Some Like It Charming - By Megan Bryce Page 0,60
happened before.”
“Maybe you do need a vacation. Violence isn’t like you. You might love someone to death to get your way, but you wouldn’t get violent.” She pursed her lips. “You’re not mature enough to realize you can’t always have what you want.”
She was right. He wasn’t that mature. At all. He smiled at her, charmingly, and she narrowed her eyes.
He said, “It was just a moment, I won’t do it again.”
He could see she was going to want to know all about the deal gone bad so he said, “It was probably just low blood sugar. You should hide some chocolate in my gym bag.” He slid the envelope between them. “Here’s what my investigator found out about your father.”
She took a step back. “I don’t want to know.”
He nodded but said, “He’s left New York. And he wasn’t lying about your sister.”
“He left New York?”
She took the envelope from him. Took out a couple of large pictures of her father and a dark-haired, extremely pregnant woman. She was holding a little girl’s hand and scowling up at Luke’s face. He looked amused, and Ethan’s hand clenched into a fist.
Mackenzie murmured, “Pregnant. He didn’t mention that.”
Ethan breathed in through his nose. He would be the voice of reason if it killed him. “Maybe he didn’t want to throw it at you all at once.”
Mackenzie snorted. “He just didn’t think it would get me where he wants me to go.”
She looked at the little girl with honey-colored hair and tawny eyes, and whispered, “Shit.”
He’d had the same reaction. The little girl looked like a miniature Mackenzie.
He said, “These were taken in Spain.”
She looked up in surprise. “Spain?”
He nodded. “That’s where they’ve lived for the last five years. A little village on the coast.”
She looked down again at the little girl, clearly worried that Luke Holden had another daughter.
Ethan said, “She has her mother.”
Mackenzie nodded, running a finger along the scowl on the woman’s face. “Luke said his wife didn’t believe a word he said. Maybe her daughter won’t believe him either.” She put the pictures back in the envelope. “I’m not going to bite. Whatever game he’s playing, I don’t care.”
“You think he’s trying to get something from you? By leaving you alone?”
She dropped the envelope back into Ethan’s briefcase. “I don’t know. But he usually is. It’s not the risk.”
“What if it is? He’s your family. What if he’s ready for a daughter?”
She looked at him as if she couldn’t believe he’d said that. He couldn’t believe it himself.
“Are you trying to reconcile me to my father?”
“No. I’m trying to make you happy.”
Mackenzie smiled at him and he realized it was the truth. Ethan wanted her happy, even if that meant throwing her towards a man who had nearly destroyed her.
She said, “I tell you, it’s a disease.”
“He’s your father. Your sister. Are you really telling me you don’t want that?”
“I’d rather have no family than him.”
Ethan shook his head and she said, “It’s not a coincidence that he found me after I got engaged to you. I don’t think he’s stupid enough to think he’d ever get anything from me, but if he can get back in my good graces, he can get access to a lot of people who just might be.”
Ethan narrowed his eyes at her. “I assume you are not referring to me.”
“He might even get you.” She shook her head. “You don’t understand what he’s like. He’ll strip everything from you and you’ll thank him when he’s done.”
He looked down his nose at her. “He wouldn’t get me.”
She conceded. “Probably not. It was more a hope that he’d go after your mother.”
“She must have really pissed you off.”
Her face clouded over. “She thinks I’m some money-grubbing whore.”
“She said that?”
“She implied it.” Mackenzie thought about it. “She looks at me like she thinks that.”
“I think you’re seeing what’s not there.”
She pointed her finger at him. “You know she doesn’t like me.”
“You’re not imagining that. But I think it’s because she’s scared of you. For me. Physically.” He looked at the hole in the wall. “I don’t know why.”
“Yeah, she does think that. I told her I would gut you and leave you bleeding on the floor.”
He tried not to think what his mother’s reaction had been to that. “Why would you say that? She doesn’t get your sense of humor.”
Ethan loosened his tie and she followed him into the bedroom, saying, “She brought up a hypothetical situation. I wasn’t joking.”
“I hesitate to ask.”
“If you faltered.”