Heiress Behind the Headlines (17 page)

“I’ve had enough—” she began, furiously.

But he couldn’t pretend any more. He stopped her the only way he knew. With his mouth. With all the passion and rage and longing he’d been carrying around for weeks.

He kissed her until he forgot everything, and there was only her. Her taste, her scent. The
fit
of her. He held her face between his palms and kissed her again and again, each taste soothing the wild itch inside of him, even as the fire that always flared between them grew hotter. Higher.

He kissed her until he forgot everything. Where they were, who they were. Who they were supposed to be tonight, here. Who could be watching.

He only wanted to be inside her. Above her, below her, beside her, just so long as he was so deep within her he couldn’t tell where he ended and she began. God, what he would give to be inside her again!

But she made a small noise in the back of her throat, and, impossibly, she pulled away.

“Larissa …”

“You don’t want me, Jack,” she said, her voice ragged. “You want what you think I am. What you see when you look at me. But you don’t want
me.
”

“You don’t know what I want,” he threw at her. And he worried that he didn’t, either.

“I don’t care what you want,” she retorted, her eyes dark. And he knew, with a kind of lurching sensation, as if the world had just been bumped—hard—that this was the real Larissa. This, right here. Just as he’d always wanted. But dark and angry and in pain. “I care what
I
want, and it’s not this. Kissing a man who hates me, in secret, in the dark, while the girl he might marry sits waiting for him somewhere brightly lit and
appropriate.
”

“I do want you,” he argued, trying to move closer, but she stepped away, and the way she looked at him seemed to tear into him. Like knives.

“You don’t know me at all,” she said dismissively. “You want a fantasy. They all do. It has nothing to do with me and it never will.”

“I know you better than you think I do,” he said, his heart pounding at his chest, his hands aching from not touching her, not holding her, not changing her mind the only way he knew how.

“No,” she said matter-of-factly. “You don’t. But I know you.” Her green eyes seemed to glow then, lasering into him. “You feel perfectly comfortable tearing me to shreds for my every perceived flaw when all
you
do is dance to your grandfather’s tune. You can never do enough penance, can you, Jack? And yet you can never bring your mother back, or make your grandfather treat you better.”

“Shut up.” It was a cold order, as cold as he suddenly felt, as if the December night had taken over his soul.

“You would rather live the rest of your life in misery than stand up to one old man,” she said, as if she was unaware of the danger. “You would even marry at his command, as if this was 1882, and yet you go to such pains to tell me how
I
am the nightmare in this scenario. I’m the weak one, the embarrassment. Of the two of us, at least
I
don’t pretend to be anything but what I am.” Her chin rose. “Flaws and all.”

“Says the woman who has made her whole life a monument to shirking her own birthright!” Jack threw back at her, unable to process the riot of emotion inside of him. The shock, the fury. And something else he couldn’t quite identify. Recognition? But she couldn’t be right about him, could she?

“You don’t even see me, Jack,” she said sadly. “You never will.”

Her eyes seared into him, and he knew, somehow, that he had lost her. Failed her. That she might be the one leaving—again—but he was the one who had made this happen. He couldn’t quite grasp it. Her mouth trembled, but she stepped away, and he knew she wasn’t coming back to him. Not tonight. Perhaps not ever.

“Larissa …” he said, but it was too late. She had already turned, and was making her way down the steps toward the street.

Leaving Jack to stand there, alone, trying to figure out what the hell had just happened and what he planned to do about it.

L
ARISSA
waited for her father in the same chilly salon in the Whitney mansion where she had spent many an unpleasant moment in her youth. The room was tucked away on the second level, toward the back of the grand house that sprawled over a whole Manhattan city block and still inspired passing tourists to stop and take photographs of its famous facade. This particular salon was Bradford’s favorite. It was small enough and unused enough to allow Bradford to give voice to the full breadth and width of his eternal displeasure without fear of being overheard by the staff.

If she closed her eyes, she was sure she would be able to see herself at all ages, sitting in the exact same position on the exact same uncomfortable chair, staring at the exact same Mary Cassatt painting that had always hung on the wall, casting a false impression of familial harmony over the small, tastefully blue-and-pale-yellow room. But she did not close her eyes; she was much too afraid that she would see Jack if she did, and she had already spent too long this morning tending to the damage a long, sleepless night during which he had taken over her head had done. She blew out a breath, her lips tingling anew at the memory of that kiss outside the Met last night. His beautiful face, his mesmerizing chocolate eyes …

The December light shone crisp and cold through the windows, making Larissa wish she had not surrendered her winter coat and warm scarf to the butler when she’d arrived. The door snapped open then and her father strode inside, dropping the temperature another twenty degrees with his forbidding expression. Bradford Whitney looked as he always did: gray with displeasure despite his exquisite yet understated wardrobe and the great care she knew he took with his skin. Even tyrants could be vain, she reminded herself.

“I am not fooled by this latest display, Larissa,” Bradford said, his form of a greeting.

He sniffed disdainfully as his gaze raked over her. Larissa did not let herself react. He sank into the chair opposite hers, across the fussy little coffee table that had sat in that precise spot since the 1800s. They had both assumed their traditional positions, Larissa thought, checking a sigh. Bradford would now unleash his usual bile and Larissa would attempt to survive it intact. There had been years when she’d wept. Screamed. Stared out the window and pretended he wasn’t there. Acted as if she were asleep. Made sure she was as comfortably numb as possible. None of it mattered. The entire charade made Larissa feel arthritic, gnarled and knotted with a kind of grief for the life they’d never had, the father and daughter they had never been, and the sort of family the Whitneys could never become.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said, though she did. She wanted him to say it out loud, as if she thought the echo of his own ugliness might shame him. It never did. That was yet one more example of her own perversity at play, she thought—something she’d been indulging far too much of late. But she shoved thoughts of Jack aside. She was already battered enough, thank you. Just being back
in this house, this monument to her family’s long history of delicately gilded and extensively funded dysfunction, made her feel raw. Bruised. There were too many ghosts, too many
could have beens,
crowded in the elegant rooms, stalking the hushed, grand halls.

“I mean all your suspiciously demure charity event attendances of late,” Bradford said, a sneer in his voice though he was too well-bred to
actually
sneer at her. This early in the conversation, anyway. “Your sad little gestures toward decent behavior, for all of New York to comment on. Your new wardrobe, as if anyone can forget your outrageous attempts to be shocking in the past. A few weeks of playing dress-up hardly erases a lifetime of embarrassing behavior.”

Larissa ran her hand along her perfectly tailored charcoal trousers, and resisted the urge to tug at her fitted black cashmere turtleneck, or to adjust her tasteful diamond earrings. She knew she looked chic, if conservative, and that her impractically heeled boots gave the outfit a little bit of punch. He could not possibly see the shame, the humiliation, that coiled inside of her, that he’d helped put there. He saw only what she showed him. So she showed him absolutely nothing.

“I assume that’s your version of ‘welcome home,’ Dad,” she said dryly. Almost serenely. “Thank you.”

“The doorman at your apartment building informed me you reappeared several weeks ago,” Bradford snapped, as if he hadn’t heard her. It occurred to Larissa that, quite possibly, he never had. “I then had to track your escapades through the society pages, waiting for the other shoe to drop, as it always does. Whatever you think you’re doing, Larissa, it is having the usual effect. I am not amused.”

“I’m fine, thank you,” Larissa replied lightly, as if he’d asked. As if it would ever occur to him to ask. “The months
away—especially after such a terrible ordeal—really helped me figure a few things out. I appreciate your asking after me. The abundance of paternal concern is touching.”

“I’d advise you to be careful, Larissa.” He spat out her name as if it was a curse.

“Or what?” Her tone wasn’t even challenging. Why bother? She knew that he viewed her very presence as the challenge. She raised her brows at him, more inquiry than attack. “Could my reputation or circumstances be any worse? I think you’ve run out of effective threats.”

“I’m not interested in another scene in your never-ending melodrama,” he said, his voice cold. Bored. And quiet, as it always was when he was being the most cruel. “The next time you try to kill yourself in one of those clubs, or at one of your parties, make sure to complete the task. The clean-up is expensive, tedious and reflects poorly on this family and on Whitney Media.” His gaze cut into her, arrowing directly into that throbbing core of shame—of hurt, of desperate self-loathing—that she still carried around with her no matter how much she might have otherwise changed. “And I cannot afford to lose another CEO thanks to your games. Do you understand me? Am I making myself clear?”

She had to sit there for a moment and breathe, just as the doctors had ordered her to do eight months ago, when Bradford had sent her into a panic attack in this very same house while addressing a topic similar to this one, and she’d thought it was heart failure. She refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing her react like that again.

“Perfectly clear,” she said. She forced herself to produce that damned smile of hers again, the one that hid everything and that she knew infuriated him. “My next coma will be terminal, I promise.” She met his gaze, bold and unafraid, no matter how she felt inside. “Are you happy now?”

“You are the greatest disappointment of my life,” Bradford told her, almost conversationally, though his cold eyes never left her face.

“A point you have made sure to hammer into me since I was approximately six years old,” Larissa replied. She took pride in the way she managed to sit so casually in the stiff, hard chair, as if she were perfectly relaxed. As if she were bulletproof, finally. “I assure you, I am aware of your feelings, and if I was not, I think your request that I make sure to
really
commit suicide next time would have clued me in. I think we can safely say we’re on the same page.”

“I hope you enjoyed your little vacation, Larissa.” No expression. Nothing at all behind his cold eyes. Had there ever been? She repressed a shiver. “I can’t begin to imagine what you got up to for so long, nor do I care. The only saving grace is that you managed, somehow, to keep it out of the papers for once. I assume the bill is astronomical, as ever.”

Only emotionally,
Larissa thought ruefully, but she only shrugged. Let him think she’d hidden away somewhere at great expense. Let him think whatever he liked—she knew that he would anyway, no matter what she said or did.

“Don’t think I’ll help you if you’ve exceeded your quarterly allowance,” Bradford continued in the same softly vicious way. “I’m done cleaning up your messes.” The first hint of emotion she’d ever seen crossed his face then, and she found herself holding her breath. Was this it? Was this when her father revealed himself as being in possession of human feelings after all this time? “Do you have any idea what it meant to this company to lose Theo Markou Garcia? Because of
you?
”

She should have known better. What was surprising was that she felt anything at all, that she could still hold out hope for this man on any level. What kind of fool did
that make her? She breathed out again, and summoned up her usual careless smile.

“You do know, Dad, that you and the company are not the same entity, don’t you?” She let the smile deepen. “I really do fear for your sanity sometimes.”

“After the stunt you pulled with those shares, you’re lucky I don’t cut you out entirely.” Bradford seethed at her, still with that shocking hint of emotion in his gaze. Larissa should have known that it would only—could only—involve his investment portfolio and his beloved bottom line. And that damned company he loved more than anything else in the world. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten what you tried to do—signing our future away for no other reason than to cause me trouble. The next time you change your will, you’d better hope you really do die, or trust me when I tell you that I’ll make you regret you ever lived.”

That hung there between them, unmistakably vile in the crisp winter light.

“No need,” she said sunnily, as if it did not bother her in the least, as if it were some pleasantry instead of his customary ugliness. She waved a languid hand in the air. “Twenty-seven years of your parenting has accomplished the same feat.”

“All you had to do was marry Theo,” Bradford said, his voice dripping with contempt. “And you couldn’t even manage that, could you? You can’t do anything, and you never could. Even he didn’t want you in the end—and this after the besotted fool chased you around for years.”

Larissa could not help but think that Theo was much better off as far away from the dank hole that was the Whitney family as he could get. As she had always wished she could be—as she had tried to be, for the past eight months. But if Jack had taught her anything, it was that there was no
running away from who she truly was. It had a nasty way of turning up in the middle of a fall storm on a nearly deserted island, and forcing her to face it head-on.
Lesson learned,
she thought bitterly.