Meddling with a Millionaire (3 page)

“I thought we were alone in the house.”

“I came back to get some papers.” Her father's handsome face reflected little compassion. He was dealing with her with the same ruthless determination he brought to all his business dealings. “I know you've liked Nathan for a long time. I remember how you behaved when he used to visit from college.

So did she. Emma's cheeks burned. “I was sixteen. I didn't know what I wanted.”

“And now you're twenty-eight. It's time you figured that out.” Her father tugged on his cuffs, signaling the end of the discussion. “Nathan will make a good husband for you.”

“I don't love him. He doesn't love me.”

“But he will marry you.”

“Because you're blackmailing him the same way you're blackmailing me.” The edges of Emma's vision began to darken. She focused on her father's bow tie to keep from being swallowed up by helplessness. “Don't do this. It's not fair to either of us.”

“You need someone to take care of you. Nathan is the man to do it.”

“I don't need someone to take care of me.”

“Yes, you do. You've never worked, and because you've never earned your own money, you spend without thought. I hate to think what would happen if you weren't limited by an allowance. And from what Cody tells me, your loft in Houston is a disaster. I've looked out for you for twenty-eight years, it's time I turn the job over to your husband.”

Her loft wasn't a disaster. It just needed a master bathroom, a new kitchen, all new wiring and plumbing. She'd bought it shortly before she'd lost access to her trust fund. Her jewelry business barely covered her necessities. She had nothing left for remodeling.

“I don't need a husband. I can take care of myself. My jewelry business is taking off.” A major exaggeration, but necessary if she was going to convince her father to give up on marrying her off.

“How much do you have left of the $100,000 I gave you last February?”

“Most of it.” Emma refused to be more specific. She'd been in denial the first few months after being cut off and hadn't yet learned to be frugal. Giving an accurate number would reinforce her father's opinion about her frivolous spending.

“More like two-thirds of it,” her father countered.

A mad, ridiculous notion sparked. “What if I had all of it?”

Her challenge ignited a speculative look in her father's eye. He loved making deals. “What do you mean?”

Yes, what did she mean? She wanted to retract her words, but it was too late. Backing down now would only give her father more reason to think she was flighty. “You say I can't take care of myself and earn a living. I say you're wrong.” Emma gathered a deep breath and plunged forward. “What if I replace the entire hundred thousand by Valentine's Day?”

“How are you going to do that in six weeks?” Her father laughed.

“By selling my jewelry.”

He shook his head. “You'll never do it. You're good at spending money, not making it. You don't have the drive to work hard and succeed.”

Her heart constricted. Paralyzed by his scornful words, she felt smothered by all the mistakes she'd made in her life. Was it too late for her to change how her father perceived her? And what if she didn't try? It was either a loveless marriage to Nathan or learning to live on what she earned. Both sounded dreadful.

“But if I do,” she persisted, her voice strengthening as her determination grew, “will you give me back my trust fund?”

Her father snorted. “I've seen the balance in your account. You won't be able to put the money back.”

He was probably right, but she had to try. “I can and I will.” She hoped she was displaying a great deal more confidence than she currently possessed. The task she'd set for herself made her stomach twist with anxiety. “One more thing. When I replace the entire hundred thousand, you'll also agree to stop meddling in my life.” She stuck out her hand. “Deal?”

“As long as you don't borrow the money from anyone to bring the account balance up, we have a deal.” Her father swallowed her hand with his and squeezed gently. His smile softened. “I'm only doing what I know is best for you.”

“It's what you think is best for me,” she retorted, pulling free. “And you're wrong.” Her insides felt like jelly. What had she just agreed to do? “Now, you'd better get back to your guests.”

“Are you coming down?”

Emma shook her head. “I'm driving back to Houston tonight.”

“It's too dangerous to be on the roads at such a late hour.”

It was far more dangerous for her to stay. “I'll be careful.”

He frowned. “Emma—”

“One way or another, in six weeks I'm no longer your responsibility, Daddy,” she said. “It's past time you start letting go.”

“Of course it is.” He kissed on the top of her head and retreated down the hall.

In her bedroom, Emma stripped out of her dress, being extra careful with it even in her haste. She'd borrowed both the dress and her shoes from Jaime, and would never forgive herself if she returned the designer original with any damage. As she zipped the gown into its protective bag, she contemplated her shift in perspective. A year ago she wouldn't have taken such care with her clothes. Any tear, stain, sometimes even a single wearing would prompt her to shift the outfit to the back of her closet. Funny…what Jaime had given her with so little concern, Emma now treated like a magical gown from her fairy godmother.

Thank goodness this dress hadn't disappeared at the stroke of midnight. A wry smile formed despite her turbulent emotions.

She donned jeans and a sweater, and then tossed the rest of her clothes into her overnight bag. Until her encounter with Nathan, she'd intended to stay the night, but after what had almost happened between them again, she needed some time to think, and the four and a half hours back to Houston would be just about right.

She didn't worry about falling asleep at the wheel. The encounter with Nathan ensured that the adrenaline pumping through her veins would keep her awake. As for being sober, she'd wanted a clear head in case he'd shown up tonight and hadn't allowed herself a single sip of champagne.

Feeling like a cat burglar, she hugged the wall as she descended the back stairs. She pictured her earrings resting in Nathan's pocket. What a lousy thief she would make, coming away from the house with lighter pockets than when she'd arrived.

Not until she turned left out of the driveway and followed the moonlit road back to the highway did the pressure in her chest lessen. Whatever it took, she'd put the money back in her account. She'd prove to her father that she could take care of herself and avoid the marriage net he'd woven to snare her. Nathan Case would have to figure out some other way to do the deal with Silas Montgomery.

 

“What do you mean she's not here? When did she leave?” Nathan glared around the quiet, empty cavern of a foyer that showed no signs it had been occupied by party guests a few hours earlier.

The maid clasped her hands before her. “I'm not sure.”

“Hey, Nathan.” Cody Montgomery trotted down the grand staircase. Dressed in jeans and a navy sweater, he advanced with a huge smile. “What are you doing here?”

The maid faded away as Nathan shook his best friend's hand. “Your sister and I were supposed to have breakfast this morning.”

“Are you sure? Dad told me she headed back to Houston last night.”

“Quite sure,” Nathan said, indulging in a frustrated exhale. She'd disappeared on him again. He should have listened to his instincts last night and persuaded her to go back to his hotel room with him. “We had some things to discuss.”

“Like setting a wedding date?” Cody chuckled as Nathan raised his eyebrows. “Dad told me you two are getting married. Never thought I'd see the day when you'd finally admit my sister has had you wrapped around her finger since she was sixteen.”

Nathan held a growl between his clenched teeth while his best friend had a good laugh at his expense. “I wouldn't go that far.”

Cody frowned. “But you love her.”

Nathan wasn't surprised by the question. After five years of marriage, Cody and Jaime were still crazy about each other as they awaited the birth of their first child. Nathan wasn't sure what sort of water the two were drinking, but he intended to stick with whiskey.

“You know how I feel about love,” Nathan said. He wasn't looking to fall into that trap. “It's never going to happen for me.”

“But you're getting married.” Cody gaze shifted away from Nathan. With a glance over his shoulder, he edged Nathan toward the front door, but didn't speak until the two men stood outside in the brisk January wind. “Does Emma know you're not in love with her?”

Nathan wasn't going to lie to his best friend. “She knows.”

“I can't believe it's okay with her. After watching her mother's marriage to Dad fall apart, she's pretty determined not to marry unless the guy's crazy in love with her.”

Cody made no secret of his belief that Silas's third wife had married her billionaire husband for financial rather than romantic reasons.

“She'll come around.”

Cody shot his friend a skeptical look. “I don't think she will. You've been on her radar since she was a teenager, but she's got this whole fairy-tale happily-ever-after thing going. She's not going to marry you unless she thinks you're madly in love with her.”

“Have a little faith in my powers of persuasion.” Nathan offered his friend a slow grin.

A grin that faded as he strode to his car and gave his best friend a farewell salute. Cody's words poked at him like a
burr long after the wheels of the BMW 650i coupe hit the main road.

Love.

Emma wasn't going to marry without it. Nathan wouldn't marry with it. Stalemate.

He wasn't sure when he'd decided that he'd never let himself go down that path. Had it been the Christmas morning when his mother burst into tears because he'd asked why his father didn't spend any holidays with them? He'd been eight that year. Or maybe when he turned ten and Brandon Case's wife had shown up to see for herself what sort of “whore” her husband had taken up with. His mother had cried for three hours straight after that. The next day she'd slapped him when he said he hated his father and hoped he rotted in hell.

Love made people miserable. It led to expectations. Expectations led to disappointment. Disappointment led to infidelity. Infidelity led to divorce. Except for Cody, all his friends had cheated on their wives or been cheated on. And they'd all started out madly in love.

He was an hour south of Dallas when his cell rang. He engaged the car's hands free system. “Hello.”

“Hey, Nat, how'd it go?”

Hearing Max's voice, Nathan restrained a snarl. He could tell from his older brother's overly cheerful tone that he'd called expecting to hear that Nathan had failed. “It went fine.”

“So, Montgomery is doing the deal?” Max's voice lost some of the good humor.

If his half brothers found out about the strings Silas had attached to the deal, Nathan would never hear the end of it. He intended to get the contracts signed without that happening.

“There are a few bugs to work out, but I'd say things look pretty good.” Nathan relaxed his death grip on the steering wheel.

In his early twenties, he'd spent almost a year on the
poker tournament circuit, learning how to read people and to hide his thoughts. In the championship game, he bluffed two of the best poker players in the country and won half a million dollars. The skills he'd picked up during that time had come in handy these last six months working with his half brothers. He'd learned a long time ago never to let them see him sweat.

“But you don't have a signed contract,” Max persisted, regaining his cockiness.

Nathan ground his teeth. Leave it to the middle Case brother to point that out. “As I said, there are a couple details still under negotiation.”

“You were pretty sure you'd come back with a signed contract. Wasn't Montgomery impressed with your proposal?”

Nathan bristled at the implied insult. His brothers had developed their business acumen in the boardrooms of Corporate America. Nathan had taken an entrepreneurial approach. He'd grown his millions in the stock market and from venture capital investing. No matter how legitimate his investments, Max and Sebastian refused to give him credit for having a strong business sense. They couldn't get past the fact that his fortune had grown from the seeds of his poker winnings.

“Silas is looking over the numbers. He'll have an answer for me in six weeks.” Valentine's Day. He hadn't understood the significance of Silas's choice of date until Emma explained her own deadline to him.

“That long? He's probably no more comfortable with the risk than Sebastian and I are. Two hundred million is a big chunk of our assets. If you're wrong, we stand to lose everything.”

After their father's retirement, Sebastian and Max had changed Case Consolidated Holdings' business strategy from high-risk to ultraconservative. Nathan would be the
first to admit that their father's obsession with huge profits had led him to make some dicey deals, but his brothers had overreacted.

And because they had, Nathan's ideas for moving forward by joining with Montgomery Oil to create a new company instead of continuing to buy existing companies had been met with skepticism.

“I'm not wrong,” Nathan said.

He'd been a fool to let his father talk him into coming to work with his brothers. Brandon Case had been out of his mind to think Sebastian and Max needed him. They only needed each other. And their safe little strategies.

“You feed on taking risks,” Max said. “It's like you get high from it.”