River was talking about more than just her orgasm. He wanted her to stop resisting all of this. Maybe she felt like she had good reasons to hold back her feelings for River, but he didn’t want her to fight it anymore. He wanted this moment to last. Beyond tonight, beyond the weekend, beyond the key ceremony. He wanted to give this a real try without the interference of anyone else.
They deserved a second chance. A real chance, not just some fling to relive their youth and soothe their past wrongs. They both knew it meant more than that. He was lost the moment he laid eyes on her again. All the old feelings, good and bad, had rushed to the surface. With most of the bad set aside, he was tired of fighting the good.
“Yes, River!” she shouted to the empty room, clinging to his shoulders as her body was rocked with the spasm of her release. “Yes!” she cried again and again until she stilled beneath him.
It was only then that River let himself finish. He buried his face in her throat and thrust into her until he unraveled with a low groan of pleasure.
After a moment, River rolled onto his back to catch his breath. He could get used to being woken up like that more often. He stumbled into the bathroom to clean up, and when he returned a moment later, he found that Morgan had changed back into the silky chemise he’d banished from the bed earlier.
With a sigh, he climbed back under the covers, wanting so badly to say something about the outfit. Instead, he snuggled up with her and decided to enjoy their night for what it was. They’d made progress. Baby steps, but progress.
“So tell me,” he said, as they were on the edge of sleep. “It’s an awful tattoo you’re hiding, isn’t it? Do you have Kermit the Frog on your hip bone or something? Property of Big Jim?”
He was answered only with a fluffy pillow straight to the face.
“Good night, River,” was all she said.
“Good night,” he replied with a chuckle. He pulled her close against him and drifted off into a contented sleep.
* * *
Normally, when Morgan worked at Steele headquarters, she tried to stay as far away as she could from the executive suites. That was the turf of her father, brothers and others entrusted with the day-to-day running of Steele Tools. There, they discussed and worried about things she couldn’t care less about—like whether moving their manufacturing facility to China would improve their bottom line, or if a hammer looked better with the traditional Steele red or exciting new yellow rubber grips.
Tools were the family industry and she reaped the benefits of it, but that didn’t mean she had to live and breathe it the way the others did. In fact, if her father hadn’t indulged her in creating a charitable branch she could run, she wouldn’t have worked for the company at all. Several people in the family had started in the company and branched off into careers in politics or kicked off their own start-ups. Morgan felt like she would be one of those who eventually stepped out of the tool business. Into what, she had no idea.
But Tuesday morning, after her long weekend at River’s place on Kiawah Island, she marched down the hallway toward the executive offices like a woman on a mission. She ignored everyone she passed on the way to her father’s office. It was early, not even eight o’clock yet, but she knew he would be there. Her father had spent the majority of his life in this office. If he wasn’t at home, he was in his executive chair, wheeling and dealing.
His administrative assistant hadn’t come in yet, and for that, she was thankful. One less roadblock. She glanced through the glass of his office wall long enough to confirm he was there and alone, then she barged inside.
Her father shot up in surprise, nearly spilling the coffee he was sipping all over his keyboard. “Morgan!” he declared, before gently setting the coffee aside. “Is something wrong?”
“Yes. I have something I have to ask you and I need you to be honest with me.”
Trevor cocked his head curiously and gestured to the guest chair. “Okay. Why don’t you sit down, sunshine, and we can talk it all out.”
She winced at the sound of her pet name. She was not in the mood to be Daddy’s little girl. She was mad at him and she didn’t want him clouding her feelings with things like that. Still, she sat down in the chair, hovering on the edge and refusing to relax into the soft leather. “I had a discussion with River recently. He mentioned how he used the money you bribed him with to start his company. That sounds a little bit different from the version of events you told me.”
“Bribe is a strong word, Morgan.” Trevor smiled at his daughter indulgently, but she wasn’t going to let him sweet-talk his way out of this. It was her life he was toying with. She wasn’t a chess piece to be moved around at his will.
“Dad, this is no time for semantics. Did River demand the money to go or did you offer it to him?”
Trevor sat back in his chair and sighed. “What does it matter? He took the money, didn’t he? That’s the important part, isn’t it?”
“No, it isn’t. I don’t blame him for taking what was offered. What else did he have after you stole me away? What’s important is that you made me believe that he had demanded that money to go away quietly. You told me that you had to pay him off to keep him from stalling the annulment and demanding a part of my estate since I was too naïve to get a prenuptial agreement. You told me he threatened to go to the newspapers about our affair if you didn’t write him a check on the spot. None of that was true, was it?”
Trevor watched her for a moment, the muscles in his jaw tensing. “No, it wasn’t true,” he admitted at last. “I told you that so you’d keep away from him. He wasn’t the right boy for you, but you were too blinded by young love to see it. I offered him the money in the hopes he’d take it and disappear. And he did. So things worked out in the end, didn’t they? He’s a success. You’re doing well. No harm, no foul.”
She shook her head. “I can’t believe this. When he told me about the money, there was a part of me that was certain this was just his way of getting me to move past it. But River was telling the truth. You bribed him, and then made me think he was just a gold digger using me to get to my money.”
“I thought it was for the best, sunshine. It was a story so awful that it would make the break clean and you wouldn’t try to run back to him when I wasn’t looking.”
“For the best? Daddy, do you realize what you did? You didn’t just break up a pair of young, foolish lovers. You broke my heart when you told me that. You made me believe that no man could ever love me just for me, that my money would always be a factor when a man showed an interest in me. It made me so suspicious that I stopped trusting people. All these years... After everything that happened...”
Trevor frowned as she spoke, but he didn’t interrupt. “Morgan, I never realized it had that kind of impact on you. I only wanted you to marry someone who was worthy of you.”
“River was worthy. He was worthy in more ways than I can count. He wasn’t rich, but he was a good person and he loved me. So tell the truth—when you say worthy, you mean rich.”
He sighed. “When you have the kind of money our family has, it’s not unheard of for people to be targeted romantically. How was I to know if River was sincere or not?”