even higher than the slate roof, looking as if they’d been carved by the hand of a Renaissance artist. The lot on which the mansion sat was nearly a city-state unto itself, green and glorious and landscaped with more flowering shrubs than a Spring Hill catalog.
There was rich, and then there was rich. The first was something with which Renny had a more-than-nodding acquaintance. She’d come from a long line of powerful attorneys, financiers and carpetbaggers, the first of whom had arrived in this country hundreds of years ago to capitalize on the hugely exploitable land and its even more exploitable colonists. The Twiggs who followed had adopted the tradition and run with it, fattening the family coffers more with each ensuing generation. She’d grown up in a big white Cape Cod in Greenwich, Connecticut, had donned tidy blue uniforms for tony private schools before heading off to be a Harvard legacy, and had worn a sparkly tiara—with real diamonds—for her debut eleven years ago. Renny Twigg knew what it was to be rich.
She eyed the massive structure and its imperious gardens again. Tate Hawthorne was obviously rich.
She inhaled a fortifying breath and tucked an unruly dark brown tendril back into the otherwise flawless chignon at her nape. Then she checked her lipstick in the rearview mirror, breathed into her hand to ensure that there were no lingering traces of her breakfast burrito and smoothed a hand over her tan linen suit. Yep. She was perfectly acceptable for her meeting with the man her employer had assigned her to locate. So go ahead, Renny. What are you waiting for?
She eyed the massive mansion again. What she was waiting for was to see if a dragon would come swooping down from one of those turrets to carry her off for his own breakfast. In spite of the colorful landscaping and bright blue summer sky that framed it, the place just had that look about it. As if its owner were some brooding, overbearing Rochester who might very well lock her away in his attic.
Oh, stop it, she told herself. Tate Hawthorne was one of Chicago’s savviest investors by day and one of its most notorious playboys by night. From what she’d learned of him, the only thing he dedicated more time to than making money was spending it. Mostly on fast, lustrous cars and fast, leggy redheads. Renny was five foot three in her kitten heels and had driven up in a rented Buick. She was the last kind of woman a man like him would want to stash away for nefarious purposes.
Even if his origins were pretty freakin’ nefarious.
She opened the car door and stepped out onto the cobbled drive. Although it was only June, the heat was oppressive. She hurried to the front door, rehearsing in her head one last time the most tactful way to relay all the news she had for Tate Hawthorne.
Like how he wasn’t really Tate Hawthorne.
Renny’s employer, Tarrant, Fiver & Twigg—though the Twigg in the name was her father, not her—was a law firm that went by many descriptions. Probate researchers. Estate detectives. Heir hunters. Their services were enlisted by the state of New York when someone died without a will and no next of kin was known or when the next of kin was known but his or her whereabouts were not.
That second option had brought her to Highland Park, a suburb of Chicago for people who were rich. Bennett Tarrant, president and senior probate researcher, had given the job to Renny because she always found the heir she was looking for. Well, except for that one time. And also because she was the only probate researcher available at the time who didn’t have anything on her plate that couldn’t be scraped off with a quick fork to the archives room. For lack of a better analogy. That breakfast burrito had, after all, been hours ago.
And although he hadn’t said so specifically, she was pretty sure another reason Bennett had assigned her the job was to offer her a chance to redeem herself for that one time she hadn’t been able to find the heir she was looking for. Locating someone who would be extremely hard to locate—like Tate Hawthorne—and doing so without screwing it up would make Renny a shoo-in for the promotion that had been eluding her, something that would make her father very proud. Not to mention make him stop looking at her as if she were a complete screwup.
In the meantime, Renny was proud of herself. It took skill and talent to find someone who had been buried in the federal Witness Protection Program along with the rest of his immediate family nearly three decades ago. Well, it took those things and also a friend from high school who had mad hacking skills and could find anything—or anyone—on the internet. But that was beside the point. The point was Renny had found the heir she was looking for, thanks to said friend. Which would, she hoped, put her back on the fast track at Tarrant, Fiver & Twigg and get her father off her back for that one tiny blip that had changed the company’s 100% find rate to a 99.9999% find rate, and jeez, Dad, it wasn’t like she’d lost that one on purpose, so just give her a break. Man.
She rang the doorbell and fanned herself with her portfolio as she waited for a response, since, judging by the size of the house, it could be days before anyone made their way to the front door. So she was surprised to be caught midfan when the door opened almost immediately. Thankfully, it wasn’t Tate Hawthorne who answered. It was a liveried butler, who looked to be about the same age as one of the founding fathers. If the founding fathers were still alive, she meant.
“Good morning,” Thomas Jefferson greeted her. “Miss Twigg, I presume?”
She nodded. She had contacted Tate Hawthorne earlier this week—or, rather, she had contacted his assistant Aurora, who, Renny hadn’t been able to help thinking, sounded like a fast, leggy redhead—and set up a meeting with him for the only fifteen minutes the guy seemed to have available for the entire month of June. And that was only because, Aurora had told her, he could cut short by a teensy bit his preparation for his regular Saturday polo match.
“Hello,” Renny replied. “I’m sorry to be a bit early. I was hoping Mr. Hawthorne might be able to squeeze in another ten or fifteen minutes for our meeting. What I have to tell him is kind of—” life changing was the phrase that came to mind, but it sounded a little melodramatic “—important. What I have to tell Mr. Hawthorne is kind of important.” And also life changing.
“All of Mr. Hawthorne’s meetings are important,” Thomas Jefferson said indulgently.
Of course they were. Hence his having only fifteen minutes in the entire month of June for Renny. “Nevertheless,” she began.
“It’s all right, Madison,” a booming baritone interrupted her.
Renny gazed past the butler at a man who had appeared behind him and who had to be Tate Hawthorne. She knew that, because he looked really, really rich.
His sable hair was cropped short, his skin was sun burnished to the color of a gold doubloon and his gray eyes shone like platinum. He was dressed in a polo uniform—equestrian, not water, unfortunately, because a body like his would have seriously rocked a Speedo—in hues of more precious materials, from the coppery shirt to the chocolate-truffle jodhpurs, to the front-zipper mahogany boots that climbed up over his knees with their protective padding. All of it skintight over taut thighs, a sinewy torso, salient biceps and shoulders broader than the Brooklyn Bridge. It was all Renny could do to not drool.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t as lucky in keeping herself from greeting him less than professionally. “Hiya.” Immediately, she realized her loss of composure and pheromones and amended, “I mean...hello, Mr. Hawthorne.”
“Hello yourself, Ms...” He halted. “I’m sorry. Aurora included your name with the appointment, but I’ve been working on something else this morning, and it’s slipped my mind. And, well...you are a bit early.”
He seemed genuinely contrite that he was at a loss for her name, something for which Renny had to give him credit. Not just because he was being so polite about her having impinged on his time after being told he didn’t have much to spare, but because, in her experience, most high-powered business types didn’t feel contrite about anything, least of all forgetting the name of a junior associate from a law firm they never had dealings with.
Madison the butler moved aside, and she murmured her thanks as she stepped past him into the foyer. She withdrew a business card from inside her jacket and extended it toward Tate Hawthorne.