Samara was almost out her door when her phone rang. She cursed and then cursed again when she saw who was calling. After taking a second to make sure she didn’t sound out of breath or frazzled, she forced a smile and answered. “Good morning, Lydia.”
“I’m afraid I need another favor.”
After the long night before, all Samara really wanted to do was meet her friend for their coffee date and then head into the office to work on the presentation part of the proposal. If Lydia needed something at this hour, it didn’t mean anything good for Samara’s plan for the day. Doesn’t matter. I’m her number two for a reason, and that means no bitching about more work. Not now, when we’re so close to edging out Morningstar Enterprise. “What do you need from me?”
“It’s a bit delicate, but you’re the one best suited for the job.”
This isn’t going to be good. “What job?”
“My darling nephew came to see me this morning. He’s got it into his head that he needs to scatter his father’s ashes at Thistledown Villa. I can’t very well have him traipsing out there without supervision, so I need you to accompany him.”
She blinked. Of all the things she’d expected, that didn’t even make the list. Samara started to point out that she wasn’t a babysitter but stopped. Lydia wasn’t stupid. In all Samara’s years of working for the company—for Lydia—she’d never seen the woman waste a resource, and sending Samara on a babysitting mission was a waste of resources.
Which meant there was something more she wanted to accomplish.
“Beckett is off his stride, and if you put a little effort into it, I’m sure you can convince him to talk with you. The more you speak, the higher the chance that he lets something vital slip.”
Convince him.
She closed her eyes and pressed her lips together. She could point out that it wasn’t in her job description to convince Beckett to do anything, or to comment on the fact that there were other hot buttons Lydia could push instead of sending Samara. Could Lydia know about their indiscretion in Norway? It wouldn’t surprise Samara—the woman seemed to know everything. But still, while Samara wasn’t above using a little flirtation to get what she wanted, she drew the line at sex.
I already had sex with Beckett.
Not because of who he was, or the company he was connected to.
It didn’t matter. At the end of the day, they were both grown-ups and she had her bottom line to worry about. “Will today work for taking him out there?”
“Of course. I haven’t had a chance to change the locks, so there’s no reason you can’t meet Beckett at the house. I’ll call him now.” She hung up.
Samara cursed one last time, but there was no heat in it. Her grand plan had been to avoid Beckett until she could look at him without thinking about his body sliding against hers. Sliding into hers.
Beckett wasn’t stupid. He’d see right through the choice to send her rather than some lowly employee with nothing better to do. That wouldn’t stop her from doing what it took to keep him distracted and talking. His barriers were already down from grief—it wouldn’t take much to nudge him in the right direction.
No matter how unsettled the plan made her.
Her phone buzzed. She pulled up the message from a number she didn’t recognize. I’ll meet you out there in an hour. Just that. Nothing more. No details. Beckett.
She rolled her eyes and typed back a response. Very cryptic. I’ll be there. After a hesitation, she sent a second one. Wait in the car. Lydia doesn’t want you wandering.
I’ll consider it.
“Damn it, Beckett.” She slipped into her heels, grabbed her purse, and practically flew out the door. Samara made the drive in forty-five minutes, breaking more than a few speed limits in the process, and Beckett still beat her there.
She pulled up next to where he straddled his motorcycle, and stared. God, he looks good. Today he wore a black T-shirt and a different pair of jeans. He turned to look at her, his dark eyes hidden by a pair of sunglasses, the set of his square jaw giving away nothing of his mood. He nudged the kickstand into place and swung off the bike, giving her an excellent view of just how well his jeans hugged his biteable ass.
Get it together, Samara.
She was incredibly grateful for her own pair of sunglasses hiding the way her gaze followed him. Business. This is just business, and you don’t even like him. It didn’t matter. She didn’t have to like the man to want him, and the glowing ember of desire that had never quite extinguished after that night six months ago chose that moment to make itself known.
There was nothing to do but shut off the car and remove the last obstacle between them. Her heels sank into the gravel, and she wobbled a little as she stepped out of the car. “You made good time.”
“Could say the same thing of you.”
She turned and surveyed the building in whose driveway they stood. Samara had heard about the legendary King estate more than a few times and she’d even seen pictures, but nothing compared to the reality of standing there, dwarfed by the mansion. It had to be twenty thousand square feet and three stories high, the faintly Victorian style making her feel like a peasant trespassing on royalty’s property. Probably intentional.
She swallowed. No matter how overwhelming, it was still just a building, and one that Lydia now owned. “Shall we?”
“After you.” He bit out the words, tension rising in waves off his body. Beckett obviously didn’t want to be there any more than she did. He moved to his saddlebags and pulled out a plain gray metal container, the sight of which stopped her cold.
Nathaniel’s ashes.
She moved on autopilot, crunching her way across the gravel and up the imposing front steps to the door. It opened easily in her hand, which might have made her wonder if Beckett’s presence at her back wasn’t driving her before him.
Samara stopped in the entranceway—foyer—looking up, up, up to the arching ceiling a good twenty feet above their heads. “Wow.”
“Built to impress.” He started past her but hesitated, obviously torn. Finally, Beckett pulled the sunglasses off. “There are a few things I want out of my old room, and then I’ll scatter the ashes.”
He obviously wasn’t asking permission, but she nodded. “That’s reasonable.”
“Reasonable.” He snorted. “God, you kill me. I wasn’t giving you a choice. I was telling you how it’s going to go.”
Irritation flared, the familiar feeling welcome after the uncertainty of their last interaction. Samara didn’t know how to deal with a grieving Beckett. But the prickly ass currently striding deeper into the house as if he had no doubt she’d trail behind him like a good little dog? That she could handle, and gladly.
She followed him at her own pace as he moved up the grand staircase and down the left hall, allowing herself to study the long line of his back muscles that the damn shirt only seemed to accent. Beckett would never be pretty. His features were a little too rough for that, too masculine. He was all man, and his body matched his face—strong.
He’d been strong when he lifted her against the door and ground against her until the need for more had her begging.
Stop it.
But there was no stopping the onslaught of memories. His big hands on her ass, squeezing as he guided her onto his cock. The way he’d made a cage of his arms when he rolled them, effortlessly changing positions without missing a beat. His rough five-o’clock shadow scraping against her inner thighs as he sucked her clit.
“Samara?”
She blinked to find Beckett less than a foot in front of her. “Sorry, I didn’t hear what you said.”
“What were you thinking about just then?” His gaze fell to her mouth. “Never mind. You don’t have to tell me. It’s written all over your face.”
She licked her lips as he stepped closer, as he backed her against the wall and bracketed her in with his hands on either side of her head. He felt bigger in this position, as if his shoulders could block out the very sun. You have to get him to back off. You’re too close. She leaned against the wall, the move arching her back just a little. Beckett’s gaze dropped to where her breasts pressed against her blouse, and he dragged in an unsteady breath. As if he was using every ounce of willpower not to touch her. He dragged his eyes up to meet hers. “You were thinking about that night.”
She could deny it, but it would be pointless. “Yeah.”
Slowly, oh so slowly, he moved one hand to sift his fingers through her hair. When she didn’t immediately answer, he leaned closer yet. “I think about it, too.” He trailed his fingers through her hair until he reached her shoulder and his thumb dipped beneath the fabric of her shirt. “All the fucking time.” He dropped his hand farther, the tips of his fingers tracing over her breast in a touch so light she was half sure she imagined it.
Might have convinced herself she imagined it if her entire body wasn’t tuned to his in that moment.
Touch me.
As if reading her thoughts, he shifted closer, his leg sliding between hers. The move forced her skirt up as she spread her legs to accommodate his thigh. Higher and higher until he was firmly pressed against her clit. It throbbed in time with her heartbeat, and it was everything she could do not to rub on his thigh like a mindless version of herself.
She felt mindless. Samara gave up her determination not to touch him. She couldn’t wrap her legs around his waist because of her damn skirt, but she ran her hands up his chest. “We can’t.”
“I know.” But he didn’t stop. He slid his hands down to her ass, urging her to grind against his thigh. Slowly, so incredibly slowly, as if he had all the time in the world. He dragged his mouth over her collarbone, the faint rasp of whiskers drawing a whimper from her lips.
Samara dug her fingers into his hair, and he went still. Waiting. She pulled him up and took his mouth the way she’d wanted to since she’d snuck out of that hotel room six months before. She flicked his tongue with hers, teasing him even as he resumed the delicious movement between them again. Yes, yes, do that, don’t stop.
Beckett let her have control for all of two seconds, and then he deepened the kiss, pressing her more firmly against the wall. He took with his mouth even as he gave with his body, hitching her higher until her toes barely touched the floor and she was completely at his mercy. Pleasure sparked through her, and she kissed him harder. It wasn’t enough, might never be enough, but she couldn’t stop.
Not when she knew that, as good as this was, what came next was even better.
He tore his mouth from hers. “I don’t give a fuck if this is a shitty idea. I want you again, Samara. I need you.”
I need you.
She stared into the storm barely contained in his eyes. He held perfectly still, waiting for her response. As if she had the slightest bit of control in this situation.
She didn’t have control, though.
If she followed through on the promise Beckett’s body was making, it would be good. It would be so far beyond good that there were no words for it.
That wasn’t why she’d come out here, though. She’d been tasked with searching out his secrets. If she said yes now, she’d spend the next few hours coming on Beckett’s cock, his mouth, his hands, and she’d have compromised herself and her future in the process. No matter how phenomenal the pleasure he could give her, a few hours wasn’t worth the rest of her life.
Her mother had learned that the hard way. Samara would be worse than a fool if she made the same mistake.
“Let…” She had to take a shallow breath and try again. “Let me down.”
He shifted back just enough for her to slide down his body until her feet were firmly rooted to the floor again. “You want this.”
“Yes, I do.” Taking that first step away from him felt like tearing her own arm off. It was too right to have Beckett’s body pressed against hers. As if they fit in a way that defied logic and comprehension.
That was the problem. The second he touched her, she stopped thinking, and being quick on her feet was the only thing that had gotten Samara to where she was today. She couldn’t compromise that, even for a man who made her blood sing in her veins and her entire body yearn.
He’s the enemy.
She couldn’t afford to forget that.
The next step was easier, and she paused to right her skirt. Her thighs shook with denied pleasure, but she managed to smooth her expression. Remind him what’s at stake. Get your barriers back in place. “That’s not why we’re here, Beckett. Get your things and then we’ll scatter your father’s ashes. After that, you should probably say good-bye to Thistledown Villa.”
Beckett couldn’t look at Samara. Not with her taste still stinging his tongue and the memory of her heat searing him through his jeans. She was right about stopping, right about not complicating things further, but fuck if he cared about it. They could be in his old bed, losing themselves in each other. The temptation to forget everything for a little while was almost as strong as the temptation for the woman herself.
Liar.
He grabbed an ancient backpack from his closet and looked around the room to distract himself. He’d lived in this space from the time he was a baby to when he moved out at eighteen. He hadn’t gone far—just to his brand-new condo in Houston to attend college—but it had still been a new distance that was never there before. Memories crowded the corkboard, trophies lined the shelf running the length of the room, and paperbacks filled the shelf below it. The walls were still the bright blue he’d convinced his mother to paint when he was eight. The weekend they cleared out this room and went to town on the walls was one of the last good ones they’d had before the cancer took first her energy and then her life.
All of it held significance, but the truth was that he’d taken most of the important things when he’d bought his condo in the heart of the city. Nathaniel King could be a bastard and a half, and it would have been in character for him to purge Beckett’s room of any hint of his dead wife the same way he’d purged the rest of the house.
He walked to the corkboard and took down the two pictures of his mother he’d left behind. The rest were of friends from high school who he’d barely talked to after graduation, let alone now. They were good memories, but ultimately forgettable.
“Is that your mother?”
He tensed against the urge to shove the photos in his pocket to shield them from Samara. But it wasn’t like Beckett’s mother was a big secret. She was ancient history, at least according to his father. She’d never felt like ancient history to Beckett, though. Everywhere he looked in Thistledown Villa he saw evidence of her despite his old man’s best efforts. Nathaniel King could take down her pictures, dig up the flowers she’d planted in front of the house, and even go so far as to change the curtains she’d chosen for the whole house, but he couldn’t erase the memories Beckett had with her. No matter how hard he’d tried.
“Yeah. She died when I was nine.” The woman in the picture held a baby in a blue blanket—Beckett—and smiled broadly at the camera. Her blond hair looked like it’d been tossed in the wind, and the fields of Thistledown Villa peeked out of the background. They’d played in those fields for days on end during the summers, picking wildflowers while she wove stories about the magical creatures that made their home there. Fantastical adventures his father had always been too busy to come along on.
“She looks happy.” There was a strange hushed tone to Samara’s words.
“She was.” He slid the photo into his pocket. “They both were.” Maybe things would have been different if Nathaniel wasn’t so damn determined to smite out every piece of her. It might have been grief pushing him to destroy his own memories with his late wife, but it had only ever seemed a betrayal to Beckett. She was barely gone a week before the purge started. He still vividly remembered walking into the kitchen and finding Nathaniel ripping the photos from the fridge and tossing them into the trash. Even now, twenty-five years later, anger flushed hot and painful in his chest. “My father would have been a different person if she’d lived.”
“Maybe.” Samara shrugged, her expression guarded. “Or maybe she would have lived long enough for it all to fall apart.”
Old wound.
Like recognized like, and they stood in perfect understanding for the space of a heartbeat. Beckett broke the moment, turning away to the desk taking up the corner nearest the window. He found the key taped to the underside of it and unlocked the bottom drawer. The only thing it held was a faded baby book. He’d left it here because it seemed fitting that his childhood home held the first memories that were diligently recorded by the mother whose death neither he nor Nathaniel had ever quite gotten over.
On the dark days in his teenage years, when he and his father would clash violently and then retreat to their respective wings, he’d pull out this book and remember the woman whose neat script detailed adventures she and baby Beckett had together. His first staggering steps in the grand hall that, to his mother’s delight, turned into running almost immediately. Playing hide-and-seek in the massive gardens behind the mansion. How he used to tell his mother he loved her before he went to bed every night and beg for one more story.
The book didn’t contain the memories that came later. Chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast in the kitchen. His mother’s endless patience as she taught him to read on the comfortable couch in the library downstairs. Playing tag and running through the house, filling the empty halls with laughter.
The only foundation he had for those memories was the house itself. The house was what drew him back time and time again. He made an effort to visit at least once a month when he was in town, to walk through the halls and reinforce his memories of his mother, to talk to the staff and ensure that they were taking good care of the place. To remember that he was more than just Nathaniel King’s son. He was her son, too.
After today he’d no longer have access to Thistledown. He’d have to find a different way to make sure he didn’t forget a single thing. To keep the memories from fading over time.
He slid the baby book into the backpack before Samara could ask any questions about it. It was one thing to share a few spare details about his mother. It was entirely another to lay himself bare for this woman who ultimately couldn’t be trusted.
Beckett hitched the backpack onto his shoulder. “Let’s go.”
“That’s it?”
He stopped in the doorway. “What’s it?”
“That’s…” She motioned vaguely at him. “You took two pictures and a baby book. This room…” Another wave to encompass the room. “You don’t want anything else?”
He almost didn’t answer, but the thought seemed to bother her so much he found himself explaining. “It’s all just…shit. The house is what holds the memories, and I can’t take that with me.” Why the fuck did you deed the house to Lydia, old man? Was it some kind of misplaced guilt? Was it one last final “fuck you” to me for not erasing my mother the way you wanted me to?
If the ghost of his father lingered in these halls, he gave no answer. Just as well.
Beckett walked out of the room and this time Samara followed without protesting. He’d left the container with his father’s ashes in the entranceway, so he retrieved it and headed for the back of the house. It would have been just as easy to go around the outside, but he wanted to say good-bye in his own way. He’d fight for Thistledown Villa. It was too important not to fight for. But he didn’t want to miss his chance to say good-bye all the same.
When his great-great-grandfather had struck oil and gotten rich, the first thing he’d done was have this absurdly massive house built. Three wings, fifteen bedrooms, five stairwells, a ballroom, two libraries, half a dozen other rooms for everything from entertaining to hiding from the family. And for what? The legacy the man had obviously envisioned where a busy family occupied this space…it never came to pass.
After cancer took Beckett’s mother, he and his father were the only ones who lived there on a daily basis, and the staff was sufficiently terrified of his father that they weren’t willing to respond to any overtures of friendship from Beckett. It was as if his father had extended welcome to his mother, but after she was gone, Nathaniel couldn’t stand anyone who wasn’t King or staff setting foot in these hallowed halls. Beckett took perverse pleasure out of bringing his friends here, of forcing laughter and chaos into the halls his father wanted silent.
Yet another way he and Nathaniel never saw eye-to-eye.
He took the door from the kitchen into the greenhouse. “My grandfather had these gardens built as a wedding gift to my grandmother.” Paths wound through the thick foliage, and there were little signs announcing the various types of tropical flowers planted along them.
“That’s one way to woo a woman.”
He slowed so she should catch up, and they walked together. “She was the daughter of a pastor, and the man hated my grandfather—probably with good reason—and forbade them to marry. They ran off to Europe, and while they were there, they visited the Palacio de Cristal in Madrid. She fell in love, and so he built this.”
Samara reached out and ran her finger along a brilliant orange flower. “That’s a beautiful story. It’s too bad he was such a horrible father.”
Beckett couldn’t argue that, so he didn’t bother. His grandfather was ultimately the reason why Lydia split from the family. There was probably a time right after the decision to name Beckett’s father as the heir when things could have been repaired. But they hadn’t been. Pride kept everyone to their own sides and so Kingdom Corp was born, and Thistledown Villa was banned to Lydia and any children she’d have. Pride is one thing every single one of the Kings have in common.
He opened the back door for Samara and they walked out onto the fields that were pictured in Lydia’s office. He glanced at Samara’s shoes. “It might be better if you stay here. The ground is pretty soft right now.” Her heels would sink right into the dirt.
“Do you want me to come with you?”
The question seemed straightforward enough on the surface. Truth be told, Beckett didn’t want to do this by himself. He might never have been on the same page as his father, but in his heart of hearts he’d hoped that one day they’d figure their shit out and admit that if they had nothing else in common, they had a love for his mother. He’d never get that chance now.
But he didn’t explain that to Samara for the same reason he didn’t tell her about the baby book in his room. He shook his head. “I got it.”
Beckett could feel her gaze on him as he walked out into the field. It was too early in the year for the wildflowers to be in full bloom, but that was fitting in its own way. He stopped in the same spot where his father used to come stand after it rained. The same spot where the picture in his pocket had been taken.
“I hope it was worth it,” he said quietly. “I hope all the backbiting and bullshit and cruelty was worth it.” I hope you end up with her. He couldn’t say it, though. No matter how much his father may have loved his mother, it didn’t make Nathaniel King a better man. He’d had a choice after she died, and he’d gone down the path that was destined to set him and Beckett forever at odds. “Good-bye, old man.” He took the top off the container and scattered the ashes into the wind.