No Mercy
Thea Devine
Chapter One
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Deep in the night, when plans and schemes and desires and dreams seem within the realm of possibility, what is the one thing a woman wants above everything else?
A pair of Mascolo five-inch stiletto heels digging into the prostrate body of the one man who got away.
And Regan Torrance was not immune to the allure and the attraction of a Mascolo fantasy, real or imagined, especially when the two collided in the form of The Shoes flung carelessly in the window of the exclusive east side Mascolo shop with the words On Sale in seductive gold letters across the bottom of the display.
“Ang…” she called to her former sister-in-law who was already several yards ahead of her and utterly unaware that she wasn’t following. “Ang—”
Angie stopped, turned, groaned, and started back toward Regan. “Oh, Regan, we don’t have time for—” She stopped short as she saw Regan’s expression and where she was standing. “Don’t tell me—”
“I’m telling you.” Regan shook herself. “C’mon.” She pushed open the door and stepped down into the elegant, minimally decorated shop, with its burnished mahogany wall that showcased the most outrageous and expensive shoes on elegant ledges.
“Don’t you have a Mascolo fantasy?” Regan asked, pick-ing up the shoe in question, a black satin sandal with a skyscraper heel and crisscrossed straps studded with crystals, and handing it to the discreet saleswoman. “Size seven please.”
“Yeah,” Angie said. “It’s called a bank account. I add to it every time I don’t buy a pair of Mascolos. You’re not planning to wear those things in public, are you?”
“Maybe tonight,” Regan said, sounding slightly distracted as she browsed through the several other styles that were on sale.
“Jesus. Tony’ll go nuts.”
“You think so?” The saleswoman returned with the shoes and Regan sat down, kicked off her own inch-heeled pumps, and reverently slipped them on.
“I think I don’t know how you’re going to walk in the those things.”
“Oh, it’s easy,” Regan said airily, levering herself to her feet, a little unsteadily. “You just… Just do the model walk thing.” God, she felt like she was walking on stilts. The “things” lifted her as high in the air as a crane, and putting one foot in front of the other instantly became a logistical nightmare of trying to look good while balancing on the head of a needle.
“See—?” She wobbled a little. But, Lord, they were the epitome of fuck me shoes, the kind you wore barefoot with deep red nail polish.
“Sure, I’ll just get your bustier and whip.”
“Just what I planned to wear tonight,” Regan murmured.
“Oh, yeah, Ms. All Business All The Time who never walks out of the house in anything but a suit and practical shoes?”
Regan wasn’t responding. Angie paused in her tirade and slanted her a look. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Sure am. I’ve coveted these little babies for months. And now that Tony’s finally promoted me, I’m going to celebrate for all I’m worth and dress like I’m worth it.”
“Wait till you see the bill for those things. It’ll take all you’re worth,” Angie muttered as Regan slipped off the shoes and indicated she wanted them.
“Anyone who walks in here knows the price they have to pay,” she said gently. And stumbling onto a sale was just icing on the cake, pure synchronistic luck, when she’d been considering paying full price for them. Which didn’t mitigate the fact she was still signing a charge slip for just over three hundred dollars, but what was the point of being successful if the money didn’t buy you the things you wanted?
And she was successful. Tonight was a celebration of just how far she’d come: Regan Torrance, the girl from the wrong side of town, the young ex-wife of Bobby Torrance, the now well-known media mogul and her ex-husband of seven years; and she herself, a top real estate agent, who, along with Tony Mackey, and his real estate agency, had been instrumental in developing Riverside Heights, the sleepy enclave just north of Manhattan, into the hip and happening place to live.
It didn’t take long, once the prices for a Manhattan apartment soared into the stratosphere. The Heights had apartments to spare, and undervalued and roomy homes built in the twenties. And low taxes. And an underutilized waterfront. Not to mention proximity to highways for that East Hampton weekend or that skiing vacation in Vermont. The same highways on which Bobby Torrance rode out of town seven years before, after their divorce.
A lot had changed in seven years. The Heights had become a suburb of elegant homes, roomy apartments with priceless vistas over the Hudson River, trendy restaurants, name-brand shopping, and seasonal waterfront events to take advantage of the new park and facilities that had been built under the auspices and sponsorship of the Mackey brokerage firm.
And now it was time to bring in big business, to offer them what they were finding on the other side of the Hudson—low-cost space and lower taxes—and that was to be Regan’s purview. That was what she was celebrating: increased responsibility, more money, and the excitement of the chase.
Especially more money. And the chase. She just loved the chase. There was something about getting there first and closing the deal that was as satisfying as good sex. And thank heaven for that, because there hadn’t been any good sex for a long time.
Not that there hadn’t been offers. Not that she wasn’t looking.
She shook off the thought. Not to think about that now. She took the elegant Mascolo bag from the salesperson. “Ang…”
“I’m there.”
And that was the eloquent punctuation that defined her relationship to her former sister-in-law: Angie was there, always there, never ever talking about Bobby, never taking sides, somehow keeping her brother separate from her friendship with his ex-wife, and how she’d done it all these years, Regan didn’t know. But they never talked about Bobby, and she had to assume that Angie didn’t talk to Bobby about her, either.
If Bobby ever came for a visit, Regan never knew about it. He had been discreet and invisible since the divorce. The stormy year she’d spent with him seemed, in retrospect, like a bad novel she’d read, and she’d had no contact with his family, barring Angie, in all that time.
“You have a dress to wear with those stilts?” Angie asked as they walked briskly toward the subway.
“What time am I supposed to be at Mary’s?”
“Six o’clock for drinks and hors d’oeuvres. Buffet dinner at seven-fifteenish. I think there’s a cake. You know Mary. If she can go over the top, she’ll jump the barricade.”
“She’s Tony’s sister.”
“She’d like to be your other sister-in-law,” Angie said trenchantly.
Regan knew it. It was nothing they hadn’t discussed many times before. Nothing Angie hadn’t said before, either. But tonight was tonight: the crest of a rolling wave of new money and increased interest in the Heights, and a time when they were all euphoric over annual sales, and the possibility of major expansion into the commercial market.
So Tony was thinking about other possibilities, too.
Again.
She could be certain it would come up again: the partnership, monetary and personal, the thing that rumbled through and underpinned her whole working life at the Mackey agency.
“That won’t come up tonight,” Regan said firmly, as if saying it would make it so.
“It doesn’t have to. It’s in the air all the time. The way Tony looks at you. The things he says. The way he treats you. Why don’t you just say yes?”
“I don’t know what the question is.”
“Sure you do. That’s what those shoes are about. You’re sending him a signal as clearly as if you’d issued an invitation.”
Was she? She’d made such a point about being businesslike all these years. Only on off hours or when they were entertaining clients did she dress. Only in her dreams did she wear sexy, strappy Mascolo stilettos. And not much else.
She kept her buttoned-down business life separate from her unbuttoned home life, and her fantasies were nobody’s business, not even Angie’s. And never Tony’s. Not ever. Not even in gratitude for how much she owed him. And his father. For taking in the notorious Regan Torrance and making her respectable.
Hell, this was a celebration, the dawn of a new chapter in the history of the firm. Angie was making too much of it. One impulsive pair of five-inch heels. It wasn’t unlike her. Angie didn’t have a clue what was unlike her. In fact, Mascolo shoes were exactly like her—the her that she bound up in pinstriped suits and silk blouses. The her of the slender body covered over by long jackets and knee-length skirts, and skin-toned panty hose—or black, if she were wearing black—and sensible shoes. Low key makeup and pulled back hair.
That her—the caged lioness. The one who reined in her impulses and controlled her libido, and only let it hang out in private and on rare occasions late at night.
She’d learned her lesson all those years ago, married to the possessive Bobby Torrance who wasn’t nearly as sexually mature at age twenty-four as she was at twenty. Gorgeous Bobby Torrance, in jeans and leather, big-time bad boy, born to wealth and privilege, who always got what he wanted.
And he’d wanted her—with her smoky blue eyes and tumble of midnight-black hair, her long, long legs and voluptuous body, and high-voltage sexuality that burned everyone in its orbit.
Bobby was going to teach her everything.
But she discovered too soon that Bobby was not nearly as experienced as she thought. Not nearly as knowledgeable. Not nearly enough.
Greedy Regan. Old man Torrance, deceased now, willing to buy her off to get her out of Bobby’s life. Whatever she wanted—Money? Cars? Clothes? All of that and more? A new life for her parents, still living in poverty on the wrong side of town?
Oh, he had been ruthless, the old man, and she’d gotten no end of enjoyment out of defying him.
How could she have known then that Bobby wasn’t perfect, that his jealousy was like a piston, pumping him, pushing him, driving him, and ultimately driving her away, and that their life together would nearly destroy them both?
Not the time to think about Bobby. He was long gone, off to conquer the world, and he had done it too; and the only thing she’d asked for in the divorce settlement was enough money to go to school.
“That’s not what this is about,” Regan added emphati-cally, shaking off the memories. This wasn’t the time to dwell
But if Angie thought it was about Tony’s long-suppressed desire, then likely so would Tony, and it meant that she would have to put the Mascolos in the back of her closet with the rest of her fantasies, and once again rein herself in, and come more appropriately dressed to Mary’s party.
Her party, damn it.
“I think you should go for it,” Angie said. “Put the guy out of his misery. He’s been in love with you ever since you walked in the front door seven years ago. You put him through hell during that year, and you’ve kept him dangling since, and he deserves to be rewarded.”
“What are you, his PR person or something?”
“No,” Angie said. “Just someone who wants to see you happy.”
“I’m happy. Couldn’t be happier.” Maybe a little happier? Maybe some love in her life? No. Not love. Love hurt too much. Love sapped you and drained you and left you in pain.
Only she had never found the right partner.
Bobby could have been the right partner.
No. No. She hated that she was still thinking that way. She had to wipe that thought from her mind—this instant.
“Oh, yeah, you’re dancing for joy.”
“Tonight I will be,” Regan said firmly. “Tonight is the first night of the rest of my life. Big move up, big money. Big chance to make a name for myself. There’s nothing to not be happy about. So why are you so negged out?”
Angie shrugged. She hadn’t really tried to push Tony’s cause, but every once in a while, she just couldn’t help pointing out the obvious. Not that Regan didn’t know it. Regan ignored it, and sloughed it off. As usual.
That was it as far as Regan was concerned. For today. So Angie regrouped and found a reason. “Three hundred bucks for a pair of shoes is why. You know me, I still come from New England thrift in spite of all our money. My ac-countant would have a fit if he had to pay a charge like that.”
“As opposed to the charges you run up at Nordstrom? Come on, Angie.”
“You’re having a brainstorm. This is not like you.”
“Sure it is,” Regan murmured. Angie didn’t know everything about her life, after all, nor did she know everything about Angie’s. And she didn’t even know if she was all that curious either. “It’s like enough, in any event. Maybe I’ll surprise you.”
Maybe I’ll surprise myself.
Oh, God—I don’t want to surprise myself. I just want to enjoy this. That’s all I want to do, and I don’t want to think about how it looks to Tony or to Angie or any prospective clients.
I just want to deal with how it looks to me.
Some things you couldn’t plan. Sometimes fate just stepped in and handed you the means and motive to go after what you wanted. And sometimes fate just tripped you up.
Bobby Torrance couldn’t decide which scenario was in play the day he heard that the Heights Herald was on the auction block, and that Regan had jumped feet first into the big leagues. It just shot a man’s plans all to hell, these unexpected events, didn’t give him time to react and strategize. Gave him five minutes to make choices that would immediately upend and impact his life.
But because of those two events, he’d dropped everything, taken the first plane out of Chicago, and was standing on the doorstep of the family residence in the Heights, girding himself to defend his actions about decisions that were both visceral and no-damned-body-else’s business but his own.
Nevertheless, he was here, and he thrust open the door with all the authority of the head of the house just as he heard Angie’s excited shriek behind him.
She barreled into him and wrapped her arms around him from behind. “You—you—oh, my God, what are you doing here?”
Bobby tossed his two carry-ons into the vestibule and pulled her around to envelop her in a bear hug. “Business. Where’ve you been?” He put his arm around her shoulders and guided her into the house.
“Manhattan. Shopping. What else does a Torrance heiress do?”
“Work. Contribute her talents and insights to the bottom line.”
“Yeah, you really need my crack forehand on your team.”
“Maybe I do,” Bobby said.
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning you wouldn’t have to move to Chicago. Ah, here’s Mother.” He relinquished Angie to take his mother’s hands. “The fatted son is back, Mother, so tell the chef to cook the prodigal calf in my honor.”
“And that means just what, Bobby?”
No fulsome welcomes here. His mother was suspicious of everything, bitter as poison since his father died and Bobby had taken over Torrance Media. And it wasn’t that he’d run the company to the ground: rather, he’d made more of it than his father ever had, and reversed losses and increased profits, and his mother couldn’t, for some reason, forgive him for that.
“I’m home for the moment.” Less was more where his mother was concerned.
“How many moments?”
“As long as it takes to do business, Mother.”
His mother pulled her hands from his and turned away. “I know what business, Bobby. I know just what you’re up to, and all those years you spent away from here—you never fooled me.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about, Mother.” But he was damned certain he did. She knew. She knew.
“Don’t do it, Bobby. Just don’t do it. We went through enough with it. Time won’t have made it better. She is what she is. Breeding shows. You can put her in pinstripe suits, and you can give her a corporate gold card, and all the money in the world, and at the end of the day, she’s still a slut. And she’ll make your life miserable, just like before.”
And you’ll make my life miserable, Mother—just like before.
“Appreciate the advice, Mother, but I’m just here on business.” Not a lie. He supposed Regan could be called business—unfinished business. He knew how to do spin. “I can just as soon stay at a hotel if my presence here bothers you.”
“You pay the bills,” his mother said, waving her hand listlessly. “You’ll do what you want.” She drifted off toward the library, looking fragile, ethereal, miserable.
“Bobby!”
He shook himself. There was no rescuing his mother. And at that, he’d never exerted the effort to try. He turned to Angie. “What?”
“Regan?”
He shook his head. He could deny that she was his first order of business, at least—or rather, he could, and would, lie to Angie until he had some sense of how things were. “Nope. The Heights Herald.”
Her eyes widened. “That low-rent rag? You’re kidding.”
“Not kidding. Got the lawyers making an offer right now. You’re not thinking, Ang. We’re talking about a small, weekly shopper newspaper that covers some local events, which already has a subscription list and a viable advertising base, nipping at the border of Manhattan. You don’t think there’s some value to the company there?”
“I’m not sure, what’re you thinking?”
“Oh, features editor? Office manager? What do you think you’d like to do?”
“Oh, Mother’s gonna die, Bobby. She didn’t want you within a thousand miles of New York until Regan was safely out of the way; she never forgave her for staying in town after the divorce. She hates her with all her heart.”
“Okay,” Bobby said. “And you’re her friend, and I’d bet the store you haven’t told mother a thing about that. That’s a bigger betrayal than anything I could ever do, Ang. But that’s your business. The buy is a go, and I expect to find a nice niche with distribution into Manhattan and to make big inroads into other turf. So get used to it, and think about how you’re going to help me.”
“I have been helping you,” Angie said stiffly.
There was no doubt about it: guilt worked. And he had labored under it for seven years, and the burden of knowing that his mother wanted him as close as the next room, and as far away as he could get. China wouldn’t have been too far, had there been a reason for him to have gone there.
And Angie had been the buffer, the rock, her mother’s companion, shielding her against everything unpleasant.
But old grudges died hard.
“You’re right,” he acknowledged, “you’re here with Mother when you should be having a life of your own. I owe you for that. But the fact is, I’m here to get this thing up and running and pointed south. So Mother is just going to have to deal with it.”
“And it has nothing to do with Regan?”
“It’s business and the rest is none of your business.”
“That’s what I thought. Mother’s right, isn’t she?”
“You know I haven’t seen her in years,” Bobby said softly.
“Right.” But she didn’t know anything, actually. She felt as if she didn’t know him, and that was the worst thing of all. “What does that have to do with anything?” she asked.
“Probably nothing,” Bobby said. “The topic is off the table, Ang. And I have to unpack.”
And that was that. Regan had come between them again. All these years, she’d kept them niched in separate places. It’d been easy, too, because Bobby lived in the middle of the country, and flying trips home left him no time to do any-thing but hold meetings and make sure Mother was comfortable.
Her association with Regan was barely ever mentioned— a passing question now and again, which made her think sometimes that Bobby had his own sources to provide him with information about Regan. But, then, the divorce had been so acrimonious, she thought most times she was wrong, and he was just as happy to know nothing about her at all ever again.
Bobby had made his own life, deliberately headquartered far and away from his youthful mistakes. It had worked out well, only Mother hadn’t wanted to move cross country. Mother wanted to stay, but Regan hadn’t left and nothing their father offered in settlement could move her, so Mother had suffered all these years with Regan flaunting herself around town.
And Bobby was right: Angie had snuck behind Mother’s back to maintain the relationship with Regan. Regan had been her best friend, before, during and after the marriage. You didn’t throw that away when a marriage didn’t work, or if a mother was mired in hate. That was Mother’s problem, and Bobby’s, and Angie had tried so hard to remain neutral for the benefit of both parties.
Which had been so easy when he was far away, but now Bobby was here for the foreseeable future. And he was no callow twenty-four-year-old, and Regan wasn’t the exotic and romantic twenty-year-old she had been.
Trouble. It could only mean trouble. Regan hadn’t changed in one respect over the years. She was still a man magnet, still attracting attention like a heat-seeking missile. All flash and fizzle, that was Regan. With loyal Tony invariably downrange, waiting for the right time, the right place, the right weather.
Regan wouldn’t want her past dogging her just as she was stepping up and out. She’d want to keep out of Bobby’s way. She’d run as far as those wiggly wobbly Mascolos would carry her, if she knew Bobby was back in town.
Angie was sure of it. She’d tell Tony, she thought, and Tony would tell Regan, and then he’d protect her, just as he always did.
So maybe this wasn’t such a disaster, Bobby’s return. Maybe it would be the impetus for Regan to begin valuing Tony’s unswerving friendship, and to see finally that Tony really was the man for her.
Tony wasn’t going to tell Regan anything. He put down the phone slowly, thinking about everything it meant to have Bobby Torrance back in town.
It meant everything was gone to hell. It meant a continual looming presence at a time when the last thing Regan needed was that kind of distraction. And it would be a distraction; their past would underscore everything she did, and she’d be looking for ways and means to avoid him. She’d always be conscious he was somewhere around and that would take her focus off business, and that alone could shoot everything to kingdom come.
Shit.
God, that man had the timing of a master clock maker. Of all the times for him to stage a return.
Damnit to hell.
The less Regan knew, the better. She’d find out soon enough, anyway. Which was what he told Angie. He wasn’t going to tell her. And especially not on the eve of the party celebrating her success.
Tomorrow was soon enough, he told Angie. Although he didn’t want to bet that someone wouldn’t tell her at the party tonight.
No matter: this was Regan’s night. And his. And maybe, in some small way, his father’s. His father who had taken a gorgeous out-of-her-depth twenty-one-year-old and molded her with kindness and care, and made her into the spectacular businesswoman she was.
Oh, yes, all the memories. They flooded out at the thought of Bobby Torrance. All the fights. All the jealousies.
Bobby banging at the agency door, demanding his wife back. Bobby threatening him. Bobby demanding that Regan give up her job. Bobby, Bobby, Bobby—spoiled bad boy the-world-was-his-because-he-was-rich Bobby… Possessive, entitled Bobby… who’d just swept into town after graduating from that high-powered, high toned university in Chicago, took one look at Regan, and had to have her. Had to, had to, and stopped at nothing until he’d married her.
And for several dazzling months, she’d been deliriously happy. And then it all deteriorated, first in bed, and then in their day-to-day life. First, it turned out that Regan’s needs and capabilities didn’t mesh with Bobby’s in bed. And the mother didn’t want her working. And Bobby was insanely jealous of every man she came in contact with because their private life was in such a shambles.
And then Alex came along.
Alex—mature, sexy, sympathetic, knowing, manipulative Alex… Whatever it was that was between them, it broke up the marriage like a time bomb, imploding from the inside and radiating out.
The papers were filed, the settlement was made, and Bobby tore out of town like a tornado.
And now he was back like a storm cloud, dark, ominous, hovering, ready to unleash a torrent of trouble when conditions were right.
Still rich. Still on the hunt. Still thinking he was entitled.
Men like Bobby never gave up what they thought belonged to them.
Well, Bobby had to learn what they all had learned over the years: Regan belonged to no one, and Tony had reason to know that better than anyone else.
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