My Ex's Billionaire Brother's Baby (Irresistible Desires #3)

Chapter 1

Asher

Roxanne Sinclair.

She shouldn’t be here.

Courtesy demands that she quit this job on her own, and I fully expected that she’d do so.

Why then is she strutting down the lobby with that practiced smile of hers that makes my stomach recoil?

The sharp click of her heels echoes across the marble floors of Sterling Group’s building, turning more heads than I care to count. Men glance at her openly. Women straighten instinctively when she passes.

Roxanne notices all of it, of course. She always does. And she wears attention like the diamonds that often adorn her neck.

Blonde hair falls over one shoulder in loose waves. Her hips sway in an almost seductive dance in that cream-fitted dress with every step she takes. She's wearing nude heels and gold earrings that probably cost more than some people’s rent.

She looks exactly like the kind of woman I’ve spent my entire life avoiding.

Beautiful, expensive, and calculating. And Roxanne Sinclair prided herself on being those things.

Her gaze catches mine from across the lobby.

There’s the briefest pause in her step before her smile sharpens.

Christ.

For one irrational second, I’m thrown completely off balance by the sight of her standing here again. After the engagement party disaster two weeks ago, Tristan humiliated her publicly by ending their relationship. She stormed out of the Sterling estate with that damn ring still on her finger.

I fully expected her to disappear afterward.

Women like Roxanne don’t linger once the money stops coming in.

Yet here she is.

It's clear now that she still has every intention of being my assistant.

And somehow, she still manages to look at me like I’m the problem.

The elevator dings open beside me, and she walks in without waiting for an invitation. The scent of vanilla and something floral follows her inside immediately, crawling beneath my skin in the most unwelcome way possible.

I step in after her.

The doors slide shut, and silence stretches between us heavily.

Roxanne pulls out her phone, entirely unbothered, like standing inches away from me doesn’t affect her at all. Maybe it doesn’t.

I stare ahead at the glowing floor numbers.

“You’re back,” I say flatly.

“Your observation skills remain unmatched, Mr. Sterling.”

My jaw ticks.

I should fire her for the tone alone. However, Roxanne Sinclair has never been the type to stop her tongue.

“You and Tristan are over.” I finally glance at her. “I assumed you’d move on by now.”

One perfectly shaped brow arches. “Move on?”

“To your next target.”

That finally gets her attention. Her blue eyes slide toward me slowly, dangerously amused.

“And here I thought you’d miss me.”

I let out a humorless laugh. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

The corner of her mouth curves anyway, like she knows exactly how to get under my skin and enjoys every second of it.

God, I hate that smile.

Hate the way it makes me think of things I shouldn’t.

Hate that I’ve spent the last year noticing entirely inappropriate details about my brother’s fiancée. The curve of her legs crossing beneath conference tables. The smooth line of her throat. Her mouth.

Especially her mouth.

“I hope you returned the million-dollar engagement ring.”

“Why would I? It’s the perfect compensation for this failed investment.”

Failed investment.

My jaw tightens as the words settle in my mind. That’s all the yearlong relationship was to her.

Despite knowing what she’s like and how women like her see relationships as nothing but transactional, hearing her say this angers me. Somehow, it’s like a part of me expected her to have changed miraculously.

Women like Roxanne Sinclair don’t change. She was that way when she approached me seven years ago. And she clearly went after Tristan for the same reason she tried for my attention back then.

It’s just a pity Tristan wasn’t smart enough and fell into the trap. It might not be a physical one, but for them, there’s always a scheme involved.

I know this because a woman just like her birthed me and another, my half-brother, whose heart Roxanne just broke.

My mother once called marriage “security” during a fight with my father. I’d been fourteen when I overheard it from the staircase.

Security.

Loving a man was no different from buying stock.

The memory flashes hot and unwelcome through my mind before I shove it away. This is another reason I can’t stand Roxanne. She reminds me too much of a past I badly want to forget.

Roxanne slips her phone back into her purse, a well-manicured finger curled ever so slightly. She’s entirely unaffected by the tension thickening inside the elevator. Meanwhile, I’m suddenly too aware of everything.

Her soft scent wrapped around me as I studied the curve of her waist beneath that fitted dress. I drag my eyes across the smooth, pale skin exposed along her thighs.

Fuck! I have to snap out of this.

I force my gaze back to the glowing floor numbers.

This woman was engaged to my brother two weeks ago. That alone should’ve killed whatever sick attraction keeps clawing at me whenever she’s near. Instead, it’s worse now.

This could be happening because Tristan no longer has any claim to her.

The thought clenches my gut as soon as it crosses my mind. How could I even think of that? She’s Roxanne Sinclair.

Roxanne glances sideways. “You’re glaring very intensely for this early in the morning.”

“You seem unusually cheerful for a woman whose engagement collapsed publicly.”

I don’t know the basics of how their relationship ended, but Roxanne had muttered something about Tristan cheating. I’m not so sure I believe that because the one who’d been really furious about the whole saga was Tristan.

Roxanne, like now, was way too composed for a woman who supposedly got cheated on. That reaction only makes sense if this is all just a cooked-up lie.

“What can I say? I’m resilient.” She says, lifting one shoulder elegantly.

“No,” I murmur. “You’re opportunistic.”

Her eyes narrow slightly as her mouth forms a thin line.

And there it is. That tiny crack beneath the polished exterior. I rarely ever see her have that look. It shouldn’t satisfy me as much as it does.

The elevator stops on the executive floor. She steps out first, and my attention is instantly drawn to her swaying hips as she struts down the hall.

I don’t know what I hate more: the fact that I notice things like this or that my body reacts before my brain catches up.

“You know,” she says casually as I fall in line beside her. “For someone who thinks so little of me, you spend a concerning amount of time thinking about my personal life.”

“I think about how your mess affects this company.”

“Mm.” Her mouth curves. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

Damn!

Everything about her feels deliberately provocative. Why? And how does she manage to do that? That tone and that smile rub me the wrong way in a way I can’t process.

And the worst part is, I genuinely can’t tell if she’s doing it intentionally or if this is simply who she is.

Employees greet us carefully as we pass. The atmosphere shifts almost instantly whenever I walk through the building. I pretend not to notice as people straighten up and conversations reduce.

Fear has always been efficient in making people do what’s needed. Roxanne, however, walks beside me completely unaffected. Like she doesn’t notice the tension everyone else lives under.

Or maybe she simply doesn’t care. Does she even care about anything?

From what I’ve noticed so far, I doubt she does.

We reach my office, and she moves toward her desk outside without waiting for instructions. I watch her as she instantly gets to work on her monitor, acting like nothing happened.

I clench my jaw hard as I stall.

Even if she wouldn’t be devastated, she should at least show a bit of regret. Instead, Roxanne Sinclair returns to work looking flawless enough to ruin my entire morning.

I step into my office and loosen my tie slightly. It doesn’t help get the image of her in that dress out of my mind, though.

My gaze drifts through the glass wall separating my office from hers. She’s focused on her computer, blonde hair falling over one shoulder as she flips through documents.

I can’t deny it, she’s pretty good at her job. A year working under me and she’s somehow become better than every assistant before her.

She anticipates meetings before I mention them. Fixes problems before they escalate and remembers details most executives forget.

All of these are qualities one would want in an assistant, but the problem this poses is that I can’t even justify firing her.

Doing that will only make it obvious that my reasons have nothing to do with work. That’s unacceptable, and I’ve dealt with executives for less.

However, Roxanne needs to go.

I only hired her in the first place because Tristan begged. Now that they’re over, she should also leave.

I lean back slowly in my chair, running a hand through my hair.

Fine. If Roxanne insists on staying, then I’ll make sure she regrets it so that she quits on her own.

By seven-thirty that evening, the executive floor is nearly empty. Rain taps steadily against the windows overlooking Manhattan while Roxanne sits across from me at the small conference table inside my office.

I squint at her, scrutinizing her every move. She’s barely paying attention to what she’s doing. There’s a tightness around her eyes now that wasn’t there earlier.

Good.

Stacks of acquisition files sit between us, untouched because I keep adding more. She hasn’t complained once, and that somehow irritates me even more.

Naturally, I’d be happy to have an employee who wouldn’t pose challenges for me, but still, like everything with Roxanne, this also isn’t normal.

“You missed three formatting errors,” I say, returning my gaze to the document in my hand.

“I’ll correct them.”

“You also attached the wrong financial projections.”

“No, I didn’t,” she snaps.

I glance at her as she reaches across the table, leaning close enough for her vanilla and floral scent to invade my lungs again. My eyes betray me instantly as she flips open the file.

Her dress has ridden slightly higher on her thighs, and my hand is barely inches from her thigh. My nails bite into my palm as I snatch my gaze away from the distracting sight.

“There,” she says coolly, tapping the page. “Correct projections.”

Her hair brushes my arm accidentally, and my entire body goes rigid, taking away the small bit of control I’ve been able to garner.

Roxanne slowly looks up. And damn, she notices.

Of course, she’ll notice. I’ve been having a hard time looking away from her. And she definitely knows the effect she has on men.

That smug little glint in her blue eyes is proof of that fact.

“You seem tense, Mr. Sterling.”

My brows furrow. “You seem desperate to keep this job.”

Her expression sharpens immediately. “Finally.”

“Finally, what?”

“The real reason you’ve been making my work so inexplicably harder today is so you can get me to leave my job.”

I set the file down carefully. “You’re not important enough for mind games, Roxanne.”

A soft laugh leaves her mouth. It’s low and humorless, yet it sings slightly through my chest.

“You’re a terrible liar.”

Before I can respond, her phone suddenly buzzes against the table. I glare at it sharply and frown even harder when I see the name on the screen.

Felix.

I’ve heard her call that name so many times on the phone this past year. No matter how tied up she is with work, Roxanne never ignores a call from Felix.

Who’s he?

My initial thought is that Felix is another wealthy idiot keeping her entertained on the side. But I didn’t want to believe she’d be that heartless to do that while engaged to Tristan.

However, even when Tristan was in the picture, something about how she treats this Felix person always felt different.

Roxanne immediately reaches for the phone.

“Ignore it,” I say flatly. “We’re not finished.”

She stands up without a word as she picks up her phone.

“You’re on company time.”

Her gaze lifts to mine coolly. “It’s nearly eight o’clock.”

Her sharp tone actually stops me from arguing further. My brows draw tightly together as she walks to a corner in my office.

And for some reason I absolutely cannot explain, I watch her as she answers the call.