A Scandal So Sweet

Kneading the knot between her eyes, she said, “Did you or didn’t you tell him I was coming home because I’m upset about Tuck’s job?”

“It’s hard for me to remember exactly what I do or say these days, but if I did tell him, what can it matter? You said that what happened between you two was over a long time ago.”

Summer frowned. Yes, of course, it was over. So, why was she obsessing about him?

“I think Thurman had Zach all wrong. I told your stepfather he was too hard on the boy at the time, that you were just youngsters in love. But Thurman doesn’t ever listen to anybody.”

He hadn’t listened when Summer and her mother had begged him to drop the charges against Zach, and the stress of that time had ended her mother’s remission. Her mother’s death was just one of the reasons Summer was estranged from him. The other had to do with a tiny grave in New Orleans.

But Summer didn’t want to think about that. “Okay, back to selling this place to Zach. That can’t happen.”

“I can’t help it if I’m not averse to moving into a modern condo, if Zach comes up with some favorable financin’.”

“But I love this house,” Summer protested. “I can’t believe you’ve actually gone this far with a deal without once mentioning it to me. What’s his next move?”

“He said he’d put an offer together, but so far he’s been too busy.”

“Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll stay busy,” Summer muttered, squeezing her eyes shut.

Somehow she didn’t really think Zach, who could be relentless, would leave her grandmother alone until he got exactly what he wanted. Had he hired Tuck to win over Gram? So she’d sell him her home, which had been in the family for more than a hundred years?

“Word has it he closed on that tract across from us just yesterday. That’s where he’ll build the dock,” Gram said. “So he’d like to control this property. He definitely doesn’t want me selling to anybody else.”

Inspiration struck.

“Gram, I’ll buy the house from you. Then you can live here or in a condo. Your choice.”

“Oh?”

“I want you to call Zach and tell him you won’t sell. Hopefully, when he learns I’m here checking up on you, he’ll back off.”

Her grandmother watched her intently for a long moment. “You never looked at Edward the way you used to look at Zach. Fifteen years is a long time for you to still be bothered by a man,” said her grandmother wisely. “Have you ever asked yourself why?”

“No.” Summer yanked her scrunchy out of her hair and pulled her ponytail even tighter. “Because I’m perfectly happy with my life as it is. Can we quit talking about him and not start on your dissatisfaction with my single state?”

“Oh, all right, dear. I won’t bring him up again—or the fact that you’re an old maid—not unless you do.”

“Old maid? Gram, there’s no such thing anymore.”

“Maybe that’s so in Manhattan, but that’s definitely not so in Bonne Terre. Ask anybody.”

Gram’s set expression stung way more than it should have.

Tuck stuck his head out the door. “Zach called and needs me to come in, so I’ve got to get to work.”

“Hey, Tuck, your job is one of the reasons I came home. Can we talk?” Summer said.

“Later. He needs me to run an errand.”

Summer ground her teeth as she watched her brother lope out the door.

Tuck refused to quit his job. Summer and he had quarreled about it briefly, but Zach had just promoted Tuck to full-time status and he now spent his whole day running errands for Zach’s contractor.

As for Gram, she was as good as her word. Two whole days had passed without her ever once mentioning Zach.

She was the only one silent on the subject, however. The whole town was buzzing because Summer and Zach were both in town. Whenever Summer went shopping, the curious sneaked sidelong glances at her. The audacious stopped her on the street and demanded to know how she felt about Zach now.

“Do you regret what you and Thurman did—now that Zach’s so rich and nice and set on saving this town from economic disaster?” Sally Carson, the postmistress, had demanded.

“Your grandmother told me he’s been real sweet to her, too,” Margaret York, one of Gram’s oldest friends, said with a look of envy.

“Well, his return to this town has nothing to do with me,” Summer replied.

“Doesn’t it?” Margaret’s face was sly and eager. “Men don’t forget….”

“Well, I have.”

“I wonder how you’ll feel when you see him again. We all wonder.”

One of the worst things about fame was that it made everyone think they had a right to know about her private life. Some things were too personal and painful to share with anyone, even well-meaning neighbors.

So Summer stopped going into town. Instead, she stayed at the house to work on her script and formulate a new way to approach Tuck.

On this particular afternoon she’d set a plate of cookies and a glass of tea garnished with a sprig of mint beside a chaise longue on the screened veranda. She paced in frustration, gesturing passionately as she fought to discover her character, a young mother. The role eluded Summer because, for her, young motherhood was a painful theme.

But today she did something she’d never let herself do before—remember how she’d felt in New Orleans when she’d been expecting her own child. Suddenly, she broke through the protective walls inside her, and grief washed over her in waves.

Her eyes grew wet, and she began to tremble, but she didn’t relent. So deeply was she immersed in painful memories, she didn’t hear the hard, purposeful crunch of gravel beneath a man’s boots until he was nearly upon her.

A low vicious oath startled her. Expecting Tuck, Summer whirled, dabbing at her damp eyes with the back of her hand.

And there he was.

At the sight of Zach’s hard, chiseled features swimming through her tears, the pages she’d been holding fell to the wooden floor.

“Well, hello there,” he said.

“Zach.” She hated the way his low, velvet voice made her heart accelerate, made the air feel even hotter. Frantically, she dabbed at her eyes so he wouldn’t see her tears. “Gram said you’d been visiting a lot.” Her voice sounded choked and unnatural.

“Did she?” Black eyes narrowed as he pushed the screen door open. “She told me you were coming home.” Zach scowled. “You’re pale, and your eyes are red. Have you been crying?”

“No! It’s nothing,” she whispered. “I was just acting out a part.”

His lips thinned. “You always were damn talented at that.”

Good, he bought it.

Tall and dark in a long-sleeved white shirt and jeans, and as lethally handsome as ever, Zach’s tight expression told her he wasn’t happy to see her.

As she bent over to retrieve her script, his insolent dark eyes raked her body in a way that made her aware of how skimpily clad she was in her snug blue shorts and thin, clingy blouse.

Feeling strangely warm and too vulnerable suddenly, she bristled and sprang to her feet. “I told Gram to tell you. If she decides to sell, she’ll sell to me. So, why are you here now?”

“I haven’t spoken to her. My secretary arranged my appointment with your grandmother,” he said, striding closer. “When I saw you in those shorts, I imagined she told you I was coming and you were lying in wait….”

“As if I’d do—and, hey, it’s August. I … I have a perfect right to wear shorts,” she sputtered.

“Yes.” His gaze drifted over her appreciatively. “You look good in them. Too good—which I’m sure you know.”

“Gram didn’t tell me you were coming.”

“And she didn’t tell me to cancel my visit. I wonder why. Maybe she likes my company. Or maybe she’d prefer to sell to me. This old place and that brother of yours are way too much for her.”

“None of that is any of your business.”

“Your Tuck was running pretty wild, got himself fired from a bar because money went missing.…”

“As if you know anything about Tuck. He doesn’t steal!”

Zach’s black brows arched. “Still thinking the worst of me while you defend everybody else. Your stepfather’s been giving me hell, too.”

The comparison to her stepfather cut her … deeply. Zach hadn’t been there for her when she’d needed him either, had he? He hadn’t cared….

Maybe because he hadn’t known.

“As a matter of fact, I like your grandmother. That’s why I hired Tuck. When I happened on him late one night, he’d had a flat tire. He didn’t have a spare or money or a credit card, and his phone was dead. So he accepted my offer to haul him to a service station and buy him a new tire on the condition that he become my pool and errand boy and work it off.”

“I see through your Good Samaritan act.”

“I was sort of suspicious about it myself.”

“You’re just using Tuck to get at me in some way. So go,”she whispered. “You are the last person I want involved with my family, especially with Tuck, who’s extremely vulnerable.”

“Well, sorry if my return to Bonne Terre upsets you, or if Tuck’s being my employee bothers you,” he said, not sounding the least apologetic. “But since I’ve got business in this town for some time to come, and Tuck works for me, I suppose you and I were bound to meet again … sooner or later.”

“Gambling? Is that your business?”

“Yes. What of it? You’re an actress, someone skilled at weaving seductive illusions. You sure seduced me with your little act. And I let you off easy. You should feel lucky. I’m not known for lenience with people who betray me.”

Easy? Lucky? New Orleans lay like a weight on her heart.

“All you see is your side.”

“I was the one who damn near got strung up because of your lies,” he said. “I’m the one who’s still found guilty every time some reporter decides to write another story about us.”

“Well, maybe you don’t know everything!” She stopped. She would never make the mistake of trying to confide in him. But despite her best intentions, she said, “You … you can’t believe I ever wanted to accuse you, not when I begged you to run off with me, and when it was my idea to …”

“To seduce me?” he finished.

His silky whisper and the intense fire in his black eyes rubbed her nerves raw.

“It wasn’t like that and you know it. I … I couldn’t help it if Thurman hated you for what I did.”

“Let’s not kid ourselves. You did what you did. I don’t give a damn anymore about why you did it.”

Shame and some darker emotion she didn’t want him to sense scorched her cheeks as she turned away from the coldness in his face. “If I could have undone what I did or said, or what I caused people to believe about you, I would have.”

“Hollow words … since you could have stepped up and cleared my name at any point. You didn’t. Like a fool, I waited for you to do just that. I was young. I believed in you back then.” His mouth tightened into a hard, forbidding line. “But, no, you ran off to New Orleans where you probably seduced somebody else.”

“There was never anyone but you….” She swallowed tightly. “I—I tried to apologize … and explain. You refused to take my calls. I even went to Houston looking for you after your uncle took you away, but you wouldn’t see me.”

“By then I knew what a talented manipulator you were.”

At his dark, unforgiving scowl, she sucked in a tortured breath. “If you hate me so much, why won’t you just go?”

“I don’t hate you. Frankly, I don’t consider you worth the waste of any more emotion. What I’m doing here isn’t about you. I’ve made a name for myself in other places. When Nick called me a few months ago, I realized I’d never let go of what happened here and neither have the people of this town or the media. Maybe I’ve decided it’s time I changed a few people’s minds.

“Your stepfather used to be the biggest man in these parts. Not anymore. I intend to be bigger than he ever was. I intend to make him pay for what he did—to kill him with kindness, bestowed upon his town.”

“I want you to leave Gram and Tuck alone. I’m buying this property from her because I won’t have you cheating her to get back at me.”

“You’d better not make accusations like that in public.”

“And you’d better stop trying to make me look bad to my grandmother, who’s started nagging me about not coming home often enough!”

“Haven’t you been neglecting her?”

“Well, if I don’t come home, it’s because of you. I—I can’t forget … when I’m home,” she finished raggedly.

Dark hurt flashed in his eyes but was gone so fast she was sure she’d only imagined it.

When he stomped toward the front door, she blocked his way. At her nearness, his hard body tensed. When their gazes locked, a muscle in his jawline jerked savagely. His breathing had roughened.

He wasn’t nearly as indifferent as he’d said.

Nor was she.

“Move aside,” he muttered.

Hurt, she lashed out. “No—this is my grandmother’s house. I won’t allow you to use her to get at me. So—leave.”

“Like hell!”

When she stood her ground, his hands closed over her forearms. But as he tried to edge her aside, she stomped down on his foot with her heel.

Cursing, he tightened his grip and crushed her against his muscular length.

Despite the unwanted shiver of excitement his touch caused, her tone was mild. “Would you please let me go?”

A dozen warring emotions played across his dark face as she struggled to free herself.

“I don’t think I will.”

Locking her slim, wriggling body to his made their embrace even more alarmingly intimate.

“You’re trembling,” he said. “Why? Are you acting now? Or do you feel what I….” He broke off with a look of self-contempt.

“Damn you for this,” he muttered. “You’re not the only one who can’t forget.”

Even if she hadn’t felt his powerful arousal against her pelvis, his blazing eyes betrayed his potent male need. Then his gaze hardened with determination, and she watched breathlessly as he lowered his mouth to hers.

“I shouldn’t do this,” he whispered fiercely, bending her backward, molding her even more tightly to the hard contours of his body. “God help me, I know what you are, what you did.”

“You did things, too….” He’d hurt her terribly. Yet she wanted him, ached for him.

“I can’t stop myself,” he muttered. “But then I never could where you were concerned.”

No sooner did his warm mouth close over hers than she turned to flame. If he’d flung her onto the chaise longue and followed her down, she would have forgotten the hurt that had turned her heart to stone for fifteen years. She would have ripped his jeans apart at the waist, sliding her hands inside.

She wanted to touch him, kiss him everywhere, wind her legs and arms around him and surrender completely—even though she knew his need was based on the desire to punish while hers was due to temporary insanity.

On a sigh, her arms circled his tanned neck, and she clung, welding herself to his lean frame in a way that told him all that she felt. She was a woman now, a woman whose needs had been too long denied. When he shuddered violently, she gasped his name.

“Zach … I’m sorry,” she murmured as warm tears leaked from her eyes and trickled down her cheek. She feathered gentle fingertips through his thick, inky hair. “I wronged you, and I’m so sorry. For years I’ve wanted to make it up to you.” She hesitated. “But … You hurt me, too.”

For fifteen years, she’d been dead in the arms of every other man who’d held her.

She hadn’t felt this alive since she’d last been in Zach’s embrace.

His hand closed over her breast, stroking a nipple until it hardened. The other hand had moved down to cup her hip.

Next he undid the buttons of her blouse so that it parted for his exploration. For one glorious moment she was her younger self and wildly in love with him again. Back then she had trusted him completely. She’d given him everything of herself. With a sigh, she leaned into him as he stroked her, and her response sent him over some edge.

He rasped in a breath. Then, in the next shuddering instant, he ended their kiss, tearing his lips free, leaving her desolate, abandoned.

Loosening his grip, he let her go and staggered free of her as if he’d been burned. He raked a large, shaking hand through his hair and swore violently, staring anywhere but at her.

“Damn you,” he muttered, inhaling deeply. “I see why you do so well on Broadway. You’re like a tigress in heat. Is that why Hugh Jones took up with you so fast?”

Summer was about to confess she felt nothing when Hugh kissed her—nothing—but Zach spoke first.

“Brilliant performance,” he said. “You deserve an Oscar.”

“So do you,” she whispered in breathless agony as she dried her cheeks with the back of her hand. She couldn’t let him know that for a few magical seconds she’d actually cared.

“I’d better go before I do something incredibly stupid,” he said.

“Like what?” she murmured, feeling dazed from his mesmerizing kiss and savage embrace.

“Like take you back to my house to do whatever the hell I want to do with you … for as long as I want.”

“Oh?”

“Don’t look at me like that! I know what you are. Damn you for making me want the impossible,” he muttered.

She clenched her fists, not any happier than he was to realize that she wanted the impossible, too.

He didn’t like her. With good reason. Their past was too painful to revisit. What burned inside her, and in him, was lust—visceral and destructive.

Gram opened the front door. Her violet, silver-lashed eyes wide, she peered out at them with excessive interest, causing Summer, whose blouse was still unbuttoned, to blush with shame even as she quickly pulled the edges back together. The last thing she wanted to do was get Gram’s hopes up about a romantic reunion with Zach.

“Oh, my go-o-o-d-ness.” Gram worked hard to hide her pleasure at the sight of Zach’s blazing eyes and her granddaughter’s scarlet face and state of dishabille. “I’m so sorry.” In a softer voice directed toward Summer, she said, “And I thought you told me you wanted nothing more to do with him.” There was that sly note of satisfaction in her tone again.

“I don’t,” Summer cried, but the door had already closed behind her triumphant grandmother. “Why didn’t you tell me he was coming over?” she called after Gram. Then Summer turned and said to Zach, “Why did I even ask, when I specifically ordered her not to mention you?”

Zach’s eyes went flat and cold. “As far as I’m concerned, this never happened. But—if you see me again—you’d better run. You and I have more unfinished business than I realized. Don’t give me any more reasons to come after you and finish what you started.”

Suspecting he must want revenge, she swallowed. “Don’t threaten me.”

“It’s not a threat. It’s a promise, a warning. If you’re smart, you’ll stay away from me.”

As if to emphasize his words, he strode over to her. Reaching up his hand, he ran a calloused fingertip along her damp cheek, causing her to shiver involuntarily.

“I want you in my bed. I want you to pay for what you did. In every way that I demand.”

Startled, because the image he painted—of lying under him on a soft bed—aroused her to such a shocking degree, she jumped back. Out of his sensually lethal reach, her voice was firm. “I won’t be seeing you again.”

“Good. Tell your grandmother I’ll call her after you leave town.”

His gorgeous mouth curled. Looking every bit as furious and ashamed as Summer was beginning to feel, Zach turned on his heel and strode down the gravel drive, leaving her to wonder how she could have stood there like a besotted idiot and let him touch her again after sharing such an embarrassing kiss.

“None of this happened,” Summer whispered consolingly to herself when she finally heard the roar of his car. Too aware of gravel spinning viciously, she sank down onto the steps and hugged her knees tightly.

She felt cold and hot at the same time.

It was all a horrible mistake. Zach didn’t like that it had happened any more than she did.

She was glad he felt that way.

She was glad!

Somehow she had to make Gram and Tuck understand that Zach was dangerous, that he’d threatened her.

Tuck, who’d gotten in trouble too many times to count, could not continue to work for Zach, who would use whatever her brother did to his own advantage.

Squaring her shoulders, Summer got to her feet and picked up the remaining pages of her script. Then she ran into the house and up the stairs where she took a long, cold shower and brushed her teeth.

Not that she could wash away his taste or the memory of his touch or the answering excitement in her system.

That night, when she awoke, breathing hard from a vivid dream about Zach kissing her even more boldly, it was impossible to ignore the hunger that was both ancient and familiar lighting every nerve ending in her being.

Wild for him, she sat up in the darkness and pushed her damp hair back from her hot face. “It was just a stupid kiss. It doesn’t matter! Zach can’t stand me any more than I can stand him.”

So, why are you dreaming about him, aching for him, even when you know he despises you?

Two

One month later

Once back in New York, Zach’s kiss lingered on the edges of Summer’s consciousness almost all the time, despite the fact that she’d willed herself to forget him. Despite the fact that she’d decided it was best not to obsess over things she couldn’t control, like Tuck’s refusal to quit his job and Gram’s support of his decision.

And because the memory of Zach’s kiss lingered, she drove herself to work harder than ever.

Summer read every script her agent gave her. She auditioned tirelessly for any part that was halfway right for her. When she was home alone she compulsively cleaned and dusted every item in her already immaculate apartment in a vain attempt to shove Zach Torr and his stupid kiss and his ridiculous threats back into the past where they belonged.

Not that she could stop herself from calling certain gossips in Bonne Terre to get a picture of what he was up to back home or stop herself from reading her hometown’s newspaper online to get the latest news about his riverboat gambling project. Everything she read was annoyingly favorable. People were more impressed by him every day. He was the town’s favorite son. Rumors abounded about the lavishness of the riverboat he was building and the luxurious amenities and hotels he was constructing onshore.

On impulse, maybe to prove to those blockheads back home how little she cared for Zach, she let Hugh Jones join one of her interviews.

Naturally, the young, bright-eyed journalist went gaga over beautiful, golden Hugh, whose immense ego was hugely gratified at being fawned over.

At first, the young woman’s eager questions had been standard fare. Summer tossed off her ritual answers.

Her favorite role was the one she was creating. She was always nervous opening nights. And, yes, the play she was workshopping today was ever-so exciting.

Naturally, when the journalist wasn’t entirely focused on Hugh, he grew bored.

Hugh shuffled from one foot to the other and yawned, and the reporter laughed and leaned into him so her breast brushed his elbow.

“Okay, let’s talk about this hot new man in your life. Every woman in America is dying to be you, Summer.” The woman was staring into Hugh’s baby-blues as if she’d been hypnotized.

Idiotically, the phrase hot new man put Summer back on Gram’s screened porch, in the arms of that certain individual she would give anything to forget.

Again she tasted the sweet, blistering warmth of Zach’s mouth and felt his muscular length pressing her close. At the memory of his big hands closing over her breast and butt, the dark, musty corner she shared with Hugh and the reporter felt airless.

“So, what’s the latest with you and Hugh?” the reporter asked. “If you don’t mind my saying so, you two are the most exciting couple these days.”