Billionaire's Contract Engagement / Money Man's Fiancée Negotiation (20 page)

Minutes passed, and the sickening realization hit her that he wasn't coming back. Not only had she lost her reputation, and possibly her career, but she'd lost the one man she loved enough to have risked it all in the first place.

T
uesday morning, Celia took the coward's way out and called Brock to schedule vacation time for the rest of the week. He didn't like that she was hiding. It was no way to face the issue, but after hearing how horrible she sounded, he didn't argue the matter further.

The rest of the day she spent moping around her apartment, alternating between anger and fits of upset.

Wednesday, she packed a bag and headed for the one place she knew she could lick her wounds in safety. Her dad's house.

He took one look at her and held out his arms for a giant bear hug. She needed it. Never had the comfort of home felt so good to her than now.

He sat her down and cooked her a huge breakfast, because in his book, there wasn't anything that couldn't be cured by a big, home-cooked breakfast.

All the time she ate, he sat beside her, eating his own food in silence. He didn't pry or demand answers. It was what she
loved most about him. He never intruded into his children's lives. No, he didn't have to. He just waited for them to come to him, and then he'd move heaven and earth to make everything right again.

Only this time he couldn't fix it.

She spent the afternoon on the couch, watching television with him. He babied her endlessly, fixing her a snack in the afternoon and even baking her favorite cookies. Chocolate chip with no nuts.

By the time evening rolled around, it was obvious her father had spent the afternoon on the phone with her brothers. They arrived, one at a time, and made it a point to shower her with lots of hugs and endless pampering. Or at least Adam and Dalton did.

When Noah showed up, he took one look at her and demanded to know what the hell had happened. She burst into tears which prompted Adam, Dalton and her dad to threaten to dismember him for upsetting her.

“Well hell, Dad, I didn't upset her. It's obvious that someone did, but it sure as hell wasn't me!” Noah protested. “Hasn't anyone asked her what's wrong yet?”

“We were waiting,” her father said gruffly.

“Waiting for what?” Noah asked in exasperation. “For her to cry?”

Celia wiped at her eyes and tried to stop the sniffling. She knew her brothers hated it when she cried. Especially Noah.

Noah turned to her, his eyes softening at the signs of her distress. Then he sat down on the couch next to her.

“This doesn't have anything to do with Evan Reese, does it?”

Despite her vow to cease and desist, his question spurred another round of tears.

“Good going, bonehead,” Adam growled.

“Anyone ever tell you that your skill with the opposite sex sucks?” Dalton asked.

Noah put an arm around her and squeezed comfortingly. “What happened, Cece?”

“Oh God, Noah, it was awful. The paper printed these horrible pictures and this blog said horrible things. My career is shot to hell. My reputation is in shambles and Evan doesn't want to see me anymore because I asked him to back off until the smoke cleared. He thinks I think he's my dirty little secret, and he hates it. And me.”

She dug her palms into her eyes and rubbed until it felt like she was scraping her eyelids across sandpaper every time she blinked.

“Whoa,” Adam said. “Did any of that make sense to the rest of you?”

Dalton and her father exchanged helpless looks.

Noah sighed. “Maybe you should back up and start with what the newspaper printed and what the blog said and why your career and reputation have been dragged through the mud.”

“It's a long story,” she muttered.

“We've got all night,” Dalton offered.

She sighed and once again poured out the whole story from start to finish, not leaving a single detail out. Except for the sex. Her brothers had a hard time seeing their baby sister as anything other than their baby sister, and telling them about her sex life would only make them turn a sick shade of green. And then they'd probably go after Evan with one of Noah's baseball bats.

“That's crazy,” Adam huffed.

Dalton nodded his agreement. Noah, who was a lot more tuned in to just what bad press could do to a career and reputation, was a lot more subdued. Concern flared in his eyes when she got to the explanation of the article and blog.

“That sucks,” Noah said.

Celia nodded. “Tell me about it.”

“So where does this Evan person fit in?” her dad asked. “I mean, there seems to be a big piece missing here. You were
pretending to be his fiancée and this paper prints stuff about you, and you said he's angry because he thinks you think he's your dirty little secret. Am I missing something?”

She sighed. “I'm in love with him, Dad. And now he hates me.”

All four men's mouths rounded into Os.

There was marked silence, and she regretted having blurted out that fact. Love was girly stuff, and none of the men looked like they had a clue what to say or do next.

“Look, I appreciate you guys. I love you all to pieces. I don't know what I would do without you. I don't expect you to fix this for me. I'm thirty years old. Not a little girl anymore. The days of me coming to you with my scrapes and boo-boos should be well behind me. I'll figure out something. I just needed a place to lick my wounds and regroup.”

Adam frowned. “Now, you wait just one damn minute. You're family, Cece. I don't care how old you are.”

Even Dalton scowled and nodded his agreement. Noah merely squeezed her hand and told her bluntly to shut up.

“You'll always be my little girl and their little sister,” her dad said in his soft, gravelly voice. “That don't change because you go away to college, get a fancy degree and get a job that beats you down every chance it gets.”

She winced at the direction this was heading.

“We love you and we'll always be here for you to come running to. You got that?”

“Yeah, Dad, I do.”

“Now come here and give your old man a hug. Sounds like you've had one hell of a week.”

She scrambled up from the couch and threw herself into his beefy embrace. She squeezed for all she was worth and inhaled his scent.

“Love you, Dad,” she muffled out against his shirt.

“I love you, too, Cece. Don't you forget it, either. Now back up and tell me more about this Evan fellow and if I need to round up your brothers to go beat him up.”

* * *

Evan's office staff was avoiding him. Not that he could blame them. He'd arrived back on Tuesday, acting like a bear with a sore paw. He'd briefly touched base with his assistant, long enough to tell her not to hurry back in to work and to remain with her granddaughter as long as she was needed.

He'd gone over his last conversation with Celia until it rolled like video footage through his head. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get it to turn off.

It was his own fault for pursuing Celia so relentlessly. She'd been hesitant from the start, and he'd ignored all the warning signs. He'd never become serious about a woman who didn't put him first. And he damn sure wouldn't be involved with a woman who put more importance on what the world around her thought about her than on her relationship with him.

He scowled when a knock sounded at his door. One of the secretaries poked her head in and held up an envelope like a shield.

“This just came for you, sir.”

“Bring it over,” he said, waving her in.

She hurried over and all but threw the envelope at him before beating a hasty retreat out of his office. He shook his head. He hadn't been that bad since he'd returned two days ago.

Okay maybe he had.

With a sigh, he glanced at the envelope. It was an overnight package with the name of some corporation from San Francisco he'd never heard of before. It was marked extremely urgent.

He opened it and to his surprise it only held a folded newspaper. Nothing else. No letter, no explanation. He pulled it out and it fell open on his desk. It was turned to a specific page, and when he looked down, he saw Celia's picture, only it wasn't one he was familiar with. She looked different. Maybe younger? And she looked terrified in the picture. She had one hand up like she was trying to avoid the camera.

Frowning, he scanned the article. He was so pissed by the time he got to the end that he had to go back and read it more carefully.

The photo was indeed of a younger Celia when she lived and worked in New York. She'd landed a position with a prestigious advertising firm one year out of college. She'd done impressive work and then she'd been promoted to senior executive—above several other junior executives who'd been there longer.

A relationship with the CEO had been quickly revealed, and Celia had been named in the divorce proceedings between the CEO and his wife. Celia had fled New York in disgrace to return home to San Francisco, where she took a job with the smaller, on-the-rise Maddox Communications.

Only last week, intimate photographs of Celia Taylor with billionaire Evan Reese had appeared in another article the day after Reese had reportedly signed a multimillion-dollar advertising contract with Maddox.

Blah, blah, it went on and on, vilifying Celia and along with her, Maddox Communications. His stomach churned, and he felt the urge to go vomit.

His gaze caught the latest issue of
Advertising Media.
Fresh off the press and delivered just this morning. It was just as Celia had said. The announcement was there for the world to see, but it was tainted by those photos.

He picked up the paper and stared at it again. There was no way. No way in hell she'd done what they accused her of. He hadn't known Celia for long, but he damn well knew she wouldn't have done something like this. If she did have a relationship with this bastard, it wasn't so she'd get a promotion.

He wanted to go kill someone. Preferably whoever had started this smear campaign. No one messed with the woman he loved and got away with it.

All the air left his lungs in a painful jolt.

Loved?

He liked Celia. Liked her a damn lot. She was beautiful, vibrant, sexy as hell. She was a great lover and partner. He had fun with her. He loved her company. But did he love her?

The knot in his stomach grew. How could he be so stupid about his own personal life? Surely it would have occurred to him before now if he was in love with someone.

He stopped and let his thoughts catch up with the breathless, panicky feeling in his chest.

How had he gone thirty-eight years with never having fallen in love? He'd never even contemplated the idea until now. He wasn't at all sure he liked it, either.

Love was such a messy emotion. It was bound to be inconvenient. You sure couldn't put it on a schedule and love never played by the rules. He liked rules. And schedules.

Ah, hell, he was absolutely in love with her.

It was why he was sitting here in such a terrible mood that his usually easygoing office staff wouldn't come near him for fear of being decapitated.

He looked again at the article, and his chest utterly caved in. Celia. God, he'd been such an idiot. A complete and utter, madly-in-love moron.

He'd reacted just like a petulant child, furious that his favorite toy was being taken away. In this case, Celia had wanted to put their relationship on hold and all he could see was that she was pushing him away. He'd panicked. He'd been a total ass.

She needed him. Needed his support. And he'd told her to take a hike. Worse, he'd arrogantly told her not to bother changing her mind and come crawling back.

He winced. Holy hell in a bucket but he'd said some horrible things. If there was any crawling to do, it would be him doing it. In the mud. Over broken glass.

Her tear-stained face came painfully to mind. The hell she must have endured. Her coworkers had seen the photos. Everyone in her profession had likely seen them. They'd all probably come to some very inaccurate conclusions.

He'd been selfish and demanding from the start. He hadn't given one moment's consideration to how their relationship would reflect on her. It had all been about him. His wants and needs. He didn't care if anyone knew about them, but she had. And with good reason.

He should have been standing with her. He should have supported her. Now it looked as if the world had turned on her, and where was he? Off licking his wounds while she faced the world alone.

To hell with that.

He had a woman to win back.

C
elia sipped her hot chocolate and stared over her dad's backyard to the ocean in the distance. She'd always loved the view here. His house was perched on a cliff, though it was situated a good distance from the drop-off.

As a child, after reading about mudslides, she'd been convinced that they'd fall into the ocean. Her brothers had told her it was far more likely they'd fall off in an earthquake. She shook her head at the memory of how they liked to torment her.

It was peaceful here, and not for the first time, she wondered why she'd been so anxious to move away. True, her family could be overbearing at times, but they loved her. They were loyal and they'd do anything in the world for her. That wasn't something to run away from. It was something to hold on to and never let go.

No, she wouldn't leave again. She was through discovering the world. Her world was here. Home. Where her family lived.

The sliding-glass doors opened and Noah stepped out. She turned all the way around in her chair to greet him, but stopped when she saw the expression on his face.

“I was about to say good morning,” she said as he came over and plopped down beside her.

He sighed and held out another newspaper. “I thought about not showing you this, but I knew if something was being said about me, I'd want to know about it so I wouldn't be blindsided.”