All He Ever Wanted

“Kudos to you for knowing the difference between a promise made and a promise kept.”

“We’re not all heartless bastards,” he reminded her.

“That remains to be seen.” She gave the owl another pat on the head and turned to face him fully. “However, it’s immaterial. I’m not keeping you from Gran on a whim. She can’t help you.”

“Let me talk to her. Let her decide that.”

“It’s not that simple. Gran has Alzheimer’s. Even if she did know something, she’d be unable to tell you. If she ever knew the answers to your questions, the information is locked away in her head.”

Laney’s words sank slowly into his brain. Their meaning was almost incomprehensible. “Alzheimer’s?” he repeated stupidly.

Laney didn’t meet his gaze, and he thought there might have been a sheen of tears in her eyes.

His mind flitted through his memories of Laney’s grandmother, Mrs. Fortino as he’d always called her, because his own mother had always insisted on maintaining that level of formality with the staff. Matilda Fortino had been a battleship of a woman. Serious and stern, she’d been a rock in his childhood. Where his own mother had been mercurial and temperamental, Mrs. Fortino had been stalwart and consistent—a steady force in a tumultuous household.

Suddenly he felt Laney’s hand on his arm. He looked up to realize she’d crossed to stand beside him. Shock had rocked him back so he leaned against the corner of one of the bookcases.

“Didn’t you know?” Her words cut through the fog her news had cast over his brain.

“No.”

“I’m sorry. I assumed the assisted-living center told you why she’s not allowed visitors.”

“They didn’t. Only that you’d have to come with me if I wanted to see her.”

Laney ran a hand up and down his arm. It was a gentle gesture, meant to soothe and calm. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “If I’d known that you didn’t know, I wouldn’t have been so harsh.”

He looked from her hand to her face and found her studying his expression. Her unusual amber eyes were wide, concern crinkled her brow. She stood close enough that the front of her dress brushed against his legs and her breasts were mere inches from his arm. He sucked in a deep breath.

This wasn’t why he was here—no matter how tempting Laney Fortino was.

But all the deep-breathing exercises in the world wouldn’t help—not when the scent of her filled his lungs with every inhalation. She smelled like crayons and Elmer’s Glue. The unique combination should have been unappealing but wasn’t. And underneath that was the smell of her soap or maybe her shampoo—something fruity and simple, clean and uncomplicated.

He nearly laughed at the thought. Laney may smell uncomplicated, but there was nothing uncomplicated about the way she made him feel.

He straightened away from the bookcase, which only brought her closer. She snatched her hand back as if she’d been burned and skittered away from him, retreating to the desk.

“Strangers upset her. Gran, I mean. Of course, you’re not a stranger. But that’s why the assisted-living center doesn’t let people visit her. Her doctor thinks it’s for the best.”

He felt himself crumbling under the weight of her words. When he forced his gaze back to hers, it was to see her watching him with an emotion he rarely saw directed at him—an emotion he never thought he’d see in her eyes… certainly not after he’d spent so much of their teenage years treating her with disdain and scorn.

He’d known from the time he was thirteen that Laney Fortino could be his downfall. He’d known she alone had the power to bring him to his knees. He’d fought against it with every tool in his juvenile arsenal. He’d been rude, condescending and—occasionally—downright mean.

Laney had looked at him with the sting of pain, feisty rebellion and with downright anger. But until now, she’d never looked at him with sympathy.

Three

Given their troubled history, she should have enjoyed seeing defeat flicker across Dalton’s face. Maybe time had mellowed out her dislike of him. Or maybe it was just that… jeez, they were talking about Gran. How could she be upset with anyone—even Dalton—who got this choked up about Gran?

So often she felt as though she was all alone in caring for her gran—no father, no siblings. Yes, the staff at the assisted-living facility took care of her grandmother, but they didn’t care about her. And they didn’t offer Laney the emotional support a loved one would. So maybe it was natural that she went all gooey inside when she saw Dalton openly devastated by the news.

“I’m so sorry, Dalton. I had no idea Gran meant so much to you.”

He glanced up, surprise flickering across his features.

Instantly, she knew she’d guessed wrong. She blew out a huff of annoyance as she walked over to the nearest cluster of tables and began picking stray crayons off the floor. “Never mind.”

He watched her for a moment in silence, then said, “You’re annoyed with me.”

She set aside a picture book with a sigh. “No. I’m annoyed with myself. For a minute there, I actually felt sorry for you. I forgot you’re a Cain. Heartless and cold, just like the rest of them.”

She frowned at her own words. She was heartless and cold—glacial, practically. Except for the moment when she’d touched his arm. He’d looked up at her with genuine heat in his gaze. She’d swear it. What was she supposed to do with that?

Before she could find any answers, he spoke. “Is that really what you think of me?”

Shaking her head, she shoved a few crayons into one of the buckets before moving on to the next cluster of tables. “What else am I supposed to think? I tell you my grandmother has Alzheimer’s, and you feign sympathy to manipulate me?” She looked up at him, half expecting him to dodge her gaze in shame. He didn’t. “I didn’t expect even you to be that much of a jerk.”

“You don’t think I’m sorry your grandmother has Alzheimer’s? Your grandmother was really important to me.”

She snorted, snaking her foot under a desk to nudge a marker out into the open. “Don’t overplay your hand. Polite condolences would be believable. But a Cain would never display actual grief over the hired help.”

“You think I’m such an ass I couldn’t muster any emotion for the woman who kept house for us for nearly three decades?” His tone was flat and cold.

“No. I just think you’re most upset that you won’t get to grill her for information.”

She paused as she said the words and it hit her. He was here to grill Gran for info regarding his father. That meant he didn’t know about the money. She should be relieved. She was. But she was also annoyed with him for trying to manipulate her.

Hoping to dislodge her contrariness, she shook her head and said, “I don’t believe Gran was important to you. She was neither caring nor attentive. She didn’t inspire gushing feelings of warmth and affection, even from me.”

Dalton opened his mouth as if he might protest, but then he shut it again with a fair-enough shrug.

“My grandmother was efficient and competent. She ran the Cain household like it was inside of a Swiss pocket watch. But she was not the kind of woman people love. People tolerate her, mostly because they like her cooking. But they don’t love her.”

She straightened, crossed back to the desk and grabbed her school keys. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, my afternoon class starts in five minutes.”

She plucked her purse and tote bag from the corner behind her desk and marched toward the door, holding it open for Dalton with something of a dramatic flair.

She couldn’t help wondering if she’d pushed too far. Dalton straightened, his expression impossible to read. His mouth was set in a humorless line, but mischief danced about his eyes.

He walked toward her slowly, without ever taking his hands from his pockets. Instead of preceding her out the door, he stopped, close enough that she inched back a step until the doorknob pressed into the small of her back.

His stance was vaguely threatening—there was something in the way he stood too close. Or maybe it was just that, for her, he was always too close. Or maybe it was the way he looked at her, his gaze steadily taking in every one of her features and imperfections.

When he spoke, it was slowly, as if each word was meant to build her dread, but foolish girl that she was, she didn’t feel the threat, only the thrill.

“Laney, if you are so convinced I’m the bad guy here, then I’ll play the bad guy. I’m more than happy to be the big bad wolf to your industrious little piggy.”

Refusing to back down from him, she bumped up her chin. “I’m not afraid of you.”

He did another one of those slow, lingering perusals of her face, and her cheeks burned under his gaze. “Maybe you should be.”

Maybe he was right. Maybe she should be afraid, but she wasn’t. She straightened her spine, and the action closed some of the distance between them, bringing her breasts to within a micrometer of his chest.

“Maybe,” she said. “But I’m not a little girl anymore and—”

“Thank God.”

She ignored his muttered interruption. “And none of the Cains have power over me anymore. I’ve made sure of that.”

Of course, that was a bald-faced lie, because if he found out about the money, then he most certainly would have power over her—a lot of it.

She pushed past him, even though it meant brushing her chest against his, even though it made heat stir in her belly and her nipples tighten against the cloth of her bra.

She was three steps down the hall when he asked, “Just how sure about that are you?”

She kept walking.

Ten steps later he said, “How’s that theater camp of yours?”

Her steps slowed, even as her heart rate picked up. He didn’t know what he was talking about. He couldn’t. He must just be guessing based on what she’d said earlier.

“The Fairyland Theater or something, isn’t it?”

Damn it!

She stopped, pressing her eyes closed. If he’d really been guessing, he wouldn’t have come so close.

She turned around to glare at him. “The Woodland Theater.”

Dalton, damn him, stood right where she’d left him, hands in his pockets, smirk on his face.

It took a great deal of restraint—restraint she would not have had just a few years ago—not to stalk down the hall and slap that smile off his face. She was not a woman of violence, but it had been a trying day.

“Cut to the chase, and stop wasting my time. What exactly do you know about the Woodland Theater?”

“I know it’s your pet project. It’s the class you teach after school. I know you spend two hours every day after normal school hours running this enrichment program and that it’s mostly underprivileged kids—some who are scholarship kids here at the school, others who are bused in from other neighborhoods. Thirty kids total. And I know the program is funded entirely by donations.”

He knew more than she wished he did.

True, not all of his information was correct—it was thirty-two kids, and nearly half the kids were not, strictly speaking, “underprivileged.” Though that was a term she had problems with. All of the kids in her program had a hard time of it. She wasn’t sure the emotionally neglected kids from wealthy families had it any better off than the poor kids.

“I see you did your research,” she said flatly. Sure, of all the secret knowledge he could have, she should probably be glad this was it. On the other hand, Woodland was hers. She didn’t want his sticky Cain fingers anywhere near it.

Dalton’s smirk twisted into a smile but not a pleasant one. “Did you really expect any less of me?”

“No.” She’d just been blindsided, because he’d stuck his finger in a different pot than one she’d been expecting. “Of course I’m not surprised. This is what Cains do, isn’t it? You find someone’s weakness and exploit it.”

For just an instant, Dalton’s smile faltered. “Maybe I don’t want to be that kind of Cain.”

“Well, then, maybe you shouldn’t be threatening my theater program.”

“Maybe I’m not.” He stepped away from her classroom door, letting it close behind him as he walked toward her. “I don’t think the Woodland Theater program is your weakness. It seems like a great program. Exactly the kind of thing I’d expect you to be involved in.”

She eyed him warily. “And…”

“And it should continue. I’m sure finding funding is difficult in this economic climate.”

“So you are threatening me.”

“Not at all. Think of it as promising. If you help me, I can make sure your afterschool program has enough funding for years.”

“Aah. So you’re not threatening. You’re bribing.”

“Exactly.”

“How much money are you talking about?”

“How much do you need?”

“I’m serious, Dalton.”

“So am I. You want me to fund the whole program. I’ll fund it. You’ll never have to write another grant proposal. You’ll never have to go brownnosing for money again. All you have to do is let me talk to your grandmother.”

For a long moment, Laney stood there, frozen in the hall, considering his offer. The ticking clock on the wall seemed overly loud, giving the impression that she and Dalton were all alone in the school, even though Laney knew the other teachers must still be working in their classrooms.

She didn’t want to say yes. She didn’t want Dalton anywhere near her grandmother. She didn’t want him in her life at all. But the offer he was making her was far too tempting to walk away from.

It wasn’t even that she couldn’t resist the money he was offering. She could. Money was just… money. If funding got tight, she’d find a way to make it work. She always had in the past.

No, she couldn’t resist the offer because he’d made it so tempting. Not many people would walk away from that kind of promise. So if she did, it would look suspicious. A Cain would never understand someone turning down money. He’d want to know why she’d done it. He’d get curious. He’d start digging. And there were secrets she didn’t want him to know.

No, if he was going to be unearthing any skeletons from the past, they needed to be his father’s skeletons, not her grandmother’s. She needed to keep him focused on that mystery, even if it meant helping him.

“Okay.” She turned and started walking again, trusting that he’d catch up with her. “Let’s talk numbers.”

She heard the rhythm of his steps as he jogged a few steps and then fell in line beside her. “How much does it cost a year to run this program?”

“A hundred thousand dollars.” She threw out a number.

His pace faltered. “For thirty kids? You’re joking.”

“No. If you’re paying, then I’m giving myself a raise and hiring someone else to help.” This wasn’t actually about the money. She just wanted a number big enough to scare him off. “Besides, this way we can double enrollment.”

He placed a hand on her arm. “Hey, this isn’t a golden ticket, you know.”

“Are you sure? Because you sure made it sound like it was.”

Despite her resolve, she could hardly keep a quiver from her voice. It might be a cliché, but she felt like she was playing with fire here. As much as she wanted to believe it was about protecting her grandmother, or even about the money, she worried that it was something more—that she was looking for his buttons to push just because it had always been so much fun to push them.

In all those years they’d lived under the same roof—Dalton the stoically perfect, obnoxious rich kid, Laney the trashy poor girl—she’d never actually gotten a rise out of him. But, dear Lord, trying to had been her favorite pastime. Why hadn’t she grown out of it?

She looked down at his hand on her arm and then back up at him. She tried to forget how much fun it was to needle him, to remember the part she had to play. The Cain family had typecast her a long time ago, just as much as she had typecast them.

“Look, you need something from me, and it’s not a small thing either. I’m not doing this to be greedy. I’m just trying to protect my grandmother.” Well, that at least was true. “Letting you see her is going to upset her. It’ll be hard, and sometimes it takes her weeks to recover from a single bad day.”

She expected some kind of reaction from him there. Most people—nearly everyone—didn’t like to talk about her grandmother’s Alzheimer’s. When the topic couldn’t be avoided, usually there was a lot of awkward hemming and hawing. But Dalton just looked at her.

So she continued. “Besides, it’s not like the Cains can’t spare the money. Cain Enterprises is worth billions. You could probably trim this much from the corporate-office floral budget without anyone blinking an eye.”

“We don’t actually have a corporate floral budget.”

“Don’t pretend you can’t afford it.” By now they’d reached the doors to the cafeteria. She could hear the kids on the other side. The Tisdale kids were finishing up their afterschool snacks. The kids who were bused in from Houston Independent School District had arrived. She could hear the eager gurgle of noise bubbling out through the door. This was her real life, she reminded herself. This was where she belonged. Pushing Dalton’s buttons might be fun, but her obligations lay beyond this door with the children she taught.

“Do we have a deal?”

“We do.”

“A hundred thousand dollars for the chance to speak with my grandmother?”

Chagrin flickered across his face, and she could have sworn his jaw was spasming. “Yes.”

“Okay, then.” She turned her back on him and set off through the cafeteria doors, but he stopped her before she could disappear into her inner sanctum.

“When will you be done here? I’ll send a driver to pick you up, and we can visit your grandmother tonight.”

She let out a scoff of derision before she realized he was serious. “Um… no. Not a chance.”

He gave her a flat look. “You just agreed.”

“Yes. But I didn’t just agree to give away the milk for free.” Then she waved her hand dismissively so he wouldn’t think—okay, wouldn’t know—that she had sex on the brain. “I agreed to help you after you’ve paid me that ridiculous amount of money. Not before. You want access to my grandmother, you pay up.”

“You want me to just give you a hundred thousand dollars? It’s not that simple.”

“Of course I don’t want the money. Don’t just give it to me.” She fluttered her hand around. “Do all that stuff we agreed to.”

“All that stuff we agreed to? Like I should just run off and have my lawyers set up a trust for the charity you work for and drop a hundred thousand dollars into it.”

“Exactly.” Again, she turned to leave, trusting that this was where he’d come to his senses and walk away. Again, he stopped her.

“Come on, Laney. I don’t have that kind of time. I need answers now.”

“And I’m sure that with the full power of Cain Enterprises behind you, you’ll make it happen quickly.”

He narrowed his gaze, but he didn’t contradict her. Just when she was sure he was going to tell her to forget it, he nodded.

It was bizarre, how easily she’d gotten everything she’d asked for. In the end, despite the rumble of kid voices calling to her from the cafeteria, she had one last question she couldn’t let go of.

“Tell me something, Dalton. Why go to all this trouble? I know you’ve always been your father’s go-to guy, but this is crazy. Why are you still jumping through so many hoops for him?”

“Because he still controls Cain Enterprises. If I don’t find this missing heiress, I’m going to lose it all.”

Four

Less than twenty-four hours later, Laney held a nearly half-inch-thick stack of papers in her hand. She ran her thumb over the edges and watched the pages flutter.

“So he really did it?” she asked. “He did everything he said he would?”

Her next-door neighbor Brandon took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes. As far as I can tell. Though, I’m no expert, mind you.”

Brandon owned the duplex where she lived. The cottage, in a funky little college neighborhood, was charming, cozy and perfect for her minimalist life, since his half was bigger than hers. She’d always suspected he was gay beneath his button-down lawyer exterior, but he’d never shared so much as a millimeter of his private life with her. She didn’t mind, though, since it was his prerogative. Besides, he was the kind of neighbor one could trust with spare keys, and he’d come over to kill bugs for her on more than one occasion—even big, nasty spiders. And he seemed totally willing to offer legal advice in exchange for wine, which in her mind put him up for some sort of handiest-neighbor-of-all-time award.

Laney tossed the stack of papers onto her coffee table and reached for her glass of wine. “You’re a lawyer.”

“An intellectual-property lawyer.” Brandon leaned forward to pour more wine into his own glass.

“That’s still two years of school and a bar exam closer to being an expert than I am.”

“Do I think he intends to donate the money to Woodland Theater? Yes, I do.”

“Oh.” Laney tried to drown the sick feeling in her belly with a gulp of wine.

She hadn’t really believed he would do it. She hadn’t actually intended to take his money. She’d thought if she made it difficult enough for him to see Gran that he’d back off and leave them all in peace. She should have known better. Cains never backed down from a fight. They were in it until the end. She should have remembered that.

She groaned and dropped her chin into her palm. “I’m in over my head. I should have known better than to try to go up against a Cain.” She looked up at Brandon. “I’m going to get crushed, aren’t I?”

“You make it sound like you’re facing Dalton on the field of battle.”

“Well, in my experience, any dealings with the Cains are like war.” Brandon gave a snort. “You wouldn’t agree?”

Brandon took a long sip of his wine, rolling it on his tongue as though he was quite the connoisseur—or like he was carefully considering his next words. She’d shared enough wine with him to know he wasn’t a connoisseur.

“Come on, Brandon, you know me too well to mince words. If you have an opinion, spit it out.”

He swallowed. “Okay. I think you’re rushing this.”

“You think I’m in over my head?”

“No. It’s not that. It’s just—” He took another gulp of wine, and this time it went down fast. “You’ve got all these opinions about the Cains. Opinions that you formed when you were still a kid. And—”

“You think I don’t know the Cains?”

Brandon held up a hand to stave off her annoyance. “I think you know Hollister Cain. He’s exactly the conniving, back-stabbing bastard you say he is.”

There was a but dangling on the end of Brandon’s sentence just as loud as a shout. “But you think I’m wrong about Dalton.”

Brandon shrugged. “Ever since he took over, the company atmosphere has been different. He’s still ruthless. Still aggressive as hell when it comes to business, but he’s not sneaky and manipulative like his father was. Hollister Cain was the kind of guy who’d steal corporate secrets right out from under your nose and then if you tried to come after him, he’d sue you for infringement of his intellectual property. Then he’d buy off the judge to ensure he won the case. Then he’d take the money from the settlement to buy up your stock and bury your company.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right.” Just what Laney needed—a reminder of how ruthlessly Hollister would go after Gran if he ever found out about the money she had stolen. True, it sounded as if Hollister was on his deathbed, but she didn’t believe for a minute that he would let something as trifling as his own mortality keep him from prosecuting someone who’d done him wrong.

“Dalton isn’t like that.”

“Well, maybe it’s just harder to buy off judges now than it was thirty years ago.”

“No. I don’t think it’s that.” But Brandon still chuckled as he shook his head. “Both times I went up against him, there was no sneakiness. No manipulation. If he wants your company, you know he’s coming for it. Everything out in the open. So honest and fair it’s almost ridiculous. It’s almost like he’s trying to redeem the company’s reputation.”