Double-Cross My Heart

by Rose, Carol

  “You are,” Alex said, when he finally ended their kiss, “the most amazing lover. I never get enough. We went at each other like hungry little bunnies just a few hours ago and, with one kiss, you’ve got me good to give it another go.”

  The blatant sexual interest in his words and face took her by surprise. Never could anyone question his male potency, but before he’d always combined that lusty side of himself with a roguish charm. It stood naked and almost cold on his face now.

  “Thank you,” she said, aware of the breathy sound in her voice even as she tried to puzzle his mood.

  “I don’t suppose,” he said, snagging her hand easily in his as he turned to walk around the huge desk, drawing her with him. “I don’t suppose you’d like to christen my desk chair?”

  He sat down. With a lazy insolence, he hooked his hand around her, palm flat against the small of her back, and pulled her toward him.

  Her body instantaneously responding to him, she didn’t resist. But even as his hand dropped lower to cup her bottom, she frowned down at him.

  Something was wrong. She knew it, could hear a faint current of ice in his voice. Just a sliver of something like cold steel.

  Her brain registering input on multiple levels, she said nothing as he reached up to fondle her breast. A chaos of emotion burgeoning in her, she looked down at him—hunger and anger and love all twisted together with a growing fear.

  It was just her guilt, she thought dismissively. Unfounded, but apparently unshakeable.

  “Hey,” she said, hardly aware of the tender concern in her own voice, “did something come up at work today? When I got your message about our changed plans, I thought maybe one of your deals had developed a hiccup or something. You’re here in the office alone? I thought I’d fine a bunch of your minions running around in a frenzy trying to cope with whatever is going on.”

  “No,” he said, his hand dropping from her breast. “I’m here alone. No minions tonight. But I had a late phone call I needed to take.”

  With a relief—not shared by her body’s erotic receptors—she saw him turn his attention away from her toward the desk. Still seated in his chair, he took his hand off her butt and shuffled through several stacks on his desk, straightening things.

  “So everything is okay? No emergency?”

  “No. I don’t have any other projects at max level, just the Michele deal, at this point.”

  Eden’s throat muscles tightened as she asked, “And everything’s on target there?”

  “I guess so. You tell me.” His words were casual.

  But she couldn’t dismiss a growing sense of anxiety. Trying to ignore the signals bombarding her, she took a step back, running a hand over the corner of his desktop.

  Normally, she had no problem with being too-sensitive to others around her. Alex, however, seemed to have activated hither-to-unknown sensors in her brain. She couldn’t help but be aware of emotional shifts in him. Still, she didn’t have a clue what was going on with him now.

  Perching on the arm of a deep emerald chair near the desk, she said, “From my end, there’s no change at the company.”

  He leaned his head back lazily against the back of the tall leather chair, very much a powerful executive in his element.

  “So…let’s see…we’re all set for the board meeting next week? No new information? No surprises?”

  Eden shook her head, the action easy, but requiring her to put a mental lid on a surge of nervousness. She hated this. In many ways, he was such a decent guy. He’d been much more than that to her…. Her betrayer, but also her lover.

  “You gave me the final report on the anti-aging cream this morning,” he said. “That is the final, final report? Right? Bergere doesn’t have any other data he’s still assessing?”

  A sliver of fear danced its way down her spine. His pointed question had her drawing a quick breath to say, “No.”

  She knew the word was too bald, but it had to be kept simple, for her own shaky sanity.

  He looked at her for a long moment, his face unreadable.

  “Good,” Alex said finally. “And the second article in Wall Street Weekly? You’ve talked to the reporter? Given her a few more facts to show the company is in trouble?”

  “On the phone, once,” she said, unable to repress a small frown. She’d never been able to discover just how well he knew that reporter. The last thing she needed was him finding out that she had no intention of leaking further information.

  God, she hated this. When this was all over, she planned to take a vacation. Fly away to some hot beach where she could bake the lying and cheating out of her body and soul. Somewhere she could shake it all off.

  Knowing she had to make him think she was doing everything they’d planned, she went on, “I’m going to meet with the writer next week for a more in-depth conversation.”

  “Okay.”

  Looking at him closely, she couldn’t repress the sense that something was wrong. Of course, she’d never seen Alex work the close of one of his deals. Maybe he got more curt and business-like when the actual moment of truth finally arrived. She had no way of knowing.

  “And Wendi and Michele? Everything okay there? No one’s asking you questions or suspecting that you’re up to no good?”

  The words were light and his lips curved into a smile, but Eden’s frown grew. She had a growing cold feeling creeping over her. Why all these questions?

  “No, no one’s suspicious.” She said after a moment. The sick feeling in her gut didn’t seem to matter. For weeks and months now, she’d felt like hell, convinced on a basic level that she had to sell her soul for this job, if that was required. But sitting here with him, answering his questions with more lies—it left an awful taste on her tongue. Even though he’d lied to her first. Betrayed her and used her.

  Eden grappled with the sense of wrongness—inside and outside of her. He seemed wrong, not himself somehow, and she’d been wrong forever, it seemed. Lying and cheating her way into a job that should have been readily bestowed on her.

  It was too late now, though, to be questioning any of this. For the past few weeks, she’d refused to allow herself to even think about what she was doing. She just kept crunching into her Payday bars as though the very pulverizing of the peanuts would drown out the guilty chatter in her head.

  Alex smiled, the expression holding more than a glitter of maliciousness. “Didn’t you say something about the old woman going to the doctor? Is her health okay? She going to drop dead on us in the middle of the board meeting?”

  His flippancy jarred her into a sharp answer. “I certainly hope not.”

  “No, that would be too easy.” Alex angled his chair more toward her. “And Dave Sanders hasn’t indicated to you any change in his position? Any snag? He’s still the same sleazy weasel we know and are relying on, if not, loving?”

  “Dave hasn’t had any communication with me,” she said, getting up from her chair. She walked around behind the chair, bracing her hands against the richly upholstered back. Facing him, she asked “Why all these questions? Is something wrong?”

  Instead of answering, Alex got up from his chair. Going over to a small wet bar tucked in a corner of the room, he retrieved a short fat glass, dropping in a couple of ice cubes from a tiny freezer. After splashing some scotch into the glass, he lifted it to his mouth and took a swallow.

  Watching him, she felt herself begin to tremble, as sick at heart as the worst case of flu. Her body ached with the tension.

  Turning around to face her, the glass still in his hand, Alex finally said, “Can you tell me nothing is wrong?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” She stood rooted to the spot behind the emerald chair, knowing with an unshakeable certainty that she didn’t want to be here. Didn’t want to face his anger, to hear the slow, mocking note in his voice.

  H
ow could she answer his question when, in fact, everything was wrong? The only thing that had seemed right to her was that she’d never wanted to be in this mess, never asked for the hell of the past three months…and that she’d never felt so loved by a man in her life.

  Yet, he’d betrayed her even more thoroughly than pitiful, aging Michele.

  A streak of anger flashed through Eden’s head. In response to his manipulative maneuvering, she’d been prompted into actions so unlike herself. She almost didn’t recognize the woman she’d become…and he had been the catalyst.

  With an incredible, almost insulting, change of subject, Alex said, “So, what are your plans after we start dismantling the company? Have you picked out your next position? Your next work ‘home’? The next company to enjoy your ‘loyalty’?”

  With her anxiety rapidly turning to serious annoyance, Eden said, “Why don’t you just say what you’re so pissed about? It’s very clear that you’re angry and I’m not good at guessing games. Why don’t you just give it to me straight?”

  With a short, hard laugh, he sat the glass on the bar and turned back to her.

  “You want it straight? No games? Just the honest, bare facts, ma’am?” All trace of mockery was gone from his face and in its place stood anger, pure and simple.

  “Yes, I would prefer that.” Facing in the open whatever trouble came up had always been best, she’d thought. Until the last year, she’d lived her life by that motto.

  “So,” Alex said, a bite in his voice, “you don’t play games? You’re always honest?”

  “Tell me why you’re mad,” she demanded, really tired of circling.

  “I’m mad,” he said, “because you’ve been playing me for a fool. You’ve been hiding company shit from me, lying to me about your actions. Specifically, you lied today about the anti-aging cream. I know that for a fact because I stumbled on to the real report from Bergere. Compared side-by-side with the phony piece of crap report you gave me with his name on it, his report makes it very clear that you’re nothing like I thought you were. In fact, you’re an accomplished liar!”

  His voice raising in volume with each word, he was yelling at her at the end of his declaration.

  Staring at him in shock, a burst of anger blotted out Eden’s dismay. Suddenly trembling, scrambling mad, she spit back at him defensively, “Who the hell are you to call me names? Huh? And where did you find that report? Were you searching my apartment while I was sleeping or something? Obviously, I was wrong to expect any kind of privacy from someone like you!”

  “No, not while you were sleeping,” he snarled. “You were in the shower and I searched your briefcase after I kicked it while I was getting dressed. You dropped it on the floor and it was half under the bed. I was putting my pants on when I kicked it and it sprang open. I saw the report lying in the case when I picked it up to put it on your desk.”

  He sneered at her, “And don’t you think we’re way beyond worrying about invasion of privacy? You’ve been screwing me over for months! Like an evil corporate drone, you’ve been doing Michele and Wendi William’s dirty work. And boy, did you do it well! What did they promise you? Did Wendi give you a contract for the next fifty years so you don’t have to ever leave your precious cosmetics company? Don’t ever have to go out into the world? Is that why you’ve cheated and lied and whored yourself with me? For a company that doesn’t give a shit about you?”

  “You have no right,” Eden spat, “to talk to me about ‘screwing’ when you’ve lied to me from the first moment we met! The first moment! Do you think I haven’t figured it out? You think I’m an idiot, so caught up in fucking you that I didn’t think to check you out?”

  He stood glowering at her.

  “I’ve known from almost the first,” she said, emotion thick in her voice. “I’ve known all along! You made a mistake, mister big-money-takeover-artist! You started buying Michele Cosmetics stock three months before you arranged to meet me! Three months! How stupid do you think I am? You think I don’t know that you’ve been using me—dating me, kissing me, sleeping in my bed—just to get to the company! You’re the worm! You’re the worst kind of lying, cheating prick!”

  Eden couldn’t fight back the tears suddenly choking her voice, spilling down her cheeks. “You’ve played me—used me and said you loved me when all you wanted was the damned company.”

  “So you screwed me back,” he said bitterly, “for Michele and Wendi.”

  “No!” Wiping at the tears streaming down her face, she said, “I’m not doing anything for them. You must think I’m really, really stupid.”

  Nauseated, her heart thundering in her chest, she said, “This is for me. I’m through doing things for everyone else. Michele taught me that lesson before you even came along. I deserve to head this company. I can pull it out of the slump. I can save it from predators like you. I’ve done everything you accuse me of, everything—“

  She stopped, gasping back her tears, “but I’ve done it for myself—and the rest of the people working for the company you want to destroy—I’m not handing it back to Michele. The board is going to give me the CEO position…because I deserve it.”

  Alex felt a tilting sensation in his head. All the while he’d been buying this company and getting vindication for her, she’d been planning to screw both he and Michele. “Why do it this way? Why not tell me to fuck off? Why lie and deceive and make love with me while you were stabbing me in the back?”

  “Because,” Eden said in a low, tired voice, “because you would have told Eden and Wendi about my uncle and that would have given them a reason to fire me. I needed time, dammit. I had to have time to get ready, time to make the directors see that I’m the company’s best bet, not Wendi.”

  “My God,” he said, sitting down in a chair across from where she stood. “You’ve been playing us both. All of us. Lying to Wendi and Michele…lying to me. Sleeping with me. All for this damned company.”

  She just looked at him, unable to stop the tears coursing down her face, but her expression stiff with anger. He mustn’t see the hurt. When he looked at her there must be nothing, but enmity. Worse, much worse that he should know how totally he’d entangled himself in her heart.

  Maybe she was like her mother, stupid in love, but she wasn’t stupid enough to let him know it.

  “All I did,” she said, straightening, “is give the same as I got. I never wanted to do it this way. You—and Michele—decided how the game was played. But now that you taught me, I’m going to do my damndest to win.”

  With that, she turned and walked out of his office, consumed—drowning—in a wave of bitter grief that wouldn’t be stemmed.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “What did you say?” Jessica’s voice sounded shocked. “Honey, you have to stop crying long enough to tell me why you’re so upset. Did you say Alex knows everything?”

  “Yes,” Eden gulped, trying to stop the angry sobs wracking her body. “Everything. He found the actual report Roberte Bergere sent me on the cream—Alex found it and read it. He knows that the cream is good. He knows I’ve been lying—“

  She broke off, fighting hard to silence a new wave of sobs. She could only pray the parking garage was empty. Alex might come out at any moment. He kept his car here, she knew. She needed to leave. Needed to drive away so he wouldn’t see her here like this. He’d think she was weeping over him and she couldn’t have that.

  “He’s an asshole,” she declared through her tears. “A jerk and a worthless bastard.”

  “Okay,” Jessica said in a very serious voice. “Where are you? I know you’re on your cell, but where are you? Are you driving? Because, if so, I want you to pull over until you calm down. Alex may be an asshole and a bastard, but let’s not get killed over him.”

  “I’m in the parking garage next to his office building,” Eden said, casting an anxious glance at the elevator. “I’v
e got to leave—I’m just so mad. I—I wanted to tell you—I don’t know, that it’s all gone to shit just like I knew it would.”

  “Okay,” Jessica said, her voice almost too calm. “I’m glad you called. I tell you what, you come on over and we’ll sit down and talk about what you can do next. You need to know the next step…if he tells Michele and Wendi about you—“

  “I know what to do,” Eden interrupted her. “I’m doing exactly what I planned on doing. I’m going to the board meeting and I’m laying out Wendi’s financial misconduct at her last job. I’m showing the directors the statements I’ve been given by the department managers—I’m going ahead with my plans to save this company! I have to! There are people—my employees—who’re going to be hurt if I don’t! And I deserve the job, dammit!”

  “But what if Alex tells Wendi and Michele about your uncle?” Jessica asked, worry in her voice.

  “I don’t care,” Eden shifted the phone to her other ear and shoved her key in the Z4’s ignition. “He can go to them and they can fire me, but they can’t keep me out of the board meeting. I’m still holding my block of stock. I have every right to be at that meeting. It’s too late for Alex to stop me. I’m ready for him!”

  “Okay,” Jess said doubtfully. “I thought…you might want to reconsider…everything, but…”

  “Reconsider everything?” She started the engine and put the car in reverse with a jerk. “Why the hell would I do that?”

  “Because,” her friend said quietly, “you’re in love with Alex Holt and…you hate all this dirty fighting.”

  “I don’t have any choice,” Eden said, making herself drive carefully out of the parking garage. “The people at the Michigan plant and the people in marketing and Cheryl and her daughter in college are all depending on me. Besides, why shouldn’t I have this job? I’ve been doing it for years! I have to go through with the plan.”

  ***

  He was an idiot who’d been led around by his dick!