Fighting this will was futile. I could feel it in my bones. When he was alive he hid his love away, and he took his anger to the grave and left us with absolutely nothing.
Fitting. Poetic, even. Bravo, Dad. You asshole.
“Thank you, Madison,” I said as I stood up. She got up from behind her desk and walked me to her door.
“I am the legal counsel for King Industries, so there are things I can’t discuss with you.”
“I understand and I would never ask you—”
“You’re a good person, Veronica King. Probably too good for the father you had. But Clayton Rorick isn’t the devil he seems.”
“I know exactly who Clayton Rorick is.”
She opened the door and as I was walking out she put a hand against my arm.
“My father didn’t hate me,” she said. “But he would have liked this. He would have liked the idea of knocking me down a peg.”
I gave her a wan smile. “I’m sorry.”
“Me, too.”
From Madison’s office I ducked into the women’s room before heading up to Clayton’s office on the top floor of the building.
I put on a fresh coat of bright-red lipstick that matched my shoes and the thin leather belt around the waist of my gray business suit. It was my power suit. My-I-can-do-anything suit.
And it usually worked like a charm.
When I was called into court as a witness for a client in a custody battle—I wore this suit. That date I went on last year—I wore this suit. The media interview with the Austin newspaper—this suit was on my body.
And at each of those events, I’d felt great. Well, not the date, but it wasn’t the suit’s fault.
Any attempt to give myself a pep talk felt stupid so I didn’t try, but I did tell myself not to remember.
To go up to that office and do everything I could not to remember the last time I’d been there. The lunch date and what Clayton had done to me behind his desk. The pleasure with which he’d lifted my skirt and made me come.
“You’re so pretty,” he’d said. “You’re so pretty when you come for me.”
Yeah. Don’t remember that.
There was a new man sitting behind the reception desk on the top floor. A wet-behind-the-ears puppy who looked like an extra on Battlestar Gallactica with his headpiece.
“Can I help you?” he asked and gave me the impression of a smile.
“Veronica King here to see Clayton Rorick.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
I sighed and wanted to shake the poor kid. My name was on the goddamn building. “No. But I think he’ll want to see me.”
The boy lifted his eyebrow, expressing sincere doubt about my importance, but he put the message through to Clayton’s assistant.
And, to the receptionist’s surprise, Clayton arrived in the reception area almost immediately.
“Ronnie,” he said, and my old nickname out of his mouth pierced me like a knife. “What are you doing here?”
“We need to talk,” I said.
“I could have come to the ranch.”
“I was in the city to see Madison.” I shrugged like everything was no big deal. “This seemed easy.”
And cold. And unemotional. Everything I wanted when it came to this conversation. The ranch was haunted by that night—the ghost of the girl I’d been.
That ghost was here, too, but less so.
And I had my suit and my lipstick as armor.
“Would you like to come into my office?” he asked. “Or perhaps lunch?” He went to reach into his pocket but stopped himself.
The watch.
“Would breakfast be better? I’m not sure what time it is,” he said.
It was barely 9 a.m., which made me wonder how long he’d been here.
“No,” I said quickly. “Your office is fine.”
I couldn’t imagine being trapped with him at a table, waiting for our food, eating. God, no.
He stepped back, letting me walk in front of him. I waited for him to say something smarmy, something about the last time I was here. But that was never his style.
He was always excruciatingly polite. Respectful. Restrained, really. The only time the control slipped was when we were in bed together—but you’re not thinking about that.
I’d thought his restraint was compelling back then. Mysterious. So exciting it made me throb.
Now it seemed dangerous. Like he was a shark waiting in the shallows for me to get close enough to eat.
His office had been remodeled in the last five years. It looked, if such a thing could be said about a CEO’s office, slightly more welcoming. The modern chrome-and-leather furniture had been replaced by chairs far less severe. The rug on the floor was bright with color, like an abstract sky at twilight. The art had changed, too; he had beautiful photography on his walls now. Black-and-white and bright color. There was one of a woman holding a bird that was kind of cool.
I was about to tell him I liked what he’d done with the place, but that wasn’t exactly the tone I wanted to set.
“Can I get you a water? Coffee? Tea? I still have that English—”
“I’m fine,” I said quickly, because I wasn’t interested in how he was still stocking my favorite English tea.
“All right.” He gestured to one of the chairs in front of his desk and I sat like a prim old woman, smoothing down my skirt, crossing my ankles, and sitting up straight. He leaned back against his desk a few feet from me and I did everything I could not to notice the lean angles and curves of his body.
But for one horrifying second I couldn’t not think of him naked.
“Ronnie?”
“Veronica,” I corrected.
He nodded as if committing it to memory.
“What can I do for you?”
“The email to my brother bounced. He’s closed down his account.”
The words tasted terrible coming out of my mouth. Burnt and sour at the same time. I swallowed the lump in my throat and forced myself to look at him. Right at him. His eyes, not his knees. “The lawyer has assured me that the will is legal and binding and there’s not much I can do.”
“And that’s why you’re here?”
“Right. To see what you can do. The twenty acres of land—”
“I will buy from you.” He stood up and walked around the desk, picked up a folder and handed it to me. “I had an assessment done on the property. Mineral rights. Water. Everything. There’s no oil. But your father bought the land and used it for access to the river. The engineer I hired gave me an estimate of twenty-five thousand dollars for the land. I will offer you fifty.”
“Double?”
“I want the land. And I’m not interested in haggling.”
“I’m supposed to just…trust you?”
“No, you’re supposed to trust the engineer. All of his information is there. I encourage you to research him.”
I opened the file, which was stuffed with information. I understood some of it. Lots of it went over my head. The last piece of paper was a Google Earth picture of the property. The twenty acres was nestled right into a curve of the river.
“It must be very pretty,” I said, for honestly no good reason.
“I suppose.”
“There’s a building on it.” His silence was odd and I looked up at him. “Does someone live there?”
“There is a tenant. He has paid rent on the building for twenty years. Five hundred dollars a month.”
“Will you kick him out once you have the land?”
“No, Veronica, I will not kick him out. You can take your time, perhaps take the information to Madison, but fifty grand is the best deal you’ll get for that land.”
It was generous. But it wasn’t enough.
“That won’t help my sisters,” I said.
He nodded slowly, like he understood. But he didn’t.
“I don’t want my father’s company,” I said.
“You should,” he said. “It’s
your birthright.”
“Birthrights don’t mean much in the King family. Not if you’re a girl.” I’d been rehearsing this speech for hours and was not going to get sidetracked. “I don’t want the ranch. Truly, Clayton, I don’t want any of this.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes, it is!”
He shook his head, the corner of his lips lifted like he was laughing at me.
“The foundation?” he asked.
“Hardly matters,” I said. “My sisters—”
“You’ve always been shit at claiming what you want. Actually—” he corrected himself “—you’ve been shit at even knowing what you want.”
I forced myself not to stand up and walk out of there. It was very, very hard. “You don’t know me.”
“Then say it,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Just tell me what you want. It’s not a sin to want something for yourself, Veronica. It’s not a sin to put your wants in front of your sisters’.”
“But they need—”
He lifted his eyebrow and I shut my mouth.
“Fuck you,” I said.
“Your negotiation skills are remarkable.”
“I’m glad this is funny to you, but Bea is in trouble. Real financial trouble that I can’t get her out of without real money. And Sabrina needs…”
“A keeper?”
“A trust. A safety net.”
“I agree.”
“So why are we arguing?”
“Because you haven’t told me what you want.”
You on your hands and knees in front of my chair, like you were last time I was here.
I shook my head, horrified at the thought. Horrified that part of me wanted that.
“I’ll give it to you,” he said, and my core temperature nearly exploded. He wasn’t agreeing…to that. “You just have to ask.”
“Fine. The foundation. I’d like to have control of my mother’s foundation again. And money for my sisters.” I took a deep breath, hope loosening my rib cage. “It would be a loan.”
“What would?”
“The money you give me.”
He looked at me for so long I wondered if maybe I hadn’t said the words out loud. Maybe I only thought them. I opened my mouth to repeat them but he tilted his head. “What do I get in return?”
“Well, repayment in due time with interest. Like any loan.”
“No.”
“No…what?”
“I don’t agree to your terms.”
“You just said you would give me what I wanted.”
“Certainly. But under my terms.”
“Oh, this should be good.”
“I will pay your sister’s debts and start a trust for both of them, with you as trustee.”
“That’s….amazing…” I narrowed my eyes, waiting for the catch.
“You will have full control of the foundation and in return I want one thing.”
“Clayton, what could you possibly want that I have?”
“You. As my wife.”
9
VERONICA
Somehow I was up and out of my seat, heading for the door before I even realized it. This fucking suit wasn’t protection at all. There was no protection against Clayton. He came, with his humiliation and his cruelty, from all sides.
“Veronica.”
He was right behind me and this office was suddenly as long as a football field. I wanted to run but managed to stop myself. I had some pride.
Didn’t I?
“Is this a joke?”
“It’s not a joke.”
“Fuck you.”
“Veronica…” He had the audacity to touch my wrist. Not grab it, but touch it, and it was enough to send me swinging around, my hand raised to cuff him across his smug, handsome face.
He caught my hand and no matter how I struggled to pull it free he wouldn’t let go.
And through all my fury, all I could think was…He’s touching me. Clayton is touching me. It’s been…so long.
Everything I wanted to not remember was threatening to come rushing back.
“Calm down.”
“Again. Fuck you.”
I was panting and my eyes were burning.
“I’m not joking. And this isn’t a trick,” he said.
I finally managed to yank my hand hard enough that he let go and I was knocked off balance. He put a hand on my waist, keeping me steady.
The unexpected touch was agonizing. It melted right though my suit. Right though the walls around my memories of the last time I was here. And he was too close. Much too close.
“Don’t touch me,” I snapped and pushed him back.
He stepped back and gave me room.
“Will you listen to me?” he asked.
I nodded but didn’t open my mouth, because all the words that wanted to come out were screaming swear words.
He sighed, long and slow, like he was emptying out his chest, gathering himself for some battle. Centering himself in a storm.
“Our engagement was real. And my feelings for you—”
I’d expected a lot of things. An argument about how our marriage would be good for business. For King Industries.
Not him telling me how he felt.
I laughed so hard I actually wished I could stop laughing, and he looked at me like he always looked at me. Detached. Cold. Untouchable.
He’d never had feelings for me. Not this man. Not for me.
“I will never believe you,” I told him. “You are a liar from top to bottom.”
He stepped forward and I stepped back and it was a fast-moving dance until my back was against the door and he was standing right in front of me, his hand braced on the door beside my head.
He touched, with one long, elegant finger, the top button on my suit.
I swallowed back…I’m not sure what. A moan. A protest. I could barely breathe. I was angry and so shocked and so…
Fucking turned on.
“Your heart is pounding,” he said.
“Hardly.”
“I can see it.” He lifted his finger from the button of my suit to my neck. “I can feel it. This was real,” he said. “The way you responded to my touch. It was the realest thing I’ve ever felt.”
“That says more about you than it does about me.”
“I imagine it does,” he said. “But what you felt for me was real.”
“Right, and what you felt for me was an act. Is this some power trip for you?” I got my shit together and ducked sideways away from him. “Is this a good time? Humiliate the stupid girl who thought she was in love with you—”
He was on me so fast I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t even register it. I was back against the door, his body pressed up against mine. No coy fingers. No curled lips. It was his chest against mine and we were breathing in time together.
“No one calls you stupid. Not even you,” he said. “You are and were the furthest thing from stupid.”
I was so weirdly stunned by his defense of me. By the earnestness of it. I was momentarily speechless. I valued my intelligence. I’d just never thought he noticed.
“And you loved me,” he said. “You can’t change that.”
“And you used me,” I spat. “You can’t change that.”
“I wanted you,” he said. “I wanted you and I admired you.”
No. No I didn’t want to hear this. It hurt to hear him say these words. The bruises he’d put on my psyche were gone. Healed up. My heart had sutured itself back together, but these words threatened to bring it all down.
“There’s no point to you pretending you cared about me. That you wanted me.”
His hips pressed against mine.
The words died in my throat.
He was hard against my belly and my entire body went hot.
“Does that feel like I’m pretending?” he whispered into my ear. My brain was short-circuiting. Warning sirens are going off. “Veronica? Answer me, so I know you understand what I’m
saying.”
“It’s biology,” I whispered, pulling myself deep inside my skin like a turtle in a shell.
“It’s you. And that fucking suit.” He growled the words, like he was struggling with control. “Do you remember? What we were like? That wasn’t a lie. Not ever.”
I put my hand against his chest, registering —because I was a masochist—the hard curve of his pec. The heat of his skin beneath the fine fabric of his clothing.
And then I pushed him away.
“Fine,” I said through dry lips. “You’re not pretending.”
He stepped away, giving us distance.
“We could just have sex. Be…lovers. Why in the world do you want to be married to me?”
“Because I always wanted to be married to you.”
“You don’t have to say that!” I cried. “The company is yours!”
“I’m not saying it because I want the company. I’m saying it because I want you.”
“You wanted to be married to me and you were still capable of hurting me more than any other person in my life. Do you see how diabolical that is?”
My voice cracked but I had nothing to be ashamed of. Not one thing.
“I thought I could have everything,” he said. “The way I wanted it. I was…arrogant. And selfish. Wrong.”
I didn’t know what to do with this apology. Or this level of self-awareness from him. It was disorienting.
But it didn’t change anything. He’d still hurt me. And I could still never trust him.
“What was the deal you had with my father?” I asked. “What were the terms? You marry me and…what?”
“I get the land I wanted. The acreage.”
“Twenty acres with no mineral rights? Seems to me you should have asked for a little more.”
“There was more.” He was silent, like he didn’t want to say anything. Which I found painfully hilarious.
“Oh, don’t hold back now, Clayton. Honestly, this is just getting good.”
“If we got pregnant—”
“If I got pregnant,” I snapped. I hated it when men said we when their partners were pregnant.
“If you got pregnant, there was a cash settlement, and if the baby was a boy, I got controlling stocks.”
“And you agreed to this?” I asked him and then shook my head. I knew the answer.
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