by Naima Simone
And maybe he was. The insular bedroom community with its two-thousand-strong population of surgeons, CEOs, a few A-list actors and pro athletes had once looked at Vernon Lowell as a ruler, and Joshua’s father had gorged on the admiration and reverence. By all appearances, Joshua seemed to be a more benevolent king, but no one could mistake the power, the air of authority and command that clung to him, as tailor-made to fit as his suits.
Part of her acknowledged she should be intimidated by that level of influence. In this community where money not just spoke, but screamed at the tops of its lungs, power of the press was a buzz phrase. If he wanted, he could have her fired. Blackballed, even.
So yes, she should be at least a little leery. But fear didn’t skip and dance over her skin, leaving pebbled flesh in its wake. Exhilaration did. Being in this man’s presence agitated and animated her in a way only burgeoning new stories did. And the why of it—she lurched away from digging deeper, scrabbling away from that particular crumbling, dangerous edge.
When he turned back and pinned her with that magnetic, intense gaze, she barely managed to trap her gasp. The force of it was nearly physical. The inane image of her holding her hands up, shielding herself from it, popped in her head.
“You’re right,” he announced.
She blinked, taken aback. Replaying their conversation through her mind, she shook her head, still confused. “About?”
“You offered me the opportunity to give my insight into the story, and I didn’t take it. But now I’m offering you a chance no other reporter has been extended. Come spend a day with me at the Black Crescent offices. I’ll grant you access to my world, and you can see and decide for yourself whether or not the rumors stated in your article are true. Or you might just discover that I’m just a businessman trying to repair the past while making a way for the future.” He arched an eyebrow. “Either way, it will be an exclusive.”
It’s a trap. The warning blared through her head. And if she had the intelligence God gave a gnat, she would decline. But she was aware enough to recognize that the woman whispered that caution. The reporter’s blood hummed with anticipation at this unprecedented opportunity. She could pen a part two to her piece, and maybe it and the first one could possibly be picked up by the Associated Press.
Plus you get to spend more time with Joshua Lowell. The sly whisper ghosted across her mind. Spend more time with the enigmatic, sexy man who kindled a need inside her that she resented. A need that, if she wasn’t careful, could compromise her objectivity and her job.
And that she absolutely couldn’t allow. Nothing could get in the way of her goals, of her independence. Her mother had shelved her dream of becoming an architect to marry her father. And years later, when her marriage ended, she’d had to start from scratch, dependent on the scant alimony her father had grudgingly provided, having to work low-paying jobs to make ends meet while attending college part-time. It’d taken years of dedication and exhausting, backbreaking work, but she’d finally attained her dream job. But Sophie had learned a valuable lesson while witnessing her mother’s struggle. She would never become a casualty of a relationship. And never would she prioritize a man above her own needs, giving him everything while he left her with just scraps to remind her of what she could’ve had but had thrown away.
She had to take only one look at Joshua Lowell, spend one minute in his company, take one glance in those lovely but shuttered eyes to know he could strip her of everything. And not look back.
If she allowed him to. Which she wouldn’t.
“I accept your offer,” she said, resolve strengthening her voice.
He dipped his head in acknowledgment. “I’ll have my assistant contact you to set up an appointment.”
With one last, long stare, he strode toward her, heading toward the conference room door. As he brushed past her, she ordered herself not to inhale. Not to find out—
Sandalwood and dark earth after a fresh spring rain. Earthy and raw, it is.
Dammit.
“Ms. Armstrong.” She jerked her head in his direction and met the gaze of the ruthless businessman who had dragged a failing company back from the edge of the financial abyss. “Don’t mistake this for an olive branch or a truce. When you wrote and published that article, you threatened the peace and well-being of my family, and I don’t take that lightly or forget. Use this as a chance for another smear campaign, and I’ll ensure you regret it.”
Long after he left, his warning—and his scent—remained.
No matter how hard she tried to eradicate both.
Three
Joshua pulled his car into the parking lot of his gym and stabbed the ignition button a little harder than necessary, shutting the engine off. Restless energy raced through him, and it jangled under his skin. He’d been this way since yesterday and his visit to the Falling Brook Chronicle’s offices. Since his confrontation with Sophie.
Tunneling his fingers through his hair, he gripped the short strands and ground his teeth together. Trapping the searing flood of curses that blistered his tongue. He’d gone there to question her about the photographs and her source for them. And he’d been slapped with a paternity accusation.
The fuck.
Even now icy fingers of shock continued to tickle his spine, chilling him. Trailing right behind it came the hot slam of helpless fury. He hated that sense of powerlessness, of—goddammit—self-doubt.
And he resented the hell out of Sophie for planting it there. For hauling him back to a time when he’d been drowning in fear, desperately swimming toward the surface to drag in a life-giving lungful of air. Despairing that he never would again.
Through the years, there’d been plenty of gossip about his family on top of the ugly truth about his father and his actions. It would be a lie to claim the whispers hadn’t hurt him. That he didn’t have scars from that tumultuous period. But he’d survived. He’d always had pride in the knowledge that he wasn’t his father, that he didn’t harm people out of selfishness and greed. He’d clung to that knowledge.
And in one conversation, Sophie had delivered a solid blow to that source of honor, causing zigzags to splinter through it like a cracked windshield.
Had he been a monk? Hell no. He enjoyed sex, but he still practiced caution. A man in his position and with his wealth had to. So he chose his partners carefully—women who understood he didn’t want a relationship, just a temporary arrangement that provided pleasure for both of them—and ensured he used protection. Still, he understood that mistakes could happen. Nothing was infallible. But none of his ex-lovers had ever approached him about an unexpected pregnancy or a child. Because if they had, he would’ve never abandoned the woman or the baby. Never.
For Sophie to suggest—no, to accuse him of being able to neglect his own flesh and blood...
With a low growl, he shoved open his car door and stepped out, slamming it shut behind him. Seconds later, with his duffel bag in hand, he stalked toward the gym, ready to work off some of the anger and tension riding him like a relentless jockey on a punching bag.
An hour later, sweat poured from his face, shoulders and chest in rivulets. Pleasurable weariness born of pushing his body to the limit sang in his muscles. Yanking off his boxing gloves, he picked up his bottle of water and gulped it while inhaling the scent of perspiration, bleach and the musk from bodies that had permanently seeped into the concrete floors and walls. This gym, located in the next town over from Falling Brook, wasn’t one of those trendy establishments soccer moms and young CEOs patronized with stylish athletic wear and skin that glistened or, for God’s sake, dewed.
Fighters grappled and trained in the boxing ring at the far side of the room. Huge tires leaned against a wall and a smattering of paint-flecked, scratched gym equipment hogged one corner while free weights claimed another. Grunts, the smack of rope hitting the concrete floor and rock music permeated the air. People
didn’t come to this to be seen, but to push their bodies, to beat them into submission or perfect working order.
So what the fuck was Sophie Armstrong doing here?
He scowled, studying the petite, frowning woman as she whipped the battle ropes up and down in a steady, furious pace. Even as the familiar anger and suspicion crowded into him at the sight of her in the gym he’d frequented for years—his sanctuary away from the office and home—he couldn’t stop his gaze from following the slender but toned lines of her small frame that the purple sports bra and black leggings did nothing to hide. Without the conservative clothes that halted just shy of being plain, he had an unrestricted view of the high thrust of her smallish and utterly perfect breasts that slightly swelled over the rounded edge of her top. Though he ordered himself to look away, to stop visually devouring the enemy, he still lingered over the taut abdomen that gleamed with hard-fought-for sweat and the gently rounded hips and tight, sleekly muscled legs that seemed impossibly long for someone of her stature.
Like a sweaty elf princess who’d momentarily traded her gilded throne for a dusty battlefield. The silly, fanciful thought swept through his head before he could banish it. Thoughts like that belonged to the artist he used to be, not the sensible, pragmatic businessman he was now. Still... Watching her muscles flex, her abs tighten and those strong thighs brace her weight, he was impressed at the power in her tiny frame.
Impressed and hard as hell.
“Goddamn,” he growled. Frolicking puppies. Spreadsheets with unbalanced columns.
His mother’s shuttered face and devastated eyes when she read Sophie’s article.
Yeah, that killed his erection fast.
And maybe it didn’t snuff out the hot licks of lust in his gut, but it gave fury one hell of a foothold.
Clenching his jaw, he stalked across the gym toward the woman who had infiltrated his life and cracked open a door he’d hoped, fucking prayed, would remain locked, bolted and welded shut. Just as he reached Sophie, she gave the battle ropes one last flick, then dropped them to the floor with a thud.
“Stalking me, Ms. Armstrong?” he drawled, his fingers gripping his water bottle so tight, the plastic squeaked in protest.
He immediately loosened his hold. Damn, he’d learned long ago to never betray any weakness of emotion. People were like sharks scenting bloody chum in the water when they sensed a chink in his armor. But when in this woman’s presence, his emotions seemed to leak through like a sieve. The impenetrable shield barricading him that had been forged in the fires of pain, loss and humiliation came away dented and scratched after an encounter with Sophie. And that presented as much of a threat, a danger to him as her insatiable need to prove that he was a deadbeat father and puppet to a master thief.
“Stalking you?” she scoffed, bending down to swipe her own bottle of water and a towel off the ground. With a strength that could be described only as Herculean, he didn’t drop his gaze to the sweet, firm curve of her ass. He deserved a medal, an award, the key to the city for not giving in to the urge. “Need I remind you, it was you who showed up at my job yesterday, not the other way around. So I guess that makes us even in the showing-up-where-we’re-not-wanted department.”
“Oh, we’re not even close to anything that resembles even, Sophie,” he said, using her name for the first time aloud. And damn if it didn’t taste good on his tongue. If he didn’t sound as if he were stroking the two syllables like they were bare, damp flesh.
She didn’t immediately reply, instead lifting the clear bottle to her mouth and sipping from it. His gaze dipped to that pursed, wicked mouth, and a primal throb set up in his blood, his dick. Stand down, he ordered his unruly flesh. His loose gray basketball shorts wouldn’t conceal the effect she had on him. And no way in hell would he give her that to use against him.
“I hate to disappoint you and your dreams of narcissistic grandeur, but I’ve been a member of this gym for years.” She swiped her towel over her throat and upper chest. “I’ve seen you here, but it’s not my fault if you’ve never noticed me.”
“That’s bullshit,” he snapped. “I would’ve noticed you.”
The words echoed between them, the meaning in them pulsing like a thick, heavy heartbeat in the sudden silence that cocooned them. Her silver eyes flared wide before they flashed with...what? Surprise? Irritation? Desire. A liquid slide of lust prowled through him like a hungry—so goddamn hungry—beast.
The air simmered around them. How could no one else see it shimmer in waves from the concrete floor like steam from a sidewalk after a summer storm?
She was the first to break the visual connection, and when she ducked her head to pat her arms down, the loss of her eyes reverberated in his chest like a physical snapping of tautly strung wire. He fisted his fingers at his sides, refusing to rub the echo of soreness there.
“Do you want me to pull out my membership card to prove that I’m not some kind of stalker?” She tilted her head to the side. “I’m dedicated to my job, but I refuse to cross the line into creepy...or criminal.”
He ground his teeth against the apology that shoved at his throat, but after a moment, he jerked his head down in an abrupt nod. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions.” And then because he couldn’t resist, because it still gnawed at him when he shouldn’t have cared what she—a reporter—thought of him or not, he added, “That predilection seems to be in the air.”
She narrowed her eyes on him, and a tiny muscle ticked along her delicate but stubborn jaw. Why that sign of temper and forced control fascinated him, he opted not to dwell on. “And what is that supposed to mean?” she asked, the pleasant tone belied by the anger brewing in her eyes like gray storm clouds.
Moments earlier, he’d wondered if fury or desire had heated her gaze. Now he had his answer. Because he now faced her anger, now had confirmation that when she looked like she wanted to knee him in the balls the silver darkened to near black.
But when she looked like she just wanted to go to her knees for him, her eyes were molten, pure hot silver.
God help him, because, masochistic fool that he’d suddenly become, he craved them both.
He wanted her rage, her passion...wanted both to beat at him, heat his skin, touch him. Make him feel.
Mentally, he scrambled away from that, that need, like it’d reared up and flashed its fangs at him. The other man he’d been—the man who’d lost himself in passion, paint and life captured on film—had drowned in emotion. Willingly. Joyfully. And when it’d been snatched away—when that passion, that life—had been stolen from him by cold, brutal reality, he’d nearly crumbled under the loss, the darkness. Hunger, wanting something so desperately, led only to the pain of eventually losing it.
He’d survived that loss once. Even though it’d been like sawing off his own limbs. He might be an emotional amputee, but dammit, he’d endured. He’d saved his family, their reputation and their business. But he’d managed it by never allowing himself to need again.
And Sophie Armstrong, with her pixie face and warrior spirit, wouldn’t undo all that he’d fought and silently screamed to build.
She must’ve interpreted his silence as an indictment, because her full mouth firmed into an aggravated line, and her shoulders slowly straightened, her posture militant and, yes, defensive. As she should be. “If it makes it easier to look at that pretty face in the mirror, then go ahead and throw verbal punches,” she sneered. Pretty face. He didn’t even pretend to take that for a compliment. Not that way her voice twisted around the words. “But I did the research, and the information I received was solid, and my sources were legitimate.”
“Sources,” he repeated, leaping on that clue. “So you had more than one?”
She didn’t move, but she might as well as have slammed up an invisible door between them. “Yes,” she replied after a long moment. “I didn’t rely on gossip or g
roundless rumors.”
“Your sources seem to believe they know a lot about not just my family, the inner workings of Black Crescent, but my personal life, as well,” he said, drawing closer to her.
The seeds that their earlier conversation in the Chronicle’s conference room had planted started to sprout roots. Roots of suspicion and hated mistrust wound their way into his head, threading around his heart. He resented Sophie for planting those kernels of suspicion about the people who existed in his small inner circle. Small for a reason. Trial by fire had taught him he could trust a precious few, and only those precious few had access to his family, the details of his life. Could one of them be the “source” she referred to? As he’d done on the drive back to his office yesterday, he again ran through their faces: Haley, Jake, Oliver.
Haley, no. Never. She’d proved her loyalty hundreds of times over. But his brothers... Jesus, he wanted to dismiss any notion that they could’ve turned on him, but... He couldn’t. They resented him, resented that he’d become their father, never appreciating the sacrifices he’d made so they could live free of the burden of Black Crescent and the dark shadow it cast. A shadow he constantly existed in but strove to, if not be free of, at least lighten.
“I want names, Sophie,” he bit out, the dregs of fear, grief and anger at the possible identities of her sources swirling in his mind roughening his voice. He stepped closer until the scent of citrus, velvet, damp blooms and woman—her—filled his nostrils. Ignoring the lure of that sensual musk, he lowered his head, forcing her to meet his gaze. “If someone is digging into my life and giving information about me, then I deserve to know who they are.” Who I need to protect myself from. “Every man has the right to confront their accusers.”
She shook her head, her golden-brown ponytail brushing her bare shoulders. “No. The people who spoke to me did so on the assurance of confidentiality, and I won’t betray that. And I absolutely refuse to expose them to the wrath of the Lowell family.”