The Heiress (24 page)

It wasn’t easy finding intelligent, interesting women
who agreed with his demands. But where there was a will, there was a way. His biggest problem these days was boredom. The feeling that after years of philandering and wolfing around, he had seen and done it all.

Well, he thought quite wickedly as he tangled his fingers in Ginger’s hair and forced her to stand, and then turn and bend over the surface of the desk. There were some bridges yet to be crossed…some places he’d always yearned to explore. Perhaps, he thought with a cynical smile, as he roughly parted his mistress’s legs, thrust into her and heard her groan, not in pleasure but in pain, it was time he really put himself and his latest paramour to the test. And saw just how far it was possible to go. Without, of course, getting caught.

D
ECIDING HER DOCTOR
had been right, she should take it easy and let her body heal, Daisy spent the next week in bed, getting up only to eat and shower and sit outside in the sunshine from time to time. She watched movies, she read, she slept.

At nights, Jack held her. During the days, he cooked for her and took care of her and worked on complicated Deveraux-Heyward Shipping Company business in his office at home. As Daisy listened to him doing business over the phone, she realized how much he loved his job, and how valuable he was to the firm. She didn’t want to ever be the cause of him losing what he had worked so hard to attain.

Just as she knew she couldn’t cocoon in Jack’s lair forever.

Sooner or later she had to go back to the real world. She needed to build a life for herself, aside from this temporary-marriage or roommate situation or whatever the heck it actually was right now with Jack. And there
was no time like the present to do that, so she brought up the subject Sunday evening while he was cooking dinner for both of them.

Bypassing the Cajun chicken sizzling aromatically in the skillet on the stove, Daisy headed for the dishwasher. Noting the wash cycle was done, she began putting the clean dishes away, and, aware this scene was too cozy, too domestic for comfort, quietly broached what she had been putting off for far too long. “I think you should go back to the office tomorrow.”

Jack shot her a surprised look. “I can work at home as long as I need to.”

“I know.” Daisy ducked her head and concentrated on putting the silverware into the appropriate dividers. “But it’s not necessary for you to be here any longer. Besides—” she looked up, able to feel his nonreceptiveness to the idea “—I’ve got to go back to work soon now, too. And this time I think I want something full-time.”

“Like at a photography studio?”

“At Grace Deveraux’s new television show.”

Jack looked at her as if she had lost her mind. He put down the long-handled fork. “You can’t seriously be thinking of applying for that job.”

“Why not?” Daisy could feel herself getting defensive. “Amy said they want a set photographer to take pictures with a digital camera of the things Grace does during her show, so they can put them up on the Internet. I can do that. I work with a digital camera all the time.”

Jack frowned. “You’re also—”

“Her ex-husband’s love child?” Daisy finished his sentence for him.

Jack released an exasperated breath. “I wasn’t going
to put it so eloquently, but yes. That alone might disqualify you, Daisy.”

Daisy squared her shoulders. “If it does, it does,” she retorted, more than willing to do battle.

Jack extended a beseeching hand. “Daisy—”

She put up a hand to ward him off and stepped out of his reach. “
Don’t
tell me not to do this, Jack. I’ve spent my whole life hearing what not to do. I don’t need that kind of nonsupport from you, too.”

“In this instance,” he corrected just as short-temperedly, “I’d be right.”

“Oh…go jump in the ocean.” Daisy scowled and rushed out the door into the dusky light.

“Daisy—” Jack’s voice trailed after her.

She refused to turn around. “I’m going for a walk.” She tossed the words over her shoulder. Daisy had at least twenty minutes until it got completely dark and she intended to use every second of it.

She heard him swear as whatever it was he was cooking on the stove threw off a burned scent. Hands stuffed into the pockets of her shorts, head bent against the wind, Daisy headed across the dunes to the shoreline. The temperature had dropped into the low seventies—cool for that time of summer—the wind had picked up something fierce and the surf was rolling in. Barefoot, still steaming over her fight with Jack, she walked to the water’s edge.

Seconds later, she heard someone come up behind her. Daisy turned, expecting to see Jack, wanting to continue their argument. Instead, she saw a striking woman in her late-thirties, with dark-red hair. She was looking at Daisy as if she wanted to say something. “Can I help you?” Daisy asked, aware the woman looked oddly familiar.

The woman smiled nervously and pivoted away before Daisy could figure out where she might have seen the striking redhead. “No,” the woman said, and quickly headed back down the beach.

G
INGER’S HEART
was pounding. She didn’t know what had gotten into her, thinking she could approach Daisy Templeton-Granger that way. After all, she had already talked to Richard’s other daughter, to no avail. Iris had refused to get involved. Just because Daisy had sown a few wild oats and was fresh out of college herself, and bound to understand why it was so important Ginger’s daughter get the same opportunity to test her wings, did not mean Daisy would help.

This was her father they were talking about, after all.

No, Ginger decided as the sun began to set, she was going to have to keep to the original plan. She had seven more days to earn the rest of the money, of doing whatever Richard pleased, no matter how sick, risky, perverted or degrading. Whenever, wherever he said. And then the rest of the money—all twelve thousand of it—would be hers.

And if he didn’t give her the money?

Then, Ginger knew, she would have to sink to his level and hurt him and his family the way he had been hurting hers. Ginger could only hope, as she chanced another look back at Daisy, still standing on the shoreline gazing dispiritedly out at the ocean, that it wouldn’t come to that.

“W
HAT WAS THAT ABOUT
?” Jack asked Daisy as he walked out to stand next to her on the beach.

“I’m not sure.” Daisy bit her lip as they both turned and watched the curvy redhead disappear into the distance. “It seemed like that woman wanted to say something to me, but then, when I spoke to her, she seemed to chicken out or something, and just walked away.” Daisy paused, doing her best, it seemed to Jack, to act as if they hadn’t just had their very first fight, then looked back up at him, her expression still troubled. “I gather that means that you don’t know who that woman is, either, then,” Daisy said.

Jack shook his head. He just knew when he had looked out the window and saw her approaching Daisy so deliberately, he’d felt a flicker of alarm and worried she was up to no good. “She’s not a neighbor,” Jack said. “Not a close one, anyway, or I would know her.”

Daisy frowned and shoved the hair from her eyes. “She looked kind of familiar to me. But I can’t place her.”

Jack fell into step beside Daisy as she headed off across the sand. “Maybe you’ve just seen her around—shopping or something.”

“Maybe,” Daisy agreed, but her words lacked confidence.

“Listen,” Jack said, touching her elbow gently. “I’m sorry about what I said.”

“That’s okay.” Daisy brushed past him, quickening her steps so they were no longer walking side by side. “You’re entitled to your feelings. We both are.”

Jack kept pace with her anyway. “I don’t want to fight,” he told her quietly.

“Then let’s don’t,” Daisy said, breaking into a run and letting him know the subject was closed.

Once home, they ate dinner and then Daisy went to bed. Jack stayed up awhile, as had become their custom since he’d brought her home from the hospital. It wasn’t the way he preferred to spend his evenings with Daisy, but it had been necessary, in the beginning anyway. After her surgery, she’d had trouble finding a comfortable position in which to sleep. And there were times when he knew she cried into her pillow for a good half hour or more before drifting off. But if he slipped into the bedroom to comfort her, she always pretended that wasn’t the case at all. And then found some excuse to slip out of bed again as soon as he got in, and go watch a movie or read a book in the living room.

Realizing she needed her space to come to terms with the loss they had both suffered, he had tried to give Daisy the room she yearned for.

But his patience was wearing thin, Jack realized as he drank the last of the lemonade from his glass. He wanted to be able to do more than just hold her when she was slumbering. He wanted to be able to kiss her whenever, wherever, however he felt like it. And make love to her again and again. He even wanted, God help him, another baby with her. One they planned and made deliberately.

Not that they could start working on that right away,
however. For one thing, it would be another week before she got the all-clear from her doctor that would simply allow them to have sex. And although Jack didn’t know a lot about such female matters, he guessed it would probably be a little bit after that before her doctor said they could try again.

In the meantime, he had to convince Daisy that they still had a future together. So what if it wasn’t the romantic happily-ever-after version of love and marriage that every little girl dreamed about? It had been his experience very few relationships these days were put together that traditionally.

Couples either stayed together or they didn’t. Same with families. Daisy might not realize it yet, but it was better to go into a relationship without stars in your eyes. Better to start with just a few promises and even fewer expectations and build something solid and lasting on that than dream of everything and lose it all, either one disillusioning moment at a time, or in one hideously traumatic event.

Sighing, Jack stood, carried his empty glass to the sink and began turning off the lights. He had just started through the darkened hallway that ran the width of the house, when he heard a commotion and a crash—like glass shattering—and then Daisy let out a bloodcurdling scream.

D
AISY WAS TRAPPED
and she couldn’t get out, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see who it was coming toward her, but she knew the person in the mask was obviously a would-be intruder, so she kept screaming until she felt warm strong capable hands clasping her shoulders and a firm reassuring voice in her ears.

“Daisy. Come on now. You’re dreaming. Wake up, sweetheart, wake up!”

A strangled sob caught in Daisy’s throat as she struggled to open her eyes. The hands shook her again, even more firmly. And then the darkness began to recede. The bedroom began to come into view. The bedside lamp was on and Jack was next to her on the bed. He looked as frightened and upset as she felt.

“You were dreaming,” he repeated again.

And trembling and crying, Daisy realized. She tried to take a deep breath and only partially succeeded.

“You’re okay,” Jack said, climbing into bed with her. He sat back against the headboard and pulled her onto his lap. “You’re all right, baby. You knocked your water glass off the nightstand, and it shattered. See?” Jack pointed to the mess on the floor.

Daisy nodded. She could see what had happened, she knew she’d been dreaming, but she couldn’t get rid of the overwhelming fear or stop her shaking.

“What was your nightmare about?” Jack asked as he smoothed a hand through her hair.

Daisy shuddered as she buried her face against the warmth and solidness of his chest. “It’s the s-s-same one I always have.”

Jack’s hand stilled. “A recurring dream?”

Daisy nodded, and clung all the tighter. “Since I was a kid.”

“All the time?”

“No.” She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes to hold back the tears—they came anyway. “Just when I’m upset or under a lot of stress.”

“Tell me about it,” Jack encouraged in a low, unflappable tone.

She took a deep, stabilizing breath and waited for
some of the terror to ease. He was patient, waiting. Finally, she was able to speak. “I’m in this dark windowless room. It’s small and it’s kind of damp and close and awful. And I hate it there. And I’m scared, but I can’t get out of there.”

“There’s no door?” Jack asked, gently rubbing her back, shoulders.

“There is.” Daisy closed her eyes so she could visualize it better. “But there’s something wrong with the door because whenever I try to open it, it won’t budge.”

Jack’s hand stilled. “Is that why you screamed?”

Daisy shook her head. Fresh tears rolled down her cheeks. She dashed them away with the back of her hand. “No,” she explained, wary of revealing too much to the person who had the power to hurt her more than life, but even more terrified of continuing to keep all the fear bottled up inside. “I screamed,” Daisy explained in a hoarse voice, “because the person in the mask came in and shut the door, and then I’m trapped with the person in the mask.”

“And then what happens?” Jack asked gently, even as his arms tightened protectively around her.

Daisy felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up. “And then the person hisses at me to be quiet and reaches for me, and I know the person is going to hurt me, and that’s when I scream and that’s always when the dream ends.”

J
ACK’S CHILDHOOD
had been no piece of cake. According to Jack’s grandfather, until the day his mother had walked out for good when Jack was three, she had tried to abdicate her responsibilities to Jack and fought incessantly with her father when he wouldn’t let her. And
in turn according to all accounts, Jack’s grandfather had called Jack’s mother a no-good tramp every chance he got.

In retrospect, Jack could see both family members had a point. His mother reportedly had been a lousy parent, filled with angst and resentment and impatience, but given the fact she was only sixteen and unmarried when she had him, her attitude was, if not acceptable, at least understandable, in Jack’s opinion. She had simply been too young and immature to have a baby and bring that child up responsibly. And her father should have known it and helped her take steps to either give her a lot more assistance in raising Jack in those early years, and still have something of a life for herself, or he should have helped her find a good home for her baby and give it up for adoption.

Instead, his grandfather had been of the opinion that Jack’s mother had made her bed and should lie in it. Period. Age had not mellowed him one bit. To the day he died of a massive coronary, Jack’s grandfather was a gruff, unsentimental, harsh man who had no time for any nonsense, nonsense being anything that didn’t have to do with his work at the docks or the sports teams he followed.

But even given his miserable childhood, Jack had never had the kind of nightmare Daisy had just described. And he certainly had never had the same one over and over again. “What do you think triggered this one?” Jack asked, concerned.

Daisy sighed. “That woman on the beach. I guess the encounter with her unsettled me more than I realized.”

“Any particular reason why?”

“I guess it was the way she was looking at me when
she first came up to me. Jack, it was like she knew who I was and had come there specifically to get something from me. And that just doesn’t make any sense.”

No, it didn’t, Jack thought.

Unless the woman had been sent there by someone like Bucky Jerome to try and strike up a conversation with Daisy and get information on her that way. Jack wouldn’t put anything past Bucky at this point.

“Is that the only time you have the nightmare?” Jack asked. “When you’re under stress?”

“Or when my life is particularly problematic,” Daisy confessed on a shaky sigh, “and I feel like I just want to go somewhere and hide.”

Like the way she had been hiding at his place the past week, Jack thought.

Daisy sighed and brought her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. “I feel like my life has been out of control for a while now,” she said. She buried her face in her knees. Then, resting her head on her upraised knees, turned to look at him. “That’s why I want to get a regular job, a start on a real career as a photographer. I thought it might help.”

Jack worried Daisy was setting herself up for even more disappointment in applying for a job with Grace Deveraux, given that Grace still couldn’t stand the sight of Daisy, due to the memories Daisy’s mere presence conjured up, but this time he said nothing to discourage Daisy. He figured this was one lesson she was just going to have to learn the hard way. “Why photography as a career?” he asked, moving off the bed and bending down to pick up the broken shards of glass.

Daisy put shoes on her feet, grabbed the bedroom waste can and came around to help him. “Because,” she replied, frankly meeting his gaze, “pictures don’t lie.”