Body Heat (Vintage Category Romance) (19 page)

The man who hurt her.

He just kept looking at her and Blaire repeated her question.

“
I came to apologize.”

Blaire
’s pulse picked up its cadence. “For what?”

“
For acting like an ass.”

“
You were an ass.”

Darian leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest.
“I know. And I know my Aunt Reva is a pain. I apologize for believing her. I should have known better. I apologize for acting like an idiot.”

Blaire watched him
and then felt one corner of her mouth smirk up. “You have to know that I didn’t come down there to seduce you out of money. All I was sent there to do was get your damn signature on those papers. I never intended to…” she was about to say
fall in love
, “make love with you.”

“
I realize that now.”

“
You should have realized that from the beginning.”

He nodded in agreement.
“Yes, I should have.”

Blaire
’s thoughts immediately went back to the night of their lovemaking. It should have been obvious. Virgins don’t seduce men for money. Maybe he’d finally come to his senses.

“
And Reva won’t bother you anymore,” he added. “No more threats against your business or to your father.”

Her eyes narrowed at him.
“And how are you going to manage that?”

“
Money,” he answered.

Blaire slanted her gaze at him.
“Money?”

“
She likes it too much, and right now, she’s being extra nice to me.”

She shook her head.
“I don’t understand.”

He stood, his large hands sliding into his pants pockets.
“It’s simple, Blaire. I’ve ordered her out of my home. She doesn’t live on the estate any longer. It’s mine. The money’s mine. I set her up in a small apartment in New York—along with a nice trust fund—far away from here and me. I pay for her upkeep; she keeps her nose out of my business. And yours. That was the deal. She agreed.”

Blaire
’s eyes grew wide. Why would he do that for her? What was he telling her? Did he really care? “You sent her away?”

“
In a heartbeat.”

“
But wasn’t that her childhood home?”

“
It’s mine now. And it was my childhood home also.”

“
But…isn’t that kind of cruel?” Blaire knew the moment the words were out of her mouth they were the worst words she could have spoken to him. The calm expression on his face quickly faded into rage.

“
Cruel?” He took several steps to the left and then right, pacing back in forth in front of her desk. “I’ll tell you about cruel.” He stopped and stared at her and then leaned over the desk, supporting his weight with his hands. “Cruel is when an eight-year-old boy doesn’t get a birthday party, cake, or present because he forgot to make his bed. Cruel is allowing a child to grow up with no friends because little boys get mud all over the carpet. Cruel is wanting a puppy so bad that it hurts inside, then when you finally get it, it gets taken to the pound because it dug up the flower bed. Cruel is being sent off to military school when you were twelve because you got a C on your report card. Cruel is the scar left on your buttocks from a belt buckle that connected just right and tore your flesh wide open because you broke a hundred dollar ash tray. That’s cruel, Blaire.”

Blaire felt
salt stinging the backs of her eyelids. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize,” she said softly.

“
Don’t cry for me, Blaire,” he growled. “I’ve done what I had to do.”

“
Good. I’m glad.” For once, she thought. He finally took control.

He straightened his large body, studied her for a moment,
and then reached into his jacket pocket. When he brought out his hand, he tossed an envelope onto the desk.

“
This is yours.”

Blaire
’s gaze fell to the envelope and then back up to Darian’s face. “What is it?”

“
Compensation for your time.”

“
What?”

“
For the deal Reva made you.”

Something grabbed Blaire from the inside, took hold, and wouldn
’t let go. Trembling, she reached to her desk and picked up the envelope. Certainly it wasn’t what she thought. But as her fingers folded back the unglued flap and she drew out the check for ten thousand dollars within, she gasped, the tears did fall, and her blood boiled.

Compensation for my time?

She shoved the check back into the envelope, tore it into several pieces, and tossed it at him, her eyes brimming with tears, her voice shaky. “I don’t want it,” she spat.

His eyes widened in surprise.
“It’s what is due you, Blaire. It’s what you deserve. Take the money.”

“
You don’t understand, do you?”

“
You did what she hired you to do, Blaire. You got the signature.”

“
No, I didn’t!” she shouted. “I threw it into the fire. And damn good thing too. You wouldn’t be standing here all decked out with a huge estate to your name if I didn’t.”

“
And for that I’m grateful.”

Grateful?
Grateful?
“So are you feeling guilty, or what?”

His eyes narrowed at her.
“I don’t understand.”

“
Guilty, Darian. Are you feeling guilty for taking away the most precious thing I had, then walking away from me? You’ve got the estate, millions of dollars—and I’ve got nothing. Not you. Not my… Nothing. Well, forget it. I don’t want your damn money. I don’t want you, either. You’re not going to pay me off. I would hope I would have meant more to you than Reva did.”

“
But…”

“
But nothing.” The anger and the hurt that had welled up in her was now nothing more than a fireball ready to explode. “Get out of here, Darian. You’ve paid off all the nuisances in your life, now go be a hermit again on that big estate of yours. Leave me alone. Get out of my life.”

Darian stood stunned before her.
She almost felt sorry for him.

“
Go,” she repeated, this time with a more defeated tone to her voice. “Please, go.” Then she turned her back, crossed her office to the window and peered out of it, tears streaming down her face. Below, Miles Morgan, her twelve-thirty appointment was skittering across the snow-covered street, dodging a Ford Explorer while trying to hold on his hat in the stiff breeze.

When she turned back to the door, it was empty.
Darian was gone. Then she heard the door open below as Miles greeted someone at the bottom of the stairs. She listened as his labored breathing and heavy steps ascended toward the landing outside her door. Stepping away from the window, she sat at her desk, wiped her face with a tissue, and pulled out the Morgan file. She blew her nose and sucked in a deep breath and exhaled slowly, calming her shaky nerves while she prepared to tell Miles about his wife and the high-school basketball star.

Any thought of Darian MacGlenary was pushed to the far recesses of her mind, for the time being, knowing that it was the only thing she could do at the moment to save her sanity.

That he didn’t want her was one thing; that he felt it necessary to pay her off for her troubles was something else entirely.

But knowing all that, coupled with the fact that she was pretty sure she was carrying his child, made telling him to get out of her life even all the more difficult.

Chapter Ten

The fire popped and crackled in the fireplace.
Darian sat in the dark, just after midnight, watching the red embers flare up and devour the new piece of wood he’d just thrown on the fire. Funny, he thought as he brought the snifter of brandy in his hand to his lips and tipped it back, there were days in Kentucky when he would have given anything for electricity so he wouldn’t need to carry wood to keep him warm. But now, ever since he’d been back, he’d found solace in the fireplace in the den. And cutting wood was something he did more for exercise than out of necessity.

He was alone.
Finally, blessedly, alone. He’d let all the servants go that morning. Gave them a month’s severance and a healthy Christmas bonus to boot. He couldn’t bear bringing a lot of pain to them and their families on Christmas Eve without some consolation. He’d told them they would all receive excellent references and wished them luck, knowing that if one of them came back saying they couldn’t find a job, he would extend their severance. Some of them had been employees of the MacGlenary’s for years.

He rose and tripped to the bar to pour himself another brandy, the fifth in the last hour.
Or was it the sixth? Probably more than that. Hell, he didn’t know, and didn’t care. And there was no one else to care either. Thankfully.

When he sat back down again on the sofa facing the fire, he let his head drift back into the soft cushion and his eyes close.
He was damn sleepy, and tired. Tired of all the hassles of the last week or so. Tired of the empty feeling within that nagged at him all the time. Tired of closing his eyes and seeing Blaire, face all aglow from the firelight as he made love to her, feeling her small, soft hands on his flesh, tasting her lips. Feeling her tremble beneath him as he slid himself inside her velvetiness. She fit him like a glove, like she was made for him….

Compensation for your time.

He was an idiot. How could he have said that to her? How could he have caused her so much pain? And he had, he could tell. It flashed across her face like a firestorm. He never meant to go to her and cause her pain. He had only meant to apologize and then quietly slip out of her life. Perhaps that’s what he should do. Quietly slip away.

He opened his eyes and sat up, threw back the amber
liquid in one gulp, and stood, shakily.

“
Might as well go to bed,” he muttered as he stumbled to the fireplace and checked the glass doors. “Might as well,” he slurred.

But as he undressed in his room a few minutes later and slid between the cool sheets, he glanced at the telephone on his
bedside table and thought about calling her. Propping himself up on his elbow, he reached for the phone, dropped it once, and then brought it to his ear.

“
Christmas Eve. Probably with her father,” he mumbled. Then one by one he pushed the numbers to her apartment. He knew them by heart. It rang once, twice, and then on the third ring, she picked up the phone.

****

Asleep since way before ten, Blaire pried upon her eyelids at the sound of the phone’s ring and peered at the digital clock beside her. Twelve-fifty-three. “What in the world?” she whispered. “Who in the world…”

Then it rang again and she sat upright.
The caller. Someone had been calling her office and hanging up at the sound of her voice for over a week now. But he had never called her home. Couldn’t be him, she reasoned. Couldn’t be. An emergency? Mastin…?

After the third ring, she picked it up.
“Hello?”

Silence.
Uh-oh.

“
Hello?”

She heard breathing.

“Say something, dammit. Who is this?”

She was almost ready to hang up when the low, muffled voice
came to her. Then he promptly hung up, leaving her bewildered and confused.

“
Merry Christmas?” she softly questioned after she replaced the receiver and leaned back into her fluffy pillows.

****

Christmas passed, as did New Year’s with a flurry of dull excitement. She was spending more and more time at her father’s home instead of hers, even Mastin’s company was preferred to her loneliness and she found that, at least, when she was around him, she didn’t think of Darian all that much. Well, sometimes. So she became Mastin’s hostess, spending the holiday dinner parties at her father’s side, heeding his instructions to entertain like a lady and not to mess up any potential votes or insult any of the potential husband candidates he would parade before her. This night was the fourth such event and Blaire was tiring of them fast. The only good thing that seemed to be coming from this arrangement was that she was beginning to understand her father a little better.

“
So what if you didn’t like the one from Oregon, honey. There are plenty more from where he came from,” Mastin said as he stepped across the living room to her.

“
If they’re coming from where he came from, I don’t want them,” she returned smiling, reaching out to straighten her father’s tie. “Why don’t you just let me find my own husband? In fact,” and she stared straight into his eyes for this statement, “I don’t think I even want a husband. I don’t want to get married.”

He studied her for a moment.
“Bull-hockey! Every woman wants to get married, Blaire. You’re high-maintenance. I want to see you’ve got the right man to take care of you the way you are accustomed.”