The Millionaire Makeover (Bachelor Auction) (10 page)

“You big baby,” she teased. “You’re from Ireland where the weather is rain, rain, snow, and rain.”

“It’s why Irishmen are the best lovers, babe,” he murmured, thickening his brogue. “We spend a lot of time inside staying…busy.”

She scoffed, but the illumination from the passing streetlights revealed the red staining her cheeks.

He released a bark of laughter, leaning forward and peering in her face. “Are you blushing?”

“No.” She scoffed pushing him away.

Chuckling, he leaned against the seat, pleasure a warm, molasses-thick glow in his chest. Minutes later, the car slowed and halted in front of his favorite Irish pub in Boston. Light spilled onto the sidewalk from the wide, white-framed windows, and as he ushered Khloe into the bar, the welcome of beer, food, and the hum of lively conversation embraced him like a bit of home. More than one lilting accent caressed his ears, reminding him of rolling emerald hills, misty, cool evenings, and the magic inherent in his homeland. As they settled at one of the tables, and placed their orders for shepherd’s pie, a glass of red wine, and a Guinness, a knot of tension unraveled in his shoulders.

“I can see why you chose this place.” She propped her crossed arms on the table, scanning the dark paneling, the teak bar, and the massive fireplace against the far wall. “You must feel like this is home away from home. It’s—” She flinched and reached into her pocket, withdrawing her cell. “Damn,” she whispered.

“What’s wrong?”

She glanced up and sighed. “I left my phone in the car while we were skating, and I have four missed calls from my mother.” Swearing softly again, she tucked the phone in her coat pocket and shrugged out of the heavy garment. The joy that had infused her lovely features all day ebbed, replaced by a weariness tinged with a touch of sadness. He hated the expression, especially after the day they’d had.

“Are you going to ring her back?”

She shook her head, and relief flooded him. He could just imagine Carter and Rosalind’s reactions if they learned their daughter—their only living child—was with the man they blamed for their son’s death.

“It’ll keep,” she said.

He snorted. “Michael used to pull a flask out of his desk drawer when he had to make his weekly phone call home.”

She laughed, and this time it was softer, not as abrasive. “I remember those weekly sessions.” A wry smile twisted her lips. “No one does guilt trips like my parents. You know what’s funny though? Neither Mom nor Dad would schedule anything on Friday mornings at eleven o’clock; that half-hour when Michael called was sacred. Even if when they talked with him, they made sure to remind him how his leaving and being so far away distressed and hurt them. They loved him but could never understand how he could just forget the years he’d spent in college on his education degree to be a teacher. For them, this love for music had come out of left field, had been a whim. They worried he would regret his seemingly impulsive decisions to abandon his career plans and to move to a different country away from family.”

Michael’s choices were also the reason his parents blamed Niall for their son’s death. If Niall hadn’t “lured” Michael away from home, Michael would’ve been safe and not on that dark road three years ago.

“He reimbursed them for the loans they took out on his behalf for college,” Niall murmured.

Her chin jerked up, her lips parted. “I didn’t know that.”

He nodded. “He lived like a pauper those first couple of years after college. Wouldn’t let me help him or come stay with me. He made sure to pay them back because part of him felt guilty for not becoming the professor your parents wanted for him. Even though music was
his
passion, and
his
dream was working with artists and helping them achieve theirs.”

Music had brought the two of them together. His mother had been born and raised in Boston but had moved to Dublin with her husband. But after so many years away and a husband who was gone more often than he was home, she’d decided to move back to America, bringing Niall with her. For a lonely thirteen-year-old in a new city—hell, a new country—his fiddle had been his only friend, his only comfort. But finding the quiet, smart kid from his English class playing the piano in the empty music room after school one day had been like locating his long lost brother. They’d been tight ever since that afternoon.

“I was so thrilled for Michael, and unlike Mom and Dad, I didn’t believe he was wasting his life. He was happy, and I just wished they could’ve accepted it.”

“Is that what your missed calls are about?” He smiled a thanks at their waitress as she set their drinks before them.

He held up his pint of Guinness, and when she lifted her glass of wine, he tapped them together. “Sláinte.”

Smiling, she repeated the toast and sipped the alcohol. “The night of the gala, Mom invited me over for a dinner she and dad were hosting. Already had a date picked out for the evening. She wasn’t too pleased I said no.”

He snorted. “I imagine not.” He drummed his fingers against the cold glass of his mug. “Do they know I’m here?

Khloe briefly lowered her lashes before meeting his gaze. “No. I haven’t told them about”—she flicked a hand back and forth between them—“any of this. My parents have always been…always been…”

“I believe the word you’re searching for is controlling,” he supplied dryly.

The corner of her mouth kicked up, but he didn’t delude himself into believing amusement lay behind it. “Set in their ways. They envisioned certain paths for Michael and me, and intended for us to follow them to the letter. When he veered and later died, all their attention fell on me, and they became even more protective. As if they’d lost one child and had to cling tight to the one they had left. They’re not bad people, just scared. And too proud to admit it.”

“And I’m the boogeyman they fear.”

In Carter and Rosalind’s eyes, he’d enticed and lured their son away from the respectable life he’d led with lurid promises of money, women, and sex. Niall had then stolen their son from them by moving his job to Ireland where he’d died. Because of Niall. They blamed him for Michael’s death. They’d said as much at his funeral.

“No,” Khloe continued, though he caught the glimmer of guilt and regret in her eyes. She didn’t address his comment, but she had to know her parents resented him. They’d probably warned her away from him, wanting to protect the child they had left from Niall. “They’re afraid of change. Of anything that doesn’t belong to their insular, academic world. Of anything that jeopardizes the
sameness
of it. My going into the technology field caused them a moment of panic, but when they realized I wasn’t leaving Boston, they calmed in a few months. Anyway,” she trailed off, raising her glass once more and swirling the wine inside. “I can’t live in that bubble,” she said so softly he almost didn’t catch it.

“Here you go. Nice and hot,” their waitress chirped, placing their shepherd’s pies on the table. “Enjoy.” She left with a grin and a promise to check back with them.

“Oh my God, this is delicious.” Khloe groaned several minutes later, her eyes closed in pleasure. Shit, would everything she did remind him of sex? His grip on his fork tightened. Either that or reach forward, grab her around the nape of his neck, and drag her across the table so he could taste that sexy smile for himself. “Perfect after a day of being out in the cold.” She tilted her head to the side. “Somehow I can’t imagine you, the high and mighty CEO of Duir Music, sitting in a dark Dublin pub eating shepherd’s pie.”

“Really?” he drawled, lifting his half-empty pint of Guinness. “What can you imagine, then?”

“Expensive restaurants where all the beautiful, shiny people gather and the meals cost more than a month’s rent.”

“Beautiful, shiny people?” He snorted. “Careful, baby. I think your
Twilight
obsession is showing.” At her glare, he set his glass on the table and help up his hands, palms out. “I’m sorry. You’re Team Jacob. I forgot.”

“You just wait until I find out your guilty pleasure,” she warned, pointing her fork at him. “I’m going to be ruthless.”

Hell
, she
was his guilty pleasure.

“In spite of your image of me, I spend at least a couple nights a week at the pub near my office. They have the best fish ‘n’ chips.” And music.

She quietly studied him, and he could envision the wheels grinding behind those beautiful eyes.

“What are you thinking?” he asked, reclining in his chair.

“Did you take your wife with you?”

Shock punched the air from his lungs. Only years of negotiating contracts and deals enabled him to remain stoic and not betray the astonishment rioting through him.

“I didn’t know you were aware of my marriage,” he murmured.

She hiked a shoulder in a seemingly careless shrug. “It wasn’t a secret.”

“No.” But the marriage of an Irish music CEO based in Dublin wouldn’t have been enough news to make the American social columns or tabloid pages. Had she been keeping tabs on him? The thought shouldn’t have elicited a fierce surge of satisfaction. “And no. I never brought Veronica with me to the local bar.”

“Why not? Or am I just special?” she asked, the tone so dry it could’ve been thrown into the fireplace for kindling.

He snorted, the topic of his ex-wife turning the savory flavor of the stew to bitter ash on his tongue. “Because there was no one to influence with her beauty or body in the pub. No one to make jealous with her jewelry and clothes, and no one she could pimp for her non-existent music and singing career. So she had no use for a simple pub filled with people relaxing after an honest hard day of work, who wanted hot food and good company.” He tried to stem the resentment and animosity from his voice, but it crept in, dirtying what should’ve been a comfortable evening between friends.

“She sounds like a real piece of work.” Khloe laid her fork beside her bowl and picked up her wine. “And by that I mean a real bitch.”

He loosed a bark of laughter. “That’s putting it mildly.”

“Then why did you marry her?”

Eying Khloe over the rim of his pint, he sipped deeply. The usual response hovered on his tongue, but when he lowered his beer, the truth spilled out. “Because I was lonely,” he stated, the admission stark, blunt, and fucking pathetic. Surprise flashed in her eyes, and he tightened his grip on the glass before deliberately easing it. Inhaling, he finished the confession. “Michael had died, you and I were no longer speaking, and in a moment of utter weakness and thinking with my dick, I convinced myself the truth of marriage didn’t apply to me. That it could work. But a year and a half of hell and a lighter bank account cured me of the loneliness and illuminated my foolishness about the unholy state of matrimony.”

Silence descended on their table, smothering the chatter and noise surrounding them.

“Marriage isn’t flawed,” she finally said, voice soft…wistful. “The people going into it with unrealistic expectations and without love are.”

“And your expectations about a life with Bennett aren’t unrealistic?” he challenged, unwelcomed jealousy burning hot and vitriolic in his veins.

A small, almost sad smile curved her lips. “Maybe,” she conceded. “But avoiding a life alone and unloved is worth the risk.”

The appearance of their waitress saved him from answering. Because he had no idea how he would’ve countered her argument. He’d applied the same argument when he’d married Veronica, and that relationship had imploded like a fucking atom bomb. But Khloe was everything he wasn’t—sweet, kind, worthy. Only a fool would reject her. As Niall had demonstrated. Maybe Bennett would prove himself to be smarter.

At that instant, the haunting, bird-like note of a flute swelled in the large room, eventually joined by the light strumming of an acoustic guitar. Within moments, the sweet vibrato of a fiddle filled the air, adding its voice to the traditional ballad played by a quartet of young men gathered on a slightly raised platform in a corner of the pub.
Scarborough Fair
. He closed his eyes, lost himself in the music that spoke of a time far past, but the sense of loss that crossed ages. The melody resonated in his soul, snared him in its spell. And as the last plaintive note echoed and gradually faded, the vise-like band around his chest loosened, allowed him to breathe deeply.

He lifted his lashes. Found Khloe studying him with that intense gaze that seemed to perceive too much. Especially when he wanted to stay hidden. She reached across the table, grasped his left hand, and flipped it over. Gently, she smoothed feather light touches over the calluses ridging his fingertips.

“I used to love to watch you play,” she murmured. “You used to wear the same expression. Enraptured. Gone,” she added. “Like your body was still there, but mentally, emotionally—you were gone to wherever the music carried you. I envied you.”

No one had ever explained the feeling he experienced so succinctly. So perfectly. It unnerved him that she knew…that she could read him like no other.

And that scared the shit out of him.

He didn’t want to need her. Didn’t want her to become necessary.

Too late
, a small, hated voice whispered.

Fuck that.

He withdrew his hand from her clasp.

“I see you still play,” she said, nodding toward his hand, and completely unaware of the battle of survival waging inside his head. He nodded sharply. This line of conversation had to end. Now. He didn’t discuss his music with anyone. “Why didn’t you ever pursue a professional music career? You were good enough.”

Pain radiated from under his skin as her words pierced him. “I’m a businessman not an artist,” he cited. The words were engraved on his mind like the epitaph on a grave marker.
“You’re a Hunter, goddammit. We produce music, make money off it. Not play it like some common busker.”
Even now, years later, he could hear the anger of his father’s diatribe. Feel the hot lick of disappointment and embarrassment.

“I don’t understand why the two have to be mutually exclusive.”

“Are you finished with your dinner?” The abrupt change of subject wasn’t wasted on her. She straightened, placing physical and emotional distance between them. As he’d intended. And if part of him hungered to yank her from the chair and plaster her body to his from chest-to-thigh, daring her to withdraw from him again, well…all he had to do was conjure the memory of her gazing up at Bennett Charles as if he’d created the earth in six days. That should take care of the erection pounding behind his zipper like a bass drum.