Texas Cinderella / The Texas CEO's Secret

He stood, guzzled most of his iced tea and, after replacing the glass on the table, added, “And to that end, why don’t we start with a real dinner tomorrow night? My treat and we can both eat.”

“Since it’s now my job, I guess so,” Tanya conceded.

“Eight o’clock? I’ll meet you at the pool and we’ll go somewhere from there?”

Tanya nodded and that was all it took to send him rushing out of the deli.

As she watched him go her anger at him began to waver. Maybe it was the sight of him from behind in those scrubs that loosely covered his broad shoulders and barely grazed a derriere to die for.

But instead of thinking about the influence he’d used to keep her under his thumb, she was thinking more about the fact that her job now was essentially spending time with Tate McCord.

And how, as much as she should be resenting that, she was actually a little excited by the prospect…

Chapter Three

“I don’t like it, Tanya. And I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“It’ll be fine, JoBeth.”

Calling her mother by name and in the special teasing, cajoling tone Tanya used usually made her mother laugh. Now it barely elicited a smile.

When Tanya hadn’t gone in to do the early Sunday newscast, JoBeth had asked why. Tanya had had to tell her mother what was going on with Tate and the special assignment to do the McCord story—although she’d omitted the fact that it was the result of being caught snooping in the library on Friday night.

“The McCords have always been good to us, Tanya. When your father walked out and left me with a two-year-old and no money and no education and no skills, Mrs. McCord—”

“—not only gave you a job, but since the housekeeper at the time wasn’t living here, she let us live in this bungalow when none of the other maids got that kind of accommodation,” Tanya said, repeating what her mother had said many times as she’d grown up. Then she continued with what she knew JoBeth was going to say. “Mrs. McCord promoted you from maid to housekeeper to overseeing the whole staff. She gave you flexible hours whenever I was sick or you wanted to go to my school meetings and functions. She wrote my recommendation letter to college and to the scholarship committee that paid my tuition for four years. I haven’t forgotten any of that.”

“But now you’ll try to dig up dirt on the McCords to get yourself more on-air time? That’s not right.”

They were at the kitchen table with coffee and toast, both of them in their bathrobes, not long out of bed. JoBeth had Sunday mornings off and Tanya regretted that rather than relaxing, her mother was stressed about this.

“I’m not going to dig up dirt,” she assured JoBeth, deciding to put a positive spin on the turn of events to ease her mother’s mind. “Some of this even came at the suggestion of Tate, who also talked to the station owner—that’s why I won’t be doing anything but devoting myself to this for a while. Tate is going to be walking me through the family history, including the reasons why there’s a problem with anyone named Foley—which I’ve never understood. Hopefully, he’ll let me have an insider’s look that will include finding the Santa Magdalena diamond—if they actually do—and it will all give me a leg up here in Dallas. So really, this is still a lot like the little extra help Mrs. McCord has given along the way—think of it like that.”

But apparently Tanya’s mother was not won over by that argument because JoBeth narrowed her dark eyes at Tanya, increasing the lines that fanned out from their corners. “These people are my employers, Tanya. I’m dependent on them for my livelihood. For my whole day-to-day existence.”

“And I’m not going to do anything to jeopardize that.” If what she’d done Friday night didn’t count…

But suddenly Tanya took stock of JoBeth sitting across from her at the tiny table they’d eaten most of their meals on.

Her mother worked long hours that had aged her—something Tanya saw in the single shock of prematurely white hair at JoBeth’s temple. But Tanya knew that her mother was not only grateful for the job, JoBeth enjoyed it and the camaraderie and closeness of the household staff that went with it.

And if that hair that was down now would soon be in a bun that was as tightly wound as her mother had always had to be, that control was something Tanya knew her mother took pride in. If the milkiness of JoBeth’s skin was evidence that vacation sun rarely touched it, it wasn’t for want of time off, it was because JoBeth preferred her routine here to sitting on a Caribbean beach. If JoBeth’s slight pudginess came from caring for the McCords rather than paying attention to exercise or cautious eating for herself, Tanya knew that her mother would say it was a treat to get to taste the delicacies prepared by the McCords’ chef.

And Tanya was also well aware of the fact that while the cottage with its two small bedrooms and this area that combined kitchen and living room was hardly luxury living, her mother loved the housekeeper’s bungalow and considered it her home—a home she’d refused to leave even when Tanya had tried to persuade her to move to California with her.

Which all added up to more than a livelihood that JoBeth didn’t want to lose, it was the life her mother had made for herself. And Tanya realized even more than she had before that she had to be careful not to do anything that would compromise that or put it at risk.

“Who better to do this story?” she said to her mother then. “I’m obligated to report on any skeletons I might find in the McCord closets, but I won’t sensationalize them. I’ll do a fair and honest piece that will come primarily from information Tate relays—so you know there aren’t going to be a lot of negatives in the mix—and I won’t go searching for them the way someone else might. I’ll take what Tate gives, hope it all leads to the bigger story of the discovery of the diamond and leave it at that.”

“Tate,” her mother echoed. “You shouldn’t be imposing on him. He has too much on his mind as it is. Since his friend died in Iraq, since he came back from there himself, he’s troubled, Tanya. You can’t be bothering him to get yourself—”

“He offered, Mama. I won’t be bothering him.”

“He offered?” JoBeth parroted ominously.

“He volunteered,” Tanya amended because she’d caught the sudden switch in her mother’s concerns. Now it wasn’t the McCords who JoBeth was worried about, it was Tanya. And that was a more fierce protectiveness.

“You’re a beautiful girl, Tanya—”

“Says my mother.” Tanya dismissed the compliment.

“Tate has eyes.”

“And a fiancée,” Tanya reminded. Then, in an attempt to calm her mother’s fears, she said, “Tate is engaged to Katie Whitcomb-Salgar—the person he’s been promised to since they played together in the sandbox. And it wouldn’t matter even if they hadn’t finally gotten engaged—I know better than to get involved with Tate McCord, of all people. This is strictly business. For both of us. He’s going to walk me through some family history and give me the exclusive on the outcome of whatever it is that’s going on with the Santa Magdalena diamond—that’s all there is to it. There’s nothing personal in it for either of us.”

“For your own sake, you’d better make sure of that,” JoBeth said, her round face reflecting the fact that Tanya had failed to ease her mind. “I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“I won’t get hurt, Mama. I told you, it’s strictly business.”

JoBeth stared at her for a long moment as if she were hoping to be able to see the future in Tanya’s face. Then, with no indication of whether or not she thought she had, she took her obvious concerns and her crossword puzzle into the living room.

Tanya interpreted that as a sign that her mother was tentatively accepting what she’d told her.

But while she stayed where she was at the kitchen table to finish her breakfast, Tanya was still thinking about it all.

This was strictly business between her and Tate—she hadn’t said that simply to appease JoBeth. Tanya had outgrown wanting to be a McCord a long time ago. Yes, as a very young, starry-eyed girl she’d fantasized about being a part of what went on at the big house. But as soon as her mother had realized that was what she was doing, JoBeth had taken measures to keep Tanya’s feet firmly planted on the ground. And ultimately—eventually—Tanya had come to see for herself that the McCords’ life was not a life she wanted.

Of course mountains of money would be nice, but other than that? The McCords were under constant scrutiny, their every movement watched. They were talked about and criticized, envied and resented. And none of that appealed to Tanya.

Plus, the McCords existed in an insular world where everything remained the same from generation to generation. Where the names, the faces, the cliques never changed. Where new blood was seldom let in. Where some fight, started long, long ago for reasons Tanya wasn’t sure even they knew, was still burning. It all just seemed so stagnant to her.

And in keeping with that, Tate was engaged to Katie Whitcomb-Salgar—the daughter of his mother’s and late father’s close friends and someone who had moved within that same small, insulated circle his entire life, too.

But Tanya understood why the fact that Tate was engaged didn’t put her mother’s mind to rest. Both Tanya and JoBeth had been around the McCords long enough to know that the relationship between Tate and Katie ran a pattern—together, not together, together again.

Just because they’d finally gotten formally engaged didn’t mean this was the time they made it to the altar. One or the other of them could still decide to put the wedding off, to separate the way they had dozens of times in the past.

And if that happened and Tanya caught Tate’s attention during the interim? He could be very persuasive. But in the end Tanya would only be a dalliance for Tate before he went back to Katie anyway. Which he always did.

That was what Tanya knew her mother was worried about.

But JoBeth didn’t need to be. Not only would Tanya never knowingly get involved with anyone who was already involved with someone else, there was no way she would allow herself to be one of Tate McCord’s fleeting detours from the woman his family had chosen for him.

No, the whole thing—what it meant to be a McCord and interrupting Tate’s destiny to be with Katie Whitcomb-Salgar—was just not for Tanya.

Regardless of how terrific Tate might have looked in those scrubs last night.

But he had looked terrific…

Still, after a moment’s indulgence in that mental image, Tanya shoved it aside.

That man was off-off-off-limits, as far as she was concerned. The only purpose he served was to provide her with a good story that she could use to boost her standing at the station and launch her career in Dallas.

And the fact that he was the drop-dead gorgeous, charming, smart, accomplished Tate McCord was merely something she needed to overlook in order to keep a professional and personal distance.

Which she had every intention of doing.

“Dinner with you meant the country club—I suppose I should have guessed, but I was thinking we were going somewhere low-key where we could get down to business,” Tanya said as they left the club’s fine-dining—and fanciest—restaurant.

The valet had Tate’s sports car waiting for them. Tate went around to the driver’s side. One valet opened the passenger door for Tanya, while another opened the driver’s door for Tate. Only as their doors were closed for them and they were both fastening their seat belts did Tate say, “I can get down to business, if that’s what you want. I just thought we were having a friendly dinner,” he said with an innuendo-laden tone that purposely misinterpreted her words.

“What I want is to get down to the business I’m being paid to do—a profile on you and your family,” she qualified, not taking his slightly flirtatious bait but also making sure her tone was amiable. There had been confrontation between them on the last two nights and that was not a pattern she wanted to set.

Tate pulled out of the wrought-iron gates of the country club and into traffic without responding.

“Nothing work related was accomplished at all,” Tanya continued anyway. “You ended up talking more to your cronies than giving me any useful information about the McCords.”

“My cronies?” Tate repeated as he headed for his family’s estate.

“The rest of the country-club set. Or was that the purpose of dinner at the club—to avoid doing what you agreed to do and at the same time show me that the McCords hobnob with Dallas’s richest, most famous, most powerful and influential? And how even among the richest, most famous, powerful and influential, it was still you who was catered to to the point of the bartender counting the number of ice cubes he put in your predinner private reserve scotch?”

“Would I do something like that?” he said with no inflection at all, leaving her clueless as to whether or not that had been his motive.

“And for future reference,” she went on, still conversationally, “you should warn the person you’re bringing to the country club ahead of time. I was the only woman not in pearls.” In fact, she’d been underdressed in a pair of linen slacks and simple camp shirt, while Tate was dressed more appropriately in a cocoa-colored suit with an off-white shirt and brown tie.

“Pearls are not mandatory,” he informed her as they gained distance from the private club where memberships were primarily inherited and only the first names on the roster varied from decade to decade.

Tate took his eyes off the road to glance at her, his expression showing a hint of curiosity now. “So let me see if I have this straight—you’re mad because we just had a nice dinner?”

“I’m not mad,” she insisted. And she wasn’t. “The food was fantastic and the waitstaff treated me like a queen.” And in between the avalanche of obligatory hellos and small talk that had demanded Tate’s attention while Tanya was barely given dismissive nods after her introductions, he’d been a perfectly pleasant dinner companion. “But I thought tonight would be the kickoff to my collecting information—or else why should we be together? And it’s frustrating that nothing along those lines got done.”

And as a result, she hadn’t had work to keep her from noticing how easy it was to be with Tate.

“I don’t need to see what a hotshot you are,” she added.

“Ouch! Hotshot? That sounds bad.”

“I’m just saying that the country-club side of you and of your family is not news. That kind of thing is in the society columns every day. You promised me the private side and that’s not what tonight was.”

“What tonight was,” Tate said as they neared home, “was to make amends for costing you your on-air time and leaving you hanging yesterday. It’s also Sunday and the club’s regular chef takes Sundays off. His understudy—or whatever the guy who fills in for him is called—takes over in the kitchen on Sundays and the understudy goes all out to show his stuff when he gets that chance. I like to see what he comes up with. It’s usually different and innovative and interesting. Like tonight—thin slices of Kobe beef that we cooked ourselves over a hot rock—so country club or not, why shouldn’t we have gone there for dinner? Pearls notwithstanding?”

“Because that’s all this turned out to be—a nice dinner—”

“And that’s a crime?”

“I’m with you to do an assignment, not to go on a date,” she said reasonably.

“This wasn’t a date, it was just dinner,” he said.

Which was part of what she knew she needed to guard against—what seemed like a really great date to her was nothing but an ordinary, everyday dinner to him…

“Or is that how this has to be?” he went on. “Strictly business? Do we need to sit on opposite sides of a desk, only between nine and five, and be formal and stuffy?”

Strictly business—that’s what she’d told her mother this was. That was what she wanted it to be, what she needed it to be. But stuffy and formal? Sitting on opposite sides of a desk? Not only was that unlikely to get her the same kind of intimate portrait that came when an interviewee was relaxed and talking freely, but it definitely didn’t appeal to her when it came to Tate McCord.

And that was another warning sign—the fact that Tate was striking a personal note in her that had nothing to do with work.

On the other hand, her first priority was getting the best story she could, and to that end, friendly and casual was the route to take.

“No, I don’t want this to be done sitting opposite each other at a desk,” she answered his question a little belatedly. “But I want to see the side of the McCords that isn’t about being greeted by name by a state senator or where everyone in the place knows what you eat and drink—like tonight and last night, too. I’m well aware of the fact that the McCords are Texas royalty—even walking through the hospital with you was like being in a parade. What I’m hoping is that there’s something else to you all. Something that gets you outside of your comfort zone and puts you in touch with the rest of the world—you know, those of us who are real?”

They’d reached the McCord estate but Tate hadn’t pulled up to the garages. He’d gone around the other way to stop as near to the housekeeper’s bungalow as he could get. When he turned off the engine he angled in his seat to look at Tanya.

“And just how far outside of your comfort zone have you ventured? How in touch with the rest of the world are you—as a real person? Because worldly is not how you strike me at the ripe old age of…what? Twenty-three?”

He was apparently not opposed to more confrontation tonight.

“Okay, I’m not worldly,” Tanya agreed. “But I think there’s a huge portion of our society and the everyday life that most people live that you are out of touch with,” she said, still calm but pulling no punches.

“I’m out of touch?” Tate said as if he were challenging her. But at the same time, something about this debate also seemed to have amused him because his eyes were bright and alive and he was barely suppressing a smile.

And as long as she wasn’t alienating him, she didn’t back down. “If you’re talking about having gone to the Middle East like I’ve been told that you did, then no, that isn’t an experience I’ve had or can relate to. And while I don’t know why you went or where you were or how close to the war you got, or anything but that you spent a year somewhere over there, what I’m thinking is that you don’t even have a concept of what life is like for the everyday person here, outside of your cushy existence. Given that, it’s no wonder that what you must have encountered there was difficult for you to handle, and maybe if you hadn’t been wrapped in cotton before—”

Tanya stopped herself because she realized suddenly that she was talking out of school. She was only guessing at what was going on with him, guessing that the reason he was so affected by his year away was because he’d gone from a virtual cocoon into something his life—of all lives—hadn’t prepared him for. And she was doing that guessing based solely on what she’d heard from her mother and the other house staff.

“I’m sorry, that was out of line,” she apologized in a hurry. “It’s just that there’s a lot of talk about you being depressed and changed and—”

She was getting in deeper and deeper.

“I should shut up,” she concluded.

“And you think that because I spent my life wrapped in cotton that seeing what I saw in Iraq was more than I could take?”

Oh, she was sooo far over the line…

“I’m not even sure how we got into this so let’s back up. Even when I lived here as a kid what I saw was more the trappings of your family’s money and status and what it allowed you all. But that isn’t the story I want. Or the story I thought you agreed to give me. Whatever is going on with you—in your head—is your own business and none of mine. I shouldn’t have shot off my mouth about it.”

“But that’s what everybody in your circle is saying? That I’m depressed?”

She wanted to kick herself. She also didn’t want to get anyone into trouble and knew she had to do some damage control.

“Whether you realize it or not, people like my mom and some of the other staff who have been around a long time care about you. They’re worried about you. They’re only saying that you seem to have a lot on your mind, and my mom—in particular—doesn’t like that I’m bothering you when you don’t seem to be yourself. It’s not like you’re being gossiped about.”

He stared at her for a long moment and beyond the fact that he still appeared entertained by her discomfort, she couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

Then he said, “You can reassure everyone that I’m not depressed and that they don’t need to worry.”

“Good to know,” Tanya said, not feeling at all relieved.

She was hoping for more from him that might let her know he wasn’t going to make a big deal about this with the staff but there was no more to come.

Instead Tate pivoted in his seat again and got out, coming around to her side. But it seemed strange to wait for him to open her door. This wasn’t a date, after all.

It also felt odd to have him walk her through the tree-lined path that led to her mother’s cottage but that was what he did.

“Is living with your mom again a permanent arrangement?” he asked along the way, apparently returning to small talk.

“No, I’m just staying with her until I recoup some of my moving expenses and can find a place of my own.”

“Do you have paper and something to write with?” he asked as they came through the trees on the other side and stepped onto the bungalow’s front stoop.

Tanya didn’t know what he was getting at, but she opened the small purse she was carrying and handed him a pen and a notepad she’d brought with her thinking that she was going to be working tonight.

He wrote an address on the paper and handed it back to her. Tanya assumed it was a lead on an apartment.

“Meet me there tomorrow morning at nine,” he commanded.

Tanya looked from the paper to him, trying not to notice that the porch light illuminated the high spots of his handsome face and threw the hollows and angles into sharp shadows that only made him look dangerously attractive.

“I really won’t be able to afford an apartment for a couple of months so it would be a waste of time—”

“It isn’t an apartment.”

“Oh. Then where am I going?” she asked.

“You’ll see when you get there. No pearls. Come comfortable and ready to dig in.”

“Shall I bring a shovel?” she joked.

“No pearls, no shovel,” he answered but he obviously wanted to be mysterious and wasn’t going to give her any other details.

“Oka-ay,” she muttered. Then, rather than pursue a subject he wasn’t going to expand on, she said, “Thanks for dinner.”

That made him chuckle. “Even though it wasn’t what you had in mind?”

“The food was still great. You’re right, the understudy chef does do interesting things.”

“Maybe next Sunday I’ll just see if he’ll do them takeout so we can avoid the dreaded country club,” Tate said wryly, making Tanya smile this time.

“Wow, you can do that,” he mock marveled.

“What?”

“Smile. I was beginning to wonder. And it’s nice, too. Who would have thought Miss Serious had a nice smile…”

“Miss Serious?”

“Well, there was nothing lighthearted about catching you in the library. You took me to task last night over stepping in with the news station. And tonight you’ve been all business even when business wasn’t going on, and then you took me to task again on the way home. Plus you said yourself last night that you’re serious—”

“That was a figure of speech. What I said was that I was serious about getting a substantial story out of this.”