I fucked up.

Not by convincing Jacob to come here today. I know that my instincts were correct. That Jacob would have been the best way to get the public back on Lily’s side.

I fucked up by letting myself feel anything toward Victoria. I don’t have feelings. Ever. I’m ruthless and uncaring. It’s why I’m so good at my job. I never care about my clients. I just do what’s best for them even if they hate me at the time. They always thank me afterward.

And, now that I’ve let myself care about Victoria, I don’t know how to shut it off. I don’t even feel anything that loving. I just feel guilt and concern. I’ve hurt Victoria countless times. But today was the first time that I didn’t like it. I didn’t like seeing her in physical pain. I didn’t like the emotions it evoked in either of us.

“Carter, are you listening to me?”

I blink, trying to come back to the real world instead of the world of torture I have created for myself in my head. A world where I want Victoria, but I can’t have her.

“To every word.”

She frowns. “Then, what was I saying?”

“You said, ‘Carter, are you listening to me?’”

She can’t stifle the tiniest of grins from her lips. It makes me happy to see her smile.

“Before that.”

“That you feel the best way to move forward is to show Lily as a strong, independent woman who doesn’t need a man by her side. Don’t paint the men as monsters but not as saints either. Just do one interview with another strong, independent woman who will want to address the sex tape but then will focus on the issues that Lily wants to tackle as a senator instead of doing dozens of interviews, like the plan was before.”

She clears her throat. “You were listening.”

“I have an impeccable memory. Anything I hear or see, I will remember.”

She sips her coffee to keep from yawning. I know she stayed up all night, preparing for this. She’s smarter than I gave her credit for. Most of her ideas are spot-on, and she has a backup in mind for every scenario. If we didn’t hate each other so much, I would offer her a job. But her exhaustion is going to lead to mistakes. She might think she has the same level of experience as me, but having to spend all night formulating a plan shows me just how little experience she actually has. She’s talented, but she needs someone to harness that talent.

“What do you think?”

I lean forward in my chair until I’m close enough to smell the coffee mixed with her perfume. “I don’t think you care what I think.”

She leans forward in her chair as well. “What do you think?”

“I think your ideas are good.”

“Just good?”

I grin. “Better than good. But you have some flaws that you still need to work out.”

“Yeah? And what are those?”

“You haven’t slept in two days, so you aren’t thinking clearly.”

“What are the flaws in my plan?”

“You’ll figure them out after a good night’s rest.”

She rolls her eyes. “Tell me now. We already screwed up once with Lily. We can’t do that again. We are supposed to be working together to ensure that we don’t mess this up anymore. That means, there can’t be any secrets. We have to tell each other everything.”

I lean back in my chair as I rub the back of my neck. She watches me.

“I’ll make sure that we don’t fuck up again. My reputation is on the line, too. But I want to help you grow. And you will never grow if I just tell you what you fucked up. I’ll guide you, but you have to figure it out for yourself.”

“Why are you trying to help me?”

I get up out of my chair and walk over to get my laptop. Then, I plug the projector into it. I’m trying to help her because I don’t know how to turn my emotions off now that I’ve turned them on. I don’t know why, but I actually enjoy listening to her voice. She talks so confidently about what she wants. It’s nice, hearing her. It’s nice, being near her.

“It’s because you feel guilty for spilling coffee on me, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s because, when I see someone with talent, I can’t help but nourish that talent.”

“Was that a compliment?”

Victoria bites her lip, and I ache to have that lip in my mouth. I don’t know what’s come over me, but right now, my brain is obsessed with her.

Lily chooses that moment to walk back into the room. I knew she was coming back soon. She’s been gone for hours, and I have an instinct when it comes to clients. This isn’t the first time a client has walked out on me.

“Do you have a plan, or am I firing you both?” Lily asks. She folds her arms across her chest, and her face is stiff and rigid. Gone are the tears from earlier. Gone is the anger. She’s all business now.

I can feel the nerves oozing off of Victoria as she sits at the table. She has a thorough plan, but I know it makes her nervous not to have visuals and a written plan for Lily. She wants to look as professional as she can. She thought she would have more time.

I click on the projector, and my plan pops up on the screen. I should be nice and let Victoria talk about the plan while I show the visuals. Our plans are similar enough that it doesn’t really matter anyway. But I’m not nice. And the longer I pretend to be nice to Victoria, the more likely it is that she is going to get hurt later on. I’m the kind of person who would fuck her and leave her without a second glance.

Victoria doesn’t deserve that. She doesn’t deserve that kind of pain. Being an ass to her now is the only way to keep me from breaking her heart later on. She needs to hate me. So, I’ll make her detest me by presenting our ideas as my own, by myself. And then she’ll hate me.

* * *

My plan works. Victoria hates me.

I can feel it from the second she walks into Logan’s apartment.

“Where is he?” I hear her ask Logan in the living room from where I’m sitting on the bed with my laptop on my lap.

She’s angry, and she should be. I don’t hear Logan’s answer, but I’m sure that he’s pointed her in my direction because I can hear her stomping down the hallway toward me.

“What the hell was that?” she yells, throwing my bedroom door open.

“I did my job. You can’t hate me for that.”

“No, you weren’t doing your job. You stole my ideas and claimed them as your own.”

I fold my arms across my chest, amused at how worked up she gets. I think that’s why I like teasing her so much. She’s adorable like this.

“I didn’t steal your ideas.”

“Yes, you did! I told you every single idea, and then you shared them with Lily. Now, she thinks they were all your ideas.”

“I didn’t steal your ideas,” I say again.

The look she gives me is beyond anger. Her nostrils are flared, and her face is red, but her eyes suddenly stop on my bare chest.

“Are you naked?” she asks, changing the subject.

“Does it matter if I am?”

Her eyes drop to the sheets covering me from the waist down. “Yes. You shouldn’t be naked.”

“Why? Because you won’t be able to control yourself if I am?” I smirk.

“No…because, um…because I want to have a serious conversation with you, and I can’t do that if you’re trying to distract me with your body.”

I grab the top of the sheets and slowly push them down. Her eyes stay glued to them as I reveal my boxers beneath them.

“Put some clothes on.”

“I have clothes on. This is my room. You entered without knocking. I can wear whatever I want.”

She huffs. “Why did you steal my ideas?”

“I. Didn’t. Steal. Your. Ideas.”

She glares at me.

“If you recall, I had all the same ideas already written down on my laptop before you started blabbing them to me. I came up with those ideas yesterday and wrote them down as a backup plan because I figured you would somehow mess up my original plan.”

She places her hands on her curvy hips while pushing her breasts out at the same time. “You messed up my plan.”

I nod and smirk, which only angers her more and makes my cock desperate to fuck her. I love her pouty mouth. I love how she stands confidently in my bedroom, still in her coffee-covered outfit instead of changing. I love how she hates me.

“So, what did you talk to Lily about after I left?” I ask.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

I raise an eyebrow. “I thought we were a team, that we needed to share everything with each other, so we don’t fuck up Lily’s life again.”

She casually runs her hand across the footboard of the bed. “I realized my first flaw.”

“Oh, and what is that?”

“That I thought we could ever be a team. You don’t have a heart. Whatever niceness you showed toward me was all an act.”

I nod. “You’re learning.”

She flicks her shoes off into the corner of the room.

“Now, get out of my bed,” she says.

I laugh. “This isn’t your bed; it’s mine.”

“No, tonight, it’s mine. And don’t even think about throwing me over your shoulder again and carrying me out. You wouldn’t dare do that, not with Logan here.”

She’s right. I wouldn’t. Logan would kick my ass if he saw me doing anything to hurt her. But he also wouldn’t get in the middle of this.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Fine. Be a stubborn ass.”

She walks to the door and throws it shut. I cock my head, confused at what she is doing.

She turns and begins undoing the buttons on her blouse, swiftly moving down until all the buttons are undone.

“What are you doing?”

She throws her shirt off onto the floor. “I’m going to bed.”

She quickly undoes the button and zipper on her pants and pushes them down.

I know I’m sitting here, gaping at her hot body, giving her exactly what she wants, but I don’t care. I can’t help myself. No man could stop from getting turned on by watching her. I’m shocked that she doesn’t have a boyfriend or fiancé or husband.

She walks over to my side of the bed. She puts her finger under my chin and lifts it up, closing my jaw.

“It’s not polite to stare, you know.”

She tries to move away, but I grab her wrist.

“It’s not polite to tease.”

“Who said I was teasing?”

I narrow my eyes at her.

She reaches behind her with her free hand and undoes her black lace bra. She slides one arm out of it, and I immediately release her other hand to watch her bra fall to the floor.

I watch her bite her lip out of the corner of my eye, but I can’t take my eyes off her breasts. Her nipples are hard, begging for me to take them into my mouth. I grip my hands to keep from feeling the fullness and softness of her breasts.

She clears her throat, and I look up at her. She thinks she’s won this fight. That, if I show her how badly I want to fuck her, she will have the upper hand. So, I do the only thing I can to keep my power.

I pull her onto the bed. I toss her over me onto the bed next to me, and I climb on top of her, pinning her to the bed beneath me. Our faces are millimeters apart as we both breathe fast. She licks her bottom lip, anticipating a kiss that I’m desperate to give her.

In all our years together, growing up, I never thought to taste her lips. I never thought to date her. To make out with her. To get her naked. Fuck her. But then the girl I used to know would never have dared to get naked in front of me just so she could win a fight.

I move just a little closer, taking every second of this in because this is the closest I will ever get to her. I won’t fuck her. Even if I wanted to, she hates me too much to let me touch her. This is just a game to her.

“Good night, Tori.” I roll off of her, rolling away from her to turn off the light.

She growls lightly in her throat.

“Disappointed, Tori?”

“No, just shocked that you are able to resist me.”

I roll back over and throw my arms around her, pressing my dick against her ass. “You want me to be nice and caring and do what’s right, right?”

She nods.

“This is me doing that.”

I pull her tighter to me, showing her just how badly I want her. My cock pushes harder against her. And, if she listens closely, she will be able to hear my heart beating as fast as hers.

“Comfortable?” I ask, knowing that she won’t say no. She’s too stubborn, just like me.

“Perfect.”

I grin.

“Good night, Victoria.”

She sucks in a breath, and despite how exhausted she is, I know she isn’t going to be able to sleep a wink. I wish I had the same problem. I would love to remember every second of holding her tonight. I want to remember every curve, every smell, every sound. I want to hear her restlessness at the fact that I’m so close to her. I want to hear her gasp when my hand accidentally brushes against her breast. I want to know when she regrets ever undressing in front of me.

But I can’t. I won’t be able to stay awake. I know my body too well. I know that the second it realizes it doesn’t get to fuck her, I’ll be out, and I’ll miss all the moments I’m desperate to remember.