He stood up and zipped his pants and then reached for her and pulled her to him, kissing her a long while, soft and sweet. “God, I could just eat you up every single night, and half the day, too. I had no idea you were going to be this delicious… I had no idea what you would be like. Totally irresistible.”
She laughed and kissed him once more before he turned to go out of the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said quietly as he left.
She watched him leave until he was gone, and then she sighed and went to her room to shower and ready herself for bed, wishing that he was staying in her bed with her that night. She’d had him three times in one afternoon and evening, and she could have had him a few more times before she would have been satisfied enough to let him go.
Aleisha had no idea what her hunger for him was based on, but there was no denying it. She wanted him; she wanted him more than she had ever wanted any man in her life, and having him only made her want him more. She laughed and shook her head as she washed her body off, thinking of all the things that he had done to it that afternoon and that night, and how incredible every single touch and taste and kiss had been.
The man knew how to make feel like a real woman, like no other man ever had, and she was at the very edge of an ocean of hunger for him. There was no way she was ever going to be sated with him.
She thought briefly about what it would be like at the office, and her mind went right to all of the naughty scenarios that could happen between them in different places around the office, especially without getting caught. It was that that she was thinking about when she finally fell asleep, and her dreams were sweet and oh so hot.
Aleisha was walking on cloud nine the next morning when she went in to work. It seemed like everything in her life was going great and that nothing could bring her down and cast a cloud over her sunshine.
Grace poked her head into Aleisha’s door and reminded her that she was going to be gone for a while during the day for a doctor’s appointment, and Aleisha told her to go ahead and go, that she would cover her desk while Grace was gone.
Aleisha was working on a few files when she looked up to see a tall, slender woman walking up to her desk. She was dressed immaculately, and her blonde hair was coiffed perfectly at the back of her head. She paused for a moment and looked down her nose at Aleisha.
“Hello. Is Kyle in? I want to see him,” she purred smoothly.
Aleisha raised one eyebrow. “He is, but I don’t know that he has any appointments this morning. May I ask your name?” She was polite, but she also knew that Kyle wasn’t meeting with anyone; he was working on the Granger Corp acquisition, and she knew that he probably didn’t want to be bothered.
The woman rolled her eyes and smiled at Aleisha as if it pained her to be polite. “Right. Well, I’m Jennifer Evers, and I don’t need an appointment. You see, I’m his fiancé.” She turned then and walked straight into Kyle’s office, closing the door behind her.
Aleisha stared at the closed door in utter shock and felt her heart drop all the way out of her body and through every floor beneath her in the building until it hit the street and splattered. She gasped for air and tried to get everything in her to keep working, but it felt like her whole body had suddenly been flash frozen and nothing was going to work at all.
She pushed herself away from the desk and rushed to the ladies’ room that was just down the hall behind her. It was at the farthest end of the floor, and no one else used it besides her and Grace, so she knew she’d have it to herself.
She covered her mouth with her hands as her eyes flooded with tears and her throat tightened almost to the point that she couldn’t breathe. She doubled over and closed her eyes, trying to find her center of gravity because it was gone. The whole room was spinning, and the whole world was spinning around her outside of the room.
In one moment, every bit of happiness that she’d had since she’d been promoted was ripped away from her. She began to sob. She was quiet at first, but then she planted her back against the door and slid down the length of it to the floor, letting the sobs get louder as she buried her face in her hands and pressed her head to her knees.
It couldn’t be possible, she thought, but then she thought back to the nursery in Kyle’s home and she realized that it was entirely possible. She hadn’t known him very long at all, only a short while. It was completely possible that he had been lying to her. Maybe this Jennifer Evers had been out of town or something, and it was her that he was planning on having a family with, and that was why the nursery was there in the house. He’d said that he’d been planning on it but that the plans had failed.
Maybe he’d been lying, she thought, just to get her to have sex with him. Some men were like that. He’d seen that she was attracted to him. Most women were bound to be attracted to him; he was beautiful and wealthy and successful. Perhaps he thought that he could just take what he wanted from her and then let her go when his fiancé came back.
She wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. She could shut her mouth or quit her job. They’d acted together, so it wasn’t sexual harassment at work. She had wanted him just as much as he had wanted her, except that she had meant it. She wasn’t tied down to anyone else when she had given herself to him. There was no way that she could have known he was with anyone else.
Aleisha groaned and shook her head as she cried. She had let herself fall so hard and so fast for a man that she had just met, and it had gotten her the worst heartache she’d ever known. She couldn’t even figure out how that was possible. She hadn’t hurt that much when she left Damien. No one had ever made her hurt that much. She had never cared that much for someone so quickly, and she’d certainly never wanted anyone as much as she had wanted Kyle.
She kept telling herself that she should have known. Somehow, she should have known, and she should never have fallen for him. She should never have given in to her thoughts and desires. She made fists with her hands and pounded them on the floor beside her. Her sister had told her not to let her thoughts and emotions get carried away with her boss, and she hadn’t listened. She had agreed with her sister and then just let all those words disappear in the wind, and now she was suffering plenty for it.
Making her way into one of the stalls, she threw up and wept some more. After long moments, she wiped her mouth and her eyes with tissue and left the stall.
Finally catching her breath, she walked shakily to the bathroom sink. Her eyes were red and puffy, and her cheeks were covered in makeup. She turned on the cool water and did her best to wash herself up.
She only knew a few things for certain. She wasn’t going to quit her job, she wasn’t going to ever let Kyle Drake use her again, and she wasn’t going to let him see that she had been hurt when he had used her as his own personal dupe. She might have been stupid enough to fall for him and his games, but she wasn’t going to let him know that he had taken a big chunk out of her heart.
When she was almost presentable again, she walked back out to Grace’s desk and focused on breathing. She was going to be alright if it killed her, especially in front of Kyle and his fiancé, Jennifer.
Chapter12
Jennifer closed the door and walked toward Kyle’s desk. He was focused on his paperwork and looked up absentmindedly until he saw who it was coming toward him. His jaw fell open, and he stared.
“What in the hell are you doing here?” he asked in utter shock. He furrowed his brow at her, and she sauntered up to his desk and leaned over, giving him a seductive smile.
“Well, hello lover, is that any kind of way to greet the woman you love? Now, don’t get all emotional and fighty. I came here to talk business first and pleasure second. Busy?” she asked, looking down at the paperwork on his desk.
He frowned and snapped the file closed that he had been working on to keep it from her prying eyes. “I am.”
She shrugged. “Oh well. We’re going to talk anyway.” She curled her finger at him. “Come on, come over here and sit next t
o me on the sofa and let’s visit.” She turned then and swayed her hips as she strolled over to his sofa and sat down on it, setting her briefcase beside her.
He vaulted up from his seat and went straight to her, shaking his head. “No, you can’t come in here like this. This isn’t-” he began, but she held her hand up to stop him and interrupted him.
“Yes, I can, darling. Now, come and sit beside me and listen.” She smiled at him and patted the space on the sofa beside her.
He sighed and walked over to the sofa, but he sat in the armchair beside it, and he felt some slight satisfaction when she pouted at him sitting further away from her. “What are you doing here? What business could you possibly have that we need to discuss?” He looked at her crossly.
She leaned forward and smiled a Cheshire Cat smile at him. “Granger Corp,” she purred.
“What?” he gaped, blinking in surprise.
Jennifer shrugged. “I bought Granger Corp this morning. I’m the new CEO.” She reached her hand out toward him and ran her fingers down the front of his knee as she smiled at him.
“That’s not possible,” he spoke in a panic with a shake of his head.
She nodded. “Oh, it’s possible. Here.” She reached into her case and pulled out a file, handing it to him. He snapped it from her and flipped it open to examine the contents. His shoulders slumped, and he groaned when he saw the contents of the folder.
“You bought your way in,” he sighed heavily.
She nodded and shrugged again. “Well, I knew you’d go after it, so I decided that I wanted it. How better to get you into my bed again than to get you into my business bed first?”
He raised his eyes to glare at her. “You did this because of me?”
Jennifer laughed lightly. “Of course, I did it because of you. Granger Corp needs a law firm, and you have just started here. It’s perfect. In fact, it couldn’t be more perfect. I get Granger, I get you in the deal, and I make a huge amount of money, but that’s just frosting, isn’t it, darling?”
Kyle stood up and walked over to his desk and picked up the phone. “Grace,” he said bluntly.
Aleisha had just returned from the bathroom. She spoke in a monotone. “Grace is gone.”
His stomach formed a knot. “Aleisha, I need you to bring in the Granger file now, please.”
“Alright.” She hung up and got the file, steeling herself for what she knew that she was about to walk into. She was going into a room with a man and his fiancé, and she was the other woman. She was the dirty little secret at work, or at least, she had been. She promised herself that she wasn’t ever going to be again, and that gave her some small semblance of dignity.
She saw him standing at his desk and Jennifer seated on his sofa. She wondered why she needed to take the Granger file in to him with Jennifer being there. Surely, they would be talking about anything but his business.
He reached out for it, and she gave it to him without looking at him, and then she turned and walked out of the room, but she hadn’t quite gotten to the door when she heard him and Jennifer speak.
“What else are you here for, Jen?” he asked in irritation.
She stood up from her place on the sofa. “I’m here because it’s time for us to start a family.”
It was the last thing that Aleisha heard before she closed the door and shut her eyes tight, willing herself with every ounce of her strength to block out the pain she felt and focus on her work. She sat at Grace’s desk and tried to read through the file she had been working on, but Jennifer’s words ricocheted around in her head.
“It’s time for us to start a family.” She heard it over and over in her mind. She knew that the nursery in his house was for Jennifer’s babies. She knew that she had made love with him in the bed he shared with Jennifer, and for the first time in her life, she felt dirty and regretful about having been with any man. It was repulsive to her.
“What do you mean it’s time for us to start a family?” he asked in absolute astonishment as he stared at her. She walked toward him and stopped right in front of him. He felt as if he had been gut punched. “We broke up because you didn’t want children.”
She smiled at him and traced her finger over his cheek and down the front of his chest. “I know, baby, but I wasn’t ready then. I’m ready now. I want children now, and I want them with you, just like we were planning. It’s time that we got back together and took our future seriously. It’s time for Granger Corp to come to this firm as a major client, and it’s time for us to get back together and start a family.”
Kyle clenched his jaw and got over his shock. He stepped away from her and put a few feet between them before he turned around again and looked sharply at her. “No. You listen to me. I’ll be glad to be Granger’s attorney. That’s fine, but I haven’t forgotten what you did when you trashed our plans to build a family before. I’ve moved on.”
She laughed at him, cold and clear. “You can’t have moved that far, and if you want Granger, then you’re going to have to have me, too. You see, it’s a package deal. You can’t have one without the other.” She smiled wickedly at him, and he just shook his head.
Aleisha was just getting a grip on herself when the phone rang and she picked it up. “This is Aleisha. May I help you?”
“Aleisha, hello. This is Alexander Charleston. I was hoping to meet with you and Kyle. We need to go over my case. The board is pushing to get me out, and we need to get it taken care of as soon as possible.” The young man’s voice was urgent, and Aleisha felt her heart go out to him. It was horrible to her that he and his father had made amends after so many years estranged from one another, only to have the board of their company come back and state that the elder Mr. Charleston had been senile when he’d adjusted his will.
“Certainly. Actually, I’ve been working on it, and there are some details that I’d like to go over with you that will make our case really strong. Could you come in this afternoon?” she asked hopefully. She would gladly take anything that would get her mind on work and off of Kyle Drake and his fiancé.
“Yes, I can come in this afternoon. I’ll see you at three then.” He sounded hopeful.
“Excellent,” she answered and then ended the call. At least it was something. She would be able to work on his case that day and have it ready for him when he came in that afternoon, and that would keep her mind off of the cheating, lying, no-good, rotten man in the other room. The one who had used her to cheat on the woman who would be his wife and have a family with him.
Aleisha deeply regretted ever feeling anything for him and for ever wanting him the way that she had, but more than anything, she regretted trusting him and giving him her body. There was little else that she could give of herself that meant as much, that had as much personal value as her body and her heart, and to know that a man she cared for so much and had wanted so much had only used it and thrown it away like trash was almost more than she could stomach.
She was grateful for the Charleston case. She prayed that it would keep her mind and her heart too occupied to have to pay any mind to Kyle. She told herself that when they got the Charleston case finished, she was going to see if there was any way that she could transfer to another partner in the firm. Even a junior partner would be fine, just so long as it was anyone but Kyle, and it would be even more ideal if she wouldn’t have to be on the same floor as him. If that were possible, she’d almost never see him again. No matter what happened, though, she had learned her lesson, and there was no escaping that.
She closed her eyes and thought to herself that she might have made a mistake, but she was a strong, independent, professional woman, and she wasn’t going to make any more mistakes with him, and she wasn’t going to let her lack of good judgment stop her from keeping her job or getting ahead in the firm. Until she could transfer to another partner, she made up her mind that she would only have a professional career with him, and nothing more.
His office door opened, and she opened her eyes a
nd looked down at the file before her on Grace’s desk. Jennifer strode past her and kept going without so much as a glance in her direction, and she was grateful for that. She looked up to see Jennifer go and saw that Grace was headed back in.
Aleisha stood up and walked over to Kyle’s door. She poked her head in just far enough to see him. “We have an appointment with Alexander Charleston at three this afternoon.”
He nodded distractedly without even looking up at her as he focused on a file on his desk. She narrowed her eyes at him and turned, leaving him as she went to her own office to work.
She was left alone to work, much to her relief, until it was time for her and Kyle to meet with Alexander. They joined him in a conference room and sat together with him. She barely glanced Kyle’s way and kept all of her attention focused on Alexander.
The Billionaire's Twin Fever (MANHATTAN BACHELORS Book 1) Page 14