StealingThe Bride (10 page)

“Good.
By the time you come back the food I ordered from Smitty’s should be here.”

Crossing
the room he winked at the older woman. “Ah, just what I missed when I was out
of the country for a month, an all-American hamburger. When the recession is
over, you are the first one to get a raise.”

“You
sure know how to win over a girl.” She placed a hand on her heart and fluttered
her lashes at him.

Chuckling,
Kolby left his office.

Exiting
the elevator on the floor where the auditorium was located, he crossed the hall
to one of the side doors. He wasn’t trying to disturb the seminar, just wanted
to see for
himself
if this Ms. Greenwood was as
amazing as his staff had raved. Every time he spoke with one of his managers
over the week all he heard was Ms. Greenwood was thoughtful, courteous, and
easy to talk to regarding the sensitive matters of his employee’s personal
finances.

He
was happy they all liked the team, but to him it was more important that she was
knowledgeable and could help his employees stay afloat during these trying
times. That’s why he’d contracted the firm. Over the last two years he’d been
forced to make changes and decisions he hadn’t wanted. However, they had been
necessary to maintain his company’s forward movement.

Raises
had ceased along with corporate vacations and kickbacks to upper management. He
could be thankful that with everything that had gone away he’d kept over ninety
percent of his employees; none in mid-to-lower levels had been lost.

He
heard her voice before he saw her. No one had to tell him it was Leya because
she was the only woman who caused a jolt to his heart and his gut to clench
with need. Moving further into the room he searched the front until he located
her standing before the large SMART board dressed stylishly in a deep
pomegranate and navy pinstripe skirt suit. Gone were the thick willowy strands
he had adored in Bali; now her hair was bone straight and cascading around her
shoulders.

He
had erotic dreams of her hair blowing in the breeze as they walked along the
beach, spilling around him as she leaned over and kissed him, or fisted in his
hands as he watched her take his cock in her mouth.

He
wished he had asked questions about her life in the States, instead of
respecting the silent rule between them—a vacation romance. Hell, even if he’d
just had her last name. Then maybe he would have discovered that she lived in
the same city. Fate had seen to it that she had walked out of his dreams and
back into his life and he’d be damn if he let her get away again.

*
* * *

“So,
are you a pampered princess or a working girl?”

Leya
froze. She wondered if she could make it back to the elevator that had just let
her out on the garage level of KB Corp. But the sound of the doors swishing
closed denied her that escape. Like an idiot she’d dismissed her team twenty
minutes ago while she cleaned up her things. Now alone with a stranger she was
trying to think of all her ways of escape.

Braving
it, she turned toward the direction of the person. The man stepped from the
shadows where he had been leaning against the wall, and the world as she knew
it shattered and crumbled at her feet. Even with a smooth jawline and short
hair that barely showed any of the sun-kissed highlights that had played in his
locks, she recognized Kolby. Her pulse kicked up and heat infused her blood, it
was the same reaction her body always had in his presence. Even after over two
weeks of not seeing him it was as if it had only been minutes.

“What
are you doing here? How did you find me?” Leya’s heart was racing so fast, she
felt like she’d drunk five espressos. The palm of her hand had already begun to
sweat around the handle of her case. She didn’t know if it was the fact that
Kolby had tracked her down somehow or because with every ounce of her being she
wanted to throw herself into his arms and tell him how much she’d missed him.
Her mind told her it was the former.

He
took a step closer to her, titled his head and captured her with those steel
blue gray eyes. “Trust me. No one is more shocked than me, princess.”

“Stop
calling me that. My life was a far cry from being raised in any palace.” He’d
used that endearment on her in Bali, but that had been different. She’d been
living in a world that wasn’t hers.
A lie.
A fantasy of the moment.
Then shacking up with him in his
bungalow for over a week had been the biggest fantasy of all. Her gaze scanned
his imposing form hidden by a tailor-made suit. “You clean up well. Where did
you rent the suit?”

His
chuckle was dry, humorless. “You may be smart at financial management, Leya.
However, your research skills aren’t worth shit.”

Taking
a step toward him, she slapped her free hand on her hip. “Excuse me?”

Resting
himself against the hood of a luxury sedan, one of the few cars remaining in
the garage, he folded his arms over his broad chest. A chest she knew was covered
by firm muscles.

“What
do you think KB Corp stands for?”

He
had her there. All of the forms in the contract and the financial portfolio
information the company had established for its workers that Zelda had given
her all said KB Corporation, nothing else. She hadn’t looked any further in who
owned it. That had no bearing on what she did to help the employees keep
themselves out of financial red-zones. “What’s your last name?”

“Bragdon.”

Damn it
. Who in Tidewater didn’t know
Kolby Bragdon, the corporate tycoon who owned several local businesses and a
healthy share of one of the largest shipyards in the area?

“Maybe,
princess, if you’d have let me get to know more than your body and your wit we
could’ve exchanged names and addresses.”

The
urge to push him off the hood of the car and wipe the cocky smile off his face
had her shaking in her heels. She hated being made a fool of. Closing the
distance between them, she poked her finger into his hard chest. “Why did you
let me believe you were some damn island pauper?”

“Are
you shittin’ me?” He captured her hand and held it. “I’m to blame for your damn
assumptions.”

“Admit
it,” she ground out. “You knew what I believed. Hell, anyone would’ve thought
the same thing. You were an aquatics instructor and lived in a friggin’ one-room
bungalow.”

Tugging
her hand, he dragged her body against him. “But, you fucked me anyway didn’t
you, princess.”

She
felt his breath on her face and the heat of his body through their clothes. On
one side she was thankful for the support because her knees had turned to jelly
at his words. On the other hand, she wanted nothing but space between them.
An ocean of space preferably.

With
her hand trapped between them, she couldn’t push herself away unless she
dropped her briefcase.

“I
didn’t hear you complaining,” she threw back.

“Oh,
trust me I’m not.” His other hand lowered to her waist.

Heat
danced along her spine in the wake of his touch. “Let me go.”

“No.”

Frustrated,
she asked, “Tell me, Kolby, why all the subterfuge? Why pretend to be someone
you’re not.”

A
single eyebrow lifted and without him saying it, she knew he was tossing the
same question to her. However, she ignored the challenge.

“It’s
simple. Just like everyone else travels there for a vacation so do I. One month
out of every year I go there.
To check on my project
investments.”

It
all came clear to her now.
“The school, retirement center,
and the rice kitchen distribution center?
All that is
you?”

“Yes.
No one truly pays attention to the people providing
them
service. I can be incognito and not be
hassled
by the
wealthy businessmen who know I’m there and try to make deals with me.”

The
wind went out her sail in one direction but shifted in another emotional gust. “It
must be nice to play Santa Claus to the needy people of Indonesia.”

Her
words must have stunned him, because his arms fell slack for a moment and she
used the opportunity to push away from him and turned to walk away.

“Hell no.”
He grabbed her arm and stopped
her departure. “You don’t get to make a statement like that and escape,
princess.”

Yanking
her hand away, unable to take the searing heat of his touch, she bite out, “I
asked you not to call me that.”

“Why?
It’s who you were pretending to be.” He threw at her. “My friend owns that
place. I know how much it goes for a night, not to mention two weeks. To top it
off, I paid for your seminar so I know what your services cost. You don’t make
enough to afford it in six months.”

She
knew he wasn’t talking about the days and nights she had spent in his arms, but
his comment still stung. When it came to the zeroes in her bank account she
didn’t play. “Well, how about a year.
Or the fact that I’m a
freakin’ financial analyst and I know how to invest and save.
So, I can
choose where and how I spend any part of that if I
damn
well please.”

If
she wasn’t mistaken, she thought she saw the corners of his lips twitch as if
he were about to smile at her.
Squinting
her eyes at
him, she waited.

It
didn’t come. Instead, he stepped to her with silent steps as his gaze seemed to
search her features. That piercing stare made her nervous. She much preferred
for him to question her job skills or financial state than attempt to cut
through all the walls and facades she put up to see into her heart or her soul.

“What?”
she yelled, feeling
uncomfortable.
“Why are you
looking at me like that?”

“I
may be acquainted with your body from the top of your lovely head to tips of
your cute toes, but there’s so much more to you.” His tone was low, husky. “Why
didn’t you let me get to know you, Leya?”

Her
hands were not only clamming up, but they were beginning to shake as well. She
just wanted to flee and shut herself inside of her house. In an attempt to hammer
a nail into the wall around her for more fortification, she lashed out. “Maybe
I have a thing against corporate American tycoons and celebrities that
gallivant all over the world providing for the poor and adopting the homeless
when there’s so many people in need here that they step over to get out their
front door.”

Folding
his arms, he shot her with those eyes again. “Is that what you think I do? Play
Daddy Warbucks to outsiders, but not at home?”

“I’ve
seen it with my own eyes and helped with my hands.” Mocking his stance, she
linked her arms over her chest.

Dropping
his hands, he then reached into his pocket.

She
heard the beep and saw the lights of the luxury sedan flash behind him. The low
purr of the engine could barely be heard.

“Get
in the car.”

“What?”
She frowned.

“Get
in, Leya, or I’ll put you in.” His voice was low and menacing.

She
didn’t fear that he’d hurt her, but the muscle ticking in his jaw told her not
to test him.

Swallowing,
she moved to the car. Once there she allowed him to open the passenger door for
her. When she was settled with her case in her lap, he rounded the car and got
in.

“Where
are we going?”

“You’ll
see.” He backed out of the space and drove them out of the garage an into the
Virginia Beach traffic.

The
low notes of jazz filled the car, keeping the tension of silence at bay as they
cruised down Virginia Beach Boulevard toward Norfolk.

In
Norfolk he made a few turns, taking her down streets, memories and projects she
used to call home. When he pulled off Brambleton and parked in the lot at the
beautifully constructed Norfolk Youth Community Activities Center.

“This
is one of the places that I own.
Me
.
When I heard about dropout rates and lack of funding for sports
activities for the kids in this area I had it built.
State-of-the-art
facility with top-notch retired coaches and teachers from the community.
Free tutoring and sports.”

Before
she could open her mouth and say anything, he shifted into drive and peeled
out. Down the street he shot up Monticello until it became Granby and hooked a
left down a one-way street. Smoothly he slid his car along the curb and parked
at a building she had remembered as a Head Start Center that closed down while
she was in middle school, left vacant and abandoned. Now it was remodeled,
bigger, and three stories high.

“You
own this too,” she said gazing out into the night at the structure with lights
beaming brightly from the windows. She could see people milling around and
smiling.

“It’s
a homeless shelter. It’s only a year old, but as people started to lose their
homes over the last two years I had to do something. My company contributes to
various other things around the area and country. I can’t help that my family
is wealthy or that I’m rich, but I can help those who aren’t and need it.”