Nine Kinds of Naughty

by Jeanette Grey

  chapter TWENTY-NINE

  Okay. Something was definitely up. Lexie glanced away from the email she’d been typing to the VP of sales to watch Dane take another pacing circuit past Evan’s room. The little rumble of unease in her belly had her stomach dipping deeper.

  She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but he’d been acting weird all day. Ever since last night, when he’d looked at her with cartoon hearts in his eyes and told her she was an inspiration. Some of the kindest, sweetest words she’d ever heard, but they weren’t a lot of consolation to her now.

  What the hell was going on with him?

  Evan flicked the channel, and she grated her teeth. God, she couldn’t wait for him to get discharged. They were all going nuts cooped up like this, and he was supposedly out of the woods by now. He had a long road ahead of him with healing and rehabilitation, but staring at these same four walls and watching the same god-awful daytime television programs on a loop couldn’t be helping.

  For a second, she could almost feel the claustrophobia Dane talked about sometimes.

  Hell, maybe that was his problem.

  Frowning, blocking out the pacing and the sounds of the game show, she focused enough to finish the message she was writing and send it. She took a peek at the clock. They’d been here most of the day already . . .

  “Did you say some of your friends were coming by this afternoon?”

  Evan raised a brow. “Yeah, probably. Why?”

  “I just think someone’s going a little stir-crazy out there.” She nodded toward where Dane was taking another lap. “We might head out for a bit. Get some fresh air. Stop by again sometime in the evening.”

  The dryness to his tone put the Sahara to shame. “No, you sitting there typing is the only thing keeping me from offing myself with my spork.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Who let you have a spork?”

  “Stole it off a nurse. Been secretly carving it into a shiv whenever you go to the bathroom.” He waved her off with his good hand. “Go. No reason all of us have to go nuts here.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  A lump caught in her throat. He was such a hard case, her brother, with his tattoos and his leather jackets and boots. But there was a vulnerability to him in that moment. On a whim, she approached the bed. His gaze went wary in an instant, but she pushed on through, leaning in with open arms. It was a careful hug, mindful of the monitors and plaster, and for a second he stiffened, but then he gave in, sighing as he patted her back.

  “Go. Before your boyfriend carves a hole in the floor.”

  “Personal assistant,” she corrected him, but it was just for show. She pulled away and moved to pack her things. “Call if you need anything.”

  “Sure, sure.”

  With both their bags in hand, she headed down the hall to catch up with Dane. He was seated in one of the chairs next to the elevator, knees spread wide and elbows braced against his thighs. Her stomach did that squirming thing again. He was staring at the floor, utterly absorbed until she was only a couple of feet away from him.

  His head jerked up, the stormy blue of his eyes still somewhere far away before they snapped into focus, darting from her face to the bags hanging off her shoulder.

  “Going somewhere?”

  “Thought maybe we could get out of here for a while.”

  “Really?”

  “Don’t sound too excited.”

  He schooled his expression in a heartbeat. “You know I’m fine to stay.”

  One corner of her mouth flickered higher. “I know you would if I asked you to.” She knew that, and it still filled her heart with so much light. “But we’ve been here long enough. Come on. Let’s go get some fresh air.”

  The fact that he didn’t protest any further told her all she needed to know. Rising in one swift move, he slapped the button for the elevator to take them down.

  The whole way to the garage, he kept his silence, and it made something in her itch. Before they’d started this thing together, she’d known him as a man of few words, but to have him go back to that now had her all off-kilter. Even when they got to the car, all he said was, “Where to?”

  “The hotel? Drop off our things?”

  With a nod, he started the car. It was only because they’d done this drive so many times—and that she was so bored with it—that she caught the subtle way his knee kept jerking up and down as he drove, his teeth tugging at his bottom lip. Like he was anxious. Lost in thought, but not in a good way.

  Finally, behind the closed door of their room, she couldn’t take it anymore.

  She dumped their bags on the desk and turned to him, arms crossed over her chest. “What the hell is going on with you?”

  He froze with his hand still on the doorknob. He turned the deadbolt with a click that seemed to echo through the space. Slowly, he moved to face her. “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve been all . . . weird today.” Great, super eloquent. “I mean, with all the pacing and the quiet and now the fidgeting.” Was she just being paranoid? No. She knew him now. She dug her fingers into the meat of her arm. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want, but it’s starting to freak me out.”

  His throat bobbed. “I’m sorry.” With more deliberateness than seemed to make any sense, he slipped the keycard for the room into his wallet and returned it to his pocket. “I guess I’ve had a lot on my mind.”

  Why did her brain always skip to the worst-case scenario? “Like . . .?”

  “Just . . . stuff.”

  “Stuff.” Thanks, that was specific.

  Tapping her thumb against her arm, she forced herself to take nice, deep breaths. She’d been accused of conducting her personal relationships like boardroom negotiations before, but she wasn’t going to do that now. This was just him and her. He was the guy she trusted, and she was a normal, non–power executive girl.

  And if he didn’t talk soon, she was going to tear her hair out.

  Pinching the bridge of his nose, he took a step backward to lean against the wall behind him. The muscles in his biceps bunched, every line of him tense, and it echoed in her own body, like she was bracing for impact.

  “I . . .” he started, then cut himself off. “I think . . .” He dropped his hand, raised his gaze, and just like that, the point of his jaw hardened, turning from uncertainty to absolute conviction in the span of a breath. His voice came out steady and strong. “I quit.”

  And the world fell in shatters at her feet.

  What. The. Fuck.

  Dane could scarcely believe the words that had come out of his mouth. They hung on the air, practically visible with how heavy they were.

  He hadn’t meant to say them at all.

  And at the same time, they felt like some of the truest he’d ever spoken in his life.

  For years now, he’d been going with the flow, following the safe path his mother had demanded of him. He’d kept his head down, and he’d excelled. He’d done exactly what had been expected of him.

  Every minute, he’d been dying inside.

  Laughter bubbled up in his throat. Fuck, it was like Jake’s ghost was sitting in the chair in the corner cursing a blue streak at him for being such an idiot. The way he’d been living—it wasn’t what his brother would have wanted for him. It was the last thing in the world he wanted for himself, and yet here he was. Wasting his life for years. What could he have done in that time?

  What if he could have made Jake proud?

  The ghost in the corner faded to static as the bark of a laugh broke free.

  Lexie looked like she’d been slapped.

  All the humor drained out of him in an instant. He swallowed hard, and his vision went soft.

  No, the time he’d spent going down the wrong path hadn’t been a waste. It hadn’t been the right choice for him—that was startlingly clear now. But it had made his mother happy. It’d kept food on the table and paid the rent.

  And it had brought him t
o this woman. If nothing else ever came out of his time trapped in high-rise offices, choking to death in heavy wool suits, he would at least have that. Lexie had reminded him of who he was and who he could be.

  She’d saved him. She’d brought him to this moment, right here, right now, on the cusp of setting his entire life to rights. He couldn’t have done it without her.

  Except before he could say all that, she took a single step back. Out of instinct, he reached forward, only for her to take another one. She was shaking.

  “What do you mean? You . . . you quit?”

  “It’s been a long time coming.” He braced himself to explain, to try to get out this entire line of reasoning he’d been floating along at the invisible end of for years, only for it to crystallize all at once in this very room.

  He didn’t get a chance.

  Her brows rose, her hands curling into fists. “You’ve been planning this?”

  “No. Yes.” What was she asking? “I mean—”

  “For how long?”

  Forget slapped, she looked as if he’d run her over with his car. He reeled. He’d made a major miscalculation somewhere along the way. If she’d just let him get a word in edgewise . . .

  “Forever.” He’d told her that. The night they’d spent barhopping in Barcelona, he’d laid out the facts of this life he’d been forced into. The claustrophobia of a Spanish market had nothing on the clawing feeling of spending day in and day out stepping to the beat of someone else’s drummer. Breathing stale air and slowly drowning on dry land. “I wanted to be a firefighter like my dad and my brother since I was a kid. But since last night—”

  Since he’d seen her living her life exactly the way she wanted to, and ached with how much he wanted that kind of freedom for himself.

  “Last night. Right.” It was her turn to laugh. The sound came out ugly and strained. “And when were you planning on telling me? Or were you even going to tell me at all? Just leave your letter on my desk?”

  “What? No—” Of course he would’ve told her. He’d still been working it all out in his mind, but the minute he’d come to a decision, she would have been the first to know. “It takes a minute to get your head around some things.”

  “But you’ve got your head around it now?”

  Not even close. But at the same time, the idea of taking it back butted up against this wall inside him. It hadn’t been there a couple of days ago—hell, a couple of minutes ago, but now there it was, big enough to be seen from space.

  “I’m still working out the details.” He hadn’t even gotten to the part of how he’d tell his mom, or God forbid the financials of it. He had some savings, but big changes were coming his way. Living on a firefighter’s salary would be one hell of an adjustment, but he was ready to set half his possessions alight right now and watch them burn.

  He couldn’t wait.

  “Just.” He raked a hand through his hair. “It feels right. The right decision.”

  “So that’s it.” Her expression shifted, a mask coming down over her eyes, and his breath stuttered. He’d seen that kind of distance on her before. “You’re leaving. You quit. Nothing would change your mind.”

  He thought it through again, but there was that same wall. That wrongness when he imagined reconsidering.

  So he answered plainly, because that was what they did. It was who they were to each other.

  “No.”

  No. Not again.

  Lexie couldn’t breathe. Every instinct told her to either go for the jugular or run the fuck out of that room and never, ever come back. But her feet were planted to the floor, her claws and teeth both dull. She wanted to hurt him just as much as he was hurting her. She wanted to pick her insides up from where he’d spilled them all over the floor.

  It was her parents all over again. It was Evan with art school and Rylan with his fucking existential crisis right after the trial.

  It was Jordan.

  She’d thought Dane was different. He’d promised her he’d stay.

  She’d been wrong.

  All the fantasies she’d been cultivating about the two of them ruling Bellamy International side by side crumbled to dust. How could she have been so stupid? So naïve? People always said they’d stay, but eventually, they left.

  She’d be alone again. Fine. She was good at that.

  Only she didn’t want to be anymore.

  A treacherous shiver rattled her spine, but she stayed firm, standing strong when her knees were threatening to give out.

  “Fine, then. I accept your resignation.” She had to turn away before she’d even finished getting that last word out. The corner of her mouth buckled, and no way was she going to let him see her cry. He’d already gotten enough of that. He’d seen her on her knees, tears streaming down her face—stripped bare, because she’d given him everything. Everything. But apparently, it wasn’t enough. He was done. “Effective immediately.”

  With that, she stalked across the room, no backward glances or hesitation. They’d been running around the entire time they’d been here, and neither of them had really bothered to unpack. She knelt to flip open his suitcase and started tossing inside whatever of his she could see.

  “You’ll be flying home commercial, I hope you understand.” Her eyes stung harder. Normally, she’d have him make the arrangements for it to be billed to her personal account, but he wasn’t her assistant anymore. She’d do it herself. Or pull another résumé at random from the temp pool, only it would never be the same.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he said from behind her, but the minute his hand landed on her shoulder, she was up, flying away from his grasp. If she let him touch her—if she so much as let herself look at him, she’d go to pieces. “Hey.” He held his hands in front of his chest, but even that gesture didn’t set her any more at ease.

  The devastated expression on his face didn’t, either. Guilt churned in her belly. Maybe she was misreading this or overreacting. Only he’d said—he’d said outright that he was leaving. That nothing she could do would change his mind.

  “There’s nothing more to discuss.”

  “Yes, there is. What the hell, Lex?”

  “You quit. You said you’re done, so we’re done.” Every word was another twist of the knife in her heart.

  “With Bellamy.” Did he think that was going to help? It was her fucking name. The company’s name, her name, they were the same. Leaving one was leaving them both. “Not with you.”

  “But I need you there.”

  Her throat tore. Shit. That was too honest by half, her voice jagged and breaking, and she couldn’t stop the goddamn waterworks now. Her eyes misted over, and she scrubbed at them furiously, but once she started, she was screwed.

  “You—” She cut herself off, starting again. “You said you were here. That you had my back. I could let go, and I could trust you, and I did.” She still couldn’t bring herself to regret it, either, was the thing. She would, though. In time, there wasn’t any doubt about that. “You said you weren’t going anywhere.”

  “And I’m not.”

  Laughter shredded her lungs. “But you just did.”

  “I want to change my job. But this, with you—don’t you get it? You’re the one who made me realize I could.”

  She didn’t think it was possible, but that might actually make this worse. “Great. I’m so glad I helped you with that big revelation.”

  “You did, though.” And his voice was so earnest, so hurting, that it almost put a dent in her resolve. “I told you last night. You’re so strong. It’s what made me see. I’ve been a coward, Lex. All this time, all these years. Hiding out in office jobs because my family was too damn scared to see me do what I want to do. But I’m finished with that.” Every word was a punch to her gut. “I want to be brave. Like you are.”

  Oh God. Great. She’d made him brave enough to abandon her.

  “I’m not stopping you,” she managed to shudder out. “Go. You want out so bad, then just—just�
��go.”

  “Fucking hell, stop for a minute. I’m not leaving you.”

  But that was the thing. “You are.”

  He was leaving her to face the wolves at her father’s company—her brother’s company, now—alone.

  “Like hell I am.”

  And there was her Dom. There was the man who’d given her the strength to let go. All the uncertainty swept off his face in a flash, and then he was eating up the space between them, taking her face in his hands, and kissing her as if he were drowning. As if she were land and air, and it felt so good, it tempted her so badly to just sink into it. He kissed her as if he never intended to let go.

  When, really, that was exactly what he intended to do.

  She tore herself away.

  His hands still reached out toward her, empty palms grasping at air. Good, the vindictive part inside her crowed. That would show him how it felt.

  “My job is my life.”

  It always had been. For a few, perfect days she’d had something more, but in the end, it was the truth. She worked. She found the satisfaction nothing else in her life had ever given her in boardrooms and sales reports. In the solid feel of the Bellamy Tower beneath her feet.

  She’d fought tooth and nail for it. Now it was the only thing she always got to keep.

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “You don’t want to be a part of it, you don’t want to be a part of my life, either.”

  His jaw went hard. “That’s not fair.”

  She lost it.

  “You know what’s not fair? All that bullshit about always being there, and then—then this. You follow me across the world because my brother got hurt, but now you’re going to leave me. Just like—”

  It all got caught in her throat.

  Just like everyone. They always left.

  She put her fist over her mouth, pressing the flesh against her teeth until it hurt almost as much as her heart. “You manipulate me into trying all these kinky sex games. Make me think my whole worldview is wrong. That I need to let go, need to relax, I can give in because you’ll be there to hold me up.”

  He flinched, and it hurt her heart. Jesus, the vitriol was pouring out of her, ugly and acid, but she couldn’t seem to stop.