by Libby Rice
Knowing her team had assembled downstairs, she peeled back the door of an antique armoire to reveal rows of satin hangers. Breathing in the scent of cedar that emanated from beyond the mirrored panels, Scarlet pushed Ethan from her mind long enough to stow weeks of business clothing. Fitted pencil skirts falling at least to the knee should have been a practical choice, but after the incident on the plane, she wondered if even they were too sensual. Ethan had made quick, delicious work of her conservative attire.
When she wore clothes that fit, her curves came knocking. Baggy clothes meant to tone things down lent her the look of an unprofessional slob. Stowing a particularly lovely silk blouse in mint green, she pictured the gray linen skirt she would pair it with. Like a second skin around her hips, it fell to a sublime, but slight, flair at mid-calf. She rousted the skirt from her luggage and hung it next to the blouse, running her fingers over the material, momentarily transported.
“Worth the wait,” he’d said. Her wardrobe choices were moot. A showdown was coming whether she showed up in Channel or a gunnysack. Might as well look good.
Only partly unpacked, Scarlet drifted to the room’s crowning glory, an oversized picture window framing what had to be one of Europe’s most striking public squares. Placing her hand against the cool glass, she looked on as walkers and cyclists ruled street and square alike. Most of Copenhagen’s inhabitants couldn’t justify owning a car, which made for a true pedestrian city that beckoned her to join the bustle.
A young mother pulled her toddler from a low fence that separated a ring of weathered cobblestone from an inner plot of lush green grass. Intent on reaching the flowers beyond the barrier, the child rushed back, only to be thwarted by his watchful mom once again. Nearby, a couple, probably in their seventies or eighties, commandeered an iron bench facing her hotel. Every few minutes, their clasped hands would separate, reaching in unison for a bag of seed before taking turns throwing food to the pigeons at their feet.
Leaning in, she could hear the tinkling of bike bells as they overtook meanderers along the sidewalk. Even her nasal passages prickled at the ocean’s salty tang drifting through an open window, further taunting her about the piles of work that awaited downstairs.
Backing away from the cloudless day that invaded her room, Scarlet turned her focus to a door behind her carved breakfast table. She wished mere doors separated her from Ethan. On the plane, she’d thrilled to his touch. Against her better judgment, she’d allowed herself to believe—though only during those scalding moments—that his reverence hadn’t been about power or proving that despite her anger and distrust, he could rule her body.
She wandered to the wall she shared with Ethan, then cracked a door that, sure enough, led to another door she knew opened into Ethan’s suite. Staring at the gateway from her room into his, she prayed a few inches of wood could keep them from destroying each other. Because she secretly ached for another go, only this time with equal access to Ethan’s muscled torso, his ribbed abdomen, his… everything.
Worse, she knew that like his presumptuous statement on the plane, the room arrangement sent a message. Susan the Minion did exactly as her master ordered—to the tee, and if possible, with a cherry on top. Ethan had gone out of his way to orchestrate their particularly close quarters.
And you, Scarlet, are the cherry.
With a dismissive shake of her head, she scooped up her computer and made her way to the designated conference room for a scheduled rendezvous with her team. Tomorrow would bring an initial meeting with Optik. The two sides would volley back and forth until she had what she needed to report to Ethan regarding the legitimacy of Optik’s asking price.
As she strode into the conference room, Scarlet acknowledged her colleagues seated around an antique mahogany conference table that must have weighed a thousand pounds. A huge vase, overflowing with yellow daisies and azaleas, anchored the dark expanse of wood, while crystal chandeliers hung low over a careless smattering of laptops and coffee mugs. The ravenous wolves she called coworkers had eaten all the damn Danishes.
Adopting a smooth air of indifference, she prepared for knowing looks, maybe even perceptive comments. She couldn’t expect her in-flight closeness with Ethan to have gone undetected. Even if their little foray into PDA had flown under the radar, someone must have noted that their spat before boarding contrasted against Ethan’s attentiveness in getting her to the hotel and checked in after they’d landed in Copenhagen.
Plus there was the matter of the adjoining suites.
Yet when she looked around, ready to take her medicine, the group collectively noted her entrance with disinterest. After a round of quick hellos, heads re-bowed and fingers re-engaged. And, yeah, it was occasionally a lucky break to be surrounded by people who were simply too busy to worry about anyone or anything besides themselves and their own obligations.
She walked around to Brian Wentworth at the far end of the table and began setting up shop. While the rest of the team had let her off the hook, Brian immediately stopped flirting with the big-breasted associate to his left. The sudden break in conversation emphasized his eyes on her as she plugged into a gilded socket. Theirs was a friendship forged in the trial by fire of the young-lawyer trenches at JTS. They’d been pulling document review all-nighters and orchestrating three-in-the-morning pizza runs for years. Now Brian’s sly grimace let her know he’d sensed the Ethan-Scarlet dynamic, whatever that was.
“How’s your room, Scar?”
Scar. Her second-worst nickname. The more she reminded Brian not to use it, the more he “forgot” not to liken her to a partially-healed flesh wound.
“Room’s fine. Don’t you think?” she replied in a monotone, not bothering to look up as her computer booted.
“The view?” he asked, pretending she hadn’t injected a question of her own.
“Fantastic.”
“Your neighbor?” Now his eyes sparkled with ill-suppressed glee.
Looking up, she met Brian’s gaze and simply licked her lips. Slowly.
His eyes went wide and his voice drifted into sing-song. “Knew it. Nobody looks that dreamy after hours on a plane. Not even me.” He muted his outburst, but it still garnered attention. “I mean, no one pulls off long trips like you, Scar. Really, you’re a natural traveler. Such stamina.”
Brian cracked his knuckles and began typing furiously. His instant message came fast. But be careful, honey. Not sure of his plans for you. Can’t tell whether he wants business, revenge, sex…
Scarlet swallowed and gazed at Brian over their screens. She nodded silently in answer. Most likely all three.
******
Mentally grappling with a plan to turn the tide, Scarlet wandered the corridor outside her room, dressed for dinner alfresco but feeling like saltines in bed.
Ethan opened his door with suspiciously impeccable timing. “Can’t get my mind off the flight,” he murmured, falling in step.
No kidding. “Try harder.”
“Harder,” he said solemnly, “is an interesting choice of words.”
She stopped, needing to clear the air before their dining with Optik’s top players. “Ethan, you know this can’t happen.”
“This?” He looked around in mock confusion. “I’m walking down the hall. Not exactly untoward.”
“We cannot happen.” Even though I want you so badly. “No flirting.” Because then I’ll let “us” happen. “No touching.” Because we want each other for different reasons.
“Tell me why.” Ethan didn’t sound angry, exactly, more like tense.
Hello chest squeeze. She swallowed hard, eyes darting around the corridor, stalling everywhere but his questioning face. The motivation behind his tenderness on the flight and his lingering interest couldn’t be noble. They may have delved into the personal on the plane, but they’d avoided the elephant in the room. Her accusation of violence and his subsequent imprisonment weren’t going away.
They’d also ignored the little fact the he was her clie
nt and a big catch for her firm. Ethan was off limits no matter how many past demons they overcame.
“You know why,” she said, finally responding to his demand for an explanation.
With that, she resumed her trek to dinner, intent on ignoring how well he filled out his designer suit. Most men couldn’t work the classic cut of Dior Homme, but the midnight wool of the suit and the equally dark silk shirt, tieless and barely open at the throat, only combined to make him look bigger, sleeker. Equal parts dangerous and erotic.
And Ethan was a danger to her. So much so she feared she couldn’t handle his brand of hurt.
“Bullshit.” He towered over her, his voice at once sensual and menacing. “We’re both attracted, and you have neither a meaningful nor convincing reason as to why we can’t enjoy each other.”
More like use each other, she thought, startled by his revealing choice of words. But how utterly tempting.
“Then let me spell it out.” She came to an abrupt halt, her need to understand Ethan’s motives driving the whole sticky scenario from her lips. “I accused you of trying to kill me, an accusation that landed you in a notorious prison for months and shattered your livelihood and future plans. I tried to reconcile. You made it clear any apology from me was both unwanted and unacceptable. You hinted that revenge would be sweet. Fast-forward nine years. You drag me unwittingly into your now-luxurious corporate world, bent on executing a plan only you understand. What is it, Ethan? What is your plan? What must I endure for you to feel better? I’ve paid my dues.”
Her heart worked in painful beats. The simple act of verbalizing her fears initiated great rushes of emotion that left her floundering. All the pent-up suspicion and worry had provided a framework of almost physical support, a tension she hadn’t known she’d come to rely on.
Without a word, Ethan snaked an arm around her waist. Like on the plane, his other hand went to her face, her hair, stroking in that way of his that both comforted and aroused. He made low, whirling sounds in the back of his throat, and within moments, her heart no longer squeezed in painful lurches and her breathing returned to normal.
When she peeked up at him from within the embrace, he refused to meet her gaze. Evading her barrage of questions, he focused on her lower lip, rubbing at it with his thumb.
“I’m not that complex. No tricks,” he said darkly. His voice dropped and his head descended to nuzzle the base of her throat when he murmured, “You know exactly what I want, Empress.”
The calm evaporated. He’d momentarily lifted the fear of being ground under his heel only to throw it over her again. To him, the name “Empress” functioned as a weapon. He used the mock endearment to maim. On the plane, when he’d touched her with such care, he hadn’t called her that. Instead, he’d called her “sweetheart,” his voice low and reverent, as though she were a treasure, not a piece or three of heart-shaped candy he badly wanted to eat.
Battling a tide of emotion, she pushed at his chest. Rather than displacing him, the shove sent her reeling. Quickly, he reached for her hips, steadying her heavy sway before trailing his hands across her stomach and dropping them to his sides.
“I don’t want the same things you do.” She didn’t trust herself to say more.
He straightened carefully, then turned to pluck a rose from a vase situated on a nearby sideboard. He snapped the stem and slid the flower behind her ear, all the while looking as cool and unaffected as she was shattered.
Panting, she met his amused stare. “Dammit, Ethan,” she whispered, frustrated that her honesty hadn’t reached him. “I can’t be casual about us.” The low entreaty didn’t halt the perusal that meandered along her body from flower stem to dress hem, and she snapped her mouth shut.
Stop baring your soul to someone who doesn’t care to see it.
“Then don’t be,” he said enigmatically, leaving Scarlet standing stoically against the wall of the corridor, chest heaving and hands fisted at her sides.
Chapter 8
Dinner impressed everyone but her—an evening garden party on the terrace of the Restaurant l’Alsace. The patio blazed with candlelight. Beyond the fringe of the glow, handsome half-timbered, ochre houses peeked over a border of raised flower boxes.
After two days of negotiations, both sides felt that despite slow progress, the acquisition held promise. Five courses and a tide of red wine later, folks were primed and ready to relax and enjoy a more personal affair.
Scarlet hadn’t arranged the meal, which meant Ethan at least understood the art of adding a social dynamic. The only way to really get through to people—stressed-out business types especially—was to reach out on a human level, generally with food in one hand and booze in the other. The Optik lineup had to like Ethan and his team. Achieve the like, and an agreement would be infinitely more attainable.
Raw from their encounter at the hotel, Scarlet studiously avoided Ethan throughout the night. He’d made it clear he wanted her, and God, she wanted him, too. But his desire was purely physical, whereas she also wanted forgiveness, friendship, acceptance, even caring. All needs that wouldn’t be met by the simple sex he offered. Scratch that—the anything-but-simple, mind-blowing, spine-out-of-alignment sex he offered.
The feast was winding to a close, and she glanced up to see Ethan studying her intently. He averted his gaze, but not before she caught a glimpse of feeling seething through the candlelight. There was lust, yes, intense and violent. But she also detected curiosity, even craving, in the way his eyes continually crept back after their reluctant desertion.
She leaned forward to reach for her wine, her movements slow with exhaustion. When her fingers closed around the delicate stem of her glass, she heard the chime of fork tines ringing against crystal. Looking up, she watched Ethan rise to his feet, easily commanding the attention of his guests. “I’d like to say a few words. A toast”—a leisurely survey of the audience brought his eyes to hers—“to our team and to the coming weeks.”
The collective focus shifted in her direction. Tipsy office workers who’d dutifully awaited a message from their fearless leader now peered at her with scandalized interest, her people included. She sipped her Bordeaux before carefully setting it aside, maintaining a casual appearance despite the beginnings of an inner chill.
Ethan continued to speak as though directly to her, his head tilted at a mocking incline. “May our hard work here in Denmark bear fruit. If all goes as planned”—a deafening pause—“it will result in our joining. A satisfying endeavor, I’m sure.”
His meaning hit like a furnace blast. Yet she knew to show nothing, not the resentment, certainly not the hurt. Finally, when her nerves stretched to the breaking point over whether another humiliating innuendo would follow, he raised his glass and said, “To us.” The crowd joined him, shouting “Skål!” as they downed their drinks like a rollicking clan of conquering Viking assholes.
Several people didn’t bother to subdue their amused cackles, and she swallowed the growl that rose in her throat, hardly able to comprehend he’d made her the target of his jest. Alone, the toast would have been fine, but combined with his intense stare and the marked tension radiating between them, the double entendre hadn’t been lost on their colleagues.
She clung to the fact that, by and large, Europeans didn’t suffer the fool of sexual repression. Optik’s people would view Ethan’s comment as a legitimately funny and lighthearted joke, something to giggle over and no more. To her own colleagues, however, she’d lost a great deal of face.
Ethan had declared war. In so doing, he’d set out to undermine her professional integrity and competence, knocking her down with his insinuation that she was nothing more than a plaything.
He’d succeeded. Glancing around, her cool look didn’t last. Soon her face flamed at the knowing smirks directed her way.
And now, despite the fatigue pulling at every limb, she couldn’t leave. Bolting after a show like that would play right into his hands.
She summoned her stren
gth along with a practiced smile. Focus. Don’t let him win. Letting her face fall into an unconcerned mask, she homed in on Susan, The Minion, who at least in her mind, was responsible for the repeated and sure-to-suck hall encounters she would undoubtedly endure over their stay at the d’Angleterre.
Likely in her early forties, Susan was attractive in an efficient sort of way. Tonight she’d dressed conservatively in a dark business suit and hose set against dated pumps with that trying-to-be-leather sheen and slightly roughened texture.
Even though others had begun to shuffle seats or head inside to the bar or to the restroom, Susan sat still, chain smoking and looking damned unapproachable as she eyed a discussion between Ethan, Ron Michael, and Optik’s CEO, Arland Magnus.
Personality-minus, Scarlet thought.
Taking a deep breath, Scarlet scooted into a seat next to the ash tray. “Nice job with the dinner, Susan. May I call you that?” Or should I stick with The Minion?
Susan exhaled smoke, not in Scarlet’s direction per se, but also not away from it. “If you’d like.”
“Do you always accompany Ethan on business trips?”
“Usually. Ms. Leore—”
“Scarlet, please.”
“Scarlet, then. I police the distractions.” Her eyes inched over Scarlet’s emerald cocktail dress, making it clear she considered Scarlet to be one such distraction. Ethan’s speech hadn’t helped, and Scarlet fumed through a fresh wave of resentment.
Striving to remain aloof, Scarlet added, “I’m sure there are many demands on Ethan’s time, not all of them legitimate.”
Susan’s look intensified, and Scarlet could tell the woman didn’t appreciate her inability to ruffle Scarlet’s feathers. “Always.”
Cocking her head slightly, Scarlet considered Susan as she sat there smoking and watching. Why the dislike? Even if Susan knew about Scarlet and Ethan’s past, Ethan had done nothing to outwardly indicate his people should harbor hard feelings. This was his show, and therefore, he set the tone. And here Susan did her best to alienate his lead counsel, an odd move for their little cruise director, a role that generally involved bringing the smiles and rainbows.