Return of the Secret Heir

At the deep hum of a motorbike pulling up on her street, Pia drew the curtain to the side, her pulse chaotic. JT sat with his strong, long legs astride the machine as he switched off the engine. Under the light of a streetlamp, he kicked down the side stand with a heavy boot and unbuckled the helmet, exposing his hair to the breeze. When he swung his leg over the side, she pressed a hand to her stomach to ease the flutters of trepidation.

JT arriving on a motorbike, stirring up memories. He was kitted up for a ride, looking sexy as hell…. About to march into her home. She groaned and rested her head against the windowpane. This had to be the stupidest idea she’d ever had.

The bike was a different model from the one he’d ridden when they were teenagers—that bike had been scrappy and built from bits he’d scavenged and traded. This one was sleek and silver and looked like it cost as much as her garden apartment.

From the ground floor window, she watched him make his way up the path to the apartment complex’s foyer and—heart lunging at her ribs—she buzzed him in.

Seconds later, she opened the front door to JT, larger than life in his black riding jacket zipped to his neck, dark jeans, boots and rumpled hair. She almost melted into the floor. He bore little resemblance to the man who’d been in her office this morning. He was more disheveled. Reckless. More like the young JT who’d stolen her heart and her virginity. She shivered.

“Nice bike,” she said in a voice she hoped was casual.

Looking around her living room, he unzipped his jacket to reveal a form-fitting white T-shirt, then slipped his arms from the coat and folded it over a forearm. “An MV Agusta. Haven’t ridden it in a while. It seemed somehow … appropriate.” One corner of his mouth hitched up around the small scar above his lip. She remembered his receiving that scar when he came off his bike doing a daredevil stunt that had scared her silly. And she remembered kissing the healed scar in the heat of passion.

Dragging her eyes from his face, she held out her hand. “I’ll hang up your jacket.”

“I appreciate the hospitality,” he said drily and handed it over.

Ignoring the barb about her reluctance to meet with him, she walked over to the coat stand. The jacket was warm with his body heat and she held it a moment too long before hanging it, then ironed her damp palms down her trousers and turned back to him.

He stood, dominating her living room without trying, hands slung low on his hips. “So tell me how we need to play this.”

“We’re not playing anything,” she said a little too sharply, still unsettled by his effect on her body. This would have been easier over the phone, where she could have focused more on the topic instead of the tower of testosterone in front of her. The lamplight from the corners of the room added too much atmosphere to his expression, so she stepped to the wall and switched on the overhead lights before trying again. “You just need to keep your distance.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Why so adamant?”

“Warner Bramson’s family has always attracted more than its fair share of media attention. You will too once you lodge your claim. You have to see that if it were known we were once involved, people would start to wonder about my ethics and bias.” Ted Howard already had, but luckily she’d been able to reassure him. “You wondered it yourself.”

He rocked back on his heels, eyes trained on her face. “But the only question could be that you’d be biased against me. No one who knew how our involvement ended would suspect you of aiding me. And because your job is to carry out terms of a will that neglects me, I don’t see the problem.”

“I’m sure the beneficiaries of the will would prefer to have someone with no connection to you. And my boss is watching me too closely on this case.” She would already need to conceal tonight’s visit from Ted Howard—somehow she didn’t think he’d understand.

“What’s the worst he’d do? Move you to another case?”

“Yes,” she said with certainty.

JT rubbed his thumb back and forth over his bottom lip as he surveyed her. “You badly want this case, don’t you?”

“More than any other I’ve handled.” More than anything in her life.

He cocked his head to the side and scrutinized her face. “Why?”

She sighed. How much should she tell him? Details about how she came to have the case were off-limits to JT, but perhaps it would help if he knew the stakes were high for her. If there was any of the JT she’d once known inside this man, surely he’d respect that?

She swallowed, then met his eyes. “Warner Bramson’s will is worth billions. It’s a big case. The senior partner of my firm indicated that if I carry this off smoothly, I’ll finally make partner.”

In actual fact, she’d chased this account, wanted to work on Warner Bramson’s will after JT’s mother had let slip on one of their annual lunches that JT’s father’s name was Warner. It was an unusual name, so Pia had done some digging and found that Theresa Hartley had worked in the secretarial pool of Bramson Holdings around the time JT was conceived. And Bramson was powerful enough to be the sort of man Theresa could be in hiding from all these years. Circumstantial evidence, for sure, but enough to convince Pia that it might be true.

She’d lobbied for the account to be brought to her firm in hope there would be something she could do to guide Warner to confirm JT was his son, and then to redress Theresa’s treatment. But Pia had failed—up until his death, Warner had denied there were any other children he’d need to make allowance for when she’d probed in her professional capacity.

She lifted her chin. “I’ve been working toward making partner since I started at the firm—I won’t risk being moved to another case because of a perceived conflict of interest.”

It was her big chance. The partners at her firm had been so impressed when she landed the account in the first place that they’d promised she’d likely make partner when it was all concluded. She might have been initially interested in the case for Theresa, but now it had dovetailed into her primary career goal—make partner.

He arched an eyebrow, the trace of a smile lurking on his lips. “You’ve got yourself a carrot and a stick on the one case.”

Was he taking this seriously? “JT, if you—”

The intensity in his eyes turned serious. “It’s okay, I get it. You followed your family into law and now you’re committed to making a success of it. Fair enough. We definitely need some ground rules to survive. Are you going to invite me to sit down?”

“No, you won’t be here that long.” She didn’t want him settling in—this had to be as quick as she could make it. If she’d been thinking straight, she wouldn’t have taken his jacket either. “What sorts of rules are you thinking?”

“We start with your agreeing you won’t be biased against me, or influence others to be.”

“I already told you I won’t—” she held up her hand to stop whatever protest his open mouth was about to voice “—but for the sake of these negotiations, I swear I won’t.”

He gave a satisfied nod. “I appreciate it.”

“In return, you’ll agree not to set foot in my firm’s offices or my apartment again.”

He looked at her from under heavy eyelids. “What if you invite me?”

He was flirting with her now? That’s where he thought their relationship was headed?

“I won’t,” she said firmly despite the heat creeping up her neck.

“But if you do?” He folded his arms across his broad chest and the action made his biceps strain against the sleeves of his T-shirt. Her mouth dried. His body had always been strong because he’d been active, but those arms were beautiful. She blinked. What were they talking about?

Invitations. She swallowed. “Okay, you agree not to set foot on the premises of my work or home without an invitation. And I want you to agree that in any contact we have—which should be minimal—we have no mention of the past.”

She knew he must have questions about their breakup—she hadn’t explained it well at sixteen. She probably couldn’t explain it well even now. And the guilt for hurting him then still lived in her gut like heavy, sticky molasses. Delving into that wouldn’t help anyone; it would only make things messier.

“Anything before this moment?” He arched an eyebrow. “What if it’s relevant to my claim?”

“No mention of our shared past. Our relationship.” She crossed her arms under her breasts, mirroring his pose, and his eyes followed the action, resting too intimately for her comfort level.

“Fair enough, princess,” he said with a rasp in his voice.

Her heart missed a beat. “Don’t call me princess.”

“Is that a rule or a request?”

“A ground rule, JT.”

“Sure,” he said too casually. “If you stop saying my name like that.”

She did a quick mental scan of how she’d been saying it, but couldn’t see anything to give offence. “Like what?”

“Say it,” he commanded in a low, seductive voice.