Unexpected Legacy

He surprised her by pressing into her body, trapping her between the counter and himself. Kate had nowhere to go, her spine arching up against his chest as she closed her eyes and tried to still her racing heartbeat.

His voice sounded in her ear as his fingers started a trail up her rib cage. “Did you feel pity for me because I was sick—?”

“No.” She could barely utter the word.

“Then why?”

His breath was warm, and damp, and it made her shiver. “It was a mistake. We weren’t thinking clearly.” Trying to gather her wits, she nervously turned in the cage of his arms, gripped the tray and slid the pizza into the oven, forcing him to step back as she bent forward.

When she shut the door and turned, Garrett had stepped back and merely stood watching her. His snowy-white dress shirt was still parted at the middle, and her saliva glands went crazy at the sight of his bare chest, his flat, hard abs and his belly button.

“Maybe it was a mistake, Kate, one I’ve spent all my life avoiding. But what if it isn’t a mistake?”

Her blood started heating in her veins as she remembered the delicious way he’d moved in her. Kissed her. Gripped her.

She knew they had to talk about this, no matter how much she wished they would pretend nothing had gone on that day. And now that he’d brought up the topic, she could barely think straight. The look in his eyes was beyond intimate. It was downright proprietary, and she almost drowned in the darkness of those eyes that haunted her dreams. With an inhuman effort, she made her way around the kitchen island, putting some distance between them.

His voice stopped her as he followed her around.

“Kate. Answer me. What if it wasn’t a mistake?”

Her breath caught in disbelief, and suddenly, she did a one-eighty to face him. “You just want to keep me here, Garrett. You’d do anything to win—that’s how you are. And you want to keep me from going to Florida.”

“You know me better than that, Freckles.”

“I know you’re the most stubborn man I know.”

He lifted one lone eyebrow. “And you aren’t stubborn? You’re stubborn and proud, Katie. The combo makes for a very difficult lady.”

She shook her head but couldn’t help smiling. Then she signaled at his damp shirt; it was still driving her crazy how it stuck damply to his beautiful brown nipples. It was about as sexy as him being naked or, strangely, even more so. “Are you taking that shirt off? I can still dry it for you.”

He whipped it off, and it gave her something to do as she hooked it on a high kitchen cabinet close to the oven heat. “So that’s how you get men naked,” he roughly teased.

“Of course. I make it rain, then I strip them.” She smoothed her hands down the sleeves to unwrinkle them.

“What do you do after you strip them?”

She stopped fussing over his shirt and realized he was coming closer. His smile was overtly sexual, his dark eyes glimmering in liquid mischief. “Do you kiss them?”

“Maybe,” she said and slid past him to go back around the kitchen island. There was something very predatory in his eyes, and she began backing away more quickly as her heart kicked wildly in her rib cage.

“Do you caress them with those hands of yours? Look up at them with those pretty eyes?”

She blinked for a moment, then burst out laughing. “What do you mean? These are the only eyes I have. Which others should I use?”

“It’s the look in those eyes I refer to. Do you use that doe look on them, too? The one that makes me want to chase you?”

When she laughingly shook her head and backed away farther, he charged and she squealed and sped around the kitchen island, managing two rounds until he caught her and spun her around, both their smiles a mile long. His grin faded before she could even bask in the beauty of it, and his expression fell deathly somber. “I want to kiss you very badly,” he whispered, bending his head, his chest heaving.

“Garrett, no,” she murmured, struggling to pull free. She spun around and went to check on the pizza, her pulse throbbing in her temples as she pretended to be busy watching the cheese melt.

He came up behind her again and stroked a hand down her hair. “What if I asked you for what you wanted, and you told me exactly what it is that you want?”

“Florida.”

His stare almost bored holes into her profile, and through the corner of her eye, she noticed his jaw clamped, hard as granite. “Be real with me, Kate. For once in our lives, let’s stop playing games.”

She shook her head, feeling panicked and afraid of opening up to him. “Whatever it is, you can’t give it to me.”

“Just try me.”

Gnawing on her lower lip, she studied his face, his features carved fiercely in determination, as if he truly did care for her. Well...did he? Had he seen her like a woman all along and had she not noticed because she’d been too busy pretending she didn’t love him? She wanted him. All of him. A family of her own. She knew it was too much to want of him, to ask from him. Especially after what she’d heard.

“Everyone knows about you and...that heiress you’re planning a wedding with.”

His eyebrows lifted in mock interest. “Like it’s a fact now?”

Ignoring the dangerous purr in his voice, Kate put on an oven mitt, pulled the pizza out and set it on the stove top. “I can’t believe you’d marry for business.” She couldn’t look at him while saying that, so she occupied herself with preparing the food.

He was silent as she used her cutter to slice the pizza into perfect pieces.

Then he murmured, “I wasn’t going to marry at all. So why would it matter if I just used it as means to an end, if it’s what Cassandra’s asking for and it will all be over in six months anyway?”

“You’re better than that, Garrett,” she whispered.

“But not good enough for you,” he mumbled, watching her closely.

Her throat tightened on a reply that she just refused to give as she put a slice on a plate for him, and another on one for herself, staying quiet. What was the point? Flirting with him? Playing with fire? He never wanted to marry, he’d just said, and if he did, it was purely for business. She had to believe she deserved a family of her own. Especially since she’d had her own family torn apart when she was so young.

Quietly, she carried both plates to the kitchen island. He sat down on the stool beside her, then took a large bite, munching.

“Freckles, this is so good.” He shook his head and took another bite, making a groaning noise that made her remember...sex. With him.

“It is, isn’t it?” The sweet vegetable flavors combined with the toasted-almond flour and goat cheese melted in her mouth, but her insides melted more at the sounds he made. She squirmed on her stool and watched him get up to pour two glasses of water from the pitcher in the fridge.

He set hers down next to her plate, then continued eating. When he licked up a crumb from the corner of his lips, her heart raced in a strange mix of fear and anticipation. He’d asked if she wanted him to give chase...and suddenly she couldn’t imagine anything more exhilarating than being hunted, chased and claimed by him.

Shaking her head, she washed down her pizza with the water. She was surprised when he spoke again; he’d already finished his slice. Now his attention seemed fixed solely on her again.

He stroked a finger down her jaw.

“What about me?” he asked.

She frowned and set her half-eaten pizza down. “What do you mean, what about you?”

“You say you’d only marry for love. Do you feel nothing for me? If I go through with this marriage to Cassandra, how would you feel about it?”

The meal suddenly wasn’t sitting too well in her stomach. “If she’s what you want...”

“I’m very interested in something that she has, but I want to make it clear that I don’t want her.” There was no mistaking the steel in his voice as he set a hand on her thigh as if it belonged there. “What I want to know is if there’s even a chance that I can have what I most want on this earth.”

Her pulse skyrocketed when she saw the stark hunger in his gaze, a gaze that ping-ponged from her eyes to her mouth and made her pulse race erratically. But when he began to get close, she stood up for some reason. Garrett laughed darkly, quietly, as if to himself. Then he followed her up and began to back her into a corner with purpose, his eyes blazing.

“Where are you going, Kate?”

She quickened her steps, but he followed closely until she stopped when the back of her knees hit a wall.

He smiled delightedly. “You do want me to catch you, don’t you?”

With painstaking slowness, as though to torture her, he raised his hand and set it on her hair, and it was as if she could feel his fingers tangling inside her, tangling around her heart. “Do you want to be with me again?” he rasped, using his fist in her hair to tip her head back.

Every instinct of self-preservation warned her against reaching out to him, giving him this power over her again, but there was no pulling away from him as his hand wound deeper into the fall of hair at her nape, his piercing onyx eyes drowning her in their depths.

“I’ve been inside you once—and it wasn’t enough. I wanted to wake up and look into your eyes and see you smile at me. I didn’t want you to leave. Not like that. Not like it was a mistake.”

Her breasts rose and fell with each strained breath. “It wasn’t a mistake to me. I loved every moment of it.”

“Then why don’t you put your arms around me now? Why don’t you touch me? Was I too rough?” His voice dropped even lower as he tightened his fist, his eyes holding a sexy, primal shine as he drank in her face. “Katie, I promise you that next time I’ll take it so much slower. I’ll kiss you from the tip of your toes to the top of your lovely head. I’ll move slowly inside you...”

He bent his head, tipped up her face with a crooked finger and kissed her parted lips. The gasps stealing out of her were impossible to hold back. He opened his mouth as though to breathe them into his body, drag them into his lungs.

“I’ll prepare you for me again. Prepare you for hours, Kate. Hours. I don’t regret it happened, Kate, only that I didn’t do it right.”

He grasped her hands and placed them on his shoulders, and Kate didn’t take them away. Her nails gouged into his skin as she pressed against him, her eyes drifting shut. “Please don’t do this.”

“How long will you hold out, Kate? If I do this...”

Expert fingers traced the tips of her sensitive breasts through her damp shirt, and Kate gasped as sensations stormed through her.

“Will you say no? If I do this...?”

He undid her halter top and let the fabric pool at her waist, and then eased one breast out of the material of her bra. He bent his head and kissed one straining nipple, laving it expertly with his tongue, priming it before he latched on and suckled her with his warm mouth.

Moisture pooled between her legs, red-hot desire rocking to her very core.

She clasped his head, thinking to pull him back, but instead she just clutched his silky hair as he turned his head and performed the same expert torture on the other puckered tip.

She struggled weakly, halfheartedly, until he pressed her arms down at her sides, their fingers linking in a tight grip as he took her mouth in a wild, stormy kiss. Her lips opened, allowing him entrance with a soft, welcoming moan, and she was undone by his taste. “Garrett.”

Not even thinking what she was doing, Kate clung to him and curled one leg around his hips, her skirt hiking up as she nestled his hardness between her open thighs.

He curled a hand around the back of her knee to keep her leg up, and he rocked his hips and pulled back to stare into her wide, sparkling eyes. He bent down to take her lips softly. “You want that, Katie? You want that from me?”

The feel of him, the reminder of what it felt like to have him, hot and hard, inside her, made her feverish.

She wanted to nod, to say yes, to tell him not to ask and just take her, but instead she wedged a hand between their burning bodies and palmed his erection. He hissed out a breath and nipped her earlobe, the closest thing to his mouth, then swept down to devour one aching nipple again.

She moaned feebly and began to pant. Arching her back, she pushed her breast up, as if craving a deeper kiss, so he opened wide around her flesh and sucked hard. “Garrett!” she cried.

A groan rumbled up in his chest as he seized her hands and pinned them over her head, trapping her as he looked at her with wild, hungry eyes.

“I want this so much.” He ducked his head and his lips brushed the tip of her breast, his hand tightening on her wrists.

She felt a new surge of dampness in her panties, her breasts weighing heavily with the need to be cupped by his palms. Kate couldn’t believe how many times she’d dreamed of this, wanted it. She moaned softly and arched her back in invitation once more.

“Garrett...” She pressed herself up to his mouth, and his lips returned to her nipple. Fire swept through her.

Fisting her flowing, flaming hair in his hands, he pulled her face back to look at him. “Tell me you want me.” He spoke in a dangerous tone as his hands slid downward to unzip her skirt.

“I want you,” she gasped.

He kissed her hard, blindingly, as he shoved the material down her hips, then slid her clinging halter top off, as well.

His lips softened on a groan as he cupped her sex in his big palm. His voice was but a breath in her ear, shaking her world like a cannon blast. “I want you, too. I can’t stop wanting you.”

He pressed the heel of his palm to the bundle of nerves hidden at her core, and she released a soft cry.

He dipped his hand into her panties, then watched her as he parted her folds with his fingers and pushed the middle one inside. Her hips rolled while her eyes searched his face and he pushed her arousal even higher.

“Does one feel good? Or would you rather have two?” he rasped.

He watched her expression dissolve as he added a second finger into her snug grip. A surge of moisture drenched his hand, and he bent his head and prodded a taut nipple with his tongue.

That’s when he heard voices out in the living room.

* * *

Kate snapped out of her daze and stiffened when she heard the front door slam shut. She practically flew away from Garrett, jumping as the voices became clear and the two figures appeared in the living room—which adjoined the kitchen.

“—so just be quiet and let me get it real qui...”

Molly and Julian froze in their tracks.

Molly’s eyes flared in mute shock as Kate struggled to right her bra and panties and used the vegetable chopping block to cover what she could. Julian’s eyes widened like saucers as he took in Garrett’s bare-chested state and Kate trying her damnedest to hide behind one miserable little cutting board.

“Okay, I’d rather not have seen that. What about you, Molls?” Julian smirked.

Molly blinked, her cheeks about as red as her hair, but Kate was sure she wasn’t nearly as red as Kate. “Seen what? I didn’t see anything. I think I’ll come visit with Kate another day.”

They shuffled backward through the living room, and even after the front door slammed shut behind them, Kate just couldn’t look at Garrett. Her face burned in embarrassment. They were panting, the sounds of their haggard breaths echoing in the silence. Slowly, he reached out, but she stepped back and shook her head.

“What is it you want from me, Garrett?” she asked brokenly.

His voice was low and textured with wanting. “I want you to stay in the city, Kate.”

“Is that all?”

“For now, yes.” His face tightened with emotion as he watched her slip back into her skirt, and his eyes flashed as he saw her reach for her discarded clothing. “Fine, no.”

“Then what?” Her arms shook as she shoved them back into the arm holes.

“I want you in bed with me.” His eyes raked down her body almost desperately, and she hated how easily her blood bubbled again when he grabbed her hands to stop her from dressing. “Please. Kate. Don’t.”

“So this is about sex,” she said. She pushed his hands away.

“You make it sound like that’s a bad thing. Katie, I know you want me, too. You were just trembling in my arms.”

“For how long do you want me in bed? A week? Two?” she dared, her heart twisting in her chest when she tried to recall if Garrett had ever really even been with anyone for that long. “What about Cassandra? Don’t you think she’d like to know about your little side plan here?”

His mouth dipped into an even deeper scowl than usual, then he restlessly raked his fingers through his hair. “Damn, Katie, I keep feeling like I’m falling short here. What the hell is it that you want from me?”

“You’re talking about marriage with another woman, Garrett! And you stand here telling me you fall short? You damned well do fall short! If I’d wanted an affair, I’d have it with someone other than you. I want a shot at having the family I’ve never had, that’s what I want!”

In the instant she spoke those last words, Kate wished she could take them back. It was as though she’d slapped him; Garrett suddenly looked like that young boy, that dark, tormented young boy, so forlorn after what had happened the night of the murders.

“Well, then you were right about one thing,” he said, a tinge of angry frustration in his voice. “I can definitely not give you back what you want.”

“Garrett, you misunderstood me—”

But he was gone, the bang of the door that followed his departure making her wince.

Eight

Garrett knew that their half brother, Emerson Wells, harbored no love for the Gages. Even though the Gage patriarch had apparently been screwing Emerson’s mother for years, he’d refused to recognize Emerson as his son and bought the woman off to stay quiet and away from them—something the family had discovered when their father’s lawyer, upon his death, disclosed the existence of another heir who could contest part of the inheritance.

He never did, though Eleanor Gage had thought it wise to pay him a few million dollars to go away for good.

Naturally, if Emerson had half the clout and pride of a Gage—which he apparently did—he would have no intention of ever catering to a Gage’s wishes. So he’d denied Landon’s summons six times during the past several weeks, something that didn’t surprise Garrett. But now, they were running out of time to make concrete decisions about the Clarks Communications deal, and Garrett finally had it with begging the imbecile for a meeting. This limbo was putting everyone on edge, especially him, since not only his two brothers, but Cassandra herself, seemed to believe Garrett was the only one who could make the deal possible now.

He’d been so close to just saying, “To hell with it, I’ll do it.”

Kate would never have him anyway.

And yet a little part of him knew that he could never stop trying. Not now. Not when he knew that she wanted him, knew the delicate feel of her body against his, knew the fragrance of that devilishly sexy red hair. Kate might not know it yet, and hell, Garrett might have spent his entire life fighting it, but they belonged to one another.

The recent times they’d seen one another at his mother’s Sunday brunches, they’d spoken of trivial things, their last argument forgotten—or at least, not mentioned. But the air crackled between them. Her eyes seemed bluer when they rested on him. They softened when she saw him. He wasn’t blind to it, couldn’t be blind to those looks anymore. He had to do something, and fast.

So that’s how he’d found himself sitting in his office yesterday, dialing Emerson’s mother. He was surprised that she’d picked up after a few rings.

“This is Garrett Gage, and I realize Emerson doesn’t want to hear from us, but it’s imperative we talk to him. I assure you he’ll be happy to hear us out, if you could—”

The woman had hung up.

But Garrett hadn’t given up. He’d then punched in some numbers and got Emerson’s secretary on the line. After a moment of silence, she’d put him on hold. When she finally came back, she’d reluctantly conceded, “He’ll give you ten minutes tomorrow morning.”

Now, as he presented himself at his half brother’s office downtown, he marveled at how well his brother seemed to be doing for himself. Garrett strolled through the floor containing the executive offices and found his brother’s secretary waiting for him. “Mr. Wells will be here shortly, Mr. Gage. You can go right in.”

He grabbed a mint from the plate on her desk as she continued typing on her keyboard, and instead of taking a seat, he paced around while the woman continued typing. After taking a phone call, she hung up and left her desk, and Garrett knew exactly where he would wait for his brother. He strolled directly into the sumptuous office with the plaque Emerson Wells, President on the door. He took the seat in front of Emerson’s desk and laced his fingers behind his head as he waited, taking in his surroundings with an admiring eye. Apparently his half brother appreciated art—he had a vitrine full of pre-Columbian artifacts that stretched across an entire wall. There were no photographs on his desk; in fact, there were hardly any personal effects at all.

After a few more minutes the man arrived, and his murderous expression told Garrett he didn’t like seeing him one bit.

But he had agreed to the appointment, at last.

Emerson sighed and crossed his arms. “Which one of the three brothers are you?”

“The middle one,” Garrett said.

Emerson’s expression softened somewhat at the news, and for a moment, Garrett even sensed that he’d dropped his guard a little. His voice was still wary, though. “So you’re the one who was there when Father died.”

Garrett’s insides went icy cold at the reminder, but he still managed a curt nod, though Emerson hadn’t seemed to phrase it as a question anyway.

“He say anything about me?” Emerson asked, and Garrett flashed back to the sidewalk, the street, the concert they’d just come from that night.

Chest knotting up painfully, Garrett dragged in a long, steadying breath. “He tried to speak, but he couldn’t get much out.”

The talk about his father made the memory so goddamned fresh now, his stomach roiled. He thought back to Dave Devaney’s last breath, and to Kate. The way her face had crumpled when the police had brought Garrett home and he’d told everyone that both men were dead.

Kate wanted a family. A family she’d never had, because of him.

There hadn’t been a night since she’d said that when he hadn’t recalled her words. He hadn’t been able to face her a moment longer. She’d torn him open and apart, and for weeks he’d been grappling for ways in which he could ever make it up to her. Would he never be able to put it behind him? Was she leaving because Garrett reminded her too much of what she couldn’t have? Or because she’d never forgive him for repeatedly screwing up her life?

Shaking the disturbing thought aside, he stood up and stuck his hands into his pants pockets, assuming a casual stance as they faced each other. “I can tell you want me gone, so I’ll happily drop the chitchat. My brothers and I want to make a deal with you. We’re not interested in making friends, and we know you aren’t either. What we’re interested in is business, and judging by the luxurious surroundings and the Picasso on the wall, you’re a man who thinks of business just as we do. Am I right?”

Though he was dark-haired like Garrett, Emerson’s eyes weren’t the same. He had Landon’s silver eyes instead, and they glowed eerily with warning. “My father ran me over like a goddamned mongrel without a tail. I won’t allow the same from you.”

“I’m sorry that he felt he had to,” Garrett said, but he understood what his father was trying to protect. He hadn’t wanted his wife to ever find out he’d strayed. So he’d cut off his illegitimate son and lover from his life, only to die so soon afterward that his lawyers had still been paying off the woman for her silence when it happened.