Chapter Eighteen. Holden
EIGHTEEN
Holden
Rowan walks into her family room wearing nothing more than my shirt. Her long, tan legs peek out from beneath it with toes painted red. Her hair is a mess and her cheeks are flushed, and I feel settled for the first time in what feels like weeks.
That’s what good sex will do for you, Knight.
But even I know it’s more than that. I might not want to admit it to myself but the lie lingers like the scent of her does on my skin. It’s undeniable and addictive as fuck.
I’m sitting on her couch with my pants unbuttoned, shirt off, and the taste of her still on my tongue.
Not that I mind in the least.
I study her. Her full lips. Her mussy hair. Her curious eyes.
“This doesn’t mean you’re forgiven, you know.”
“Nothing is as simple as that when it comes to you,” I say as she takes a seat on the table in front of me. My eyes are drawn to her parted thighs and everything the shadow of my shirt is hiding.
Everything I want to taste and then taste again.
She shifts and the ring on her finger catches light so that prisms dance all over the room. I narrow my brows, which must give her insight to what I’m upset about because she shifts so that her hand is resting between her hip and the table.
When I look back up, Rowan has her eyebrows lifted. “Yes?”
“Just thinking.” Get that fucking thing off your finger.
“About?”
“Chadwick Williams.” The words sound like a swear.
“What about him?” she asks beneath sex-drugged lids, and I forgive her for taunting me and dragging this on.
I’ll start easy. “Please tell me he wasn’t your first.”
Rowan stares at me with much the same expression I probably have right now and then bursts out laughing. “Who I lost my virginity to is none of your damn business, just like yours isn’t mine.”
“Penelope Piccadilly. I was sixteen years old, she was seventeen.”
“Piccadilly? As in—”
“Yes, as in Piccadilly Circus in London.” My smile is reminiscent. “We did it on her family room floor while her parents were on vacation.”
“If her parents were on vacation, then why not use her bed?” She chuckles.
“Because I was terrified of getting caught and figured if we were in the family room at least we’d hear if a car pulled up.
” The terror was real. Not only was I nervous about not coming before I even put the condom on, but her dad had a healthy gun collection he let everyone know about. I feared being on the other end of one.
“Logical, but I don’t care who your first was.”
I chew the inside of my cheek and question why I even asked. There’s something about Chad that gets under my skin. The fact that he might have touched her first is a valid reason but it’s something more than that—the ring on her fucking hand is a good start.
“Can we stop the charade and get that ring off your finger?” I ask. It’s beautiful in its own right but not good enough for her in my eyes.
Her shoulders bristle. I can sense her taking the offensive immediately. “No.”
I snort out the laugh and glance back down to her thighs.
“Rowan.” Her name is more of a warning than anything.
I don’t share. “You told me we need to communicate. I’m communicating.
Take the ring off. Call off the engagement.
In a very public setting today, I handed you everything marrying him could give you and then some.
The co-CEO job. The ownership percentage. The board seat. The orgasms.”
I know you, Rowan. This is what you wanted. I’m handing it to you.
She twists her lips, starts to bring her hand out of hiding to twist her fingers together like she’s prone to do, but catches herself and thinks better of it. But she doesn’t fucking answer.
Fine. I’ll bite.
“Either you just cheated on your fiancé or it’s a sham fucking engagement. The answer is yes to both. I’m not sure what the problem is. Case closed.”
“Wrong tactic, Knight. I won’t be strong-armed.”
I level her with a glare that’s fit for a king, but bite back all smart-ass comments. I have the woman back. I righted the wrong. So why the fuck isn’t she making this easy?
“That’s why you got engaged to him, right? What you’d gain? I’m at least right in that assumption.”
“My goal in taking the deal with you, in agreeing to help you, was to further my stature in the company. It was to align myself so that I had at least equal ownership with my brother. When I thought I lost that, I did the next best thing to secure it.”
“You agreed to marry Chad.”
“I did.”
There’s something more here she’s not telling me. Her guard is up. You broke my trust. Is that all it is?
“This isn’t a game, Rowan.”
“No one said it was. I’m looking out for myself.”
“Well, you don’t need to anymore. The contract is ready to sign. My word and promises held true. Call off the fucking engagement.”
She stares at the floor for a beat before meeting my eyes again. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”
“Why not?” I throw up my hands in exasperation.
“Because there are other things marrying Chad would net me.”
“What?” I bark out a laugh.
“I’m serious.”
“Whatever it is I’ll give it to you so I don’t have to spend another goddamn second thinking about his hands on you or him being anywhere near you.” The high of the orgasm is gone. It’s been replaced by pure fucking confusion.
“You can’t buy time, Holden.”
“What the fuck do you need to buy time for?”
“For me,” she states, without backing down from the surprised scowl I level her with. “Because of you.”
“My bullshit radar is going off here, Row, and it never does when it comes to you.”
“I’m allowed to have my own secrets. My own reasons. You’re the king of them, the man who talks around all questions that are asked of him, so I figured you’d understand more than anyone.”
I blow out a breath. “I’m at a loss, Row.”
“Besides, how do I know you’re not going to hurt me again? How do I know that you’re going to follow through on the promises you made me? You are sitting in front of me, talking a good game, Holden, but I believed you before and got hurt.”
“But I’m here now. I’ve proven to you that I was worth it.”
“I know and I appreciate it, but … we had New York where I was on the highest of highs and then I saw that contract, and for the past few weeks have been in the lowest of lows. I can’t just flip a switch and forget.”
I nod, understanding but not understanding. “Don’t let yourself be fooled. That prick isn’t looking out for your best interest,” I say with way more knowledge about him than I should have.
I can’t show my cards. Won’t. Isn’t that what this whole thing with her taught me? How easily a unique woman, who hit buttons I didn’t even know I wanted hit, was able to make me uncharacteristically lose my perspective.
“No, but isn’t that the point? I know that no one is. My guard is up at all times now.”
Except with me. Her guard isn’t up at all. She may think it is but if it were, she wouldn’t be confiding in me the things that I could use against her.
She wouldn’t have admitted there is nothing real between Chad and her except for her self-interest.
And a part of me loves that. A part of me hates that. And the rest of me knows I need to exploit the fuck out of it.
“So just like that, you’re going to fuck me but stay engaged to Chad?”
Her shrug drives me mad, the uncertainty in her eyes even more so.
“You’ll have the board seat. You’ll have the extra 1 percent ownership. You’ll have the new co-CEO position. What does staying with him, what does this engagement charade, net you then?”
“A plan B if needed.”
“Fuck.” I scrub a hand over my face and groan.
Can’t blame her for it. Not one fucking bit, especially when almost everything I say or do has an ulterior motive to it. An endgame I won’t compromise on.
“So where does that leave us?” I ask.
“The same as we were before. Hiding in secret. The last thing we need is to be found out because if we were, you know the first thing said would be that I slept my way on to the board.”
My grimace is automatic. Her point is more than valid.
She wants to stay engaged to Chad while fucking me? Not going to say that I’m going to like it, but I’ll use it to my advantage. At least I’ll know more about what’s going on in the Williams-Rothschild camp other than what I can gather through Bob and dipping into their computers.
“Christ,” I say slowly, choking over the words I say next. “You make valid points. Ones I don’t like but that I understand.” I glance at the ring again and hate that it feels like a dagger to the heart.
“You understand but you’re going to glare at my finger, aren’t you?”
“Every chance I get.”
She clears her throat and moves her shoulders some so that my shirt shifts and her nipples press against the fabric.
Fuck.
“What now, Holden?” Her eyes meet mine. She knows exactly what she’s doing, and I’m here for the distraction.
“We fix the company,” I lie. “We figure out how to improve what we have. We root out the bad.”
“Even if that means my brother?”
“Do you want me to answer that honestly?”
She spreads her legs a little farther apart and scoots her ass to the edge of the coffee table. Her eyebrows shoot up innocently but her lips slide into a siren’s smile.
“What I want is for you to promise me something,” she says breathlessly.
“Is that so?” I ask and slide my hands ever so slowly over her smooth thighs. Beneath the tails of my shirt. So my fingertips tickle the top of her pussy.
I love the hitch of her breath. The slow, measured exhale. The roll of her shoulders in restraint.
“No more lies between us.” Our gazes hold across the distance between us. “None.”
“No more lies.” The lie rolls off my tongue with an ease that should disarm me and a guilt that I don’t want to feel.
I squeeze her thighs, my thumbs grazing right where I want to be.
“That was your rule. From the get-go. That you expect honesty at all times. Well, so do I.”
“Hey, Rowan?” I ask as I hook my hands beneath her knees and scoot her even closer to me.
Her lips part and a soft moan falls from her lips. “Hmm?” Her eyelids grow heavy as she looks up at me from beneath them.
“Do you really want to keep talking about work?” She digs her teeth into her bottom lip and her eyes roll back some as I part her slick flesh to find her clit.
“About lies.” I add a little friction and my balls draw tight as she lifts her hips into my hand.
“About anything other than this? Right here? Right now?”
“No.” She’s breathless. Willing. Just how I like her.
I lean forward and kiss the underside of her jaw, using my knees to knock hers wider so I can I slide two fingers into her.
“Holden,” she moans.
“C’mon, baby. Show me how much you missed me.”
“Missed you?” She chuckles and it dies on a moan as I work my fingers in and out of her. “Missed this. Not you.” She tries to quirk an eyebrow.
“Hell of a time to find your defiance as I’m getting you off.”
She stands abruptly and pushes me back into her couch. “Take your cock out. I’m going to fuck you,” she murmurs.
“Then again,” I say while I do as she asks, “find your defiance all you want.”
When she straddles me and sinks down onto my cock, when I see only her, when I lose myself in the feel of her tightening around me as her breasts rock against my chest, I tell myself that this is all that matters.
Right here.
Right now.
The moment. The next orgasm. The incredible sex with her.
Not what happens when she finds out the truth.
No more lies, Holden.
Doesn’t she know that my life was built on them?