by Rose, Carol
Pacing furiously back and forth across his office after she’d left, Alex raved at himself for his stupidity. Anyone who had any experience in business knew to distrust a person acting as a mole in her own company! How could he have not seen? Not realized how she’d been screwing all his plans!
He’d loved her! Loved her, dammit!
Unable to contain his rage, he crossed and recrossed the room. Had any woman ever wormed herself so far inside his head? Had he ever been so duped and deceived? She’d fucked him and fed him fables and he’d bought it! Taken him between her legs and groaned out her lies. And he’d come back over and over, craving her touch, longing for just the sound of her even breathing next to him in the night.
He’d loved her. Had been doing all this—since early in the process—for her. And she hated him for it. Lied to him over and over.
He came to a halt in front of the expanse of windows, anger and betrayal like barbed wire in his belly.
What an unbelievable chump he was! This was without a doubt the stupidest he’d ever been in his entire life.
Slamming out of his office, he left for home, silently fuming all the while the elevator carried him to the ground floor. Responding to the security guard’s pleasant “good night” with only a grunt, Alex stalked to his car. His footsteps echoing in the empty garage, he struggled against the urge to do violence. If he’d have had a baseball bat in his hand, he might not have been able to resist the temptation to vent his rage on the boring, useless four door sedan parked next to his car.
Although his rage envisioned her neck in his hands, he wouldn’t hurt her. No, that would be too simple, too messy and too quick. What he wanted was to get her fully in his power and teach her a lesson or two on honesty. Maybe in ten years, he’d be done with everything he had to say to her. First, he’d lecture her for twelve hours or so…and then sate himself in her, just for good measure, before the urge to harangue her some more overcame him.
How dare she accuse him of teaching her to lie and cheat? He was a businessman, that was all. He made money from other people’s failures. If anything, he dealt in appropriately-placed truths, not deception.
Where was the decency and honesty he’d seen in her? What had happened to the straightforward woman he’d first known her to be? How could she look herself in the mirror? What kind of woman used her body with so much skill and so little conscience?
Eden had once had a conscience.
He knew that, even as he wondered how well he’d really known her. Even in his rage, he couldn’t rid himself of the conviction that this whole debacle came down to the woman’s straying from her own path.
And she’d laid the responsibility for it at his door! He knew his own integrity. If he lived his life a little differently than most people, it said nothing about his honor.
Arriving home, he went to the kitchen and took down from the cabinet a bottle of scotch he’d been given for Christmas. Some business associate or other had sent it over.
Pouring himself a stiff drink, Alex drank deeply before sloshing more into the glass. He stood next to the kitchen counter and stared into space. He wasn’t a cheat or a crook, but he knew his own business. If he wanted to, he could crush her. She must be crazy to think she could win this battle…crazy or desperate….
Slouching over to the couch, glass in one hand, bottle in the other, he poured himself another drink and sat down. His brooding gaze hovering above the bottle of scotch he placed on the low table in front of the couch. He found his mind full of Eden. Snatches of memory bombarded him. He ought to eat something, he knew. Ought to stop thinking about the mess her deceit had pitched him into. God knew what amount of damage her deliberate misinformation had done to his bid for the company.
A fresh surge of anger flooded through him. How could she? Why the hell would she do this?
No wonder she’d looked so haggard and tired lately. So tense.
It made him mad as hell to think about her accusations that his actions had in some way justified hers. He knew who he was, knew his strengths and weaknesses. He’d been using all his skills for her. Maybe he’d strayed from the straight course when he’d decided to get to know her personally before laying the business deal out. But from that point on all his actions had been for her.
Why would she do this, he asked himself again? So cruelly rape his heart?
As soon as the question formed in his brain, Alex knew she’d have poured everything she was into this. She’d have been working her ass off to ensure the final outcome. Given everything she had to protect her employees, to gain control of the company.
With deep reluctance, he found himself grudgingly acknowledging her tenacity, even as he railed against her perfidy. She was a strong woman with more capacity for deception than he’d given her credit for. Others might have shied off from a plan of this level of deviousness, particularly a woman with so little personal experience with dishonesty.
The scotch sloshing in his belly turned acid. But how could she have done this to him? How did she justify it to herself? Hadn’t she trusted him to take care of her people?
With a corrosive sense of uselessness, Alex slammed back another scotch. Whether she’d excused it to herself or not, he couldn’t excuse her. She’d lied to him over and over…. Lied to his face. Deceived him at every turn.
He’d thought her a special and unmatched soul. He’d loved her…so much.
Releasing a deep breath, Alex set down his glass.
She had lied to him, but she was right when she claimed he’d lied, too,…and he’d done it first. Did that indeed justify her actions? The only reason he hadn’t come clean with her about the mugging set-up was that he hadn’t wanted her to be in doubt of the strength of his own love for her. He hadn’t wanted her to be hurt.
You lied to me and you did it first, she’d said.
Slumping back against the couch, he struggled to come to grips with the situation. She was in the wrong, without question, but he couldn’t congratulate himself on his own actions. Far from it.
He’d not been at his best in this deal, but he’d done it all for her. He’d done it for her and she’d knifed him in the back.
Still…he couldn’t stop loving her.
Images flitted through his mind—Eden laughing, her arms sheltering him close. Her serious expression when she was studying a problem…the way her body fit so perfectly to his…their first meeting when he’d arranged for her to be mugged so he could rescue her.
“Shit!” he cursed as he poured himself another drink.
***
“Yes, I really like Bryan,” Lauren said, “and, yes, we’ll be seeing each other again.”
“Good.” Alex concentrated on walking next to her without jostling his brain.
“What’s the matter with you?” His sister asked, pushing the shopping cart down the grocery aisle. “I know you offered to help me with the groceries for Thanksgiving dinner—I’m paying for them, by the way, not you—but I can do the shopping if you’re sick.”
“I’m not sick,” Alex stated firmly, trying to keep the sound waves from his voice from reaching his bruised brain. He only rarely drank to excess. That was most likely the problem this morning—he needed to work up a tolerance if he planned on drowning his problems in alcohol in the future.
“Well,” his sister said, casting him a critical glance, “you look sick.”
“Not sick, hung-over,” he said succinctly, wishing he could rest his head on the ice surrounding the magnificent salmon in the butcher’s case. Even frostbite had to be better than this.
“But you don’t drink,” she told him with certainty. “Certainly not this much.”
“I’m branching out,” he declared, taking refuge in a morbid humor. He didn’t want to think about the mess he’d made of things with Eden. In particular, he couldn’t stand the thought of who she’d become. It h
ad hit him hard last night. He’d started this, at least a significant part of the situation was at his instigation. She accused him of being her role-model, of doing exactly what she’d done, only he’d been there first.
If it weren’t for his intervention in the beginning, would Eden have plotted to over-throw Michele? Would she have been in a position where she took actions that threatened her integrity? Maybe she’d have tolerated working for Wendi rather than take this torturous course.
Hell, did she even know herself anymore?
She’d actually been plotting against him all this time. Scheming and lying. Pretending she cared about him.
The twist of betrayal turned in his gut even more than the nausea associated with his pounding headache. If he’d been less than honest with her in the very beginning, at least he hadn’t ever lied to her about the things that truly mattered. He’d fallen in love with her, dammit, and she’d acted like she returned his feelings while lying through her teeth.
It wasn’t just about her deceiving him, though.
Even worse than the lying she was doing with him, he knew in his gut, she was betraying herself more than she’d betrayed him. Eden was an honest woman. He couldn’t believe otherwise, no matter how much he tried. And he’d spent much of the previous evening trying. Somehow through his alcoholic haze, he’d arrived at the full-blown conviction that Eden’s actions were not only bad for him, but truly bad for her as well.
Trailing after his sister as she pushed her shopping cart down the next aisle, Alex couldn’t explain how he knew that this kind of deceit and trickery wasn’t Eden’s true nature. Maybe it was because she was right about him. Maybe he did manipulate and deal in trickery. At least, in the past.
He hated the thought that she was the worst for having been with him. Of course, some people would say Eden’s current double-dealing was likely to be the norm for her, but he couldn’t believe that.
No, she’d recently turned to the dark side and he, much to his dismay, was becoming convinced he’d helped turn her in that direction. Even while he was working toward her getting what she deserved, he’d been pushing into betraying herself.
Michele and Wendi and him—what a team.
“So…,” Lauren said, busy selecting onions from a bin, “what’s bothering you? Driving you to drink, I mean.”
“I’m realizing I’m a slimy, manipulative bastard.” As the words came out of his mouth, he knew they were true. In his desire to get to know Eden personally, he’d taken a serious wrong turn himself. Maybe he was fooling himself, in that even. Had he ever been scrupulously true to his values? Particularly when it came to money?
“What?” his sister turned to look at him with an incredulous, questioning stare. “I don’t think I’d phrase it exactly like that myself.”
“Eden would,” Alex said with difficulty. “She’s…very angry with me. She knows about my arranging to meet her when we were setting up the Michele Cosmetics deal.”
“Oh,” his sister said, lifting her eyebrows.
He knew she was feeling confirmed in her recommendation for him to confess to Eden, but Lauren didn’t say the “I told you so” he deserved. She didn’t have to.
“Eden’s really upset?” his sister asked, her expression holding more sympathy than he deserved.
“Yes.” His head feeling like it was splitting with each step, he walked beside his sister.
“So you guys have broken up?” The regret in her voice was clearly audible. “She’s not coming for dinner tomorrow?”
He shook his head with a short, self-mocking laugh, the movement making his head ache even more. He followed Lauren over to the pile of acorn squash. “No.”
“Oh,” his sister said. “I liked her.”
“I’m sorry,” Alex said, the words painfully true. He’d screwed this situation up on so many levels and he wasn’t quite sure what to do now.
“So,” Lauren said again, “does that mess up your business deal or your relationship or both?”
Alex sighed, trailing after the cart as his sister left the produce section. “It messes up…everything. At least, the thing that matters the most—me and Eden.”
“So,” his sister said, “is your business situation the same? You can still force her to keep on helping you, but your relationship with her is ended because she caught you in your lie. She knows you hooked up with her to get control of the company?”
“I did not ‘hook up’ with her because of the company,” he denied emphatically, pausing as she stopped to select a package of dinner rolls. “I found her very attractive. I was interested in her. I didn’t have to get involved with her. I wanted to. And I told you, I never intended to force her to help me.”
His words sounded lame despite the truth in them.
“What you ‘intended’ and what you did don’t appear to be the same thing,” Lauren said in a dry tone.
“I realize that.”
“Yes, well, most women, in this kind of situation, would find it hard to believe that you really care for them,” Lauren said severely. “Eden believes you were totally motivated by your desire to get hold of the business.”
“That’s why I didn’t tell her the truth about the beginning set-up,” he said.
“So,” his sister said, “she’s known all along that you arranged to meet her and she’s been pretending to work with you so you wouldn’t squeal about her big secret?”
“Yes. Also, she’s been scheming to get control of the company herself. She says she’s going to try to block my acquisition of Michele Cosmetics.”
“Wow! Gutsy woman. So you guys had a big blow up? What did she say to make you keep your mouth shut about her uncle?”
“Nothing,” he responded absently. “We didn’t even talk about that. Not specifically. I stumbled on the proof that she’d been lying to me about some of the business things and I confronted her about them. Then the whole story spilled and she yelled at me and stormed out.”
“So, are you going to discredit her?” Lauren asked evenly as she pushed her cart toward the front of the store. “Squeal to her boss about Beauty by Georgette? Since she’s going to fight your takeover?”
“No. Absolutely not. I never was going to do that.” He walked along beside his sister in silence for several moments. There was no way he could deliberately hurt Eden. Even as hurt as he was by her betrayal. Maybe she didn’t feeling anything but enmity toward him. But he loved her, all the same.
He said quietly, “I’m not going to use the information. I never planned to and I’m not going to do it now, regardless of what she’s done or what she expects me to do. No company is worth that to me.”
Lauren got in a line to check-out. As usual at holiday time, there were people waiting at each register.
“We’re talking about a lot of money, aren’t we?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said heavily. “But I have money.”
His sister looked up at him. “I’ve never known you to back away from a fight. Particularly one where millions of dollars could be made. She must be pretty important to you.”
“Yes, she is,” he said.
Now if only he could help her to see that she had been betraying herself even more than Michele or him.
***
Later that morning, Cheryl walked into Eden’s office and announced, “I’ve finished with the board reports for the meeting. I think I’ve included everything—sales numbers on the major products, development reports and the marketing department major campaigns. If you’ll look them over, I’ll send everything to be printed this afternoon.”
“Good,” Eden said, pinning a tired smile onto her face. She hadn’t slept more than an hour or two last night and she had a splitting headache.
No call from Michele yet. No summons to the older woman’s office to be summarily fired. Why didn’t Alex act? What was he wait
ing for?
“It’s been really quiet this morning,” she said to her assistant, trying to keep the strained note out of her voice. “I don’t think the phone has rung once.”
“Thank the Lord,” Cheryl said piously as she laid the stack of reports on Eden’s desk. “If I’d had any interruptions, I don’t think I’d have gotten these finished in time to get home this afternoon and start the turkey.”
Looking down at the stack of folders, Eden said quickly, “Why don’t you go on home? I’ll take these down to get printed when I’ve proofed them.”
“Would you?” Cheryl said with real appreciation. “My kid’s at home and I hate to miss any of our time together.”
“Sure,” Eden replied. “Go on home.”
“Thanks!” Cheryl scooted out of the office and Eden heard the outer door close behind her only moments later.
Silence filled the room, with few noises filtering from the hall and other offices. Eden guessed many of the other employees were cutting out early for the holiday, as well.
Frowning over the board reports, she tried to ignore the nagging tension between her shoulders. Why didn’t Alex get it over with? The waiting was the worst. With each passing moment like a sword hanging over her head, she kept wondering when the phone would ring. When Michele—or worse, Wendi—would sweep into her office with scathing denunciations on their lips and security on their heels.
That the moment would come, she was resolved to. She’d have preferred the truth be withheld, even from Alex, until the day of the board meeting—only two and a half weeks away now. But she’d been discovered in her unpracticed deception and the shit had hit the fan. At least, with Alex it had.
Soon Michele would know the truth. She’d be informed that the employee she’d invested in and nurtured had decided to fight back against her betrayal.
Yes, Eden thought, leaning back in her chair and putting up a hand to rub her tight neck. That was the truth. She was fighting back against betrayal, for the other employees of the company, as well as for herself.
All day she’d been worrying about what Alex would tell Michele. The part that worried her the most—the one action she’d have a hard time defending to the board—was the meeting she’d had with the reporter from the Wall Street Weekly. The company stock had lost a few points after the article, but not a lot.