by Tessa Radley
“Careful!”
Jay pulled her to one side as an orderly pushed a patient past in a wheelchair.
“The Bachelors for a Better Future Benefit,” he reminded her once the pair had passed by, his heart knocking loudly in his chest. He’d been talked into being auctioned off as a dinner date for the charity. “We can meet for a quiet drink afterward.” That way, he’d keep the vow he’d made to himself: to tell her everything before he left for Colorado.
“Oh, my God.” Her hands covered her eyes. “I’d forgotten all about that. I swear I’m losing my mind all over again. It’s like after the crash.” She took a couple of sideways steps and sagged limply against the wall. When she dropped her hands from her face, her mascara had smudged, accentuating the hollows beneath her eyes. “Tell me, Jay, do you think I’m crazy?”
It was the first time she’d ever brought up that period missing from her memory. The night they’d met—the meeting she knew nothing about and had changed the course of his life—and the blanked-out days that followed her subsequent car accident on the way to the airport.
“You’re not crazy. You’re the most sane person I’ve ever met.” It was more than he could handle to see her wilting like this. But he knew better than to touch her, to offer any comfort. He forced a smile. “At least, most days...after you’ve had a cup of coffee.”
Placing his forearm against the wall beside her head, Jay leaned in toward her.
“I need your help...” He kept his voice deliberately light. “I need you to bid on me tomorrow night.”
Her eyes snapped wide. “Me? Bid on you?”
He made himself grin—a shark-like toothy grin, and her eyes narrowed suspiciously. Good. “Think of it as act of altruism.”
“Altruism?”
“You’ll be saving me from hordes of—”
She interrupted him with an unladylike snort. “I can’t think of anyone in less need of saving.”
His grin widened in appreciation. “Afterward, to celebrate your good taste in winning me, we’ll share a bottle of French champagne.” He lowered his voice suggestively. “Then I’ll sweep you off for that incredible dinner you’ve paid for...”
He was rewarded with a glint of fire in the depths of her blue eyes, and Jay felt a corresponding flame light up deep in his chest. He held his breath. Down, boy. He had to tell her the truth tomorrow night.
“You don’t need me to bid on you, buddy. You’ll do fine and raise plenty all on your own.”
“I dare you to outbid everyone,” he murmured.
But instead of rising to the bait, Georgia pinned him with a glittery look full of suspicion. “I don’t do dares.”
“Too risky?” he taunted.
She shook her head, a couple of strands of hair almost whipping against his arm where it rested close to her head. “Too impulsive.”
Jay knew he was pushing hard, but he couldn’t stop. “Too scared to live a little?”
She froze. “I’m not scared!”
Gotcha. He raised his eyebrows. “You sure about that?”
“Of course!” Georgia gave a dismissive laugh that he might have thought was real if he hadn’t made an art of studying her for the past two years. “Why should I be scared to bid on you?”
He let her question hang, watching her, letting it expand to fill the space between them. “Because you’re too scared to be swept away on an incredible dinner date with me?”
Her eyes darkened to sapphire. “I definitely don’t do dates.”
A second later, she gave another careless laugh. She’d recovered so quickly that if Jay hadn’t been watching her, he might have missed the flare of panic.
“Your ego is showing, Jay Black. What a hard life, being such an eligible bachelor in New York—and having the privilege to turn down an interim CEO position that I would give my right arm for. Why would you worry about a dinner date?”
Jay stared into her eyes which, despite being shadowed by confusion and antagonism, were still the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He wanted to tell her those eyes were worth infinitely more than the CEO position she coveted so highly.
“Oh, God. I’d better not forget to arrange where I’m going to meet Adam.”
Suddenly, Jay was no longer in the mood to jest. “You’re not seriously planning to attend the benefit with Fordyce, are you?”
Georgia stared at him as though he’d grown two heads. “Of course, I am. Kingston’s already arranged it.”
A primal, possessive response rocked Jay back on his heels. The hand he had propped against the wall curled into a fist.
“I’m sure Fordyce will have no problem finding another date,” he said through gritted teeth.
“It’s hardly a date. But I can’t just dump the man—he’s far too important of a player. And I can’t let my father down.”
“Can’t let your father down?” Jay stared at her. “That’s a habit you need to break.”
“I don’t dare, Jay. If he fires me...” Her voice trailed away. “I’m nothing without Kingdom.”
Carefully, Jay pushed away from the wall and uncoiled himself, taking a step backward before he said—did—something that he might regret.
Keeping his voice even with great effort, he said, “Why don’t we go get that coffee you wanted?”
Five
They took their steaming cups to a sheltered bench Jay had discovered yesterday tucked away in the landscaped gardens surrounding the hospital. Three nurses stood a distance away, clutching their coffees, while half a dozen sparrows tussled like young thugs on the footpath.
A gust of wind shook a drift of withered leaves from a nearby tree.
“Would you like my jacket?” Jay instantly started to slide it off his shoulders.
“No, no. I’m fine.”
Dropping her Kingdom tote on the wooden bench, Georgia drew her jacket more tightly around her, and then took a sip of the coffee he’d bought.
“I could get used to this coffee,” she said, as she sat down in the washed-out sunlight.
He hadn’t brought her out here to talk about coffee. With his free hand, Jay raked his hair off his forehead and sat down beside her.
“The sooner you tell Fordyce that you’re not going along with your father’s crazy notions of empire-building, the better.”
“Maybe it’s not crazy. Maybe it actually makes sense.”
“Sense? It’s completely mad!” Disbelief took his breath away.
“It’ll be business—more like a merger than a marriage.”
“But you haven’t even met the man,” Jay protested, seriously rattled now.
She took another sip. Jay noticed how the morning sun glinted in her hair. “That will change tomorrow night.”
Desperation pounded through his veins. He wanted to grab her by her shoulders and warn her that she was making the biggest mistake of her life. Leashing his inner turbulence, he sat still as stone. Reason, not reaction. “You’d never do business with a company you hadn’t done substantial due diligence on.”
She didn’t even crack a smile. “I’m not stupid, Jay. I’ll certainly weigh up every advantage and disadvantage.” Her tone had cooled. She glanced down at her watch. “We can’t stay long. Roberta will be wondering where I’ve gotten to—”
“Roberta will call if she needs you.” Jay had no intention of allowing Georgia to run out on this discussion. “Forget the business advantages then, and consider the personal aspects. You can’t possibly marry Fordyce.”
She flicked him a quick sideways glance, then looked away. “I may not have a choice.”
His shoulders grew more rigid from the effort it took to stop himself from leaping to his feet. “Of course, you have a choice. No one can force you into marriage.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It’s exactl
y that simple. Just say no.”
“There are plenty of merits to it—even on the personal level.” She began ticking them off on her free hand. “One, I’m hardly likely to fall in love with anyone.”
“Why not? You shouldn’t allow one bad—”
“Two, I work too hard—you say so yourself.” Her middle finger unfurled, as she continued to count out reasons he didn’t want to hear. “Which leads me to the next point. Three, I don’t have time to date...to meet men.”
Jay started to panic. “But you don’t want to meet men, do you?”
“Doesn’t every woman want to find The One?” She raised an eyebrow. “Someone to love.”
The One?
Jay lowered both his eyebrows in response.
“What?” She stared back at him. A fine wisp of silver hair blew across her eyes. She pushed it away, hooking it behind her ear. “Isn’t that supposed to be every woman’s dream?”
“I never thought it was yours.”
“Jay!” She actually looked offended.
Holy crap! How had he misread her so badly? He’d listened so carefully to her no-romance protests that he’d missed the yearning hidden deep below.
“You haven’t looked at a man in the two years I’ve worked with you.”
She didn’t look pleased with his observation.
“So maybe it’s just as well Kingston’s come up with this plan. I get the chance to marry someone I’ll have business in common with—and I don’t need to go through the drama of dating.”
“You don’t need to marry Fordyce to avoid that fate. You could marry me instead of settling for second best.” He grinned, partly to irritate her, but mostly to give himself an out lest she realize how deadly serious he was. “We’ve got plenty in common.”
She gave a snort. “Like what?”
For starters, they both spent most of their waking hours at Kingdom, but Jay decided she might not appreciate that reminder right now. He needed to proceed with care—and humor. He stuck out his thumb, mimicking her actions from moments before. “You like arguing with me—”
“You argue with me!”
“Two.” He flicked out his index finger. “You think my opinions are fantastic—”
“I do not!” Then she relented. “Okay, maybe as far as Kingdom goes—I’ll concede that.”
“Three,” he said, counting the point with his middle finger. “You adore my sense of humor.”
She rolled her eyes skyward. “Can’t you ever be serious, Jay? This is exactly why I would never marry you.”
Ouch!
Before he could react, she blurted out, “Anyway, I’d hate for you to sacrifice yourself.”
“But it’s okay for you to sacrifice yourself?” he retorted.
She set her jaw in a way that he recognized only too well. “That’s different. I’ll be marrying Adam Fordyce to get what I want.”
Even the wind stopped gusting in the taut silence that followed.
“All you ever think about is Kingdom,” he said quietly.
She didn’t say a word. Instead, she drained her coffee and carefully set the empty cup down on the sunlit bench between them.
“Georgia, I know you were hurt by Rid—”
She didn’t allow him to finish. “Kingdom will never betray me.”
This time, her smile turned his guts inside out.
Never betray her? What the hell did she think was happening? What did she think her father was doing?
“And marriage to Fordyce wouldn’t be a betrayal?”
“Betrayal of what?” She sounded genuinely confounded.
Of yourself.
Jay suppressed the urge to yell it at her—he didn’t dare show the terror that now churned inside him.
“You don’t want to do this,” he said, the calmness of his voice surprising him. “It would be a massive mistake.”
Her careless shrug rattled him further. “Plenty of marriages have worked with less—”
“And plenty have ended in bitterness and acrimony,” Jay interrupted her. “Don’t you want more out of life than a billion-dollar divorce settlement?”
Georgia glared at him. “You don’t understand what it’s like to be a Kinnear.”
It was his turn to shrug. “Not very different from being a Black, I’d imagine.”
“Don’t be silly!” Her lips curved up into a smile that held no trace of any real amusement. “You couldn’t possibly understand.”
“Try me.” Jay bared his teeth in a feral grin.
“My life was mapped out long before my birth. From my father’s perspective, it went wrong from the moment I was born.” She paused. “I was supposed to be a boy.”
“George.” Jay supplied the name.
“You know?” The bruised look he’d hoped never to see again was back in her eyes. “He told you?”
Jay hesitated, debating with himself how to respond. He let his gaze drift around the landscaped garden. The nurses had vanished. Aside from the squabbling sparrows, he and Georgia were the only ones left.
Slowly, he shook his head. “It’s not hard to figure out.”
“Father was so sure I’d be a boy. He wasn’t interested in hearing some medical technicians’ determination of what my sex would be. Because he knew. He even had the christening invitations printed, inviting everyone to ‘celebrate the birth of my son, George.’” Her face wore a strange expression. “Funny, huh?”
Even on the second telling, Jay found little amusement in Kingston’s arrogant certainty that he could preorder his firstborn’s sex. Even less did he like the notion that her father had made his disappointment so evident to Georgia from the day she was born.
“You want to please your father.” He knew he had to proceed with caution. “You want his approval—but you don’t need to go along with this...this—” Insanity.
“You don’t understand. You asked what I want. Well, here’s what I want. I want to be the President and CEO of Kingdom. I want it for me—not for my father. I want it because I’ve worked for it all my life. I want it because it’s mine by right, my birthright. I want it because I deserve it.”
The words were a death knell.
Hell, he’d known it...but he’d never understood how deep her desire went—nor how far she’d go to secure it.
But he couldn’t walk away. He was fighting for her life—and his own.
“So you think by marrying Fordyce you can convince him to let you take charge?” The glitter in her eyes warned him he was on treacherous ground. “Fordyce is an ambitious bastard. What makes you think he’ll step aside and let his wife be boss?”
Her chin went up. “I’ll persuade him.”
God!
Imagining what form her persuasion might take made him go hot...then very, very cold. Jay tugged at the knot of his suddenly too-tight tie. An icy knifepoint of fear cut deep into his heart.
“You deserve more!”
His anger burned a white-hot streak through him. Anger at Kingston for his callous indifference to his daughters. Anger at Georgia for her blind certainty that her father would honor her efforts. Anger at himself for his foolish hopes.
To give himself time to cool off before he blurted out anything he’d later regret, Jay raised his cup and downed the coffee in two gulps.
The heat scalded the back of his throat.
He set the empty cup down on the bench beside hers.
“I love Kingdom... It’s everything,” she said quietly.
The vulnerability in her eyes took away his breath, evaporating the sermon he’d been about to deliver. At last, he said flatly, “It’s only a corporation, Georgia.”
She was shaking her head. “Oh, no. It’s much more than that. It’s all I have. It’s my heritage. My family. My life. My legacy. If I have to marry Adam Fordyce to
keep that, I will.”
“You shouldn’t allow your father to dictate who you should marry.” He drew a deep breath. “It wasn’t successful last time—why the hell would it work this time?”
She went white. “You know nothing about what happened before!”
Jay winced.
He hated, hated to see her hurting. Guilt ate like hot acid at his gut.
But he couldn’t keep silent...not anymore.
“Georgia, that night that you...that Ridley—”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she cut him off. “And certainly not to you. It’s none of your business, Jay.”
The words were a punch in his chest.
But it was his business...
He wanted to look away, before she saw into his soul and read the truth that blazed there in ten-foot-tall letters of gold fire.
That she’d changed his life.
That after they’d met, he’d flown home and set the wheels in motion. That ten days later, he’d called Kingdom International looking for her. Only to learn that she’d been through surgery and was recovering from a head injury. He’d been on the next plane to New York. His first stop had been the Kingdom headquarters. Georgia had still been away on sick leave. There’d been little chance of convincing her staff to give him her contact details. But he’d caught a break. The busy receptionist had assumed he was there for an interview. And in that instant, Jay had taken brazen advantage of the woman’s mistake and he’d made his next life-changing decision. It hadn’t been difficult to smooth talk his way into Ridley’s job.
If he told her the truth now, he’d drive her straight into Fordyce’s arms—she was halfway there already. Then he’d lose all chance to win her back. Forever.
“I’d hate to see someone so smart and brave trapped in a miserable marriage,” he finally managed. “I’m concerned about you, that’s all.”
Desperate, seeking to lighten the moment—hell, looking for any distraction—he bent forward, intending to kiss the tip of her nose in an amusing comic fashion.
But it didn’t turn out that way.
Instead of brushing her nose, his lips planted themselves on hers. The jolt of the brief impact rocked through him. It wasn’t a particularly sexy kiss, as far as kisses went. But his lips lingered longer than he’d intended, refusing to obey his command to back off. Now. Before he blew it all to kingdom come...