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A Scandal So Sweet
Ann Major
“Damn you for this,” he muttered. “You’re not the only one who can’t forget.”
Even if she hadn’t felt his powerful arousal against her, his blazing eyes betrayed his potent need. Then his gaze hardened with determination, and she watched breathlessly as he lowered his mouth to hers.
“I shouldn’t do this,” he whispered fiercely, bending her backward, molding her even more tightly to the hard contours of his body. “God help me, I know what you are, what you did.”
“You did things too …” He’d hurt her terribly. Yet she wanted him, ached for him.
“But I can’t stop myself,” he muttered. “But then I never could where you were concerned.”
Dear Reader,
When you’re an author, occasionally you write a story that grips you more profoundly than some of your others. A Scandal So Sweet is such a book.
When I read, I enjoy escaping to worlds of grand passion and enduring romance. Maybe that’s why I’ve written so many stories of reunited lovers.
We all have those people in our lives we never forget. My lovers in A Scandal So Sweet have never succeeded in forgetting one another. Torn apart by scandal and betrayal in their youth, they become driven people who are both immensely successful in their careers, but their lives feel incomplete until they meet again.
Their passion reignites in an instant, and despite all the reasons they should remain apart, they find themselves irresistibly attracted to the love that is most dangerous for them.
Ann
About the Author
ANN MAJOR lives in Texas with her husband of many years and is the mother of three grown children. She has a master’s degree from Texas A&M at Kingsville, Texas, and is a former English teacher. She is a founding board member of the Romance Writers of America and a frequent speaker at writers’ groups.
Ann loves to write—she considers her ability to do so a gift. Her hobbies include hiking in the mountains, sailing, ocean kayaking, traveling and playing the piano. But most of all, she enjoys her family. Visit her website at www.annmajor.com.
A Scandal
So Sweet
Ann Major
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
A special thank-you to Stacy Boyd, my editor,
for her patience and brilliance.
A special thank-you to Nicole, a fan who sent me
an e-mail encouraging me while writing this book.
And a thank-you to Ted.
Prologue
Houston, Texas
A man’s life could change in a heartbeat.
Seven days ago Zach Torr had been in the Bahamas, elated to be closing the biggest deal of his career. Then he’d received an emergency call about his uncle.
The one person who’d held Zach’s back these past fifteen years was gone.
Now, still dressed in the suit he’d worn to give his uncle’s eulogy, Zach stood on the same narrow girder from which his uncle had fallen. He stared fearlessly down at his contractors, bulldozers, generators, cranes and men, big tough men, who appeared smaller than ants in their yellow hard hats sixty-five stories below.
Zach was a tall man with thick black hair and wide shoulders; a man his competitors swore was as ruthless as the fiercest jungle predator. The women he’d left behind agreed, saying he’d walked out on them without ever looking back.
Normally, his eyes were colder than black ice. Today they felt moist and stung. How had Uncle Zachery felt when he’d stood here for the last time?
A shudder went through Zach. Men who walked iron were no less afraid of heights than other men.
The chill breeze buffeting him whipped his tie against his face, almost causing him to step backward. He froze, caught his balance … hissed in a breath. A sneeze or a slip—was that how it had happened? Up here the smallest mistake could be fatal.
Had Uncle Zachery jumped? Been startled by a bird? Been pushed? Suffered a heart attack? Or simply fallen as the foreman had said? Zach would never know for sure.
As Uncle Zachery’s sole heir, Zach had endured several tough interviews with the police.
The newspaper coverage had been more critical of him than usual because he’d stayed in the Bahamas to close the deal before coming home.
He hated the invasion of the limelight, hated being written about by idiots who went for the jugular with or without the facts.
Because the fact was, for Zach, the world had gone dark after that phone call.
When he’d been nineteen and in trouble with the law for something he hadn’t done, Uncle Zachery had come back to Louisiana from the Middle East, where he’d been building a city for a sheik. Uncle Zachery had saved him. If not for his uncle, Zach would still be serving hard time.
Houston-bred, Zach had been cast out of town by his beautiful stepmother after his father’s death. Her reason—she’d wanted everything. His father had naively assumed she’d be generous with his sixteen-year-old son and had left her his entire fortune.
If it hadn’t been for Nick Landry, a rough Louisiana shrimper who’d found Zach in a gutter after he’d been beaten by his stepmother’s goons, Zach might not have survived. Nick had taken Zach to his shack in Bonne Terre, Louisiana, where Zach had spent three years.
It was in Bonne Terre where he’d met the girl he’d given his heart and soul to. It was in Bonne Terre where he’d been charged with statutory rape. And it was in Bonne Terre where the girl he’d loved had stood silently by while he was tried and condemned.
Fortunately, that’s when Uncle Zachery had returned. He’d discovered his sister-in-law’s perfidy, tracked Zach to Louisiana, gone up against the town of Bonne Terre and won. He’d brought Zach back to Houston, educated him and put him to work. With his powerful uncle behind him, Zach had become one of the richest men in America.
His cell phone vibrated. He strode off the girder and to the lift, taking the call as he descended.
To his surprise it was Nick Landry.
“Zach, I feel bad about your uncle, yes. I be calling you to offer my condolences. I read about you in the papers. I be as proud as a papa of your accomplishments, yes.”
So many people had called this past week, but this call meant everything. For years, Zach had avoided Nick and anything to do with Bonne Terre, Louisiana, but the warmth in Nick’s rough voice cheered him.
“It’s good to hear from you.”
“I’ve missed you, yes. And maybe you miss me a little, too? I don’t go out in the boat so often now. I tell people it be because the fishin’ ain’t so good like it used to be, but maybe it’s just me and my boat, we’re gettin’ old.”
Zach’s eyes burned as he remembered the dark brown waters of the bayou and how he’d loved to watch the herons skim low late in the evening as the mist came up from the swamp.
“I’ve missed you, too, yes,” he said softly. “I didn’t know how much—until I heard your voice. It takes me back.”
Not all his memories of Bonne Terre were bad.
“So why don’t you come to Bonne Terre and see this old man before he falls off his shrimp boat and the crabs eat him?”
“I will.”
“We’ll go shrimpin’ just like old times.”
After some quick goodbyes, Zach hung up, feeling better than he had in a week.
Maybe it was time to go back to Bonne Terre.
Then he thought about the Louisiana girl he’d once loved—blonde, blue-eyed, beautiful Summer, with the sweet, innocent face and the big dreams. The girl who’d torn out his heart.
She lived in New York now, a Broadway actress. Unlike him, she was the press’s darling. Her pictures were everywhere.
Did she ever come home … to Bonne Terre?
Maybe it was time he found out.
One
Eight Months Later
Bonne Terre, Louisiana
Zach Torr was back in town, stirring up trouble for her, and because he was, a tumult of dark emotions consumed her.
Summer Wallace parked her rental car in front of Gram’s rambling, two-story home. Sighing because she dreaded the thought of tangling with her grandmother and her brother over Zach, she took her time gathering her bag, her purse and her briefcase. Then she saw the loose pages of her script on the floorboard and the slim white Bible she kept with her always. Picking them up, she jammed them into her briefcase.
When she finally slammed the door and headed toward the house she saw Silas, Gram’s black-and-white cat, napping in the warm shade beneath the crape myrtle.
“You lazy old thing.”
A gentle wind swayed in the dogwood and jasmine, carrying with it the steamy, aromatic scent of the pine forest that fringed her grandmother’s property. Not that Summer was in the mood to enjoy the lush, verdant, late-August beauty of her childhood home. No, she was walking through the sweltering heat toward a sure argument with Gram. About Zach, of all people.
Fifteen years ago, when she’d run away after her mother’s death, she’d felt sure he was out of her life forever.
Then Gram had called a week ago.
It had been late, and Summer had been dead on her feet from workshopping an important new play.
“You’ll never guess who’s making a big splash here in Bonne Terre, buying up property to develop into a casino,” Gram had said in a sly tone.
Gram had a habit of calling late and dropping her little bombs in a seemingly innocent way, so, wary, Summer had sunk into her favorite chair and curled up to await the explosion.
“And who do you think bought the old Thibodeaux place and hired your brother Tuck as his pool boy and all-around gopher?” her grandmother had asked.
Tuck had a job? This should have been good news. Gram had been worried about him after his latest run-in with Sheriff Arcenaux. But somehow Summer had known the news wouldn’t be good.
“Okay! Who?”
“Zach Torr.”
Summer had frozen. Her brother, who had poor judgment in nearly every area of his life, could not work for Zach, who couldn’t possibly have her family’s best interests at heart. Not after what had happened. Not when their names would be forever linked in the eyes of the media and, therefore, the world.
She’d become too famous and he too rich, and their tragic youthful love affair was too juicy. And every time the story was rehashed, it always surprised her how much it still hurt, even though she was seen as the innocent victim and he the villain.
From time to time, she’d read about how hard and cold he was now. She’d never forget the story about how ruthlessly he’d taken revenge on his stepmother.
Any new connection between Zach and her family was a disaster in the making.
“You’re not the only former resident of Bonne Terre who’s famous, you know.”
Summer’s breath had caught in her throat as she’d struggled to take the news in.
“Zach’s a billionaire now.”
Summer had already known that, of course. Everybody knew that.
“Even so, he’s not too busy to stop by to play Hearts with an old lady when he’s in town … or to tell me how Tuck’s doing on the job.”
Zach had been taking the time to play cards with Gram? To personally report on Tuck, his pool boy? This was bad.
“Gram, he’s just trying to get to me.”
“Maybe this isn’t about you. You two were finished fifteen years ago.”
Yes, it had been fifteen years. But it was about her. She was sure of it.
Summer had tried to make Gram understand why Tuck had to quit his job, but Gram, who’d been exasperated by all the stunts Tuck had pulled ever since high school, had refused to hear anything against Zach, whom she now saw as her knight in shining armor. Then she’d punched Summer’s guilt button.
“You never come home, and Zach’s visits are fun. He’s awful good with Tuck. Why, the other night he and Nick took Tuck shrimping.”
“A billionaire in a shrimp boat?”
“Yes, well he did buy Nick a brand-new boat, and his men are remodeling Nick’s shack. And you should see Zach. He’s lean and fit and more handsome than ever.”
Lean and fit. Rich and handsome. She’d seen his photos in the press and knew just how handsome he was. Oh, why couldn’t he be the no-good homeless person her stepfather had predicted he’d be?
“Rich as he is—an old lady like me with a beautiful, unmarried granddaughter can’t help wondering why a catch like him is still single.”
“Gram! We have a history. An unsavory, scandalous history that I’m sure he wants to forget as much as I do! Not that that’s possible when there are always reporters around who love nothing better than to rehash the dirt in celebrities’ lives. Don’t you see, I can’t afford to have anything to do with him.”
“No, your stations in life have changed. You’re both enormously successful. Your career would threaten most men, but it wouldn’t threaten Zach. Whatever happened to letting bygones be bygones?”
