Daring Dylan (The Billionaire Brotherhood Book 2)

by Jacie Floyd

  Her former fiancé bounded from his expensive vehicle with his usual panache, like a favored son on his way to play polo, perform brain surgery, have an audience with the pope, or some other exalted activity too rarefied for the common folk.

  He looked the same as always, but Gracie’s vision had changed. The once handsome face now appeared weak and fatuous in the stark sunlight. Pompous and arrogant. Snooty and deceitful. She could go on, but what would be the point? He represented a closed chapter in her life.

  “Gracie, darling,” he said, strolling toward her.

  MacDuff ran over to Baxter, sniffed the expensive loafers, and barked a warning. The jerk scooted him away with a disdainful toe.

  Baxter wasn’t a “dog person,” as he always said. As if that excused his dislike of Gracie’s pet. He wasn’t much of a people person either, except when it suited him to be. She’d overlooked both annoying habits for too long.

  “Hello, Baxter.” She ducked and evaded the embrace he tried to bestow upon her.

  “I’ve missed you.”

  “Have you now?” she asked, confused by both his comment and presence. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to see you.” He gave her his most-winning smile, the one that expected a smile in return at the least, sex in return at the most. When she didn’t respond in either of the preferred methods, he frowned, took out his handkerchief, brushed off the step, and sat down beside her.

  She pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “I thought I made it clear that I never wanted to see you again.”

  “Now, Gracie.” His patronizing tone bugged the hell out of her. “You’re not still angry with me, are you?”

  “Not really. Frankly, I’ve been too busy to give you much thought.”

  “Now that I’m here, we can resolve our problems.”

  She looked at him and blinked. “What problems?”

  “My life is a mess without you. I can’t find anything in the townhouse. I never have clean laundry. There’s nothing decent to eat in the refrigerator. I want you back, Gracie.”

  She shook her head. Just like Baxter to equate the loss of the physical comforts she had provided with the loss of her. “It’s nothing a competent personal assistant couldn’t remedy.”

  “That’s not what I want, Gracie.” He draped his arm around her shoulders, but she shrugged him off. “Do you want me to tell you the truth?”

  “That would be a novel experience.”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  In a rare display of discomfiture, Baxter brushed his hand through his hair, disturbing its normal perfection, before he remembered himself and patted it back into place. “I hate it that you’re not there when I come home at night. I miss those little notes you used to leave on my mirror in the morning. I want to wake up and have breakfast in bed with you on Sunday mornings.” He took her hand in his and squeezed until she met his gaze. “I’m sorry about Jillian.”

  She fixed him with a searching look. “Just Jillian?”

  “The others, too.” He pulled the cold, impersonal two-carat diamond ring he’d chosen for her the year before from his pocket and held it out. “Take it back, please,” he said, almost strangling over the unfamiliar word.

  She knew Baxter and his moods. This one seemed sincere and repentant, but for how long? She could only envision them repeating the same mistakes in the future. And deep down she had to share the blame for the problems that had come between them. In her heart of hearts, she had never really loved him. Not the way she loved Dylan. “I’m sorry, but I—”

  He talked over her refusal. “I see no reason we can’t move up the wedding to early fall or late summer.”

  Gracie’s jaw dropped. What parallel universe did he live in? The one where everything she said was indecipherable static while his wants and desires were received with unqualified acceptance? Not in this lifetime. Not again.

  “Not gonna happen, Baxter.”

  “Then where are you planning on living?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If you aren’t coming back, you should make arrangements to have your things removed from my apartment.”

  She should have seen that one coming. His way of reminding her that if she wasn’t going to be useful to him, he wanted her out of his life. And she sure wouldn’t be able to afford a place as nice as his on her own. She wished she’d never moved in with him. “Of course, I’ll take care of it as soon as I return.”

  The screen door slapped shut, and a throat cleared behind her. “Ahem.” And with the sound, for just a moment, she perked up. “Sorry to interrupt.”

  Gracie stood, tripped on her shoestring, and tumbled. Dylan caught her, brushed her off, and slid his arm around her waist.

  “There you go again, Grace. Tripping over your own feet.” Baxter’s condescension filled her with the urge to slap him. “Although graceless is closer to the truth.”

  His perceived irony of her name had been one of his little jokes that she had never found amusing.

  “I like her name,” Dylan said. “It’s perfect for her.”

  “What?” She glanced at him in pleased surprise.

  “Well.” Baxter narrowed his eyes on the hold Dylan kept on her arm. “Dylan Bradford,” he observed. “What are you doing here?”

  “Baxter Delacort,” Dylan said in the same over-bred stick-up-his-butt tone Baxter had used. “I’ve been staying here.”

  “You’re a guest at Liberty House?” Baxter sniffed. “Unless you brought someone to party with, it doesn’t seem up to your usual style.”

  Dylan’s arms encircled Gracie’s waist and drew her back against him. “Everything about it suits me just fine.”

  Gracie swiveled her head between them. “You two know each other, I take it.”

  “Of course,” Baxter said.

  “How?”

  “We were at prep school at the same time,” Dylan explained.

  “Small world,” Gracie drawled. “Baxter, I’ll be right back. I was just seeing Dylan off.” She started to pull him down the steps behind her, but he dug in his heels. “Come on.”

  “I’ve decided to stay.”

  Her eyebrows shot up her forehead. “No you haven’t.”

  “You might need me.”

  Prickles of irritation crept up her skin. “For what?”

  He looked meaningfully at Baxter. “This or that.”

  “I can handle this or that myself, and I don’t want you staying out of some misguided sense of loyalty, jealousy, responsibility, or whatever it is you feel.“

  “I’ll stay if I want to,” he said.

  “That’s just it. You don’t want to stay. You want to go. And you should. Now.” She shooed him away with her hands like a pesky fly. “Go now.”

  Gran pushed open the screen door. “Oh, good, Dylan. You’re still here. You left your phone on the table. It started beeping.”

  “Thanks, I’ll need that.” He took the phone and glanced at his texts, and then did a double-take. “My sister’s having her baby. It’s not time yet.” He pushed his hands through his hair and left it standing on end. “I’ll call Linc on the way to the airport.” He bounded down the stairs, stopped and returned to Gracie. “Now I really do have to go.”

  “Everything will be fine.” She let him take her by the hand and pull her away from the porch. “But you should go. Immediately.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said when they were out of earshot of the porch. “I don’t want to leave you here with that asshole.” He stopped beside his car and crossed his arms. “You said it was over between you. From what I overheard, he doesn’t believe it.”

  “So he says.” Gracie stared in fascination as the tips of Dylan’s ears turned red. “But what’s it to you? You were planning on leaving anyway.”

  His face creased in concern. “You aren’t going to marry him are you?”

  No way in hell would she marry Baxter. But some little devil inside her urged her to keep Dylan g
uessing. “I’ll have to listen to what he has to say.”

  He took her hand. “Gracie, don’t do it. He’s not good enough for you.”

  She would have liked to let him stew about it a bit longer, but the idea of marriage to Baxter was too repulsive to even joke about, and Dylan had too many other things on his mind to see the humor in anything. “You seem to have this mistaken idea that I’m better than other mortals, but I’m not. I don’t deserve any more than any other woman, and it’s my business to make sure I don’t settle for less than I want. Believe me, Dylan, I won’t.”

  “Good for you.” He smiled a sad smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I hope you get whatever that is.”

  “So do I.” She met his gaze straight up until his filled with such anguish she had to look away.

  He rubbed the nape of his neck and took a step back. “I think I love you,” he said, although the admission made him look green around the edges. “But love wasn’t enough for my father. Or Uncle Arthur. I’m not sure it would be enough for me either, but I know I couldn’t live with myself if I caused the people I cared about this kind of pain.”

  “Nothing worthwhile comes with a written guarantee.”

  He shook his head, and she knew he’d have to discover the truth on his own. She hoped she wasn’t too old to enjoy it, if, and when, he did.

  They could stand there tossing what ifs back and forth for hours and never come to a satisfactory resolution. But she couldn’t take the anguish a moment longer, and he had someone else who needed him.

  “You need to go,” she said, ready to deal with the parts of her own life that required tending. “But think about this. I do love you, and I’m absolutely sure about it.”

  Before she stepped out of reach, he pulled her into his arms and kissed the living daylights out of her. She read into the kiss the certainty of all the emotions he seemed uncertain about and tucked the memory away to examine more closely later. Her head reeled when he finally released her. He threw Baxter a mocking salute and climbed into the car.

  “Take care,” Gracie whispered. “Fly safely.”

  She closed her eyes as he drove away. The last thing she needed was to watch one more person she loved leaving her behind.

  A week later, Dylan sat beside his sister’s bed and watched her cradle his niece in the crook of her arm. After an emergency C-section, a nerve-wracking delivery that scared him half to death, both mother and child were doing well.

  “Do you mind that I named her Margaret after Mother?” Natalie ran a gentle finger over the baby’s duck fluff hair.

  “I hoped you would.”

  “Linc and Josh are already calling her Maggie, though, which doesn’t sound so stuffy for an infant.”

  “Linc’s been flying high, every time I see him.” Dylan chuckled at the memory of his brother-in-law, grinning like a clown, laden with armloads of flowers, toys, and balloons.

  “I know.” She blessed him with one of her Madonna-with-Child smiles. “You don’t know this yet, but the very best days of your life are the days your children are born.”

  “Don’t know it and am unlikely to find out.” Unless Gracie is pregnant.

  Would she know by now? Probably not.

  Would she contact him if she were pregnant? Probably not.

  He’d called to tell her that Natalie had delivered a little girl and all was well, but he’d gotten her voicemail. He’d called Liberty House and left the same message with Nora who said she’d pass the news along. He hadn’t heard a word from Gracie.

  He was itching to call and talk to her in person. But a phone call was so much less then he wanted from her and so much more than he wanted to risk.

  “Oh, Dylan, no,” Natalie protested. “Why not?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” He was too depressed to deny the truth. “The Bradford men are not good husband and father material.”

  She huffed her displeasure. “You are if you want to be. Nothing in your supposed ‘genes’ say otherwise. You can’t use other people’s mistakes to justify your own chicken behavior.”

  “Chicken behavior! Who are you calling chicken? I’ve had more death-defying adventures in the past six months than you’ve had in the past ten years.”

  “Mountain climbing, race car driving, skydiving? So what? You don’t do anything that tests your heart.”

  “You’re right about that. My heart would fail the test.”

  “No, it wouldn’t,” she insisted. “I know you. I knew our father, too. He was wonderful with both of us, and I’m just as certain that he loved our mother.”

  “But that wasn’t enough.”

  “Enough for whom? It may not have been enough for you, for your suddenly exalted standards, and it may not have been perfect, but it was more than enough for Mom and Dad.”

  God, he hoped so. He hated thinking of his mother concealing her pain to maintain her marriage. “Do you think Mother knew about Dad and Karen?” He asked the questions that had been eating at him and all week. “Do you think there were others?”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t care. Married couples make mistakes, and they make their peace in their own way. I think Mother would have weighed the good with the bad and found more to the good. But it was her choice. And one thing I know for sure is that neither one of them would have wanted either one of us to let their experiences affect us in a negative way.”

  What she said made sense, but then, in his heart, he wanted to be persuaded. “And what about Uncle Arthur and Aunt Delia?”

  “Oh, dear, it’s so sad about them. They’re both taking it hard that Frank is moving to California. Aunt Delia’s talking divorce, but Uncle Arthur’s trying to win her back. I don’t know what would be best.” She sighed and moved the baby to her shoulder.

  “I’m not going to file an insurance claim on the cabin. That might keep him out of jail on the arson charge.”

  “Very generous. I hoped that’s what you’d decide.”

  “That doesn’t let him off the hook though.” He scowled. “And I didn’t do it for him.”

  “No, but if they’re ever to have a life together again, it’s a start.”

  “How can you be so damn nice all the time?” A talent inherited from their mother. “Are you and Linc truly happy?”

  “We truly are. Yesterday, yes. Today, yes. But tomorrow? Who knows? I think we will be, but things happen.”

  “How can you stand not knowing?”

  “Because we’ve pledged our lives to one another and to our children and that’s enough for me.” She held her hand out to him. “When it comes to a commitment, sometimes you just have to close your eyes and jump. Are you sure there isn’t someone out there who would be worth the risk for you?”

  Memories of russet curls and dark brown eyes seared his brain. Involuntarily, he pictured Gracie with a baby in her arms, looking all content and maternal. Again, he had no difficulty picturing her as a wife or a mother. He just couldn’t see her as his wife or the mother of his children.

  Like hell, he couldn’t. Suddenly, he couldn’t see anything else.

  “Maybe there is.” He stood up and kissed his sister and her new baby. “Just maybe. If I haven’t blown it completely.”

  “Don’t wait too long to find out, okay?”

  How long was too long? How long was long enough? If he went to Gracie now, what would she say? What would she do? The uncertainty gnawed at him, but his hunger for Gracie grew.

  “Victoria will be here next week, you know.”

  “Who?”

  “Linc’s cousin, remember?”

  “I do, Natalie, but I’m sorry. She sounded perfect for me, and I wanted to give her a chance, for your sake, but introduce her to someone else, will you? Maybe she’d like to meet Ryan Eastland. With any luck, I’ve already met my fate.”

  Chapter Thirty-two

  The next morning, Dylan flew the Gulfstream back to East Langden. Back to Gracie.

  He doubted if either he or Gracie were the
most trusting people in the world these days. Trust was something they’d have to relearn together. He hoped he hadn’t left it until too late to convince her to give him a try. He’d do his best.

  His sister and brother-in-law thought that would be enough.

  Wyatt thought that would be enough.

  Ryan thought he was nuts to be considering marriage, but whatever. Ryan had been a little down lately.

  Dylan hoped his best effort would be enough for Gracie. And he hoped to God she’d booted that pretentious snob Delacort’s butt all the way back to Hartford. If she hadn’t, Dylan just might do the job himself.

  At Liberty House, Clay and Tanya stepped out the back door with a little boy just as Dylan emerged from the rental car. It would probably take some time before Clayton felt truly at ease with him, but most of the obvious animosity had disappeared. They eyed each other carefully.

  “How’s David?” he asked.

  “Improving slowly.” Clay shuffled his feet and hoisted the little boy into his arms. “He and Gracie told me about what happened with David your dad. Thanks for not pressing charges.”

  “What good would it do? Wrongs have been committed on all sides. I hope we can put the past behind us.”

  “That’s very generous of you.” Clay extended his hand in friendship. “Here’s to the future.”

  Tanya caressed the child’s head. “I don’t think you’ve met my son. Dylan, this is Aidan.”

  “Hi, Aidan. How old are you?”

  “I’m free.” Aidan held up three fingers. “How old are you?.”

  “Aidan!” Tanya exclaimed, but Clay and Dylan laughed.

  “It’s a fair question. I asked him first, after all. I’m thirty-two, but I have a nephew who’s three, so I’m familiar with the age.” He took Tanya’s left hand in his and fingered the diamond ring there. “But what’s this? New jewelry?”

  “You can give me a hug,” Tanya said to Dylan, beaming. “I’m an engaged woman.”

  “Congratulations!” He obeyed her command. “To you, too,” he said to Clay. “We’re not brothers, but we are cousins. That makes us family, and I don’t have much to spare these days. Maybe we can put our differences behind us.”