His gaze didn’t waver, but a muscle in Hunter’s cheek twitched. Four pounding heartbeats later he went on. “Before this conversation continues, I think a break is in order. I’ll get us more champagne,” he said as he took her empty glass, the heat smoldering in his eyes searing her to the bone, “but I’ll be back.”
She watched him head toward the bar and let out a breath, unaware she’d been holding it. But before she could relax another masculine voice spoke from behind.
“Hello, kitten.”
At the sound of her childhood nickname her heart took an abrupt turn in her chest, speeding south. She briefly closed her eyes, preparing to face the man who doubted her more than most.
* * *
As Carly braced to face her father her stomach bunched into a knot. She was dreading his simmering judgment about her career, her life choices—and her mistake. She was used to the disapproving tone in his every comment. No matter how hard she tried, her efforts had never been good enough. But she was an adult now. She didn’t need his praise. And she sure wouldn’t beg him for approval.
Her moody, miserable, misunderstood teen years had been rough, and she’d constantly butted heads with her father. Unfortunately traces of that rebellious adolescent were reappearing more and more of late in his presence. She didn’t like herself much when he was around. Which was the main reason she’d avoided him for the last six months.
Keep your cool, Carly. Keep it easy. And, whatever you do, don’t let him see you cry.
Turning on her heel, she plastered a smile on her face. “Hello, Dad.”
His hair now more gray than black, he was a striking figure of a man in his sixties. Tall. Fit. With his sharp features, he was imposing via the sheer volume of his eyebrows alone. And twenty-five years as head of a mega news corporation had honed his hard stare to a cutting edge.
“I assumed you wouldn’t come,” he said.
Good to see you too, Dad. I’m fine, thanks. How have you been?
She pushed aside the disappointment at his less than welcoming greeting. She knew better, and she really had to stop hoping for more. “Is that the only reason I was included on the guestlist?” she asked.
The muscles around his eyes tightened a touch. “If I didn’t want you here I wouldn’t have invited you.”
Well,” she said, trying to keep it light, “I suppose it would have looked bad if you’d invited everyone from the show except your own daughter.”
His eyes grew wary and he frowned at her too-short dress, creating a flush of guilt-tinged resentment. Okay, so the hem length was a bit much. But she didn’t need any more proof that he disapproved. Of course her father must have felt a sarcastic comment was in order.
“You’ve outdone even yourself tonight,” he said. “Who’s the poor guy this time?”
Her stomach balled tighter as she blinked back the pain. “I didn’t bring a date.” She tipped her head. “Disappointed?”
Her father’s mouth went flat. “Can’t say I’m eager to meet the latest good-for-nothing.”
“Good-for-nothing?”
“Face it, Carly,” he said, scanning the room before turning his gaze back to hers. “You should give your choice of men more thought before you hook up with them—or whatever you young folks call it these days.”
Inhaling a calming breath, Carly straightened her shoulders, forcing an even tone. “Every guy I’ve dated,” she said, mustering her patience, “has been a decent man.”
“Every one of them has lacked ambition.”
“I don’t choose my dates based on the man’s ambition for his job and his fat bank account.” As a matter of fact, those attributes usually sent her screaming in the other direction. Hunter Philips was the single exception—for all the good it did her.
The displeasure in her father’s eyes tunneled the hole deeper in her heart. “You set your standards too low, kitten.”
“Maybe yours are set too high?” she countered.
The pause in the conversation was loaded as they regarded each other warily, and she wondered—again—why she’d bothered to come.
When her father went on, this time his tone was full of bewildered frustration. “The worst part is I don’t think you care about your boyfriends that much. Instead you try on one fellow after another, and then wonder why they treat you so poorly in the end.”
The words landed too close for comfort. “Is that what this party is really about?” Carly asked. “An excuse to get me here and harass me about my love-life?”
“It’s a sad day when I have to throw a party just to see my own daughter.” He let out the same long-suffering, resigned sigh he always did. The one that made her feel awful. “But as for your love-life,” he went on, “you’re an adult. Who you choose to run around with is your business.”
“That’s never stopped you from sharing your opinion.”
“I’m more concerned about your professional choices.”
Her heart withered a fraction as humiliation and shame came roaring back, and her patience slipped further from her grasp. “Come on, Dad. It’s me. No need to sugar-coat your words.” She stepped closer. “Why don’t you just say you’re worried I’ll screw up again? Repeat past mistakes?” The frown on her father’s face wasn’t an answer, but it was all the response that Carly needed. “Well, there is good news. If I do muck it up a second time, at least it won’t be on one of your newspapers. So you don’t have to worry about that precious bottom line of yours.”
Getting fired was her fault, not her dad’s. But her sharp stab of doubt about his role in the debacle still cut deep.
She stared at her father, and for once the truth spilled out, free of sarcasm. “It’s been three years, and I still can’t decide if you were the one who ordered my dismissal or not.”
Her dad’s face flushed red, and he stepped closer. “Damn it, Carly,” he said, the affectionate nickname long gone. “Your boss made that decision. Were you truly so naive as to think there wouldn’t be repercussions?” He narrowed his eyes in disbelief, as if he still couldn’t fathom how she could have been so stupid. “Just like you were naive enough to believe Thomas Weaver wasn’t using you?”
“He wasn’t using me. We didn’t start dating until three months after my story ran.” She lifted her chin, batting back the overwhelming emotion. “However I was naive enough to believe that the people who cared about me would stick around when things got ugly. But when the going got tough he turned his back on me to save himself. Just like you.”
“What did you expect me to do, Carly?” he said. “Make excuses about my daughter’s lack of judgment? Show a preference for my own flesh and blood? I run a tight ship, and business has to come first.” His face shifted from anger and frustration—which she could handle—to the worst expression of all...disappointment. “I don’t understand how you could have made such a rookie mistake.”
She swallowed against a tight throat, her words thick. “I have a heart, Dad.”
“Whether you choose to believe it or not, I do too.”
“But I can’t turn it on and off like you.”
“As I’ve said...” His scowl grew deeper. “I couldn’t step in on your behalf.”
The pressure of budding tears burned her lids, and she tightened her grip on her purse. “Don’t you get it, Daddy?” The name slipped out before she knew what she was saying. “I didn’t want you to step in on my behalf,” she said. She’d waited forever to hear her father say he believed in her. And here she was, three years later, still waiting in vain. “You have no faith in me at all, do you? I would never have asked you to show me that kind of favor.” She fought to control the ferocious hurt. “But you didn’t even trust me enough to give me the option of turning it down.”
Though her dad’s face broiled with anger, when Hunter appeared at her side with the c
hampagne her father nodded in his direction and said, “Clearly you’re too smart to fall prey to my daughter’s charms.”
Her heart convulsed, and Carly wasn’t sure which was worse—the shame or the pain. She tried to respond, but her reply died when Hunter smoothly stepped closer to her side. A silent promise of protection.
His frigid, steel-like gaze focused on her father and he voiced an icy word of warning. “Careful.”
But this was one encounter Hunter couldn’t save her from. Wrestling with the need to cry, scream and lash out with her words, Carly blinked back the roiling anger. If she didn’t leave now she’d make a fool of herself. After a last glance at her father’s fuming face, she pivoted on her heel and headed out of the living room, leaving the murmur of happy chatter behind.
EIGHT
As William Wolfe stomped off, Hunter watched Carly head down the hallway and wrestled with the intense urge to follow her, resisting the impulse. Despite the danger she posed, he’d shown up tonight because he couldn’t seem to deny himself the pleasure of Carly Wolfe’s company.
After they’d made love, his body completely spent, he’d realized the liberating release had been like none he’d experienced before. And he’d wanted her again. The moment the craving had hit he’d remembered exactly why she’d followed him into the shower room. Plagued by the disturbing thought she was using him, he’d had to bolt or risk losing himself in her a second time. And when he’d spied her sinfully sexy dress tonight, need had smashed him head-on. Angry at himself for being so susceptible, he’d provoked her. Insulted her...just like her father.
Regret churned in his gut. After the scene he’d just witnessed, he had a better understanding of the complex woman so full of softly rounded corners and sharp edges. Brashly forward, yet remarkably vulnerable. Driven at her job, yet oddly innocent at the same time. Hunter still wasn’t entirely clear which side of the Carly equation he fell on—or, in the end, which side she would choose—but he was now convinced she was innocent of every accusation the press had thrown at her three years ago.
Fingers gripping the champagne flutes, he watched her turn into a room at the end of the hall feeling torn, grappling with the need not to be played for a fool again. But at least when he’d suffered his parents had supported him. Booker had stuck by him. But Carly...
When Carly had made her so-called mistake she’d been abandoned by the two people that had mattered most. The knowledge took a chink from his heart and burned in ways it shouldn’t.
Jaw clenched, decision made, he left the party behind and strode down the long corridor, stopping in the open doorway at the end. Color high on her cheeks, mouth set, Carly paced the length of a masculine office done in forest-green, a bordering-on-indecent length of silky leg swishing back and forth beneath her red dress.
He hesitated, and debated changing his mind. Instead he said, “You want to tell me what just happened?”
She never broke her stride, and her tone matched the fury in her pace. “I want you to leave.”
He was used to her charm-and-slash smile, the targeted sarcastic comments and the intentional flirting, but he’d never seen her so blatantly angry before. Not even when he’d insulted her.
Champagne in hand, he slowly entered the room. “I think you should talk about it.”
“No,” she bit out, looking close to either blowing her top or bursting into tears.
He set the glasses on a massive walnut desk. “You might feel better if you cried.”
“No.” Mid-stride, she heaved her purse onto the leather office chair. In a woman who normally brimmed with self-confidence the stark emotion, the seething vulnerability on her face, was hard to watch. “I promised myself I wouldn’t cry about it again. Especially not here.”
His heart twisted, but he ignored it. “Why not here?”
She reached the far wall and turned, heading back in his direction. “Right after the Weaver story blew up in my face and I got fired I came home, looking for support.” Still pacing, she pointed in the direction of the desk, eyes burning with emotion. “And the moment I got back he sat me in this office and lectured me on a reporter’s duty and the main goal of a paper...to make money. He went on and on about the importance of the financial bottom line.” Her eyes looked suspiciously bright, but no tears welled. “He didn’t give a damn how I felt.”
It was the restraint that almost did him in.
She passed him, her scent trailing in her wake.
“Nothing I do is ever good enough. I’ve avoided him for six months.” She fisted her hands. “Six months. And in less than two minutes he’s making cracks about my love-life.”
He watched her retrace her path across the room. “Has your relationship with your father always been difficult?”
“No,” she said. “In some ways that would make it easier. Then I could just walk away. Instead I moved back to Miami.” Her lips pressed in a thin line. “And like a moron I hang around, remembering how it used to be when I was younger...”
It was a dilemma he understood well. Lately he’d been spending a lot of time dealing with the past himself. He let out a long, slow breath. “It’s hard to cut the good memories loose just to free yourself from the bad.”
She stopped in the middle of the room and her gaze met his. “Exactly.”
They studied one another for a moment. Several heartbeats passed and Hunter felt the pull, much as he had in the locker room. But this time it was so much more than sexual. Uncomfortable, he crossed his arms. “When did you two start having trouble?”
A shadow briefly flashed across her face, and she looked a little lost standing in the center of the room. “My mom died when I was a baby, so Dad’s the only family I have. Things got rough when I hit my teens,” she said, threading less than steady fingers through her hair. “Since then all he’s done is berate me over every decision I make, all the way down to the clothes I choose to wear. Pretty soon, I just gave up.” Her mouth twisted grimly, and she smoothed her hand down the silk covering her thighs. “I wore this dress tonight because I knew it would piss my father off.” After a self-derisive scoff, she shook her head and turned to stare desolately out a night-blackened window. When she spoke it was almost as if to herself. “I don’t know why I continue to antagonize him.”
He knew. “Strike first before you get knocked out. It’s a protective habit.” He had a few of those himself.
She looked at him as if the idea was new to her. “Yeah,” she said. “He’s been known to throw a few fast punches. He once accused me of treating boyfriends like shoes from the sale rack.” He lifted a brow in question, and she went on. “Tried on, adored for a few months, and then relegated to the back of the closet.”
He leaned his shoulder against the wood-paneled wall. “Have there been a lot of men?”
“More than a few. Less than too many.” She stared at him a moment before hiking her chin a touch. “Are you judging me?”
“No,” he said truthfully. “It’s not my place to judge. Why do these relationships end?”
“My fault, probably.” With a self-conscious shrug, she sent him a small smile of defeat. “I get bored, and I suspect the guys can sense it.”
Curious, he pushed off the wall and moved closer to Carly. “And what does the turnover rate provide you with?”
She let out a bark of laughter, as if the question was absurd. When he didn’t return the humor she seemed to give the question some thought. “Mostly just a lot of embarrassing break-ups.” She cocked her head. “Did you know there’s a singing telegram service in town that specializes in break-up messages? I’m probably the only recipient in Miami whose address they know by heart.” He bit back the smile as she went on dryly. “So the only thing the turnover rate provides me with is a lot of jokes in the office at my expense.”
“And maybe another method of makin
g your father angry?”
Her scowl was instantaneous. “No,” she said, and then her expression softened to include a bit of uncertainty. “Maybe.” She bit her lower lip, and then doubt replaced the frown completely. “I don’t know,” she said slowly, as if contemplating the possibility.
He stepped closer, looking down at her face. “Or maybe you don’t want anyone around long enough to use you again. Like the senator did.”
Denial surged, and her tone was adamant. “Thomas did not use me.”
He studied her for a bit, wondering who she was trying to convince. Him...or herself.
“Are you sure?” He paused long enough to get her full attention. To hammer his point home. “That’s hard to believe, seeing how when you finally became a hindrance instead of an asset he cut you loose.”
“My story was already out. How was I an ass—?”
“With Wolfe Broadcasting in his pocket, winning elections would be a lot easier.”
Carly closed her eyes, looking as if she’d been struck, and Hunter wanted to kick himself for being so blunt.
“Jeez.” She paused, and then inhaled deeply as if to steady herself. “You’re hell on a girl’s ego, you know,” she said softly. “I don’t know what to believe anymore.” She lifted her lids, and her gaze held an aching vulnerability that killed him. “All I know is...”
It seemed there was plenty she didn’t want to know. “What?” he said quietly.
She scanned his gaze and her amber eyes lost a little of the gold as the brown intensified, growing darker. “All I know is that I want you again.”
Heat and need socked him in the gut, setting off a sensual storm that promised to sweep away his resolve. This wasn’t the reason he’d followed her here, but there was no flirtatious tone. No coy looks. No sassy challenge in her eyes. Just an open honesty that was clearly a cover for a painful defenselessness that made her scent, her soft skin and the desire in her eyes all the more difficult to resist.
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