E-Book, Englisch, 400 Seiten
Reihe: The Sullivans
Andre You Do Something To Me (New York Sullivans 3)
1. Auflage 2018
ISBN: 978-1-945253-46-1
Verlag: Oak Press, LLC
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
E-Book, Englisch, 400 Seiten
Reihe: The Sullivans
ISBN: 978-1-945253-46-1
Verlag: Oak Press, LLC
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
Bella Andre's New York Times and USA Today bestselling novels have been #1 bestsellers around the world and she has sold more than 7 million books so far! Known for 'sensual, empowered stories enveloped in heady romance' (Publishers Weekly), her books have been Cosmopolitan Magazine 'Red Hot Reads' twice and have been translated into ten languages. She also writes sweet contemporary romances as Lucy Kevin. There are more than 50,000 5 star reviews for Bella Andre's books on Goodreads!
Autoren/Hrsg.
Weitere Infos & Material
CHAPTER TWO
From his office window, Alec watched Cordelia standing out on the sidewalk. She was pretty, dark haired, and slim, with a definite resemblance to Gordon. She wasn’t the kind of woman Alec would notice in a bar, nor was she the type of woman with whom he’d roll around in the sheets. He dated only women who understood that he was in for a good time, for pleasure—not forever.
Cordelia had paused in front of his building—her building too, until she accepted his buyout offer—for several minutes. She hadn’t looked impressed. Hadn’t looked scared either. She’d looked more confused than anything. As though she hadn’t yet been able to wrap her head around her enormous inheritance.
That made two of them.
Alec had barely slept since learning of her existence. He’d wanted to do his research on Cordelia thoroughly, because the kind of offer that would work for a ball-buster with visions of taking over the corporate world was completely different from the proposition he’d make for a small-town girl who had been tossed completely out of her league.
Cordelia Langley was in her mid-twenties and unmarried. She’d grown up in suburban Yorktown with her adoptive parents, Amy and Walter Langley, who were both teachers. She hadn’t played on any sports teams or been a member of school clubs growing up, apart from the garden club. She’d graduated from Pace University, just up the road from where she’d grown up, then opened her own garden center at twenty-two. She lived alone in a small cottage on site.
The picture his research painted was clear: Cordelia was a quiet, simple woman. One who must feel way in over her head with all of this. Odds were definitely in his favor that she was dying to unload it all.
Alec had to marvel yet again at the fact that his often ruthless business partner, a man who had dreamed big and achieved even more, was in any way related to a woman who grew flowers for a living. Alec had a heck of a lot of issues with his own father, but in truth, the apple hadn’t fallen all that far from the tree. At one time, William Sullivan had been the most successful painter in the world. Giving it up to build homes on a lake in the Adirondacks hadn’t changed who he really was at his core: driven to be the best. Just as Alec had always been driven to succeed. To win. To triumph.
Which was why he was prepared to make this transition as easy as possible for Cordelia with an extremely generous buyout offer. Honestly, he couldn’t imagine a scenario in which she’d want to keep her half of S&W Aviation. She was likely counting the minutes until she could be back in her garden, knees in the soil, trowel in hand.
Hearing footsteps outside his office, Alec put on a smile and moved to greet Cordelia. But his step—and his smile—both faltered when he came face to face with her.
Alec had never seen eyes so green. Or a mouth so soft, so sweet-looking. And his palms had never gone sweaty in front of a beautiful woman before.
From the window, he’d thought she was merely pretty. But now he knew that had been a dire miscalculation. Because the undeniable truth was that she looked like a breath of fresh air on a perfect blue-sky day.
Damn it, sweaty palms were one thing. Spouting poetry was another. He was obviously more thrown off his game than he’d thought by his partner’s sudden death and the news that Gordon had a daughter.
“Cordelia.” As Alec offered her his hand, it struck him how perfectly her name suited her. Elegant and slightly old-fashioned, but beautiful nonetheless. “Thank you for coming to meet with me today. I’m Alec Sullivan, your father’s business partner.”
She hesitated for a moment before putting her hand in his. A moment that somehow felt longer than it really was—thereby affording him an even better glimpse into her stunning eyes, which were not just green, but flecked with gold all around the iris. Her breathing seemed slightly uneven as she faced him and he could see the pulse point at her neck jumping beneath her skin. Her hand was small, but strong, likely a byproduct of working all day in a garden. At the same time, her palm, her fingers, were surprisingly soft.
“He’s not my father.” Her unexpectedly fierce statement had Alec squeezing her fingers before he realized he had to let her go.
“I’ve been told in no uncertain terms that he was your father.”
Her mouth set in a line as anger—and something that looked like grief—flashed across her face. “Biologically, yes. Any other way, no.”
Alec found himself surprised yet again. Her grip and her personality were much stronger than he’d expected from his research.
Had he miscalculated his buyout offer?
No. It would be best just to get this done and over with. Not only because he had a business to run, but also because she clearly didn’t want anything to do with her birth father.
“Come on into my office and make yourself comfortable.” Their lawyers were already seated inside. He’d arranged for them all to sit on the couches rather than around the conference table, as the informality would help keep Cordelia from feeling too out of her depth. He didn’t want to frighten her. He just wanted to close the buyout deal as painlessly and quickly as possible. “Can I get you anything to drink or eat?” His office was stocked with everything from the finest champagnes to Coke, from caviar to cheese puffs. Whatever his clients wanted, they got. It was how Alec and Gordon had built the most prestigious, and the most profitable, private aviation company in the world.
“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...
