The Tycoon's Tender Triumph Page 0,1

of the day it was. She’d always been proud to be on his arm.

But when she’d realized the pattern, that the second night he was in town he’d always go somewhere more glamorous with a stunningly gorgeous woman on his arm, clinging to him and usually smiling up at his handsome face just as the camera captured their entrance or exit, she started refusing his invitations. She’d gotten smart enough not to put herself in a position to be hurt by his betrayal.

It wasn’t even a true betrayal, which almost hurt more, because he would always preface every invitation with the comment that he wanted to check up on her for her dad. In the beginning, she’d assumed the excuse was just that, an excuse to see her. But when she’d consistently read about his exploits the next night, she had to accept that it wasn’t an excuse. Sam really thought of her as a kid no matter how many activities she joined or classes she took, and Sam really was just checking up on her. He would never see her as an adult woman, someone he might consider in a more romantic way. Chloe was destined to remain in the “kid sister” category to Sam.

A few years ago, she stopped accepting his invitations, ignoring the stunned silence when she explained that she was too busy, or too tired or whatever popped into her mind. And when that became too hard, she simply stopped answering his calls, stopped returning them and ignored her father’s comments that she should check in with him “because Sam cared” about her.

It was better all around when she cut off communication. A heart could only take so much, she told herself.

And now he was on her mind more, popping into her dreams, making her inefficient at work because she found herself thinking about him, wondering how he was and if he was still as successful as he’d been before she’d gone off to college.

It was only because of the phone calls and letters that she’d been thinking of him lately. As she opened her door, she quickly glanced down at the mail littering her doorway and cringed when she saw yet another letter with that bold, powerful scrawl.

Glancing at her voice mail, sure enough, she noticed the red light was blinking. Chloe ignored it for the moment, turning back to David and smiling. “I’ll make some coffee,” she suggested and slipped into the kitchen, depositing her meager stack of mail onto the small kitchen table that took up half the space in the tiny area. “Do you want decaf or are you working again tonight and need the full force kind?” she asked, hiding her face in the fridge, afraid that he might see the anger in her eyes.

Those letters did it to her every time, she thought furiously. Why couldn’t he just leave her alone? She didn’t understand why he was calling her. Their only connection, her father, was firmly ensconced in his cottage style house on the edge of Sam’s property. She knew they were friends but that didn’t make Sam her friend. As a kid, she had idolized Sam, had followed him around like a puppy every summer while she tried to learn anything there was to know about horses and was always impressed when she came back each summer to see more progress on his ranch. He’d done well over the years and she’d considered him a very good friend when she visited her father each summer.

Until the dinners he’d taken her out to while she was away at college. The pictures of his lady loves in the newspapers the following nights also helped her get a grip on her rampaging infatuation she thought miserably, pulling cream out of the refrigerator since she knew David liked his coffee more brown than black.

Turning around, she almost dropped the cream when she saw what he was holding. “What are you doing?” she gasped, seeing him with the letters in his soft hands. All six of them.

“Why would you be getting letters from Sam Marchant?” he asked, a confused look on his face as he counted the unopened envelopes.

“Sam is my father’s neighbor,” she explained and turned away to dump coffee grounds in the coffee maker. “I have no idea what he wants.”

David hesitated a moment as he looked down at the address on the envelopes. “There’s a Sam Marchant that owns half of Texas as well as probably five other states. He’s into