Fortune's Legacy (9 page)

His body stirred, his blood pumped and he took a sip of the wine, hoping to ease the tension building within. As the rich, cool liquid slid down his throat, he turned to look at her again, bracing himself for the hunger he knew would slap at him.

He couldn't even remember the last time he'd wanted a woman this badly. With a need that clawed at his throat and scratched at his belly.

Scrubbing one hand across his face, as if trying to wipe away the images in his mind, he said, “While you were in the tub, I retried that phone you found in the bedroom.”

“Anything?” She shot him a quick, hopeful look.

“Lines are still down,” he said quickly, and watched disappointment bloom on her features. “Cell service, too.”

He should have been disappointed, too. But damned
if he hadn't felt a flash of gratitude when the phone was still dead.

“Oh. So we're really stuck.”

“For a while, at least.” And he wasn't sorry about it. He glanced at the windows on the opposite side of the room. Outside, the storm still blew, the snow coming fast and furious against the glass. “At least until the blizzard's over.”

Nodding, she sipped her wine before turning her head to look at him. “I didn't ever thank you for getting me through that hike from the car.”

“You're welcome.”

“And,” she pointed out with a smile, “you owe me fifty bucks.”

“What?”

“The bet, remember?”

Garrett frowned for a minute, then recalled how he'd challenged her to keep walking. He'd felt her giving up, surrendering to the cold, and he'd done whatever he could to keep her moving. Challenging Kyra was a sure way to get her to respond.

He slapped one hand against his blanket-covered hip. “Don't have it on me. Guess you'll just have to trust me.”

She took another sip of wine. “I can do that, I suppose. After all, I know where you live.”

“You do?”

“Sure.” She grinned at him and her whole face lit up. “You live at the office.”

He smiled ruefully at the truth in that statement. “Got me there. Although I'd like to point out that you spend just as much time there as I do.”

“True.”

“Why?”

“What?”

“Why?” he repeated, leaning toward the fire and carefully laying another log on top of the flames. As sparks billowed, then shot up the chimney, he turned his gaze back to her. Shadow and light played across her features and his breath lodged in his throat, almost strangling him.

“Are you asking as my boss or as my fellow snowbound victim?”

Taking a gulp of his wine, he set the glass down on the hearth and reached for the bottle. Refilling his glass first, he then leaned over to pour her more.

He'd been doing some thinking about that very thing. With the two of them stranded here together, things were bound to get more…intimate than they normally would have on a standard business trip. And he was pretty sure he'd come up with the solution to this forced intimacy.

“How about a deal?” he asked.

“Depends. What kind of deal?”

She was a careful woman. And he admired that. “I say we agree that whatever happens in this cabin, whatever is said in this cabin, stays in this cabin.”

“Meaning?” she asked, and he heard a breathiness in her voice that fed the fire burning inside him.

It was the only thing that made sense. He'd worked it all out in his head while imagining her naked and wet in that old claw-foot tub. The two of them would be in
close proximity for who the hell knew how long. If something should happen between them, then he wanted her to know and accept that once they got out of this place, they'd both go back to their own lives.

Covering his own ass? Maybe. Trying to protect her?

Yeah, that, too.

“Meaning,” he said finally, “that while we're here, we're just Garrett and Kyra. There's no Voltage Energy. No employer, employee. Just two people waiting out a storm.”

She considered his words for a long moment as she watched him carefully.

“Deal?” he finally asked.

After taking another sip of her wine, she trailed the tips of her fingers around the edge of the heavy glass. “Well, since you're my boss and you've already seen me in my underwear, I think, yes. It's a deal.”

“And since you've seen your boss in
his
underwear, I think it's a good deal all the way around.”

Lifting her glass, she held it out to him for a toast. As he clinked his wineglass against hers, Kyra said, “To the storm. And to stranded strangers.”

Garrett wondered if he'd just made things easier between them, or more difficult.

W
ine was a great ice breaker.

By the time the second bottle was opened, they were talking as if they were old friends. Knowing that whatever happened in the cabin stayed in the cabin gave both of them the chance to let down their guard.

“So,” Kyra asked, holding out her glass for Garrett to refill again. “Your parents are still living in Longview?”

“Yep.” He stretched out one hand to his slacks, checking to see if they were dry. “Still wet,” he muttered, then looked back at her. “My folks don't want to leave the farm.”

“And that bothers you?” She saw a flash of emotion glitter in his eyes despite the cool tone of his voice.

“No, I…” Bothered him, no. Worried him, yes. They'd sacrificed a lot for him over the years and now that he was in a position to help, they wouldn't let him. Pride was a hard thing for a son to fight. Especially when he understood it so well.

“You want to make their lives easier,” she said for him.

It surprised him that she understood without his having to explain it to her. But why should it? Kyra had family, too. And for the first time he wondered what that family was like. He'd seen the picture on her desk, of her and her siblings. A part of him envied them.

“Is that so wrong?” he demanded, even knowing that she wasn't the person to ask.

“Only if it's not what they want,” she said softly.

He shook his head and took another sip of wine as the small burst of anger he'd felt a moment ago slipped away. She was right, he knew. And the more he pushed them to accept help, the more stiff-necked they became. “It makes me crazy,” he admitted finally. “I try to give them money, they won't take it and then there's a battle.” Shaking his head again, he said, “They tell me they already have everything they want. They won't take money from me. Won't let me help.”

“Stubborn.”

He snorted. “You have no idea.”

“At least they love you.” The words were out before she could stop them. Wincing, she shrugged when Garrett looked at her, a question in his eyes. “Did I say that out loud?”

“Yes.” He saw vulnerability in her eyes. A wistful
ness that made him want to comfort her. And that feeling was suddenly so real, so urgent, he tightened his grip on the wineglass to keep from reaching for her. “Want to elaborate?”

“Not really,” Kyra hedged, wishing she could rewind the last couple of minutes and delete that little slipup. She was much more comfortable talking about his family than her own.

His parents frustrated him, but she'd seen the look on his face when he spoke of them. There was real affection there. Love. It had always been there for him—and when love came that easily, people tended to take it for granted. A fact of life.

He probably didn't even realize what a gift it was.

And just how much other people would give to experience it.

“Oh, come on,” he prompted. “We've talked about my family. So tell me what it was like growing up as a Fortune.”

A Fortune.
Kyra knew what most people thought of the Fortune family. A big name in Texas. Lots of money, power, influence. At least, she thought, for some of them.

“Not what you'd expect.”

His brow furrowed. “Explain.”

She sighed, recognizing that Garrett Wolff was not a man to back away from a subject. He would keep asking until she talked, so she might as well get it over with.

Taking a fortifying sip of wine, she said, “My branch of the Fortune family tree was just a little less stately
than the others.” Another sip of wine and she felt the warmth hit her stomach and spread through her veins.

Taking a breath, she started talking, slowly, reluctantly. This was not really the kind of story she enjoyed telling. But somehow, here in this firelit cabin, the problems with her family seemed a long way off. “My father was a banker. Successful.” At least in his work. “But at home, he was a bitter man and he made sure all of us knew it.”

Garrett was quiet for a long minute, as if considering just what his reaction should be. “And your mom?”

“Skittish.” Kyra sighed as she said it and realized that once she got started, it wasn't so very hard to talk to Garrett. Maybe it was the concern in his eyes. Maybe it was the quiet way he just sat there and listened. “Mom learned early how to stay out of range of my father's temper.”

“He
hit
you?” The sudden outrage in Garrett's voice warmed her as thoroughly as the wine.

“No,” she said quickly, giving him a smile as a reward for the protective streak that had popped out. “At least, he didn't hit
me.
” There it was, she thought. The whole sad story of her childhood. Because she'd escaped her father's temper, his outbursts, she'd been separate from her siblings. She'd been different. And that had been almost as hard to live with as the misery her siblings had faced.

“I was the youngest,” she said, committed now and having to finish it. “By the time I showed up, my father was already a miserable human being. Because of him,
my sister and my brother Daniel left that house as soon as they could. My mother moved around like a ghost, trying to avoid attention, pretty much leaving her children to fend for themselves when it came to dealing with my father. And my brother Vincent…” she broke off for another sip of wine.

Kyra couldn't believe she was saying all of this. Couldn't believe she was telling Garrett Wolff, of all people, her deepest, darkest secrets. Was she out of her mind? Was she drunk?

She thought about that for a long minute and tried to objectively judge her sobriety. And she had to admit that the slight buzz she felt didn't qualify as drunk. She was clearheaded enough to know what she was saying. She just couldn't figure out why.

But it was too late to turn back now.

“Your brother Vincent…” he repeated.

She swallowed hard and tasted the bitterness of acknowledging that she'd been responsible, however unwillingly, for making Vince's life far harder than it had had to be.

“Vince stayed,” she whispered, running the tip of one finger around the rim of her wineglass, her gaze locked on the ruby-red liquid. “He stayed in that house, with my father, because of me.”

“Kyra—”

She lifted her gaze to Garrett's, not caring now if he could read the guilt stamped in her eyes. “He protected me. Stood in front of me when my father went into one of his drunken rages.” She inhaled sharply and blew the
air out in a rush. “He remained in that prison of a house to save me from the man who should have loved us.”

Guilt blossomed in her chest and gnawed at the edges of her heart. “He put off his own life until I was through high school and leaving for college.”

“A good man,” Garrett said softly. Then he asked, “Where are your parents now?”

“Dead.” One word. Harsh. Stiff. She couldn't leave it at that, though. “They died several years ago in a car accident.”

“I'm sorry, Kyra.”

She nodded and took another sip of her wine. “My father was driving. We never found out if he was drunk that night, but the smart money says he was.”

“At least you still have your brothers and sister.”

“Yeah,” she said softly, “I do. Thanks to Vincent, we'll always have each other.”

Her gaze locked on Garrett, and she noted idly that his image was suddenly wavering. She needed a second or two to realize it was because her eyes were filled with tears.

She blinked them back and said, “I owe him everything, Garrett. Everything I am, everything I've done, is because Vince gave me the chance.
That's
why I'm always at the office so late.
That's
why I work so hard. I have to prove to Vincent, to everyone, that I was worth the pain he endured.”

Frowning now, Garrett blurted, “Do you think your brother needs proof? Do you think he wants some kind of reward for protecting his little sister? Do you really believe that's why he did it?”

“Doesn't matter why he did it,” she argued. “The point is, Vincent sacrificed everything. For me.” The burden of that one truth settled onto her shoulders with a familiar weight. One she couldn't shrug off. “I have to work twice as hard to be the best,” she said, then suddenly remembered that she hadn't told him her good news from before they'd left for this doomed business meeting. “I signed the Hartsfield account today.”

“You did?” He smiled at her and Kyra basked in it for a second or two. “That's great. Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” she said, then continued quickly, “I worked hard to get that account. Because I can't fail. If I fail, if I can't make it at Voltage, despite all the work, despite everything Vincent did for me, then what? What was it all for?”

“You're not failing at Voltage,” he told her.

“Really?” she said, her disbelief clearly sounding in that one word. “Then why the early review?”

He shifted his gaze to the fire, and Kyra noticed his jaw tighten as if he was clenching his teeth. Well, so they weren't supposed to talk about work. He'd started it, hadn't he?

“Garrett…” It felt odd, calling him by his first name, when he'd been “Mr. Wolff” for so long. But what was stranger was that—she liked it. “What do you mean?”

“You're getting a promotion.”

“A—” She stopped, snapped her jaw shut, then took a gulp of wine and let that information settle in. Once it had, a flash of irritation swamped the self-congratulations happening inside her. “You didn't want to tell me.”

He looked at her. “No, I didn't.”

All of the warm, fuzzy thoughts she'd been having for him a few minutes ago dissolved like sugar in water. “You let me think you were going to fire me.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “I did.”

“For heaven's sake, why?”

Sighing and shaking his head, he sipped his wine, then turned his gaze on her. Shrugging, he said, “Because you irritated me.”

She laughed shortly, but the sound scraped the air, and ached as it left her throat. “I irritate you?”

“You used to.”

“But not anymore.”

“Not until now, anyway.”

“Oh, well, color me relieved.” Kyra didn't know what to make of this. Sure, she was happy about the promotion. Happy she hadn't let Vincent down. Let herself down. But there was something else here. Something she couldn't quite put a finger on.

“You wanted me worried,” she accused.

“Maybe I did,” Garrett said, and let his gaze drop. In the firelight, his features looked sharper, harder. “You're always so damn sure of yourself, Kyra. It can be…frustrating.”

She'd heard that before, and because she realized the truth in it, she said, “I'm not as confident as I let people think I am.”

Not easy to admit, but since they were opening up here, talking about things that would never come up in conversation anywhere else, she felt as though she owed
him at least as much honesty as he'd just given her. “I learned a long time ago that sometimes, if you act like you're right, it's almost as good as being right.”

She'd brazened her way through college and steadily climbed the corporate ladder with the same game plan. Confidence equaled success. She knew that. So instead of letting the world in on her own self-doubts, she covered them with a layer of arrogance and hoped no one noticed.

“I can understand that,” he said softly, his words almost lost in the hiss and crackle of the flames. “And I get why you're working so hard to make your brother proud.” He smiled again briefly, sadly. “I do the same thing. My folks worked themselves half to death to make sure I had a shot at the American Dream, whatever that is. I can't let them down.”

“But you haven't. You
are
successful,” Kyra said, somehow moved to try to make him see himself as she did. Well, at least as she saw him now. “You're at the top of your game. Voltage's fair-haired boy.”

“At the moment,” he acknowledged. “But how much will be enough? How high do you have to climb before you say, ‘Here's good. This is the top. Now I can relax'?”

She sighed and shifted position, curling her legs up under her and smoothing her blanket to cover her ankles. “I don't know. Maybe no one does. Maybe there is no magic spot on the ladder. Maybe it's just working every day, doing your best and hoping someone notices.”

“Should that be enough?” He let his head fall back
and stared up at the fire-lit ceiling. Almost as if talking to himself, he said, “I saw you doing all the things I used to do when I first went to Voltage.”

“What do you mean?”

Still he didn't look at her, and his voice sounded…tired. “You work too much, Kyra. Stay too late, devote too much of yourself to the company. You put the job before everything else.” Without lifting his head, he glanced at her. “Trust me. That's no way to live.”

Something inside her cracked just a little and she felt a tension she'd been carrying around with her for years ease up slightly. “Maybe I have been a little single-minded.”

He chuckled.

She scowled, then smiled, silently admitting his point. “Fine. A lot single-minded.”

“Is the job all you want?” he asked.

“Never really thought about it.” Ridiculous, but true. She'd been so focused for so long, there hadn't been room in her life for anything else. Her friends had fallen away, except for Isa. Her dates were so infrequent, Kyra might as well be living like a nun.

And now that she thought about it, she couldn't even remember the last time she'd done something as simple as go outside during the day. Always, even on most weekends, she was locked away from the world, tucked in her office, struggling to become the kind of success that would make Vincent's sacrifices worthwhile.