The Billionaire's Virgin Mistress. Sandra Field
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“The only question that matters,” he said heavily. So she wasn’t a fake; he’d been way off base. That wasn’t his style, either.
As for her, her whole body was taut with tension; she was looking at him as warily as if he really was an escapee from a mental institution. Or a thief, the other accusation she’d thrown at him.
Logically he should explain the significance of her eye color. But he wasn’t quite ready to do that. “I’m no thief—I have all the money I need,” Cade said, “and I’m entirely sane. As for drugs, I’ve never touched them—more than enough excitement in day-to-day living without dosing myself with chemical additives.” He hesitated, then added with huge reluctance, “I’m here to give you something, not to take anything away.”
“There’s nothing you can give me that I would want,” she said stonily. “Nothing.”
“How can you say that, when you haven’t heard me out?” His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “The first step is for both of us to stand up, how about it?”
He took her by the elbow. The coolness of her skin seeped into his pores; her nearness sent heat licking along his veins, liquid heat, primitive and lethal. Oh, no, he thought, appalled. He wasn’t going to lust after Del’s granddaughter. That really wasn’t in the cards.
But as he eased her upright, his senses were assaulted by her body’s fragility, and by the scent of lavender, delicate and uncomplicated, that drifted from her skin. Again desire ravaged him, unasked for, totally unwelcome. With all the willpower at his command, a willpower honed over the years, Cade kept his face an unrevealing mask and forced himself to relax.
Shrugging off his fleece vest, he wrapped it around her shoulders. “You’re cold,” he said. “Go inside and get something warm on. You could call the police, too—Dan Pollard’s the sheriff’s name, I’ve known him for years. Give him a description, and he’ll vet me. Then we’ll talk.”
Tess swallowed. Cade Lorimer was standing too close to her, much too close. But while there was concern in his voice, and remorse overlying the gray depths of his gaze, she had the strong sense that both these emotions were, at best, superficial. Lorimer, she thought, and shuddered. How could she trust anyone with the same last name as Cory, her father? “I’ll call the police right away,” she said flatly. “Don’t follow me into the house.”
A gull screamed overhead as she walked steadily toward the cabin. The door shut decisively behind her, and Cade heard the snap of the lock. Restlessly he began prowling up and down. If she really was Del’s granddaughter, why had she never contacted Del? She’d been here for nearly a year, and not once had she put the touch on him. So what kind of game was she playing? Lying to him, telling him both her grandparents were dead, acting as though he, Cade, was a combination of Attila the Hun and Hannibal Lector.
What was taking her so long?
Swiftly he walked around the back of the cabin, wondering if he’d fallen for the second oldest trick in the book—escape via the back door. But through the plate glass windows that overlooked a small deck and the ocean, he could see Tess Ritchie inside the cabin, her back to him as she did something at the stove. Declining to spy on her, Cade turned and stared out to sea.
No answers there.
The back door scraped open. Tess said, “I’ve made coffee. I’ll give you sixteen minutes of my time and not a minute more.”
“Did you phone the sheriff?”
As she gave a choppy nod, Cade pulled up one of the cheap plastic chairs and sat down. She set a tray on the low table. Her movements swift, she poured two mugs of steaming coffee and pushed a plate of muffins toward him. “Homemade?” he asked casually.
“Blueberry. I picked the berries two weeks ago. I’ve lived here nearly a year—why did you pick today to turn up?”
He knew exactly how long she’d lived here. “A month ago my grandfather had a minor heart attack. It scared the pants off him—his first intimation that he, like everyone else, is mortal. That’s when he hired an investigator to—”
“An investigator?”
The terror was back, full force, nor was she making any effort to mask it. “That’s right,” Cade said, all his suspicions resurfacing. “Del wanted to discover your whereabouts. Eventually the investigator came up with this location. You must have known of Del’s existence, or why else would you be living so close?”
Tess buried her nose in her mug, inhaling the pungency of the dark Colombian blend. “I’m living on the island because I was offered a job here and I love the sea.” And because, she thought, it was a very long way from Amsterdam. “Why would Cory lie, telling me both my grandparents were dead?” she flashed. “My grandfather died years ago, in New York City. Not long after, my grandmother succumbed to pneumonia.”
“Was Cory a truthful man?”
Her fingers tightened around the handle of her mug. “He had no reason to lie.”
“He did lie. Del’s very much alive and wants to meet you. That’s why I’m here—to bring that about.”
Coffee sloshed over the rim of her mug. “No.”
“You haven’t even heard me out.”
“I don’t want to meet him! Ever. Go home and tell him that, and don’t either of you bother me again.”
“That’s not good enough.”
“Maybe you should try looking at it from my point of view,” she snapped, color flagging her cheeks.
Cade looked at her in silence. Her cheekbones flared like wings; her lips were a soft and voluptuous curve, infinitely enticing, while her eyes, so exotically shaped, so vivid in hue, drew him like a magnet. She was—he knew this without a shadow of doubt—the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
He’d seen—and bedded—more than a few beautiful women.
“So what is your point of view?” he said in a hard voice.
Fractionally she hesitated. “I disliked my father,” she said evenly. “Disliked and distrusted him. I therefore have no wish to meet his father—a man who, let’s be frank, has ignored my existence for twenty-two years.”
Cade leaned forward, clipping off his words. “He’s supported you financially for twenty-two years. Or are you forgetting that?”
She gave an incredulous laugh. “Supported me? Are you kidding?”
“Every month of your life, money’s been deposited in a Swiss account for your use.”
She banged her mug on the table; more coffee spilled over the rim. “You’re lying—I’ve never seen a penny of that money.”
“Or are you lying?” Cade said with dangerous softness. “There’s a lot more money where that came from.”
She surged to her feet. “Don’t insult me—I wouldn’t touch Lorimer money! It’s the last thing I need.”
Cade stood up, too, and deliberately let his gaze wander over the plastic furniture and the roughly shingled walls of the little cabin. “Doesn’t look that way to me.”
“Money,” she spat, “you think it can buy everything? Look around you, Cade Lorimer. I go to sleep at night to the sound of the waves. I watch the tides come and go, the shorebirds feed, the deer wander over the hill. I’m free here, I’m in control of my own life and I’m finally learning to be happy—and no one’s going to take that from me. No one! Including Del Lorimer.”
Abruptly Tess ran out of words. Dammit, she thought, why did I spout off like that? I never talk about myself to anyone. And then to bare my soul to Cade Lorimer, of all people. A man who screams danger from every pore.
He was watching her, those storm-gray eyes