No woman had ever turned him into the Human Torch with just her scent, with a look, with just a gasp of air across his T-shirt covered chest. Only Hayden possessed that superpower.
“Don’t pretend you have any idea about who I am. Or about what I need or want.” She shifted back a step, and when her head tilted back, the aloof mask was firmly in place. “Who or how I fuck isn’t any of your business. As a matter-of-fact, my business is done here. You have the letter. Read it, don’t read it. As I said before, I was supposed to hunt you down and deliver it regardless of how distasteful I found the errand. Mission accomplished. Good-bye, Griffin.”
She wound her way through the cars, and after unlocking the door of a black Nissan, slid into the car and drove off. He remained standing in the dark long after the red of her headlights disappeared.
Don’t pretend you have any idea about who I am. Or about what I need or want.
She was right. He didn’t know the woman she’d become. The reserved, cold one who’d basically told him to fuck off. The girl he’d held, teased, confided in during the darkest hours of night had been open, giving, lighthearted…trusting. This woman didn’t look like she laughed often. And damn sure didn’t trust easily. What had happened in the time since he’d last seen her? And had he been responsible?
A vicious knot tightened his gut.
Not able—or willing—to dwell on that last question, he pivoted and headed back to the bar. To the life he’d chosen over the one he’d left. To the people who’d earned the label of family more than the one to whom he’d been born.
“Everything okay, Griff?” Jessie Montgomery, his foreman and best friend, clapped Griffin on the shoulder as he reclaimed the seat he’d abandoned earlier.
“Yeah.” He reached for his beer, but at the last moment, pushed it across the bar. “Just an old,” he paused, “acquaintance.”
“A fine as hell one, too.” Jessie flicked a hand at the bartender, gesturing toward Griffin. In seconds, another brew appeared in front of him, along with a sly smile. At any other time, he might have considered taking up the sexy brunette on the offer in that grin. But not tonight. Not when vanilla, honey and sex still invaded his nostrils. “I can’t believe you came back in here alone. Or at all.”
Griffin grunted, not willing to talk about Hayden, not even to Jessie.
His friend shrugged and slid a white envelope under Griffin’s elbow. The envelope that had been Hayden’s “business” in Florida.
“I wasn’t sure if you were returning, so I grabbed this for you. It has your name on it.”
For a moment, Griffin just stared at the piece of mail as if it contained Ebola. He probably wasn’t far off. Anything that came from his father would be laced with a poison that attacked his confidence, peace or pride.
Still, something had him picking up the letter. Morbid curiosity. The messenger.
Before he could reconsider, Griffin ripped the end of the envelope and removed two sheets of paper. Again, typed. He snorted.
But two minutes later, all hints of amusement evaporated. Replaced by shock. And rage. A black, blazing rage. He slid the letter behind the second sheet. A deed.
That son-of-a-bitch.
4
“Excuse me, sir, do you have an appointment?” The thin blonde scurried around her receptionist desk, alarm widening her eyes and hiking her voice to a decibel just under for-dogs’-hearing-only. “Sir, you can’t just walk in there—”
“Don’t worry.” Griffin waved his hand toward her desk, tossing her a grin that felt feral. “He’s expecting me.”
It’d been a week since he’d read the letter Hayden had delivered from his father. Yeah, Joshua Sutherland knew Griffin would come to Houston, Texas. To him.
He’d probably counted on it.
Griffin opened the closed door to his father’s office and strode in, shutting the door behind him, and locking the yipping receptionist out.
Joshua glanced up from his desk, his expression stoic and not betraying an ounce of surprise. He didn’t rise from his chair to greet Griffin, but reclined against the back, linking his fingers over his still-flat stomach. At 54, his father seemed to have avoided the touch of time. Except for a light sprinkling of gray in his otherwise thick, dark hair, he seemed as young, fit and strong as he’d been since Griffin’s childhood. His dark eyes remained clear and assessing. Yes, Griffin could easily imagine his good looks and imposing presence easily swaying the good people of Texas to vote him in as their next governor. Like sheep ushering in the wolf to their pasture.
“Griffin.”
“Joshua.”
Aside from the slight tightening of his mouth, his father didn’t respond to Griffin’s refusal to call him Dad or Father. Griffin hadn’t used either word when addressing his father in six years. Not since the night he’d entered his father’s office and found his girlfriend riding Joshua like a jockey at the Kentucky Derby. Catching one’s father fucking the woman who was supposed to be yours didn’t exactly foster warm, familial feelings.
“Sorry for showing up unannounced,” Griffin crossed the office and dropped into the visitor’s chair in front of the massive, glass desk that dominated the cavernous office. “But as I told your secretary, I’m sure my presence here isn’t a surprise. As a matter of fact, I’m sure you knew the moment I entered the building.”
“That’s still no excuse for your rudeness to my staff, Griffin.” His eyebrows arched on the tail end of the patronizing admonishment. “With such a melodramatic entrance, I’m assuming you’re here about my letter.”
