by Maggie Marr
“You will,” Prim said and hugged Delphine. “I’m certain of it.”
“Try to enjoy your business dinner,” Delphine said.
Prim nodded and slipped through the door. Tristan followed, once again surprised by how amazing Prim actually was.
*
“How are you finding Metro Media?”
What would appear the most innocuous of questions was instead loaded since it came from Cole Jackson, the CEO of Metro Media’s biggest competitor. Placing two competitive CEOs at the same dinner table was like putting two starving dogs in a small ring with a blood-red piece of raw meat, and yet dinner tonight had gone well.
Meg raised an eyebrow. She glanced from Prim to Tristan. “Please, excuse my husband. He can’t help himself. He can’t seem to put work aside. Not even for a friendly meal.”
“It’s a fair question,” Cole said. “One I’d think Tristan would ask if I’d just purchased a company on which he’d bid.”
“Cole’s right,” Tristan said. “As loaded as the question seems, he’s right. I’d ask him if the roles were reversed.”
“See,” Cole said and nodded his head toward Meg. “He gets me.”
“Ha!” Meg said. “Only because you two are so similar. How many men are billionaires before forty?”
“At this table,” Tristan said, “the odds are one hundred percent.” A playful smile edged over his face and he turned his glass of brandy in his hand. “Metro is fascinating.” His gaze left Cole’s and traveled toward Prim. “People love working there and they all do great work.”
Prim’s silence through their meal was testament to her irritation with Tristan. Most might not notice her quietness and the dimmed sparkle in her eyes, but Tristan knew. He’d witnessed the worried glances shot from Meg to Prim, the look of concern from Meg and her attempt at small talk with her best friend.
What was bothering Prim? These were her friends, and he’d accepted the invitation as a way to be polite as well as build bridges with a formidable CEO and the president of TBC.
“Ryan was smart to leave Prim in charge of Metro after what happened with Paloma.”
The corner of Prim’s mouth quirked upward.
“Transitions are always bumpy and there’ve been a couple of hiccups, but nothing we didn’t handle. Right, Prim?”
“Oh yes,” Prim said, her voice laced with a bit of sarcasm. “We’ve handled it.” She reached for her digestif and took a long swallow.
“What about you, Cole? You considered buying Metro Media before I stepped in.”
“I did.” Cole smiled. “For the right price.”
“You think I overpaid?”
“I think I wanted to pay less than you did.”
Tristan smiled. You didn’t become a self-made CEO without knowing how to phrase a sentence.
“Good answer,” Tristan said. “I like media, entertainment, content production—they’re things I dabbled in before Metro.”
“Until you sell off a company piece by piece,” Prim said.
Surprise trickled through Tristan. He turned to Prim.
“Isn’t that what you always do with the companies you acquire?” Prim asked.
“The majority of them, yes,” Tristan admitted. He shifted in his seat at Prim’s hard tone and distant gaze. “That, or merge them.”
“In preparation for sale,” Prim said.
Her gaze locked onto him and the energy at the table changed. There was an abrupt shift. The tone of Prim’s voice was hard and judgmental, as though she had much she wanted to say but held back with her words.
“In the past that’s what I’ve done with companies that I purchase, but not necessarily what I plan to do now.”
There was no love, only a deep, unsettling hardness in Prim’s gaze. “You’re not selling Metro?” Prim leaned forward and laid her forearms flat on the table.
“I mentioned, and it is the truth, that I’ve made no decisions about Metro. I don’t think it’s wise to decide until the transition is complete.”
“That’s fair,” Meg said, her light tone an obvious attempt to defuse a situation that was growing heated.
“Is it fair?” Prim continued. “Is it fair that I’ve spent the last year trying to make certain that every one of the two hundred and forty-five people that get their paycheck from Metro Media continues to get a paycheck? I worked myself as hard as I could, and now you swoop in and buy the company and dismantle it?”
“No,” Tristan said. “None of that is fair. But where did you ever get the idea that anything in business is fair? Life isn’t fair. Nothing is fair, Prim. Life can, on occasion, be just, but it definitely isn’t fair.”
Prim sat back in her chair and for a moment her eyes darted away as though she was gathering her thoughts. “Over the past year while Ryan was suffering, we all pulled together like a family to make Metro great, to make it strong, and now there is the possibility that all the work and all the sacrifice will be for nothing at all.”
Chapter Seventeen
Prim walked into Tristan’s bedroom. Her eyes glanced over the velvet ring box that lay on his dresser. She wouldn’t take the ring. She’d never intended to keep the gorgeous creation. The idea of taking that ring, even as a bonus for closing a deal, made her heart ache.
“Nicely played,” Tristan said.
“Played?” Prim spun around, the broad expanse of Tristan’s chest, his sharp-cut jaw, those lips, in front of her. “I’m not playing. You wanted to get to know the employees that work at Metro Media, and I started with Delphine. She’s loyal and smart and brilliant at her job. She’s a single mother who takes care of her children. And Leanne? Well, Leanne gets her benefits because we’re lucky enough to employ Delphine. This isn’t a game, Tristan. Metro Media has value because of all the people who work at the company.”
“I understand the value of hard work, Prim. I understand that Metro is the way that people feed their families and take care of their children. Those two hundred and forty-five people aren’t just dots on a spreadsheet.”
“They aren’t?”
She wanted to resist her feelings. She’d read the offer from Optimax, and the idea that Tristan had been working all along on a deal to sell Metro, all while telling her otherwise, hurt her.
“Do you think I’m heartless?”
His question startled her. His fingertips trailed up her bare arm. Prim shivered with his touch. Long dark heat curled through her body. What did it say about her that she was so drawn to Tristan, the man who was going to destroy the company she loved?
He pressed the pad of his thumb to her lips. “I’m a businessman, Prim.” He leaned forward. His other hand cupped her breast. He fondled her nipple through the silk of her dress. “Don’t think for a moment that I don’t understand the impact of my decisions, because I do.”
His fingertips pinched her nipple. Where was her strength to resist this man? He was everything she’d vowed to never to become. Cold and heartless and immune to the needs of the people with whom he worked. He was all that she never wanted to be. He was mercenary in his decisions and willing to do anything for success.
Tristan’s lips consumed her. Her body nearly crumpled with need, and his arm snaked around her. He pulled her tighter to him. His hard maleness pressed against her. She couldn’t resist the urge to grind her hips against him. She wanted him. She wanted him to thrust into her and make her come over and over and over again as he’d done every night for the past twelve weeks. She’d failed in her endeavor to convince him that Metro Media was more than its value on paper. She’d failed her team, her company, the people who depended on her.
“This is our last night together, Prim. Let’s make it memorable.”
He pulled down the zipper of her dress with one hand and slipped the straps over her shoulders. Her dress dropped to the floor, a puddle of fabric at her feet. She shivered. He stepped back and gazed at her body.
“Take off your bra.”
She unclasped the front hook
and dropped the garment of black lace to the floor. His eyes grazed the flesh of her breasts and her nipples, already tight with desire. She was wet for him, a man she wasn’t certain she liked in this moment but a man she wanted and a man who she quite possibly loved. Her body, her sex, ached for him. Even after countless nights of pleasure at his hands she ached for him.
“Now your panties.”
She slid two fingers under the lace at her hips and slipped her panties down over her legs. The lace dropped to the floor.
“You look so sexy.” His voice was sandpaper rough with want.
He stood before her fully clothed. She longed to touch his skin, to press against him, to sit astride his thick cock that gave her so much pleasure. She closed her eyes and thought of his hands on her breasts, his mouth on her mouth, his tongue on her sex.
“You’re thinking of me, aren’t you?”
Her breath grew uneven. Yes, she was thinking of him. Would she ever think of anyone else again? How could she turn away from him, this desire heavy within her, this need, this desperate want that surged between her legs and made her heart nearly burst? She opened her eyes.
He’d removed his shirt. His bare chest, well muscled and hard with those thick, masculine planes, was before her. She wanted to run her tongue from one of his nipples to the other, to press her breasts against him.
“Come here.”
She stepped to him. Even without touching, heat licked between them hot and fierce, and the air crackled with desire.
“Unbutton my pants.”
She reached her fingers down and unbuckled his belt. Her fingers moved too slowly for her desire. She unclasped his pants and unzipped them. The head of his cock pressed against his belly.
“Take them off.”
She let his pants drop to the floor and then grasped his underwear and pulled them over his hips. She fought the urge to rake her nails over his hard, muscled ass, to clasp his cock in her hands and bend down and let her tongue lick over the head of his cock. Instead, she looked up from where she kneeled before him. A thick, guttural growl came from his mouth. He bent down and lifted her from the floor, high into his arms. Her legs wrapped around him.
“You have no idea what you do to me.” He carried her to the bed. His mouth suckled her hard nipple and his other hand slid toward her sex. She pressed upward, her hips pressing forward. Again another thick growl came from his throat.
“Fuck, Prim, fuck.”
His mouth slid from her nipple and down her belly to her sex. His tongue flicked against her and then laved up one side of her pussy. Two fingers slid inside her and his mouth sucked on her clit. A loud moan came from her mouth. An uncontrollable surge of her hips upward. He sucked harder his tongue pressing flat against her.
“I am going to fuck you.” He leaned forward, his face just above hers. “I am going to fuck you, and you will never forget this fuck.”
Her hips pushed against him.
“Look at me.”
Her lashes fluttered, and her gaze locked with his. He thrust into her hard and fast. He filled her with such force that she clenched her hands to his back and clawed his skin with her nails.
“Fuck yes, Prim.”
She clasped her legs around him and pulled him deep inside her. He pulled out and slammed into her, then pulled back again. This time he paused and bent down, his mouth sucking her pussy.
“Oh my God, Tristan,” she moaned. “God, Tristan, I … I’m going to come.”
He pulled his mouth from her. “Yes, Prim, you are.” He moved back up her body and pressed his cock into her. He thrust and pulled back and thrust again. His fingers reached between them and he rubbed her slick clit. His eyes never left her face. He pulsed in and out and in and out.
“Come for me, Prim. Come for me now.”
And she did. She fractured and splintered. The consistent rhythm of his thrusts became less measured. The slap of skin against skin. His grunts and moans. His body clenched tight upon her. His heat burst through her, intense and never-ending. He gasped and stared into her eyes. Together. Clasped together as one.
*
Aside from the moonlight through the silk drapes, Tristan’s bedroom was devoid of light. She reached for her phone and flipped it over. 2:22 a.m. Her twelve-week agreement with Tristan had expired nearly two and a half hours earlier. Tristan lay sprawled beside her. His beautiful body, his face, his masculine beauty was rich and powerful. The urge to reach out and run her fingers along his jaw rushed through her. To touch him as though he were hers.
But he wasn’t hers.
He was a gorgeous man, a man to whom she’d lost her heart. The ache of leaving him drove a hard pain through her chest. During the last twelve weeks, she’d thought of Tristan as more than simply passion. As he discovered Metro, she’d begun to believe that there was more to him than simply being a merciless marauder and a destroyer of companies. Or she’d hoped there was more.
Last night he’d confirmed her fears for Metro. Prim rolled to the side of the bed. She dismissed her urge to stay. He’d given her no indication that their agreement was anything more than just that, an agreement. Prim slipped out of the bed and pulled on her clothes. Carefully, quietly, softly, her eyes caressed Tristan one final time, then she shut the bedroom door.
*
Prim was gone. For the first time in nearly three months there wasn’t a warm body beside Tristan. He did not wake to the lush curves, full lips, and tousled curls he’d grown accustomed to seeing when his eyes opened each morning.
Ache strained through his heart. Her absence from his bed bit into him. He sat up and shook his head. How ridiculous. Of course she was gone. Their agreement had ended. He’d expected her to leave early, before he awoke even, but there had been a hope, a tiny glimmer of possibility, that she felt more for him than just lust.
He killed the feelings that tore through his chest and halted the thoughts in his mind. Success came not from wallowing and feeling pain but from action and hard, cold calibration and achievement of goals. He walked across his room toward the bathroom and a shower.
Hot beads of water pelted his skin. He scrubbed the scent of Prim from his body. This was a quick affair. They’d made an agreement and the agreement had come to an end. He’d wanted the ability to work beside Prim and not be distracted by their attraction. The agreement was a partial success. He had worked beside Prim for twelve weeks and he had managed to contain his passion for most of every day. He had failed desperately in his goal to get Prim out of his system. As much as he wished to ignore that he still desired her, that would be a lie to himself. He exited the shower. Cold prickled his skin. Sleeping with Prim was the cost of doing business. He turned the corner into his room. His hand held tight to the black towel around his hips. Droplets of water rolled down his chest.
He stopped.
There on his dresser, untouched and unclaimed, lay a black velvet box. He couldn’t touch the box. He wouldn’t reach for it. Why had he gone to such trouble? The expense? Any giant diamond would have served the purpose. What had possessed his mind to find a jeweler and replicate her grandmother’s setting? His gut tightened. The answer was obvious. Even he knew the answer, though he wished the facts did not make it true.
*
“Wait,” Meg said. “Where are you going?”
“To London,” Prim said. She tossed another pair of shoes into her suitcase and scrambled across her room and toward her bathroom. “To visit my parents.”
“Now? Today?”
“The flight is in three hours.”
“Was this planned and I forgot?”
Prim yanked her makeup bag from underneath the sink and began filling it with creams, shadows, and all the day-to-day necessities.
“Mum has been asking forever and Dad is home for a bit and I’m free.”
Free. A chill raced up her spine. She was free. Free of the job she loved, free from the man she’d fallen for, and free from the twelve-week agreement she’d made with Tri
stan.
There was silence on the other end of the line as Prim rushed out of the bathroom and tossed her now full makeup bag into her suitcase.
“I’m not running,” Prim said.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You’re thinking it.”
“You can’t read my mind, and I can’t read yours. If you tell me you’re not running then you’re not.”
Prim sat on the bed beside her suitcase. She’d tried to sleep in her own bed the last seven nights. Each night she’d felt more alone than the last. Attempting to sleep without Tristan beside her had caused her brain to rattle in her skull.
“I need to sort out what my next step is.”
“Of course,” Meg said. “I mentioned the idea you’re working on to Cole, and he found it interesting.”
Prim pressed her fingertips to her forehead. “London is the perfect place for me for now.”
“Right,” Meg said. “You’ll be back in time for the party?”
“I wouldn’t miss it!” Prim forced cheerfulness into her voice. She’d never lied to Meg before, but she didn’t want her friend to worry. Prim hung up her phone and walked to her closet, then pulled her hangers aside one by one and selected the last few outfits for her trip.
She wasn’t running. Running implied that one had something to leave behind, something from which a person might flee. She had nothing to run from. No, this sudden, unexpected, and last-minute trip to visit her mum and dad was a long overdue holiday. She’d last spent time with her parents just after her B-school graduation. That was years ago. Of course there had been business trips to London during which she’d met them for dinner, but she’d not spent time with them in years. This trip was a well-deserved holiday, not her running away from Tristan, or L.A., or the company that she dearly loved and had left behind. Now, not only had she managed to lie to Meg but she was desperately trying to lie to herself.
Chapter Eighteen