Chapter Three #2
C.C. was scowling, it was true, but it was such a passionate scowl. And Trent had smirked, but it was such a personal smirk. Positively intimate, Coco decided.
Sitting there, watching them, as Alex devoured his little decapitated heads, and Lilah and Amanda argued over the possibility of life on other planets, Coco could almost hear the loving thoughts C.C. and Trent sent out to each other.
Arrogant, self-important jerk.
Rude, bad-tempered brat.
Who the hell does he think he is, sitting at the table as if he already owned it?
A pity she doesn’t have a personality to match her looks.
Coco smiled fondly at them while the “Wedding March” hummed through her head. Like a general plotting strategy, she waited until after coffee and dessert to spring her next offensive.
“C.C., why don’t you show Trenton the gardens?”
“What?” She looked up from her friendly fight with Alex over the last bite of her Black Forest cake.
“The gardens,” Coco repeated. “There’s nothing like a little fresh air after a meal. And the flowers are exquisite in the moonlight.”
“Let Suzanna take him.”
“Sorry.” Suzanna was already gathering a heavy-eyed Jenny into her arms. “I’ve got to get these two washed up and ready for bed.”
“I don’t see why—” C.C. broke off at the arched look from her aunt. “Oh, all right.” She rose. “Come on then,” she said to Trent and started out without him.
“It was a lovely meal, Coco. Thank you.”
“My pleasure.” She beamed, imagining whispered words and soft, secret kisses. “Enjoy the gardens.”
Trent walked out of the terrace doors to find C.C. standing, tapping a booted foot on the stone. It was time, he thought, that someone taught the green-eyed witch a lesson in manners.
“I don’t know anything about flowers,” she told him.
“Or about simple courtesy.”
Her chin angled. “Now listen, buddy.”
“No, you listen, buddy.” His hand snaked out and snagged her arm. “Let’s walk. The children might still be within earshot, and I don’t think they’re ready to hear any of this.”
He was stronger than she’d imagined. He pulled her along, ignoring the curses she tossed out under her breath. They were off the terrace and onto one of the meandering paths that wound around the side of the house. Daffodils and hyacinths nodded along the verge.
He stopped beneath an arbor where wisteria would bloom in another month. C.C. wasn’t certain if the roar in her head was the sound of the sea or her own ragged temper.
“Don’t you ever do that again.” She lifted a hand to rub where his fingers had dug. “You may be able to push people around in Boston, but not here. Not with me or any of my family.”
He paused, hoping and failing to get a grip on his own temper. “If you knew me, or what I do, you’d know I don’t make a habit of pushing anyone around.”
“I know exactly what you do.”
“Foreclose on widows and orphans? Grow up, C.C.”
She set her teeth. “You can see the gardens on your own. I’m going in.”
He merely shifted to block her path. In the moonlight, her eyes glowed like a cat’s.
When she lifted her hands to shove him aside, he clamped his fingers onto her wrists.
In the brief tug-of-war that followed, he noted—irrelevantly, he assured himself—that her skin was the color of fresh cream and almost as soft.
“We’re not finished.” His voice had an edge that was no longer coated with a polite veneer. “You’ll have to learn that when you’re deliberately rude, and deliberately insulting, there’s a price.”
“You want an apology?” she all but spat at him. “Okay. I’m sorry I don’t have anything to say to you that isn’t rude or insulting.”
He smiled, surprising both of them. “You’re quite a piece of work, Catherine Colleen Calhoun. For the life of me I can’t figure out why I’m trying to be reasonable with you.”
“Reasonable?” She didn’t spit the word this time, but growled it. “You call it reasonable to drag me around, manhandle me—”
“If you call this manhandling, you’ve led a very sheltered life.”
Her complexion went from creamy white to bright pink. “My life is none of your concern.”
“Thank God.”
Her fingers flexed then balled into fists. She hated the fact, loathed it, that her pulse was hammering double time under his grip. “Will you let me go?”
“Only if you promise not to take off running.” He could see himself chasing her, and the image was both embarrassing and appealing.
“I don’t run from anyone.”
“Spoken like a true Amazon,” he murmured, and released her. Only quick reflexes had him dodging the fist she aimed at his nose. “I should have taken that into account, I suppose. Have you ever considered intelligent conversation?”
“I don’t have anything to say to you.” She was ashamed to have struck out at him and furious that she’d missed.
“If you want to talk, go suck up to Aunt Coco some more.” In a huff, she plopped down on the small stone bench under the arbor.
“Better yet, go back to Boston and flog one of your underlings.”
“I can do that anytime.” He shook his head and, certain he was taking his life in his hands, sat beside her.
There were azaleas and geraniums threatening to burst into bloom around them.
It should, he thought, have been a peaceful place.
But as he sat, smelling the tender fragrance of the earliest spring blooms mixed with the scent of the sea, listening to some night bird call its mate, he thought that no boardroom had ever been so tense or hostile.
“I wonder where you developed such a high opinion of me.” And why, he added to himself, it seemed to matter.
“You come here—”
“By invitation.”
“Not mine.” She tossed back her head. “You come in your big car and your dignified suit, ready to sweep my home out from under me.”
“I came,” he corrected, “to get a firsthand look at a piece of property. No one, least of all me, can force you to sell.”
But he was wrong, she thought miserably. There were people who could force them to sell. The people who collected the taxes, the utility bills, the mortgage they’d been forced to take out. All of her frustration, and her fear, over every collection agency centered on the man beside her.
“I know your type,” she muttered. “Born rich and above the common man. Your only goal in life is to make more money, regardless of who is affected or trampled over. You have big parties and summer houses and mistresses named Fawn.”
Wisely he swallowed the chuckle. “I’ve never even known a woman named Fawn.”
“Oh, what does it matter?” She rose to pace the path. “Kiki, Vanessa, Ava, it’s all the same.”
“If you say so.” She looked, he was forced to admit, magnificent, striding up and down the path with the moonlight shooting around her like white fire.
The tug of attraction annoyed him more than a little, but he continued to sit.
There was a deal to be done, he reminded himself.
And C.C. Calhoun was the foremost stumbling block.
So he would be patient, Trent told himself, and wily and find the hook. “Just how is it you know so much about my type?”
“Because my sister was married to one of you.”
“Baxter Dumont.”
“You know him?” Then she shook her head and jammed her hands into her pockets. “Stupid question. You probably play golf with him every Wednesday.”
“No, actually our acquaintance is only slight. I do know of him, and his family. I’m also aware that he and your sister have been divorced for a year or so.”
“He made her life hell, scraped away her self-esteem, then dumped her and his children for some little French pastry. And because he’s a big-shot lawyer from a big-shot family, she’s left with nothing but a miserly child-support check that comes late every month.”
“I’m sorry for what happened to your sister.” He rose as well. His voice was no longer sharp but fatalistic. “Marriage is often the least pleasant of all business transactions. But Baxter Dumont’s behavior doesn’t mean that every member of every prominent Boston family is unethical or immoral.”
“They all look the same from where I’m standing.”
“Then maybe you should change positions. But you won’t, because you’re too hardheaded and opinionated.”
“Just because I’m smart enough to see through you.”
“You know nothing about me, and we both know that you took an uncanny dislike to me before you even knew my name.”
“I didn’t like your shoes.”
That stopped him. “I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me.” She folded her arms and realized she was starting to enjoy herself. “I didn’t like your shoes.” She flicked a glance down at them. “I still don’t.”
“That explains everything.”
“I didn’t like your tie, either.” She poked a finger on it, missing the quick flare in his eyes. “Or your fancy gold pen.” She tapped a fist lightly at his breast pocket.
He studied her jeans, worn through at the knees, her T-shirt and scuffed boots. “This from an obvious fashion expert.”
“You’re the one out of place here, Mr. St. James III.”
He took a step closer. C.C.’s lips curved in a challenging smile. “And I suppose you dress like a man because you haven’t figured out how to act like a woman.”
It was a bull’s-eye, but the dart point only pricked her temper. “Just because I know how to stand up for myself instead of swooning at your feet doesn’t make me less of a woman.”
“Is that what you call this?” He wrapped his fingers around her forearms. “Standing up for yourself?”
“That’s right. I—” She broke off when he tugged her closer. Their bodies bumped. Trent watched the temper in her eyes deepen to confusion.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Testing the theory.” He looked down at her mouth. Her lips were full, just parted. Very tempting. Why hadn’t he noticed that before? he wondered vaguely. That big, insulting mouth of hers was incredibly tempting.
“Don’t you dare.” She meant it to come out as an order, but her voice shook.
His eyes came back to hers and held. “Afraid?”
The question was just the one to stiffen her spine. “Of course not. It’s just that I’d rather be kissed by a rabid skunk.”