Chapter Nine. Rowan
NINE
Rowan
I’m hyperaware of everything.
The fall of footsteps down the hall. The click of office doors being closed. The specific rings to each person’s cell phone. One deep baritone that I’ve been successful so far in avoiding.
It’s my third full day back in the office and the first that Holden’s been here. I try to pretend I don’t care he’s here but that’s a lie.
“Holden would like to see you still,” Audrey says from my doorway.
“And my response from the last three times you asked still stands.” I lift my eyes to meet the displeasure in hers.
“Everything he needs I’ve supplied him with via email.
Every question he’s asked has been answered.
Every wild goose chase he’s attempted to put me on has been dealt with.
I’m busy and have more important things to do than to cater to his whims that don’t have anything to do with my job.
So, again, tell him to check his email.”
I swear there is a flicker of a smile on the ice princess’s lips, but it’s gone as soon as I see it. “I believe the whole point of asking you to his office is that he wants to have a face-to-face discussion with you.”
“Hm. Yes.” I look back toward the documents I’m signing before glancing back up to her with utter disinterest. “Well, let him know I’m busy. If I get caught up, I’ll be sure to find him.”
Audrey raises her eyebrows and tsks. “You’re playing with fire, Miss Rothschild.”
I purse my lips and hold her stare. “Or maybe he’s the one who is.”
She gives the subtlest of nods, but it takes her a few seconds before she backs out of my office.
My sigh is long and measured as I close my eyes for a beat to center myself.
When I open them, Rhett is standing in front of me. “You good?”
“Mmm. Yep.” Yet another man who is lying to me about the deal being finalized.
“You sure? You seem … off?”
I meet eyes that match mine and get smugness when I’m hoping for guilt. “Off?” I chuckle. “Why would I be off? You’ve agreed to sell our company. You—”
“You’re getting married. Doesn’t that trump everything else, Row? You have so much to look forward to.”
“Yep. Seems so.”
He angles his head to the side and studies me for a beat. “You want to tell me what made you have a change of heart in regards to Chad? Talk about coming out of the blue. I mean … I figured he’d at least have asked me if it were okay first.”
I shrug. “Being blindsided sucks, doesn’t it?”
“I deserve that,” he says but clearly thinks I’m referring to the deal in general and not the deal being closed. “Why the about-face though?”
“I just … “I struggle with what to say and how to explain. I’ve practiced the answer a million times in the mirror but facing my brother is so very different. “He’s a good guy and after all this turmoil, I realized how maybe it’s finally time to—”
“Out. I need to talk to Rowan,” Holden orders as he strides into my office like he owns the place.
I mean … he does in fact own the place, but I’m too busy focusing on the man I loathe and want and desire and detest to even consider the point.
“Excuse me?” I say as Rhett voices his own protest. “You can’t just waltz in here and give orders.”
“I believe I just did.” Holden crosses his arms over his chest and lifts his eyebrows. He doesn’t once look at my brother but he sure as shit speaks to him. “Shut the door on your way out, Rhett.”
Rhett shifts on his feet, his eyes flickering to Holden and then back to me. “What do you want?” he asks.
“For you to shut the fucking door on the way out. Don’t believe I stuttered.”
Rhett meets my eyes and I give the subtlest of nods to him that it’s okay for him to leave. I can read his hesitation one of two ways—that he wants to protect me or that he’s afraid what Holden’s going to say to me will be derogatory about him.
Sadly, I don’t think it’s because of the first.
“Uh—sure,” Rhett states, his shoulders squared as he moves past Holden in what can only be described as threatening.
But Holden doesn’t even flinch or look his way. His only visible response is the ticking of the muscle in his jaw and his unflinching stare.
Rhett shuts the door behind him but he stands just outside, looking in the small window to my office as if he’s hoping to see something. Holden glances over his shoulder and that’s all it takes for my brother to finally leave.
But it’s when Holden turns to face me again that I know I’m screwed. That I know the true meaning of undeniable attraction. The want to step into him and take what I thought was mine and now what I loathe was is just … there.
Betrayal.
That’s what he did to me and what my body seems to be continuing to do.
He steps toward me and I take a step back.
We’re in my office, blinds open, on display for anyone to see who dares to walk by and yet here we are, a foot apart, desire snapping between us as ferociously as our hatred.
“Ignoring me? Refusing to come to my office? I thought better of you than that,” Holden said, the low tenor of his voice rumbling through the confined space. “More professional. More … everything.”
I hate that his words eat at me. That they burrow beneath my skin and cause guilt when I have nothing to feel guilty over.
“Says the man who has tried to fuck me out of everything I deserve—literally and figuratively.”
“Fuck you out of everything you deserve?” He snorts. “Seems like you’re getting exactly that by marrying Chad.”
“Jealous?” I taunt.
“The anger. The bitterness. Is there a reason, Sunshine, that you seem to have forgotten who and what we were together?” He angles his head to the side.
He reaches out and I jolt back, my shoulders hitting the wall behind me. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Reminding you just how good we are.”
“Good? I can’t even be in the same room with you anymore.” My words are strong but my inner resolve questions my strength.
“Hmpf.” He trails a finger down the side of my cheek as I inhale a shaky breath. “Funny seeing as how you used to beg me to be inside of you.”
“Fuck you, Holden.”
He chuckles and the sound rumbles in my chest. “Doesn’t seem to be part of the plan anymore, now, does it?”
“Ah yes. You and your plans. You talk a big game, Knight. Too bad you don’t know how to deliver.”
My yelp is instantaneous as his hand encircles my neck like a necklace—his thumb beneath one ear, fingertips against the other.
A sign of ownership, of frustration … of desire.
My pulse thunders against the pads of his fingers and his cock grows hard against my thigh. “We both know I damn well deliver.”
We can’t be here like this.
Not in my office where people can see.
Not at TinSpirits where people can know we were … whatever we were.
Not because he betrayed me.
And yet our proximity is intoxicating. It’s addicting. It’s everything I never wanted and now can’t believe I have to live without.
I push against his chest to break the spell, to prevent myself from wanting him to kiss me, but he just cuffs my wrists with his free hand and holds me still. “Deliver? Huh. Guess you and I have different definitions of that term.”
He looks me up and down, the warmth of his breath still hitting my lips and my heart still wanting to jump out of my chest and into his. “We need to talk and that’s quite difficult when all you do is avoid me.”
“Back off. I don’t want or need anything from you. You made fucking sure of that,” I grit out.
He lifts an eyebrow, his lips twitching at their corners. “You don’t? I find that hard to believe when your breath is shallow and I can smell your arousal.”
“You’re such an entitled prick,” I say, more than relieved that, when I push against his chest this time, he actually takes a step back.
“I beg to differ but then again, I never claimed to be anything different. What seems to be the problem, Rowan? Because this conversation is getting quite tiresome.” He plucks at imaginary lint on his jacket like nothing is a big deal when it feels like everything is.
How can he stand before me, so aloof, thinking this is all about sex and desire? How can he act like nothing has happened when everything has?
Why does he believe me?
“You’re the one who came in my office. You’re the one who is demanding we talk when there is nothing left to talk about.”
“And you’re the one pretending to be someone she’s not.”
“Like who?” I ask.
“Like being interested in Chad.”
I suck in a breath but don’t respond. How can I?
“There’s something going on here, Sunshine. Something you’re not telling me.”
“I could say the same thing of you, but then again, this whole thing started based on secrets and deception, so why should I expect anything different?”
“Is Chad really who you want? Because I didn’t take you for a woman who settles for less than.”
“And I didn’t expect you to be a man who cared what I settled for.”
And that’s what this boils down to for him. Not the betrayal he’s keeping from me. Not the lies he told me. It’s the fact that I picked Chad over him and his precious ego can’t handle it.
You’re just a pawn in his game, Row.
Move on.
He takes a step toward me, in my space, in the next air I breathe, and I fight against whatever it is he has on me that just won’t let go. His eyes hold mine and glitter with unanswered questions.
“Make it make sense, Rowan.”
And this is what he does. He reels me in. He makes me believe that look in his eyes means he actually cares for me. And then he uses me at his leisure.
Desperate to break his hold on me, I take another step back and rest my ass on the credenza behind my desk. I keep my fingers there, gripping its edge—a silent show of restraint. Something to touch besides wanting to touch him.
“Not everything has to make sense, Holden.”
I trusted you.
“In my world it does.”
“How about this? I hate you. I hate myself for wanting you. I hate this whole fucking mess—the one that happened the minute you stepped into my life, into my world. Since you showed up, everything has been wrong and messed up and—”
“Your world was upside down long before I showed up. You were just too blind to see it.”
“Thanks for the clarity.” I roll my eyes. “How did I ever live before I met you?”
“You did,” he says softly. “You scrapped and clawed and fought on uneven and majorly biased footing. And then when I showed up, I helped level the playing field for you.”
Why do his words bring tears to my eyes? Because he’s right. Because he knew it, gained my trust, and then screwed me over anyway. Because he’s standing here before me with a straight face and a pocket full of loaded lies.
I swallow over the lump lodged in my throat. “I didn’t need you to fix anything for me. Ever.”
“Did New York mean nothing to you, Rowan? Or has all of this simply been your way of using me to get what you want?”
I blink back both tears and the shock his words cause. “Get what I want? Sure. Yep. That’s all it was.”
“Seems like it to me.” Bitterness coats his every word.
“I could ask the same of you.”
“I’m not the one who’s wearing another man’s ring, though, am I? What happened? How did we go from New York to this? From kissing goodbye on the tarmac to finding out you’re engaged to that fucking prick?”
I stare at him and my chest physically hurts because there is nothing Chad can give me that Holden can’t. At least until Holden signed those papers and screwed me over.
But I’m not supposed to know that.
This is Westmore, after all, where the men make and break all the rules, and the women get screwed by them.
“I’m not doing this here,” I whisper, taking the easy way out. Blame it on being in the office rather than tell the truth.
“Of course you’re not. Convenient.” He throws his hands up. “I deserve a fucking answer,” his voice thunders and no doubt employees could hear that, but the five words give nothing away.
“I deserve a lot of answers, Holden, but this isn’t the time nor is it the place to have this discussion. And truth be told, I don’t owe you shit. Not an explanation. Not a reason. Not—”
“Stop talking in nonanswers,” he shouts and I swear, by the frustration etched in the lines of his face, if he could shake me by the shoulders he would. He pulls down on the back of his neck, tension emanating off his entire body. “Just tell me one thing. What is it he’s given you that I can’t?”
Honesty. I open my mouth and then close it.
Don’t cry.
Don’t you dare fucking cry.
“Seems you can’t figure the answer to that either,” he murmurs when I don’t respond. “It looks like we’re no better off than when I walked in here.”
“Sounds about right.”
“Your loss.” He holds his hands up and gives me a nod, his eyes locked on mine for a beat before he turns on his heel and walks to the door of my office.
“Good thing I make it a point to never fucking care. You sure as shit proved me right there.” And with those words he strides out of my office without looking back.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Holden Knight sad, but I swear to God he is—and I don’t know what to do with that information.
Just like I don’t know what to do with the fact that I currently feel like all the women I’ve ridiculed in the past. The ones who overlooked what a man did to them because of how he made them feel otherwise.
Too weak. Too whiny. Too smitten by a man that they should steer clear of because he betrayed them.
And yet I’m standing here staring at an empty doorway and after the man I am desperate to be wrong about.
But I saw the documents.
The betrayal was in black and white.
But that doesn’t make my heart understand it any easier.