by Libby Rice
Despite the growing breeze, Scarlet faced him across an outdoor lunch table, his grim recrimination obvious in the severe cant of his head and, once he lowered his wildly gesticulating arms, the press of his fists into the crisp white tablecloth stretched between them.
Their little café fell into a trippy row of old sailors’ quarters that had been converted to colorful bars, bistros, and jazz clubs. Looking away from Brian in embarrassment, she gazed past other patrons enjoying open-faced sandwiches of marinated herring and roast beef to observe sailboats gliding through the harbor canal.
Most of the little boats were leaving, and she wondered how they’d fare against stormy seas.
Brian motioned to a waiter and ordered a lamb burger, medium rare. Then he looked on, shifting every few seconds in his chair while she asked about the breads on offer for sandwiches. After choosing a ham and cheese on soft rye and a Tuborg beer, she sat back, intent on appearing disinterested in whatever burning issue had Brian’s panties in a bunch.
As if she didn’t already know.
“Spit it out,” she chided. She kept the comment nonchalant. He’d never know she burned with curiosity over how he’d broach her taboo involvement.
The answer came quickly. Cringing, she focused inward, letting her longtime friend blast her with his “disappointment” and “surprise” at her “uncharacteristically irresponsible” and “unprofessional” behavior.
Looking over the crowd, she spotted their server. In near desperation, she made a c-shape with her fingers and, with the flick of her wrist, pretended to down a drink. The man appeared at her side in an instant, notepad at the ready.
“Aquavit, please.” Served icy cold, the pale liquor went down fiery hot, a bracing chaser for Brian’s conniption fit.
When the server turned to Brian, he dismissed the man with a sharp wave of the hand. “The whole team’s talking about you.”
Of course they’d figured it out. She could hardly believe how long she and Ethan had flown under the radar.
Brian’s lips thinned, and he turned flippant. “Not sure how you’ll backtrack.”
“Is this something one backtracks from?” she asked, all innocence and light. She couldn’t resist a little goading. “Am I supposed to un-fuck him?”
He looked at her full shot glass the moment the waiter set it on the table. “Are you drunk?”
When she didn’t answer, he hissed, “You’re talking like he literally fucked your brains out.”
Oh, maybe he did.
Reaching out, he snatched the glass and downed her aquavit, taking something she wanted, at this juncture, quite badly. Without so much as a distinguished cough, he straightened his paisley tie and pinned her beneath a hard stare. “If word spreads you’ve jumped into bed with Ethan—your most important client—it’ll end your JTS career, if not your legal career altogether. Shit, Scar, what you’ve done violates the ethical rules for lawyers in all fifty states and Puerto Rico.”
Hearing the black-and-white facts finally jarred her denial loose. The justifications and excuses she’d hid behind over the last two weeks crumbled around her.
She’d done this—Ethan to be exact—with her eyes open. Now she’d pay.
Staring into her beer—at least Brian hadn’t gotten ahold of that—she swirled the gold liquid and pictured the previous evening, envisioning Ethan’s rippling shoulders hunkered between her thighs as he pressed his tongue to her center in an offer of outrageous pleasure. Her cheeks heated at the thought, and she looked away.
“And worse, this is my fault. I—”
“It’s not your fault, Brian.” A sick feeling lurched in the pit of her stomach, and she raised a palm to her forehead, rubbing in slow circles in a futile effort to conjure up a solution to her wholly self-manufactured problem. “I knew the rules.”
“I told him things to soften him.”
Her hand dropped to the table, reaching for a long pull of her Tuborg. “Like?” Battling a gust of wind, her fingers wrapped around the glass before it tipped.
“Ethan tracked me down. He wanted answers.” Brian’s eyes flashed with belligerence as he watched her struggle with the pint. “Now he understands you would never, ever betray a client.”
Nope, only sleep with one.
“And you conveyed that how?” God, she already knew. He’d made her sound like a brow-beaten wimp. Disclosed every weird quirk…
Ethan had told her he’d talked to Brian. She’d just assumed the info transfer had been limited.
Brian’s ruddy color heightened again. “I told him you took that cab straight to the hotel.” With a hesitant, yet triumphant smile, he added, “And why. We discussed your… shall we call it a ‘darkness complex?’” Leaning back in his chair, he settled in. “In fact, I think he came out of our little chat seeing you as some sort of fragile angel in desperate need of a man like him.”
Ethan had extended the olive branch after being made to feel sorry for her.
I blew everything on a pity fuck. Correction, many pity fucks.
“You went too far.” She hurled the words with lethal finality.
After a pronounced pause, Brian spoke. “So you’d rather he believe you headed off into the night to rendezvous with an alternate Optik buyer?”
“Not your choice.”
She blew out a breath, gulping her hard-won beer in pulling surges that weren’t taking the edge off. The thought of exposing yet another weakness to Ethan made her queasy. He knew she couldn’t bear children and that she’d inexplicably parted ways with billions in support and inheritance. He’d witnessed her panic at not being able to positively identify a visitor at her door and how a few days in a foreign bedroom had worn her to the bone. He even knew she showered partially clothed, as though flimsy, wet cloth could save her from an intruder bent on destruction.
While she’d developed the various eccentricities over a period of years, Ethan had discovered most of her secrets within days. The fact that she practically feared the night—that she categorically refused to brave it alone—iced the cake.
Even if undeniable professional issues didn’t stand between them, could an international playboy bazillionaire really desire a meaningful relationship with goods as damaged as hers?
Guilt and sympathy. Both were powerful motivators, and not the kind of emotions she wanted fueling her chemistry with Ethan.
With the barriers to a healthy relationship crashing through her mind, she watched Brian’s eyes shift to and away from her in a tentative bid for understanding. Sinking into a slouch, he crossed his arms over his chest and propped a well-heeled wingtip over his knee, hostility and concern radiating outward in equal measure.
“I’m not sorry.” He grimaced. “If I hadn’t talked to him, he would have taken you down before you knew what hit you.”
“He would have tried.”
“And succeeded, Scar. He really believed you were trying to sack the deal, and he’s an ‘act first, ask questions later’ kind of guy.”
The truth didn’t make the situation easier, just angrier.
She sat forward slowly, plumping her lips. Nice Scarlet was out. Nasty Scarlet was surfacing, faster and faster. “Now that your intel set Ethan and I on a path of no-holds-barred sex, intimacy that you and everyone else working this deal knows about, what do I do?”
Bullshit, her mind cried. Brian had nudged Ethan in a forgiving direction. Seizing her good fortune, she’d been an all-kinds-of-eager participant in her own downfall. She and Ethan would have found the mattress without Brian’s help. And the floor. And the shower. And even that secluded troll-land ride at Tivoli.
She did know the rules. They were breaking her heart. The fight drained away, and she blinked, distracting herself from the stinging behind her eyes. She looked across the table with mute appeal. “I can’t afford to be with him, Brian. The price is too high.”
The last spewed forth in a rush, and she forgot all about pinning the fault on the friend who’d gone out of his wa
y to help.
Blame wouldn’t save her from the grief coming her way.
Chapter 19
Scarlet inhaled the burst of lilies and gladiolas, their rioting fragrances tingling in her nose. No simple bouquet, Ethan extended a portable Danish summer in her direction.
“Hi.” The low rumble enveloped her like a pair of chorded arms.
“Hi, yourself,” she said, wishing she could summon a welcoming smile. “They’re beautiful.” She reached for the creamy, etched porcelain. No smudged glass from Ethan.
The blooms weighted her trek to the nightstand near her bed. They felt like a parting gift. Ethan didn’t know it, but they were. Facing the wall, she stalled, blindly positioning each stem.
“What’s up?” Concern edged the curiosity in his deep voice.
When she didn’t answer, a charged silence descended on the room. She felt, more than heard, Ethan’s measured approach from behind.
Anxiety clamped around her chest like a vice. Show time, that’s what. Procrastination was rarely her poison, but before her sit-down with Brian, she’d welcomed it in. With each passing second—every look, gift, conversation, orgasm—she’d sunk further into Ethan’s quicksand.
“Can we talk?” she managed to ask.
A wary note crept into his tone. “Have you slept?” Along with his “no bleeding” and “no fear” rules, he dogged her incessantly about getting more rest. One yawn and you’d think she hadn’t slept in a week.
She’d miss his protectiveness. Her very own version of the mated vampires she devoured in her romance novels, albeit corporeal and thankfully lacking in the blood-drinking department. A few tastes hadn’t been enough. It took all her strength not to wave a white flag and scream mine, mine, mine! Fuck my career!
Unfortunately, she wasn’t immortal. She could be hurt without the expensive protective mechanisms only money could buy. Like guards with guns in her lobby. Gainful employment wasn’t optional. She simply couldn’t risk digging in with Ethan.
For now.
Time—weeks, maybe months—would let the storm vent its wrath. She’d shuffle Ethan to another attorney within the firm. After that, being with him wouldn’t risk all she’d worked for.
Resolve surged through her system. This would not be the end. She reared away from the flowers, needing distance from anything bearing his stamp.
Two steps brought her ass up hard against Ethan’s thighs. An arm encircled her from behind, and his breath skated along the side of her neck.
“Good idea,” he murmured, turning their bodies in unison and gently pressing her, chest down, onto the mattress. He caged her exactly where she wanted to be. “Sex relaxes. It’s the warm milk of exercise. You’ll be asleep in no time after I’m through with you.”
As he spoke, he straddled her lower back and spread strands of her hair across the velvety duvet, tugging his fingers through her curls.
Like always, his words warmed her against her will. Three little sentences and she was ready to throw caution to the wind for a bout of good-bye sex.
Except it would only be good-bye sex to her. She knew he suspected, but he didn’t know.
Which would be too cruel.
“Ethan, I want you—”
“I know, sweetheart,” he groaned on a subtle forward thrust of his lean hips. “And I can’t wait for you to—”
“But I can’t have you.”
The thrusting stopped. “Oh, but you can,” he said in a voice dripping with innuendo. His hands landed on her ass and slid to her sides. She stifled the urge to groan and surge up from the bed. With a cheek pressed to the mattress, she concentrated on the footboard, willing herself to stay still.
“Everyone knows,” she whispered in defeat, hoping it would be enough.
His caresses slowed, but didn’t stop. “You thought they wouldn’t?” He kneaded her lower back before tracing the seam between shirt and skirt.
“I didn’t think at all.” Liar.
“I didn’t want you to think.”
His weight lifted, and a sigh broke from her lips at having reached him. The relief was short-lived. He merely gripped her sides and rolled her over before settling above her again. Before she could react, he plucked at her top button, then the second.
With each fastener conquered, he smoothed his knuckles over the revealed skin. “I wanted you to feel. Should I tell you want I want you to feel now?”
Yes, but lean close to make sure I get every word. “Please, Ethan, lawyers don’t get to feel their clients. What I’ve done with you. To you. It’s not allowed. I could be disbarred.”
“Mmm hmm.” Another button fell under his tender assault. He stroked between her breasts. She shivered when he nudged the scalloped edge of her bra, brushing back and forth, a physical promise to delve beneath if she asked nicely.
Desire clogged her throat and robbed her of the will to resist.
“Have I mentioned how I worship these skirts you wear?” Her blouse had fallen to his ministrations, and he shimmied backward to stand between her legs at the edge of the bed. Before she could utter a word, his hand slipped beneath her skirt. “So proper. Yet”—he squeezed her inner thigh—“not.”
“Wait.” Her legs went lax when he slipped two fingers beneath her panties, running them along her slick folds. “Stop,” she rasped.
“If I stop, I can’t do this.” He pushed one finger in, deep, the way she liked. “You get so damn wet. Like magic.”
He did it again, this time filling her with two fingers. Leaning over her splayed limbs, his tongue dipped inside her mouth to stroke in time with his hand below. She was too close. On the edge. Yet rather than enjoy the slow slide, anxiety gripped her mind’s periphery. The more she said, the more lazily seductive he became.
“Scarlet?” His forehead pressed to hers and he panted, “You look like you’ll splinter apart if I don’t get inside you.”
I will.
Sweat bloomed over her chest. She couldn’t do this again. Hips bucking, she tried in vain to dislodge him, growing more agitated with each lurch. “Get off me. Now. Don’t, Ethan, please—”
He rolled away in an instant, looking too sexy in his state of arousal and confusion and concern. “Sweetheart?” Rising to his full height, he held his hands out in surrender.
Sitting up, she reworked the buttons on her shirt with clumsy fingers before pulling the covers around her to block out the cold that lingered in his absence. Her heart hammered in a fierce staccato she feared he could hear, maybe see.
The desire had faded from his expression before she finished erecting the soft barrier between them. They faced each other in silence. Shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans, his voice turned bland. “I’m listening.”
Ethan studied her with a horrible detachment. He’d gone from the height of need to bored disinterest in the span of seconds, while she struggled to pluck a coherent thought from the cinders of her blazing arousal.
Make him understand. Her chest heaved. “Like I said, our colleagues know I’ve…” An accurate description escaped her. Fallen? “That we’ve—”
“Fucked, Scarlet. Say it.”
No, she didn’t want his anger. “How you love that word,” she said softly, grappling with her body’s demand for the return of his touch as her heart cracked with the realization that rage might be all she’d get. “But yes, they know we’ve… fucked. And they don’t like it.”
Never breaking eye contact, he twined his arms across his chest in an impressive display that pulled his shirt tight over powerful biceps. She saw her fears enter his mind, disappointment that tightening the corners of his mouth. She’d managed to hide nothing. Still, he demanded, “Why?”
The harsh bark pegged her like a shot, rolling his sharp disappointment into one unforgiving syllable.
Through his rigid jaw, he gritted, “This is between us. You and me, no one else.”
“I’ll lose my job. If a grievance is filed with the state, I could lose my law license.
”
His eyes narrowed and he came closer, almost to the bed, but not quite. “I won’t be filing a grievance, sweetheart.” The mocking purr flowed from his throat. He’d already considered her arguments and found them lacking. “Sounds like overkill over two consenting adults having a little fun.”
She sucked in a breath, her optimism wilting beneath his apathy. A little fun. “Easy to say when our affair costs you nothing.”
“Think again.” Balling his fists, he seethed, “Wanting you caused me to turn my back on the very thing that propelled me to the top. You asked me how I got here. Let me spell it out. I made it through a burning desire to watch you eat your apology, or more aptly, your pity. Your check.”
With a heave, he rattled a thick, wooden bed post, jostling her on the mattress. “No matter how misplaced, that loathing was a powerful motivator. Don’t tell me that welcoming you into my life costs me nothing. I liked hating you.”
And now you can’t.
She clung to the fragile thread. “Pardon me for f’ing up your world view, but you’re looking back. I’m looking forward. The latter is harder.” Desperation spurred her on, made her careless. “Loving you requires me to surrender my livelihood.”
He stilled, and she realized the wrong word had surfaced without her permission. Loving. He couldn’t not use the truth against her, especially when she admitted her depth of feeling to push him away.
“‘Love’ now, is it?” His voice grew husky. “You’re like a bad country song. All love and loss, but never your fault.”
“No, Ethan.” I take it back. “I don’t want to part like this, fighting.” Scarlet rolled onto her side, needing him to understand, to say he’d wait. “I can’t be your lover and your lawyer.”
He stood stock still, a muscle ticking in his jaw like clockwork. For too long, he said nothing, seeming to adjust to the fact that she wasn’t bluffing and that he couldn’t sway her with pleasure or logic or even anger. Then, without warning, he leapt onto the bed, close enough to hold her and tell her he’d be there when the time was right.