Bad Husband

by Elise Faber

His lips curved. “Words a man lives to hear.”

  She muttered something under her breath that sounded suspiciously as though she were counting to ten. “What can I do for you, Steele?” And though it was posed as a question, Clay knew it was more curse than concern.

  He really irritated Heather, and for some reason that gave him great joy.

  “Clay!” she exclaimed, impatient now.

  Okay, fine, so he was acting like a second-grade boy with his first crush.

  But he didn’t care, couldn’t find the strength to care. Not when his lack of reply made her sigh again. Her eyes would be flicking up toward the ceiling, her lips pursing as she breathed in and out on a long, slow exhalation.

  “I don’t have all day, Steele. Give it to me now or so help me—”

  “More words a man lives to hear.” He chuckled at the feral sound that came through the airwaves. “Ah, Heather, baby, you’re so sweet to me.”

  Now her shoulders would drop as she attempted to rein in her temper, her chin joining her eyes in tipping up at the ceiling, the slender column of her neck exposed and delicate. That angle was a tease, he’d press his mouth, his tongue—

  Fuck.

  Many dreams—none of them of the PG variety—had been made envisioning all the things he’d do to Heather’s throat, sucking and licking and marking the smooth skin there.

  And he had marked it. Just last night.

  He’d nipped behind her ear, nibbled down to her shoulder, sucked a hickey on the gentle curve where her throat met her collarbone. He’d kissed, he’d caressed, he’d necked like he was a teenaged boy in the back seat with his first girlfriend.

  “I’m hanging up now,” she said, the background noise growing as she apparently moved closer to the shower.

  “You have something that belongs to me,” he said before she could disconnect.

  A huff. “I’m taking the license to my lawyer.”

  The click cutting off his words was probably a good thing.

  Because something stupid had been about to come out of his mouth.

  Like, “Not the license, you, you infuriating woman.”

  And Heather O’Keith didn’t belong to any man . . . least of all him.

  Seven

  Heather

  * * *

  Heather dropped the phone onto the granite countertop. It clattered, skidding to a stop near the complimentary shampoo/shower gel/old-fashioned bar of soap/lotion tray.

  No matter how much her room cost, the hotels never seemed to provide conditioner.

  Didn’t they understand women at all?

  Shampoo just didn’t do it.

  Not that it mattered.

  Her assistant had already unpacked her toiletries and clothes before Heather had even left Colin’s office.

  The meeting had gone well, the woman who was overseeing the European portion of his business, competent and confident.

  Heather slipped back into the water, sighing with relief as the hot water hit her cooled limbs.

  She was also smiling.

  Not because of the disturbance of the phone call—though she had the feeling Clay would probably like being referred to as a disturbance. No, she was smiling because the woman Colin had left in charge of his business operations reminded her of herself.

  Francine was smart as hell and tough as nails, but she was also young in a way that Heather hadn’t been in ages.

  Or maybe not ever.

  Still, it made Heather like Colin even more for having chosen to put his faith in a woman like Francine.

  Her business partner liked strong women. He respected them. He—

  Clay liked strong women, too.

  “And that, my stupid, sex-melted brain,” she said as she smoothed conditioner down the length of her hair, “is not a helpful sentiment at all.”

  Because it didn’t matter what Clay liked.

  It didn’t matter how she felt when Clay was around.

  He was dangerous to her on a fundamental level.

  She had seen it too many times. The risks were too close to home.

  “A man is never going to change me,” she promised and let the hot water stream down her back, rinsing the conditioner away, leaving her hair soft, the rough edges smoothed over, temporarily or perhaps, permanently mended.

  Which was fine for her split ends.

  But men weren’t as effective as beauty products. They didn’t fix anything.

  They were chaos and hurt and bending, and bending until he was happy at the expense of all else.

  Of everyone else.

  So no. Heather was perfectly happy with her rough edges.

  They kept her safe, made her strong and tough and invulnerable.

  You weren’t invulnerable with Clay, her brain reminded her, rather unhelpfully, she thought.

  “And look where it got me,” she said, cranking off the water. “Married to a man I don’t know and everything I’ve worked for at risk.”

  Her brain, conveniently, didn’t have a reply.

  “Typical,” she huffed and reached for a towel.

  After a few hours of restless sleep, Heather was aboard her plane and heading for Berlin.

  It was such a beautiful city, one of her absolute favorites, but she doubted she’d see anything this trip except the insides of hotels, conference rooms, and cars.

  Upon arriving, she went straight to the hotel to drop her bags and order room service then poured over the files for her first meeting. The hotel would be her temporary home base for the two days she was in Berlin, one that would allow her to sleep in a bed that wasn’t thirty thousand feet in the air while conveniently providing her decent meals at all hours.

  Her business life wasn’t so easily managed.

  At the moment, several new products were being proposed for development and while she’d already made a soft decision on each of them based on market projections and the scientific reports the research heads had sent her way, she always liked to meet directly with the development teams. Sometimes there was something in a person, an unquantifiable “something” that didn’t come through on reports and cost/expense ratios.

  Passion or intensity or the ability to do good in the world.

  And while Heather may be a businesswoman at heart and may seriously enjoy making deals and exceeding expectations when it came to the bottom line, she also truly wanted to make the world a better place.

  Sometimes it was via a little robot that had made one child—and then about six million others—happy. Other times it was the project she and Colin were undertaking, trying to find a way to muster supplies in the wake of natural or man-made disasters and deliver them quickly to those people most affected. Occasionally it was partnering with the government to get better equipment to the military.

  She’d never cop to it, of course, but those “side projects” were what fed her soul, what kept her going when she met another man who thought he could bully or manipulate or coerce her into doing something just because she was a woman.

  Of course, she couldn’t deny that she derived great pleasure from turning the tables on those men who underestimated her.

  Clay doesn’t underestimate you.

  “Shut it,” she gritted and picked up her briefcase. Her phone buzzed at almost the same instant, informing her that her car was downstairs and her assistant would be up to unpack momentarily.

  Her assistant was freakishly efficient.

  When Heather didn’t give Rachel time off, that was.

  Her assistant had just about shit a brick when she’d seen the state of Heather’s clothes as she’d boarded the plane for London, and had promised she would never take another day off again.

  Meanwhile, Heather had thought she’d done a fairly decent job of seamstress-ing, considering her limited resources.

  Not good enough, apparently.

  Rachel was a little dramatic, but Heather liked her anyway.

  Young, sweet, and slightly naïve, her assistant always managed to know what
Heather required—often before Heather even realized she needed it.

  And that’s why Rachel was getting a raise after this trip and a week of vacation.

  No burnout on Heather’s watch, not when she wanted to keep her assistant around.

  There was a knock before the lock disengaged and Rachel pushed the door open, thrusting a stack of files in Heather’s direction.

  “Don’t bother reading them now,” she said. “These are for the next set of meetings. You’ll have a half-hour lunch break to review them.”

  “Perfect,” Heather said, taking the folders and stashing them in her briefcase. “And the Pierce file?”

  Rachel wrinkled her nose. “Still waiting on their firm to provide details.”

  Heather frowned as she considered their planned stop in Amsterdam the following evening. “If they don’t have them to me by five tonight, the meeting’s off.”

  “Good,” Rachel said, and at Heather’s raised eyebrow explained, “I told them they had to have them to me by four-thirty.”

  “And that is why you’re getting a raise,” Heather said with a grin, adding at Rachel’s shocked expression, “I was going to wait until we were home, but how often has that been lately?”

  A nod, though Rachel was still wearing a surprised expression that made Heather’s stomach sink. “What is it?”

  She better not be planning on quitting.

  Rachel’s chin wobbled before she waved a hand in the air. “Ignore me, I’m being ridiculous.”

  Heather raised her eyebrow again, staring until Rachel caved.

  “Fine.” An irritated huff, but despite that, the rest of Rachel’s words were genuine and maybe . . . a little embarrassed. “I’m surprised, I guess,” she said, smoothing a nonexistent wrinkle in her skirt. “I’ve . . . I just have never actually been good at anything before, at least not at anything that mattered.”

  Damn, but Heather liked this girl’s honesty—though it broke a piece of her heart to hear the sadness lacing Rachel’s words.

  “Well, that may be,” Heather said, bumping Rachel’s shoulder with her own, “But I also know I couldn’t have pulled this trip off without you. I would have been a hell of a lot more stressed and less prepared and less rested if it weren’t for you taking care of the million little details that come along with a trip like this.” A pause as she waited for Rachel’s eyes to connect with hers. “So, thank you for doing your job with such scary competence.”

  Rachel laughed, the uncertainty finally melting from her features. “No problem.”

  “And we’ll discuss the specifics of your raise when we’re flying home. Deal?”

  “Deal.” A pause as Rachel checked her watch. “Now get out of here. If your butt’s not in that car in the next five minutes, you’ll be late for the first meeting and put the entire schedule out of whack.”

  Heather saluted, leaving Rachel to finish the unpacking, and headed down to the car. Her mind was so full, so busy with reviewing key details for her first meeting as she walked through the lobby and out to the street that she missed Clay Steele standing at the reception desk.

  But he didn’t miss her.

  Eight

  Clay

  * * *

  Clay took one step in Heather’s direction before he forced himself to stay at the counter.

  Careful. Watch. Wait.

  The woman helping him paused briefly in her frenetic keyboard pounding. “It’ll be just a minute.”

  He nodded and thanked her, but his gaze was trained on Heather.

  God, those pearl buttons just killed him.

  Heather’s lips were moving as though she were reciting facts to herself, and knowing her, she probably was. He had never been in a situation where she didn’t seem to have all of the pertinent information on a topic.

  Part of that was probably because, like him, she picked projects and investments that were in her wheelhouse. The other part was that she was just really damned smart and even if she didn’t know the particulars about a topic, she was able to listen openly and then provide valuable insights from her own experiences.

  It frustrated a lot of the men in their world, but then again, a lot of men in their world also liked to feel superior.

  Clay didn’t appreciate feeling like an idiot, of course, but he also didn’t need to feel like the smartest one in the room in order to be important to the conversation. And he enjoyed learning and conquering new challenges.

  Life was pretty boring otherwise.

  But Heather’s big juicy brain wasn’t the only thing that attracted Clay.

  Her body was amazing and her heart . . .

  He would have said it was icy before Vegas.

  It wasn’t.

  He remembered the way she’d looked after her friends had gotten in the car, straightening the “Just Married” sign before they pulled away, snapping a picture and then wiping tears from her eyes as they’d driven off.

  There was emotion there.

  Buried under some heavy armor, but it was still there. It—

  Why is today hard for you?

  She’d asked the question as she’d traced nonsensical patterns with one finger on his naked chest.

  Clay grabbed on to the memory, pulling it to the forefront of his mind. Had he told her? His gut clenched hard. Fuck, what had he told her—?

  It took a long moment, but the images finally teased themselves free. Then he breathed a sigh of relief as he remembered catching her little finger and bringing it to his mouth. He’d trailed his own finger down, traversing over her silky curves until he’d reached the damp space between her thighs.

  And then she’d been moaning instead of asking questions.

  It had been safer that way.

  Heather disappeared from view, the revolving door swallowing her up, and he turned back to the woman at the desk. She was placing the plastic key card into an envelope. “Here you are, Mr. Steele,” she said and directed him to the bank of elevators.

  He lifted his messenger bag onto his shoulder and tucked his garment bag under the other arm. Berlin was only a quick stopover for him, so aside from a lunch meeting with his client that afternoon and a chat over dinner with his CEO of European operations, Clay planned on spending most of the day catching up on a few overdue projects before his flight out to Amsterdam the following morning.

  Though, he frowned, pressing the elevator button before pulling out his cell phone, he wouldn’t be stopping in Amsterdam at all if he didn’t get some useful information from the folks at Pierce.

  There was something about the company that wasn’t sitting right with him.

  So far, everything they’d sent had looked perfect, but almost too perfect. Pierce was growing fast and making money hand over fist, without a single mistake in sight, but if that were truly the case, then why were they shopping so aggressively for a buyer?

  He knew for sure they were talking to RoboTech via Heather as well as several others from their circle. They’d also approached him about Steele Technologies buying them out.

  It could be they were simply hoping for a bidding war, and while Clay didn’t necessarily doubt that, he was also hesitant, especially based on the speed they wanted the buyout to occur and the lack of additional information he’d asked for.

  His gut told him they were hiding something.

  He just wasn’t sure what.

  The elevator dinged and he stepped off, checking the sign for the direction of his room. He was almost there when a door to his right flew open and a girl stormed out, almost colliding with him.

  “Sorry,” she mouthed, cell glued to her ear.

  “It’s okay—”

  “No. That isn’t going to work,” she snapped, moving around him toward the elevators.

  He stopped at his room and extracted one of the keycards from the envelope. He was just swiping it over the panel when he heard the woman say, “Heather O’Keith doesn’t operate this way. Either provide the information to us today by four-thirty or
we’re done. I don’t care that . . .”

  Clay glanced down the hall and watched as she turned the corner.

  Could Heather’s room actually be next door?

  He turned the handle, shoving his luggage inside before stepping back into the hall and . . . glancing toward the room in question.

  What were the odds that fate would throw them together again?

  He snorted.

  Pretty damned high based on the last six months. He was just about to turn back to his own room when he noticed the door to hers hadn’t quite latched. He reached forward to pull it all the way closed. If Heather saw him, she’d probably make some quip about him stalking her, or bust his balls over his attempt at breaking and entering.

  Not that it mattered, because Heather wasn’t there.

  Heather. Wasn’t. There.

  And the devil inside him pushed to the surface.

  Instead of tugging the door so it closed and locked, he found himself nudging the panel inward.

  As the door opened, it caught on a garment bag hanging near the entrance—the same bag that must have slowed it enough so that it hadn’t latched—and so he shifted the luggage slightly, wanting to prevent the same thing from happening in the future, wanting to keep Heather and, presumably, her assistant safe from . . . well, strange men barging into their hotel room.

  “I’m not barging,” he muttered. “I’m just making sure they’re safe.”

  His conscience mocked him and he knew if his words were true, then he would have fixed the door and headed directly out of the room.

  But he didn’t leave.

  And he also didn’t bother kidding himself.

  He wanted to scope out Heather’s space, however temporary. He wanted to see all of the little idiosyncrasies and he—

  Voices echoed in the hall and he froze, six inches from her bed.

  He was going to get arrested.

  “Shit.” Clay was losing his fucking mind. He needed to get the hell out of this room and back into his own. He needed to concentrate on his businesses and interests.

  He needed to get his shit together.