Harlequin Desire September 2015 - Box Set 1 of 2: Claimed\Maid for a Magnate\Only on His Terms (42 page)

“I don't know what to believe,” he said softly.

Yep. That was everything Gracie needed to know.

“You'd rather put your faith in a private investigator who doesn't even have all the facts than in me. You'd rather believe Wilson Braun, a man you've never even met, than me.”

“I didn't say that,” he said.

She inhaled a deep breath and released it slowly. “Yeah, you did.”

How could she have been thinking he had changed? How could she have been thinking she was falling in love with him? Someone who couldn't be trusted and only cared about himself.

“I think you should go,” she said.

“But—”

“Now, Harrison.”

Reluctantly, he gathered his clothes from the night before and went into the bathroom to change. When he came out again, his white tuxedo shirt hung unbuttoned over his black trousers, and the rest of his clothes were wadded in his hands. Gracie still stood where she'd been before, her arms roped across her chest, feeling colder than she'd ever felt in her life. When Harrison stopped near her on his way to the door, looking as though he wanted to say more, she only pointed toward it silently and turned her back. But when she heard the click of the latch, she called out to him over her shoulder one last time.

“Harrison.”

He turned slowly, but said nothing.

“I'll have Mr. Tarrant send the documents to transfer ownership of the houses to Vivian to me in Seattle and return them to him as soon as possible. And I'll ask Vivian to ship anything I left at her house to me at home. There's no reason for me to go back to New York. Or to stay here in Cincinnati.”

He paused for another moment, and then closed the door behind himself. Only then did Gracie allow herself to collapse into the chair he'd vacated. And only then did she allow her heart to break.

* * *

Harrison felt flummoxed when he got back to his own room, wondering if he'd just screwed up the best thing that ever happened to him.

No, he immediately told himself. There had been nothing to screw up. All he and Gracie had had was a single night of spectacular sex. And lots of good things had happened to him in his life. He had money and professional success. What could be better than those?

Now his PI had information that might just prove Gracie was the financial predator Harrison had suspected her of being from the outset, something that increased his chances of winning back his father's estate. And that was really good.

So why didn't any of that make him feel good? Why did he feel so bad?

The answer came to him immediately, but he didn't much care for it. Maybe because, on some level, he actually wasn't convinced that Gracie was a financial predator. Maybe he'd been too quick to come to the conclusions he had.

He tossed his wadded-up clothing onto the still-made bed and fell onto the mattress. Then he pulled up his web browser on his phone and typed the name
Devon Braun
in quotations, along with the word
Cincinnati
.

The first hits that came up were for his Twitter and Facebook accounts. Harrison saw photographs of an innocuous-looking guy of above-average appearance who talked mostly about sports and a band Harrison hated. No red flags. Just some guy whose family happened to have a lot of money.

Scrolling down, he saw a link to a blog that covered Cincinnati crime called “Word on the Street.” It was written by a local resident unaffiliated with law enforcement and clearly stated that it reported gossip, rumor and innuendo. Not exactly something that instilled great confidence.

But still interesting.

The piece was more than a year old and described a rape charge filed against the member of a prominent local family, indicating that it came after sexual assault and battery charges against him in another incident were dismissed. Neither of the victims was named. Nor was the perpetrator. So why had this item come up in a search for Devon Braun?

Maybe because the author of the piece had hidden his name on the site somewhere so that it would still appear in searches for Devon but avoid the wrath of Wilson Braun?

If that was the case, if Devon Braun had committed these crimes and the charges against him had been buried, then there was still a criminal on the loose in Cincinnati, which was a scary enough thought in itself. But somehow even scarier was the thought that maybe Gracie had been telling the truth all along and really was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

And scariest of all was the thought that Harrison had screwed that up. Bad.

* * *

The feeling only grew stronger when he was back in his Flatiron District high-rise with the boxes from the storage shed he'd brought with him. The cartons were dented and misshapen from the trip, and each bore numerous Sharpie markings, in different colors and handwriting—his father's, Gracie's and his own.

They looked completely out of place in Harrison's bedroom, with its wall of windows offering spectacular views of the nighttime skyline, its sleek, tailored furnishings and monochromatic taupe decor. They didn't look anything like Harrison or the man he remembered as his father. They looked a lot like Gracie, actually, offbeat and colorful and full of character. They looked as if they belonged to someone who had spent their life, well, living. Yet they were set against the backdrop of a room that looked as if it belonged to someone who hadn't lived at all.

Was that how he seemed? Like someone who had never lived? Sure, he spent the majority of his days—and sometimes his evenings—in his office or someone else's. And okay, most of his socializing had something to do with work. But that was what a person had to do to build a successful life. All Harrison had required of his home was that it look like it belonged to a successful, wealthy man, because those were the adjectives he'd wanted attached to himself. His place had always reinforced that desire.

So why did he suddenly feel kind of useless and needy?

The boxes, he decided, could wait. Unfortunately, he couldn't find enough space in any of his closets to stow them. So he shoved them into the corner of his bedroom, where they'd be—mostly—out of view. Funny, though, how his gaze kept straying to them all the same.

Work, he reminded himself. He had a ton of it to catch up on before he went back to the office tomorrow.

He started a pot of coffee, headed to his office and pulled up his email. Then he scrolled to the one he'd received from his PI this morning. Then he hit Reply and started typing. But he didn't ask for more information about Gracie. Instead, Harrison asked for more information about Devon and Wilson Braun. And he made sure, before he hit Send, that he tagged it “highest priority.”

* * *

It was nearly two weeks before he received a reply—at 8:13 on a Tuesday night, thirteen days, eight hours and thirty-seven minutes after calling Gracie Sumner a liar in Cincinnati.

Not that he was counting or anything.

And not that he hadn't replayed nearly every minute the two of them spent together during that time—like Gracie's shy smile that first day in the library, and how the wind played with her hair during breakfast, and her chirpy “batter, batter, batter, suh-wing, batter”
support of the Rockets, and their chaste but mind-scrambling kiss in the Moondrop Ballroom. And not that, with each passing day, he'd become more convinced that he'd had something with her he would never find again and had completely, irrevocably screwed it up.

Because even before emailing his PI, on some primal level, Harrison had known he was wrong about Gracie and should never have accused her of lying. Especially after the night they'd spent together. He'd just been so stunned—and, okay, kind of terrified—by the speed and intensity of his response to her. So he'd looked for the quickest, easiest way to escape. The PI's report had offered the perfect excuse to put Gracie at arm's length again. Hell, arm's length? He'd sent her to the other side of the planet.

And then he began to worry that there was nothing he could say or do to repair things. That even if he did, Gracie might not forgive him or take him back. That he'd spend the rest of his life thinking about how happy they could have been together. How happy
he
could have been. If only he hadn't jumped to some stupid conclusion that ruined everything.

In spite of all that, Harrison clicked on the file from his PI. And immediately realized that yep, he was a first-class, numero-uno, see-exhibit-A jerk. Because Gracie had indeed told him the truth about Devon Braun. All of it. The assault on her friend, the police report, Wilson Braun's bribes to suppress it. And Gracie Sumner's refusal of the money he'd offered her.

Harrison grabbed a sharp knife from the kitchen and headed for his bedroom. He pushed a chair into the corner where he'd stacked the boxes from Cincinnati, and stabbed the packing tape seam of one to open it. He wasn't sure why he suddenly wanted—needed—to go through his father's things. Maybe because they were the only link he had to Gracie, and he just wanted to touch something she had touched herself.

His grandmother's five journals sat on top. She'd written the first entry the day his grandfather proposed to her and the last the day she abandoned her family in Cincinnati. Harrison had skimmed the first two diaries that day in the storage unit, so he picked up the third, opening it and riffling through the pages to check the dates at the top of each. Toward the end, he found an envelope shoved between two pages.

There was no writing on the outside, and the flap wasn't sealed. Inside was a letter written in his father's hand, dated two years before his death. It started off “Dear Vivian...”

Harrison stopped reading there, telling himself he should give it to his mother. But he wasn't sure his mother would even want to read it. Still, he should probably let her decide. Then again, maybe he should read a little of it first, to make sure its contents wouldn't make her feel even worse about his father's behavior than she already did.

Dear Vivian, I hope you and Harrison are doing well.

Oh, sure, he thought. His father had been out of their lives for more than a decade, and they'd had no idea what made him leave or if they'd ever see him again. Why wouldn't they be doing well? He made himself read more.

I suppose that was a ridiculous sentiment, wasn't it? How could you and Harrison be doing well in the situation I created for you? Please, first, let me apologize for that. Then let me try to explain.

Harrison had never heard his father apologize for anything. Whenever he was wrong about something, Harrison Sage, Jr. had only made excuses. And he'd never felt the need to justify anything, either. Harrison kept reading.

And, wow, did he learn a lot.

The letter was long, chronicling everything his father had done since leaving New York and his reasons for doing so in the first place. How he'd begun to feel as if he didn't know himself anymore. How there was nothing left in him of the boy who had hoped to become a major-league baseball player. How his intention when he came to New York as a teenager was to make enough money to support himself and the family he hoped to have someday but how, once he'd started making money, he'd fallen under its spell, and had wanted to make more. And then more. And then more. How it had become something of an addiction that motivated every decision he made and eclipsed everything else in his life.

He'd thought the only way to break the addiction was to remove himself from its temptation. He hadn't meant to stay away from New York—or his family—for as long as he had. But with each passing week, then month, then year, it became harder for him to figure out how he could ever apologize and atone for his behavior. Eventually, he had come to the conclusion that it was too late to even try, and his wife and son would never take him back. He knew by then that Harrison had built a successful business and was outearning his father, so he'd be able to care for himself and his mother. They couldn't possibly need—or want—Harrison, Jr. after all this time.

That was why he had decided to leave his money to Gracie. Because he'd known that Vivian and Harrison wouldn't want anything he'd earned after he shunted them aside. He'd known Gracie would disperse the funds charitably, but, even more importantly, she would also give a sizable chunk of it to Vivian and Harrison. That was the only way he'd been sure they would accept any of his wealth. If it came from someone else. Someone like Gracie, who was the kindest, fairest, most generous person he'd ever met. In fact—

The letter ended there, midsentence, suggesting his father had wanted to say more. Why hadn't he finished the letter? More to the point, why hadn't he mailed it?

The answer to both questions was right there in the letter. His father had been convinced Harrison and his mother wanted nothing to do with him. He'd convinced himself that he couldn't make up for what he'd done, so there was no point in even trying.

And that kind of thinking was crazy. Harrison and his mother would have absolutely welcomed him back into their lives. It would have taken time—and, possibly, professional counseling—to put things back to rights, but hell, his father could have at least tried. It was never too late to ask for—or obtain—forgiveness or make amends. It was never too late to start over.

Harrison halted when he realized that so much of what his father had said in his letter mirrored what he himself had begun to fear about Gracie. His father had been sure he'd irreparably botched his relationship with the people he loved, so he hadn't even tried to fix it and lived the rest of his life alone.

Gracie was right. There really was a lot of his father in Harrison. The question was, did he want to end up the same way?

Ten

“T
hat should do it,” Gracie said as she lifted her pen from the last of a dozen checks she had signed in a row. “For today, anyway.”

Cassandra Nelson, the financial advisor Gracie had hired to help her distribute Harry's money, smiled. She reminded Gracie of Vivian Sage, with her always perfect silver hair and chic suits. Gracie was wearing a suit, too, a new one—well, new to her, anyway. It was a lavender Givenchy from the 1950s. A real Givenchy, not a knockoff, one of the few things she'd let herself purchase with some of the money Harry had insisted she spend on herself.

It had been nearly a month since she'd returned to Seattle, and she hadn't heard a word from Harrison. Vivian had written to thank Gracie for transferring the deeds to the Sage homes along with a sizable share of Harry's estate, closing with her hope that Gracie would “come and visit us when you're in New York again.”
Us
, not
me
, clearly including Harrison in the invitation.

Not that Harrison had had any part in doing the inviting, Gracie was certain. Vivian was just being polite. She clearly didn't know that her son still clung to the idea that Gracie was a crook even after she'd given away so much of Harry's money. It was only natural Vivian would include Harrison in an invitation to visit. And it was only natural for Gracie to decline.

Even if she still thought about him every day. Even if—she might as well admit it—she still cared for him.

“Philanthropy isn't for sissies,” Cassandra said, jarring Gracie out of her thoughts. “People think all you do is throw around money. But there's a lot of work and paperwork that goes into it. Especially with an estate as large as Mr. Sage's.”

“So I'm learning,” Gracie replied.

Boy, was she learning. Not just about money and how to use it, but about how people reacted to you when you had access to that money. She'd received enough invitations to functions over the last few weeks to keep an army of billionaires busy. Already, she'd put three of Harry's billions to good use, for everything from endowing university chairs to bailing out failing mom-and-pop businesses.

“Now then,” Cassandra said, “do you want to talk about your own future? Please?”

Ever since Gracie's first visit to the office, Cassandra had been badgering her about how much of Harry's money she was going to put aside for herself, to make sure she was covered for the rest of her life. But Gracie always stalled. Naturally, she did want to be covered for life, but she wasn't sure Cassandra's idea of what that meant mirrored her own.

Cassandra's focus would be on Gracie's financial needs, where Gracie was more concerned about intangible needs. Personal needs. Emotional needs. No amount of money could guarantee those. Harry's money hadn't exactly brought her any happiness so far. On the contrary. Not that she wouldn't keep some—Harry had insisted, after all—but tallying a specific amount wasn't something she wanted to think about. Not yet.

Before Harry's fortune, all Gracie had ever wanted was a job she enjoyed, friends to have her back, a decent place to live and a man who would love her till the end of time, the same way she would love him. Seriously, what more could anyone want or need beyond that?

But now, when she looked down the road to the future, there was only a curve around which she could see nothing. She told herself she must still have a destination, but she just didn't know what it was anymore. Or who it was with. If anyone.

Gracie bit back a sigh. “Cassandra, I promise I'll get to it before all this is done, okay?”

They made an appointment for their next meeting, and then Gracie left, to go...somewhere. She had no idea where. She'd quit her job at Café Destiné since Harry's generosity meant she could return to school full-time in the fall and earn her degree by December. So job hunting could wait until then. In the meantime, there was still most of summer to get through, and little to fill the weeks.

Her days since returning to Seattle had mostly been filled with internet searches for places to donate Harry's money, reading and discovering British TV shows on Netflix. Maybe she should get a cat...

Finally, she decided to return to her apartment. Maybe she could check out the next episode of
Call the Midwife
or something. She was sorting through her mail when she topped the last stair to her floor, so she wasn't looking where she was going as she ambled forward. That was why she didn't notice the guy waiting by her front door until he'd placed his hands on her shoulders to prevent her from running into him. She leaped backward at the contact, her entire body on alert. Just as quickly, Harrison lifted his hands in surrender mode and apologized.

“I'm sorry,” he said. But the expression on his face seemed to suggest he was sorry for a lot more than just startling her.

It was as if he'd been conjured by all the thinking she'd been doing about him, as if he were here because she'd somehow wished for it strongly enough. In spite of how things had ended between them, she'd found it impossible to stay angry with him. Harrison Sage III was a product of the world in which he'd grown up, one of deep wealth and shallow feeling, where people viewed each other as opportunities and commodities instead of human beings. Mostly, she was just sad. Not only about how things had turned out between them, but also about how he had to live in that world and didn't seem to know how to leave it.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

He said nothing at first, only scanned her up and down, as if refreshing his memory of her. Then he said, “You cut your hair.”

Her fingers flew to her slightly shorter tresses. “Just a trim.”

“I like it.”

“Thanks.”

She studied him in return and realized he'd changed some, too. Not his expensive, tailored, dark-wash jeans or his crisp, white oxford shirt. But the fatigue in his eyes that hadn't been there before, and the shadow of uncertainty in his expression. Harrison Sage had been many things since Gracie had met him—from antagonistic and suspicious to adorable and sweet—but he'd never been uncertain. To see him that way now made her feel...

Well, actually, seeing him looking uncertain made her feel a little more sure of herself.

“So...what are you doing here?” she asked again.

He hesitated, then replied, “I finally had all of my father's things shipped to New York from Cincinnati.”

That was good, Gracie thought. But she wasn't sure why he'd had to come all the way to Seattle to tell her that.

“And as I was unpacking everything in my mother's attic,” he continued, “I realized there might be something in there that you wanted to keep for yourself. I mean, you never asked for anything—”

It was nice to hear him finally say what he should have known all along. Gracie really had never asked for anything. Not from the storage unit. Not from Harry's estate. Not from Harrison. Even though it would have been nice if Harrison had given her a little something—like his trust or his appreciation or...or his love.

“But I thought you might want a keepsake,” he continued. “Something that would remind you of him. Of your time with him.”

“Thanks, but I don't need any reminders,” she said. She pointed to her forehead. “Everything I need to remember Harry is right here.”

“Wow. You really didn't want anything from him, did you?”

“Only his friendship,” she said. “Thanks for finally noticing.”

He said nothing in response to that.

So Gracie asked again, a little more wearily this time, “What are you doing here, Harrison?”

He studied her again. “I came for you. If you'll have me.”

She felt the same tingle of pleasure that wound through her that night at the Dewitts' party, when he told the butler that she was with him. Because this time, he said it in a way that was even more romantic and intimate. She said nothing in response, however. She wasn't
with him
now any more than she had been that night.

When she remained silent, he began to look even more fatigued and uncertain. And more panicky. “Gracie, I am so sorry about what happened in Cincinnati.”

The apology surprised her. Even with him standing here, having traveled more than two thousand miles to offer it, she was amazed he didn't try to stall or use a “sorry, not sorry” euphemism. Then again, maybe he wasn't apologizing for their last conversation. An awful lot had happened when they were in Cincinnati. Maybe he was sorry the two of them had shared that delicious tango. Maybe he was sorry the two of them had made love. Maybe he was sorry for those three red velvet cupcakes at the Rockets game.

“I'm sorry I ever doubted you,” he went on.

Oh. Okay. Well, that was a start.

“I'm sorry I thought... I'm sorry I made you feel like a—a...”

“A trashy, scheming, manipulative gold digger?” she supplied helpfully, harkening back to their first meeting.

“Yeah,” he said sheepishly. “Like that. I'm sorry I was such a colossal jerk.”

Better. But he wasn't quite done yet.

“I'm sorry I jumped to conclusions after reading the PI's report,” he continued. “I never should have read the damned thing to begin with. Not after we—”

He halted before finishing. Not that she needed him to finish, since she knew perfectly well what he was referring to now. He shouldn't have read the report after the night the two of them spent together. After everything they'd experienced together. He should have trusted her instead. He was right about that and everything else. But the fact remained that he did do all those things, and that he didn't trust her. It was nice of him to apologize for that now, but...

“But you did doubt me,” she said. “Even after—” Gracie couldn't quite put that night into words, either. So she hurriedly said, “And you did jump to—and cling to—conclusions. And you were a colossal jerk.”

“I know. I'm sorry.”

She didn't want to make him grovel—well, okay, she
did
, but she wouldn't, because that was the kind of thing people did in his world, not hers—so she told him, “Okay. I appreciate the apologies. Thank you.”

He looked even more surprised by her capitulation than she'd been by his apology. “So you forgive me?”

She inhaled deeply and released the breath slowly. That was a tricky one.
Did
she forgive him? In spite of all of her thinking about him over the last month, the idea of forgiving him had never come up. Then she realized the reason for that. It was because she already had forgiven him. She wasn't sure when or why. Maybe she just hadn't wanted to be the kind of person who held a grudge. Nobody was perfect. Imperfection was part of being human.

“Yeah,” she said. “I forgive you.”

It didn't mean that everything was okay between them. It just meant that she was willing to listen to what he had to say.

So she asked one more time, “Why are you here, Harrison? If all you wanted to do was apologize, you could have texted me from New York and saved yourself a lot of money on plane fare. I know how important money is to you, after all.”

He winced. “Gracie, that's not... It's just... I mean...” He expelled a frustrated sound. “Look, can we talk? Can I come in?”

She would have told herself there was no point in either of them saying anything else, but he had gone to some trouble and expense to get here. The least she could do was hear him out.

“Okay,” she said. “We can talk.”

She unlocked the door and entered her apartment, and then swept a hand toward the interior to silently invite Harrison in, too. He entered quickly, as if he feared she might slam the door in his face, and she told him to sit wherever he wanted.

She was reminded again of the day they met on Long Island and thought about how different things were here in her world. The view beyond her window wasn't of the ocean, but of another building across the street. Where the Sages' library had been filled with expensive collector's editions of books, her shelves were crammed with well-thumbed paperbacks. Instead of leather furniture, her sofa and lone chair were upholstered in a chintz floral long past being fashionable, and her coffee table was an old steamer trunk placed horizontally. Instead of lush, jewel-toned Aubussons, her hardwood floor sported a rubber-backed polyester area rug.

Harrison seated himself on the sofa, close enough to one side that it was clear he was making room for her on the other. Deliberately, Gracie chose the chair. His expression indicated he understood her decision and was resigned to it—for now. Even though he was the one who had asked if they could talk, the moment they were both seated, he fell silent.

So Gracie said, “What did you want to talk about?”

He threw her a look that indicated she should already know. And, of course, she did. But just because she didn't want to make him grovel didn't mean she was going to make this easy for him.

“Oh, I don't know,” he said. “Maybe about developments in the Middle East? Or why we have to learn trigonometry in high school when we never actually use it in real life? Or how the music these kids listen to today is nothing but crap?”

Dammit, he was trying to be funny and charming like he was that first day in the library. She had to stop him before she started falling for him the way she did then.

“I choose trigonometry,” she said. Because there was nothing funny or charming about math.

“Okay,” he agreed. “But first, I want to talk about me and you.”

Again he'd opted not to stall. How was she supposed to stay cool when he kept trying to get to the heart of things? To the heart of her?

“There is no me and you,” she told him.

“There was,” he retorted. “Before I screwed it all up.”

She still wasn't prepared for him to go there so swiftly and candidly. She said nothing in response to his statement, but met his gaze levelly in a silent bid to go on.