Was that why he couldn’t commit? Why he’d walked away from her so easily?
Shaking her head, she squelched the spurt of sympathy. He might not have had a great example of matrimony and fidelity with his parents, but his grandparents had been together for decades. Happily. So no. He didn’t get that pass.
“Why would Joshua blackmail you to return home?” Evade. That was her strategy rather than admit he might have a point. “Why wouldn’t he just ask you?”
“Because the answer would’ve been no.” Again, flint entered his eyes. He set his cup on the counter. “He needs me here to complete his picture of the perfect, loving, non-dysfunctional family so he can dupe the Texan public into voting for him for governor.”
Unease flickered inside her chest. That seemed so…wrong. Blackmailing his son? Even if Joshua figured Griffin would say no if he’d asked, forcing him to comply by undermining him? The tactic was…extreme. And distasteful. Still…
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell him to go to hell. Why did you cave? I’m sure there’re other pieces of property out there.”
His lips twisted into a cruel caricature of a smile, his gaze hooded.
“I have my reasons.”
None of which he would be sharing with her, apparently. The knowledge shouldn’t have stung, but it did.
Shoving off the counter, he rounded the bar and strode past her. “Instead of going into the office you’ll be coming here every day. My cousin Ryder is letting me use his place as a home base for the next couple of weeks while he’s out of the country. I have the back room set up as a temporary office.”
“So we’ll actually be working?” she drawled.
He flicked her a glance. “I do run a business. Just because I’m side-lined here doesn’t mean I’m going to abandon it.”
Shame sidled across her conscience. Regardless of how he’d left Texas, he hadn’t sat idle for the past few years. She’d read the report on him and his construction company before passing it on to Joshua. Griffin, though considered an upstart by some, was nonetheless well respected as an honest, demanding but fair businessman who prided himself on quality work.
He’d accomplished what he’d set out to do. Become his own man and earn his success on his merit without the connections—and weight—of the Sutherland name.
“Before we get started, your father asked me to give this to you.” She removed a black, leather folder from her bag and extended it toward him.
Accepting the portfolio as if it were a hissing snake, he flipped it open, perused it. His eyebrows crashed down into a dark, forbidding vee. “You have to be fucking kidding me,” he muttered.
“Bad news, I take it,” she observed. “What? Did he demand you get a haircut?” He still sported the man bun, though this morning, more blond strands escaped the tie at the back of his head, lending him a just-scraped-it-back-after-a-hot-night-of-sex look. With the long hair and beard shading his jaw and encircling his mouth, he should’ve appeared unkempt. Instead, he carried off the sexy lumbersexual look that seemed all the rage on man candy Pinterest boards with an authenticity that was natural and just hot as hell.
Griffin shifted his attention from the folder to her. She prayed that incisive, penetrating stare couldn’t read her thoughts.
“Apparently, my presence is requested at a gala tonight. Formal dress required.” He sneered. “I hope Joshua is paying you overtime, Hayden.”
Well damn.
6
Hell.
This was his idea of hell.
Griffin white-knuckled the glass of Scotch in his hand—no frou-frou champagne for him. If he was going to survive this night, he needed something stronger than bubbly wine. And from the size of this crowd, this drink wasn’t going to be his last.
Smothering a sigh, he sipped from the tumbler, savoring the smoky flavor and smoothness of the liquor. One good thing he could say about the rarefied Houston social elite. They didn’t scrimp on the good alcohol.
He scanned the crowded ballroom packed with bejeweled and gowned women and tuxedoed men, and gritted his teeth. He hadn’t missed this whole dog-and-pony show while he’d been gone. Of course he’d attended business dinners and events when whining and dining clients had been required. And if he’d wanted to seek out this particular scene, Miami sat just two hours north from where he lived. The name Sutherland would have assuredly paved his way into those exclusive circles. But he’d purposefully avoided it, avoided…this.
People whose main concern wasn’t the cause they’d gathered to “shed a light on.” What was it tonight? Animal cruelty? Literacy? Save the apple blossom? He snorted, downing another drink of Scotch. He doubted most of them knew. They were here to see and be seen. To forge business and social connections. Feed on the carrion of gossip. All the while wearing tens of thousands of dollars in clothes and jewelry that could’ve been donated to the charity they celebrated.
Useless. Aimless.
And maybe he was just a bitter, cynical son-of-a-bitch.
“I still don’t understand why you insisted I attend tonight.”
