What Belongs to Her (Harlequin Superromance) (5 page)

Unease rippled through her. “Why do you think I know Kyle’s enemies?”

“You’ve worked here longer than anyone. You must know what he used this place for.”

Revulsion swept a bitter taste into her throat. “I turn a blind eye to all that as much as possible. I hate what Kyle does. Hate it. I work here as manager only.”

“You really expect me to believe that?” He shook his head. “I don’t trust anyone with a connection to my father. That, unfortunately, includes you.”

“How dare you.”

He stared deep into her eyes for a moment before glancing over her head, his jaw tight. Sasha’s stomach knotted with traitorous attraction. God, he looked like a model standing there, all dangerous and brooding....

He narrowed his eyes. “I dare, because it’s beyond me how someone can claim to love something so much, but manage to tolerate a man who stepped on and then abandoned people whenever he wanted.” His eyes were an icy blue. “Who are you, Sasha? That’s what I want to know.”

He turned away, and she gripped his arm. “Wait.”

Anger seemed to burn from his skin, hot enough to scald her fingers through his jacket. Her hand slipped from his arm. A surge of unexpected sympathy rose behind her rib cage, and she quickly shook her head. “Nothing. Let’s go.”

He nodded stiffly before storming toward the office. Sasha remained welded to the grass. When he was out of sight, she released her held breath and slumped. Now what? She didn’t want to be alone with him. That had never been part of the bargain. The frustration in his eyes from a moment before seeped into her conscience and lingered there, screaming with warning.

She sensed a pain as deep as hers in John...and that scared her. It took all her energy to fight the demons of her past and keep moving forward each day. She didn’t need the pull of caring about someone else. Especially not Kyle’s son, when it was Kyle who had unwittingly stopped her from bringing closure to her pain. Stopped her from winning a fifteen-year-old battle with Matt Davidson, the man who’d brought an end to her short-lived childhood.

She closed her eyes and her molester’s face taunted her from behind closed lids. In a single summer, his actions had tainted the fair and tarnished what Sasha held dear. Well, sooner or later she’d make it hers and she’d make it a good, clean place for all its future visitors. She’d make it a magical, fun-filled adventure, as it had been before
him,
before everything
he
made her do.

Opening her eyes, Sasha exhaled a shaky breath and strode toward the office.

CHAPTER FIVE

S
ASHA
FOLLOWED
J
OHN
into the graveled parking lot outside the Funland gates with her chin high and her decorum well and truly restored. She’d grabbed her bag from the office while John gave a glowering Freddy a few instructions. The lack of information about their intended destination had infuriated her equally as much as a spitting and angry Freddy.

Her gaze wandered and then stuck to John’s back as he marched ahead of her to his car. The temperature had risen and hovered at a pleasant eighty degrees. He’d removed his jacket and his broad, muscular back and strong shoulders shifted rhythmically beneath cotton as he strode forward. The guy’s butt didn’t look any worse in trousers than it did in denim—which initiated another tug on her already fraught nerves. Nerves that seemed constantly pooled in her damn panties.

He stopped beside a metallic blue Mercedes convertible and pointed his keys. Sasha stared in awed fascination as the roof slowly rolled backward into the open trunk with smooth, expensive precision. The cost of his car alone would probably keep her in rent payments for the remainder of the decade. She lifted her chin higher. His wealth wouldn’t intimidate her. No doubt Kyle had kept his son well-cared for over the years. There was no pride in handouts as far as she was concerned.

When he walked to the passenger side rather than the driver’s, her gait faltered. What was he doing? He opened the door and waved toward the seat. Sasha narrowed her eyes. If he thought a show of old-fashioned gallantry would penetrate her immovable anger, he’d better think again.

Yeah? So why are your cheeks hot and your stomach flying into a frenzy?

Forcing her eyes to his, she smiled. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

She slid onto butter-soft leather, and the door closed with a gentle, moneyed clunk. He walked around the hood and slipped on a pair of dark sunglasses. “So...” He turned on the ignition and the car purred to life. “Where are we headed first?”

Deciding she needed to up her game, Sasha pulled on her femme-fatale persona and faced him. Whether or not she was letting down the entire female population, she had to at least attempt to get John off his damn sexy winning streak. She was seriously lagging behind and it rankled. Her defense was to always be in the lead as far as sex was concerned. It was vital. If she gave up a modicum of trust, things could get out of her control very quickly.

“Why don’t we hit the town center first?” She smiled softly and looked at him from beneath lowered lashes. “I’m sure we’ll bump into plenty of people I can introduce you to there.”

He hesitated, a slight frown creasing his forehead. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Only you’ve got a strange look in your eye.”

Hah! She lifted an eyebrow. “Am I making you uncomfortable?”

“No, just concerned. You look as though you’re sitting on something painful.”

Her smile dissolved, and she shot him a glare before slumping back into her seat. “Just drive, will you?”

He threw the car into gear, and they left the parking lot. Sasha glanced at him from the corner of her eye. He wore the biggest smile known to man, yet instead of it annoying her, it made her want to smile, too.

“We’re quite a pair, aren’t we?” He grinned.

Wishing she could see his eyes and have at least a moderate idea of what he was thinking, she blew out a breath. “Meaning?”

“Well, we haven’t stopped arguing or trying to outdo each other since we met.”

“I’m not trying to
outdo
you. I’m trying to figure you out.”

He glanced at her, one dark eyebrow rising above his sunglasses. “And what conclusions have you jumped to?”

She scowled. “Who says I’ve jumped? Maybe my conclusions are spot-on.”

He faced front. “Care to share them with me?”

Inexplicable nerves knotted her stomach as his smile vanished and his brow furrowed. It was pointless trying to deny how much more attractive she found the laughing, smiling John to the quiet, dangerous one.

She cleared her throat and focused on the road ahead. “I might be wrong, but I get the impression you’re in Templeton under duress.”

Silence.

She pressed on. “Am I right?”

He maneuvered the car through the traffic, his jaw tight.

When it was clear he wasn’t going to provide an answer, Sasha’s palms turned unusually clammy. “So, you’re not going to tell me how you’ve found yourself in this unfortunate situation?”

“I don’t know if it’s unfortunate yet.”

Curiosity sparked like a flint inside her. “I would’ve thought you’d have come to that decision upon our first meeting. I wasn’t exactly welcoming. And then the decidedly chilly phone call...followed by this morning’s fun and games—”

“Where you attempted a full-on assassination.” He glanced at her. “There’s nothing you or anyone else in this town could do that would be worse than what Kyle’s done. Don’t worry about your hostility toward me since I arrived...I’m not.”

A strange sensation skittered through her chest at his clear dismissal of her actions...and her. Cursing the heat that struck her chest and face, she looked to the side at the passing facades of the pretty, pastel-painted Victorian houses turned bed-and-breakfasts. She blinked against the frustration burning her eyes. “Great, well, that’s good. If there’s any chance of this working out, we need to get along.”

“You don’t want this to work out.”

She snapped her head around. “What?”

“Didn’t you say you have an offer for me? For the fair? That means you want me out of here ASAP.”

Sasha glared, wishing for a second time he’d remove his stupid glasses. Moreover, she wished they weren’t driving this fancy bloody car with him in the actual, and metaphorical, driver’s seat. “Yeah, and God willing, you want the same.”

“I don’t know what I want yet, so don’t hold your breath.”

Sasha curled her hands tighter around the straps of her bag in her lap. Her passion for the fair was so deeply seated no one but her grandfather and her best friend, Leah, could possibly understand what John Jordon’s presence did to her.

The man confused her. Gave her zero to work with...or on. She had to figure out a way to break through his ice-cold veneer whenever they talked about Kyle. She’d made him smile a few times, which was one thing, but clearly anything to do with his father sparked a livid anger she’d be hard-pressed to break.

She couldn’t lose this chance to make the fair hers again. Not now. Not after all the careful planning and waiting. She breathed deep. It was always best to tackle a challenge head-on. Not avoid the ugly and sit safe in the pretty. That achieved nothing. If she could figure out how much loyalty he had to Kyle, she’d know how much of a barrier John would erect against selling Funland to her—and how likely he was to find a way out of that godforsaken, and possibly devastating, clause. She swallowed. “I’ve got a question.”

He glanced at her. “Hmm?”

“Why don’t you call Kyle ‘Dad’? Seeing he’s summoned you here and kicked Freddy to the curb, I’m assuming your father trusts you, otherwise why would he—”

“Kyle called me here because he can’t afford to trust anyone else. You and I both know he has enemies all over Templeton and beyond. I’m here because he’s halfway up shit creek without a paddle. Believe me, if he could’ve asked anyone else to ensure all his loose ends were tied up, he would have.”

“But you’re his son. It makes sense he’d—”

“Son?” He eased to a stop at a red light. “He slept with my mother. That’s it.” He whipped his sunglasses from his face and tossed them onto the dash. “He’s not my
dad.
That’s the first and last time I hope to have to tell you that.”

His glare was a strange, complicated mix of sadness and anger that struck Sasha’s chest like a demolition ball.

“What the hell happened between you two?” she whispered.

His broad chest rose and fell beneath the tight stretch of his shirt as his gaze left hers and wandered over her face, coming to a stop at her mouth. “We’ll never have enough time together for me to tell you what happened between Kyle and me so let’s just concentrate on why we’ve been thrown together like this. Business, Sasha. We talk business only from now on.”

She pursed her lips and turned away from his mesmerizing blue eyes, her body rigid with a nervousness she’d never experienced around his father. The anger emanating from John was in no way normal, yet she didn’t sense any violence in him like she had in Kyle. In John, there was only sadness—and a whole dollop of a man recovering from huge betrayal.

The question was, what the hell did he intend to do about it? And would she get caught in the guaranteed and dangerous cross fire?

* * *

J
OHN
TRIED
AND
failed to level his breathing as he pressed hard on the gas and screeched away from the light. Damn Sasha and her incessant questions. Her intelligent, far-too-aware gaze didn’t help, either. Did she ever quit interfering? Or flirting? John inwardly cursed. Flirting? She wasn’t flirting—he damn well
wanted
her to flirt. That was the crux of his frustration and he was more angry about that than anything Kyle had exposed him to so far.

He tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

God, he didn’t want to shout at Sasha and he certainly didn’t want to frighten her. He loved women. Loved the kids he worked with even more. His father had already seeped into his blood, turning him into someone he’d constantly fought so hard not to be. An angry, bitter man like Kyle.

The busy road caused him to stop and start in a long queue of traffic, bringing his nerves to the point of breaking. A tense silence hung heavy in the air, pressing on his chest and making him want to apologize as they slowed to a stop at a junction. He couldn’t show her a single facet of the personality he left in Oxford. The funny, kind history teacher whom the staff held in high regard because “he has a way with the kids,” or the guy who scribbled away at a Tudor mystery novel in his spare time. John smiled wryly.

God, he’d love to know what she thought of
that
John Jordon.

He sensed her study of him and turned. Her brow was furrowed, her eyes almost black as she stared with open curiosity. He snapped his eyes to the windshield and his armor slid into place with a resounding
clunk
inside his head. He’d been a good man, a good teacher and mentor for a long time. He liked that person and intended keeping him under wraps for the entirety of his time in the Cove. More and more people would soon know he was here and wonder why. He would find a way to leave Kyle without a penny of his immoral earnings and then leave.

Forging friendships—he glanced at Sasha—and starting to like people was out of the question. If he kept up the mystery surrounding himself, no one need know how he was venting an anger so deep it was shameful. The less Sasha got to know him, the easier he could leave town guilt-free because she had no idea who he really was and how much John actually cared about Kyle and the life he’d led without his only son.

Exhaling through gritted teeth, John swallowed his pride. One of them had to take the high road in the face-off growing at high velocity between them. “You’re going to have to give me directions to wherever it is you think we should head first.”

“What were you just thinking?”

God damn it. Can’t she keep any thoughts to herself? Lord knows it isn’t that difficult.
“Nothing. Where are we going?”

“Fine.”

He stole another look at her as she hitched her elbow on the door and stared toward the amusement arcades lit up like a mini-Vegas beside them.

She sighed theatrically, waved her hand nonchalantly. “You want to play it cool and not afford me the luxury of getting to know you better, we’ll go to Marian’s. Maybe she’ll break you.” She laughed. “Scrap that. I
know
she’ll break you.”

“First of all, no one is breaking anyone. Second of all, who’s Marian? The idea isn’t morning coffee at someone’s house. I want to discover the hubbub of this supposedly quaint seaside town.”

“Supposedly quaint?”

He edged the car forward in the slow-moving traffic. “I’ll admit, on the surface Templeton Cove looks nice, picturesque, interesting even, but anywhere my father decided to live and work can’t be any of those things once a person scratches the surface.”

She scowled. “Templeton Cove isn’t Kyle’s creation, you know. The people who live here built this place. The decent people. The people who do their utmost to keep it clean, friendly and welcoming for the thousands of visitors who come every year. Not to mention the hundreds of people who live good, honest lives here. Your father was nothing more than a damn blemish on its crystal-blue horizon. And I for one say good bloody riddance to him.”

John smiled. “Bingo. Something we agree on.”

She glared. “We’re not agreed on anything until I know for sure what you want. How can you expect me to believe you’re not just going to pick up the illegal reins now Kyle’s gone? Why else would he pass over Freddy unless he knew you were much more of a suitable candidate for what he had in mind?”

John’s smile slipped. “I’m not here to pick up Kyle’s reins.”

“Then why?” Her eyes were hard, determined.

A horn sounded behind him, and she jumped. John snapped his gaze to the front. An empty gap of at least two car lengths stretched from the hood of his car to the junction. Cursing, he accelerated forward. “Which way?”

“Left.”

He joined the main road leading into town. “So, who’s Marian?”

“I assume the change of subject is your way of telling me to mind my own business?”

“I’m not answering any questions as far as Kyle’s concerned.”

She sniffed. “Fine.”

The next few seconds passed in strained silence before John released a heavy breath. “Is Marian a friend of yours?”

She sighed. “She owns a bakery by the beachfront. We’ll grab a coffee and I’ll introduce you. If you’ve got any strength left in that muscled body of yours once Marian’s finished with you, it’ll be a miracle.”