marble floor in the entryway? So delicate, so fine-boned, but strong and capable. He couldn’t watch her sauté food and not visualize those fingers wrapped with the same dexterity and talent around his dick.
It hadn’t just been her flagrant curves and gorgeous face that had drawn him to her like a moth to a flame. He’d been surrounded by beautiful women since before his balls dropped. But Charlotte had possessed... something more. To this day, he couldn’t put his finger on it. But whatever that “something” was, it’d captured him...hell, enraptured him. Whereas other women had been transient, he returned time and again to her. Unable to stay away. Unable to satisfy that hungry hole that only being with her had seemed to fill.
Then she’d left.
But it had been his father who’d kept her out of his life.
His father who had prevented him from knowing his son.
His father who owed him.
Ross didn’t knock on the closed door of Rusty’s study but twisted the knob and entered. His father, still in a light gray dress shirt, barely glanced up from his desk, sparing Ross a narrowed look before returning his focus to the computer.
“You’re back,” he said in that booming, deep voice that could issue curt orders and deliver charming compliments whenever the occasion warranted. “Sometime between when you left and now, did you leave your manners in Dallas? A closed door usually means you knock and wait to be admitted.”
“Sorry,” Ross said, without the faintest hint of sincerity. Which his father must’ve noted, because he shifted his wintry gaze away from the monitor to settle on him. “I need to talk to you.”
“I’m in the middle of something. It’ll have to wait.”
“No. Now.”
His father’s big frame stiffened, and for several seconds they stared at one another, adversaries engaged in a visual battle. Usually, Ross would be the first to look away, to end the pissing contest that always struck him as macho bullshit.
But not today.
Maybe his father sensed this, because the corner of his mouth lifted in a smirk as he leaned back in his massive black leather chair that more resembled a throne than office furniture.
“Well, if you insist, son,” Rusty drawled, arching an eyebrow and sweeping a hand toward the visitor chairs in front of his desk. “Sit.”
Like a dog.
But with fury rumbling and festering inside him like an angry, infected wound that needed to be lanced, he wasn’t in the mood to heel.
He strode closer to his father, ignoring the chairs and coming to a halt directly in front of the massive glass desk. “Have you been to Sheen yet?”
“The restaurant?” He frowned. “No. What’s this shit? You have your balls in a sling over food?”
That was his father. All class.
“Then you don’t know who the owner hired as executive chef?” Ross pressed, ignoring the vulgar question.
“No, Ross, I don’t know,” his father growled. “Since it’s not putting money in my pocket, I don’t really give a damn who the cook is.”
“Chef,” Ross corrected. “And it’s Charlotte Jarrett, Dad. Charlotte is the new chef.”
An emotion too quick to identify flickered in his father’s gaze before it shuttered. Rusty had created and patented the poker face. He only displayed what he desired anyone to see. And right now his expression was as shut tight as one of the infamous NDA clauses he demanded of his lovers.
“Charlotte Jarrett,” he repeated, voice cold and flat. “I had no idea she’d returned to town.”
“Yes, she has.”
“So? What does that have to do with either of us? She was an employee years ago. Staff has come and gone from this place before, and I never made it my business to keep track of them. Why should it interest me?”
“Is this the game you want to play?” Ross murmured, not surprised in the least. He hadn’t expected his father to admit what he’d done. Rusty considered himself a master chess player, and not just on the board, but in life. He would allow his opponent to make their move so he could counter, evade or trap. “Okay, fine. Have it your way.” He cleared his throat, then prepared for battle. “Well, three years ago, after Charlotte quit, she called here looking for me but got you instead.”
Rusty didn’t respond, just continued to stare at him with that unwavering gray stare. Silently daring him to proceed.
Ross shoved down the rage, covering it with a sheet of ice. He refused to hand his father ammunition to use against him, to turn around and accuse him