The Highest Bidder. Maureen Child
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water. She half turned to fire a look at him. “Didn’t you hear me? My father was a thief. He died being chased by the police. My mother ran off and disappeared. Not exactly a picture-perfect background.”
“Not exactly your fault, either. You said you were five.”
“Easy for you to say,” she said, shaking her head and blinking back—thank God—a fresh sheen of tears. “You have no idea what it was like. Everyone in town gossiping about us. You couldn’t understand. How could you?”
“Thanks for the faith,” he muttered. “You’re not the only one people gossip about. Seen the newspapers? People are always talking about the Waverlys.”
“Yes, poor you,” she said, sarcasm dripping off every word. “How horrible to be followed to all your fancy dinners and be made to pose for pictures. Very intrusive.”
One eyebrow lifted. “Good to know you’ve got a temper. And a snide side, too.”
She frowned at him. “You’re only the second person I’ve ever told about myself. I would think you could understand how embarrassing this is for me.”
“I get that you’re embarrassed,” he said. “I just don’t get why. So you grew up poor. Who the hell cares?”
“You don’t understand,” she said, shaking her head more in temper than misery and Vance was glad to see it.
“Fine. I don’t understand. Now give me the rest of it.”
“Not much left,” she said primly, scooting away from him on the bench. “I put myself through college and when Gran died, I moved to New York.”
He moved in closer. “And Jake’s father?”
She pushed up from the bench and put a stranglehold on her water bottle. “Why not? Let’s just spill the last of the humiliation and get it over with.” She whirled around to face him and the look in her eyes had Vance standing to walk toward her.
But she held up one hand, palm out to keep him at bay. “Don’t be nice to me right now, okay? I’m hanging on by a thread here.”
“Okay, then finish it.”
“I met Jake’s father right after I was hired at Waverly’s.” She dropped her water bottle into the trash and crossed her arms over her chest. Scraping her hands up and down her forearms as if to ward off a bone-deep chill, she started talking again. “His name was Blaine Andersen—at least that’s what he told me.”
Vance didn’t say anything. He had a feeling he knew where this was going and nothing he could say would help the situation any.
“He was sweet and funny,” she mused. “We went for walks in the park and to movies. He brought me flowers. He even replaced my BlackBerry when I lost mine. He said he loved me and—”
“You loved him back.” Strange, but those words had a bitter taste to them.
“I thought I did,” she corrected. “When I found out I was pregnant, I went to tell him, but he was gone.” She shook her head as she remembered. “Familiar story, right? Small-town girl comes to the city and gets taken advantage of. God, I felt so stupid. I even went to the Andersen Architectural firm that he told me was his family’s. They’d never heard of him.”
“Charlie—”
“It’s okay,” she said quickly, interrupting him. “Doesn’t matter anymore. I got Jake out of it and he’s everything to me.”
Vance gave her a grin, as he thought about the tiny boy who had already wormed his way into Vance’s heart. One more complication that he hadn’t planned on. “He’s a great kid.”
“Yeah.” She smiled back and it was her first real smile since this started. Vance was glad to see it, even if it did look a little trembly around the edges. “He really is.”
“So is that it? All your deep, dark secrets?”
“Well, I didn’t tell you about my wild addiction to chocolate-dipped strawberries, but other than that, yes. That’s it.” She sighed and added, “Feels like fifty pounds have fallen off my shoulders.”
“Not surprising. Why’d you keep it to yourself, Charlie?” His voice was quiet. “Why didn’t you come to me?”
“I’m used to taking care of myself, Vance,” she told him with another deep sigh. “And I didn’t think you’d believe me.”
“Yeah, well,” he said, “I do.”
When she looked up at him, with hope shining in her eyes, he felt like a damn knight in shining armor, which he really wasn’t. Hell, half the people in Manhattan would be willing to swear that he was a villain, not a hero. But he certainly enjoyed seeing her look at him like that.
“So I’m not fired?” she asked.
“You will be if you ever hold out on me again.” He dropped one arm around her shoulders and pulled her in close. “Charlie, you don’t have to be alone in this.”
“I don’t know how to be anything else.”
“Then it’s time to learn,” he muttered. Drawing her up against him, he wrapped both arms around her and held on. She fit—that’s all he could think of. Fit as if she were made to slide in next to him. As if she were the missing piece to his puzzle.
He closed his eyes and shut down that particular thought. He already knew he wanted her more than anything. Now that he knew she’d been terrorized, he felt bad for her. That’s all this was, he told himself.
Need and sympathy. Nothing more. And he’d do well to remember that.
“I don’t like your being scared,” he said softly.
“Me, neither.” She tipped her head back to look up at him and he was relieved to see that her eyes were clear. No more tears, no more shadows. She looked, he thought, too damn good.
When she went up on her toes and tilted her head to one side, everything in him tightened. But as much as he wanted her, he had to say, “Charlie, you don’t owe me anything.”
“This isn’t about owing,” she told him, dropping her gaze to his mouth before looking into his eyes again. “This is about wanting.”
He skimmed his hands up her body until he was cupping her face between his palms. Smiling, he whispered, “Wanting is something completely different.”
“Show me.”
He did. His mouth came down on hers and his heart nearly slammed through his chest. The taste of her filled him, the need for her was raw heat pumping through his bloodstream and when she parted her lips for him, he took a deeper taste and lost himself in it.
It was her soft sigh that brought him up out of a kiss he wanted to linger over for days. But when he did his lingering, they’d be alone. In a bed. Not in the middle of a damn park.
Reluctantly, he broke off the kiss and lifted his head to look down at her. Her eyes were glassy and her mouth full and ripe. It took everything he had not to kiss her again.
“We’re going back to the office, Charlie, and you’re going to show me every email this guy’s sent you.”
“Okay.” Nodding, she pulled in a deep breath. “Then what?”
“Then,” he said with a fierce smile, “we fight back.”
Eight
“He kissed you,” Katie blurted out the moment Charlie walked into her friend’s office and sat down.
She probably shouldn’t have gone down to Accounting to see Katie, but Charlie hadn’t wanted to be alone at the moment, either. Practically the instant she and Vance had returned to Waverly’s, Ann Richardson had asked to see him.
He