Double-Cross My Heart

by Rose, Carol

  Finishing her chopping, his sister wiped her hands dry on a towel and turned to face him, listening.

  “From very early on in this game,” he said, “I’ve wanted to help Eden get what she deserves. She’s worked her ass off for this company and they’re shoving her out the door.”

  “She’s losing her job?”

  “Not immediately,” Alex said, his words grim, “but eventually. It’s as clear as a bell. The woman who will drag this company down will first fire Eden. Eden’s too damned competent for this bitch to let her hang around.”

  “So you’re going in and taking over the company. Dismantling it, partly for Eden? You’re trying to…fix it for Eden? Trying to make sure she gets her due?”

  “Something like that,” he said with a sigh.

  “Another bad habit on your part,” Lauren said with brutal candor. “You have a good heart, but it wouldn’t hurt you to do things a little more straight-forward, you know? You need to tell Eden exactly what you’ve been up to. All the little details that you’ve undoubtedly left out.”

  The thought scared the crap out of him. Alex protested, “She knows I want the company. Eden’s very clear on what I do.”

  “But she’s not as clear on what you’ve done,” his sister said meaningfully. “I’m sorry, Alex. But you need to take responsibility for your part in this. It’s really important that men own up to their part in relationships.”

  He knew she spoke partly from her own experience with her ex, but her words still sliced into him.

  Eden would walk away from him forever, her heart bleeding inside. She’d lose the company she deserved and he’d lose her.

  Alex didn’t think he could face the possibility.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Eden glanced at the falsified Bergere report on the table between her and Alex. Around them, other restaurant patrons chatted and ate.

  “I’m glad you could get away long enough to meet for lunch. Now I don’t have to wait till this evening to see you,” Alex said with warmth. He looked across the table at her, a hint of concern in his eyes. “Are you sleeping okay? This work load you’re under seems to be wearing you down.”

  “I’m okay,” she said briefly, reaching over to shift the report closer to his plate. When she’d planned this whole double-cross, she’d failed to anticipate how much she would hate telling him outright lies. It was one thing to lie by omission, but this bald-face deceit made her stomach hurt.

  What she really wanted was to climb into his lap and kiss him senseless. Why couldn’t love be simple?

  Taking a breath, she said with effort, “As you can see Bergere confirmed his initial reports. The anti-aging cream is nothing special. One more disappointment for Michele and Wendi. The board is being kept informed of new product development at every board meeting—just a brief update. They were hoping this product would expand the company into a rich, growing demographic. Obviously, it’s no gold mine.”

  “That’s both good and bad for us,” he commented, reaching out to settle her hand in his. “With the disappointing results, the board is more likely to vote my way, so that’s good. An anti-aging product formula would have been easy to sell to another company, though.”

  The clasp of his hand was warm and solid, sending a tingle through her body. She loved his hands, loved him touching her. Eden found her throat aching with how much she despised what she was doing. He might have set her up and used her, but she kept feeling like she was the one doing the betraying.

  “Yes, it would have been a high volume seller,” she said, lifting her water glass to take a drink. Pulling out of his hold, she draped her napkin across her lap and practiced her next lie again in her head. Taking another breath, she said, “There’s something interesting to tell you about office politics.”

  “Oh?” He looked up from his meal with an enquiring glance.

  “I think Michele managed to annoy Sarah Briggs and maybe even Sol.” She put down her fork, her fingers trembling.

  No matter what he’d done, how could she do this to someone she loved? She loved Alex, regardless of his devious actions. It may have been stupid, but there was no avoiding the truth.

  “Really?” Alex asked. “How did Michele do that?”

  “She sent out a memo,” Eden said, the rehearsed words sounding surprisingly normal. “Michele listed two or three staff ‘complaints’ about Wendi and told the board members ‘not to listen’. Sarah Briggs and Sol Klineman both called me and asked about it.”

  If Alex had known Michele Broussard at all, he’d have seen through Eden’s deception, but he’d never even met Michele and he had no way of knowing about her supreme indifference to her employees at present. It hadn’t always been that way, Eden recalled sadly.

  “So she’s pissing off her board members in defending Wendi?” Alex laughed. “That woman is brainless.”

  “Yes.” Eden chewed her mouthful of tasteless salad. This was hell. She was living in hell, but losing the company…that would be even worse. None of the other options were any better.

  How could she have fallen in love with this man, of all men.

  “I’ve also contacted the reporter for the Wall Street Weekly, the woman I talked with before?” she lied.

  “Oh, yeah?” he said, glancing up from his plate.

  “She hasn’t called me back, but when she does, I’ll have one or two more things to tell her.” The words slipped through her lips with disconcerting smoothness. She wanted to haul the words back, to stop everything and just lie in his arms, breathing in the scent of him, losing herself in the sensation of his body next to hers.

  “That’s great. One more nail in Michele and Wendi’s coffins.”

  “Yes.” Eden’s whole face was aching from the effort it took to smile. Her guilt weighed her every breath. Guilt and anger and piercing regret. How could he have put her in this place?

  “You know,” he said, “you’ll be out of the situation in a few months. Have you been looking around to decide which other cosmetic company you might want to work for? When Michele Cosmetics is defunct and the formulas sold, there’ll be no reason you can’t find another job in this industry? Got a favorite possibility?”

  She looked at him, feeling a thump-thump of her heart heavy in her chest. “No, not yet. I’ve…been really busy. I think I mentioned the labor problems in Michigan?”

  “Yeah.” He nodded. “A while back.”

  “It looks bad,” she said, trying not to stumble over the words. This was even harder than she’d thought, having to set him up to go into the board meeting with misinformation. He’d look bad. Unprepared and ignorant. She didn’t know how she was going to sit in that meeting and watch, but she knew it had to be done. No matter how she felt, she’d come this far.

  Did he ever feel regret? She should be angry with him—she was angry! But her fury didn’t automatically make the other softer emotions disappear.

  “That’s good,” he responded. “Labor problems are a very real reason to shut a company down.”

  Now all she had to do, Eden thought, taking a tight breath, was survive until the board meeting in a few short days. Keep her distance from Alex, certainly stay more than arm’s length. No more glorious nights together.

  She’d come to the end of that road, as bitter as the reality felt. This had to be an inherited tendency, to actually crave contact with a man she knew to be devious and dishonest.

  The week of Thanksgiving lie ahead and then a few short days before the Wednesday meeting of the board.

  “Hey,” Alex said, “I mentioned our family get-together on Thanksgiving, right? I want you to come.”

  “What?”

  “I want you to come to Lauren’s and share Thanksgiving with my family,” he said simply. “We usually get together around three in the afternoon and eat.”

  “Oh…I don’t know,” Ed
en said, stalling while her stunned brain tried to make sense of the invitation. What was this guy? A monster? A psychopathic deviant! Didn’t he know how to behave with a woman he was using?

  He’d made comments before about his family celebrations, but she’d had no idea this was coming. Why the heck would he want a woman he was just using to spend time with his family?

  “Please,” Alex said, his smile warm and winning. “You won’t be intruding, I promise. I want you there.”

  And what Alex wanted, he got, Eden thought with an angry sadness.

  She ducked her head over her plate. “The rest of your family might feel weird about it, though.”

  “No,” he disagreed, shaking his head with that charming smile still on his face. “They’re usually okay with trusting me. How about you trust me a little?”

  Eden looked at him, helpless to know how to deal with the situation. Holidays weren’t good to her in general. This situation, however, had nightmare written all over it.

  “I know you aren’t going to be with your family,” he said, “and I really want everyone to meet you.”

  She couldn’t do this, she thought, the voice in her head verging on the hysterical. This level of deceit—so intimate, so close—was more than she could handle. Mentally scrambling, she tried to find an excuse.

  “I don’t know. My mother has been calling…it’s been five or six years since I’ve been out there on a holiday…she’s got this new boyfriend I haven’t met….” Eden’s voice trailed off and she was miserably aware of not being able to meet his eyes.

  Alex studied her for a moment. “Of course. I understand how it is with family.”

  “Not mine usually,” she said, the words blurting out as if her basic inner honesty couldn’t leave them unsaid.

  “All the more reason to go,” he told her. “I know this kind of thing is hard for you.”

  “Yes.” Eden swallowed another gulp of water. He had no idea.

  “I don’t suppose…having a friend there would help any,” he said, his smile turning rueful.

  He was volunteering to go with her to visit her nightmare family?

  Her hand came up in involuntary protest. “Oh, God. The questions. The comments. My total embarrassment! The last guy my mother was involved with had three little kids from three different women, one of who was still living in his apartment with him, despite their apparent break-up! No. I don’t need to expose anyone else to the horror of my family.”

  “Okay,” he said, “whatever is better for you. It wouldn’t freak me out to meet them, you know. I’m in this relationship because of you, not them.”

  A red flash of anger briefly impaired Eden’s vision. How the hell could he say that? He lied straight to her face and even managed to look sincere while he did it.

  Here she was agonizing over the lying and deception on her part while he brazenly acted the part of the innocent. The anger flooding her chest had one good effect. It pushed out the guilt.

  Grasping at the edges of her control, she said abruptly, “I’m thinking about telling Amanda MacPherson—the woman from Wall Street Weekly—about the failed anti-aging cream. That should give investors a bad impression of the company.”

  She had to have something to say, even if it was a total fabrication. There would be nothing else covertly said to any reporter.

  Alex frowned, reaching across the table to catch her hand in his again. “If she doesn’t get back with you right away, don’t worry about it. We’re in a good position to go into the board meeting. You’ve done a terrific job at getting set up for your revenge.”

  “Thanks,” she said, unable to keep from staring at the meshing of their joined hands against the polished wood table top.

  “You need to take it as easy as you can,” he said, his voice serious. “There’s no need for you to keep pushing so hard.”

  Eden swallowed against the lump in her throat, the concerned note in his voice brushed over her like a thundercloud hugging the earth. Electricity seemed to crackle between them, hot and powerful, but she couldn’t let herself forget the danger.

  “Okay,” she agreed, her voice hoarse, her hand still laced with his.

  “You’re very important to me,” Alex stated, his words level and compelling. “We don’t want you developing an ulcer or something.”

  She didn’t know what to say. Everything she knew to be factually true contradicted his claim of caring for her. He’d set her up—gotten involved with her in order to get control of Michele Cosmetics—yet her stupid heart couldn’t let go of the moments that argued in his favor.

  He’d cared for her when she was sick, owned up to his stupidity in not contradicting his friend’s comments about women in the workplace…. There were moments when she’d been sure he’d actually seemed somewhat like he loved her.

  Eden smiled at him, knowing it was a weak attempt. “I’m fine. No ulcer.”

  It was a lie, maybe the biggest she’d told in the last three months. She was anything, but fine. Her head and her heart were at war over who Alex really was.

  He’d taken her into his family and acted convincingly the part of a man wholly in love. True, he’d never said the words to her, but he’d inferred time and again that they had a future. She knew how slight that was as a foundation. Everyday people promised to love one another forever only to leave, sometimes before the words were fully out of their mouths.

  Words were easy, particularly for a man as articulate as Alex. But would he have nursed her when she was ill and sent her Payday bars when she was stressed if all she meant to him was the path to Michele Cosmetics? He’d had no reason to fake any of this. She’d been making sure he thought she was committed to working with him.

  The part that kept hanging her up was knowing that he wasn’t trying to win her over by doing those caring things. As far as he knew, she’d been cooperating with his plans all along. No extreme measures had been necessary to keep her in line. She’d never once challenged his plans for the company. True, she’d expressed puzzlement that he’d never wanted to run a company. But that wasn’t anywhere near an open declaration of resistance against his plans for her company.

  “You’re more than fine,” he said, his voice low and intimate, his gaze warm on her face. He reached over, clasping her hand in both of his. “You’re loyal and loving, smart and incredibly sexy.”

  A warm glow infused Eden’s chest, lit by the crackle of electricity.

  The shattering truth was that on some level she didn’t care who he was. She just wanted him close by, in her life, in her bed. She wanted him, no matter what. It made no rational sense and she knew she’d wake up some day and scoff at herself…but that didn’t matter right now.

  Lunch forgotten on the table, they stared into each other’s faces, mute but for the voltage that sizzled the skin.

  “Have I told you,” he murmured, “how much I love kissing you? How I never sleep as well now unless you’re sleeping next to me? I find myself thinking about you—your lips, your honest eyes, your incredible skin. Bryan keeps asking me where my head is…it’s here, with you.”

  Eden felt a sob rise in her throat and clenched her teeth together to hold it back.

  They were in public, for God’s sake. She couldn’t fall apart here.

  “Sweetheart,” he whispered. “I just need you.”

  Feeling like she was drowning in him, she responded, “I need you, too.”

  ***

  The elevator ride up to her floor was an agony of restraint. Few inhabitants of Eden’s high-rise building were home during the day, but she and Alex, of course, had found themselves in an elevator with two other occupants.

  Clutching the handle of her briefcase in both hands—she’d absently grabbed it from her car without even thinking—she stood next to Alex, her body taut with anticipation. The haze of her desperation to be with him co
nsumed her. She didn’t want to consider that this was a bad idea—just the thought of touching him, holding him—helped drive away the reality that their time together was so close to ending.

  Fortunately her condo wasn’t far from the elevator. She needed them both naked, lost in the erotic tangle of heat and hunger—she needed to keep herself from thinking anymore.

  Getting out on her floor, Eden crossed the short distance to her door with Alex beside her. No words were spoken as she opened her front door and headed into her bedroom with Alex close behind her.

  Dropping the briefcase she’d been clutching like a life preserver, she turned to him and kissed him, her body pressed against his, urgent and clinging. Responding eagerly, Alex bracketed her face between his hands, his mouth hot and demanding.

  Desperate to stop the craziness in her head, Eden dove into the fire raging between them. Yanking at his tie, she tugged him toward her. The cold drizzle of ice in her veins made her yearn for his borrowed warmth. She wanted him wrapped around her like an electric blanket. She needed the feel of his naked skin on hers, burning through her, lighting up her core.

  It was damned cold outside, a gray wintry light at the windows and in her soul. He was heat and life and this was what made sense, being with him.

  Trying to remove his suit jacket Eden dragged at it, hungrily awkward as a teenager. She clutched at his shoulders, her mouth urgent beneath his. No kiss had ever felt as wanton as this. He pulled her close, dragging her tight against his body to plunder her mouth beneath his.

  In his arms, she trembled and wrestled with unbuttoning his shirt to bare his chest to her touch. She needed this like a woman drowning needed air. The crazy buzzing in her head had to stop, if only for now, this moment.

  Alex felt his control slipping. No matter how many times she stroked her hands over his skin, he was always startled by the heat that rose up in him. She set him on fire, her mouth moving against his, her body rounded and firm.