Cara Colter - Swept Into The Tycoon's World

“You’ve let your hair down,” Brand said.

Physically, not figuratively, despite her intention to relax. She hoped he didn’t think she had done it to impress him.

“More comfortable,” she said.

“I always liked the color of your hair. It reminds me of sand on a sun-warmed beach.”

He had remembered the color of her hair? She gawked at him. Sand on a sun-warmed beach?

Do not gawk at the celebrities , she ordered herself. And do not take it personally , she also ordered herself. It was obvious he knew his way around women. He had found her one redeeming feature and flattered her about it. And it had worked some terrible magic on her. She could feel her nerves humming so hard it felt as though her skin was vibrating.

“I always considered it mousy brown,” she said.

“That is ridiculous.”

If she wasn’t careful, she was going to gawk again. Probably with her mouth hanging open.

Thankfully, the beverages were delivered. Two steaming cups were set in front of them. She took hers, blew on it gently so as not to blow a blob of foam right onto his forehead and took a sip.

“What is this?” she asked, delighted.

“So I did manage to surprise! You’ve never had it before?”

“No.”

“It’s a chai latte. Spiced sweet tea with steamed milk. You like?”

“Wonderful. I can taste the tea, which is so ordinary, but then the spices and the mound of sugar-crusted foam raise it to a new level.”

Suddenly she wondered why he had picked it for her. And she found herself looking at ordinary in a different light.

“And what are you having?” she asked him.

“Coffee, black.”

“Given the variety on the menu, that seems unadventurous.”

“I save my adventuring for other arenas.”

She was going to blush again! No, she was not. She would not give him the satisfaction.

“You have had some great adventures in business,” she said, pleased that she did not miss a beat. “I’ve been reading about you, Brand,” she said. “You’ve done so well.”

“Ah, the City article. I had no idea that magazine was so widely read.”

Bree doubted it had been before they featured him on the cover!

“I must say I didn’t treasure anonymity nearly enough when I had it. Everyone suddenly knows who I am. It’s a little disconcerting. But thank you. The success part seems to be luck and timing. I jumped on an opportunity.”

“My dad loved the quote—‘opportunity meets preparation.’ He always thought very highly of you. He admired your work ethic. He was fond of saying, ‘That young man is going places.’”

“He used to say the same thing to me. When not another person in the world was. I feel as if he was the first person who truly believed in me. That goes a long way in a young man’s life, especially one with no father figure. I don’t think I ever had a chance to tell him that. What his faith in me meant. I regret it, but I’m glad I’ve been given this opportunity to tell you.”

It became evident to her this was why he’d invited her for coffee. It was an opportunity to tell her what her father had meant to him.

It was lovely.

So, why did she feel faintly resentful—as if she was a chai latte that had just been demoted to a very ordinary cup of Earl Gray?

He watched her now over the rim of his coffee cup. “I called several times after your dad died. I spoke to your mother. Did she tell you?”

“Yes, she said you had called and asked after me.”

“One day I called and the number was out of service. I dropped by the house and it was empty. For sale, if I recall.”

Bree took a sip of her drink, and let the spicy aroma fill her nostrils and warm the back of her throat before she replied. “I left for college. My mother felt lonely in the house, so she sold it quite quickly. Then she remarried and moved to San Francisco.”

“Is she happy?”

“Yes, very.” She did not say it seemed her mother had moved on to happiness with unseemly swiftness. Bree had felt so abandoned. Of course, there was nothing like feeling abandoned to leave a young woman looking for love in all the wrong places.

“What did you take? In college?”

Heartbreak 101.

“I took a culinary program. I’m afraid I didn’t finish.”

He cocked his head at her. “That doesn’t seem like you, somehow.”

She cocked her head back at him. “Doesn’t it?” she asked, deliberately unforthcoming, and letting him know that really, he knew very little about her, past or present.

“In some ways, you are very changed,” he told her.

For a moment, she felt panicked, as if the sad ending of the pregnancy that had forced her to leave school was written all over her. She hoped her face was schooled into calmness, and she made herself release her stranglehold on her mug.

He still made her nervous.

“Your confidence in high heels for one thing.”

Relief swept through her at his amused reference to her clumsiness on the night of the prom.

“Oh, geez, you must have had bruises on your arm the next day. I should have practiced. I clung onto you most of the night.”

“And I thought you were just trying to feel my manly biceps.”

Despite herself, she giggled.

“It was a really nice thing for you to do,” she said. “To take the boss’ dateless daughter to her senior prom. I don’t think I thanked you. Of course, it didn’t occur to me until later that it probably wasn’t your idea.”

“It wasn’t,” he confessed. “I didn’t date girls like you.”

“Girls like me?”

“Smart,” he said. “Sweet.”

Not quite as smart as anyone had thought.

“I bet you still don’t,” she said wryly.

“I’m more the superficial type.”

He made her laugh. It was as simple as that.

“So,” he said, leaning forward and looking at her intently, “tell me how you have passed the last years. For some reason, I would have pictured you the type who would be happily married by now. Two children. A golden-retriever puppy and an apple tree in the front yard.”

Happily-ever-after.

She could feel that same emotion claw at her throat. It was exactly the life she had wanted, the dream that had made her so vulnerable.

He had her pegged. Well, you didn’t rise as fast in the business world as he did without an ability to read people with some accuracy.

There was no sense denying it even if it was not in vogue.

“That is my type. Exactly,” she said. She heard the catch in her voice, the pure wistfulness of it.

“It’s what you come from, too. I can see that you would gravitate back to that. Your family was so...”

He hesitated, lost for words.

“Perfect,” she said, finishing his thought.

“That’s certainly how it seemed to me. Coming from one that was less than perfect, I looked at the decency of your dad and the way he treated you and your mom, and it did seem like an ideal world.”

One she had tried to replicate way too soon after the passing of her father, with a kind of desperation to be loved like that again, to create that family unit.

It was only now, years after her miscarriage, that she was beginning to tiptoe back into the world of dating, looking again to the dream of happily-ever-after. So far, it had been a disaster.

“Are you, Bree? Happy?”

She hesitated a moment too long, and his brow furrowed at her.

“Tell me,” he commanded.

Ridiculous that she would tell him about her happiness, or lack there of. He had worked for her father a long time ago, and somehow been persuaded to take the hopeless daughter to her prom. They were hardly friends. Barely acquaintances.