He’d been so close to just saying, “To hell with it, I’ll do it.”
Kate would never have him anyway.
And yet a little part of him knew that he could never stop trying. Not now. Not when he knew that she wanted him, knew the delicate feel of her body against his, knew the fragrance of that devilishly sexy red hair. Kate might not know it yet, and hell, Garrett might have spent his entire life fighting it, but they belonged to one another.
The recent times they’d seen one another at his mother’s Sunday brunches, they’d spoken of trivial things, their last argument forgotten—or at least, not mentioned. But the air crackled between them. Her eyes seemed bluer when they rested on him. They softened when she saw him. He wasn’t blind to it, couldn’t be blind to those looks anymore. He had to do something, and fast.
So that’s how he’d found himself sitting in his office yesterday, dialing Emerson’s mother. He was surprised that she’d picked up after a few rings.
“This is Garrett Gage, and I realize Emerson doesn’t want to hear from us, but it’s imperative we talk to him. I assure you he’ll be happy to hear us out, if you could—”
The woman had hung up.
But Garrett hadn’t given up. He’d then punched in some numbers and got Emerson’s secretary on the line. After a moment of silence, she’d put him on hold. When she finally came back, she’d reluctantly conceded, “He’ll give you ten minutes tomorrow morning.”
Now, as he presented himself at his half brother’s office downtown, he marveled at how well his brother seemed to be doing for himself. Garrett strolled through the floor containing the executive offices and found his brother’s secretary waiting for him. “Mr. Wells will be here shortly, Mr. Gage. You can go right in.”
He grabbed a mint from the plate on her desk as she continued typing on her keyboard, and instead of taking a seat, he paced around while the woman continued typing. After taking a phone call, she hung up and left her desk, and Garrett knew exactly where he would wait for his brother. He strolled directly into the sumptuous office with the plaque Emerson Wells, President on the door. He took the seat in front of Emerson’s desk and laced his fingers behind his head as he waited, taking in his surroundings with an admiring eye. Apparently his half brother appreciated art—he had a vitrine full of pre-Columbian artifacts that stretched across an entire wall. There were no photographs on his desk; in fact, there were hardly any personal effects at all.
After a few more minutes the man arrived, and his murderous expression told Garrett he didn’t like seeing him one bit.
But he had agreed to the appointment, at last.
Emerson sighed and crossed his arms. “Which one of the three brothers are you?”
“The middle one,” Garrett said.
Emerson’s expression softened somewhat at the news, and for a moment, Garrett even sensed that he’d dropped his guard a little. His voice was still wary, though. “So you’re the one who was there when Father died.”
Garrett’s insides went icy cold at the reminder, but he still managed a curt nod, though Emerson hadn’t seemed to phrase it as a question anyway.
“He say anything about me?” Emerson asked, and Garrett flashed back to the sidewalk, the street, the concert they’d just come from that night.
Chest knotting up painfully, Garrett dragged in a long, steadying breath. “He tried to speak, but he couldn’t get much out.”
The talk about his father made the memory so goddamned fresh now, his stomach roiled. He thought back to Dave Devaney’s last breath, and to Kate. The way her face had crumpled when the police had brought Garrett home and he’d told everyone that both men were dead.
Kate wanted a family. A family she’d never had, because of him.
There hadn’t been a night since she’d said that when he hadn’t recalled her words. He hadn’t been able to face her a moment longer. She’d torn him open and apart, and for weeks he’d been grappling for ways in which he could ever make it up to her. Would he never be able to put it behind him? Was she leaving because Garrett reminded her too much of what she couldn’t have? Or because she’d never forgive him for repeatedly screwing up her life?
Shaking the disturbing thought aside, he stood up and stuck his hands into his pants pockets, assuming a casual stance as they faced each other. “I can tell you want me gone, so I’ll happily drop the chitchat. My brothers and I want to make a deal with you. We’re not interested in making friends, and we know you aren’t either. What we’re interested in is business, and judging by the luxurious surroundings and the Picasso on the wall, you’re a man who thinks of business just as we do. Am I right?”
Though he was dark-haired like Garrett, Emerson’s eyes weren’t the same. He had Landon’s silver eyes instead, and they glowed eerily with warning. “My father ran me over like a goddamned mongrel without a tail. I won’t allow the same from you.”
“I’m sorry that he felt he had to,” Garrett said, but he understood what his father was trying to protect. He hadn’t wanted his wife to ever find out he’d strayed. So he’d cut off his illegitimate son and lover from his life, only to die so soon afterward that his lawyers had still been paying off the woman for her silence when it happened.
It had been tragic, to watch his mother find out she’d been betrayed. When she could do nothing about it.
She’d been broken at the funeral—crying nonstop at first, already having found out from the accounts, and the lawyers, her husband had not been the faithful, loving man she’d always imagined. Garrett had had his own grief on his shoulders, and he’d blamed himself for the pain he saw on her mother’s face. His mother would have never found out about Emerson, or another woman, if her husband hadn’t died so abruptly and she hadn’t been forced to take over the financials of the family. The records of money sent to another woman’s account, regularly, sparked alarm, confusion, until finally, the truth had sunk in.
“He freaking ruined my life. He broke my mother’s heart and mine, too,” Emerson grated, his teeth tightly clamped as he curled his fingers into fists.
Garrett was taken aback by the hard anger in his half brother’s eyes. Would Cassandra Clarks be able to handle being married to this guy for six months? He appeared only half-civilized, and dangerous, to boot.
“Emerson, I’m sorry if the measures he took were not to your liking, but your mother liked them very well,” Garrett said. He was referring to the three million-dollar payments she’d received for her silence—after his father died. Not to mention that he’d already been providing for her to have quite a healthy living while he was still alive. Emerson couldn’t have been more than twelve at the time. Julian had barely been ten. Garrett had been fifteen and Landon eighteen.
If their father hadn’t died, Emerson would be walking the streets without the Gage brothers ever knowing he existed.
Maybe they should have tried to contact him. Maybe Emerson resented that, too. But just seeing the grief on their mother’s face had been enough to make them want to keep him as far away from the family as they could.
Maybe, all hell would break loose when Mother once again realized they were dealing with him. But Landon had said that he’d take care of Mother. Enough time had passed that hopefully she’d look beyond her dead husband’s transgressions at this point. And their mother was shrewd when it came to business, too.
“Will you meet with me and my brothers to discuss our business proposition? We really need your help.”
Impatient, Garrett waited for Emerson’s answer, but his half brother only glared at him as he slowly headed over to resume his place behind his desk.
Emerson was more rugged than all his brothers, and even with his well-groomed appearance