroom floor? On a yacht?

They’d played their hide-and-sigh games until Harry and Deston had each gone off to prep school. Then college. Mama had told Emmy that Deston had come back to San Antonio a few years ago to become a businessman just like his father.

But, by then, Emmy had gone off to complete her own destiny, reluctantly using the gift of her parents’ life savings in order to train for the job she’d always been expected to assume.

But now, Deston was right here, so close she could lift her hand and touch the long spiky strands of his hair. So close she could smell a hint of sage on his tanned skin, see it in the green of his eyes. There was a slight dimple in his strong chin, too, and a touch of stubble slinking along his jawline.

“Thanks,” she ribbeted, doing her best impression of a toad. Grabbing the water, she fiddled with the top, hating that he made her feel as if she was always craning her neck to catch sight of him. A boy on a pedestal.

Now a man.

Oh, yeah. All man.

He crouched next to her, setting his Stetson on the limestone, waiting.

What should she do? Emmy wasn’t exactly a world-class flirt, especially after what had happened in Italy…. Not that it mattered now. Nope. It was just that she’d heard about all Deston’s brief romances from the servants, who’d caught her up on every detail the minute she’d walked through the downstairs door.

Talk to him, she thought. Chat, just chat.

“So,” she said, buying time. How did his friend act? Did he even know, not having seen her for years, either?

He grinned, his gaze brushing over Emmy’s short, layered hair, over the curve of her back. Goose pimples winged over her skin.

“I’ve kept up on your life,” she said. Good, that much was true. She’d stick to basic gossip, keeping the situation as innocuous as possible. “You were such a football star in school. Quarterback, right?”

He lifted up a hand in resignation, glanced away. “That’s over and done with.”

“Why didn’t you keep at it? You were supposed to be pretty good.” He’d been the best. She knew because she and her friends, Carlota and Felicia, had faithfully followed the papers, the gossip.

“I always knew I was meant to run Rhodes Industries one day,” Deston said. He grabbed a twig from the ground, bent it, straightened it. “But my family gets a lot of mileage out of the whole Longhorn quarterback mystique.”

“It does add prestige to your business image, doesn’t it?”

He snapped the twig, tossed it away. Stood to his full height. His body cast a shadow over Emmy, all harnessed strength and dark memory.

“Isn’t that why your father wanted to spend time here on the ranch?” he asked. “Because he wanted to talk statistics and relive a few glorified touchdowns?”

Her Papa? Nigel Brown, bless him, was thirteen years gone. And he’d be miffed by his daughter wanting to be anyone other than what she was born for.

She opened her mouth to correct Deston’s assumptions, but he was talking again.

“That’s how Edward Rhodes the Third draws them in, with promises of pigskin glamour and riches beyond imagination.”

A threat of bitterness laced his words. She knew about Mr. Rhodes, how strict he was about running the ranch, the staff, the polished reputation of a millionaire family.

She couldn’t see Deston’s face, thanks to the sun’s angle. Good thing, because once she revealed she wasn’t from the Stanhope family, she didn’t want to see his reaction.

There was a loud thrashing from across the swimming hole, and they both glanced over to see what had caused the racket.

A white-tailed deer had emerged from the foliage, gracefully walking along the water’s edge.

“Look,” Emmy said, momentarily lost in the sight. It’d been a long time since she’d been in Hill Country, and she’d missed it terribly.

The animal sensed them, stiffened, then burst away in a flash of legs and brown hide.

Deston leaned down, casually plucked at the knot that held together the back of Emmy’s hankie top, then stood again. “Come on, let’s make the most of your last day here, Lila.”

He started to unbutton his shirt.

Lila. “Hey, I—” Her mouth clamped shut.

He’d whipped off the material, revealing tanned skin, work-honed muscles, abs that you could grate cheese on. When he undid the fly of his jeans, Emmy averted her eyes.

“I need to tell you something.”

“What?” Heavy denim thumped in front of her, bodiless.

Oh, mercy. He was—as her mama might say—nudo, wasn’t he?

Unable to help herself, Emmy peeked out of the corner of her gaze. She caught a glimpse of white boxers. Phew. Or maybe not. No, definitely phew. The last thing she needed was to be out in the middle of the boonies with a buck-naked boss’s son. She’d get Mama fired in a second flat after what had happened a few years ago between Harry Rhodes and the maid, and, Lord knew, Mama needed every penny….

“You just gonna sit there?” Deston asked.

Emmy nodded, staring straight ahead. Should she concentrate on her book now? Like Water for Chocolate, something she’d read and used for recipes a million times before.

“Suit yourself.” He whisked by her, body arching into the pond like a switchblade cocked open.

Deston obviously knew the depths of the swimming hole from his youth. When the servant kids had played here, they’d vacated the hole at the first sign of a Rhodes.

Emmy had never seen him swim, never seen him knife upward in a spray of droplets. The water sprinkled onto her arms, and she leaned backward.

“Hey!”

He laughed, clearly having the time of his life, slinging the hair out of his eyes with one whip of his head, pushing into a backstroke as he aimed another burst of water at her.

“Come in,” he yelled, turning over and swimming away.

Moisture sluiced off the sinew of his back, trickling over the smooth taper of muscle flowing into waist. His boxers were plastered to the rounds of his backside, hugging the indentation right below his hips. She could imagine fitting her palm there, tracing the ridges of him.

Emmy watched him move effortlessly, athletically, parting the water before him. Diving beneath the surface, he disappeared.

She inhaled, spellbound, while fingering a fringe on her old, ugly shorts.

He’d asked her to come in. With him. Her. Emmylou Brown, a girl who was no more important than a piece of furniture in the Rhodes sitting room.

But what if she could be more than that?

Years ago, with Paolo, she’d asked the same question, and the answer had cut the heart right out of her.

This time though, what if she really could pretend she wasn’t poor-girl Emmy? What if she could convince Deston she was an equal before he could guess who she really was?

Emmy bit her lip. And what if she could do it by being Lila Stanhope, even for an hour?

She crept closer to the edge of the stone slab, wondering if she’d be brave enough to dive in.

Underwater. Peace.

That’s all Deston wanted. The silence you could hear below the pond’s surface, where nothing existed but the present, the sunlight waving through the water.

He held his breath, lungs near to bursting, then with a thrust of energy, surged upward, breaking toward the sky.

The first thing he saw was Lila, one of his father’s ranch guests. He faintly remembered her as a kid, but something had happened on the trip from the blurry Lemon Face of his recollection to today’s woman. Now, she had a smile that lit up from the inside, brightening her dark cocoa eyes, her dusky skin. Even her hair was a point of light, short, shaped into bouncy layers. It looked like ginger to him. Ginger with vanilla streaks flowing over the strands near her face.

Damn, he hadn’t remembered Lila Stanhope being such a beaut, just a girl with stringy brown hair and a nondescript stare. If he’d known that she’d turn out so gorgeous, he might have agreed right off the bat to what his father had been nagging him to do for a week now.

If you act sweet on her, Mr. Rhodes had said in his lecture voice, business with the Stanhopes will go much smoother.

Deston was a sight too old for lectures. At the age of twenty-nine, he was ready to think for himself. Had been for years. And he’d come to the conclusion—all on his own, if that could be believed—that courting Lila Stanhope in the name of corporate interests was not his style.

His father’s eye had once again turned to the Stanhopes. That’s why Deston hadn’t seen Lila lately. Because Mr. Rhodes had lost interest in Stanhope Steel.

Until now.

Deston would do anything for his family. Work long hours, forgo a personal life in the process. Anything, except go against his own instincts.

Instincts. Bothersome jabs of fear that had everything to do with Juliet Templeton—the woman he’d loved and lost so tragically—and nothing to do with logic. His “instincts” kept him sane, and they were telling him to steer clear of Lila Stanhope.

She was perched on the stone slab, hovering above the water, looking as high-strung as that deer they’d seen flit through here.

Instincts. But why couldn’t he just enjoy her smile for the time being?

“What are you waiting for?” he asked.

She answered with one of those sunburst flashes. He’d never seen a person light up that way, especially the socialites he was normally with.

“You can swim, right?” He glided nearer to her.

“I don’t know if I want to get my hair wet.”

“Priss.”

“Excuse me?”

Now he’d done it. She settled her petite body onto the rock’s edge, sent him a dignified glance. In spite of her clothes, retro hippie wear, he decided, she carried herself as if she was wearing silk and diamonds.

“I get it,” he said, treading water. “You’re going to punish me.”

“By…?”

“By judging me from on top of your mountain. Cut a guy a break. I came out here to get away from wheeling and dealing.”

“I see. You just wanted to clear your brain.” She tilted her head, and something lethal kurplunked into his gut.

“I’m not cooperating very well, am I?” she asked.

He ignored his common sense, moved closer, to just below the rock. “I promise I won’t splash you anymore.”

She swung her shapely legs, leaning forward to see him, small, firm breasts pressed against the near see-through material of her summer top. If he looked hard enough, he could see the faint darkness of her nipples, the way they beaded against the cotton. He yearned for just a touch of them.

Grasping her slim ankle, he commanded, “Breathe.”

She’d reared backward, eyes widening. “Don’t you d—”

Too late. He gently tugged, bringing her into the water, catching her before she went all the way under, holding her body flush against his.

Neither of them moved, not for a long moment. It was as if she wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing—the cotton puckered to her breasts, outlining every curve as well as the hardened buds in the center of them. Beads of moisture trickled from her collarbone onto his thumbs.

The contact warmed his blood. It’d been so long since he’d held a woman like this—so innocently, but with a flame of expectation licking the surface of his skin. Something untouched, deeply hidden, stirred inside, competing with the hunger, wanting to be fulfilled, too.

Hell, no. Juliet had killed that part of him when she’d died. She’d turned out to be someone he hadn’t known at all, and the betrayal had altered him forever.

In order to sweep that yearning back into its dark place, he purposely allowed Lila to slide down the length of his body, slowly, water making their skin slick, heated.

There. Lust, pure and simple. Uncomplicated by emotions.

One of her legs tentatively wrapped around him as they came face to face, those breasts rubbing against his upper chest, tearing him apart from the inside out as that unnamable something refused to die. God, he didn’t want to face it again.

Both of them were breathing raggedly as he hesitated. He was an experienced guy, at least as far as sex was concerned. He knew what came next. So why wasn’t he doing it?

Another moment passed, filled with the song of birds, the flutter of a dragonfly’s wings as it beat past them, the smell of juniper, grass and…her. A mixture of cinnamon, sweet spices.

This was wrong to lead her on when he couldn’t promise anything more than an afternoon of canoodling. He had too much work to worry about and, in one week, he’d even be relocating to New York to oversee business there.

Lila Stanhope seemed too nice for that kind of love-’em-and-leave-’em charade. Too innocent to deal with his demons. She was the daughter of a corporate associate. A business deal. A commitment.

He loosened his hold on her, but his hunger for more tenderness didn’t abate. It merely rested. Waited.

She paused, as if mortified by his silent retreat. Then she braced against his chest, lightly pushing away, creating further distance between them with a deft backstroke.

“That was mighty assertive of you,” she said.

He liked her sense of humor. From the moment she’d told him to fetch her water bottle, he’d been drawn to her spirit. “It runs in the family.”

“Right. The Rhodes clan. Vicious oil tycoons. Claw-wielding corporate devils.”

“Not straight out of the gate. Edward the First, Great-great-great Granddad, was quite the gentleman.”

“Do tell.” She’d backed against a limestone cliff face to hold her up. The wet ends of her hair left dark trails near the snail fossils etched into the surface.

“You want a history lesson?” he asked, relieved by the possibility of small talk.

She raised her eyebrow and nodded. He’d bet that she was doing everything possible to cool the tension between them. But he couldn’t forget the feel of her leg clenching him against her, the sight of her breasts.

Might as well humor her before she went running to daddy about the big bad wolf in the woods, just like she used to.

“All right then. Edward the First was a third son of a duke, so of course he had no hope over in grand ol’ England. He ended up over here in Texas, right before the War Between the States, and managed to finagle some land. He did a pretty decent job of raising cattle. But when the Great Depression rolled around and William Rhodes had the honor of taking over the family business, they had to entertain ‘dudes’ to keep the ranch solvent. We got rid of the city folk about fifty years ago though. No more need for them.”

“Aren’t we high and mighty?” She was too damned cute with her brow arched like that.

“Why’re you offended? I’ll bet you could outclass any dude by being able to distinguish one end of a horse from the other. Or maybe you just have a yen for hay rides and sing-alongs.”

“My sentimental side does cry out for a good square dance every so often, I have to admit.” She paused. “So your fortune wasn’t made off dudes.”

He’d sidestroked away from her. “Right. Back in the day, we invested in land north of here, and we struck oil. Millions were made, and that’s when the family started acquiring businesses.”

“And more businesses. And…”

They both laughed knowingly, and he shook his head. “If I’d known you were so sociable, I’d have straightaway locked my office up tight and hurried back to Wycliffe to meet you again.”

“Yeah, sure,” she said. “You’ve got the markings of a workaholic. See, you’re even thinking about your next takeover right now. The Stanhopes, right? It’s in your eyes.”

“What?”

“There’s a distance about you.” She glanced away. “But what do I know?”

She’d seen it. His worst fear, hiding, dodging.

Maybe he was becoming as ruthless as his father.

Deston’s hands clenched at the water.

He wouldn’t ever be like Edward Rhodes the Third: a hard man mired in family tradition. A man who would stop at nothing to get ahead.

Even his marriage had been nothing more than another merger, and Deston could see how the arrangement ate away at the old guy.

Lila started paddling toward her rock, glancing over her shoulder, pausing before getting out. Modest?

Her shyness prodded him, made him way too damned impetuous—just like he’d been with Juliet Templeton.

“Have dinner with me tonight,” he said. A tight laugh followed. “It’s one way to get me out of the office.”

Lila merely stared at him, brown eyes saucer-like.

“Lila?”

She blinked. After a few seconds, she said, “I’ve got to go.”

“That’s right. Your family’s leaving. But you could stay behind.”

With a flutter of speed, she climbed out of the swimming hole. Then, with her back to him, she grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her body.

Her absence already needled him, twisting in his belly. But why should he care?

“There’s a gazebo about a half mile from the big house. I’ll have the cooks whip up something for us tonight. At, say, eight?”

She stopped all movement, then retrieved her book and water bottle. “I—”

“—will be there,” he finished for her. What the hell? As long as both of them understood that this would be a fling—he couldn’t tolerate anything more—no harm would be done.

Lila was fumbling into a pair of threadbare Keds, ignoring him.

“I’m going to wait for you,” he said, intrigued by her coyness.

She stepped toward the trees, toward the path back to the main residence area. “Don’t wait for me.”

“I will.”

She shook her head. “Are you really that arrogant?”

“That’s how I do business.”

“I’m not business.” She opened her mouth again, then shut it. With a dismissive gesture, she traipsed into the woods, leaving him alone.

But that was nothing new.

Deston looked in her direction for a few seconds more, then submerged his body underwater again, giving himself to the silence.