The Heiress (31 page)

J
ACK WAS SOUND ASLEEP
when Daisy began thrashing next to him. She had slept fitfully nearly every night since the miscarriage. Sometimes crying, sometimes whimpering and curling into a fetal position. When necessary, he woke her up just enough to quiet her. She rarely remembered those times the next morning. Other times, all he had to do was put his arms around her and hold her close and she would lapse back into a deep sleep. But tonight was not one of those nights, he realized as Daisy suddenly sat bolt upright and let out a bloodcurdling scream that made the hair on his neck stand on end.

“No,” she screamed again, even more loudly. “I won’t be quiet! I want out of here! I want out right now! Mommy!”

Jack switched on the bedside lamp, sat up and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Daisy!” He shook her once, then again and again.

Daisy opened her eyes, still not seeing him, sobbing openly now. “I won’t shut up!” she cried before letting
out another bloodcurdling shriek of terror that set Jack’s heart pounding. “Mommy!”

Desperate to stop her suffering, Jack shook Daisy all the more forcefully. “Daisy, wake up, sweetheart!” he instructed her loudly.

But instead of rousing, Daisy merely flailed out at him and tried to scramble from the bed. As Jack followed, she lashed out at him, and made it as far as the door before he caught up with her. Still trying to reach her, he clamped both his arms around her and held her close. “Daisy, it’s Jack. Now come on. Look at me, honey. Look at me. It’s Jack. It’s Jack. Everything’s okay. You’re just dreaming. That’s all. It’s a bad, bad dream.”

Slowly, Daisy’s eyes cleared. She swallowed hard, still trembling from head to foot, and looked at him.

“You were dreaming,” Jack repeated even more firmly. “You’re awake now. You’re safe,” he reassured her gently as they leaned against the wall. And then Daisy broke down in the gut-wrenching sobs that just broke his heart.

D
AISY DIDN’T KNOW
what was the matter with her. She couldn’t seem to stop crying. Couldn’t get ahold of herself or stop the images of Rosewood flashing through her mind. Couldn’t do anything but sag against the wall and hold on to Jack for dear life.

“Hush, hush,” Jack whispered against her hair. He smoothed a hand down her spine. “You’re all right now. You’re safe. I promise you. Nothing and no one is going to hurt you now. You’re safe.”

Safe. Daisy had wanted to be this secure all her life, but not until she’d married Jack did she ever believe she could feel this way. And there was a part of her
that still didn’t trust the emotion she felt. At least not all the way. She lifted her head from the dampness of his shoulder and looked up into his face. Jack was looking down at her with such unbelievable tenderness, just the way he had looked at Rosewood, when he had rescued her weeks before and suddenly she knew what she wanted. To forget those horrible dreams and whatever had happened long ago to cause her to dread going out to Rosewood, to dread ever being locked in a small, windowless room. Or left crying, alone and afraid.

“Make love to me,” Daisy whispered, already forging her lips with his. “Now, Jack. Please.”

She didn’t have to ask twice.

He threaded both his hands through her hair and lowered his mouth to hers, making her his and only his, for now, forever, and suddenly the past was just that. All that mattered to Daisy was the present. She locked her hands around the back of his neck and kissed him back passionately. She arched up against him, desperate with need and the yearning to have him buried deep inside her. Because when Jack made love to her he made her feel as if she was perfect.
They
were perfect. Together. And that was something she’d never felt before. Never even come close to feeling.

Aware his arousal was every bit as fierce as hers, she kicked off her shorts, opened up his pajama pants and took the hot, throbbing length of him in hand. Swearing, Jack broke the contact and lunged for the nightstand. Daisy blinked, not understanding, until she saw him reach for the box of condoms. And then belatedly, she remembered, too.

“Dr. Rametti,” Jack muttered as he stripped off his pajama pants, covered his erection swiftly and came back to join her. She tugged her camisole top over her
head and held out her arms. He came into them. Just that easily, they picked up where they had left off. They rubbed against each other intimately, teasing, tormenting, until control was all but gone and they were both moaning and shaking with need, and the time for waiting, for delaying was past.

Jack lifted her against the wall. She wrapped her legs around his waist. He slid into her in one powerful thrust. By the second, Daisy had begun to shatter. He followed soon after. Her fingertips dug into his back as they hung there together in ecstasy, and then came slowly back to reality. His breathing still coming as hard and fast as hers, Jack wrapped her in his arms, holding her close. “I think we just broke all land-speed records there,” he murmured teasingly against her neck.

Daisy pressed a kiss in his hair and cuddled closer, knowing she had never felt as content—and wanted—and full of joy as she did at that very moment. It wasn’t that Jack made all the bad things in her life go away—no one had that kind of power. He just made her think that the problems—and they still had plenty of them—weren’t anywhere near as important as the joy and fulfillment the two of them felt whenever they were together like this, or just talking, being. Enjoying each other. Enjoying sex.

“I know.”

He drew back to look at her. “Want to go again?”

Daisy grinned as he slowly, reluctantly, disengaged their bodies where they were still joined and ripped off the overflowing condom. “That’s not possible.” She creased her forehead, trying to recall what she had read on the subject, because what she had read was the sum total of her knowledge. She narrowed her eyes at him,
and almost ashamed to admit how much she wanted him still, asked playfully, “Is it…?”

Jack slanted her a sexy smile, swept her into his arms and carried her over to the rumpled covers. “Maybe not this very second,” he allowed with cheerful abandon, following her down onto the bed.

He reached over and turned down the bedside lamp to its lowest setting so the room was illuminated with a soft glow, then turned her gently onto her stomach and swung his body overtop hers so his knees were on either side of her and he was straddling her thighs. Keeping his weight off her, he flattened his palms against the bare skin of her back, and began a slow, heavenly massage that could have relaxed her no matter how tense she was. And she wasn’t the least bit tense. Aware she had never been pampered like this, never even imagined it could happen, especially inside a marriage, Daisy groaned at the gentle kneading and caressing.

“Good?” Jack asked.

“Mmm,” Daisy agreed. She had never felt anything so good in her entire life.

“Not too hard?”

“No.”

“Too soft?” His fingers worked their magic on either side of her spine.

Daisy took a long, deep breath, wondering if anyone had ever climaxed from just this, because she was beginning to feel as if she would if he kept up his ministrations. “Perfect,” she murmured.

“That’s good. You keep right on enjoying yourself, you hear?”

“Mmm. I will.” Daisy sank farther into the soft king-size mattress, her whole body feeling as if it was
turning to the consistency of melting butter. And that was, of course, when the mood between them began to change once again. He left her shoulders to start on her calves. Worked slowly and patiently up to the backs of her knees. Then her thighs. Daisy’s mixture of relaxation and pleasure faded completely, to be replaced by something else. Something distinctly sexual, and perhaps a little frustrating. “Jack,” she moaned hungrily.

“You seem a little tense here,” he noted as his fingertips worked the insides of her thighs.

“And you know why,” Daisy murmured as he stroked the lower curves of her buttocks, tracing inward, until he reached the petal softness there.

“I think so.” Strong hands turned her again.

He looked down at her with a sexy smile, ruggedly handsome in the soft light of the masculinely appointed bedroom. “You need a front massage, too.”

“Somehow,” Daisy drawled, loving the way he was still straddling her almost as much as the sight of his renewed arousal, “I had a feeling you were going to say that.”

His hands started low, just above her knees. Relaxing, rubbing. Then moved higher, to the insides of her thighs again. A fierce burning started inside her, and by the time he reached the apex of her thighs, her every nerve ending was quivering, vibrating at the slightest contact. Looking as determined to make it last as he was to get her there, Jack moved past her feminine mound and gently massaged her waist. Rib cage. Shoulders.

Daisy arched as he kissed her breasts and sent a new round of pleasure ricocheting through her.

The next thing she knew, he was sliding downward and settling between her legs. She whimpered softly as
he slid a finger deep between the tender folds, and then followed it with a series of light, butterfly kisses. She knew he wanted her to come, but if she did, it was going to be over too soon again and she had yet to enjoy his body the way he had just enjoyed her.

It took some doing, but she finally wiggled free of him. “My turn.”

He looked at her, perplexed. “But you haven’t—”

“My turn,” Daisy reiterated even more deliberately. Enjoying the sight of him, naked, rumpled and aroused, she steered him onto his stomach. He chuckled, reluctantly complying, as she prepared to torture him the way he had just sensually tortured her.

Figuring he might as well give in—and pretend to let her call the shots in their relationship—for a few minutes anyway—Jack folded his arms beneath his head and let Daisy have her way with him. And what a way it was, he thought wistfully as her nimble fingers worked their way across his shoulders, down his spine, to the curve of his buttocks, and lower still, to the sensitive insides of his thighs. She knew just how to touch him, how to make him want her, and more important, give. And that was something. Jack had never wanted a woman in his life before Daisy, never imagined himself willingly sharing his bed, his home, his life. But now that Daisy was a part of his existence, he couldn’t imagine a life—a night—without her. Not when she made him feel as if he knew how to love, and maybe even be loved, after all.

Daisy turned him onto his back. Stroked his shaft, bent her head and kissed the tip, then turned her attention to his chest once again, her sweet lips finding his pecs and the mat of hair and nipples. He groaned again and reached for the box on the nightstand. Daisy
plucked the condom from his fingers. “Let me,” she said.

She opened the packet with her teeth and pulled out the condom. After a moment’s shy hesitation that was as sweet as it was comical, she was able to figure out how to open the latex sheath and roll it over his now-throbbing shaft. Figuring playtime was over, Jack wanted her beneath him. Wanted her to be his.

But once again, Daisy had her own ideas she was determined to implement. Looking beautiful and wild, vulnerable and possessive, with her wavy blond hair floating around her face and tumbling onto her shoulders, she straddled his body, took him in hand, and slowly, deliberately, lowered herself onto him. Jack moaned with a mixture of pleasure and frustration as she jerked in a shuddering breath and accepted him into her tight silky warmth a torturous half inch at a time. Able to see the depth of her arousal in her lidded eyes, he felt his need for her with every fiber of his being.

Hearts pounding in tandem, pulses racing, they moved together, slowly, awkwardly at first, then more and more expertly. Enjoying the sight of her riding him, as much as the physical act of their joining, Jack slid a hand between their bodies.

Daisy was trying to hide it, but he knew she was holding back, trying to keep some small part of her separate from him—and thought by not kissing him on the mouth she could manage it, but he wasn’t going to allow the ruse. Smiling up at her with everything he felt for her in his heart, he continued watching her. Even as he found the tender nub, rubbing, stroking, making love to her by touch and physical possession until she was straining against him, whimpering with need. And still she rotated her body over his, taking the
time to discover what she liked as she opened her body up to him in slow, inexorable, circular degrees, while beneath her he controlled each long, slow, deeply thrusting upward stroke. Until he was finding that spot inside her once again, the one guaranteed to send her over the edge with stunning intensity. The insides of her thighs were tightly nudging his hips, and she was arching back, gasping for breath, and she was coming exactly the way he wanted her to…so hard she was shaking and crying out… And he was following her, fast, hard, irrevocably. And this time there was no holding back, no pretending that something significant hadn’t happened. Because it had, Jack thought in satisfaction. She had reached out to him in need, and he had answered her, and there was no turning back. No pretending that this marriage of theirs wasn’t slowly and steadily becoming a real and viable one, after all.

“T
OM, WHAT A NICE SURPRISE
!” Grace said when Tom walked into the studio, where a gardening segment featuring houseplants was being set up.

Tom’s son-in-law, Nick Everton, waved hello and went back to his producing duties. On the other side of the soundstage, Daisy caught sight of Tom, too, and deliberately went the other way. So much for the father-daughter unity he had tried to jump-start the previous evening, Tom thought.

“Did you come by to watch the taping?” Grace asked. To Tom’s pleasure, his ex looked genuinely happy to see him. “Or,” she continued, her voice dropping a notch, “has something come up I need to know about.”

“The latter,” Tom said, glad he could still come to Grace about family matters. “Is there somewhere we could talk?”

Grace cast a look over her shoulder and made a face. “My dressing room has been taken over by wardrobe people right now. How about we go over there?” Being careful where she walked—there seemed to be cables taped to the floor all over the place—she led the way to the dining-room set, where nothing much was happening at the moment. She leaned against the side of the table, folded her arms in front of her and crossed one ankle delicately over the other. “What’s up?”

“Did Daisy tell you what happened last night?”

“No.” Grace’s smile was frozen on her face, but there was a new wariness in her eyes. “Why?” she asked just as softly, looking as if she, too, was braced for the worst.

Tom wished there were some way he could cushion the news, but there wasn’t, so he just said it straight out. “She and Jack had dinner with me last night. The DNA results were in, and they were what we suspected.”

Grace’s expression remained serene as she hazarded a concerned look at Daisy. “How did she take it?”

Tom sighed, then motioned for Grace to sit. “With mixed emotions.” He paused to help Grace into one of the chairs, and sat down opposite her. “Anyway, when she and Jack got home, they found their house had been broken into. Daisy caught sight of two intruders dressed in black, with ski masks pulled down over their faces. Beyond that, she couldn’t give much of a description. Anyway, the only things missing pertained to Daisy’s recent visit to Switzerland.”

Abruptly, Grace’s expression turned as somber as Tom’s mood. She knew as well as he did what that could mean to both of them. If the tabloids caught wind of the real reason Tom and Grace’s marriage had fallen apart years before, their divorce would become news again. Grace plucked at the crease on the knee of her buttercup-yellow tunic and slacks. “I gather no one was hurt.”

“No. Thank God.” Tom paused, glad Grace was taking what could be a devastating turn of events so well. “Jack called Harlan Decker in lieu of the police. Harlan thinks it was the work of amateurs who wanted only one thing. Information about Daisy.”

Grace sat back in her chair, so her spine was touching
the ladder back. “Any idea who that might be?” she asked.

Shrugging, Tom did his best to appear that they were discussing something not so serious. “Jack thinks Bucky Jerome is the prime suspect. And apparently there was a woman who was hanging around the beach outside their place a few days ago, who seemed to want something from Daisy but took off before telling Daisy what. Anyway, I wanted to warn you. If it was Jerome, or some other ambitious journalist, or even the woman looking for something to blackmail Daisy with, for money, we could all have a problem on our hands. And if this leads to a leak of information, it could concern you.”

“Thank you.” Grace stood and straightened the hem of her tunic. “I appreciate your telling me,” she said graciously.

Tom stood, too, and put the chairs back the way he’d found them. “I thought maybe the two of us should talk, come up with some strategy,” he continued casually, wishing they had more time, but already Grace’s producer, and their son-in-law, Nick Everton, was pointing at his watch.

“I think that’s a wonderful idea, and I absolutely want to do it, but not here and not now.” Grace gently grasped his arm just above the elbow, and steered him toward the soundstage exit. She leaned closer, still smiling up at him, and said, “Tell you what. I’ve got a full day of taping ahead of me, but I’m free this evening. Why don’t you come by my place tonight around eight—” she rose on tiptoe and let her lips brush his cheek as they reached the double metal doors “—and we’ll have some dinner and figure out what to do.”

B
UCKY HAD JUST SAT DOWN
at his desk in the newsroom, when Jack Granger walked in. Steam was prac
tically coming out the attorney’s ears as he made his way toward Bucky’s station. Which was odd, Bucky thought, since he hadn’t written a thing about Jack’s wife in oh…three days.

Jack stopped short of Bucky’s desk. He looked as if he wanted to punch something. Namely, Bucky. “We need to talk.” Jack pushed the words through his teeth.

No fool, Bucky kicked back in his task chair and folded his hands behind his head. “Okay. Shoot.”

“Privately,” Jack qualified.

Bucky preferred staying where there were lots of witnesses, until he noted his father rising from behind his desk and walking closer to the floor-to-ceiling windows that separated Adlai from the buzz in the newsroom.

Realizing if he didn’t want Adlai involved he had to get Jack Granger out of the newsroom, Bucky swiftly grabbed his cell phone, pager and notepad, and led the way out of the newsroom, down the hall to the conference rooms where they interviewed people and brainstormed future articles. Finding an empty room, Bucky led the way in, switched on the overhead lights and shut the door behind them. “What’s on your mind?”

“Were you at my house last night?”

Bucky tossed his stuff down on the table. “Why would I be there?”

Jack, who was half a foot taller than Bucky and outweighed him by some forty pounds, stood over Bucky. “Answer the question,” he ordered him, like a bully shaking down a smaller kid for his lunch money.

Deciding sitting might be safer, Bucky pulled out a chair and sank into it. “No. I wasn’t.”

Jack still looked as if he wanted to throttle him. “You’re sure.”

“Positive. Why?” Deciding he better at least look unafraid, Bucky swiveled his chair around, leaned back and propped his feet on the edge of the table. “What happened?” he asked as he folded his hands across his lap.

Declining Bucky’s pantomimed offer to take a chair, too, Jack instead folded his arms in front of him contentiously. “Someone broke in.”

Now, this was news he was interested in. Bucky picked up his notepad and pen. “Any idea who it was?” Eager to get the details, he looked back up at Jack.

Jack sent Bucky a withering glare that under less compelling circumstances would have made Bucky quail. “You’re at the top of the list of suspects, Jerome.”

“Hey.” Bucky spread his hands wide on either side of him, in exaggerated claim of his innocence. “I draw the line at breaking the law, Granger.”

Jack lifted an eyebrow, not believing that for one minute.

“Okay,” Bucky amended, “I draw the line at breaking the law in a way that could put me in jail. Breaking into your place would put me in jail.”

Jack studied him a moment longer, then turned toward the closed conference-room door.

“What’d they take?” Bucky leaped up to keep Jack from leaving before Bucky got the necessary facts. “I’m assuming it wasn’t a regular burglary or you wouldn’t be here.” Determined to keep him from running out on him, Bucky squinted at Jack and baited him into inadvertently revealing more. “You’re not involved in anything nefarious, are you? You know, that
would have one of your, uh…criminal friends enacting payback on you or something?”

Jack blinked in stunned amazement, shook his head. “Where do you get this stuff?”

“I take it that’s a no.”

“You only wish you had that story to write,” Jack growled.

Bucky narrowed his eyes at Jack in speculation. “So if you weren’t the target, then Daisy was?”

“Why would you think Daisy was a target?” he demanded, towering over Bucky.

“I don’t know.” Bucky shrugged and continued to watch Jack thoughtfully. “Maybe it has something to do with the sleazy stuff Richard is involved in.”

Jack pushed Bucky back into the chair he had been sitting in and leaned over him, hands on the table. “What sleazy stuff?”

Bucky scoffed. Jack Granger might be a corporate attorney, but he had the bad-cop routine down pat. “You’re telling me you don’t know about his extracurricular activities,” Bucky goaded.

Jack straightened slowly, looking perplexed. “What are you talking about?”

“I gather that means Daisy doesn’t know what Richard is up to, either,” Bucky went on as if Jack hadn’t spoken. “I mean, it’s not the kind of thing she would be able to keep her mouth shut about,” Bucky speculated bluntly. “I gotta figure, if Daisy knew, she would be complaining and carrying on about it herself. Telling her mother to take action.”

Jack had thought he was beyond the point in his life where he could be shocked—not true. Richard Templeton? Fooling around on Charlotte…and a reporter knew
about it? Determined to keep the conversation on track, he passed on the opportunity to debate the truthfulness of what Bucky was claiming and instead simply demanded in the most reasonable voice he could manage, “What does any of that have to do with Daisy?”

“Maybe nothing.” Bucky shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe something. All I know for sure is that Richard’s paramour was at Templeton’s Fine Antiques a few weeks ago, having what looked to me like a pretty tense and unpleasant conversation with Iris.”

Jack clasped both hands around the back of his neck. “You think this woman is blackmailing the Templetons?”

“Maybe.” Bucky tapped his pen against the notepad. “Or maybe she just wants to and is looking for something that would get her some hush money and that would be something on Daisy….”

Jack’s glance narrowed. “Does this woman have a name?”

No way was Bucky giving that up. This was his story, however it unfolded. And he wasn’t going to let Jack Granger ruin it. “Let’s just say we have yet to be properly introduced.”

Jack looked as if he didn’t know whether or not to believe Bucky’s avowed lack of knowledge. “What does she look like?” Jack bit out.

Bucky shrugged, figuring it wouldn’t hurt to give a description that, while accurate and truthful, could also apply to thousands of women in the Greater Charleston Area. “Late thirties, early forties, auburn hair.”

“And built,” Jack guessed.

“Like a brick house,” Bucky confirmed. Curious now because it looked as if Jack knew something, too, Bucky leaned forward eagerly. “You’ve seen her?”

“Maybe.” His expression both stymied and concerned, Jack began to pace the conference room. He turned back to look at Bucky, watching Bucky’s face carefully as he revealed matter-of-factly, “There was a woman hanging around our house a few days ago. She approached Daisy, but then took off.”

Could it have been Ginger Zaring?

Bucky had to know.

“Hang on. I’ll be right back.” Bucky returned with a manila envelope full of black-and-white photos. “This the same woman?” he asked.

Jack swore virulently to himself as he thumbed through the lurid photographs that left no doubt Richard Templeton was cheating on his wife. “You shot these?”

“Yep,” Bucky declared proudly, deciding to test Jack’s knowledge by shocking the hell out of him.

“Where were they?”

“In the elementary-school library at the Protect the Children benefit.”

Jack looked at Bucky as if he was sure he couldn’t possibly have heard right. “The one Daisy and I were at?”

Bucky nodded affirmatively, adding, “Not to mention Charlotte and Iris.”

Jack let out a stream of profanities that would have made his dockworker grandfather proud. “The SOB really likes to take risks, doesn’t he?”

Bucky agreed there was no bigger horse’s ass than Richard Templeton. He was glad to see Jack apparently loathed the man, too. It gave him and Bucky something in common. “Which would, of course,” Bucky continued pragmatically, “make Richard Templeton a perfect target for blackmail.”

Jack sighed, and handed the lewd photos back to Bucky. “Or a demand for marriage.”

Bucky slid the photos back into the envelope. “You really think the woman would want to marry Richard Templeton?”

Jack shrugged. “Beats sneaking around like that, and he is rich.”

Very rich, Bucky thought.

The two men were silent.

Which was probably why Ginger Zaring had approached Daisy on the beach that evening, Bucky thought. Ginger might have wanted to try and convince Daisy that Ginger and Richard were in love and should get married.

Initially, Bucky had figured Ginger was a high-class call girl, but a little sleuthing on his part had revealed that she was a devoted mother of a teenage daughter, about to head to a very expensive Ivy League school Ginger Zaring could not possibly afford on her own. And since Ginger’s ex-husband had flipped out a few years before and gone to live in the wilderness or something, he couldn’t be counted on to help, either, since he was willingly unemployed a great deal of the time.

One of Ginger’s co-workers had told Bucky the divorce and resulting financial troubles had left Ginger bitter, and focused on only one thing—helping her beloved daughter, Alyssa, get ahead. Ginger might have figured wealthy Richard was the key.

One thing was certain. Richard was making a fool of himself with Ginger all over Charleston, to the point it was only a matter of time before Charlotte or Daisy or Iris discovered it, too, and the whole thing blew up in their faces. When that happened, Bucky still intended to be first with the scoop.

“Do you think Daisy is in danger?” Jack asked.

Bucky shrugged and did his best to look as baffled about what was going on—and why—as Daisy’s husband apparently was. “You tell me—you’re the lucky devil who’s married to her. And while you’re at it, maybe you can explain to me why your boss, Tom Deveraux, and Daisy’s sister, Iris, were having a little tête-à-tête at Templeton’s Fine Antiques right after closing last night. Iris looked upset during the meeting and Tom was definitely troubled when he left.”