The Delacourt Scandal

by Sherryl Woods

  Since there had been no call upstairs, whoever it was couldn’t possibly know he was inside. Therefore, if he just ignored that incessant tapping, it would eventually stop. Or so he hoped.

  Instead, he heard the scrape of a key in the lock, the murmur of voices, then saw the knob slowly twist. He was on his feet in a heartbeat.

  “What the hell?” he demanded, jerking the door the rest of the way open and dragging a very startled Maddie Kent with it. “You!”

  He stared from her to the apologetic doorman. “Rodney, what is the meaning of this?”

  “She said you hadn’t been answering your phone. She said you’d been very upset and she was concerned about you. Since you hadn’t said anything about leaving town again and I hadn’t seen you for a couple of days myself, I figured it was worth checking out.”

  Tyler raked a hand through his hair. How could he blow a gasket over the man’s very real concern? Rodney was a valuable building employee precisely because he cared about the condo owners and paid close attention to their security and well-being. The elderly owners considered him a friend.

  Maddie was another story.

  Tyler patted the doorman on his back. “It’s okay, Rodney.”

  The man regarded him with genuine dismay. “It won’t happen again, sir.” He backed away. “Let me know if you need anything.”

  Other than peace and quiet, Tyler couldn’t imagine what that might be. Rodney disappeared on the elevator, leaving Maddie behind.

  “Mind telling me what you’re doing here?” he asked.

  “Your doorman pretty much summed it up. You haven’t been at O’Reilly’s. No one’s seen you since the other night.”

  “So?”

  “You weren’t in the best mood,” she said, as if that were somehow significant.

  “And that would be your business because…?”

  Her gaze clashed with his, not wavering by so much as the flicker of an eyelash. Those amber eyes glowed with warmth and concern. “I was worried, that’s all.”

  To his amazement, she sounded as if she actually meant it. What had she thought might happen? “Maddie, I drop out of sight all the time. Usually I’m back out on some rig.”

  “But you’re not there now, are you?” she pointed out reasonably.

  “No, but…”

  “So, something could have been wrong.”

  “But it’s not.”

  “Thank goodness,” she retorted fervently.

  He regarded her with suspicion. “How did you know where to find me? I never even told you my last name.”

  “O’Reilly told me. He was worried, too.”

  Tyler laughed at that. Kevin O’Reilly rarely worried about his patrons unless their bar tabs weren’t up-to-date. More likely, he’d just fallen for little Ms. Kent’s innocent act of concern.

  “He was,” she claimed indignantly. “He told me exactly where to find you. Said you owed him one.” A frown knit her brow. “I’m not sure what he meant by that.”

  Tyler knew. O’Reilly obviously thought he’d been doing Tyler a favor by delivering a sexy little package straight to his doorstep. “I’ll have to speak to O’Reilly about minding his own business.”

  “He seems like a very nice man, very helpful.”

  “Yes, I suppose you would see it that way.” He sighed. “Well, now that you’re here, I suppose you might as well come on in and have something to drink. I’m fresh out of ginger ale, though.”

  “Juice, water, whatever you have,” she said agreeably. She was already wandering around the apartment, studying it with undisguised curiosity.

  Tyler went into the kitchen, poured her a glass of soda, added ice, then returned to find her holding a family portrait, one taken at Christmas the year before. There was an odd expression on her face, one he couldn’t quite interpret.

  “Do you have a big family?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “Just two brothers. Both my parents are dead.”

  “I’m sorry. Do you spend much time with your brothers?”

  “Not really.” She put the picture back very carefully.

  There had been a few occasions when Tyler had regretted being part of such a large, tight-knit family, but seeing the sadness in Maddie’s eyes, he realized once again just how lucky he really was. From time to time he and his siblings might aggravate the daylights out of each other, but they would go to the ends of the earth for each other.

  And with the rest of them married and starting families of their own, the Delacourts were an impressive bunch when they all got together in one place as they had last year for the holidays. His father’s heart attack had been a reminder to all of them how quickly things could change. They had vowed at the hospital never to let another holiday season pass without some sort of reunion. Last year Trish had managed to lure even their parents to Los Pin˜os for a quiet, old-fashioned family celebration, rather than the Houston social whirl they preferred.

  “That’s too bad about you and your brothers,” he told Maddie. “Did you have a falling out?”

  “No. We just drifted apart. We don’t have much in common anymore.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, helpless to think of anything more profound to say.

  “You’re very close to your family, aren’t you? I can see it in the picture.”

  “We get along well enough—most of the time, anyway. Like all families, we have our ups and downs.” After his illness, a mellower Bryce Delacourt had seemed to accept the decisions his children had made for their lives—all except Tyler, apparently.

  Maddie curled up in an oversize chair facing him. “Tell me about them—I love hearing about big families. And yours is pretty much legendary here in Texas.”

  Since that particular cat was clearly out of the bag and she didn’t seem overly impressed by it, Tyler gave her a brief rundown of the various Delacourts, right down to the most recently adopted grandchildren, Josh and Jamie, two brothers taken in by Grace and Michael, who were currently staying over on Trish’s ranch in Los Pin˜os while the newlyweds traveled on their honeymoon. Maddie listened raptly to every word he said, prodding him with questions every time he thought her curiosity must surely be satisfied.

  “You have to be bored hearing all of this,” he said at last. “It’s like watching home movies of people you don’t know or vacations you didn’t share.”

  “No, really, I love it. Tell me more about your father. I’ve read about him, of course. What’s he like?”

  “He’s stubborn, ambitious, dynamic and generally a pain in the butt,” Tyler said honestly. “But we all love him just the same.”

  Suddenly she glanced at and then picked up a tiny framed picture of his daughter, the only one Tyler had. He froze as she studied it. Cursing the fact that he hadn’t put it away as he usually did when company came over, he waited for the questions he sensed were about to come.

  “Is this a niece or nephew?” she asked.

  “No,” he said tersely, then forced a smile. He restrained himself from snatching the picture out of her hands. Eventually she put it back in place, though her gaze kept straying back to it.

  “Enough about my family,” he said, when it seemed she was about to ask more questions. “Tell me more about yours. Were you very young when you lost your parents?”

  “I was fifteen when my dad died,” she said.

  Tyler saw the pain behind her stoic expression, heard the sorrow in her voice. As irritating as he often found his father, he couldn’t imagine losing him. Last year’s heart attack, though mild, had scared all of them, reminding them that even the larger-than-life Bryce Delacourt was merely mortal.

  “That must have been hard,” he said sympathetically.

  “It was.”

  Since she didn’t seem inclined to say more, he asked, “And your mom?”

  “My mother died just last year, but she was never really the same after my dad died.”

  Since both of them seemed to have valid reasons for not wanting to de
lve any more deeply into family history, Tyler changed the subject. “What do you do for a living, Maddie Kent?”

  “I’m…” She turned away, then finally met his gaze. “I’m between jobs right now.”

  Tyler couldn’t tell whether pride had put that embarrassed flush in her cheeks or whether it was because she was lying. He had spent enough time around women to sense when one wasn’t being completely honest with him. And something was telling him now that Maddie Kent had been skirting the truth from the moment he’d met her.

  “Is that why you came to Houston, to find work?”

  She nodded. “I thought it might be easier in a big city, that there would be a lot of opportunities.”

  “The classifieds are definitely full of jobs. No nibbles yet?”

  “Not yet, but I’m still hopeful,” she said cheerfully.

  “What kind of work are you looking for? I could check at Delacourt Oil. Maybe there’s an opening there that would suit you.”

  An odd expression crossed her face, but Tyler couldn’t quite interpret it.

  “I’m pretty flexible, actually, but I don’t want you to go to any trouble. I’m sure I’ll find something anyday now.” There was a touch of stubborn, if admirable, pride in the lift of her chin.

  “There’s nothing wrong with getting a little help, Maddie. A lot of people find their jobs through networking. It’s the way the corporate world works. Why do you think so many women fought to get into clubs that were open only to men? They knew that’s where the men were finding out about job openings.”

  “Is that how you found your job?”

  Tyler laughed for the first time in days. “No, I’m afraid I got mine through nepotism, pure and simple. The truth is I’d have a hard time not working at Delacourt Oil.”

  “Then you work for your father?”

  He met her bright gaze, tried to discern if there was something more than curiosity behind her questions. “Yes, unfortunately.”

  “On one of the company’s rigs?”

  “For the moment,” he said tersely. “Could we talk about something else? The weather, maybe?”

  “Your job’s a sore point?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said fervently.

  “How come?”

  “If you knew my father, you’d understand.”

  “Since I don’t, why don’t you explain it to me? I’m a good listener.”

  He was surprisingly tempted to do just that, to share all of the hopes and frustrations he’d been keeping bottled up inside since Jen’s death. The mental comparison with Jen was enough to bring him up short.

  “So you’ve said, but I’ve taken up enough of your time, Maddie.” He stood up abruptly and looked pointedly toward the door.

  Maddie didn’t budge at first, but then her eyes widened. “Oh,” she said softly. “You want me to go. I suppose I did burst in uninvited and disrupt your plans for the evening. I’m sorry.”

  Oddly enough, he realized that he didn’t want her to leave, not really. And that made him more determined than ever to get her out the door. She asked too many questions. Sooner or later she would work the conversation back to that baby picture. Or to his father. Or to his job. None were topics he cared to explore just now.

  Sooner or later he would have to kiss her just to shut her up. Just thinking about it made him feel disloyal to Jen’s memory.

  That was another thing that was worrisome about Ms. Maddie Kent. No other woman had been able to make him forget about Jen, not even for a second, but for a little while tonight he’d been aware only of the woman who’d bullied her way into his apartment simply because she was concerned about him. Somehow she had managed to banish some of his suspicions about her in the process. He’d been counting on that wariness to keep him from getting in too deep.

  “Yeah,” he said gruffly. “No offense, but I want you to go. It’s getting late. Do you need a ride home? I can call a cab for you.”

  She shook her head. “My car’s over by O’Reilly’s. I can walk.”

  Tyler bit back an oath of pure frustration. “Not alone, not at this hour,” he said. “I’ll walk with you.”

  Her chin rose stubbornly. “It’s a few blocks. I’ll be perfectly safe.”

  “With me along, you will be,” he agreed. “Got everything?”

  She patted her purse. “Right here.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  Outside, there was something about the heavy night air closing in around them that made Tyler feel as if they were still all alone. It was the kind of atmosphere that invited confidences. But instead, they walked in surprisingly companionable silence for a bit. Tyler hadn’t realized Maddie could be so quiet for so long. Thrown off guard by it, he felt a sudden need to figure out what made this woman tick, to unravel the contradictions he’d sensed in her.

  “Maddie, what really brought you to my place tonight?”

  She regarded him with surprise. “I told you, I was concerned when you didn’t show up at O’Reilly’s.”

  “You have to admit it’s unusual to take such an interest in a virtual stranger.”

  Her gaze met his. “Not for me.”

  “Then you make a habit of riding to the rescue of people you barely know?” The thought bothered him for some reason he couldn’t quite explain. On some purely masculine level, he wanted to be different, which was absurd when not five minutes ago he’d feared getting any more deeply involved with her.

  “Only the ones with potential,” she teased lightly.

  “Potential?”

  “Of becoming friends.”

  Friends. The word echoed in his head, annoying him irrationally. Had he been misreading the signals that badly?

  “Can you believe how hot and muggy it is?” she said, stealing the chance for him to question the limitation she seemed to be placing on their relationship. “It feels like rain. Maybe that will cool things off.”

  Because she seemed so determined to move to an impersonal, innocuous topic, Tyler deliberately gave the conversation a provocative turn.

  “Some people think there’s something sexy about a sultry night like this.” His gaze locked with hers. “The weather gets you all hot and bothered. You start stripping off clothes till you’re down to almost nothing.”

  Maddie swallowed hard, but she didn’t look away. “Sounds…” Her voice trailed off.

  “Tempting?” he inquired, amused by her sudden breathlessness, relieved that he hadn’t lost his touch, after all.

  She blinked away the hint of yearning in her eyes, seemed to struggle to regain her composure. “Disgustingly sweaty,” she said tartly. She turned away, then stopped, looking relieved. “Here’s my car.”

  “Well, good night, then. Drive carefully.”

  “I always do.”

  For some reason he didn’t entirely understand, he impulsively captured her chin in his hand and brushed a light kiss across her lush mouth. Maybe it was just so he could catch one more glimpse of that startled flaring of heat in her eyes. He was amply rewarded for his efforts. She stared at him in openmouthed astonishment, but unfortunately that quick taste and her surprise didn’t seem to be quite enough to satisfy him. Besides, her lips were soft as silk and sweet as sugar. What man could resist?

  But even as he lowered his head to claim another kiss, she ducked away and slid into her car. The rejection might have stung if he hadn’t noted the way her hands trembled ever so slightly before she clutched the steering wheel tightly.

  “Good night,” he said again, but the words were lost as she started the engine.

  He watched her drive away. Then, instead of turning toward home, he headed for O’Reilly’s, his throat suddenly parched. Rather than simplifying his life as he’d planned to tonight, he had a feeling he’d just made it a whole lot more complicated.

  Chapter Three

  This was going to be much more difficult than she’d anticipated, Maddie concluded as she drove slowly away, trying to calm her jittery nerves after that unexpected
kiss. She should have seen it coming, should have steeled herself against it. After all, wasn’t Tyler’s easygoing flirtatiousness one of the very reasons she’d chosen him as the best Delacourt to approach?

  However, her instantaneous reaction was a warning. She had to get a grip, find some way to avoid being alone with him on hot, sultry nights that held the promise of romance in the air. Otherwise this investigation of hers was going to get very dicey.

  And, unfortunately, that wasn’t the only potential problem she’d discovered tonight. She’d also realized that the man didn’t trust her. Apparently she wasn’t nearly as good at deception as she’d hoped to be. He’d watched her suspiciously from the instant she’d arrived on his doorstep, then deftly skirted many of her questions. Obviously, she was going to have to work harder to gain his trust.

  Of course, the worst glitch of all, the most unexpected was the fact that she instinctively liked him. Hormones were one thing, but actually relating to the man was something else entirely—and in some ways even more seductive and dangerous. Tyler was a funny, low-key kind of guy, surprisingly unpretentious for a man with the Delacourt wealth and standing in the community. Under other circumstances…

  She caught herself before that particular thought could take shape. The circumstances were what they were. She couldn’t let herself like Tyler, or any other Delacourt. If that meant reminding herself that they were the enemy a hundred times a day, then that was exactly what she had to do. She was up to her fiftieth reminder so far tonight, and the message apparently wasn’t getting through.

  Unfortunately, she was as certain as ever that Tyler was the key to getting what she needed. All of her preliminary research indicated that his brothers and his sister were leading exemplary lives. And since Tyler was the only remaining bachelor, he was the only one who was readily accessible to her. It had been easy enough to discover his usual routine, the places he tended to haunt. O’Reilly’s was one, but there were more locations where she was certain she could bump into him “accidentally” to keep the contact alive.