To Win Her Smile

by Mackenzie Crowne

  “Another redhead. At least you’re consistent.” Richard ignored her to pin Wyatt with a disappointed scowl. “I’d hoped the significance of what happened this morning would open your eyes to how badly you’re wasting your life.”

  Wyatt snorted. He’d hoped that with his father riding high after his announcement, they’d be able to avoid yet another of their endless verbal skirmishes. Obviously not. “I made twenty-four million last year. I’m wasting my life?”

  “There is more to life than money, Wyatt.”

  “Says the man who inherited one hundred million from his mother.”

  “Half of which you’ll inherit when I’m gone.” Richard smirked. “But that doesn’t excuse you from chasing women and playing games for a living instead of using the mind the good Lord gave you to make the world a better place.”

  Wyatt scoffed a laugh and shoved to his feet. “Yeah, well, at least the women I chase aren’t subjected to background checks because I see enemies wherever I look. No thanks. You can keep your version of a better world.” He shot Meg an apologetic glance, then paused beside Walter on his way out the door. “The next time he wants to put on a dog and pony show, count me out.”

  “Wyatt.”

  He ignored his sister’s call and stalked into the hall. One of his father’s many assistants jumped out of his way as Wyatt turned the corner and took the stairs to the ground floor two at a time. Frustration ate at his gut and the urge to punch something was as strong as it had been all those times growing up, when his father had looked down his nose at one of Wyatt’s friends, then had the kid’s parents investigated.

  Why the fuck anyone would work so hard to build a career where every living soul was a potential enemy, Wyatt had never understood, but that was Dad. A paranoid, narcissistic bully who believed he alone could right the wrongs of the world and had no problem resorting to scorched-earth tactics to deal with anyone he perceived to be in his way. If he wanted Piper investigated, she would be, and God help her if Jennings found anything the old man didn’t like.

  “Wyatt. Wait.”

  He glanced over his shoulder. Meg hurried down the stairs after him and linked her arm with his to slow his pace.

  “Jesus, he never changes.”

  “Shh.” She glanced around at the empty hallway.

  He snorted and shot a glare over his shoulder at the staircase before pinning her with an annoyed scowl. He’d never understood Megan’s unwavering loyalty to their father, particularly in the face of his heavy-handed interference in their lives, and never would. Calling her out on her lack of sibling support, however, wouldn’t change a thing and would leave them both feeling guilty in the end.

  With a shake of his head, he looked away. “He’s got bigger problems than some volunteer overhearing me. If the citizens of this country ever discover what an asshole he is, his political career is over.”

  She squeezed his arm. “I’ll do what I can to charm Jennings into giving me an advance copy of whatever he finds.”

  Fucking great. His chest heaved on a frustrated sigh. “I’d rather you convince Dad to back off where Piper is concerned.”

  Her steps slowed, and she tugged him to a stop to study his face. “You really like this woman.”

  He slid free of her hold to jam his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know. Maybe.” He snorted and dropped his hand to his side. “Fuck. I can’t seem to help myself. There’s something about her.”

  Meg smiled softly. “She is a redhead and she’s beautiful.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” he replied, deadpan.

  She grinned, but then sobered. “I’ll do what I can, Wyatt, but you know Dad.”

  Yes, he did. Which was why he left the governor’s mansion with his guts tied in knots.

  Chapter 14

  Shortly after Piper left the governor’s mansion, Wyatt called to say he’d been detained and didn’t think he’d be back at his home before the line of thunderstorms moving into the area closed the airport. With their return to Manhattan delayed, Piper spent the next hour wandering the expansive grounds surrounding Wyatt’s house. As late as it was in the season, she was surprised by the lush greenery, and charmed by the small pond at the back of the property.

  The family of mallards nesting in the reeds along its bank reminded her of home. As she photographed mama duck with her babies, a sense of hope she hadn’t experienced in much too long a time wrapped around her heart like a bittersweet silver lining. She and Wyatt Hunter may never come together on a personal level, but their professional association meant her debt to Abigail would soon be paid. Delaney Manor was safe.

  Eventually chased inside by the first bolt of lightning, Piper climbed the stairs to the second floor to catalogue the space Wyatt had claimed as his own. In the yellow bedroom where she’d spent the night, she paused at the connecting door to the master bedroom. She swung the door wide and stepped inside.

  A huge antique king’s bed dominated the large room decorated in a more masculine burgundy and cream. The piece was of museum quality, featuring solid wood craftsmanship and hand carved designs on the thick posts and paneled top. She eyed the matching nightstands and dresser and arched a brow.

  Both this and the yellow bedroom were gorgeous, but they were almost too perfect. Like they’d been staged. And a bit on the stuffy side. She far preferred the more casual style he’d incorporated in his Manhattan condo. If it were up to her, she would fill this room with simplistic pieces. Nothing too feminine, of course. Wyatt was a large man and would require furniture that fit, but… She squeezed her eyes shut and groaned.

  You’ve gone daft, girl. Daydreaming about furniture with the devil’s body in mind. Do the job for which ye were hired, collect the remainder of yer money, and go home!

  A half hour and close to one hundred photos later, she entered the kitchen. A distant rumble of thunder announced the storm was finally moving off. Rosa stood at the stove stirring a large pot. Piper snapped several pictures before lowering her camera.

  “Something smells delicious.”

  Rosa turned her head and smiled. “I make meatball soup for lunch. The meatballs and vegetables, they are too heavy for the bebe until she is better, but the broth, it is good for her.”

  “Mandy’s home?” Wyatt had mentioned stopping by the hospital to check on her, but Piper assumed the girl had been admitted for a few days.

  “Sí. She is much better today. Wyatt, he bring her and her mama home.” Tapping the slotted spoon on the rim of the pot, Rosa set it aside and wiped her hands on the small towel tucked into the waist of her skirt. “He says you leave soon, but first, you have lunch, no?”

  “Lunch sounds lovely.” Piper glanced around. “Where is he?”

  Retrieving several bowls from a cabinet, Rosa bumped her chin toward the end of the kitchen. “In the den. You tell him I serve lunch in five minutes.”

  Piper smiled and nodded her assent, then approached the den on hesitant feet. The sooner she told him she’d changed her mind about their fling, the better. For both of them. She needed the matter settled. Once it was, there would be less chance she would fall victim to tempting daydreams. Besides, stringing him along wasn’t right.

  She owed him the truth, but here in his home with his family around him wasn’t the place for that conversation. If she could just keep the disappointment off her face until they were alone at forty thousand feet…

  She paused in the doorway, and automatically lifted the camera to snap several shots. Expecting Tonya West, Piper was surprised to find Megan tucked to Wyatt’s side on the tufted loveseat, his arm slung around her shoulders. In her lap was Mandy, wrapped in a pink blanket, her face pale, but smiling. The little girl’s gray-green eyes were full of pleasure as she turned the thick, cardboard page in the book Wyatt held. He dipped his head and finished reading the story.

  “The end,” Mandy announced,
and brother and sister shared a grin over her head.

  Promise me anything you see or hear in the next few minutes will go nowhere.

  The breath stalled in Piper’s lungs as Wyatt’s request echoed in her ears. Like tumblers in a lock sliding into place, a suspicion she hadn’t been aware of clicked into certainty. She lowered the camera with shaking hands and stared at their three dirty-blond heads.

  She wants her mama when she is sick.

  Piper’s heart galloped in her chest.

  Tonya had said, “Amanda is mine. Not, Amanda is my daughter.”

  Piper swallowed the sudden rush of nausea burning its way up from her belly. Megan’s nervous and unsolicited explanation the other evening in Wyatt’s condo suddenly made perfect sense, and the implications were horrifyingly enormous. Wyatt hadn’t needed to horn in on anything to claim the label of uncle with Mandy. He came by the relation naturally. His Mandy Candy wasn’t a West. She was a Hunter.

  Oh, bloody hell.

  “Pipah. Pipah!”

  Piper blinked at Mandy’s shouted greeting, and shifted her gaze between brother and sister. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude.”

  The warmth in Wyatt’s eyes nearly made her cry. He set the book aside. “You aren’t intruding. Couldn’t even if you wanted to.”

  Bugger it. If you only knew.

  “My brother’s right.” Megan slid from beneath his arm and stood. “Wyatt and I were just giving Tonya a few minutes to shower, since she’s been at the hospital all night.”

  Piper hoped her new understanding didn’t show in her eyes as she met Megan’s gaze. “I just came in to let Wyatt know Rosa has lunch ready.”

  “Soup,” Mandy pronounced.

  “Yes, your favorite soup.” Megan’s smile was strained as she held out her arms to Wyatt. “I’ll take her. Tonya should be down in a few.”

  Wyatt stood and handed Mandy over, but didn’t immediately follow his sister and niece from the room. Tucking a crooked finger beneath Piper’s chin, he lifted her face for his inspection. His brows slid together.

  “You okay?”

  Any answer she gave him affirming his question would be a lie. She settled for a half-truth. “Just tired, I guess.”

  In a flash, she was in his arms, and she was surprised to find his heartbeat against her breasts as unsteady as hers surely was. He rested his chin on the top of her head and sighed. “The last eighteen hours sucked.”

  Because she couldn’t disagree, she nodded against his chest.

  His arms contracted as he tucked her even closer. “But if you’ll trust me, I’ll make it up to you later.”

  It was her turn to sigh. “Wyatt, I...”

  “I know what you’re going to say, but you’re wrong.”

  Releasing her from his hold, he pulled back enough to lower his head so he could kiss her. In less than half a moment her limbs had gone weak and the temperature in the room had jumped by half a degrees. When he finally broke the connection, she was in dire need of a fan and his grin said he knew exactly what he’d just done to her.

  “That’s right, duchess. Don’t say a word. We’ll talk on the plane.”

  * * * *

  Rosa’s meatball soup might as well have been made of dishwater. Piper didn’t taste a thing as she forced down lunch. She did make an attempt to add to the conversation around the table, but had no idea if she’d made any sense. A mix of relief and anxiety left her slightly nauseous as they said good-bye to Wyatt’s sister and niece, Rosa and Tonya, too, and climbed into the SUV she’d assumed was a rental when they’d first arrived.

  As with the vehicle, she’d made a number of incorrect assumptions since meeting Wyatt Hunter. Like his plane, and his sister and niece, and believing for even one millisecond she could stroll into his world in any capacity and walk out again unscathed. From what she could tell, there were five people in the world who knew the truth about Mandy, and Piper wished with all her heart she wasn’t one of them.

  How the bloody hell had she ended up tangled with the one sexy jock with ties to the highest political game on the planet? At the level of power Wyatt’s father moved in, secrets had gotten people killed. She’d already had her nose broken. Forget surviving with her heart intact. Good Lord. She’d be lucky to survive, period.

  But if she saw through the ruse, might not others? This wasn’t a secret she would be comfortable keeping to herself. She’d have to say something. At least to Wyatt.

  Not that she was in any position to judge. Piper didn’t have to stretch to see the desperate reasoning behind the decision to hide Mandy from the world, and couldn’t honestly say for sure she would have done anything different if she’d found herself in Megan’s shoes. The fact was, knowing firsthand the kind of hell that could rain down on a person caught in the crosshairs of the press, Piper would have been just as desperate.

  Wyatt didn’t say a word in the car on the way to the airport, and Piper was glad to postpone what was sure to be a contentious discussion—if his heated kiss were any indication. Lord, what a mess.

  The moment they stepped onto the plane, he directed her to the couch and showed her how to work the seat belt. Once she was buckled in, she opened her mouth, but he held up his hand. Depressing the cue on a wall panel, he gave Curtis, his invisible pilot, the go ahead, then turned, slid onto the couch beside her, and covered her mouth with his.

  The tactic was unexpected and incredibly devious. Seriously, how was she supposed to think with every other system but those controlling her girl parts shutting down? Somewhere in the distance, engines revved. The plane turned to begin taxiing to the runway, and her head spun—or maybe the spinning was due to the sweep of Wyatt’s tongue, tangling with hers.

  G-forces pressed her into the couch as they took off, then eventually eased as the plane leveled out. Throughout the climb to forty thousand feet, a nagging question tugged at the back of her mind. She tried to capture it, but each time awareness floated close to the surface, the brush of Wyatt’s palm or sweep of his fingertips on her over-sensitized nerve endings short-circuited her thought process.

  A moan was the best she could manage, until a sudden pocket of turbulence and Curtis’s voice coming through the speakers dragged her back from the sensual spell Wyatt had cast.

  “Sorry about that, Wyatt. We’ve got some weather ahead. I’m rerouting to try to avoid it.”

  With a soft growl deep in his throat, Wyatt straightened away from her and cued the button on the wall once again. “Roger that, Curtis.”

  He dropped his arm and locked his gaze on hers. Her body staged an instant mutiny at the passion darkening his eyes. Nipples puckered, clit throbbing, her body screamed at her to act now and talk later, but there was too much at stake to give in to her baser instincts. When he leaned toward her again, she dodged his kiss.

  Using both hands, she shoved up from the wanton sprawl she’d slipped into. “You said we would talk.”

  “I’d rather we let our bodies do the talking.”

  So much for avoiding his talented mouth. With a twist of his upper body, he found her neck with his lips and nibbled his way up the sensitive tendon toward her ear.

  In danger of sinking back under his seduction, she pushed at his chest. “Wyatt. Don’t do this to me. I’m not sure I have the willpower to resist you.”

  His chuckle rumbled beneath her hands as he slid his lips over her jaw to her cheek. “Your lack of willpower is just one of the many things I like about you.”

  Her helpless laugh ended on a groan, and she dropped her forehead to his shoulder. “Please, Wyatt.”

  His chest expanded on a deep breath before he lifted his head. She straightened to look him in the eye, and he cupped her cheek in his palm.

  “Okay, duchess. We’ll talk, but I’m warning you right here and now, I’m not going to let you walk away simply because you’re
scared.” He dropped a kiss to her nose, then released her and stood.

  She hiked her chin to a defensive angle. “This has nothing to do with me being scared.”

  “That’s bullshit and we both know it.” Pacing to a block of cabinets several feet away, he opened an upper door and retrieved a bottle and two glasses.

  She stared at his back as he poured a splash of what she assumed was alcohol into each. “Even if that’s true, you can’t tell me I don’t have a reason. Good Lord, Wyatt. Your father is running for president of the United States. Even we Brits admit the job is the most powerful position in the world.”

  He returned to hold out a glass.

  She frowned and snatched it from his hand. “You had to have driven past that mob camped out at the end of your father’s drive this morning. How long do you think we’ll be able to keep our fling a secret with every Nosey Parker in the world keen to discover every detail of your father’s life?”

  Like the secret, disabled granddaughter he apparently knows nothing about. Bugger it all.

  Tossing back the dark liquid, she sputtered and coughed as a wave of fire burned its way down her esophagus. With tears springing in her eyes, she glared up at him. “Bloody hell. That was whiskey!”

  The arch of his brow didn’t hide the humor in his eyes. “As a Scotswoman, I would expect you to enjoy a fine malt now and again.” He raised his glass to his lips, then hissed between his teeth after swallowing the shot whole. “Smooth.”

  “It so happens I detest the stuff, and smooth me arse.” She choked on another cough and slapped a hand to her chest. “It’s bloody rot. Petrol would be smoother.”

  His bark of laughter accompanied a sharp grin. “I’ve got to tell you, duchess, I love it when you talk dirty.”

  The fire in her throat was too immediate to be embarrassed. She slapped her glass into the hand he held out. “I assume you have water around here somewhere.”

  He continued to chuckle as he returned to the cabinet where he’d found the whiskey. Setting aside the glasses, he pressed a panel on a lower cabinet and pulled a water bottle from a refrigerated cabinet. He straightened and returned. After handing her the cool bottle, he slid into the chair across from the couch.