Chapter 18
ALEX
It was almost nine in the morning when I heard my bedroom door open, just a soft scrape of wood followed by the unmistakable sound of someone cautiously navigating unfamiliar stairs.
I looked up from the kitchen island, espresso already brewing, and watched Jane stumble down the last few steps like gravity wasn’t completely on her just side yet.
She turned the corner into the kitchen and I watched her quietly, honestly a little transfixed by the way she looked right now. This was Jane at her rawest—barefoot, her hair a riot of golden waves going in every possible direction, last night’s makeup smudged under her eyes.
She blinked like she wasn’t sure she was fully awake yet, then looked right at me with confusion tightening her beautiful features. I smirked, unable to stop my lips from completing the movement even though I had a feeling I should probably just smile right now.
“Good morning, Sunshine,” I said. “Sleep well?”
An immediate, deep blush crept up her neck and seeing it did things to me I didn’t want to unpack at nine in the morning. She cleared her throat, her unease etched into every line of her face. “Uh, hi.”
Her gaze flicked away from mine like she was searching for a clue she was missing. I turned back to the machine, fixed her coffee, and handed it over, all without saying another word.
She accepted it with a faint smile, but her brow was still knitted and she wouldn’t quite meet my gaze. I let out a long exhale, raking my hands through my hair as I realized her memories of last night were probably hazy—and she’d woken up in my bed.
It didn’t take much to figure out what she was so worried about. “No, we didn’t have sex.”
Blinking hard and fast, her lips parted before she finally jerked her gaze to mine, those blue eyes swirling with surprise. “What?”
“Yes, we drank a lot, but no, we didn’t have sex,” I repeated slowly. “I slept on the couch after nursing my wounds because you beat me at Scrabble three times in a row, and I’ve never lost that game. I’ve also never let anyone win. Ever. And I never will. Not even my beloved wife of fifty years.”
She blinked at me. “We’ve only been married for five days.”
“Formalities,” I said, nodding at her mug. “Drink that. You’ll feel better.”
What I didn’t tell her was that I’d dumped her in my bed like she belonged there—and I’d liked seeing her in it. A lot.
In my own drunken state, it had taken everything I’d had not to climb in right beside her, wrap my arms around her, and finally go to bed with my wife, but she’d started nodding off heavily during our fourth game, and despite the obscene amount of alcohol in my bloodstream, I hadn’t wanted her waking up feeling like I’d taken advantage.
Jane held my gaze for another beat, searching, but I saw the moment she realized I was telling the truth. Relief eased the tension from her brow and she wrapped both hands around the mug, lifting it slowly to her lips and taking a sip.
Satisfied that she wasn’t about to freak out anymore, I spun and fixed my own coffee, and for the next few minutes, we sipped in silence, but it wasn’t uncomfortable.
There was something strangely domestic about this, both of us still in the clothes we’d slept in while we drank our morning coffee together, just slowly waking up and getting our thoughts in some kind of logical order.
It felt nicer than I’d thought it might, using two mugs instead of one.
Not being alone for this part of the day when I hadn’t shared this ritual with anyone in a really long time.
I wasn’t one to hang around after a hookup, and I never brought women back here, so I’d never had to boot them out before coffee either.
“Would you like some scrambled eggs?” I offered when my espresso was almost done. “I’m not a great cook, but even I can manage breaking some eggs and not letting them burn.”
She let out a surprised laugh, hesitating for just a second before she finally took me up on it. “That would be amazing. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” I swept a hand toward the door. “In the meantime, if you’d like to have a shower while I make breakfast, I can show you to the bathroom?”
Her eyes widened slightly and she nodded much faster and much more enthusiastically this time. “Yes, please. I feel like a rat died in my mouth last night and I don’t even want to know how bad I stink.”
She didn’t actually. Not at all, but I chuckled anyway and stood. “Let’s go, then. After a heavy night, a shower is my go-to cure. I can’t stand being awake for longer than five minutes without one when I’m hungover.”
“Agreed,” she said as I led her back upstairs to my ensuite, but as soon as we walked in, I noticed that her only options for shower goods were all aggressively masculine. My counter and shower shelf were lined with bottles that featured scents like leather, pine, and cedar.
I didn’t look for it, but I was pretty sure there was even something in here that advertised itself as storm. Nose wrinkling, I dragged a hand over the back of my neck and glanced at her over my shoulder, offering what I hoped was an apologetic smile.
“I’ll have my assistant get you some soap and shampoo,” I said. “Stuff that doesn’t smell like… this. I don’t usually have guests, but I buy toothbrush packs from Costco. They’re a good deal.”
Her laugh was soft but again surprised as I handed her a fresh one. “I’ll get you a better toothbrush to keep here.”
She looked around the bathroom after she took it, her gaze intent and slightly stunned. I didn’t know what she was looking for, but I suddenly felt the need to add, “I don’t bring women home, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
Her eyes flicked back to mine. “Oh.”
Not accusation or disbelief. Just more surprise. I kind of liked it though, the way I seemed to keep catching her off guard in ways I suspected were good.
Leaving her standing in the center of my space, which I’d now realized really wasn’t extremely girl friendly, I moved to the door and grimaced.
“I’m sorry. I will be better prepared next time.
This is your home now too, Jane. Whether or not you live here permanently, I want you to be comfortable and to have everything you need. ”
Already making mental notes of everything I had to ask my assistant to get, I nodded and shut the door behind me. Then I realized that she was about to get naked in my shower and I groaned, scrubbing a hand over my face and racing back downstairs like my ass was on fire.
Maybe if I put some physical distance between me and that door, and focused on getting breakfast ready, I wouldn’t keep conjuring up mental images of her lathering herself up in my soap. Massaging it into her breasts and—
Yeah, that’s enough. No one massages soap into themselves anyway. Stop it.
It took inhuman strength to shove all those pictures of her naked out of my mind, but I managed it okay until she came back downstairs after.
Freshly showered, she was wearing one of my button-downs with her borrowed sweats, her hair wet and curling against her neck, and she smelled unmistakably like me.
I had to grip the counter so hard my fingers ached to keep myself from reaching for her. I’m about to lose my mind over this woman. I’m fucking sure of it.
There was something about her that nagged at my psyche, like she’d been under my skin from the moment we’d met, leaving a brand I couldn’t scrub out. Seeing her like this—soft and unguarded in my space—made my thoughts spiral in directions I wasn’t ready for.
Yet I managed to keep my composure—only just—and handed over a fresh cup of coffee. “Good shower?”
Shit, why is my voice so rough? I cleared my throat and busied myself with dishing up her breakfast.
“Yeah, it was great. Thanks for letting me use it.” She perched on a stool, sipping her coffee and watching me like she was finally starting to feel a little bit more like herself. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” I lied.
I couldn’t tell her the truth. Hell, I could barely admit the truth to myself. On the one hand, I wasn’t okay because I wanted her something awful. Like, fighting my body like I hadn’t had to fight it in twenty years, awful.
But on the other hand, and much more serious than simply losing control of my cock, was the fact that after last night, after listening to her story and watching the steel melt just enough to show what lived underneath, I couldn’t unsee the soft side of the business prodigy.
The woman I hoped, absurdly, would pass on her intelligence and spine to our future kids— Wait, kids?
I blinked hard. Why am I thinking about kids? What was I thinking about before that again?
Jane tilted her head, those blue-gray eyes slightly amused as they met mine. “You just made a face.”
“Did I?”
She nodded slowly. “It also kind of looked like you were losing an argument with yourself.”
I let out laugh, hoping it didn’t sound as strangled to her as it did to me. “Story of my life.”
She smiled into her mug and I slid a plate across the counter toward her, soft scrambled eggs and buttered toast. I leaned my hip against the island like this was normal. Like we did this every morning.
“There you go,” I said like I was revealing some kind of grand surprise. “The Alex Westwood breakfast masterpiece.”
She chuckled, pulling the plate closer and picking up the cutlery I’d set out for her while she’d been in the shower. “Don’t mock it till you try it. It looks great to me. Speaking of which though, where’s yours? You’re not making me eat alone, are you?”
I shook my head and turned again, quickly sliding some eggs onto my own toast with considerably less care. Then I sat down across from her at the counter. As we started eating, I hated that I had to shatter the weird ease we had going this morning, but I couldn’t put it off any longer.
“Are you aware the Thayer board is meeting Monday morning?” I asked.
She froze for half a second, then glanced back up at me. “No.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think so. I got word yesterday.”
She let out a slow breath, but it sounded more tired than surprised. “Let me guess. One of them is resigning.”
“Official retirement,” I said. “Effective immediately.”
She took a bite, chewed once, then set her fork down. “No one thought to inform the COO, did they?”
“Nope, it seems not.”
She didn’t look shocked. Annoyed, yes. Angry, absolutely.
But not surprised. I watched her shift, her posture straightening and shoulders squaring like her armor was sliding back into place right before my very eyes.
Her nails started drumming on my counter, sharp and rhythmic.
The business sleep paralysis demon was back and it wasn’t happy.
“As long as Thayer remains a seven-seat quorum,” she said evenly, “you’ll have a majority with your votes and my mother’s.”
“Yes.”
“But I’m not a part of this,” she said, finally looking at me again. “I can’t be.”
“You won’t be. You’ll continue business as usual as COO until we vote out your uncle and put you in his position.”
She nodded, but something flickered behind her eyes, exposed and raw. It was so quick that I wouldn’t have caught it if we hadn’t been emotionally naked on my couch twelve hours ago, but we had been, and again, I couldn’t unsee all that stuff now. I couldn’t just forget about it, either.
“If you’re about to ask me if I’m making you CEO because you’re my wife—” Her glare snapped to me like a whip and I smiled. God, I loved it. “Technically, it was part of the deal, but—”
“But?” she prompted coolly.
I rounded the island, closing the distance between us until the air felt so charged, I could barely breathe.
Again. Even though we weren’t touching, I was just close enough to cage her in if I wanted to, but I didn’t.
Instead, I just held her gaze, watching her carefully enough to see the slight dilation of her pupils and the way her nostrils flared just a tiny bit.
“We’ll be putting you in that position because you’re the smartest, most capable person for the job, and it’s yours.”
Her breath caught, those eyes tracking me as I shifted even closer. “I’ve learned not to make an enemy of you, but the board is unaware of your teeth, Killer. It might be time to show them.”
Her lips curved into a smile that was sharp enough to cut, but she was also pleased. I could tell by the light in her eyes and how her features changed into an expression that was more open but also more calculating.
“What do you suggest?” she asked, looking at me like she trusted me to guide her through whatever happened next.
As soon as I noticed it, my heart did flips that were deeply inconvenient, but I ignored it. There were more important things right now than my cardio health.
“Let me handle it,” I said. “You’ve done enough.”
She picked up her fork again, shaking her head as she glanced back at me. “God help the board.”
“God has nothing to do with it,” I said. “I do.”
“Wow.” She laughed, but when she met my eyes again, something purely fucking electric passed between us. “Alright. I’ll let you handle it.”
Relief hit me harder than it should have. Three days ago, I hadn’t known which way this was going, but it seemed we’d started figuring it out, and I, for one, was liking the direction we were moving in.