Shawna Delacorte - In Forbidden Territory

“Ouch!” Ty expressed the pain of another direct hit to his ego, partly in good fun, but with an underlying layer of reality.

“Mac was right there for me. He stepped in and took care of the rest of my college expenses. I graduated with honors and a dual major in business and industrial design.”

Ty emitted a low whistle of appreciation. “That’s a very impressive accomplishment.”

“I never would have been able to do it without Mac’s help. I’ve always looked up to him. He’s been both my big brother and the father figure I never had. He always took care of me.” She quickly blinked away the tears of emotion that started to moisten her eyes. “I owe him so much.” What she chose not to say was that she had always been in awe of Mac and his many accomplishments, not to mention just a little bit intimidated, too. She idolized her brother and knew there was no way she would be able to repay him.

She also knew he wouldn’t accept it even if she could.

“Yes, Mac is a very generous and giving person.”

“Other than that, for the past three years since graduating from the University of Oregon I’ve worked in Portland at an industrial design firm. Unfortunately it was a job that didn’t offer any challenges or any future.” Not to mention a boss who decided I was the office decoration and never took my work seriously. It was a sore spot with Angie and an attitude she deeply resented. She wanted to be treated according to her merits, not her beauty. At one time she had even considered dyeing her hair in order to avoid being the object of the dumb blonde jokes. She quickly dismissed the idea. She was who she was and didn’t see any reason to make changes just to appease someone else whose opinion wasn’t important to her anyway.

Ty snapped to attention. Suddenly she was more than just a drop-dead-gorgeous beauty contestant. She was intelligent and articulate with a sense of humor and an openness that he found very refreshing, especially compared to a lot of the pretentious women he had dated over the years.

“Is your whole family close?” It was an area he had been both curious about and uncomfortable with—one in which he had no experience. “I know Mac feels very close to his family, even though he doesn’t see any of them that often—which is not surprising, given his workaholic nature. He doesn’t take near enough time for himself, time to just kick loose and have fun.”

Fun…the word cut through to the core of Angie’s reality. She stared at Ty for a moment. He seemed to her to be someone who knew how to have fun and enjoy himself—someone fun to be with.

“Yes. We’re a pretty tight-knit family emotionally even if we aren’t geographically close anymore. Only one of my brothers still lives in Portland. The others have moved to various places around the country in pursuit of their careers.”

“What do you like to do for fun? What kind of activities do you enjoy?”

“Activities? Well, I like museums, concerts, art galleries and the theater. As for sports, I snow ski and water-ski. In fact, I enjoy just about anything connected with the water. I’m also the quintessential tourist. I love traveling and seeing new places.”

He nodded his agreement. “I’d put sailing at the top of that list, which is fortunate since the design and construction of custom sailboats is the business we’re in. Otherwise it sounds exactly like my choices.”

Angie took a couple of bites of her salad. “We’ve certainly talked about me long enough.” She shot him a quizzical look. “How about you? What’s your family like?”

Her memories of Tyler Farrell were from fourteen years ago. Even a ten-year-old could recognize an arrogant jerk with a roving eye for women. Judging by the way he had been looking her over for the past hour it was equally obvious that he still had that roving eye.

There was no question in her mind exactly what Ty was thinking. One glance at the devilish sparkle in his eyes and his wickedly tantalizing grin said it all. But there was more to Tyler Farrell than just the surface good looks. She sensed an honesty about him in direct contrast to the sexy gleam in his eyes and the playboy image he seemed to enjoy projecting. It was the type of honesty that said she would be safe from unwanted advances. He would probably make a pass, but he would accept no for an answer and not press her. And the same would be true even if she wasn’t his business partner and best friend’s sister.

Yes, when she was ten she had thought he was a jerk. A tingle of excitement heated her insides, telling her just how attractive she found him now. It had been six months since she had broken off her engagement to Caufield Woodrow III, a man her mother had kept telling her she should hang onto. A man who had everything—wealth, family position, social status and a guaranteed future. A man who could have given her everything she wanted. But Angie had disagreed. Maybe he could have given her everything material, but he had not given her any consideration for what she wanted out of life—it had been all about him and what he wanted…no one else.

And he didn’t know how to have fun. She had never laughed when she was with Caufield. She liked to laugh. Everything had always been so serious with him. Everything had to be planned out well in advance. He had needed two weeks’ notice to do something spontaneous. It had been a stifling relationship, one that had smothered her in a cloak of his creation. One in which she had finally realized she had been suffocated to the point where she could hardly breathe. She shook away the thoughts. It was old territory that she didn’t want to go over again. She was relieved to be out of the relationship.

“My family…” Ty took a deep breath, held it a moment, then exhaled. The word dysfunctional immediately leaped to his mind. He was an only child who had been raised with money and privilege, but it was not a substitute for the type of closeness Mac had with his family—the type Angie had just described. The predominant memory from his early years was the constant fighting between his mother and father. His parents had finally divorced when he was in high school, but it hadn’t stopped their ongoing battles.

And then there had been his disastrous two-year marriage shortly after he had graduated from college. Hardly a day had gone by without some sort of argument or at the very least enough tension to fill a football stadium. Family? A happy, loving marriage and close family was something he had never seen or experienced firsthand. It was something he would have said didn’t exist if it weren’t for the single exception of Mac and his family. But marriage and emotional closeness were things he would never know and he didn’t want to try to capture it with another attempt at a relationship—an attempt he knew would be doomed to failure from the beginning.

He extended what he hoped would be a confident smile. “I was an only child, born and raised in Seattle. My parents both live in the Seattle area, my mother in Bellevue and my father on Mercer Island. I think that about covers it.”

“That’s certainly succinct and to the point.” She returned his smile, letting him know she was not offended by his brief and evasive answer to her question even though she found it puzzling.

Lunch continued in a more comfortable vein. After the initial time of finding out a little about each other, the conversation turned to more casual topics and a surprisingly fun-filled two hours with lots of laughs. Each relaxed and enjoyed the beautiful day. Following lunch, they walked back to the offices.

“You know, Mac is going to be tied up for several days. My time is a lot more flexible than his right now so I’ll be happy to show you around—” his gaze locked with hers for an intense moment, sending a heated wave of desire through his body “—if you don’t mind the last-minute tour guide substitution.”