They looked at each other and then away while the silent tension between them crackled. On some deep level, she drew him. Her incredible blond beauty alone made her unforgettable. Then there was her fame. Hell, how could he forget her when her face was plastered on the covers of gossip magazines and cheap, weekly newspapers?
She was everywhere.
Only a few days ago he hadn’t been able to resist reading the latest about her budding romance with Hugh Jones in one of those sensational newspapers he despised. He’d grabbed it off a wire shelf in a drugstore and jammed it into his briefcase. He’d carried it up to his office and pored over the story that went with the front-page photo of the famous couple sharing a kiss. Summer had claimed they were just friends, but Jones had expounded about how crazy they were about each other. Which one of them was lying?
Probably her.
Zach had wadded the newspaper and thrown it in the trash. In his penthouse suite, staring out at the city of Houston, which was littered with the skyscrapers he’d built and owned, he’d never felt more isolated.
She had a life-perhaps she even loved that famous, egotistical movie star-while he had only his fierce ambition and immense wealth. He’d gone through his contact list on his smart phone, called a beautiful blonde who resembled Summer and asked her out. But that night, after dinner, when she’d invited him up to her loft, he’d said he had to work. Driving home, feeling empty and more alone than ever, he’d burned for Summer.
So, he’d seized his opportunity. He’d used her brother to get her here.
“Coffee?” His attorney’s pretty secretary offered from the doorway.
“No,” Zach thundered without even bothering to ask Summer, for whom he felt irrational fury because she wouldn’t stop consuming his thoughts.
He wasn’t in the mood for niceties. When the secretary left and Summer’s long-lashed, legendary violet-blue eyes flicked in alarm, he felt as if she’d sucker punched him in the gut. Damn her, for having this much power over him.
His heart hardened against her knockout beauty even as other parts of his body hardened because of it. He wished he could forget the softness of her breast and the firmness of her butt and the sweet taste of her lips. He wished he didn’t ache to hold her and touch her again. He wanted to kiss her and force her to forget all about Jones.
How many others had there been in her bed since Zach? Legions, he imagined with a rush of bitterness. A Broadway star with a face and figure like hers, not to mention a budding movie career, could have anybody- directors, producers, actors, fans.
Hell, she had Hugh Jones, didn’t she? But was she as responsive when Jones touched her? Had Zach only imagined she’d been pushing against Jones, trying to free herself, when that picture had been taken?
None of it mattered. Zach wanted her in his bed with an all-consuming hunger. And he was determined to have her.
As if she read his thoughts, she flushed and glanced down, staring at her white, ice-pick heels rather than at him. Still, her sultry voice made him burn when she whispered, almost shyly, “Sorry I’m late. Traffic. I had to go by Gram’s first…to check on Tuck.”
“How’s he doing?” Zach asked, standing up and placing his hand on the back of the chair he intended to offer her.
He’d found Tuck drunk and unconscious on the living-room floor of Zach’s new house. The garage doors had been open, and Zach’s Lamborghini and second Mercedes had been missing.
Fortunately, Zach had come home unexpectedly and had caught two of Tuck’s friends, also drunk, ransacking his house, or he might have suffered worse losses. Since then, the automobiles had been found abandoned in New Orleans.
Zach blamed himself, in part, for not having hired an appropriate staff for the house.
“Tuck’s doing okay.” Summer answered his question as she stepped farther into the room, her legs as light and graceful as a dancer’s, her silky white dress flowing against her hips. He remembered how sexy she’d looked when she’d bent over in her short shorts on her grandmother’s porch.
And why shouldn’t she be graceful and sexy? She was a performer, a highly paid one. Everything she did was part of a deliberate, well-rehearsed act. Maybe the kiss they’d shared when she’d seemed to quiver so breathlessly had been a performance, as well.
She sat down in the chair he’d indicated and crossed her legs prettily. He stayed on his feet because staring down at her gave him the advantage.
Even though he knew what she was, and what she was capable of, the years slid away. Again he was sixteen, the bad new homeless kid in school with the sullen, bruised face. Everybody had been scared of him. Summer had been the popular, pampered high-school freshman, a princess who’d had every reason to feel superior to him.
People talked in a town the size of Bonne Terre. Everybody knew everybody. Nobody approved of Nick dragging such a rough kid home and foisting him upon the school. Thurman Wallace had even demanded Zach be thrown out.
Only Summer, who’d been a precocious thirteen and two years ahead of her age in school, hadn’t looked down on Zach. Not even when all the other kids and her step-daddy thought she should. No, even on that first day, when Roger Nelson, a football star, had demanded to know what Zach had done to make a guy hate him so much he’d beaten him nearly to death, she’d butted in and defended him.
“Maybe that’s not what happened,” she’d said. “Maybe Zach was in the right, defending himself, and the other guy was in the wrong. We don’t know.”
“So what happened, Torr?” Nelson had demanded.
“Why should I tell you?”
“See, he’s trash, Pollyanna,” Nelson had jeered. “Anybody can see that!”
“Well, then maybe I’m blind, because I can’t,” she’d insisted. “I see a person who needs a friend.”
Not long after that Summer had become his secret best friend.
The memories slipped away, and Zach was heatedly aware of the woman seated before him.
As if she couldn’t resist using her power on him, Summer tipped her head his way, sending that thick curtain of blond hair over her shoulders as her blue eyes burned into the center of his soul.
“Zach, thanks for getting Tuck medical attention so fast. They said you had specialists flown in from Houston.” Her face was soft, beguilingly grateful.
Clenching a fist, he jammed it in a pocket. He wasn’t buying into her gratitude. Not when he knew she’d do anything to keep her brother from being arrested.
“The doctors are personal friends of mine in Houston. It was either fly them here or airlift him to New Orleans. He was out cold. He had a bump the size of a hen’s egg on his head and a gash that needed stitches, so I wanted to make sure he was just drunk and that there was no serious head injury involved.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“I don’t see any need for us to make a big deal about something anyone would have done.”
“You paid for everything, too. We have insurance. If you’ll invoice me, I’ll-”
“You’ll pay me. Fine,” he growled.
He was blown away by his feelings. He wanted her so badly he could think of nothing else, and she was coldly talking money.
“You said you wanted to see me. I’ve talked to Tuck, and he feels terrible about everything that happened. He had no idea those boys were going to steal anything or tear up your house. The last thing he remembers is hearing a noise in the garage and stumbling across the living room to check it out. Then he must have tripped.”
“Oh, really? What about the money that went missing when he was fired from his last job? Your brother’s been running pretty wild all summer. He’s nineteen. Old enough to know what the guys he runs around with are capable of.”
“He was just showing off. They said they’d never seen a billionaire’s place. He wanted to impress them.”
“He shouldn’t have invited them over or given them my whiskey.”
“I agree, and so does he…now. He just didn’t think.”
“Your Tuck’s had too many run-ins with the law for me to buy into his innocence. He’s been indulged in Bonne Terre. Maybe because he’s a Wallace.”
“That’s what this is about, isn’t it-his last name? You were hoping something like this would happen. You deliberately hired my trouble-prone brother, set him up, so you could get back at me.”
