Loe raamatut: «Redeemed By Passion»

One

Liam Christopher tipped his head up and tracked the winking light of a jet above him. That could, for all he knew, be Brooks Abbingdon’s jet carrying Teresa away from him. The image of Teresa curled up in Brooks’s lap, him comforting her as she cried—because, hell, if anyone deserved to cry it was Teresa St. Claire—flashed on his retina and his grip tightened on the crystal tumbler in his hand. He heard a sharp crack and a second later, expensive liquor ran over his palm and under the wristband of his watch.

Liam opened his hand and looked at the cracked glass and its sharp shards. Surprisingly, there was no blood. Transferring the broken glass from his hand to the coffee table on the balcony, he shook the droplets of his Manhattan cocktail off his hand before reaching for his pocket square and wiping the liquid away.

Well, that was a waste of good booze. Liam looked back into the luxurious Presidential Suite of the Goblet Hotel and saw his friend Matt Richmond pacing the area between the designer sofas and the dining table. Matt was pissed and he had a right to be. His gala evening was ruined and would be long remembered for all the wrong reasons.

And it was all Teresa’s fault. Well, not her fault exactly—she hadn’t known that her brother would show up and ruin months of work—but as the event planner, the buck stopped with her.

Would her company recover from this? He doubted it. Would she? Teresa was tough but she’d had a couple of hard knocks lately. When Matt asked her to leave the retreat immediately, taking her brother with her, Teresa knew that her reputation was about to take another beating, and Liam understood why she felt the need to run. Why would she want to stay and witness the pitying looks, the cruel smirks, hear the caustic comments?

She also wanted to run from him. And that, he understood most of all.

Seeing movement in the room behind him, Liam turned his head to watch Nadia approach Matt, her eyes on her man. Matt was still on the phone but he held out his hand and Nadia tucked herself into his side, her arms encircling his waist. Matt dropped a kiss on her head before continuing his conversation. Liam’s stomach cramped with what he thought might be jealousy. He’d never believed in true love—hadn’t been exposed to it growing up—but maybe it did exist; maybe it was just as rare as hell. Matt had found his Holy Grail in Nadia but Liam wasn’t naive enough to believe that everybody, most especially him, would be that lucky.

Love, he was convinced, wasn’t for him.

Matt threw his phone onto the sofa behind him and pulled his wife into his body, burying his face in the crook of her neck. Although Nadia was a foot shorter than Matt, Liam knew that he was sucking strength from her, that Matt was leaning on her. They were a unit, taking turns to lead and to follow, to give and receive strength. They were two trees growing together, sharing soil and water, their branches and roots intermingling.

It struck him that he and Teresa were two separate pine trees planted in a regimented row. They both stood tall, took the wind, never bent. They’d been planted too far apart—and too much had happened between them and to them—to bridge the gap to be able to even start to explore anything deeper than flash point sex.

Liam turned away and walked to the edge of the balcony, gripping the balustrade with tight fingers. Maybe Teresa’s leaving, her breaking it off for good, was—as she’d said—what was best for her, him, Christopher Corporation. For everybody involved.

And if that was true then why did he feel like week-old crap?

Hearing Matt’s footsteps he turned his head and saw Matt approaching him, a bottle of bourbon in his hand. Matt raised his eyebrows at the broken glass and, without words, handed Liam the bottle. Liam took a hefty sip before dropping the bottle to his side, holding it in a loose grip. By the time dawn broke, he was going to be best buds with this bottle.

“Where’s Nadia?”

Matt leaned his butt against the railing and rolled his head from side to side to release the knots in his neck. Liam didn’t bother; his knots were now permanent residents. “She went to bed,” Matt replied. He glanced at his watch. “It is almost three in the morning.”

“It was a hell of a night.” Liam took another hit from the bottle, ignoring his still-sticky hand. He glanced up, saw another jet and forced himself to meet Matt’s eyes. “I feel like I should apologize.”

“For what?” Matt asked, his eyes and tone weary. “You didn’t cause Teresa’s brother to ruin my gala evening.”

“Neither did Teresa,” Liam responded, needing to defend her.

“Tell me about her brother,” Matt said, moving to the sofa and dropping down. He immediately tucked a pillow under his head and propped his feet up onto the coffee table.

Ordinarily, Liam would never consider divulging someone else’s secrets but this was Matt, his best friend, and he trusted him implicitly. He also needed Matt’s sharp brain to help him make sense of what was, at this crazy hour, the senseless.

“It’s a tangled mess but I’m going to tell you what I do know, gathered from what Teresa has told me, along with what my investigator dug up.

“So years ago, Joshua, her brother, liked drugs and alcohol a little too much and got himself in debt with some unsavory characters. They offered him a job to pay off the money. He became a chauffeur—”

“And he, knowingly or unknowingly, ferried drugs,” Matt finished for him.

Matt was, by far, the sharpest tool in the shed. “Yep. He was busted and was jailed. Via Mariella Santiago-Marshall, Teresa employed the talents of The Fixer—”

Matt whistled his astonishment. “I’ve heard of him. He’s—”

Liam raised an eyebrow. “Effective?”

“I was going to say ruthless but that works, too.”

“Anyway,” Liam continued, “he got Joshua’s charges dropped, him out of jail and across the country. The kid didn’t learn and has raked up another huge gambling debt. A mafia-type organization has bought that debt from the original crew and it’s rocketed to an impossible sum.”

“How much?”

“Seven million dollars,” Liam replied. “Several weeks back Teresa was told that he’d been kidnapped but that turned out to be BS. Teresa’s been informed that she needs to repay his loan, but she doesn’t have that kind of cash, and they’ve never called her back, as far as I know.”

“Pay it for her, offset it against the cost of the shares you are going to buy from her when she’s completed her yearlong mandatory stint on the board of Christopher Corporation,” Matt suggested. “As per the terms of your father’s will.”

“Teresa is hoping that she can delay repaying them until she’s sold her shares. She wants to keep me out of the equation. Hell, maybe she’s shopping around for a better deal for the shares.” The thought of Teresa selling those shares to anyone else made his stomach whirl. If she did that, he would no longer have the thin sliver of control over Christopher Corporation he did now.

“Nobody has given Teresa, or Joshua, a firm deadline for the repayment of the debt.”

“Weird,” Matt agreed. “So it should be imperative that he keep his head down, even stay out of sight. Then why would Joshua crash a highly visible, live-streamed event?

“What does Teresa think?” Matt asked, after a moment’s silence.

“I don’t know since she blew me off and hightailed it back to Seattle in Abbingdon’s private plane,” Liam muttered his sour reply. He pulled his cell out of his pocket and hit the speed dial number that would connect him to Teresa. It didn’t mean anything that he’d moved his personal assistant, Duncan, to number two on his list and Teresa to number one. It meant nothing. At all.

Liam listened to her phone ring and urged her to pick up. He needed to know that she was okay, that Joshua was okay—God, the kid hadn’t looked, or sounded, good. And he wasn’t talking about the bruise his fist made on his jaw. Her phone went to voice mail and he dropped a hard “Call me” order into her message system.

Liam placed the bourbon bottle on the coffee table, sat down in the chair opposite Matt and rested his forearms on his knees. He released a series of low but intense f-bombs.

“That kind of sums up my feelings about this evening,” Matt commented. “I’ve been doing damage control but there’s not much spin you can generate when everything is caught on video and then live-streamed.”

Liam winced. “How many views?”

“Far too many.” Matt lifted his glass in a sarcastic salute. “I’ve got to admit, when Teresa messes up, she does it properly.”

“She didn’t know her brother was in town, never mind that he was going to do that,” Liam retorted.

“So defending her seems to be your default reaction tonight,” Matt commented, hitting the nail on its head.

Liam sent his best friend a hard stare. “What’s your point, Matt?”

“It’s been one drama after another with her, starting with the fact that you thought she had an affair with your dad.”

“She explained that. My father was her mentor and good friend.”

Matt rolled his eyes. “They had to be very good friends for him to leave Teresa a twenty-five-percent stake in Christopher Corporation worth millions.”

When Matt put it like that, all his fears and insecurities about their relationship floated to the surface. Was he being conned? Could he believe Teresa’s version of what happened? In his final hours, Linus did confirm that there had been nothing between them but friendship and Liam wanted to believe him, them. But he’d been raised to believe that everyone lied so how the hell could he trust anything they said? Anything anybody said?

He thought he could, at least, trust his parents to some degree but their latest lie had been the biggest of his life. As his father lay dying, he realized that it was scientifically impossible that his parents, with their blood groups, could produce a child with his blood group. Ergo, either only one of them was his biological parent or he was adopted. Hell of a thing to realize at the age of thirty-two.

Was it any wonder he was so messed up when it came to relationships?

It was late and Liam was done with talking. He wanted this conversation to end so he told Matt that Teresa wanted nothing more to do with him. Liam caught the look of relief on Matt’s face. “You’re happy about that?”

Matt shook his head. “Happy is the wrong word...” He sat up, swinging his feet off the table. “It’s just that relationships shouldn’t be this hard, bud. Over the past few months you’ve thought that she’s a liar, a gold digger and an opportunist. You’ve slept with her and then slept with other women.”

No, he hadn’t. “I tried to sleep with someone else to get her out of my system.”

Matt waved his explanation away. “Whatever. She hit the tabloids, dragging you along with her. Those scum-suckers informed the world that she had an affair with your father and that she only slept with Linus to get her hands on the company.”

He knew this. He’d goddamn lived it. “Do you have a point and are you going to get to it in the near future?”

“My point is that, while I actually like Teresa—”

“You could’ve fooled me.” Liam’s interjection was bone-dry.

“I do like her,” Matt said. “She’s smart, super-organized and she’s an amazing event planner. Yeah, I’m mad as hell that tonight ended the way it did, but intellectually, I get that it wasn’t her fault. But her career did not need this and if she was boycotted before, it’s going to be nothing like what’s going to happen to her now.”

Liam gripped the bridge of his nose. God.

Matt’s long sigh was audible. “But at the end of the day, my loyalty is to you. And, as your friend, I am telling you that I don’t think she is good for you because, frankly, you look like crap.”

Well, that wasn’t news.

“Are you in love with her?”

Liam’s head shot up and his eyes slammed into Matt’s. His throat closed as panic crept up. In his sappier moments lately, he’d flirted with the idea of love, but that was just a result of hormones and stupendous sex. No, of course he wasn’t in love with Teresa; he didn’t believe in love. But he was attracted to her, stupidly so. And attraction was easily confused for that other emotion. He croaked a “No.”

Matt stood up and gripped his shoulder. “Can I then just point out that this woman you profess not to love has the innate ability to mess with your head and your life? That’s an enormous amount of power for someone you just like to sleep with.”

Craphelldammit.

“Go to bed, Matt.”

Matt smiled for the first time that evening. “Yep, that’s where I’m heading. Into the arms of the woman who, instead of messing with my head and life, actually makes my life better and brighter.”

Liam glared at his friend as he walked back into the hotel room and thought about returning to his own suite, to the empty king-size bed waiting for him. But the night was mild, this sofa was quite comfortable and he had a bottle to keep him company. And really, he had too much on his mind to sleep.

Liam lay back and tucked a pillow under his head and watched the light of airplanes move between the stars.

* * *

Right, exactly what level of hell had she reached?

Teresa St. Claire had experienced hot—Liam Christopher believing that she’d had an affair with his father—and knew what blistering felt like when her face was plastered over the front pages of the tabloid press accusing her of stealing Liam’s fortune.

But tonight she’d stood inside the flames, her skin melting.

Now, as Brooks Abbingdon’s jet cut through the dark night, Teresa felt frozen, her heart encased in dry ice. Maybe true hell was this dead-on-the-inside, will-never-recover feeling.

Teresa flopped down into the chair opposite Brooks Abbingdon and eyed her brother through half-closed eyes. A bright blue bruise colored his jaw, and his lower lip was swollen. She loved Joshua, but right now she didn’t like him even a little bit. The only man she felt remotely charitable toward was Brooks Abbingdon, who’d offered her a ride out of the nightmare that was her latest professional disaster zone. He was also sitting across from her, ankle on his knee, deep in thought.

Teresa swallowed down a groan and felt her stomach cramp. Her reputation, along with her company, had been dancing on the knife-edge of ruin for weeks but her brother gate-crashing her most illustrious clients’ gala evening and, worse, grabbing the mic from singer Jessie Humphrey and placing himself front and center while ranting about rich losers and liars had pushed her off that sliver-thin edge.

And since she would be, if she wasn’t already, person very non grata by morning, why had Brooks Abbingdon, CEO of Abbingdon Airlines, rushed to her rescue? He was rich, successful and gorgeous so she had no idea why he’d offered them a lift on his plane heading back to Seattle. But she wasn’t complaining; she needed to get Joshua back under the radar as soon as possible and Brooks had offered her a way out.

Joshua was hunched over in his seat, mumbling to himself. Thank God he’d stopped ranting, his words and sentences not making any sense.

Teresa couldn’t pull her eyes off his face. Joshua had been a pain in her ass, especially these past few years, but he was her baby brother; she’d always looked after him. Initially, she’d blamed his actions on a combination of drugs and alcohol, but earlier she’d touched his left arm and he’d cried out. Teresa rolled back his sleeveshirt to see a small but distinctive puncture mark on his forearm. In a place where it would be difficult for him to self-inject. Like so much else about this night, nothing made sense.

But hell, why was she surprised? This was her insane life; everything and anything was possible.

Teresa looked from Joshua to Brooks and found his eyes studying her. Teresa waited for the kick of attraction, for a spark, and sighed when nothing happened. Maybe she wasn’t responding to him because she was exhausted and overwrought because Brooks was everything she normally found attractive in a man. At six-four or so, he was tall but perfectly proportioned with wide shoulders, narrow hips and long, muscular legs. His voice, carrying the accent of an expensive British education, was deep and luscious, his face masculine and sexy, and his skin the color of old sepia photographs.

But he wasn’t, dammit, Liam.

Gah!

As if she’d summoned him, Teresa heard the discreet beep of her phone and there was his name, flashing on the screen. Her heart whimpered and her stomach clenched. Nope, she couldn’t talk to him, not tonight, possibly never again. For the past few months, since she’d stumbled back into his orbit, she’d felt off-kilter and was constantly uncertain about what she’d face on any given day. She’d been a duck, serene on the outside but paddling like hell under the water. As a result, she was utterly drained on just about every level. Tonight she’d bled out every pint of energy she’d ever possessed.

Teresa simply did not know if she’d be able to pick her head up, struggle on. Curling up in a ball and weeping sounded far more fun than fighting another day.

She was done. Possibly for good.

Brooks cleared his throat and Teresa lifted her head to see him holding out a tumbler of whiskey. Taking the glass, she glanced at Joshua. He’d fallen asleep, his head between the edge of the seat and the wall of the plane. Tossing back her whiskey, she lowered the glass and met Brooks’s sympathetic eyes.

“Would you like another?” Brooks asked, his words holding the snap of Eton and Oxford.

Teresa shook her head. “If I do, I’ll collapse in a heap and then you will have two St. Claires to deal with.”

Teresa blew out her breath and gestured to Joshua. “I am so sorry. I know I’m repeating myself, but I don’t know how he found out where I was working or what prompted him to—” She hesitated, looking for words. Destroy my career? Embarrass the hell out of me? Bankrupt my business? “—do what he did.”

Brooks lifted his shoulder in a quick shrug. When he didn’t respond, Teresa took a deep breath and bit the bullet. “I will absolutely understand if you want to rescind your offer to have me plan your wedding.”

Brooks stared at her for a long time and Teresa resisted the urge to squirm. She wouldn’t blame him if he pulled his offer for her to plan his wedding; he’d floated the offer earlier that evening, back at the gala, before her carefully planned event went to hell on horseback.

Unbidden, snapshots of the evening jumped onto the big screen of her mind. Joshua ripping the microphone from Jessie’s hand, his incoherent screaming. Liam, bigger and stronger than her lanky brother, tackling him to the ground, his fist connecting with Joshua’s face. And all of it streaming live to Jessie’s fans around the world.

Teresa placed her hand on her heart and tried to rub the pain away. But nope, it wasn’t going anywhere.

Brooks tapped a long finger against the Waterford tumbler and shook his head. “Up until your brother’s unfortunate interruption, the gala evening, and the weekend, was going well. I’m intelligent enough to see how much work you put into the preparations and how dedicated you are to your job. What he did wasn’t your fault.”

At the unexpected vote of support, Teresa felt her eyes sting. “Thank you.”

“Let’s discuss my wedding.”

Teresa frowned. It was close to three in the morning, she was exhausted and, after a crappy evening, Brooks wanted her to talk flowers and food? Teresa slapped back her frustration. He was offering her a lifeboat as she treaded water in a stormy sea.

Okay, then. She’d talk weddings. “Sure.”

Then she realized that she had no idea who Brooks was marrying and, come to think of it, was still surprised to hear of his engagement. She’d pegged him as a confirmed bachelor, someone who wasn’t interested in settling down. She pulled a smile up onto her face. “Who’s the lucky lady?”

Brooks stared at her for a moment, his eyes not leaving hers. “You will be informed in due course.”

Okay, then. That was a super-weird response. Teresa worked hard not to show her shock, to react in any way other than polite acquiescence. Why the secrecy? Wasn’t the bride supposed to be part of these discussions? What was going on here?

Her thoughts scrambling, Teresa linked her hands around her knees and tried to corral her thoughts. Right, moving on. “Do you have a preference on where you would like to marry? When? How many guests? What’s your budget?”

Brooks held her eyes when he dropped what Teresa hoped would be the last bombshell of the evening. “You have an unlimited budget and I’m offering to pay double your normal fee.”

“What’s the catch?” she asked, not sure that she wanted to know.

Brooks smiled. “I need you to organize the wedding of the year so that it can take place on the thirtieth.”

“Of what month?” She needed at least six months to prepare; six months was tight but doable.

Brooks held her eye and didn’t flinch. “I’m getting married on the last Saturday of this month, Teresa.”

Two weeks?

Frick.

Teresa held out her glass and nodded to the whiskey bottle. “Can I have another? And, respectfully, are you insane? There is no way I can plan a wedding in two weeks.”

Brooks pulled out his phone and dialed. “She said she can’t do it,” he said to the person on the other line. He then handed her the phone. “He wants to talk to you.”