by Lucy Monroe
“Kayla, stop it. I don’t know what has gotten into you—”
The low beep that indicated the call had been ended interrupted Andreas. Damn it. She should know he wouldn’t sell the company without an after plan for both of them.
He hadn’t expected her to want to go into venture capitalism herself, not really, but she was brilliant at computer code and not just that related to security. Kayla would be a stellar value add as an adviser and contributor of modified or original programming for any company he might be interested in investing in.
Once she calmed down, she’d see that.
Until then, he should probably make sure she got both “I’m sorry” éclairs and coffee from her favorite bistro in the morning.
He’d drop them off on his way to work. Maybe he should reorganize his morning so they could spend a couple of hours together.
They hadn’t had off time together in a while.
It was just that spending time with her away from work came with temptations he had to fight. The uncontrollable passion they’d once shared had to be kept locked up tight. That kind of attraction didn’t lead to anything good. It was exactly what had been his mother’s downfall and the reason his father, whom even Andreas could acknowledge was generally an honest, if bullheaded man, had an illicit affair.
Keeping their past firmly in the past should have grown easier as the years progressed, but the opposite was true. Andreas found himself admiring Kayla in a very personal, very sexual way at the least convenient times.
But he could not allow his own weakness to damage their friendship. He’d worked too hard to find a place in his life for her more permanent that bed partner.
* * *
Kayla turned on her phone as she stepped off the commercial flight into the tunnel leading to the JFK airport. One long beep indicated multiple text messages and another different tone told her she had at least one voice mail.
She looked for someplace to step out of the flow of busy foot traffic and spied an area set aside for business travelers to work. Making her way across the wide hallway, Kayla barely missed bumping into a woman pushing a stroller at a faster clip than Kayla usually jogged.
A man in sweats and sandals bumped into Kayla, knocking her right against a wall. She waved away his hurried apologies, more bothered by the idea of having to talk to a stranger than the sore spot on her shoulder from hitting the wall.
Kayla hated traveling alone and missed Andreas’s commanding presence that always seemed to create an opening, no matter how many people crowded the walkways. The traitor.
Kayla’s phone buzzed as she reached the relative safety of the business area. She grabbed it and was relieved to see Hawk Security. She’d emailed Sebastian Hawk the night before, but hadn’t heard back and wasn’t even sure he’d be able to work her into his schedule.
Kayla answered quickly. “Hello.”
“Miss Jones?” a female voice asked.
“Yes, this is Kayla Jones.”
“I’m calling for Sebastian Hawk.”
Her gut clenched with both hope and trepidation. “Yes?”
After telling the secretary that Kayla was in New York now, she learned Sebastian Hawk wasn’t, but was expected back that night. And while he always spent his first day back from any business trip with his family, he could fit her in for a lunchtime meeting the day after.
“That would be great.” She made no effort to curb the enthusiasm she felt from showing in her voice. She was grateful and she let it show. Her home was on the line and even if Sebastian Hawk didn’t know it, Kayla did.
“If you’ll give me your email address, I’ll send you the calendar invite.”
“Thank you.” Kayla recited her particulars, thinking Sebastian Hawk’s secretary might actually be as organized as Bradley.
Kayla ended the call and looked around the airport, wondering what she was going to do with two days of no work and for the first time in six years. Deciding to check her other messages, she discovered that Andreas had texted her multiple times. Bradley had texted her twice and there were three voice mails. At least one of those was from someone besides Bradley and Andreas.
Kayla listened to the voice mail from the project lead on the revamp of their school security software. Ten seconds into the message, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to laugh or cry.
Not that Kayla cried anymore. Crying never changed anything and it gave her a headache.
Her project lead was calling on behalf of Bradley, who was basically begging her to save his sanity by calling Andreas.
Kayla shook her head, but she dialed Andreas’s private number.
He picked up on the first ring. “Where the hell are you?” His voice boomed across the line, laced with a heavy dose of worry.
“I told you I was taking the day off.”
“You weren’t home this morning when I stopped by.”
“So? Maybe I spent the night in someone else’s bed.” She wasn’t sure why she said it, but she didn’t regret the words.
Dead silence met her words and Kayla even checked her phone to make sure the call hadn’t dropped.
“Andreas?” she finally prompted.
“You don’t sleep with strangers. Hell, you don’t even talk to them.”
“Casual sex doesn’t require a long conversation.”
“You would know this how?” he demanded.
“You sound like a jealous lover.” And while they might have been lovers at one time, he’d never been jealous.
He’d been very careful to explain that while he expected monogamy, it wasn’t because they were in a romantic relationship. It had been a matter of health safety.
“I sound like a concerned friend.”
“I’m an adult.”
“Who won’t tell me where you are.”
“You don’t need to know my every move.”
“You are being obstinate.”
“I’m—” was all she could get out before Andreas interrupted her.
“What the hell are you doing in New York?”
“How do you know where I am?”
“I used the locator function on your phone.” Which he hadn’t been able to do while she’d had it off on the plane.
“I didn’t give you the code so you could track me like an errant child.”
“I did no such thing.”
“What would you call it?”
“A concerned friend and business partner.”
“Well, now you know where I am.”
“But not why you are there.”
“Why do you think, Andreas?”
“You’re meeting with Hawk?”
“Yes.”
“But he’s out of country.”
“Until tonight.”
“You only took one day off.”
“I’ll be taking the rest of the week off.”
“What? You can’t do that!” The genuine shock in Andreas’s voice was laughable.
The fact he was shouting would have alarmed her if she wasn’t numb. “In fact, I can.”
“You never have before.”
“There’s a first time for everything.”
“What are you going to do with Hawk out of town?”
“Whatever I want. I’m taking a page out of your book.”
“I don’t take time off without notice.”
“You’re selling the company, that’s the biggest abandonment I can think of.”
“I’m not abandoning anything. Part of the purchase agreement between Hawk and myself is a guarantee of employment for the current employees, provided their performance continues to meet expectations.”
“How nice.”
“You didn’t need to meet with him to confirm that,” he said, sounding hurt.
“I’m not meeting with Hawk to make sure the other employees have jobs on the other side of this buyout.”
“Then why are you meeting him?”
“To make plans for my future.”
“I already ha
ve plans for your future!”
“How interesting, since you haven’t brought any up to me.”
“I did. I want you to go into business with me again.”
“No.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do.” She’d never meant anything more.
He must have heard the conviction in her voice, because Andreas didn’t come back with an instant rejoinder.
“You’ve made plans for your future and your bride pimp is so right. They are not my business, but my future and the plans I make for it are mine.”
“She was wrong.”
“Maybe you should have told her that and I would believe you.”
“I do not lie.”
“You just keep things from me. Important things.”
“I told you, I was going to talk to you about it.”
“If my opinion, much less my feelings, mattered, you would have talked to me before you talked to Sebastian Hawk.” Before he hired Genevieve.
“Is that why you insist on meeting with him? Paying me back?”
“I’m not that petty. This is about my survival.” As the words came out of her mouth, she realized how very true they were.
Andreas wouldn’t understand. As hard as it had been to lose his mother, as much as he despised his father’s hypocrisies, Andreas had never been without a home to call his own. He had not been a three-year-old little girl left in the bathroom of a truck stop. He didn’t know what it was to have his entire world ripped out from under his feet, not once, but twice before reaching the age of eighteen.
If he did, he wouldn’t be selling the company that gave Kayla her first sense of belonging and security since the death of the foster mother who had coaxed Kayla back to speech.
“I would not leave you without resources. Have I not proven that to you?”
“No. You’ve pretty much proved the opposite, Andreas.” Pain coalesced in her throat, making it tight.
But she would not cry.
“No, Kayla...that is not what this is about.”
“I have to go, Andreas.”
“To do what?”
“Get a clue, Mr. Almighty Kostas. My life is none of your business anymore.”
“Why? What is really going on here?”
“I’m dumping a relationship that is toxic to me.”
“I am not toxic. I am your friend.”
She couldn’t take another word, not without losing it, and she hadn’t lost control of her emotions in years.
“Goodbye, Andreas.”
She ended the call before he could reply. Now she just had to check into a hotel. Then she was going to do something. She didn’t know what, but her time of waiting for Andreas Kostas to wake up and realize they were meant to be each other’s family was over.
They weren’t even friends, no matter what she’d always thought. If they had been, she’d have known he planned to buy a wife.
* * *
Andreas heard that ominous beep that indicated Kayla had hung up on him again and shouted, “Bradley!”
His PA came rushing into the office. “Yes, boss?”
“Get me to New York right the hell now. Charter a jet, whatever it takes.”
“On it.” Bradley turned to go.
“Keep tracking Kayla’s phone.”
Bradley waved his hand in acknowledgment.
“And find out what hotel Kayla is staying at. Book me a room beside hers. I don’t care if they have to move other guests. Make it happen.” He heard his father’s voice coming out of his mouth and for the first time in Andreas Kostas’s life, realizing a similarity with Greek shipping tycoon Barnabas Georgas didn’t bother him.
If it took acting like an arrogant bastard to handle this situation, then arrogant bastard he would become.
CHAPTER THREE
PUSHING HER SUNGLASSES up on her head, Kayla laid her driver’s license down in front of the desk clerk at the hotel on Times Square she’d made reservations at before she’d left Portland. “I know it’s not 3:00 p.m. yet, but I was hoping a room could be found for me.”
She’d booked a single with no frills and didn’t care what floor they put her on. Unlike Andreas, Kayla didn’t care if she got concierge level with turndown service. She just wanted some time in her room to unwind away from other people. She fully intended to turn off her phone too. No interruptions between her and her thoughts.
And maybe even a nap. There was a first time for everything.
The desk clerk typed something, presumably Kayla’s name, into the computer, then straightened her shoulders. “Oh, yes, Miss Jones. Your room is available immediately if you like.”
“That’s great.” After her conversation with Andreas, she was feeling drained. The cross-continental flight hadn’t helped either.
The young woman waved at the concierge and suddenly there was a bellhop there ready to take Kayla’s bag.
“Oh, I can get that.”
“Let me, Miss Jones, please,” the smartly dressed man who looked more like an extra in a mob movie than a bellhop said.
Kayla shrugged. She wasn’t sure what it was about her pale melon wrap skirt and gray tank under a dark melon hi-lo knit jacket that said “wealthy lady who needs help” to the bellhop. Her comfy travel sandals weren’t even from the designer side of her closet, but Kayla wasn’t going to argue about it.
She just hoped she had appropriate cash in her Michael Kors backpack for the tip.
When the bellhop used Kayla’s key to access the upper floor of the hotel, she got an inkling that he wasn’t taking her to the original room she’d booked herself. When they got off on the top floor, she was sure of it. The smell of roses when she entered a spacious sitting area of what was obviously a superluxurious two-bedroom suite had Kayla cursing Andreas’s name.
The bastard. He’d had Bradley change her reservations. Of course he had. The Greek tycoon was a control freak of the highest magnitude. And he was on his way to New York. Of course he was. Obviously, he intended to stay in the beautifully decorated suite with Kayla.
Andreas wouldn’t see any problem with that. He hadn’t been carrying a torch for Kayla for six long, interminable years.
She shouldn’t be surprised. She really shouldn’t. This was just like something the overbearing Greek tycoon would do.
Only she was. What did he think he was doing?
He had meetings. Much more important than hers. And a bride to find. And a matchmaker to make happy. And Kayla’s darn business to stay the heck out of!
That last was the most important.
She was here to establish the rest of her life without Andreas Kostas in it. Didn’t he realize that?
Maybe he did.
Cold chills washed down her body.
Maybe he wasn’t as ready to let go of their friendship as she was.
Well, he was going to have to get over that little problem. He’d had a total of eight years, two of which included amazing sex, to figure out that they could be something more. What had the idiot done, though? He’d gone and hired a matchmaker, that was what!
He’d decided to sell Kayla’s home! Her one place she felt safe.
Well, she wasn’t putting up with that. He could go off and get married and have all the business challenges he wanted. Kayla might even come to the wedding, but they were done. Done as business partners. Done as best friends.
Just done.
When the bellhop asked what room to place her bag in, Kayla waved at the one on the left. She didn’t care. What did it matter? This room, no matter how swank, was no more sanctuary than her condo back in Portland. The only sanctuary she had was her office and lab back at KJ Software and she wasn’t going to lose that.
Kayla grabbed her phone out of her bag and tossed it onto the table.
To heck with staying here and waiting for Andreas to show up. She was going out.
She looked down at herself. Right. First stop, the Garment District. Shopping cured a lot of frustration. At leas
t it did when you had money, and ever since she’d started working for KJ Software, Kayla’s bank account had never been empty like back in the days when she’d been alone in the world without the company.
She was in a small start-up designer’s boutique, trying on a dress that hugged her curves in a way that would require another layer. Maybe a jacket? A long vest? But it was her signature color. The perfect shade of melon in a ruched silk that made Kayla’s breasts look a cup size larger and her bottom look like it was padded.
She turned to get another angle from the three-way mirror when a sound of masculine appreciation came from her left.
“Very nice.”
She spun to face a blond who looked vaguely familiar. “Thank you, but I think it needs a long vest.”
“To hide that gorgeous body? I don’t think so.” Blue eyes tracked her with heated approval that managed to feel like a compliment and not something smarmy.
Still, she rolled her eyes. “Are you trying to pick me up?”
He laughed, the sound genuine and amused. “I haven’t noticed anyone giving you the attention you deserve.”
“You’re saying you noticed I’m alone.”
“Yes.”
“A woman can shop alone.”
“Could you please tell my sister that? She insists not.”
A young woman who also looked familiar in that way people do who could be celebrity doppelgängers said, “You like shopping.”
“In women’s clothing boutiques?” the flirtatious man demanded.
The younger woman laughed. “Okay, maybe not so much. Anyway, Chantal is coming, so you’re off the hook. BTW, that dress looks killer. You’ve got to buy it.”
Kayla looked back at the mirror. She did like the dress. She nodded. “I think I will.”
Mr. Blue Eyes gave her another appreciative look. “Wear it tonight when we go out.”
“You are trying to pick me up!” Kayla laughed, not at all offended.
He was too charming and good-looking. Besides, his sister was there. Said sister exclaimed, “Oh, you’ve got to go out with him, everyone wants to be seen with Jacob.”
“Why? Is he somebody famous?” Kayla joked.
Jacob put a hand to his heart and staggered back, like he’d taken a shot. “I’m hurt. You don’t recognize me?”
“You look familiar. Does that make you feel better?”