Her Best-Kept Secret

by Harlen, Brenda

  She tried to remember that she’d only known him a few weeks, but time seemed irrelevant. The only thing that mattered was the rightness she felt with Richard, the sense of belonging that filled her heart whenever she was in his arms.

  It couldn’t last—she knew that. And she knew it would end with her heart broken if she wasn’t careful. She had to believe that she could still protect her heart. She liked Richard, she had fun with him, but she wasn’t in love with him—yet. And she wasn’t going to let herself fall in love with him.

  Except that every minute they were together, she felt herself sinking in deeper. It was too intense, too everything. And yet it wasn’t nearly as much as she wanted it to be.

  That was why she had to end it.

  Chapter Twelve

  While Jenny was rushing off to see her editor, Richard was reviewing the files for his meeting with Helen. Mori Taka had announced a day away from the bargaining table, insisting that he had other pressing business to take care of. Richard wasn’t sure if it was a legitimate explanation or a tactical move to demonstrate that he had the upper hand in the negotiations—as if everyone at Hanson wasn’t well aware of that fact.

  It was that knowledge, as much as the delay, that seemed to dishearten Helen, so Richard had suggested an informal meeting in his room to discuss the situation. Not that they hadn’t already discussed everything in the greatest detail, but he knew she needed a distraction.

  Inviting her to his suite, however, turned out to be the wrong kind of distraction. He realized his mistake as soon as she excused herself to use the washroom after lunch. Sure enough, she returned a few minutes later, a small smile curving her lips.

  “I never imagined you’d have a pink toothbrush,” she teased. “Or is the green one yours?”

  “They’re both mine—I’m fastidious about oral hygiene.”

  Her smile widened. “You know, for a lawyer, you don’t lie very well.”

  “Thank you,” Richard said dryly.

  “There’s that dinner tomorrow night,” she reminded him. “Why don’t you bring Jenny?”

  He’d already planned to invite her, but now he reconsidered. “Why—so you can interrogate her directly?”

  “So I can meet her,” his boss corrected.

  “Why?” he asked again.

  “Because I’ve never known you to be so completely captivated by a woman.”

  He frowned but couldn’t deny the truth of her statement.

  “Oh, my,” Helen said softly. “You really are serious about her.”

  “No.” But his denial was too quick, almost desperate.

  Her smile was sympathetic. “You don’t want to be, but you are.”

  She was right, of course—especially the part about him not wanting to be serious. He’d thought he had everything he wanted: professional respect and financial security—the hallmarks of a successful career he’d dedicated nine years to building. Most importantly, he was content. Or he had been until Jenny Anderson came into his life.

  Now he’d found a woman he looked forward to seeing every day. A woman he wanted to fall asleep beside every night and wake up with every morning. A woman who made him think about the future.

  He was still thinking about Jenny after Helen had gone. Maybe it was because she’d been on his mind that he wasn’t surprised when she walked through the door.

  He could tell, though, that she was startled by his presence.

  She glanced at the pile of papers on the desk in front of him. “I thought you’d be at TAKA,” she said. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”

  “I gave you a key card so you could come and go as you wanted,” he reminded her. “And I’m glad you’re here because it turns out that I’m finished for the day, and I was hoping I could talk you into playing hooky with me.”

  “I can’t.” That was her response—abrupt and final with no further explanation.

  He noticed that she’d made her way to the other side of the room, and he suddenly suspected the distance she was establishing wasn’t only physical.

  “Are you going to tell me why you came back then?”

  “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” she told him. “And I realized that I can’t do this anymore.”

  He felt his chest tighten. “Do what?”

  “Be with you.”

  The tightness increased. “You didn’t seem to have any objections last night. Or this morning.”

  She looked away, her cheeks flushing. “If it was just sex, there wouldn’t be a problem.”

  “What is the problem?”

  “Can’t you just accept that I don’t want to maintain this charade of a relationship any longer?”

  The words were deliberately hurtful, but Jenny was not a cruel person. It was this knowledge that made him realize there was more going on than she was admitting to.

  “No,” he said simply.

  “No?” she echoed, clearly not having anticipated his objection.

  “I’m not going to let you ruin a good thing without at least explaining why.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t owe you any explanations.”

  “If you don’t want to talk about us, why are you here?”

  She remained stubbornly silent.

  “You came to pick up your things,” he guessed.

  “Yes, I did.” She lifted her chin defiantly and moved past him into the bedroom.

  He followed, leaning against the doorjamb as he watched her gather up her belongings, hoping his nonchalant pose would mask the growing uneasiness in his gut. “Why?” he asked again.

  “Do we really need to catalog the reasons?”

  “I think so,” he said, proving his stubbornness could match hers.

  Her weary sigh made him want to take her in his arms and comfort her, but he knew she wouldn’t welcome any overtures right now.

  “I warned you from the start that I don’t do casual relationships,” she said.

  “We’ve gone way beyond casual. You know how much I care about you, Jenny.”

  She laughed shortly. “You care about me and I’m already halfway in love with you.”

  He was still puzzled. “Why is that a problem?”

  She moved into the bathroom to retrieve her toothbrush, shampoo and the scented cream she rubbed on her skin after a shower. “Because I’ve been through it enough times to recognize the signs, and I can’t do it again.”

  She started toward the door.

  “Whoa. Wait a minute.” He stepped in front of her. “You’re walking away now because you don’t want to fall in love with me, is that what you’re saying?”

  She nodded. “I won’t let my heart be broken again.”

  “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  Her chin came up, her eyes narrowed. “No—stupid was ever getting involved with a man who can’t be what I need.”

  “We both knew the situation from the beginning. Nothing has changed.”

  “Maybe not for you,” she said. “For me, everything has.”

  For him, too, although he didn’t fully realize it until she’d walked out the door.

  It had been a difficult but necessary decision for Jenny to make, as she tried to explain to Samara as they were on their way to work the next morning. Her roommate’s response wasn’t at all what she expected.

  “You’re an idiot,” she said bluntly.

  “Thanks for your support.”

  “Anyone with eyes can tell the man is hung up on you.”

  “I don’t think Richard Warren gets hung up,” Jenny denied.

  Samara shook her head. “He has major feelings for you and he isn’t going to let you go that easily.”

  “He already did.”

  “You just caught him off guard. Once he’s had a chance to think about it, he’ll be back.”

  This time it was Jenny who shook her head, remembering what he’d once said about not chasing women who weren’t interested. Besides, he was tied up now with t
he merger, too busy finalizing the details to worry about sleeping alone, and probably already looking forward to finishing up his part of the process so he could go back to Chicago.

  Except that when she walked into the newsroom and saw the huge bouquet of flowers on her desk, her heart did a funny little flip inside her chest. She wouldn’t have thought Richard was the kind of man to make grand romantic gestures, and the initial surge of pleasure was quickly replaced by apprehension.

  “I think this proves my tip,” Samara said.

  “Point,” Jenny said automatically, although she wasn’t sure it did.

  She couldn’t imagine Richard choosing such an elaborate and obviously pricey display of roses and lilies and orchids. He would be more likely to show up with a bunch of daisies in hand. But that was the biggest clue—if Richard wanted to give her flowers, he would be there. He wouldn’t expect a bouquet—no matter how stunning—to make his case for him.

  Jenny pulled the card out of the display.

  “Well?” Samara demanded impatiently. “What does it say?”

  Jenny stared at the message, at the confirmation of what she’d already known. “They’re not from Richard.”

  Her friend frowned. “Then who—”

  “Surprise.”

  The flowers were a surprise. The presence of Jenny’s ex was a shock. Even more astonishing was the way Brad smiled, completely charming and supremely confident, before he planted a firm kiss on her mouth.

  “Hey, babe.”

  Jenny could only stare, baffled and speechless.

  Hey, babe. As if she’d been expecting him. As if they’d never even broken up.

  She carefully disengaged herself from Brad’s embrace and stepped behind her desk.

  Samara, who had met Brad only once but had never been a fan of his or his relationship with her friend, had already disappeared. Jenny knew she would face a barrage of questions later, but for now she’d been left alone to face her ex-boyfriend.

  “What are you doing in Tokyo?” she asked him.

  “I came to see you.”

  “Why?”

  His smile never faltered. “Because I missed you.”

  She shook her head. She couldn’t believe this was happening to her. Not now when she’d finally taken steps to move forward with her life without him, when she’d been on the verge of falling in love with yet another unsuitable man and was still feeling raw about the end of that relationship. “You can’t just show up here after more than six months and expect to pick up where we left off.”

  He walked around the desk, breaching the physical barrier she’d deliberately placed between them. “I spent a lot of time during those six months thinking about you.”

  “And I spent those six months getting over you.”

  For the first time, his supreme self-confidence seemed to waver. “You don’t mean that, Jenny.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “We’ve got three years of history together,” he reminded her.

  “Two and a half years that became history more than six months ago.”

  Her phone buzzed and Jenny reached for it eagerly. Any interruption was a welcome one right now.

  “Richard Warren is here to see you,” Kari said.

  Almost any interruption, she amended.

  “Should I send him in?”

  “No, I’ll be right there,” Jenny said to the receptionist. She didn’t know why Richard was here, but she had no intention of introducing him to Brad—especially when she still had no satisfactory explanation for his being in Tokyo right now.

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” she told him.

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  As she made her way to the front lobby, she was struck by the irony of the fact that Richard—a frequent visitor to the newsroom over the past couple of weeks—had been stopped at the desk while Brad—a stranger—had walked right in. The difference, of course, was that Brad had a media pass, and the combination of his press credentials and his glib charm would get him in almost anywhere.

  All thoughts of her ex dissipated as soon as she saw Richard. Her heart ached, yearned, but she forced a cool smile. “Hi.”

  His only response to her greeting was to say, “I’ve got five minutes before I need to get back to my meeting.”

  “Okay.” She didn’t know what else he expected her to say.

  He took her arm to lead her away from the reception desk and Kari, who was blatantly eavesdropping on their conversation. If the few stilted words they’d exchanged could even be considered a conversation.

  There was a definite sizzle in the air when he touched her. Obviously the sexual attraction was still there, no matter how much she might want to pretend otherwise.

  He dropped her arm and took a couple of steps away, then came back to her again. He dragged a hand through his hair. She thought he looked tired—or maybe she was just imagining it. Because she’d spent a mostly sleepless night without him was no reason to suspect he’d done the same.

  “I can’t say everything I need to in five minutes,” he finally told her. “There’s a dinner tonight at Okumura. Mr. Taka’s hosting so I can’t get out of it, but you could come with me.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t. I meant what I said—”

  “The food is supposed to be first-rate and—”

  “You know it’s not the menu I have a problem with,” she interrupted him this time.

  “You blindsided me yesterday,” he said quietly.

  And she’d hurt him. She could see that now and she regretted it, but it only confirmed that she’d done the right thing in ending the relationship before either of them got any more involved. “I’m sorry for that.”

  “But not sorry for what you said,” he guessed.

  She shook her head.

  “We need to talk about this.”

  She started to shake her head again.

  “If you won’t come to Okumura, I’ll come to your place after dinner,” he forged ahead, ignoring her protest.

  His cell phone rang; he muttered an oath under his breath as he glanced at the display. “I have to go. The meeting’s about to resume.”

  He touched her again, just a brush of his hand over hers, but that simple contact nearly obliterated all of her resolve.

  “I’ll see you later.”

  She watched him go, already thinking about what plans she could make for the night ahead. It didn’t really matter what she did so long as she wasn’t home when Richard stopped by. Because she knew she wasn’t strong enough to resist him.

  She’d forgotten about Brad until she got back to her desk and found him sitting in her chair, looking as if he had every right to be there. Of course, he probably thought he did.

  She bit back a sigh and said, “I have work to do.”

  He turned the chair so that he was facing her, but didn’t move out of it. “Who is he?”

  “Who is who?”

  “The guy in the lobby.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Were you spying on me?”

  “Of course not. I just passed by on my way to the men’s room.”

  She pointed to the other side of the newsroom, in the opposite direction from the reception area. “The wash-rooms are there.”

  He smiled, shrugged. “I didn’t know. I’ve never been here before.”

  She wasn’t sure she believed his explanation but didn’t see any point in making an issue of it. “I really have work to do,” she reminded him.

  “Okay.” He stood up. “What time do you think you’ll be finished here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’d like to see you tonight, Jenny.”

  She started to refuse, then hesitated. She didn’t want to give Brad any false encouragement, but she wanted to argue with Richard again even less. If she went out with Brad, she wouldn’t be home when Richard came to visit, and he would have to accept that she wanted their relationship to be over.

  “All right,” she said at last.

/>   “Great. We’ll pick up something for dinner and go back to your place.”

  Except the whole point of agreeing to see Brad was so she wouldn’t have to face Richard. “I’d rather go out,” she told him. “I know a place that—”

  “Let me make the plans,” he interrupted. “I want to surprise you.”

  As she watched him go, she wondered why such benevolent words unnerved her.

  Jenny’s vague sense of foreboding solidified when she figured out where Brad planned to take her for dinner.

  “How did you find this restaurant?” she asked.

  “I overheard someone talking about it in the newsroom.”

  Someone—or Richard? Was it possible Brad had overheard Richard inviting her to join him for dinner with the TAKA people?

  No, it was a coincidence—an unlikely and unfortunate coincidence—and there was no reason for her to be concerned. It was a big restaurant and still somewhat early for dinner. If she was lucky, she and Brad might be gone before Richard ever arrived.

  Still, she hesitated on the sidewalk. “I’m not really that hungry,” she said. “Why don’t we just go for sushi?”

  “Because I’m starving,” Brad told her. “And I have a reservation here.”

  Of course he had a reservation. It was next to impossible to get a table at Okumura without one.

  She ignored her discomfort and followed him into the restaurant, inwardly cringing when she saw that the Hanson-TAKA party was already there. The maître d’led them right past the long table where Richard was seated to a smaller, more intimate setting in the corner.

  She wondered again if Brad had planned this. But even if he’d somehow known that Mr. Taka had chosen the same restaurant, he couldn’t have arranged for them to be dining in such close proximity. Just as Jenny couldn’t have guessed that she would feel not just uncomfortable but guilty when her eyes met Richard’s across the room.

  Dammit, she had no reason to feel guilty. Neither of them had ever made any promises, nor asked for any. It had been casual, easy, temporary. And now it was over.

  If she’d had any doubts in that regard, the cold fury in Richard’s gaze eliminated them.

  Jenny really wasn’t hungry, but she dutifully picked at her food, going through the motions without tasting anything. She was conscious of Richard on the other side of the room, of his eyes on her.