Nirvana.
“Worse cuts from what?” Her voice was breathy. Soft.
He opened his eyes a slit and looked at her. “From a long time ago,” he admitted. “Racing days.”
She sucked in the corner of her lip for an infinitesimal moment that nevertheless felt indelibly etched in time. “Horse racing? Foot racing? Car racing?”
“Car.” NASCAR, to be exact. And one of the happiest times in his life. Time that had been too short because other responsibilities had taken priority. Responsibilities that grew with each passing year.
She lifted her hand, only to curl her fingers tightly together and drop it to her lap again. “Were you hurt very badly?”
He closed his eyes again, imagining her fingers touching him. “Nothin’ I couldn’t recover from,” he drawled.
“That’s how you got these?”
He went still when imagination became reality and her fingertips gently grazed over the scars near his eye. “Yeah.”
“I’d be too afraid to race a car.” Her voice was whisper soft.
He smiled. “Sweetness, you could race. You’d just have a hard time finding drivers to get on the same track with you.”
Her touch fell away. “I’m really bad.”
He opened his eyes. “You could be better,” he said honestly.
To her credit, she didn’t take offense. “Maybe you could teach me. Give me some pointers. Not for free or anything,” she added hastily. “I’d be willing to pay you.”
“I don’t want your money, Hadley.” He was starting to want something far more personal than that, which was so far out of the question he felt lower than pond scum even thinking it.
It wasn’t a sensation he was used to experiencing.
“Right.” She shifted, but his arm still anchored her in place. She started folding a towel across her splayed legs, her movements jerky enough that he knew she was not entirely comfortable sitting there on the floor in the hallway the way they were. “You just want to be on your way as soon as possible,” she said. “I understand, believe me.”
He didn’t deny it, and knew she’d assume she was correct. “You’ve wanted to leave Lucius yourself?”
“I did leave for a while. For college. Then my mom got sick so I came back home.”
And stayed to run Tiff’s. His palm spread over the small of her back. God, she was so slender. Yet she didn’t feel made of bones and snobbery the way his usual women did.
Hadley’s not usual, and she’s not your woman.
He mentally kicked the conscientious whisper in the teeth. “What’d you study?”
“Hmm? Oh. Business courses.”
“Dull.” He oughta know. Business for him hadn’t been interesting since he’d left behind the company he and Wood had formed to take on the mantle of Rutherford Industries.
She laughed a little and reached for another towel. Her soft breast brushed against his chest, feeling fuller than he’d have expected giving her habitually too-large clothing. “Dull is right. You probably studied something very exciting.”
The pain in his head had subsided to a muted throb. “What makes you think that?”
“Well, you just said you were a race car driver, right? You don’t seem the kind of man who would be satisfied putting on a tie every morning and going to some stuffy nine-to-five.”
“I do wear a tie most days,” he assured dryly. Hell, Darby had called him the king of Armani. And he couldn’t remember the last time, if ever, his business day had been concluded by five o’clock.
“What is it that you do?”
“I own a business.”
“In Indiana?”
“Yes.” It wasn’t entirely a lie. RTM was based there.
“Do you like it?”
“I’m good at it,” he said after a moment. “Liking it doesn’t have much to do with that.”
“Rather be racing?”
“Racing. Building cars. Fixing cars.” Exactly what he and Wood had planned so long ago.
“Hmm.” Her fingers plucked at the tidy stack of towels that had been growing on her lap, and her cheeks looked rosy. “Are you married?”
“Do I act married?” Irritation skittered down his spine.
“That’s not exactly an answer.”
“I kissed you, remember?” Had he read her so wrong, then? Was that moment of insanity only memorable for him?
“And you stopped.” Her cheeks were even redder, but her soft mouth was set. Resolute.
“Would you have preferred I continue?” He slid his palm up her spine. Threaded his fingers through her abundantly silky hair and cupped the back of her warm, slender neck. “Believe me, sweetness, it would’ve been no hardship.”
“You were just being nice. Kind. Because of what Charlie said and all.”
“I’m not nice, or kind,” he said evenly. Nice hadn’t gotten Rutherford Industries to where it was today. Kind hadn’t been the words used by the companies he’d taken over. And nice sure in hell wouldn’t involve lying about his reason for remaining in Lucius. “I’m manipulative and controlling and I get what I want.”
The power of being a Rutherford. The name was pretty much synonymous with American royalty.
She looked skeptical. “It’s not a sin to be kind, you know.”
“It is in my father’s world. There’s no time for kindness there.” Only the business. Always the business. Whether he liked it or not.
Her lashes dipped. She nibbled her lip with the slightest edge of her pearly, white teeth. “I think that’s sad,” she said after a moment.
Dane didn’t want sympathy. He wanted payback. Pure and simple. And nice, kind men didn’t use perfectly innocent young women to achieve it.
Then her lashes lifted and her gaze found his. “Well? Are you married or not?”
He’d borrowed Wood Tolliver’s identity. He could easily have borrowed Wood’s wife, at least in name. It would solve one thing, at least. Hadley Golightly wasn’t likely to give him a second glance if she believed he had a wife somewhere. She’d do her level best to make up for the inconvenience of their accident, and she’d be hospitable while she was about it, but that would be all. He knew it in his bones. He could easily remove her from his own temptation, just by telling her one simple three-letter word.
Yes.
“No,” he said. “I’ve never been married.”
Her expression didn’t change, but her eyes softened. She covered his hand, gently pressing against it, directing the damp washcloth more carefully against his cut. “That’s… good,” she finally whispered.
Oh, yeah. It was good all right. He felt her body against his from chest to thigh and felt as randy as a teenager as a result.
“What’s going on here?”
Hadley nearly jumped out of her skin at the tight voice. The stack of towels she’d refolded tumbled right off her legs and she scrambled from Wood’s lap, looking up at Shane and feeling as guilty as if she’d been caught running naked