Surrender to Temptation (Agent Lovers Series Book 1) (2 page)

OK, fine,
he decided. Then he would try to come down to her level. “Your name is Liz, then, is it? Is that short for Elizabeth?” He ventured a guess in order to try to learn more about her.

“Looks like I have a regular brain surgeon here.”

“You take quite a few liberties for an employee,” he challenged her. Then Gray remembered the woman’s insolent manner toward Annie and realized that she couldn’t be a staff member. No maid who valued her job would behave so rudely to a guest like him, and even more to the point, would know better than to act up with her employer or his family. She had to be related to Annie or the Gibsons. There was no other explanation.

The woman roared with laughter and called him an “ass.” This didn’t particularly surprise him. Gray had expected she’d respond something like that, and in a way, he found her antics funny. “So, you’re not an employee,” he said. “Who are you then? A scarecrow the gardener forgot? That’s what you look like in those tattered clothes.”

“Go on. Keep going!” Her lips turned upward in a broad grin and her attitude seemed to turn even saucier. “But I assure you, it’ll take more than that to insult me.” Liz took one last drag from her cigarette, flicked it onto the beautifully maintained grass and ground it out. Then she lifted her beer bottle to her lips and took a swig. It didn’t escape Gray’s notice that the beer was alcohol-free.
Something doesn’t jibe here,
he thought.

Gray studied her. Something about her seemed familiar. He crossed his arms over his chest and said in a casual tone, “Whoever invited you here is insane.” The remark was clearly a provocation and he was sure she’d have to react. But before Liz could respond, he suddenly realized who she was.

Some time ago John had mentioned his little sister, Lizzie, in a conversation. At the time, Gray had noticed the sorrow and dejection in John’s face and he hadn’t pried further. Whatever had saddened John was a family matter and it didn’t involve him. If Harold and John didn’t voluntarily talk about it, he wouldn’t press them.

The woman in front of him now couldn’t be anyone else other than Harold’s daughter. He was absolutely sure of it now. He would have known it even without remembering the twenty-year-old newspaper photo he had uncovered during his investigation into Harold Gibson’s background. Standing next to Harold in the newspaper photo, had been a woman who bore a striking similarity to Liz. Isabelle Gibson, Harold Gibson’s dead wife.

“I doubt John will be very happy when he learns that one of his guests called him insane.” The furious flash in Liz’s eyes confirmed his suspicion.

Gray laughed and tilted his head toward her. “Nice to meet you, Elizabeth Gibson. I’m Grayson Blackwood.”

Liz blinked in surprised, looked at him startled and then laughed. He had baited her and she had blundered into it blindly.

“Now we’ve got that out of the way.” She glanced at her watch. “If you don’t mind, I’m heading inside now to say hello to the company.”

Gray sensed from her casual comment that something unpleasant was going to happen. Judging from how he’d just met her, he figured she was about to put Harold and John in an awkward situation with the other guests. If Liz made a dramatic entrance and insulted the investors and business partners the way she’d just insulted him, they might worry about whether Harold Gibson could possibly have everything as under control as it seemed he always had. They might then decide to put their money someplace that seemed more secure. He didn’t want to think about how the upper-class investors - to whom the word etiquette meant something - would react if Harold’s daughter lumbered in, flopped down onto a chair, put her feet up onto the table and poked her elderly tablemate in the ribs while saying with a grin, “What’s up, old man?”

Oh God, not that.
The thought appalled Gray. He had known Harold and John long enough to want to spare them from such a scene and its aftermath, if it was within his power to do so. Gray glanced over Liz’s shoulder and saw a small wooden toolshed. Tall trees and bright yellow ornamental bushes concealed a large part of the shed, shielding it from casual glances. Perfect.

But first he wanted to be absolutely sure that the drastic measures he was considering were necessary. “I hope you’re not planning to make a fool of your father and your brother in front of their guests. Are you?”

“So what if I am? They’re used to it. It wouldn’t be the first time. Good night.” Liz turned and was already walking away when he grabbed her arm and pulled her back with one quick movement.

“Of course, I can’t allow you to bust in on the party.” With lightning speed, he grabbed Liz around the waist and threw her like a bag of grain over his shoulder. He ran the couple of yards to the toolshed.

“Hey! Put me down you jerk!” Furiously Liz pounded his back with a clenched fist while she clung to the beer bottle with the other.

Hastily, he opened the door for his “victim,” set her forcefully on her feet and gave her a gentle push on the shoulder so that she staggered backwards. After she’d regained her balance, Liz set down her beer, shook the hair out of her face, gave him a furious glare and stormed back toward the door.

Her balled up fists hurtled toward his face, but Gray fended off her attack and shoved Liz’s shoulder again, this time with a little more force. Liz stumbled backwards over a rake and landed, cursing loudly, on her bottom. Gray quickly closed the door and bolted it from the outside. Laughing softly, he told her through the closed door, “I’ll apologize to Harold and John for your absence during dinner, but I doubt they’ll miss you making them look ridiculous in front of their guests. I’ll let you out again after dinner. And if you behave yourself, tomboy, I’ll even bring something to eat with me.”

“Let me out right now! You’ve got to be kidding! Are you crazy? Open this door right now!” Liz’s voice was almost cracking. She pounded and kicked the door so hard, even the frame bent under her force.

Gray sincerely hoped the boards of the shed would stand up to the girl’s fury. Carefully he checked to make sure that the door really was locked. He circled the hut once while speaking quietly to Liz, but there was no chance of being heard over her rant. Gray straightened his suit, wiped the dust from his normally shiny shoes and, although worried about the situation, walked straight to the house. He hoped, despite everything, that the evening would be a success.

Why did Liz appear so standoffish to her family?
he wondered. It was obvious that they mattered to her; otherwise she wouldn’t have fallen into his trap.

He had known Harold and John for about a year now, and it would not be an exaggeration to describe what had developed between them as a very deep friendship. As a potential investor, Gray had been invited to participate in the thirty-fifth anniversary celebration of
Gibson & Son
, a construction company that had had grown enormously over the past fifteen years and which had a number of branch offices. Gray hadn’t wanted to blow his chances, since he had been looking for quite a while for an opportunity to prudently—and, above all, profitably—invest the money he had inherited from his parents.

From the beginning, Harold had been friendly, candid and honest with him. He was known and valued in business circles for being an exceedingly serious business partner. No matter who Gray talked to, he heard only positive comments about Harold. That was the first reason Gray had decided to invest a significant amount of money in his company. The second and more personal reason for the investment was the immediate liking the two had for one another. They met together regularly and worked on promising ideas for how to keep the company on track.

When it came to business, Harold Gibson could be as hard as nails. But he showed a soft heart when dealing with the disadvantaged and the needy. In his private life, he had previously bought numerous run down properties, renovated them and then rented out the living spaces to lower-income families at highly favorable rates. This was just one more reason why Gray respected this man who was also actively supported by his son. He took care of not only his own, but of those who weren’t as well off. Harold never forgot what it was like to own almost nothing.

Before he’d invested in the company, Gray’s investigation of his potential business partner had been exceedingly thorough. At the time, he’d been only marginally interested in the fact that Harold was a widower with one son and one daughter. Gray’s investigation had focused mainly on Gibson’s competence as a businessman and whether his enterprises were viable investments.

Gibson & Son
had been created from practically nothing. Over 35 years ago, Harold had inherited one of the mortgaged estates and the ailing construction company from his uncle. He put all of his energy and time in to saving both from ruin, and before long the company was once again operating in the black. Year after year,
Gibson & Son
’s profits increased.

Then 15 years ago, the company suddenly began to open branch offices and to expand more rapidly, and the annual profits had increased steadily ever since. Gray guessed what the trigger had been for that explosion of growth: the sudden death of Harold’s wife. As he came to know his business partner better, Gray realized that Harold had only expanded the company so he would be able to offer his beloved children a secure and worry-free future. They might have lost their mom, but at the least they wouldn’t need to break their backs, as he had had to do, in order to put food in the refrigerator and a roof over their heads.

What was incomprehensible to Gray was how stand-offish Liz acted toward her family; she avoided them like the plague and, gauging from how she’d acted toward Annie, seemed determined to do everything she could to be seen as the black sheep of the family. She showed no respect for anything or anyone and she communicated this as bluntly as possible. Liz was actually pretty in her rumpled, wild way—more than pretty, in fact—but her behavior left a lot to be desired. Gray didn’t believe that her parents had made a mistake in her upbringing; something else must have triggered her off-putting manner.

Gray pushed back any further thoughts of Liz for now, since she was tucked safely away in the shed. He straightened his jacket, which was a little askew after his skirmish with the ball of fury. He cut across the grass, passed a bubbling fountain, and walked up the broad flight of stairs that led to a spacious patio and into the hall at the back of the mansion.

Gray chatted animatedly with the other guests until it was time to sit down to dinner at the long, elegantly-set table. His seat was close to the host’s. The chair to his left, however, remained empty. It was obvious that one of the guests was running late. And he knew exactly which one.

The recently hired waiters were just serving the second course of the exquisite meal when the double doors flew open and Liz, who should actually have been sitting in the toolshed, strutted into the room.

“Good evening, gentlemen. Please excuse my tardiness; I was unfortunately delayed.” The guests looked stunned and confused. With an innocent smile, she strode to the head of the table and sat in the empty chair next to Gray. She smiled politely to the party; her brother threw her a glance that could only be interpreted as one of disapproval. One of the waiters brought her a plate and Liz began to eat without ceremony. She simply ignored the curious glances that were being thrown her way from all directions.

After a brief, critical scrutiny of Liz’s appearance, Harold Gibson inclined his head toward his daughter and said in a hushed tone, “Do you always have to make a scene when you surface—as rare as that is, Elizabeth? And in completely inappropriate attire. Don’t tell me that you didn’t know that this wasn’t going to be a family dinner.”

“Actually, I didn’t, Dad. Do you really think I would have shown up if I’d had the slightest idea this was going to be a business dinner?” John had left out that little detail when he called and talked her into coming for the evening. Actually, he’d more than talked her into it. He had downright coerced her.

He’d cut right to the chase over the phone. “We haven’t seen you in almost four months. My God, Liz, Savannah isn’t at the other end of the world; it’s barely an hour and a half from Brunswick,” he’d said. “Either you come to dinner on Wednesday or I’ll come over there. And I’ll tell you one thing: if I have to come to you, I’ll make sure I stay a while and annoy the heck out of you.”

Liz had given a groan of frustration, which her brother took as a promise. “We’ll see you on Wednesday night then,” he said. Then he hung up before she had any chance to correct his assumption.

She had wanted to leave as soon as she’d arrived, once she saw all of the luxury cars in the driveway. But in the end, she decided not to. She believed that John really would follow through on his threat and move in with for two or three weeks if she didn’t make an appearance.

She would rather have endured a meal in the family circle than be exposed to a stupid business dinner. But at the end of the day, it was completely irrelevant whether there were guests present or not. Just like she did whenever she saw her father, John and Annie, Liz would act like she didn’t give a damn what they thought about her or her behavior. It had long been her practice to be her most defiant self when she was with them. Being a target of criticism by her father helped her to keep her distance from him. After all, distance was the opposite of closeness.

“What’s the matter, Dad? Don’t you like my clothes? I made such an effort too.” Liz provoked her father while keeping her eyes on her plate.

***

Gray listened in on the exchange occurring next to him. Was he going to learn why Liz was the way she was so soon? He doubted it. This seemed just to be the usual way Harold and Liz spoke to one another. He threw a quick glance at John, who sat diagonally across from him. John’s grimaces and disapproving shakes of the head confirmed Gray’s suspicion that this was a kind of ritual between father and daughter. Feeling curious, he continued to eavesdrop on their argument.