To Sir (6 page)

“Great. So now you see the problem. I can’t let go of this tree, this idea to write Sarah and Hawke’s story, any more than you could have ignored your sexual proclivities.”

“What’s in it for me, other than helping you out?” His voice was back to cool, businesslike. He was bargaining with her. That was a start, at least. She’d played her share of poker as a kid.

“A chance to make sure I get it right. Help me write it from your perspective if mine is so wrong. Teach me.”

Chapter Four

How could a man say no to that? He waited a few seconds, lest he seem too damned eager, and Dusty sauntered out of his office, clearly confident Chase wasn’t going to blow her off. When he’d first heard her voice, Chase’s initial reaction was anger. She’d all but led him on and then slammed on the brakes, and his balls, with stiletto heels. But as soon as he’d let that anger burn down to a simmer, she’d somehow weaseled her way into his good graces again. Telling him to shut it and meekly asking for his help all in the same conversation had a strange effect on him.

“Fine, but we’ll do this my way.” He had the sudden urge to lay down the law. Call it the Alpha Male Syndrome, or his overbearing, control-freak, Dominant personality, but he had to have some reassurance that she wasn’t going to run off every time she didn’t like his answers or told him she wanted something she couldn’t handle. He wasn’t going to be painted the devil if she got scared.

“Jeez, you’re bossy.” Her prissy tone made him smile. She had no idea. But God, he’d love to show her just how bossy he could be. His blood heated with the thought.

“Do we have a deal or not, Ms. Clark?”

“Yes,” she hissed.

“Good. Meet me tomorrow at 5403 Cherry Circle.”

“Why not at the club?” He might have imagined it, but he swore he heard a distinct note of disappointment in her voice. “I mean, wouldn’t it be easier there?”

She was going to fight him every step of the way. And he could tell he was going to enjoy it. “The club’s still not back up and running yet. It’s better if we meet somewhere else, anyway. Someplace that won’t make you so…uncomfortable. Neutral territory, so to speak.”

“Where are we meeting, then?”

She couldn’t take anything on faith, could she? “My house.”

“Neutral territory my rear,” she muttered. There were several things he wouldn’t mind doing to her rear, but being neutral about it wasn’t one of them.

“It’s there or nowhere, Clark.”

“What happened to the club?”

It must be the writer thing—this rampant curiosity she had. Or maybe it was a lack of filter that prevented her from stopping whatever she thought from popping out of that heart-shaped mouth of hers.

“Well, for some people, it’s all about the Benjamins. Nothing that won’t be cleared up in a few days.” He wasn’t lying to her, exactly. But he didn’t want to go into the details of the legal and financial issues they were having. He was going to fix it, damn it, even if it killed him.

“And what’s it all about for you?”

Every question she asked probed deeper into his life, poked a little closer to old wounds, and he didn’t know if he could keep dodging her.

“That is a question for tomorrow. Four o’clock. Sleep well with your burgeoning tree, Ms. Clark.” He placed the phone back in its cradle barely long enough for it to ring again. He picked it up, half expecting it to be Ms. Clark, canceling their rendezvous. “Yes?” he said.

“Chase?”

“Yes.” He couldn’t identify the voice on the other end of the line. The day had made him weary, and all he wanted to do was sleep. But he knew he couldn’t.

“Hey, baby brother. It’s Giselle.”

His heart stopped. “What’s wrong?”

His eldest sister never called him. Not with good news, anyway. “Everything’s okay. Well, um, I mean. Oh, shit. Family’s fine. Mom’s doing well.” Her voice trailed off. Wasn’t like Giselle to dance around the issue. As the oldest, she’d pretty much blazed ahead, no matter what was in front of her, since they were kids. He’d admired her for it in the past, but sometimes she forged a difficult path without thinking and landed herself headfirst into hot water that he’d had to help fish her out of.

“Yeah, I know,” he said. “I talked to her this morning. She told me she was feeling better already. They’re releasing her from the hospital tomorrow.” It had almost fucking killed him to stay here while his mother had surgery last week, but there wasn’t anything he could have done for her at home. The rest of his family was closer, and they would take good care of her, or so they’d assured him when he’d said he would be driving home for a couple weeks. Giselle had flat-out told him not to come. “So what gives?”

“They’re sending her into a rehabilitation clinic, not home.”

“Yeah, I know. Giselle, cut the crap and tell me what gives, would ya?” He couldn’t handle the suspense any longer.

“Well, it’s… Oh, hell, Chase, this is hard for me. Roger and I… We were supposed to be helping Mom and Dad with the medical bills, but I…” She paused, her voice hitching. “I got laid off. And we’re barely going to be able to survive as it is. There’s no way we can—”

“How much do you need?”

“They only owe about two thousand out of pocket now. And they can cover some of it, but not all, and they’re talking about three months in a long-term care facility doing rehab. I have no idea how much that’s going to cost. Four or five thousand. Maybe more.”

Christ. No way could Mom and Pop afford that. “Look into it and get me some solid figures this weekend, okay?”

“Yeah, of course. Listen, I wouldn’t ask, except…”

“Except I’m the only other kid who’s got any financial stability. Yeah, I know.” He hadn’t told them he was having troubles with the club. Senator Johnson and Judge Wilcox were local power players, not people who would make national news with their nonsense, thank God. So his East Coast-based family had been spared the drama of the past months. And now that was going to come back to bite him in the ass. He wouldn’t tell his big sister that he couldn’t help. It would crush her. Making this phone call had to have cost a lot of her pride, and he wasn’t going to add to her worries with his troubles. He could take care of himself. And everyone else. Like he always had.

“I’ve got it covered, sis. Get me those figures, and I’ll see what I can do, all right?”

She huffed out a breath. “Yeah, sweets. Thanks. I’ll talk to you soon. Love you.”

“You too. Bye,” he said and dropped the receiver back in its cradle.

If his parents needed the money, he would find a way to get it to them. No matter what. All he had to do now was save his failing club, raise a bunch of money to pay off what they owed on the bank loan, and make sure the senator’s rezoning bills failed. And scrape together another five or six grand to help out his parents. Sure, no problem.

Chase hung his head and gripped the edge of his desk hard. He had some money saved, but it was supposed to go toward business finances, though it would barely put a dent in the ten thousand bucks they owed the bank. Now he’d have to tell Dusty they wouldn’t even have that much to try to keep the wolves at bay. But there was no way in hell he was going to watch his parents suffer under the weight of those kinds of medical expenses. He couldn’t.

After a soft knock, his office door opened, and he lifted his gaze to see Dusty holding a hysterical woman in his arms.

I’m sorry
, Dusty mouthed to him over the blonde’s head.

“Oh, Chase,” she cried and flung herself at him.

“Whoa, Suzanna?” Chase automatically wound his arms around his former sub. When had she moved back into town?

Son of a bitch. How much was one man supposed to take? He couldn’t fucking catch a break today. He pushed his selfish thoughts aside and focused on the shaking woman crawling onto his lap.

She nodded against his shoulder. “You can’t let them close this club. You
can’t
!”

“I couldn’t talk any sense into her. She was frantic,” Dusty said.

“I see that,” Chase said wryly and waved Dusty away. She was his emotional mess to deal with, and since D had been dealing with every knock at the door and most phone calls for the past three weeks, Chase figured he owed the man. Big-time.

As soon as the door clicked shut, Chase rubbed Suzanna’s back. “Okay, honey, relax. We’re doing everything we can to get back up and running. You have to calm down for me. Now, all right?” He tried to make his voice more confident than he was feeling.

She looked up at him with those blue eyes and sighed. “You won’t let it happen? I j-just came back. I knew I could. That I would be welcome here, regardless of what went on between us before. But now…” Her voice broke with a sob. After a hiccup, she continued, “When I heard about the club being closed, I was devastated. This place was half the reason I moved back here instead of staying in Texas after I broke it off with Anthony.” Those hopeful eyes cut him deep. Suzanna wasn’t the first person in the past few weeks to come to him pleading that he fight for the club.

But she was the one who made his gut clench. She was the whole reason he’d opened this place to begin with. And here she was, all innocent and a beautiful mess, begging him to save it.

“It’s all right, Suzie Q. I won’t let it happen, okay? I won’t let them shut us down and run us out of town. No matter what.”

“You promise?” she asked, sniffling and then taking a deep breath.

“I promise.”

Chapter Five

Liz stood in front of the sprawling red-and-tan brick house, worrying her ear with her fingers as the midsummer heat enveloped her. So not what she’d expected when she’d agreed, sort of, to meet Chase at his home. The sprawling McMansion before her made her cringe. Didn’t look like he was having financial problems like he’d implied. If he sold this monstrosity, he’d have no cash-flow issues. Stubborn jerkface.

The orange door opened, and she hastily yanked her hand away from her ear. There he stood framed in the doorway—the man who’d made more than a cameo appearance in her dreams over the past two weeks. He wore a pair of almost-too-tight, low-slung jeans and a snug black muscle shirt. Clutching her purse strap, she stepped onto his stone walkway and up to his front porch.

“Good afternoon, Ms. Clark.”

How could he make a name sound so dirty? And the fact that he called her
Ms. Clark
instead of Liz made it sexier. Maybe because in every power-based relationship fantasy she’d ever had, one person was always referring to the other with a term of respect and deference.

“Hi,” she said icily. She had to keep her guard up around this guy. Or else. She wasn’t sure what would happen, but she knew it wouldn’t be good.

A slight half smile quirked up his bow-shaped lips as he moved back to allow her entrance. Barely stopping herself from gulping like an ingenue entering the house of a serial killer, she stepped over the threshold in her low-heeled sandals. She’d dressed a bit more conservatively today for their meeting. Skintight, lightweight jeans had replaced leather pants, and instead of a lacy black top, she wore a light blue tank top. The lower heels were certainly easier to walk in, but they left her at more of a disadvantage in front of the six-foot Chase.

Even with five-inch heels on, she’d had to tilt her head back to meet his gaze, and now that she wore her two-inch ones, she had no hope in hell of looking him square in the eyes. She hated having to crane her neck to see a man’s face. What was wrong with short guys? She’d never understood why women didn’t actively seek out guys more their size instead of hulks like Chase.

Crud. She was rambling again. At least it was inside her head and not coming out of her mouth. She glanced around the house as Chase led her silently to the back. The color scheme inside was as earthy as outside. Taupe walls, thick beige carpet, rust-colored overstuffed sofa and chairs, huge TV, a sunken formal dining room with an empty table and little on the walls. Where in the world was he taking her? More importantly, why was she blindly following?
Say something, Clark!

Before she could, he pushed his way through a swinging door and held it open for her. The kitchen made her gasp. More modern than the rest of the house, it shone from top to bottom. Stainless-steel appliances, dark, glass-fronted or open cabinets, and slate-blue countertops contrasted with the warm red walls and oak floors. Copper pots and pans hung from a rack above a huge island in the middle of the space that had bar stools on one side and a range top on the other. Double ovens in the corner completed the look of a professional kitchen. Other than a couple of small appliances and some utensils in ceramic jars, the counters were bare. A bank of bench seating around a corner table on the other side of the kitchen looked out over the rock-and-cactus backyard.

He smiled at her gaping and shrugged. “I like to cook.”

“Clearly,” she muttered. No, definitely not what she’d been expecting when she showed up today.

“Come on,” he said, letting the door swing shut behind them and padding on bare feet to the table. Her heels clacked on the hardwood floors as she followed him. They sat at the table across from each other, and she set her purse on the bench beside her. She opened it and took out a notebook and her purple pen. She was going to make this meeting as professional and nonsexy as she could, no matter what dirty things she asked him or he told her about. She would
not
blush, comment, feel slick with need, or run screaming from the room.

She’d promised herself.

“Well, don’t you look the part, Ms. Clark?”

“Stop calling me that. I’m not a teacher, and I’m not your boss,” she snapped. Crap. So much for her promises. They obviously meant squat.

“What shall I call you, then, Ms. Clark?” The glint in his eyes told her he’d known all along the name got under her skin, and he didn’t care. In fact, he seemed to relish making her squirm. She refused to give him the satisfaction.

“You may call me Liz,” she said in her most authoritative voice.

“Okay,
Liz
, let’s start at the beginning. I’m sure you’ve done some kind of book research?”

“Yes. I’ve done some reading, some trolling of message boards and websites. I know what the DSM-V says in all its psychobabble about sadism and masochism no longer being considered psychological conditions requiring psychiatric intervention and blah, blah, blah.”