Undercover in the CEO's Bed(31)

“I didn’t force you into this. You did it because you’re so blind about Kevin.”

“Don’t drag my brother into this.” She glared at him.

“Why not? You’re so busy blaming everything on me you can’t see your own faults.”

“My fault was going along with you on this visit.”

“Hey, it wasn’t all bad.” His blue eyes swept over her. “We had some awesome sex.”

If all he thought they had in common was awesome sex, then there was no hope for them. He could never love her one tenth as much as she loved him. And she was never going to settle for second best from Lex.

“Is that all I am to you? Just a sex partner?”

“Not just a sex partner. An awesome sex partner.”

“Dammit, Lex, stop being so frigging facetious!”

A muscle pulsed in his jaw as his face hardened. “What more do you want from me?”

“I don’t know.” Pain washed through her. “Maybe—maybe we know each other better now. Don’t we?”

He gazed at her, his face blank before it contorted. “We know each other’s weak spots, that’s for sure.” He shook his head vehemently. “No, Jacinta. I don’t know what you want, but I can’t go through all that shit again.”

Even now he kept on finding new ways to hurt her. All that shit? Was that all she was to him?

“You always were too scared to commit to a real relationship,” she said, not really thinking, only lashing out in self-preservation.

“Think I haven’t heard that bullshit a dozen times before?” His blazing blue eyes taunted her. “You demand more and more and more until you’ve chewed up a guy’s soul.”

“You don’t have a soul to be chewed up.” She couldn’t seem to stop the horrible things spitting out of her mouth. “You’re nothing but a sad, sad little man.” Oh God, that was too much. She had to stop. She bit into her inner cheek until she tasted blood.

Misery and exhaustion washed over her. She dropped her arms to her sides. “I didn’t mean that,” she whispered.

Lex just stared at her, his face growing tight, as an awful silence stretched between them. Then, a faint clinking noise broke the hush, and she looked down to see the ring had slipped off her finger and fallen onto the marble tiles. The sight of the diamond glinting at her feet was an omen, she thought. A sign that everything between them was over, broken beyond repair.

Lex picked up the ring and slipped it into his trouser pocket. “Looks like the engagement’s off.”

She wasn’t a drama queen. She could weather setbacks and disappointments. But watching Lex take the engagement ring back was...heartbreaking. It felt as if her heart had split in two, and all she could do was break down and cry. But not yet, not yet, not anywhere near Lex. She couldn’t bear it if he saw her in tears.

“I’m flying back on my own,” she said.

He looked up. “Huh?”

“You heard me. I don’t want to fly back with you because we’ll just argue again, and I’m sick to death of arguing. Like you said, our business is finished. We don’t need to see each other again. The helicopter can return to pick you up.” Somehow she managed to get all that out without her chin trembling and giving her away.

“Fine by me.” He scowled. “I don’t need another lecture on my thousand and one faults.”

A quiver started in her bottom lip, and she had to clamp her mouth to halt it. “I hope you’ll keep your end of our bargain,” she said stiffly, the words bruising her throat.

“Don’t worry. Your brother will get his damn job.” His eyes were glacier blue, his body cast in iron. “Happy now you’ve got all you wanted from me?” He stalked out without waiting for her answer.

Shards of pain rained down on her. This parting was worse than the last. This time there was no righteous indignation to cushion the blow. This time there was only love and loneliness, which were no consolation at all.





Chapter Thirteen

“I’ll be working on the production support team.” Kevin tossed a handful of nuts into his mouth and crunched on them. “It’s a big team, about twenty people.”

He reached for the TV remote and flicked through the channels. Earlier in the day, he’d completed his interview at Jubilee Holdings and been offered the job on the spot, something highly unusual, and now he was a bundle of excitement. From her slouched position in an armchair, Jacinta regarded her brother as he continued to chatter. Kevin was so caught up in his day, he’d barely noticed how lethargic she was. After the Rochester helicopter had brought her back, she’d spent the afternoon doing laundry and housework, keeping her hands busy in the vain hope she would stop thinking about the days just past.

“So how was your weekend?” Kevin asked. “Tell me all about the big party and everything.”

She pushed herself upright. “Yeah, it was spectacular. Lots of champagne and important guests.”

“You had a good time?”

“Uh-huh.” Sooner or later she’d have to tell him that she wasn’t dating Lex anymore, but that could wait for a while. “I’m so glad about your job. It sounds like a great opportunity.”

“Oh sure, it’s good.” He crunched another handful of nuts. “Of course I’d have preferred to be put onto a development team, you know? More scope to show them what I’m capable of there instead of fixing mistakes in other people’s code.”

“But you have to start somewhere.”

“I know that, but I could do better.”

She sat up, disbelieving. “But you were so desperate to get a job, any job. Remember?”

“I wasn’t desperate desperate.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake!” She jumped to her feet, arms akimbo as she glowered down at him. “I bent over backward to get you this job and this is how you repay me? By whining before you’ve even started?”

His mouth fell open. “Bent over backward? What exactly did you do?”

She faltered, belatedly realizing she’d revealed too much of the truth. “Well, I had to put in a good word for you with Lex.”

“I hope you didn’t”—he wavered—“beg him to take me on. That would be too humiliating.”

She stared down at her crestfallen brother. What had she done to him? All these years she’d been protecting him, trying to shield him from the harsh realities of life. She’d thought she was being a good older sister, but she’d been doing Kevin a disservice. He needed to fight his own battles, to lose some and win some, to become a man on his own. Her well-meaning interference had only stymied his growth.

“I’m sorry.” She rubbed her throbbing temples. “I only wanted to help you.”

He slumped down, hands hanging between his knees. “Boy, do I feel like a fool now. I thought that interview was for real. I thought I nailed it, but that was your doing, not mine.”

She winced at his words. In her mind rose the image of Lex in the library this morning, his face stricken as the magnitude of his mistake dawned on him. They’d both made mistakes, the same mistakes that had split them apart ten months ago. When Kevin had messed up then, she shouldn’t have leaped to his defense so fiercely. She shouldn’t have demanded that Lex go easy on him. That had been unfair, to both Lex and Kevin. She had made a bad mistake then, and she’d almost repeated it, but not quite. Now, there was still a chance she could salvage something out of this mess.

“We both know you’re more than capable of doing the job,” she said.

“What if I screw up again like last time?” Kevin’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down.

“You’re going to do a stupid thing like that again? If you do, I wash my hands of you.”

“Oh?” He blinked in alarm.

“Yeah.” She folded her arms. Tough love. That was what Lex had recommended. It was time to give Kevin a taste of that. “I’ve done you a disservice, Kevin. All your life I’ve been too soft on you. I haven’t let you stand on your own two feet. But that’s going to change, starting tomorrow. Now that you’ve got a steady job with good prospects, you can start looking for a place of your own.”

“Oh jeez, how do I do that?”

“Like most people do. You check out Craigslist, make some phone calls, do a few visits.” The sight of his alarmed frown made her pause. “Look, it’s not that difficult.”

“Yeah, maybe I should move out.” Rubbing his hands on his knees, he gave her a watery smile. “You probably want more space now that you and Lex are, you know, back together.”

It was her turn to plaster a smile on her lips. “There’s no rush. Settle into your job first.”

She didn’t have the heart to tell him that she and Lex were no longer seeing each other. Though their reconciliation had been pure make-believe, the pain of parting wasn’t, not for her. All she could do now was force herself forward, one step and a time, until she had put enough distance between herself and her feelings for Lex.

…

Late afternoon the following day, Lex found himself alone in his office. It had been a hectic twenty-four hours. After he’d flown back to San Francisco, he’d followed up on what was happening to Nancy Bird. As promised, Kirk had confiscated every item of company property, both at the office and her home, and the security guys were trawling for some hard evidence.