"No, thank you."
Her back was ramrod straight, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. In other words, she wasn't nearly comfortable enough yet to agree to a deal. Fortunately, putting women at ease was one of Alec's greatest skills. Young or old, quiet or loud, introverted or extroverted--he had never met a woman he couldn't charm. He was certain that Cordelia would be no exception.
Taking out a carafe of sparkling water and four glasses despite her refusal of his hospitality, he poured each of them a glass, then smiled and said, "I hope your drive was a good one, without too much late morning traffic?"
"The drive was fine."
Her terse answer didn't daunt him. "I've heard the heavy rain we had this winter made it an especially good year for blooms. Even the sides of the roads are thick with flowers, aren't they?"
Where he'd hoped for a smile, he got a frown instead. "You've obviously done your research and know what I do for a living."
Alec barely managed to hold on to his smile. "I have done some research," he admitted. "I felt I had to, given that I didn't know anything at all about you until yesterday."
She went perfectly still. "He never told you about me?"
"No. And if I didn't know about you, no one did." Alec hadn't wanted to dive into fraught emotional territory with her, but some questions needed to be asked. "Did you know who he was?"
Her face went pale a beat before she shook her head. "No." The word came out hoarsely enough that she reached for the water she hadn't wanted and took a sip before continuing. "I found out yesterday. Just like you."
For nearly twenty years, Alec had nothing but the utmost respect for Gordon. But now he had to wonder how his friend could have known about the woman sitting here today--a woman who clearly wouldn't hurt a fly, even if it was eating one of her plants--and not reach out to her.
If Alec had a daughter, he would want to know her, no matter the circumstances of her birth. He would never in a million years do what his mother had done when she'd decided to leave her children by taking her life. For three decades, Alec had lived with the knowledge that neither he nor his siblings had been important enough to keep Lynn Sullivan holding on, to keep trying. And now, he hated the thought that Cordelia might think she wasn't important enough for Gordon to acknowledge.
"I'm sorry," he said in a low voice. "Your biological father was a good man. A great one. But I don't understand the choices he made where you were concerned any more than you do."
"Leaving his half of the company to me, you mean?"
"Yes. But also why he kept you a secret. And why he didn't contact you." Alec realized she needed to know something else. "When I found Gordon in his office after the heart attack, he was still breathing. Just barely."
"I don't want to hear this." She might spend all day with plants, but again it struck him that she wasn't nearly as meek as his research had led him to believe. "He wasn't--isn't--anything to me."
"But you were something to him."
"How can you say that?" She burst out of her seat, knocking into the coffee table hard enough that the water sloshed over the rims of all four glasses. "He never once tried to contact me. He lived, worked, only thirty minutes away his entire life and never did one single thing to make himself known to me until after he was gone. I meant nothing to him!"
"Your name." Alec stood too, needing to look into her eyes. "It was the last word he spoke."
He was watching her so carefully that he knew the exact moment her knees began to give way. Quickly gripping her hands, he held her steady. "Ezra, Caleb," he said to the lawyers, "give us a few minutes alone."
The two men couldn't wait to get out of the room.
"We don't have to do this today, Cordelia." Alec spoke softly, soothingly, the way he would to a spooked animal about to bolt. "We can wait until you've had more time to process things."
"There's nothing to process." She slid her hands from his and walked over to the wall of windows that looked out over his empire, the hangars and runways that held his planes. "He might have been a great man to you, to your clients, to your employees, but to me he's nothing more than a total, complete, utter stranger." When she turned to face him, Alec was struck all over again by the mesmerizing beauty of her gaze, the lush fullness of her lips. "He left me half of a company that I know nothing about, in an industry I have no interest in whatsoever." She half laughed, though there was no humor in it. "I don't even like to fly. It gives me motion sickness."
Alec had to laugh as well, couldn't keep it in regardless of how heavy the moment might be. "Flying made him sick too. It was something he made sure no one knew--that he was an airplane mogul who could barely stand to even taxi down the runway."
"It's just genes," she shot back. "My mom, my dad--the people who actually raised me, the people who love me--are the ones who matter, not a stranger. Not even one who's just given me half of his bazillion-dollar company." She lifted her chin. "If he thought he could buy me, he's wrong. My heart, my love--they aren't for sale. I don't want half of S&W Aviation. No more than you want me to have it." She gestured toward his desk. "If you've got an offer for me, I'm ready to see it." She looked back out the window at the planes and hangars and practically shuddered. "More than ready."
This was exactly what Alec had wanted. For Cordelia to walk in and tell him to take what should have been his. He should have been leaping at the chance to get her to read through his offer--and sign it--as quickly as possible. It was the only thing that made sense in this crazy situation. She didn't know anything about planes or big business, and he sure as hell didn't have the time or inclination to train a greenhorn partner.
And yet...
Something was stopping him. In all the years they'd worked together, for all that he could be ruthless while playing the business game, Gordon had never deliberately hurt anyone--even their worst-behaved clients who deserved a little pain. But he'd hurt this woman. Badly.
And Alec couldn't escape the thought that it was now up to him to help Cordelia.
He knew how badly parents could mess you up--dead and alive, in his case. But he'd had his brothers, his sister, his cousins, his aunts and uncles to offer to help him deal with it all. Even if he'd never actually taken them up on their offers, they'd still been there in the wings. Who did Cordelia have apart from her adoptive parents? Would she be willing to admit any of this to her girlfriends? To a boyfriend, if she had one?
The thought of a boyfriend didn't sit right with him. Which didn't make any more sense than anything else had in the past fifteen minutes. All he knew was that they needed to hit the pause button before either of them made a decision they'd regret.
"I never thought about Gordon dying," Alec told her. "Never imagined a force of nature like him could go so quickly at fifty. And I sure as hell never thought that you would be standing here with me, holding the keys to half my kingdom."
"I already told you, I don't want your kingdom." She moved closer. "Make me an offer, Alec. If it's fair, I'll be out of your hair so quickly it will be as if I'd never been here at all."
His chest clenched at her words. Was that why he didn't want to present her with his buyout offer? Because it would be akin to erasing her? And regardless, had Gordon really thought his flower-loving daughter would actually want what he was trying to give her?
Beyond frustrated, Alec ran a hand through his hair, then spoke the four words he never thought he'd say to her. "I need more time."
She gaped at him. "You're kidding me. The lawyers are already here, and you were all shark-teeth smiles when I walked in."
"You think I smile like a shark?"
"You know what I mean--you looked hungry for a deal to be made. And I don't blame you. Why would anyone in his right mind want his business partner's secret daughter that he gave away within seconds of her being born to become his new co-captain in a really big business? I get that he might have been smart about some things--really, really smart, if the success of your business is anything to g
o by--but giving me half of his company is literally the dumbest idea in the world."
Alec knew laughter was completely out of bounds. But he couldn't hold it in.
Women rarely made him laugh, apart from his sisters and cousins, who didn't want anything from him. His female relations weren't like the women who clawed their way into his life looking for someone to buy them jewelry and tell them pretty lies. His sister and cousins simply accepted him for the cynical, blunt guy that he was--and in turn they knew that he would defend them with his life.
"This isn't funny," Cordelia said, looking irritated and also a little concerned by his behavior. As though he had transformed from a shark into an unhinged billionaire.
He ran a hand over his mouth in an effort to wipe away the grin. "I know it isn't. I just wish I could have seen Gordon's face when you said he'd had the dumbest idea in the world. People usually kowtowed to him."
Despite her professed disinterest, she looked intrigued by what he was telling her about her father. Still, she insisted, "Well, I'm definitely not going to kowtow now by taking a company I don't want. I'm ready to make a deal with you. Right here. Right now."
But instead of presenting her with the buyout offer she so desperately wanted, he asked, "Do you like working in your garden store?"
The look she gave him made it beyond clear that she thought he was crazy not to grab with both hands at her offer to walk away from his company. "I love it. It's what I've always wanted to do. The only thing I've ever wanted to do. Just like I'm sure that this--" She gestured again to the planes. "--is all you've ever wanted."
He should have nodded, would have agreed had anyone else said it. But just as he couldn't make her the buyout offer he wanted, he also found he couldn't tell her that lie. "When I was a kid, I wanted to open a restaurant." He used to cook for his parents, his brothers and sister. He remembered writing up menus, putting out little tables and chairs. But then when his mom died and his father left the four of them to fend for themselves, it had been solely about keeping it together from that point forward, making sure his siblings didn't get lost in the cracks while their father was too busy grieving to take care of his kids, who were grieving too.
"Then why don't you?" Cordelia asked.
She made it sound so easy. This woman who knew next to nothing about him apart from the fact that he had built a business with her birth father that had made them both billionaires. "My sister says I'm enough of a workaholic already," he said. "She'd probably try to have me committed if I went from the office to cook in a restaurant every night."
"Or you could sell this company and just cook. I mean, if you think that would be more fun than what you're doing now, why not?"
Today had been perfectly linear in Alec's head. Cordelia was going to show up at his office, he was going to make her an offer she couldn't refuse, and then he would move forward with his life in the same way it had been before.
Were they really standing in his office discussing how he should sell his half of the company too--and cook for a living?
"There are so many reasons why not," he told her, "that I could keep you here until dark listing them."
In a heartbeat, the air between them changed. Maybe it was the idea of keeping her with him until night fell that suddenly sent sparks crackling. Or maybe it was that with Cordelia, nothing had gone as he'd planned. And everything always went the way Alec intended.
"I'd like to come by your garden," he said.
Her frown went deep, and she took a step back. "Why on earth would you want to do that?"
"I'd like to see where you work. Understand more about the business you've built."
"You can't possibly be trying to see if I'm a good fit to work with you here, can you?" She held up a hand before he could answer. "Because I really, really don't want to help you sell rides on fancy planes to fancy people."
"I've got that covered, thanks."
"Then what could you possibly want with me and my garden?"
"Honestly?"
"God, yes, please be honest," she said. "That way I'll know what to say to change your mind if you're thinking something crazy."
It was something he could picture his sister saying, or his cousins Mia or Lori or Cassie. All of them would like Cordelia. And they'd be beside themselves with glee at the chance to sit in the corner with a box of popcorn to watch this conversation play out.
"I'm never crazy," was the first thing he needed her to know. And then, "I thought I knew exactly how to resolve this situation Gordon's sprung on us."
"So you do have an offer for me?" She looked hopefully at the papers on his desk.
"I did." She made a face at his use of the past tense. "But my gut is telling me that what I've got prepared might not be the right offer. And I always trust my gut."
"If you think I'm greedy for his money," she said, "I swear that's not why I'm in such a hurry to make a deal with you."
"I know you're not. I can spot a gold digger a mile away."
She stared at him a little longer than was comfortable. "I'll bet you can." Then she waved a hand in the air as if to clear the thought away. "I just don't want this. Don't want any part of him. You've got to understand that, don't you?"
"I do, Cordelia. But I also know he wanted you to have this. I'm not stalling because I want to make you miserable. I just need to make sure everything is straight in my head before we dot the i's and cross the t's."
"If I invite you to my garden tomorrow, will you bring the offer? One that makes your gut feel good?"
He knew the answer she wanted. Still, he had to tell her, "I don't make promises I can't keep, so I can't answer that yet. Will noon work?"
She was gritting her teeth so hard that he half expected to hear them crack. Finally, she nodded. "Noon will work. But it might rain tomorrow, so I can't guarantee you'll leave my garden looking as clean and polished as you do when you arrive." She headed for the door, then stopped with her hand on the doorknob. She turned to look back at him. "I expected you to be a ruthless businessman. It would have been much easier if you were."
And then she left.
CHAPTER THREE
Cordelia's knees ached from kneeling, her hands were sore from digging into a patch of hard soil with a shovel and trowel, and she was covered with smears of dirt. She'd gotten up with the sun and had taken only a short break to eat a quick bowl of granola. And she'd never been more pleased by the hard work she had to put in every single day to build her garden and her business.
Without all that work, she would have been left alone with too many thoughts, too many questions.
For the second night in a row, she'd barely slept, doubly plagued now by confusion about her birth father and why he'd done what he'd done--and by thoughts of Alec Sullivan.
He was a billionaire businessman. Her birth father's corporate partner.
And hands down the best-looking man she'd ever set eyes on.
Even now, just thinking of Alec made her hot in ways that had nothing to do with the sun shining down on her. He wasn't her type--she'd never gone for that king-of-the-world vibe. And yet, she'd reacted to him in a very feminine way.
Most of all, though, she'd been stunned by the empathy he'd shown her.
She'd expected him to make excuses for her birth father. But when Alec found out that she'd been kept in the dark about Gordon until yesterday, he hadn't made any excuses at all. And she appreciated that more than he'd ever know.
What she didn't appreciate, however, was the fact that he hadn't made her a buyout offer yesterday. S&W Aviation felt like a noose tightening around her neck. The longer it was there, the harder it got to breathe.
She definitely didn't want the business, and though she knew pretty much everyone would think she was nuts, she had extremely mixed feelings about the money as well. If she'd earned it herself, that would be one thing. But to inherit a shockingly huge sum from someone who hadn't even wanted her in his life? She couldn't shake the fact that it felt like di
rty money.
Like an apology that had come twenty-five years too late.
Like a bid to buy her forgiveness.
She sighed as she took off her thick gloves to push back the hair that had sprung loose from her ponytail. Again and again, she'd reminded herself that there was nothing to forgive. Plenty of babies were given up for adoption by their birth parents. Her story--an overwhelmed man giving up his baby after his wife died in childbirth--wasn't even particularly special. And Cordelia would never complain about her adoptive mom and dad, who were amazing.
All of which meant that there was no point in being angry, no point in being hurt that Gordon Whitley hadn't been able to find the time--or the desire--to drive thirty miles from his fancy office building to meet her.
Today, she promised herself, she'd sell her half of the company to Alec Sullivan, and then she'd promptly get over herself and her hurt feelings.
The antique clock she'd bought at a farmer's market chimed a quarter to noon. Standing, she tried to brush some dirt off her jeans, which only made a bigger mess. She was more tempted than she should be to run back to her cottage and take a quick shower, maybe put on a sundress while she was at it.
But she wasn't trying to impress Alec. Not that she could manage that in the best of circumstances, of course, given that men like him didn't so much as glance at women like her--for which she was profoundly grateful. She liked her quiet, simple life. Loved selling petunias and lavender plants to retirees and then spending her evenings weeding and watering her own cottage garden.
Still, that didn't mean she needed to be a sweaty, filthy mess when he got here. A new T-shirt wouldn't be too big a concession. Fortunately, she had a clean stack of LANGLEY GARDEN CENTER shirts in a storage room for when her part-time employees forgot to bring theirs to work.
She was just heading toward the main building, which held the registers and the gift items that couldn't be left out in the sun, when Brian came jogging up. He worked three half days a week and was working toward his own degree in botany.
"Cordelia, I just got a text from my professor. He said I can make up my test today, but only if I'm there in the next fifteen minutes. You know I hate to bail on you like this."