Hard Rules Page 19

  “You aren’t going to comment about Derek feeding you crap for information?”

  “He’ll never hide everything,” I say, and again ask, “Unless Father knows?”

  “I don’t know, but I assume he does. Derek seems more confident than usual about their alignment and his vote.”

  “And you know this because he trusted you enough to tell you.” It’s not a question.

  “I’m his mother. He’s my son.”

  “Whom you’re betraying by telling me this right now.”

  “I’m protecting our futures. And I’m protecting you or I wouldn’t be on the phone right now.”

  And yet trusting her is becoming harder. “Protecting us all is about those stockholders. When will you get that information you promised me on Mike and the other stockholders?”

  “Chemo tends to weaken your father and loosen his tongue.”

  “You know his cancer has worsened.”

  “Of course, I know,” she says. “He was a fool to try to keep it from me. Chemo starts Monday morning.”

  “I know that. You’re seriously using his cancer to take advantage of him? Aren’t you the one who was worried I’d hurt him if I turned down the Bentley while he was weak from treatments?”

  “That was before he used his cancer to pit my sons against each other. A mother’s wrath you do not want. And on that note, I’m going back to bed, but a word for the wise that I know you know, but might forget with Emily: everyone is not who or what they seem, and once someone is in your bed, they’re dangerously close to you. Watch your back with that woman.”

  She ends the call.

  I can’t stand squealers …

  —Albert Anastasia

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  SHANE

  I slide my phone into my pocket and wait for my mother’s warning about Emily to hit a nerve, my brother’s words replaying in my mind: I know who’s in my corner. I wonder if you do. He’d meant to make me question everyone around me but my distrust doesn’t go to Emily for one minute. My instincts are, and have always been, razor sharp, and I trust her. My mother is another story, and her hiring a mistress for my father proves her to be conniving in ways, as a young man, I wasn’t willing to see. Whatever the case, Emily deserves to know what she’s in the middle of now, not later.

  Exiting the kitchen into the foyer, I note she is absent, and I head toward the stairs to find her sitting on the bottom step, her long, brown hair disheveled, as if she’s had her hands in it, a collection of mixed-sized paper bags around her. “What are you doing?” I ask, going down on a knee in front of her.

  “I can’t go with you to see that apartment. Someone could see us who shouldn’t and I can’t get fired until I have another job. As it is, I was worried your father would be back here with that woman and see me last night. I wasn’t thinking this morning, but that could have happened if I left and came back too.”

  “That’s why I suggested I drive you, rather than walk.”

  “Why didn’t you just say that?”

  “It didn’t feel like the right time, but I was about to talk about this when the doorbell interrupted us.”

  “The truth is, I am hiding from some things in my life, trying to start fresh, and I can’t hide from this too. A weekend here, with you, is an escape, but it can’t be the reason I lose a job I need. And I can’t do this anymore. We can’t do this anymore.”

  My hands settle on the bare skin of her knees just beneath my shirt. “You’re not going to get fired.”

  “If your father finds out—”

  “He’ll be amused,” I say.

  “Amused?” she asks, her brow furrowing.

  “He’s intentionally pitted me and Derek against each other and now he sits back and watches, all but holding a bucket of popcorn. Bottom line, if he finds out, he’ll think I’m using you to feed me information about his activities and my brother’s. In other words, a point on the scoreboard for me. That’s what Derek has already assumed.”

  Her eyes go wide. “Your brother knows?”

  “Yes. I knew he would the minute you came here last night. That’s what my mother called to tell me.”

  “Oh my God. Your mother knows too.” She presses her hand to her belly. “I feel sick.”

  I reach for her hand, and close mine around it. “This does not affect your job.”

  “I cannot even comprehend the words coming out of your mouth.”

  I laugh and she is not pleased.

  “This is not funny,” she hisses. “This is beyond outrageous.”

  “My family is fucked up, Emily.”

  “Won’t Derek get me fired?”

  “He’s planning to feed you fake information about his takeover plans to give to me.”

  “And you know this because of your mother?”

  “Exactly.”

  “You’re right. Your family really is fucked up.”

  “They are, but there’s a light at the end of this tunnel. Frankly, this helps us both.”

  “I’m back to the part where I don’t understand the words coming out of your mouth. Because if this is true, I won’t be able to give you proper information.”

  I blink, stunned at her reaction. “You aren’t going to question my motives?”

  “Are you kidding me? The more I get to know your family, the more I’m amazed you ever gave me a chance to prove I wasn’t working for them.”

  “The truth was in your eyes,” I say softly.

  “And yours,” she says. In the moments that follow, it is as if trust takes shape in a delicate slice of glass too fragile at this point to be called unbreakable. The fact that this trust is more than I have with my family is bittersweet.

  “You wanted to know how this helps us,” I say, not expecting a reply. “If Derek, and my father for all I know, think they have me chasing my tail, they won’t be watching my moves as closely, or have their guard up as readily. You’re an asset they want to keep.”

  “I thought you said this was a game for your father? You just made it sound like he supports Derek taking over the company rather than you.”

  “He’ll play both sides because it amuses him,” I say. “Where his true allegiance lies I have no idea, and I am pretty sure he’ll go to the grave without that changing.”

  “That’s how he wants to leave this world?” she asks, incredulously. “Most people try to make amends with those they love.”

  “I’m sure he has the capacity to love, but whatever his agenda, you and I are simply more entertainment for him. Your job is secure and there is no reason we can’t continue to see each other.”

  “Continue seeing each other,” she repeats.

  “We’re good together. I want to know where that goes, but I also want to know you made a choice, not a decision.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Choices come with options, while decisions are too often forced by circumstances. I’m going to give you choices. Piss my father off? He fires you and legally gives you severance, while my brother has no reason to believe you’re anything but an informant I lost. You’ll be gone and forgotten.”

  “Forgotten,” she echoes, her lashes lowering, a defensive act meant to prevent me from seeing what she doesn’t want me to see.

  “Not by me,” I say.

  She looks at me, and anything I could have read in her stare is no longer present. “Is getting fired what you think I should do?”

  “I can’t give you an objective answer.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the only way we sell you being nothing more than a lost informant to me is if I stay away from you.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Stay. Now ask what I think is smart.”

  “Leaving is smart,” she says. “And that would be easier if you just stop making me feel…”

  “Making you feel what?”

  “Something.”

  “Something,” I reiterate, and I weigh that word on my tongue, deci
ding it needs no further definition. But whatever it is, it’s pure in a way that nothing else in my life is—or has been—in far too long and I’m not letting my brother force her into hiding, when it’s clear she’s already doing that on her own.

  I stand, taking her with me, my fingers lacing snugly with hers. “Come,” I command softly, leading her up the stairs, through the bedroom, and into the bathroom, stopping at the glass-encased shower next to the tub.

  Releasing her hand, my fingers find the hem of my T-shirt she’s wearing, caressing it upward, my fingers trailing over her skin to pull it over her head and toss it aside. It hasn’t even hit the ground when my hands are on her slender waist, my gaze raking over her high breasts and pebbled plump red nipples. “You are so damn beautiful,” I murmur, and when I look at her, I let her see the hunger in my stare, the depth of how damn much I want her.

  “Shane,” she whispers. There’s no real reason, but she doesn’t need one. She just needs to keep saying it, over and fucking over.

  I release her, and her lashes lower, becoming half-moons on her pale cheeks. When she lifts them again, I’ve taken off my clothes, and opened the glass door to the shower, silently inviting her to walk inside. She enters, but not before her gaze flickers over my body, lingering on my cock, and the look might as well be a lick for the way my body pulses and thickens. There is a predatory part of me she stirs, which is about far more than fucking, and when she faces me, just outside the stream of water, I stalk forward, backing her up without a touch until she is in the corner. My hands settle on the wall above her, my cock jutted, thick and hard, between us, but there is more to this moment than sex. “To hell with being objective. You rock my world and I don’t get rocked. I’m damn sure going to do my best to make you do this my way.”

  “Which is what?”

  “You stay with me.” I lower my mouth a breath from hers. “Stay.”

  “Yes,” she says, sounding breathless. I knew I was right in that coffee shop when I met her. I damn sure like her breathless and I plan to keep her that way for the rest of the weekend.

  I brush my lips over hers, a caress and a tease that I follow with a deep, drugging kiss, the sweet, honey taste of her biting at my self-control. But it’s her control I want. It’s her command of her secrets. I want to tear away her reserve, and that starts now, with me taking her pleasure and leaving room for nothing else. Driven by that intent, I lower myself to my knees, warm water splaying over my back, while I plan to make her warm all over.

  My lips find her belly, and her fingers tunnel into my hair, and this time I don’t stop her. This time, I am not driving away her demons, and leaving no room for them. I’m tearing down her walls, and sliding into their place, and I waste no time finding her clit and licking it. And licking again, sucking her deeply, using my fingers and tongue to tease and please until she is arching her hips and making soft, sexy sounds of pleasure I feel in the pulse of my own body. I explore, lick, touch, and it is only minutes before she is tugging at my hair, a rough burn that tells me she is on edge where I want her. With only a few more caresses of my tongue, her sex is clenching around my fingers. I ease her into release and back down. When she calms, I stand, cupping her face and kissing her. That sweet honey taste of all of her is on my tongue and I want more.

  EMILY

  An hour after we exit the shower, Shane and I collapse on the bed flat on our backs, one of his legs draped over mine, both of us breathing heavily. “I don’t think I need my morning jog today,” I pant out.

  “At some point in the near future we’ll have to eat,” he murmurs, the muffled sound of his phone ringing in the bathroom.

  “Don’t you need to get that?” I ask, rolling to rest on his chest.

  His hand flattens at the base of my spine. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure it’s Jessica, and I’m not getting out of bed to race over and see that apartment. Not when I have you naked and to myself.”

  “That apartment’s gorgeous. Don’t lose it.”

  “Money talks and so does power. If I want it, I won’t lose it.”

  “And you want Brandon Enterprises.”

  “Yes. I do.”

  “But you worked so hard for your law career and were at the top of the food chain.”

  “I resisted,” he says, scooting back to prop himself on the gray cloth headboard, and taking me with him. “But I think you know that’s why I’m still in this apartment.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  “The company’s going in the wrong direction, and I am certain this will be its demise.”

  “But it’s an empire.”

  “Empires do crumble. And I don’t want ours to be one of them.”

  “And you think the pharmaceutical division is the key to successfully preventing that?”

  “I know it is. It allows us to cut the dead weight that are many of our divisions.”

  “Well, the financial division sure seems to be booming.”

  “You base this on what?”

  “The powerful, filthy rich people involved in this new hedge fund your father’s working on.”

  “The hedge fund he didn’t tell me about,” Shane replies dryly.

  “Why didn’t he?”

  “He wanted to bury something I won’t approve of before it hits my desk.”

  “What kind of thing?”

  “Nothing good and nothing you need to think about.”

  “But if I am staying, I should know what to look for.”

  “I don’t want you to look for anything.”

  “But Shane—”

  He slides down to the mattress again and rolls me to my back. “You are not to get involved beyond helping me with my research today. End of topic.”

  “I want to help.”

  “I’ll fire you myself if you get involved in this, Emily.” His tone is hard, absolute, and I believe him, but he softens the blow with a kiss, before rolling away, standing, and in all his naked abundant glory, walks toward a door opposite the bathroom that I assume is a closet.

  Grimacing, not sure how I feel about this, I sit up, shivering with my still damp hair and a cold breeze from a vent somewhere nearby. “What are you trying to achieve with your research?” I call out, tugging the blanket to my chin.

  He exits the closet in faded jeans, tugging a white tee over his impressively broad chest, giving me only a moment more to admire his defined abs before it falls to the waistband of his low-slung jeans. “I was behind this acquisition but I was too wrapped up in that legal matter I mentioned to dive in fully.” He sits down next to me, his dark hair a rumpled, sexy mess that I’m pretty sure my fingers created. “Now, I’m ready to take it to the next level.”

  “Don’t you have staff to research for you?” I ask.

  “I do, but I’m not prepared to let my strategy out in the wild.”

  “You mean Derek.”

  “Among others.”

  “What’s your strategy?” I ask. “I mean, unless you don’t want to tell me.”

  “You’re about to help me research. I’m not exactly keeping you in the dark. As for my strategy, it’s pretty direct and simple, at least on the surface. Know everything about this business, my competition, and everyone involved in the industry.”

  “Everyone? That’s a big order, isn’t it?”

  “Which is why few people are as prepared as I am and that’s how I win my battles. I make sure I know everything about everyone I’m in business with.”

  “And you use that against them?”

  “There’s a fine line.”

  “How fine?”

  His lips thin, his spine suddenly a little straighter. “I’m starting to believe that depends on who you’re dealing with.”

  “What does that mean?”

  His phone starts ringing again. “I better talk to Jessica before she shows up here to get me and I have a few calls to make myself. Room service?”

  “Great,” I say, and I have the distinct impression he’s n
ot as worried about Jessica as much as I’ve hit a sensitive topic he wants to avoid.

  “How about omelets?”

  I nod and give him my order before he grabs his phone from his pants in the bathroom and then disappears into the hallway, leaving me with one thought. He always knows everything about everyone. There’s only so long before that includes me, which brings me back to what I told him this morning.

  “Your bags,” Shane says, reappearing in the room, carrying everything the hotel sent me into the bathroom before joining me again. “I’m going to order our food now.”

  “Great,” I say as he heads toward the door.

  “Did Jessica set up a meeting?” I ask, not sure how to dress. Okay, I’m not even sure I have clothes that fit.

  “We missed it,” he tells me. “She’s working on it and she’s pissed.”

  “Chocolate,” I suggest.

  “She’s more expensive than that,” he assures me and once again he’s gone. I’m staring after him, a knot forming in my belly.

  What am I doing? I’m crazy about this man. I don’t want him to find out the truth about me. I want to tell him, but that doesn’t protect him. Damn it, I refuse to accept this situation as unchangeable or unspeakable. Throwing off the blanket and darting for the bathroom, I quickly shut the door and lock it, beginning to scavenge through the items Tai had brought me, weeding through makeup, face cream, clothing, and a flat iron, to finally find my purse, which I’d scooped up by the door and shoved in one of the bags. Grabbing it, I pull the zipper open and grab the two phones, focused on the one I’ve been willing to ring.

  No messages.

  “Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.” I punch the call button, but after one ring I get voice mail. “You have to call me,” I say at the beep. “You have to call me or … I am going to be forced to take matters into my own hands.” I end the message and rest the phone on my forehead a moment, and the magnitude of one bad decision changing my life doesn’t escape me. And yet, I think, resting my hands on the sink and staring at my now wildly messy brown hair and pale skin, had I not made that decision, I wouldn’t have met Shane.