Brenda Jackson - Taming the Texas Tycoon / One Night with the Wealthy Rancher - Taming the Texas Tycoon

“Hi, there, Lexi.”

“Hi, Lance. I know you must be busy this morning but I wanted to thank you for the invitation to come to your Fourth of July party. I wanted to know what you need from me as your hostess.”

Lance hadn’t thought about Lexi acting as hostess. “My secretary has taken care of all the details.”

“I’ll give her a call and see if I can help with anything. I think if we are going to make our marriage work, I should be involved with Brody Oil and Gas.”

“Why?” Lance asked.

“Because that’s where you spend all of your time,” she said. “I know what it takes to be a good wife. You need a partner who can understand where you are coming from.”

Lance knew that was the truth. But he didn’t want Lexi here. He realized with a shock that when he thought of a partner—a female partner—at Brody Oil and Gas, he thought of Kate.

Why hadn’t he realized that he wanted her before this? It was too late to change the past but he wanted to make things different between them going forward. But Kate didn’t want any part of the company anymore and he was engaged to Lexi. He needed to sort this mess out. Was he going to try to make the match with Lexi work? And where did that leave Kate?

Mitch and Lance had determined that the connection to Cavanaugh was needed. And Lance had always put Brody Oil and Gas before everything else. He knew exactly what he needed to do, and how he needed to act. This was his chance to prove he wasn’t the bastard his father had been.

He needed to be a better man. A man who wouldn’t kiss Kate unless he could make a commitment to her. A man who would honor his commitment to Lexi. A man who was proud of who he was.

“You don’t need to do anything for the picnic, but we can talk when you get here. Kate—my secretary—has given her two-weeks notice. If you are serious about wanting to be more involved, the picnic would be a great time for you to talk to her about the details of our events.”

“I am serious, Lance. I want to make our marriage work.”

There was a sincerity in Lexi’s words that shamed him. He’d asked her to marry him and it was time to step up and honor that.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Lance said.

“I’m looking forward to it. Mitch has raved about the Brody Oil and Gas Fourth of July party.”

“It’s the one time of year when we pull out all the stops for our workers. When we were rebuilding the business we decided that if we were going to be successful, we had to make everyone who worked for us feel like they were a part of the Brody Oil and Gas family.”

“If your success is any indication, I’d say you’ve achieved that.”

But at what cost? Mitch was determined and a workaholic just like Lance was. And this marriage wasn’t real—it was purely business. Lexi was just another step in their plan to be successful. Was that any way to go through life, especially when he had a woman like Kate on his hands? What was he doing?

Kate couldn’t believe she’d lost her head and let Lance kiss her. It was wonderful…incredible, really, but so stupid. She was here to get over him. She was supposed to be using these two weeks to put him in her past.

She wanted to go out looking her best and she supposed she could count herself successful on that item. Lance hadn’t even recognized her.

The sad part about that was she hadn’t done anything except wear clothes that fit her. What a difference new clothes made. She would never have believed it. Mainly because her mother had been the one to say clothes made the man, and that woman had been wrong about so many things.

She glanced down at the phone and saw that Lance was still on the line with Lexi Cavanaugh. She knew next to nothing about the woman. But at the end of the day, Kate felt she’d owe Lexi a word of thanks.

If it hadn’t been for that woman’s engagement to Lance, Kate might have stayed stuck in her frumpy rut until she died an old lady spinster.

A wolf-whistle brought her head up as Marcus Wall walked into the office. He was one of the petroleum geologists who worked for them, one of the men who helped decide where Brody Oil and Gas drilled and he was an expert at picking the right location for their wells. “Dang, Kate, you look good today.”

She smiled at him. “Thanks.”

“I never noticed how big your eyes were before,” he said, coming into her office and leaning on her desk. He must have come into the office at least a hundred times before and he’d never sat close or really even talked to her.

She wanted to be flattered but instead she was uncomfortable. She didn’t want a lot of male attention. She had wanted one male’s attention, and now that she had it she didn’t want to let it go.

That was her problem. Lance had moved forward and she was supposed to be, too, but if her reaction to Marcus’s friendly flirting was any indication, her plan was a failure. She only had eyes for Lance.

“Kate?”

“Hmm?”

He shook his head. “Is there a man behind this change?”

“How’d you guess?”

He shrugged. “I know women.”

“Do you?”

“Yes, three sisters. I was raised by wolves.”

“I don’t think women like to be called wolves.”

“True enough, but I know that when a girl—I don’t mean any offense calling you a girl—gets dolled up like you are, there’s a reason for it.”

“Maybe I just want a change,” she said, surprised that Marcus was actually helping her to understand herself. There was something hollow about the changes she’d made.

When Lance had kissed her and held her in his arms she’d felt like a queen. But now she was back to just feeling like Old Kate, the same way she’d felt for the last few years as Lance treated her like some kind of favored pet.

“Well, this change looks very good on you. Is the big man in?”

Kate glanced down at the phone. Lance was off of his line. And it was probably way past time for Marcus to leave her office. She hoped that she didn’t have guys talking to her all day. “Yes, he is.”

“I’ll announce myself,” Marcus said.

She nodded. Marcus usually did just that. “Thanks, Marcus.”

“For what?”

“For being you,” she said.

“I can be so much more if you let me,” Marcus said.

“For a few weeks, right?” she asked, knowing that Marcus would be the right man for a fling but nothing more. Even if she was leaving the company, she didn’t want to have an affair with someone who worked with Lance.

This plan—which had been concocted when she’d had two glasses of wine—now seemed…silly. She needed to just keep doing her job, find a replacement for herself and get out of Brody Oil and Gas before she hurt herself any further.

“Definitely. I’m not a forever kind of man.”

“Marcus, are you here to see me?”

“Sure thing, boss man. I’ve got good news on the new mineral rights we purchased.”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” Lance said. “Go on in my office. I need a word with Kate.”

Marcus winked at her and then left. Lance reached over and closed the door leading to his office.

“What do you need?” she asked. She was trying to come off cool and sophisticated, but it was really hard when she felt like she was twelve. Why had she given this man so much power over her?

“I wanted to apologize for my behavior earlier.”

“I think we already covered that,” Kate said. The last thing she wanted to do was rehash that kiss. For her, it had been incredible and the answer to many long fantasies about this man.

She turned away from him, but he put his hand on her chair and turned her back to face him. “I don’t know why this is happening to us, Kate, but I am not going to be able to ignore it. You are—”