A man could only take so much. “What the hell’s wrong with you, Cole? I’m the one staked to the wall.”
“Hannah’s my cousin. You used me to get to her. I thought you were asking about her for work reasons.”
“I was!”
“Do I look like a damn imbecile?”
“Cole, calm down. Let Whit explain.” Adam walked around his brother, shaking his head in mock disapproval. “What happened? Hannah figure out about your planned seduction and decide to humiliate you instead of falling at your feet?”
Whit tried to figure out how long he had before Hannah stalked out of the bathroom and belted him. “Adam—”
“If I had known you were asking all those questions about Hannah so she could become your next conquest, I would have flattened your ass.”
“Oh, leave the poor guy alone, Cole. He’s had a rough night.”
“She doesn’t have anyone. I feel protective of her,” Cole said.
Adam snorted. “Then why’d you give Whit the lowdown on her?”
Definitely time to stop this conversation. “Guys—”
Cole interrupted again. “I thought he was interested in giving her a job.”
Adam smirked. “Looks like he was trying to.”
“I meant the house job, you ass.”
“That was a front. He saw Hannah, all cool and aloof, and decided to teach her a lesson.”
“Adam!” This time Whit shouted to shut Adam up.
Cole and Adam both looked at him. Cole spoke first. “Why are you yelling?”
“Shut the fuck up.” Whit gritted out the words through clenched teeth.
“Well, well, well. Aren’t we moody when we don’t get laid.” Adam chuckled at his joke.
Whit tried to figure out a way to bang their heads together with his hands tied, or at least make them shut up before Hannah overheard and ripped his balls off with her fingernails.
Cole nodded in Whit’s general direction without giving him eye contact. “As far as I can tell, he deserves it.”
“Not to state the obvious but you’re the one who set Whit on her tail.” Adam chuckled again then stopped. “Damn, Whit, put some clothes on.”
Cole added his two cents. “Yeah. That’s not right.”
“Don’t you think I would if I could,” Whit hissed out. “I have to get down first.”
“Where’s the key?” Adam asked.
Whit was pretty sure he could kick Adam in the head from this position. It would be worth the risk of landing on his ass to get these two to be quiet.
“Do you think I would still be hanging here if I had the damn key?”
“All I’m saying is that there’s no question I got the family jewels. Maybe Hannah ran after she saw you naked.”
Cole growled. “Damn, Adam, you’re looking at him there?”
“Both of you. Shut. Up.” Whit’s locked-jaw growl did the trick. They both stared at him again. This time their mouths stayed closed.
“Listen, we have a problem,” Whit whispered.
“That’s an understatement.” Hannah’s angry voice echoed in the small room.
At the sound of her husky voice, Whit’s stomach fell. He got a look at her face and the blood froze in his veins. Her skin was pulled taut over her cheekbones. Her beautiful brown eyes were flat and lifeless. Somehow her body shrank five inches in each direction while she was in the bathroom. His shirt hung like an oversized curtain from her slim shoulders. Whatever warmth she felt for him five minutes ago had frozen into a solid block of ice.
“Uh-oh.” Adam’s quiet whisper was the only noise in the room. The wary look in his eyes said it all. Hannah was furious and they were all potential targets.
Cole tried to soothe her first. Poor bastard. He reached out but Hannah shrank away.
“Don’t touch me, Cole.”
“Hannah—”
“Be quiet.” She snapped at Cole but never broke eye contact with Whit. Her frosty glare ate right through him. Whit knew if she had the power to make him evaporate, he’d be nothing but a trace of moisture on the floor.
“We didn’t know you were here.” Adam, one of the tallest and most domineering men Whit knew, actually shrank back when Hannah glared in his general direction.
“No kidding.” Her icy voice made him shiver.
“Let me explain.”
“What’s to explain, Cole? I guess it’s a good thing I was here, that I overheard your testosterone-fueled chat, otherwise I might never have known Whit’s true intentions. That he set up this little scene to humiliate me.”
Whit swallowed his pride. How else could a man hold a conversation in a roomful of people, wearing nothing but the skin God gave him?
“Hannah. You’ve got it wrong.”
“Really?” she screeched.
Not yelled. Not screamed. Screeched.
“Adam and Cole were just playing around. Talking shit. It doesn’t mean anything.”
She stalked over to Whit and stood just inches away. If his hands had been free, he’d have been covering his balls.
“From what I heard, you were the one playing around,” she said.
“That’s not true.”
“With me.”
“No, I—”
She sneered at him. “You set me up. You lured me down here to have sex with you.”
“Damn it, no.”
“What was the point, Whit? You wanted to tell all your male buddies, my employees, that you bagged the ice queen?”
“Better not or I’ll kill him for you.” Adam’s gaze was full of awe and something Whit suspected was respect for Hannah’s command of the room.
“You actually slept with him?” Cole choked out the question.
Hannah was on her cousin in a second. Whit enjoyed the brief reprieve. He’d never seen a person look that angry. Her body vibrated with it.
“How the hell is that your business?”
Cole went toe-to-toe with her. His very furious cousin. Whit gave Cole points for guts. No brains, but plenty of guts.
“Whether you like it or not, you’re my business.”
Hannah shoved against Cole’s chest. “Really? Is that why you gave me up to a guy who only wanted to humiliate me?”
Oh, come on. He was the naked one and she felt foolish? “Now, wait a second—”
Cole and Hannah shouted at Whit to shut up. Whit was smart enough to do it even though he mumbled a few words under his breath about being the injured party in the room. The very cold room.
“Whit told me he had a job. That you’d be perfect. I knew about your deadline so I thought the arrangement would work.” Cole scowled. “I never thought you’d actually sleep with him.”
“Look at him! What did you think would happen if we were locked in a room together?”
“Thanks. I think.” Whit was sorry he spoke the minute the words left his mouth. Him talking only made the flush on Hannah’s cheeks brighter.
“I didn’t know about the room. That was Adam’s genius idea. Adam and Whit. When I found out about the plan, that Whit had arranged for you to spend time with him, I dragged Adam over here to get you free.” Cole still couldn’t look in Whit’s direction. He threw out his arm in a wide arc. He could have been gesturing toward Whit or the dildo on the floor. Hard to tell.
“Besides, I didn’t force you to sleep with him, you know. What’s up, Hannah? He’s not your type.”
“What does that mean?” Hannah demanded to know.
“Yeah, what the hell does that mean?” Whit asked.
“He’s rich. Successful. Annoying as shit.”
“Is successful a bad thing?” Adam mumbled the question under his breath so only Whit could hear.
“The only reason I met him was because of you.” She whipped around and glared at Whit again. “And you. What kind of man sleeps with a woman as a joke?”
He was getting ticked off. His character had taken enough knocks for one night. “That is not what happened.”
�
��Well, I have a joke for you, Whit.”
“Does it involve a gun?” Adam tried to bring a little lightness to the tense situation.
“No. The key.”
Whit felt a spark of relief. “You found it”
Hannah smiled. Not one of those warm, loving smiles. No, more like the diabolical about-to-pluck-your-chest-hair-out-one-by-one kind of smiles.
“Oh yeah. I found it.”
Whit’s shoulders relaxed. “Thank God. Get me down so we can have a normal conversation.”
“And then he can put on some damn clothes and spare us all the agony,” Adam said.
Hannah started walking toward the door. Her narrow hips swiveled in an unconscious swing beneath his conservative shirt. The problem was that the sexy walk headed in the wrong direction.
“Where are you going? I need the key and we need to talk.”
“It’s too bad for you, Whit.”
A chill moved back into the air. “What is?”
“That I flushed the damn key while I was in the bathroom.”
Six
“You have to forgive me.”
“Actually, I don’t.” If Cole pleaded his case one more time, she was going to belt him.
“But we’re related. Think of the holiday dinners. You not talking to me. My mom crying.” He shook his head in mock despair. “A very sad scene.”
“We’ve never had a family dinner. I wasn’t invited, remember?”
“You’re killing my heartfelt apology.”
“Gee, what was I thinking?”
“My guess is you’re too busy being angry with Whit to think.”
Hannah slashed open a cardboard box and stared at the stacks of shiny new tile inside. She’d spent the morning ripping up the old floor in Whit’s house. Broken ceramic squares littered the room and a fine sheen of chalk dust covered every surface. The appliances were gone. The room was little more than a shell. The physical work revived her.
She wandered over to the home project early Sunday morning in the hope of finding quiet. Some solitude in which to forget all about one Whitman Goodard Thomas. She needed the bone-crushing work. Sweat running down her face with not a male in sight. A few hours of escape in which she didn’t have to deal with Whit’s image or the memory of his blinding kisses.
Cole had other ideas, including groveling at her feet until her head exploded.
“He’s a good guy, you know.” Cole had made that astonishing statement three times in ten minutes.
“Uh-huh.”
“If I didn’t know better I’d say you were ignoring me.”
“I’m certainly trying.”
Cole exhaled loudly. “Whit made a mistake. Okay, make that a big miscalculation, but that doesn’t change who he is at base. He’s a good man. Honest and decent.”
“Not in my experience.”
Cole leaned back against the counter. “You’re not making this easy.”
“I’m not trying to.” She was trying to forget. Not remember and certainly not forgive.
“Whit isn’t the type to use a woman for sport.”
“If you say so.”
“Well”—he drew out the sentence—“you liked him enough to sleep with him.”
She dropped the box she was holding and let it crash against the floor. A plume of dust puffed up off the floor, making her cough.
“I love you like a brother but if you say one more word about Whit and his supposed virtues, I’ll smack you.”
Cole held up his hands in surrender. “Right. Got it. Woman scorned and all that.”
She tugged on her slim white T-shirt. She’d abandoned her usual flannel tent and enjoyed the freedom. She wasn’t accustomed to worrying about whether or not her tiny top covered all the important female parts that needed covering.
Cole stayed quiet. She enjoyed a few beats of silence but knew it wouldn’t last. She counted to ten in her head, just waiting for the next argument.
“All I’m saying is that I’ve known Whit for a long time. He’s not the type to scam a woman.”
“Uh-huh.” She busied her hands reopening a box she sealed earlier to return to the manufacturer.
“It started out innocent enough. He asked about you. About the company.”
“I said ‘uh-huh.’ That’s the universal sound for I don’t care and find another topic.”
Cole ignored her. “He wanted to know all about you.”
Her solid wall of control crumbled. She whirled around, her vulnerability showing. “And why did you tell him? That’s what I don’t get, Cole. You’re supposed to be loyal to me. Why talk?”
“Because I insisted.”
At the sound of Whit’s low, even voice she froze. Slowly, steeling her nerves, she turned. He stood leaning against the doorway, one ankle balanced over the other, with his arms folded across his stomach. His brown hair wore the track marks from his fingers.
“Don’t blame Cole. If you want to be mad, which you clearly do, then be mad at me.” Whit’s usually vibrant green eyes were flat and wary.
“Oh, don’t worry, I have enough anger right now for both of you.”
Whit’s lips curled in an empty smile. “Nothing new there.”
Her traitorous heart did a little jig at the sight of him. Gone were his usual pressed khakis. In their place, a pair of blue jeans, faded nearly white, hugged his impressive frame. A blue polo shirt pulled tight across his broad chest, highlighting every indentation of his muscles. A body she now knew by heart.
She wanted to be cool. To toss her hair back, say something witty, and act as if his stark betrayal meant nothing. She prayed her severed heart wouldn’t flip over. But that’s just what it did. Flipped, then clenched as if a hand had slipped into her chest and was squeezing the life out of her breath by breath.
Good thing Whit looked as bad as she felt. If he’d smiled she might have thrown a box at him. “What are you doing here, Whit?”
“Working.”
“On a weekend? Since when?”
“As you keep reminding me, this is my house. I can drop in at midnight and dance in the dining room naked if I want to.”
The vision was all too easy to picture. “I don’t have time for this today.”
“Hannah, for God’s sake, give the guy a break.”
Just what she needed, Cole rushing to Whit’s defense. This house was her last solace; now she was losing that, too. “I can handle Whit without your help.”
“Yeah, you’re doing such a fine job so far,” Cole muttered.
Whit’s gaze bounced between them. “You two can carry on without me. I’ll be upstairs, working on the plumbing in the hall bathroom.”
Whit tried to stage a graceful exit.
She wasn’t feeling that generous.
The anger simmering inside her stomach needed an outlet. A target. The rage caused a wave of sickening dizziness to run through her body. She stored up all the useless energy and aimed it square at Whit.
“I get it now,” she said.
Whit stared at her over his shoulder. “Get what?”
“You’re here because you want this job finished. The sooner the house is done, the sooner you move on to the next project and a new and unsuspecting woman. It’s easier for you to run away now that you’ve been found out for the fraud you are.”
Whit’s hand dropped from the doorknob. “Do you honestly believe that?”
Her brain insisted but her heart rebelled. For the first time since she’d walked down to the basement with Whit, she led with her head. She learned the hard way there was no other way to proceed with Whit and survive.
“Yes.”
“Hannah, don’t do this,” Cole said.
Whit held up a hand to stop Cole’s defense. “No, Cole, it’s okay. Hannah’s obviously made up her mind about me.”
“I have.”
How dare Whit sound as if he were the injured party in all of this? He created this mess. Lied to her. Embarrassed her. Used her. Slept with her as part of
his warped ego trip.
She saw a brief flash of something that looked like pain cross in his eyes. “I’m not going to fight with you, Hannah. If you want to have a rational conversation, fine, but I’m done with the blame game.”
She kept her defenses up, afraid to let him in for even a second. “Or is it that shoving me out of here as fast as you can will help you deal with what happened. Let you go back to being Mr. Nice Guy.”
“Since when do you think of me as nice?”
The man had a point. “I guess I was right to be wary of you and your lame promises.”
Whit stared right through her in deadly silence. She started to squirm.
“Whit, why are you here?” Cole asked.
“Because she has a deadline.”
Her breath caught in her throat. He remembered. She had poured out her heart, took a risk, and talked about what drove her so hard at work. And he remembered.
Random thoughts and images bombarded her brain. She careened from hope to fear and back again. Trusting him was out of the question. Impossible, really. But the fact that he focused in on her deadline meant something. What, she wasn’t sure, but something.
“I suppose you want me to thank you.” She forced out a harsh whisper.
His eyes softened for a second before his face washed blank again. “Wouldn’t think of it.”
Then he turned and stomped out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Unfortunately, he left Cole behind.
“I hope you at least have the grace to feel like shit after that.”
She thought about playing dumb but decided against it. “I guess you think I should.”
“Absolutely.”
“Yeah, well, I think so, too. For some reason Whit brings out the worst in me.”
She felt worse than shit. If there was such a thing. Her insides felt empty and hollow. If this was love, it certainly sucked. As soon as the thought popped into her head it popped out again. But it was too late. The seed had been planted.
Love.
Damn it.
Had she really been stupid enough to fall in love with a guy who tricked her? With a guy so totally wrong for her?
“You could apologize,” Cole suggested.
When Good Things Happen to Bad Boys Page 21