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At eighteen, he left the Ranch and enlisted in the Marines.
When he got out, he made the name legal, took a job at a working ranch, found he had a talent not just for horses but for understanding the relationship between capital investment and land. After that, he never thought about John Smith again—except once a year, maybe, when the day that was supposed to be the day of his birth rolled around. Tyler had learned to accept the date but he sure as hell didn’t have to celebrate it. What was there to celebrate on a birthday that might not be your own, a birthday that marked the time your mother, maybe your old man, too, had dumped you on a doorstep like a sack of garbage rather than acknowledge your existence?
“Nothing,” Tyler muttered, and reached for the half-empty champagne bottle he’d gone downstairs and snagged. “Not one damned thing.”
“Oh, dear.”
He swung around. The bathroom door was open; Adrianna stood limned by light in the opening. He had to admit, she was magnificent. All that long golden hair, the black silk nightgown barely containing her breasts and clinging to her body, touching her the way his hands would…if he let himself touch her. She stood with one long, shapely leg thrust out through the thigh-high slit in the skirt of the gown, her high-arched foot encased in a black silk slipper with a heel so high it made his blood pressure soar.
“Talking to yourself, darling?” she whispered.
She came toward him, her walk slow, her hips swinging. The scent of Chanel drifted to his nostrils; he knew from experience that she’d touched it to all her pulse points, and to the soft skin of her thighs.
Take her, his blood sang, bury yourself in her…but his brain reminded him, coldly, that taking her now would only delay the inevitable. Despite everything she’d done, she deserved better than that.
“Adrianna.” He cleared his throat, walked to the nightstand where she’d left her flute of champagne, picked it up and offered it to her. “We have to talk.”
“Talk?” She smiled, took a sip of the wine and eyed him over the delicate rim of the glass. “Seems to me we can do better than that, darling. Here I am, all ready for bed, and you’re still standing there in your suit.” She put down her glass. “I’ll help you, shall I?” Her hands went to his tie, to the first button on his shirt. “Let’s get you out of this and—”
“No.” Tyler caught hold of her wrists, drew down her hands. “Dammit, listen to me.”
“You’re hurting me, Tyler.”
He looked at his hands, saw them crushing her delicate bones. “I’m sorry,” he said stiffly, and let go of her. “Adrianna. About tonight—”
“The party.”
“Yes. Right. The party.” Only minutes ago, he’d intended to end things between them by telling her she’d had no right to make the damned party, to invade his space, to presume things about their relationship that weren’t valid, but she was looking up at him, wide-eyed, her mouth just starting to tremble. Instead of anger, he felt a quick, almost overwhelming despair. “I know that you must have gone to a lot of trouble, arranging it…”
“And you wish I hadn’t.”
“Yes. I wish you hadn’t.”
“I don’t understand.” Tears rose in her eyes, threatened to spill down her cheeks. “I only wanted to make you happy, darling.”
“I know. But—” But what? Could a man really be angry at a woman for caring about him enough to want to give him a surprise party? “But,” he said gently, “I never celebrate my birthday, Adrianna.”
“That’s just plain silly.”
“It’s fact.”
“Oh, pooh.” The tears that had threatened vanished in an instant. She smiled and put her palms flat against his chest. “We’ll change all that.”
“No.” He caught her hands again, this time being careful not to apply any pressure. “No, we won’t.”
“Of course we will. Next year—”
“There isn’t going to be a next year, Adrianna.” He let go of her, ran his fingers through his dark hair. “Look, I’m trying my damnedest not to hurt your feelings, but—”
“My feelings? My feelings? Dammit, Tyler!” Her voice rose and he looked at her in surprise. He’d never heard her speak so stridently before. “Don’t you dare patronize me. You don’t give a rat’s tail about my feelings.” She lifted her hand, poked it, hard, into his chest. “You’re just angry because I got tired of waiting for you to move our relationship on to the next phase.”
Tyler’s green eyes grew cool. “There is no next phase, Adrianna.”
“Of course there is. All this nonsense, not letting me leave some of my things here, not ever spending the whole night at my place…” Her chin rose. “Acting as if letting me know those silly gate and door codes would violate national security.”
His gaze went from cool to frigid. “I told you, right upfront, how things were going to be.”
“No commitment. No forever-after.”
“The no forever-after was your contribution.”
“Maybe so. That was the way I felt, at the time—but I changed my mind.”
“That’s not my fault, baby,” Tyler snapped. “I kept my end of the deal.”
“And you’re known for that, aren’t you? For always keeping your end of the deal. Cool-headed Tyler Kincaid, never undermined by sentiment, in business or in his dealings with women.”
Tyler puffed out a breath in exasperation. “Look, there’s no point to this. I don’t want to quarrel with you—”
“No. You just want to tell me I overstepped my bounds, that I had no right to waltz into your house, into your life.”
“Dammit!” Tyler threaded his hand through his hair again. “Look, if I’d wanted a birthday party, I’d have thrown one for myself.”
Adrianna rolled her eyes. “Good God, what a sin! Arranging a party—”
“Don’t you get it? I didn’t want a party.”
“A party to which I invited a bunch of your friends—”
“They’re not my friends.”
“Of course they are!”
“They’re people I know, that’s all. They only bother with me because of what I can give them.”
“Which is precious little, Tyler.”
Tyler’s mouth thinned. “What in hell is that supposed to mean?”
Adrianna swung away from him and stalked into the bathroom. “That magazine article the other week called you ‘brilliant.’ Figure it out for yourself.”
He strode after her, watched as she stripped off the gown, pulled a T-shirt and jeans from her nightcase and put them on.
“I’ve set up deals for half the men who were here tonight,” he growled, “and the other half wishes I would. You think that’s giving them precious little, huh?”
“Is that what you think people want from you? Deals? Money? Power?”
Tyler stared at his mistress. She was fully dressed now, still wearing those high heels. Now, strangely, they struck him not as sexy but sad.
“Look,” he said, struggling to sound calm, “it’s late. We’re both tired. I think it’s best if I drive you home.”
“I’m perfectly capable of driving myself home, thank you.”
She was, and he knew it. Tyler shrugged his shoulders, folded his arms and leaned against the wall.
“Suit yourself.”
“I intend to.” Adrianna shot him a glittering smile. “It would never have worked, Tyler. I guess I always knew that, in my heart. After a while, whenever I looked at you, I’d see the look in your eyes that says ‘Keep Out,’ and it would have killed me.”
Her words drained the anger from him.
“It isn’t you,” he said softly. “Despite anything I said, it isn’t you.”
“Sometimes…” She drew a deep breath. “Sometimes, I wonder if there’s anybody inside you, Tyler. If you feel things, like the rest of us.”
“Adrianna…”
“The thing is…” she said, with a little laugh. “The thing is, I fell in love with you. And I know you
could never fall in love with me.”
He thought of lying to her, of softening the blow, but he knew, too, that the one thing he could give her now was the truth. He reached out, tucked a strand of golden hair behind her ear.
