“I thought you said his name was Ralph?”
“Technically, it is. Ralph was his given name, but he legally changed it when he was in college.”
“Why did he change it to Phoenix?” Tempest asked. Things were getting more complicated by the second. “Granted, Ralph is not the most exciting name in the world, but Phoenix?”
“My mother grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. He fell in love with her the second he laid eyes on her. Kind of the same way I fell in love with you.”
He kissed Tempest’s hand, but the expression on her face said it all. She was pissed and not even trying to hide it.
“Anyway,” Geren continued, “Momma wouldn’t have a thing to do with him. She thought he was the most arrogant man that ever walked the earth. At least, that’s how the story goes.”
“You take after him,” Tempest snidely remarked. She had thought Geren was arrogant when she first met him, too.
Geren sucked his teeth. “Very funny.”
“Finish telling me the story,” Tempest prodded.
“He tried everything to get her, from tattooing her name on his chest to serenading her in the college cafeteria. Nothing worked, so finally he changed his name.”
“To Phoenix?”
“Yeah, well, he couldn’t change it to Angelica like hers, so he did the next best thing. He changed his name to symbolize the place she was born.”
“That’s deep!”
“Want to hear something even deeper?”
“Sure!”
Geren braced himself and then blurted it out before he lost his nerve. “My father owns Phoenix Corporation.”
Tempest gawked at him. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No, not at all,” Geren said hesitantly. “All of my business trips to New York were really board meetings. My father makes me come because he believes I need to keep abreast of everything so that once he retires, I can step right into his shoes.”
Tempest didn’t say a word. She just pulled her hand away and moved as far over on the seat as possible.
“Does this change things between us?”
“Should it?” Tempest asked with a raised brow.
“I don’t know,” Geren replied. “Look at your body language, though. Obviously, it does.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me?”
Tempest waited patiently while Geren tried to concoct a viable answer, one that wouldn’t make her cuss him out.
“Because all of my life, once a woman found out about my father, she would become obsessed with getting me down the aisle so she could get my money. His money.”
“Is that what you thought of me?” Tempest rolled her eyes and looked down at her lap. “Never mind, don’t answer that.”
“Tempest—”
“No, this explains a hell of a lot. Like the conversation we had in your office about gold diggers.”
“Can I please make a comment?”
“No, but what you can do is take me home.”