HOT-BLOODED HERO

by Donna Sterling

  “Self-defense. If we don’t talk to them, they’ll interview everyone we know, everyone we’ve ever met, and some we haven’t. Who knows what they’ll say about us?”

  The prospect of all that publicity made her insides clench. “How did the media get involved in this?”

  “I have my suspicions. My father’s will made it obvious that I’d be marrying soon. Someone probably bribed a clerk in the county marriage bureau to tip him off whenever I showed up. I applied for a license yesterday.”

  “But what’s so newsworthy about a marriage?”

  He shook his head as if the answer escaped him, but amusement glistened in his gaze. “There must be something about millions of dollars, a curse written into a will and a forced marriage between age-old adversaries that some folks consider titillating.”

  Tess ignored his good-natured sarcasm. His mention of “age-old adversaries” had reminded her of the reason for her visit. “Imagine their reaction when I explain that you foreclosed on my father’s business loans to pressure me into marrying you.”

  The amusement left his gaze, and a slight flush rose beneath his tan. But he answered with his usual nonchalance, “There was nothing unethical about those foreclosures. Your father was behind in his payments.”

  “The loan officer admitted to me that they usually extend their grace period for a full month longer than they did for my father.”

  “That’s merely a courtesy we allow some of our long-time borrowers.”

  “And my father certainly wasn’t a long-time borrower of yours. You bought those loans from the original lender only weeks ago.”

  “Months ago. And my father bought them. I didn’t.”

  “Oh, so he was looking ahead, was he?” She glared at him—not quite eye-level despite her highest heels. “And you followed through by foreclosing.”

  “It was business. Just business.”

  “Yes—a maneuver designed to make the McCrary family desperate.”

  He pushed away from the desk and stalked closer to her. “If I’d given your father another month on those loans, would he have come up with enough money to bring them current?”

  Tess hesitated. She clearly wanted to lie, but he probably knew the state of their financial affairs. “Probably not.”

  His gaze roamed her face. “Then I’m doing you a favor, Tess McCrary,” he said softly. “You’ll walk away from our marriage with a million dollars.”

  A million dollars.

  Her throat constricted. She so needed that money. And as much as she hated to admit it, he was right—his actions had not caused her family’s desperation. Her father’s poor judgment had caused his downfall, and her search for Phillip had drained her own bank account. A million dollars would make things right for her parents and give her funds to renew her search for her fiancé. But she could not, in all good conscience, ignore the questions nagging her. “I’m not sure I can go through with the marriage.”

  Cole’s brows gathered. “What? You’ve already agreed. We have a deal.”

  “But that was before I knew the full truth about your father’s will. You told me you only had Westcott Hall to lose. You never mentioned the rest of the forty million dollars. I thought I was simply helping you reclaim your home. But this … this is something much more. Who am I to say that you’re the rightful heir to the estate?”

  “The rightful heir?” He stared at her. “Do you mean you’re ready to give up that million dollars if you determine I’m not?”

  “What’s right is right. I won’t help anyone rob the deserving party.”

  He gaped at her as if she were some alien being. “How are you going to determine who’s deserving? Do you expect me to tell you that I am? Do you really think that any-damn-body in the world deserves forty million dollars?”

  Tess realized with a sense of shock that she’d managed to shake his calm. She’d somehow touched a sensitive nerve.

  He gripped her elbow and steered her to the glass doors, then outside onto the rooftop that overlooked the shining green water of the harbor. He turned her away from the harbor, though, toward downtown Charleston with its historic houses, redbrick alleyways and picturesque steeples, his hands firm and controlling on her shoulders.

  “Do you think I’m not aware of the poverty out there—of the families who wonder where their next meal is coming from? Do you think I don’t know about the millions of people in the world who do without the most basic comforts? Am I supposed to tell you that I’m more deserving of money than they are?” The subdued passion in his voice stunned her.

  “That’s not what I—”

  “Do you want me to tell you about charities that I’ve funded, or children I’ve sponsored, or the lives that my money has saved? Will that make me ‘deserving’ of forty million dollars?”

  “Well, actually, that would weigh pretty heavily in your—”

  “Even if I could claim that I was deserving of the cash, my inheritance is about more than just money.” Tightening his grip on her shoulders, he whisked her into the office and parked her before a wall of paintings that depicted historic houses, shops, inns and plantations. “It’s about places. Important historic places. Does any individual deserve to own pieces of America where wars were won and the country was born and history was made?” Again, his passion surprised her. “No, damn it, Tess.” He dropped his hands from her. “I can’t tell you that I deserve any of it.”

  She couldn’t stop herself from watching him as he paced across the office, his face dark and troubled. This was not the Cole Westcott she’d believed him to be. Unless he simply had the knack of knowing what to say to win a woman over.

  With an inner groan, she wrenched her gaze away from him. Of course he knew what to say. He’d descended from a long line of schemers and sweet talkers. As she opened her mouth to retort—just to let him know she hadn’t fallen for his ad—he held up a hand.

  “Don’t bother to answer. It doesn’t matter what you say, or do, or think.” He stopped before her, his gaze challenging, his masculine scent clouding her reason. “Whether I deserve my father’s estate or not, I am going to claim it. With or without your help.” His determined stare would have backed her up a step if she hadn’t somehow become rooted to the spot. “So do you want that million dollars, or not?”

  Tense silence settled between them.

  “Of course I want it,” she whispered, her gaze shifting beneath his. “But—”

  “But what?”

  “I have to do what’s right.”

  Cole regarded her in utter disbelief. She meant it. The woman would turn down a million dollars if she decided he wasn’t the rightful heir. He’d never have expected that from anybody, let alone from the McCrary who had tried to pin him to the mat during their first negotiation. How deep, he suddenly wondered, did her righteousness go? “Two million,” he tested.

  “Two million?” She frowned, as if confused. “You’re offering me two million dollars to marry you?”

  He nodded as an odd tension built within him. What answer was he hoping for—a yes or a no?

  A yes, of course. The sooner he settled this matter, the better. The money and the property were unquestionably his. The Westcott fortune had always been there for him as one of the few constants in his life. Unlike the nannies, stepmothers, relatives—even his father—all of whom had come and gone, barely skimming the surface of his life, the house, the history and the wealth had always been there. An integral part of him. The defining part of him. He was the Westcott heir.

  Tess McCrary was the only person he’d ever met who didn’t seem to grasp the importance of that distinction. Inhaling deeply, she pressed a hand to her heart and gazed at him in wordless response to his offer.

  He wondered what was going through her mind. He wondered what she’d decide. He wondered how she managed to look so feminine and vulnerable in such a business-like suit, with her hair pulled back in that uncompromising twist, her only adornment a slight glint of gold at her ea
rs and throat. All that severity only made a man want to loosen her up. Peel away the armor. Find the softness.

  “I’m afraid you don’t understand.” Her gaze locked with his. “It’s not a matter of money.”

  “It’s entirely a matter of money.”

  “Okay, maybe it is.” She raised her chin—a stubborn chin with a cleft in the middle. A sexy little cleft. He imagined skimming the tip of his tongue over it … and then upward, to her mouth, her full, smooth, provocative mouth. A militant sparkle in her eyes brought him back to his senses. “But whose money should it be?” she demanded. “Yours, or your father’s former wives? He named them as his heirs in the event that you don’t marry a McCrary. By marrying you, I might be aiding and abetting in a gross miscarriage of justice.”

  He frowned. She couldn’t be for real. She couldn’t possibly be ready to give up millions of dollars for the sake of his wild-and-wicked stepmothers. If he wasn’t so damn frustrated with her, he might have laughed at the very idea.

  “It isn’t always easy for an older woman to make her way in the world,” she went on, “especially after she’s been out of the work force for a while.”

  “Out of the work force?” he repeated blankly. She was obviously laboring under some serious misconceptions.

  “I might not know anything about your father’s wives, but I doubt that they held jobs during their marriages.”

  “They didn’t, but—”

  “Did they have children by your father? Grandchildren?”

  “Hell, no.”

  “So they don’t even have the comfort of family to fall back on.” She looked genuinely distressed by that idea. “I only hope he allowed them enough money to piece their lives back together after he divorced them.”

  “What makes you think he divorced them?”

  “Didn’t he?”

  “I believe it was by mutual agreement.”

  “Well.” She tossed her head and arched her brows in eloquent disdain. “It couldn’t have been easy, being married to a Westcott.”

  That set Cole’s teeth on edge. Amazing, how she’d succeeded in arousing his defensiveness, his anger, his frustration—and on such short acquaintance, too. Other women had gone to extreme lengths to engage even his shallowest emotions; he’d never allowed them access. Business associates had also tried to push his buttons; he’d prided himself on never reacting.

  Why should he care what this woman, this business associate, this McCrary, thought of him or his family? He could find another McCrary bride. His attorney had already collected names of a few other candidates although, admittedly, their relationship to the original McCrary clan of Charleston was distant. The court would have to accept them as descendants nonetheless.

  He didn’t really need Tess at all.

  “Tell you what,” he said, inexplicably loathe to let her out of their agreement. “I’ll leave it up to you to decide how much my stepmothers should get. We’ll write the amounts into our prenuptial agreement before you leave this office today.”

  “Are you suggesting a compromise? I’m assuming that you’ll agree to an amount only if you retain the bulk of the estate. Your stepmothers would get—” Her scornful words broke off when he aimed a remote control at the far wall and panels slid open to reveal a large-screen TV.

  “My assistant recorded a newscast this morning,” he said. “The media found the most outspoken of my father’s ex-wives. Or maybe I should say, she found them.”

  He played the taped interview for her. While Tess watched his elegant blond stepmother express hope that the matter of her late husband’s will could be fairly settled—in her favor, of course—Cole watched Tess. Would the truth make any difference to her way of thinking? Was she genuinely worried about the welfare of these supposedly older women left in the lurch, or did she oppose his inheriting the estate simply because he was a Westcott?

  He read the surprise in Tess’s face as she realized how young and attractive the woman was. One year older than Cole, the interviewer pointed out. Diamonds flashed with her every move while she lounged in an opulent living room.

  The surprise in Tess’s gaze turned to dismay when the reporter asked, “According to your friends, you’d been intimately involved with his son Cole shortly before you married Harlan. Is that true?”

  “We dated briefly,” she hedged. Cole felt Tess’s shocked gaze shift to him; he avoided looking at her. Why should it bother him, having her know about a meaningless affair that had ended the same night it had begun?

  The reporter went on to paint a clear picture of Deirdre. She was Harlan Westcott’s fourth wife. He’d given her over a million dollars in a divorce settlement, in accordance with their prenuptial agreement. She felt she deserved more.

  The reporter mentioned facts about his father’s other two ex-wives. Neither marriage had lasted an entire year. One woman went on to marry an eighty-year-old tycoon, and the other took the money from her divorce settlement and bought a brothel in Las Vegas.

  “So, Tess… In your quest for fairness,” Cole said, breaking the silence that had fallen after he’d turned off the television, “how much do you think my stepmothers should get from my father’s estate?”

  She turned a troubled gaze on him. “They didn’t love him, did they? Any of them.”

  For the umpteenth time since he’d met her, Cole regarded Tess McCrary in astonishment. Love him? Had anybody expected them to? Had anybody perceived them as more than mere luxuries a very rich man could afford?

  He remembered the first time his father had remarried, when Cole was eleven. He had expected from his stepmother if not love, then at least the show of warmth he’d seen between mothers and their children.

  He’d almost forgotten about that disillusionment. “I don’t suppose they did.”

  “Did he love any of them?”

  Cole felt uncomfortable with her questions. Maybe because he’d never been sure of how his father had felt about anybody. “I don’t know.”

  Something too much like sympathy filled her gaze.

  Anger stirred in him. Since when did anyone have cause to pity Harlan Westcott? He’d led a full, happy life. Damn the woman. She had a way of harping on the most uncomfortable subjects.

  “That’s why he came to believe in the curse, wasn’t it?” she theorized in an unexpectedly gentle tone. “Because he never found real love.”

  “Damn it all to hell, Tess, you don’t know that any more than I do.” But he did know it. She’d hit the nail on the head. “His wives may have provided exactly what he’d wanted, and visa versa.”

  “I don’t see how.” After a reflective silence, a cry of dismay escaped her. Cole raised his brows in question. She bit her lip and glanced away from him.

  “What’s wrong now?” he demanded, almost reluctant to ask.

  “If I marry you, everyone will see me as the same kind of woman.”

  He squinted at her, trying his best to follow her convoluted logic. He wasn’t sure understanding was humanly possible.

  Oh, I know I’m not as beautiful as one of your father’s ex-wives,” she amended with an impatient wave of her hand, “but all the same, people would see me as mercenary. Reporters have already asked whether we’ll, um—” She cleared her throat uneasily. “—consummate the marriage.”

  He sensed the effort it cost her to maintain eye contact with him, and gazed at her in wonder. She, Tess of the Infamous BB Gun, found it hard to look him in the eye and talk about consummating their marriage. He found her shyness over the subject to be adorable. He found the innocence behind her shyness, behind her concern, downright irresistible.

  He wanted her.

  The realization hit him out of nowhere. Blind-sided him. Stunned him.

  “If we allow them to believe that we are consummating the marriage,” she went on, striving to make him understand, “the world will see me as the kind of woman who would sleep with a man for money.”

  “Marry a man for money,” he corrected, awa
re that his voice was a little too gruff. He wanted her. “Women do it everyday, and nobody thinks less of them for it.”

  “Women sleep with men for money everyday, too. I don’t want anyone thinking that I do.” She lodged a hip against his desk and contemplated the problem.

  And he contemplated the lushness of her mouth and the smooth luminosity of her skin. He wanted her.

  “I’ll have to set the media straight,” she decided. “During your interview. I’ll make it clear that this is strictly a business deal, and that we won’t be sleeping together.” She slanted him an anxious glance. “You’ll back me up on that, won’t you?”

  He hesitated, hating to answer. “I’m sorry, but we can’t do that.”

  “What?” Her expressive eyes widened. “Why not? Of course we can.”

  “Listen to me, Tess.” He gave in to an urge and caught her by the shoulders—soft, firm, slender shoulders. “There’s forty million dollars at stake. My father’s ex-wives are going to try to have our marriage declared invalid. Their attorney will use any technicality he can find. That’s why we can’t announce to the world that we don’t intend to live as husband and wife. The court might decide we’re not really married.”

  “Are you saying that we have to let everyone think that you… That I…”

  “…are married, in every sense of the word.”

  A blush heated her cheeks. “But everyone will know we’re marrying to satisfy the will. And they’re bound to realize you’re paying me to do it. I can’t stand the idea of having everyone think that I’m sleeping with you for financial reasons.”

  And he couldn’t stand the idea that she might not sleep with him at all. “Then we’ll have to convince them otherwise, won’t we?” At her puzzled look, he clarified, “We’ll make them believe we’re in love.”

  “In love? Oh, come on. Who’s going to believe that?”

  Her scorn wasn’t exactly flattering. But she had a point. Even under the best of circumstances, a woman like her would never really fall in love with a man like him. She belonged to that class of deeply honorable women, most of whom weren’t model beautiful, famous or notably rich. Women who valued family, friends and personal integrity more than fortunes. He’d realized such women existed, in an almost mystical realm, as far he was concerned. He hadn’t personally known of many, and none in his own generation.