Harlequin Desire June 2020 - Box Set 1 of 2

by Maureen Child

  It was amazing how someone with a decent IQ could be so intensely stupid.

  Beah stood up, echoing his stance by placing her hands on the desk and leaning toward him. “I’m not a Murphy anymore, Finn. You gave me up when you asked for a divorce, remember?”

  The stupidest thing he’d ever done, period. But he couldn’t tell her that because while he was thinking about a future with her, she’d been making plans for a future that didn’t include him. It really had been just about sex for her. Well, hell.

  So this was what being run over by a train felt like.

  Anger, hot and sour, bubbled. So this was all about her career? Okay, then. “We have employed you, paid you a massive salary, promoted you.”

  “That’s crap! I took back my own name and worked my butt off for everything I got! You didn’t give me anything I didn’t deserve.”

  She was right, of course she was. But he couldn’t tell her that, not while his heart was sliding through a mincing machine. He wanted to ask her not to take the offer, to stay with Murphy’s, beg her to choose him.

  What if she didn’t share his feelings; what if this really was just a bed-based relationship? Had he read more into this than what there was?

  Highly possible. This was, after all, Beah he was dealing with. She’d always managed to mess with his head. And maybe he was wanting more because he was jealous of his brothers’ happiness and contentment. Maybe he didn’t want to give up the great sex. Maybe it was because he was tired of being alone…

  Maybe he didn’t love her. Maybe he was just overreacting, not thinking straight.

  But whether he was or not didn’t change anything. She was still walking away from him. And the thought scared the crap out of him. And Finn loathed feeling scared. Since he never felt fear hanging by his fingertips off a rock face or cliff diving, it annoyed him that a tiny redhead could make him feel this way.

  “I wanted you to know before word spread.”

  “If the rumor hadn’t gotten out, would’ve you told me?” Finn demanded, his voice as cold as those ice waterfalls he loved to scale.

  “I was planning on talking to Ronan after the Mounton-Matthews sale,” Beah replied, straightening.

  “You were going to talk to Ronan and not me?”

  “I’m talking to you now, Finn.” Beah cursed when her desk phone rang. She ignored the incessant buzz and held his eyes, as if daring him to say something. Anything. Should he? Should he take a chance, persuade her to stay?

  The phone stopped and Beah sighed. She opened her mouth to speak and the damn phone rang again. She snatched it up, barked a greeting and then handed the phone to him. “It’s Eli. He says it’s important.”

  Nothing was as important as this, as her. Screw Summers. Beah’s place was at Murphy’s, with him. She was his and as soon as he got rid of his caller, he’d set her straight.

  “Eli, I’m not taking calls.”

  “Finn, it’s me. Ben.”

  Finn frowned. He immediately looked at his watch and did a calculation, it was shortly after three in the morning in Hong Kong. Why was Ben calling so late? Oh, God, no.

  “Ben, what’s happened? Is it Piper?” Finn’s eyes collided with Beah’s and he watched the color drain from her already-pale face.

  “She’s not doing good, Finn.” Ben’s voice broke.

  Finn released a long breath and leaned across the desk to hit the button to put the phone on speaker.

  “Beah’s with me, Ben. Talk to us, bud,” Finn said, resting his right butt cheek on the desk. “What’s going on?”

  “She hasn’t been feeling as well as she was a few months ago. She’s really weak and in pain. I took her back to the oncologist today and she had another scan.” Ben’s voice broke. “It’s spread, the cancer. It’s now in her spine and in her organs. She has less time than we thought.”

  And they hadn’t had much time to begin with.

  Beah winced and abruptly sat down on the edge of her chair. Finn saw her tears and felt his eyes burning. He tried to speak but the words got stuck in his throat. Jesus, this was why love sucked so much, why it should be avoided. Why loving someone was so damn risky.

  “How can we help you, Ben? Is there anything we can do?” Beah asked, her voice steady despite the tears rolling down her face.

  Ben took a long time answering. “As you know, we were supposed to fly in soon, we wanted to spend the week before our wedding with you.”

  God, he’d forgotten all about their wedding.

  “We still want to get married but Piper is too weak to fly. We are just going to have a quiet ceremony here, in our apartment. I’m terribly sorry but I need you to cancel all the arrangements you made.”

  Finn swallowed, trying to dispel the hard ball of emotion in his throat. “I can do that. Do you want me to fly out, be at the wedding?”

  “Oh, God, yes, please. Piper’s sister is flying in and we’ll invite a couple of our close friends,” Ben said, his voice a croak. “But can you come soon? I want to get my ring on her finger.”

  “You tell me when and I’ll move heaven and earth to be there,” Finn told him. No matter what was on his plate, he’d be there if Ben needed him.

  “Day after next.”

  That soon? Okay, then. “I’ll see you soon, bud.”

  Finn disconnected the call and ran his hands over his face. He’d heard the desolation in Ben’s voice and couldn’t believe Piper, young and vibrant, vivacious and bold, had less than a few months to live. How was Ben going to get through this? How was he going to cope?

  This was why it was better to hold back from loving someone completely, why it was important to keep Beah at a distance. Because when you lost love, no matter what form it took, it eviscerated you. How stupid he’d been to even think about trying to solidify what he and Beah once had, because love always, always left.

  Beah’s hands gripped his biceps and he opened his eyes to look down into her sad, sympathetic eyes. “Oh, Finn. I’m desperately sorry. I’ll make the arrangements for us to fly to Hong Kong, book the hotel, just leave it to me.”

  Finn squeezed his eyes shut, thinking he needed distance.

  “I’m going alone,” he told her, his voice harsh.

  Beah’s eyes widened with shock. “But, Finn…you can’t.”

  Finn picked her fingers off his arms and stepped away. “Sure I can. You don’t need Murphy’s or me, and I sure as hell don’t need you. If you can walk away from me and Murphy’s, I don’t need you to hold my hand at my friend’s wedding.”

  “That’s not fair,” Beah whispered, looking like he’d punched her. “You didn’t ask me not to join Michael, didn’t give me a reason why I should stay at Murphy’s. Why I should stay with you?”

  Finn, fighting the wave of vulnerability crashing over his soul, hardened his heart and his tone. He shrugged. “You shouldn’t. We’re bed buddies, Beah. There’s nothing more to us than sex.”

  “BS!” Beah shouted. “You know that’s not true. If you gave me a good reason to stay, to move to Boston, I would.”

  Finn looked at the door and wished he was walking through it. He hated these emotion-laden, fraught conversations. They were messy and ugly and he remembered now why he avoided them. “I only want you to stay in Boston so you can keep sleeping with me. That’s basically it.”

  Finn saw Beah’s flushed face, saw her hand close into a fist. Then she dropped her head. Finn bent his knees and saw tears sliding down her cheeks.

  He grimaced, fighting the urge to take her in his arms. He could handle yelling but her tears unmanned him.

  He was halfway to the door when Beah’s softly spoken words stopped him in his tracks. “All I ever wanted you to do was love me, Finn.”

  He turned and saw her looking at him, her heart in her eyes, and his heart crashed and exploded.

  “Back th
en and now, all I wanted was for you to love me, to talk to me, to maybe lean on me. I told you about Michael hoping you’d persuade me to stay in Boston, to try to make us work. But there is no us because you won’t let there be.”

  Beah wiped her tears away with the balls of her hands and stared down at the wet streaks. “I should never have slept with you, should never have let you back into my life. Because you haven’t changed, Finn. Yeah, you’re bigger and maybe even more good-looking but you haven’t grown up at all, not where it counts. You’re still emotionally stunted, still scared of me and the way I make you feel.”

  Every word was another slap, every tear another punch. Finn watched Beah as she straightened her spine, shook her head. She pointed to the door. “Go, Finn, walk away, because it’s what you do best.”

  He couldn’t help the question because he needed to know. “What are you going to do?” he demanded, his voice hoarse.

  Beah managed a small smile, cold enough to freeze the balls off a steel statue. “Don’t worry about it, Murphy. What I do, or don’t do, has nothing to do with you. Your job is to protect yourself and to hell with anything else! Be like that, but I will see you in Hong Kong. I will be there for Piper. I will witness their vows.”

  “I don’t want you there.”

  “I. Don’t. Care. This isn’t about us or our crumbling relationship. This is about Ben and Piper and not spoiling their wedding ceremony.” Beah pointed to the door. “Go, Finn. You know you want to. And after Hong Kong, I’ll leave your life, professionally and personally. And permanently.”

  Finn, knowing that he couldn’t stop her from traveling east, threw up his hands in defeat. She was right. Piper and Ben’s wedding wasn’t about them. “I’m going to use the company jet to fly to Hong Kong. A driver will collect you. I’ll text you with the time.”

  Beah’s glare slashed through him. “I’d rather swim to Hong Kong, thank you very much.” Beah brushed past him and her elbow accidently-on-purpose jabbed his stomach. “See you in Hong Kong, Murphy. And when we meet again, do me one last favor?”

  He raised his eyebrows and Beah nailed him again with her sharp words. “Don’t bother talking to me. There’s nothing left to say.”

  NINE

  Finn stormed back down the hallway and when people quickly stepped out of his way, he knew his expression was thunderous. Blocking off the memory of Beah’s tears, of the hurt he’d put on her face—again!—he slapped his hand onto the door of the conference room and pushed it open, glaring at the people sitting around the table.

  Carrick was the first to react. “Finn? What’s the matter?”

  Ronan stood up, placed his hands on the table and sent him a hard stare. Finn dropped into a chair and placed his head in his hands before pushing the balls of his hands into his burning eye sockets.

  “What’s going on, Finn?” Carrick repeated his question.

  God, he felt like a ten-day smoldering heap of trash.

  From a place far away, he heard Carrick ordering the staff to leave and when Ronan shoved a cup of hot black coffee under his nose, he dropped his hands to push the cup away.

  “What happened?” Carrick asked, worry in his eyes.

  “We are calling off Ben and Piper’s wedding. She’s sicker than we thought and she’s too weak to fly to Boston.”

  “I’m really sorry to hear that,” Carrick said, placing his hand on Finn’s shoulder. Finn shrugged it off and abruptly stood, needing to pace.

  “How much time do they think she has?” Ronan asked.

  “Not as much as we thought.” Finn’s heart broke for Ben. “I couldn’t ask for specifics. But I need to go to Hong Kong. They are still getting married and I told Ben I’d be there.”

  “When do you want to leave?” Carrick asked. “I’ll contact our pilot and get him to file a flight plan.”

  “Today, tonight, as soon as possible,” Finn replied, trying to think. “I’m going to go home, pack and then I’ll head to the airport.”

  Carrick nodded and picked up his phone to send a text. Finn linked his hands behind his neck and caught Ronan’s eye. He bristled at the sympathy he saw in those eyes so like his own. “What?”

  “Is Beah going with you?” Ronan asked.

  Finn released a sound that was a cross beneath a laugh and a growl. “Why would you think that?” he demanded, surprised at his jumping heart. He’d thought that organ was dead and gone.

  “Because you were organizing the wedding together. Because you are sleeping together. Because you love her. Because we don’t want you to be alone,” Ronan said, using his calm-down-client voice.

  Finn glared at his brother. “We’re bed buddies, Ronan, nothing to get excited about. There’s nothing between us but sex.”

  If he could start to believe what he was telling himself, really take it on board, maybe he could function without Beah.

  Ronan let out a bark of laughter before rolling his eyes. “You are talking such crap, Finn, and you know it. Beah should be with you—you need her.”

  “I don’t need anyone!” Finn pushed the words out. “I’m perfectly fine on my own.”

  Carrick and Ronan exchanged a long look and Finn debated which of them to hit first. Did it matter? Releasing some of his roiling anger—this sticky, sour hurt—via his fists connecting with his brother’s faces would make him feel much better.

  “You punch us and we’ll punch you back,” Carrick told him, in a super-reasonable, super-genial tone. It just made Finn want to smack him harder.

  But he didn’t have time to rumble with his brothers and he didn’t want to rock up at the wedding, even if it was low-key, with a black eye or split cheek. He had to get his brothers off his case, move them onto another subject, and he knew exactly how to do that.

  Yeah, it meant throwing Beah under the bus but what the hell.

  “Beah is thinking about leaving Murphy’s and joining Michael Summers.”

  Neither of his brothers looked surprised and Finn felt his temper, already bubbling, heat a few degrees. “You knew?”

  Carrick shrugged. “We’ve been hearing rumors.”

  “And you didn’t tell me?”

  “You and Beah are divorced,” Ronan pointed out.

  He knew that, dumbass. “I’m still a partner in this firm.”

  “I heard about it the morning after we met Paris Cummings for dinner in London,” Carrick explained, pulling out a chair and dropping into it. “I was going to tell you but any idiot could see you and Beah spent the night together. You actually looked happy for a change. I decided not to rock the boat.”

  “Carrick told me and we decided to bring Beah to Boston, thinking that if she worked out of Boston, she might change her mind about wanting to move on,” Ronan added.

  Finn couldn’t understand their reasonable tone, their lack of anger. “Why aren’t you more upset about this?”

  Ronan lifted his bone china coffee mug to his lips. “Frankly, I’m surprised she lasted this long with us. She’s well respected in the industry and has amazing connections. Her clients love her. And her moving doesn’t mean we’ll never deal with her, it just means we have to reorganize the way we pay her since she earns most of her income via her commission structure.”

  “She belongs here,” Finn insisted, wondering why he was arguing. Wouldn’t it be easier if Beah just moved on, if they made this split between them final and complete, if they severed the last cord binding them together?

  “No, she belongs with you, not the company,” Carrick replied. “The company has no hold on her. And even if you were together, I’d still have no problem with her joining Michael Summers. You’re thinking with your heart, Finn, not your head.”

  Of course he was, and that never went well. When he allowed his stupid, emotional organ to rule, he only hurt himself. And Beah.

  Would he ever learn? It was offic
ial—he was stupid when it came to dealing with people. He was far better off alone. He did alone quite well.

  And he was tired of talking. He looked at Carrick. “Did the pilot respond?”

  Carrick checked his phone and nodded. “Yep, you’re all set.”

  Finn nodded his thanks and headed for the door. He placed his hand on the frame and turned. “I’ll be in Hong Kong for a few days—two, three? When I come back, I might head to Aspen or the Arapahoe Basin in Colorado. I need…”

  Finn saw the disappointment in Ronan’s eyes. “You need Beah, but because you are too stubborn to go there, you’re going to throw yourself down a slope to prove to yourself you are alive, that you are free. True freedom comes with courage, Finn, with deciding what you want and working to get it. And maybe you and Beah won’t make it work a second time but it would be the adventure of your life if you did.”

  Finn didn’t need an emotional adventure; he needed a physical one. He’d far prefer to end up with a broken body than a broken heart.

  The dented and dinged organ barely beating in his chest was hard enough to handle.

  * * *

  Beah dropped into her office chair, turned her back to the glass wall and hoped her waterproof mascara was up to the job. Waving her hands in front of her face, she tried to think of work, tried to concentrate on making a mental to-do list to get her mind off the fact that Finn had, once again, walked out of her life.

  The tears rolled again.

  Beah wrapped her hands around her waist and leaned forward, accepting that she couldn’t brush off this pain. She was such a fool, thinking Finn had changed, that he was wiser, older and, maybe, finally, able to love her the way she needed to be loved.

  His scars were too deep, his fear too great. Ironic that he was fine with risking his body but not his heart.

  You’ve been here before, Beah; you will survive this. You survived your mom’s death and your dad skipping out; you survived loving and losing Finn before.

  You can do this. And even if you think you can’t, you have to.

  Because it wasn’t going away and it wasn’t something she could change.