Tempted by Her Billionaire Boss(30)

He blinked as if he couldn't believe she'd said it. Her hands tightened  around the glass, her pulse speeding up. The moment hung in the air  between them like an irreversible stepping stone to an intimacy he  didn't know how to traverse. Then he sat back and swirled the wine in  his glass, his eyes on the ruby-red liquid. "It's both," he said  finally. "Politics is in my blood. In my family's blood...My grandfather  was a congressman, my father would have been governor had he not taken  his own life. You talked about giving back to the community on our  flight to London... I want to do that. There are so many things I want  to change, things I know I can change. But am I the right man for the  job? This isn't about what I want. It's about what this nation needs."

Frankie felt the overwhelming sense of responsibility coming off him in  waves. She couldn't imagine how he felt, but she could try. "I think the  country needs hope and vision," she said quietly. "People need someone  to believe in. I've seen you lead, Harrison. You've turned a company  that was on the verge of disappearing into one of the most powerful in  the world. You know how to do this."

He was silent for a long time then. His eyes when he looked at her held  that same darkness she'd seen that night she'd rescued him from himself.  "Sometimes too great an ambition can destroy a man."

He's worried about becoming his father. Suddenly she understood what had  been eating him that night, what had been eating him ever since he'd  signed that contract with Leonid. I am the darkness, he'd said to her  that night in Long Island, I would only drag you down there with me. He  was afraid of being consumed by the same disease that had taken his  father. And who wouldn't be?

She put her wineglass down, got up and settled herself on his lap, knees  on either side of his muscular thighs. "You are not your father," she  said, cupping his jaw in her hands. "He was sick. You are strong."         

     



 

His body tautened beneath her like a big cat ready to spring free, but  she held his gaze firm in hers. He inhaled deeply, then exhaled, a warm  rush of air brushing her cheeks. "He fell apart the night before he  announced he was running for governor. I think after what Markovic did,  the pressure was too much for him."

Her heart ripped to shreds. "He was on the verge of losing everything.  It's understandable. You, you are walking into this having conquered.  That's a whole different thing. I've watched you do superhuman things.  You do what the analysts say can't be done."

His mouth twisted. "Expectations are a bitch, Frankie."

She smiled at that. "I know all about expectations. I'd be running  Masserias right now if I'd done what everyone expected of me, and it  wouldn't have been the right road for me." She fanned her fingers over  his beautiful, tense face, so full of everyone's expectations but his  own. "Figure out if this is your dream. If it is, make it happen. If it  isn't, walk away."

He captured her fingers in his own, the depth of emotion in his dark  eyes making her heart turn over. "I'm done lecturing," she murmured,  tugging her fingers away to start undoing the top buttons of his shirt.  "Should we discuss the weather now?"

A new emotion joined the ones spiraling through his conflicted gaze.  Desire. "Only if the forecast involves all my clothes coming off," he  said roughly.

"Eventually." She dropped her mouth to his hard, muscular torso as her  fingers worked the last buttons free. He shrugged out of the shirt and  sat back. Her fingers went for his belt, sliding it free from the buckle  with industrious swiftness. Her lips and tongue made a foray down over  the hard wall of his abdomen. The muscles beneath her lips contracted  with every inch she traveled, until she reached the waistband of his  pants. His breath was faster now, his anticipation firing her blood.

"Hell, Frankie..."

She undid his pants. Slid the zipper down and released him. He was all  hers, this powerful man, and she wanted all of him. All of him.

His intake of breath drowned out the blood pounding against her  eardrums. She had never done this for him, had never done it for any  man. But he was too intoxicating to resist. She bent her head and took  him into her mouth.

He cursed and arched beneath her. She refused to let him hurry her,  taking her time exploring every musky, potent inch of him that knew how  to give her such pleasure. He was big and beautiful and she was shocked  at how much she loved touching him like this. Tasting him. It was such a  potent turn-on it threw her right into the melee with him. When his  hands bit into her biceps and he lifted her from him to rid himself of  his pants and then her of her underwear, she didn't protest. Her dress  bunched in his hands, he brought her down on him in a joining so fierce,  so complete, it stole the breath from her lungs.

"Was that enough of the angel for you?" she murmured when she finally recovered enough to meet his dark, bottomless gaze.

His eyes glittered back at her. "You are my angel," he murmured in a  gritty voice that made her heart swell. "I love how you rescue me."

She closed her eyes as his hands on her hips guided her down over him  again. "You make me crazy," he told her on a half groan. "I can't make  this last."

She dug her fingers into the hard muscle of his shoulders to tell him he  didn't need to. His fingers clutched her hips in an almost painful grip  as he took over the rhythm, driving them both to a powerful climax. It  rocked her, taking her apart from the inside.

Shivers snaked through her as he stroked his hand down her spine, his touch on her skin a sensory overload. Emotional overload.

He carried her to bed and made love to her again. Frankie thought that  finally, in the aftermath, her head on his shoulder, she had cracked the  beast. That she had found what it was inside of him that had needed to  be found. Healed. For if she hadn't, she had most certainly just sealed  her own fate.





CHAPTER THIRTEEN

THE NIGHT BEFORE Harrison confronted Anton Markovic in Washington,  Frankie's family invited them to dinner at Masserias. She was concerned,  he knew, about how tunnel-visioned he'd become in the past few days and  was attempting to distract him. It was a good attempt, her boisterous  clan loud and entertaining, but tomorrow was weighing heavily on his  mind.

He should have felt settled, confident, with everything in place. He'd  brought Siberius under the Grant fold with what looked as if it was  going to be minimal intervention from the regulators. He knew exactly  when and where he would intercept Markovic. But still the rush wasn't  coming. The bloodthirsty urge to tear the Russian from limb to limb that  had fueled so much of his adult life hadn't materialized. Instead grim  determination defined him. A desire to put a chapter of his life to  rest. To avenge the honor of his family. His father.         

     



 

Frankie's clear, perfect laughter filled the table. Salvatore was  teasing her about her taste in music. The happiness written across her  face touched something deep inside him. He knew it was she who was  changing him. She who was balancing out his extreme emotions. Every day  he spent with her he felt more whole, more at peace. She was more than  he ever could have anticipated having. Wanting. He couldn't feel numb  with Frankie in his life. She surrounded him in emotion. But having  lived so long without it, it was as if he was in the middle of a maze  with untold treasures at the end of it, but if he took a wrong turn, it  could all end in disaster.

Terrifying.

He took a sip of his Chianti. Forced himself out of his introspection.  The Masserias were a fascinating clan to watch as they interacted. He'd  never seen such a close-knit unit. Even though all of them were  different, from psychologist Federica, with her dry wit and calm  demeanor, to Salvatore, Frankie's favorite, with his aggressive, acerbic  personality, the depth of caring between the siblings was obvious. They  may not all be close-indeed Frankie had filled him in on the tensions  between the different factions-but he had the feeling they would all do  anything for one another if push came to shove. The bonds were that  strong.

A pang seared his heart. He had never had this, a family unit to support  him. Not even before his father had gotten sick. It had all been about  building the empire for Clifford Grant. About ascending in society.  Family had taken a backseat. But he did have Coburn, whom he'd once been  close with, the only warmth that had existed within the cold, formal  Grant family walls. But his brother's attempt to party and daredevil his  way out of his grief had pushed them far apart, a gap that had grown  with every year.

He took another sip of his wine and set the glass down. It was eating  away at him, had been ever since Frankie had offered that observation  about them that night at the office. He hadn't realized until then how  much he had missed his brother.