Blue-Eyed Devil (Travis Family #2)(41)

The barest trace of contempt crept into his voice. "You had all the power, sweetheart. You're a rich man's daughter."

Of course. That was how it looked from the outside. No one could know that I'd had no power at all, over anything.

"The entire subject of marriage is boring," I said. "Especially mine. And I'd rather you not call me 'sweetheart.'" I walked out from behind the counter, my arms folded across my chest. "What do you think about the apartment?"

"I like it."

"A lot of space for a single guy, isn't it?"

"I grew up in a family of five living in a single-wide. After that, I can handle a lot of space."

I tried to remember what Liberty had told me about his family. "Two brothers and a sister, right?"

" Yes. Rick, Kevin, and Hannah." A shadow crossed his face. "My sister died last year from breast cancer. Fought it real hard. Double mastectomy, four months of chemo. She went to M. D. Anderson . . . I 'd have taken her anywhere in die world, but everyone said that was the best place. Near the end they put her on Arimidex, which she said was worse than the chemo. Nothing stopped the tumor markers from going up."

"I'm sorry." I wanted to convey how much I understood, even the things he hadn't said. I found myself moving toward him, now leaning on the same side of the counter as he was. "I know what it's like to lose someone that way. My mother died of breast cancer too. Except she never went through the chemo. They caught it too late. She was at stage four with lung dissemination. Mother chose to have a shorter, better quality of life, as opposed to dragging it out and going through all the surgery and treatments, which wouldn't have worked anyway."

"How old were you?" he asked gently.

"Fifteen."

Staring at me, he reached out to stroke back my bangs, which had fallen over one eye. "Haven . . . tell me not to take the apartment, and I won't. Otherwise, I want it. It's up to you."

My eyes widened. "I . . . I . . . your decision has nothing to do with me. Don't make me part of it."

"Would it bother you if I lived here?"

"Of course not," I said, a little too quickly.

He smiled lazily. "I'm not a man of many talents . . . but the few I've got are good ones. One of them being, I can always tell when someone's lying to me."

I had no choice but to admit the truth. "Okay. It might bother me a little."

"Why?"

He was good at throwing me off balance. I could feel my pulse kicking up with agitation. I didn't know what it was about Hardy that broke through my defenses. Damn, he was wily. Aggressive, pushy, but smart enough to cover it with easy charm. He was ten times the man Nick was, and he was just too much, too much in every way. If I ever let him close to me, I would deserve whatever I got, and the results wouldn't be pretty.

"Look," I said sharply, "whether you move here or not, I'm not interested in any kind of . . . whatever . . . with you."

His gaze didn't move from mine. His eyes were darker than a blueprint. "Define 'whatever.'"

"In this case it means sex."

"That's one of my other talents," he volunteered.

As distraught as I was, I almost smiled. "I'm sure that will make some of the female residents of 1800 Main very happy." I paused for emphasis. "But I won't be one of them."

"Understood. So where do I end up, Haven? . . . Here, or Post Oak?"

I made an impatient gesture to indicate it was of no consequence. "Move here if you want. It's a free country."

"Okay. I will."

I didn't like the way he said it. As if we had just made some kind of bargain.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Like hell he's gonna live here," jack said indignantly, pacing around my office later that day. He had dropped by for a quick visit to see how things were going. Although he would never admit it, I thought that Jack was mildly relieved that Vanessa was gone. Whenever she was around, she sent out discreet signals that she was angling for some kind of relationship that went beyond business. Thankfully, he didn't seem interested.While Jack fumed about Hardy, I sat behind my desk, trying to figure out some new software that had gone contrary on me.

"Here's the way I'm looking at it," I said, looking up from my laptop. "'Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer.' What better way to find out what Hardy Cates is up to, than have him in our building? "

That made Jack pause. "I guess there's some sense in that. But why does he want to live here? If this is some whack deal about Gage and Liberty — "

"No, I honestly don't think that's it. I think he would have taken another apartment if it were available."

Jack sat on the edge of my desk. "He's got something up his sleeve. I guarantee it."

He sounded so certain that I gave him a questioning glance. "Have you met him before?"

"Yeah, about a year ago. He was going out with a girl I used to date and I happened to see her at a club, and we all talked for a few minutes."

"What did you think about him?"

A wry smile curved his lips. "Hate to admit it, but if it weren't for the shit he pulled with Gage's biofuel deal, and crashing the wedding, I might have liked the guy. We talked some hunting and fishing, and he struck me as a good ol' boy. And like him or not, you've got to hand it to him — that company of his is kicking ass."