Full House Seduction

by A. C. Arthur

  Brock didn’t frown but he did look at Kent sternly. His demeanor had been precarious since he’d arrived, Noelle noticed. It had been Josette that mentioned today being Brock’s birthday and Kent who vehemently opposed of them doing anything. But in the end Noelle’s power of persuasion had worked because she firmly believed that each and every living person should celebrate the day of their birth for the simple fact that they weren’t promised another one.

  “You didn’t have to do this,” she heard Brock say, and wondered why it was so hard for him to accept these small acts of kindness.

  “We know,” Josette said, reaching a hand across the table to touch the one of his that had just put his napkin down. “But we wanted to.”

  Giving her hand a light squeeze, Brock opened the envelope and pulled out what looked like tickets. “It’s for a European cruise,” he announced.

  “Wow! That should be a great vacation,” Noelle said, hoping that would at least cheer him up a little. Never had she seen anybody look so down about a birthday cake and dinner.

  “There’s two tickets and an open sail date,” he said, eyeing Kent.

  “Just in case you don’t want to travel alone. And I know you’re not going to even consider leaving until after the casino is finished.”

  “It’ll be a great way for you to unwind after all your hard work,” Josette added.

  With a heaviness in his chest that he hadn’t expected, Brock thanked them, the two closest people to him besides his adopted family.

  “And now, the celebration is officially over,” Kent said, coming to his feet.

  Brock stood as Kent clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t be too angry. Remember, she doesn’t know,” he whispered as Noelle and Josette started to clean the table.

  “I’m not angry,” he said. How could he be when she’d given him a balloon and his special smile and Kent and Josette had given him a cruise?

  “No. But you’re not happy, either.”

  “Happiness is overrated. I’ve told you that before,” he said, then turned to take the dishes from Josette’s hands. “Don’t worry about this. I’ll clean up. You and Kent go on home. You’ve got a long drive back to Easton.”

  Letting him take the dishes, Josette came up on her tiptoes and kissed Brock’s cheek. “You’ve got to let go sometime, Brock. Why not now?”

  Accepting her words and the well meaning behind them, Brock smiled down at Josette. “Thanks. I’ll be all right.”

  Noelle watched the exchange with mounting questions. Clearly something had happened to him on this day, something that he didn’t like to talk about but that kept him from finding the smallest enjoyment in the day of his birth.

  She shouldn’t ask. She shouldn’t care.

  She didn’t, Noelle decided and continued to clear the table. She heard the front door close and was about to go out to get the rest of the dishes when Brock met her in the kitchen, his hands full of glasses and cake plates.

  “I was going to get that,” she said.

  “It’s okay. I’m used to cleaning up after myself.”

  He didn’t sound angry like he did when he’d first come home, but he didn’t sound chipper, either. “Well, it’s your birthday so you don’t have to do it. Why don’t you go ahead and go to bed? I’ll take care of this.”

  For endless moments he only stood there staring at her. Noelle wanted to reach out to him, to touch his cheek in offer of comfort. She wanted to help him through his pain, which was more than idiotic of her. They weren’t friends and they weren’t family. They were working together. This urge she felt to comfort him was ridiculous and probably only a result of the intimacy they’d so foolishly shared.

  So she turned away from him, before she’d been forced to do something like hug him or, even worse, hold him. Picking up the dishwashing liquid, she squirted an enormous amount into the sink, then held back a sneeze as she turned on the water and the floral scent wafted up to her nose.

  “I have some work to do,” he said from behind her.

  “Okay,” she said stiffly.

  “Thank you,” he said, clearing his throat. “For tonight, I mean. Kent and Josette would have never done this on their own. So I know it had to be your idea.”

  She shrugged. “I like birthdays, so sue me.”

  She liked birthdays and feeding ducks and swimming. All information that shouldn’t amount to a hill of beans for him, but did.

  Chapter 12

  With each step taken Noelle argued with herself. It wasn’t any of her business. If he wanted to brood and stew on his birthday, so be it. But if he was hurting and needed someone to talk to, she couldn’t really walk away. Could she?

  “You spend too much time alone,” Noelle said, leaning against the doorjamb of his office where she’d found him behind the desk an hour after dinner.

  “I like my life just the way it is, thank you,” he snapped, barely looking up at her.

  “Well, excuse me for being concerned,” she retorted, then turned to leave.

  At her tone Brock looked up. She’d changed from the slacks and blouse she’d worn at dinner. Her long hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She wore denim shorts and a tank top that was cut too low for decency.

  “Noelle?”

  “What?” she answered tightly without turning back to face him.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She turned slowly in what Brock thought had to be the sexiest move short of her undressing right then and there. “I’m used to being alone. I usually like it that way,” he offered.

  “It’s not healthy, but if it’s your preference, so be it. I won’t disturb you.”

  “No.” He stood. “It’s not my preference. I mean, at least not while you’re here.”

  She folded her arms over her chest and simply stared at him. “There’s something about you, Brock Remington. Something going on in your head that you refuse to share with anyone. I think it’s something painful that you don’t know how to deal with yourself.”

  Because she was way too close to the truth, Brock walked toward her. “You know what I like to do when I’m alone?”

  Her lips quirked. “What? And don’t tell me it involves hand lotion.”

  Brock chuckled. She could do that to him, he thought suddenly. When he was out of sorts or just in a bad mood, she could make him laugh. He’d never had anyone that could do that for him. “No, and get your mind out of the gutter. I like to play checkers.”

  He didn’t know why he was telling her this, but as he made his way to the cabinet, opened the door and pulled out the older game, it just felt right.

  “My dad taught me how to play.”

  “Really?” she asked, stepping farther into his office. “I’d never peg Albert Donovan for a checkers player.”

  Brock sat the game down on the table near the window and looked pointedly at her. “Albert’s not my real father.”

  Noelle was across the table from him now, opening the box. “I know. Jade told me that he and his late wife adopted you after your parents died. So technically he is your father now.”

  Brock took a deep, steadying breath. “Twenty-one years ago today my father died and I went to live with Albert and Darla.”

  “Oh, Brock, I’m sorry. That’s why you didn’t want a celebration?”

  “I don’t like to remember the day, the feelings,” he said simply.

  He continued, “Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate everything that Albert and Darla did for me. I couldn’t have asked for a better upbringing and I will love Albert forever for his sacrifice.”

  Noelle was already shaking her head. “I don’t think it was a sacrifice for him. Albert seems like a really loyal man, like the rest of the Donovan men. If your father was his close friend, of course he’d do whatever he could to take care of his son.”

  “You think it’s as simple as that?” he asked, noting she’d already pulled out the board and was setting up the red pieces as her own. Red suited her feisty nature and almost made
him smile.

  “Sure it is. I’m grateful to Linc and the Donovans for all they’ve done for me. I love them for opening their arms to me and to Jade. They’ve earned my loyalty, so whatever it is they need, if I could provide it I would, without a second thought.”

  And at that moment Brock realized her words were absolutely true. She was loyal and caring and genuine, traits he hadn’t seen in many women.

  He sat down in the chair across from her. He set up his pieces and they began to play. She didn’t talk a lot through the game, which was different because Noelle always seemed to have something to say. He’d noticed that about her in the two weeks she’d been here. She talked to everyone she met as if she’d known them all her life. She was curious by nature and dangerously smart. Her laughter was quick and contagious, her smile alluring and satisfying. All clear and upfront, just like her. With Noelle it seemed what you saw was what you got. She was refreshing.

  So much so that Brock found himself relaxing. “My mother didn’t die,” he said suddenly when she had two kings to his three but was giving him a sound run for his money.

  “What happened to her?”

  “She took sick. After my father died.” Brock thought about his words then corrected them, “No. She became sick before he died.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “Delancie Psychiatric Center,” he replied as easily as if he were answering a question about the weather.

  Noelle did look up at him then. “Do you visit her?”

  “I haven’t in a long while,” he replied, feeling her gaze burning against him but refusing to look up. He moved one of his kings into a corner spot and waited for her.

  “Were you and she close?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How long’s it been since you’ve seen her?”

  “About two years.”

  “Two years. Huh.” She moved her piece without thought. Brock jumped her and took her king. “You should go and see her,” she said.

  Brock looked at her then. “Why?”

  “Because she’s your mother.” She waited a beat, then said, “And you miss her.”

  “She left me,” Brock grumbled, then looked away.

  “When she got sick, you mean?”

  “Either way, it doesn’t matter. She left. My father was gone and then she was gone and I moved to Texas.”

  “She can’t help that she’s sick, Brock.”

  “You don’t know that. You don’t know her.”

  “No. I don’t. But I do know what it feels like to not have a mother at all. My mother drank herself to death because my deadbeat father couldn’t be a man. My grandmother raised Jade and me and she was everything to us. When she died, I was devastated because I felt like she’d left me just like my mother and my father had. But then I realized that she hadn’t left—her job was completed and I was being selfish for thinking otherwise.”

  She stood, looking down at him. “I don’t take you for a selfish person, Brock. And I don’t know what happened with your mother. But what I do know is that sometimes people do things because it’s their destiny, not their choice. You should think about that before you rush to judge her.”

  Their game was over, and he’d shared enough. So why did he still want her to stay? Why did he desperately want to explain to her how he felt? So she’d approve, so she wouldn’t be looking at him with barely masked pity in her eyes.

  “It’s not like you think. There was a scandal. My parents were what you’d call the Romeo and Juliet of their time. My mother’s family was from a long line of blue bloods up north in Maine. My father was from here. He met her while on a business trip when he started his first construction company. They wanted to be married right away. Her parents disapproved, said she was marrying beneath her. My father’s parents were insulted and forbid him to marry my mother, as well.”

  She’d taken her seat again and was watching him attentively. Her eyes were alight, but with concern this time, genuine interest in what it was he said.

  “They married anyway and my mother moved here. When my father’s company began to do well they hired a maid to help my mother around the house. They didn’t know that the maid really worked for my mother’s father. He, apparently, was incensed by the scandal my mother marrying my father had brought to his family, so he’d decided to take care of them both. One day the house was raided. I was nine years old then. The police burst through the door before I had left for school. The maid had planted all sorts of drugs, and firearms were found. My father was arrested.

  “The papers began reporting that afternoon. By the close of business that day my father had made bail but he’d also lost several huge accounts, including the new resort he was going to build in Queenstown. Over the next few months my mother stopped being invited to her social engagements, and talk continued about my father being a drug lord. That’s when Mom became sick.”

  Noelle had been holding her breath, her heart breaking a little more with each word he spoke. He’d only been a boy and yet he endured all this, he’d known all this was going on around him. How utterly sad.

  He stood, walked to the window and slipped his hands into his pockets. “The bad dreams came first. There was always someone coming to kill her, to kill me and Dad. She rarely slept through the night, and then during the day she was so paranoid she couldn’t rest. She became so jumpy I used to have to carry pockets full of change to make noise whenever I entered the room. She started talking to herself and keeping me locked in my room.”

  “Oh, Brock,” she whispered, and came to stand behind him.

  “The morning of my tenth birthday Dad said we were having a big dinner celebration. He gave Celia, the maid, the complete list of everything I wanted. Barbeque chicken, mac and cheese, biscuits, a chocolate cake and lots and lots of balloons. I loved balloons when I was younger.” He smiled with the memory.

  Noelle didn’t hesitate but slid her arms around his waist, resting her head against his back.

  “It was the last day of school and my birthday. I couldn’t wait to get home. But when I arrived it wasn’t to the celebration I’d been expecting. My father was being wheeled out of the house on a stretcher. I saw the blood covering his face and tried to run to him. Celia grabbed me. She held me back. In some strange way I think she wanted to protect me even though she was hired to plant evidence to destroy my father.

  “The ambulance pulled off and I broke free of Celia, running into the house to find my mother, but I couldn’t find her. For two days I couldn’t find her. But when the man, my father’s lawyer, came to tell me that Dad was dead, Mom came out. She’d been hiding in the closet. She said they’d come to kill them so she’d gotten her gun. She’d tried to protect her husband from the killers and now he was dead.” Brock took a deep breath and exhaled it roughly. “My mother killed my father.”

  Tears streamed down Noelle’s face as she continued to hold him. He was so tense, so stiff as he spoke. She knew he was holding it in, just as the boy who had watched his parents fall apart had done. But she couldn’t contain the well of hurt, the fear he must have felt and the hatred of the families who stood by and let this happen to him.

  “I’m very sorry that happened to you, Brock,” she whispered.

  “I didn’t tell you this to solicit your pity,” he said, moving out of her reach.

  She stumbled a bit then lifted her hands to wipe her face. “Good because I don’t give pity freely. It’s a waste of time.” Noelle tried to sound flippant but was feeling anything but. For as mouthy and carefree as she appeared, Brock was the total opposite. He was close-lipped and resigned to his fate. He was sad but proud. She did pity him just a bit because he was too blinded by his own pain to let anyone help him.

  “That’s one thing we agree on. I don’t like to waste time.”

  “Is that why you keep to yourself? Building relationships takes too much of your time?”

  Brock turned to face her, then slipped his hands into his pockets again. This must
have been what he thought was a casual move. To Noelle, it was pure defensiveness. She knew because she employed it herself on occasion.

  “I build the relationships that are necessary.”

  “Oh. Like business relationships.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “But what about your personal life?”

  He looked as if he were thinking about that answer for a moment. “The Donovans have been good in that regard.”

  “I meant a woman, Brock. What do you feel when you’re with a woman?” She shouldn’t have been asking that—she knew it was none of her business. But she was curious about Brock Remington, had been since stepping foot into his house. Sleeping with him had only piqued that curiosity, even though up until now she’d made a concerted effort to keep it limited to business.

  He gave a half smile. “That’s a weird question. Do you want to know what I feel when I’m with you, Noelle?”

  “No,” she answered quickly, lifting a hand to brush her hair back, although it didn’t need it. “That’s not what I mean. I’m asking you if you think of any woman on a long-term basis.”

  “No. I’m not capable of that,” he stated, and meant every word.

  “You’re not capable of falling in love?” She noted he hadn’t said that exactly, but that’s probably what he meant. That bothered her on some level she surely didn’t want to probe at the moment.

  “I choose not to put myself in that position.”

  For once she wanted a real answer from him, not these clipped, frosted responses. Unfortunately for him he had no idea who he was dealing with—persistence should have been her middle name. “Why?”

  He took a deep breath, then shrugged. “My parents were in love and look how that ended up. I’m a realistic man so I’ve got to accept that a part of them lives in me. If I put myself in a serious relationship with feelings and commitments the way they did, I’m liable to end up as hurt as my mother is today or more likely to be the one dishing out the hurt. None of that appeals to me.”

  With a tilt of her head and a better understanding of the man standing before her, Noelle took a step closer. “Then I will offer you my pity, whether you accept it or not. Because if you’re using your parents’ tragedy as your shield from the real world with real relationships, then you definitely need it.”