The Tycoon by Molly O'Keefe

Author:Molly O'Keefe [O'Keefe, Molly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-07-11T16:00:00+00:00

12

VERONICA

The short ribs were amazing. The salad was delicious. The cheese perfection.

My glass was never empty, and by the time dinner was over I was in trouble.

Not because I was drunk…I wasn’t. But because I was talking again. Talking to him. Like I used to. I opened my mouth and the words just fell out of me. It was a relief to be telling someone about Bea and Frank.

“You didn’t tell Bea that you didn’t like him?” Clayton poured more from the second bottle into my glass. I was outrageously proud of myself for pushing the glass away.

“Have you met Bea?” I joked. “Tell her you don’t like something and she will effectively make it her favorite thing. I was…waiting, I think, for her to realize what a bum he was.”

“I guess she’s realized,” he said with sympathy. I tilted my head, trying to gauge that sympathy. Real? Not real? Act or truth? “Have you heard from her?” he asked. “Since she went back to Austin?”

“A couple of texts. A friend of mine, a lawyer, is with her.” I rubbed my forehead and it was like this avalanche of worry that I had put aside or ignored so I could handle the disasters of the last few days, suddenly fell on me and it was…crushing.

Endless.

The nonstop worry for Bea. The never-ending work of getting her out of trouble.

“What can I do?” he asked.

“You’ve done it. I mean…the money.”

“What can I do for you?”

Oh, man.

That was the dangerous one–two punch of Clayton.

I was turned on. And I was comforted.

His hand drifted from my shoulder to my neck, cupping the muscles and tendons there with such complete strength, such total control, that I…relaxed.

More than the wine. The cheese. This man offered…relief.

“Who takes care of you?” Clayton breathed. He was close. Closer than I should allow.

No one was the answer, no one since you, but I swallowed the words.

His thumb stroked my cheek as he shifted closer. I knew what he was thinking, planning, and I should have pushed him away.

Instead I closed my eyes and rested my head fully in his hand.

His low, dark chuckle should have outraged me. But it didn’t. Because he deserved his moment of victory.

I submitted.

Whatever he wanted right now. Whatever he asked—I would give him.

But I wasn’t a fool. I would protect myself.

“I want you,” I said. The sound he made in his throat was growly and hot. “But not the way we were.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not here to be seduced. You don’t have to treat me like the virgin daughter of the man you work for.”

“Ronnie,” he said. My name and nothing else.

“I don’t want…careful. And I don’t want sweet. The girl who wanted that is gone.” I wanted hard and wild but I wasn’t brave enough to say it.

“Can you do that?” I asked.

He pushed back his stool with such force it screeched against the floor. My eyes stayed closed. My surrender had its own requirements.

His kiss, when it came, was not sweet. Or restrained.

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