Under Pressure

by Kira Sinclair

Kennedy watched the blood drain from Asher’s face. And then it all flooded back, burning red with anger and indignation.

  Crap.

  The last thing she needed was for Asher to lose his temper and deck Jackson.

  And she refused to be the reason these two friends came to blows. Especially now that she understood just how important Jackson and Knox were to Asher, how alone he would be without these brothers.

  Pushing between them, Kennedy put her palms in the center of Jackson’s chest and shoved. He didn’t move much, but it was enough. At least she had his attention.

  Jackson’s gaze shifted from Asher to her, and for a few seconds she wished it hadn’t.

  The anger and anguish there sent a bolt of pain through her own chest. She could handle just about anything, except her brother’s disappointment.

  “This isn’t his fault, Jackson.”

  “No? Then it’s yours?”

  “It’s no one’s fault. We’re both adults, perfectly capable of deciding who to let into our beds.”

  Jackson glared at her, his laser-blue gaze cutting straight through her. “Maybe, although you don’t exactly have a great track record where lovers are concerned, do you, Kennedy? Indecent exposure, really?”

  Kennedy gasped. It was her turn for the blood to drain from her face. She felt light-headed, and the room began to spin. Heavy hands gripped her shoulders, holding her still and anchoring her in place, when, for a few seconds, it felt as if her entire world had exploded.

  “How, how did you know?” She twisted around, glaring at Asher. “Did you tell him?”

  “No,” he growled, his gaze thunderous.

  “He didn’t,” Jackson tossed a glare at his friend and then ran his hands through his hair, tugging at it several times before looking at her again. “Did you really think I wouldn’t keep tabs on you? You’re my only sister, Kennedy. I have specialized skills and friends all over the place. Of course I knew what was going on with you.”

  But... “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

  “Because I figured if you wanted my help you’d come to me. I wanted you to trust me with the truth, but you never did. You’re not great at letting people in.” His lips twisted into an unhappy frown. “It’s a trait you share with him.”

  Kennedy turned her head, looking at Asher over her shoulder. Jackson wasn’t wrong.

  “You’re both strong-willed and stubborn as hell. Cautious even though you like to pretend that reluctance is by choice and not because of past experiences.”

  God, he was right.

  “You don’t have to worry about this affecting our work. Even though there are still a couple days of filming, it’s temporary. I’m leaving for Seattle in less than a week, after all.”

  Instead of calming him down, that only made Jackson glare at her even more.

  “Just one more reason this was a bad idea. But I guess it’s too late to stop it, now.”

  Spinning on his heel, Jackson disappeared through the door he’d entered. It might have made her feel better if he’d slammed it, but he didn’t.

  Guilt, fear and pain rose inside her, a churning sludge that made her belly cramp.

  Behind her, Asher dropped onto the sofa. The springs groaned in protest, but he didn’t seem to notice. Instead, he scraped both hands up and down his face, as if he could wipe out the past several minutes.

  Walking over, Kennedy crouched in front of him, placing her hands on his knees.

  Asher moved his legs away from her touch, letting her hands fall empty on to the sofa. The one where they’d just spent the past hour snuggling. Making love...

  He didn’t even bother looking at her when he muttered, “Go home, Kennedy.”

  “I’m going to fix this, Asher. I promise. I’ll talk to Jackson, smooth things over. I won’t let him get upset with you for something I chose to do.”

  When he didn’t respond, Kennedy reached for his hands, prying them away from his face. When he finally looked at her, his expression was completely blank.

  “There’s n-n-nothing to fix. You’ll be leaving in a few days. And I can handle your brother. But he’s right and this is over. So, go home.”

  A hard lump formed in her throat. Kennedy tried to swallow it back, but it wouldn’t budge. Something told her neither would Asher. At least, not tonight.

  * * *

  KENNEDY’S WORDS HURT, more than he wanted them to.

  They were the reminder he’d desperately needed, especially after making love to her on the couch. He hadn’t meant to, but he’d been powerless to hold anything back.

  And for a brief moment, he’d thought maybe she’d felt the same soul-stirring connection he had.

  But she hadn’t.

  To her, what they’d shared was just sex and nothing more. In a few days, she’d be gone, and once again, he’d be left shattered.

  A sharp pain lanced through his chest, but Asher ignored it. He was used to pain. Could handle it just fine. And this would be no different.

  Kennedy stared at him, the expression in her eyes nearly killing him. Anguish. Regret. He didn’t want her regret. He wanted her to stay.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  He wasn’t certain what she was apologizing for, but it really didn’t matter.

  Words raced through his head. Things he could say to change the outcome. But he didn’t want to convince her to stay. He needed her to want to be with him. Was it too much to ask that someone, anyone, would choose him?

  “Go home,” he said again, his voice even.

  She stared up at him, hesitation in her gaze, and for a second he thought maybe, just maybe, he was wrong. That she was going to wrap her arms around him and say she didn’t want to leave.

  Instead, she gathered her things, put her clothes back on and walked up beside him. Her soft hand rested on his arm. The heat from her body radiated out, touching him as surely as any caress she could have given him. And his traitorous dick responded, wanting nothing more than to be buried deep inside her again.

  He longed for that physical connection, even though he knew now that it was empty.

  “I won’t let this ruin your friendship or jeopardize your business, Asher. That I promise you.”

  He didn’t give a damn about the business.

  “It’s fine,” he said, even if deep down he knew it wasn’t.

  She squeezed his arm, holding on just a few seconds longer.

  And then she was gone.

  16

  ASHER WALKED THROUGH the front door of Trident the next morning. After a long, sleepless night, his resolve was set in stone.

  Kennedy was leaving. And he wasn’t sure he would have stopped her even if he could. This was a major opportunity for her. She’d put all of her time and energy into Trident, but the diving company wasn’t her dream. It was Jackson’s and Knox’s really. And his family.

  She deserved the chance to make her own mark on the world. And if he really cared about her, he couldn’t stop her from doing that. Even if it hurt.

  But for his own peace of mind, he had to stop their relationship. It was going to be difficult enough to let her go. The more time he spent with her, the deeper in he got.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t going to be easy to avoid her.

  They still had several more days of filming before the documentary crew was finished with them both.

  Starting this morning.

  Kennedy’s car was already in the parking lot, so he knew she was there. And so was Jackson’s. At least he’d be able to get all of the difficult conversations over with at once.

  He ignored the production crew as he stalked past the front conference room where they’d assembled. Daniel called out to him, but Asher didn’t acknowledge the other man.

  He was on a mission.

  He stopped in the doorway to Kennedy’s office, not bothering to knock before entering and closing the door behind him.

  Plopping into the chair across from her, Asher put his feet up on her
desk, knowing it would drive her absolutely insane.

  She glanced at the soles of his boots and then followed the line of his legs straight up his body. Asher felt the impact of her study as if she’d caressed him, but he ignored the physical fallout.

  “Look, given the situation, I think it’s best if we end whatever this is between us.”

  Kennedy’s mouth opened and closed. Her lips thinned, and her eyes narrowed. But she didn’t argue with him. The tiny seed of hope he’d been powerless to stomp out last night finally withered and died.

  “We both knew it was nothing more than some fun. But you’re leaving, and my relationship with Jackson is more important than some fling, even if the sex was stellar.”

  He watched Kennedy’s face blanch and then blaze bright red. But she slowly nodded.

  “We have a few more days of filming. Help me get through them, and then we can both move on with our lives.”

  He didn’t wait for Kennedy to respond but bounded up from the chair and turned to leave. However, two steps into the hall, he was startled to be grabbed by the arm and spun into an empty office, his back slammed against the wall.

  “I should put my fist through your face for that,” Jackson growled at him, the fist in question poised for action and aimed straight at his nose.

  “You want to punch me because I broke things off with her, but you didn’t when you walked into my house and found her practically naked in my living room?”

  Jackson’s fist wavered before dropping. Using both hands, he shoved Asher’s shoulders, driving him harder into the wall.

  “Last night you had your arm wrapped around her waist, ready to go toe-to-toe with me in order to protect her. In there, you were just being cruel.”

  Asher opened his mouth to argue but shut it again. Because maybe Jackson was right. He could have been gentler about ending things, but she’d hurt him, and part of him wanted to hurt her as well.

  Shaking his head, he let his body sag against the wall. He was tired.

  “Damn,” Jackson breathed out. “You actually love her, don’t you?”

  Asher shook his head, trying to force the words away. He couldn’t. He didn’t.

  Lying to Jackson was useless, anyway. “Yes,” he mumbled. “But she’s leaving in a few days, so it doesn’t really matter.”

  Wrapping a hand around Asher’s neck, Jackson pulled him into a light embrace. “You realize you’re an idiot, right?”

  “For falling for your sister? Yeah, I’m aware.”

  Jackson just shook his head.

  * * *

  THE THREE DAYS that followed were pure torture. If she’d thought Asher could be an asshole before, that was nothing compared to the way he’d been acting since they’d returned to work.

  She was ready to kill him, and she thought Daniel was close to putting out a professional hit.

  Where was the guy she’d gotten to know on the ship? Had he been a figment of her imagination? Had he been putting on an act just to get inside her pants? Kennedy didn’t want to believe it.

  Mercifully, there was finally a light at the end of the tunnel. This evening was the last day of filming. After this, the project would wrap, and she’d be free to concentrate on the details of her move to Seattle. She already had a Realtor searching for apartments, so she could hit the ground running when she arrived.

  Daniel had shot Asher a pointed glare when he’d finally arrived, showing up two hours after their original call time. He’d walked into Trident in the same clothes he’d left in the day before, his hair a mess, bags under his eyes and reeking of perfume.

  Kennedy had felt sick. Unable to stick around and watch, she’d fled to Jackson’s office and hid out there for a little while.

  She and Jackson had gone over the few items she needed to pass on before leaving Trident, which meant that, as soon as filming was complete, her employment with Trident would be finished.

  And several hours later, she couldn’t continue to hide, not when her place was out there with the production crew. It was late, already dark outside, so they had to be close to finished.

  Her body braced for whatever was coming her way, Kennedy walked into the conference room the crew had been using and stopped short.

  “...the pig tore through the camp, trampling tents, ripping through supplies, not even bothering to stop and nose at the food churned up.”

  Asher sat, his hips propped against the end of the large table sitting in the middle of the room. Jackson was kicked back in one of the chairs, the biggest grin she’d ever seen on his face. They were engrossed in each other and the story she’d walked in on. But their profiles were to the room with the cameras capturing every moment.

  Leaning back, Asher laughed, the loud, robust sound echoing through the room. It wasn’t until that moment that Kennedy realized she hadn’t heard it in days.

  “Or the expression on that teenager’s face when he walked into that clearing in the middle of the godforsaken jungle only to find twelve semiautomatics trained on his forehead.”

  This was the man she’d missed for the past several days. The one she’d seen on the Amphitrite. The guy she’d thought had been a figment of her imagination.

  Tears pricked the backs of her eyes. She must have made some noise, because both Asher’s and Jackson’s gazes jerked in her direction.

  Jackson’s grin softened when he looked at her. But Asher...his expression simply shut down.

  “Kennedy. I thought you’d already left.”

  “No. Why would I leave? This is my project, and today’s the last day.”

  Asher’s pale green gaze slipped away from her, and she felt the loss of it straight down to the soles of her feet.

  “Jackson said you’d turned over all your other projects this afternoon.”

  Everyone in the room began to shift and murmur. Daniel stepped into the shot, leaning across the table toward both men. “Thanks, guys, I really appreciate you sharing some of your stories with us, even if you couldn’t get too specific.” Turning back to the crew, he said, “That’s a wrap. Asher’s invited everyone back to his place for a few beers. You all should have the address.”

  She hadn’t gotten the invite. Kennedy tried not to let that bother her, but it did.

  Asher stood up and wandered out without even looking at her.

  She was so overwhelmed she didn’t even hear Jackson approach until he was standing right beside her, watching the same empty doorway. “He’s an idiot.”

  “Tell me something I don’t already know.” She flashed her brother a smile but didn’t even pretend it was real.

  “He’s hurting, Kennedy.”

  “He has a really strange way of showing it.”

  Jackson shrugged. “I’m not about to fault him for whatever gets him through this, especially since you’re the one leaving.”

  Her brother didn’t even wait for her reaction, although she wasn’t entirely certain what it would have been. It was clear Jackson was implying that Asher felt more for her than he’d let on. But she didn’t believe him. Or maybe didn’t want to believe him.

  Asher was the one who’d broken things off.

  “So, you’re heading out to Seattle day after tomorrow?”

  Kennedy nodded. She planned on staying out there for a couple weeks, long enough to find a place, meet her new boss and coworkers and then come home to get all of her stuff.

  And she was already dreading that goodbye with her father, mother and brother at the airport.

  But she needed to do this. For herself. Or she’d always question whether or not she had the strength to stand on her own.

  * * *

  THE NEXT TWO days flew past, a blur of activity as she tried to square away her life in Jacksonville and arrange things in Seattle.

  Her stomach was in knots as she boarded the plane, replaying her mom’s tears, Dad’s gruff goodbye and Jackson’s whispered “make sure you come home in one piece” in her ear, the same words she’d spoken to him countless
times before.

  There was one person she wished had been there, and for a brief moment she thought she’d caught a glimpse of him in the crowd around security, but it had only been her imagination playing awful tricks.

  Several hours later, she’d touched down and hit the ground running. Apartments, movers, new company and corporate culture. Everything had been intimidating and overwhelming.

  And, if she was honest, disappointing.

  Two or three days into her new job, it had become clear that it was not exactly what she’d thought—or been told. Instead of being a junior member of the team, learning the ropes and assisting on major national ad campaigns, she was little more than a glorified fetch-it girl. She handled the grunt work, editing someone else’s copy, refining someone else’s graphic artwork, researching someone else’s campaign ideas, instead of brainstorming her own.

  For three weeks Kennedy tried to tell herself this was how things worked. She had to pay her dues and work her way up the chain. But during lunch with one of her new coworkers, she’d come to realize that working her way up the chain at Masters, Dillon and Cooper could take her ten years of sixty-and eighty-hour work weeks, none of which would be spent on her own campaigns.

  And maybe, if she hadn’t had a taste of something more, she’d have been satisfied with that path. But at Trident she’d had autonomy. She’d headed up her own major marketing campaign, interacted with the media, written press releases, formulated sound bites and spun crises.

  It didn’t take long for doubts to creep in. Had she made a seriously bad decision?

  Adding to that, whenever she thought of home, she remembered Asher and that last night of filming. And she wanted him. Not just physically, although the burning need for his touch was always there. But she wanted his laugh, his confidence, even his stutter, although she’d noticed it had been completely absent during those last few days. At some point in the process, he’d gained confidence in front of the camera and conquered his fear, probably without even realizing.

  Kennedy had never been the kind of woman to hold back, except when it came to love. Jackson wasn’t wrong when he said she rarely let anyone in. Because the few occasions she had, things hadn’t exactly gone well.