Chapter Four
The kiss deepened, and I felt my lips part beneath his. That soft moan could only have been mine, and he groaned against my mouth as his arm tightened. His fingers were tangling in my hair and both of our champagne glasses had dropped to the ground. I stood on tip toe to press closer to him, our lips moving urgently, my fingers on the buttons of his shirt.
We tumbled onto the bed and I was pleased, after a moment of fear, that he’d had the sense not to strew the bed with roses. One experience with thorns was enough for a lifetime, and I felt myself laugh, wondering if he’d had the same one. The laugh died quickly enough. His fingers slid up along my thigh, pushing my skirt up as his hips pressed against mine.
“Your skin is so soft.”
And his fingers were just the slightest bit rough. I moaned again and let my head drop back as a thrust of his hips sent pleasure shivering through me. Our legs were tangled together, his lips at my throat, and I wanted absolutely everything, from this fairytale room to the pleasure his fingers were promising. Tomorrow—
It was like someone had poured ice water on me. I opened my eyes with a gasp. Tomorrow. Oh, God, tomorrow. Tomorrow when I’d be at the office with the two men I was supposed to be keeping apart, and all those tensions I was supposed to be diffusing. And I would have slept with one of them.
“What’s wrong?” Dave looked at the bed. “Rose thorn? I thought it was all petals.”
“No, no.” I managed a little bit of a laugh, but sobered quickly enough. “I, uh…I’m so sorry. I can’t do this.”
In my head, I could hear Jane screaming at me not to be stupid.
Dave frowned.
“Are you…I don’t understand.” He looked at my left hand.
“No boyfriend, no husband.” I waved my hands.
“Then what is it?” He reached out for my hand. “April, if I pressured you…” He shook his head. “I thought you wanted this.”
“I did! I do.” I yanked my hand back from his—his touch made me want to slide into his arms—and I made for the door. If I didn’t leave now, the wrong things were going to happen. “Look, if this was any other time, I would be…this would be… It’s perfect. It really is. But I’m Mr. Jeffries’s secretary, and you’re, well, you, and I just—I can’t.”
“Please don’t go.” His eyes were sad. “Jeffries doesn’t own you, April. If you want me, and I want you—and I do—“
“I can’t,” I said desperately. I was out the door and running down the hallway the next minute, praying he wouldn’t come after me. I knew some part of me wanted him to call after me, even though the same thought made me desperately afraid. We couldn’t do this. We couldn’t. And he must have understood that—or at least, respected my wishes—because he didn’t come after me.
And that was good, I told myself firmly as I left the elevator. Because that fairytale thing where the man chased after the woman and promised that he’d make all of the problems disappear could only possibly work in fairytales. The ability to make all the world’s problems go away was magic. We couldn’t do that. Not in real life.
“April?”
I whirled, my cheeks flaming.
“Hey. Hi. How are you—what are you—”
“Are you okay?” Nathaniel asked me, frowning. He looked genuinely worried.
“Yeah. Totally fine.” Except I felt like I was wearing a neon sign over my head that said, “I was just kissing one of the shareholders.” He couldn’t see it, could he?
“You look really flustered.” He looked over at the near-empty bar and jerked his head slightly. “Can I buy you a drink?”
No, my mind insisted, while Jane’s imagined voice howled, for the love of God, yes!
This time, Jane won.
“Sure,” I heard myself say.
Oops.
“Martini?” he asked me when we’d taken our seats. “Champagne? Scotch?”
“I don’t even know.”
“Hmm. Are you sure you’re all right?” But he leaned over the bar. “Two Hennessy’s.”
“What’s Hennessy?”
“Cognac,” he said, with a grin.
“Schmancy,” I said, before I thought. I really needed someone to stop me from talking. Luckily, he only laughed.
“Brandy and cognac,” he informed me as he handed me a glass, “were once used to settle nerves. Probably because they have the kick of a midsize horse. Cheers.”
“Cheers.” I smiled. It was impossible not to. Nathaniel had such infectious good humor.
“So…I’m getting signals that you don’t want to talk about what’s bothering you.”
“Nope,” I said instantly. I took a sip to emphasize the fact that I wasn’t talking, and promptly choked. Dave hadn’t been kidding about the kick.
“Sip. Pretend you’re an English baron with a cigar and a country house, and you have not a care in the world.”
“Wow.” I looked into the glass. “Is that what you do when you drink this?”
“I don’t know about anyone else,” he admitted, “but between you and me? Yeah, I do. Is that just too adolescent?”
“Actually, I think it’s charming. For New Year’s Eve last year, all the secretaries got wine and put this stuff in it to look like gold flakes, and pretended we were ancient royalty. I mean, that was after several bottles of champagne. But still.”
“Can I just say how much I appreciate this?” Dave took a sip and smiled at me. “I dread coming to New York. I hear it’s this vibrant center of culture, but I never see that. It always seems sad to me, everyone in their suits and developing ulcers.”
“I’ll have to show you around sometime. New York is…so much more than that. Not that there aren’t a lot of serious people,” I added. I took another cautious sip. This stuff was growing on me—still, I wished I’d had more than a small order of sushi for lunch. “But there’s a lot else.”
“Like what?” He leaned on the bar and tilted his head as he watched me. “What would you show me?”
His voice was a few shades too intimate, but the brandy was mixing in my blood with the desire of the past half hour, and I felt reckless all of a sudden.
“Well, you aren’t a New Yorker until you’ve ordered takeout food at two in the morning from somewhere. But it’s a long day to get there. You want to wander through the streets and grab a bagel somewhere, listen to the musicians on the corners. There are some awesome museums, and it can even be fun to go down to the docks and watch the ships come in, even though it smells awful. There’s anything you could possibly want to eat for lunch, and the Met, and plays, and…”
“So this is a place of…” He searched for the word. “Possibility. That’s how you see it.”
“Exactly, yes. Possibility.”
“And it doesn’t wear you out? This constant grind and hustle?”
“Sometimes. But that’s why you have friends. It’s better than where I grew up, at least for me. It’s hard in New York, but no one’s actually watching you. That’s always what I remind myself at work. At home I was the Thornton's chubby daughter and everyone watched me and made comments about me and here… I can be anyone I want. I bought my first dress here, my first pair of heels, and the first time I wore them out of my apartment, three guys whistled at me. It was like a whole new world—people see you if you’re what they’re looking for, and otherwise they’re too focused on their goals to mind either way.”
My voice trailed away and I blinked. Had I actually just confessed all of that? I never told people this. I never mentioned all the stupid, hurtful comments from home. When I looked over, Nathaniel’s brows were drawn together.
“I don’t get that,” he said.
“You don’t have to get it, I just—”
“No, I mean, what you experienced where you grew up. April, how is it possible to see you and not want to be closer to you? You’re the sort of person who makes people laugh. You have this smile that just lights up a room, and you’re telling me that these peo
ple only saw one thing that doesn’t even matter?” His voice was frustrated. “I may not really like this city, but if New York was what it took for you to realize your worth, then I will offer a toast to that.”
I clinked glasses, feeling a wave of warmth.
“You know,” Nathaniel said quietly. “I was actually hoping to run into you tonight.”
“Oh? Why?” Suffused with relief, I didn’t think to question it.
“Because if I didn’t run into you naturally someplace with a bar, I was going to have to actually ask you out, and I’m kind of a huge coward about that.” He flashed a sheepish smile my direction.
“Oh, wow,” I said faintly. I was going to have to buy Jane a bottle of wine. She’d actually been right about this. “Oh, wow. Nathaniel, I am so sorry.”
“Damn,” he said morosely. “No, it’s fine, you don’t need to explain.”
“It’s not that.” I pushed aside the whiskey and took his hand. “Mr. Bryan—”
“Nathaniel.”
“Nathaniel. Look, if you weren’t who you are, and I wasn’t who I am, things would be so different. This isn’t about you, or me—it’s just how things are. I can’t complicate what’s going on with this board meeting coming up. Believe me, I really, really wish I could. But I can’t.”
The version of Jane who lived in my head was not impressed.
“Who says you can’t?” He leaned close, so close I could feel his breath and shiver in the warmth of it. “I want you. You want me.”
“I…” Our lips were so close that I could feel the warmth of him. “I have to go.” I grabbed my purse and fairly ran. Tonight was one part amazing, one part pure awful. Why did I want gorgeous men I couldn’t have?
“April.” Unlike Dave, he did come after me. “Listen to me. I know you’re not this person, the one who shuts down everything you want because someone else might not like it. You’re who you are because you realized you don’t need to let other people limit you. I’m not going to tell you that you should have a date, but I am going to say that there’s no reason you shouldn’t.”
“It’s not that simple!” I waved my hands at him. “You all think it is, but it isn’t! I’m Mr. Jeffries’s secretary, I have responsibilities. I can’t just do things like this. What don’t you and Dave get about that?”
I realized my mistake a moment later.
“What?” Nathaniel asked softly.
And then: “What?” a second voice asked.
“Fuck,” I said. Out loud. It was that kind of day. I turned my head, and found the two of them staring at one another like they were about to start a war. “Fuck,” I repeated.
Chapter Five
“What the hell are you doing?” Dave asked.
“I’m—” April began.
“Not you,” Dave said tightly. “Him.”
“What the hell are you on my case for?” Nathaniel shot back. “You should have seen her when she came down here, she looked miserable.”
“Hey,” I said, anger coming to my aid. “That wasn’t because of him. Well, I mean, sort of, but it wasn’t his fault. It—”
“You’re getting angry at me?” Dave spat back, completely ignoring me. His dark blue eyes seemed almost black with fury. “I’m not the one who chased her across the lobby, Bryan. She said she wanted to go and I let her. What do you think you’re doing, treating her like this?”
“It wasn’t like I was dragging her into a room with duct tape over her mouth!”
“Guys, could you please just—”
Neither of them were paying attention. Dave was staring up at Nathaniel with pure fury in his eyes, and Nathaniel was glaring back. The air between them practically pulsed with heat, and I frowned. They almost seemed as likely to kiss as keep yelling, and the idea was unexpectedly, overwhelmingly hot.
Clearly, I was going insane—but luckily neither of them had noticed.
“You shouldn’t have hit on her,” Nathaniel hissed at Dave. “What, you actually asked her up to your hotel room? What the hell was that?”
“It was an offer, not a command. At least I had the decency to do something romantic. Roses and champagne, Bryan—what did you try, a hotel bar? Real classy.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Roses? Champagne?” Nathaniel sounded like he couldn’t believe his ears. “Are you kidding me with this? Why does everything have to be a production with you? Why can’t you just go to a bar like a normal person?”
“Because that’s not who I am,” Dave snapped back. “I don’t drink beer, I don’t watch football.”
And that, I realized as I watched, was one of the most endearing things about him. Everything Dave did spoke of quiet sophistication. He was a man of refined tastes and he made no apology for it—and it was completely the opposite of Nathaniel’s carefree insouciance. Which would be fine, only the clash between the two of them was going to get us in the news if we weren’t careful. New Yorkers might not usually pay attention to people…but they have a limitless capacity to watch the rich and famous fight.
“Both of you shut up,” I whispered as Nathaniel opened his mouth to respond.
They turned to look at me with almost identical looks of confusion, and I could have laughed. They very nearly looked chastened.
“What?” Nathaniel asked me.
“You are not going to fight like this in public,” I told them fiercely. “So if you can’t stop this fight, you are going to go upstairs and have it in private, do you hear me?”
“Fine,” Nathaniel snapped, his eyes still fixed on Dave. “Let’s go, Hines. Let’s see your classiness in action.”
“This way.” Dave gestured, and the two of them strode across the library.
Well, this hadn’t been what I was hoping for. I trotted after them as fast as my high heels would allow, trying to interrupt their stony silence.
“Or we could just all go home.”
“Oh, no,” Nathaniel said. He held the elevator door for both of us. “We’re going to finish this.”
“What is this, the thunderdome?”
“Shut up, Hines.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. I didn’t want to be a part of this, except I had kind of made it all worse by suggesting they fight in private. And if I wasn’t there, who knew what kind of crap they might get up to?
They might sleep together, the inappropriate part of my mind said, and I bit my lip to keep from laughing. If this was a movie with a male lead and a female lead, that would definitely be how it would turn out. And maybe my mind was running away with the idea anyway, picturing smooth-muscled chests and stubble and big hands and…
I needed to think of something else or I was going to moan out loud. I took a deep breath as the elevator dinged and the doors slid open.
We walked down the hallway as if we were any reasonable, normal set of businesspeople instead of a group that was about to have a juvenile fight about some combination of boardroom politics and love triangles, and I found myself wondering how many similar fights this hotel had seen. And I wondered, too, about who might be on either side of the walls, and who might hear the two of them argue about international business agreements and any number of things that were in the NDA. So when they had preceded me into Dave’s room and rounded on one another, I slammed the door to get their attention and crossed my arms.
Their eyes went wide.
“Okay, listen up.” I stared them both down. “You two have hated each other for so long and been so obvious about it that we had dozens of people dreading coming to work this week because they didn’t want to hear you two yelling at each other. I got to spend two whole days trying to organize your schedules so you had the exact same amount of time with Mr. Jeffries and as much as possible, you weren’t going to be in the building at the same time. I have tried to be nothing but pleasant to you and you two have tried to tone it down when I’m around. But you know what? You’re being idiotic.”
“He’s being the same careless playboy he always is,” Nathani
el hissed.
“Playboy? You don’t know me, Bryan. You think that just because I fell into this world late, I don’t deserve anything. Well, let me tell you, I worked for what I have. Just because the idea came to me out of the blue doesn’t mean medical devices actually just manufacture themselves.”
“Oh, and I suppose you were on the production lines?”
“Shut up!” I yelled.
Silence.
“Thank you. Okay, listen, it is exactly this kind of shit that I’m talking about. So you came to be shareholders two different ways. Is it really such a big deal to you that you need to inconvenience everyone else because you can’t even be civil to one another? Dave, Nathaniel’s worried that luck is more important than years of hard work. Nathaniel, Dave feels like maybe you know more than he does about international trade agreements, but he’s pissed as hell that you aren’t taking his advice on production outsourcing. And both of you have some good ideas on how to structure these agreements. So why don’t you say what the hell has been bothering you and just let the rest of it go? Because I have news for you. You’re not going to wake up in a magical world where you get everything you want all of a sudden, and that’s actually okay. Everyone in this damned world has things they want and can’t have, so why don’t you both get over yourselves and do what’s best for everyone else for a change?”
They stared at me, open-mouthed. Apparently, no one ever read rich guys the riot act. It was possible they hadn’t been yelled at in years. I waited, raising one eyebrow, for them to give each other an apology. And then, unexpectedly:
“What do you want that you can’t have?” Dave asked me quietly.
I blinked. It wasn’t a sarcastic question. He really seemed to want to know.
“Yes.” Nathaniel was buttoning and unbuttoning his suit jacket, an adorably nervous gesture, but his eyes were serious. “What is it that you want?”
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