Rule's Property (The House of Rule Book 2) (3 page)

A few seconds later, Courtney heard the front door open. After a moment, Erin flounced into the room with a grin. She threw her brother a smile and then made a beeline for Courtney.

"Happy eighteenth birthday,
little sister,"
she teased as she enveloped Courtney in a warm embrace.

Hugging Erin, Courtney peeked over the girl's shoulder and saw Nick watching them with ill-concealed irritation. Her nerves took another hit. Surely she wasn't reading his expression correctly; his features reflected a maddened look of resentment. His legs were braced apart and his teeth were clenched, as tension seemed to hold him in its grip.

As she continued to watch him over Erin's shoulder, his frown only intensified. He stared back at her, holding her gaze captive. Watching her intently, locking her eyes with his, he lifted his glass and threw back the liquor, swallowing it down in one shot.

Chapter One

Six years later

Nick glanced up with a scowl as Damian pushed into his office and tossed a folder on his desk. Not appreciating the interruption, Nick threw his pen aside and rasped, "What the hell am I supposed to do with that?"

Ignoring Nick's sour mood, Damian tilted his head toward the folder. "Garrett's fishing for property on the East Coast again. I need you to look it over and make a decision when you get a chance. It looks good to me, but you've got the Florida real estate experience, not me."

Silently acknowledging the real reason he'd taken so many trips to Florida, Nick flipped open the folder. With a questioning grunt, he scanned the title page and glanced down at several photos in bold color. "Another hotel? What's so different about this one that I have to make a decision? I trust his judgment. Don't you?"

"Yeah, but this time there's a little more to it than buying, restructuring and selling for a quick profit."

His attention arrested with that statement, Nick glanced back up and looked at Damian. "What's up?"

"He wants to
keep it,"
Damian answered flatly.

"
Keep it?
What the fuck for? The Rule Corporation doesn't
keep
shit. At least, only very rarely. Does Garrett not get what we do for a living? Do we need to send his ass back to school?"

"It's a little late for that." Damian chuckled, glancing out the window and then back to the folder. "Just take a look, will you? I actually think it's a good idea. You know he's wanted to branch out for a while now. Actually, expanding is probably a damn good idea. And we have to start somewhere, might as well be real estate. Goddamn, look how much fucking money we've made since we bought this building."

Nick tilted his head in agreement. There was no question that buying the downtown high-rise had been a stroke of genius. And it had been their youngest brother's idea. "I'll take a look, but I'm telling you, I don't have the time to run another subsidiary. Do you have any idea how much travel that would entail? We'd have to hire new people."

"Garrett can handle it since he has such a hard-on about it. But you have to admit, the kid's on the right track. We've almost doubled our profits with the corporate rents we're pulling in from this building alone."

"True," Nick agreed, glancing back down at the pictures in front of him.

Damian stalled for a moment before continuing. "Speaking of the building . . . you're not going to like this--"

"What?" Nick asked, lifting his head and narrowing his eyes on Damian, already pissed from just the tone of his brother's voice.

"
Your
dear mother--"

"
Whose mother?"
Nick quickly interrupted his brother's sarcastic opening gambit.

"Our mother." Damian admitted, smirking. "She's redecorating the house and asked if she could use the penthouse--"

"I
live
in the goddamn penthouse," Nick interrupted with an impatience he couldn't contain.

"I know you do. Obviously why I prefaced that statement with
'you're not going to like this.'"
Damian replied blandly.

"
Do not fucking tell me you gave her a key card,"
Nick spit out.

"I didn't." Damian stated with a sly smirk.

Nick studied the expression on his brother's face with building anger, instinctively bracing for what was coming. "Don't fuck with me," he hissed out.

"I didn't give her one." Damian's mouth twisted in a shit-faced grin before lowering his boom. "I gave it to Courtney."

Every muscle in Nick's body froze, the oxygen in his throat seizing up. "When did Courtney get home?" he managed to force out.

"Yesterday, I think," Damian replied off-handedly.

"When'd you see her?" Nick asked, trying not to sound as if he were interrogating his brother, barely aware that his words were becoming abrupt as his body tensed.

"Last night at the house. Girl looks good, all grown up. Finally lost that baby fat. Gave her my key card and Garrett's as well. He won't need it, since he's been living at the lake house when he's not travelling. The only card left is yours. Don't fucking lose it."

Nick lifted one eyebrow, expressing his irritation at the unnecessary warning. He remained silent, wondering if his body language was indicating that his emotions had just shifted into dangerous territory.

Damian went on, only semi-apologetically, "You know I didn't want to agree, but what the hell was I supposed to do?"

Nick's muscles stiffened as he tried to stay on subject, trying not to give any indication of his true thoughts. "Tell mother 'no'? Offer to put her up in a hotel? Let her stay at
your
house?" he suggested.

"Couldn't do that," Damian stated. "My house is too far from the city and Courtney has job interviews lined up this week."

"Courtney? What's she got to do with this?" Nick asked, confused.

His brother looked at him as if he'd grown an extra head. "Are you dense? What the fuck is wrong with you today? I told you she's home from grad school. I told you I gave her the key cards to the penthouse. Where do you think she'll be staying, exactly? If mom can't live in the house while it's being updated, how do you think Courtney will be able to?"

Nick let out a slow, exaggerated breath while he tried to get his brain to keep working.
Keep up with the fucking conversation, Rule. You can do it. Get your goddamn head back in the game and out of that girl's pants.
"I guess I don't get a vote in the matter?" he forced himself to ask a question that wouldn't sound suspicious to his brother.

"Look, Nick, I'm sorry. It'll only be for a few weeks, okay? Maybe less. The penthouse has four suites. You'll never know they're living there."

Nick frowned but said, "Fine."

"Fine? You're giving up that easily?" Damian asked incredulously.

Giving up?
More like restraining himself to his seat
. It was true that the thought of his mother living with him for a few weeks was horrifying. But Courtney living under his roof? That was an entirely different matter. "What the hell do you want me to say, Damian? You've left me with little choice."

"I appreciate you not busting a fuse about this. They're probably moving in as we speak."

Nick's lips tightened as he dismissed his brother. "You're going to owe me, and you're going to owe me fucking big."

"Yeah, I already figured that one out," Damian replied as he turned and left the room.

****

Courtney unpacked her suitcases in the second bedroom suite of the Rule Corporation's penthouse. The apartment contained four suites and now, only one sat empty. Earlier in the day, Justine Rule had settled into the third suite, but she'd already left for a meeting with the contractors who were remodeling the house. This morning, when Courtney and her godmother had arrived at the penthouse together, the older woman had been just as loving and considerate as she'd always been, insisting that Courtney take the most spacious suite available.

Of course, Nick already occupied the largest set of rooms. Fortunately or unfortunately, Courtney couldn't decide which, the suite she was now settling into happened to be the one closest to his. She let out a sigh.
Nick
. He was her nemesis as well as her savior. Courtney knew the terms were inconsistent, but even as she had the thought, she shrugged a shoulder. Nick was what he was, and there was no changing him.

Several years ago, whether it had been from the flip of a coin or a simple matter of logistics, she didn't know which, Nick had commandeered the entire penthouse for his own personal use, and Courtney knew from what Justine had told her, that he wasn't going to be happy sharing his space with houseguests.

She smiled wickedly at the thought.
Too damn bad
.

Nick had been getting his way for far, far too long. A strong arrow of annoyance took hold of Courtney that she was unable to shake.

It was unbelievable,
un-freaking-believable
. She was twenty-four years old.

Twenty. Four. Years. Old.

And still a virgin
.

How in the hell had that happened? She liked to think of herself as normal and she was certainly healthy. But evidently, somewhere along the way, she'd become Nick Rule's property and he never let her forget that fact.

To the rest of the Rule family, she was just Courtney Powell. Orphan, extended family member, goddaughter and ex-ward of Justine Rule.

But to Nick, she was . . . something more. What exactly that was, she wasn't sure. Nobody else in the family seemed to know what was going on in his head. Courtney reanalyzed that thought, and although she wasn't entirely certain, she figured Damian had to have a clue about how Nick treated her, and if he didn't, she had no idea how he'd missed it.

It had certainly taken Courtney awhile to figure Nick out--and she still didn't have all the puzzle pieces in place just yet. But it was coming along; she'd figure him out eventually. And living in such close proximity would help that along, it had to.

As she shook out another blouse and placed it on a hanger, she figured it was probably only her imagination, but she could almost smell Nick's scent lingering in the apartment. Just the thought of being in his home for a few weeks, even with his mother around, was causing her legs to tremble.

Damn him
.

He'd
always
caused her legs to tremble. Even from the very beginning.

With her, it had always been about Nick.
Always.
But her thought process had been so clouded by grief that it had taken her years to figure out that she meant something to Nick as well.

At first, she'd thought her feelings were one-sided. Sure, there had been that crazy kiss on her eighteenth birthday, but at the time, she hadn't had a clue what had prompted it. Maybe it had been mere sympathy on his part or simply a fluke; maybe he'd been thinking of someone else. The only thing she'd understood at the time was that he cared for her somewhat, in a way she couldn't possibly figure out, but she knew it wasn't the same way that she was beginning to care for him.

After her birthday was over, he'd gone back to ignoring her as a member of the female population, just as he'd done before, only treating her in a semi-friendly way, when he deigned to notice her at all. So she'd done her best to put him from her mind and go on with rebuilding her life as she'd been trying to do since she'd arrived in St. Louis.

Her last year of high school had been nothing but a test of perseverance. After her parents had died in the car wreck, Mrs. Rule had transferred Courtney from her prestigious, all-girls school in Florida to an even more prestigious one in the suburbs of St. Louis.

Once she'd graduated from high school, Courtney couldn't find the desire or fortitude to go away to college. It was in the back of her mind to return to Florida and rejoin her friends there, but she'd felt ambivalent, almost scared about uprooting her life again. So her first two years after high school were spent in a small community college on the outskirts of St. Louis, both to get her feet wet academically, and so she wouldn't have to leave Justine, who'd become a surrogate mother to her.

Nick had all but ignored Courtney during the time she'd attended the small college and her pride had demanded that she ignore him as well. It had been extremely difficult after his insane kiss, though she tried to manage it as well as she could. But sometimes she couldn't help feeling hurt. He'd smile at her but it felt forced. He'd look straight past her, as if she were a nuisance he had to put up with.

It had been impossible, even back then, not to realize that Nick treated her differently than the rest of the family did. But when had she begun to understand that it was because he was attracted to her and that he was trying to keep himself in check? It was undoubtedly once she'd been at college in Florida for a while; after a time, there'd been little question of his true feelings. But looking back, she realized there had been clues even before she'd left St. Louis, although she hadn't recognized them at the time. She thought back as the memories began to wash over her.