I scrunch my nose. “Holt’s Day?”
Kevin rises from his desk, moving around the side and heading toward the doorway. “Ah, you haven’t been to a Holt’s Day before. Come on, I’ll take you up.”
I rise and wait for him to exit his office first, and as I’m following him and Anna to the elevator, I find the other receptionists gone from their desks now. I’m so confused my head is beginning to hurt. “Where is everyone?” I ask.
Anna glances over her shoulders, rolling her eyes. “They’re at Holt’s Day.”
Kevin smirks, pressing the top button of the elevator. When Anna looks away to step into the elevator, he mouths, “Bitch.”
I smile and nod, following him into the elevator, and stepping in behind Kevin as he uses his keycard to access the top floor. Silence surrounds me until the doors open and then a wave of laughter and chatter wash across me.
Anna hurries away, quickly leaving us without saying a word.
Kevin exits the elevator, and when I step out next to him, he turns to me. “I’ll be in touch soon. Okay?”
“Yes. Okay. Sounds good.” I’m trying to get my bearings. Children are running by me in fast blurs and the screams of joy are deafening. My mind is racing, searching for answers, while I notice a waterfall wall behind the reception desk with Holt Enterprises written in silver bold letters across it. There are offices to both the left and right, but the greater difference than the floor below is the laughter flowing throughout the hallway. Clowns, magicians, and other entertainers are in the reception area, bouncy screaming children surrounding them.
“You’re late.”
The low voice spiraling down my spine sends a shiver along with it, and I spin around to face smoky eyes, instantly reminded I almost kissed Micah last night in a moment of weakness. “I never got the invitation,” I tell him.
One brow lifts. “No one told you about Holt’s Day?”
“No, it wasn’t mentioned.” My stomach clenches, heat instantly pooling low in my body, kicking my nerve endings into overdrive. It’s his eyes; they get me every damn time. They hold secrets and dark promises, and they’re wreaking havoc on my control. “But I’m here now,” I continue. “So, what exactly is Holt’s Day?”
“It’s my charity.” He smiles.
“Holt’s Hope?”
“You’ve heard of it?”
“Just recently, in fact.” From the softness of his expression, I can tell this charity means something to him. That softness does something so strange to me. It’s like a pull of energy, sucking me right in, making me want to be closer to him. It’s powerful. It’s strange. If I’m being honest, it scares me a little.
Three screaming children holding balloons run by me, breaking my eye contact with him. I smile at them before turning to Micah again. “How often do you bring the kids here?”
Micah pauses to examine me, staring at my mouth. I think he likes my smile. His eyes intensify whenever he sees it. “Every month the kids come in for the morning and we bring in entertainers.” He shoves his hands in his pockets, owning the space so naturally as his gaze is scanning the room. “The clowns are the favorites by far.”
A fluttering feeling swirls in my belly as I listen to him speak. The passion, the sincerity in his tone, it’s another damn surprise. I keep trying to lump him into the spoiled-rich-jerk category, but every time I see him, he’s showing me he doesn’t belong there.
Micah’s brow arches again, awaiting my reply, but my voice freezes. I find myself falling into this thing I see past the confidence he projects. There’s a certain kindness about him I somehow missed and am only now seeing. It’s genuine, and I’m feeling horrible for not noticing it before. “This is a really great thing you do for these kids.”
His smile is slight. “Believe me, I get more out of this than they do.”
The way his eyes go unfocused, as if lost in some dark memory, tells me he’s a deeper man than I took him to be. There in the depths of his commanding eyes, I see a grave sadness exuding from him, telling me this charity is personal for him. I have no idea how I know that. I just do.
My throat begins to tighten and I find myself scrambling to ask the right question or to apologize for being hard on him when he didn’t deserve it. I’m not empathetic, but my world is slowing, my chest is squeezing. Now seeing him, somehow I’m feeling his pain, too.
And in this moment his shields are down and his pain is bleeding out of him.
A child stops in front of us and his squeal snaps me into the present. “I got a dog,” the boy says to Micah.
I’m speechless at the warmth reaching Micah’s features when he lowers to one knee and pats the little blond boy on the head. “It’s a very good dog, Cameron.” The child lurches into Micah’s arms, and Micah’s eyes shut, a peace so visible to me reaching his face.
“My mom would like this dog,” the boy says, jumping out of Micah’s arms.
“Yes, I imagine she would,” Micah replies with a soft nod, then asks gently, “What will you name him?”
“Spot.” The boy gives a big grin with loving doe eyes at Micah before hurrying away, screaming at his dog balloon flying high in the air, “Spot, the wonder dog!”
Micah glances up as he rises and gives me the softest expression, so contradictory to the power he possesses. “Cameron’s mother passed away six months ago from lung cancer.”
I take that in for a moment, glancing around the space, seeing all these happy children, realizing what Micah does for them—the happiness he brings to them after they’ve gone through far too much. “How very sad,” I tell Micah, understanding these kids myself. I wasn’t as young when my parents died, but something inside changes when you lose your parents before you’re an adult yourself. For everyone it’s different, but for me, it taught me how short life is and to never waste a second of it.
Be true to yourself, and for cripes’ sake, do what makes you happy, whatever that might be—that’s my motto.
“It is sad,” Micah agrees. “I have a team here at Holt that reaches out to psychologists to find kids that need us.” A long heavy breath escapes him before he gives a tender smile. “Cameron’s doing much better now. He’s settling back into school and we’ve got him involved in some after-school sports.”
He’s not looking at me when he says that; he’s staring after Cameron, and there’s longing in his face—heartache too, for sure. I can only assume that Micah has felt what Cameron has, because that look, that pain on his face, that shared memory cannot be faked.
I should know. I’ve felt it, too.
He turns to me then and my breath catches in my throat. Micah is intensity, power, and heavy emotion, and it’s all-consuming, weaving over me like a warm blanket that I need.
“Allie?” he asks softly.
I blink away from the spell of him, feeling every hair on my body rise, awareness of the man next to me overwhelming. “Yes. Sorry.” I smile, blinking twice more. “Drifted off there for a minute.” But I hadn’t. No, I realize so much now.
Micah’s not like the man my mother described as her ex-husband, he’s not even like my half-brother, he’s something more, and I can no longer deny the truth. With my judgment of him gone, all that remains is a flowing heat and electricity pinging between us, and so much more.
His eyes narrow and he’s watching me intently. Part curiosity, part intrigue in my shift in mood toward him, I’m sure. But that intense emotion I feel coming from him interests me more, because for this to happen between us, he needs to be this guy I’m seeing without the armor he always keeps up. “This charity is clearly personal to you. Can I ask why?”
His jaw clenches, eyes darting. I instantly realize I’ve hit a nerve.
Then, “Holt prides itself on charity work.”
The people, the noise, the activity around me drift away as I watch Micah walk from me with wide steps. I see him drop down with a group of children doing magic tricks, addressing each and every child in the group by name.
Somehow he’s reaching my soul, tangling curiosity around me so tightly.
“His hot level hit the roof, right?”
I startle and jerk my head sideways, finding Liv. “What?” I manage.
Her eyes are dancing as she gestures at Micah, who now has three boys wrestling with him, while he’s tickling them into hysterics. “Look at that hunk surrounded by all those kids. Like I said, if he wasn’t hot before, he is now.”
My chest aches when I look at Micah. I don’t agree with Liv, not that I’ll tell her that. Micah’s always been hot. The chemistry between us is undeniable. But this makes him real. He’s forcing me to see something I didn’t before.
I see the man behind Holt, behind the suit, and behind the money.
I see a man with ghosts.
Liv continues, awe in her tone. “Who would have believed that he’s so sweet.”
“Not me,” I whisper. But he is sweet. In fact, he’s more than sweet, I’m beginning to think.
Micah flops back on the ground, raising his hands in surrender and declaring himself the loser, sending the children around him running away, laughing and squealing in pride. I think I can’t possibly be more impressed by him, but I’m quickly proven wrong, when the cutest little blond girl, wearing a crown and a purple princess dress, begins to paint Micah’s fingernails sparkly pink.
I tilt my head, listening to their conversation. “I’m gonna make you pretty,” the little girl says with a big grin.
“Thank you very much, Princess Gracie,” Micah replies, watching her work.
Liv nudges me on the arm and says, slyly, “Rethinking saying no to a date with him?”
I shrug at her, it being the only honest answer I can give. If only dating Micah were so easy. If only he weren’t a billionaire and perfectly happy living a simple life. If only he weren’t in the public eye and my dating him wouldn’t expose my secrets. There are too many huge if only’s to take that leap.
I can’t forget that.
But then his smoky eyes meet mine, clearly catching me looking at him, and my breath hitches, tingles rush in my veins, and everything becomes so very uncomplicated. I want to know why he gives me butterflies. I want to know all the complicated layers to him. I want to accept the way he’s offering himself to me now, bearing the real him to me, not showing me the man he projects as a shield.
And if I’m being honest, I want to know his secrets, while that gorgeous man is delivering on his dark and sensual promises.
Micah
Loud grunts and heavy breathing fill the air around me, as I drop my duffel bag down next to the mixed martial arts cage in Frisco’s Gym in North Beach. I reach inside my bag, grabbing out my ringing phone. “Holt,” I say into it.
“Micah, it’s Travis. Anderson and Isabella are here on speaker, too.”
Everyone knows I come to the gym before my lunch hour. The fact that no one wants to wait until I return to the office to arrange a meeting tells me I’m not going to like what I’m about to hear.
I drop down onto the bench, staring out at the boxing ring across the gym, watching two men pound the hell out of each other. “What’s up?”
“I went back over Richardson’s financials,” Travis continues. “And considering we’re requesting a meeting with Bennett, I thought this conversation shouldn’t wait.”
“Go on,” I say.
Anderson speaks now, voice grim. “It’s still not looking good. In fact, reading the reports a second time makes things appear worse.”
Before I can reply to ask for more details, Isabella adds, “We bought Richardson as an acquisition. If the plan was to save the company, we should have offered less than what we paid, and then used keeping the company alive as a bargaining technique. We all know that Henry Richardson would’ve sold for less if he thought someone would keep the company afloat. We backed him into a corner and gave him no choice but to sell to us, because we paid him more than our competitors offered.”
“She’s right,” Anderson agrees. “In time, of course we could see success with Richardson. But hiring Bennett Inc. to give the company a deeper look only takes away from our profit. And we all know that this isn’t an easy fix. Bennett’s team will need to stay around for at least a quarter to get things moving in the right direction, which won’t come cheap. It’ll be a good year or two before we ever see a return on the investment.”
I ponder taking the rest of Richardson’s employees and moving them into Holt, but immediately toss out that idea. That’s the simplest answer to this conundrum. But, right now, we don’t have a big enough residential real estate department to support them and likely won’t for some time—which is why I originally acquired Richardson, so we could grow that business at Holt.
“Which brings us back to my original point,” Isabella adds, dryly. “Why are we doing this? Financially, strategically, it doesn’t make sense, Micah.”
I hesitate, considering my next steps. It is possible to come up with a new direction for Richardson that will somehow benefit Holt. I feel my instincts telling me not to give up yet, and I never doubt myself in regard to business.
My team isn’t seeing the possibility, because I pay them not to see it. They make smart financial decisions for Holt, and this isn’t a smart decision. But I won’t force them to agree either. The last thing I want is a bunch of drones—yes-people—around me.
I realize this can’t work for Holt, because it’s about me. This is a personal decision I made because of Allie. Richardson is my risk. “I hear what you’re saying and I know what I need to do.” Either go back on my word with Allie or take this on as a personal investment. “Leave this with me for now, so I can make some decisions.”
“All right, Micah,” says Anderson, voice strong in support of me. “You’ll let us know of your plans?”
“I will.” I end the call then drop my phone back into my duffel bag.
The game is changed now. Financially it makes no sense to dump money into Richardson, but I gave Allie my word in that second of complete insanity. A second where I acted like someone I didn’t even know. Yet now it doesn’t seem so insane anymore. I saw something in her then that I didn’t want to disappoint. I still see that in her now. I’m done questioning my choices. I’m done acting like a guy I don’t know.
I concur. I overpower. I take whatever the fuck I want to take.
“You should’ve warned me of your mood.” My driver’s, Levi Ward’s, amused voice drags me from my thoughts. He scrapes a hand over his buzzed-cut brown hair, his wise copper eyes assessing me. “Then I might have brought an ice pack with me.”
“Pussy.” I grin.
He barks a laugh, dropping down on the bench next to me, and begins removing his running shoes. Levi’s not only the best fighter I know, he’s more like family to me than a hired driver.
His father, Arthur, had worked as my parents’ butler since my birth. But five years ago, I gave him a million-dollar retirement package to walk away with that he could not refuse, forcing his retirement.
Levi’s father had been kind to me.
He pitied me during my childhood, and brought Levi over so I didn’t spend my days surrounded by adults who talked business. My life was different than Levi’s, but our youth together bound us so strongly that I knew Levi didn’t want from me like everyone else did. There’s no one in my life I trust more than Levi. That’s why he’s my driver.
“So, do tell, what did the world do to piss you off today?” Levi asks, pulling me from my thoughts. “And how badly will you punish me for it?” I see the fire in his eyes for the fight ahead. Perhaps it’s his military background or that we grew up together or it’s his nature, but Levi doesn’t hold back when fighting me. And he’s nearly as good as me in the cag
e, being trained in mixed martial arts alongside me while growing up.
What I want to say is that a woman is weakening me, leading me to make bad business decisions, and is seeing past all my expertly crafted barriers. I feel the heat of the beast swirling within, and that fire needs to stay buried, while I pursue the sweet, innocent Allie. But she also has me by the balls, making me do things I would never otherwise do, and I don’t like it.
Instead of saying all of that, I reach into my duffel bag and grab my gloves. “No one pissed me off. It’s business.”
“I’ve never seen you like”—Levi freezes halfway from reaching for something out of his bag and studies me long and hard—“this over business before.”
I slide my left hand into the open-fingered glove then tighten the strap around my wrist. “It’s because it’s not entirely business.”
Levi pulls out his gloves and starts laughing, shaking his head. “Ah, so that’s what this is all about—a woman. Of course. I should have known that the second I saw the look on your face.”
I snort, putting the glove on my right hand and tightening the wristband. “I’m not even going to dignify that with a comment.”
Levi rises, grinning at me. “So, princess, what are you going to do about your dilemma?”
“First, I’m going to kick your ass for calling me princess.” I slap my gloves together, standing in front of him, wearing a smile I know could intimidate some, but doesn’t intimidate Levi. “And then I’ll decide what to do about the girl.”
But I don’t need to decide about Allie, only about Richardson. Because I already have a plan for Allie, and after I kick Levi’s ass, bringing myself back under control, keeping my demons at bay, I plan to get some more ass, and that’s Allie’s.
Bound Beneath His Pain: A Dirty Little Secrets Novel Page 7