Page 4 of Shopping for an Heir
Time had filed off some of the hard corners, made him more approachable.
Shock and lust and joy and guardedness all stared at her through gemstone irises the color of the sky.
“Mr. Wright?” She used the title because she needed a boundary, no matter how invented.
Calm and cool, she took two more steps.
And froze.
Because just past Gerald, a vision of nude perfection stood on an elevated platform, a flesh-feast for the eyes, and Suzanne Dayton might have been nervous, but she wasn’t dead.
“Oh,” she said, her voice low and impressed by the class model, a man with dark green eyes, thick brown hair, and a chiseled body that made the David look kinda just okay.
You know.
Meh.
Skin not just kissed by the sun, but French-kissed with a reach-around thrown in for good measure, went on for miles. The man on the stage was tall and browned, muscles braided into cords that curled and straightened, tightened and loosened, the kinesthetic calibration a muscular symphony without sound. A feast for the eyes, and as he turned in place, she watched the domino effect of ribs and intercostal muscle rippling down his torso, the hypnotic effect triggering a deep ache.
And then she looked back at Gerald.
Who had never stopped looking at her.
The ache intensified.
“You two know each other?” Hot Nude Greek God Guy asked. He stood up from the stool on which he was perched and looked at her, then Gerald, his eyes filled with questions. Casual and comfortable, he had zero self-consciousness about being naked in a room full of more than thirty people.
She tried very, very hard not to look between his legs.
She failed.
“You’re ruining the work, Declan! Sit down!” snapped an old lady in the front row. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to train my hands to manage an asymmetrical ball sac?”
“That’s what she said,” groaned someone from the back row.
“I like this view better,” said another one, wearing a blond wig. “Stay right there. Everything dangles where it should be. By the time my husband was eighty, his balls were close to his knees.”
The nude model took a step toward her, his body fluid and tight, all his skin drawn over compact muscle that looked like it belonged right where it was, exacting and calibrated. He had thick eyebrows, an expressive face, but one that stayed neutral now. She frowned, forcing herself to study his face after realizing she was a bit more consumed by observing the rest of him.
Declan.
Declan?
“Declan McCormick?” she gasped, the pieces fitting. “The Montgomery Trust? Anterdec?” Elena Montgomery had been married to James McCormick, and upon her death, her three sons had come into a substantial family trust, one that Suzanne helped to manage. Once a year, she met with the three McCormick sons.
She’d never seen Declan quite like this before.
Unable to stop herself, her eyes combed over the fine details of his cut body, the shoulders broad, arms toned as if sculpted by hands like Gerald’s, the eight-pack of abs a work of art in flesh form. His waist narrowed to inverted Vs of muscle at the hips, a smattering of dark hair on olive-toned skin a delightful vision. The man was tanned, with thick thighs featuring an array of rippling muscle, hardened by years of exertion, graced by good bones and genes but maintained by sheer will and steady discipline.
She felt her mouth go dry and water at the same time.
Gerald moved with that bold swiftness she knew well, inserting himself between the nude model and her, reaching for her arm and pulling her toward the open classroom door. His touch electrified her, the sudden rush of her pulse sending blood through her like a sonic boom. Gerald smelled like clay and paint, with a faint undertone of sweat and coffee. If you added sand and sunshine, she’d think it was a decade past.
He smelled like home. Like love. Like promise and comfort, like passion and disbelief.
“What’s wrong?” he snapped, his face alternating between joy and anger. “Why are you here?”
Coming to her senses, she extracted the thick envelope from her brief bag, looking him square in the eye. “Legal matter. I’ve been instructed to deliver this to you.” She used remarkable restraint in not peering around Gerald to get more of an eyeful of Declan McCormick’s stately form.
Then again, Gerald was an impenetrable wall of muscle himself, not easily subverted. She’d need taller heels to peer around him. He did not move his palm from her arm, and his touch infused her, a deeply satisfying sense of connection slowly creeping along her skin, her breath quickening, his touch ringing bells inside her that had been dormant for a decade.
“What is it?”
“Read it. You’ll understand.” She turned on her heel and started to leave, shaking inside so hard she might trigger the New Madrid fault.
He glared at her. “What? That’s it? Ten years and that’s it?” He pulled back, breaking contact.
All her anxiety faded, like an antidote injected straight into the heart, his words kicking in, providing such clarity.
“Ten years you chose, Gerald,” she hissed, mouth curling, throat seizing. “You do not get to put this on me.” Grief flared in her, a burst like a fireball, and then it turned to the ash of anger, a light coat settling over every spare surface of her heart.
His eyebrows shot up, eyes gliding away, his nose twitching and mouth tightening as if holding back.
Squaring her shoulders, Suzanne decided to make this easy for him. God only knew why. “My law firm is handling the estate of deceased billionaire Harold Hopewell. You’ve been named in his will.” She tapped the thick envelope in his hand. “These papers explain everything.”
“Explain what?”
“You’re his heir. One of them, at least.”
At that moment, a leaky pipe released a drop that went ker-plunk into a ragged bucket on the floor.
“How can I be an heir to a guy I don’t even know?” His words were about the dead billionaire, but she knew he was just trying to engage her. Make her stay.
She looked around. She had to get out of there. “Read the papers. If you have any questions, my office number is on the letterhead.” Turning to go, she felt his gaze on her, like a touch.
“Suzanne.” His voice was low and filled with ten years of yearning. “Please.”
Please.
Of all the words she’d imagined Gerald saying to her when they finally saw each other again, that was the last one she’d ever expected to hear.
If she pivoted and caught his eye, she’d cry. Or scream. Or worse—stand there pleading with him to take her back, to undo ten years of heartache, to atone for the unspeakable pain of being unceremoniously dumped and left brokenhearted, shattered into a thousand pieces before she was stateside, left to unpack her meager civilian belongings in her parents’ house in Minnesota and try not to talk about anything but her future.
Frozen, she stood a few feet from the doorway, the weight of her brief bag pulling on her shoulder, anchoring her in place. If he touched her again, she’d melt.
If he touched her again, she’d explode.
If she just stood there, letting her pulse pound through her like a helicopter blade whipping through too much thick wind, she would never move.
Slowly, with painstaking intent, she did swivel, her heels nearly choreographed for a dance she couldn’t avoid. Meeting his eyes, she let herself feel all the emotions at once, uncensored, but only for a few seconds.
He didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. Just met her look head-on, the power of seconds ticking by without reprieve from each other’s look growing.
“Please what?”
“Please stay after class and talk with me.”
“I can’t,” she announced in a firm voice. “I have a date.”
Anger could do the most extraordinary things to eyes. She watched it fill his irises, clouds of ozone and shock stuffed into two orbs that looked at her through a furrowed brow.
“You know where to find me,” she said, nudging her nose toward the thick packet in his hand. She made a huffing laugh. “Then again, you always have.”
And with that, she took one very obvious gander at nude Declan McCormick, gave him a smile and a thumbs-up, and marched out of Gerald’s class, down the hallway, and into the warm late-summer night.
It was all she could do not to scream.
Chapter 3
Gerald willed his hands not to shake when he took the shot, sending a yellow-striped nine ball into the corner pocket, making him stripes, Declan solids.
“I have to hear this story,” Declan said, watching as Gerald set up for his next shot.
“Ten in the left corner pocket,” Gerald replied. Eyeing the shot, he lined up the cue, discerning the perfect angle, the exact spot on the table edge where he could get the ball’s trajectory in alignment to go where his mind’s eye saw it.
“How do you know Suzanne Dayton?” Declan asked, just as Gerald was taking the shot. He damn near ripped the table cover with a jagged push of surprise.
“How the hell do you know Suzanne?” Gerald growled, a burst of fire pulsing through him, heating his skin as he stopped breathing. If Declan ever dated her...
“Business.”
Gerald inhaled.
“Her firm handles my mother’s family trust. Once a year, we have a lovely two-hour meeting. She’s been at the table for the past seven years. Junior associate at first, now full partner.”
