Unfinished Business

Devour, more like. And not in a pleasant way. Brody Winslow enjoyed sucking people in with his smooth talk and clever charades, and using them up. Once upon a time, that had been her. She’d been taken in by the expensive car he drove and big house he lived in. Not until it was too late did she realize that some of the best liars came from money.

“What are you doing here?”

“I came to collect the money you owe me.”

“You’ve been paid what I owe you this year. Nothing’s due for another nine months.”

“See, that’s where we’ve got a little bit of a problem. I need the fifty grand now.”

“Fifty …” She crossed her arms over her chest so he wouldn’t notice the way her hands shook. “I can’t pay you the full amount now.”

He looked around her house. “Seems like you’re doing pretty well.”

“I bought the house through a special program that allowed me to put zero money down. I’ve barely got five percent equity and no bank is going to give me a second mortgage for that. You’re just going to have to wait. I’ll get the next installment to you in nine months.”

“That’s not working for me.” He pushed himself off the couch and headed toward her.

She flinched as he brushed past her on his way to the window that overlooked her driveway.

“Nice car. It’s got to be worth something.”

“It’s leased.”

He shot her a look over his shoulder. “What about that business of yours?”

She bit her tongue rather than fire off a sharp retort. Making him mad wasn’t going to get him out of her house or her life. The man was a bully, plain and simple. And he’d figured out where she lived and what she was doing for a living.

“The business is barely breaking even.” A deliberate lie, but it wasn’t as if her simple lifestyle betrayed the nest egg she’d been building. For so much of her adult life, she’d been on the edge of financial disaster. Having a bank balance of several thousand dollars gave her peace, and she’d fight hard not to give that up.

“I get it. Times are tough for you. But I need that money. You’re going to have to figure out how to get it for me or times are going to get even tougher for you and your pretty baby sister.” He patted her cheek and she flinched a second time. “You hear what I’m saying?”

“I hear.”

“And?”

“I’ll get you what I can.” As difficult as it would be to give up her financial cushion and postpone moving Lansing Employment Agency into a bigger, fancier office, she’d make the sacrifice if it meant keeping Brody out of her and Hailey’s life. “Now, get out.”

Brody laughed and headed for the front door.

Rachel followed him across the room and slid the deadbolt home before his tasseled loafers reached her front walk. She didn’t realize how loud her heart thundered in her ears until Hailey spoke. She had trouble hearing her sister’s apology.

“He must have followed me home from work,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. We weren’t going to hide from him forever.”

“We’ve managed for four years.”

“Only because he never came looking.” Rachel sat down on the recliner’s arm and hugged her sister. Hailey was shaking. Her confident, bright sister had been alone with Brody and afraid. “Why did you open the door to him?”

“He followed me into the house when I came home from work. I didn’t realize he was there until he shoved me inside.”

Rachel rested her cheek on her sister’s head. “I’m sorry I didn’t get home sooner.”

Hailey shrugged her off. “Why do you owe him fifty thousand dollars?”

“I borrowed some money to start up the employment agency.” It was a lie, but Rachel didn’t want her sister to worry. The burden was hers and hers alone.

“Why would you do that?” Hailey demanded. “You know how he is.”

Rachel shrugged. “No bank is going to lend a high school graduate with big ideas and a sketchy business plan the sort of money I needed. Besides, he owed me something for the five years I put up with him.” She tried to reassure her sister with a smile, but Hailey had regained her spunk now that Brody was gone.

“Those years were worth a lot more than fifty thousand.” Hailey levered herself out of the chair and whirled to confront Rachel. Her brows launched themselves at each other. “What are we going to do? How are we going to come up with the fifty grand?” Hailey’s pitch rose as her anxiety escalated.

Rachel stood and took her sister’s cold hands to rub warmth back into them. “There is no we, Hales. It was my decision to borrow the money and it’s my debt to repay.”

“But—”

“No.” Rachel gave her head an emphatic shake and stood. She could out-stubborn her sister any day. “You are not going to worry about this.”

“You never let me worry about anything,” Hailey complained. “Not how we were going to get by after Aunt Jesse took off, not paying for college, not anything.”

“I’m your big sister. It’s my job to take care of you.”

“I’m twenty-six years old,” Hailey asserted, her tone aggrieved. “I don’t need you to take care of me anymore. Why won’t you let me help?”

“You already helped. You graduated from college with straight As and got a fabulous job at one of Houston’s top CPA firms. You pay for half the groceries, do almost all the cooking and even your own laundry.” Rachel grinned to hide the way her mind was already furiously working on a solution to the Brody problem. “I couldn’t ask for more. Besides, once I pay Brody the money, he’ll be out of our lives once and for all.”

“But how are you going to come up with the money?”

“I’ll try to get a bank loan. They might not have been willing to loan me money four years ago when I was starting up, but Lansing Employment Agency has a profitable track record now.”

Perched on a guest chair in the loan officer’s small cubicle, Rachel knew from the expression on the man’s face what was coming.

“Economic times have hit us hard, Ms. Lansing.” For the last four days she’d been listening to similar rhetoric, a broken record of no’s. “Our small business lending is down to nothing. I wish I had better news for you.”

“Thank you, anyway.” She forced a smile and stood. A quick glance at her watch told her she’d run over her allotted hour lunch break.

This morning she’d wired her twenty-five thousand dollar nest egg to her lawyer with instructions to give the money to Brody. For the last five years, she’d been paying him ten thousand a year, double what she’d agreed to in their divorce settlement. Reimbursement for a debt she didn’t owe. Punishment for divorcing him. No, Rachel amended, punishment for marrying him in the first place.

Returning to the Case Consolidated Holding offices, she slid into her desk and shoved her purse into a bottom drawer a second before Max’s scowl peered at her from his office.

“You’re late.”

Rachel sighed. “Sorry. It won’t happen again. Did you need something?”

“I need you to be at your desk for eight hours.”

She tried again. “Something specific?”

“Get Chuck Weaver on the phone. Tell him I needed his numbers three hours ago.”

“Right away.”

As she was dialing, her cell started to ring. Since Chuck wasn’t answering, she hung up without leaving a voice mail and answered her mobile phone.

Brody’s voice rasped in her ear. “Did you get the money?”

“I wired twenty-five thousand to my lawyer this morning.”

“I said fifty.”

Demanding bastard. “It’s all I could get.” She kept her voice low to keep from being overheard. “You’ll just have to be happy with that.”

“Happy?” He chuckled, the sound low and forced. “You don’t seem to get it. I need the whole fifty thousand now.”

“I get it,” she said. “You’ve been on a losing streak.”

She hadn’t known about his gambling until the second year of their marriage. A shouting match between him and his father clued her in to his destination when he vanished on the weekends. Frankly, she’d been disappointed. She’d thought he was having an affair. Had hoped he’d fallen in love with someone else and would ask for a divorce.

“That’s none of your business.”

“You need to get some help.”

“You need to get me the rest of my money.” He disconnected the call.

Rachel blew out a breath and pushed back from her desk. She had to clear her head. It wasn’t until she stood up that she realized someone watched her. Max wore an inscrutable expression, but his shoulders bunched, tension riding him hard. He had the sexy overworked COO look going today. Coat off, shirt sleeves rolled up and baring muscled forearms. She stared at his gold watch to keep her gaze from wandering to his strong hands, and her mind from venturing into the memory of how gently he’d caressed her skin.

“Chuck Weaver wasn’t in his office,” she said, burying her shaking hands in her pockets. “I’m going to run to the ladies room. I’ll have him paged when I get back.”

Max shut off her torrent of words with a hard look. “Come into my office. We need to talk.”

At his command, Rachel froze like an inexperienced driver facing her first spinout.

“Just give me a second,” she protested, her eyes shifting away from him as if looking for an escape.

“Now.” Max strode into his office and waited until she entered before he shut the door, blocking them from prying eyes. “Who was that on the phone?”

“No one.”

“It sure sounds as if you owe no one a great deal of money.” Her evasion irritated him.

He didn’t want to care if she was in trouble, but couldn’t ignore the alarm bells that sounded while he listened to her side of the phone call. With ruthless determination, he shoved worry aside and focused on his annoyance. The fact that she was in a bad spot wasn’t his concern. Her ongoing distraction from her job was.

“You had no right to eavesdrop on my private conversation,” she returned, belligerent where a moment earlier, she’d been desperate and scared.

He anchored one hand on the wood door to keep from launching across the room and shaking her until her teeth rattled. “You seem to forget whose name is on the door.”

Her stubborn little chin rose, but she wouldn’t make eye contact.

“It’s none of your concern.”

That was the wrong thing for her to say. “When they’re calling here it becomes my concern.”

Her defiance and his determination stood toe to toe, neither giving ground.

She broke first. Her gaze fell to his wingtips. “It won’t happen again.”

“Can you guarantee that?”

With her hands clenched to white-knuckle tightness at her side, she pressed her lips into a thin rosy line. Her nonanswer said more than words.

Frustration locked his vocal cords, making speech impossible. He sucked in a calming breath, keenly aware he was venturing into something that was none of his business. If he had an ounce of sense, he’d back off and let her deal with whatever mess she’d stepped in. Unfortunately for him, below his irritation buzzed a hornet of disquiet. He ducked the pesky emotion the way he’d dodge the stinging insect, but it darted around with relentless persistence.

“Do you need help?” He wrenched the offer free of his better judgment. The ramifications of involving himself in her troubles were bound to bite him in the …

“No.” Her clipped response matched his offer in civility and warmth.

They glared at each other. Two mules with their heels dug in.

He should be glad she’d turned him down. Instead, her refusal made him all the more determined to interfere.

“Stop being so stubborn. Let me help you. How much do you owe?”

Her eyes never wavered from his, but she blinked twice in rapid succession. “I don’t need your help.”

“But I need things to run smoothly. I can’t afford for you to be distracted by money problems. I assume that’s what you’ve been dealing with on your extended lunch breaks.”

“I’ve got everything under control.”

“That’s not the way it sounded just now.” Max shoved away from the door and stalked in her direction. He had no idea what he planned to do when he reached her. Something idiotic, no doubt, like take her in his arms and kiss her senseless.

The scent of her filled his nostrils. Some sort of nonfloral fragrance that made him think of clean sheets bleached by the sun. He was assailed by the image of her remaking the bed in their beach bungalow after their frantic lovemaking had ripped the sheets from the mattress.

His irritation faded. “You sounded upset.”

Her eyes widened at whatever note of concern she heard in his voice. “I’m not going to let you help me.”

Damned stubborn fool.

He caught her arm and pulled her across the gap between them. She came without resistance, her lips softening and parting as a rush of air escaped her. He wanted to sample those lips. Were they as pliant and intoxicating as ever?

“How are you going to stop me?” he demanded, cupping the back of her head to hold her still.

He dropped his head and claimed her mouth, swallowing her tart answer. He expected resistance. They’d been dancing around this moment for almost a week. The shoving match of his will against hers had inflamed his appetite for a similar battle between the sheets.

She moaned.

Her immediate surrender caught him off guard. It took him a second to change tactics, to stop taking and coax her instead to open to his questing kiss. She tasted like fruit punch, but went to his head like a Caribbean rum cocktail.

Long fingers darted into his hair. Her muscles softened. The flow of her lean lines against his frame was like waves on a beach, soothing, endlessly fascinating. With his eyes closed, the surf roaring in his ears, he remembered how it felt to hold her in his arms.

In a flash, all the memories of her that he’d locked away came back. Every instant of their time together played through his mind. His heart soared as he remembered not just the incredible sex, but the soul-baring connection they’d shared.

Then came her leaving. The ache that consumed him. His destructive anger.

Max broke off the kiss. Chest heaving, he surveyed the passion-dazed look in her azure eyes. Her high color. The flare of her nostrils as she scooped air into her lungs. He felt similarly depleted of oxygen. Surely that was the reason for his lightheadedness.

“That was a mistake,” he said, unable to let her go.

Rachel took matters into her own hands. She shifted her spine straight and pushed on his chest. His fingers ached as she slipped free.

“That’s supposed to be my line,” she said, tugging her jacket back into order.

He inclined his head. “Be my guest.”

Max retreated to the couch. Resettling his tie into a precise line down the front of his shirt, he laid his arm over the back of the couch and watched Rachel battle back from desire. She recovered faster than he’d hoped.

“That was a mistake.” Crossing her arms over her chest, she leveled a narrow look his way. “One that won’t be repeated.”

“You misunderstand me,” he said. “The mistake I referred to was letting the kiss happen here.”

“What do you mean here? There’s no place else it’s going to happen.”

He hit her with an are-you-kidding expression. “You’re crazy if you think this thing between us is going to die out on its own.”

“It will if you stop fanning the flames.”

He had to fight from smiling at her exasperated tone. “Impossible. You set me on fire every time I get within twenty feet of you.”

“I’m flattered.”

Was she really? Her tight lips told a different story. “Don’t be. I’m sure I get to you the same way.” He plowed on, not giving her time to voice the protests bubbling in her eyes. “It’s just a chemical reaction between us. Something ageless and undeniable. We can burn it out, but I don’t see it just fizzling out.”

“I really don’t have the energy for this,” she groused.

“Good. Stop fighting me and conserve your energy. I have a much better use for it.”

Her arms fell to her sides. “Max, please be reasonable.”

She’d stooped to pleading. He had her now.

“When have you ever known me to be reasonable?”

That wrung a grimace out of her. “Good point.” She inhaled slow and deep; by the time the breath left her body, she’d changed tactics. “What’d you have in mind?” she questioned, retreating into humor. “A quickie in the copy room?” Pulling out her smart phone, she plied it like a true techno geek. “My schedule clears a bit at three. I can give you twenty minutes.”

Max cursed. He should have anticipated she’d use humor to avoid a serious conversation. “I’ll need more than twenty minutes for what I have in mind.”

“You want more than twenty minutes,” she corrected him, letting her thick southern accent slide all over the words. “You probably don’t need more than …” She paused and peered at him from beneath her lashes. “Ten?”

Max rose from the couch and prowled her way. She turned her back as he stepped into her space. He loomed over her in order to peer at her phone’s screen. So, she wanted to mess with him. Two could play at this game. A minute quiver betrayed her reaction to his proximity. Tension drained from his body. The chemistry between them was textbook and undeniable. His palms itched to measure her waist, reacquaint themselves with her breasts.

“I wasn’t so much thinking of my needs as yours,” he said, his voice low and intimate. “I know how much you like it when I take my time.”

She sized him up with a sideways glance. “I thought this was the sort of thing you were trying to avoid doing with your assistant.”

Max shook his head. “I was trying to avoid losing my freedom in one of your matchmaking schemes.”

“You were trying to avoid marriage?” She slipped the phone back into its cradle at her waist. “Or falling in love?”

“Both.”

“Because they don’t always go hand in hand, you know.”

“I’m all too familiar with that truth.”

As she well knew. The four days they’d spent together hadn’t been limited to learning about each other physically. Max had shared his soul, as well. Whether because they’d been two strangers sharing a moment with no thought of a future, or because being with her had thawed places long numb, he’d told her everything about his childhood and the problems with his family, delving into emotions he had no idea lurked beneath his skin.

She’d been a damn good listener. Made it easy to be vulnerable. He’d felt safe with her. And she’d left him. Gone back to her husband.

What an idiot he’d been.

“I’ll go get Chuck Weaver on the phone,” she said, retreating from his office.

It wasn’t until he sat behind his desk and answered the call she put through that he realized she’d completely distracted him from getting answers about what sort of financial mess she was in.

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