Chapter One #3
She didn’t have to look at him to know he’d have pulled one foot up against the wall, that the other hand would be tucked into his pocket. That his gaze would sweep over the room, assessing the situation, wondering if there was a fire he’d have to put out.
His intense physicality, his indefatigable energy had always awed her. But now it felt exhausting to be so in tune with his every word, gesture and nuance, his very breath. More than disenchanting to admit that he’d never know her or want her on that level.
Holding that feeling close, Nush drank the water. As hard as it was to bear, it was the thing that would help her move on.
His shoulder nudged hers, his profile sharp and stark. “You’re upset, Princesa.”
Are you and Laura Huntington dating?
Have you had sex with her?
What do I do to make you see me like that?
Do you feel this too or is it just me?
Nush looked at the empty glass in her hand, following the trails of condensation, willing her body to ignore the warmth emanating from his.
To not draw the scent of him into her lungs.
To not chase this shaky desire she felt at his nearness like an addict.
“Is there a reason you’re stating the obvious? ”
If he noted her bitchy tone, he ignored it. “What did Yana say to upset you?”
“Just bringing me up to speed on some politics at OneTech.”
He tapped at her knuckles. “Don’t worry about it, Nush. I’ll handle it.”
“Is Ms. Huntington joining the executive team?” The question escaped her before she’d decided to ask it.
He sent her a long, leisurely sideways look and Nush tried to not fidget.
His surprise wasn’t unwarranted. Usually, she stayed miles away from the politics of OneTech, happy to be in her lab.
Thaata had tried numerous times to get her involved in the running of the company but she’d hidden.
Usually behind Caio’s broad shoulders. Had used him as a shield again and again.
“Probably. Laura, unlike her useless brother, would be a great addition to the team. For a Huntington, I like her immensely,” he said with a grin.
He liked Laura. Immensely.
She couldn’t remember a time when he’d actually said he liked a woman or a man.
Outside of her sisters and her and their grandparents, he had no close friends.
Not in any context. The long hours he worked made him just as much a loner as she was.
And his family, she’d learned long ago, was a forbidden topic for all of them.
Her chest ached as if someone was pushing a tremendous weight down on her. Even with her eyes closed, she sensed him turn fully toward her. Felt his gaze sweep over her features. His fingers were firm as he lifted her fisted hand from her side. “What did your grandfather’s note say?”
She jerked her hand away, giving him her shoulder. “It’s private.”
“Even to share with me?”
“Despite what you think, I have a life that doesn’t revolve around you, Caio. Beyond being your good little worker droid, making you millions, I mean.”
She sensed his shock in his sudden stillness. “Worker droid?” Cool, smooth tone still. “Jesus, you’re more than upset if you think that’s what I think of you. What’s going on with you, Nush?”
“Leave me alone. Don’t manage me. Don’t—”
“Leaving you alone during this time is the last thing your grandfather would expect of me. Whatever’s...bothering you, we can find a solution.”
Was that all he saw her as? As a duty he owed to the man who’d loved him? As an obligation? “Did you make the same offer to Yana and Mira?”
“Look at me, Anushka.”
She hated it when he said her name in that tone. As if she needed to be reprimanded. “Answer my question, Caio.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Why not?” she asked, genuinely curious. What was the difference in how he saw her and her sisters? Where did that stem from?
More silence greeted her question.
“Because they’re strong enough that they don’t need your condescending advice and protection? Because they don’t need you to look after them?”
“Cristo, Nush...”
Nush rubbed her hand over her face. God, she was just making a fool of herself. “I’m not myself...”
She felt his fingers on her shoulder, pressing gently. “You’re not alone, Anushka. Not today, not in the future.”
He didn’t say more but she sensed his confusion. She never threw tantrums, or insisted on having things her way all the time like Yana did. Neither did she retreat behind a calm, indestructible facade like Mira so that no one could reach her behind it.
Maybe it was the fact that living with her volatile mother had taught her not makes waves, to be content with whatever life dealt, to curl herself into the smallest corner and be still.
Maybe it was the fact that she’d learned to be self-sufficient, to find her happiness in books and computers from a young age.
Most importantly, she never fought with anyone. Least of all Caio.
And yet now, it felt as if she’d been sleeping like one of those princesses in the fairy tales. Hiding behind computer fandoms. Letting life pass her by.
“Princesa...look at me.”
She looked up, every cell in her immediately responding to his tone. The impact of those thickly lashed deep-set eyes hit her hard. A sharp nose, rugged mouth...there was a sensuousness to him that drew her like no other man could.
Could he see he was the reason she was miserable? Could he hear the thundering of her heart when he stood so close? Could he feel the prickle of heat across her skin when he focused all that energy on her?
Standing this close to him, she could see the imperfections in his face too. She catalogued them, as if they’d help puncture her awareness of him.
The three-inch-long scar that cut across his upper lip that he’d told her he’d acquired in a fight with his older brother as unruly teenagers. The crooked tilt of his lips to one side when he smiled. The small nick under his jaw, which told her he must have cut himself recently.
“I think you should stop calling me that,” she said, swallowing away the longing that rose through her.
His chin drew down, his expression taking on that hard quality that he used in the boardrooms. “That’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever said to me.”
A steeliness had crept into his voice that made a knot tighten in her chest. He was a master of his emotions but she heard the crack in his temper. Well, that’s what she’d wanted, wasn’t it? For him to treat her like he did everyone else.
“You don’t think I should have a choice in what you call me?”
His eyes swept over her, as if she was someone new. As if, if he looked hard enough, he should be able to see through her sudden resentment. “Why is what I call you a problem when it was never before?” His tone gentled immediately. “Is it because Rao called you that?”
“No. Because it’s condescending and infantilizing and—”
“I have never condescended to you.” There was anger in his tone now, and that it excited her was a sorry truth of her life. “And the second word...” he thrust a hand through his hair, “I don’t think I even know what it means.”
“You’re right. It doesn’t matter what you call me anyway because... I’m quitting.”
He stilled and Nush could no more stop taking him in than she could stop breathing.
It was like when she watched one of his old soccer games and then pressed play when he was midleap.
The economy, the pure animal grace of his movements, the sudden explosion from a deceiving stillness.
..it had always captivated her. And it happened now, live.
All of that simmering physical energy focused on her like a laser beam. Digging. Probing. Searching. “Quitting what, Princesa?” The silky smoothness of his voice only served to betray his cold fury.
Nush swallowed but forced the words out. “The job. The company. The city even.” You. “I can’t do this anymore.”
Yana was right. She had to quit him like an addiction—cold turkey. Now. Before it was too late. Nothing else had worked.
He was fully turned toward her now, shielding her from the room and curious eyes.
Even now, even when she was fighting with him for no good reason as far as he knew, he sought to make sure she wasn’t exposed.
One hand on his hip, he rubbed at his forehead with another, a vertical ridge between his brows. “You’re not making sense.”
Nush’s gaze drifted to his mouth set in an uncompromising flat line, to his chin with the perfect little dimple, to the corded column of his neck. To the tattoo peeking out from under the undone collar of his shirt. The tattoo she wanted to see and touch and...lick.
“I don’t have to make sense to you, Caio, or do anything in my life with your permission... I don’t owe you an explanation.”
His fingers wrapped around her wrist as Nush attempted to move past him and she stumbled into his body.
She gasped at the contact but when she looked into his eyes, pure frost looked down at her.
His grip on her bare arm was firm but not tight.
“That’s where you’re wrong, querida. You can rant and rave at me, you can use me as a punching bag to vent your grief if you wish, you can hide from your sisters and the entire world but at the end of day, at the end of the year.
..at the end of all this, you and I are in it together, Nush.
You and I will make or break OneTech. That’s what Rao meant for this to be even when he’s gone—a partnership for the ages. ”
“A partnership for the ages—that sounds like a curse to me. A punishment.”
His chin reared down, his mouth flattening. Nush regretted the words instantly.
Eyes searching his, she wondered at the taut mask he wore, at the unflinching sacrifices he made for his ambition. She’d never seen him with a steady girlfriend. Never heard him talk about marriage or a future. And yet he was ready to settle down with Laura. Another merger in his goal of...what?
What did Caio truly want?
“You don’t need me around anymore. You’ve never really needed me, Caio. As for my brain, OneTech owns the patent on all my work anyway. I signed a noncompete clause years ago.”
“Is that what you think, Nush? That I only value your brain and what it can make for me next?”
“I don’t know what to think,” Nush said, cutting her gaze away from him. “Thaata’s gone and it’s a good time as any for me to evaluate my life. See where I want to be in five years. I have to move on before you...”
His fingers tightened on her arm as he zoomed in on that like a predator pouncing. “Before I what?”
“Before you...” Her throat was dry and her heart was beating away and it felt like every raw, uncertain, inch of her was exposed to his bright golden eyes. “Before things change even more. Before I...” She pressed her forehead to his bicep, trembling at his nearness.
“Before you what, Nush?” he repeated softly, a muscle jumping in his jaw, his gaze pinning her to the spot.
She looked up and he was looking down at her and Nush thought her heart might jump out of her chest and shout out her last secret if he didn’t let her go.
And so she said the one thing that she knew would fracture that impenetrable armor of his.
“Before I hate you, Caio. I want to leave before everything that’s good and right between us rots and dies. ”
He released her so fast that she stumbled back. But in the next breath, his arm was around her waist, steadying her, letting her find her balance. Watching over her even as she made a fool of herself.
Weak and spineless as she was, Nush sought his gaze but he wasn’t looking at her. His dismissal of her was as complete as she’d wanted it to be. And something between them broke and she wondered if that was the beginning of the end of the bond they’d always shared.
Tucking her arms tight around her midriff, she ran from the room. Heads turned, conversations stopped, whispers abounded but it didn’t matter what anyone thought of her. Not when she knew in her heart of hearts that she was a coward.
Shaking her head at Mira, who’d only make her talk about it, Nush left the house.
Quitting...was the only course of action left to her.
Quitting working with him.
Quitting this first-row seat to his life.
Quitting Caio completely might be the only way she could break out of it.