The Boss Man's Fortune (Dynasties: The Danforths Book 5) Read online

  Her words quickened as her voice grew more excited. “And there are caverns at the edge of town on the Native American reservation. They say they’re enchanted, have mystical powers.”

  “No!” he said, mimicking her.

  She laughed at him. “Really. That’s where my parents fell in love. My dad’s part Indian, so I guess I am, too.” She met his eyes with pride.

  “Go on,” he said, sensing there was more.

  “It’s impossible to imagine the desert without ever having been there. The light in the morning is pure and brilliant, like reflections cast by a crystal. I can’t explain it. Artists come from all over to paint there.”

  “Sounds amazing,” he whispered, stroking her fingers as they rested in her lap.

  “It is. I’ve never seen a ghost there, not even in the caverns. But you can feel the spirits of people long gone when you step inside the dark cool spaces of the caverns. You stand very still, close your eyes and they’re there.” She let her eyelids drift down as if to demonstrate.

  God, she’s beautiful, Ian thought.

  Before he could draw a next breath, he found his lips touching hers. It happened. Just happened without his consciously leaning into her, although he must have. Her words so moved him, her simple sweetness compelled him.

  Katie’s eyes fluttered open as their kiss ended, and she looked at him but said nothing.

  Quickly he sat back, making space between them. “Go on,” he said. “Tell me more.”

  She looked at their hands, his larger one covering hers, then up at his eyes again, plaintively. “That’s all. I don’t think I can play this game anymore.”

  Perhaps she had revealed more to him than she’d intended. “Don’t quit now,” he begged her.

  “But that was so personal. I don’t talk about such things to anyone.” She looked more amazed at herself than upset with him.

  “All right,” he said quickly. “I’ll have to match the intimacy of your revelations, just to be fair.”

  He mentally weeded out facts he was sure she knew from perusing company files. He’d noticed she’d taken an interest in scanning material as she returned it to its proper drawer.

  “I had a son.” His heart shuddered at the realization of what had just passed through his lips. How had that come out? Why now…and to her?

  She stared at him. “You were married?”

  “A long time ago. I was too young, so was she.”

  “And the baby?”

  He didn’t answer. Couldn’t even meet her inquiring expression. He felt her hand turn, fingertips lace between his and her palm settle with comforting warmth against his.

  “It’s all right, Ian. This is a silly game. We shouldn’t have started it. If you don’t want to—”

  “No,” he said. “I’m fine. It’s been a long time, after all.”

  Katie moved closer to him on the couch, their hips touching. She brought her hand, holding his, more deeply into her lap, as if to cradle this small part of him. As if by tenderly soothing his fingers, palm, wrist, she could console the whole of him.

  “So tell me about your son,” she murmured.

  The razorlike pain slashed through him. It was easier to forget. “He died.”

  “Oh, Ian, I’m so sorry.”

  And now he couldn’t stop. The pain that never left spurred him on. “He was…never really born. It was a miscarriage at five months, but we knew he was a boy from the sonograms. He’d been growing, seemed healthy according to the doctor. Something just…went wrong.”

  “A son,” she breathed.

  “I would have felt the same had it been a girl,” he rasped out in anguish.

  “Of course,” she whispered, stroking his hand that had tightened into a fist.

  The terrible memories had tumbled around like coffee beans in a roaster all these years. He held in the pain, cherishing it, making it a selfish thing. At least the hurt was something to hold on to after his baby and his wife were gone. Pain was sometimes better than having nothing at all.

  For the first time, though, he was sharing it.

  Katie sat quietly, listening. When he paused, her silence encouraged him to let go of more.

  “We were just out of college. My girlfriend was dedicated to her new career. Both of us were beginning to find our way in the adult world. The pregnancy was an accident. Neither of us had wanted it. But once it happened I saw no alternative but for us to marry and give the baby a proper home.”

  “She didn’t agree?” Katie whispered.

  “No. She was very upset. A baby didn’t fit her plans at all. But I talked her into getting married and keeping the child. I promised I’d give her all the support she needed to continue her career. We’d hire a nanny, and I’d alter my own schedule as necessary to be with the baby when conflicts arose.” He grimaced at the ache in his heart. The guilt never left. “I should never have pushed her to it, but she agreed.”

  “But you loved each other?” Katie asked.

  Ian had to think about this. “At the time, I thought so. But I’m not sure now. Clearly there wasn’t enough love to hold us together after the miscarriage. Lara hadn’t wanted to start a family yet, but losing the baby was a heartbreaking experience for her. And I’d imagined myself a father. I’d made the emotional leap. When the baby died in her womb, I…I—” He had still wanted to be a father.

  Katie squeezed his hand, and a healing radiance seemed to pass into him through their touching palms, soothing his shattered soul.

  She snuggled closer to him, laid her cheek against his shoulder. “Maybe he wasn’t ready to be born yet,” she murmured.

  Her comment puzzled him. “What?”

  “Maybe,” she said, “the little fellow needed to wait for the right mom.” The innocence of her words touched him. “You were ready, Ian, but the woman carrying him was not.”

  It didn’t make a bit of sense, biologically. He knew that. She probably did, too. Maybe it was that ancient, tribal mysticism of her ancestors coming through. Maybe these things just couldn’t be explained. At best, they could only be endured.

  “Perhaps you’re right.” He touched his lips to the soft auburn curls atop her head, grateful for this night.

  Katie shifted against him as if preparing to stand up. He felt indebted to her. He felt closer to her than he’d felt to any other human being. Ever. What had prompted him to reveal his innermost pain to a simple office clerk?

  Or had she already become more than that?

  Katie had smoothed countless shaky social interactions at the gala. She’d supported his family in a volatile confrontation with the cartel. And now she’d lessened his pain.

  “Ian?”

  He turned to her. If possible, her eyes had grown brighter. “Yes?”

  “Kiss me again. Please.”

  This is a mistake, his inner voice told him. Kissing her on impulse was one thing, but kissing her deliberately was totally inappropriate.

  He was concocting a witty retort, a tactful excuse with which to escape, when she curled her knees beneath her, swiveling on the cushion, and pinned his face between her two small hands. She planted her lips firmly over his.

  There isn’t a man on earth who can say no to this, the same voice said. Damn right, he thought, and kissed her back.

  Ian wrapped his arms around her, bringing her against his chest, pinning her tiny frame to his, even though she gave not the least hint of struggle.

  Time stopped. The world dropped away, and he with it. All consciousness of the details of life were swept away, like a storm blowing clean, fresh air over the ravished land. He felt only her. Knew only Katie.

  Ian’s lips found her throat, then her cheek, the tender indentation of flesh at her temple, her mouth again and again. It seemed impossible to stop kissing her. Everywhere. Impossible, too, to keep his hands quietly on her back. They’d begun to wander to places soft and warm and hidden beneath her gown but intimately definable by touch.

  Her breasts, her wais
t, the lush fullness of her hips.

  At last out of breath, he turned his head to one side and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to clear his thoughts just long enough to stop acting on impulse and understand what was happening.

  “Ian?” Her voice quivered.

  He hoped to God he hadn’t embarrassed or upset her. “Yes?”

  “It’s all right. I understand.”

  “You do?”

  She shifted gently out of his arms, and he ached to pull her back into his embrace. But he restrained himself.

  “It’s a terrible thing to lose a child,” she whispered. “You needed this…to be touched by someone. To remember life goes on.”

  “I’m sorry if I—”

  She pressed two fingers across his lips. “Hush. It’s forgotten. And now I need to get some sleep.”

  “Of course. Thank you, Katie, for tonight.”

  Still under the spell of her, still reeling from the sensations of her body pressed to his, he deliberately walked out her apartment door. He took the elevator down to his car, climbed into the driver’s seat but didn’t start the engine.

  For a very long time he sat there, trying to figure out if she was right. Had he just needed someone—anyone—to hold him? Or had he stumbled over feelings, hungers, desires far too complex and way too hot for him to handle?

  Five

  By Wednesday of the next week, Katie was nearly beside herself. Neither she nor Ian had mentioned those breathless, confusing, delicious moments at her apartment following the gala. In fact, to any outside observer, their working relationship would have seemed absolutely proper and detached.

  But in her heart, Katie knew that something powerful had happened that night, and it had changed them both.

  That was why she was afraid.

  Terrified, really, because as much as she liked and admired Ian for being strong in the face of thugs and for blaming himself when a baby that was never meant to be born didn’t have a chance to draw a single sweet breath, as much as she believed he was a very good man, and as deeply as she’d been touched by him…she knew it would be her ruin to let herself fall in love with him.

  Why?

  Because, she answered her own question, he’s too much like all the men in my family.

  It was true. Ian Danforth had grown up in a privileged world. Although she was fascinated by his worldliness, at least some of it due to his being thirteen years older than she (she had peeked at his file), she knew what men like Ian did to their women. They controlled them.

  Not always cruelly, though. Her father was never mean to her mother or to her. He clearly adored both of them. But sometimes his love came too close to smothering her. And her mother often seemed to make the situation worse by siding with him.

  Her parents had orchestrated every facet of her life, from choosing her childhood friends to selecting a college for her and dictating what she did after she graduated. Which was mostly stay near home and prepare to marry. They’d made numerous blatant and embarrassing attempts to match her with some of the Southwest’s most eligible bachelors. No doubt with good intentions. They wanted her to be safe and happy, to provide them with lots of grandchildren and never have to worry about how to feed them.

  She had balked…and eventually run.

  She wasn’t about to leap out of that pot straight into Ian Danforth’s fire.

  This was her life, and she would live it her way.

  Meanwhile, though, she wasn’t sure how she’d continue functioning around the man in his office. Every time he entered her work area, she imagined his arms closing around her, the intensity of his kisses, the yearning telegraphed through every muscle and sinew of his hard body.

  Even now, just remembering, she became a puddle.

  “Ms. O’Brien?”

  “Huh? I mean…yes, sir?” She stared at the intercom on her desk, but the call button wasn’t lit. A subtle movement caught the corner of her eye, and she turned with a start at the appearance of a sandy-beige pant leg beside her chair.

  “Are you all right?” Ian asked. “I’ve been buzzing you.”

  “Sorry. I was preoccupied.” Katie turned away, unsettled by the proximity of his zipper, eye level. She felt herself go hot in the cheeks, and stifled a jittery giggle. Grow up, she told herself.

  But when she did manage to meet Ian’s rich hazel eyes, her heart thrummed in answer to them. Steady, girl!

  How she wished Katie, the real Katie O’Brien, were still in town. She would be able to talk her out of this insane infatuation. Katie might come up with devil-may-care plots, like this switching identity thing, but she could be very levelheaded about men. Her friend would remind her why she’d left home in the first place, and of all she had to gain by remaining independent.

  Wasn’t the real Katie having the time of her life in Europe this very moment? Free as a bird. Doing as she pleased. No man to tell her she should be doing one thing when she wanted to do another.

  Katie straightened up and folded her hands on the desk, pretending composure. “Yes, sir. What can I do for you?”

  Ian scowled down at her, looking vaguely befuddled by her behavior. “Have the newspapers arrived yet?”

  “No, sir. Are you expecting anything special in them?”

  “One of the reporters at the gala mentioned she thought her article on the homeless would run in today’s paper. I want to see it as soon as possible, in case we need to run damage control on behalf of my father.”

  “I’ll bring them to you as soon as they arrive.” She reached for a file, feigning involvement in a critical task when he didn’t immediately leave.

  “Katie,” he said.

  She didn’t look up. Please, God, don’t let him ask about that night! “Yes?” She held her breath, but after a moment he just sighed.

  “Never mind. I’ll be in my office.”

  “Right.” She heard his door close and only then released the breath she’d been holding.

  The papers had arrived. The Savannah Morning News, Washington Post, New York Times, Saint Louis Dispatch, L.A. Times, Houston Chronicle and Wall Street Journal. Seven arrived every day, delivered by a local news service.

  Ian tracked business and political news in all areas of the country where D&D’s coffee shops were located. Although he had a clipping service for any direct mention of the company or the family, he liked a broader picture of their shops’ communities.

  Katie thanked the deliveryman and pulled out the Houston paper, which was the one nearest her own hometown. She checked every day, just in case.

  The headline warned of oil prices skyrocketing. Nothing new there. She shrugged and was about to turn to the society pages when a photo just below the fold on the front page caught her eye, and she nearly shrieked.

  Her…it was her!

  The professional photo had been taken on the eve of her “coming out” in Tucson. Her natural dark brown hair was arranged in a sophisticated coif on top of her head. The white satin bodice hugged her torso but revealed bare shoulders. A string of pearls—her grandmother’s—clasped delicately around her throat.

  If she hadn’t been left gasping for breath at the sight of the photo, the caption beneath would have done the job: Disappearing Heiress Spotted In Bus Station!

  Oh no, no, no…

  Katie went numb. She gripped the top of the desk for support. Her heart in her throat, she read quickly, soaking up word after horrifying word.

  The article quoted a man who believed he had seen a young woman matching her description in the Greyhound terminal in downtown Saint Louis—the very one she’d passed through on her way across the country to Georgia. The time and date matched her two-hour layover there.

  Katie’s stomach lurched. Her heart flip-flopped in her chest, unable to find a steady beat.

  Without thinking twice, she stuffed the Chronicle into her top desk drawer, then hastily scanned the other papers. Nothing about her in them yet. Maybe this would be the end of it. Maybe other editors would find
much more important stories to cover, and soon even the southwestern papers would forget about her.

  She delivered Ian’s stack of crisp newsprint to him. He glanced up at her, but she turned and hastily walked away, hoping he wouldn’t notice he was short one city.

  “Wait.”

  Katie bit down on her lower lip. She poked her eyeglasses back up the bridge of her nose and came around to face him again.

  “Is something wrong, Katie?”

  “No. Nothing.” She produced a wobbly smile.

  “You look awfully pale.”

  She lifted one shoulder. “Just tired, I guess.” She forced herself to walk calmly back to her desk and sit down, when she felt like running from the building.

  It wasn’t just being discovered that worried her. She was thinking about her parents and the rest of her family. Not until this moment had it struck her how worried they might be about her.

  The article had included an emotional quote from her father: “If someone out there has our daughter, please know that we’ll do anything, give anything they require to return her to us.”

  Did they think she’d been kidnapped? Hadn’t they found the note she’d left in her room telling them she’d needed to be on her own? Assuring them she’d be all right?

  Then later in the article, her father’s attorney: “Katherine, if you’re able to contact us, please do. Your parents only want to see you safely home again.”

  Safely home again. Wasn’t that the point?

  She didn’t want to be protected, to be made safe like a helpless child when what she needed was a life of her own! If she made mistakes, so be it—they would be hers to make!

  Who in this world today could claim immunity from strife? Life was unpredictable by its nature. Shouldn’t she get used to facing challenges on her own?

  As much as Katie longed to reassure her family that she was all right, she couldn’t take that risk. Not yet. Once she’d proved to herself, and them, that she could do for herself, she’d tell them where she was.

  In the meantime, perhaps she could come up with a way of communicating to them that she wasn’t in danger. A way that wouldn’t disclose her whereabouts—because she was certain that if her father and uncles ever found out where she was, they’d come after her and drag her home.