Читать книгу Return of the Secret Heir - Rachel Bailey - Страница 9

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.