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More Than A Mistress
Sandra Marton
Surely Travis Baron is a man for whom any woman would want to bid! Blisteringly handsome and immensely successful, the corporate lawyer is the possible heir to Espada, his father's sprawling ranch–and he's up for grabs at a charity auction.But when Alexandra Thorpe wins Travis for the weekend, she doesn't claim her prize. Why has the cool blond beauty staked thousands of dollars on Travis…and then just walked away? Travis is determined to pursue the lady who bought him, and exact his own price!
“No. Not here.”
“Of course.” She stepped back. “I’m sorry, Travis. You’re right. I should never have…”
He hauled her into his arms again. He kissed her over and over, until she was clinging to him. “Don’t ever apologize for wanting me. Don’t you know how exciting that is, Princess? To know you feel the way I feel? I have a suite at the inn. It’s where I planned on spending the night. Will you come there with me, and let me make love to you as if this were our first time?”
He waited for her answer, knowing that giving her time to think was a gamble. He was asking her to admit her need for him, instead of being swept away by it, but he didn’t want her to come to him blinded by passion. Not tonight. Tonight he wanted to seduce her. Awaken her. And to know, after this, the only man she would remember would be him.
“Alex.” He ran his thumb over her parted lips. “I want to make love to you. Tell me it’s what you want, too.”
His answer was in the soft surrender of her kiss.
Four brothers:
bonded by inheritance, battling for love!
Jonas Baron is approaching his eighty-fifth birthday. He has ruled Espada, his sprawling estate in Texas hill country, for more than forty years, but now he admits it’s time he chose an heir.
Jonas has three sons—Gage, Travis and Slade, all ruggedly handsome and each with a successful business empire of his own; none wishes to give up the life he’s fought for to take over Espada. Jonas also has a stepdaughter; beautiful and spirited, Caitlin loves the land as much as he does, but she’s not of the Baron blood.
So who will receive Baron’s bequest? As Gage, Travis, Slade and Caitlin discover, there’s more at stake than just Espada. For love also has its part to play in deciding their futures….
Sit back now and enjoy Travis’s story, and be sure to look out next for Slade Baron’s Bride in November (Harlequin Presents
#2063), when you’ll get to know Slade a whole lot better!
More Than a Mistress
Sandra Marton
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER ONE
TRAVIS BARON stood in the wings of the improvised stage at the Hotel Paradise, a hint of defiance in the rake of his jaw, waiting to be auctioned off to the highest bidder.
And wasn’t that a hell of a thing for a man to be doing on a beautiful Thursday night in early June? Travis thought grimly.
He ran his fingers through his hair, then smoothed his hand down the lapel of his tux. He couldn’t see the crowd in the elegant ballroom but he could damn well hear it, every feminine hoot, whistle and catcall. This was the crème de la crème of L.A. society, Pete Haskell had said. Maybe so. But they sure sounded pretty down-and-dirty from where Travis stood.
The wheedling drone of the auctioneer’s voice oozed from the loudspeakers like honey from a comb on a hot Texas day.
“What’m-I-bid, what’m-I-bid, ladies, c’mon, c’mon, don’t be shy, don’t hold back. Win the man of your dreams for the weekend.”
Shy? Travis snorted. Based on what he’d been hearing for the past hour, the women gathered in the ballroom were about as shy as a herd of buffalo, and about as delicate in making their wants known. They cheered, they laughed, they hooted and hollered until the gavel came down and then they applauded and whistled until Travis figured the noise level was enough to have the riot cops bust the place. And then they started up all over again, when the next hapless victim was shoved out on stage.
Not that all the Bachelors for Bucks had to be pushed. Lots of them went willingly, grinning and throwing kisses to the crowd.
“Hey, man,” one guy had said, after a look at Travis’s glum expression, “it’s all for charity, right?”
Right, Travis thought, his scowl darkening. But the guy with the smile had probably volunteered for this nonsense. Travis hadn’t. And to make things even worse, the luck of the draw was sending him out on that stage last.
How, he thought, how had he let himself get talked into this mess?
“Sold!” The auctioneer’s triumphant shout and the smack of his gavel were drowned out in a burst of cheers and applause.
“Another one gone,” a voice mumbled, and Travis turned as a skinny blond guy stepped up beside him, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he adjusted his tie. “Man, I’d rather be going for a root canal.”
“You got that right,” Travis said.
“Now, now, gentlemen.” Peggy Jeffers, who’d cheerfully introduced herself as “your friendly slave mistress for the evening” when they’d all been introduced, tweaked the skinny guy’s cheek. “You just relax, go on out there and have yourself some fun.”
“Fun?” the guy said, “Fun?”
“Fun,” Peggy repeated, and she put her hand in the middle of his back and gently pushed him out of the wings and onto the stage.
The roar of the audience sent the blood right to Travis’s head.
Peggy smiled. “Hear that?”
“Yeah,” Travis said, with what he hoped would pass for a smile. “Sounds like a pack of hyenas on a blood trail.”
Peggy giggled. “You got that right.” She took a step back, then eyeballed Travis from the top of his sun-streaked chestnut hair to the toes of his shiny black boots. “My oh my, handsome. They’re gonna go nuts when they spot you.”
She grinned, and Travis tried to return it.
“Don’t tell me a hunk like you is nervous,” Peggy said.
“No,” Travis said, lying through his teeth. “Why would I be nervous about going out on that stage in front of a million screaming women to get myself auctioned off?”
Peggy laughed. “It’s all for a good cause,” she said over her shoulder as she hurried away. “And you’ll get snapped up in a second.”
Yeah, Travis thought, oh, yeah. That’s what he’d been telling himself all night—that, and the fact that he was a sane man, a normal, healthy, sane, thirty-two-year-old attorney. A bachelor, yes…but a bachelor who liked to choose his own women.
And choose them, he did. All the time. If he had any problems with women, it was getting them to understand, when the moment of truth came, that all good things came to an end. Relationships between the sexes weren’t meant to last forever. A bad marriage and a worse divorce had finally taught him what the lessons of his childhood hadn’t, but those two blips in the road were long behind him.
It wasn’t as if he was opposed to women coming on to him. He liked a little aggressiveness in a woman, in bed and out. He found it sexy.
But a woman hitting on a guy she spotted at a party was one thing. Bidding for him, as if he were a slab of meat…
That was something else.
He’d been conned. And it had happened during a partners meeting at Sullivan, Cohen and Vittali a few months ago.
If only he’d realized that Pete Haskell was setting him up.
“Hey, Baron,” Pete had said casually, as he bit into a bagel, “I was talking about you the other day with some guys from Hannan and Murphy.”
“Ah,” Travis had said, with a smile, “were they telling you how much they wish I’d accepted a partnership there instead of here?”
Pete chuckled. “Actually, we were talking about the Bachelors for Bucks thing. You know, the annual charity auction?”
“That’s still going on?”
“Yup.” Pete buttered the other half of his bagel. “They’re figuring the new guy they hired is gonna come in at an all-time high bid.”
“No way,” one of the other partners said.
Pete shrugged. “They’re taking bets he will, John. They figure nobody can beat him, considering his record.”
“What record?” John reached for the sweetener. “The guy talks too much, you know what I mean? Any man blabs endlessly about all the broads in his life, well, right away, I have my doubts. No man has that much time, much less stamina.” John grinned. “Well, except for ol’ Travis, here.”
Pete nodded thoughtfully. “I agree.” He shot Travis a look. “But Travis never talks. Never lets us in on what he’s been doing, and who and how often he’s been doing it with.”
Travis looked up from his coffee and grinned. “I am a man of honor,” he said. “I never talk about my women.” His grin broadened. “And the silence just kills you, pal, doesn’t it?”
“But,” Pete said, undeterred, “we all know what a stud our Travis is. Talk about his latest conquest is a staple in the secretaries’ lunchroom. We spot the newest lady getting out of a taxi in front of the building at quitting time.” He grinned. “And we watch the bouquets of long-stemmed roses fly out of the florist’s shop next door, when Trav decides it’s time to dump a broad.”
“Please,” Travis said, his hand to his heart. “I’d never send roses. Everybody sends roses.”
“So, what do you send?”
The partners all looked up from their coffee. Old man Sullivan was the one who’d asked the question. It was the first time he’d said a word during a meeting in six months.
“Whatever flowers seem appropriate for that particular lady,” Travis said, and smiled. “And something small but tasteful, with a note that says—”
“Thanks, but no thanks,” Sullivan suggested, and everyone laughed.
“The thing is,” Pete said, “I told the guys from Hannan and Murphy that they could boast all they like about their man getting the high bid, considering that our man didn’t even enter.”
“Which he hadn’t, and isn’t,” Travis said firmly.
“Oh, I know that. We all know that. Right, boys?”
Later, Travis would remember that everybody in the room, even the two female partners, nodded vigorously, then put their heads down as if on cue. But right at that moment, Pete’s comments had seemed casual.
“And they said?”
Pete sighed. “They said that we’re all lawyers, and we should know better than to present a case with nothing but hearsay evidence.”
Someone groaned. Someone else laughed, but old man Sullivan narrowed his rheumy eyes and leaned forward in his chair at the head of the boardroom table.
“And, Peter?”
“And,” Pete said, after a barely perceptible pause, “they challenged us. They said we should put our boy, Travis, on the block.”
“No way,” Travis said quickly.
“Then, they said, we’ll really see which guy wins.” He paused dramatically. “And the firm that loses has to treat the other to a golf weekend at Pebble Beach.”
“Cool,” somebody said, and then a wild cheer went up around the walnut-paneled room.
“Now, wait just a minute,” Travis had started to say, but old man Sullivan was already smiling across the table and assuring Travis that they all knew he’d carry their banner high into battle, and make them proud to be partners in Sullivan, Cohen and Vittali.
Trapped, Travis thought grimly. It had been a conspiracy. Old man Sullivan had probably been the only one not in on the scheme. Not that it mattered. There’d been no way out of the setup, not without hearing about it forever from the rest of the partners. And so now here he was, a man about to go onstage before a crowd of estrogen-crazed females like a lamb being led to the slaughter, and if he came in at a penny lower than five grand—which was what Hannan and Murphy’s entry had gone for—he’d never live it down.
“I didn’t really have a choice,” he’d said to his kid brother, over the phone. “Anyway, it’s for a good cause. All the money raised goes to children’s hospitals.”
“Sure,” Slade had said, and then he’d snorted.
“What?”
“Well, I was just thinkin’…” Slade’s voice took on the soft, Texas drawl of their childhood. “It’s kind of like a bull bein’ auctioned off to a herd of heifers.”
“It’s a legitimate auction,” Travis had said coldly, and slammed down the phone. Then he’d picked it up, punched in the code for Slade’s Boston number again and said, before Slade could say a word, that he should have known better than to have expected sympathy from his own flesh and blood.
“You got it, bro,” Slade had replied, and laughed until, at last, Travis had laughed, too, and said how bad would it really be…
Travis shuddered. “Bad,” he whispered, and closed his eyes.
