Deal Breaker

by Leigh, Tara

  “Do you really mean that?”

  I didn’t hesitate. “Yeah. I really do.”

  Eva ventured a cautious smile. “Madison and Parker would like that,” she said, then added softly, “I would too.”

  My shoulders hunched forward as I met her gaze. Eva and I had known each other for years, since my time in the Executive MBA Program at Columbia. She was an undergraduate and we bumped into each other, literally, walking through campus. I asked for her number while we scrambled to pick up books and papers before they blew away, and after just a couple of months, I brought her home to meet my family. Wyatt was home for an unexpected visit, and the three of us had gone to a local bar together.

  It was a fall night, nearly Thanksgiving. The line at the bar was three deep, and as I bellied up for another round, I had a clear line of sight to Eva. There was a look on her face that was similar to the way she looked at me, but her expression seemed brighter somehow, her blue eyes gleaming.

  But it was the wide, goofy smile splitting my battle-hardened brother’s face in half that sent the bottles I waited so long for sliding through my fingers. When they hit the floor, splashing everyone around me, Eva and Wyatt had turned immediately, guilt breaking through their elated haze.

  I left. Later, they both denied what I’d seen with my own eyes—the spark between them that simply hadn’t existed with Eva and me. Wyatt left for another tour in Iraq. Eva and I broke up. Not long after, they began a long distance relationship. It caused a rift between me and Wyatt, but with him risking his life every day overseas, it was hard to stay mad at my brother. He was my hero—and if anyone deserved to find happiness, he did. Wyatt proposed while he was home for the last furlough of his final tour. I congratulated them both, although I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that, at the time, it was mostly lip service.

  Wyatt returned to active duty. I threw myself into work and a steady stream of interchangeable women, knowing that Wyatt and I would get back on track, eventually.

  But eventually never came. The next time Wyatt arrived on US soil, he was in a body bag.

  Eva revealed that she was pregnant after the funeral, and I vowed then that I would take care of her, and my brother’s child. One child turned out to be two, and the three of them were the reason I’d thrown myself into work, shunned any relationship that would encroach on my responsibilities to them.

  In nearly five years, Nixie was the first woman to ever make me question whether I had room in my life for one more person.

  “Good.” I nodded. “Why don’t you ask the kids what they’d like to do next weekend? We can go to the Bronx Zoo, or the Children’s Museum. Or take a quick trip down to Disney or Legoland.”

  She smiled as if I said something funny. “Slow down, Nash. Why don’t we see how your week goes? Don’t you have some big deal you’re working on?”

  I’m always working on a big deal. “I’ll make the time, Eva.”

  She made a noncommittal noise. “So, what else are you up to these days? It’s been a while since we’ve done more than talk about the kids.”

  I rarely discussed my work outside the office, and never with anyone not bound by an ironclad NDA. Too many deals had been destroyed from a casual comment overheard by the wrong person. Eva knew this. “The usual. Mostly work.”

  “Still fighting?”

  “Yeah, when I get the chance.”

  “How about women? Are you seeing anyone these days?”

  An image of Nixie filled my mind, regret slamming into my stomach. “No,” I frowned, the lie slipping from my lips like a bitter pill.

  Eva tilted her head to the side, silently appraising me. “Don’t you ever want more from the women you spend your nights with? Or to spend nights with women that want more from you?”

  “I’m fine with the way things are, Eva.”

  “Are you, Nash? Really?” Her voice was gentle. “Wyatt wouldn’t want us to be alone, or lonely, for the rest of our lives.”

  I stared at her warily. “I’m not lonely. I have you, the kids. Work.”

  “I have you and the kids, too.” Eva pressed her lips together, releasing them on a sigh. Whatever was coming, I wasn’t going to like it. “But Nash, I am lonely. I want to spend my life with someone. Someone to share dinners and bedtime routines and an after-dinner glass of wine with. Someone to go to bed with at night and wake up beside in the morning. And the kids need a father.”

  “They have a father,” I shot back, bristling at the direction our conversation had taken. Why was my perfectly ordered life suddenly busting at every seam? First Nixie made me doubt the path I’d chosen, then Duncan had condemned it. And now Eva was telling me she was dissatisfied, too. My face was burning. What the hell was going on?

  “Yes, they do,” she agreed. Her features were neutral, her voice as calm as if she was trying to coax one of the twins out of a temper tantrum. “But he’s buried six feet under and we’re here. Alive.”

  Frustration bubbled inside my veins and I took a deep breath, then another, holding my temper in check. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt Eva’s feelings, or offend her at all. She had too much on her plate for me to pile anything else on. “They have me,” I said simply, my tone restrained.

  She shrugged. “Sometimes. Once or twice a week, at most. It’s not enough, Nash.”

  I set down my empty glass on the cocktail table and wrapped my hands around my knees, feeling jumpy and on edge. “What are you saying, Eva?”

  A few seconds passed as she looked at me with her mouth just slightly open, as if she wasn’t quite sure she should push out the words clogging her throat. Finally, she did. “I’m telling you that I’m going to start dating. Or—”

  “Or what?” I pressed, despite wishing this conversation was already over. Better yet, that it had never begun.

  “Or . . . I want to know if whatever there was between us . . .” her voice trailed off as she looked at me hopefully. “I want to know if there’s a chance we can get back to that place. If there’s room in your life, and your heart, for more than just your next takeover target. If you and I and the twins can be a family. A real family.”

  Shock swirled inside my gut, and I stood up, then sat back down as if pulled backward by a string. “You’re my brother’s—”

  “No,” she interrupted, her voice firm. “I was, past tense. Before that, I was yours, remember? We loved each other.”

  I tried to make sense of what Eva was saying, but I couldn’t. It was completely disorienting. “You’re asking me to take Wyatt’s place,” I eventually managed, practically wheezing. “Eva, I don’t think I can—I can’t. I won’t.”

  Her expression was stoic as she held the delicate crystal goblet between her palms, thumbs tracing the slender rim. “Okay. I can’t force you to be anything more than what you are, a friend to me and an uncle to my children. But just think about it, okay? Because even though you may have given up on love, I haven’t. And I won’t.”

  I gave her a long, searching look before I staggered up from the couch, dragging the back of my hand over my lips as if I could scrape the taste of our conversation away. Eva was the first woman I’d ever loved, and she’d ripped my heart out of my chest and danced on it in a pair of red-soled stilettos the night she’d chosen Wyatt over me.

  As the mother of my niece and nephew, I’d buried any animosity remaining toward Eva with my brother. I loved Eva, would do anything in the world for her. But I wasn’t in love with her. Hell, I wanted nothing to do with that damned emotion ever again. Her kids deserved a father, though, and the thought of anyone taking Wyatt’s place made me sick with nausea.

  As I crossed the living room, my normally compartmentalized mind was a jumbled mess. Eva didn’t deserve what fate had doled out to her. What she and I once had was light and fun, easy. Maybe we could get back there again . . . but was that enough? After what she’d had with Wyatt, and even just the initial spark I’d felt with Nixie—would easy be enough, for either of us?

&n
bsp; At the front door, I turned. “I’ll think about what you said, Eva. But even if all I can be is their uncle, I want to be a damn good one. I meant what I said about this weekend, let me know what the kids want to do and I’ll make it happen.” I closed the door behind me and darted into the elevator. My head was pounding and my heart—the organ I hated to admit I had anymore—felt shredded.

  Despite the late hour, I needed to burn off some of the emotions clogging my pores, squeezing my chest. For the next three hours, I worked a heavy bag and speed bag, jumped rope, lifted weights and finished off with a five mile run. I should have been tired, but I felt like I could have kept going all night.

  Climbing into the car after showering off, I considered hitting a local bar for a drink when I caught sight of the alley I had followed Nixie into just the other day. I swallowed, fishing my phone out of my pocket and pulling up the texts we’d been lobbing back and forth all week. The cursor blinked angrily at me. What did I want from Nixie? Sex? Yes. Fuck, yeah. But I wanted more, too. More than I should. More than I deserved.

  And I owed it to Wyatt to seriously consider what Eva said tonight.

  Nixie thought I was the lowest of the low right now, and maybe that was for the best. With a low growl I deleted the entire stream. Quickly, before I could change my mind, I scrolled over to my contacts and deleted her number, too.

  If only I could delete the memory of Nixie’s heart-shaped face burnished with golden freckles, forget how every glance sent waves of heat to lick at the surface of my skin, penetrating deep.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Nash

  Two months went by at warp speed, most of which I spent leapfrogging all over the Eastern Hemisphere. China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, India, Israel. My passport needed extra pages. Was I running myself ragged to avoid Eva?

  Yes.

  And in the hopes of forgetting about Nixie?

  Hell, yes.

  Not that it worked. As I analyzed dozens of companies that might offer a similar technology to NetworkTech, but without marriage-on-his-mind Mack Duncan at the helm, they were like a jumble of rocks held together by cement. Some were as dull and misshapen as gravel, and some glowed, valuable enough to be worth the hassle of drilling through the excess.

  Which was exactly what my balls felt like they’d been filled with. Gravel. Swallowing a groan, I shifted in my chair.

  Because a goddamn rock named Nixie was shooting off fucking fireworks, overshadowing every other woman I met.

  I couldn’t cut Eva out of my life the way I had with Nixie, though. That would have meant ignoring the twins, too, which was out of the question. So I had my assistant set up visits to the Museum of Natural History and the Hayden Planetarium, and buy tickets to Disney on Ice, the Harlem Globetrotters, and every Pixar and Disney movie to hit the theaters. Any activity to decrease the opportunity for Eva and I to talk.

  Tonight though, the kids had a cold and asked if I would build them a fort out of couch cushions in their living room instead. I threw myself into building the best damn pillow fort possible, reading them half a dozen books by the light of a flashlight. I was stalling, and we both knew it. But as the kids eyelids drooped, it was obvious Eva was done being patient.

  Which meant—I had a problem.

  I had no fucking clue what I was going to do. What was the right thing to do in this situation?

  Should I get back together with my ex, the woman my brother had planned to marry, to ensure my niece and nephew had the family they deserved?

  Yes.

  My head had been shouting at me for two months straight. Eva was gorgeous. She was also smart and funny and kind. And a great mother. I’d loved her once.

  But she wasn’t mine. Not anymore. After seeing the way she looked at Wyatt, I’d realized a long time ago that she never had been.

  She wasn’t Nixie, either.

  And yet . . . how could I let Eva bring another man around Madison and Parker? A man who wasn’t Wyatt. Who wasn’t me.

  It made sense for us to get back together . . . even if it felt wrong.

  After I carried Madison and Parker into their bedrooms, Eva was waiting for me on the couch, a wine goblet lifted in my direction. I tossed Harold and the Purple Crayon on the table and took the outstretched crystal from Eva’s hand. “Madison woke up, insisting she wasn’t tired at all.”

  “She hates that you leave once she’s asleep.”

  I sipped at the wine, the sour taste of guilt mingling unpleasantly with the tannins. My eyes traveled up the length of Eva’s leg to her angora sweater and finally to a pair of blue eyes as clear and direct as her daughter’s. “Eva, I—”

  A frown traveled from her mouth to her forehead, dark brows pulling together and forming a shallow crease down the middle. “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Analyze. Rationalize. Boil everything down to the lowest common denominator.”

  “That’s what I do, Eva.”

  She leaned forward, the toe of her heeled boot rubbing the back of my calf. Her tone softened. “It’s just me, Nash. Just us.”

  I pushed out a heavy breath. “Okay.” Maybe Eva was right. Maybe I should stop thinking so much, forcing the details of my life into spreadsheets and pie charts.

  Eva moved closer, resting her elbow on the back of the couch and leaning her cheek on her palm. A fingertip from her other hand drew an infinity sign on my thigh. “Let’s just see where this takes us.”

  This. I had no idea what this was, but maybe it was time to find out. To know if what I’d felt with Nixie was a fluke. I turned my face to meet her gaze head on, unease coiling inside my stomach.

  Eva’s eyes darkened slightly as she pressed her palm against my chest, her thumb stroking the base of my neck. “I’m really glad you’re here.”

  There was no golden glitter dusting the bridge of Eva’s pert nose, no sunshine radiating from her eyes. She wasn’t Nixie. I blinked away the thought, the craving. “Me too,” I mumbled the lie into her ear, the tip of my nose sweeping along her smooth cheek.

  She curved her hand around my neck, fingertips raking through my hair. “I’m—”

  I didn’t want to hear what else she had to say. I had one thought—get to the finish line. Sex was familiar, a unifying bridge to connect two people that life and circumstance had forced apart. Maybe it could bring us back together again.

  Eva’s lips weren’t as full as I wanted them to be, her taste not as sweet. But instead of pushing her away, I curved my hands around her shoulders, bringing us closer so that her breasts pressed against me. I kissed Eva deeper, searching for a key to unlock what we’d once been, my hands plowing along the curve of her skull, gathering her hair into my fists.

  With a surprised gasp, Eva broke our kiss. “Let’s go to my room,” she whispered, her breath hot against my lips.

  I glanced at the laptop across from me, straight into a grinning Wyatt, not much older than Parker, running through a water fountain on a scalding summer day. “Good idea.”

  It was a damn shitty idea, but I wasn’t a quitter. I had to give this epic disaster in the making a fair chance. And I’d rather do it away from my brother’s unsuspecting eyes.

  I hauled myself to my feet and extended a hand to pull Eva up to me. She was tall, especially in heels, the top of her head just a few inches shorter than mine. She pulled me through the living room and down the hall. Past the twins’ rooms and to her own. Wyatt had never lived here. I bought the apartment for Eva just before Madison and Parker were born, when I realized I was the closest thing to a father they would ever have.

  I’d never been in Eva’s bedroom, and I was afraid her walls would be covered with pictures of Wyatt, too. But thankfully, it was too dark to see much. I closed the door behind me and spun Eva around until her back was against it. My lips were on her neck, my tongue licking her racing pulse as her hands clutched at my shirt. Her skin burned my mouth, made me wish I’d downed a tumbler full of whisky rather than two sips
of wine. I wanted to be numb, my taste buds cauterized.

  As my hands groped at Eva’s waist, my mind flashed to Nixie—wondering if her cut had healed, if there was a sliver of a scar marking her smooth skin. I groaned, pushing the thought away as I reached beneath Eva’s sweater, cupping her breasts within my palms. I’d never gone beyond kissing Nixie, so at least here, I couldn’t compare the two women, but the longing sent a bitter rush of anger to sizzle the back of my neck.

  Eva’s nipples pebbled, her back arching against me. Abruptly I pulled my hands away, sent them sliding down her spine to cup her ass. Flat and firm, it was barely enough to squeeze. I brought her legs around my waist, striding to the bed, and lightly tossed her at its center.

  Enough light came through the closed blinds to see Eva’s dark hair fanning out against the white sheets, falling over the edge like a leaf-clogged gutter instead of a blaze of fire. I jerked my shirt over my head, blocking out the sight. Throwing it into a corner of the room, I edged a knee between Eva’s spread thighs, resting my weight on hands I placed on either side of her shoulders.

  “Nash,” she whispered, her arms reaching around my neck, pulling me down. For a moment, I went with it, letting gravity and pressure work their will. Eva’s lips curved into a shy smile, and it finally managed to pierce through my abandoned conscience.

  I wanted Nixie’s feisty grin, her sarcastic barbs. I wanted to break though the impenetrable screen she’d been starting to lower.

  I wanted Nixie.

  I’d filled the past two months with workouts and failed attempts to find a woman who could make me forget her, even for just a few hours.

  And now I was about to treat Eva like she was just another placeholder.