His Sweet Revenge: Wedding Vow of Revenge / His Ultimate Prize / Bound by a Child. Katherine Garbera
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at the top of her class and was darn good at her job. She didn’t need the company owner’s patronage to get a promotion.
She was perfectly capable of securing one on her own merits, thank you very much.
The whole situation would be ludicrous if it didn’t hurt like a knife to the gut. Twisting that knife was the knowledge that whoever had sold the picture and information to the tabloid had been at Danette’s party. And one of her co-workers had been willing to be quoted, if anonymously, saying something extremely nasty. Betrayal burned through her.
She didn’t know who she worked with that felt that way, but only one person had gone around taking picture after picture at the party. Ray…the budding journalist.
He’d told her he was a serious journalist and that photography was only his hobby. The weekly was hardly an impressive example of journalistic solemnity and those photos had been paid for, which made the little hobby a job.
An ugly, despicable job…but one that could not be denied. Her stomach cramped again as an even less palatable thought assailed her. Had Danette known about it?
Two years ago, a couple of models that Tara had thought were friends had betrayed her to the press. One going so far as to tell out and out lies about her, exacerbating the piranha like media frenzy feeding off of her misfortune. That had hurt almost as much as Baron’s rejection.
So, maybe Tara was being hopelessly naïve now, but she simply could not accept that Danette had been in on Ray’s scheme. Danette was too forthright and she had too many stars in her eyes when she talked about Ray.
Which meant she was probably hurting as much as Tara was right now…if she’d seen the article.
It wasn’t fair. The rat. The absolute rat! She’d like to see him right now and she’d cut off his tail.
“Miss, it’s your turn!”
She looked up, realizing from the expression on the faces around her that was not the first time the checker had told her to move forward. Apparently the big chili controversy had been settled.
She tossed the weekly down in front of the checker. “I’ll take this, too.”
He nodded, his expression bored and then finished ringing her up. She paid and left, anger and hurt sizzling through her in alternating waves.
Those waves took on monumental proportions when she got to work the next day to discover she was being fired. She was told the order came from Angelo’s office in New York, but she refused to believe it. First of all, the man was too smart to fire a woman he’d slept with over getting caught out by the media.
Such an action put both him and his company too much at risk for retaliation and a sexual harassment lawsuit, if the woman in question was in the least bit dishonest.
The human resources manager assigned to the task of letting her go had finally admitted that Angelo was currently in Puerto Rico dealing with a natural disaster emergency that had affected one of his supply plants. Apparently even phone communication was iffy.
Which explained why he hadn’t called all week.
When he didn’t arrive that afternoon, or call, she tried his office. His secretary confirmed that he was calling in only sporadically for messages. Tara left one, bothered by his absence and her inability to get ahold of him. And she had to admit that an emergency like the one he faced in Puerto Rico wasn’t something he could dismiss or delegate.
She’d made a decision not to be hampered by her past in every judgment she made. That meant continuing to believe in the tycoon she missed more than she wanted to.
At least until he proved himself unworthy of her trust.
Wanting to get one issue of trustworthiness resolved, she tried to call Danette, but got her friend’s home voice mail instead and was forced to leave a message.
The phone rang the next morning and woke her out of a fitful sleep. She’d spent too many dark hours thinking about her best friend and the man who wanted to marry her.
Hoping it was Danette, she grabbed it. “Hello?”
“Tara?”
The voice was familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it.
“Yes?” Her voice came out scratchy and she cleared her throat.
“I need to see you, darling.”
“Who is this?” she demanded, her sleep fuddled mind sure of one thing.
The voice at the other end of the line was not one of the two men in her life with a right to call her by endearments: Angelo and her stepfather, Darren.
“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten the sound of my voice. I haven’t forgotten anything about you, Tara. I never could. Not the sweet way you smell, or the taste of your lips—”
“I am not in any mood for obscene phone calls,” she inserted with speed, recognition finally enlightening her rapidly wakening mind.
Baron’s laugh was seductive and low, like he thought she was flirting with him. “How about a visit? Would you prefer I say these things in person?”
“No! Are you in Portland?” she asked, worried that might be the case and wondering how he’d gotten her number.
“Not yet, but I can be. We need to talk.”
“We finished talking two years ago.”
“Tara, I’m divorcing my wife.”
“How fortunate for her,” she quipped, unable to help herself. Did he really think she cared?
“I understand your bitterness, darling. I made a terrible mistake two years ago. I want to make it right.”
“You don’t know the meaning of making things right. You did me one favor two years ago, Baron. You walked away. I’m not about to let you undo possibly the only good deed of your life. You’re a user. You suck other people dry and smile while you’re doing it.”
She had no idea how she’d ever loved this man, but after one week in Angelo’s company, the difference between the two types of tycoons was crystal clear to her.
“I don’t want you in my life. I don’t want you calling me and I swear that if you show up in Portland stalking me, I’ll go to the authorities for a restraining order.”
“Tara, you’re angry, but you don’t understand—”
“You’re wrong,” she interrupted again, not wanting to hear a single line of his con story. He’d deceived her before with that tone and his too believable excuses, but never again.
“I’m not angry. I’m disgusted you could think for one second I would want to hear from you again after the way you used me and then threw me to the wolves in the press with a steak tied around my ankle.”
“I can explain that.”
“No. You cannot.” She exhaled a frustrated breath. “Leave me alone, Baron, or this time I’ll be the one giving sympathy producing interviews to the press.”
He made a harsh sound. “Tara, you can’t trust Angelo Gordon.”
So, he’d read the tabloid stories? That was one more thing Ray-the-rat had to answer for. “My private life is none of your business.”
“I used to be your private life.”
What colossal nerve. “That was a long time ago and it is certainly not true any longer. Goodbye, Baron.”
She hung up.
The phone rang five minutes later and when the number only came up as out of area on her caller ID, she ignored it.