CHAPTER EIGHT
“Why are you still here?”
Two hours had passed, and the screen had flashed in front of me. I was fairly certain the actors had been trading lines of dialogue, but I couldn’t have given any more detail than that if you’d paid me. I’d been sitting there, watching Holden out of the corner of my eye. I don’t think he’d stopped moving since he sat down. The phrase “edge of your seat” actually applied to him. He moved to the front of the chair, perching himself up, gesturing and yelling at the TV, during particularly intense scenes.
I’d never seen anything like it.
Holden shifted his focus from Stranger Things to me. “Uhhh. Snowed in, remember? You got early onset dementia?”
I shook my head. “No. Not why are you still here in my house. I’m painfully aware of why you’re still in my goddamn house. I meant why didn’t you leave Sawyer’s Ferry after the first time I told you to fuck off?”
“Because you hadn’t heard me out.”
“And then I did, and my answer was no, and yet…” I waved my hand in his direction. “Here you are.”
“I thought this topic was off-limits.”
“I’ll give you a short exemption, but I get to call time when we’re done.”
“You certainly seem to enjoy rules,” he said, tilting his head as though he was appraising me. “Nope, scratch that. You like to make the rules. You’re a control freak.”
“Aren’t all surgeons?”
He quirked a smile. “Not me. I am plenty amenable to letting someone else be in charge… call the shots… take control.” And when he waggled his eyebrows at me, I got the distinct feeling he was referring to one area of his life in particular he didn’t mind getting bossed around.
My body responded to that thought, and I was distracted by the image of what it would look like to really boss Holden around. Just as I was venturing in on fantasy territory, I reined myself back in.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
The smug look on his face had me thinking he knew exactly where my mind had gone but didn’t say so. He batted his eyelashes. “What was the question again?”
“Why the hell you didn’t leave when I told you to.”
“Oh, right. Because I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Well, before it was because if I went back to New York and you weren’t on in the plane seat next to me, then I’d be kicked out of the company. But after the last time you turned me down, my dad saved me the trouble of traveling all the way home before he booted me.”
“He fired you?” That didn’t surprise me. Philip was that heartless, but hearing Holden say it made it feel more personal.
“Yep. Which is why I showed up here tonight. You know, one last-ditch effort to save my job. My apartment. My life.”
“You’re being a little dramatic, aren’t you?”
“Maybe. Feels like the situation calls for it, though.” He gave his head a little shake, his frown dissolving so quickly I almost thought I’d imagined it, a little grin taking its place. “Feel bad enough for me yet that you’re willing to change your mind and come back to Manhattan?”
“Uh, nope.” But I did feel bad. Maybe. Sort of. If I were being honest, I didn’t know what I felt. Now that he was sitting in my living room, I had to admit I liked Holden more than I thought I would. Kind of. Slightly, anyway.
My initial assumption that he was exactly like his father was off base. He was nothing like his father, but I wasn’t sure the spoiled, entitled man-child curled up in my armchair was any better than the egotistical, money-hungry, coldhearted monster his father was.
Holden shrugged, the corner of his mouth tilting up. “That’s too bad. I’m too pretty for the streets.”
He was, but I wasn’t going to admit that to him. “I’m sure if your father could be reasoned with—”
“Uhh, have you met Phil?”
“Good point.”
“I’m guessing you didn’t have much luck reasoning with him, or you would still be leading the western world in medical research rather than putting Band-Aids on boo-boos in Frosty’s Asshole, Alaska.”
The defensiveness I’d felt toward him before was back, but the more I turned his observation over in my head, the more I realized he was right.
“I’m sure you’re well apprised of the details of my resigning.”
“No one’s told me a thing. The file my dad’s assistant gave me on you was delightfully vague on that part.”
“Oh right… I almost forgot about your stalker file.”
He shrugged. “It pays to be prepared. There weren’t any specifics on why you left, though. All I know was that you and my dad started the company, and then you left. But I do know that since you walked out, the company’s been in a slow decline. Dad’s been tight-lipped about it, but my guess is that investors lost faith when you walked out the door and he’s getting worried.”
“He told you he’s worried?”
“Of course not. But if he wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here. He wouldn’t be asking you back. Period.” Holden had lost his playfulness. “So if you care about the future of Westbridge, you might want to think about at least getting in contact with him… hearing what he has to say.”
“Hmm.”
“Do you? Care?”
I met Holden’s gaze. “I don’t know.”
When had this turned into a conversation about Westbridge? So much for keeping any mention of that company or Philip out of my house. Although I’d started it, I supposed.
“Westbridge was meant to help people. I gave up being a surgeon and put my whole life into it.”
“So what happened?” He was perched on the edge of his seat again, his focus trained solely on me.
I didn’t want to get into this. I didn’t want to rehash everything that had happened, but the way he was looking at me like I was the one with all the answers…
“Somewhere along the way, our mission became warped. Your dad was one of my mentors, an attending at Grace Memorial, and when I’d completed the study on clotting response in patients with traumatic injury, it sparked something.” I could feel the anger start to well in my throat. “I knew your dad came from money. He had the connections, and I had nothing but the knowledge and the passion. I approached him with the idea to start a company, focusing on surgical trials as we could, but never losing sight of patient care. I wanted to help people.”
His eyes were locked on me, and my anger transformed into something else. The way he was staring at me, his pupils wide in the low light, his body angled toward me…
He shook his head. “That’s admirable. But let me guess. My dad wanted to make money.”
“It didn’t start that way. He was young. I was younger. We were both wide-eyed optimists totally invested in the cause, but as the company grew and became more successful, we expanded into other areas—areas that were more lucrative. New departments were created—clinical trials, medical research, but the most profitable were the pharmaceutical trials and cosmetic surgery center. I told myself that the vanity projects would pay for the life-saving ones, but eventually, those vanity projects eclipsed the rest.”
“And that’s not the way you wanted to see the company going.”
“Nope. I tried to talk to Philip about it, but by then, the amount of money rolling in was too big a temptation. The idea of shutting down even a portion of the areas that were so lucrative wasn’t one he was willing to entertain. By that time we had enough investors and board members who agreed with him that I didn’t stand a chance of winning the argument.”
“So you left.”
“Philip approached me about a buyout. I think I was a thorn in his side for far too long, nagging him about returning to our roots, and I think if I’d rejected his offer he would have tried to oust me by any means possible. I was happy to leave, though. Westbridge isn’t the company I started. That company died a long time ago.”
Holden let out a long breath. “I had no idea. I didn’t start there until after you left, and I don’t exactly keep tabs on business.”
“Okay, time’s up.” I slapped my hands against the tops of my thighs. The evening had soured, and my mood with it. Against all logic, I’d actually been enjoying Holden’s company, but memories of Westbridge and the promise the company had held for me turned to ash in my mind. It was still a sore spot two years later, and I didn’t think I’d ever be able to reminisce with fondness over it all.
Fuck Philip for poisoning a company that could have been great.
And fuck him twice for sending his kid out to dig shit up that I’d buried long before.
“No more discussion of your dad, Westbridge, any of it.”
Holden stood up and leaned against the arm of the chair, his arms folded across his chest. “I have one last question.”
I opened my mouth to tell him no but closed it again. I was the one who’d brought the topic up, after all. I could answer one question. I braced myself. “Fine, go ahead.”
“You’re positive you don’t want to even hear what my father is offering before you turn it down.”
Just the question I’d been expecting. I wasn’t sure how many different ways I could say it or how I could make sure the message got through this time. I went with “I don’t think I’ve ever been as sure of anything in my life.”
“Good.”
That definitely hadn’t been the response I’d anticipated. “Good?”
Holden pushed himself off the chair and uncrossed his arms, gripped the hem of his shirt, and lifted it up and over his head in one motion. I sat there staring at him, long stretches of smooth skin over toned muscles. My brain was officially fried, and no matter how hard I grappled to figure out what was going through his head, I couldn’t seem to wrap my own brain around what was happening.
He stalked toward me.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Seducing you. What’s it look like?”
I stared at him, dumbfounded. “You’re seducing me?”
He stepped closer, and straddling my legs, dropped himself onto my lap.
He smelled faintly of bergamot and the wine we’d had earlier, and without thinking, I lifted my hands and slid them along his thighs. He shifted closer and I stopped breathing.
“Now we’ve gotten all that serious business out of the way...” His voice was low and breathless, and I wanted to wrap myself in it.
“Serious business,” I repeated, having no idea what the hell he was talking about, but he could have said anything at that point and I wouldn’t have cared. I wanted him from the first moment I’d seen him, but when he was right here, when my hands were on him, I realized how much.
He leaned in, his breath ghosting against my skin. I tightened my grip on him as his lips connected with the curve of my neck. “I came here with one goal: to convince you to come back to New York. It was unachievable from the beginning, and maybe my dad was looking for a reason to take everything from me. I have no idea. But there’s nothing I can do about it now, so instead, I’m gonna do what I’ve wanted to do since I walked into that bar.”
“You trying to guilt me into having sex with you?”
Holden laughed and rocked against me, the ridge of his erection pressing against my belly. I was as hard as he was, and I knew he could feel my cock against his ass. “I don’t have to guilt you into anything. You want this as bad as I do.”
He had a point.