The Winner Takes It All (A Something New Novel) (3 page)

Damn it. See, this was why she ignored his barbs; she always said something far too telling. She shrugged one shoulder. “Oh, I hear things.”

“Investigating my background? How sweet. I didn’t know you cared.”

Of course they’d investigated all the Donovans when her brother became involved with Maddie. Just like Shane had investigated all of them, when his sister ran away to Revival. That’s the way it worked. Everyone knew that.
Maybe
she’d spent a little too much time on the oldest Donovan brother, but only because he was the most dangerous.

So yes, she knew all about Shane. Had a list of stats she could rattle off in her head in her sleep.

Occupation—CEO and owner of The Donovan Corporation.

Last significant relationship—one year ago with some tech genius.

High school grade point average—an abysmal 1.65.

College degree—none.

Arrests—one at sixteen, for underage drinking.

The list went on, and as many times as she went over the facts, the essence of him was missing. How did he beat such impossible odds? Overcome such dire straits?

All by his thirty-fifth birthday.

Which she
should not
know was three months ago.

One week after hers to the day.

At the memory of her own birthday, she frowned. It hadn’t been a good day.

She’d spent her birthday in strategy meetings concentrating on repairing her father’s tattered image. Other than a small fifteen-minute work break, when the interns shoved a cake under her nose, her mother had been the only person to call.

That night she’d sat alone in her Gold Coast town house eating Chinese takeout by herself. After a bottle of wine, she’d contemplated her accomplishments, trying in vain to pat herself on her back.

Only to realize the things she’d listed had nothing to do with her.

She’d done nothing for her own life.

Not a single damn thing.

Chapter Two

Was that emotion on the ice queen’s face?

A frown curved the corners of Cecilia’s mouth downward, as she seemed to drift off and forget Shane was there. He’d never seen her look anything but distant and remote and the flicker of feeling transformed her classically beautiful face into something stunning.

He didn’t like it.

He preferred her inhuman. It helped cool the stab of irrational lust that kicked him in the gut every time he got within fifty feet of her. A lust he sure as hell didn’t understand but couldn’t seem to control. She was fast becoming an itch he couldn’t quite scratch, annoying as hell and impossible to ignore.

Those mysterious, blue-gray eyes of hers darkened. Her expression was tight, highlighting her high cheekbones and the hollows of her cheeks. Twin lines formed over her normally smooth brow. Wherever she’d gone, her thoughts were distressing enough that her customary mask slipped away.

Why was she unhappy?

He shook his head. It didn’t matter. It didn’t have anything to do with him.

He didn’t even like her. He liked his women smart, soft, and warm. While she was plenty smart, nothing about Cecilia Riley—from her patrician bone structure to her severe suits—spoke of softness or warmth.

Except for her mouth.

That mouth had been designed for a different woman. His gaze dipped to her full, pink lips. Lush and bitable, they looked like sex. Raw, dirty sex. The kind he was positive she didn’t have.

The back door banged opened and Cecilia’s expression jerked back into focus. She blinked, those stormy eyes of hers shuttering closed before he could decipher the emotions lurking in their depths. And just like that, the mask was back in place, leaving him to wonder if he’d imagined the whole thing.

She raised one elegant brow, crossing her arms and closing herself off.

He wanted to ask what she’d been thinking, but Gracie Roberts called out in a singsong voice, “Oh Shane, where are you?”

Cecilia’s porn-star lips tightened.

“In here,” he called back, his gaze never leaving her face. That was twice now. When they’d first met he’d tried to rattle her and there hadn’t even been a flicker of awareness. But today, he’d seen more emotion on her face in the last ten minutes than in their entire acquaintance.

What was going on in that brain of hers? And why the fuck did he care? She wasn’t his business.

Mitch and Maddie’s neighbor waltzed into the kitchen, a stark contrast to the woman across from him. Unlike Cecilia’s golden-brown hair, cut razor sharp and falling in perfect place at her shoulders, Gracie’s curly blond hair was wild and carefree. Just like the woman. With a pretty face, dancing cornflower-blue eyes, and a body out of a teenage boy’s wet dream, she was a walking, talking fantasy come to life.

He couldn’t work up even the slightest interest.

Why couldn’t he be like any sensible red-blooded man and have the hots for Gracie? It was irritating as hell. He tried. Hell, so had she. And while they flirted like mad, there wasn’t a lick of heat between them.

Fucking annoying.

When Gracie saw Cecilia, she jumped, sending her
Playboy
-worthy breasts jiggling in a red tank top. “Ce-ce!”

Ce-ce?

Cecilia’s chin tilted to a regal angle, but she overplayed her hand when she ran a smoothing palm over her sharply cut navy business suit. A prim, contained nod. “Hello, Gracie, it’s been a long time. You’re all grown up.”

Gracie beamed, and in her normal exuberance, opened her arms and ran to Cecilia. Gracie locked her in a big bear hug and squeezed her tight. “It’s so great to see you.”

Cecilia’s brows furrowed as she patted the other woman awkwardly on the back. “Thank you.”

Gracie pulled back, still holding Cecilia by the shoulders, and gave her a thorough inspection. “Well, look at you. You haven’t changed one bit. You’re still all fancy.”

“I came from morning meetings,” Cecilia said, stepping out of the other woman’s grasp.

Gracie planted her hands on curvy hips encased in skintight white capris. “Every summer, Ce-ce would show up, all neat and proper in her shiny shoes and ironed clothes.” She winked at him, laughing. “But we managed to mess her up.”

“Did you now?” Shane cocked a brow at Cecilia, who stood with such perfect posture she’d have made a finishing-school teacher proud.

Her lips pressed together but didn’t speak.

Gracie nudged Cecilia with her elbow. “By the end she was as wild and dirty as the rest of us.”

He couldn’t imagine her wild and dirty. “That’s hard to believe.”

Cecilia tugged at her suit jacket. “I’m sure she’s exaggerating.”

That, he believed. “Ce-ce?”

“My grandmother used to call me that.” Her voice was cool, but something flashed in her eyes, darkening the gray.

The nickname didn’t suit the woman, but Shane couldn’t help wondering about the girl she’d been before the power suits. Apparently, she’d been wild.

And dirty.

He searched her face but couldn’t find any trace of carefree.

She sensed his gaze, turned and stared at him as though to say,
What are you looking at?

“Well, come on, everyone’s out back.” Gracie waved an arm in the direction of the backyard.

He didn’t glance away. Instead, his gaze drifted to Cecilia’s mouth and his mind filled with illicit images.

Christ.

As though she read his mind, her gaze flicked scornfully over his before shifting her attention to Gracie. “I’m afraid I’m not dressed for a picnic.”

The other woman laughed and jutted her thumb to the swinging door. “Go change, silly.” Then she turned to Shane. “You, I need.”

Cecilia gave a sharp tug at her suit jacket, her shoulders squaring.

He slanted a wicked glance at Gracie. “What do you need, honey?”

Cecilia’s lips pressed into a firm line. She looked past him, out the window overlooking the backyard.

“Your expert advice. I experimented with a new recipe,” Gracie said, before blowing out an exasperated breath. “Maddie’s gone, Mitch likes everything, and your stupid brother refuses to eat one.” She gave him an adorable little pout. “That leaves you.”

A baker, Gracie had made one delicious concoction after another and his health nut younger brother refused to try a single thing. Shane grinned at her. “I told you Jimmy hasn’t touched refined sugar since the great Christmas of 2012.”

She threw up her hands and let out a scream.

Cecilia’s eyes widened.

“He’s impossible.” Gracie stomped a foot, her righteousness so cute he should have wanted to eat her up with a spoon, but Shane’s lust stayed stubbornly focused on the woman across from him.

“He’s training for the marathon. You’ll never break him, so don’t even bother trying.” Shane frowned as that ever-present worry for his siblings niggled at him. It wasn’t healthy, James’s total self-control, but Shane didn’t know what to do about it. His brother was thirty-three, old enough to live his life the way he wanted.

“How does someone pass up dark chocolate cupcakes?” Gracie asked, pulling him away from his thoughts. “They’re filled with warm caramel and iced with salted chocolate frosting. How do you refuse that?”

Cecilia’s smooth brow furrowed.

Gracie placed an open palm on her chest, appealing mournfully to Cecilia. “I mean, can you imagine?”

“How many calories are they?” Cecilia asked, her tone so deadpan she had to be joking. Only, she wasn’t the joking type.

She was like his brother that way. All serious. No cupcakes allowed.

“Are you
kidding
?” Gracie’s tone indicating Cecilia belonged in a mental institution. “Who
cares
? It’s
chocolate
.”

Her shoulders slumped, her expression so dejected, Shane took pity on her. He pulled her close and kissed her temple. “Don’t worry, honey, I’ll eat all the cupcakes you want.”

In that split second, he saw what he’d been waiting for. She hid it very quickly, and if he hadn’t been paying such close attention he’d have missed it, written in big, bold letters all over her face.

Cecilia Riley was jealous.

And wouldn’t he just have to find out what that was about?

She was not jealous. She did not get jealous. Jealousy was a base emotion. Uncivilized.

So what if Gracie Roberts was ‘honey.’ It made sense; she looked sweet enough.

Good. Great.

This worked to Cecilia’s advantage. Two weeks watching Shane and Gracie fawn all over each other was certain to cure her of her fixation. Problem solved.

She forced a smile to her lips. Perfect. It was all going to work out.

She dropped her bags on the floor. The room hadn’t been changed since the last night she’d spent there. It was still the frilly girl’s room from her youth. Bright and hopeful in pale blue, white, and lavender. She ran her hand over the quilt her grandma had made for her, a soft white cotton with embroidered forget-me-nots that brought a sting to the back of her throat. She traced the flowers, quelling the ache in her chest, before moving to the white dresser.

There was a vase of vibrant pink Gerber daisies with an aged silver frame sitting next to it. She picked up the picture only Maddie could have put there. It was of Mitch and Cecilia when they’d been young kids. Skin tan from the sun, they wore matching grins. They sat on a thick branch of the tree that hung over the river, dressed in their bathing suits, their gangly limbs dangling. They looked happy. Carefree. Like brother and sister instead of the strangers they were now.

She traced the edge of the pewter frame and put it back on the dresser.

Maybe this trip would help bridge the gap between them. Or at least she could pretend she wasn’t an outsider. If even for a brief respite.

A boisterous round of laughter filtered in from outside. She walked over and peeked through the lace curtains. Down below, on a new brick patio, the light from the late afternoon sun streamed down on the group. Her brother was there, his long legs stretched out, lazy and relaxed. Nothing like the man he’d been back in his Chicago days. James, the quiet Donovan brother who didn’t eat refined sugar, sat there too, sipping what looked like a glass of iced tea.

She swallowed hard as her gaze drifted to Shane and Gracie. They were sitting next to each other, their blond heads golden halos in the bright sun, knees touching.

They were so . . . together. Comfortable and at ease with each other.

Gracie dangled one of her ten-thousand-calorie cupcakes under his nose, teasing him with her dazzling smile as he laughed and pinched her before grabbing it out of her hand. He took a huge bite, shoving half the treat in his mouth.

Did he devour Gracie the same way?

Cecilia appraised the woman, mouthwatering in her red tank top and white capris. She dripped with sex appeal.

Of course he did.

A dark emotion that was
not
jealousy sat in the pit of her stomach.

Shane draped an arm around Gracie Roberts’s chair and said something that caused her to throw her head back with laughter.

They were perfect for each other.

Cecilia’s fingers tightened on the lace curtains. She was happy for them.

Her eye twitched into hyperdrive and she covered it with a fingertip until it stopped.

Now she had no excuses and could focus all her energy on the campaign. She’d use this time to work. To plan. Craft
her
message—away from the advisers, her father, and Miles Fletcher—and find her voice. Because as much as she hated to admit it, her father was right: If she didn’t find a way to connect to the voters, it didn’t matter what she did. She wouldn’t win.

So she’d use this time to figure out how to connect.

The muscle under her eye spasmed again.

Cecilia’s gaze drifted back to Shane.

He belonged with a woman like Gracie. Lush and vibrant.

And she could cook. Cecilia didn’t even know how to boil water.

She remembered her summers with Gracie. How fun she’d been. After all the years Shane spent taking care of his family, he probably needed fun.

As though he sensed her, Shane lifted his head and peered up, his gaze locking on hers. Her heart rate sped, pounding against her ribs and she stepped back, moving away from the window with a jerk. Had he seen her?