At Your Service (Silhouette Desire) (17 page)

Her body moved toward him, pulled by the force of his desire, his love, and she didn’t stop herself. It was unthinkable to leave. Her hand found itself clasped and a final tug pulled her neatly to his side, where she’d found so much security such a brief time before. She felt anything but secure now.

“I want to help you, Grace.”

“You can’t help me with this.” Her body arced to merge with his. “Just love me. Love me no matter what.”

His promise was written in the strokes of his hands on her skin and he loved her as she wept.

Standing at the door of the penthouse suite at the Drake Hotel, her hand clammy on the doorknob, she held the memory of Tyler’s loving in her mind and took strength from it. Her heartbeat slowed, her thoughts stopped racing around in circles, her muscles unclenched. Two deep breaths and she opened the door.

Conversation halted instantly and heads swiveled toward her as the thirteen men and women in the room rose to their feet.

“Good afternoon. Thank you for agreeing to this impromptu meeting, particularly on such short notice. If you’ll all take your seats, please, I’d like to get right down to business.”

Her voice remained calm and steady, she was pleased to note as she moved to the head of the conference table around which they all sat themselves.

“I’ve asked you all here to clear up some unfortunate misunderstandings regarding the availability, individually or as a whole, of the restaurants of the Haley Group. As I understand you have had face-to-face meetings with various representatives of my firm, I thought it more appropriate to break the bad news and to express my regrets in person. At this time, ladies and gentlemen, the bottom line is that none of the assets of the Haley Group are for sale. I know you have all been led to believe otherwise, and I apologize for that.”

She paused to let her words sink in. Almost immediately, the clamor began.

“Not for sale?”

“I’ve got the paperwork in hand—”

“My investors are already prepared to—”

Grace allowed them to rattle on for a minute before raising her hands. Several more minutes passed until the prospective buyers settled down to silence, or at least to muttering under their breath.

“As I stated,” she emphasized, “I am aware that you have all been recently engaged in negotiations to purchase one or more of the Haley properties. And I am very sorry that said negotiations were entered into by one of our board members under false pretenses.”

A portly gentleman whose suit buttons were straining to contain a belly that evidenced a great deal of time spent in the dining industry was the first to speak directly to her.

“Madam, it was your very own fiancé who offered me first refusal on the purchase of any and all of your restaurants.”

That damn word again.

The rising level of grumbling indicated that he had not been the only one present to receive that same offer.

“Corporate infighting is so irritating, isn’t it?” She smiled coldly. “Our publicity department was mistakenly instructed to print that engagement announcement. Mr. Huntington is merely the visible president of the Haley Group, and a minor shareholder at that, who has allowed his personal greed to overstep the bounds of good sense, not to mention the bounds of his authority.”

“Are you telling us Charles Huntington is not authorized to sign off on business deals for the Haley Group?” This from a sharply creased woman in unrelieved black. Her pinched expression indicated severe displeasure, not to mention skepticism.

“That is exactly correct. As the owner of fifty percent of the corporation—” she indicated herself “—my approval is necessary for any major business decisions, and I can assure you that I have not approved any of these offers.” She smiled gently now and began the process of easing them into acceptance of this sudden about-face. “I understand, of course, that after the merry chase you’ve been led, you might be inclined to doubt my statements without some further reassurance as to their validity. Which is why I invited our corporate attorney, Mr. Franklin O’Connell, to join us today, so that he can verify what I’m telling you. Franklin?”

The attorney rose from his seat at the table and nodded. She continued.

“It occurs to me that some refreshments might be appropriate while we continue our discussion. Please feel free to speak with Mr. O’Connell while I arrange things. Thank you.”

Not until she stepped out of the room into an adjoining office did she allow her shoulders to sag with relief. She was going to pull it off. It was there to be read in their faces already. They believed her, based only on her clear self-assurance, and the questions they would ask Franklin would only reinforce the fact that she was the sole authority in the Haley Group. With exactly fifty percent of the corporation in her name, she couldn’t sell off any part of the Haley Group herself, either, but she could certainly block the moves made by Charles and her mother.

She’d just done exactly that.

Picking up the phone, she punched in the number for room service and placed her order, directing them to send the server in with a passkey, so as not to interrupt the meeting with a knock. She stopped for one last glance at herself in the mirror before heading back into the battle zone.

Her hair was perfect. Her hair, her makeup, her Chanel suit and heels, all fit her as if she were born to wear them. And indeed she had been. But she’d unconsciously put her hair up in the same chignon she’d worn to work at Tyler’s, and the contrast between her image there and the one that faced her now froze her in place. She felt like two separate women walking around in a single body. One of the women had to be a lie, and she wasn’t sure anymore which one she wanted to be true.

Back around the conference table, the conversation was lively but clearly bowing to the inevitable. When the waiter arrived and discreetly arranged a small banquet table along a side wall, nearly everyone accepted a glass of wine or a cocktail. The large gentleman even availed himself of several cold appetizers, the consumption of which had an immediate positive effect on his mood.

“Why don’t we remove ourselves to a more casual setting, now that it’s clear we won’t be doing any business this afternoon?” he suggested with a vague wave toward the casual arrangement of couches and armchairs at the opposite end of the room.

“An excellent idea,” Grace answered, and walked with him. The remaining investors followed more or less agreeably. At that moment, she knew without a doubt that she’d won. All that was left were the formalities.

When the glasses were emptied and overcoats and furs retrieved from the closet, when she’d shaken the last hand and bid a firm goodbye to Franklin, she closed the door with a click behind the last well-wisher. A couple of drinks and some charmingly prepared snacks, and they had been uniform in cursing that shameful Mr. Huntington, praising her decision to postpone any further discussion of business for the time being, and begging, every last one of them, to be kept in mind if she decided in the future to reconsider selling.

She’d won. The cold sliver in her heart at how she’d been forced to connive and conspire behind the backs of her onetime boyfriend and her family would go away eventually. Franklin was prepared for her resumption of directorial control as of Monday morning. Grace had taken back her life.

She had less than three days to figure out how to break it all to Tyler.

The golden rays of the setting sun shot through the windows of the Tyler’s Bar & Grill and lit up the liqueurs in their glass bottles like rows of jewels reflected in the etched mirror behind them.

To Grace, the slowly dimming light was like a relentless time bomb, ticking out its countdown in a graphic visual display of her eroding time until confession.

She’d managed to avoid intimate conversation with Tyler during the past forty-eight hours, accusing herself of lapsing back into cowardice with every passing minute. As for Tyler, he hadn’t questioned her about a thing, including her late and hurried arrival to work on Friday night. He’d simply greeted her with a grin and gruff, “Get to work, or I’m taking a percentage point off your partnership.” Even with the joke, she could feel him taking a step back from pressuring her, and wanted to tear her hair out with remorse and frustration. His consideration balanced against her deceit seemed an unfair trade.

But for two days she’d taken guilty pleasure in pretending that all was well between them. She’d smiled until her face ached while she worked in perfect harmony with Tyler at the restaurant, and luxuriated in two nights of falling to sleep, tired but cherished, in his arms. When he’d asked her to run the restaurant for him early Sunday morning so he could take care of some long-delayed personal business, she’d agreed with alacrity, happy to be able to pay back some of the debt she owed him.

The bar phone rang, its attached light blinking as a visual reminder. She delivered a Manhattan to one of her regulars at the bar and snagged the phone on the third ring.

“Tyler’s Bar and Grill, this is Grace. How can I help you?”

“Gracie?
Merci.
Thank God it is you.”

“Paul?”

The front door swung open and Tyler strolled in, his casual smile instantly brightening at the sight of her behind the bar. He nodded at his customers, dropped a word or patted a back as he passed them, and ducked under the counter to join her. A loud noise dragged her attention back to the phone.

“Paul? I’m sorry. I wasn’t listening. What are you so frantic about?”

“Frantic? Frantic? I show you frantic. If I catch that stupid fiancé of yours, with my hands around his neck, I show you frantic. That boy,
idiote,
he—”

Tyler was advancing on her with slow, deliberate steps, and the look in his eye drained her of all ability to think. Her muscles grew weak. She fumbled with the phone as it began to tumble from her hand.

“Paul,” she interrupted, “don’t worry about Charles. He can’t do anything now. I’ve taken care of it.” Her lover’s arm curled around her waist and yanked her against his body. “Got to go. Call you soon. ’Bye.”

“But, Gracie, it is necessary to tell you—” His words vanished as she clicked the off button and dropped the phone to the floor.

“Hi.”

“Hi, yourself.”

“How’s my bar doing?”

“F-fine,” she stuttered as his thumb grazed the side of her breast in a slow rise to brush lightly over her lips. Her mind refused to form complete sentences. “Brunch, good. Slow afternoon. Picking up again now.”

“I’ve missed you all day,” he whispered before replacing his thumb with his mouth and short-circuiting her entire system. Her body and brain were still reeling as he pulled slowly away from her with a last caress.

“Who’s Charles?”

“My ex,” she answered without thinking, and instantly felt tricked. The words had slipped out before she had a chance to think and she wondered if that had been his purpose.

“Ex-boyfriend, hmm?” Tyler leaned against the back counter and crossed his arms as he considered her thoughtfully. “He wouldn’t be the guy who’s been troubling you, would he?”

The thought flashed through her mind that he was entirely too close to the mark. This was followed immediately by the idea that she’d never find a better opportunity to tell him the truth.

“Want me to beat him up for you, Gracie?” he teased, and tugged at the ends of her loose hair.

“Tyler…”

“What a charming scene, my dear. I do hope I’m not interrupting.”

The oily tones that snaked into her moment of silence from behind her stiffened her back and iced her blood. It was a voice from her nightmares, one whose power she thought she’d taken away. She realized suddenly how wrong she was about that as Tyler looked over her shoulder.

She knew who he saw.

“Can I help you?” Tyler snapped, placing a hand on her shoulder to hold her still, keeping her back to the room.

“I think not,” came the upper-crust drawl. “Although you’ve clearly been helping yourself to my future wife.”

She felt Tyler’s hand tense and thought he would leap over the bar to defend her. But this was still her battle. Come to confront her in a way she hadn’t expected or wanted, but hers nonetheless. She placed her hand on Tyler’s chest, looked him in the eye and shook her head.

Then she stepped away from him and turned to face him.

“Charles.”

He hadn’t changed, his blond hair sweeping carelessly across his forehead, thin lips pursed as if he smelled something rotten, and soft, delicate hands posed artfully in front of him as if he were concerned that if he touched a surface he might catch something. Even his voice, refined in East Coast prep schools and universities and archly superior, was the same.

“Good evening, Grace.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Slumming, apparently. The same as you are.” His eyes skimmed her clothes doubtfully. “Buying off the rack these days, are we?”

“Stop it, Charles.”

“Really, darling—” he waved vaguely at the small restaurant “—this place could fit in the lobby of Nîce. I can’t believe you’ve been hiding out in this shack all this time.”

“Shut your mouth.” She rapped out the words, her voice raised. Several of the bar patrons shifted on their stools, as if ready to come to her rescue at a word. She saw with pleasure that she’d given Charles a start by yelling at him. He recovered quickly however.

“It seems you’ve found your temper at last. Charming. I can’t imagine that there’s anything else worth sampling here.”

Her fist slammed onto the bar, rattling the glasses.

“Running an announcement in the papers doesn’t make me your wife, Charles, and dining out every night on the company tab doesn’t make you a restaurant critic. You don’t know anything about value and worth. Just trendiness, and money you didn’t have to earn.” Dawning nervousness radiated from the matching blue eyes blinking inches from hers. She didn’t remember thrusting herself over the bar.

“I repeat, what are you doing here?”

“Well…” He paused, drawing a slim gold case from an inside pocket and carefully extracting a narrow, black cigarette. He looked expectantly at her. When she simply waited, motionless, he exhaled audibly and reached into the same pocket for a gold lighter. He proceeded then to press a button and hold the blue flame to the cigarette tip.