The Bad Boy

by Leah Vale

  If only he could trust it.

  He couldn’t keep the hint of derision from his tone. "You love me."

  "Yes," she whispered. Not exactly the loud and proud statement that would challenge his doubts.

  By her own admission, Sara would do anything, say anything to protect the McCoys. A darkness spread over his heart. There was no way on earth he was lucky enough to be sprung from jail so he could join one of the richest families in the nation and be gifted with the love of an incredible woman like Sara.

  He pulled away from her, the need to protect his battered heart strong. Just as it had been when Marcus had laughed at the frightened, devastated, motherless boy Cooper had been. Only somehow, this seemed much worse, much more permanent.

  So he defended himself the only way he knew how. "Sara, it doesn’t take a genius to recognize that you’d do just about anything to become a part of the McCoys. Even hooking up with a guy like me."

  Her face went pale. "What are you saying?" She sounded strangled, either by shock or outrage. Probably both. Good. He knew how to handle a pissed-off Sara. It was the loving, nurturing version that muddled him. Scared him. Made him want to believe.

  He turned away from her and paced to the other side of the desk. "I’m saying that you probably only want me so you can eventually become a part of the family through marriage. Exchange that delicate little anchor around your neck with a nice, sturdy ring on your finger. There’s no other reason for you to say what you just said. I mean, look what I’ve put you through. Why in the world would you ever love me for me, the man I am, not the biological bingo I ended up winning?"

  He glanced at her and found her staring at him as if he’d just popped out of a pod. Maybe he had. He sure as hell felt as though his body had been snatched and replaced by something beyond his control. He wanted nothing more than to go to her and gather her in his arms and try to convince her the last ten minutes hadn’t really happened.

  He grabbed the crumpled letter and the files and walked out of the den, instead, leaving his equally crumpled heart behind.

  Because a man like him didn’t deserve a woman like Sara.

  SARA STARED AT THE DARKNESS beyond the doorway of Joseph’s den and a deeper blackness seeped into her soul. Despite her terror over taking such a leap, she’d admitted her love for Cooper, and he didn’t believe her.

  He thought she only wanted him for the free admission ticket into the McCoy family drama.

  Did she?

  Her knees started to shake and her vision dimmed as if she’d stood up too fast after being asleep too long. Using the desk she’d considered the symbol of great power most of her life for support, she made her way to Joseph's oversize chair. The dark brown leather molded to her shape but chilled her more as she forced herself to examine her deepest yearnings.

  Yes, on the surface it was easy to say she’d give anything to be a permanent part of the McCoys. Marriage was the obvious means to that end. She’d be a family member rather than just an employee, and divorcing a wife was more difficult than firing an employee. She reached for the small anchor charm on its gold chain. So why hadn’t she ever thought of securing her place through marriage? Alexander would have been a prime target despite her thinking of him more as a brother than a husband.

  She looked up at the wonderful portrait of Joseph, Elise and a young Marcus. One of Joseph’s hands rested on his wife’s shoulder, the other on his son’s, linking them all. A circle. A unit. Despite their problems later, thanks to Marcus, it was them against the world.

  Good heavens. When Sara looked deep inside herself she saw that she hadn’t thought of marriage because securing a place in the McCoy family wasn’t what she really wanted. The only family she wanted to be a part of was one of her own making. She yearned for her very own circle. A unique unit to help her move her way through the world.

  And only with Cooper.

  As much as she needed the safety, security and control of her existence within the world Joseph had built, she wanted Cooper more. She wanted his strength and courage and conviction. She wanted the way he made her feel like a woman, not merely a McCoy insider or even the roadblock to his ultimate goal.

  But after seeming to have a clear view into her heart and mind from the moment they’d met. he suddenly couldn’t see the truth of her feelings. Almost as if he’d abandoned her, leaving her bereft and hurt.

  She thought back to their conversations about his childhood. Maybe he couldn’t see the truth of her feelings because the haze of his own pain obscured it. He’d been lied to before about his very existence and set emotionally adrift. And even if he had believed

  her, his mother’s experience had taught him that love could hurt and even destroy.

  Sara’s heart shriveled, and where once blood heated by Cooper’s touch mere hours ago filled her veins, cold despair spread through her. Leaning forward, she crossed her arms and was about to lay her head on her arms and succumb to the burn of tears in the back of her throat. But the steely gaze of the portrait of Joseph caught her attention and she paused. His was the look of a man who never gave up.

  Ever since she’d bailed Cooper out of jail and delivered that letter to him, she’d been doing her damnedest not to fail Joseph. Well, this wasn’t about Joseph anymore, was it? This was about her and Cooper and their future together. How could she even contemplate accepting failure'?

  She sat up and pushed her hair back away from her face. Whether he wanted the distinction or not, Cooper was a McCoy.

  She drummed her lingers on the desk. How had she always convinced Joseph or Alexander or Marcus of something?

  She brought her hand down sharply on the gleaming surface, the noise echoing in the silence. She provided them with concrete proof, that was how.

  Shoving the chair back. Sara stood. She needed to prove to Cooper conclusively that she loved him for him, not for his connection to the McCoys.

  Her blood pumped furiously through her veins once again. There was only one way to prove her love to Cooper, and she could hardly wait to do it.

  "OH, I’M SO SORRY, Mr. Anders!" One of the maids jumped in fright after coming into Cooper’s suite without immediately noticing him.

  Long since showered and dressed in a white oxford shirt and black slacks, he wasn’t sure how long he’d been sitting on the couch, staring unseeing out the window at the new day.

  As soon as he’d become certain Sara wasn’t going to return to his room for a piece of his hide at the most, for her shirt and bra at the least, he’d gotten ready and sat down to wait for his last day in this house to start the letter to a pretty platinum blonde sealed in an envelope and tucked in his shirt pocket. While he had no intention of changing his mind about the course he planned to take, he’d had to war with the disappointment Sara’s failure to return unleashed. He’d come to take her determination for granted.

  The maid--Meg, he thought, with the slender face, short brown hair and thankfully no history with him--started backing out again. "Pardon me, Mr. Anders. I’ll return later."

  "No, don’t go." He pushed himself stiffly to his feet. He’d been waiting for the house to come to life before he left his suite, but apparently, he’d somehow missed noticing the activity when it finally happened.

  "I’m leaving now, anyhow." Soon for good. He was surprised by how much the notion bothered him.

  Her smile was quick and shy as she scurried out of his way, darkening his mood. He wasn’t Prince Charles or anything. More like Brutus with a dagger tucked in his toga.

  Since there was a good chance he’d never see her again, he offered, "Thanks for doing such a good job cleaning up after a slob like me."

  Her big brown eyes widened. "You are so not a slob, Mr. Anders. And it’s my pleasure."

  Actually, it was her job, but he refrained from pointing the fact out. Heaven help him if she curtsied.

  "Well, thank you, anyway," he said, and walked out into the hall.

  He glanced at his watch. Appetite or n
o, he would have normally gone down to the kitchen, where a breakfast plate would be waiting for him, but he needed to be out front to intercept the reporter when she showed up. He hadn’t spoken to her directly, having called too early to get anything but her voice mail, but hopefully she wouldn’t risk losing her exclusive access to Joseph McCoy’s b-day shindig by not showing up.

  The party preparations would get serious today, and in the organized chaos Cooper doubted anyone would see him speaking to a certain lady reporter.

  Or the exchange of a plain white envelope.

  In all the hours he’d sat on his couch he’d stubbornly refused to consider why the prospect of finally exacting his revenge left him feeling cold and empty. Just as he refused to consider why the occasional echo of Sara’s words in his head made his heart race and his blood pound.

  I love you Cooper.

  He clenched his teeth against the yearning those words sparked to life. Her declaration was like fertilizer dumped on a weed. A weed that could strangle him if he let it.

  Helen’s even tone rose to him from the foyer when he reached the top of the stairs. She was directing the setup crew on the placement of small tables to hold the guest book, gifts--like, people would be able to come up with something Joseph didn’t already have--and hors d’oeuvres. Cooper doubted there’d be any sort of champagne cascade. The moral beacon of Dependable, Missouri, wouldn’t want to send the wrong message with a waiter emptying bottle after bottle of bubbly over a pyramid of glasses.

  Allowing the buy-off and threatening of pregnant women was something else entirely. Assuming it remained a secret, that is.

  Cooper touched a hand to the envelope in his shirt pocket. Some secrets didn’t deserve to be kept. As if on cue, through the half-moon window above the double front door, he saw the entertainment "news" show’s van pull up in the circular drive, then thankfully park discreetly next to a linen delivery truck.

  He hovered at the top of the staircase until Helen headed down the hall beneath him toward the back of the house, her sensible heels clicking with brisk efficiency on the cherrywood floor. Cooper wondered if she was aware of the file with her name on it in Joseph’s bottom drawer. It wasn’t as if he kept the drawer locked.

  Had she been threatened with ruin, as well as losing the right to hear her son call her Mom? And how could she continue working for the McCoys if she had? Though the chance to be with her son probably outweighed any bitter feelings she might have. Or maybe, like his own mother, she’d fallen in love with Marcus and would withstand anything to be near him.

  Too bad Sara had come into the den before he’d had the chance to look into Helen’s file, too. He certainly hoped she’d been a willing participant in the deal that had made Alex a McCoy from birth.

  Cooper hustled down the stairs and was out of the house, shutting the door quietly behind him, before the reporter, Maddy Monroe, had maneuvered her red, pencil-thin short skirt out of the passenger seat. Her matching double-breasted blazer and cream top were all business, but the height of her beige pumps and skirt reminded him of Sara’s beguiling outfit on his first day in the office.

  Being eye candy was probably mandatory in the gossip-reporting business. Guys were undoubtedly more likely to dish when ogling a seemingly endless sexy leg. While definitely a stunning woman--not to mention famous for more than her "reporting" on Entertainment This Evening, though he couldn’t remember what--she couldn’t hold a candle to Sara.

  A bolt of pain with an upstroke of regret blasted through him. He missed her so much already.

  Cooper’s grimace deepened at the sight of the cameraman rounding the hood of the white van. This was not something he was going to do on camera.

  Apparently catching the gist of his thoughts from his expression, the first thing out of the reporter’s perfectly lined, full mouth was "Dan’s just here to scout for good backdrops." She made a shooing gesture to her partner.

  Yeah, that was why he had his camera out and ready to go. Cooper simply nodded and said, "Good."

  She extended a slender hand with white-tipped nails and smiled a TV smile. "I’m--"

  It struck Cooper where he knew her from, and without thinking he interrupted her. "You were the fill-in Miss Central USA a few years ago."

  Her smile tightened at the edges. "Seven, actually. And yes, as the first runner-up, I stepped in when the young lady who’d won found herself unable to complete her reign."

  "After landing herself on the pages of every news-magazine for getting caught playing 'show me' with a married congressman."

  "Yes, well..." She straightened the fall of her blazer. "Getting back to the introductions, I’m Madeline Monroe--"

  "I thought it was Maddy Monroe?"

  She rolled one shoulder. "My producers prefer that, yes. At any rate, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Anders. Or is it Mr. McCoy now?"

  Cooper ground his teeth at being unable to hand over the letter with any degree of anonymity. If only it could have reached her in time through the mail, or the delivery services were willing to withhold the name of the sender. No. That would have been the coward’s way. If he was going to do this, he’d do it like a man.

  He pulled the envelope from his shirt pocket. "No, it’s Anders."

  Ms. Monroe inclined her head in acknowledgment. "Am I correct in assuming you were the ‘McCoy family representative’ who requested my presence this morning?"

  Like a fool, he hesitated, and she leaned toward him and stage-whispered, "You have a very distinctive deep voice, you know."

  Cooper grunted. Could he trust this woman to keep his name, and his mother’s. from becoming the focus of the scandal? His mother’s inclusion, to a certain extent, was unavoidable. But he was determined to protect her memory from the worst of the muck.

  Ms. Monroe produced a small recorder from her blazer pocket. "I’m a stickler for accuracy. Do you mind?"

  "As a matter of fact, I do. Strongly. Besides, I’m not interested in giving any kind of interview. Actually, for the record, we’ve never spoken." He glanced toward the house. "And to that end..." With his free hand, he gestured for her to precede him around the 'van, putting it between them, the house and her cameraman on one side and the delivery truck on the other, to shield them from the private drive.

  For whatever reason, he needed to keep the hand holding the envelope tucked behind his hip. He couldn’t believe his reluctance to move in for the kill.

  Her pale blue eyes glittered in the morning sun as she obviously caught the sent of scandal. She practically scampered around the nationally syndicated TV show’s white van.

  The second he joined her, she asked, "So?"

  He pointed to her fist. "First put the recorder in the van."

  Her shoulders slumped, but with a quirk of her mouth, she did as he asked. She jerked the driver’s door open and tossed the small recorder unceremoniously inside. With a resigned look, she slammed the door shut. "There. And l promise to keep you an unnamed source."

  Cooper considered her hard, wondering what a promise from her was worth.

  She raised her hand, her first two fingers up and together. "Hey, scout’s honor."

  Hoping she fit that organization’s criteria better than he would have, he continued to weigh the costs of blowing the whistle on Marcus.

  Madeline Monroe threw out a slender hip and planted a hand on it. "Look. l swear you can trust me. I’m doing my livin’ best to get hired onto a real news program, and no matter how big a golden ticket a juicy story on the McCoys, of all people, would be, if word got out that I didn’t protect my sources, I’d have to kiss my dreams goodbye."

  She seemed sincere. Cooper moved the envelope between his lingers. Another beautiful, sincere face appeared in his mind. Sara begging him to give up on his revenge. He clenched his jaw tighter against the searing sensation of being torn in two on the inside.

  "All right," he forced himself to say.

  She beamed. "Wonderful. Now, don’t get me wrong, I like Joseph
and all, and I did my darnedest once to get to know Alex, but I’m not surprised there was something seamy to this sudden appearance of all these previously undiscovered grandchildren. It never fails that these rich demigods, who set themselves up as bastions of morality, turn out to be a blighted bunch."

  The fire in Cooper’s chest was absolute and just as unexpected. He’d thought virtually the exact thing time and again, but hearing it from someone else, someone with only her own prejudices to draw conclusions from, made his blood boil.

  "There is absolutely nothing blighted about Joseph and Alexander McCoy. They are everything they appear to be and more, Ms. Monroe. I’ve seen example after example of their integrity and morality while living and working with them."

  Sara’s arguments pounded in his head. What if those files really had been Marcus’s, found only after his death? And if not? Would hurting the McCoys change a damn thing for his mother?