Her cheeks coloured. ‘You still should have told me.’
‘I know,’ he admitted. ‘And under any normal circumstances, with any other woman, I would have—could have. But with you...’ His eyes trailed over her, a subtle crease breaking his brow. ‘For some reason I couldn’t. I couldn’t even think straight. I couldn’t think past what you were doing to me.’
‘You expect me to believe a man like you is ruled by his penis?’
He flinched, his own cheeks streaking with colour.
Fuck his boyish charm, she thought. Why did he have to do that?
‘Last night, with you, for the first time in my life I’m ashamed to admit I was.’
Fuck—what was he saying? That the attraction between them had been too strong to deny? That he’d never felt that way before?
Panic bubbled in her throat. Wasn’t that how she felt too?
Or—her stomach twisted—was he hoping that flattery would see him free of her wrath? Well, screw that.
‘Are you trying to flatter your way out of this?’
‘No, I can assure you I’m not,’ he said strongly. ‘I’m not proud of my actions, and I’m angry for not keeping myself in check, but I can assure you I’ll do my damnedest to keep myself in check from now on.’
She pressed her lips together, a confusing mix of emotions was raging within, disappointment hitting the crescendo.
Hell, she shouldn’t be disappointed, she should be grateful.
She needed it gone—this attraction, the desire, the distraction...
But where was the off switch?
Even his questionable behaviour regarding Tony wasn’t enough to rid her of it. Or maybe it was if his justification on that score was full of shit.
She grabbed at it like a lifeline. ‘Fair enough, but what about Tony?’
His eyes widened, her change in topic clearly surprising him. ‘What about him?’
‘Well, from all I’ve read you’re a man to be admired,’ she said evenly, ‘not one to be despised for taking advantage of a man not in his right mind.’
He frowned, and she could see her words had stung.
‘Is that what you think I did?’
‘I don’t know what to think,’ she admitted with a sigh. ‘I only know that the broken man I saw today had no business signing your agreement.’
‘He needed that deal.’
‘Is that what you told yourself to make it all better?’
‘Look, Andrews came to me with a sound offer and I took it,’ he said. ‘Whatever his personal situation, it didn’t come into it.’
‘But you must’ve known something wasn’t right—that he wasn’t right?’ she flung at him, her desperation to paint him bad ringing through her words. Working with a man she disliked would be hard, but it would be doable. The alternative—she raised her drink and took a long, slow sip—didn’t bear thinking on.
‘I had my suspicions at the time,’ he said truthfully. ‘But I’m a businessman, Jennifer. I didn’t get to this point in life by being all soft and understanding.’
‘So you just took advantage?’
‘No, I did not,’ he snapped. ‘Surely you can see that ultimately my involvement has given him a get-out? A chance to fix his mess?’
Her fingers trembled around the glass. She didn’t want to accept his argument but felt it register all the same. ‘It’s not right. He should’ve come to me, not you.’
‘What?’ he said incredulously. ‘Why do you think you’re the one to help him out of this? Do you know how much money we’re talking? How much it’s taken just to keep a roof over his head and see off his creditors?’
‘I would’ve been able to do something.’ Even as she said it she realised it was nonsense, that Tony was in too deep for her alone to have given him enough. ‘Now he has nothing.’
‘Only if he chooses it to be that way,’ he said softly, his anger disappearing as quickly as it had come. ‘I’ve given him ample money to start afresh and get himself sorted out. Yes, I know he’s not in a good place, but I’ve given him the best possible chance. What he does with that is up to him.’
His words silenced her, his logic doing away with every rebuke, rational or otherwise, save for the desperate. ‘He still should have come to me.’
‘Why?’ He shook his head and placed his glass on the table, turning in his seat to give her his full attention. ‘I just don’t understand it. You’ve done enough for him already. From all the digging I’ve done, it’s clear you’re the brains behind this operation—you’re the reason the company has done so well. What is it that Andrews has over you to make you care so much?’
Her head swam with his admiration of her even as her need to defend Tony was roused. ‘You don’t understand.’
‘Then make me understand.’
‘Tony’s a good man—a really good man,’ she stressed when she saw he would refute her. ‘He’s not just a business partner to me.’
His jaw clenched and he looked away. ‘I see.’
‘No, I don’t mean it that way,’ she rushed out, feeling her mutinous body getting high on the tension in his. ‘Seriously, there’s never been anything like that between us.’
Her impulsive need to reassure him riled her. Yes, it helped Tony’s case, but she wasn’t blind to the infuriating fact that she cared for Marcus’s opinion.
Raising her chin defiantly, she said, ‘Not that it’s any of your business.’
His eyes locked with hers, their depths so fierce she had the wretched impulse to take her words back.
‘You’re probably right,’ he said, ‘but it pays to know exactly what I’m walking into.’
She fidgeted beneath his probing gaze, not liking the direction of their conversation. It was too private. Too personal. She wanted an out and it came swiftly, loaded with heat.
‘Like you knew what you were walking into when you slept with me?’
He stilled, and his intensity was all the more severe for it. ‘And I told you I couldn’t think straight with you seducing me.’
Her lower belly contracted, cutting off her breath. The ache was instant and dizzying as the memory of those moments in the car flooded her. She tried to push it out, not to dwell, but she knew he was reliving it too, could read it in the flecks lighting up his gaze.
‘We’re digressing,’ she said, her voice annoyingly elevated, and she looked away, staring at the calming piano in desperation, hoping he would get the message.
She heard him shift and her pulse skipped. Was he reaching for her?
‘You’re right,’ came his level response. ‘Let’s get back to Tony.’
Surprise, disappointment—all manner of things she shouldn’t feel washed through her and she chanced a glance his way. He’d settled back, drink in hand, one arm draped casually over the sofa-back.
Bastard—how did he do that?
She lifted her glass to her lips, using the drink for cover. Her voice wasn’t ready—hell, her brain wasn’t...
‘What I was trying to say,’ she said eventually, ‘is that I’ve known Tony a long time and he’s done a lot for me.’
He nodded his acceptance of that much and she continued on. ‘We met at a university recruitment fair in my final year and I impressed him enough that he offered me a job before I’d even graduated. I guess he saw the potential in me, and the drive to make it big.’
‘I’m sure he did. I imagine you were a force to be reckoned with even back then.’
She smiled slightly. Was that how people saw her? How he saw her?
‘Perhaps,’ she said, ‘but I had my reasons and he understood them.’
‘Reasons?’
She hesitated. Not many people knew her true motivation, but Tony did—and that was what it really boiled down to. ‘It was more than just a desire to make something of myself. I h
ad to be successful and Tony did everything he could to help me.’
‘Had to?’
She took a breath and let it out with her next words. ‘My father died when I left for university.’ There—she’d said it. It always killed her a little when she voiced it. But she needed him to know, to understand. ‘He left behind me, my mother and my younger sister.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, his gaze softening. ‘I take it you were close?’
She frowned. It was a strange question. He had been her father—of course they’d been close. But then... Did he not have a father he was close to?
‘Very,’ she said, burying the thought—she didn’t need to know that about him. ‘No matter how busy he was, he always made time for us—in fact, he was the one who taught me to play.’
She gestured to the piano, a brief memory of being sat down with her father the Christmas he’d had it delivered filling her mind, and she gave a small smile, the gesture falling as the emptiness of him no longer existing returned.
‘What happened?’
She met his eyes and something inside her cracked, his interest blindsiding her with the urge to cry.
‘A heart attack.’ She swept a hand across her dry cheek, smoothing away phantom tears. ‘It was a long time ago, but it was unexpected. I guess the shock has never quite left me.’
He nodded with understanding. ‘And so you do it all for him?’
‘In some ways,’ she acknowledged. ‘He effectively ran himself into an early grave, making sure we had everything we could possibly want. And when he went... Let’s just say things weren’t too straightforward financially. My family home costs a small fortune to run and my mother isn’t well. She needs a lot of support and living at home helps keep her settled...’
Thoughts of her mum had sadness welling up inside her, and she broke off as the helplessness of their situation sucked at her resolve and she felt exposed, too vulnerable, the tears too close to the surface.
‘Your sister and mother both depend on you?’
She shrugged. ‘I’m the breadwinner. My sister’s due to start university next year, so there is only me, but I want to do it. I love my career, and I want to keep my father’s promise of a good life for us all. I want to do him proud.’
‘I think you’ve done that in spades.’
She smiled. ‘You’ll understand why I’m so indebted to Tony, then?’
‘I wouldn’t go that far.’
‘I would,’ she said, tears now forgotten with the acute need to make him understand. ‘Seriously, it never would have happened without him. You didn’t know Tony back then—how amazing he was, how he could read a situation or an opportunity so well and make the perfect call. He could handle people and business deals with such skill that it left us all in awe, and he taught me so much.’
Marcus nodded, decent enough not to argue, but she could tell he wasn’t convinced.
‘It’s only in recent years that he’s started to be so—’ She broke off, unable to label it.
‘Unreliable?’ he provided for her.
She nodded ruefully. ‘But after seeing him today I’m beginning to understand it all. The gambling, the poor investments... I just had no idea he’d got himself into this bad a state.’
The shock of seeing him hit her anew and she shuddered. Her wine sloshed in her glass but she was too lost in the memory to care.
‘It was soul-destroying to see him so out of it. So drunk. I mean, he looked ill. Properly ill.’
He reached out and took the glass from her shaky hold. ‘He’s an alcoholic, Jennifer. What would you expect him to look like?’
She froze. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘I’m not.’
‘I don’t think getting off your face on the day you sell your share of your own business to cover a multitude of gambling debts and keep a roof over your family’s head labels you an alcoholic.’
He studied her, his eyes searching.
Did he think she was lying? Covering up on Tony’s behalf? Or in some strange denial?
‘I’m serious. I know he has a gambling addiction and needs help—but an alcoholic?’
He leant forward to set his drink down and angled his body towards her. ‘If it was a one-off I’d completely agree with you, but it’s not.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘From what I’ve seen, and heard on the grapevine, I believe he’s been hitting the bottle for quite some time.’ He rested his elbows on his knees and linked his hands together. ‘The gambling is just another of his vices.’
‘But I would know if he had a drink problem,’ she said. ‘He wouldn’t have been able to hide it from me.’
‘It’s amazing how well it can be hidden.’
‘But he didn’t say he had a problem—not in that regard. He spilled his all to me today, but...’
‘He probably doesn’t even realise it himself. High-functioning alcoholics like Andrews often don’t.’
Jennifer racked her brain, thinking over the times she had seen Tony of late. Had he ever been without a drink nearby, even at the office? His mood swings, his irrational behaviour, his forgetfulness... And then there were the cold sweats, when he’d told her he’d simply been unwell. Had that been something else entirely?
‘Have I really been so preoccupied that I’ve totally missed the signs?’ she asked, her voice distant, the truth of the situation and the magnitude of her failure as a friend setting in. ‘I mean, Christ, he’s given me so much and I’ve repaid him by—what? Not even noticing? Neglecting him when he needed me the most—not giving him the time—’
‘Stop it, Jennifer.’ He reached out and cupped her hands in his, the warmth of his touch contending with the chill running through her. ‘Look at me.’
She did as he asked, her eyes meeting the fervent heat of his own.
‘None of this is your fault,’ he said. ‘He has done this to himself. He is the one to blame—he is the one who has hurt those around him and let them all down. Not you.’
The bitterness in his voice cut through her. He made it sound so detestable, so personal...
‘You talk like you’re speaking from experience.’
His hands flexed around hers, his eyes flashing with a pain so raw that her heart clenched and her own problems—Tony’s problems—temporarily faded.
‘Are you?’
He blinked, his gaze falling away. ‘Am I what?’
‘Speaking from experience?’
A warning bell rang, but the question was out anyway, and the need to know rose from a part of her she couldn’t ignore.
CHAPTER NINE
HE’D ASKED FOR THAT—her question.
He should have been more prepared, more composed. But seeing her break down, listening to her talk about her family, her responsibilities, and then having the whole Tony situation piled on top had thrown him off guard.
And then there was his guilt. Christ—now that he knew how much rode on her career... and along he’d come, shaking it up with his out-of-control cock.
What an arsehole.
And now he’d made another blunder—giving her a glimpse of the demons that no one had any business knowing about. No one saw that side of him. Not ever. He’d learned the hard way that emotions were for the weak, and that wearing them on your sleeve earned you a fist or worse.
But he looked to her now, and suddenly his philosophy no longer applied.
Her emotional tirade hadn’t made her weak. It had made her beautiful—admirable, even—and the need to pull her towards him was killing him. He wanted to take away her pain and his past with the passion that flared so readily between them.
‘You don’t have to tell me,’ she assured him softly. ‘Not if you don’t want to.’
Over her hands, his thumbs caressed her skin and for a split-second he cons
idered doing it—silencing her with his mouth, making her forget it all.
And what would that make him?
An even bigger fucking arsehole.
He released her hands and dropped back into the sofa, arching his neck over the back of it as he looked to the ceiling.
If sex was out, what was left? More of the truth? Didn’t he owe her a little after all she’d told him?
‘My father was a drunk.’
The words resounded around the room, out before he’d even mentally agreed to them, the spoken confession so strange and alien.
‘Your father?’
He flicked his eyes over her, taking in her sympathetic beauty and wishing he’d buried his decency and gone for sex. It would be easier now that she knew who he was. Less complicated.
And that in itself was ridiculous. He had his rules for a reason: business and sex didn’t mix. And yet letting this personal exchange continue felt far more threatening.
‘You don’t need to listen to this.’
‘I want to,’ she said, leaning towards him, her palm coming to rest on the sofa between them, her compassion filling the air.
Christ, she was good.
And he didn’t have to tell her everything—just enough to make her feel he’d shared...
Resigned, he glued his gaze to the perfectly smooth white ceiling and linked his hands together behind his head. ‘My father wasn’t like Andrews,’ he began, matter-of-fact. ‘He was what you’d call a chronic severe alcoholic—one who liked to take his anger with the world out on me and then use alcohol as an excuse.’
‘My goodness—that’s awful,’ she rushed out, her obvious horror making it impossible for him to overlook the brutal truth of his confession, of his past.
But he wanted to. He wanted to forget it all save for the lessons it had taught him.
The hairs prickled on the backs of his arms and he clasped his hands tighter. ‘It is what it is.’
‘Was he always that way?’
‘No,’ he acknowledged, his stomach drawing tight as the chill continued to spread under his skin. ‘He was a Welsh miner. Life was tough, but he did all he could. He worked hard and he was well liked.’
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