The Taming of Tyler Kincaid
Autor
Sandra Marton
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12
Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
IT WAS Tyler Kincaid’s birthday, and he had the feeling his present was waiting in his bed.
Atlanta sweltered under the oppressive heat of the July evening, but he didn’t mind. He’d lived in the South all his life and he liked the warm days and hot, sultry nights. He had nothing against finding a woman in his bed, either, especially a beautiful blonde like Adrianna. Under normal circumstances, a man would have to be crazy to object to that.
Tyler frowned as he slowed his Porsche outside the wrought-iron gates that guarded his hilltop estate.
But these weren’t normal circumstances.
If he was right and Adrianna was waiting for him complete with champagne, caviar and flowers, she’d entered his home uninvited. There’d been times he’d asked his mistress to spend the night, but he’d never given her or any woman access to his life—or to the security codes that unlocked the gates and the massive front door to his home.
And he damned well hadn’t made any plans to celebrate his birthday.
July 18 was just another day in the year, as far as he was concerned. He never so much as circled the day on his calendar. If there was anything special about the date it was because he’d realized, just this morning, that it was time to tell Adrianna their relationship was over.
The gates swung shut behind him. Ahead, a narrow road lined with magnolia trees led toward the big white house he’d bought on the same day he’d taken his company’s stock public eight years ago. By day’s end, Tyler had gone from being poor white trash to being a millionaire several times over. “An outstanding citizen,” the Atlanta Journal had called him. Tyler had saved the article, kept it in a scrapbook right next to the clipping dated ten years before that, when the same newspaper had said he was “an example of Atlanta’s lost youth.”
There was a nice irony there but that wasn’t why he’d kept both articles. He’d kept them, rather, as a reminder of how a man’s life could change with a couple of orbits of the planet around the sun.
“You’re a true cynic, Tyler,” his attorney had once said with a sigh of mild despair, but Tyler figured there wasn’t anything wrong with acknowledging that nothing in this world was ever quite what it seemed.
Especially a relationship with a woman.
He sighed, shut off the engine and looked at the house. It seemed deserted, except for the lights shining at some of the windows, but he knew those came on automatically, at dusk. They were part of his security system. His impenetrable security system, according to the outfit that had installed it.
“Impenetrable, my butt,” Tyler muttered.
To thieves, maybe, but not to the machinations of a determined, blue-eyed blonde.
There was no sign of her, no little green Mercedes convertible parked in the driveway. He’d expected that. Adrianna was bright as well as beautiful. His women always scored high, on brains as well as looks. She’d have found a place to tuck the car away where he wouldn’t see it.
How else could she hope to surprise him?
Tyler’s jaw tightened. He sat back in the leather bucket seat and spread his hands along the steering wheel.
The thing of it was, he didn’t like surprises, certainly not ones that involved his birthday, and definitely not when the surprise suggested a woman, even a beautiful, eminently desirable woman, was getting ideas about changing the status quo.
He’d made himself clear, at the start of their affair. People change, he’d told her. Their goals change, their needs change. Adrianna had smiled, interrupted, and said she understood.
“Darling, I promise you,” she’d murmured, “I’m not the least bit interested in fairy tales that end with forever-after.”
She wasn’t. That was one of the things he admired about her. She lived an independent life, a Southern belle in looks and background but a modern woman when it came to making her way in the world.
He’d made it clear he liked his privacy, too—meaning he wanted none of her makeup left in his bathroom, nor would he leave his shaving things in hers. There’d be no mutual exchange of house keys or security codes—she’d laughed when he’d said that, in that husky voice that had, in those first weeks, made his blood hum.
“Darling, you’re just the sort of man that turns me on. A gorgeous rogue, lover, that’s what you are. Why would a woman be foolish enough to want to tame you?”
Fidelity, for as long as the affair lasted, was all they’d committed to. That was all Tyler was still committed to…but, evidently, somewhere along the way, Adrianna had changed her mind.
Tyler opened the door of the Porsche and stepped out. Cicadas sang in the trees; the heavy scent of jasmine enveloped him. He looked up at the house, at his bedroom windows, and wondered if she were watching him through the silky curtains.
He imagined her, warm and naked and flushed from the shower. Or wearing the body-skimming black silk nightgown he’d given her. He had to admit, the sexual fantasy was a turn-on.
A tentative smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Okay, so she’d taken things a bit far but maybe he was doing the same thing. So what if she’d watched him enter the security codes and memorized them? That had to be the way she’d gotten in. And she’d probably gone through his wallet when he was asleep, checked his driver’s license to learn his birthday.
Was that so terrible?
It wasn’t. Not really. He could deal with it, he told himself as he climbed the steps to the veranda. Dealing with things was what he did.
Tyler could feel the tension easing inside him, now that he was willing to admit he’d overreacted. Okay. He’d open the door, step inside the marble foyer. Undo his tie, take off his jacket, dump his briefcase on the table. Then he’d go up to his bedroom, open the door, find Adrianna waiting for him in a room filled with roses, a flute of champagne in her hand and a silver bowl heaped with Beluga caviar beside the bed.
“Surprise, darling,” she’d purr, and he’d smile and pretend it really was a surprise, that he hadn’t expected her to be there, that his caterer hadn’t spilled the secret.
Actually it had been the caterer’s new, eager-to-please assistant who’d phoned him.
“Mr. Kincaid,” she’d said, “this is Susan. At Le Bon Appetit? I’m calling about that order you placed for delivery to your home this evening.”
Tyler, who’d been paying most of his attention to the Dow-Jones numbers racing across the screen of his computer, had frowned.
“What?”
“I’ve checked our records, sir, and I see that you always order Krug. I just wanted to be certain you actually wanted Dom Pérignon this time.”
“No. I mean, there’s been a mistake. I did not—”
“Ah. Well, sir, that’s what I thought. That there’d been a mistake, you know? The clerk must have gotten the order wrong.”
“No,” Tyler said, “the clerk did not—”
“That’s kind of you, Mr. Kincaid, “suggesting it was Ms. Kirby who made the error, but—”
Tyler had gone very still. “Adrianna Kirby ordered champagne to be delivered to my home?”
“And Beluga caviar, sir. And roses. And a cake. Oh, I hope that cake isn’t for you, sir. I’d hate to think I gave away a surprise.”
Tyler had closed his eyes. “No,” he’d said, “actually, you’ve been—you’ve been quite helpful.”
And, just like that, it had all fallen into place, the little signals he’d managed to ignore the past couple of weeks.
“Here’s a key to my apartment, Tyler,” Adrianna had said, folding his hand around the bit of metal, smiling when he’d frowned. “Oh, get that look off your face, darling. You don’t have to reciprocate. It’s just in case I’m in the bath or something, when you come by.”
And there was the way she’d taken to dropping by his office without calling first. She was in the neighborhood, she’d say, and wouldn’t lunch be lovely? The earrings she’d “forgotten” in his bathroom. Yes, and those soft little sighs of disappointment, whenever he rose from her bed and started to dress.
“You really could stay the night, darling,” she’d purr, even though she knew he never would.
“Hell,” Tyler muttered.
“Idiot” was too kind a word to describe him. And now, there was Adrianna, waiting in his bedroom to celebrate an occasion that was common to every creature on the planet, waiting for him with flowers and champagne and a handful of dreams he had no intention of sharing.
Okay. Okay, he’d do the right thing, act surprised, even pleased. And then, in a few days, in a week, he’d gently put an end to things.
He punched in the code. The door swung open. Lights blazed on, and a hundred voices shouted, “Surprise!”
Tyler blinked in astonishment, took a quick step back and stared at the blur of laughing faces.
“Darling,” Adrianna shrieked, and flew toward him in a shimmering cloud of fuchsia silk, golden hair and Chanel.
“Happy thirty-fifth birthday, darling.” She looked up at him and smiled. “Surprised?”
His face felt stiff. “Yes,” he said. “Very surprised.”
Adrianna laughed and looped her arm through his. “Just look at his face,” she said to the crowd around them. “Tyler, dearest, I know exactly what you’re thinking.”
Everybody laughed, everybody but Tyler, who was working at keeping his smile locked into place.
“I doubt it,” he said.
Adrianna tossed her head so that her hair flowed over her bare shoulders.
“You’re wondering how I managed all this. The invitations. The food, the champagne, the flowers. The band.” As if on cue, music wafted down from the balcony that overlooked the great room. She looped her arms around his neck and began to move in time with it. Tyler forced himself to hang on to the smile and to move with her. “And the most difficult part, darling. Slipping your wallet from your pocket and going through it, to learn your actual birthday after you let slip that the big Three-Five was coming up.”
“Did I?” he said, wondering how, and when, and why he’d been so loose-lipped.
“At that dinner for the mayor last month, remember? Someone at our table was moaning about turning forty, and you grinned and said wasn’t it a pity he was such an old fogy, that you were only just approaching—”
All Tyler’s good intentions fled. “I wish you hadn’t done this, Adrianna.”
His mistress laughed softly. “You’re just annoyed that I peeked over your shoulder while you entered those codes.”
“Yes. And that you went through my wallet. And that you arranged this party.”
“Don’t you like surprises, darling?”
“No,” he said coldly, “I do not.”
“Well, then, next time, you can help me plan your party.” Adrianna smiled coyly. “We could even make it a special occasion, Tyler. After all, we’ll have been together more than a year by then.”
Tyler didn’t answer. He took her hand in his, put his other arm around her waist and whirled her in a head-spinning circle while he wondered just how long it would take for the night to end.
* * *
An eternity, that was how long. That was how long it seemed, anyway.
The last guests finally left, the last catering van departed. The house was silent, the big, expensively decorated rooms were empty, now filled only with the lingering traces of perfume and roses.
“I’ll take you home,” Tyler had said to Adrianna. He’d known his voice was expressionless, his eyes cold, but he’d done the best he could and now it was time to deal with reality.
Either Adrianna hadn’t recognized that, or she’d pretended not to.
“Let me get my things,” she’d replied, and vanished up the stairs.
He’d waited and waited, pacing the length of the foyer, telling himself to control his temper, that he could, at least, end this thing without a scene. After five or ten minutes, he’d scowled and gone upstairs.
Adrianna was in the shower. He could hear the water running in the bathroom.
Tyler had flung an oath into the darkened bedroom, jammed his hands into the pockets of his trousers and settled in to wait.
Now he stood at the window, staring out at the inky darkness, the façade he’d maintained the past few hours crumbling more with each passing minute. All evening he’d smiled, he’d chatted, he’d shaken hands with the men and kissed the women’s cheeks when his guests had offered their birthday congratulations.
He puffed out his breath, watched it fog the glass. How generous would they have been with their good wishes, their handshakes, their kisses, if they knew the truth, he wondered. If the front door had opened and the boy he’d once been had come strolling across the marble floor, his defiant expression just daring anybody to try to throw him out.
The thought was so preposterous it almost made him laugh.
“Damned fine party, Kincaid,” the mayor had said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Not every man gets to celebrate his birthday in such style.”
My birthday, Tyler thought. His mouth twisted. Who in hell knew if this was his birthday or not? The truth was, he might have come into this world yesterday, or maybe even the day before that. Babies that were dumped on hospital doorsteps didn’t come complete with birth certificates.
The Brightons, who’d raised him, had told him all about it. They told him how he’d been found and given to them. They’d told him, too, that nobody was sure exactly what day he’d been born, but that the authorities figured he’d been somewhere between one and three days old, when he was found.
When he was really little, he just hadn’t understood it.
“Everybody has a real birthday,” he’d said, and the Brightons would say yes, that was true. And he had one. Those same anonymous authorities had decided on July 18.
“But who was my mommy?” he’d ask. “And my daddy?”
Myra and James Brighton would look at each other, then at him. “We’re your parents,” one of them would say.
But they weren’t. Oh, they were kind to him. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say they didn’t mistreat him—but he knew they never loved him. He saw how it was, with other kids. How a father smoothed a hand over a son’s hair, how a mother pulled her boy close and kissed him.
Tyler’s life wasn’t like that. Nobody touched him, or kissed him. Nobody hugged him when his grades were good or even got angry when they weren’t.
And his name. Tyler’s mouth thinned with the pain of the memory. John Smith, for God’s sake. John Smith. How could a boy grow up with a name like that?
He’d wanted to change it but the Brightons said he couldn’t.
“It’s your name, John,” James Brighton said.
So it was. And he lived with it. With all of it. By the time he was ten, he’d stopped asking questions that never were answered. What was the point? The Brightons never adopted him, never gave him their name—and then, in one fatal moment, his entire life changed. The three of them were on a Sunday outing when a truck hit their car.
Tyler wasn’t so much as scratched. He stood by the side of the road, a policeman’s big hand on his shoulder, watching without a trace of expression on his face as his foster parents’ bodies were removed from the wreck and taken away.
“The kid’s in shock,” he heard the cop tell the social worker who came for him and maybe he was. But the reality was that deep down, he couldn’t mourn people he’d never known.
The state took him in. He was sent to live in a place with lots of other boys like him, kids nobody gave a damn about, kids with no future—
But even they had real names.
He took a lot of crap over his.
“John Smith,” the kids said with sneers. “Who’re you kidding? Nobody’s named John Smith.”
They were right, and Tyler knew it. On the day he turned sixteen—the day his bogus birth certificate said he turned sixteen—he took his first name from a chapter in his American history textbook and his second from a character in a TV movie.
The kids laughed and sneered even harder.
“Nobody names himself,” they said.
“I do,” Tyler had replied, and when they went on laughing, he bloodied some noses, beat one kid to his knees. No one ever laughed again.
From then on, Tyler Kincaid was who he was. It was Tyler Kincaid who danced on the edge of the juvenile justice system, not John Smith. Tyler Kincaid who finally got caught joyriding in a car he’d “borrowed” from a mall, Tyler Kincaid who lucked out—though he sure hadn’t thought so, at the time—and got sentenced to eight months at a place called Boys Ranch, where he learned something about horses and maybe even about himself.
At eighteen, he left the Ranch and enlisted in the Marines.
When he got out, he made the name legal, took a job at a working ranch, found he had a talent not just for horses but for understanding the relationship between capital investment and land. After that, he never thought about John Smith again—except once a year, maybe, when the day that was supposed to be the day of his birth rolled around. Tyler had learned to accept the date but he sure as hell didn’t have to celebrate it. What was there to celebrate on a birthday that might not be your own, a birthday that marked the time your mother, maybe your old man, too, had dumped you on a doorstep like a sack of garbage rather than acknowledge your existence?
“Nothing,” Tyler muttered, and reached for the half-empty champagne bottle he’d gone downstairs and snagged. “Not one damned thing.”
“Oh, dear.”
He swung around. The bathroom door was open; Adrianna stood limned by light in the opening. He had to admit, she was magnificent. All that long golden hair, the black silk nightgown barely containing her breasts and clinging to her body, touching her the way his hands would…if he let himself touch her. She stood with one long, shapely leg thrust out through the thigh-high slit in the skirt of the gown, her high-arched foot encased in a black silk slipper with a heel so high it made his blood pressure soar.
“Talking to yourself, darling?” she whispered.
She came toward him, her walk slow, her hips swinging. The scent of Chanel drifted to his nostrils; he knew from experience that she’d touched it to all her pulse points, and to the soft skin of her thighs.
Take her, his blood sang, bury yourself in her…but his brain reminded him, coldly, that taking her now would only delay the inevitable. Despite everything she’d done, she deserved better than that.
“Adrianna.” He cleared his throat, walked to the nightstand where she’d left her flute of champagne, picked it up and offered it to her. “We have to talk.”
“Talk?” She smiled, took a sip of the wine and eyed him over the delicate rim of the glass. “Seems to me we can do better than that, darling. Here I am, all ready for bed, and you’re still standing there in your suit.” She put down her glass. “I’ll help you, shall I?” Her hands went to his tie, to the first button on his shirt. “Let’s get you out of this and—”
“No.” Tyler caught hold of her wrists, drew down her hands. “Dammit, listen to me.”
“You’re hurting me, Tyler.”
He looked at his hands, saw them crushing her delicate bones. “I’m sorry,” he said stiffly, and let go of her. “Adrianna. About tonight—”
“The party.”
“Yes. Right. The party.” Only minutes ago, he’d intended to end things between them by telling her she’d had no right to make the damned party, to invade his space, to presume things about their relationship that weren’t valid, but she was looking up at him, wide-eyed, her mouth just starting to tremble. Instead of anger, he felt a quick, almost overwhelming despair. “I know that you must have gone to a lot of trouble, arranging it…”
“And you wish I hadn’t.”
“Yes. I wish you hadn’t.”
“I don’t understand.” Tears rose in her eyes, threatened to spill down her cheeks. “I only wanted to make you happy, darling.”
“I know. But—” But what? Could a man really be angry at a woman for caring about him enough to want to give him a surprise party? “But,” he said gently, “I never celebrate my birthday, Adrianna.”
“That’s just plain silly.”
“It’s fact.”
“Oh, pooh.” The tears that had threatened vanished in an instant. She smiled and put her palms flat against his chest. “We’ll change all that.”
“No.” He caught her hands again, this time being careful not to apply any pressure. “No, we won’t.”
“Of course we will. Next year—”
“There isn’t going to be a next year, Adrianna.” He let go of her, ran his fingers through his dark hair. “Look, I’m trying my damnedest not to hurt your feelings, but—”
“My feelings? My feelings? Dammit, Tyler!” Her voice rose and he looked at her in surprise. He’d never heard her speak so stridently before. “Don’t you dare patronize me. You don’t give a rat’s tail about my feelings.” She lifted her hand, poked it, hard, into his chest. “You’re just angry because I got tired of waiting for you to move our relationship on to the next phase.”
Tyler’s green eyes grew cool. “There is no next phase, Adrianna.”
“Of course there is. All this nonsense, not letting me leave some of my things here, not ever spending the whole night at my place…” Her chin rose. “Acting as if letting me know those silly gate and door codes would violate national security.”
His gaze went from cool to frigid. “I told you, right upfront, how things were going to be.”
“No commitment. No forever-after.”
“The no forever-after was your contribution.”
“Maybe so. That was the way I felt, at the time—but I changed my mind.”
“That’s not my fault, baby,” Tyler snapped. “I kept my end of the deal.”
“And you’re known for that, aren’t you? For always keeping your end of the deal. Cool-headed Tyler Kincaid, never undermined by sentiment, in business or in his dealings with women.”
Tyler puffed out a breath in exasperation. “Look, there’s no point to this. I don’t want to quarrel with you—”
“No. You just want to tell me I overstepped my bounds, that I had no right to waltz into your house, into your life.”
“Dammit!” Tyler threaded his hand through his hair again. “Look, if I’d wanted a birthday party, I’d have thrown one for myself.”
Adrianna rolled her eyes. “Good God, what a sin! Arranging a party—”
“Don’t you get it? I didn’t want a party.”
“A party to which I invited a bunch of your friends—”
“They’re not my friends.”
“Of course they are!”
“They’re people I know, that’s all. They only bother with me because of what I can give them.”
“Which is precious little, Tyler.”
Tyler’s mouth thinned. “What in hell is that supposed to mean?”
Adrianna swung away from him and stalked into the bathroom. “That magazine article the other week called you ‘brilliant.’ Figure it out for yourself.”
He strode after her, watched as she stripped off the gown, pulled a T-shirt and jeans from her nightcase and put them on.
“I’ve set up deals for half the men who were here tonight,” he growled, “and the other half wishes I would. You think that’s giving them precious little, huh?”
“Is that what you think people want from you? Deals? Money? Power?”
Tyler stared at his mistress. She was fully dressed now, still wearing those high heels. Now, strangely, they struck him not as sexy but sad.
“Look,” he said, struggling to sound calm, “it’s late. We’re both tired. I think it’s best if I drive you home.”
“I’m perfectly capable of driving myself home, thank you.”
She was, and he knew it. Tyler shrugged his shoulders, folded his arms and leaned against the wall.
“Suit yourself.”
“I intend to.” Adrianna shot him a glittering smile. “It would never have worked, Tyler. I guess I always knew that, in my heart. After a while, whenever I looked at you, I’d see the look in your eyes that says ‘Keep Out,’ and it would have killed me.”
Her words drained the anger from him.
“It isn’t you,” he said softly. “Despite anything I said, it isn’t you.”
“Sometimes…” She drew a deep breath. “Sometimes, I wonder if there’s anybody inside you, Tyler. If you feel things, like the rest of us.”
“Adrianna…”
“The thing is…” she said, with a little laugh. “The thing is, I fell in love with you. And I know you could never fall in love with me.”
He thought of lying to her, of softening the blow, but he knew, too, that the one thing he could give her now was the truth. He reached out, tucked a strand of golden hair behind her ear.
“No,” he said gently, “I couldn’t. I wish it were different. I really wish—”
Adrianna put her hand lightly over his mouth. “Don’t lie to either of us, Tyler. That isn’t your wish. We both know that I’m not the woman for you. I’m not the one you’re looking for.”
Tyler gave a mocking laugh. “I’m not looking for a woman. Not now, not ever.”
“Everyone’s looking for someone, whether they know it or not.”
“You’re wrong.”
Adrianna smiled gently, rose on her toes and pressed a light kiss to his mouth.
“Goodbye, darling,” she whispered.
Tyler watched her walk from the room. He sank down on the edge of the bed, listened to the distant click-click of those ridiculous high heels fading, then to the even more distant sound of her car. At last, he stood and walked slowly to the window.
The moon was setting, dipping into the branches of the old oak just outside his bedroom.
There was nobody inside him, Adrianna had said, but she was wrong. Tyler smiled bitterly. The boy named John Smith was still there, whether he liked it or not. There was an emptiness in his heart, a yearning sometimes that he couldn’t put a name to or get rid of by burying himself in his work, or even by pounding his gloved fists against the body bag at his gym.
She was wrong about him looking for a woman, too. How could a man look for a woman when he was still searching for himself?
He stood at the window for hours, watching as night gave way to dawn. At six, exhausted, he fell on his bed and slept. When he opened his eyes, it was after nine.
Tyler reached for the telephone.
“Carol,” he said, when his secretary answered, “you remember that private detective we used last year? The one who found out who was selling our research plans to our competitors? I’d like his name, please, and his phone number. No, no that’s fine. I’ll call him myself.” A moment passed. Then Tyler scrawled down the name and number his secretary gave him. “Thank you,” he said.
He disconnected, took a deep breath and dialed.
