Return of the Secret Heir (2 page)

 

That night, Pia knelt on the carpet in front of her bedroom cupboard, struggling to fill her lungs. She reached to the back—the box was in the far corner where she'd put it after moving in only eighteen months ago—behind the tightly bound rolls of felt and bags of netting. Out of sight but never completely out of mind.

Gently, she brought it forward, her heart jumping erratically, then sat back against the wall, the box on her lap unopened. It was just an ordinary shoe box, tied with a narrow red ribbon. Nothing more unusual than many
women probably had pushed to the back of their cupboard, but the contents were far from ordinary.

She gripped the end of the ribbon between trembling fingers, yet hesitated. What good would it do to delve back into painful memories? Just because JT Hartley came calling unannounced, opening old wounds and sending her world off balance, didn't mean she had to exacerbate the situation. But her fingers tugged and the ribbon fell away. She closed her eyes as she removed the lid, fortifying herself, then opened them and looked down.

There, lying on the top, was a photo of a seventeen-year-old JT, grinning crookedly around the tiny scar above his lip, his eyes full of the devil, his arm wrapped around a sixteen-year-old version of her. His body, encased in a carelessly rumpled black T-shirt, wasn't as filled out as she suspected the one under the suit today had been. But the boy in the photo was her first love, her first lover, more dear to her than anyone or anything had ever been…except the other person remembered in this box.

The back of her eyes prickled with emotion. She looked so young. So naively happy, thinking they had the world at their feet. So often since then she'd wished for that same belief in the world, in herself, in another person.

But she and JT had lived in a false world of their own creation.

A second tattered-edged photo was behind the first—the two of them with his mother, Theresa Hartley. Theresa had welcomed her into their small family with wide open arms, and because Pia's own mother had never been particularly maternal, Pia had adored having a loving mother figure. Theresa had been the one thing Pia had salvaged from the devastation of her breakup with JT—she and Theresa still met for lunch once or twice a year, a ritual Pia treasured.

She flicked the photos aside, gently sorting past dried
wildflowers and other tokens of seventeen-year-old JT's love, until she came to what she was looking for, the memories that haunted her dreams.

An unused pair of pink booties, a well-thumbed baby name book with a corner turned down on the B page, and a grainy ultrasound picture. She squeezed her eyes shut for a long moment against their power. Not much to remember a human life, but this little person had never drawn breath, so there hadn't been much to leave behind.

Except a mother's unending love.

Brianna.

A soft, purring body appeared out of nowhere and climbed into Pia's lap. She hadn't heard Winston approach, but she was grateful for his warmth in this moment. For his living vitality. She held him as tightly as he'd allow.

She remembered the look on JT's face when she'd told him she was pregnant—he'd been over the moon and begun planning how he would support the three of them. They would have become a family.

As she clutched the booties to her chest, holding tight, the phone rang. She desperately wanted to leave it to ring out just this once, but her more important clients had her private number and she was so close to making partner that she couldn't afford to let anything slip by. She pinched the bridge of her nose, gulped in some air, then reached up to her bag where she'd thrown it on her bed and pulled out her cell.

“Pia Baxter.”

“Pia,” a deep voice said, sending shivers of decadent remembrance through her body. She clutched tighter to the booties once meant for this man's baby. A call from JT Hartley was the very last thing she needed while she felt vulnerable. While she could see the ultrasound of the life they'd created together.

“Are you there?” he asked when she didn't respond.

She swallowed. “How did you get my number?”

“You'd be surprised how resourceful I can be when I set my mind to it.”

Actually, not much surprised her about this man at all. “First a visit and now a call. Must be my lucky day.”

He chuckled. “Still got your smart mouth, I see.”

She carefully put the booties back in the box and replaced the lid, shutting the door to their past. “Why are you calling?”

“You didn't answer my question at the office.”

She turned her mind back to when—only hours ago—he'd sauntered back into her life. She could barely remember
anything
other than those vibrant green eyes fringed by long, dark lashes and his crooked smile, let alone an unanswered question. “You'll need to remind me.”

“I asked for your assurance that you won't prejudice Warner's sons against me, even unintentionally through your own bias, during this challenge.”

She frowned. She hadn't thought that question had needed an answer. That he'd know her better than that. “Why would I be prejudiced?”

There was a pause on the line. “Things didn't end so well between us,” he said, the brashness not as strong in his voice.

“JT, regardless of what you might think, I don't bear you any ill will. Besides, I'm a professional and I'll carry out my duties as executor thoroughly, regardless of my personal feelings.”

Her ethics demanded no less. She had her obligations to the firm's clients, and if Warner Bramson really was JT's father, the last thing she'd want was to create more
obstacles for JT. She would stay neutral, and simply carry out her duties.

“Then meet with me,” he said, voice pure temptation. “Now. Tonight.”

A shiver rippled across her skin. Meet with him again? “No.”

“Why not?”

Because you're a danger to my equilibrium. Because you bring out the worst in me and I've worked far too hard to become the person I want to be. Because seeing you brings up memories of our baby and I can't handle any more right now.
But she wouldn't risk letting him inside her head by telling him any of that.

She rubbed the heel of her hand over her eyes, trying to erase the memories he'd already evoked. “Because there's no reason to meet.”

“We need to set some ground rules so we're on the same page during this situation. Meet me once and I'll leave you alone.”

She sighed. There was a logic to that. She had a few ground rules of her own, starting with no unannounced visits to her office. Make that no visits to her office at all. Her bid to make partner of the firm needed no surprises, no new connections between her and JT Hartley.

Still, was it worth the risk of seeing him alone? Would Ted Howard understand that one more contact might be in the best interests of keeping her distance? She let out a breath. “JT…”

“Just once, princess,” he said, voice as smooth as warm caramel.

Her heart clenched tight as a fist. When she'd been sixteen, she'd loved the way he'd called her princess—reverentially, tenderly. Now she was a grown woman and he was a virtual stranger, his saying it that way—and
making everything inside her melt a little—was too much, too intimate. Another entry for the list of ground rules.

Maybe they did need to meet just once…?.

Dislodging Winston from her lap, she shoved the shoe box to the back of the cupboard, then leaned back against the wall. “Where?”

“Your office or mine. Your choice.”

Low key would be best while she decided what she'd tell Ted Howard about this. If JT came back to her office, word would spread around the firm that she'd again met with the claimant to the estate she was responsible for without the will's beneficiaries' permission. The same possibility was there if she went to his office because it was in a prominent building downtown—a place she'd always avoided. She silently groaned. Only one option presented itself to keep this private.

“My apartment in half an hour.” She gave him the address, knowing she'd regret it later. Hell, she regretted it now.

“I'll be there.”

“This is a onetime deal, JT,” she said, then disconnected and thumped her head back on the wall behind her.

She'd agreed to let the devil into her home.

A
t the deep hum of a motorbike pulling up on her street, Pia drew the curtain to the side, her pulse chaotic. JT sat with his strong, long legs astride the machine as he switched off the engine. Under the light of a streetlamp, he kicked down the side stand with a heavy boot and unbuckled the helmet, exposing his hair to the breeze. When he swung his leg over the side, she pressed a hand to her stomach to ease the flutters of trepidation.

JT arriving on a motorbike, stirring up memories… He was kitted up for a ride, looking sexy as hell…?. About to march into her home… She groaned and rested her head against the windowpane. This had to be the stupidest idea she'd ever had.

The bike was a different model from the one he'd ridden when they were teenagers—that bike had been scrappy and built from bits he'd scavenged and traded. This one
was sleek and silver and looked like it cost as much as her garden apartment.

From the ground floor window, she watched him make his way up the path to the apartment complex's foyer and—heart lunging at her ribs—she buzzed him in.

Seconds later, she opened the front door to JT, larger than life in his black riding jacket zipped to his neck, dark jeans, boots and rumpled hair. She almost melted into the floor. He bore little resemblance to the man who'd been in her office this morning. He was more disheveled. Reckless. More like the young JT who'd stolen her heart and her virginity. She shivered.

“Nice bike,” she said in a voice she hoped was casual.

Looking around her living room, he unzipped his jacket to reveal a form-fitting white T-shirt, then slipped his arms from the coat and folded it over a forearm. “An MV Agusta. Haven't ridden it in a while. It seemed somehow…appropriate.” One corner of his mouth hitched up around the small scar above his lip. She remembered his receiving that scar when he came off his bike doing a daredevil stunt that had scared her silly. And she remembered kissing the healed scar in the heat of passion.

Dragging her eyes from his face, she held out her hand. “I'll hang up your jacket.”

“I appreciate the hospitality,” he said drily and handed it over.

Ignoring the barb about her reluctance to meet with him, she walked over to the coat stand. The jacket was warm with his body heat and she held it a moment too long before hanging it, then ironed her damp palms down her trousers and turned back to him.

He stood, dominating her living room without trying, hands slung low on his hips. “So tell me how we need to play this.”

“We're not
playing
anything,” she said a little too sharply, still unsettled by his effect on her body. This would have been easier over the phone, where she could have focused more on the topic instead of the tower of testosterone in front of her. The lamplight from the corners of the room added too much atmosphere to his expression, so she stepped to the wall and switched on the overhead lights before trying again. “You just need to keep your distance.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Why so adamant?”

“Warner Bramson's family has always attracted more than its fair share of media attention. You will too once you lodge your claim. You have to see that if it were known we were once involved, people would start to wonder about my ethics and bias.” Ted Howard already had, but luckily she'd been able to reassure him. “You wondered it yourself.”

He rocked back on his heels, eyes trained on her face. “But the only question could be that you'd be biased against me. No one who knew how our involvement ended would suspect you of aiding me. And because your job is to carry out terms of a will that neglects me, I don't see the problem.”

“I'm sure the beneficiaries of the will would prefer to have someone with no connection to you. And my boss is watching me too closely on this case.” She would already need to conceal tonight's visit from Ted Howard—somehow she didn't think he'd understand.

“What's the worst he'd do? Move you to another case?”

“Yes,” she said with certainty.

JT rubbed his thumb back and forth over his bottom lip as he surveyed her. “You badly want this case, don't you?”

“More than any other I've handled.”
More than anything in her life.

He cocked his head to the side and scrutinized her face. “Why?”

She sighed. How much should she tell him? Details about how she came to have the case were off-limits to JT, but perhaps it would help if he knew the stakes were high for her. If there was any of the JT she'd once known inside this man, surely he'd respect that?

She swallowed, then met his eyes. “Warner Bramson's will is worth billions. It's a big case. The senior partner of my firm indicated that if I carry this off smoothly, I'll finally make partner.”

In actual fact, she'd chased this account, wanted to work on Warner Bramson's will after JT's mother had let slip on one of their annual lunches that JT's father's name was Warner. It was an unusual name, so Pia had done some digging and found that Theresa Hartley had worked in the secretarial pool of Bramson Holdings around the time JT was conceived. And Bramson was powerful enough to be the sort of man Theresa could be in hiding from all these years. Circumstantial evidence, for sure, but enough to convince Pia that it might be true.

She'd lobbied for the account to be brought to her firm in hope there would be something she could do to guide Warner to confirm JT was his son, and then to redress Theresa's treatment. But Pia had failed—up until his death, Warner had denied there were any other children he'd need to make allowance for when she'd probed in her professional capacity.

She lifted her chin. “I've been working toward making partner since I started at the firm—I won't risk being moved to another case because of a perceived conflict of interest.”

It was her big chance. The partners at her firm had been so impressed when she landed the account in the first place
that they'd promised she'd likely make partner when it was all concluded. She might have been initially interested in the case for Theresa, but now it had dovetailed into her primary career goal—make partner.

He arched an eyebrow, the trace of a smile lurking on his lips. “You've got yourself a carrot and a stick on the one case.”

Was he taking this seriously? “JT, if you—”

The intensity in his eyes turned serious. “It's okay, I get it. You followed your family into law and now you're committed to making a success of it. Fair enough. We definitely need some ground rules to survive. Are you going to invite me to sit down?”

“No, you won't be here that long.” She didn't want him settling in—this had to be as quick as she could make it. If she'd been thinking straight, she wouldn't have taken his jacket either. “What sorts of rules are you thinking?”

“We start with your agreeing you won't be biased against me, or influence others to be.”

“I already told you I won't—” she held up her hand to stop whatever protest his open mouth was about to voice “—but for the sake of these negotiations, I swear I won't.”

He gave a satisfied nod. “I appreciate it.”

“In return, you'll agree not to set foot in my firm's offices or my apartment again.”

He looked at her from under heavy eyelids. “What if you invite me?”

He was flirting with her now? That's where he thought their relationship was headed?

“I won't,” she said firmly despite the heat creeping up her neck.

“But if you do?” He folded his arms across his broad chest and the action made his biceps strain against the sleeves of his T-shirt. Her mouth dried. His body had
always been strong because he'd been active, but those arms were beautiful. She blinked. What were they talking about?

Invitations. She swallowed. “Okay, you agree not to set foot on the premises of my work or home
without an invitation.
And I want you to agree that in any contact we have—which should be minimal—we have no mention of the past.”

She knew he must have questions about their breakup—she hadn't explained it well at sixteen. She probably couldn't explain it well even now. And the guilt for hurting him then still lived in her gut like heavy, sticky molasses. Delving into that wouldn't help anyone; it would only make things messier.

“Anything before this moment?” He arched an eyebrow. “What if it's relevant to my claim?”

“No mention of our
shared
past. Our relationship.” She crossed her arms under her breasts, mirroring his pose, and his eyes followed the action, resting too intimately for her comfort level.

“Fair enough, princess,” he said with a rasp in his voice.

Her heart missed a beat. “Don't call me princess.”

“Is that a rule or a request?”

“A ground rule, JT.”

“Sure,” he said too casually. “If you stop saying my name like that.”

She did a quick mental scan of how she'd been saying it, but couldn't see anything to give offence. “Like what?”

“Say it,” he commanded in a low, seductive voice.

“JT,” she said.

A lazy smile spread across his face. “Yeah, like that.”

Pia stared at him, perplexed, but he didn't explain why simply saying his name could be a problem.

“And while we're at it,” he said, “that chain has to go.”

She glanced down at her necklace. A simple gold chain with a P that hung low. “I've always worn it.”

“I know, and it's always driven me crazy. If you want our past off the table, then you need to remove it.” He blinked slowly. “It sits in your cleavage and you don't want my mind going there any more than I can help.”

His gaze locked on hers and didn't waver. Her pulse raced erratically. He'd cornered her with a few words and he knew it. If she refused, she'd be inviting his flirting and she was so close to doing that already that she couldn't take the risk of sending the wrong signals. With trembling fingers she slipped off the chain. As soon as he left, she could put it back on—he'd never know because she shouldn't be seeing him again. She dropped it on the coffee table.

“And,” he said, seeming to warm to his subject, “you need to keep your feet covered.”

Her mouth dropped open. “What?”

“You're not the Pia I remember. You're buttoned down and covered up. The only hint of my Pia is those brightly painted toe nails.”

A delicious shiver zipped across her skin at the way he said
my Pia,
but she ignored it as she looked down at the hot pink she'd painted on yesterday while she'd been home sick. “It's just nail polish. Lots of women wear it.”

“But they wear it somewhere people can see. I'm guessing you never wear it on your fingers. Only on your toes, and then you always wear closed-toe shoes at work. No one sees your polish, do they, Pia?” he said, voice low.

She lifted her chin, not happy with his assessment—or its accuracy. “It's not professional.”

“Then don't flash your toes at
me
either.”

She moistened her lips. This was becoming ridiculous.
“You won't be in my house again to see,” she said, but her voice wavered.

“Even so…” He left the thought hanging and her pulse hammered with the tension in the air.

“Then you keep your biceps covered,” she blurted.

“My biceps?” he said, his eyes widening.

She waved a hand in the general direction of his arms, trying not to look. “You swagger in here in a T-shirt that stretches tight over your arms, and then have the gall to tell me to have my
toes
covered and take off a chain.”

“My biceps?” he asked again, slowly, as if realizing that meant she'd noticed them. Awareness flashed in his eyes. “It sits better under the jacket if it's firm,” he said absently.

Feeling edgy, she closed her teeth over a long index fingernail and watched him follow the move with his eyes.

He swallowed hard, then swallowed again. “And don't do that.”

“Do what?” she whispered.

He took a step closer. “Touch your mouth.”

She lost her breath. He was so close.

“Why?” she said, heart racing, knowing to ask was playing with fire, but nonetheless helpless not to say the word.

JT looked down at that lush mouth and was tempted beyond endurance. He closed the last inches that separated them and brought his mouth down, groaning when he could feel the moist softness of her lips. His arms reached out and snared her waist, pulling her sumptuous curves against his body. No woman had ever felt like Pia against him.

He touched his tongue to her lips and she hesitated for a moment, then he felt her throw caution to the wind and part them, granting him access to the heated depths. A tremor ran through her body and he held her tighter, feeling
her hands reach to twine behind his neck, holding him in place. There was no need—he wasn't going anywhere. He hadn't planned on kissing her, but there was nothing he wanted more in this moment. Her mouth, with its taste of ambrosia, moved under his, and she rubbed seductively against him, inviting. As he nipped at her bottom lip, his hands roamed down from her waist, over the flare of her hips, wanting more—

Pia wrenched her mouth away. “JT, I'm not doing this again,” she said breathlessly.

“Sure you are,” he said on a smile and lowered his mouth again.

She placed her hands on his chest, her features resolute. “No, JT, I'm not.”

Body screaming its protest, he drew in a lungful of air and released her. Then he took a step back and shoved his hands into his pockets to stop them reaching for her, seducing her into kissing him again. She'd said no.

When he had control, he thought back over her words. “Not doing what again?”

“This.” She waved a hand back and forth between them. “Getting involved.”