“Completely understandable.” A blessing, in fact. It would be so much easier to sit down Kendra and my parents without her parents hovering around. “Go, please. I don’t want you to be late.”
She fluffed the back of her highlighted blonde hair and smoothed down her skirt. “There’s a small buffet set out for breakfast in the dining room. Nothing much. Pastries and fruit and coffee. Kendra’s already up and out for her run. I recommend you eat the lemon poppyseed muffin before she sees it. She really needs to avoid carbs if she’s going to fit into a wedding dress.”
I followed her out to the foyer, glad she was in front of me so she couldn’t see my eye roll. “Sure thing, Leila.”
“Now you know I told you to call me Mom.”
No. Nope. I had not and would not call her any such thing. The sooner I ended this, the better. “My parents—are they up and roaming about yet?”
She paused, the front door open, and gave me a startled look. “Oh, I figured you knew. They left bright and early. Your father said something business-related came up. Probably wanted to give you lovebirds some alone time since K’s been out of town.”
More likely, he had a tee time he didn’t want to miss.
More importantly, fuck.
The conversation I needed to have with them would have to wait until I was back in the city. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Another honk from Martin prompted Leila back into motion. “Gotta run. See you two back here soon, I hope?”
“Sure. Soon.” I ushered her out the door, refusing to feel bad about breaking the woman’s heart.
Okay, I felt a little bit bad. Leila Montgomery was a decent woman, extremely kindhearted. She didn’t deserve to be snowed like she had been. My parents might be shrews with not a romantic bone in their bodies, but at least I didn’t have to lie to them about a marriage of convenience.
And though I really wanted to be, I couldn’t be mad at Kendra for not telling her parents the truth. With all the backbending I’d done in my lifetime trying to please a father who was impossible to please, I was the last person who could throw judgment on a dysfunctional parent-child relationship.
Not for the first time, I wondered what Kendra was getting out of our engagement. Besides the notoriety of being a Sebastian. For all I knew, my parents had made a side deal with her. If they had, there was no way she’d be allowed to tell me about it.
It also meant I didn’t know where her loyalties lay. If I broke things off with her before talking to my parents, she could go behind my back and tell them before I got the chance. The conversation was going to be hard enough regardless. I needed every advantage on my side if I was going to come out of this situation with minimal damage. My best chance was to hit them blind.
In other words, I couldn’t tell Kendra this marriage was off until I talked to them.
With a sigh, I watched out the foyer window as the Montgomerys’ car pulled away. So I’d have to remain engaged a little bit longer. A nuisance, but no big deal. Tess knew the truth, and that was all that mattered.
I hadn’t quite convinced myself, but with no other option, I went in pursuit of coffee. As soon as I crossed the dining room threshold, my worry drained away. It was impossible to feel anything but bliss when Tess was in the room, and there she was, fussing with the espresso machine, her back to me. Unlike me, she’d gotten a shower in, and even from behind I could tell she looked much less ragged than I did.
She must have sensed my presence because she turned then and met my eye. A sly smile played on her lips as I stalked toward her. Then, when I was practically at her side, the smile disappeared, and she swiftly turned her attention back to the coffee in front of her.
“You’re blushing,” I said.
“You can’t tell that.”
It wasn’t true. Her darker skin made it harder to tell, but not impossible. “Are you trying to tell me that you’re not?”
She tried to hide it, but even in profile, I could see the twitch of her mouth.
My cock twitched in response.
What was it about her? What was it about this woman that made me want to tear her clothes off every time she was in the same room with me? I’d been attracted to plenty of women before, but I’d always been in control. With her, I felt like I was spinning. Or rather, with her I noticed that I was spinning, that I’d always been spinning, like I was on a merry-go-round or a hamster wheel, and she was standing tall and steady on the ground, and for the first time in my life, I wanted to get off the wheel. I wanted more than the ride. I wanted to stand steady. With her.
And I wanted the dirty stuff too.
Unable to help myself, I moved behind her, caging her in, using the excuse to reach for a mug dangling on the hook above her head, though there were already plenty sitting on the sideboard. Pressing my body closer than necessary, I lowered my head and spoke low. “If you’re thinking anything like the things I’m thinking right now—the things I’m remembering—no wonder you’re blushing.”
“Scott.” It was barely a whisper. A plea filled with sexual frustration. I could practically smell the pheromones coming off her. Could swear I could hear the rapid pulse of her heart.
With more strength than I possessed, she pulled away, one hand holding on to the buffet as though she needed the anchor. Then she hit me with a half-amused glare. “Okay. I’m blushing. But also, there are people here. And you’re engaged. And I’m an idiot for overlooking that fact just because you flashed your sexy smile and your dazzling blue eyes at me.”
I set the mug I’d taken down so I could brush my knuckles along the length of her index fingers. “No one’s here. The Montgomerys went to church. My parents are gone. Kendra’s out for her run. And I’m not going to be engaged for much longer. And you are not an idiot. You’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. And did you say you think I’m sexy?”
The glare lost to the amusement. “I said your smile was sexy. And if you haven’t figured out that I think you’re sexy by now then you’re the idiot.” She reined in her smile. “But I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep lying to Kendra. It doesn’t matter that your relationship isn’t real, we have to tell her about us. I don’t even know what ‘us’ is.”
The last part was spoken with an exasperation that pulled at something foreign in my chest. I wanted to fix her. I wanted to ease her. I wanted to make her feel better.
Knowing we were pretty much alone, I took the risk and tipped her chin up toward me. “Hey. We’re figuring that out, remember?”
“I can’t introduce you to people as the guy I’m figuring things out with.”
“I don’t know. Works for me.” Her lips were plumply swollen from the night before, and God, I wanted to kiss her. I didn’t even care if it evolved to fucking, I just wanted my mouth on hers, wanted to steal her breath and give her mine.
I barely managed to restrain myself, rubbing my thumb across her bottom lip instead. The corner was turned downward into a frown. Obviously, I was doing a poor job at easing her.
I dropped my hand but stayed standing just as close. “Do you want a label? We’re mutually exclusive, more than fucking—boyfriend fits that, doesn’t it?”
“You make it sound like you’ve never been a boyfriend before.”
“I haven’t.” I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d seen the same woman more than once in a month. I’d definitely never told one I’d be exclusive.
Her brows knit like I’d said the most baffling thing she’d ever heard. “And you’re willing to be my boyfriend?”
“I want to be your boyfriend.” I hadn’t realized how much it was true until I said it. Now that I had, it sounded baffling to me as well. I’d assumed those kinds of desires didn’t grow in me. Like I was bad soil and emotions related to commitment and fidelity and devotion would never take root.
But even though it was newly bloomed, I recognized the pinch in my torso as just that—a desire to be committed and faithful and devoted to Tess. It was scarily fas
t. Inconvenient, on top of that.
And I didn’t care in the least. I wanted to be with her. “Though it sounds so juvenile. Boyfriend. What kind of a word is that? Manfriend seems more appropriate.”
“That’s not a thing.”
Her laugh made me smile. “Whatever you call me, I just want to be yours.”
“You are so fucking smooth.”
“You keep saying that, and I think you mean it as criticism, but also I think you like it.”
“I do.” Her chest rose and fell with heavy breaths, and I could tell the weight of the tension between us bore into her as deeply as it did me. “We still have to tell Kendra you’re my...you’re mine.”
“Probably best to tell her the engagement is off first.”
“Fine. Whatever. We just have to tell her ASAFP. Otherwise, this feels like cheating, and when your dick isn’t in me, it doesn’t feel like cheating in a good way.”
My pants tightened at the mention of the beast inside them. “Maybe that means I just need to have my dick in you more often.”
This time her cheeks actually got pink. “As soon as Kendra knows, then you bet.”
“Well. As I said, my parents have left. So telling Kendra will have to wait.”
A different kind of tension pulled between us. Not the sexy kind. The kind of tension that caused her body to stiffen and turned her tone hard. “Why do you have to talk to them first? This is between you and Kendra.”
I shifted so my hip rested against the sideboard. “It’s really not. It’s between me and my parents, and it’s between my parents and Kendra.”
“That makes no sense. She’s engaged to you. Not your parents.”
“I don’t know what sort of arrangement they may have made with her.” I flat out didn’t trust Kendra. It wasn’t personal. I didn’t trust anyone willing to make a deal with my parents. The fact that she was Tess’s boss only made it worse. She had the ability to mess with things Tess cared about. She could pull the DRF from the Sebastians, and I didn’t want Tess to lose that because of me.
I also didn’t want to scare her with the possibility. “It’s best if I don’t mess with it. Let my parents handle her.”
Tess took a slight step away. “Do you hear yourself? If I were her, and you didn’t come to me first, I’d be pissed.”
“You aren’t her.” The way her expression tightened told me I’d said the wrong thing. I stepped closer. “And that’s good that you’re not. This isn’t a situation you’d ever be in.”
“I can still sympathize with how she’d feel, and I’m telling you, she’d want to know.” She held my stare for several beats. “Look, if I don’t tell her, what is she going to think later when she finds out about us? She’s going to be hurt to learn I was secretly fucking her fiancé, and with every other reason she has to be mad at me, I don’t want to give her one more.”
I heard her. I did. What I heard was that she didn’t understand. How could she? It was impossible to explain the pressures of the Sebastian world. To explain the dangers and the power my father had. There were rules that had to be abided. There was a process.
Patronizing as it was, all I could give her was my experience. “Tess. You have to trust me.”
It was another wrong thing to say. Her shoulders went back, her arms crossed over her chest. “Either you tell her or I do, Scott. One way or another, Kendra needs to know.”
“Kendra needs to know what?”
At the sound of Kendra’s voice, we both took a step back from each other and turned to face the woman between us. Figuratively. She was still at the dining room doorway, swigging back expensive bottled water.
I scanned her quickly, looking for signs of how much she’d heard. It must not have been much because her posture was loose, her expression casual.
Except, during the time I studied her, she was also studying us.
“You guys are looking awfully cozy,” she said suspiciously as she came farther into the room. “What’s going on?”
“There’s lemon poppyseed,” I said, thinking quickly. “Your mother is concerned about your carb intake. Tess thinks what you eat is your business.”
Kendra shook her head. “Tess would never let me know there’s lemon poppyseed. She knows I’m an addict, and she’s a good enough friend to keep me from my vices.”
So that was a fail. If I’d been better on my game, I would have guessed. I didn’t know her well, but it wouldn’t have surprised me if that was one of the job duties Kendra expected from her assistant. Watch my diet. Count my calories. Keep me thin.
Tess didn’t try to come up with anything better. “She needs to know the truth,” she said to me with finality.
Then, before I could think of anything to stop her, she turned to Kendra. “You need to know the truth, K. Scott and I didn’t just meet last night. We knew each other before.”
Five
Tess
“Uh, you did?” Kendra’s tone suggested she was already jumping to the obvious conclusion. It wasn’t that hard to put together. She had to know the kind of guy she was marrying.
Thought she was marrying.
It would have been easy to let her fill in the blanks from there. Just as easy to tell her it hadn’t been just a one-night thing between us. That we were ongoing, and I didn’t know about her engagement; cue a pointed look at her for not thinking she should tell me. Or her fiancé, for that matter.
But Scott said trust me. And I was a sucker for those words, no matter how much my gut said otherwise. Far be it from me to choose my instincts over a boy at this point.
Besides, my relationship with her sort-of-significant other wasn’t the most crucial item on my need-to-confess list.
Careful not to shoot a glance at Scott, I met Kendra’s eyes. “We met two weeks ago. When I set up a meeting with SIC to pitch.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. We hadn’t officially met until Brett introduced us in his office. Sure, it was a technicality and belied the truth, but whatever.
And anyway, I didn’t have time to feel bad about it because now my bigger lie had been revealed, and while I sensed Scott breathing a sigh of relief at my side, I had to prepare myself for all hell to break loose.
“You what.” It was a question, of course it was a question, an request of clarification, but it came off more like a demand, hard and low in her voice.
“I, uh.” It should have been easier to say the second time. I cleared my throat. “I pitched charity partnerships to SIC.”
Her expression was cool. “Without my permission.”
“Without your permission,” I echoed.
“Behind my back.”
“Behind your back.”
“When you’ve never given a pitch before, and I explicitly told you Conscience Connect would not be pitching to Sebastian Industrial.”
“Yeah. All that.” It sounded worse laid out like that, partly because of Kendra’s even, crisp tone, but also because it was actually kind of a bad thing I’d done. I had good intentions, and good things were (hopefully) to come from it, but I’d still undermined my employer. I’d still stepped into a position I hadn’t been trained for. I’d still knowingly done something that I knew would hurt her.
“Look,” I said, admittedly wanting her to understand it in context so the bad thing I’d done wouldn’t seem quite so bad. “It happened sort of accidentally. Well, not accidentally at all, but it didn’t start with me trying to go behind your back. It was more I was in the right place at the right time—or maybe from your perspective I was just in a place at a time—but it seemed like fate because I happened to meet Brett, and I didn’t know he was a Sebastian—”
“My cousin,” Scott interjected when Kendra’s expression turned puzzled. “He works in my department.”
I jumped back in as though there’d been no interruption. “And he said his employer was looking for a charity, and I was like, oh hey, that’s what we do, and he gave me his card and set me up with his assistant, and then I asked you about it. I
asked you about SIC, and you said no, and I should have listened to you, but there was this opportunity. They were looking, and I really needed the chance to prove I could do it—for myself. Prove it for myself, and there was the door wide open with an amazing corporation, and knowing that we had a charity—a deserving charity—that would be the perfect fit, how could I not take the chance?”
I was breathless when I’d finished. And nerve-wracked. I’d always known this moment was coming, but I’d tried not to think about it, and not thinking about it had left me unprepared for how strongly I wanted Kendra to understand.
“You pushed them to the DRF,” she said, her expression unreadable but with a tone that said she knew I’d done this all for Teyana and that personal motives did not belong in these pitches, and obviously I had done it wrong, and this was exactly why she hadn’t given me the opportunity to pitch in the first place.
“I presented eight in total,” I said flatly, trying not to sound too defensive. “The DRF wasn’t even the first I pitched.”
Scott had been mostly silent until this point, but now he spoke up. “We would have picked the Dysautonomia Relief Foundation even if Tess hadn’t been so passionate about it. She was right. It was the right organization for us to partner with.”
It was embarrassing to have him witness this, but I appreciated his comment. The praise felt extra warm in Kendra’s chilly wake, and I suddenly felt it vital to clear his name. “Scott didn’t know I wasn’t there with your blessing. He had no idea I wasn’t legit.”
He met my eye, and for a moment I thought he was going to say something to try to take the blame. Then he seemed to think better of it. “I figured it out when you introduced us last night.”
It took her a second, but then she figured out how. “Because I should have known you’d already met.”
Man in Love Page 5