Redeemed by Passion

by Joss Wood

  His statement detonated fireworks in her eyes. And not the good kind. “The corporation? That’s what you are thinking about?”

  Well, no. He was thinking about taking her to bed but knew that if he made that suggestion he might leave her office minus a few of his essential body parts.

  And that thought pissed him off, big-time. And once he acknowledged his anger, it took on a life of its own. He’d been worrying about her for days and he had to storm her citadel to check whether she was okay.

  Teresa placed her fingertips on her forehead. “We can’t keep doing this, Liam. At some point we have to accept that we are bad for each other.”

  Liam surged to his feet, walked over to her chair and placing his hands on her waist, pulled her up. He gripped her luscious butt and yanked her into him, allowing his hard erection to push into her stomach. “Feel that? That isn’t bad, dammit!”

  Teresa looked up at him and he could see her body warring with her brain, each equally stubborn. He dipped his head down and slapped his lips against hers. Her mouth immediately opened beneath his and he swept inside, determined to show her that desire like this was worth fighting for, holding on to, keeping. Yeah, they weren’t great at communicating but this, this they could do. This they couldn’t fake, lie about, deny.

  As for the other stuff, they could work on it...

  Liam felt Teresa soften and when she pressed her breasts into his chest, he slowed his kiss down, needing to savor her, to explore her intense combination of flavors. He could taste her hazelnut-flavor coffee, toothpaste and a tart sweetness that was all Teresa. Pulling her jersey up, he placed his hands on her lower back, easily spanning her slim waist. The smell of soft, fragrant, heated skin drifted up to his and he felt his knees soften, his head swim. This was the only woman who’d ever managed to create fog in his brain, remove the saliva from his mouth, shut down his thought processes.

  Not for the first time Liam decided that she scared the crap out of him.

  Liam pulled back from the kiss and lifted his hand to hold the back of her head, his fingers pushing up and under the loose bun she habitually wore. Risking her ire but needing to see her hair down, he pulled out her pins and her thick blond hair cascaded over his hands, down her back. With her hair down she looked softer, more vulnerable and younger and, if that were at all possible, sexier.

  Teresa rested her cheek on his pec and lightly placed her hands on his waist as if she couldn’t decide whether to hold him or not. “Stop fighting me, Teresa, and let me hold you.”

  Teresa stiffened in his arms and then he heard her long sigh and slowly, so slowly, her arms moved around his body and she buried her nose in his shirt.

  “Everything is so messed up, Liam.”

  And she was, as she always did, trying to handle everything herself. “I know, honey.”

  “I can’t let you help. I don’t know how to accept help,” Teresa said, her voice so low he had to bend his head to hear her soft words. “I need to sort this out myself, Liam.”

  He dropped a kiss into her hair. “Why?”

  Teresa took her time answering. “Because people have told me, all my life, that they would be there for me. Then they left.”

  “I won’t do that to you, Teresa.”

  Teresa pulled back, pulled her teeth between her lips and when Liam looked into her eyes, the pain within them nearly dropped him to his knees. “Maybe, maybe not. But I can’t take that chance because you, disappointing me again, is a step too far, a bridge that will blow up once I cross it. I’m not strong enough to cope with that, as well as the rest of my life falling apart. Frankly, Liam, I’m starting to believe that I’m not very strong at all.”

  Teresa walked over to her desk, stared down at it and tapped her finger on the sleek wood. He watched her profile as her eyes moved from her desk to the window to right at the view of Elliott Bay. When she spoke again, he heard her uncertainty and, dammit, the fear in her voice. “I need some time, Liam, probably quite a bit of it.”

  “I can’t give that to you,” Liam replied.

  Christopher Corporation, and the terms of his father’s will, demanded her presence and involvement in the company. And besides, if he gave her the space she demanded, wouldn’t he be doing exactly what she expected, running when she needed him to plant his feet and stick?

  “My brother owes money to dangerous people. Money that I am in the process of trying to find. I have a high-society, over-the-top wedding to organize in two weeks’ time so that I can save my company’s reputation and buy us some time with those previously mentioned mobsters. And I still need to face Matt Richmond and apologize once again for ruining his gala evening.”

  “While organizing a wedding isn’t in my skill set, I am thrilled you have work and I know you will do a fantastic job. I will bring you late-night pizzas and early-morning coffee if that’s what you need me to do.” She was listening to him so he took the opportunity to float a few options available.

  “Allow me to lend you the money to pay off your brother’s debts. I have the money and we can work out a repayment plan because I know that you are too proud to take a handout. Yeah, apologizing to Matt is something I can’t do for you but I can hold your hand while you do it.”

  Teresa closed her eyes and Liam desperately wanted to rub away the single tear that dared to escape. But he knew that if he acknowledged her emotion, he’d lose her. So he just kept his eyes on her face and waited for her response.

  “Please go, Liam. Go before I take you up on one or all of your sweet offers. Go before I start to believe in you.”

  To hell with that. Instead of walking to the door, Liam wrapped his arms around her and held on tight. Resting his chin in her hair, he held her until he felt her body stiffen, until she started to push away. Knowing he’d pushed her far enough today, he decided to retreat so he placed a kiss on her temple and released his grip. “I’m going to go. But I’ll call you later, okay?”

  Teresa nodded.

  Liam tipped her chin up with the side of his thumb and waited until her eyes met his. All that deep, velvety blue was a sharp smack to his heart. “And when I do, take my damn calls.”

  Four

  Teresa watched her office door close behind Liam’s rather fine back view—oh, who was she kidding, viewed from every angle Liam was sexy—and she staggered to her chair and dropped into it, feeling like a leaky balloon. She could fight with Liam, roll around the sheets with Liam but Liam being kind, sensitive? Generous? She hated him acting like that.

  But only because you want to curl up in his arms, in his strength. You hate it because it tempts you to take a breath, to allow someone else to take the wheel, to steer the ship. And God forbid that you let go for one minute. Who knows what could happen? The world might stop turning!

  Teresa frowned at her inner sarcastic self and picked up a pen, thinking that it was high time she went back to work, that she paid some attention to saving her business.

  But as hard as she tried, she couldn’t concentrate.

  Was she that much of a control freak? Possibly. Handing over control to anyone on anything made her feel twitchy and disoriented. Yes, she kept a tight control on her life, and her emotions, because if she didn’t, people side-winded her because she made the mistake of trusting them to do what they said they would. Her father had told her, time and again, that he’d always be there for her, that he’d never leave her, that she was “his girl,” but when he needed to make a choice, he’d left the country and never returned. She shouldn’t be angry at him for dying but, dammit, she was.

  Her mother was also skilled at making promises she couldn’t keep. “I’ll get a job next week, honey.”

  “Yes, I promise I’ll come to your school recital.”

  “I will stop drinking, smoking, staying out late.”

  Words, to her mom, were cheap, and promises weren’t ever som
ething that were meant to be kept. To her taking the easy way out was always the better option and that words were easily forgotten. Joshua followed in their mother’s footsteps but Teresa went in the opposite direction.

  Because words spoken did have consequences, and promises were supposed to be kept. She refused to cut corners and she never made excuses. And she owned her life, her choices and her mistakes. But maybe because her childhood and teenage years had been such a tumultuous time, maybe she did now try to control every little thing so that it wouldn’t come back to bite her in the butt.

  So yeah, she owned that she was a control freak and wasn’t able to roll with the punches. But punches hurt, dammit, and why should she have to experience the pain if she could avoid it altogether?

  Teresa heard the brisk knock on her door and then Corinne pushed it open. “Hey, you have an unexpected visitor.”

  Corinne’s emphasis on unexpected made Teresa sit up straighter. “Who?”

  “Me.”

  Oh, hell, no! Teresa watched as Nicolette Ryan brushed past Corinne to stand just inside her office. Teresa looked past Nicolette to Corinne, who lifted her hands in a “what-could-I-do?” shrug.

  So far this morning, both Liam and this entertainment reporter had pushed by her gatekeepers and barged into her office. If this was going to be a trend, she’d need better security.

  Teresa narrowed her eyes at Corinne before transferring her gaze onto the petite woman standing in front of her. She was gorgeous; she’d always thought so. With her black hair hitting her waist and brown-black eyes, even features and a spray of freckles across her nose, Nicolette was a combination of vamp and girl-next-door and, as a result, had millions of fans of both sexes. She wore a tight, deep navy skirt and a white, long-sleeved, plain silk shirt that skimmed her curves and the most amazing, quirky pair of bright red heels.

  Teresa, reluctantly, felt herself tumbling head over heels in love with her shoes.

  “I do like your style.”

  Teresa winced, wishing she could pull the words back. She was supremely annoyed with this woman—her ongoing coverage of Saturday night’s suck-fest had kept Matt’s disastrous gala in the news—and she didn’t want to admire a damn thing about her.

  But to be fair, she liked Nicolette’s dress sense. She always managed to look classy despite wearing tight and short dresses and sky-high heels. Yeah, she showed a bit of cleavage and a lot of leg but she never stepped over the line into trashy. And the same could be said of her reporting; she never made sly innuendos or flirted with the truth. She reported on what she was told and didn’t embellish.

  And maybe that was the only reason Teresa hadn’t tossed her through her partially open window to the street below.

  “You have a lot of cheek showing your face here,” Teresa stated, pleased with her calm voice.

  “It’s been said that the one attribute I don’t lack is cheek.” Nicolette gestured to the seat on the opposite side of her desk. “Do you mind if I sit down?”

  “If you’ve come to ask me for a follow-up interview, then I really wouldn’t bother. I don’t have anything to say.”

  Nicolette sat down, crossed her legs and swung her foot. “I’d love you to give me a comment, or better, an interview—”

  Teresa growled and Nicolette grinned. She held up her hand. “As I was about to say, that’s not the reason I’m here.”

  Teresa didn’t believe that for a minute but okay, she’d hear her out. “Then why don’t you get to the point and tell me why you are here?”

  Nicolette inhaled and Teresa noticed the panic in her eyes and her tight grip on her handbag. “I’m getting married and you, apparently, are planning my wedding.”

  No, she wasn’t. Teresa knew that it had been a tough couple of days but she was pretty sure that she’d never agreed to organize Nicolette Ryan’s wedding.

  The girl was crackers, possibly delusional. “Okay, so who are you marrying?”

  “Brooks Abbingdon.”

  * * *

  Yeah, it still didn’t make any sense.

  And Teresa St. Claire looked as gobsmacked as she still felt. Because, really, Nic was still waiting for a camera crew to pop out from behind a door or a screen, yelling “just kidding” and “you’ve been pranked.”

  Nic turned her head to look at the closed door to Teresa’s office but it wasn’t opening; she could hear no movement behind the door. Nobody, dammit, was there and nobody was about to return her life to normal, to tell her that this was a big mistake, a dream, a crazy prank.

  “You are marrying Brooks?” Teresa said after another minute of stunned silence.

  Nic nodded.

  “Okay, wow.” Teresa stood up, placed her hands on her desk and pulled in a deep breath. “I didn’t know that you and Brooks were seeing each other.”

  They hadn’t been. In fact, up until yesterday evening, she’d just admired—okay, lusted and drooled over—Brooks from afar. His visit to her apartment last night changed everything. No, his proposal had upended her life and sent it spinning in a whole new direction.

  And it was one she needed to take.

  “Take every opportunity to tell Jane’s story, Nic. Promise me.”

  “I promise, Gran.”

  Did that promise cover marriage? Surely not. But a big and bright opportunity came with the marriage and that was covered by her promise to her dying grandmother ten years before. So there was no, or very little, wiggle room. And Brooks had been clear; marriage meant funding for her project, guaranteed distribution and the opportunity to make a difference. If she didn’t marry Brooks, her project—the one that was dear to her heart and the one she spent every spare minute she had working on—would never see the light of day. And she couldn’t let Janie, or her grandmother, down.

  Teresa stood up straight, shook her head and looked bemused. “I don’t know what to say. And when I find myself without words, coffee normally works. Would you like some?”

  Nic thanked her and Teresa left the room, muttering something about it being a helluva day. Nic dropped her bag to the floor, uncrossed her legs and stared at the old, original hardwood floor. She couldn’t believe that she was sitting here, in Teresa’s office, talking about her upcoming wedding to one of Seattle’s most eligible bachelors.

  A man she thought sexier than Idris Elba and hotter than Charlie Hunnam. A man who’d, for some odd reason, wanted to marry her. In a couple of weeks’ time.

  Was this really happening to her? She hadn’t dreamed everything that happened last night?

  It had been a normal Tuesday evening and she’d been in her apartment, working on Jane’s project, something she did whenever she had a free moment. She’d also been waiting for a pizza delivery and muttered “Hallelujah” when her intercom buzzed. Thinking it was her regular pizza man, she told Pete to come on up, hitting the button to open the front door downstairs. Knowing that Pete ran up the stairs, she waited a minute before heading to the door, flinging it open. God, she was hungry...

  Instead of a classic margherita pie, Brooks Abbingdon stood in the hallway, his fist raised.

  “You’re not my pizza.” But damn, she could’ve taken a bite out of him as easily.

  Brooks’s grin was slow, sexy and machine-gun lethal. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

  Instinctively, she knew that she couldn’t give this man an inch or he’d take her a thousand miles. And she might let him. Get yourself and, more important, your hormones under control!

  “You should be sorry because I’m starving and while you smell good, my pizza smells better.”

  Brooks’s mouth twitched with amusement and those eyes, an unusual shade of gold, lightened. “Care to share?”

  Nic deliberately attempted to look and sound bored. Difficult when her stomach was doing loops under her rib cage. “Care to tell me why you are standing outside my door?”
/>   “Share your pizza and I will.”

  He might have a story he wanted covered, a piece of hot gossip. While most of her sources called her on her private number or emailed her, one or two had asked to meet her face-to-face. Though none had, admittedly, had the balls to show up at her door.

  Should she take a chance and let him in? Or should she insist that they meet in a public place? What the hell could Brooks Abbingdon want to tell her? She’d never once thought he was the type to dish dirt.

  But why else would he be here?

  Nic quickly recalled what she knew of Brooks Abbingdon, immediately discounting his wealth and good looks. All his ex-girlfriends, and they’d been a few, had only good things to say about him...he was a nice guy, a gentleman, that he’d make a great husband if he ever chose to settle down. Because he treated his exes well, Nic thought she’d be safe enough if she let him into her apartment.

  “My sharing my pizza depends on why you are here.” Nic stepped back into her hallway and jerked her head to tell him to come inside. She closed the door behind him and sent him a cool smile.

  By the time she’d put a beer in his hand and invited him to sit, her pizza had arrived and Nic, above Brooks’s objection, handed Pete his money and carried the box back into the living room. She placed the box on the coffee table in front of Brooks and walked into her kitchen to choose plates and silverware. It annoyed her to realize that she’d chosen her best plates and had dug two linen napkins out of a drawer. Was she really trying to impress Brooks?

  Irritated, Nic dumped plates next to the box and handed Brooks a napkin. She opened the box, slid a piece of pizza onto her plate and tucked her feet up under her bottom. Brooks surprised her by picking up a slice of pizza and putting the pointy end straight into his mouth. He swirled a piece of melted cheese around his finger, sucked it off and Nic felt a wave of hot heat surge between her legs.