Imperfect Love: One-Night Stand-In (Kindle Worlds Novella)

by T Gephart

  And when I was with those women, I did sometimes experience genuine affection. I cared about their well being, I enjoyed seeing them smile. They weren’t just a receptacle for my cock. Okay, maybe some were, but they were more than fine with it, I assure you.

  Sarah was different.

  Not sure why, but she was. I was hoping that time would have worked it out for me, test if it was her intelligence or her drive that made the difference. Or if it was her honesty. Maybe it was the combination.

  Of course, she was beautiful. And her curves were hard to ignore, but those things weren’t what held my attention. Which was exactly what other women hadn’t managed to do.

  Man, I was pissed.

  I might have pretended that I didn’t give a shit, but I wasn’t “all good” with the situation. Not by a long shot.

  I went back to my apartment and ordered in and then spent some time being annoyed that I was still thinking about it. About her.

  Scotch seemed to help for a while and then it started to make things worse. I remembered she and Kennedy—that girl had a lot to answer for—had their standing Friday night thing.

  I thought about her in a bar, men looking at her and wanting to touch her.

  To kiss her.

  To. Fuck. Her.

  It was irrational to be jealous. That I felt I’d lost her when she’d never really been mine. But there I was anyway, up to my neck in it.

  “Keely.” I was a little less than sober when I made the call but I figured if anyone was going to get drunk dialed, she was my safest option. “How is my favorite sister?”

  “I’m your only sister, Kyle and you sound like you’re drinking.” She sounded concerned.

  “It’s a Friday and I’ve had a little scotch, don’t be so dramatic.” It’s not like I was roaming the streets in a bathrobe for Christ’s sake. “Just unwinding after a long week.”

  “What’s wrong? Did something happen at work? Where’s Sarah, is she there with you?” She’d started with the rapid-fire questions earlier than usual.

  “Yeah, that didn’t work out.” I laughed, taking a mouthful of what was left in my glass. “I’m a waste of time it seems.”

  Seriously, when did I turn into such a pussy?

  Licking my wounds like some asshole.

  It was pathetic and not like me at all.

  “What are you talking about? You sound weird.” It seemed my sister shared the same sentiment.

  “Nothing, forget it. Obviously the scotch talking.” I tilted the empty glass and inspected it, deciding on whether to have another. “Long story short, she was looking for something else and I wasn’t it. It’s fine.”

  “That’s ridiculous, you are amazing. She would be lucky to have you. You’re smart and hard working and funny. And you drive a pretentious fast car and dress nice. And as much as I hate to admit it, you aren’t ugly.”

  “Wow, sis. I might tear up.” I coughed, pretending to be emotional.

  “Stop it, you know you’re good looking. Maybe I should talk to her?”

  I wasn’t sure if she was serious—on second thought, it was my sister who meddled way too much in everyone’s lives, she was serious—but she wasn’t speaking to Sarah.

  No one fought my battles, and I didn’t need my younger sister singing my praises either. I’d rather just hand her my balls in a box with a nice ribbon around it.

  “Yeah, that’s not going to happen.” That’s all I fucking needed, maybe calling Keely wasn’t such a good idea after all.

  “So, obviously you like her or you wouldn’t be upset.”

  Yep, definitely a bad idea.

  “Who says I’m upset?”

  “You’re drinking alone. On a Friday night. You think I didn’t know about the parade of whores who you usually entertain?”

  “A little judgmental aren’t you?” I laughed. “They were very lovely women, not one of them was a—”

  “Whores,” she snapped, not allowing me to finish. “Like my dear brother. Oh, yeah. I love you but you were totally a whore too. Why do you think I kept pushing for you to find a girlfriend? I didn’t want any of my future children to have to learn a new aunt’s name every holiday.”

  See what I mean? Drama.

  Besides, I’d never brought a woman home and I sure as hell wasn’t going to start now. Especially considering I seemed to have misplaced my testicles, the idea of being with another woman made me physically ill.

  “Well, we don’t have to worry about that now, do we?”

  Yeah. I needed to stop drinking.

  “You know, you could fight for her. Show her what she obviously means to you. And don’t tell me,” she added before I had a chance to stop her. “That it’s not worth it or some other bullshit you are going to use as an excuse. I bet you haven’t even told her why you moved to New York.”

  “She knows I’m here for the experience. Climb the corporate ladder.” I gave her the usual rote response. “Choose some other valid reason here.”

  “Except for the real one,” she fired back. “Because if any of those reasons were true, you would have stayed at Stockwell and been the youngest partner in their history.”

  “Don’t,” I warned.

  That conversation was volatile with me at best. Add in the booze and my clouded judgment and it was not something I wanted to revisit.

  “Don’t what?” She didn’t back down. “Care about my brother? Be concerned about his happiness? Be proud that he walked away from large amounts of money and career prospects because he has loyalty and cares about his sister? Choose your valid reason here.”

  She was more like me than I thought. And smart too. Add in sarcastic for good measure and as much as I wanted to, there was no way I could stay angry at her. Besides, she’d been through enough.

  “I should have ruined them.” I gripped the phone so tight in my hand I heard the plastic casing crack. “I should have—”

  “No, you promised.” Her voice softened. “And I’m happy, really I am. And I don’t want any more people getting hurt because of me.”

  I hated that she thought it, that she felt that any of it was her fault.

  “None of this was because of you, don’t you dare take responsibility.”

  “Kyle, stop,” she said with so much authority it actually made my head snap. “Tell her. Let her see the real you.”

  God, I was proud of her.

  She could be a pain in the ass sometimes, but fuck, she was amazing. And she had more compassion in her little finger than I had in my entire body. But there was no way I was going down that road with Sarah. It wouldn’t happen.

  “If I have to convince someone just to date me, sis, there’s really not much point. I love you. I’m always going to love you. But you don’t always know what’s best for me.”

  I was done and so was the conversation. And shit was going to be fine because I said it was going to be. And there would be plenty more fish in the sea blah, blah, blah.

  “I love you, Kyle.” It killed me there was sadness in her voice. “Don’t sleep with any more whores.”

  “Night, kiddo,” I chuckled.

  I’d give myself one night to be a miserable asshole.

  One night to piss and moan and feel sorry for myself. But after that I was moving the fuck on. Not by sleeping with another woman, because we already established I probably couldn’t get hard if I tried. But doing what Sarah seemed so hell bent on. Business. If I couldn’t sleep with her and have her in my personal life then we were going to be the best senior marketing executives Tate & Cane had ever seen. And clearly I was a sad sack because seeing her happy was more fucking important than dating her.

  Great.

  Awesome.

  God, this was not going to be fun.

  Chapter 12

  Sarah

  It had been exactly four weeks since I stopped sleeping with Kyle.

  Four weeks and three days to be exact. I also knew the hours and the minutes, but even thinking them to myse
lf sounded pathetic so I pretended I didn’t know them and that I didn’t care.

  Kyle had promised it wouldn’t be weird and surprisingly, it wasn’t. I’m not sure what sorcery he performed or if he’d made special offerings to the corporate gods, but when we walked in on Monday morning it was business as usual.

  He wasn’t cold to me, or rude or even—what would totally be justified—distant. He smiled, made sure he always made eye contact and was respectful whenever we spoke, which was a lot.

  He was completely hands off—not touching me in any way except for a few cursory nudges whenever we sat too close at a meeting. And most of all, he didn’t flirt. Not even a little.

  For me, it was a little harder to switch off.

  Even though it had been me who had called time-out, I found myself looking at him sometimes and remembering how his lips felt on mine.

  How he touched me.

  How he felt inside of me.

  How he made love to me.

  How he made me feel.

  I convinced myself that the reason for the infatuation—the only explanation I could find—was because he’d been the only man who had truly seen the unabridged version of myself. Both in Vegas, and here.

  What I usually hid, or held back from everyone else, he got to see because I was unafraid of his judgment. Usually happens when you’re convinced you will never see someone again and give yourself permission to just be you. Of course, when I did see him again, it was too late. Plus there was my anger at my work situation and my stupid idea I was going to sabotage him and run him out of town. I had been so busy concentrating on all of that, I neglected to put up my usual walls. So, I stayed and he got me—the first man ever, maybe even person—uncensored.

  Such wonderful revelations.

  And much like my failed engagement to my asshole-soon-to-be-felon ex-boyfriend, I’d learned it too late.

  So, it was for the best.

  That was the lie I told myself as I went to work and saw him everyday.

  He wouldn’t have wanted a relationship; he wouldn’t have wanted anything long-term so ultimately he would have broken my heart.

  So it was for the best.

  Besides, he might go back to Chicago or be promoted here, so it would have all had end eventually. And just because what we were doing was technically not against the rules, I’m sure it would have been frowned upon.

  So it was for the best.

  God, I hated that phrase.

  Even in my head it sounded like utter bullshit.

  Well, there was one positive out of all of this mess—we were an amazing team.

  Seriously, he was incredible and it was beautiful to watch. He had amazing instincts and was aggressive in just the right way. There were other things too. He had an added insight from his experience at Stockwell which was something I lacked. And I was learning more in a month with Kyle by my side than I did in the six months after Vegas. He listened, appreciated my input, and we made decisions together.

  And as much as I hated to admit it, I hadn’t been ready to take this on by myself. Noah and Olivia had been right, I would have died trying to succeed but I would have crashed and burned epically. He on the other hand probably would have been fine without me but it had been the right choice to pair us together.

  As a team, we were unstoppable.

  Such a shame I couldn’t have it all.

  It was for the best.

  SHUT THE FUCK UP!

  “What did you say?” Kyle stood in the open doorway of my office, confused.

  “Nothing, computer frustrations.” I pointed to my monitor that thankfully had thirty-five tabs open of Excel spreadsheets. At least that looked convincing even if I didn’t.

  “I still prefer hardcopies.”

  He smiled.

  That beautiful, wonderful smile that hitched a little higher on the left. “Going between the tabs drives me crazy, and I work better when I can physically have it in my hands.”

  Yeah, those hands were fantastic so I totally understood that.

  “I just think of all the trees I’d kill with the printing. It feels wasteful.” I sighed, not really giving a shit about the paper, or the trees, or the thirty-five spreadsheets. “But thanks for the tip.”

  Another smile. “Don’t mention it.”

  It was for the—

  “Hey!” An email alert popped up on my screen confirming the cancelation of the two o’clock appointment. “Did you accidentally mess with my schedule?” I hoped I hadn’t left it open when I’d been logged onto his computer earlier. “My meeting just cancelled.”

  The meeting was for Skyline.

  Initially it was going to be my vehicle to prove how superior I was to Kyle. I was going to reel in a seven-figure client and ride into Noah and Olivia’s office like a conquering emperor, showing what I had accomplished, all by myself. Then they would see how obviously amazing I was and send Kyle packing. Or that had been the plan.

  Of course, now I no longer needed to prove myself and certainly didn’t want Kyle to leave. We had shown solid growth in marketing sales, but I’d decided to try and close them by myself anyway. For the experience and the distraction. And because I couldn’t just let go of something I’d put so much effort into.

  “Your meeting with Skyline?” Kyle asked, watching carefully for my reaction. “The client you didn’t tell me about? No I didn’t cancel it, but we don’t want their business.”

  It had to be a mistake.

  They wouldn’t just cancel.

  All that time.

  The back and forth.

  I had been so close to securing the contract.

  A chill crept up my spine. A feeling so terrible it shook me to my very core. There was something very wrong.

  “What did you do?” I whispered, confused about what was happening and what it meant. “Kyle, why would they cancel the meeting?”

  “Sarah.” His voice softened. “It’s for the best. Trust me, sweethear—” He caught himself, glancing either side before stepping into my office and closing the door. “They cancelled the meeting with you because they signed with Stockwell an hour ago.”

  “What?” I leapt out of my seat so fast my chair fell back onto the floor. “Do you know how much time I spent working on this? The hours I invested? How could you do this to me?”

  I was furious. We were equals, and sure, I didn’t tell him about it, but that’s because I had started it before he’d arrived. They were my big fish, he didn’t get to snatch it away and give it to someone else.

  “We do not want to get into bed with them, and if you had bothered to tell me about this earlier I could have demonstrated exactly why.” It was the first time ever I’d heard him raise his voice. It wasn’t quite shouting, but loud enough to make me jump. “We are supposed to be a team.”

  “A team?” My whole body shook. “Is that what you call it when you sabotage me?” I was so angry, so upset I could barely breathe.

  Maybe I had seen this all wrong. Maybe while I had been celebrating how awesome we were, he was secretly looking for a way to get even. To show how inept I was so that I would go back to where I belong and he could be the supreme ruler. And why the hell would he give them to a competitor? One he conveniently used to work for? God, I’d been an idiot. Believing that everything could be so perfect, and there could be no weirdness, and no hard feelings. What a joke. This had been a set up the whole time. He never cared about me, or Tate & Cane. He was going to take the company down and me along with it.

  “Have you been spying for them the whole time?” I felt sick, knowing what I could have possibly been a part of. “Feeding them information?”

  “What?” His eyes narrowed as his jaw clenched. “You have no idea what you are talking about.” His fists white-knuckled at his sides.

  “And what, you found out about Skyline and you just couldn’t stand that I could do it without you. That Stockwell’s golden boy who closed his first seven-figure deal in the first three months wa
sn’t part of the process. Because how dare anyone else succeed. So you ran back to them? It wasn’t really back considering you never really left.” I looked at the T&C screensaver on my computer monitor, my heart literally breaking.

  “Jesus, Sarah. Are you insane?” He moved closer to me. “Are you actually hearing what you are saying right now?”

  “How dare you.” I struggled not to yell, the words coming out strangled from my throat. “What makes you think you have any right to speak to me like that? To call me crazy when the evidence is right there. I know maybe I handled things with us badly—”

  Oh God, what if the whole thing wasn’t as big of a coincidence as I first thought? I felt like I was going to be sick. “Was I part of it? In Vegas, did you know who I was?”

  “Are you fucking kidding me right now?” His usual self-control shattered as he looked at me with complete disbelief and horror. “You think this has anything to do with that? Wow, Sarah. I knew you didn’t think very highly of me, but believing I would fuck you, use you and then ruin the company you work for is pretty fucked up.”

  “Get out.” I pointed to the door trying my best not to scream it. “Get away from me.”

  He didn’t move, his face completely unreadable.

  “I’ll leave,” he said slowly, his eyes on me the entire time. “I’m going to say what I’m going to say and then I’m fucking walking out of here. But you are going to hear what I have to say first.” He paused, taking a breath. “Skyline uses sweatshops in third-world countries.”

  “No, I checked.” I shook my head. Emotional or not, he wasn’t going to try to get out of this with misdirection. “The manufacturing plant is in Mexico and it’s—”

  “Mexico is a warehouse. They import the goods premade, park them for a while to make it look legitimate and then bring them across the border. So while it looks like that’s where they are made, they aren’t. The brand that preaches female empowerment? Pays their mostly female workers pennies. They work twelve-hour days in appalling conditions with girls as young as six being recruited.”

  “What? I checked. I know I checked.” He was confusing me, trying to trick his way out of the deceit.