CHAPTER ELEVEN
S KYLA R TOSSED AND TURNED . It was well after midnight and she couldn’t sleep a wink. She’d finally be seeing Zane again tomorrow—taking him on their next Helberg visit. Though secretly she wished it was Saturday tomorrow. Another date night. Last Saturday should have been enough. It wasn’t. Even though it had bled into Sunday. She was losing sight of her goal, prioritising the pleasure he could give her instead. Maybe her father was right—lust led you from the path and into selfishness. All the more reason to sate that lust, then, right? Because it would ease eventually, surely.
Her phone rang. She glanced at the caller ID and answered before thinking better of it.
‘It’s me.’
‘Yeah.’ She was glad he couldn’t see the smile on her face. ‘What do you want?’
‘I was thinking about you.’
‘So you decided to phone and wake me up?’
‘You weren’t asleep anyway. You answered too quickly and you sound wide-awake and breathless. Why are you breathless?’
She gritted her teeth to stop herself laughing. ‘What were you thinking about me?’
‘Everything and then some.’
She could hear his smile. ‘Oh?’
‘I’ve been thinking about some things we didn’t cover the other night.’
‘Oh?’ she squeaked.
‘I’ve bet you’ve never had phone sex either, huh,’ he purred.
‘Um—’
‘Think about where you’d want me to touch you if I were there now,’ he said softly.
She’d spent every night this week thinking about that. Which was why she was wide-awake now.
‘Skylar?’
‘Mmm-hmm?’
‘Touch there,’ he muttered.
Her toes curled. ‘Zane...’
‘I dare you.’
Heat burned through her because he hadn’t needed to dare, she already was. ‘What about you?’
‘I’m already there. I’ve got myself in hand and every time you sigh, I stroke.’
‘Oh...’
‘Yeah...like that.’
‘Ohh...’ She dragged in a breath. ‘Faster?’
‘If you want—’
She wanted. So much. ‘Tell me more,’ she breathed.
He muttered. Low. Hot. Dirty.
‘Ohh... I... Zane... ’ As she dragged in a deep breath of recovery, she heard his groan. She flushed with pleasure again.
‘Want to hear some of my other ideas?’ he drawled.
‘I think you should write them down,’ she whispered, broken yet burning all over again.
‘Bullet points?’
‘Yeah. Works for me.’
His laughter was low. ‘See you tomorrow, Skylar. Sweet dreams.’
Her dreams were anything but sweet.
‘We’re going to one of the distribution warehouses in New Jersey.’ She couldn’t quite look him in the eye after that phone call last night. And she knew he knew it. He looked so amused. So smug.
‘Let’s go in my car,’ he said. ‘It’s a long drive.’
‘Yes,’ she said primly. ‘How ever will we fill the time?’
She shouldn’t have been so transparent. Definitely shouldn’t have blurred the boundaries between their meetings about the business and their dates. But it was too late. She watched him press the button to close the privacy screen the second they were both belted in the back of the car. Then he turned, leaning above her, retribution glinting in his eyes. ‘You’re a temptress, Skylar Bennet.’
She stared at him.
‘You drive me crazy,’ he muttered. ‘Make me forget everything but what I want to do with you.’
That was the only balm on the burn searing through her—that he felt this intense drive to touch her every bit as much as she ached for it. ‘And what’s that?’
He kept her pinned in his gaze. She waited. His hand slid up her thigh and under the hem of her skirt. He wasn’t even touching her skin to skin—hadn’t slid those tormenting fingers beneath her panties. But the slow circles, the skating tips of his fingers were enough to pull her into the furnace... He wove the fingers of his other hand into her braid and kept her head tilted towards him. The smallest sinful smile curved his lips. She knew what he wanted. To watch her—this close—as he made her lose control with the gentlest, lightest of touches. Such torment. Because she knew his strength and she wanted all of him—full power. Her breathing shortened, she spread her legs, she tilted her chin. She wanted his kiss. She wanted him to lose control too, wanted him with her in this.
‘Let go, beautiful. I’m here. I’ve got you,’ he breathed. His blue eyes gleamed—provocative, possessive, protective. Giving her almost everything she wanted.
She sank, shuddering under the waves of bliss as they washed through her. Breathing out deeply, she looked back up into his eyes—saw the glint of satisfaction in his eyes, the strain of desire in the firm hold of his mouth.
She wanted more. Of course she wanted more. She could never concentrate now. Not on anything else until she’d made him feel the same.
The flicker of amusement in his face told her he knew. ‘One, nil,’ he smugly muttered.
‘You’re keeping a tally?’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Of course you’re keeping a tally.’
This was all a game to him. It could be to her too, couldn’t it? But with no rules at all now. The man did not play fair and there was nothing she couldn’t try with him.
‘What can I say, I like numbers.’ He shrugged. ‘You like them too. You know we have so much more in common than just our hometown. You’re as competitive as I am. As focused. As driven.’
‘You think?’ She liked that he saw her as an equal. As a worthy competitor. She leaned across him.
He stiffened. ‘What are you doing?’
She leaned a little lower. ‘Evening the score.’
It took Zane for ever to realise that the car had stopped. Good thing the rear windows were tinted. Her ‘evening the score’ had felled him. He’d hauled her close to finally kiss her. Once he’d started, he couldn’t stop. He’d kept kissing her and it had culminated in this—the complete loss of time, control, composure. Her crisp—so very HR—blouse was untucked and creased, most of the buttons undone. Her skin was flushed, her lips puffy. Her eyes were huge. Dishevelled and dazed, there was no hiding what she’d been doing. While he was just hot. So hot. And not just his shirt but his trousers were undone. He had the horrifying thought that his hunger for her was never going to end.
He pulled back from her and coughed. ‘I don’t think either of us are in any state to meet people.’
‘No,’ she agreed. ‘We’re just here to see property anyway. It’s a site expansion.’
Zane ran his hand through his hair and tried to summon a speck of concentration. Property was Cade’s interest. Whether this was the piece the guy was after, he didn’t know.
‘Why a blank site?’ He glanced out the window. ‘There’s nothing here, Skylar. What are we doing?’
‘It was metaphorical. I was hoping you can see the potential.’
He hated that this deal was between them. He wanted to forget about it so he could focus on seeing out this fling. Educating her in so many other ways.
‘You can’t, can you?’ she said quietly. ‘Because you’re so stuck on the fact that the old boss didn’t give you a scholarship? Hell, Zane. It wasn’t like you needed it. You’d achieved more by the time you were twenty than he personally had.’
He could tell her the rest of his history with Reed. How truly life-changing his meeting with the man had been. How devastating. Maybe then she would understand. But he’d never told anyone all of that. Never discussed it even with his mother. And she’d been there. He didn’t think he physically could. You kept your pain to yourself. You didn’t complain.
‘You really can’t forgive and forget?’ She waved at the bare plot. ‘It could be a blank state. Start afresh. Rebuild it. You could do that. You could do anything.’
No, he couldn’t. Not with this. ‘It’s going to happen anyway, Skylar. If not me then it’ll be some other entity.’
Skylar was failing on several levels. To convince him. And to keep this ‘arrangement’ from sliding into something that meant more to her.
Maybe he was right about Helberg but she’d worked her whole life to get to where she was—and if she wasn’t here, then...where? She’d been on this one path her whole life. Not daring to deviate from the plan put in place by her father so long ago. She didn’t know what she was going to do going forward if it all ended—and she didn’t like that uncertainty.
‘You get out of HQ and come to empty plots of land quite often?’ he asked her.
‘I like getting about to see people on other sites. It makes me feel more connected to everyone within the company.’
‘Because it’s lonely in your office going from project to project?’
‘I like people.’
‘Yeah, I know all about how you help everyone, Bernie told me.’
‘You don’t think I should care about people, only profit?’
‘Without profit, those people you like don’t have jobs,’ he said. ‘That’s the rapidly approaching possibility for half of Helberg’s employees. Sure, some divisions are doing well, but some definitely aren’t. Study the numbers, Skylar. I know you can see this.’
As much as she didn’t want to admit it, parts were bloated and ineffectual. Divisions could be run better. Hell, she knew that better than anyone. She’d seen the senior management and their time wasting.
‘Decent management might be able to turn it around,’ she said obstinately.
‘You don’t think Reed Helberg was decent?’
‘Do you really have no respect for him at all? He built a massive company. He did good in the community.’
‘He inherited a successful company and proceeded to run it into the ground by focusing on expansion into luxury brands with little relevance to core business. He did limited charitable acts to buy praise and goodwill. To be seen as someone outstanding. But he was a selfish egotist. You know he was hardly in the office in recent years.’
She didn’t want to admit that Zane might be right on that either. She’d hardly seen Reed in the office. She’d heard that in the last months he cantankerously called in with instructions and commands that sent shivers through the finance department.
‘It’s still worth having someone come in and try.’ She drew in a breath. ‘People have invested more than their time in Helberg. They’ve invested their money.’ She tried to make him understand. ‘The old employees share scheme encouraged them to invest—it was considered a sign of loyalty.’
He stilled. ‘Did you invest?’
She shook her head. ‘That scheme was closed to new employees a few years ago. But some of the long-timers did. Now the share price has dropped and those loans aren’t repaid and...’
He inhaled deeply, cursed beneath his breath. ‘Bernie?’
She nodded.
‘Skylar,’ he said quietly. ‘Isn’t that all the more reason to let someone come in and liquidate where necessary and lift the price of assets to the best possible?’
‘People will lose their jobs.’
‘People are made redundant every day. We’ll do our best but the alternative is that it goes under completely and everyone loses their jobs.’ He looked at her. ‘You can’t guarantee security, Skylar.’
Yeah. She knew that. She just didn’t want to. And she still wished someone would try.
Zane drew a deep breath into his lungs, trying not to get distracted by her beauty again. But she came alive when she talked about her colleagues. She cared about those people passionately—her work family. And right now she made such a different picture to the wide-eyed girl he remembered silently watching the world from the top floor. The girl who’d all but crawled inside his shirt when he’d stolen a kiss from her.
He wanted another kiss now.
He liked to ensure his lovers were satisfied but his desire to satisfy her was on another level. He didn’t just want her satisfied. He wanted her total surrender. He wanted her eyes glowing and her skin flushed and her as out of control as ever. With him. It was insane. Was it really just that interrupted kiss? That they’d not burned out their chemistry at the time, and her father’s rejection had ignited another determination within him? Did he want Skylar this much because he’d been told in no uncertain terms that he couldn’t have her?
But now he could. Was. Would some more. So he would get over it, right?
Because he had no intention of ever settling down. Of ever hurting a child the way he had been. Because he’d have no kids. Ever. No commitment.
He just needed to rid himself of this fixation on her. And he was sick of meeting her in offices or shops or seeing factory floors. Maybe he’d show her how spectacularly the division of assets could work in a company’s favour.
‘I’ve thought of my amendment to our arrangement,’ he said huskily.
Her eyes widened.
‘I don’t want a date this Saturday.’
Her jaw dropped pleasingly.
‘I want a whole weekend,’ he added quickly. ‘A long weekend. Away.’
‘Where?’
‘It’s a surprise. But there’s relevance to our business as well.’
He almost had her. Then he saw the shadows flitter in. ‘I can’t take time off work—’
‘You worked on the last long weekend. I bet you have far too many holidays accrued. We’ll fly out Friday morning, fly back Monday night.’
He’d known she’d worry about work.
They’d have whole days and nights together. He would have his fill of her. He would get control of his own mind again. Dial it back for the duration of the time they’d be dating. Because this was only a game. That was all. And this weekend would be just the thing to get it back under control.
‘Would it be public?’
‘No.’
‘That means several days with nothing on that website.’
‘No problem. We’ve given them enough for now.’
She shook her head. ‘I can’t make those arrangements that quickly. I can’t just abandon all my projects. I’ve got too much work to do.’
He understood and respected that even though his body rebelled. ‘Then we’ll have a quiet weekend this weekend so you can get ahead and clear the decks. We’ll go the weekend after.’
She looked tempted. But also strangely wary. ‘So we won’t have a date this Saturday?’
‘Are you worried you’re missing out?’ He felt a ridiculous warmth bloom in his chest.
‘No, it would be convenient, actually. I’m just concerned about your ability to have a boring night at home all alone.’
‘I guess I can manage it just this once.’