Jacqueline Diamond - Unexpected Legacy

His hands tightened on her face as he nuzzled her nose with his, the timbre of his voice rough with torment. “Kate, there’s not a day I don’t remember what I took from you—”

“Garrett, we can talk about all this tomorrow.”

“There’s nothing to discuss. You’re staying here. Here, Kate. Where I can take care of you and I know you’re safe. All right, Freckles?”

“Even if I’m miserable?”

He dropped his hands to her shoulders and squeezed. “Tell me what makes you miserable, Kate. I’ll take care of it. I’ll make it better for you.”

Kate wanted to push him away, needed to push him away. He was drunk and she didn’t have the energy to deal with him tonight, not like this. But the instant she flattened her palms on his shirt, they stayed there. On his chest. Feeling his hard muscles through the fabric, his heart beating under her hands. Between her legs, she grew moist and hot.

When she was little, she’d wanted him because he was strong and protective, and her favorite boy of all the boys she’d ever met. But now she was older and a new kind of wanting tangled up inside her. Her breasts went heavy from the mere act of touching his chest through his shirt, and her nipples puckered against her nightshirt.

“Do me a favor, Kate?”

His voice slurring even more, Garrett sounded drunker by the second as he stroked her face with unsteady fingertips. Every pore in her body became aware of that whispery touch, causing shivers down her nerve endings.

“Stay with us. My mother loves you. Beth loves you, and so does her son.” He seemed to wrack his brain for more to say. “And Molly. Molly loves you, Kate. She needs you. Julian, Landon, hell, everyone.”

But not him?

She didn’t know if she wanted to laugh or cry or hit him for excluding himself, but she already knew that she was a weight on him, a responsibility to him. That’s what she’d always been. Forcing her arms to return to her sides, she sighed. “Garrett...”

“What will that obsessed client of yours, Missy Something, do without your currant muffins? What will I do? Hmm, Kate? It’s a tragedy to think about it.”

“I don’t want to argue about this now, Garrett.” She rubbed her temple.

“All right, Katie.”

She blinked.

“All right?” she repeated.

Confused by his easy concession, which was not like Garrett at all, she suddenly heard him shift on the bed and spread his big body down the length beside her.

Eyes widening in horror, she heard him plump one of the two pillows.

“All right, Katie. We’ll talk about it in the morning,” he said in that deep, slurred voice.

She heard him shift once more, as if to get more comfortable. Sitting on the bed, frozen in disbelief, she managed to sputter, “You’re not planning to stay here the night, are you?”

He made a move with his head that she couldn’t see but rustled the pillow.

“Garrett, you moron, go to your room,” she said, shoving at his arm a little.

He caught her hand and squeezed it. “Relax, you little witch. I’ll go back to my room when I stop spinning. Come here and brace me down.” He draped his arm around her shoulders and drew her to his side, and Kate was too stunned to do anything but play rag doll.

Minutes passed as she remained utterly still, every part of her body excruciatingly aware of his powerful arm. Garrett was not the touchy-feely brother; that was Julian. In fact, Garrett seemed to do his best not to touch her. But his guard was down and he seemed not to want to let go this time.

She frowned when he tightened his hold and slid his fingers up beneath the fall of her hair. Cupping her scalp, he pressed her face down to his chest.

“Garrett,” Kate said, poking on his abs. They were hard as rocks under his shirt.

He breathed heavily. Oh, no. Seriously. Was he asleep?

“Garrett?”

She groaned when there was no response and wondered if she should move into Garrett’s room and leave him to sleep here, because she was certainly not dragging him to his own room. He must weigh double what she did, even if he was all muscle, judging from the hardness of the arm around her and the abs she’d just poked.

Instead, she grumbled and complained under her breath, and ended up using her pillow as a barrier between them. She eased his arm from around her, setting it on the pillow. His hand was enormous between her fingers, and for a moment, she seemed to be unable to let go, kept her hand over his just to feel that he was not a figment of her imagination. Then she realized what she was doing and that it was stupid and foolish, and she yanked her hand away.

Damn him.

He was going to do everything possible to keep her in Texas, she knew.

But he wasn’t going to take Florida away from her.

Oh, no, her life had stopped revolving around Garrett Gage ever since she’d decided she didn’t want him anymore, and now she’d be damned before she let him screw up her perfect plans, too.

Three

Monday morning, business at the San Antonio Daily was more intense than normal.

Usually Landon, the eldest Gage brother, would bark about the grammar mistakes in that day’s print edition. Julian John, the youngest, was no longer working at headquarters since he’d started his own PR firm, but he still occasionally dropped in and offered his services in weekly status meetings. Lately, Garrett had been focused on maneuvering their assets to make one of their greatest takeovers, one that would absorb Clarks Communications into the Daily and the rest of their holdings.

Which was why Cassandra Clarks was visiting today. She sat in Garrett’s office, quietly eating the remaining muffin from the batch Kate had sent to the office this morning.

It made Garrett grumpy to see that muffin go.

But he feigned indifference as he flipped to the next page of the current stock statistics for Clarks Communications. Still, he wasn’t really paying attention to their impressive growth numbers. Instead, he kept going back to Saturday night and Sunday morning.

He’d woken up alone, dressed in the most uncomfortable way possible, with a stiff back and the scent of Kate in bed, which had made him hard as marble.

Then he’d realized he was lying on Kate’s old, frilly pink bed. Which he’d apparently decided to take over during the night while on a semidrunken spree.

Damn.

He’d immediately texted her Sunday morning, and even now, he kept glancing at his phone, replaying their conversation.

Sorry for crashing in last night.

You mean that was you? That’s all right, at least u didn’t break anything.

But my pride. And my back.

Ouch. Ok, but it’s nothing my muffins won’t cure.

Holy hell. Was she flirting with him?

I’m going to savor every bite.

He wasn’t sure if he’d been flirting, too. Savor every bite. The alcohol had still been running through his system, clearly messing up his head. Thank God Kate hadn’t replied after that last one. But she’d sent a dozen muffins this morning and he had gobbled three up with barely a drink of coffee. His experience with Kate’s food was almost sexual.

He couldn’t help it; it had always been like this since the beginning.

The first time she’d made chocolate-chip cookies on her own, Garrett had been fresh out of bed on a Sunday in his randy teen years. He’d been scouring the kitchen for breakfast and had shoved a warm cookie into his mouth, nodding when she’d asked if it was good. Then Kate had laughingly stepped up and brushed a crumb from the side of his mouth, and he’d almost swallowed the cookie whole.

Sometimes he waited until he was alone to eat her stuff. And he imagined he was licking her fingers when he wrapped his tongue around her sugary frostings. And when they had little sprinkles, he pictured her freckles.