A few seconds in his embrace and she’d demolished all his defenses. In the months following their breakup, he’d worked so hard to obliterate her from his memories, but one minute of kissing her, relishing her silky skin, cupping her full, gorgeous breasts, and he was rock hard and desperate to lose himself inside her. Ready to lose his head over her yet again.
He let out a muffled groan. Was this a good idea, or was he playing with fire? He gazed across the terrace toward his study. Through the French doors, he watched Jacinta seated at his desk as she peered intently at his computer screen, her fingers toying abstractedly with her hair.
She was good at her job, no denying that. If the mole had left a trace of how the leak had happened, she’d find it. He’d been right to contact her. But he’d have to put a tighter leash on his libido when she was around. If he couldn’t keep his hands off her, she might change her mind about helping him. And it didn’t do him any good to lose control and self-respect over his ex-girlfriend.
Lex forced himself to turn away. Leaving his house, he walked to Lafayette Park where he stewed over his problems. His business worries were inextricably linked with his family difficulties. He couldn’t trust his family, yet soon he might be forced to tell them the secret he’d kept to himself all these months. If he hadn’t caught his betrayer by then, things could get nasty. He needed to find this mole soon.
He returned to his house as unsettled as he’d left it. Jacinta was still at the desk when he reentered the study.
“Sorry,” Jacinta said. “I haven’t found anything useful yet.”
“Why don’t you take a break?” he said. “I’ll make us some coffee.”
She followed him into the kitchen, where she hopped onto a stool at the marble counter while he started up the De’Longhi espresso machine.
“I’ll need a few other logs to check,” she said when he produced a latte for her and slid it across the counter. “You don’t have them right now, but your IT department should be able to provide them for you.”
“Sure, just write down what you need, and I’ll get it.” He popped a dark roast capsule for himself into the machine.
“My time wasn’t completely wasted,” Jacinta said. “I downloaded the latest driver for your printer so you won’t get those fuzzy lines when you print out photos.”
“Thanks.” He lifted his eyebrows. “I’ve been trying to get that figured out for a while.”
A small smile played on her lips. “It still amazes me that someone as smart as you can be such a techno-dunce about printers.”
“So you admit I’m smart?” He grinned.
“Did you hear my complete sentence?”
“Nope. I stopped listening as soon as you said I was smart.”
“Figures.” She chuckled. “You really should get someone from your office to maintain your home computer equipment.”
“I guess that would be better than calling IT support after hours.”
He stopped short, the grin slipping from his lips. Jacinta lowered her gaze to her coffee. Calling IT support after hours was how he’d met her in the first place. Late one night, unable to print a document at his office and too impatient to wait until morning, he’d paged the on-call person, who had somehow inveigled Kevin to cover for him. But Kevin had left the pager at Jacinta’s place, and when she’d read the message on the pager she’d worried her brother would get into trouble and responded to the call herself, even though she wasn’t an employee.
Which was how a gorgeous woman with long, dark hair and a killer smile had walked into Lex’s office at ten p.m. and evaporated all his testy frustration. She’d fixed his printer problem with insulting ease and made him forget why he was even working late. From the moment she’d handed his printed page to him with a grin and a roll of her caramel eyes, he’d lusted after her. Had known he wouldn’t stop pursuing her until she was his. Luckily, she was just as hot for him, and soon she was where he’d first envisioned her—in his bed. All his.
She wasn’t his anymore, but damn it was hard to erase the memories.
“So your boss is okay with you helping me out?” he asked as he turned back to the coffee machine.
“He’s not thrilled I’ve pushed back some of my deadlines.” She shrugged. “But he’ll survive.”
“You’re too valuable to them. I remember the kind of hours you put in.” He picked up his coffee and joined her at the kitchen counter.
“It’s paid off.” She smiled tentatively. “I was promoted last month. Senior project manager.”
“That’s great.” He blinked, the instinct to pull her into a congratulatory hug clashing with the realization he couldn’t. He cleared his throat and downed some coffee. “You deserve it.”
She gave a deprecating shrug and licked a spot of milk froth off her lips. The sight of her tongue sweeping over her lower lip sent his cock rising.
“Did you speak to Kevin?” he asked as he averted his eyes from her mouth.
“Yup. We’ve emailed his résumé already. He’s so eager to make amends.”
The sight of her pensive expression made him shake his head. “You’re too close to your brother. You coddle him too much.”
Her mouth settled into a familiar stubborn line. “We love each other. Is that such a crime?”
“You love him. I don’t see much quid pro quo happening.”
A trace of color rose in her cheeks. “When I was in college, he worked part-time jobs, looked after all the household chores so I could focus on my studies. We had no one else, but it didn’t matter because we could rely on each other.” She pushed her hair away from her face. “But I guess you can’t understand that, since you don’t trust your own family.”
If he’d had a sibling, maybe that would have made a difference. He didn’t want to admit it, but he envied the bond between Jacinta and her brother, even though she was blind to Kevin’s faults.
“Have you ever considered that you’re hindering Kevin instead of helping him?” he asked. “If you forced him to survive on his own two feet once in a while, it would do him good.”
“Tough love? Is that how you were brought up?”
“I wasn’t cushioned from all my failures, if that’s what you mean.”
When he was twelve, he’d been sent to boarding school. To make a man out of him, his father had said, a man fit to run the Rochester empire. Toughness, yes, he’d gotten a lot of that from the old man. Love, that was debatable—and in any case, irrelevant now, his father being dead this past year and a half.
“Kevin’s not like you or most people.” She toyed with her empty coffee cup. “He’s sensitive, emotional, sometimes irrational.”
“Irrational—you can say that again. Why else did he send those fake emails?” He hadn’t meant to drag that out again. They’d argued so bitterly over it already, but he couldn’t help himself.
But this time, instead of getting riled up, she simply sighed. “Kevin is impressionable and, I hate to say it, a little immature. I think he was trying to impress one of his colleagues, someone who’d bragged about his computer skills. Kevin didn’t mean any real damage. It was an error of judgment, a brain snap.” Her eyes darkened as she regarded him. “You’ve never done anything stupid in your life?”
“I have, and I’ve paid for it.” Like letting himself get carried away with Jacinta. Thinking she was different from everyone else. Being crushed when it turned out she wasn’t.
She pushed to her feet, hands spread wide. “And Kevin’s paid for his mistake. He’s wiser now.”
So they were back to bickering over her brother. But Kevin wasn’t the real problem, just the catalyst to Lex realizing that, like so many other women he’d dated, Jacinta thought she had a hold over him, that she could weasel a concession out of him he’d never normally give to an employee who’d screwed up as badly as Kevin had. She might not be into his wealth or his social connections, but she sure as hell thought she could use him for his CEO position. That was his deal-breaker. He could never compromise his principles, not for anyone. And the fact that even now she was still arguing her brother’s case and not acknowledging his at all meant he’d been right all along to break up with her.
Chilled by the thought, he picked up the two empty coffee cups and moved to the sink. He’d been the ultimate fool over Jacinta. The four months they’d been together had been a wild, hallucinogenic ride. But that was part of the problem—the sex had been so deliriously good and all-consuming that they’d barely had time for anything else. The argument over Kevin had been their first fight, and maybe they hadn’t been equipped to handle such a serious disagreement when they’d never had so much as a petty squabble about leaving the toilet seat up.
Kevin had broken the spell so he could see the harsh truth. There was nothing between him and Jacinta except sexual chemistry. Nothing more than a freakish cocktail of pheromones.
Judging from last night, one sip of that cocktail could still go straight to his head. Was it the same for Jacinta? Or was it possible she’d put on an act? Damn, that was hard to believe. He was almost 100 percent convinced she hadn’t faked her reaction to his kisses last night, but then again, she’d pretended so easily in front of Carl, telling him that bullshit story about how they’d reconciled. She’d fooled his friend, so maybe all that kissing and sighing and moaning in the bushes had been fake too. To get him hooked again.