A Wolff at Heart

by Janice Maynard

  As he climbed back into bed, she stirred. “You okay?”

  He smoothed a hand down her belly to the place where she felt damp and swollen. “I can’t get enough of you.” It was the stark truth.

  She sighed, a long exhalation of pleasure. “Then take what you want, Mr. Avery. I’m all yours….”

  * * *

  The next time he awoke, the sun was high in the sky, the morning well on its way. He dressed quietly and sneaked outside to feed the dogs and to check on the other animals. When that was done, he entered the house and listened. Still no movement in the bedroom up above.

  He decided that brunch would be a good idea. As he scrambled eggs and fried bacon, a sound on the stairs caught his attention. Nikki stood on the third step to the bottom, a bashful smile on her face. “I didn’t have my suitcase,” she said.

  Which explained why she was wearing the sundress again. If she was planning to get clean undies from her bag, then at the moment she was probably bare underneath. That one thought was all it took to make him hard all over again.

  He cleared his throat. “Food’s ready. You want to eat?”

  She nodded. “I’m starving.”

  There was tension at the table. He couldn’t decide if it was simply morning-after awkwardness or something more.

  He finished his meal and put down his fork. “You were going to tell me something last night, and I wouldn’t let you.”

  She blushed. “Well, I made a phone call…”

  Just then, the doorbell rang. Grumbling inwardly, he pushed back his chair and went to answer it. The open floor plan of his house was one he had designed, but at moments like these, there was nowhere for Nikki to hide if she was embarrassed.

  He flipped the lock and opened the door. A man stood there wearing a snappy three-piece suit, despite the heat. He was older, perhaps even in his seventies. The briefcase he carried was well-worn.

  Pierce kept the door only partially open. From past experience, he knew some salesmen were ballsy enough to stride right in if given half an inch. “May I help you?”

  The man looked him over, curiosity in his gaze. “If you are Pierce Avery, I’d like to speak with you.”

  Pierce nodded. “I am. And who are you?”

  “I’m an attorney representing Mr. Vincent Wolff.”

  Pierce flinched. “Not interested.” He tried to close the door, but the man inserted a foot and pushed back.

  “It’s important that we talk, Mr. Avery.”

  Rage boiled up, bitter and black. “I have no connection to the Wolffs. You’re wasting your time.”

  “Mr. Wolff received a phone call yesterday…”

  Pierce fell back half a step, shock stealing his breath. He turned and found Nikki staring at him, anxiety all over her face. Please, God. She didn’t. She couldn’t have. Not when he had made his feelings so crystal clear…

  Ruthlessly, he clamped down on his emotions. He would not give either of them the satisfaction of seeing him implode. Facing the intruder once more, he firmed his jaw. “Leave. Now. Or I’ll have you arrested for trespassing.”

  The man had no choice but to depart. Before he left, however, he tossed his business card on a table just inside the foyer. “When you change your mind, please call me.”

  Pierce slammed the door and stood facing it as he counted to twenty as slowly as he could. He didn’t trust himself not to do something violent.

  Turning to face Nikki, he spoke calmly and without inflection. “Get out of my house.”

  She paled. “But Pierce—”

  He cut her off with a slash of his hand. “Here’s your bag. Take it and go. I don’t want to see you again.”

  I made a phone call. Remembering her words made him sick.

  Tears spilled down Nikki’s cheeks. “Let me explain, Pierce. It’s not what you think.”

  He flung the door wide open and threw her small piece of luggage down the stairs with all the force he could muster. It bounced and tumbled and landed against the back tire of her car. He told himself it was fury he felt. Not betrayal or grief, or loss. The pain in his chest spread to his limbs. “I have things to do, Ms. Parrish. Get out.”

  She walked toward him, her spine straight and her head held high. But on her face he saw the twin demons of fear and regret.

  When she stepped past him out onto the porch, he inhaled the scent of her perfume. It clung to his sheets upstairs. He would burn them. That’s all. And she’d be erased.

  He forced himself to watch her depart. She tripped on the bottom step and fell to her hands and knees on the concrete drive. Clinging to the edge of the door, he refused to go to her aid. It was no more than she deserved. She picked herself up, ignored her bloodied extremities, and put her suitcase in the backseat.

  Without once looking toward him or the house, she got in and drove away.

  * * *

  For an hour Pierce paced the floors of his big, lonely house. It had never seemed lonely before. Damn her. Just after two o’clock, the doorbell rang again. His heart leaped in his chest even as his jaw turned to granite. A woman who could be that duplicitous would get no shrift from him.

  He answered the summons calmly, though inside he was a mess. “What now?”

  But it wasn’t Nikki. Nor was it the other lawyer. This time, a different man stood on the steps. He paled when he saw Pierce. And grabbed his chest. Alarmed, Pierce ushered him inside, moving him quickly to the sofa. The man stared…just stared.

  Pierce brought him a glass of water. “Drink this.”

  The man complied. Gradually some of the color returned to his face. The entire time, his gaze tracked Pierce compulsively.

  Pierce was at the end of his patience. “As I told the first lawyer, I have no connection to the Wolff family. You can go back and tell them I said so. Maybe he was the B team and now they’ve sent in the big guns, but my answer is still the same.”

  The man with the white hair and the large beak of a nose glared. “My name is Vincent Wolff. I think I am your father.”

  The room did a sudden kaleidoscope whirl. Pierce felt his heart beating in his ears. “I already have a father.”

  “And you have brothers and cousins and a sister and an uncle. I’m sending a helicopter for you at five o’clock. I want to introduce you to all of them.”

  Pierce felt the noose tightening around his neck. “This knowledge you think you have is supposition only.”

  Vincent snorted. “Now that I’ve seen you, I’ve got no doubts. You and Devlyn may not be identical, but the Wolff gene is strong in you.”

  Pierce thought of his mother and his father in a hospital room. That memory bolstered his resolve. “I don’t really care what you think. The Wolffs are nothing to me.”

  Vincent got to his feet, his brow beaded with sweat. “What are you afraid of, boy?”

  “I’m not afraid of anything.”

  But that was a lie. He was afraid his father was never going to get well. He was afraid his mother would look at him differently if she knew the truth. He was afraid that if he admitted he was a Wolff, his whole world would change.

  Vincent must have read the turmoil in his face, because his fierce scowl softened. “We want to know you, Pierce. That’s all. No expectations. No demands. We are not a threat.”

  Pierce swallowed. Despite his resistance, the truth was inescapable. This man who had come down from his mountaintop and sought him out was blood kin. That kind of connection transcended reason and operated on a visceral level.

  “I appreciate your invitation, sir. But I’m not sure this is the time.”

  “We’ve waited over thirty years. I’d say that’s long enough.”

  Pierce’s phone rang, startling both of them. When he glanced at the number and saw that it was his mom, his heart thu
dded unpleasantly. “I need to take this.”

  Vincent nodded. “Of course.” He wandered to the opposite side of the room.

  Pierce answered the call. “Mom? What is it?”

  She began talking rapidly, and Pierce sank into a chair, his legs weak. At long last, he got a word in edgewise. “Tell Dad I love him. And I love you, too. Talk to you later.”

  When he looked up from the phone, Vincent stared at him. “Your parents?” The words seemed to stick in the old man’s throat.

  Pierce nodded. “Yes. My dad…he…” Damn, this was awkward. “He’s been waiting months for a kidney donor. That was my mother telling me they’ve finally found one. The surgery will be next week.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Will you come to Wolff Mountain?” The diffident request held no heat. Only a poignant supplication.

  Relief about his father’s good news enveloped Pierce. In some weird way, the phone call had caused a shift in the room. On Vincent’s face he saw the years of grief and the dawn of hope. Pierce’s prayers had been answered. His father would live.

  Perhaps it was time to pay it forward.

  “Yes,” Pierce said slowly. “I guess I will.”

  * * *

  Nikki cried until her eyes were puffy and her cheeks were blotchy and red. She had never seen Pierce so angry, and it was partly her fault for handling things so poorly. The night of the gala he had asked her if she could leave the Wolff thing alone and she had told him she didn’t know.

  So when the lawyer showed up, Pierce had thought the worst.

  What a mess.

  At last she washed her face and tried to make a plan. If this was the end, she needed to quit painting rosy pictures of a future with Pierce. She was an independent woman who had spent most of her life alone. Even with a broken heart, she would force herself to pick up the pieces and start over.

  Perhaps it might have made a difference if she had told Pierce she loved him. Perhaps then he would not have been so quick to think she had betrayed him. But in his shoes, wouldn’t she have jumped to the same conclusions? No one else knew the secret but Gertrude. And it was almost impossible to believe that the old woman had finally broken her silence and gone to the Wolffs.

  With a pad and pen in her hand, Nikki curled up on the sofa and began a list of objectives to get her life on track. Hovering just offstage was a debilitating pain because she had lost the one person who seemed to want her. In every way. But she had experienced loss before, and she knew better than most that no one really dies of a broken heart.

  When her cell phone rang, she started to ignore it. Probably one of her ex-clients, having a hard time severing the cord. With a sigh, she reached into her purse and then froze when she read the number.

  She picked up the phone. “Hello?”

  “To be clear, I’m calling about your legal services.” Her heart sank. Pierce’s voice was familiar but cool. “I’m being summoned to Wolff Mountain for dinner. I’d like you to go with me.”

  “I don’t think it’s necessary for you to have representation in a casual setting. And considering the nature of our personal relationship, it’s even less of a good idea.”

  “We have no personal relationship,” he said curtly. “You owe me this. They’re sending a helicopter at five. Be here or I’ll come drag you out of that condo.”

  “Pierce, I…” She wanted to explain that she hadn’t made the call to the Wolffs, but in his current mood, he was not going to listen. “I’ll be there,” she said, with a hitch in her words, her voice dull. Under no scenario could she imagine an evening any worse. But if Pierce wanted her in attendance, she would go.

  Because, for better or worse, she loved him.

  Seventeen

  Pierce stood on his front porch and watched the black-and-yellow chopper land in the field. Nikki had arrived moments before but was still in her car. When she got out, his heart gave a funny kick. She looked nothing like the sleep-rumpled female in the wrinkled sundress who had appeared in his kitchen only that morning.

  This woman was poised from head to toe, not a blond hair out of place. Her dress was black, some kind of knit fabric that clung to her as she walked. A modest V-neck and three-quarter-length sleeves made it an entirely suitable choice for dinner with a family of billionaires. She wore heels, black as well, but they were not outrageously high.

  When she approached him, he had to fight to keep from reaching for her. She was beautiful and remote, her gaze barely acknowledging him before skittering away. He was the one responsible for the distance between them. “They’re ready for us,” he said.

  Nikki nodded, her eyes fixed on the helicopter. Her shoes were not ideal for walking across a grassy meadow, but she managed without his help. He had a feeling she would have ignored his hand even if he had offered it.

  Once airborne, it was too noisy for conversation. The pilot soared over the city, soon leaving civilization behind to head deep into the mountains. By car, the trip would have taken much longer. But as the crow flew, it lasted barely fifty minutes. The landing was smooth and uneventful.

  A Jeep awaited them at the helipad. A young man in crisp khakis and a knit shirt with a Wolff Enterprises logo greeted them, tucked their luggage in the back of the Jeep and stood at attention, politely waiting for them to climb in.

  Nikki looked at Pierce briefly. “I’ll get in the back,” she said.

  He frowned. “Don’t be ridiculous. Not in that dress.” He folded himself up for the short stint, thus being forced to look at the back of Nikki’s neck…her graceful, pale-skinned neck. It was impossible not to relive every moment he had kissed that exact spot. He shifted uneasily in his seat. “Are they expecting us this soon?”

  The driver nodded. “Yes, sir. The whole family is in residence on the mountain, even Devlyn and Gillian, who live in Atlanta.”

  Pierce grew increasingly disturbed as the house came into view. Perched in a saddle between two outcroppings on the mountaintop, the term house was somewhat of a misnomer. The locals called it Wolff Castle. With its massive size and crenellated battlements, the structure made an impression. Pierce was fairly certain that was the intent.

  When they pulled up in the circular flagstone driveway, a lone figure came out to greet them. Vincent Wolff.

  He helped Nikki out of the vehicle and stared at her. “Are you his girlfriend?”

  Nikki shook her head instantly. “No, sir, I’m his—”

  Pierce stopped her with a hand on her arm. “She’s my friend. I thought I might need reinforcements.”

  Vincent chuckled, but the sound was rusty, as though he seldom laughed. “Fair enough.”

  Pierce stood for a moment, soaking in the feel of the place. At this altitude, the light breeze seemed almost cool, despite the late-summer heat in the valley. He cocked his head, meeting Vincent’s pointed stare with a rueful shrug. “I’m not quite sure how we go about this.”

  Vincent nodded. “Nor am I. The entire group, minus the children, of course, has convened in the dining room. I’ve told them you’re my son, but not much else. I thought it would be easier to explain to everyone at once.”

  “They’re not going to be happy about this.”

  Vincent frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I imagine they’ll all be wondering how much their inheritance is going to dwindle. With another mouth to feed.”

  The Wolff patriarch was visibly irritated. “Don’t be ridiculous. We have more money than we know what to do with, and I happen to know that you’re a wealthy man in your own right.”

  “Not like this.” Pierce’s laconic reply was nothing less than the truth. It was hard to imagine what kind of fortune it had taken to build such an enormous dwelling in this remote location.

  Though
Pierce would happily have dawdled outdoors forever, putting off what was to come, Vincent ushered them inside. “We don’t bite,” he said, accurately reading Pierce’s mood.

  Nikki was a silent, watchful presence through it all. Though Pierce would never have admitted it—not with things the way they were—having her here comforted him in ways he couldn’t explain.

  Stepping across the threshold into the dining room was one of the hardest things he had ever done. Nikki laid her hand on his forearm and squeezed gently before releasing him. Her unspoken support was both helpful and hurtful. If it hadn’t been for her, he wouldn’t have to be here doing this thing he didn’t want to do.

  There were three empty seats at the table. Vincent indicated spots for his two guests and took the remaining chair. Thirteen pairs of eyes stared at them.

  Pierce cleared his throat and lifted a hand. “Hello. I’m Pierce Avery. This is Nikki Parrish.”

  The dead silence remained heavy and ominous.

  Pierce looked at Vincent and shrugged. “This is your show,” he said, trying not to sound like a complete jackass. What on earth did the old man hope to accomplish?

  Vincent stared at the group assembled around the table, his age-spotted hands trembling where they lay clasped in front of him.

  Pierce took stock as well. The men were handsome and broad-shouldered and bore a strong resemblance to each other. The women were more varied in terms of hair color and build. Pierce knew that three of the men were Victor’s sons and that two others and one of the women were Vincent’s children. The only one he recognized was Devlyn, the Wolff who had presented a check at the gala.

  Finally, Vincent spoke. “I’ve told all of you that this man is my son. And I suppose you think I had some long-ago affair. But the truth is so much more complicated.”

  Pierce kept his eyes on the old man, unable to deal with the curiosity on the faces of everyone who watched him. Nikki’s chair was close to his, and though she wasn’t touching him, he had a sense that she was somehow guarding him. The notion was foolish, but he could actually feel the heat from her body.