"Did he?"
"No, but he should have. I didn't touch a dime once I left."
"He used money to keep you on a leash."
"You understand too much." Then he shook his head. "The money doesn't drive me or matter."
She swallowed. It was impossible that a Morgan would walk away from the dynasty. In her own family, she couldn't walk away from the farm entirely, though she refused to ever touch a crop again, unless it was to help in an emergency. Her parents sacrificed everything for her and she'd do the same for them. "Then why did you come back?"
"Because Peter asked."
Peter and John were all each other had. She kept the thought to herself. With a shrug, she followed him to the restaurant. "So? If Colt wants me to do something I don't want, then it doesn't happen."
The hostess took his name and gave him a buzzer. On their way back outside, he whispered, "I needed to see with my own eyes. If my father is dead there is no way to take him down."
"Was that why you joined the FBI?"
"Absolutely."
"Oh. I didn't make that connection."
A conversation over dinner about his father was the opposite of fun. Besides, she needed to learn a few things in the here and now. Peter Morgan was the mystery to her—four years her senior, he'd never been home all those years she spent with Victoria. "Is Peter like your father?"
John brought her to the terrace where people sat with their drinks. The live music drifted in the open air as he answered, "I hope not. He's being kind, but he wants something and he's mentioned the will reading. I don't know how ruthless he is. I might remember wrong, or he might have changed."
He led them to a corner with black metal tables and chairs and fewer people to wait for their dinner buzzer to go off.
"What does that mean?"
He held out her chair and a sigh escaped her lips as she noticed the taper candles near the small vase of flowers. "I don't know, but he wants control of the business empire."
Everyone knew Peter had spent years in training to take over the House of Morgan. Her brain couldn't quite wrap around that John took off to be a government agent.
"What do you want?"
He lifted his finger for the waitress to come to their table as he showed off his cute dimples. "You."
Did he? Her face heated as she clutched her hands together under the table.
The waitress came over and John told her, "The Riesling. Alice has always enjoyed sweet."
She massaged her wrist to stop trembling. He remembered her sweet tooth.
The waitress left to get the bottle of wine.
Alice fixed her hair behind her ears, leaning close enough to John to sniff cedar, pine, and subtle gun residue. John was sexy before, but now he upheld the law. His untouchable hotness level skyrocketed. Her skin ached for him. "You avoided the discussion," she said. "I don't understand how a man such as yourself would take a job that doesn't pay nearly as much as you have in your bank accounts."
He tipped his head and her heart raced.
"How did you smell the gunpowder? I just bought these clothes."
"I like the shirt." The change of conversation didn't sway her, but his investigation technique needed work. She didn't feel pressured in the slightest. His broad shoulders could make a trash bag sexy. Her body melted like ice cream on a hot summer day. He'd leave soon, but he could have anything he wanted from her. The waitress came back with the bottle of wine and two glasses.
Alice waited for him to pour with her hands under her legs. She tried to calm her heartbeat so she'd sound almost normal. "I don't know." He set her glass before her. "You're supposed to smell like cedar and pine trees."
He stopped mid-sip. "I'm supposed to smell like a tree?"
"No. No." She shook her head. So much for smooth. She massaged the back of her neck with one hand and picked up her wine glass with the other.
