by Lisa Childs
“And if Grant has money, I have no idea where it’s coming from,” Miranda admitted.
“Who cares?” Tabitha asked. “Even if he was broke, it wouldn’t matter because he’s so damn good-looking.”
He was. Miranda could not argue that.
“Let him join,” Regina concurred.
The thought of Grant dating other women made Miranda’s stomach churn. Was she jealous? Had she somehow become possessive of him?
She shook her head.
“Why not?” Regina asked. “Do you want to keep him for yourself?”
“I can’t keep what I’ve never had,” she insisted. “I just don’t trust him.”
And that was the real problem between them. As much as she wanted him, she couldn’t risk the lack of trust turning her into her mother—insecure and dependent.
“Then don’t date him,” Regina said. “And let some of our clients decide if they want to trust him.”
She shook her head. “No. I have to protect them from getting hurt.”
“That’s your problem,” Regina said. “You think you always have to take care of everyone else—like Blair. And you don’t care about—”
A knock rattled the door, cutting off whatever else Regina had been about to say. Not that Miranda had wanted to hear it. She had proposed this business with her sisters to help take care of them. But it was clear they didn’t appreciate what she’d been trying to do.
She jumped up from the reception area couch and opened the door to the hall. To Grant. And she was so happy to see him again that a smile immediately curved her lips. But he didn’t return it.
Instead the corners of his mouth had turned down into a frown. His face was flushed, and his eyes were cold. What was he angry about?
Because she had no doubt that he was angry; she just didn’t understand why.
* * *
Grant was furious. So furious that he had barely managed to resist the urge to break down the door and join in their shouting match. Even if he hadn’t intended to eavesdrop—and he had—he wouldn’t have been able to not overhear them.
These women really expected his sister to just give up the love of her life. Or worse yet, to share him with the desperate, money-grubbing members.
In order to support themselves...
He wanted to shout at them that it was cruel and immoral. And just as he’d been about to break down the door to call them that, they’d started talking about him.
Apparently the sisters didn’t care if he was broke, but Miranda did. She didn’t trust him around those money-grubbing clients of hers.
And apparently she didn’t trust him around her sisters, either, because she opened the door to her private office and gestured for him to proceed her inside. “You two can leave for the night,” she told them.
They didn’t argue with her now. Maybe they’d noticed how angry he was. She had—because the minute they left, she asked, “What’s wrong?”
“I think you know what’s wrong,” he murmured. She was going to betray her best friend; he just knew that she would. To save herself and her sisters, she would betray Blair and Teo.
That was why he’d lied to her—to protect his sister. And she didn’t trust him over that—because he hadn’t been completely honest with her.
Hell, he couldn’t be completely honest with anyone—not even his own sister. And he loved her more than anything. He loved her so much that he would seriously join this damn dating service if it would get Miranda and her sisters to let Blair and Matteo enjoy their happiness.
“You overheard that meeting,” she murmured. Then she uttered a heavy, weary-sounding sigh.
“They’re right, you know,” he said. “Just let me join the damn service.” Hell, he would pay her enough to take care of her and her sisters. He probably made enough in a week on the professional poker circuit to operate her business for a year.
She sucked in a breath. “You really want to join that badly?”
No. It was the last thing he wanted to do. But he would go out with a couple of gold diggers if it would ensure his sister’s happiness.
He shrugged. “Why do you think I’ve been auditioning for you?”
“Because you love to play games,” she said. “Because you wanted to mess with me for some reason...”
Because he didn’t want her messing with Blair and Teo. And he’d obviously been right to worry about that—about her.
“We’re not kids anymore, Miranda,” he said. And he was suddenly weary, too.
He’d been having so damn much fun with her. So damn much amazing sex with her...
He’d been getting used to it—to her. Maybe even attached...
Damn...
Something must have gotten in his eyes—because he had to blink. Maybe it was just the red of anger blinding him.
“No, we’re not,” she agreed. “I have a business to run—to try to build. I can’t take a chance on you—on the fact that you have grown up.”
“Damn it, Miranda,” he said. “What do I need to do? Show you a tax return? I’ve got money, and that seems like the only thing your members are really interested in—”
“Not the members I want to keep,” she interjected. “Not the ones I want to sign up. I don’t want to run my mother’s matchmaking business. I don’t want dating to be all about desperation and the fear of being alone.”
“What do you want it to be about?” he wondered.
“Fun,” she said. “It should be fun.”
“Haven’t you had fun with me?” he asked. “Hasn’t every date been fun?”
“Sure, until I caught you going through my purse.”
“I told you that was an accident,” he said. “I don’t need or want your money.”
She snorted. “That’s good—because I don’t have any. So what do you want from me, Grant?”
A strange stillness overcame her after she asked the question, as if she’d frozen into a statue of herself. She didn’t move. She didn’t breathe.
Did she care that much what his answer was?
Her stillness made him freeze. He didn’t know how to answer her, so he asked a question of his own. “What do you want from me, Miranda?”
She stared at him so intently, for such a long time, before replying, “For you to be honest with me...”
He opened his mouth, intending to do just that—to tell her about his initial reason for coming to see her—to warn her not to mess up Blair’s happiness this time. But something kept him from giving her that kind of honesty. Maybe it was just his damn pride. “I have more money than Teo does,” he said. “And I can show you the bank statements to prove it.”
She flinched.
“What?” he asked. “Isn’t that what you want?”
She shook her head. “No...”
“But you wanted honesty—”
“Honestly answer what you want from me,” she said.
A strange sensation, like the ground shifting beneath his feet, unsettled him. This was important—this would change everything.
And he’d really been enjoying how things had been between them.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
SHE WAS FURIOUS—with him for eavesdropping on the business meeting with her sisters. Sure, they’d been shouting, but he could have knocked sooner. He could have let them know he was out there, listening to them talk about him. But as furious as she was with him, she was even more furious with herself.
How could she want him so damn much when it was clear he’d never really wanted her?
Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them away. She was not going to cry over a man; she’d made that vow many years ago, after all the times her mother had brokenheartedly wept over another failed relationship.
This hadn’t even been a relationship. It had just been sex.
That was all it had been—for both of them.
So she stopped waiting for the answer she already knew he was going to give her, and she turned to walk around her desk. But she hadn’t made it a foot away when his hand closed around her arm and he spun her toward him—into his arms.
“I want you,” he said.
Those traitorous tears stung again. “You don’t even like me.”
“You don’t like me.”
“No,” she corrected him. “I don’t trust you.” But she had begun to like him very much. He was funny and sweet and protective of his sister. But none of that mattered when she couldn’t trust him.
Because even though he said he wanted her, he also wanted to join the damn dating service. And even if he wouldn’t break their hearts, she still didn’t want him dating other women. She didn’t want him dating anyone but her.
“You know I want you,” Grant said. “That you make me crazy every time we’re together...” He lowered his head then and covered her mouth with his.
She kissed him back—because she would rather kiss him than talk at the moment. Hell, she would rather kiss him than do anything else, except him.
She wanted to do him. One last time...
After today, she knew she couldn’t see him again. She’d already let him get too close—close to making her care about him. Fall for him, even—and that could not happen.
Her anger and frustration heightened her passion, making her tear at the buttons on his shirt with such desperation that one pinged off and struck the wall.
He chuckled against her mouth, but he seemed just as desperate as she was. He pushed up her skirt and pushed aside her panties. Then he stroked her, over and over until her legs began to shake and threatened to buckle beneath her.
Before she could slide to the floor in a p uddle of passion, he lifted and perched her on the edge of her desk. “I wanted to do this the first time I saw you in here,” he admitted, his voice gruff. “Looking so damn sexy...”
He tugged at the buttons on her blouse until it parted and revealed her lace bra. Her breasts strained to escape the cups. Then he pushed it down and cupped them in his hands, his thumbs stroking over the taut nipples.
She moaned at the exquisite pleasure, at the sexual energy streaking through her—from her breasts to her core that throbbed with desire. She needed him inside her. Now.
“Grant...”
He kissed her again, quickly, passionately—lips nibbling, tongues tangling...
Then he lowered his head to her breasts, kissing them, tonguing her nipples...
And he dropped to his knees and tongued her clit. She grasped his shoulders as an orgasm rocked her and she cried out. It wasn’t fair how easily he could make her come, how powerfully...
And how powerless she felt to resist him.
But she also felt power in that he wanted her just as badly. His blue eyes had turned dark with desire, the pupils swallowing the irises entirely. His face was flushed, a vein standing out along his neck.
Then she unbuttoned his jeans and lowered his zipper. And his cock sprang free, jutting toward her as if begging to come inside.
He groaned as she wrapped her fingers around him and pumped her hand up and down. Up and down the engorged length of him...
“I gotta be inside you,” he said. “Now!” His hands shook as he fumbled with a condom, but he had it on in seconds. Then he entered her in one deep thrust.
She cried out again as pleasure overwhelmed her. How did he always feel so damn good? So perfect...
She locked her legs around him, riding him as he set the rhythm of this dance. Fast. Desperate. He built the pressure inside her again, making her writhe around as she sought to release it.
Then he touched her clit, rubbing his thumb over it, and she came apart, screaming his name. And those tears threatened again. She closed her eyes. So she didn’t see him come. She only felt him tense and then shudder as an orgasm came over him. He buried his face against her throat and growled her name as his cock continued to pump. Then finally he stilled...
And he was gone...
He’d pulled out of her, and she’d been so limp with sexual satisfaction that she hadn’t protested. Water ran in the bathroom off her office.
The sound of it jerked her from her inertia. She scrambled down from the desk and quickly adjusted her clothes. In her haste, she might had done up the buttons wrong, so she found her suit jacket on the back of her chair and pulled that on over the wrinkled blouse.
The water had stopped running, so she looked up and found him leaning against the bathroom doorjamb, staring at her. She didn’t give him time to ask if he’d passed this audition; she was sick of that game, sick of playing all games with him. She just pointed toward the door to the reception area. “I want you to leave,” she said.
“Mirand—”
“I want you to leave and never come back,” she said. “No matter how hard you try to talk me into it, I will never let you join Liaisons International. I don’t care how much money you have.”
Because she knew she couldn’t trust him not to break the hearts of all her female members...
Because she was pretty sure he’d broken hers.
* * *
Grant wanted to hit something.
Usually he didn’t let anything get to him this much—make him this angry. But he couldn’t stem the fury that coursed through him. She’d thrown him out.
Why was she so damn stubborn?
With how resolute she’d been, he’d known there had been no point in arguing with her. She’d made up her mind, and he doubted he could have changed it no matter what he’d done. Even if he’d showed her the bank statements like he’d offered...
He stomped down the hall from the hangar toward the office. It was late, so hopefully no one else was in the building. But when he walked into the office, two people turned toward him. They shared the chair behind Blair’s desk as she sat on Teo’s lap.
He shook his head. “I can’t deal with this now,” he murmured. With another damn reminder of his failure to get through to Miranda.
Blair jumped up and headed toward him. “What’s wrong?”
He shook his head.
She pointed at his shirt, where it gaped around the missing button. “You look like you’ve been in a fight.”
He had been...and as usual with Miranda Fox, he’d lost. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said, his voice low with warning. Talking about it was only going to make him madder.
Teo was not intimidated. “I think your brother is just jealous,” he said with a chuckle. “He wishes he could find what we have.”
Blair laughed. “Grant has no interest in a real relationship.”
Because of their parents’ loveless marriage and all the other mismatches he’d witnessed during his lifetime. But then there was Miranda...
Thinking of her made him defensive—because he’d felt so defenseless with her. Nothing he’d said had made a difference to her. “You didn’t want a relationship, either,” he reminded his sister.
Her lips curved into a big smile. “But then I fell in love.”
He shook his head. “It won’t last.”
She sucked in a breath. And Teo jumped up now.
“Just because you’re in a bad mood, don’t take it out on your sister,” the businessman ordered Grant.
“I’m in a bad mood because of you guys,” he admitted.
And Blair pressed a hand over her heart as if he’d stabbed her. “I didn’t realize you had a problem with us.”
He shook his head, further frustrated that it was all coming out wrong. But he needed to warn them. “I’m not the one with the problem,” he said. “It’s Miranda and those damn sisters of hers...”
Blair narrowed her eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“The sister
s are pissed that she set you up with the billionaire there, and since he did that interview, they’re losing clients right and left.”
“How do you know all this?” Blair asked. Then she snapped her fingers. “That’s why you’ve been going to Monaco lately. Not for poker games but for...” She tilted her head. “What the hell have you been doing, Grant?”
“Trying to protect you,” he said.
She laughed. “I can protect myself,” she assured him. “I’ve been doing it for quite a while now.”
Teo was smiling, too.
They didn’t realize how damn serious this was. “Your happiness is at stake here—don’t you realize that?”
“How?” Blair asked.
“The sisters want Miranda to make you give Teo up.”
Blair chuckled. “Of course they do.”
“Doesn’t that bother you?”
“They’ve never liked me,” Blair said with a dismissive shrug. “They’ve always been jealous of how close Miranda and I are.” She stared at him. “I don’t think they’re the only ones who’ve resented our closeness.”
“I didn’t resent it,” Grant said. “I just worried about it because she’s always been able to talk you into doing stupid things.”
She snorted.
“And giving up Teo would be stupid,” he said. “I’ve never seen you this happy.”
“I’ve never been this happy,” she admitted. “And there’s no way anyone could talk or pressure me into giving up the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Teo wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her back against him. “Ti amo...”
Grant shook his head. “But you know how persuasive Miranda is.”
“Yes,” Blair agreed. “She talked me into going out with him.”
“So you can understand—”
“No!” she interjected. “I can’t understand why you think I’m such an idiot that I would allow anyone to talk me into doing something I didn’t want to do in the first place. And I can’t understand how you think my very best friend would betray me.”