Harlequin Desire September 2015 - Box Set 1 of 2: Claimed\Maid for a Magnate\Only on His Terms (34 page)

“Hey there, Gracie,” he said in the same playful voice with which he'd always greeted her. “I'm sorry we're meeting like this, kiddo, because it means I'm dead.”

Unbidden tears pricked Gracie's eyes. She really did miss Harry. He was the best friend she'd ever had. Without thinking, she murmured, “Hi, Harry.”

Every eye in the room fell upon her, but Gracie didn't care. Let them think she was a lunatic, talking to someone on a TV screen. In that moment, it felt as if Harry were right there with her. And it had been a long time since she'd been able to talk to him.

“And if you're watching this,” he continued, “it also means you know the truth about who I really am, and that you're having to share a room with members of my original tribe. I know from experience what a pain in the ass that can be, so I'll keep this as brief as I can. Here's the deal, kiddo. I hope it didn't scare the hell out of you when you heard how much I left you. I'm sorry I never told you the truth about myself when I was alive. But by the time I met you, I was way more Harry Sagalowsky than I was Harrison Sage, so I wasn't really lying. You wouldn't have liked Harrison, anyway. He was a prick.”

At this, Gracie laughed out loud. It was just such a Harry thing to say. When she felt eyes on her again, she bit her lip to stifle any further inappropriate outbursts. Inappropriate to those in the room, anyway. Harry wouldn't have minded her reaction at all.

He continued, “That's why I wanted to stop being Harrison. One day, I realized just how far I'd gotten from my roots, and how much of myself I'd lost along the way. People love rags-to-riches stories like mine, but those stories never mention all the sacrifices you have to make while you're clawing for those riches, and how a lot of those sacrifices are of your morals, your ethics and your character.”

Gracie sobered at that. She'd never heard Harry sound so serious. He grew more so as he described how, by the time he'd left his old life, he'd become little more than a figurehead for his companies, and how unhappy his home life had become, and how all he'd wanted was to escape. So he left his work, his family and his “big-ass Long Island estate,” returned to the surname his ancestors had changed generations ago and moved back to the blue-collar neighborhood in Cincinnati where he grew up.

At this, Gracie glanced across the room at Vivian and Harrison and saw them looking at the television with identical expressions—a mixture of annoyance, confusion and something else she couldn't identify. She tried to be sympathetic. She couldn't imagine what it must be like for them, being ignored by their husband and father for fifteen years, and then being disinherited by him. She supposed they were justified in some of their feelings toward Harry.

But maybe they should take a minute to wonder why Harry had done this. He hadn't been the kind of man to turn his back on people, unless those people had given him a reason to do it.

Harry spoke from the video again, bringing Gracie's attention back around. “Vivian and Harrison, this part is for you. Billions of dollars is way too much for anyone to have. Gracie Sumner is the kind of person who will understand what an awesome responsibility that much money is, and she'll do the right thing by it. She won't keep it for herself. I know her. She'll get rid of it as quickly as she can, and she'll make sure it gets into the hands of people who need it.”

At this, Gracie braved another look across the room. Vivian Sage, her hair silver, her suit gold, her fingers and wrists bedecked in gemstones of every color, looked like she wanted to cry. Harrison, however, was staring right at Gracie. But his expression was unreadable. He could have been wondering where to eat lunch later or pondering where to hide her body. She hadn't a clue.

Thankfully, Harry's mention of her name gave her a reason to look back at the TV. “Gracie, this part's for you. I could have given my money to worthy causes myself and saved you a lot of trouble. But being a better person than I am, you'll know better than I would what to do with all my filthy lucre. But listen, kiddo. This last part is really important. Keep some of the money for yourself. I mean it. Buy yourself one of those ridiculous little cars you like. Or a house on the water. Go to Spain like you said you wanted to. Something. You promise?”

Again, Gracie felt every gaze in the room arc toward her. She had no idea what to say. It just felt wrong to take Harry's money, even a modest sum. After that first meeting with Mr. Tarrant, Gracie had gone home and headed straight for Google. In every article she'd read about Harrison Sage, Jr., he'd been defined by his wealth. “Billionaire Harrison Sage, Jr.,” he'd invariably been called. Even after his disappearance, when the word
recluse
had been added to his descriptions, it had still always been preceded by the word
billionaire
. In his old life, Harry had been, first and foremost, rich. Anything else had been incidental. Gracie didn't want to be one of the people who saw only dollar signs in conjunction with his name, and she didn't want to be one of the ones who took from him. Especially after he'd given so much to her.

“Promise me, Gracie,” he said again from the big screen, obviously having known she would hesitate.

“Okay, Harry,” she replied softly. “I promise.”

“That's my girl,” Harry said with another wink.

He said his farewells, and then the TV screen went dark. Again, Gracie felt tears threatening. Hastily, she fished a handkerchief out of her purse and pressed it first to one eye, then the other.

Across the room, Harrison Sage began a slow clap. “Oh, well done, Ms. Sumner,” he said. “Definitely an award-worthy performance. I can see how my father was so taken in by you.”

“Were I you, Mr. Sage,” Bennett Tarrant interjected, “I would be careful what I said to the woman who owns the Long Island mansion my mother calls home.”

It hit Gracie then, finally, just how much power she wielded at the moment. Legally, she could indeed toss Vivian Sage into the street and move into the Long Island house herself. That was what a trashy, scheming, manipulative gold digger who'd used her sexual wiles to take advantage of a fragile old man would do.

So she said, “Mr. Tarrant, what do I have to do to deed the Long Island house and everything in it to Mrs. Sage? This is her home. She should own it, not me.”

Harrison Sage eyed Gracie warily at the comment, but he said nothing. Something in Vivian's expression, though, softened a bit.

“It's just a matter of drawing up the paperwork,” Mr. Tarrant said. “Today being Wednesday, we could have everything ready by the end of next week. If you don't mind staying in the city for a little while longer.”

Gracie expelled a soft sigh. Harry's Long Island estate had to be worth tens of millions of dollars, and its contents worth even more. Just shedding that small portion of his wealth made her feel better.

“I don't mind staying in the city awhile longer,” Gracie said. “It'll be fun. I've never been to New York before. Could you recommend a hotel? One that's not too expensive? The one I'm in now is pretty steep, but I hadn't planned to stay more than a couple of nights.”

“It's New York City, Gracie,” Mr. Tarrant said with a smile. “There's no such thing as
not too expensive
.”

“Oh, you don't want to stay in the city,” Vivian said. “Darling, it's so crowded and noisy. Spend the time with us here in the Hamptons. It's beautiful in June. We've been having
such
lovely evenings.”

Harrison looked at his mother as if she'd grown a second head. “You can't be serious.”

Gracie, too, thought Vivian must be joking. A minute ago, she'd looked as if she wanted Gracie to spontaneously combust. Now she was inviting her to stay at the house? Why? So she could suffocate Gracie in her sleep?

“Of course I'm serious,” Vivian said. “If Grace—you don't mind if I call you Grace, do you, darling?—is kind enough to give me the house, the least I can do is make her comfortable here instead of having her stay in a stuffy old hotel in the city. Don't you think so, Harrison?”

What Harrison was thinking, Gracie probably didn't want to know. Not if the look on his face was any indication.

“Please, Grace?” Vivian urged. “We've all gotten off on the wrong foot. This just came as such a shock, that's all. Let us make amends for behaving badly. You can tell us all about how you met my husband and what he was like in Cincinnati, and we can tell you about his life here before you met him.”

Gracie wasn't sure how to respond. Was Vivian really being as nice as she seemed? Did she really want to mend fences? Or was there still some potential for the suffocation thing?

Gracie gave herself a good mental shake. She'd been a billionaire for barely a week, and already she was seeing the worst in people. This was exactly why she didn't want to be rich—she didn't want to be suspicious of everyone she met.

Of course Vivian was being nice. Of course she wanted to make amends. And it
would
be nice to hear about Harry's life before Gracie met him. She'd always thought the reason he didn't talk about himself was because he thought she'd be bored. His life must have been fascinating.

For some reason, that made Gracie look at Harrison again. He was no longer glowering at her, and in that moment, she could see some resemblance between him and his father. They had the same blue eyes and square jaw, but Harrison was a good three inches taller and considerably broader in the shoulders than Harry had been. She wondered if he had other things in common with his father. Did he share Harry's love of baseball or his irreverent sense of humor? Did he prefer pie to cake, the way his father had? Could he cook chili and fox-trot with the best of them?

And why did she suddenly kind of want to find out?

“All right,” she said before realizing she'd made the decision. “It's nice of you to open your home to me, Mrs. Sage. Thank you.”

“Call me Vivian, darling,” the older woman replied with a smile. “I'm sure we're all going to be very good friends before the week is through.”

Gracie wasn't so sure about that. But Vivian seemed sincere. She, at least, might turn out to be a friend. But Harrison? Well. With Harrison, Gracie would just hope for the best.

And, of course, prepare for the worst.

Three

G
racie awoke her second day on Long Island feeling only marginally less uncomfortable than she had on her first. Dinner with Vivian last night—Harrison was, not surprisingly, absent—had been reasonably polite, if not particularly chatty on Gracie's part. But she still felt out of place this morning. Probably because she was out of place. The bedroom in which Vivian had settled her was practically the size of her entire apartment back in Seattle. Jeez, the bed was practically the size of her apartment back in Seattle. The ceiling was pale blue with wisps of white clouds painted on one side that gradually faded into a star-spattered twilight sky on the other. The satiny hardwood floor was scattered with fringed flowered rugs, and the furniture and curtains could have come from the Palace at Versailles.

How could Harry have lived in a house like this? It was nothing like him. His apartment had been furnished with scarred castoffs, and the rugs had been threadbare. His walls had been decorated with Cincinnati Reds memorabilia, some vintage posters advertising jazz in Greenwich Village and a couple of paint-by-number cocker spaniels. And Harry had loved that apartment.

There had been no ocean whispers drifting through the windows in the old neighborhood. No warm, salt-laden breezes. No deserted beaches. No palatial homes. There had been tired, well-loved old houses crowded together. There had been broken sidewalks with violets growing out of the cracks. There had been rooms crammed with remnants of lives worked hard, but well spent, too. Life. That was what had been in her and Harry's old neighborhood. Real life. The sort of life she'd always lived. The sort of life she'd assumed Harry had lived, too.

Why had a man who could have had and done anything he wanted abandoned it all to live in a tiny apartment in a working-class neighborhood six hundred miles away? Harry Sagalowsky, alleged retired TV repairman, had turned out to be quite the mystery man.

For some reason, that thought segued to others about Harry's son. Harrison Sage was kind of a mystery, too. Was he the charming flirt she'd first met in the library yesterday? Or was he the angry young man who was convinced she had taken advantage of his father? And why was it so important that she convince him she wasn't like that at all?

Today would be better, she told herself as she padded to the guest bathroom to shower. Because today she and Harrison—and Vivian, too—would have a chance to get to know each other under better circumstances. They would get to know each other period. It was a new day. A day to start over. Surely, Harrison Sage would feel that way, too. Surely, he would give her a chance to prove she was nothing like the person he thought she was.

Surely, he would.

* * *

Harrison was deliberately late for breakfast, hoping that by the time he showed up, Grace Sumner would have left, miffed to be shown so little regard now that she was richer and more important than 99 percent of the world. Instead, when he ambled out to the patio, freshly showered and wearing a navy blue polo and khakis more suitable for playing golf than for being intimidating, he found her sitting poolside with his mother. Even worse, the two women were laughing the way women did when they realized they had some shared experience that had gone awry.

And damned if Grace Sumner didn't have a really nice laugh, genuine and uninhibited, as if she laughed a lot.

His mother sat on one side of the table, still in her pajamas and robe. Grace sat on the other, looking nothing like a gold digger and very much like a girl next door. At least, she looked like what Harrison figured a girl next door was supposed to look like. It was the way girls next door always looked in movies, all fresh and sweet and innocent. He'd never seen an actual girl next door who looked like that, since the girls he'd grown up with who lived next door—a half mile down the beach—had always looked...well, kind of like gold diggers, truth be told.

But not Grace Sumner. Her burnished hair was in a ponytail today, the breeze buffeting a few loose strands around her nape and temple in a way that made Harrison itch to tuck them back into place, just so he could watch the wind dance with them again. Her flawless face was bathed in late morning sunlight, making her skin rosy. The retro suit of the day before had been replaced by retro casual clothes today—a sleeveless white button-up shirt and those pants things that weren't actually pants, but weren't shorts, either, and came to about midcalf. Hers were spattered with big, round flowers in yellow and pink. Her only jewelry was a pink plastic bracelet that had probably set her back at least two dollars. Maybe as much as three.

Had he not known better, he could almost believe she was as innocent of conning his father as she claimed. He would have to stay on guard around her. Would that his father had been as cautious, none of this would be happening.

“Oh, Harrison, there you are!” his mother called out when she saw him. “Come join us. We saved you some caviar—mostly because Gracie doesn't like caviar. Can you imagine?”

No, Harrison couldn't imagine a woman who had just swindled herself billions of dollars not liking caviar. But it was an acquired taste for some people. She'd get the hang of it once she was firmly entrenched in the new life she'd buy with his family's money.

“And there's still some champagne, too,” his mother continued. “Gracie doesn't like mimosas, either.”

Neither did Harrison. Still, he would have expected someone like Grace to lap up champagne in any form from her stiletto. The thought made his gaze fall to her feet. She wore plain flat shoes—pink, to match the flowers on her pants.

Okay, that did it. No woman could be as adorable and unsullied as Grace Sumner portrayed herself. It just wasn't possible in a world as corrupt and tainted as this one. He stowed what little sentimentality he had—which, thankfully, wasn't much—and armed himself with the cynicism that was so much more comfortable.

Yeah. That felt better.

“Good morning,” he said as he took his seat between the women.

“It
is
a good morning,” his mother replied. “I slept so much better last night, thanks to Gracie.”

Gracie
, Harrison repeated to himself. His mother had tossed out the diminutive three times now. It was the sort of nickname any self-respecting girl next door would invite her new best friends to use. Great. His mother had fallen under her spell, too.

“You missed a wonderful dinner last night,” she added. “Gracie is giving us the Park Avenue penthouse and everything in it, too. She's already called Mr. Tarrant about it. Isn't that nice of her?”

Harrison's gaze flew to Grace, who was gazing back at him uncomfortably.

“Really,” he said flatly.

His tone must have illustrated his skepticism, because Grace dropped her gaze to the fingers she'd tangled nervously atop the table. The plate beside them held the remnants of a nearly untouched breakfast. In spite of her having looked like she was enjoying herself with his mother, she was clearly uneasy.

“It's the right thing to do,” she said, still avoiding his gaze. “Harry would have wanted his family to keep the places they call home.”

“The right thing to do,” Harrison told her, “would be to return everything my father left you to the family who should have inherited it in the first place.”

That comment, finally, made Grace look up. “Harry wanted me to give his money to worthy causes,” she said. “And that's what I'm going to do.”

“When?” Harrison asked.

“As soon as I get back to Seattle. I want to meet with a financial consultant first. I have no idea what to do at this point.”

Of course she wanted to meet with a financial consultant. She needed to find out how to bury that much money so deep in numbered and offshore accounts that no one would be able to find it after the new appeal ruled in the Sages' favor. Which reminded him...

Harrison turned to his mother. “I spoke with our attorney this morning. He's hired the private detective we talked about, to explore this new...avenue.”

Vivian said nothing, only lifted the coffeepot to pour Harrison a cup. Grace, however, did reply.

“You're wasting your money,” she said. “Not only is this...new avenue...pointless, but I'll be happy to tell you anything you want to know about me.”

He studied her again—the dark, candid eyes, the bloom of color on her cheeks, the softly parted lips. She looked the same way she had yesterday when she first caught his eye, the moment she walked into the library. He couldn't remember ever reacting to a woman with the immediacy and intensity he had when he'd met her. He had no idea why. There had just been...something...about her. Something that set her apart from everyone else in the room.

At the time, he'd told himself it was because she wasn't like anyone else in the room. His joke about the pack of bloodthirsty jackals hadn't really been much of a joke. That room had been filled with predators yesterday, which anyone who'd spent time with Park Avenue lawyers and socialites could attest to. And Grace Sumner had walked right into them like a dreamy-eyed gazelle who hadn't a clue how rapacious they could be. It was that trusting aspect that had gotten to him, he realized now. Something in that first moment he saw her had made him feel as if he could trust her, too.

And trust was something Harrison hadn't felt for a very long time. Maybe he never had. Yet there she had been, making him feel that way without ever saying a word. Now that he knew who she really was...

Well, that was where things got even weirder. Because even knowing who Grace Sumner really was, he still found himself wishing he could trust her.

He quickly reviewed what he'd discovered about her on his own by typing her name into a search engine. Although she had accounts at the usual social networking sites, she kept her settings on private. He'd been able to glean a few facts, though. That she lived in Seattle and had for a year and a half. That before that, she'd lived in Cincinnati, where she grew up. He knew she'd been working as a waitress for some time, that she was attending college with an early childhood education major—always good to have a fallback in case conning old men didn't work out—and that she never commented publicly or posted duck-face selfies.

It bothered him that her behavior, both online and now in person, didn't jibe with any of his preconceived ideas about her. An opportunistic gold digger would be a braying attention-grabber, too, wouldn't she? Then he reminded himself she was a con artist. Right? Of course she was. Naturally, she would keep her true self under wraps. That way, she could turn herself into whatever she needed to be for any given mark. Like, say, a dreamy-eyed gazelle who made a mistrustful person feel as if he could trust her.

“All right then,” he said, deciding to take her up on her offer. “Have you ever been married?”

“No,” she said. But she didn't elaborate.

So he did. “Have you ever been engaged?”

“No,” she replied. Again without elaboration.

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

“There's no one special in my life,” she told him. Then, after a small, but telling, hesitation, she added, “There never has been.”

Her reply was ripe for another question, this one way more invasive than she could have considered when telling him he could ask her anything. And had it not been for his mother's presence at the table, he might very well have asked it:
Does that mean you're a virgin?
It would have been perfect. If she replied no immediately after saying there had never been anyone special in her life, she would have sounded like a tramp. Had she answered yes, at her age, she would have sounded like a liar. Win-win as far as a court appeal was concerned.

Funny, though, how suddenly he wasn't asking because he wanted to use her status against her. He wanted to know about her status for entirely personal reasons.
Was
Grace Sumner a liar and a con artist? Or was she really as sweet and innocent as she seemed? And why was he kind of hoping it was the latter? Not only would it give him the upper hand if he
could
prove she was conning them all, but it would make her the kind of person he knew how to deal with. He knew nothing of sweetness and innocence. No one in his social or professional circles claimed either trait.

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?” he asked, trying a new tack.

She shook her head. “I'm an only child.”

“Mother's maiden name?”

“Sumner.”

The same as Grace's. Meaning... “No father?” he asked.

At this, she smiled. “Um, yeah, I had a father. Everyone does. Were you absent from health class that day?”

He refused to be charmed by her irreverence—or her smile. Instead, he asked, “What was your father's name?”

Her answer was matter-of-fact. “I don't know.”

“You don't know who your father was?”

She shook her head, something that freed another tantalizing strand of gold from her ponytail. “My mother never told me. On my birth certificate, he's listed as unknown.”

Okay, this was getting interesting. It wouldn't be surprising to anyone—like, say, a probate appeals judge—to discover that a young woman whose father had been absent when she was a child would, as an adult, turn to conning old men. Even if she hadn't set out to become a professional grifter when she was a little girl, should an opportunity for such present itself when she was older, it wasn't a stretch to see how a woman like that would take advantage of it.

Maybe she was right. Maybe he wouldn't need a private investigator after all.

“What about your grandparents?” he asked.

“I barely remember my grandmother,” she said. “She died before I started school.”

“And your grandfather?”

“He died when my mother was in high school. My grandmother never remarried.”

Oh, this was getting too easy. A pattern had developed of male role models being completely absent from the life of little Gracie Sumner. It didn't take Freud to figure this one out.