Heartbreaker

by Joanne Rock

  He watched her swirl her dessert fork through the meringue on her fruit-covered boccone dolce, her one-shoulder evening dress shimmering in the candlelight. The champagne-colored tulle hugged her curves and turned other men’s heads.

  The casino’s Italian-inspired restaurant was decorated like a Florentine palazzo, with white moldings around the ceilings, neoclassical paintings and elaborate chandeliers. The walls were covered in frescoes between the windows overlooking Lake Tahoe. They sat at a pedestal table on a raised dais encircled by pillars. White curtains were strategically draped throughout, giving them a modicum of privacy within the small dining room.

  Throughout the meal, he’d bided his time, not wanting to ambush her with questions about her revelation this morning. So he’d asked her about plans for merging her growing social media platform with her new interest in pursuing fashion more seriously. He’d offered to invest in her next venture, but she’d declined before steering the subject back to him and his movement away from investment banking to pursue his personal investments. Now, he guided things back to her.

  “We never spoke about your family when we dated,” he reminded her as he dug into his hazelnut torte. In retrospect, while he’d been content to accept her at face value, he’d done them both a disservice by not being more curious about what made her tick. “But I wondered—after learning about your unconventional upbringing—how you managed to catapult yourself to the level of business savvy you possessed when I met you.”

  A waiter refilled their water glasses, and Elena sampled a raspberry before answering. “I was very honest with you about how I started my social media platform. I chronicled my drive to surround myself with beautiful things, from flea market finds to freecycling. Those posts were very popular because there are a lot of struggling people who appreciate the need to create a physically appealing space with truly limited resources.”

  “And sponsorships for the blog paid for college?” He remembered her telling him that she’d built the platform out of nothing, but at the time, he’d assumed that was euphemistic. Now, knowing she’d run away from home before she was eighteen, patching together waitressing jobs to pay her rent, he had a far greater appreciation for how hard she must have worked.

  “Yes. I took online courses at night and worked during the day, massaging the blog on my breaks.” She met his gaze over her water glass before taking a sip. “I was driven, yes. But that time in my life didn’t feel nearly as difficult as managing my father had been. Once my life was under my own control, a lot of stress went away.”

  “How so?” He couldn’t imagine navigating adult life as a seventeen-year-old being anything but stressful.

  His own father might be a manipulative, controlling bastard. Nigel Striker hadn’t approved of his friends, and he’d hurt Elena badly. But at least Gage had never had to worry about where his next meal was coming from, whereas Elena had to deal with that kind of poverty.

  She stabbed a strawberry with her fork. The pair of violinists who’d been playing throughout the meal shifted from a complicated allegro to a lilting waltz.

  “I didn’t have to worry about getting kicked out of a house because the rent didn’t get paid,” Elena explained, dabbing her lips with her napkin. “Or the police carting off my dad and putting me into a foster home. I trusted myself far more than I trusted my father, and that made my life easier.”

  Gage finished the late-harvest zinfandel the sommelier had recommended with his dessert, realizing that this woman didn’t put her faith in anyone lightly after the way she’d been raised. “On that note, Elena, I have to wonder what it will take for you to trust me again after the way I assumed the worst of you six years ago.”

  “You believe me now?” she asked, lifting an eyebrow. “Because I have a photograph of the destroyed check somewhere. I thought your father would come clean and tell you the truth one day, but apparently that never happened.”

  “I don’t need photo evidence,” he said firmly. “I shouldn’t have jumped to that conclusion then, either. And there will come a time of reckoning between my father and me, but right now, I’m going to deal with the PR crisis the ranch is facing first.”

  “Fair enough,” she agreed, pushing aside her half-eaten dessert plate as she studied him across the table. “But if you’re asking about how I might trust you again, I think a place to start might be with some honest answers about Alonzo Salazar.”

  Wariness surged at the reminder of her reason for coming to Montana in the first place.

  “Because your followers deserve the truth?” he asked, unable to suppress the trace of bitterness in his voice.

  “No.” Her dark eyes never wavered from his. “Because I do.”

  Gage recognized the line she’d drawn in the sand. If he wanted to move forward with their relationship, he needed to share something of himself. They’d dodged the difficult parts when they’d dated six years ago, and that had resulted in a bond that broke when they encountered the first major obstacle.

  Now? He wasn’t sure he was ready for the kind of relationship they’d been building toward back then. The aftermath when it ended had been painful for them both, and being with Elena would mean a permanent rift between him and his family. He’d dodged that kind of break his whole life, hoping that it wouldn’t come to that since it would make things painful for his mother and his sisters.

  But he didn’t have to decide the future right now. He only had to decide that he wanted Elena for one more night.

  And from that perspective, his choice was simple. Gritting his teeth, he told the most painful truth of his life in the sparest of words.

  “Alonzo Salazar was a mentor to me and all the Mesa Falls partners. And he was there for us after one of our friends jumped to his death in an accident that every damned one of us feels responsible for.”

  * * *

  Elena felt Gage’s hurt in those terse words.

  Shock delayed her response, and in that stunned silence, their waiter had returned, effectively shutting down the talk. Gage signed his name on the check and helped her from her chair, no doubt wanting more privacy for a conversation that had moved in a completely unexpected direction. She waited while he settled a long satin trench coat on her shoulders—a gift from Mimi, the boutique owner Elena met today, after Elena had posted a photo of the garment.

  Wordlessly, Gage escorted her through the casino to the valet stand out front, where the Land Rover quickly appeared. They made the short drive to the private residence Desmond had offered them for their stay, and once the vehicle was parked inside the garage bay, Gage opened the passenger side door for her.

  “I’m so sorry for your loss,” she told him quietly, not sure if he’d heard the words back at the restaurant when she’d said the same thing.

  He seemed to have retreated from her somehow, but perhaps that was only because they’d been in a public space. Now, she kept hold of his hand, wrapping it between both of her own.

  “Thank you. It’s nothing I’ve shared with anyone else in my life.” His jaw muscle flexed. “But you wanted to know why I remain loyal to Alonzo, and that time at school with my friends is at the heart of it.”

  She realized then how little she’d known him six years ago. They’d both coasted along on attraction without digging deeper to see the real people underneath. Was he finally ready to share something about himself?

  “I’m surprised a tragedy like that could remain a secret for so long.” Especially given the public interest in Alonzo Salazar over the past few months since his authorship of the bestselling novel had been revealed.

  “It shouldn’t have been such a secret.” He gave her fingers a light squeeze before leading her into the house and closing the door behind them. “It’s been one of my deepest regrets in life that my father threw his political clout and money around to ensure that the story of Zachary Eldridge’s death didn’t cast a shadow on
us or the Dowdon School, even though all six of the Mesa Falls partners were with him when he died.”

  The bitterness in his voice was unmistakable.

  “What happened?” she asked, letting Gage remove her coat, even as she realized he’d used the task to tuck behind her so his face was hidden from view. And she couldn’t blame him. Even hearing about it—about a person she didn’t know—chilled her to the core. At least his fingers provided a welcome warmth as they brushed her shoulders.

  Gage led her into the sunken great room, switching on the fireplace before pulling her onto the twill sofa cushions with him. He sat forward on the seat, elbows on his knees as he looked into the flames.

  “The seven of us were on a horseback riding trip. Our school had stables. We’d taken the horses out longer than we were supposed to—overnight—being rebels and not caring what kind of trouble we got into. Zach had been mysterious all week about some drama in his life, saying he needed us to ‘man up’ and be there for him.”

  Elena edged closer, laying her hand on his upper arm. Stroking lightly. “What was the drama?”

  “Who knows? We didn’t really ask straight-out at first. We just drank stolen hooch and forgot our collective worries, riding deeper and deeper into the mountains until we were mostly lost, but in a good way.”

  She tried to imagine Gage as a rebellious teenager, before he’d diverted all of that energy into finance. After seeing the posh, fussy home of the Striker family in New Zealand, it was easy to see that his big, expansive personality would have been stifled there. She remembered him saying that his father had sent him to school in the States specifically so Gage wouldn’t embarrass their family.

  “Did you ever ask? Even when you stopped for the night?”

  He shook his head. “I fell asleep because I had too much to drink. I thought most of the other guys did as well, but later I learned Alec, Miles and Zach stayed awake late, talking. Maybe Zach told them more.” Gage repositioned the wooden stag statue on the coffee table, tracing the antlers absently. “But the accident didn’t happen until the next day.”

  “Accident?” She zeroed in on the word. When Gage had said before that a friend jumped to his death, she had thought the boy committed suicide. Had she misunderstood?

  “Some of the guys wanted to go cliff jumping, but it had rained the night before and the conditions were all wrong for their plans.” Gage shook his head, his eyes seemingly fixed on some distant point in the past. “I didn’t think they were serious. I thought it was just posturing that would end with all of us getting on the horses and going back to school.”

  Her stomach knotted; she knew that must not have happened. She tipped her temple to his shoulder for a moment, offering what comfort she could.

  “What came next was hotly disputed afterward.” Gage moved the stag farther away from him, sliding the wooden creature along the table on its weighted, felt feet. “We all saw counselors in the weeks that followed, thanks to Alonzo’s intervention. And the professionals helped us understand that our brains can rewrite traumatic events to make them...bearable.”

  Elena lifted her head, peering over at him. “What do you think happened?” She wound her hand around his upper arm. Squeezed gently.

  “I believe Zach jumped. I never viewed it as a suicide because that was just the way the guy was wired—especially that weekend. He pushed boundaries because he said that a good thrill ‘fed his art.’” Gage shrugged and drummed his fingers once on the coffee table. “He liked to live on the edge. But after one jump, he never resurfaced.”

  A pit opened in her stomach.

  “Did anyone go in after him?” She hugged closer to Gage, rubbing her cheek against his shoulder. Comforting and taking comfort at the same time.

  “Every damned one of us.” His dark eyes flared with something like defensiveness. “Weston was the only one to jump, which could have killed him, too. The rest of us went down to the rocks below and slid in the water that way. We searched until we could barely breathe, knowing all the while we were too late.”

  “I’m so, so sorry.” She couldn’t imagine the trauma of an experience like that for sixteen-year-old kids.

  “My father showed his true colors in the aftermath, threatening to pull his support of a new library if the school didn’t handle the press releases about the death the way he wanted.” Gage closed his eyes for a moment. When he reopened them, there was a flinty determination in his gaze. “Our names were never mentioned in connection to the accident, nor was the school’s. But while Nigel Striker was being a first-class selfish bastard, Alonzo Salazar did everything humanly possible to help us weather the loss of a friend.”

  The fierce loyalty of the Mesa Falls Ranch owners toward the Hollywood Newlyweds author began to make sense. No matter what Alonzo might have done after the boys went on to graduate, he’d been a friend and mentor to them through unimaginable pain after the death of their friend.

  “No wonder you’re protective of his legacy,” she observed softly, shifting positions to stroke a hand along Gage’s back. She felt the ripples of tension relax under her fingertips.

  “He might not have been much of a parent to his own sons, but he was the best teacher imaginable to a bunch of kids hanging on to their sanity by the skin of their teeth. He found local jobs for the ones who needed physical activity, and he found causes for the ones who needed something to shout about. Wes ended up as a lifeguard, where he found his passion for saving people.” Gage turned toward her, cupping her cheek in his palm. “For me, Alonzo knew that I’d been interested in investing after I did well on a project where we invested in an imaginary company. So Alonzo signed me up for an electronic trading account and put a few hundred bucks in it. Said I could lose it if I wanted, but if I made money, he wanted ten percent of everything.”

  “Really?” She hadn’t expected that. She plugged in what she’d learned about Alonzo with this new glimpse of Gage’s past. “Didn’t he teach English classes?”

  She tipped her cheek more firmly into Gage’s hand, drinking in the feel of his caress. Craving more. Sensing that he needed the physical connection, too.

  “Yes, but our school had a lot of curriculum overlap. He was friends with the business teacher and knew about the project.” Gage lifted a dark eyebrow. “Good thing for me, I guess. I made both of us a tidy sum that year, and I became obsessed with investing.”

  “What about your friends—” she started to ask, but Gage laid a finger over her lips.

  “I think I’ve had all the sharing I can handle for one night.” The serious look in his eyes told her how much the conversation had cost him. But he didn’t remove his finger from her lips, and his focus slowly lowered there. “I need to think about something else...or better yet, not think at all.”

  Elena’s breathing quickened. Heat flared along with keen awareness of that sensual touch. His finger shifted slowly, back and forth, along her mouth. Her eyelids fluttered closed as she relished the feel of him there. Anticipating what was to come.

  “In that case, let me share something with you,” she whispered against the blunt fingertip before nipping it between her teeth.

  She opened her eyes to see his pupils widening.

  That was all the response she needed. Standing, she reached for the side zipper under one arm of her dress. Lowering it, she let the heavy sequined tulle fall away from her body. The gown pooled at her feet and she stepped out of it along with her metallic leather sandals.

  Desire flared in his eyes, the heat of one look burning its way up her legs and over her belly and breasts.

  Clad only in her panties and a strapless silk bra the same tan shade as her skin, Elena stepped between his knees.

  “I don’t know about you...” She skimmed her hands along his broad shoulders, wanting to make him forget everything else but this. Her. “But I’ve been dreaming about this moment all day.”
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  Eleven

  Stepping into his arms felt like coming home.

  For a woman who’d never lived in the same place for more than eleven months until after she’d turned eighteen, that sense of homecoming was all the more potent to Elena. She tried not to think about that, not trusting the emotions as Gage’s hands wrapped around her hips.

  Instead, she lost herself in the warmth of his lips as he brushed a kiss along her ribs. In the huff of his breath along the scalloped lace of her bra. She began unbuttoning his white dress shirt, slipping open one fastening after the next while he skimmed touches up her sides. In the end, he had to help her with his cuff links, but she wrestled the shirt free, baring all that golden muscle to her hungry gaze. Standing, he spun her in his arms so her back was to him before he pulled the pins from her hair, letting the waves fall down her back briefly before he swept it to one side and kissed her neck.

  For a moment, their reflection in a wall mirror captivated her. The sight of Gage wrapped around her, his muscles shifting as he caressed her, seemed pulled straight from her fantasies.

  She traced a finger through the maze of tattoos on his arms where they banded around her waist, desire heating her from the inside out. His tongue darted beneath her ear, igniting a fresh wave of tingling sensations down her spine.

  “Take me,” she demanded, reaching up to comb her fingers through his hair. “Please.”

  She twisted around to face him again, cradling his face and drawing him close to kiss her. He tasted her lips with the skillful finesse of someone who knew his way around her body better than anyone. Better than she did. He wrapped one hand around the length of her hair, tilting her this way and that to give him the best access to her mouth. Her body quivered with pleasure and they weren’t even naked.

  He lifted her against him with one arm, hauling her close. She helped him by wrapping her legs around his waist and locking her ankles there. With his hands anchored under her thighs, he carried her easily to the bedroom, each stride a delectable torment that brought the hard length of him more fully against her sensitized flesh.