The Heartbreaker

by Cat Carmine

  I grab her other arm, my fingers digging into her flesh, and pull her towards me. She tumbles against my chest. Her breath hitches.

  Mine does, too. “Let’s go,” I growl, tugging her not so-gently towards the door. I give Bentley a nod, then pull Blake back to the elevator. I don’t say a word to her. Not in the elevator, not when we walk through the store, not when I throw open the door of my car and watch her slide in. I jog around to the other side and climb in beside her. I tap once on the glass, letting my driver know we’re done.

  Blake hasn’t said anything. She doesn’t look quite as terrified as she did when I first walked into the security room, but she doesn’t look totally sure of herself, either. As the car pulls back into traffic, she turns to me.

  “I can explain everything,” she blurts.

  “I’m not interested in explanations.”

  “Right.” Her mouth snaps closed, and now she looks concerned again. She gnaws at her bottom lip, and my eyes are drawn to the motion, to the way her teeth press into her perfect pink pout. Despite her ordeal, her lips are still glossed, and I can tell by her eyes that she hasn’t shed a single tear. Most women would be a sobbing mess right now, but Blake looks mildly nervous at best.

  I decide to take the opportunity to make her sweat a little. Why not? She’s been making me sweat since she first walked into my office. “What the hell were you thinking?”

  “I was thinking about what to get your mother for a birthday gift,” she retorts. “And for your information, I had a great idea. That’s why I was rushing out. Except I forgot I was holding those stupid gloves, and I accidentally kind of, sort of, maybe walked out of the store with them.”

  “Kind of, sort of, maybe?”

  She juts her chin out. “Fine. I did walk out with them. Happy?”

  “Not really, no. When you’re out doing an errand for me, I expect you to be professional. At the very least, I expect you to obey the rule of law.”

  “I wasn’t breaking the law,” she pouts, and I actually almost laugh. When was the last time I did that?

  “Blake, you literally stole a pair of gloves. That’s the very definition of breaking the law.”

  “Not if it was an accident.”

  “Not a defense,” I point out. “At least as far as the courts are concerned.”

  She rolls her eyes, as if the law doesn’t apply to her. Hell, maybe it doesn’t.

  In the time we’ve been talking, the space between us seems to have shrunk. I can see her chest rising and falling under the white button-down shirt she’s wearing. The one I’ve been daydreaming of peeling off her shoulders ever since she first walked into the office this morning. An entire half day of resisting her has worn down my defenses. Without thinking, I let my fingers trail up the line of buttons, starting at the waist of her skirt and moving up, until my thumb is stroking the soft hollow of her throat.

  Blake sucks in a breath, and the way her lips part destroys the last bit of inner strength I might have possessed. My hand slides from her throat to her hair, and I pull her roughly to me. I expect her to react in surprise, but instead she launches herself into my arms, like she’s been waiting for just this invitation.

  I kiss her. God damn, do I kiss her. I kiss her like I’ve never kissed anyone. I kiss her like she’s air and I’m a drowning man. And I am. I’ve been drowning for years now.

  Blake’s lips are the softest lips. Her taste is the sweetest taste. Everything about her is fucking perfect.

  And I destroy her.

  I kiss her like I want to break her. Like I’m going to break her.

  In that moment, I want to ruin her. I want to destroy everything about her that’s pretty and sweet and innocent.

  Except ... Blake doesn’t fold. Not under the weight of my kiss, not under the rough thread of my fingers through her hair. She pushes right back. She takes everything I give her, and she transforms it somehow, into something just as pure and sweet as she is.

  I pull away from the kiss, breathless and knowing only one thing for certain.

  I will sleep with Blake Holloway, no matter what my board might have to say about it.

  Eight

  I pull away from the kiss, breathless and knowing only one thing for certain.

  I will not sleep with Logan Cartwright, no matter what my body might have to say about it.

  Without thinking, I touch my fingers to my lips. They feel tender and bruised and tingly. Logan watches me do it, his eyes dark and fiery. Predatory, almost. I’m reminded again of the lion, a wild animal caged in the backseat of a Cadillac Escalade.

  “I’m sorry,” I mutter. I hate how breathless I sound. I don’t know why I’m apologizing, either. After all, he’s the one who kissed me. “That should not have happened.”

  “Hmm,” is all he says.

  “Hmm?” I repeat. “Is that it?”

  This time, he doesn’t say anything at all. He’s still got those dark irises trained on me. My body feels drawn towards him. Pulled. Instead, I scoot over closer to the door, practically clinging to the handle, waiting to leap out of the vehicle the second it stops moving. Maybe even a little before.

  Logan is still watching me. He leans back casually, angling his body towards me, studying me. Now I’m the one who feels like a caged animal. I feel like prey.

  The car finally crests to a stop in front of the Cartwright building, and I’m out the door quicker than a slung arrow.

  “Bathroom emergency,” I call out over my shoulder as I rush into the building. Great cover, Blake. That definitely didn’t make this situation any more awkward than it already is.

  I don’t look to see if Logan is following me. Of course, he is, because this is his building, and where would he be going besides his office? My only goal is to make it to the elevator before he does so that I don’t have to ride up thirty floors with the man who looks like he wants to devour me.

  It works. I hit the elevator bank just as a door is sliding closed. I launch myself through the sliver of an opening and sigh in relief as the doors slide tightly closed behind me.

  My relief is, unsurprisingly, short lived. I’m not at my desk for five minutes before Logan re-appears. I obviously didn’t think this plan through. I doubt I’ve even lost the redness in my cheeks yet, or the hitch in my breath.

  “I hope your bathroom emergency has been resolved,” he says slowly. He isn’t smiling, but I can tell he’s making fun of me.

  “Yup. All good.”

  “I’m ... relieved ... to hear it.”

  It takes me a second, and then a grin stretches over my lips, even though I wish it wouldn’t. “Did you just make a joke?”

  “I am capable of them, you know.”

  “I wasn’t sure.”

  “Now you know.”

  He continues to stand there. I look up at him and get lost in those dark blue eyes again. Goddammit. My mind immediately goes back to the moment in the car — the moment right before he kissed me. God, the way he looked at me. The way my whole body went rubbery. The way everything inside me hummed with anticipation as he leaned towards me...

  “Well?” Logan says, snapping me back into the present.

  “Well what?” I huff.

  “My mother’s gift,” he says. He sounds impatient. I get whiplash trying to keep up with this man’s mood swings. Hot and then cold and then oh so hot again. Now we’re back to cold, I see.

  “What about it?”

  “You said you’d picked out something other than the gloves. Let’s see it.”

  “Oh. That. I don’t exactly have it yet.”

  Logan’s eyes narrow. “Where is it?”

  “It needs to be assembled.”

  His brow furrows even more deeply, if that’s possible. Unfortunately, it does nothing to diminish his attractiveness. In fact, the man somehow looks even hotter when he’s mad and-or slightly confused.

  “Just leave it to me,” I assure him. “I promise I’ll have it by the end of the day.”

&
nbsp; He hesitates, but, to his credit, only for a second. He gives me a quick nod. “Alright. You have until the end of the day.”

  “I promise I won’t disappoint you.” There’s a slight note of sarcasm in my voice, which I really should do a better job of tamping down, especially considering the man just had to bail me out of Barneys’ jail.

  Luckily, there’s a slight twinkle in his eye. He doesn’t smile, of course. But there’s a twinkle. “Good,” he finally says, with one curt nod. “I’ll expect you back before five.”

  He turns on his heel, just as I realize I still need one thing from him.

  “Oh, hold on.”

  He turns abruptly. There go the eyebrows again. I swear they have a mind of their own.

  I grab a pad of Cartwright Diamonds notepaper off my desk and click open a pen. “What’s your mother’s name? Full name, I mean.”

  The eyebrows are deepening into impossible directions now. “Why?”

  “For the gift.”

  “Are you … signing her up for something?”

  “Not exactly.”

  Logan scrubs his face, as if he isn’t quite sure what to make of this. Or of me. Finally, his shoulders drop half an inch, and I know he’s decided to let it go. “Eleanor. Eleanor Rose Cartwright.”

  “Thanks. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

  “I look forward to it,” he says, but before I’m fully out of earshot, I hear him mutter, “I think.”

  Almost exactly two hours later, I have everything sorted. But by the time I get back to the office, I’m starting to doubt my plan. What if he thinks this is totally corny? Despite what Emma said about Logan’s mother wanting something personal from her son, I’m sure the woman is expecting a pricey piece of jewelry or, I don’t know, a new solid gold tea kettle or something. Whatever rich old ladies like.

  I clutch the bag nervously and head over to Logan’s office. Part of me is praying that it’ll be like last time, and he’ll have already left for the day. Yet an undeniable part of me is anxious to see him again. Yes, it’s a tiny, traitorous little part of me, but it’s there. I feel it in every click of my heels across the lacquered office floor.

  When I get to his door, I find him sitting behind his desk, deeply focused on a stack of papers in front of him. For a second, I just stand there, watching the way he works with such concentration, such single-minded efficiency. He doesn’t see me standing there or even sense my presence, and I let the minute stretch out longer than I should. There’s something about him that’s so mesmerizing. It’s hard to look away. My eyes are drawn to him, like he’s a great artwork or a natural wonder.

  “What can I do for you, Blake?” he asks, after another long minute.

  I snap to attention. He still hasn’t looked up, and now I wonder if he knew I was standing there the entire time.

  “Sorry.” I clear my throat. “I, um, have the gift ready if you want to see it.”

  He doesn’t answer or even look up, just reaches his hand out in the universal ‘gimme’ gesture. I loop the handle of the bag over his hand, careful not to let my skin touch his. I watch as his fingers close around the bag, straining at the weight of it. He looks up in surprise, and then down at the bag.

  It’s almost funny, watching the genuine curiosity that comes over his face as he reaches into the bag. Or at least, it would be, if I wasn’t so worried that he’s going to hate it.

  Logan pulls the heavy frame out of the bag. He studies it for a minute. My pulse pounds in my throat, almost as hard as it did when he kissed me in the car earlier. If possible, I feel even more terrified than I did then.

  Logan blinks. Once. Twice. His jaw ticks. He looks at me and then down at the frame and then back at me. A wave of bile starts to claw its way up my throat. He hates it. He thinks it’s stupid. God, Blake, what were you thinking? Of course a woman like Logan’s mother isn’t going to be happy with something this corny. Oh, and don’t forget cheap.

  But when Logan looks at me again, there’s a softness in his expression. “This is magnificent,” he says, finally.

  My face twists into a wonky smile-that’s-trying-not-to-be. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “I did good?”

  “You did good, Blake.”

  “Thanks.”

  He doesn’t say anything else, just turns to look at the frame again. I stay standing at the door, until I realize he has nothing else to say to me. I turn to go.

  “Blake?”

  The sound of his voice twists something in my stomach. Something that feels altogether too light and fluttery. “Yes?”

  He’s put the frame back in the bag and is now holding it out to me. His gaze has already returned to the laptop. “I’ll need this gift-wrapped, of course.”

  “Of course,” I say, biting back something that’s half a laugh, half a silent scream.

  Nine

  The restaurant is dim. Too dim. I haven’t even found my family’s table yet, and in my mind I can already hear my mother complaining about how she can’t read the menu, and don’t these places have any respect for the elderly.

  Not that, at sixty, my mother is exactly an old crone. She still sports Chanel suits and keeps her chin-length hair a light brown that comes from a bottle and gets reapplied every four weeks, like clockwork. My mother likes to say that she doesn’t just have a hairdresser, she has an Antonio. If the man wasn’t as gay as the day is long, I’m sure she would have hit on him by now. Actually, knowing my mother and her somewhat naive character assessment abilities, she probably already has hit on him. Not that it would ever lead anywhere, even aside from the gay thing — ever since my father died, my mother’s found her fulfillment in other areas of her life. Namely, her two grandkids and her various charities and redoing our vacation house in the Hamptons for the eighteenth time.

  As I make my way towards the back of the restaurant, I spot my family easily. Mostly because my four-year-old niece, Daisy, is wearing a huge pair of sparkly butterfly wings that protrude back behind the chair she’s sitting in. I sneak up behind her, scoop her out of her seat, and plant a loud smacking kiss on each of her cheeks. She squeals and then giggles loudly, drawing the glowering attention of the people at the next table over. I ignore them. Let them complain. I could afford to empty out this entire restaurant if I chose to.

  “I’m a butterfly, Uncle Logan!” Daisy shrieks, turning and showing off her wings when I finally set her back down.

  “So I see. And a very pretty one, at that.”

  Daisy flushes with pleasure as I make my way around the table, ruffling Jack’s hair and giving my sister Heather and her husband Tim a warm hug before turning to the woman of the hour. “Happy birthday, Mother.”

  “Oh, thank you, dear, but you know, it’s just another day for me.”

  Heather and I exchange a look, and I bite back a smile. She says that now, but if we’d forgotten her birthday, there’d have been twelve months and seventeen varieties of hell to pay.

  I pass the gift bag over to her as she demurs. “Oh, Logan, you shouldn’t have.” My gaze flicks over to Heather again, and she snorts.

  “I know, but I wanted to.” I plant a kiss on her cheek.

  My mother adds the bag to the pile on the empty chair next to her. I can also make out a nicely wrapped box that looks like it must be from Heather and Tim — judging by the size and shape, I’m going to guess sweater — and a couple of brightly, if clumsily, wrapped boxes that have to be from the kids.

  We slip easily into conversation. We cover the same ground we always do — Tim asks about the business, and I give him the highlights, then ask him about his award nomination; Mom and Heather chat about what the kids have been up to lately; Daisy and Jack alternate between giggling and bickering. It should be boring, but there’s something oddly comforting about the familiarity of it. I spend my whole life working on impressing people. Terrorizing them, even. But here I can just be myself. Just be Logan. Sometimes, I think that if I didn’t have
my family, I’d forget who that even is.

  Tonight, though, I struggle to keep up with the conversation. I lose my train of thought while I’m talking to Tim, and find myself staring off into space instead of finishing a thought about the impact of new tariffs on the diamond industry. My eyes glaze over when Daisy sings her new made-up song about butterflies — I only catch the part about them flapping their wing-a-ling-a-ding-dongs, which makes Tim snort. I even zone out when my mother asks me a question. She has to touch my hand before I come back to the present, blinking at the dimness of the restaurant.

  And the reason for my distraction? One guess.

  Blake Holloway.

  Ever since I kissed her in my car yesterday, she’s been all I can think about. Her lips. Her hair. Her taste. Her smell. Her softness. Every fucking thing about her has me captivated. Maybe it’s the fact that I can’t have any of it. That I can’t have her. That I was never even supposed to hire her in the first place. Now, she’s in my thoughts like an invasive species, taking over everything that once used to thrive there.

  “I asked if you’d seen Ed lately.”

  Fuck. Ed. My mother’s question jolts me out of my thoughts of Blake and straight to the heart of my problem.

  “Yes, yes, I saw him recently. We’re going to have dinner soon.”

  “Oh, good. He thinks so highly of you, you know.”

  I grunt. I still haven’t forgotten about that stupid drawing that Blake found in the quarterly report. The one that could have tanked my career, or at least seriously undermined my credibility with the board. Makes me wonder if Ed knew something more than he was letting on the other day. It certainly makes his visit seem a little more prescient. I make a mental note to set up that dinner with him sooner rather than later.

  “…and he’s really been so good to our family, don’t you think?”

  I realize my mother is still talking. About Ed, I think. I nod vaguely. “Yeah, of course. Definitely.”

  My mother folds her napkin in satisfaction. I have no idea what I just agreed with her on, but I’m just going to go with it.