Steele Read online

  CHAPTER 5

  In his eyes, she looked beautiful, though her face had two vivid, red cuts on it, and another stretched down her neck. Her hair was disheveled, but that, too, added to the appeal. She was real, no plastic, no fake charm, no put-on airs.

  When had that taken priority for him? In the past, he’d pictured himself with someone well-born and refined. Now, that seemed distasteful.

  Flynn sank into the chair beside the bed, and he angled himself to see her.

  “I’m sorry,” she began. “I should have watched the road.”

  Taken aback, his brow wrinkled. She was apologizing? “I shouldn’t have brought it up,” he said.

  Her eyes grew reflective. “I knew you’d say that, but you’re wrong.”

  Once more, he was surprised.

  “I wanted to say yes … t-to the date.” She became hesitant then, the tender flesh above her lip quivering with her pulse. “But all I could think was you’re Calix Steele, and you have more money than I’ll ever see. I know what you said about your dad …”

  Calix felt his heart tighten.

  “You told me things … I don’t know why you told me. But the fact you trusted me means a lot. At the same time, your dad didn’t have to get up at four a.m. to throw newspapers. He wasn’t awake at midnight changing the oil in his tenth car for the day. He wasn’t trying to be mom and dad all in one. You have no idea what it’s like to be me.”

  He opened his mouth to speak, but she waved one hand.

  “I’m not done.” She paused then, seeming to gather herself. “And I have no idea how to be you. We’re an iceberg and a volcano shoved into a drinking glass, and I don’t know where to go from here.”

  He suppressed a smile. It was a good analogy, one exactly like she’d use, and endearing to him. He held that thought in, however, because she was right. They were miles, dollars, personalities, apart, but she’d forgotten one thing. He was a man, and she was a woman; and sometimes that was enough.

  He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood to his feet. Taking her good hand in his, he tugged her upright and faced her. Their palms warmed together. “Forget everything,” he said. “What I said, what you said, who we each individually are.” He tucked her good arm to her side, and embraced her.

  Her chin stuck, pointed, into the base of his neck. Her breath moistened his skin. He closed his eyes, one hand straying to the back of her head. “How do you feel now?” he asked, his voice low.

  She turned her head sideways, her cheek flattening to his chest. “Like if I lean over much further, I’m gonna fall.”

  “So fall,” he said. “I’ll be right here to catch you.”

  Falling, Flynn discovered, changed your outlook on life. Suddenly, the sun beamed brighter; your work was easier to accomplish, and you became sure everything would work out. You also watched the phone, every ring possibly him again checking up on you, and you sitting there eager to hear his voice.

  Her bottom lip curled between her teeth, she stared through the petals of a massive flower bouquet Calix had sent at the old, raggedy Flynn’s Auto Repair sign.

  What would her dad say about all this? Be careful. Attraction’s a powerful thing? Or, Go for it. I believe in you? Maybe it’d be a combo of both. But there again, she returned to her new outlook. Days later, that moment in the hospital continued to throb in her thinking.

  In one moment, with one act, Calix had reminded her of what she’d forgotten. She’d been so concentrated on who he was, she’d forgotten what he was – a young, healthy man. And that realization had been enough to send her racing ahead. She was on a fast track to a destination she wasn’t sure of. She only hoped she wasn’t driving too recklessly because he’d already proven to be a dangerous distraction.

  The familiar gold Cadillac SUV turned into the drive and her thoughts of him took flight. Leaping from her desk chair, she dashed to the door and flung it open. He exited the driver’s seat in the same dignified fashion he did everything, but with a smile on his face. Earl, a part-timer she’d hired to take over the repair work, stuck his head out of the garage.

  Calix ushered her back inside, shutting the door before embracing her. “How’s your arm?”

  “What arm?” she responded, her face buried in his chest. He chuckled, and she pulled back her head. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

  “I know, but I had the day off and thought I’d take you somewhere.” He captured her hand, folding their fingers together.

  “Should I change?”

  His gaze deepened, and heat crept up her cheeks.

  “Nothing fancy, but perhaps not those shorts.”

  “Okay,” she replied softly, “but it’ll take me a little longer using only one arm.”

  He nodded, and she detached herself, heading for the stairs.

  When she was younger, she and her father had lived in a small house down the street. It’d been cozy, but convenient. After his death, she’d been unable to make the payments and so had sold it, moving into the loft apartment over the garage. It wasn’t ideal, being older and in need of repair. But with a bed, a couch, and a kitchenette, she’d managed to make it livable.

  Flynn crossed to the small armoire she used as a closet and dug out a white blouse sprinkled with tiny red flowers and a pair of khaki slacks. She managed to put on both, through considerable effort, then brushed her hair and slipped into a pair of sandals. Downstairs, she paused on the bottom step for his assessment. Not that he asked it of her, but she somehow felt obligated.

  “Do I pass?” she asked, her voice light.

  He tipped his head left and the look he’d held before returned. She ducked her gaze, not waiting for his response, and lifted her purse from the desk. “I’m ready. I just need to speak to Earl.”

  Earl clearly wanted to know more than she told him about their leaving, but not giving into his curiosity, she told him to call if anything came up and met Calix out front. He opened the passenger-side car door.

  “So … where are we going?” she asked, falling into the seat.

  Calix made a right at the red light. “It’s a surprise. But I’ll give you a hint. I thought you’d like to see a project Atlas and myself have begun.”

  “You’re working together?”

  Not knowing anything about either the Bellamy or Steele money, news that they might work together seemed normal.

  “He and I, specifically,” Calix replied.

  Without the parents’ involvement, he meant. That’d be important to him and this thing he was taking her to see, therefore, was huge.

  “I thought maybe to get your input.”

  This comment brought her head more his direction. He was asking for her input?

  He gave a quick smile. “You’re surprised.”

  “A little.”

  He stretched out one hand for hers, and, a bit awkward with her healing arm, she placed her fingers in his palm. He folded his hand over top and released what sounded like a heavy breath.

  “I asked myself what I would normally do,” he said, “and the answer was clear … undertake everything on my own. Then I asked what Atlas would do, and that seemed like the other extreme.”

  “Meghan,” Flynn inserted.

  Meghan had become a very good friend. She called every day to ask how she was doing and/or chitchat, had taken her to lunch once, and sent a maid to do some housecleaning on another day. Though she hadn’t spoken with Atlas directly, Meghan had said he’d sent his best wishes.

  Calix nodded. “He defers to her in everything, sometimes when I think he could handle it quicker, more efficiently himself.”

  “I don’t have to know everything,” Flynn said.

  He paused, his gaze resting on hers before returning to the road. “I’ve decided to act somewhere in between. You’re important to me, and I value what you have to say. Plus, I think I need to learn to listen more than I speak.”

  With that, the conversation fell silent. The sight of the wharf on the horizon and
, minutes later, the enormous ship Calix parked beneath brought Flynn more upright. It was mind-blowing that any human being could afford such, would even dare to purchase a ship of that size. She climbed out of the car and stood at his side, her gaze trailing across the sea of raw metal.

  “What do you think?” he asked, waving one arm wide.

  He was ecstatic, boyish, something she’d never seen in him before. He spun around to face her, his eyes alight.

  “It’s … huge.” And in converse, she was small. Small and unimportant and insufficient.

  “It has to be in order to carry enough passengers to pay for it.”

  “It’s a cruise ship?”

  He nodded. Taking her good hand, he led her toward it, and a man in a hard hat approached. He was middle-aged with a well-lined face and a heavy paunch.

  “Mr. Steele, good to see you today, sir.”

  “Good to be here, Karl. This is Flynn Burckhardt, my special friend. I wanted to show it to her.”

  The man, Karl, dipped his chin her direction. “Just avoid the scaffolding,” he said. “There’s hard hats on the table. The workers won’t see you down there.”

  This seemed to dismiss them. Calix led her around the construction area to a viewpoint midway and draped an arm around her shoulders. “I haven’t told my mother.”

  She shifted her gaze to his face. “Should you?”

  He didn’t respond right away. “She’s a horrible woman.” He said this as if he regretted having to say it, his tone deep, his chin lowering. “I’m using my money,” he continued.

  This remark didn’t explain his previous one at all and sounded wistful almost.

  “And Atlas’s,” he said, firmly. “I admit I talked him into it, but I also knew if he disapproved, it was a bad investment. You’d think with so many dollars at my command, I’d know how to appropriate it better. But I don’t.”

  “She wouldn’t have let you?” This was the obvious tie of his two thoughts.

  Calix shook his head. “I was groomed to wear a suit, look nice, sign papers … all so she can continue to be frail and weak. Every dime of Steele Enterprises goes into the bank and sits there rotting.”

  Unlike the Bellamys. Again, she filled in the blank and the truth formed in her thoughts. Atlas was more than his best friend, more than an investment partner, more than one of the Billionaire Boys Club, he was a father-figure of sorts. Someone Calix wanted to emulate but didn’t know how. Probably, Atlas knew that. He was incredibly smart, the smartest man she’d ever met, and so he’d undertaken this, not because he needed to own a ship but because Calix needed to believe in himself.

  “It’s none of my business,” Flynn said. “But who really owns Steele Enterprises? You said she did, but your dad put your name on it, not hers … or have I misguessed?”

  Calix looked down at her. “Legally, it’s mine. Mentally, it’s hers.”

  “All … all of it?”

  He nodded. “I am the sole heir, yet without enough nerve to act like it.”

  Meanwhile, his mother rides roughshod over her son, simply because he sits down and allows it. Flynn weighed her words. She couldn’t judge his mom, having never met her, except by how her life had affected his. It was the same with her dad. People who met her and knew him in the past always compared the two of them.

  She moved around to face him, taking hold of his shirt in either hand, and moistened her lips. “I’m not after your money. You know that.”

  He nodded once.

  “What attracts me to you is your heart. You’re a good person, Calix Steele, who stands tall when you need to. So you decide what legacy you want to leave and then take the steps to leave it. Whether it’s owning a ship, helping those less fortunate, or whatever else you decide, I believe in you.”

  He smiled, weak. “Who taught you to be so strong?”

  “My dad. But I learned a lot of it on my own, and in that, we’re not that much different. We both had to grow up too soon. I simply had to work harder to survive.”

  “Money isn’t survival,” Calix replied. “Survival comes from in here.” He pointed at his chest. “I think you just taught me that.” He stared at her, unspeaking, for a moment, then gathered her in his arms. “God bless my father for driving that stupid Cadillac, or I’d never have found you.”

  “Did you say, ‘God bless’?” she asked, her voice muffled by his shirt.

  He nodded, his chin resting on the top of her head. “I did.”

  His mother standing outside his condominium door brought Calix to a halt and the old unrest, the sickening, nausea she always generated, returned. He swallowed it down and strolled over as if she weren’t there.

  Her head turned, lizard-like, his direction. “You aren’t speaking to me?”

  He paused, one hand on the door, then widened it. “Won’t you come in?”

  His lack of any affectionate name was noted in the stiffness of her shoulders, the compression of her lips, her proud walk. She paraded in front of him to a spot in the living area then gave a faint sigh before crumpling, supposedly weak, into a chair.

  “By all means, have a seat,” he said.

  She snorted. “I’d think you’d care how I was doing.”

  Calix crossed his arms over his chest. “Here’s where you tell me you’re sick again, only you came all this way, and I’m going to guess, not to ask how I’m doing. You could have done that with a phone call, which means this visit is to pry into my business.”

  “Our business,” she snapped, her voice emphatic.

  He let the comment slide. “Well? State your complaint.”

  Opening her clutch purse, she removed a folded paper and extended it. He stared downward, unmoving.

  “Go ahead. Take it,” she said.

  Reluctantly, he slipped it from her hands and smoothed it out. The numbers penned on the page matched the amounts he’d commissioned for partial payment of the cruise ship. It was inevitable she’d find out, and he should have spent more time preparing what to say. But he hadn’t, preferring instead to let it hit him between the eyes.

  “You don’t act surprised,” she said.

  He dropped the paper on the end table. “Why would I be? I spent it.”

  What weakness she’d feigned on the way in evaporated in an instant. Standing to her feet, she pushed into his face. “You didn’t have permission. This kind of expenditure most go past the board.”

  “I don’t need permission,” he said, cutting her off, “or have you forgotten my name’s on the account?”

  “Hard-earned money your father slaved to create …”

  “Sitting on his can,” Calix replied. “I give him credit for being smart, knowing where to invest and when. But ‘slave over’ anything he did not. He was a tightwad who wouldn’t give his own son two hours of the day to watch him compete. I asked … begged him to come to the regatta … but he wouldn’t. I won anyway, didn’t need him to prove how good I was. But I had no one to appreciate it.”

  Calix backed away from his mother and turning aside, left her standing there alone. He wandered to the floor-to-ceiling windows and gazed out.

  Her next words spun him around.

  “This is the result of your time with that gold-digging girl.”

  Gold-digging? Flynn? Calix’s face heated. “This is the result of me coming to my senses. I’ve let you do what you wanted when you wanted, but it came to me today you have no right. And I’ve asked myself why. Why did my father, your husband, not put your name on anything?”

  His mother’s countenance paled, though she did her best to cover for it, patting her hair into place, drying her palms on her skirt. “Because he loved you.” Her voice was cloyingly sweet.

  “Did he? He never told me so. I think instead …” Calix latched onto his thoughts and rearranged them. “I think he didn’t trust you.”

  “That’s ridiculous ….”

  “I was young when he died,” he continued, “and you saw your opportunity to take over. No
one would deny the widow what she wanted if it was for her poor, fatherless son. Is that it?”

  Her face said he was right, and suddenly, the same thing he’d just spoken, hit him like a stone. His legs gave way and he sank into a chair. “Why?” he asked himself aloud. Why did his dad not want his mom to have any of the money? And why was she so afraid now to lose it?

  She wouldn’t tell him, looked, in fact, like she was about to faint. He inhaled deep.

  “It ends today,” he said, raising his chin, “my weak-willed, spineless capitulation to your every whim. Steele Enterprises is mine, every dime in the bank is mine; and what I spend it on or who I spend it on is none of your business.”

  She opened and closed her mouth like a fish gasping for air. Calix made his way to the front door and opened it. “Get out.”

  CHAPTER 6

  “Wilcox, in my office.” Calix rushed through the outer workspace without waiting for Wilcox to respond and took a seat in his desk chair, immediately turning on his computer. Wilcox, an older man with a thick head of gray hair, stepped inside, and Calix motioned toward the door. “Close it, please.”

  He obeyed.

  “We’re waiting for someone,” Calix stated, “but while we do, I want to make something perfectly clear.”

  “Yes, sir,” Wilcox said.

  “Nothing we discuss leaves this room. You will keep it to yourself no matter who asks or how much pressure is put on you. Do we understand each other?”

  “Yes, sir,” Wilcox repeated.

  A knock came at the door, and Calix waved the visitor in, aware of the growing curiosity of the employees.

  “Mr. Bellamy, sir,” Wilcox said. “It’s been what … ten years?”

  “Indeed,” Atlas replied, taking his hand. “I see Wilma is keeping you fit.”

  Wilcox laughed and, freeing his fingers, patted his distended belly. “She’s a good cook, my Wilma.”

  “So I’ve heard.” Atlas faced Calix. “Now … what’s this about?”

  Calix waved him to a seat. “I have yanked the reins from my mother.”

  Atlas’s gaze widened, his brow lifting. Wilcox, too, seemed impressed.