Harlequin Desire September 2015 - Box Set 1 of 2: Claimed\Maid for a Magnate\Only on His Terms (43 page)

“A couple of things,” he began. “First, when I got back to New York, I had my PI look into Devon and Wilson Braun.”

“Because you still didn't believe me,” she said.

He shook his head. “That was what I told myself in Cincinnati, but I knew I was wrong to have mistrusted you before I even left your hotel room. I was just too stubborn and too stupid to admit it—to you or to myself. But we'll get to that. The reason I had my PI look into the Brauns was because I just wanted to make sure those guys got what was coming to them. And they will. My PI collected enough info on both Brauns—they're even worse than you thought—to cause them a lot of trouble for a long time. With the law, with their friends, with their jobs, you name it. Those guys are going to spend the rest of their lives in disgrace and dishonor, and, more than likely, prison. I told my guy to get all the info to whomever he could trust will do the right thing with it.”

“Wow,” she said. “Thank you, Harrison.”

“Now then,” he said. “About that morning in Cincinnati.”

She couldn't quite stop herself, and replied, “The morning you called me a liar.”

He started to deny it, and then seemed to realize it would be pointless. “There's something you have to understand about me, Gracie.”

“What?”

He didn't hesitate at all this time. “I've never met anyone like you before.”

That comment, too, surprised her. “But I'm a totally normal person. There are millions of people like me.”

“Number one, no, there aren't. There's no one like you. And number two,” he continued before she had a chance to say anything, “until you came along, I thought everyone in the world was like me. Because everyone I met
was
like me. Selfish, greedy takers who looked at every new opportunity, experience and acquaintance with the same question—what's in it for me? There was no reason for me to think you weren't like that, too. It never occurred to me that there were people in the world who wanted to help other people and make a difference. People like you and my father. Selflessness was an alien concept to me. To me, it made more sense that you would steal from my father than it did that he or you would give money to people who needed it.”

She remembered how his father had taught him when he was still a child that money was more important than anything else. She remembered how he'd gone to a school for thirteen years that stressed financial success over any other kind of success. Lessons learned in childhood went deep, she knew. People could talk all they wanted about how when adults made stupid choices, they had to live with the consequences, never taking into account that those adult choices were based on childhood experiences. If someone was taught early on to choose money over happiness, then no one should be surprised when, as an adult, that person chose money over happiness.

“So when you told me you were going to give away my father's money,” Harrison continued, “I didn't believe you. That didn't make sense to me. At least, it didn't until you took me to Cincinnati, and I saw how much my father meant to so many people. That's when I started to understand why he would want to give something back.”

Dammit, he was doing it again. Being that sweet guy who made her fall in lo— Who had made her fall for him.

“That morning in Cincinnati, after we...” He hesitated again, but his gaze locked with hers. “I'd never felt the way I felt that morning, Gracie. Ever. Always before with women, I wanted to be gone before they woke up. But with you...” He smiled halfheartedly. “With you, I realized I never wanted to be with anyone else again.”

There went the happy humming in her blood again. It was nice, having that back.

He continued, “And I guess I kind of panicked, when I understood what that meant. That I...had feelings for you...that I'd never had for anyone before. That I wanted to see you again. Probably forever. That scared the hell out of me.”

The humming thrummed louder. Faster.

“When I got the PI's report, and I read the lopsided version of what happened, it was easy for me to jump to the conclusion I did, because it meant I had an excuse for not wanting to wake up next to you every morning. It meant I didn't have to be in... It meant I didn't have to...care for you...the way I did. It gave me an excuse for going back to being the guy I was before. The one who didn't have to feel things. Life's a lot easier when you don't have to feel. Feeling is hard. And exhausting. And scary.”

Oh, Harrison...

“But even after you were gone, I kept feeling. Every day. Every night. I couldn't stop thinking about you. But I didn't know what to say or do that would make up for what I did. I was afraid you'd never want to see me again after that. And I didn't blame you. I worried it would be pointless to apologize or to try to make up for it, figured you wouldn't talk to me if I tried. I started envisioning a horrible life without you. Then I found this.”

He reached into his back pocket and withdrew an envelope. “It's a letter from my father I found in one of my grandmother's diaries. He wrote it to my mother two years before he died but never mailed it. You should read it, too.”

Gracie balked. “But if it was meant for Vivian...”

“Mom's read it and doesn't mind my sharing it with you. It's important, Gracie.”

Gingerly, she took the letter and read it in its entirety. When she looked up at Harrison again, it was with a heavy heart. “I can't believe he didn't think you and Vivian would forgive him.”

“I can,” Harrison said. “Because I thought you'd be the same way.”

“But that's crazy.”

“I know that now. But, clearly, I had a lot to learn about people. I still do. I just hope it's not too late. Because I don't want to end up like my father.” He smiled. “Except for the part about where he got to spend the rest of his life with you.”

Okay, that did it. Her heart was fully melted. Harrison must have realized that, because he smiled and scooted down to the other side of the couch. Close to Gracie, where his knee could gently touch hers. And even that tiny little contact made her feel better than she had in weeks. Four weeks, in fact. Four weeks, one day, three hours and twenty-seven minutes.

Not that she was counting or anything.

He lifted a hand and, after only a moment's hesitation, cupped it over her jaw. Unable to help herself, Gracie turned her head until his fingers were threaded in her hair, and then moved her hand to his cheek, too, loving the warmth under her palm. Her heart hammered faster when she remembered what happened the last time she touched him this way. His pupils expanded, his lips parted, his breath stilled. But he didn't move an inch.

So Gracie did.

She stood and took his hand in hers, and then led him to her bedroom. It was all the encouragement Harrison needed, because the moment she turned to look at him, he pulled her into his arms and covered her mouth with his. He kissed her lovingly, deeply, and for a very long time, cupping her jaws in both hands. Gracie splayed her fingers open on his chest, loving the feel of his heart racing against her hand, as rapidly as her own. After a moment, she moved her hands to the buttons of his shirt and began to unfasten them, her fingers sure and steady this time. He, in turn, dropped one of his hands to the single, oversized button on her jacket, freeing it and spreading the lapels open. He looked surprised to discover she wore only a bra beneath.

He was also more than a little aroused to discover that. Because he immediately freed his mouth from hers and skimmed the jacket over her shoulders to look at her. To help him in that respect, she reached behind herself to unzip her skirt, and let that, too, fall to the floor. The pale lavender lace bra and panties she wore were nearly transparent, leaving nothing to the imagination. When Harrison saw her effectively naked, he sucked in a deep breath and released it slowly.

“Is this the kind of thing you always have on under your clothes?”

He obviously remembered the lacy ensemble she'd been wearing in Cincinnati, and it was actually one of her more conservative sets. She nodded.

“This is the kind of thing you were wearing all those times I was with you in New York and Cincinnati?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Except sometimes a little more revealing than this.”

His eyes went wide at that. “You're not really much of a girl next door, are you?”

The question confused Gracie. “What do you mean?”

He only smiled and shook his head. “Nothing. Just...”

But he didn't finish. At least, not with words. Instead, he went back to unbuttoning his shirt and shrugged out of it, and then pulled Gracie close again...in a perfect tango hold, which meant really close, really intimate and really, really arousing. He danced her the few steps to her bed, and then spun her and dipped her deeply. As he nuzzled the place where her neck met her shoulder, he dragged a hand down the outside of her bare leg, lighting little fires all along the way. When he reached her calf, he moved his hand to the inside of her leg and drew it upward again, halting scant inches away from the hot, damp core of her.

Although Gracie caught her breath in anticipation of his touch there, she still gasped at the contact, so sure and steady were his fingers over the sheer fabric. Slowly, carefully, he righted them both to standing again, but he caressed her though her panties the entire time, and she was in no way steady on her feet. So he maneuvered their bodies until they were lying on the bed facing each other. He kissed her as he continued to stroke her, this time dipping his hand inside her panties, but Gracie somehow found the presence of mind to unfasten his belt and zipper. Then she tucked her hand inside his jeans and boxers to grasp him in her hand, rubbing him slowly up and down, too.

For long moments, they kissed and pleasured each other manually, their tongues darting in much the same way as their fingers. But when Gracie felt herself nearing an orgasm, she circled his wrist and withdrew his hand in an effort to slow the pace. He seemed to understand and used the opportunity to rise and shed what was left of his clothing. Gracie did likewise, and then bent over the bed to turn it down. Harrison was behind her naked body in a heartbeat, covering her breasts with his hands and moving his cock, already sheathed in a condom, between her legs to wreak havoc where his fingers had been before. She sighed as he caressed her breasts and thumbed her ripe nipples, guiding his hips forward and back to create a delicious friction for their bodies. When she bent forward more, he gripped her hips and entered her from behind, slow and slick and deep, again and again and again. But once more, he stopped before Gracie or he could climax, urging both of their bodies onto the bed.

When he turned to lie on his back, she sat astride him and began to move backward so that he could enter her again. But he halted her and instead pushed her body forward, more and more, until the heated core of her was poised above his head. Just as she realized his intent—and before she could prepare herself—he lowered her onto his mouth, pressing his tongue to the damp folds of flesh he had already incited to riot. Gracie was washed away to a place where her thoughts evaporated, and she could do nothing but feel...exquisitely, outrageously euphorically.

As his tongue lapped at her, he moved his hands to her bottom, curling his fingers into the cleft that bisected it, stroking her sensitive skin up and down, circling the delicate aureole at its base before darting away again. The sensations that rocked her every time he came close wound the hot coil inside her ever tighter. When he finally slipped a finger inside her there, moving his tongue inside her at the same time, she cried out. Never had she felt such a rush of heat or exhilaration. But as the cataclysms began to slow, Harrison tasted her again, deeper this time, and penetrated her again, deeper this time, and set off the waves of pleasure a second time.

She cried out again at the sensations rocking her. Harrison rolled her onto her back, gripping her ankles to spread her legs wide and drape them over his shoulders. Then he lifted her from the bed to drive himself deep inside her once more.

A third wave began to build inside Gracie as he bucked against her, climbing higher and higher, hotter and hotter, until she was crashing to the ground, and Harrison was right there with her. As they lay beside each other afterward, panting for breath and groping for coherent thought, she wondered if it would always be this way with them. If there would ever come a time when their lovemaking wasn't explosive and fierce, when they didn't feel so urgent and intense.

But all the thought did was make her smile. Somehow, she knew they would have lots of time together to discover each other. They would have lots of lovemaking. Lots of feelings. Lots of chances.

She looked at Harrison, lying beside her with his eyes closed, his hair damp, his chest rising and falling raggedly. A chance was all she'd wanted from him. And it was all she'd needed to give him in return.

“I love you, Harrison Sage,” she said softly.

He opened his eyes and smiled. “I love you, Gracie Sumner.”

Okay, maybe there was one other thing she'd wanted from him. Now she had that, too. And when it came to love, not even fourteen billion—yes,
billion
with a
b
—dollars stood a chance.

Epilogue

I
t was snowing on Roosevelt Avenue in the borough of Queens. The fat, frilly flakes danced to and fro around Gracie as she stood at the edge of a vacant lot that would soon be a pediatric clinic. Although it was early April, and the snow wasn't supposed to last for more than a day—a good thing in light of this afternoon's ground-breaking ceremony—Gracie liked seeing it. There was something promising about snow. Something clean. Something genuine. Something hopeful. Something that said everything was going to be just fine.

And everything was fine. The clinic was the last recipient of Harry Sagalowsky's billions. In the last ten months, she had spent his money on hundreds of projects and thousands of institutions that would affect millions of people. She'd traveled all over the country to participate in not only ground-breaking ceremonies, but also ribbon-cutting ceremonies. She'd visited preschools, elementary schools, high schools and colleges, attended meetings in churches and synagogues, temples and mosques. She'd even been invited to a couple of weddings and a barn-raising that had been facilitated by Harry's estate.

She had seen firsthand the good things money could do when it was placed in the right hands. Harry had been wrong about money causing the world's problems. Greed did that. Money properly spent could create a utopia. She hoped Harry was resting easily now, wherever he was.

“Not the best weather for a ground-breaking,” Bennett Tarrant said from his position on her left.

He was elegantly bundled in an exquisitely tailored camel-hair overcoat, a paisley silk scarf tucked beneath the lapels. Gus Fiver was a mirror image of him, his own coat a few shades lighter, and Renny Twigg almost epitomized Gracie's initial impression of her as someone who should be working outdoors in flannel, wrapped as she was in a red-and-black-checked wool coat that was belted at the waist.

Gracie would have felt bland beside her in her own creamy Dior-style coat, circa 1950, if it hadn't been for the luscious way Harrison was looking at her—the same way he'd been looking at her since she'd come out of his bathroom wrapped in a towel this morning. And that was a weird thought, since she'd come out of his bathroom wrapped in a towel lots of times. So why was today any different?

He was another reason the last ten months had been so fine—and so hectic. Bicoastal relationships weren't the easiest thing to maintain. But she'd wanted to finish her degree in Seattle, and his business was in New York, so one of them had flown across the country almost every weekend. Or he'd flown to whatever event she was attending with Harry's money to join her. She sent up another silent thank-you to Harry for making that possible. Yes, he'd wanted her to buy a house on the water or go to Spain with some of his money, but using it to see a man who had become more important to her than anything had given Gracie a lot more happiness.

But she'd had her degree for more than two months and still didn't have a job. Of course, that could be because her work with Harry's money had intensified once her classes concluded. It could also be because her search for work in Seattle had been kind of halfhearted. Then again, her search for work anywhere had been kind of halfhearted. There were probably more positions in a big city like New York—and, truth be told, she'd applied for as many jobs here as she had in Seattle. But as good as things had been between her and Harrison—and as big a pain as it was living thousands of miles apart—neither had brought up the subject of taking things to the next level. Like living in the same city.

“I like the snow,” Gracie said in response to Mr. Tarrant. “It's very pretty.”

“I like it, too,” Renny Twigg said from his other side. “It looks like wrapping paper on this big, beautiful gift that Harrison Sage is giving to the neighborhood.”

Gee, Renny Twigg had something of a whimsical streak, Gracie thought. Maybe she really should be doing something besides working for a probate firm.

“I think they're about to begin,” Bennett Tarrant said. “Shall we?”

The ground-breaking ceremony went off without a hitch. Gracie and Harrison laughed as they jabbed their shovels into the ground, fighting to get them deeper than a couple of inches into the frozen sod. Gracie even stepped up onto the top of the blade of her own shovel in an effort to drive it deeper. But all that did was send her teetering backward. Thankfully, Harrison was there to catch her. He set her on the ground beside him before returning both their shovels to the community leaders in charge.

Once all the thanks had been made and the farewells uttered, Tarrant, Fiver & Twigg returned to the big black Town Car that had brought them, and Gracie and Harrison headed for his. As they strode across the vacant lot, the snow began to fall harder around them, blurring the rest of the urban landscape, making her feel as if there were no one in the world but them. Harrison seemed to sense it, too, because he entwined his gloved fingers with hers.

“I heard you applied for a teaching position at my old school,” he said. “Kindergarten. Starting this fall.”

Dang. Busted.

“Well, the listing came up on LinkedIn,” she said, “so I thought, what the hey. I mean, I've applied at schools all over the place,” she added, fudging the truth a bit, since she hadn't applied for positions in, say, Nauru or Abu Dhabi—or anywhere else that wasn't Seattle or New York. “I probably won't get it, though, since I'm sure they want someone seasoned who feels the same way about education that they do.” She couldn't help adding, not quite under her breath, “More's the pity.”

Harrison grinned. “I've spoken to the director about you. Seeing as I'm sitting on the board now and all, I have some pull there.”

Gracie grinned back. “So then I guess I really can kiss that position goodbye, since you know the first thing I'd do is rally for art and music classes to be mandatory and for the uniforms to be eighty-sixed.”

Harrison's grin grew broader. “You should be getting a call this week, actually. You could really shake things up there. Get 'em while they're young and teach them about the stuff that's really important. Not that I told the director that part. I just told her you're exactly the kind of teacher that place needs. And hey, you'll have an ally on the board.”

Gracie chuckled. “Thanks, Harrison.” Then she sobered. “Of course, that means I'll be moving to New York. Will that be a problem? For us, I mean?”

Now his expression turned confused. “How could that possibly be a problem for us? We'd finally both be in the same place at the same time for more than a few days.”

She shrugged. “I know, but we haven't—”

“Of course, apartments are crazy expensive in Manhattan,” he interjected. “Living there on a teacher's salary would be impossible.”

Ah. So. Evidently, that “taking things to the next level” discussion was still on hold for a while, since anything she would be able to afford in New York was probably still going to land her in another state like Connecticut or New Jersey. Still, they'd at least be closer.

“Yeah, crazy expensive,” he reiterated. “So it would probably be better if you move in with me.”

Oh. Okay. So maybe they
were
going to talk about it?

“Or we could look for a new place together,” he continued.

Wow.
Really
going to talk about it. At least, they would be, if Gracie wanted to jump in. At the moment, though, she wasn't sure what to say. Harrison clearly was, though.

“But you know,” he said, “the school where you'll be working is pretty traditional. For now, anyway. They might frown on one of their kindergarten teachers living in sin.”

So then maybe they
weren't
going to talk about it. Or take it to the next level. Never mind.

Harrison sighed with resignation. “So it might be best if you just marry me.”

Before Gracie could say a word—he'd just skipped every level there was!—he withdrew a small velvet box from inside his coat and opened it. Nestled inside was a diamond ring. An old diamond ring. A modest diamond ring. An absolutely beautiful diamond ring. It was probably about a third of a carat, mounted on a white gold, filigreed setting, and it was dazzling amid the falling snow.

“It was my grandmother's,” he said. “I found it in one of the shoe boxes where my dad stowed stuff. The minute I saw it, I thought of you. If anyone could make this represent happy memories instead of sad ones, it's you.”

That, finally, made Gracie break her silence. “You told me you finished going through your dad's things back in October.”

“Yeah, I did.”

“So you've been thinking about giving me this since then?”

“No, I found this in August. But you were so busy with school and my dad's estate, I didn't want to overwhelm you.”

Overwhelm her? He'd overwhelmed her the minute she saw him.

He smiled again, a little less certainly this time. “So what do you say, Gracie? Will you marry me? Or should I have asked you sooner?”

Well, he could have asked her sooner, she supposed. But it was never too late for something like this. Then again, with Harry's money no longer a strain on her time, and with her starting a new job in a few months, and with Harrison just looking so gorgeous and being so wonderful...

“Your timing is perfect,” she said.

Just like you
, she thought.

“Just like you,” he said.

“Just like us,” she amended.

He smiled at that. As he removed the ring from the box, Gracie tugged the glove off her left hand. And when he slipped it over her third finger, it was... Well, it was perfect, too.

“I love you, Gracie Sumner,” he said softly, pressing his forehead against hers.

“I love you, Harrison Sage,” she replied.

As the snow continued to swirl around them, and as he covered her mouth with his, Gracie couldn't help thinking she'd been wrong about the clinic for which they'd just broken ground. It wasn't the last recipient of all that Harry left behind. Because she'd just received the last—and best—part of that herself.

* * * * *