Personal Assets (Texas Nights) (26 page)

“I was suggesting we have dessert and coffee. I ordered a decadent dark chocolate soufflé with a cabernet berry sauce.”

Amen. Finally food Allie could handle. Dessert would keep her stomach from growling like a feral cat.

Their waiter returned with a tray holding a coffee set, but only one dessert plate.

“Aren’t you having dessert?” Allie asked Nelson.

“I thought we’d share.” Confirmed by the waiter placing the scrumptious-looking dish between them and arranging two forks.

Great. Something she could eat and he wanted half of it.

Nelson forked up a bite of soufflé and held it close to Allie’s mouth. No. Oh, no way in this world. She clamped her lips together and resisted the urge to gag.

“Not chocolate fan?”

Not a Nelson Bramhall fan. “I’m watching my weight.” Crud, that just gave him an excuse to ogle her scooped neckline. “I have an appointment, so why don’t we talk business.”

Nelson swirled his fork through the bloodred sauce and carefully selected another bit of chocolate. “Your father called your loan due.”

Like he was telling her something she didn’t know. She kept her lips pressed together in case Nelson tried to slip in food.

“I can offer you a resolution to your financial difficulties.” A smug smile curved his lips.

Hope flirted with Allie’s heart. Nelson did have her father’s ear.

“That is, if we can come to an understanding.”

Ah, here was the catch. If he wanted her to encourage her dad to promote him from vice president to senior vice president, he was up a creek. Surely he realized Allie had less than zero influence over her dad’s decision-making. Especially when it came to business.

Nelson leaned back in his chair. “I will personally loan you seventy-five thousand dollars with generously flexible repayment terms.”

Why did what should be great news make the little lunch she’d eaten expand in her stomach? “Personal loan? Do you mean an unsecured bank note?” Her father would never allow that across his desk.

“No, a personal loan from my personal investment account.”

Yeah, she’d take money from him around the same time pigs were taxiing down the Houston airport runway. Still, she asked, “What would you expect in return?”

“Access to your personal expertise.”

She pretended not to understand. “You want to become a Personal Assets client?”

Nelson laughed, low with a hint of scoff. “No, you’ll become my personal asset.”

Disgust coated her already aching stomach. She flung her napkin aside and shoved back her seat. “I don’t think—”

He wrapped his lotioned and buffed fingers around her wrist. He was stronger than he looked. “You don’t have to think, Allie. You merely have to perform exclusively for me. That will mean no more contact with your current low-class lover. Carrying on with Cameron Wright will not be acceptable under the conditions of our agreement.”

“You can’t possibly be suggesting that we...that you and I—”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.”

She stood. When she’d told Jamie she might be willing to jump in the shark tank, she hadn’t meant she’d be willing to prostitute for cash. “No thanks.”

“I encourage you to reconsider. I went to a great deal of trouble to arrange this, and I’m not a man who appreciates expending energy on a woman in vain.” His caress along her inner wrist was at complete odds with the cold determination in his face.

To arrange
this?
Allie’s empty stomach collapsed. Nelson wasn’t talking about lunch. Somehow, he’d manipulated her father so he could swoop in to save Allie’s business, demanding the small price of her body as payment.

She was so done with the men in her life trying to solve her problems for her under the guise of doing what was in her best interest.
Bull hockey pucks.
Every one of them had some ulterior motive.

They were about to find out there was a reason hurricanes were named for women. And Hurricane Allie just happened to be the first one bearing down on them.

* * *

When her phone shrilled, Allie’s hold on the wheel of Eden’s little truck slipped. She gripped it tighter, her palms sweaty against the cracked vinyl, trying not to run off the two-lane road from Pinewoods to town. It was probably Nelson pressing the deal he thought she would be a fool not to take. She fished through her purse anyway and checked the screen. Roxanne.

Relief and hope zinged through her. “Hey. How’s Houston?”

“You have a minute?” Roxanne’s throaty tone came through the speaker.

Allie tucked the phone between her ear and shoulder. “Hang on. I’m pulling over.” She maneuvered into the parking lot at the Shady Days retirement center. “I didn’t want to run over any unsuspecting pedestrians or wild animals.”

“The world is now a safer place.”

“What’s up?” Allie adjusted the air-conditioning vent to blow into her armpits.

“How did your meeting with that nancy go?”

Allie’s bubble of hope popped. When Roxanne answered a question with a question, it meant she had news she didn’t want to share. “Well, I guess if you consider the barter of my body in exchange for a personal loan a good business deal, then it went great.”

“Ugh. What a disgusting excuse for a man.”

Now that she’d cooled off, Allie shivered and aimed the vents upward. The air ricocheted off the ceiling and blew down her neck. “Please tell me you have good news.”

“I wish I could, but so far the trip’s been a complete bust.” Roxanne huffed a sigh. “Hell, I was even getting ready to offer a blow job for every thousand dollars, then I realized the guy I was talking to was gay.”

A sledgehammer hit Allie’s panic-o-meter and the bell clanged like mad. Their options were dwindling.

She thought back to her conversation with Jamie. He’d appeared mildly intrigued when she mentioned looking for an angel investor. Could he be their solution? Lord, she’d just put her mental foot down about relying on a man to fix her problems, and already, she was about to head back and drink from the XY chromosome well. “Roxanne, I need you to—”

“I know what you’re thinking,” Roxanne said. “Don’t tell me to do it. You know it’ll kill you.”

“Desperate times and all that. It still won’t be enough, but we’re running out of time.” Maybe her dad would accept a partial payment.

“I won’t sell it.”

“Fine, then bring it home, and I’ll handle it, since I’m heading to Houston tomorrow anyway.” Allie’s voice held equal parts steel and sorrow. “Besides, I should be the one to take care of it.”

She stared down at her bare hand, and everything inside her went still and sick. She was about to do something that made her so light-headed that she might actually keel over right here in the parking lot. That would really get the old folks in the nursing home stirred up. She took a deep breath and let it out deliberately through her nose. Better that she was the one to trade her most precious possessions, her most tangible remembrance of her mom, for cash.

If her mother knew how desperate Allie was, maybe she’d forgive her for selling the emerald and diamond necklace, earrings and ring passed down to the eldest daughter in each generation of her family.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Her stomach tight, Allie sat across the table from Jamie at Chevani’s, the restaurant where he’d insisted on meeting for lunch when she’d called his office to schedule an appointment. But she had to smile at the contrast between the way Cameron and his brother dressed. Jamie’s charcoal suit had obviously been made for him or well-tailored from an expensive rack. He was handsome like Cameron, but smoother, more charismatic. Allie much preferred messy and grumpy.

“I love it when a beautiful woman smiles at me—” he flipped his napkin into his lap, “—but I get the feeling I’m being laughed at.”

“Not you, your brother.”

His expression held steady, which he meant he already knew she and Cameron were involved.

“He wasn’t the one voted Best Dressed his senior year,” she said.

“No, I’m pretty sure he was awarded the Most Likely to Save the World title.”

She searched Jamie’s face for some sign of resentment, but he revealed nothing. They took menus from the waiter, but when he left the table, Jamie placed his to the side. “This isn’t a casual thanks for the coffee, is it?”

Well, this was certainly nothing like her disastrous meal with Nelson, getting down to business before they’d even ordered.

“Roxanne mentioned you stopped at Red Light earlier this week and were asking about both our businesses.” Allie put her hands in her lap so he couldn’t see her clench them. “Why?”

“I was curious. And intrigued.”

“Intrigued enough to consider investing in them?”

He sat back at that. “Still haven’t come up with the cash to pay back your dad, huh?”

“Not all of it.”

“Why me?”

“You understand both small town and big city thinking,” she said. “You understand what we’re up against there, and yet you don’t live your life according to other people’s expectations. I thought you might be interested in investing in two businesses contributing to the economic health of your hometown, without wanting to get mixed up in the day-to-day operations of a lingerie store or a counseling practice.”

“Tell me something...”

That spot in Allie’s midsection went from hard to petrified wood.

“Has Cameron offered to bail you out?”

“You already know the answer to that, don’t you?”

“What I don’t know is why you didn’t take him up on it.”

The breath whooshed from Allie’s lungs. Fine, if he wanted to make this more than about a simple business transaction, she’d play along. If she was asking him to fork over tens of thousands of dollars, he could have more than just her business plan and financial projections.

“He deserves his dream, and if he bails me out, he’d put his garage at risk.”

“How do you know he doesn’t have money stockpiled away somewhere?”

“Because if he did, he’d have cars lined up across his parking lot just waiting for him to fix them up.”

Jamie nodded.

“Does that mean I passed whatever test you’d set up for me in your head?”

“He’s my brother. Someone has to look out for him.” He held out his hand. “So let me see what you’ve got.”

The petrified feeling loosened a little, and Allie pulled the portfolio from her bag. “I put together some numbers for you to look over.”

He took the folder she offered him and slid a pair of reading glasses from his shirt pocket. He put them on, flipped slowly through her paperwork and glanced up to catch her gawking at him. He flushed. “Reading all that tiny legal print is hell on your eyes.”

“They’re cute.”

“Cute, exactly what a man wants to hear from a gorgeous woman.”

The image of his sixth-grade school picture in her fifth-grade yearbook popped into Allie’s mind. “Wait a minute, you wore glasses as a kid.”

His flush deepened. “Coke bottles. I begged my mom for contacts every day for a year.” He finished looking at the P&L statements. “Other than a 75k debt, you both look pretty solvent to me.”

“Then you’ll partner with us?”

“How much?”

“Sixty thousand.” The supposed antique and collectible shop where she’d sold her mother’s jewelry had offered her cash, but the envelope sitting in her purse wasn’t nearly fat enough to cover her loan.

“That’s just to get flush with the bank?”

The man was no idiot. “Yes.”

“Then you need well over a hundred grand if you want to do this right.” He tucked his glasses back into pocket and picked up the wine list. “Let me give it some thought.”

That comment and the fact that he kept the portfolio she’d put together were the only things that gave Allie hope.

* * *

This time when Cameron stood outside the softball field fence, Allie was batting fungo to Tiny and the rest of her crew, smacking the shit outta that ball.

Ben bobbled it at shortstop, so the practice runner was already two strides past first base by the time Tiny caught the ball.

“Guys, that was a gimme double play,” Allie yelled from home plate. “If you don’t keep your heads on the field, we won’t have a chance of winning the July Fourth game. Two days, that’s all we’ve got. Now, let’s try it again.”

This time, Ben fielded like he was in the big leagues, pitched the ball to second and the runner only made it three-quarters of the way to first before the ball thwapped into Tiny’s glove.

“Better.” But their flawless performance still didn’t put a smile on Allie’s face. If anything, her scowl darkened when she spotted Cameron standing near the dugout. She pointed her bat toward Ben. “Lead the star drill, and I’ll be back in a minute.”

She strode off the field, raised a questioning eyebrow at the equipment bag by Cameron’s feet. “Come to play, Wright?”

Wow, she was in a pisser, and he doubted even Eden’s kick-ass cookies could make her happy right now. “The boys invited me. I play a mean right field.”

She eyed his athletic shorts, making him aware he’d been in jeans all summer. “We could use help in the outfield. How do you feel about taking orders from a woman?”

The picture of Allie in charge of their last physical encounter flashed through Cameron’s brain. Her hands on her own body, her mouth on his. “More than fine.”

“Take center, then.” She turned to head back to the field, but Cameron caught up and touched her shoulder.

“You okay?” Stupid question. No doubt her mood had something to do with money and her dad. Well, dammit, he’d offered to help her and she’d flat-out rejected him. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t try again.

“I don’t want to get into this again.” Her shoulders slumped slightly. “Let’s play something I have a chance of winning.”

An hour and a half later, everyone on the field was sweaty, dusty and in a marginally improved mood. Allie’s face was smudged from where she’d wiped it against her T-shirt, and half her hair was straggling from her ponytail. And damned if he didn’t want to spread her out in centerfield and make love with her. Maybe that would make her smile, make her forget her problems for a little while.