Seducing an Heiress (17 page)

He stepped close enough for her to smell the strong bite of too much sandalwood cologne. "I'm sayin' that for two-hundred thousand dollars everything can stay exactly the way it is."

She thought she might throw up. "I don't have that kind of money."

Sneering, he looked her up and down "I don't care how many lies you tell the world, but don't tell them to me. You're a Jamison. I could get ten times that much out of you if I wanted to."

"I'm telling you I don't have that kind of money. Not anymore."

His hand shot out, wrapping painfully around her upper arm. "Don't play with me rich girl." His hot breath grazed her ear and she flinched. "If I don't have the money in two days, your secret's out." 

*  *  *

Voices just beyond the barrier of the bushes penetrated his consciousness, pulling Trey from a light sleep. The string of nights doing other things besides resting must have finally caught up with him. The last thing he remembered was closing his eyes so he could relax and plan exactly what he was going to say to Dakota. 

Stretching, he wondered how long he'd been out before the angry discussion coming from the path woke him. He felt a touch of sympathy for the guy, stuck in a relationship so deeply that he cared what a woman thought of him.

Then he heard Dakota's frightened voice followed by the snarled response of a man.

Trey exploded off the bench and through the bushes. 

The guy--it was that Aines bastard--had her by the arm and she was pulling away as he moved in on her.

Grabbing the shoulder of the reporter's shirt, Trey dragged him off of her and spun him around. He plunged his fist at the man's face, but Aines ducked, throwing them both off balance. Trey recovered, tossed him to the ground, and followed the smaller man down, his only thought that of pulverizing his face for daring to assault his girlfriend.

"Call 'im off!" Aines screamed, thrashing around under Trey as he straddled him.

"Trey, please," Dakota shouted, grappling with his arm to keep him from landing a blow.

"Call 'im off or the deal's off!"

"What deal?" Trey growled, jerking free of Dakota's hold and grabbing a fistful of Aines' collar.

"Trey get off of him. You're only making things worse." The distress in her voice cut through his haze of fury, calming him marginally. He gave Aines a final shake and climbed to his feet.

"Why am I not surprised to find you sniffing around here, Peters?" Aines said as he scrambled up. Trey made a false lunge at him and the man danced back, his eyes flaring with alarm. Very gratifying.

Still more than willing to pulverize the guy, Trey narrowed his eyes at the reporter. "What deal?" 

Aines slid back a few feet to what he must have felt was a safe distance. "I'm sure your sweetie here will tell you all about it." He shifted his gaze to Dakota and Trey didn't like the contemptuous look in his eyes. "Two days, babe. I check out at eleven."

With his eyes leveled on Trey, Aines backed away and then turned, jogging off down the path toward Center Street. The temptation to follow him and finish what he'd started kicked along Trey's nerves. 

He hadn't wanted to fight someone so badly for years and the realization set off a clamoring alarm in his mind. Since when had he ever wanted to go to bat for a woman when there was nothing in it for him?

Dakota paced away from him and then back. "What am I going to do? I don't have that kind of money!" 

Since when had he ever seen a woman as his to defend, his to keep, his anything? 

Since never. Not like this. 

"He wants two-hundred thousand dollars, Trey." She looked up at him, her lush brown eyes filled with worry "If I don't get it to him in two days he'll release the story. The AENC board will disqualify me. All my friends will know I lied to them. Dad will know where I am. Everything I've worked so hard for will be destroyed."

A cold chill ran over Trey. When had she become so important to him? He had to put a stop to this before it was too late.

"Dakota we have to talk."

"If you have a way out of this, I'm all ears."

He took a breath and mentally reviewed what he needed to say. "I'm not the guy for you."

Her brows drew down and she gave him an accusing look. "I guess it is to your advantage to let the whole thing blow up in my face, isn't it? You get exactly what you want without breaking any of your precious promises."

"Exactly." He took a deep breath and prepared to soften the blow. "The thing is, you're more like a meal and I'm used to cotton candy." 

She stared at him, her face slowly turning red.

His gut clenched. That sounded a lot stupider coming out of his mouth than it had in his head. 

Dakota planted her fists on her hips. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Sweat beaded up across his forehead. This wasn't going like he'd pictured. "You shouldn't care about me. You shouldn't get attached."

"You didn't hear a thing I said, did you?"

"Of course I did." Trey wracked his brain to recall what she'd been talking about.

"I don't have time for your stupid male crap, Trey. Aines wants money. A lot of it. Money I don't have. Without it he's going to expose me to the world. I need a plan. I need help. Can you give it to me?"

"Uh...sure. Yes." Relieved to be free from the emotional trap he'd almost gotten himself into, Trey turned his attention to this new problem to solve.

"While we're on the subject, stop putting me and our relationship in a box. I care about you. Maybe a lot. And I don't give a damn how much that terrifies you. I have bigger problems to deal with right now." She pinned him with a firm, no-nonsense look. "How are we going to stop Aines?" 

She cared about him? Oh my, God. Had he...just a moment ago...thought of her as his girlfriend?

Trey felt frozen to the path. He didn't know what to do, what to say. Strange feelings rolled through him, warming his chest, making his stomach turn cold, and going around again.

A concerned look passed over Dakota's face. "Maybe you better sit down." She took his arm and led him to one of the many benches lining the path. "Sorry to have to frighten you like that but you were getting out of hand."

"No, no. That's all right." He eased down onto the bench.

"Breath."

Trey pulled in a few gulps of air and his head started to clear. "Are you...in love with me?" 

"I don't know."

A measure of relief eased through his anxiety. "Not knowing is good. You could still change your mind."

"Trey. Try and focus. How can we stop Aines?"

"Aines. Right." He took in some more air, tried to run through possible solutions. Slowly the ideas solidified. Thank God for old habits. "He has his weaknesses and his dreams just like everybody else. I'll call in a favor and get a background check on him. We should have it by tonight."

"Excellent. I can counter-blackmail him."

"No, that usually backfires. Builds too much resentment. The best thing to do is give him what he really wants. The report will help us figure out what that is."

"Why should we help him? He's trying to ruin my life!"

"Because then he'll be on your side and more willing to help you. He won't want to hurt you anymore."

She stared off into space for a moment, then turned back to him, her gaze troubled. "That's what you did to me, isn't it? You found out I wanted my restaurant to be a success so you tried to help me achieve that."

Guilt pinched his conscious and he covered his wince with a cough. "I thought the whole thing was a passing whim. Once you'd proved to yourself that you could do it, I reasoned you'd be open to going home."

"Home." She stared back across the path, seeing nothing. Or maybe a lot of things. "That's where you miscalculated. Living with Dad was never home."

"I miscalculated on a lot of things," he said, realizing that the turmoil of feelings had settled down into the soft, frightening sensation in his chest that had to be connected with a growing affection for Dakota. He'd been a fool not to see it before.

"All my father cares about is having a legitimate son to pass the business to. When my mother couldn't give him that, he divorced her and sent us away. I hardly knew him, so the only part that affected me was how sad my mother was. I think she really loved him."

Trey kept his opinion on the taste of some women to himself. 

"When he couldn't father a son by the string of wives that followed, his ambitions turned back to me. In a way, he started courting me just like he had them."

"Courting you?" 

"I don't know what else to call it. Expensive presents, trips...all kinds of things started coming my way. My mother was furious about it. And frightened. I'll always wonder if the stress of those years caused her cancer.

"After she died, the black sedans showed up and I was taken to live with Dad."

"When you were thirteen."

She glanced at him, clearly taken aback.

"I remember things," he said, indignantly.

"I know." Dakota smiled at him. 

That inviting, secret smile of hers should have made him nervous, but it didn't. "Is that when your dad started grooming you to take over the company?" he asked, interested in shifting the focus back to more comfortable ground.

"No. I was a female, but I was all he had. He figured out a way to use me that fit in with his philosophy and I became a beautiful commodity. The asset sent to soften potential buyers up before he moved in for the kill. I was expected to flirt a little, play dumb if any serious questions were asked about the company, even lead them to think they might marry me someday if they were particularly stubborn about the loaded deal he was offering.

"I eventually rebelled and went to France to learn to be a chef. My fiscal timing must have been good because Dad let me."

"Enter Jack."

"Enter Jack," she agreed, her voice filled with self-deprecation. "He had almost no money and seemed wonderfully free. The tape was our first and only time together. Jack made it without telling me and it turned out he'd only started dating me so he could extort money from my father. He didn't understand that Dad never met free publicity he didn't like."

Trey slid his hand across the bench and covered hers. It amazed him how right it felt. "I realized you'd probably been set up not long after I met you."

She looked down at their hands, then turned hers over and laced her fingers through his. They felt small and vulnerable. 

Trey thought about everything Jamison had put her through and felt ashamed of his own part in it. Her father's approach to business was wrong on so many levels. Yet it continued working incredibly well for him. 

What would Jamison do in a case like this? How would he turn Aines' threats to his advantage?

Dakota sighed and shifted her attention to the tree branches arching over them. "I can't run again, Trey. I don't have the capital, the emotional strength, or the willingness."

Inexplicably, he wanted to help her, to see her turn this around. It would mean reneging on their bargain, but they could renegotiate. 

A plan formed in his mind. "Maybe you won't have to disappear, again. I'll help you break free of Aines if you'll hold to your agreement to see your father."

"If you could get the paparazzi off my tail permanently, you have a deal. But I don't see any way to do that."

"I do."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

"Are you crazy? No way I'm going to do that." Dakota stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and squared off with Trey.

"Take what you see as a liability and make it an asset," he continued, calmly.

"You're asking me to make a fool of myself."

"You're famous. Your restaurant can be famous, too."

"I don't want to be famous for being the idiot who didn't know her boyfriend was taping her while they had sex."

"Then be the chef who unapologetically embraces her sensual side. Better yet, do it with humor. If you don't take the whole event seriously, the public won't either." He turned and started walking toward Chelsea and Lori's, again.

Trey had no idea what he was asking of her. Where it would lead. The way people would treat her. "I'll lose the contest if I do this," she called after him. When he didn't stop, she hurried to catch up. "They're very strict about their winners being clean-cut, upstanding citizens."

"You'll have people lined up around the building. You won't need their money anymore."

"What if you're wrong?" She caught her bottom lip between her teeth, anxiety running through her nerves like ice water. 

"That's not what's really bothering you, is it?"

"Of course it is. I'm dead set against changing my restaurant."

"You're worried about telling everyone the truth." A flash of sympathy warmed his eyes.

Tears tightened into a hard lump in her throat. "They're going to hate me."

"They might be a little angry at first, but they won't hate you. You're still the person they know and love. You just have a more colorful past than they might have imagined."

'Yeah. Living color." 

They reached Look the Part. Dakota stiffened and couldn't take another step. She really didn't want to do this. She didn't want to see the disappointment in her friends' eyes.

Trey draped his arm over her shoulders and pulled her against his side. "Damage control is key. You have to do this." 

"Can't we wait until the report on Aines gets here?"

"We don't have the luxury of waiting." He gave her one of his crooked smiles. "Besides, going straight will be a load off your mind."

"I can't do it." She started to turn away, but he pulled her back. "I don't see why I have to do this part of your plan if I'm not going to do the other."

"Breath."

"Fine," she said, crossly. Straightening her shoulders, she threw open the door and marched into the small office. She probably should have done this a long time ago, anyway.