by Elise Faber
Now wasn’t that the question of the hour?
“It doesn’t matter,” she snapped.
“Like hell, it doesn’t.” Sebastian was close enough that she could smell the whiskey he’d been drinking on his breath. “You—”
“Fuck. Off,” she gritted out. “My life. My vagina. My fucking business. And it doesn’t matter because it is never happening again. Got it?”
Okay, so maybe she shouldn’t have poked him in the chest.
But, Rachel didn’t do too well with men ordering her around.
Not anymore.
He gripped her biceps, holding her still as he glared at her. “It matters because I don’t sleep with married women.”
“Congratulations,” she said, dislodging his hands. “I’ll send you a goddamned medal.”
He caught her wrist.
“Let me go.”
“We’re not done here.”
Four words that made her temper explode. Admittedly, it had already been fraying at the edges, but she’d heard that particular phrase too often over the last seven years.
Too often to ignore it. Again.
Too often to acquiesce. Again.
Too often to cower. Again.
“Let. Me. Go.” She twisted, yanking her wrist from his grasp and executing a breakaway she’d practiced repeatedly.
And then she was free.
Her anger faded almost as quickly as it had come on, transmuting to shocked awareness.
It had worked.
It had actually worked.
Sebastian lifted his hand—
Rachel might have been training in taekwondo and jujitsu for the last eighteen months, might have been working her ass off, learning how to be strong and safe and—
Eighteen months didn’t change twenty-six years.
A man lifted his hand and . . . she cringed back.
Silence. Taut and edgy and uncomfortable.
Sebastian dropped his hand and bent to meet her eyes, and she had to force herself not to recoil away from him, from that blue-gray stare that saw too much. “I wasn’t—” he began. “The tape— I was just going to fix your dress.”
She swallowed, eyes stinging now. “Yeah.”
More silence.
Her arms were aching now, and Rachel was mortified to realize they were curled next to her head, protecting her brain, her face. She’d been taught that . . . just not from her karate instructor.
She’d been trained to cover her face from her father, from her husband.
Otherwise she ended up with bruises that were difficult to explain away.
But no more. It was why she’d finally summoned the courage to leave. It was why she worked for Heather O’Keith, the biggest, baddest female CEO around. If Rachel just took one percent of what Heather did and said to heart, then she might one day find herself normal and complete.
Not the half alive being that had slipped from her Iowa home in the middle of the night with just the clothes on her back and hadn’t looked back.
“I don’t hit women.”
She forced her arms down to her sides. “I wasn’t worried you would.”
Lie.
“I—” He shook his head. “Fix your dress.”
She glanced down at the bodice of her dress, saw that fashion tape or not, she was dangerously close to a wardrobe malfunction. Sebastian averted his eyes as she tugged everything in place.
“Thanks,” Rachel said once all her body parts were safely stowed.
Her embarrassment was growing with every passing moment. She wanted to go home, wanted to get away from Sebastian, from the careful way he now looked at her.
She’d ruined all her progress with a single cringe.
How humiliating.
“I’ll squeeze those two extra days out for the bosses’ honeymoon,” he said. “You can go.”
Saw. Too. Much.
She lifted her chin. “I’m fine.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “No, you’re not.”
Rachel opened her mouth to argue. Pointlessly, since obviously, he was right. She was seriously fucked up. “I—”
He sighed. “See you at the office.”
And then he was gone, taking her pride, dignity, and confidence with him.
Another lie. Because she’d lost that particular trifecta many years before.
FOUR
SEBASTIAN
* * *
SEBASTIAN PROPPED himself on the fringes of a circle of chatting wedding guests. Close enough that he could appear to be involved in the conversation, but distant enough that no one was going to try to draw him in or force him to actually contribute to the dialogue.
He didn’t know anyone aside from Clay and Heather, and even his boss’s wife could hardly be considered more than an acquaintance at this point.
Normally, he would have made himself put on the charm, practice some of the skills he was learning and honing due to Clay’s help, but today he just wanted to be invisible for a little while longer.
Plus, he couldn’t focus on holding his own when Rachel—
There.
She emerged from the corner of the house, dress straight, expression placid.
Her stride in those sexy-as-fuck heels was steady and her smile when she reached her group of friends was wide.
Of course, it was also fake as hell.
Which he definitely shouldn’t know, but he’d seen her real smile, experienced it firsthand that night in the bar a few months before. And he remembered it because the simple quirk of her lips had elicited a very not simple response in him.
Heart pounding. Hands clenching. A yearning deep inside—
And fuck him, now he sounded like a romance novel.
But he had this hole inside of him, an aching emptiness that never seemed to be filled, no matter how hard he worked or how many contracts he snagged or how many hours he spent at the office.
He was empty.
Except that night, he’d almost felt full.
A woman with bright red hair wove her arm through Rachel’s and tugged her more firmly into their circle. Sebastian knew the woman was Cecelia Thiele—or formerly Thiele, anyway, as she had married Colin McGregor, Heather’s business partner.
He watched and waited as her friends laughed and talked a mile a minute, but he didn’t relax until Rachel joined in, finally gracing the group with a real smile.
Then he breathed.
Finally.
He slipped free of his group before heading toward the back door, ready to escape. No one was paying him any attention and it was easy to bypass the pockets of conversation, to slip inside. His neck prickled as he moved further in, becoming surrounded by the dim light of the kitchen.
He glanced back.
Lights twinkled over the deck, little pockets of bright that competed with the setting sun as it shone through the windows.
Sebastian was fully in the shadows, but the awareness didn’t leave him.
Not when he could see Rachel through those plates of glass, observe her watching the house with unmasked concern. There was no way she could see him inside since the windows were all tinted with UV reflective coating. Clay had arranged, or rather Clay had paid and Sebastian had coordinated the installation on Heather’s windows when one of their new business investments had recently perfected the process. The coating was said to reduce energy loss by almost ninety percent.
In other words, Clay had invested in another soon to be billion-dollar corporation.
The man was a fucking genius.
Rachel watched the house for nearly a minute until one of her friends said something that drew her attention back to their group.
Her gaze flicked toward the house only once more and he didn’t have to be a fucking genius to see that she was beyond relieved he hadn’t stepped back out.
Shaking his head, he headed down the hall and out the front door.
He’d go back to the office. At least he could make heads or tails of things there.
Fuck. She’d actually thought he was going to hit her. The look in her eyes as she’d cowered—pleading mixed with the purest form of fear he’d ever witnessed. And then her expression when she’d realized what she’d done. Disgust, humiliation.
As beautiful as she was, he hadn’t been able to look at her, not when she so obviously hadn’t wanted to reveal that side of her.
Not when she was so vulnerable and hating every goddamned second of it.
He’d looked away.
And now he wished he hadn’t. Why couldn’t he have told her it wasn’t her fault? That no matter what, no one should have—
He unlocked his car and slid inside. She didn’t want him to wax poetic on what was right or wrong. She certainly didn’t want him nosing further into something that was obviously so painful.
Nothing he said would change what had happened to her.
“Fuck!” he yelled and punched the steering wheel hard enough to make his hand ache. “Fucking hell,” he said, softer, after spending a minute staring out the window and trying to make sense out of the whole fucked up scenario.
She was married.
The bastard hurt her.
Sebastian had slept with a married woman.
For the first time in years, he’d felt whole. Because Rachel was gorgeous and amazing and sweet and shy and so fucking responsive. She’d been out of place in the bar—sophisticated, kind, and funny in a sea of normal. He’d considered himself so fucking lucky when she’d invited him back to her hotel room.
But then Clay had called with an emergency and he’d had to go into the office to sort it out.
It had been a doozy, a mix-up with an intern sending the wrong documents to a prospective investor and nearly torpedoing all hope of a deal. Sebastian had fired the intern then had personally flown to L.A. with the proper documents in order to rescue it.
He’d been on the plane, heading home at nearly one in the morning before he realized that he’d forgotten to leave a note.
Or find out Rachel’s name.
But he’d gone back to Bobby’s every chance he got, hoping to run into her again, hoping to make it up to her all while assuming she’d been in town for a business trip or quick vacation—hello, hotel room—and had gone back home.
Little did he know that this was Rachel’s home.
So why the hotel room?
And why hadn’t he gotten her name?
It had been a funny little joke between them, a shared smile when some pathetic excuse for a man had tried to pick her up. She’d dismissed him and he’d taken a chance by chiming in from the other side.
“Don’t worry, my name doesn’t rhyme with cock, I promise.” She’d turned and he’d nearly swallowed his tongue. Model beautiful, but skeptical eyes.
They had softened upon meeting his. “Luckily for me, mine doesn’t either.”
Then they’d spent the next hour talking about bad pickup lines in bars, favorite movies—Pride and Prejudice for her, Die Hard for him—books, and Netflix.
When she’d invited him back to her place, fuck if he’d been prepared to decline. The most beautiful woman he’d ever met, who’d kept him laughing with snarky comments about bar scenes and cheesy Netflix documentaries—Who knew that Flat Earthers were a thing?—had wanted him to leave with her.
Sebastian would have had to be stupid not to accept.
He was a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t one of them.
Rachel was incredible and . . . someone had hurt her.
He started his little Toyota, carefully navigating through the minefield of a driveway filled with Mercedes and Land Rovers and Bugattis, and pulled out onto the highway.
His rage barely contained, he forced himself to keep the pace safe, forced himself to drive carefully to the office. If there was one thing he was good at, it was control. He’d control himself for the time being, channel this fucking anger into something productive.
But he damn well was going to find out who hurt Rachel.
And then he was going to kill the son of a bitch.
FIVE
RACHEL
* * *
“HE’S GONE,” CeCe whispered.
Rachel straightened, tried to play it cool. “Who’s gone?”
One red brow raised. “The yummy slice of man meat who disappeared with you around the corner not too long ago.”
“Nothing happened.” Her cheeks felt hot even though it was the truth. Nothing had happened, that day anyway. And she also wasn’t counting her . . .
Well, she could say with all sincerity that cowering before him was much more humiliating than sleeping with the man. He might have fucked and run, but that was what she got for picking him up in a bar, no matter that she’d thought Sebastian different.
So yeah, she was going to excise the memory of her cringing before a man when she’d promised herself that she would never, ever do that again, and she was just going to pretend it hadn’t happened.
Rachel was really good at that.
“We know nothing happened,” Seraphina said, all blond and buxom and gorgeous. She was also incredibly kind and had taken Rachel under her wing in recent months, extending dinner dates and movie nights when the other girls were busy with their husbands or in Bec’s—another one of their friends—case, being too swamped with work to hang out.
“Yup,” Bec chimed in. “Lips not swollen. Hair in perfect, shiny, bouncing”—a glare from the high-powered attorney—“curls. Bitch, you’d better share your fucking secret. My frizz is real.”
“Humidity is not your friend, especially in Iowa during the summer. I had to learn fast.” Rachel forced herself to keep her tone light even though the mere mention of her home state caused her heart to pound.
She’d promised no more hiding.
Not now that the divorce was almost finalized.
“Ugh,” Bec said. “You’re so”—she swept a hand up and down—“beautiful.”
Sera snorted.
“And you,” Bec added, “have no room to talk. It’s like the two of you were vomited up from a shampoo commercial. Oh look, I’m so gorgeous and bouncy and—”
“That’s twice she’s mentioned bouncy,” CeCe said, lips twitching.
“Oh, Bec.” Sera patted her arm, affecting an overly sympathetic tone. “You’re emotional from the wedding, aren’t you? Poor thing. So many feelings.”
Bec glared. “Shut it, you.”
“That’s more like it,” CeCe said.
“What’s more like it?” Abby, their ringleader and Heather’s sister-in-law, swept into the circle with her son, Carter, on her hip. “What’d I miss?”
Sera grinned. “Bec has feelings.”
Rachel’s lips twitched and Abby couldn’t hold back her hoot of laughter. Bec narrowed her eyes at them, but then Carter reached for her and she backed up in panic.
“Oh, no.” She raised her hands up. “This is Armani. It doesn’t do babies.”
Rachel rescued her by snagging Carter as he almost leapt from Abby’s arms in an effort to get to Bec. She smiled down at him then made a silly face. “Aunty Bec is just a big ol’ scared baby, huh?” She glanced up. “They’re like cats, you know? They sense weakness and pounce.”
Abby’s hazel eyes danced with amusement. “Did you just call my son an animal?”
She pointed down at the onesie Carter was wearing. It was emblazoned with the words, “Party Animal.”
“Case in point.” Her eyes flicked back to Bec, who, speaking of pouncing, looked ready to circle around and jump back on the fact that Rachel had emerged from a shadowed corner of the deck only minutes after Sebastian.
Or maybe that was just her imagination.
Regardless, Rachel wasn’t about to let the conversation come back to her.
Down that path led madness.
Or perhaps retribution, she thought after she’d raised Carter’s arm and pointed it in Bec’s direction, saying, “Let’s go back to why Bec has feelings.”
Con
sidering the death stare her friend shot her, Rachel had a feeling that payback would very much be in her future.
THE EMAIL CAME LATE that night.
Mission accomplished.
-S
Rachel sat on the couch of her new apartment, a lovely little space just a few blocks from RoboTech’s San Francisco offices. It was above a bookstore, which if she were truly being honest, would have been enough to sell her on the place, lovely original wood floors and slightly larger than a postage stamp kitchen aside.
She even had managed to squeeze in a washer and dryer, which after living in her previous crappy apartment for almost a year, was a luxury she reveled in.
No longer would she need to haul her unmentionables down the street to the laundromat. Hell, she could wash her bras in the comfort of her pajamas with Netflix streaming in the background.
Which she’d been about to do, albeit with a much-earned glass of wine, when her inbox had pinged with a message.
Rachel had opened it immediately.
Heather might have gotten better about the sheer volume of her work hours, thanks to the addition of Clay, but she’d been a demanding boss for too long for Rachel to ever risk shutting off her phone.
Though, she should have realized that even Heather wouldn’t be emailing Rachel on her wedding night.
Smiling at the thought of Clay banning Heather from her phone instead of pondering how to respond to Sebastian, and it was Sebastian, she reasoned, seeing that the address it came from was [email protected], Rachel opened and closed the foldable stand on the back of her cell.
It popped in and out. In and out.
She wondered what Clay’s expression would be when he saw the lingerie the Sextant had picked out to kick off their married life, round two. It had even made Bec blush, and Bec was about as hard ass as they came.
Hard. Ass.
Snort.
Oh dear Lord, she was getting to be as bad as the rest of them.
And . . . none of this was helping her email reply.
She could just say, “Thanks” and leave it at that. But simple gratitude was also a little boring, and she didn’t want Sebastian to think she was boring.