“Or it made her feel a little less guilty.”
He had to concede that. “Yeah.”
“Is she happy now?” she asked.
“I think so. She left the CFO job and runs the Chamberlain Foundation, donating millions internationally. She’s a good mother to Rania, and somehow manages that huge, narcissistic asshole, Jake. And that is why you can’t share this story.” He sat up like she was, taking both her hands. “I promised her I would never tell anyone but Shane.”
“Would Jake be upset with her?”
“I think he’d go crazy. He’s explosive and unpredictable, and it would be horrible for her foundation, her reputation, and even the FriendGroup stock could take a hit. Shane made sure that marriage was not on any book, anywhere, and people would want to know why. They might wonder if I’m Rania’s father. It would be out there for that child to read when she grows up.” He shook his head. “Too many lives are affected by this, Jessie. It has to stay secret.”
“It will.” She took his hand in both of hers. “I give you my word.”
He nodded thanks. “There were actually a few days when we were still married that she was celebrating her engagement to Jake.”
“God, I bet that was wretched.”
Wretched didn’t begin to cover it. “My mother died about three weeks after the annulment was final.”
“Oh, Garrett.” Her eyes welled with tears as she squeezed his hand. “I’m so sorry.”
“When Dad hinted at the possibility of what he wanted to do, I was all over it. Waterford was the escape I needed, because I couldn’t stand to be out there. So we broke the contract for me to run PetPic as a subsidiary.”
“That’s the part the Forbes story covered.”
He nodded. “I didn’t care. I gave up millions to get out of that contract, but I didn’t care. I had to get home. Liam and Shane and Darcy weren’t under the same stipulations, obviously. It was easy to buy out their deals, but I had been PetPic’s owner. To all the world, and to Jake Chamberlain, and to both companies and the whole industry, I looked like a complete liar, untrustworthy and undependable.”
“But you were protecting yourself.”
“I was protecting Claudia, really. The farther away I was, the less chance of the truth ever coming out.” And less chance of him having to witness the grand and glorious couple that was Jake and Claudia Chamberlain.
“Wow.” She took a few minutes to let it all process, falling back on the pillow next to him. “That’s quite a story.”
He leaned close to whisper in her ear, “I can feel the chisel marks on my chest, wall-breaker.”
“And how does that feel?”
How did it feel? Liberating, he thought. “Really damn good, Jessie. Thank you.”
“Your secret is safe,” she promised. “But I’m not going to lie. Now I’ve found it.”
“Found what?”
“The spark. The life. The truth. The theme of Garrett Kilcannon.”
“You cannot share that story in any way, shape, or form,” he insisted.
“I know. I won’t. But I’ve definitely found what your profile was missing. A theme that captures the essence of you.”
He hated to think what that might be. “Idiotic, love-struck, foolish? You going to use a doormat for my photo?”
She looked at him, slowly shaking her head. “No. But I’m going to write. Now. While it’s all fresh. Okay?”
So not okay. He put his arms around her again, a little surprised at how he couldn’t conjure up Claudia’s face but could only get lost in the big green eyes that looked back at him. “Please don’t leave. Not yet. Not now.”
He kissed her, long and tenderly, aching for more.
“My boss wants eight to ten thousand words by morning.”
And he wanted eight to ten hours of holding her and making love by morning. But he let go. “You want me to leave so you can concentrate?”
“No.” She put her head on the pillow and pulled him back next to her, letting their lined-up bodies touch from top to toe. “I want you right here waiting for me.”
“I’ll wait,” he murmured, coasting his hands over her and resting them on her backside. “I’ll wait all night.”
“I’ll be right at that desk…”
He slipped his hand into the waistband of her jeans, sucking in a soft breath at the silky skin. “Later.”
“Yes, later,” she promised on a sigh. “Let me get something up to New York and you rest.”
Reluctantly, he let her go. “Write it right here, and I’ll read it.”
“No way.” Then she inched back. “You do trust me, don’t you? You believe I would never betray you?”
He didn’t answer right away, considering the question deep in his heart. “I do trust you,” he finally said. “I never thought I’d trust a woman again. Anyone, to be honest.”
She gave him one last kiss and slipped away. A moment later, she sat next to the fire and he could hear the tap of her keyboard, the sound of a rhythmic, comforting, emotional beat.
He closed his eyes and fell asleep, feeling free for the first time in years.
* * *
Now it all made sense. Everything made sense. The change in him was an act of self-preservation. The closed-up man was damaged, like one of his rescue dogs had turned on him and attacked him after all he’d done was offer love.
Of course she could capture that without revealing one word of his secret. The profile would write itself now, with her deep knowledge of who he was and what made him tick.
And what made him tick didn’t just make a great story. It made him a great man.
On the bed, Garrett breathed with the steady, slow sound of a man who had nothing weighing him down, and that made her smile. And ache to climb in next to him.
But first, she had to write the story of a man who lived to help, who longed to protect, who loved to save anyone or anything that needed saving.
One word flowed into the next, sentences became paragraphs, and those became vivid snapshots of a compelling, colorful man. Without so much as a sideways phrase about anything that had happened to him in Seattle, she painted her portrait, focused on his work at Waterford.
His family. His dogs. His doggone hat. His rescues.
When she finished at three forty in the morning, she had tears in her eyes as she emailed her draft to Mac with her favorite subject line: Read it and weep!
Then she closed the laptop and zipped it into its case, done with work for at least the short-term foreseeable future.
The redheaded prince might win the slot, but Jessie was proud of her work. Stretching and working a crick out of her neck, she stood in front of the gas fire, eyeing the man asleep under a comforter on her bed.
That’s where she wanted to be now. With him. Sleeping, just sleeping, and holding him.
She climbed carefully on the bed and slipped in next to him. He moaned a little, and his eyes fluttered.
“You all done, Lois Lane?”
“It’s Jessica Jane, and I am. Go back to sleep. It’s four in the morning.”
He moaned again and wrapped a strong arm around her, falling right back to sleep.
She stared at him in the firelight, at his strong features and soft mouth. The fact was, there probably wasn’t a person on earth she knew as well as she knew him now. His strengths and weaknesses, his goals and values, his whole precious heart.
He’d laid it all out for her in a week, and she had…fallen for him.
She closed her eyes and drifted off with one last thought.
Claudia Cargill Chamberlain, you are a fool.
Chapter Seventeen
Garrett woke to the sensation of heat. And woman. And…arousal.
Blinking into the morning light that filtered in through closed plantation shutters, he angled his head to look at Jessie. She slept on his shoulder, her hair spilling over her cheek, one leg curled around his, denim against denim.
Should be skin against skin, he th
ought, his body responding to the scent of her hair and the warmth of her body. He considered turning, kissing, starting the dance, but something stopped him as he looked down at her face. Her eyelashes spread like brushes over creamy skin, her lips parted with silent, slow breaths.
In slumber, she looked totally…harmless. Utterly desirable on every level. But she was a wall-breaker, aptly named by her colleagues. He waited for a punch of regret, but there was none.
He wasn’t sorry he told her his secret last night. On the contrary, he felt unburdened for the first time since he signed the papers and annulled his brief, meaningless marriage. He shouldn’t have to hide his past and certainly had no desire to enter into a relationship with another woman and not be honest.
A relationship.
He’d always hated that word. It sounded cold and calculated and not at all what he wanted with Jessie Curtis. He wanted a connection. He wanted a union. He wanted a partnership.
He wanted love.
She took a quivering breath and blinked her eyes open, her gaze landing on his chest where her hand rested. He didn’t move yet, or speak, but watched as she slowly traced a circle over his heart and sighed softly.
What was she thinking?
After a second, she looked up, a little flash of surprise when her gaze met his. “You’re awake,” she whispered.
“Sort of.” He closed his hand over hers, threading their fingers. “What time did you come to bed?”
“Almost four.”
“You finish?”
“Yeah. You want to read it?”
“I don’t know. Do I?”
She pushed up, but he tightened his grip, holding her in place. “Later,” he said huskily, using their joined hands to bring her face to his. “Much later.”
“But I want you to read it.”
He grunted. “But I want you. Period.”
She smiled, pulling away with a little more force. “Read what I said about you first. Be sure.”
He moved against her. “I’m sure. See?”
But she slipped away and brought her laptop case back to the bed, sliding out the machine, and opening it. “You read. I’ll be in the shower. I’m still wearing yesterday’s clothes.”
“There’s a good solution for that.”
She handed him the open laptop, a document on the screen. “Read. I’ll be back.”
Frustrated, he shifted his attention to the words in front of him, scooting up a little to make it easier to read and clear the sleep from his head.
When I first set eyes on Garrett Kilcannon, a multimillionaire entrepreneur who built a household brand on the strength of an idea, he was on his knees, hunched over a bowl of dog food. There, he gently coaxed a depressed rescue named Lola to take a bite of breakfast. The longer she refused, the more ragged his voice grew with frustration and concern. I think he would have stayed on the floor of that kennel all day and all night if that got Lola to take a single bite of food.
And really, that’s all you need to know about a man who, with nothing but imagination, talent, focus, and an abiding love for animals, gave the world a way to instantly capture and share poignant moments with pets. When he sold that idea and made a small fortune, he turned that same skill set to working with his family to build an elite canine training and rescue facility that answered another need for people who love and need dogs.
Garrett Kilcannon is a savior of sorts, a lover of strays, a rescuer of dogs…and people.
He closed his eyes for a moment, grounding himself as her way-too-flattering words hit hard. The fact that she saw him that way did something to him he couldn’t quite understand or even believe.
No woman had ever gotten to that level with him; no one had even tried. Certainly not Claudia. No woman had ever bothered to look that deep or understand the drive behind PetPic and Waterford Farm. They assumed it was money, recognition, power—whatever drove other entrepreneurs.
He cleared his head and continued to read, marveling at her skill with words and ability to paint a picture. She perfectly captured the moment Dad had come down to the backyard and walked his six kids around the property, describing his vision, offering the idea and the land to them, literally and figuratively. She managed to grab the emotion of the day they opened the doors of Waterford Farm to the world, the thrill of each rescue and placement, and the spirit of family and friendship that permeated every inch of his business and world.
She drew a sketch that was better than how he saw himself. She described the man he wanted to be…the man she saw him as.
Sitting up, he closed the computer, the words almost too much for him. She’d broken down his walls and found something he didn’t even know was there.
Carefully, reverently almost, he eased the laptop back into its case and laid it on the floor.
“What do you think?” she asked, coming out of the bathroom.
He blinked at her, staring at her wet hair, dripping on her shoulders, the towel wrapped around her narrow frame, the clean, fresh face with a look of horror in her eyes. “Oh my God, you really hate it.”
“No, I don’t. I don’t.” He reached for her, but suddenly dropped his arm. Making love would change everything, he thought. It would seal everything. This wasn’t casual sex to celebrate a week of falling for each other. This meant something.
“Then what do you think?”
That he better figure out the best way to handle the problem…not that falling in love with Jessie should be a problem. But he’d sworn he’d never take the chance again. And yet, here he was, about to fall so hard.
“I think you’re a very good writer,” he said. “Far too kind. And really…insightful.”
She dropped a knee on the bed, the towel opening enough to give him a glimpse of bare thigh. “Is that good or bad?”
“It’s scary.” He swallowed hard. “I’m not that great.”
“You’ve shared a lot. More than you realized, I think. And you are that great.” She sat on the edge of the bed. “It’s a common reaction to reading something so personal. Most people haven’t had biographies written about them, and the first time you see yourself as the world sees you—”
“The world doesn’t see me like that.”
“I do.”
“I know. I felt that in every word.” He stared at her, nodding. “That’s…amazing.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure,” he answered honestly, slowly reaching out to her, wanting her more than his next breath. More than his fears. More than anything. “C’mere, Jessie. Or do I need to take a shower first, too?”
She moved closer. “You should have joined me.”
“I didn’t know that was allowed.”
Leaning closer, she held his gaze, her green eyes smoky with desire. “Everything’s allowed.”
He pulled her all the way across the bed, meeting her halfway for a long, sweet kiss. Walking his fingers over the cool, damp skin of her breastbone, he slid one hand under the towel to caress the rise of her breast.
Instantly, goose bumps rose on her arms.
He deepened the kiss and laid her back slowly, the towel spreading to reveal her thighs. He touched the soft skin, hissing a breath at the smoothness of it, fighting to keep his hands slow and steady as he explored her.
She wrapped her hands around his neck, holding tight to him. With one easy move, he opened the towel enough to see all of her, lifting himself a little higher to touch and look and kiss.
Arching toward him, she invited every move, trailing her mouth over his jaw and neck, pulling at his T-shirt to get it over his head. He broke the kiss, yanked his shirt off, and let out a groan of satisfaction as their bodies met.
She caressed him, lightly dragging her nails over his chest and down to the button of his jeans. Biting her lip, she unzipped, the sound and scents of sex filling his head and making him harder.
He hissed when she closed her hand around him and drew him out, pushing his jeans off with her other hand. “Oh,” sh
e sighed appreciatively. “I definitely left out some of the good parts in that profile.”
He wanted to laugh, but the feeling of her stroking him emptied his brain of anything but pleasure. Raw, real need for more. “Different kind of story, I think.” He kissed his words into her throat, down her chest, suckling her nipple to a sweet point.
He touched everywhere and kissed the rest, stripping out of his clothes and digging out a condom he had, indeed, packed in his wallet on their first date.
When they were both naked, he slipped them back under the comforter, securing her in the pocket of intimacy, finally feeling that skin against skin he wanted so damn much.
He eased her under him, letting her legs wrap around him where they belonged.
“Jessica Jane,” he whispered, sliding himself right where he wanted to be, fighting the urge to pulse or pump until he told her exactly what was on his mind. He lowered himself to get closer to her ear, wanting to breathe the words into her. “Thank you.”
She pushed him back a little. “For having sex with you?”
“For breaking all those walls. For getting me. For seeing something I didn’t. For giving me a chance to trust someone again.”
She stroked his cheek, running her finger under his lower lip, studying his face. “You don’t have to thank me,” she said. “The pleasure is mine.”
“It’s about to be,” he promised, kissing her and sliding into the sweet pocket where he needed to be.
They started slow, easy, gentle. But friction built, and all that turned into fast, furious, and fierce. Each thrust took him closer to a place he couldn’t even remember being…lost in a woman he trusted. Every whimper from her throat, every clutch of her hands, every time she rocked and rolled and took him deeper, Garrett gave up more control.
Until he spun out and so did she, climaxing almost together, pulling more pleasure out of each other’s bodies, sweating and gasping and, finally, collapsing.
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