Conflict of Interest (Employee Relations Book 1)

by Teresa Michaels

  Lucas follows close behind and collapses on top of me as I try to catch my breath.

  We stay like this for several minutes, exhausted and a maybe a little scared of what comes next. Eventually, Lucas presses up on his forearms and searches my eyes.

  “Did I hurt you?” he asks with genuine concern.

  “No,” I pant. “Just the opposite.”

  A shy smile tugs at his lips. He leans forward and kisses my forehead as he pulls out. “Be right back.”

  Lucas rolls off me and tosses the condom in the trashcan just inside my bathroom and returns to the bed.

  As he slides under the sheets I climb off my side of the bed.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I need a minute.”

  Closing the bathroom door behind me, I freshen up and glance at myself in the mirror. What happens now? Will he stay or go? Do I want him to stay? Yes. More than anything I want him to stay but I brace myself for the possibility of being let down.

  I grab my robe from the back of the door and head back into my room where I find Lucas sitting with his back against the headboard and the sheets pooled around his waist.

  Unsure of what comes next I slowly make my way toward him stand awkwardly at the foot of the bed.

  Lucas holds out his hand. “Come here.”

  When I’m standing beside him he lifts me and places me so that I’m straddling him, and unties the belt of my robe.

  “I told you not to hide from me,” he says and slips the fabric off my shoulders.

  He watches as his hands trace the contours of my body, exploring my breasts and stomach before coming to rest on my hips.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t honest with you.” His gaze lifts to mine.

  With the pad of his thumb he lightly strokes the puffy skin underneath my eye. “You were crying,” he states.

  “Is that your way of telling me I look like hell?”

  Does he really want to know I spent most of the flight home sobbing?

  He shakes his head. “You’ve never looked more beautiful,” he says and then adds, “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  I look away and we’re both silent for a long time. I half expect him to excuse himself so he can get dressed and leave but he surprises me again.

  “The summer after I graduated high-school I walked in on my dad and his mistress having sex in his office,” he begins. “He was pissed. Flipped out on me for intruding. I couldn’t believe it. I’d always looked up to him as a role model of the kind of man I wanted to be. Successful but focused on his family.” He shakes his head. “I left his office and was halfway to my car when he caught up with me. Told me if I said anything to my mum he’d cut me out of his life both personally and financially.

  “Even as a kid I knew he meant what he said. Still, I couldn’t condone what he was doing to my mum…to our family…so I told him I didn’t care, that I’d make it on my own.” Lucas pauses and sucks in a breath. “He hit me. Twice. Said everything I had was because of him, that I’d never earned anything on my own.”

  “Lucas, you can’t believe that’s true.”

  “He’s a powerful man, Gabriella. Money isn’t a problem and his resources are endless. If he’d wanted me to be the best and I wasn’t he would have made it so and I never could have proved he hadn’t. Part of me believed him. Still I didn’t let it stop me from doing what I knew was right.”

  Now his reaction when I accused him of sleeping his way to the top makes sense.

  “I drove home and found my mum right away. I explained to her what I saw and repeated my father’s words. She was crying in my arms when he walked in.”

  “What happened?”

  “He told her she had a choice to make. Basically ignore his indiscretions and they’d work it out.”

  “Or,” I prompt.

  “Or take my side and be cutoff as well.” Lucas looks off into space as he strokes his thumbs over my hips. “She chose him. Didn’t care that part of the ultimatum was having nothing to do with her only child. As long as she didn’t lose his money and status she’d survive. I was given two hours to pack my belongings and get out. All I had were a few suitcases full of clothes, a couple hundred dollars I had in my wallet and copies of my transcripts from school. That’s it.”

  “Lucas,” I whisper. It breaks my heart.

  He kisses my forehead. “The reason I tell you this is because I had no idea about the promotion when I returned to my room and I promise it has nothing to do with me being here now. I ran into my father in the hotel lobby. He’d seen me at dinner and followed us back to the hotel and decided to wait around for me. I’d already bought the condoms and was headed to the elevator when he stopped me. I was pissed, Gabriella. I wasn’t thinking straight. I don’t want to get into it now but I needed to process what he’d said to me and knew that if I went to your room I’d finish what we started. But in the frame of mind I was in it wouldn’t have been fair to either of us.”

  “Why not just tell me that?”

  “Next to hurting you, talking was the last thing I wanted to do last night. I’d planned on telling you this morning…some of it at least, but I never got the chance.”

  I bite my lip and move to get up. Lucas holds me firmly in place. “I don’t blame you. I put the seed of doubt in your mind by not being open.” He leans forward and kisses me tenderly on the lips. “Give me a chance to erase that.”

  I imagine after the two people who were supposed to choose you no matter what, let you walk away without a care I’d be a little hesitant to get close to anyone too.

  I lean my forehead against his and smile against his lips. “You’re off to a good start.”

  He laughs. “If you doubt me it’ll just make me try harder.”

  I push off of him and run my hands over his chiseled chest. “All this stuff with your father. That’s why this promotion is so important to you.”

  He nods.

  Lucas is competitive and I bet he always has been so proving his father wrong is understandable. It also makes sense that he’d view relationships of any kind as a distraction from his goals.

  “That’s not all,” Lucas says. “At dinner last week you asked if I had any siblings. If you’d raised that question a week before that I would have told you no without question. Stupid really, considering my father’s transgressions. It never occurred to me that he could have fathered another child, but he did. I have a sister. I’d never have left her to figure out all this shit on her own if I had known. It probably comes as no surprise that he abandoned her, never had anything to do with her other than a monthly check to keep her mother quiet.”

  Talk about piling it on.

  “Tell me about her.”

  “Her name is Serosae. She just graduated from University in London and I guess her mother felt she was old enough to know about her father and me. She’s staying in New York and happened to reach out to me when I was there on business. We were taking the subway and I lost my phone. I would have told you all this sooner but I’m still trying to process it.”

  I study his features. It’s obvious this has been weighing on him.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell him. “For not giving you a chance to explain and for what your family has done. You deserve better than that.”

  “I’m a better person without my parents in my life. Regardless of what happened in the past at least I know I’ve earned everything I have now. He can’t take that from me.”

  “You’re right,” I whisper and lean forward to kiss his nose. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For sharing that with me.”

  Lucas doesn’t reply as he slightly pulls me up his body so that his hard length rests against my wet folds and urges me to move.

  “Lucas…”

  “Don’t overthink this.”

  “I can’t help it. This isn’t me, Lucas. I don’t sleep around.”

  “Who said that’s what I want?”

  “That’s the problem; w
e didn’t discuss anything ahead of time. I have no idea what you want. I’m not sure if it even matters what either of us want given that we shouldn’t be doing this to begin with.”

  He takes hold of my chin with his thumb and side of his pointer finger. “Despite what I said this was never going to be a onetime thing. At least not for me.”

  “If anyone found out we’d both lose our jobs.”

  “No one has to know. We’ll be discreet.”

  “Even if I thought that was true it’s not enough. You don’t want a distraction and I want more than that.”

  “Whether we pursue something or not, you’ll always distract me.” He chuckles into my neck and playfully bites my earlobe.

  I jab him in the stomach.

  “I don’t want to define this because I’m not sure what it is yet and starting out with titles and expectations seems unfair to both of us.”

  “I don’t know if that’s enough,” I admit.

  “At least give me the rest of the weekend,” he pleads as he pulls on my hips.

  I acquiesce to his request, rocking my hips back and forth, coating him with my arousal. Lucas bends down to grab his pants and pulls out another condom and quickly rolls it on. He watches as I position him at my entrance and sink onto him, both of us groaning with pleasure.

  Placing my hands on his shoulders I close my eyes and concentrate on circling my hips in slow movements. “That’s less than forty-eight hours to convince me.”

  “What did I tell you about doubting me?” he asks gripping me tighter.

  “It’ll make you give up,” I tease and squeal when he flips me on my back and pins me to the mattress.

  “Harder,” he says, hooking me under one knee and begins moving in and out of me at a faster pace. “It’ll make me try harder.”

  Panting, I raise my hips to meet each thrust and tell him, “I doubt you, I doubt you.”

  Lucas was true to his word. I’d never been more sure.

  Chapter 15

  Gabby

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  “No way. Not even close,” I argue from where I’m lounging on Gabriella’s couch.

  “Are you kidding me? If he hadn’t died, he would’ve been better than Jordan.”

  I scoff at her claim. “Sounds like something a bitter fan would say, not a sports expert.”

  Gabriella smacks me upside the head with a pillow. “You’re not even from here, how would you know? Do they even have basketball in Ireland?”

  “Have you never heard of the Premier League?”

  “Never.”

  “And I’m the one who needs more global experience,” I mutter stroking her hair.

  It’s 3AM and Gabriella and I are half naked, lounging on her charcoal grey sectional couch watching the end of Without Bias, an ESPN 30 for 30 documentary about Len Bias, a college basketball star who was drafted by the Celtics and tragically died two days later from a drug overdose. She’s not the first person to make this claim, comparing him to Michael Jordan, but it’s a stretch. It’s also sexy as hell that she can knowledgeably talk about sports.

  “Are you ready to get some sleep now?” I ask.

  “I’m not tired. When will we get back on normal time?”

  “You should have stayed up when you got home. Falling asleep was a rookie mistake.”

  I flip through the channels and come across a show about the top ten best athletes of all time. “This acceptable to you or should I put on a reality show?”

  The screen cuts to a shirtless man walking out of the ocean.

  “Nope, this is perfectly acceptable.”

  I pinch her side and she squeals.

  “Speaking of athletes, how often do you work out?”

  I absentmindedly continue channel surfing. “Almost every day. Why?”

  “It shows,” Gabriella says appreciatively as she runs a palm over the hard planes of my stomach and laughs lightly. “Do you remember the first day we met?”

  “How could I forget?”

  That day will forever be branded in my memory.

  “I saw you walk by before you came to my office. I’ve never been that affected just by seeing someone.” She lifts her head to look at me. “I wasn’t really on the phone by the way; I was trying to get it together so I didn’t come across as a complete idiot when we met. And then you spoke and it was all downhill from there.”

  “Funny you should say that. I was doing my best not bend you over the desk. I still struggle with that.”

  “Why does knowing that turn me on?”

  “Because one of these days I’m going to do it.”

  Gabriella leans over me and takes a bite of her pizza, tossing it back into the half-empty box when she’s had her fill and then lowers herself back onto my chest. We haven’t done anything other than make good use of her bed since I showed up so we ordered take-out from the closest delivery place. It’s not the best pizza I’ve ever had but I’d probably eat shit right now if it meant I didn’t have to move.

  Normally I’d be spending a Saturday doing work. But right now with her in my arms, lazily dragging my fingers through her hair while she writes invisible words on my chest, I can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing.

  “Ugh, do we really need to watch this?” she groans when I stop on a Red Sox game.

  “You have something against baseball?”

  “Going to games is one thing. Watching it on TV is completely different. It’s so boring. The only thing interesting about watching is him.” She points to one of the commentators that I vaguely recall from a couple years back.

  “Drew Scott?”

  “Um, yeah.”

  “Didn’t he quit at the beginning of the season awhile back? What’s attractive about that?”

  “You’re joking right? He survived the unimaginable and decided love was more important than a well-paying hobby. That’s ridiculously romantic.”

  “It’s something.”

  “Oh, that’s right. I forgot…you think relationships are a distraction.”

  I point at the screen. “Perfect example.” She tries to get up but I don’t let her. “I’m kidding, alright?”

  “You should let me up. I’d hate to distract you anymore than I have.”

  I grab her face between my hands. “You are a huge distraction. The best kind.”

  “Exactly what every girl aspires to be.”

  I pull her closer and kiss her gently, letting my lips linger on hers. “That’s not a bad thing.”

  Unconvinced, Gabriella rolls her eyes but stops struggling to get away. Biting her lip, she glances up and me and asks, “When was your last relationship, Lucas?”

  “You really want to know?”

  She nods.

  Of course she does.

  I sigh. “I guess a couple of months ago, right before I moved here.”

  “You guess?”

  I shrug. “Not really sure you can call it a relationship. We slept together for a few years; that’s all it really was. We didn’t talk on the phone. We didn’t stay the night at each other’s places or meet parents.”

  “No lazy Saturday’s watching Sport’s Center?”

  I shake my head and grin. “No. Toward the end I think she wanted that, but to me it was only ever going to be sex.”

  “Why?”

  “I told you. I never wanted anything else.”

  Gabriella’s mouth opens to speak but she shakes her head and tries to lower herself back down.

  “Not so fast. What about you? Why have you gone so long without a relationship?”

  “You really want to know?” she mocks.

  Do I? The thought of her like this, playful and unguarded, with anyone el
se makes my blood boil. Still, I’m curious.

  “Tell me.”

  “It’s nothing earth shattering. The last few relationships I had didn’t go so well. My most serious relationship ended three years ago. Justin and I were together for a long time. After that I dated a couple of guys, but nothing to write home about.”

  “How long were you with him?”

  “Couple of years. We got together our last year in college,” she says.

  “Why’d you break up?”

  “Long story short, we were better off as friends it just took me a while to admit it. Not knowing when to give up seems to be my downfall.”

  I study her for a long minute. “I like that you believe in people. Gives me hope you won’t give up on me.”

  “Don’t get too excited. That has yet to be determined.”

  “Did you love him?”

  She looks me in the eyes. “I thought so at the time, but looking back I think I wanted the relationship to be something it wasn’t. I definitely cared about him. Somehow though I always knew he wasn’t the one. I couldn’t see myself with him forever.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Just a feeling I had. We were young anyway and I’m not sure I was ever completely comfortable being myself. I felt like I was always trying to be who he wanted me to be. Live and learn, right?”

  “Are you comfortable with me?”

  “How could I not be when I’ve broke wind in your presence?”

  I throw my head back laughing. When I finally get it together I confess, “That actually never happened. I was only messing with you.”

  “What!” she exclaims, shooting up to a sitting position. “How could you let me think that? I was horrified.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just that when I woke up that morning your shirt was halfway up your back and the view of you sprawled out and exposed was making it impossible to be around you. You came out of the elevator…I couldn’t tell you what I was really thinking, you know?”

  “So you embarrassed me?”