The Tycoon's Desire: Under the Tycoon's Protection / Tycoon Meets Texan! / The Greek Tycoon's Virgin Mistress

Deciding it was time to put away her files for the evening, she rose and gathered up her papers, putting them in a neat stack on an end table.

When she got outside, Connor was nursing a beer and watching the rays of the disappearing sun twinkle through the branches of the trees.

He opened another beer and handed it to her.

“Thanks,” she said, watching as he expertly used a long fork to turn the steaks. “You know, I could almost get used to having you cook for me, Rafferty.”

At his astonished look, she laughed. “But I suppose grilling is up there with manly pursuits like knowing how to open a beer bottle and programming a remote control.”

Seemingly despite himself, he chuckled. Closing the barbecue, he said, “You got that right, petunia. So for the rest of the evening, remember that I’m the one in charge and you’re the deputy.”

She rolled her eyes. “What do you mean for the rest of the evening? That’s what you try to convince me of every day.”

“Right, but with little success.” He nodded through the glass doors at the kitchen. “The rest of the stuff for dinner is in there.”

Tossing him a look, she nevertheless took the hint and went to the kitchen. She returned with plates, utensils, and napkins for the outdoor table. She also carried out the salad he’d left on the kitchen counter.

As she set the table, she cast him a surreptitious look. His faded jeans did little to hide a tight rear end. He wore his button-down plaid shirt open at the collar, where it revealed a small bit of the white undershirt he wore beneath. Overall, the effect was casual but sexy.

Until they’d actually sat down to eat, Allison didn’t realize how intimate it was to be having dinner alone with Connor, surrounded by the woods, eating food that he’d prepared. Despite that—or maybe as a distraction from it—the conversation flowed easily between them. They talked about the latest news, what the Boston Red Sox could do to make it to the World Series, and what qualified as classic rock-and-roll music.

As a result, by the time they were done eating, she was feeling pleasantly relaxed. So much so that she was able to say casually, “There’s one thing I never understood about you, Rafferty.”

“Only one?” He quirked a brow and sat back, looking amused. “What a letdown. I don’t even qualify as complex, misunderstood, or—better yet—tortured?”

She rolled her eyes. “James Dean was tortured, you’re just—” she paused to think for a few seconds “—inscrutable.”

“Inscrutable?” He rubbed his chin. “Okay, I guess that’s better than nothing. So, I suppose you’re going to enlighten me about what makes me ‘inscrutable’?”

Ignoring his mocking tone, she plunged ahead. “As I was saying, there’s one major thing I haven’t understood about you.” She took a fortifying sip of her beer. “It’s this whole South Boston business.”

His expression, she noted, became ever so slightly shuttered.

Nevertheless, because she wasn’t one to turn back once she’d started, she went on, “You leave South Boston, get a fancy degree from Harvard—with high honors in computer science, no less—and then, instead of starting the corporate climb at some cushy investment banking job, you wind up going back to South Boston to set up shop.”

He shrugged.

“Not only that,” she persisted, “but you choose an unglamorous area like security systems. Most people don’t go to Harvard just to come full circle.”

He sat back in his chair and studied her. “True, but things worked out well anyway.” He nodded around him to the large house and the surrounding trees. “Maybe, princess, it was all part of the master plan.”

She nodded. “Knowing you, I don’t doubt it. What I want to know is, what was the master plan?”

He looked amused. “You just keep probing until you get some answers, don’t you? Which is probably what makes you a great prosecutor.”

“Don’t try to sidetrack me with compliments.” She steeled herself against his flattery and leaned forward in her seat. “Why go back to South Boston after Harvard? One would assume you had every reason not to, particularly since your father was killed in the line of duty there.”

She knew from Quentin that Connor’s father had been a cop who had died when Connor was still a kid. She also knew Connor’s mother, a nurse, had died of breast cancer soon after his high-school graduation, leaving him parentless from the age of eighteen. It had all made her feel very sorry for Connor when she’d met him.

“Am I being cross-examined?” Connor’s tone was casual, but she sensed an underlying tenseness in him.

Knowing that she was on to something, she ignored his question and said, instead, “Tell me about your father.” She added, gentling her voice, “Please. I’d really like to know.”

He saluted her with his empty beer bottle. “Okay, princess, I see I’m not going to throw you off.”

She wondered if that were true. She got the feeling he was only going to give her an answer because he wanted to—and she also sensed she was on terrain that Connor didn’t ordinarily let people onto.

He was silent for a time, looking off into the distance before his gaze came back to her. “I was nine when Dad died. Tough age to lose your father—but no age is a good one. He was the assistant coach of my softball team and taught me the usual stuff: how to ride a bike, how to swim.”

He blew a breath, then continued, “My father had this thing about giving back to the community. Perhaps because he’d grown up as a working-class kid in South Boston himself and had gone on to become a cop.”

“Hmm,” was all she said. She’d finally gotten him going and she wasn’t going to give him the opportunity to get sidetracked by her commentary.

“Anyway, even though we could have afforded to live out in the suburbs, he wanted to stay in South Boston. He even angled his way to a job there.”

“In other words, he was into ‘community policing’ even before the term was coined,” she put in.

He nodded. “Exactly. He believed not only in police patrols, but police involvement in the community.”

“Getting to know people,” she supplied. “Coaching softball as a way to keep kids off the streets.”

He nodded again. “Right.”

She waited for him to go on.

He took a swig of his beer, then squinted into the distance as if he was trying to make out something among the trees. “One day the doorbell rang and I thought it was him, back from the evening shift. Instead it was the sergeant from his district, looking so serious I immediately got a queasy feeling in my stomach.” He shifted his gaze back to hers. “You can guess what came next.”

“How did it happen?” she asked softly. They’d known each other for years but this was the first time she’d felt comfortable enough to ask him about the circumstances of his father’s death. She ached for the boy who had opened the door to a nightmare so many years ago.

“He was responding to a break-and-enter. He caught one guy, cuffed him. What he didn’t know was the guy had a partner who was packing a .38 special.”

Allison flinched at the image he evoked.

Connor grinned crookedly. “You wanted to know, princess.”

“What I want to know is why you bury that story.”

“Ever combative and feisty, aren’t you?”

She frowned. “Maybe, but there’s certainly nothing to be ashamed of in that story. I have no idea why you keep quiet about it. In fact—”

“In fact,” he finished for her, “people might have felt sorry for me and gone out of their way to help, is that what you were going to say?”

“Well, yes—”

“And that’s exactly what I didn’t want,” he said, his look almost combative. “That’s exactly how the people who did know—at my father’s precinct and in the neighborhood—did act.” His brows drew together. “I didn’t need their sympathy. It wasn’t going to bring my father back. And I sure as hell didn’t want anyone thinking I was trading on a tragedy.”

His words were startling. And, yet, they were in keeping with what she knew him to be: proud, tough, private.