“He’s got that brooding thing down pat,” Sofie murmured in my ear as she handed me coffee. “If I wasn’t happily engaged I’d try to put a smile on his handsome face. You’re single. You should so go there. I definitely think you could put a smile on his face.”
I covered a reactive blanch with a smirk. “I think it would take a gymnast and her twin sister to do that, babe.”
We looked at each other, laughter we couldn’t quite hold down bubbling up between us. It was a relief to laugh under such intense circumstances.
Unfortunately our laughter drew Caine’s attention. We knew this because everything went quiet and we turned to find him staring curiously at me while Benito . . . well, he appeared to be trying to fry both Sofie’s ass and mine with the heat of his glower.
Sofie skittered off.
“Let’s take a break.” Benito sighed and approached the laptop. “You’ve been acting strange all morning,” he said under his breath. “Am I missing something?”
“No.” I stared at him, trying not to give away the truth. “Coffee?”
He nodded, no longer angry, just slightly disappointed. Which was worse.
I wisely hurried back into the apartment and headed to the bathroom. I thought a splash of cold water on my face might do me good. My hands shook as I cupped my palms under the tap water. “Shit,” I whispered.
I was a mess.
Again.
Enough was enough. My job wouldn’t survive another public outburst. Sure, it was a crappy situation, but I needed to pull myself together and act like a professional. Resolved to do so, I strode out of the bathroom with my shoulders thrown back and almost walked into a coffee cup.
The coffee cup was clasped in a large hand that belonged to Caine.
Staring up at him, I was struck mute. Mostly because my pulse was racing so hard it was difficult to concentrate on anything else, let alone words.
Caine raised an eyebrow and pushed the coffee toward me.
I took it, completely unable to keep the bafflement off my face.
“A peace offering,” he said, and I shivered again at the sound of his deep, cultured voice. “It would seem I scare you for some absurd reason.”
Our eyes locked, and my pulse was racing for an entirely different reason now.
“What are they saying about me these days?”
For a moment I forgot everything but what it was like to be lost in his beautiful eyes. “Lots,” I answered softly. “They are saying lots of things about you these days.”
He grinned, proving me wrong—he did not need a gymnast and her twin to put a smile on his face. “Well, you have me at a disadvantage. You know me, but I don’t know you.” He took a step forward and I suddenly felt overwhelmingly, deliciously surrounded by him.
Oh God, oh God, oh God. “There’s not much to tell.”
Caine dipped his head, his dark eyes liquid with a heat I felt between my legs. “Somehow I doubt that.” His eyes flickered to my lips before returning to mine. “I want to know more, Alexa.”
“Um . . .” The old cliché “be careful what you wish for” suddenly floated across my mind.
He seemed to mistake the fact that I was a flustered panicked mess for deliberately being enigmatic, because he warned, “I’m not finishing this shoot until you tell me something about yourself. Time is money.” He smirked. “Gotta keep the boss happy.”
Was he referring to himself or Benito?
I stared at him, feeling my palms turn clammy as my heart rate increased, speeding up by the mounting seconds of silence stretching between us. And that was when it happened. Overwhelmed and thrown by his sudden appearance in my life after only having just discovered he was the little boy who played victim to my father’s villain, I went into meltdown. “I know you,” I blurted out. “No, I mean . . .” I stepped forward, edging us farther down the hall where we had more privacy. The coffee cup trembled in my hands. “My name is Alexa Holland.”
Shock moved through him.
To witness it was awful. His whole body jerked like I’d hit him, and the powerful businessman visibly paled before me.
I forged on. “My father is Alistair Holland. I know he had an affair with your mom and I know how it ended. I’m so—”
Caine’s hand cut through the air between us in a gesture to silence me. Fury had replaced the shock. His nostrils flared with it. “I’d stop if I were you.” His words were guttural with menace.
I couldn’t.
“I just found out. I had no idea until a few months ago that it was you. I don’t even—”
“I said stop.” He stepped forward, forcing me back against the wall. “I don’t want to hear it.”
“Please, listen—”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” He slammed a hand against the wall above my head and I saw past the cultured, ruthless gentleman everyone else saw to a man who was far less polished and way more dangerous than anyone truly realized. “Your father seduced my mother and after introducing her to drugs, left her to OD in a hotel room because trying to save her meant watching his precious inheritance go up in flames.” His face was so close to mine now I felt the warm puff of his breath on my lips. “He destroyed my family. I want nothing from him or you. I certainly don’t want to breathe the same air as either one of you.”
He abruptly pushed away from the wall and marched out of the hallway.
Most women would probably be in tears after a verbal assault like that. Not me. Growing up, I’d watched my mother succumb to tears in every spat she ever had, and I’d hated that. When she was angry she cried, when all she really wanted to do was be angry.
So I never cried when I was angry.
And I was pissed at my estranged father for putting me in a position where I’d be painted with the same disgusting brush as him.
Caine’s last words penetrated through my thoughts.
“Oh, shit.” I rushed out of the hallway.
Caine was speaking to Benito in the kitchen.
My stomach flipped as Benito flinched at whatever Caine said. He looked over at me, bewildered, before turning to respond to the other man.
Caine glowered and whipped around, searching the room for someone. His eyes locked on a young man dressed in a stylish suit. “Ethan, I want a different photographer.” His voice carried across the room so everyone heard and caused them to halt in what they were doing. “Or I don’t do the cover.”
Ethan nodded militantly. “I’m on it, sir.”
I was horrified; my eyes flew to Benito, whose mouth had dropped open in equal horror. Caine didn’t stick around long enough to witness that, though. He was already striding toward me, and as he passed me to head for the exit, he didn’t even look at me.
I felt sick.
Benito’s tone was quiet, surprisingly calm. His words were not. “What the fuck did you do?”
* * *
My friend Rachel moved the restless child in her arms from one side of her lap to the other. “It’s been five hours. Calm down. Your boss will call you to clear this whole misunderstanding up.”
I eyed her daughter, Maisy, with growing concern. “Should Maisy’s face be that purple?”
Rachel frowned at the subject change and looked at her daughter. “Maisy, stop holding your breath.”
Maisy stared up at her stubbornly.
“Uh . . . she’s still holding her breath.” Why Rachel was not as worried by this as I was I did not know.
Rachel made a face. “You won’t get a toy if you keep holding your breath.”
Maisy let out a comically long exhale and then grinned at me.
“She’s the devil,” I murmured softly, eyeing her warily.
“Tell me about it.” Rachel shrugged. “Apparently I pulled the old holding–my-breath-to-get-what-I-want trick when I was her age.”
I glanced down at my half-eaten lunch. “We can leave and go for a walk through the gardens if she’s getting restless.”
“We’re not finished calming
you down.” Rachel waved at a passing waiter. “Two more diet sodas and an orange juice, please.”
I didn’t argue. Out of all of my friends, Rachel was the most persistent and overbearing. That was probably why she was the only one of them I still saw on a regular basis.
There had been four of us, close friends, in college: me, Rachel, Viv, and Maggie. Out of the four of us, I was the only one not married, and I was childless. Between them they had four kids. I’d lost contact with Viv and Maggie over the years, and now I only saw Rachel every few weeks. I’d been so busy with work and socializing with colleagues that I’d never bothered to make new friendships outside of the old or outside of my career.
If that horrible gut feeling I had turned out to be true, if Benito fired me, I was looking at a very grim future of no money, no pretty apartment, and no social life.
“Maybe you should make mine a vodka,” I grumbled.
Rachel heaved a sigh. “Benito is not going to fire you. Not after all your hard work. Right, baby?” She bounced her daughter on her knee.
Maisy giggled at me and shook her head, her dark curls flying into her mother’s face.
“Great, even the three-year-old knows I’m fucked.”
Rachel grimaced. “You can’t say fucked in front of a kid, Lex.” Our drinks arrived and she pushed mine toward me. “Now calm your shit so we can talk about me for a while.”
I smiled a real smile for the first time in a week. “Only if you tell me one more time I’m not going to get fired.”
“Lex, you’re not going to get fired.”
* * *
“Alexa, you’re fired!”
My stomach dropped at the irate beginning to the voice mail message Benito had left me.
“I don’t know what the fuck happened this morning, but you are done. And not just with me. Oh no! Do you know what you cost me today? You pissed Caine Carraway off so badly I lost Mogul and two other magazines from the same media company! My reputation is on the line here. After everything I’ve worked for! Well . . .” His voice lowered, which was even scarier than the shouting. “Consider yourself fucked, because I’m going to make sure you never work in this industry again.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and sucked in a shuddering, teary breath.
This was bad.
This was so, so bad.
Samantha Young, One King's Way
(Series: On Dublin Street # 6.50)
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