by Maisey Yates
Beyond that, he did need her to help straighten out the company’s finances, and he could not afford to be distracted. He had to see this through, and he could not afford a distraction. He couldn’t afford to divert his focus any more than it already was. He had no control over the effects of his injury. No control over the forgetfulness or the migraines. But he would damn well control his body’s reaction to her.
He gritted his teeth and walked back into the office. Hannah jumped and turned.
“Knock for heaven’s sake,” she growled, turning back to the screen.
“It’s my office.”
“Well … you left.”
“And now I am back.”
“Yes, you are,” she said, her shoulders rolled forward, her expression intense, focused on the screen. She let out a short breath. “It’s not that bad.” She turned the chair so that she was facing him, a guarded expression on her face.
“You don’t think?”
“No. The fees you incurred for late taxes … I can’t help you with that. That was the work of a very sucky employee and I’m glad he’s been fired. The rest is manageable. I could recommend some investment and savings strategies and, actually, you’re missing a few tax breaks you could take advantage of while making sure your employees get better benefits.”
“You make it sound … easy.”
“It is,” she said. “When it’s your area of expertise. Can you explain to me exactly what isn’t working for you? I need to know so I can help you get a system in place.”
He hated that word. Help. He had thought nothing of it before his accident. But then, he hadn’t needed it. He was supposed to be the one who provided help, the one people went to. He was the man of the Vega family. He wasn’t supposed to need so much.
“Numbers and dates get reversed when I read them. And I have a very hard time remembering them. And my attention span has … shortened. It’s hard to sit down and read something for a long time. Harder to retain it.”
“Do they think it will ever change?”
He shrugged, like it didn’t matter. “Probably not, but it’s impossible to know, really.”
“You’re okay with it?”
A chuckle escaped his lips, not because he felt there was anything funny, but because it seemed the only response he was capable of for a moment. “Would you be okay if you woke up with a brain that wasn’t yours? That’s how I feel. All the time.”
She looked down, her complexion pale. “I’ve been trying to be someone else for the past nine or ten years. I might not mind.”
“Trust me, querida, you would. But, either way, I cannot change what is. So I only concern myself with what can be changed.”
She planted both hands on his desk and pushed herself into a standing position. She seemed to have forgotten the kiss, her expression as icy and composed as ever. He still shook inside.
“What I would like to do, is work on implementing a system that will be easier for you to track. Then I want to make sure you find some good, trustworthy financial managers. Not until everything is corrected, you understand.”
“You always did think quickly on your feet. Or in an office chair.”
Her lips curved into a smile. A real smile, not a smirk or a forced expression. “This is what I do. I’m good at it.”
“You always have been. That’s why I came to you.”
“That and the leverage.”
“A man can’t go into battle unarmed.”
A flicker of heat sparked in her eyes and he knew that she was replaying the kiss. So, she wasn’t unaffected. She hadn’t brushed it off. But she was right, she was an accomplished actress. She’d gotten even better, even harder to read since the beginning of their sham marriage. He had worried about her breaking character then. Even now, with the little spark visible in the depths of her eyes, he doubted anyone else would see anything beyond the cool, composed beauty she seemed to project. It would keep most people from looking deeper.
She was a petite blonde, well dressed, perfectly coiffed. She had a look that could easily become generic, and might be to some. It was her eyes that showed how different she was. That showed her intelligence, her steel.
She cleared her throat, tilted her chin up. “Well, I doubt anyone would accuse you of that.”
“I’m flattered by the assessment.”
“Don’t be, or I’ll have to punch you in the ego again.”
“I see, so you’re trying to knock me down a couple of pegs in an attempt to gain the upper hand. It won’t work. I’m happily absent an ego, in many ways. Social status means little to me. I haven’t tried to impress friends or women in so many years I can hardly remember why I ever bothered in the first place. Though, the forgetting could also be a side effect of my head injury.”
She shifted, her lips bunching together.
“You don’t like it when I joke about my accident?” he asked.
She shrugged. “It’s your trauma, man. Deal with it however you want.”
“I’ve dealt with it,” he said, his words coming out harsher than intended. Lies. “I’ve dealt with my father’s death, with trying to ensure my mother and sister are happy, well taken care of. And now, I’m dealing with fixing what has fallen into disrepair here at the company.”
“And I’m here to help you do it.” She arched her pale eyebrows. “Under sufferance, you understand, but I am here. And I am helping.”
For some reason, his entire body didn’t seize in response to the use of the word.
“You are.”
CHAPTER FIVE
HANNAH leaned against the railing on the penthouse terrace and looked down at the city. The sky was dark, stars piercing holes in the blackness, and below, Barcelona was lit. Cars still crowded the road, people headed to restaurants and clubs.
She breathed in deep—warm air filling her lungs. She smelled salt, the sea, but it wasn’t the same as it was in San Francisco or New York. Here it seemed spicier, richer. It always had. It had always called to her in a different way. Begged her to strip off her control and let herself go free.
And she had always denied it.
“Having trouble sleeping?”
She turned, her heart catching when she saw Eduardo leaning in the doorway. He’d traded in his work attire for casual black pants and a tight T-shirt that hugged his muscular physique almost as tightly as she’d hugged him earlier in his office.
Don’t think about that.
She wouldn’t. Not again. That was over. Done. No more kissing. Not in private anyway.
“I’m still a little off. Jet lag and all.”
“Tell me, Hannah.”
Her throat tightened, strange, irrational fear assaulting her. “Tell you what?”
“Tell me what you’ve been doing with yourself these past five years.”
She almost sighed in relief. Five years she could do. “Working. I was in New York for about three years, working on Wall Street, of all things, then I relocated to San Francisco. I started to get a good client base at the firm I was with, doing personal financial management and investments. I hit a bit of a wall, though, because male bosses, coworkers and clients always seemed to think single meant available. So when I met Zack a year ago, it seemed perfect. I could get married, and I could do my job without so much sexual harassment.”
“And that’s the only reason you were going to marry him? I hate to be the one to tell you, but men who are inclined to behave that way sexually harass women with wedding rings, too.”
“Sure they do, but Zack is influential. Wealthy. It would be a brave man who attempted to poach on his territory.”
Eduardo chuckled, dark and enticing. “Like me?”
“Yes. Brave or stupid.”
His eyes locked with hers. “Do you remember what happened last time you used that word?”
Heat and regret assaulted her. Heat from the memory of the kiss, regret because she’d insulted him. She wished she felt more regret in regards to the actual kissing.
>
“I won’t do it again.”
“Good.” He walked to the railing, resting his forearms on the metal surface. He was barefoot. Strange that she noticed. He seemed slightly more human than usual in that moment. “Were you going to have a family with him? Children?”
A shiver started in her stomach, working its way through her. “No. No children.”
“You don’t want them?”
“No. Never. What would I do with a baby, anyway?” She laughed, as though it were the most ridiculous thing in the world. And she fought hard against the tight, clenching pain in her womb. Against the memories.
“Raise it, I suppose. But then, wearing a baby in a sling while you’re cursing and trading stocks is maybe not that practical.”
She swallowed the bile that was rising in her throat. “You want children?”
“No,” he said. Just no. Good. She didn’t want to talk about her aversion to children, either. Didn’t want to open up that box. It held so much fear, and regret and guilt. She just couldn’t look in it at the moment. She did her best to never, ever look in it. To never remember.
“Not practical for people like us,” she said. She and Zack had had a very similar conversation once. And in his response she’d sensed the same dark grief that she felt hovering around the edges of his answers. Another reason she’d never pressed him for his secrets. She was certain they shared something too similar, too painful. She knew it was why he’d never pressed for hers.
“Of course not.”
“We were going to be partners. Help each other out. It’s good to have a partner in life.”
“I suppose so,” he said slowly. “But that isn’t how I want to live.”
“No?”
“No. I would rather be able to do things independently. If I ever had a wife … I would have wanted to take care of her.”
“Not every woman wants to be taken care of.” But for a moment she wondered what it would be like. To have someone shoulder some of the pain. To have someone who knew every secret. Who shared every fear. Someone who would cover her, shield her.
A silly thought. She didn’t want that. She was the only person she could trust. The only person she could depend on.
“It’s how I think things should be done. That’s how my parents did things. They were happy.”
“How is your mom?”
“Grieving. Still. She spent more than thirty years with my father. His death has been hard for her.”
“I’m sorry. Your parents were … They’re the only place I’ve ever seen love, let’s put it that way.”
“The only place? What about your parents?”
What was the harm in giving him a little? He knew more about her than anyone else. “I don’t know. I don’t think they ever married. When I was three my mom left me at my dad’s single-wide and never came back. She had all my stuff tied up in a little plastic bag. Anyway, he didn’t know what to do with a kid. He … he tried I guess. But he was kind of a mess.”
He frowned. “Your mother left you?”
“Not every family is perfect. But I don’t dwell on it.”
“You don’t even acknowledge it.”
“I lived in this dirty, dusty mobile home. The park it was in had a dirt road and when trucks would drive by, the dirt was like a cloud. It settled on everything. Everything was always dirty. I actually felt lucky to only have one parent. There was no fighting in my house. I could always hear the neighbors screaming at each other. My father never yelled. He just barely ever said hi, either.”
She could stay out all night and he’d hardly ever raise an eyebrow when she’d come in at breakfast. She could still see him, sitting in his chair with a bowl of cereal in his lap and a beer already in his hand.
“How were the sheets?” he asked.
“I didn’t have any. Just a mattress on the floor and a blanket. We didn’t have a washer and dryer so … I used to hitchhike to the Laundromat sometimes so I could clean my blankets and clothes.”
She shook her head. “I mean … would you want to talk about that? Who wants that life?”
He frowned. “No one. Is that why you erased your past?”
She swallowed. “One of the many whys. But let’s not even get into that.” It was one thing to talk about her parents, such as they were. To talk about the things that had been out of her control. The poverty, the neglect. She could handle that.
But she’d made her own mistakes. Those were the ones that stayed closest to her, like a layer over her skin, protective and confining at the same time, impossible to remove. A part of her she wished away every day, and one she depended on to move forward.
“Fine by me.” He looked out at the view. “Tell me, Hannah, what is it like to walk away from everything?” His tone was husky, sincere. Surprising.
“I … It’s like walking out of prison,” she said. “Like I imagine it might be, anyway. You spend all this time in a place you know isn’t right, and yet, you have to stay. Until one day, you just walk out into the sunlight. You’d never go back, even though going forward is frightening. Because there’s so much possibility when before that … there was nothing.”
“How did you end up in Spain? Why Spain?”
Admitting she’d sort of put her finger on the globe in a random place would seem silly. As silly as the fact that she’d chosen her new last name from an upscale department store she’d seen on TV. But that was the truth. She’d been so desperate then, to shed who she was, to try and be someone else. To make something else of herself. “I wanted to get very far away. I wanted out of the country because …”
“It would be easier for you to get away with false transcripts.”
“Yes. Of course they were very good, and I had changed my name legally by that point.” She didn’t know why she was telling him all of this. Only that with him determinedly keeping his focus on the street below, the darkness surrounding them, it seemed easy.
“And where did you get the money for it?”
The fifteen thousand dollars she never wanted to talk about. Fifteen thousand dollars she did her best to never think about. It had bought documents; it had supplied her with her plane ticket and passport, ID that carried her new name.
A gift. The money had been a gift, not payment, because how could a price be put on what she’d given? At least, that was what they’d told her. The Johnsons, from somewhere in New Hampshire. The couple she’d given her baby to. Oh, they’d paid all the legal adoption fees, and her hospital bill, but in the end, they’d wanted to do more. To get her on her feet. Provide her with a new start so she didn’t end up back in the same place.
They had. They truly had. She should be grateful. She was.
But thinking about it was like drawing her skin off slowly. It still made her feel raw, freshly wounded and bleeding. Still made her ache with guilt. Guilt over everything. That it had ever happened. That she’d made the choice she had. And then there was the guilt that came along with the occasional, sharp sweep of relief that she’d chosen to give the baby up. That she hadn’t kept him. That she hadn’t spent their lives repeating the cycle her parents had been a part of.
“From a friend,” she said. It was a lie. But it was the kind of lie she was used to. The kind of lie that kept all the events from her past glossed over. The kind that kept it hidden away. Kept it from being drawn out into the light and tearing her apart.
“Good friend.”
“Oh, yeah. Great friend.” She cleared her throat and blinked hard. “And you, Eduardo, what’s it like to have a place you can call yours? What’s it like to feel at home?” She wished she hadn’t asked. It was too revealing. The ache in her voice was so obvious, at least to her own ears.
“I have never thought very much about it, or rather, I never had. Not before. I always took it as my due. Vega was to be mine, my position in both society and my family always sure and set. Now that I know what it’s like to feel like a stranger to myself? Well, now I wish I would have appreciated the
ease a bit more.”
Silence fell between them and she closed her eyes, listening to the traffic below, music coming from somewhere nearby.
“Did we just have a moment?” she asked.
“A what?”
“A moment. Like, a human moment where we talked without fighting or snarking or trying to put each other down.”
“I think we did. But we need never speak of it again.”
She opened her eyes and looked into his. Even in the dim light, she could see a glimmer of mischief there, something like the old Eduardo.
“It’s a deal,” she said.
For one moment, her mind went blank of everything. Everything but his face, and what it had been like to be in his arms earlier. What it had been like to kiss him. And in that moment, she couldn’t remember why kissing him wasn’t a great idea. But just for that one moment.
Then that blank simplicity got crowded out by reality, by the reason why she couldn’t kiss him. Not now, not ever.
She wasn’t building a life here with him. When this was over, she had to go back home. To her clients, to her job. Assuming Zack wasn’t having her blacklisted.
“I’m tired now,” she lied. She didn’t think she would ever be able to sleep right while she was here. While she knew he was right across the penthouse from her, sleeping. Possibly naked. It hadn’t bothered her five years ago. She didn’t know what had changed in her since then.
That was a lie. She did know. Eduardo had changed. And there was something about him now that called to her.
She really had to get a grip on herself. And the weak, mushy emotion she seemed to be tempted to wallow in the past few days. She didn’t have time, she didn’t need to, she didn’t want to.
She was Hannah Weston. She was her own invention, her own woman. And she could do this.
“Good night, Eduardo,” she said, bringing a little steel back into her tone. “See you at the office tomorrow.”
CHAPTER SIX