Unexpected Legacy. Jacqueline Diamond

up to embrace her. “Hell, I’ve been thinking about doing this with you since...”

      Her eyes widened as though he’d just divulged something completely damning. “Since when? Since I said I was going to Florida? Ohmigod, are you trying to use sex to get me to bend to your will and stay here? Why else would you touch me when you haven’t your whole life!”

      She suddenly looked enlightened, while he stared blankly at her, puzzled and confused. Her cheeks were reddening by the second, but Garrett was growing too angry at her accusation to care. “Kate, do you seriously believe I’m that cold and calculating?”

      Did she think anything even remotely redeeming about him, and was there any chance in hell she could ever love him when she was holding their past against him?

      “Of course I do! You’re a man who just confessed to be considering some sort of weird business marriage with some bimbo you barely even know!”

      “She’s not a bimbo, Kate,” he said, just to be fair to Cassandra.

      Kate’s cheeks went redder. “You still haven’t told me why you went behind your beloved’s back and slept with me.”

      “Why don’t you first tell me why the hell you slept with me? Were you just horny or did you just pity me tonight, or were you apologizing for giving me strep?”

      “Who do you think you are to judge? Garrett, you slept with me even while thinking of marrying some stranger in the name of...business. I swear that’s the most disgusting thing anyone’s ever done to me!”

      “You’re just goddamned playing with me! You’ve teased me your whole life, parading around with other men! You just gave me a little taste of what I want, and once you got what you wanted, you’re ditching me!”

      She glared and stomped to the door. “Go to hell!”

      “I’m already there, Kate. It’s been my damned zip code since I was ten!”

      As she stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind her, Garrett punched his fist into the pillow and yelled, “Goddammit!”

       Six

      “We’re sitting at twenty-eight percent today...” Landon said. As usual, the man droned on and on about business.

      Garrett made it a point to occasionally nod as if he were listening while he scrolled through his last text conversation with Kate. He’d texted her in the middle of the night after the debacle of their argument four nights ago. He’d been lying awake at midnight feeling medicated and as low as a dog. All he’d needed was for someone to put a bowl of Alpo out for him. Instead he’d found her food in the kitchen, cursed himself over and over again, heated up his soup and chowed down on several muffins, then grabbed his phone and texted her. Despite the fact that it had been past one in the morning, she’d replied. Which meant she’d been lying awake, too, as sleepless as he was.

      Thanks for my food. When can I see you? I want to talk.

      Everything is fine. I’ve already forgotten about it.

      Garrett wasn’t so stupid as to believe this, but had answered.

      K. So I hear you’re getting your dresses fitted Wednesday. I’ll drive you.

      Won’t your girlfriend get jealous?

      I’d like to explain to you about her.

      It’s fine. The fitting is at five so I’ll see you before then.

      “Are you even listening, Garrett?”

      He lifted his head to Landon’s confused gray gaze.

      “Hmm? What?”

      Landon scowled and then continued, raising his voice as though to be clearer. “Clarks...new strategy...”

      So, Kate thought Garrett had planned it all?

      How could she believe that he’d planned to get sick, so that he could get her to bring over some food for him, get her into bed, seduce her like some out-of-control adolescent and conveniently forget a condom so she might have to stay? Well, hell, it sounded so brilliant, he felt like an idiot for not thinking of it before.

      “Garrett, dammit, did you hear?”

      “Yes. Clarks. A new strategy.” He set his phone aside, but putting thoughts about Kate aside wasn’t that easy.

      “You’re the last single Gage. Will you or won’t you go through with this?” Landon asked.

      With a major wrench of mental muscles, Garrett pulled his scrambled brain together and tried to focus on the topic today.

      “All three of us know that I’m not really the last single Gage, Lan.” Garrett leaned back to survey both his brothers’ expressions across the conference table.

      Landon’s eyebrows shot up. “Don’t go there.”

      “Why not?” He shrugged. “He’s still a Gage.”

      “Mother wanted nothing to do with him. Hell, we paid him millions to get out of our lives for good, and you want to bring him back?”

      “How badly do you want Clarks?” Garrett countered.

      “As badly as you want it,” Landon returned.

      Garrett scraped a hand along the tense muscles at the back of his neck. He wanted Clarks, but not as bad as he wanted something else.

      “Plus who’s to say that selfish bastard will want to help us?” Landon rose to pace by the wall of windows. “He will want a big piece of the pie, and he’ll want even more than that. Do you remember Father refused to recognize him?“

      “But we know he was Father’s son, no matter how many times he denied it to Mother,” Garrett countered. He’d been wracking his brain for other options and this was, fortunately or unfortunately, the only one he’d been able to come with.

      To bring their illegitimate half brother, Emerson Wells, back into the fold.

      Julian chewed on the back of a pen before he lowered it and spoke. “We could entice him with money. Stock. Something. Maybe we should call just him.”

      “He’s trouble,” Landon said pointedly, his face furrowed in thought. “What does he do now anyway?”

      “Last I heard he was in the personal security business here in San Antonio. Started as a bodyguard.”

      “Seriously?”

      “What can I say? He likes beating people up.”

      “All right then.” Crossing the room, Landon clicked the phone intercom and rang his assistant. “If you’d please get me Emerson Wells on the line. You should be able to do a Google search and find his number. He owns some sort of personal security business here in town.”

      Hanging up, Landon rubbed his chin thoughtfully, his gray eyes on Garrett. “If he denies us...would you still go through with it?”

      Kate’s face and words surfaced in his mind with a vengeance, and his chest cramped. I would never marry for anything other than love!

      For one painful moment, he wondered if she’d even care whether he married someone else, for whatever reason. But although her words had cut through him, her body had spoken another language. He’d lost control, and so had she. They’d both been so needy he hadn’t even been able to stop to put on a condom.

      What had he done?

      Perhaps Garrett hadn’t technically broken his promise to her father, but he felt like he had. There was probably no man more undeserving of Kate’s affection than he.

      Clearly, you