low, like he thought she was flirting with him. “How about a visit? Would you prefer I say these things in person?”
“No! Are you in Portland?” she asked, worried that might be the case and wondering how he’d gotten her number.
“Not yet, but I can be. We need to talk.”
“We finished talking two years ago.”
“Tara, I’m divorcing my wife.”
“How fortunate for her,” she quipped, unable to help herself. Did he really think she cared?
“I understand your bitterness, darling. I made a terrible mistake two years ago. I want to make it right.”
“You don’t know the meaning of making things right. You did me one favor two years ago, Baron. You walked away. I’m not about to let you undo possibly the only good deed of your life. You’re a user. You suck other people dry and smile while you’re doing it.”
She had no idea how she’d ever loved this man, but after one week in Angelo’s company, the difference between the two types of tycoons was crystal clear to her.
“I don’t want you in my life. I don’t want you calling me and I swear that if you show up in Portland stalking me, I’ll go to the authorities for a restraining order.”
“Tara, you’re angry, but you don’t understand—”
“You’re wrong,” she interrupted again, not wanting to hear a single line of his con story. He’d deceived her before with that tone and his too believable excuses, but never again.
“I’m not angry. I’m disgusted you could think for one second I would want to hear from you again after the way you used me and then threw me to the wolves in the press with a steak tied around my ankle.”
“I can explain that.”
“No. You cannot.” She exhaled a frustrated breath. “Leave me alone, Baron, or this time I’ll be the one giving sympathy producing interviews to the press.”
He made a harsh sound. “Tara, you can’t trust Angelo Gordon.”
So, he’d read the tabloid stories? That was one more thing Ray-the-rat had to answer for. “My private life is none of your business.”
“I used to be your private life.”
What colossal nerve. “That was a long time ago and it is certainly not true any longer. Goodbye, Baron.”
She hung up.
The phone rang five minutes later and when the number only came up as out of area on her caller ID, she ignored it.
CHECKING her voice mail after her shower, Tara ground her teeth in vexation when she realized the second call had been from Angelo. But his message gave her her first smile in over thirty-six hours.
He was headed back to Portland and would arrive later that evening. He said nothing about the gossip stories, but he did apologize for not calling when he’d been unable to fly out the day before.
She listened to the message three times just to hear his voice and then erased it with a jab of a button, irritated with her lame, sappy behavior.
The phone rang again, this time a local newspaper name showed up on the caller ID and she let it go to voice mail again. The rest of the day, the phone rang off the hook and the two times she made the mistake of answering it, a reporter was on the other end of the line.
She was in the middle of preparing a tray of snacks for Angelo’s arrival and muttering to herself about Ray-the-rat and Baron when something struck her.
What made her angriest about Baron’s phone call earlier had nothing to do with the past. No pain from his betrayal lingered to catch at her heart. No longing for what might have been tugged at her thoughts, but she was furious he had implied Angelo was untrustworthy.
And she was feeling downright feral that her attempt to avoid another phone call from Baron had made her miss one from Angelo.
Baron couldn’t begin to understand, because he didn’t have a protective bone in his body, but she was sure Angelo wouldn’t hurt her. Nor would he allow her to be hurt by others. He was going to be enraged when he found out she’d been fired and she had no doubt Ray-the-rat was going to heartily regret making her and Angelo the crux of his career advancement…such as it was.
Another sudden, not so welcome thought scorched through her consciousness.
She trusted him.
She really trusted a tycoon.
That’s why she’d given him the benefit of the doubt about her employment termination. That was why she was waiting for him to show up with a heart full of hope instead of a loaded shotgun. Against all odds, something deep inside of her had bonded with him and told her she could believe in him.
That was scarier than having Baron trying to come back into her life. Her ex-lover posed no threat to her emotional health, but Angelo was something else altogether. She wasn’t at all sure how much damage to her current happiness letting him go would do, but she had a feeling it wouldn’t be negligible.
She did not want to fall in love again. She did not ever want to be that vulnerable.
Before she started hyperventilating, she reminded herself that trust was not love. They weren’t mutually exclusive emotions of course, but neither were they absolutely mutually inclusive.
Were they?
How could she have let herself come to this pass? She’d only spent a few days with him. She knew powerful men like him weren’t innately trustworthy. She hadn’t needed Baron to tell her that, but when he’d said it, she’d been offended. Was still offended.
Her heart insisted that Angelo was different. Unlike with Baron, she didn’t have to convince herself…she had to fight belief. Maybe it was the things Angelo had told her about his past. He hadn’t condemned his mom, but he was determined to make the man responsible for her pain pay.
That made him protective, even if it was of a memory.
She should never have researched him. All that stuff about what a ruthless but really fair guy he was had turned her head, or her heart. He’d told her he didn’t give up, that he made things work and she had no option but to believe him.
And seriously, a man who spent ten years preparing for revenge didn’t change his mind on a whim. If he wanted to marry her, he planned to make it stick.
Was she trying to convince herself to accept his proposal? Or facing the inevitable?
She trusted him, she wanted him and in a way she did not understand, but could not deny, she needed him.
The decision she’d been wrestling with all week was really no decision at all. In a way, Baron’s call had put it into perspective. Angelo was nothing
