HellKat

by Roze, Robyn

  “You don’t have any problem renting a tux, right?”

  He cleared his throat. “Not at all.”

  Kat’s eyes narrowed. “Just to be clear: black jeans and a sport coat aren’t considered a tux here.” He bit down on his lip to stop the grin so clearly wanting to spread. “Take care of that while I’m at work, would you? I have a friend who can get us great seats—tonight even. I’m sure of it. Doesn’t that sound like fun?” A killer smile lit up her face.

  Tucker nodded once. The playfulness in his eyes and tight set of his lips broadcasted he understood this to be a test, and that he wasn’t about to give up any points.

  Her body hummed with exhilaration.

  She checked the time on her smartphone. “I have to get back to the office now. I’ll call you with the details.” She smacked her lips together in an air kiss. Her giggle could not be stopped.

  Kat sashayed away, confident that not only was he watching her ass but also wondering if the opera would be the worst of his punishments.

  ****

  They laughed themselves silly all the way down the steps as they fled the Met, then in the cab, and now at a late-night diner. When he’d picked her up earlier in the evening, her heart had skipped a few beats when she first glimpsed him in his tux. He hadn’t tied his gorgeous hair back, which had surprised her. An act of defiance? Or maybe his own test to see if she’d object. Didn’t matter. He’d looked sexy as hell and knowing Tucker Williams, he’d gotten exactly the response he wanted.

  They’d made it through the first two acts of Rigoletto before she’d pressed against him, savored his scent, and whispered words of freedom. Tonight had been a test—not his last one—and he’d passed admirably. No complaints. No eye rolling. No deep sighs of frustration. Tucker had been a real trooper. So, he’d earned a reward: she’d ease off and cut him some slack the rest of the night.

  “I’m thinking we’ll go to the ballet next. What do you think?” She popped an onion ring into her mouth to stop the grin.

  Tucker halted midair with the chili cheese dog. A clever smile spread on his face, his eyes gleaming from the challenge. “Well, I’m all for broadening my horizons, sweetheart. You just tell me what time.”

  He took a man-sized bite of the foot-long dog. Swiping a napkin across his mouth, Tucker’s head bobbed in approval. “Damn, you were right. This is the best chili dog I’ve ever had.”

  “I know chili dogs. I’ve just never eaten one dressed like this.” She gestured at her violet, strapless evening gown before biting into her own dog.

  Tucker boldly admired the view, his vision clouding over with palpable need. “You look beautiful, Kathryn James,” he said in a rough whisper, eyes creased in a tender smile, “even with chili smudged on your face.”

  A heated blush bloomed across her cheeks at hearing the desire in his voice, the respect bright in his eyes. He wanted to lick the sauce off her, and more, she could feel it. Her flesh quivered from the idea alone. Impulse control, Kat. Kick it in gear, now.

  A man had never affected her quite like this one.

  “Well, you don’t look so bad yourself. You clean up nicely, Mr. Williams.”

  She wiped away the chili near her lips as her eyes roamed over his untamed hair. He smiled knowingly and finished off his chili dog before digging into the basket of onion rings.

  “I’ve had fun tonight.”

  “So have I,” he said. Kat snorted in disbelief and looked out the window at the busy foot traffic. “I have, Kat. The opera isn’t somethin’ I’d normally do, but it wasn’t bad. If you like it, I’m on board.”

  She brought her attention back to him. “That’s just it. It’s not really my thing. Never has been, but I still go—the ballet too. There are so many things to do in this city. I’ve probably done most of them—many times over.”

  “Okay, so other than torturing me, why do you go, then?” He crossed his strong arms and rested them on the tabletop, awaiting her answer.

  “Well, because ... because I always have. With my family when I was young and with my friends and …”

  “And boyfriends,” he said, completing her thought.

  She nodded.

  “It’s just what we do, that’s all.” She wondered if his wheels spun in his head like hers were, trying to figure out if they could fit anywhere but a bedroom.

  “What do you do, Tucker? I mean, back in Helena. What kind of things do you do for fun?”

  He sat up straighter, removed his jacket, and draped it over the chair next to him before rolling up his sleeves and settling back over the table.

  “Well, the ranch keeps me pretty busy. I’d rather be there workin’ than all this other stuff I do that people call work. But I’m tryin’ to keep John’s business goin’ strong. It’s what he’d want. And he was a decent man. I owe it to him.”

  Tucker grabbed a salt shaker, spun it slowly on the table, focused intently on the silver-topped piece of glass.

  “Listen, after what happened with us, I’m sure you Googled me and know all the dirty details about my life.” Embarrassment marred his face; he wouldn’t look at her.

  “I’d rather hear the truth from you, Tucker.”

  His eyes darted to hers. He stared for a few seconds and then straightened, resting his large hands on his legs. He appeared ready to speak when their shakes, heaped with whipped cream and topped with nuts and cherries, landed in front of them.

  “I’m sorry it took so long. We got backed up with orders and then the shake machine jammed and,” the waitress sighed, “can I get either of you anything else?” She sounded defeated.

  Kat and Tucker shook their heads at each other, then at the server. The frazzled girl placed their ticket on the table. Tucker motioned for her to wait as he dug out his wallet, pulled out some twenties, and placed them in her hand.

  “Oh, no, you just pay up front.” She tried to return the bills, but Tucker refused.

  “I know. It’s for you. Seems like you’ve had a rough night here. I’m sure you’re the one gettin’ all the heat for what’s goin’ on back in the kitchen, and no doubt you’re payin’ for it in tips.”

  The girl glanced down at the wad of green in her hand and blinked back tears. “Oh, I really couldn’t take—”

  “Don’t want it back.” Tucker’s statement left no room for negotiation. He turned his interest to the double chocolate chip shake in front of him.

  The girl looked to Kat for guidance and then back to Tucker, his focus squarely on his milkshake. “Thank you so much,” she whispered gratefully as she scurried away.

  With everything Kat had Googled about Tucker, the act of compassion she’d witnessed came as no surprise. After her debacle with him, she’d scoured the Web for anything and everything about the man. At the time, she’d chalked up her snooping to an anemic attempt to assuage her guilt over her miscalculation in judgment. However, what she’d uncovered about him highlighted her real misjudgment, the one she’d made the first time he approached her ...

  The negative news stories she’d read about the maverick before her had outweighed the positive ones. She’d had to dig for the blurbs that gave Tucker any credit for being a decent human being. He obviously had enemies determined to destroy him, or at least his reputation. Skepticism ran deep in Kat’s veins, making her leery of the tenuous grasp the media had with the truth, with facts—especially when the story involved hostile factions, families at odds. Given Tucker’s story, there were plenty of detractors with agendas bent on his failure.

  The couple slurped their shakes for a few minutes, allowing Tucker’s earlier discomfort to settle before Kat broke the silence. “Tell me about your siblings.” She shoveled in another scoop of her thick, strawberry banana goodness and noted the guardedness evident in his stiff body language. “It seems like they’d rather work against you than with you.” Tucker sat back against his seat. “Money can bring out the worst in people. I’ve been around it my whole life, seen it firsthand. There will always be th
ose who want what you have. And those who don’t think you deserve to have it.”

  His features softened. “That sums it up about right. It’s not completely their fault, though. The circumstances were shitty.”

  Kat’s head cocked to the side.

  “Seems like you got the worst of it, Tucker.” The tenderness in her voice seemed to ease him further.

  He swallowed hard, watched her for a few seconds. Then he surprised her by scooting both of their shakes out of the way and grasping her hands, with gentle sweeps of his thumbs over her knuckles.

  “That whole situation,” he shook his head, “was messed up. Finding out the man I thought was my dad, wasn’t, hurt a lot. Hurt me more than it did him, seein’ as he’d known all along. A double whammy, you could say. And when my biological father, John Diamond, decided he wanted me, well ...,” Tucker sighed, “everything changed.” He swung his eyes away, out the window. “But it is what it is, and I can’t walk away from it.”

  “Was John Diamond the bastard the press made him out to be?”

  “Really did your homework, huh?”

  “Yeah, I don’t like being blindsided.”

  The corners of his eyes creased in apology.

  “He was a hard man. I went to live with him and his kids in Montana when I was eleven. I found out later he’d known about me all along. He’d met my mom when she was workin’ at a mining conference.” He rubbed at his forehead. “Nice way of puttin’ it, I suppose. Anyway, they’d meet up from time to time. She got pregnant with me and he paid her and the man she was with hush money over the years. John didn’t want his wife to find out. But then after she died, he decided he’d had enough and gave my mom and dad a final payout, to make my leavin’ easier, I guess.

  “He treated me different from his own, though. He was much tougher on me. Had me workin’ on his ranch from sun up to sun down and every day after school. I hated him back then. His kids didn’t like me much, either, as you can imagine. Bad blood from the get-go. And as you might guess, I had a chip on my shoulder with the one-eighty my life took back then. I know now he thought workin’ my ass off back then would eventually use up all my anger. He was right.” Tucker paused. “Then he sent me off to business school back east. And as I got older, it all started makin’ sense.” He paused as the recollections unwound.

  “See, John Diamond thought his kids were worthless. Chelsea and Cameron. Their mother had died a few years before I went to live with them. He’d decided they’d had it too easy all their lives, so he did things real different with me. He didn’t want the business he’d built run into the ground in short order with his son and daughter takin’ the reins. I’m the only one he told that to. He’d taken me into his confidence by the time I was twenty-five or so. That’s why there was such a dust-up when he moved me into the business—ahead of his own kids—after I graduated from Wharton. Nobody was expecting that play.

  “Then, when he died a few years back, the gloves came off. Cameron and Chelsea didn’t have to play nice anymore with their dad out of the way. I’m sure they thought his will would settle everything in their favor. Trust me; we were all surprised when it didn’t. They weren’t left out in the cold. No, no, no, they were set up with trust funds most folks could live quite comfortably on for several lifetimes. But he gave them no rights to his business or land. The legal battles finally ended about a year ago. John Diamond’s will was airtight, no gettin’ around it, even with fancy lawyers.

  “Then during all that mess, my other brothers, who I didn’t even know, came around with their hands out. My half-brothers from my mom.” Tucker shook his head in solemn reflection. “I’m a man with two half families that don’t add up to one whole family.”

  Kat’s heart squeezed tight for the brooding man across from her. His grip on her hands tightened. She needed to steer this ship into bluer waters.

  “Look at this,” she said, with a lopsided smile, glancing down at their hands. “I’ve already broken one of my rules tonight.” She answered his quizzical expression. “Less than twenty-four hours ago, I said I didn’t even want to hold your hand. Now look. I’m holding both of them. So much for rules, huh?” Tucker’s face lightened in relief, easing the tension in Kat’s chest.

  “Yeah, rules are a waste of time and paper,” he said before scooting a bit closer. “Especially when it comes to this.” He gently squeezed her hands.

  Kat’s stomach fluttered, and she nodded in agreement. This night had gone so well, almost too well. She needed to keep her head on straight, or they’d end up naked in bed again—or up against a wall.

  Damn, those green eyes of hers, soft and dreamy, her pink lips curved in a shy smile, her creamy skin unable to hide the blush of attraction, all caused Tucker to groan on the inside with the indecent thoughts wrestling in his head. The things he wanted to do with her, to her. The things they’d already done …

  He shifted in his seat to relieve the pressure in his pants. He needed to stay focused. Everything had gone so well tonight. He couldn’t screw it up by moving too fast.

  She had certainly done her homework on him. He couldn’t help but wonder what else she knew—or thought she knew. However, she didn’t appear swayed by the trash peddled to the media about his inheritance. He’d sold her short. He’d figured given her privileged background, she’d be suspicious of someone like him coming into money the way he had. No, Kat’s skepticism of him clearly had everything to do with his lie of omission six months earlier. But he still wasn’t sure he would have, could have, done anything different.

  “What’s your family like, Kat?”

  Yeah, he’d Googled her too. Knew she’d attended the best private schools in New York her whole life, and she’d been a hell of a lacrosse player at Columbia University, stuff like that. However, Tucker wanted to know the kind of things about her he couldn’t find on the World Wide Web.

  “Well, I have three older brothers—” Tucker’s odd expression caught her attention. “What?”

  Tucker’s grin broadened and he shook his head. “Just thinkin’ that explains a lot, that’s all,” he said. “Your brothers all live in New York?”

  “Is there anywhere else to live?” She cocked her head with a challenging smile.

  “Yeah, plenty of places. I’m hopin’ to show you one.”

  Her jaw clenched. “We’ll see.” Her expression and voice were tight, but then her features softened and she continued. “Anyway, yes, my brothers all live here. They work in our father’s company. My oldest brother, Charlie, is the CEO and president. Parker is the CFO, and my youngest brother, Kyle, is the chief legal officer.”

  “See ’em much?”

  “Not as much as you might think. There’s a big age gap between my two oldest brothers and me. Charlie is nineteen years older and Parker seventeen. Kyle’s only a year older than I am. But he travels quite a bit on company business, so I don’t see him as much as I used to. He and I never really had an opportunity to get close with Charlie and Parker. Too much age difference, I guess. It’s like our parents decided to have a second family before the shop closed for good.” She chuckled. “Plus, we’re all pretty busy too. Charlie and Parker have families of their own.

  “But when my parents close up the beach house each season, our mother organizes family dinners at their home here in the city once or twice a month. Attendance is mandatory.” Her lips held the hint of a grin. “You have to be dead to get out of it.”

  Tucker laughed. Mandatory or not, it sounded nice. He’d settle for a family like hers any day of the week.

  “And your grandfather started JAMESCO, right?”

  Kat’s expression widened, then she laughed knowingly. “I see someone else has been Googling. Touché, Williams.”

  “Yeah, well, I had six months to obsess over you.”

  Their eyes lingered on one another, letting the weight of his admission settle around them as his thumbs stroked across her hands, still held firmly in his.

  Kat shooed awa
y the trance and continued. “My grandfather, Harvey James, made a lucky investment when he was young and used the windfall to start the company. My father was an only child. His father made him work his way up from the bottom. He took the company over completely by the time he was thirty. It started out as a medical supply company, but over time it’s expanded into many other areas. From what I understand, my brothers have diversified it considerably. Apparently, it’s unrecognizable from when my father was in charge—subsidiaries, holding companies. I stay out of it,” she said.

  “Why?”

  She assessed him, obviously deciding whether to let him in, trust him just a little.

  He read the doubt in her eyes before she spoke the words.

  “I have my reasons.”

  Okay, still early in the get-to-know-you phase. Her hesitancy and need to protect herself was understandable, especially after their terrible start.

  “What about your mother?”

  Kat scanned the diner, disapproval lining her features. “My mother.” She diverted her attention to the New Yorkers streaming past the window and the neon OPEN sign hanging in it. “She was a debutante, the belle of the ball.” The last part she said with sarcastic flair. “She still is. She takes her role quite seriously and would’ve loved to have had a daughter to pass the torch to. But I just wasn’t cut out for it. No matter how hard she tried, still tries, to make me in her image.” The mischievous tilt of her lips caused his to respond in kind.

  “I suppose it’s not really all her fault, though. Her life was decided for her. She was groomed from birth to be a must-have accessory for a wealthy man.” Kat sighed in reflection, unaware of Tucker’s wide-eyed reaction to her rebuke. “She’s living someone else’s dream for her but still accepts it as her own. God forbid should anyone burst her bubble, it’s damn near perfect. Except for one thing.” She pressed her lips together, her eyes narrowed in playfulness. Tucker bit back a chuckle.