by Iris Morland
After the call ended, Thea sat on her bed, thinking. She felt like she was being torn in two. It was easy to think of Anthony as a heartless monster. You didn’t have to worry about hurting a monster’s feelings, because they had no feelings.
But the more she got to know Anthony, the more she felt that he wasn’t the monster she’d thought he was. He was still an ass, and he still rankled her most of the time. His company was still evil.
But she also knew that most situations—and people—weren’t drawn in shades of black and white. Life loved to be shades of gray, and Thea found herself falling into a gray area that she had no idea how to navigate.
She also knew that she was a total hypocrite. She’d been too much of a coward to tell Anthony who she really was. At first, it was solely out of self-preservation. Why reveal her identity to him when they were stuck together, and he could make her life hell as a result?
Now, though, she hated herself for lying to him. He thought she was someone she wasn’t. She didn’t regret being a part of that campaign, yet at the same time, she couldn’t find the courage to speak the truth.
She needed to stop this—whatever this was—before it went too far. The kiss had been a sign that she was getting in way too deep already. If she just avoided Anthony entirely and created a firm boundary, she could get out of here without destroying herself in the process.
“No more kissing,” Thea muttered to herself as she lay down. “No more touching. No more getting to know him. Don’t be an idiot, Thea. You’re better than this.”
She kept reciting that vow over and over as she fell asleep, only to have that kiss haunt her dreams.
Anthony didn’t see Thea the next morning. He assumed she was sleeping in, although she normally ate breakfast pretty early. He scowled at her door, then scowled at himself for acting like some hormonal teenage boy.
They’d kissed last night. So what? He’d kissed plenty of women. Since his divorce, he’d had a string of lovers, the relationships never lasting beyond a few weeks, if the woman was lucky. The women had all known they were temporary, and they’d been fine with it. When Anthony needed that itch scratched, he got it done. Just like he did everything else in his life.
Since he’d first met Elise, he’d never been turned down by any woman he wanted. Why would he be? He was rich and handsome and knew how to make a woman scream his name in bed. Gossip like that spread quickly, and he’d used it to his advantage.
So why did it bother him so much that Thea had essentially rejected him after that kiss? Especially since she’d seemed so enthusiastic at first? It made no sense whatsoever.
He glowered at nothing as he headed outside. He needed some air. The cabin reminded him of Thea—the smells, the sounds, the stupid tofu wraps she made for lunch. The bag of quinoa on the counter had basically sat there, judging him, when he’d gone into the kitchen. Like it knew he had upset its mistress. The thought had been so ridiculous that Anthony had taken the bag and shoved into a cabinet, out of sight.
Anthony reminded himself of what had happened the last time he’d let a woman overtake his senses. He’d become obsessed with Elise, and although he’d never admit it, he’d worked himself to the bone to prove to her that he was worthy of her. And then he’d made her his.
He’d thought their marriage had been happy at the time. He had been away a lot because of his business, taking flights all around the world, from Beijing to Montreal to London. Sometimes Elise had joined him; most times she’d preferred to stay in Seattle. She’d had her own friends to keep her company while he was gone.
Everything had changed when Anthony had hired Ryan Weaver. Ryan, who had been his roommate in college. Who’d been Anthony’s friend far longer than Elise had been his wife. Ryan, who’d helped take Bertram, Sons, and Co. to the next level while also stealing Elise from him.
Anthony kicked at a rock that tumbled down the hill toward the broken bridge. He imagined it was Ryan’s face. The backstabbing, scheming bastard. He’d soon begun to hate that Anthony was CEO, and he’d been second best. So he’d gotten one up on Anthony and had seduced Elise right under his nose. Although that implied Elise had had no choice in the matter—she’d made her bed when she had betrayed Anthony in the worst possible way.
The evening he’d discovered their betrayal, Anthony had come home after spending ten days in China. He’d been jet-lagged, hungry, and desperately in need of a shower.
It was the middle of the night, and since Elise was already asleep, Anthony grabbed a quick bite from the kitchen and went upstairs. As he walked to their bedroom, Anthony heard a thump. He waited, listening, wondering if Elise was awake for some reason. Considering it was close to three a.m., he couldn’t imagine why she’d be awake so late on a Wednesday.
He heard another thump, then a giggle. He was jet-lagged enough not to realize what it was right away.
Pushing the master bedroom door open, he heard someone gasp, and then a rustling. He flipped on the light.
And there, both naked as the day they were born, were his wife and his best friend. Anthony didn’t need any more explanation than that.
Rage filled him. Without a second thought, he dragged Ryan from the bed and punched him in the gut. Elise screamed, blubbering excuses. Ryan, for his part, didn’t put up a fight. He just held up his hands and tried his best to explain.
But what was there to explain? Anthony gave Ryan a bloody nose and another kick in the ribs before hissing, “You piece of shit. I trusted you.”
It was only Elise grabbing onto his arm that stopped him from killing Ryan.
Wiping the sweat from his upper lip, Anthony growled, “Get out. Before I take a gun and blow your brains out.”
Ryan scooped up his clothes, but seeing Anthony’s expression, he didn’t even get dressed. He scurried out of there, tail between his legs, his bare white ass winking in the dim light.
Elise tried to reason with him. But he just handed her her clothes and said, “This is over.”
She was sobbing, saying that she’d made a mistake, it hadn’t meant anything. Anthony didn’t care.
The next day, he filed for divorce. Considering the grounds he had against Elise, she didn’t put up much of a fight. Anthony had gotten all parties to sign an NDA. He’d refused to let this story get leaked to the press. The last thing he needed was some scandal involving his former VP and his ex-wife. Not only would it be humiliating, but it could seriously jeopardize his already tenuous position as CEO. If the board thought he couldn’t keep a hold of his own employees or his wife, they could side with Bruce and oust him from the company he’d built himself.
But Ryan had only agreed to keep his mouth shut if he got hush money along with company stock. Despite how much he’d hated doing it, Anthony had agreed. Everything had been fine until Elise had started squawking about needing more money.
The thought of losing his company was worse than losing Elise. He could move on from heartbreak. He couldn’t move on from what had basically become his heart, mind, and soul since its inception when he’d just been a young undergraduate at the University of Washington.
He ended up down at the creek, watching the water without really seeing it.
More importantly, he needed to get this attraction for Thea under control. She would only be a distraction. She wasn’t the type of person who would bring anything to the empire he was building. She’d try to get him to give all his money to charities for orphaned rabbits, knowing her.
His lips quirked, thinking of that rabbit in its box up at the cabin. And then he frowned. That rabbit represented only weakness, a weakness he’d given in to and shouldn’t have.
So he forced himself to think of Elise, of how she’d betrayed him, of how he had to hold on to this company no matter the cost, and it gave him the strength to return to the cabin and act like Thea didn’t even exist.
10
Thea finished chopping an onion and was about to throw it into a bowl when the lights flickered. Then she h
eard a huge popping sound before the entire cabin was plunged into darkness.
Turning off the burner behind her, she waited a few more minutes, hoping the power would come back on. The darkness persisted. Sighing, she turned on her phone’s flashlight, swearing under her breath when she saw that her battery was low.
“Did you hear that?” called Anthony from the living room. He came into the kitchen, the light of his flashlight brighter than Thea’s phone.
“Yeah, I heard it.” Thea sighed her displeasure. Although the rain had stopped, a windstorm had blown in, and apparently it had done something to make the power go off.
“I’m going to go check what it was. It’s probably the generator,” said Anthony.
Thea frowned at Anthony’s retreating back. Since when did some pampered billionaire know how to fix a generator? Morbidly curious, she put on her boots and followed him outside.
“You don’t have to come outside with me,” he said as he opened the shed some yards from the cabin.
“I can hold the flashlight for you.” She flashed him a wide smile.
He grunted, handing her the flashlight before getting a toolbox down from a nearby shelf. Thea stopped at the same shelf, over which a large, taxidermied fish hung on the wall. She had no idea why anyone would preserve a fish like that. Then again, she didn’t understand why anyone would preserve a deer head, either. She shuddered.
“What’s the point?” she asked, not expecting a response.
Anthony cocked an eyebrow. “What? Of a toolbox?”
She rolled her eyes. “No, the fish on the wall. If you’re going to take the time to catch a fish, why not eat it?”
“I thought you were against eating animals.”
“I am, but it seems more of a waste to stick it on your wall.”
Anthony shrugged. “I guess it’s to remember the hard work that went into catching it.”
Thea grunted.
“Why don’t you eat meat?” he asked suddenly.
She waited for him to mock her, but when he just waited for her response, she said, “I wasn’t always vegan, but when I did more research into how animals suffer for our food, I made a change. I feel a lot healthier for it, and nothing has to die to feed me.”
“Plants had to die.”
“Like I’ve never heard that one before.” She rolled her eyes. “Plants can’t feel. And don’t tell me that you can’t get protein as a vegan, because there are lots of plant-based proteins you can eat.”
His lips twitched. “I wasn’t going to say that at all.”
The moment settled, and Thea couldn’t help but remember how he’d kissed her only a day prior. Ever since then, he’d barely said two words to her, and to her annoyance, it had stung. She’d also avoided him, but he’d been the one to kiss her in the first place. You didn’t get to kiss a woman like that and then act like she was nothing more than a piece of furniture.
As his gaze heated, Thea felt goose bumps rise on her skin. Rubbing her arms, she muttered, “It’s cold.”
At that reminder, the moment shattered. Anthony’s expression closed, and just like that, a wall was once again between them.
Thea wished she wasn’t so intrigued by him to want to climb over that wall to discover who the real Anthony Bertram was.
Anthony kneeled down in front of the generator and switched something off before opening the front panel. Thea stood next to him, holding the flashlight so he could see what he was doing.
She couldn’t stop herself from drinking in the strength of his shoulders, or the way his hair was a bit too long and curled near the neck of his shirt. He had a mole on the right side of the throat. She had the sudden, insane urge to lick him right there.
She bit her lip. When the flashlight wavered, Anthony glanced up at her. She fought a blush. “Sorry,” she muttered.
He returned to his work, allowing her to continue looking at him without him realizing it. She’d thought he was handsome since she’d seen that first photo of him online, and he was only more handsome in person. He was also more commanding, and taller, and—
Thea shook herself. Stop fantasizing. Even if this went somewhere, do you think he’d stick around after he found out what you did to him?
That thought alone made her shoulders slump. Then she chastised herself for caring.
Hating the silence, she cleared her throat. “Where did you learn how to repair generators?” she finally asked, realizing she was genuinely curious. It didn’t seem like something a guy like him would know about.
“Believe it or not, my family lived in the middle of nowhere when I was a kid.” He inspected what looked like some kind of filter. “Our house was run on a generator. My dad taught me how to fix them.”
She didn’t know why she was shocked. Maybe it was because imagining Anthony as a kid was weird enough, let alone a kid living in the middle of nowhere. It sounded so normal.
“Was it just you? No brothers or sisters?”
“I had a younger sister, but she passed away when she was only two. I was four, so I barely remember her.” At Thea’s questioning look, he added, “It was a brain tumor. One of those you can’t do anything about, basically.”
“Jesus, I’m so sorry. That’s awful.”
Anthony shrugged. “Like I said, I barely remember her.”
“That doesn’t make it any less a tragedy.”
He paused. Then: “I guess you’re right.”
As if she didn’t want to consider that his words made him seem more human, she continued to chatter to fill the silence. “I couldn’t imagine losing any of my siblings. I have four. Two brothers and a sister.”
Anthony grunted. “That sounds loud.”
She laughed. “Pretty much. We were a crazy bunch. Still are.”
She thought of her siblings when they were kids, how they’d stuck together when their parents had started falling apart. Their mother, Beatrice, had killed herself, and their father Edward had been a mean, angry man. No one had mourned when he’d passed just a few years ago.
“Do you see your parents ever?” Thea asked.
“My dad passed five years ago. My mom lives in London with her new husband.”
Thea’s heart pinched. So he was alone, especially now that he was divorced. Was that why he had so many walls up? She wished she didn’t care so much. She should follow Mittens’s advice and only use this information to take down his company. But the thought of betraying his trust like that made her stomach turn.
“My parents are both dead,” she offered.
He paused. “I’m sorry,” he said gruffly.
“No one was sad when my dad went. My mom…” She sighed. “Anyway, I have my siblings, and my new sisters-in-law. And my niece. I think that’s more than enough family.”
“I wouldn’t know.” He sounded irritated now.
Thea fought against hurt, but she couldn’t help but wonder if talk of family was painful for him. Although if she ever said as much, he’d probably bite her head off.
Anthony rose and went to the other side of the generator. He pulled to move it away from the wall before he swore, long and low.
“What? Did you figure out what’s wrong?” said Thea.
“Look.” He pointed, and she shined the flashlight in that direction. A leak had apparently sprung near the floor and the wall, and the bottom of the generator was soaking wet.
“God only knows how much water has gotten inside it. I’m surprised it stayed on as long as it did,” he said.
“So, what does that mean? Is it broken?”
He shook his head. “But we can’t turn it on without seriously damaging it until we let it dry out. Even then, some of the parts inside might be too damaged to be reused.” He looked around, going to a nearby shelf. “Looks like there’s a new hose I can install, but even then, the generator has to dry out.”
“How long will that take?”
“I don’t know. A day or two, maybe longer.” Anthony pulled out his phone, only to s
wear again. “Dammit, I have no service. What about you?”
Thea pulled out her phone, too. “Me either. It must be from the wind.”
Outside, the wind howled, as if agreeing with Thea’s assessment.
“Help me pull the generator out. We’ll move it to a dry spot and hope for the best,” said Anthony.
She helped him move the generator and set it on a shelf to dry. After they’d set it down, her shirt was wet from all the water that had gotten caught inside the generator. Even Thea, who knew nothing about machines, knew that that much water inside a machine wasn’t good.
It was only when she caught Anthony’s gaze that she realized that she’d very stupidly worn a light-colored shirt that was currently see-through from all the water that had soaked through it. Anthony’s jaw was tight, his eyes blazing. Thea felt her nipples harden, which only made him look more hostile. A fire burned in her belly.
And then he turned away. Disappointed, she sighed to herself. It was better this way. She knew that.
Anthony gathered as much firewood he could, but the roof that was supposed to keep the firewood dry had sprung a leak. Of course, he thought acidly. Some of the firewood was still usable, but much of it was too wet and would have to dry out like the generator.
Thea was sitting in the living room when he came inside. To his disappointment, she’d changed out of her wet t-shirt into something dry.
He’d been able to see almost everything through that wet shirt: her nipples, the shape of her breasts, the indentation of her belly button. It had taken all of his self-control not to haul her to him and kiss her again.
He let out an annoyed breath as he began to arrange the wood in the fireplace. Anthony also didn’t know why he’d told her about his childhood or his parents. It wasn’t that he was ashamed of where he’d come from, but he wasn’t much for talking about his childhood. Even Elise hadn’t met his mother, who hadn’t been in the States for many years since remarrying.