The Rebel Tycoon Returns

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. That other girl she’d been was as foreign to her now as the thought of living anywhere other than Royal. “I was a little intolerable back then.”

“Not at all. You were pretty and confident. Every boy in school wanted you.”

“Not anymore,” she said. “And there was only one boy I wanted.”

“You had me, if that’s what you meant. Why aren’t you confident now?”

She realized that she was feeling a little bit funky tonight. Almost blue. She wasn’t about to say out loud that she was no longer pretty. Not to Chris. Especially when she realized that he might want a little revenge against her for the way she’d treated him back then.

“Just not as shallow as I used to be. After my accident, I started working with the kids in the hospital’s Burn Unit and I came to realize that true beauty has nothing to do with physical appearance.”

“What has it got to do with?” he asked, taking another long swallow of his beer.

“I can’t define it, but I do know that it comes from deep inside. I think it’s how a person deals with others,” she said.

He shook his head. “You sure have changed.”

His name was called for dinner before she could respond. She slid out of the booth and Chris put his hand on the small of her back as they walked toward the dining room. His hand was big and warm through the fabric of her sundress and she was very glad that she’d run into him today. Being with Chris tonight made her realize just how much she’d been missing.

Chris spent the evening realizing why he’d fallen for Macy in the first place. She was funny and lively and had the kind of dry wit that made him laugh. She was also very intelligent and just a little bit shy. The shyness was new. She used to be a different girl.

He guessed that was what the difference really was. Macy was a woman now and life had handed her more than a few surprises. He was almost afraid to trust the woman she was tonight. He’d been burned by her once before.

“Why are you staring at me like that?” she asked, taking a sip of her wine.

“You aren’t what I expected you to be,” he said, opting for the truth, as he usually did. When he’d first gotten into the development business he had run into vendors who’d say anything to make their company sound good. And Chris had set Richardson Development apart from them by always being up front and never promising what he couldn’t deliver. He did the same thing in his personal life.

“In what way?” she asked, leaning forward as if his answer was something she wanted to hear.

“Well, to be honest, when you dumped me I had sort of hoped the years would be unkind to you and that you’d get fat and sort of dumpy.”

“Are you disappointed I’m not?” she asked with a laugh. She had an effervescent laugh that made him smile. Just the sound of it was joy. Though to his ears it sounded a bit rusty. As if she hadn’t had much to laugh about in recent years, which he knew she hadn’t.

He shook his head. How could he wish for her to be anything but the beautiful, sexy woman he saw in front of him? Even in the August heat, she looked cool and untouchable.

“Not at all. But that’s not really why I was staring at you. When we were teenagers you seemed like a girl who was going to lead a charmed life, and I was noticing that you don’t seem bitter that you haven’t.”

She shrugged one delicate shoulder and a strand of her honey-blond hair fell forward; she reached up and tucked it back behind her ear. “I can’t change what happened, so there is no use lamenting it, right?”

“Not everyone would see it that way.” He realized she didn’t see anything special in the way she was, but he did. Nothing she said would convince him that she wasn’t heroic. He liked the way she seemed to have adjusted to the changes in her life and he was very glad he was the first man to take her out after her surgeries were complete.

“It’s just the way I am now. Plus, if not for the accident I wouldn’t have started working in the Burn Unit at the hospital.”

“You mentioned that before. Are you in the medical profession now?” he asked.

“No. But I’m the administrator of the Reynolds Trust.”

“What is that?” Chris asked.

“It’s a charitable organization that my father established after my mother died. They give money to different organizations, some relating to medical research and providing care for the uninsured. I took over after college. After I started volunteering in the children’s Burn Unit, I added it to one of our charities at the trust. I am also a financial analyst and work at my dad’s company.”

“You sound very busy. Do you enjoy your work?” he asked.

“I do. What about you? What is it like being a big real estate developer?”

“I do a fair amount of work around the state.”

“More than a fair amount. Every time I open the business page there’s a new project with your company’s name on it.”

“Do you think about me whenever you see them?” he asked.

“Maybe.”

“Never thought I’d make good, did you?” he asked. He’d spent more than a few late nights over the years thinking about Macy and wondering what she’d make of his success.

“I was young, Chris. I really didn’t think much about you and me, or the future.”

“We were both young.”

“I wasn’t sure enough to stand on my own … despite how confident I may have seemed at school,” she confessed.

He took a deep swallow of his beer, not wanting to comment on it. No matter his age, he’d fallen hard for Macy. “And now?”

“I don’t know, Chris. I’m just starting to figure out who I am. The accident made me reevaluate my life.”

“I can see that,” he said. “And now you’re one of the rabble-rousers trying to get the club to admit women to its roster.”

“Yes, I am. I think it’s time we shake things up in this part of Texas.”

Chris laughed at the way she said it. His business was headquartered in Dallas, which wasn’t at all like this part of Texas. Here, attitudes were slower to change and men were still men.

“It will be interesting to see what happens,” Chris said. He had a hard time imagining women as full-fledged members of the Texas Cattleman’s Club. The traditions of the club were part of what made it so exclusive.

“I think we will win. Women have always had a certain advantage when it comes to negotiating with men,” Macy said with a tip of her head and a wink.

Macy had always known how to get her way. Which was probably how he’d ended up dating her to begin with. But now he was older and wiser. He should know better, but he was still turned on by this woman. It wouldn’t take much manipulating on her part to make him want to please her.

“True enough. And the women in Royal know how to use it to their advantage.” He had experienced her powers of persuasion when they’d been in high school. He’d never been able to deny her a thing. Even when she broke up with him he hadn’t been sure it wasn’t his fault.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” she said.

“It’s not,” he said. Since the beginning of time women had figured out how to get men to do what they wanted and that was the beauty of the opposite sexes. “I always liked seeing you smile, so if I have to do something to make that happen again then I guess I’d do it,” he said. Even walking away from her, he’d done that to make her happy because her father had been making their lives hell back then.

“What about now? Still like my smile?” she asked. “My teeth have been professionally whitened and straightened and Daddy has always said I could charm the whiskers off a cat with this smile.”

He leaned in closer and put his hand under her chin, tipping her head to the left then the right, studying her very pretty mouth. “Can you frown for me?”

She chuckled but then pouted for him. He rubbed his thumb over her lower lip. “Now smile.”