The CEO's Dilemma ; Undeniable Passion

by Lindsay Evans

  Chapter 19

  Aisha stared at her email in shock.

  Oh my God.

  She squeezed her eyes shut then opened them again to stare at the computer screen. A sizzle of excitement warming her belly, she reached for her cell. With the phone gripped tightly in her hand, she suddenly realized she was torn between who she should call. Then reality smacked her in the face. Of course there was only one person to call. Opening her list of favorites, she tapped the button and initiated the call.

  “Good morning, sister dear.” Dev answered right away. “You didn’t get enough of me this morning?” Their daily morning call had gone on longer than usual. With dawn still coloring the sky in shades of purple and gold, Aisha, Dev, their mother and then Ahmed, after he’d dragged himself out of bed with his wife, had talked about everything Clark, including Aisha’s crazy thing with Roman.

  “I could never get enough of you guys!” Aisha said. Although her sister couldn’t see her, she fluttered her lashes.

  But it seemed like Dev was able to see her anyway, laughing softly in that particular way she did. “What’s going on? Aren’t you at work?”

  “I am at work, and guess what I’m doing.”

  “Well, what you’re not doing is working since you’re calling me.”

  “Okay, boss. Get your own gallery all of two minutes and suddenly you’re trying to regulate my work output.” Aisha laughed.

  “Sorry. It just feels so good having my own space now,” Dev said, the laughter in her voice giving way to gentle awe. “My dreams are a reality and I can hardly believe it. I’m just waiting for the day when I wake up.”

  Aisha leaned back in her chair and smiled. “You’re awake right now, Devyn. You’re just living the life you always wanted.”

  “Thanks for believing in me and for pushing me,” Dev said.

  “You did all the work. I knew it would pay off.”

  Devyn drew a breath full of sentiment and a hint of tears. “Anyway, you didn’t call to hear me go on. What’s your news?”

  Aisha laughed, suddenly giddy again about what she’d just read in her email. “What makes you think I have news?”

  “Quit playing!”

  “Okay, okay.” She laughed again and tilted herself way back in her chair, till she stared up at the ceiling of her office. “Remember when I told you about running into Emersyn Rankin and Patrick Sebastian at your gallery opening?”

  “Yes?”

  “They just offered me a position at their firm!” Aisha said the last on a little squeal, still unable to believe it. “They didn’t ask me in for an interview or anything. It’s wild!”

  “Oh my God!” Dev screamed so loud that Aisha had to pull the phone away from her ear. “That’s freakin’ amazing!” She babbled a few more things that kept Aisha alternately laughing and agreeing. “From what you said, the chat y’all had was like a damn interview anyway.”

  “It kind of was, wasn’t it?” That night had been so surreal and wonderful. She’d just been full of happiness for her sister, not to mention thrilled at having Roman by her side all evening. The impromptu gallery tour with Emersyn and Patrick had her practically hyperventilating with excitement. Their interest had been the ultimate in flattery, but the last thing she thought they’d do was offer her a job.

  “This is so incredible. No interview. No vetting. At least none that I know of. Just a lucrative job offer and an invitation to come to their offices for a tour and informal chat.”

  “You’re going to accept it, right?”

  “Of course!” This time Aisha was the one screaming in excitement.

  Devyn laughed. “My sister the shiznit! So brilliant, she doesn’t even have to interview for the job of her dreams. The luck of Aisha. No, that’s not right, it’s more like the Hard Work of Aisha Clark.”

  “Yeah.” She bit her lip, smiling wide. “It’s all pretty amazing. The hard work and the luck.”

  “Obviously, we have to celebrate. Have you told Mom and Ahmed yet?”

  “Not yet. They’re my next call.”

  “Okay, good,” Devyn said, but Aisha could tell her sister was pleased she’d gotten the first call. “I know of the perfect place to celebrate your brilliance tonight or whenever you’re ready.”

  “Definitely tonight.” She and Roman had a date but it felt right to share this with him, too. They could all celebrate together.

  “Good. I’ll make the reservations.”

  After instructing her to include Roman in their number, she said, “Thanks, Dev.”

  “No, biggie. We’ll talk later.”

  Aisha ended the call. Then, as she was quickly scrolling through her missed notifications, she saw an alert she’d set up a few weeks before. It was from Twitter.

  It looks like a wrap for the #SykesArchPrize. Although won this year by @AishaTheClark of Wainwright and Tully, a @SykesGlobalCorp news release officially ends the triennial prize that’s been a diamond in the architectural world for 15 years. No additional comments yet from SG.

  The attached article showed photos of the previous winning designs and the buildings created from them. Aisha was in shock. Her hand trembled and felt cold as she scrolled through image after image on automatic pilot. No way this could be right. The man she was getting to know would never do something like this. Right?

  He didn’t have any reason to lie to her.

  But that was exactly what he’d done. The tweet, the attached article, plus others she rapidly clicked through from other news sources confirmed just that.

  Aisha’s eyes burned and she blinked quickly, putting down her cell phone with a trembling hand. Just then, it chirped. A message from Roman.

  Please call me when you can. There are some new developments with the Sykes Prize.

  And that was it. What was he trying to do, get in his apology so they could just get straight to sex when they saw each other that night? Bile rose in her throat at the thought.

  He wouldn’t do that, though.

  She ignored the niggling voice at the back of her mind. She didn’t know him. Especially not the version of him that would do this. Lie and betray and send a text after the fact.

  A tear splashed down her cheek but she ignored it, turning the phone over on her desk so she didn’t have to look at the screen. Her eyes drifted back to the computer and the email she had open there.

  The happiness and awe she’d felt when she’d read the email from Emersyn’s office felt miles away now, as if it belonged to another person. Another life. She swallowed the lump in her throat and viciously wiped at the fresh tears springing from her eyes.

  Maybe...maybe all this is a mistake. Maybe he didn’t mean to do this.

  It was with this wild hope sitting in her belly that Aisha finally forced herself to call Roman. He answered on the first ring.

  “Aisha, thank Go—”

  She cut him off before he could finish. She had to get this out now, all the hurt and disappointment, or she wouldn’t be able to say it afterward. Her stomach was sick with it, the bile threatening to erupt.

  “How could you do this to me?” she demanded. “Why did you encourage me to keep working on my design—to waste my time—if you were just going to yank it out of my hands anyway? I busted my ass for this prize and this is how you do me?”

  The silence on the other end of the line was deafening. Seconds passed before Roman finally spoke. “Is the prize the only reason you called me? Nothing else?”

  She swallowed hard, the hurt and betrayal still painfully twisting her insides. “What else is there between us?”

  Roman cleared his throat and the sound of it was harsh in her ears. “If you have to ask, then I guess the answer is obvious.”

  No!

  Aisha wished he was there so she could grab him, look into his eyes to see what he was thinking. To read him and as
k him why he’d lied to her. But wishes never got anybody fed.

  “Yes,” she said softly. “I guess it is.” Then she hung up.

  Chapter 20

  The day felt as long as a year. Each minute stretched on like scratches made on a chalkboard with fingernails. Torturous. Seemingly endless. Roman was relieved that it was finally time to go home.

  The talk with Lance and the following shouting match between them, which had nearly made him call security, had scorched Roman to a husk of himself.

  He couldn’t even think about the phone call with Aisha. It hurt too much.

  He’d sat behind the desk and done the job he’d needed to do because there was no other choice. If it hadn’t been for the meetings, and decisions, and talks with lawyers, he probably would have taken himself home and immersed himself in his yoga practice, running through the asanas until his mind calmed and his muscles burned.

  But that hadn’t been an option. He had to be Roman Sykes CEO. And although he’d thought before that the job would drain him and leave him with nothing of himself left to spare, the hours he’d spent immersed in work had actually gone a long way toward whiting out his mind. His pain.

  Now, though, the workday was over.

  Just as he stood to leave the office, his cell phone rang. It was Merrine.

  “Roman, what’s going on with this damn Sykes Prize that keeps on getting canceled then not canceled then canceled again? Is the committee on coke? Hell, are you?”

  He wasn’t surprised Merrine knew what had been going on behind the scenes with the Sykes Prize. She made it a point to know just about everything that was going on with the people in her life. To her, information was power, and she had a lot of it.

  Groaning silently, he dropped into his chair. “Would it do any good if I said I didn’t want to talk about it?”

  “Nope.”

  He leaned back in the chair, swiveled it to face the brightening lights of the Atlanta skyline. “It was Lance. He did it to—I don’t know—get back at me for whatever he thinks I’ve done to him.”

  “You mean for just being a better man than him?”

  Merrine had never liked Lance and, over the years, had tried to encourage Roman to be less lenient with him. To treat him more like an equal instead of a child to be protected.

  “Don’t say that, Merrine. You know that’s not true.”

  “You have your version of truth where your brother is concerned and I and the rest of the world have ours.” She cursed softly. “So, what are you going to do? That cutie-pie architect you’re falling for isn’t going to like this.”

  His stomach dropped at the thought of Aisha. “She didn’t like it, no.”

  Merrine drew in a sharp breath. “Oh, crap. She didn’t...”

  “Yep, she did.”

  “Are you...are you sure that’s what happened?” Merrine asked. “I know sometimes you can jump to conclusions that aren’t even in the same universe.”

  “I’m very sure about what happened. Aisha found out the prize wasn’t hers. Even though I tried to explain, she basically said we had nothing else to talk about and then she hung up on me.”

  A stronger curse and then a whole string of them, each more inventive than the last, practically blistered his ear through the phone.

  “Pretty much.” Roman sighed. He didn’t want to talk about this anymore. He really didn’t.

  “I’m sorry, Roman. I know you really liked her.”

  “I did. I do.” But there was nothing to be done about it now.

  “Do you want to come over and drink my liquor and not talk about it?”

  The idea was tempting. Very tempting. The oblivion that a good bottle of Jack Daniel’s could bring was a powerful seduction to lure him away from his pain. But he’d never been the kind of man to bury his emotional aches in alcohol, sex or anything else that would make him regret himself when he woke up the next day.

  “How about a rain check? Tonight I just want to...” Hell. He didn’t really know what he wanted. Sighing, he dragged a rough hand over his face. “Let’s talk more tomorrow, okay?”

  A bubble of silence grew between them and, for a moment, Roman thought Merrine would insist on making sure he wasn’t alone. Then the bubble burst.

  “Okay, Roman. One night. But if I don’t hear from you first thing in the morning, I’m coming over to your house. I don’t care if I accidentally get another eyeful of that stupid yoga body of yours.”

  He gave a weak chuckle, all he was capable of at that moment. “All right. Fine. I’ll talk with you in the morning.”

  “First thing.”

  “Okay. First thing,” he echoed.

  It took him a while to get out of the chair again but then he finally forced himself up and out. Briefcase in hand, he locked his office door behind him. His temporary assistant looked up from shutting down the computer and offered him a smile.

  “Thank you for being available on such short notice, Olivia,” he said.

  “It was my pleasure, Mr. Sykes. I can be here as long as you need me.” She pulled her purse from the drawer and stood as he walked past. “I’ve had extensive experience working for a high-level corporate executive, so the work is more or less familiar.”

  “Really? Who?” He waited as she finished up, curious. She had done an excellent job today. As someone the company had on a list of already vetted temporary employees, she’d come in, taken an hour to acclimate to his particular systems, and pushed through full steam ahead without asking him any questions.

  Her cheeks creased in an easy grin. “My father.”

  “Ah, I see.”

  Once she was ready, he held the door for her and they walked together to the elevator.

  “So, why are you here instead of with his company?” He pressed the down button.

  “I’m the last of five, his youngest, and I’ve mainly been trained to support him instead of be him. I’m comfortable with that, plus I’m not that interested in staying in the same place where I was born. Either professionally or geographically.”

  “Interesting thought process,” he said. “Tell me more.”

  They spent the rest of the ride to the lobby talking about her background and what she wanted from her life, where she saw herself in a few years. Olivia didn’t strike him as any older than twenty-five. Roman was surprised how easy it was to talk with her and how deftly she answered his questions. When the elevator stopped at the lobby, he stood back to let her out and held the door open for her.

  “It was good talking with you, Olivia.”

  “Same for me, Mr. Sykes. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “See you tomorrow,” he echoed and took the elevator further down to the parking deck.

  Now that it was just him and his thoughts, Roman felt the discomforts of his earlier conversation with Aisha slither under his skin like hungry maggots.

  After she’d hung up on him, he’d asked Olivia to cancel their dinner reservations and then offered her the two tickets he’d bought to a French film that Aisha was interested in seeing. Without a doubt, Aisha didn’t want to see the film with him anymore. She didn’t want him.

  Had she ever? Or had everything they’d shared been a ploy to get what she wanted—the Sykes Prize—and now that there was no way she would get it, she didn’t want anything to do with him?

  He cursed softly under his breath.

  Even if that wasn’t the case, he’d never chased a woman in his life. If what they had together was so worthless compared to what Aisha had wanted him to do for her, then she wasn’t worth chasing.

  The elevator stopped at his deck and he headed to his car. He got behind the wheel and, after giving the car time to warm up, turned the wheels toward home. But halfway there he changed his mind. Instead of turning down the quiet side street leading to his house, he kept going and jumped on the high
way. He drove with the music on and his mind empty. Roman didn’t know where he was heading until he flicked on the turn signal almost an hour later, getting ready to ease off a familiar exit.

  His mother’s cabin.

  Before making the date with Aisha for the movie and then dinner, Roman had planned to come up to the cabin just to sit and think and remember. Two years had passed since his mother died. Tomorrow would be two years exactly. On the first anniversary he’d been a broken-down mess halfway around the world at a yoga retreat that hadn’t been able to distract him from the incredible pain of losing her. The pain was still strong, breath-stealing. But he’d thought that if he had the chance to wake up to Aisha, a woman he lo—

  Gravel flew up under the car’s tires as he jerked the steering wheel hard and turned toward the cabin. The road ahead of him was dark, illuminated only by the beams from his headlights. Trees crowded in on him from both sides of the narrow road.

  This was how it should be. Him. Alone. In the dark. Fighting to get back to a place that kept him steady.

  Not rolling around in bed with a woman who only wanted him for his influence or his money, not for who he was. Not for the heart that he’d been about to offer her on a silver platter.

  But no. Aisha wasn’t like that.

  His hands clenched around the steering wheel. If she hadn’t been that type, then why had she dumped him as soon as she’d realized the prize was no longer hers as promised?

  As he had promised.

  Cursing, Roman clenched his teeth and kept driving.

  At the cabin he pushed open the front door, feeling as if he had a thousand-pound weight on his shoulders. Although it had been days since Aisha had been there in the cabin, he could swear he smelled her. The hint of lemon from the soap on her skin. A suggestion of the coffee beans she loved so much. A shadowy memory of her sex lacing the air like perfume.

  To hell with that.

  After throwing his briefcase on the couch, he walked through the living room and straight to the bathroom. There he stripped off his clothes and climbed into a blistering-hot shower. He forced his mind to the off position, registering only the sensation of the water running down his body, the steaming heat, the smoothness of the tiles against which he braced his hands. Water sluicing down his back, he sank into the comforting nothingness he held in his mind.