Double-Cross My Heart

by Rose, Carol

  Her breath coming faster, she felt him swell even more inside her, his hands hard on her hips now to encourage each thrust. The bed bucking under them, Eden heard his low cry of release just as she spun over the cliff again, her body tight with the effort to hold—cling to—the brilliant, clenching moment.

  Spent, she collapsed on his chest, the warmth and scent of him surrounding her, his voice warm and loving in her ears.

  “My Eden, my Eden,” he said.

  ***

  Hours later Alex woke slowly, aware of a gray-blue light from the window signaling morning. His next awareness was of the woman in his arms. Naked and warm, her body fit against his, nestled and relaxed.

  Lying slack, as tranquil as Eden asleep beside him, he enjoyed the slow stirring to alertness of his senses.

  Outside the window snow was piled on the flat roof of the neighboring building. Soft and white, it pillowed up, rounding the straight lines and drifting into the carved brick border that sat like a cap on the edifice.

  The muffling snow softened the Sunday traffic noises, even more muted than usual on the streets far below.

  Beside him, Eden sighed in her sleep, her faced turned up to his with the innocence of a child.

  Letting his gaze wander over her, the line of her jaw, the curl of an ear, half-hidden by her dark hair, Alex smiled. His high-powered executive didn’t look so tough now. She looked as replete and content as he felt.

  God, he’d slept well. Actually slept straight through the morning hours and woke now in daylight! When in the last fifteen years had he done that—slept till dawn?

  As a kid, he’d gotten up and done his homework or watched endless, boring early morning television. In his adult life, he’d learned to spend the early morning hours working out or getting a jump on the tasks of the day.

  He’d still quietly envied people who woke after the dawn.

  Sex had always been a good avenue to relaxation, but when had he ever spent an entire night in bed with a woman after the fireworks were spent?

  It was her, he thought. Eden. Loving him as thoroughly as he’d ever known a woman could. He’d about dropped his glass when she’d looked up at him at dinner last night and said, “Let’s go to your place and make love.”

  And then he couldn’t get her here quick enough, practically hustling them out the door.

  Maybe he should have talked to her about the mugger before making love. He’d hesitated and finally left the words unspoken. He supposed there was a certain strategic intelligence in confessing all your sins. Definitely confession was better than discovery, but then the issue might never arise. If he confessed, he might feel better, but she’d be hurt and he couldn’t stand that thought.

  For an instance, he envisioned the possibility of her discovering that he’d known who she was that night, finding out that he’d arranged to meet her. No one liked to be manipulated, at least, Eden wouldn’t like it. With her innate honesty, she’d scorn such a move herself.

  All he wanted was the best for her….

  He moved uneasily beneath the covers, conscious of her delicious nakedness and his own culpability.

  Cutting corners, fudging the truth, playing a hidden hand—it was all part of getting where you wanted to go in the business world. Hell, maybe in the world in general. How many times had he optimized certain realities while downplaying others?

  He knew himself to be honest at the core—honest in his heart—but he was under no delusions about how she’d view his sincerity in this case. Should he have told her the truth? Should he tell her now?

  Eden would turn on him with scorn and hatred, anger covering over a profound hurt. It was the pain the truth would cause her that he flinched from. No matter how pure his concern for her, how genuine his every step since the beginning. It was the lie in the beginning that she’d remember…and she’d be wrong. That first lie, the set-up, didn’t in any way tell the whole truth about his feelings for her. Not the real truth.

  It wasn’t necessary for her to find out the truth, he told himself. The business situation would be sorted through and resolved. Eden would move on to another position where she’d receive greater rewards and more recognition. And the two of them could move forward without any horribly ugly breach in their relationship. He couldn’t be sure of a solid future with Eden, but laying all the relevant facts out wasn’t necessary one way or the other.

  Confession was sometimes self-indulgent and “honesty” a negotiable aspect of a situation.

  He’d have no problem consoling his twinging conscience when the game played out in her favor.

  Sighing, Eden moved against him now, turning her face into the cradle of his shoulder, her hand, moving palm down on his belly.

  He was immediately hard, the blood pooling thickly in him with every thump of his heart.

  Next to him her eyelids fluttered and sank, then fluttered again, opening slowly, her gaze focusing sleepily on him. She smiled and Alex felt a squeezing in the region of his heart. He could love her, this driven, focused woman. He really could.

  “Good morning,” she murmured in a sleepy, bed-warmed voice that tightened his groin further. “You’re awake?”

  “Yes,” he said, gathering her closer. The softness of her breasts crushed against his chest and Alex acknowledged the sensation as incredible.

  “Did you sleep well?” he asked turning to face her as he scooped her closer, their naked bodies entwined. “I don’t think I’ve ever slept so well.”

  Eden’s smile was smug as he lowered his mouth to trail kisses over her bare shoulder, the delicate structure of her bones fine through her beautiful skin.

  “Yes, I slept well, thank you,” she said, her sleepy tone managing to be saucy, at the same time.

  Knowing his intent was obvious by the brush of his heavy erection against her hip, Alex cupped her breasts in his hands and covered her mouth with his own. She stirred against him, opening her mouth and spreading her legs as he settled on top of her.

  He needed her again, really badly.

  Small and delicate beneath him, powerful and engulfing, she opened herself, taking him in. The silken tautness of her body drove him insane with wanting. If he could just stay like this, caught in her, ensnared, engulfed, held…the world could just go to hell.

  An hour later, Alex took a carton of milk out of the refrigerator and reached over with his foot to shut the door.

  “Are you sure you’re not into Corn Pops?” he called out to her.

  “Yes.” Her response floated back to him from where she promised she’d stay. He just like the sight of her tucked up in his big bed.

  “How about Fruit Loops?” he asked, grinning as he snagged the brightly-colored box from the cupboard.

  “They’ll do,” she called, “if you don’t have Coco Puffs.”

  Making his way down the hall, balancing bowls, spoons, cereal and milk, Alex brought the breakfast supplies into the bedroom.

  As promised, she hadn’t moved out of the bed. Sitting in the tumble of covers, her shoulders bare in the morning light, Eden looked surprisingly waifish. It might have been a trick of the gray light spilling in from the windows, but he thought he now detected in her face a hint of self-conscious shyness.

  Even as the thought made him grin—the woman had brought him to his knees repeatedly in the past twelve hours—Alex felt his insides go softer. She was turning him to mush, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care.

  Tugging the sheets and brocade comforter up in a straighter fashion, Eden sat up in the bed making a place for their breakfast picnic.

  Outside the snow still fell, but despite the huge windows, Alex was satisfied his bedroom kept the same toasty temperature. If the chill from the gray day had snuck through leaks around the windows, his lovely bedmate would surely have had to get dressed.

  As it was, she eagerly pounce
d on the cereal he’d brought, pouring herself a bowlful and splashing in the milk.

  “Mmmm,” she crunched appreciatively, her momentary bashfulness apparently forgotten amid greater concerns.

  Pausing before he joined her on the bed, he couldn’t help laughing. “If only the Michele board members could see you now. Not only would they kick Wendi out summarily, they’d vote to adopt you as the company spokesmodel. A picture of you, just like this, would sell any cosmetic product.”

  “I don’t think so,” she said, her words muffled by the sugary cereal.

  “I know so,” he said, sliding under the covers next to her.

  After they’d eaten, Eden putting away enough processed cereal to make him wonder how she stayed so slender, he said, “Now aren’t you glad you’re not home, despite the plentiful Coco Puffs there? If you were home, you’d have gotten up and grabbed breakfast while you worked on the Passions marketing campaign, wouldn’t you?”

  “Probably,” she acknowledged, snuggling down next to him.

  He patted her nose with his index finger. “I’m prescribing more days like this—entire weeks—when we’re done with Michele Cosmetics. You’ll be able to take your time getting your next position lined up so you’ll have lots of mornings to huddle naked in my bed.”

  Her unreadable gaze swung up to meet his. “Won’t you have to get up and get to work?”

  “Being the boss has its perks,” he told her, nestling her back against his chest, her short hair tickling his chin.

  “I’m sure it does,” she said. “But you can’t be too negligent or your employees will run amok and steal you blind.”

  “I don’t call this being ‘negligent’,” he said, wrapping his arms around her to hold her closer. “I’m fully capable of running a business stark naked while dallying with a beautiful woman…with one hand tied behind my back.”

  “Hey,” she said, tipping her head back and glancing sideways up into his face, “it just occurred to me—do you have employees? I mean, besides Bryan and your secretary, Rosie.”

  “Of course, I do.”

  “I didn’t know how much staff it takes to do what you do,” she said. “I mean, it’s not like you produce anything. It must be different from other companies.”

  “Not that much different,” Alex said. “We have a research person who has a staff of three. There’s a legal department, an acquisitions department and a sales department to sell the various assets from each project.”

  “So you run how many people?”

  “Approximately fifty,” he replied, starting to wonder what was going on in her head. The woman wasn’t long distracted from her principle interests. Hopefully he’d secured himself in the top five of her interests. He wasn’t an impatient man. He didn’t mind having to work for the top spot.

  “Fifty people,” she said softly, “all bent on the disintegration of companies that thousands of employees built.”

  Alex didn’t respond. He knew she regretted the fact that her employees would be laid off when they disassembled the company, but what they were doing was for the best. Like a forest fire, his role in the business world helped deal with corporate dead wood.

  He didn’t really want to think about any of it now. She felt so good in his arms, he just wanted to keep on holding her.

  Eden turned again, looking up at him with a speculative gaze. “How many companies have you acquired?”

  Kissing her temple, he said, “Large corporations—three. Medium-sized companies—maybe thirty. We don’t really bother with liquidating small holdings now, but we started off handling a few of those.”

  “That’s a lot of companies,” she said slowly, her face still hard to read. “Were they all pretty much in one industry?”

  He shook his head. “No, but most of them had a technology slant.”

  “It just seems like it would be…unsatisfying to me,” she said after a moment.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Haven’t you ever seen the movie Pretty Woman? Richard Gere eventually finds fulfillment in building things rather than taking them apart?”

  Alex was aware of a small spurt of annoyance. How many men had to defend a hugely successful business? He’d made himself a hell of a lot of money.

  Sometimes he just didn’t get her. If it weren’t for the fact that she had thrown her lot in with his, her words now might have worried him. She didn’t like what they were doing, but there wasn’t any other way. Wendi was squeezing her out. He knew Eden was struggling with what she saw as a betrayal, but the larger betrayal had been done to her.

  Alex didn’t want to ruin the morning with business-talk, anyway.

  “Yes, I’ve seen Pretty Woman,” he said, deciding to play it light, “but I always thought I’m better looking than Richard Gere. Besides, if a guy’s got destructive urges, how better to use them? Right? And I’m pretty much unmatched in that area. I perfected my destructive skills as a teenager. Ask my sister.”

  Cuddling Eden closer, he bent down and blew a raspberry on her naked shoulder. “You’d better watch my wicked ways!”

  “What?” she asked, laughing a little at his silliness as he’d intended her to. “More wicked than last night? And this morning?”

  “Hey, lady,” he chastised, relieved to have moved past the awkward moment, “last night was nothing! We’ve got a whole lot more wicked to get to!”

  “Oh, my,” she said, amused. “I’m definitely going to have to start taking vitamins.”

  “Hey,” Alex said, leaning down to kiss her again, “you want to get out this morning? We could bundle up and walk in the snow. Or we could catch and early movie and makeout in the theater.”

  “I don’t know,” she said with an answering smile. “Both ideas have potential. Snowball fights or popcorn fights.”

  “I have no idea what you’re referring to,” he said, trying to moderate his innocent tone so it had a chance of being believable. He made a killer snowball that hit with a pouf and left maximum snow debris.

  “Okay,” she said, throwing back the covers. “Snow first, then popcorn.”

  “Great.” He followed her off the bed, his gaze fascinated by her firm rear.

  Eden turned, looking back at him with a curious expression. “Have you ever wanted to…keep one the companies you acquired?”

  “What do you mean?” he asked following her into the master bath.

  “You’ve bought maybe a hundred concerns. Has one of them ever seemed so interesting, such a challenge, either in production or management, that you found yourself wondering if you could run it any better than the people before you?”

  Giving the question some thought, he responded, “Most of the companies I’ve bought have had severe liabilities.”

  “But not all of them,” she guessed.

  “No, not all of them.” He frowned, her words triggering several past merger-acquisitions to pop up in his head.

  She turned, sitting on the edge of the whirlpool tub. “So there have been one or two you might have been able to bring out of financial disarray?”

  “One or two.” Resigned to the fact that she needed to talk about work, he adjusted a towel on the heated towel rack.

  Eden looked over to where he stood. “And neither one of those companies made you think about…maybe keeping it intact and seeing what it felt like to create a success?”

  “I feel like I create successes every time I find a good deal we can use to make a strong profit,” he said simply.

  “Oh,” she said, continuing to study him. “I guess that’s where we’re different. I like the useful part about what we make. We make things that contribute to other people’s lives, to some degree.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “And I just make money?”

  “Yes,” she said with a wry smile. “Not that I’m opposed to making money, you under
stand. I’m wholeheartedly in favor of making money.”

  “Me, too,” he agreed, reaching out to draw her to her feet. “But right now, I think we should make something else, right here, right now. Shower or tub?”

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Yes,” Alex said, grinning at Isabel, his eight-year old niece. “You can use my desk chair to race Kelsey but make sure you don’t run over anyone.”

  “Thanks, Uncle Alex!” Belle hugged him tightly around his waist before making a flying leap for his chair. Lowering the chair height with the ease of long-experience, she sat down, trundling out the open door of his office to where her sister waited.

  Sitting in an over-stuffed seat by the windowed wall, Lauren said severely, “You spoil them like crazy. Your employees’ lives are at risk with those two racing in the halls.”

  The girls’ high-pitched giggles wafted through the open door accompanied by the sounds of chair casters speeding down the marble corridor.

  Flopping onto the couch across from Lauren, Alex laughed. “Where’s the fun in life if there’s no risk?”

  His sister shook her head. “I hope your insurance premiums are paid up and that your employees share your love of danger.”

  “Don’t worry,” he recommended. “If my people aren’t used to the kids messing around here, they haven’t been paying enough attention the last seven or eight years.”

  “I guess so. Anyone can see this is not your average company. Is your research guy still bringing his dog to work?”

  “No, Nacho’s wounds have healed and he’s spending his days frolicking at home with Robert’s other lab.”

  “I’m glad. Most employers would tell him to handle his dog crisis on his own time. But not you.”

  “No. What kind of employer would I be if I didn’t care about my employees’ crises? We’re a tight-knit bunch here and we’re all a little crazy. Where do you think the girls learned how to do chair races?”

  “From you, of course. They’ve learned all their wilder behavior from an example very close to home,” she said meaningfully.