The Tycoon's Tender Triumph

The Tycoon’s Tender Triumph          
             
                                                       Elizabeth Lennox                     

Chapter 1

Chloe slipped out of the
comfortable sedan
nervously, forcing a smile to her face as David came around to help her out. 

“Dinner was very nice,” she said anxiously and glanced up at her apartment
, feeling the cold air on her cheeks and ignoring the scent of garlic and onions on David’s breath
. 
Was there any way at all to escape the next few awkward hours?  She cared for David but she just wasn’t in the mood to be with him. 

The thought struck her that,
recently,
she rarely wanted to be alone with him
because of the increasing pressure she felt to take their relationship to the next level
.  As she pulled the heavy apartment gate open so they could both walk through, she realized that she didn’t particularly like kissing David.  What was wrong with her?  He was an attractive guy.  All her friends in
the
office envied her whenever he came to take her out to lunch.  His b
lond, blue eyed good looks combined with a great smile made the
other women
sigh
whenever he tossed one of his
winks
their way. 

So why didn’t his gentle touch
make her heart race?  Why couldn’t she be
even slightly
attracted to him?  Why, why why
?
  She hated this! 
It wasn’t fair that one man
from her past
could affect her so dramatically, leaving all other men mere shadows of his memory
.  Would it be like this forever?  Would she always be comparing her current boyfriend to that one
man who had loomed so large throughout her childhood
?  Or was it just lately?  It was probably just those
irritating
letters, she though
t
, pressing the button on the elevator more firmly than she needed to. 

“Ouch!” she gasped, looking down at her finger and groaning when she’d hit the button so hard she’d broken her fingernail. 

David took her hand in his and kissed the end of her finger.  It was a sweet gesture, but because it was David, the touch left her unmoved and feeling guilty because of it. 

In an effort to get more in the spirit of the night, she smiled engagingly up at David.  She cringed only slightly when she saw his eyes flare with excitement but she managed not to step backward. 

He put an arm around her waist and pulled her closer as the elevator rose through the various floors. 
“
You look beautiful tonight
,” he said softly and took her hand to lead her into
the hallway once the doors opened up
.

Chloe sighed heavily.  Maybe tonight would be different, she thought sadly. 
He certainly seemed to be different tonight. 

“Are you warm enough?” he asked when they reached
her floor
and she shivered s
l
ightly.  He wrapped his arm around her but Chloe couldn’t help but feel awkward with his affection.

“I’m fine,” she replied, but couldn’t look in his eyes.  He was going to kiss her, she thought sadly.  And it would be yet another disappointment. 

Chloe walked beside him down the hallway to her apartment, wishing things were different.  She desperately wished she’d never
met that other one, hadn’t seen him struggling to make his way in the world and grown to respect him so much, to admire his determination and intelligence.  No man could match him and she should just leave him in the past and get on with her life. 

Sam Marchant was not the man for her and she needed to get over her silly infatuation with him. 

Who was she kidding?  All other men looked anemic compared to that other man.  Unlocking her door with more force than was necessary, she pushed that man’s physique out of her mind
and forced herself to focus on David
. 
Sam
was nothing to her.  And never had been.  Just because they’d shared a
few dinners
while she was in college
, one every few months when he
flew into
town
, that didn’t mean that she was ruined for other men.  So the
evenings
had been wonderful, leaving her knees weak and her
heart pounding with her infatuation
. 
It had also hurt horribly when she’d seen the society papers showing him with another woman the following night. 

Every time, no matter where she was in the world, from the time she turned eighteen he’d called her up and invited her to dinner.  At first, those nights had been magical.  He was so
witty, so fun to be with and amazingly
handsome
with his dark hair, tall, powerful stature and a five o’clock shadow no matter what time of the day it was.  S
he’d always been proud to be on his arm.

But when she’d realized the pattern, that
the second night he was in town
he’d always go somewhere more
glamorous
with a stunningly gorgeous woman on his arm, clinging to him and usually smiling up at his handsome face
just as the camera captured their entrance or exit, she started refusing
his invitations.  She’d gotten smart enough not to put herself in a position to be hurt by his betrayal. 

It wasn’t even a true betrayal, which almost hurt more, because he would always preface every invitation with the comment that he wanted to check up on her for her dad.  In the beginning, she’d assumed the excuse was just that, an excuse to see her.  But when she’d consi
stently read about his exploits the next night, she had to accept that it wasn’t an excuse. 
Sam
really thought of her as a kid
no matter how many activities she joined or classes she took,
and
Sam really
was just checking up on her.  He would never see her as
an adult
woman, someone he might consider in a more romantic way. 
Chloe was destined to remain in the “kid sister” category to Sam. 

A few years ago, she
stopped accepting his invitations, ignorin
g the stunned silence when she
explained that she was too busy, or too tired or whatever popped into her mind.  And
when that became too hard, she
simply stopped answering his calls, stopped returning them and ignored her father’s comments that she should
check in with him “because Sam cared” about her
.

It was better all around when
she cut off communication.  A heart could only take so much, she told herself. 

And now he was on her mind more, popping into her dreams, making her inefficient at work because she found herself thinking about him, wondering how he was and if he was still as successful as he’d been before she’d gone off to college. 

It was only because of the phone calls and letters that she’d been thinking of him lately.  As she opened her door, she quickly glanced down at the mail littering her doorway and cringed when she saw yet another letter with that bold
, powerful
scrawl. 

Glancing at
her voice mail, sure enough, she noticed t
he red light was blinking. 
Chloe
ignored it for the moment, turning back to
David
and smiling.  “I’ll make some coffee,” she suggested and slipped into the kitchen, depositing her meager stack of mail onto the small kitchen table that took up half the space in the tiny
area
.  “Do you want decaf or are you working again tonight
and need the full force kind
?” she asked, hiding her face in the fridge, afraid that he might see the anger in her eyes. 

Those letters did it to her every time, she thought
furiously
.  Why couldn’t he just leave her alone?  She
didn’t understand
why he was calling her.  Their only connection, her father,
was firmly ensconced in his cottage style house on the edge of Sam’s property
. 
She knew they were friends but
that didn’t make Sam
her friend
. 
As a kid, she had
idolized Sam, had followed him around like a puppy every summer while she
tried to learn anything there was to know about horses
and was always impressed when she came back each summer to see more progress
on
his ranch.  He’d done well over the year
s
and she’d considered him a very good friend when she visited her father each summer. 

Until the dinners
he’d taken her out to
while she was away at college. 
The pictures of his lady loves in the newspapers the following nights also helped her get a grip on her rampaging infatuation
she thought miserably, pulling cream out of the
refrigerator
since she knew
David
liked his coffee
more brown than black
. 

Turning around, she almost dropped the cream when she saw what he was holding. 
“What are you doing?” she gasped, seeing him with the letters in his
soft
hands.  All six of them. 

“Why would you be getting letters from Sam Marchant?” he asked, a confused look on his face
as he counted the unopened envelopes
. 

“Sam
is
my father’s neighbor,” she explained and turned away to dump coffee grounds in the coffee maker.  “I have no idea what he wants.”

David hesitated a moment as he looked down at the address on the envelopes. 
“
There’s a Sam Marchant that owns half of Texas as well as probably five other states.  He’s into just about every different kind of business around.  Surely these letters aren’t from the same guy,” he stated, then his eyes glanced at the Texas return address and his expression
became perplexed
.  And wary.  “
Are we talking about the same Sam Marchant?” he asked, almost whispering the name as if Sam might hear him from thousands of miles away. 

Chloe gritted her teeth
, her brown eyes sparkling with frustration
.  “Why does everyone refer to him in that manner?  It isn’t like he’s royalty or anything like that.”

David
chuckled.  “He might as well be.  He’s one of the richest men in the world.” 
David
was shaking his head.  “And why would he be sending you a letter he wrote personally?  A man like that probably has dozens of secretaries to do all of his administrative work.”

Chloe shrugged, pretending like talking about Sam didn’t make her stomach clench with fear and frustration.  “I don’t know.  Why don’t you ask him?”

He raised his eyebrows at her defensive response but she didn’t see that, since she was concentrating on watching the coffee drip out of the coffee maker. 
“Why haven’t you opened the letters?”

She tossed the spoon into the sink, cringing when it made a loud noise in the small apartment.  “Because I don’t like him.  Whatever he has to say, he can…” she struggled
to find
words that wouldn’t be too revealing.  “Well, I just don’t like him.”

David
laughed
but she could see the surprise in his face
.  “What’s not to like?  From what the papers say, he’s wealthy beyond description, charming
,
the
press
are always quoting him with his humorous little quips and,” he took on a teasing voice as he said, “some women might think he’s handsome.”

“I don’t,” she said adamantly, then cringed slightly when she realized she might have been too loud in her refusal. 
“His hair is too dark, he’s irritatingly tall and he throws his weight around like he’s some sort of…” she struggled to find the right word, “jerk,” she finished lamely.