Love in the Dark

by 12 Book Boxed Set (epub)

  She wore a silver, gold, and black gown that hugged her curves and caught the light as she moved. Her hair was pulled up—not in a messy knot like he’d seen before but some sort of complicated hairstyle that twisted as it wound around her head, ending up in a loosely braided bun in the back. Loose tendrils in different shades of blond fell around her face, tempting him to reach out and touch their smooth curls.

  “You look beautiful.”

  “Thank you.” She smoothed her hand down her skirt. “I went shopping yesterday with your mom.”

  He started to laugh, figuring that she was kidding. However, when she didn’t crack a smile he realized she actually had gone shopping with his mom. “How did that happen?”

  One side of her mouth twisted upward. “Let’s just say that I now understand why you find it so hard to tell your mother no.”

  Now that was something he understood all too well. “Welcome to the family.”

  Her lips fell into a straight line, and she pressed them together hard enough that a little white line appeared around them.

  Shit. He had no fucking clue what he’d done wrong, but obviously something. Then it hit him. Family. Baby. Fuck. He was a moron.

  Push forward, numb nuts.

  Taking his own advice, he held out his arm to her and kept the word count to a minimum. “Shall we?”

  Awkward didn’t begin to cover the elevator ride. Never in his life had he ever wished he’d gotten some of the skill to charm people that had gone to Hudson. Hell, right now he’d settle for not being a complete asshole. He clasped his hands together to hide their slight shake. He should not have had the second double espresso on the tail end of the twenty-four-hour flight. Not only was he jittery, his brain was a jet-lagged mess.

  “So is there any news?” he asked. He’d been gone for three days after all.

  Clover’s chin went up. Never a good sign. “You mean have I gotten my period?”

  He hadn’t, but it was too late to rephrase his question now so he nodded.

  “No,” she said and walked out of the elevator and through the lobby, the sway of her hips a thing of mesmerizing beauty as she strode across the sidewalk and slipped into the back of the Town Car as Linus held open the door.

  He managed to wait through two stoplights before the box in his pocket began to feel like a ticking bomb. He needed to do it before they got to the gala. He couldn’t explain why it had to work that way, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that his time was just about up. It was probably just the nerves and caffeine talking, but once the idea had settled into the back of his brain it was all he could think about.

  The city lights illuminated Clover’s profile as they drove down Fifty-Seventh Street, highlighting the curve of her full lips and the delicate beauty of her face. The sight robbed him of everything but the need to let the rest of the world know that she was his. Marriage may not have been part of his big-picture plan in the beginning, but it was now. And all because of Clover.

  With the Bayview Hotel looming only a few blocks ahead, he reached in his pocket and pulled out the ring box, opened it, and held it out to Clover. “I got this for you.”

  She took one look at the emerald and diamond engagement ring inside and gasped before glancing up at him.

  Steeling himself, Sawyer knew he had one shot. He had to do this right, play up that she wouldn’t be giving up her independence or her dreams. Fuck it up and he’d risk hearing a two instead of a three-letter answer.

  “I know this isn’t exactly the way either of us expected things to work out, but I think it’s for the best,” he said, his heart in his throat. “I spent a lot of time thinking while I was traveling—about you, about me, and about the two of us together. We work well together. You were amazing on the Singapore deal and you would have so much more opportunities to travel as part of Carlyle Enterprises. So even if there’s not a baby, I think we should make our fake engagement real. We make a good team.”

  A charged silence stretched between them as the Town Car pulled up to the curb in front of the hotel. The prickly cactus that settled in his stomach whenever he missed some little detail scratched against his stomach lining.

  Finally, she turned toward him completely, her face carefully neutral. “I’m a good teammate?”

  Okay, that wasn’t exactly the response he was expecting. He opened his mouth to fix whatever it was that he’d fucked up but Linus picked that moment to open the door.

  Knowing time was up but desperate to fix things, he took her hand and slipped on the engagement ring his grandfather had made for his grandmother. “I know I keep saying this but… just think about it.”

  Clover stared at the ring as she tugged her bottom lip between her teeth but kept the rest of her body completely still. Then, after a moment, she closed her eyes, clenched her teeth together tight enough to square her jaw, and let out a shaky breath. When she opened her eyes again, he couldn’t miss the glimmer of wetness in them or the bittersweet acceptance.

  “We’d better get inside,” she said before taking Linus’s outstretched hand to exit the limo.

  Sawyer got out after her and slid his hand across the small of her back, the familiar spike of lust rushing through him at the slightest feel of her, but he couldn’t shake the itching suspicion that he’d missed some detail and that while Clover might be wearing his ring, he hadn’t yet sealed the deal.

  …

  The ring felt weird on Clover’s hand—heavy, pokey, awkward—but zeroing in on that gave her something to focus on besides the stone-cold realization that she couldn’t do this any longer. Baby or no baby, tonight was it. She just wished she had it in her to at least enjoy the last few hours with him. Even if he didn’t love her, she could still have one last fantasy night pretending that he wanted her for more than a teammate.

  Teammate.

  “Quelle merde,” she said under her breath, the first inklings of indignation rising up through the hurt and disappointment.

  She grabbed the anger with both hands and held tight, relishing having something crystal clear to understand after days of emotional confusion. As far as marriage proposals went, Sawyer’s second was even worse than his first. Did he want her to be his wife or an employee with benefits? She shouldn’t be surprised, though. That’s how she fit into the big-picture plan he had of his life. It wasn’t about her—or the maybe baby—at all. Yet here she was with his hand at the small of her back and a smile pasted on her face as they made their way through the crowded ballroom at the Bayview Hotel to the table where Helene Carlyle was holding court.

  “Sawyer, welcome home.” Helene stood up and gave her son a hug before turning to Clover. “Doesn’t your bride-to-be look beautiful?”

  “She always does,” Sawyer said, sounding genuine.

  Her heart cramped because of course he was. She didn’t doubt the attraction between them, only what it meant outside of the bedroom.

  “Agreed.” Hudson leaned toward her and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial level, “May I have this dance before my mom gets her claws into you to get all the latest wedding details?”

  She laughed at the absurdity of it all, the sound coming out harsh even to her own ears. “A perfect idea.”

  The dance floor was crowded but Hudson navigated through the couples to a less crowded corner as if he’d been doing it his whole life, which he probably had. As he led them into a turn, she took a hard look at him. He was just as handsome as Sawyer only light where his brother was dark. But behind the flirtatious blue eyes and reputation as one of Harbor City’s most active players, something else was lurking. Not that it mattered. She wouldn’t be around to tease the truth out of him. Anyway, judging by the way his mouth tightened every time he glanced at the table where Sawyer and Helene sat, he had something to say.

  “You might as well get it out now,” Clover said.

  “Direct.” He gave her a curious look. “Good. That’ll help.”

  Oh. It was going to be that kind of talk. “It
always helps to speed the process along.”

  “Agreed.” He nodded and moved them on a smooth path around the other dancing couples. “Is this all still fake between you two?”

  Her steps faltered, but she recovered quickly. “What do you mean?”

  “The engagement, you two as a couple?”

  Acid gurgled in her stomach. Not trusting herself to say anything without having an emotional breakdown of a sort, she just nodded.

  “Shit.” Hudson grimaced. “And I thought I’d had it all right.” He must have seen the confusion on her face because he went on. “The job ad. I was the one who pulled your resume out of the pile. Here you were, someone who seemed flighty on the outside, but every trip you took wasn’t about just having fun. You were teaching English, helping to build businesses, and saving endangered animals. Underneath all of that adventurous spirit was a woman who wanted to do good in the world, she just needed to find her purpose. It seemed to me like you’d be the perfect match for my brother who seems all fucked up in the head about his purpose because it’s not Carlyle Enterprises—or at least that shouldn’t be the sum total of it.”

  If he’d just told her that he was actually an alien here on an undercover mission, she wouldn’t have been more surprised. “You’re part of the Marry Off Sawyer campaign?”

  “On the down low.” He grinned and spun her a little bit farther away from the other couples on the dance floor. “I couldn’t let my mom know I was helping. It would ruin my image. Didn’t you ever wonder why all of the other job applicants were bodyguard-types except for you?”

  The mental image of squashing into the only open seat between two huge guys in suits and dead-eyed expressions flashed in her mind. “I thought I was in the wrong place.”

  “And I would have put big money on the belief that you were exactly where you belonged.” Hudson sighed and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter now, though. You’ve got to put a stop to this fake engagement before it goes any further. I know it all started out as a simple thing until the Singapore deal closed, but now it’s a problem.”

  He wasn’t wrong. The truth of it shouldn’t hurt, but it did. “You mean I’m a problem.”

  Hudson offered her a kind smile. “Yes. I know my mom took you out shopping the other day. It may not seem like it at first, but she’s a woman who gets attached to people and after what happened when we lost my father…” his voice trailed off for a second. “You seem like a nice person and I hate to be such a cold bastard, but I need to put my family first. You have to break it off with Sawyer sooner rather than later.”

  “It’s…” She searched for the right word to describe the complete mess of a situation she found herself in, “complicated.”

  “And it’s only going to get more so.”

  He wasn’t wrong. Whether she was pregnant or not, she couldn’t settle for being Sawyer’s teammate. She knew it. She’d always known it, she just hadn’t wanted to admit it—even to herself. “Your mom and Sawyer think they’re the steel will in the family, but they’re wrong, aren’t they?”

  Hudson raised his broad shoulders in a noncommittal shrug as the music ended, and he began walking her back toward the table.

  Three steps in and an all-too-familiar ache started in her pelvis. Realization made her stomach drop. “If you’ll excuse me,” she said and started walking toward the bathroom just outside the ballroom doors.

  By the time she walked out ten minutes later, knowing for sure she wasn’t pregnant and unable to decide whether to be happy or sad, she wasn’t surprised to find Sawyer waiting for her in the hall. Of course, that didn’t make seeing him hurt any less. The Bayview Hotel in the middle of a gala probably wasn’t the place to do this. No. It definitely wasn’t the place to do this, but if she went back to the penthouse with him, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to walk away tonight. Or any other night. Love was a real asshole that way. It had to be now or never.

  “We need to talk—in private,” she said.

  His body tensed, but to his credit he didn’t try to pull the truth out of her right away. Instead he took her hand—the frisson of desire his touch ignited was almost a cruelty—and led her down the hall until they found an unlocked supply closet. Once inside, she shut the door and leaned against it, needing the support it offered.

  “I’m not pregnant.” She should be relieved—and she was…kind of.

  His shoulders sank. “You’re not?”

  “No.”

  Sawyer started pacing in the small room. “It doesn’t change anything.” Three steps to the shelves holding toiletries. “We’d still make a great team. We can still make this work.” He turned and took three steps in the other direction to the shelves stacked high with towels. “It just gives me more time to work kids into—”

  “Your big vision?” She finished the sentence for him, amazed that her heartbreak didn’t send her to her knees.

  “Yes.” He stopped pacing and couldn’t have looked any more satisfied if he tried.

  God, it devastated her, but she had to give him every chance to tell her she was wrong—that he wanted to stay together because he loved her. “Because we make a good team.”

  The first hint of doubt crept into his hazel eyes even as he nodded.

  She bit the inside of her cheek hard enough to keep the tears at bay if not the misery eating her up. “I don’t want to get married because I’m half of a good team. I want more than that, and so should you.”

  “But you wouldn’t have to give up traveling or adventures or feel like you’re trapped behind a white picket fence,” he said, his words coming out fast with a tinge of desperation. “The penthouse doesn’t even have a fence.”

  God she hurt, all the way down to her bone marrow. She loved him. He didn’t love her. It wasn’t enough—for either of them. Gritting her teeth to stop herself from crying, she slipped off the engagement ring and held it out to him.

  But instead of taking it, he just stood there staring as anger began to seep into his eyes. “So you’re just gonna walk away and that’s it? We’re done?”

  “Yes.” It was as much as she could say at the moment without worrying she’d break down.

  She couldn’t do a damn thing to comfort him, so she laid the ring on a low stack of towels and went back to the door—every motion as deliberate and painful as if she was walking through a frozen ocean.

  “Fine. Go,” he snarled. “The whole fake engagement was just a stupid fucking bullshit story anyway.”

  No. It wasn’t bullshit. It was heartache and pain and the best time of her life. Now she had to do the right thing for both of them even though it shredded up her insides until she was a bloody mess. They both deserved more. So she went.

  She managed to walk through the hotel and catch a cab to the penthouse where she crammed all of her stuff back into her suitcase. She left behind the fancy dresses, the expensive shoes, and the one pair of hiking boots that had actually been delivered. Australia wasn’t in the picture anymore and she couldn’t care less. Hudson was right. With all of her adventures, she’d been looking for her purpose. She still hadn’t found it, but at least now she knew she wasn’t going to do so by traveling halfway around the globe. She was done running—from her fears, from her expectations, from herself.

  The numb bubble surrounding Clover didn’t pop until she was standing outside the apartment she shared with Daphne. She tried her key but her hands shook too much to get it in the lock, so she finally gave up and rang the bell. By the time the door opened, she had a river of mascara streaming down her face.

  “Oh, honey,” Daphne said wrapping her arms around her and bringing her inside. “It’s gonna be okay.”

  But Clover knew deep in that part of her soul that couldn’t lie that it wasn’t going to be, not even close.

  …

  Three hours and three double whiskeys later, Sawyer stumbled around his penthouse ready for battle with an opponent who had already vacated the premises. Staring at the bare hangers i
n her closet next to the cocktail dresses he’d bought for her, the shoes he’d fucked her in, and the one pair of hiking boots for her trip to Australia that he hadn’t managed to hide away before she saw them, he realized that Clover’s abandonment must have been what Irving had wanted to warn him about when he brushed the man off and rushed into the elevator. A bitter taste coated his tongue as he slammed the closet door shut and stormed out of her room. Of course it wasn’t her room—not anymore.

  He took a beer from the fridge and tipped back the bottle as he tore off his bow tie and shrugged out of his jacket. Fucking monkey suit was choking him. That’s the reason why he couldn’t get a decent amount of air into his lungs to alleviate the vice grip squeezing them tight. The beer was gone by the time he lowered the bottle. Another. That would help him get rid of the pounding in his head and wipe away the memory of Clover’s face when she’d tried to hand him the engagement ring.

  He swiped another beer from the fridge and his arm protested. Fuck. Moving hurt. Breathing hurt. Thinking hurt. The only thing to do in this situation was to sit down, turn on the television, and get as drunk as possible as fast as possible until he couldn’t see the sly smirk she made when she was winning a negotiation or hear her soft moan as she came or remember the smooth silk of her skin under his fingers.

  Listing toward the living room, he grabbed a bottle of whiskey from Clover’s flea market bar cart on the way and settled onto the couch in a haze. He clicked the remote and an episode of Flea Market Flip appeared on his TV. His finger hovered over the button to change the channel but he couldn’t push it. They’d seen this one together. The older women kicked their husbands’ asses. The remote slipped from his hand and landed on the coffee table with a hard thunk.

  Watching this horrible show was like pouring rock salt into a gaping wound, but he couldn’t stop because what all the alcohol in his system couldn’t dull was the fact that Clover was gone and it was his fault. He’d missed some detail that really mattered. He’d fucked up. Now he’d pay the price.