Her heart was aching, and much as she wanted to talk to her friends about it, she couldn’t. Marc had tried to talk her into the role last night as they’d watched TV on the couch together. But even then, she’d kept her mouth shut. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Marc or the others; it was just…embarrassing. She didn’t want them to see her differently. And finding out she’d been committed to a mental facility? That had a tendency to change the way people saw her.
She hated the idea of explaining the surrounding circumstances, defending herself like she was some sort of criminal on trial. Even her parents hadn’t believed her side of the story. How could she expect anyone else to?
After the institution she’d spent a miserable few weeks back at her parents’ place attempting to pretend nothing had happened, pretending she didn’t hear the whispers from her former friends or the embarrassment in her parents’ voices when they had to explain why she was back, why she’d left New York and all of her dreams of being a ballerina.
I’m afraid the stress was too much for her, she’d heard her mom say in a hushed, apologetic tone. We should have known better than to let her go off on her own. She’s always been sensitive, you know.
She’d decided then and there that she’d needed a new start. Somewhere where her ex’s words weren’t haunting her, where she wouldn’t be a source of shame to her family. Somewhere she could get her head on straight and meet people who liked her for who she was. A place where she wouldn’t be judged or manipulated.
She wouldn’t go back. She would rather lose her job at the theater than go back to the world she’d left behind. She’d come too far to go back now. And even if she wanted to, how could she? Too much time had passed. Her family would never forgive her even if she wanted to return to their world.
Tears threatened to spill, and the effort to hold them back had her throat aching and her head pounding.
This was her home now; she couldn’t just walk away. Not again.
But what other choice did she have? That plaintive inner voice had to be silenced. Ruthlessly, she forced herself to face facts. She’d gone six years without seeing her family or the people she’d considered friends once upon a time. If she did as Gregory asked, she’d be forced to reenter that world. She couldn’t do it.
Coward.
But it wasn’t just that. She had to think about the theater and its future. If she became the face of The Ellen and the people Gregory wanted to impress remembered her—and they would—the theater would be tainted by her history just as surely as she was. No, it was better that she walk away now.
She watched her friends laughing and chatting and tried not to get too maudlin. It wasn’t like they’d disown her if she stopped working at The Ellen. But who knew if her replacement would continue Operation Petticoat on Saturday mornings, and what if she wasn’t welcome—
“So what are you going to do?” Jake had taken a break from his customers and joined them, interrupting the conversation and drawing all attention back to her and her dilemma.
Marc seemed to see her answer written all over her face. “Nooo,” he wailed. “Please tell me you’re not going to wuss out just because he wants you to talk to people.”
She swallowed down a bitter retort. It wasn’t like she wanted to say no. But anything she said would open the door for questions. Judging by the way Marc was watching her, she figured she’d already be in the hot seat when she got home that night. But for now…
She pushed her stool back and started donning her winter coat and scarf. “I’m sorry.” She didn’t trust herself to look up at her friends as she said it. Their answering silence made her guilt intensify. She was letting them down. But it was better this way. Or it would be better in the long run.
She had to believe that; it was the only way she could bring herself to do what needed to be done.
* * * *
Gregory had given her the location of his office at Blanchard Group headquarters, which was housed in one of the many high-rises in Midtown. It had been ages since she’d been anywhere so posh and corporate looking—she’d gotten used to working in a run-down theater where the dress code was typically an oversized sweatshirt. Riding up in the noiseless elevator, watching the numbers fly by, she was painfully aware of how underdressed she was with her knee-high winter boots, jeans, and heavy but unfashionable winter coat.
Everyone around her was dressed to perfection in pencil skirts and suits. Fidgeting with the strap of her messenger bag, she reminded herself that she wasn’t here to look good. There was no one to impress. She was merely here to quit her job. Which she loved.
Another round of tears had her swallowing thickly. It wouldn’t be the first time she had to start a new life. At least this time she had Marc and the others at her side. They’d forgive her for leaving the theater, that much she knew.
The doors opened on floor thirty-one, and Tamara entered through thick wooden double doors to find herself in the pristine lobby of The Blanchard Group with a view that rivaled the top of the Empire State Building.
She was vaguely aware of a perfectly coifed blonde heading toward her with a bright smile but couldn’t tear her eyes away from the view. God, how did anyone get any work done here with this view?
“Can I help you?” the blonde asked.
“I’m Tamara Pierce. I’m here to see Gregory Blanchard.”
If the blonde thought it odd that an unkempt woman who looked like she came from the wrong side of the tracks was here to see the billionaire playboy, she didn’t let on. She merely tilted her head in acknowledgement and told Tamara to follow her.
She should have left bread crumbs. The woman led her through a maze of hallways before stopping in front of a corner office. Of course the heir apparent had a corner office. The blonde knocked once before opening the door and gesturing for her to go in. No sooner had she stepped foot in the office than the blonde shut the door behind her. Gregory’s head was down, and the door’s soft click made her jump.
Crap, what was she going to say? Inexplicable nerves made her mouth dry, and for a moment she stood there gawking at the top of his head. She’d had it all planned out, but now those words had scattered and she couldn’t think of anything, let alone a coherent sentence to explain herself.
Then he looked up, which didn’t help matters. This conversation would have been difficult with anyone, but that it had to be with Gregory, of all people? Sometimes life just wasn’t fair.
As if that was news.
He smiled and shut his laptop, leaning back in his seat looking quite pleased with himself. Her stomach clenched painfully. He must have thought she’d come to accept the position. She shifted in place, clasping her hands in front of her, and watched as his expression shifted. The smile fell a bit, and he crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re turning me down.”
It wasn’t a question, but she nodded anyway.
“Why?”
Her throat closed up. God, he made her too nervous to breathe. She cleared her throat and tried to remember the speech she’d prepared. “I don’t think it would be in The Ellen’s best interests—”
“Bullshit.”
She blinked in shock. “Excuse me?”
“This isn’t about the theater; this is about you.” He pushed his chair back and stood. Had he always been so tall? Had his shoulders always been so broad? She didn’t remember ever thinking he filled up an entire room the way he did as he stalked toward her.
He came to a stop a foot in front of her—close enough for the conversation to feel suddenly intimate but not near enough to be intimidating. There was no reason for her to feel this rush of nerves that bordered on terror.
“What are you so afraid of?” His voice was low and his gaze intent, as if he was trying to read something in her eyes.
She looked down at the floor. “Nothing.” Everything. She couldn’t stand his stare a
ny longer. “It’s just that I’m not the right person for this position. I’m not what you need.”
“You are exactly what I need.” His words seem to hang in the air between them. She couldn’t stop staring at her feet, as if her boots might be able to explain why that phrase hit her so deeply. The simple sentence echoed through her even as she told herself he didn’t mean it like that. Clearly, he hadn’t meant to imply—
“Oh hell.”
His low growl had her looking up, the shock of the guttural sound enough to break her boot fixation. She shouldn’t have looked up. He was closer now, and his gaze had gone from intent to predatory.
When he was so close she could barely breathe, she managed to whisper, “What are you doing?”
“What I wanted to do that first night I met you before you ran away from me.” His voice was a growl, and it sent shivers racing through her. “What I couldn’t do yesterday when you were still my employee. But now…”
She found herself holding her breath and forced herself to exhale. “Now?”
His answer came in the form of a kiss. Hot and possessive, his lips moved over hers insistently. This was nothing like the gentle, sweet kiss at the theater. This was everything that kiss had hinted at—it was the fulfillment of that promise. This kiss was hard, demanding, filled with passion. The shock of it had her brain going blank, and then sensations took over. Blissful, hot, sweet, and torturous all at once. A craving she hadn’t known she’d harbored was unleashed with that kiss, and the onslaught of desire made her incapable of doing anything other than surrendering.
In one heartbeat she’d gone from passive victim of the kiss to passionate participant. Her lips clashed with his. Their tongues tangled. His arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her tight, just as she slipped her hands into the hair at the nape of his neck, holding him close.
His body was hot and hard against hers, and for the briefest of moments, it didn’t matter who she was or that he was a blast from her past. The only thing that mattered was that this kiss was devastating in its intensity, washing away her history and making her new again. She was in the moment, and the moment was everything.
Until a cough came from the doorway behind her.
They both froze before pulling apart slowly. Gregory kept his hands on her waist, a reassuring touch even as blood rushed to her cheeks. What had she done?
But there was no time to go down that rabbit hole, not when someone had witnessed her lapse of sanity. Someone who worked for The Blanchard Group, clearly.
“So sorry to interrupt, son,” the voice from the doorway said.
Son. Her stomach pitched and rolled. She knew that voice. It was a voice that used to intimidate the hell out of her when he’d come over for dinner parties and bridge night. It couldn’t be… But even as she tried to tell herself she was being paranoid, the rational part of her brain reminded her that he’d called Gregory “son.”
Oh hell. This was Gregory’s father—one of her parents’ best friends and the man who could ruin everything. Panic had blood roaring past her ears, making it difficult to hear. Oh God, the rush of blood was making her lightheaded. Don’t you dare faint.
“No, clearly you’re not interrupting anything.” Gregory’s voice dripped with sarcasm. To her horror, he took a step away from her, and she heard his father walk into the office. Seconds later he was standing next to them.
She forced herself to focus on her breathing. Passing out in the middle of Gregory’s office would not help matters. She needed to focus. Concentrate. She had to get out of here before he recognized her.
“Aren’t you going to introduce me to your new friend?” He’d addressed the question to Gregory, but he turned to her, and Tamara resisted the urge to look him in the face. It had been years since Gregory’s father had visited her family home…. Or at least years since she’d been there to help entertain him and his wife. If she walked away quickly, she could escape without being recognized. Move. Move now.
She started to turn, but his voice stopped her cold.
“Tammy?” His tone was incredulous. “Why Tammy Vanguard, what a pleasure to see you again.”
Chapter 5
Gregory watched in horrified fascination as Tamara—his Tamara, as he’d come to think of her for some unknown reason—blanched at the use of that name. That name. He recognized it, but he couldn’t jar loose the connection.
But clearly his father knew the name…and her. That fact made him blind with rage. She was his, not his father’s. But that was ridiculous. She didn’t belong to either of them, and he certainly wouldn’t stand by and watch her squirm in misery under his father’s cold, watchful gaze. Not even knowing what he was doing or why, he interceded on her behalf once it became abundantly clear that she was frozen silent at the mention of her name. Her real name, apparently.
“Father, Tamara was just on her way out. If you’ll excuse us.” Grabbing Tamara by the elbow, he led her out of the office, trying not to wonder at her icy rigidity or the sudden change in her demeanor.
At the doorway, he let her go and she finally broke out of her silence to look up at him with impossibly wide eyes brimming with tears. “Thank you. And I-I’m sorry.”
With that she turned and fled, her big winter coat disappearing around a corner—the wrong corner, he dimly noted. Hopefully one of his colleagues would find her and lead her back to the elevator. In the meantime, he had a father to contend with.
He turned slowly, taking a moment to swallow the bitter emotions that always threatened to cloud his judgment when his father was around, and especially so today. It killed him that his father knew more about his mystery woman than he did.
“Well done, son. You’ve gone from melodramatic arm candy straight to the insane asylum.”
The rush of blood to his head had Gregory quite literally seeing red. He’d gotten used to the jabs his father took at the women in his life. His father was of the mindset that Gregory, as usual, failed in his love life as he did everything else. The older man’s complaint, which covered all of his failures, it seemed, was that his son was too emotional. Not rational enough and definitely not level-headed or committed. In short, he was his mother’s son—destined to disappoint, at best. At worst, he was doomed to hurt the ones he loved.
In business, his father saw this as a danger. His tendency to follow his gut rather than the spreadsheet was a constant source of concern. And in his private life, his father saw his tendency to date women based on something so crass as attraction and passion as even more of a danger. Not necessarily to the company’s bottom line, but to something even more precious, if that was possible—the family name.
From the time he was old enough to speak, the monumental significance that was “the family name” had been drilled into him. It went without saying that his mother had tarnished the name. And the family name was certainly not honored when he tainted its pristine image by associating with women of a lesser caliber.
In short, his family was a bunch of snobs and his father was the worst of them. He still believed in ancient notions of good blood and marrying for breeding rights as if they were aristocracy and not just stinking rich.
So yes, he was used to his father’s insults when it came to the women in his life—and to be honest, he sometimes wondered if that wasn’t what drew him to the women he dated. They were almost always loud and vulgar to some extent. Famous and beautiful, yes, but they were miles away from the blue-blooded proper maidens his father paraded past him at family functions.
He’d grown almost immune to his father’s insults on that front. Except for today. Except for Tamara…and she wasn’t even his girlfriend.
“Don’t talk about her like that,” he snapped. He cursed himself for it a moment later as his father’s grin turned cold and knowing. Shit, he’d shown his hand to his opponent as if this were their first go-round and not their millionth showdown.
“You don’t remember her, do you?”
Vanguard. The last name clicked. Memories of a giant house in the Hamptons. A family just as dysfunctional as his. Christmas parties, family dinners. They were friends of his parents. He’d hung out with their son, John, at the obligatory social functions. A fun kid who’d liked to party and hit on girls. And the Vanguards had a daughter. John’s little sister. A quiet girl who’d clung to her parents’ shadow rather than go off to parties with her brother and his friends.
Tammy.
He had a vague idea that there’d been rumors around her, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember what they were. He and John hadn’t been close friends, and they didn’t keep in touch after John was sent off to some boarding school in the Alps. By the time whatever scandal had occurred, he’d been off to college, out of his parents’ grip, and had wanted nothing to do with their social circle, let alone their gossip.
He racked his brain to remember something. Anything. The fact that his father knew more about her than he did was infuriating.
“It was a shame, really,” his father said, shaking his head in a blatantly phony display of empathy. “She was such a sweet girl. You never would have thought that she’d be so…”
What? Be so what? But he wouldn’t give his father the satisfaction.
“I wonder if her parents know she’s here,” his father continued. He walked over to the liquor cabinet and helped himself to a drink. “They were worried sick when she ran away. Mortified, really.”
He noted with a heavy dose of black humor that his father seemed to think being worried and mortified were one and the same. If her parents were anything like his father, “worried” was a nice way of saying that whatever she’d done, they’d been embarrassed by it.
Her Leading Hero Page 6