“What the hell are you doing?” Dave asked.

“I’m—” April began.

“Not you,” Dave said tightly. “Him.”

“What the hell are you on my case for?” Nathaniel shot back. “You should have seen her when she came down here, she looked miserable.”

“Hey,” I said, anger coming to my aid. “That wasn’t because of him. Well, I mean, sort of, but it wasn’t his fault. It—”

“You’re getting angry at me?” Dave spat back, completely ignoring me. His dark blue eyes seemed almost black with fury. “I’m not the one who chased her across the lobby, Bryan. She said she wanted to go and I let her. What do you think you’re doing, treating her like this?”

“It wasn’t like I was dragging her into a room with duct tape over her mouth!”

“Guys, could you please just—”

Neither of them were paying attention. Dave was staring up at Nathaniel with pure fury in his eyes, and Nathaniel was glaring back. The air between them practically pulsed with heat, and I frowned. They almost seemed as likely to kiss as keep yelling, and the idea was unexpectedly, overwhelmingly hot.

Clearly, I was going insane—but luckily neither of them had noticed.

“You shouldn’t have hit on her,” Nathaniel hissed at Dave. “What, you actually asked her up to your hotel room? What the hell was that?”

“It was an offer, not a command. At least I had the decency to do something romantic. Roses and champagne, Bryan—what did you try, a hotel bar? Real classy.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Roses? Champagne?” Nathaniel sounded like he couldn’t believe his ears. “Are you kidding me with this? Why does everything have to be a production with you? Why can’t you just go to a bar like a normal person?”

“Because that’s not who I am,” Dave snapped back. “I don’t drink beer, I don’t watch football.”

And that, I realized as I watched, was one of the most endearing things about him. Everything Dave did spoke of quiet sophistication. He was a man of refined tastes and he made no apology for it—and it was completely the opposite of Nathaniel’s carefree insouciance. Which would be fine, only the clash between the two of them was going to get us in the news if we weren’t careful. New Yorkers might not usually pay attention to people…but they have a limitless capacity to watch the rich and famous fight.

“Both of you shut up,” I whispered as Nathaniel opened his mouth to respond.

They turned to look at me with almost identical looks of confusion, and I could have laughed. They very nearly looked chastened.

“What?” Nathaniel asked me.

“You are not going to fight like this in public,” I told them fiercely. “So if you can’t stop this fight, you are going to go upstairs and have it in private, do you hear me?”

“Fine,” Nathaniel snapped, his eyes still fixed on Dave. “Let’s go, Hines. Let’s see your classiness in action.”

“This way.” Dave gestured, and the two of them strode across the library.

Well, this hadn’t been what I was hoping for. I trotted after them as fast as my high heels would allow, trying to interrupt their stony silence.

“Or we could just all go home.”

“Oh, no,” Nathaniel said. He held the elevator door for both of us. “We’re going to finish this.”

“What is this, the thunderdome?”

“Shut up, Hines.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. I didn’t want to be a part of this, except I had kind of made it all worse by suggesting they fight in private. And if I wasn’t there, who knew what kind of crap they might get up to?

They might sleep together, the inappropriate part of my mind said, and I bit my lip to keep from laughing. If this was a movie with a male lead and a female lead, that would definitely be how it would turn out. And maybe my mind was running away with the idea anyway, picturing smooth-muscled chests and stubble and big hands and…

I needed to think of something else or I was going to moan out loud. I took a deep breath as the elevator dinged and the doors slid open.

We walked down the hallway as if we were any reasonable, normal set of businesspeople instead of a group that was about to have a juvenile fight about some combination of boardroom politics and love triangles, and I found myself wondering how many similar fights this hotel had seen. And I wondered, too, about who might be on either side of the walls, and who might hear the two of them argue about international business agreements and any number of things that were in the NDA. So when they had preceded me into Dave’s room and rounded on one another, I slammed the door to get their attention and crossed my arms.

Their eyes went wide.

“Okay, listen up.” I stared them both down. “You two have hated each other for so long and been so obvious about it that we had dozens of people dreading coming to work this week because they didn’t want to hear you two yelling at each other. I got to spend two whole days trying to organize your schedules so you had the exact same amount of time with Mr. Jeffries and as much as possible, you weren’t going to be in the building at the same time. I have tried to be nothing but pleasant to you and you two have tried to tone it down when I’m around. But you know what? You’re being idiotic.”

“He’s being the same careless playboy he always is,” Nathaniel hissed.

“Playboy? You don’t know me, Bryan. You think that just because I fell into this world late, I don’t deserve anything. Well, let me tell you, I worked for what I have. Just because the idea came to me out of the blue doesn’t mean medical devices actually just manufacture themselves.”

“Oh, and I suppose you were on the production lines?”

“Shut up!” I yelled.

Silence.

“Thank you. Okay, listen, it is exactly this kind of shit that I’m talking about. So you came to be shareholders two different ways. Is it really such a big deal to you that you need to inconvenience everyone else because you can’t even be civil to one another? Dave, Nathaniel’s worried that luck is more important than years of hard work. Nathaniel, Dave feels like maybe you know more than he does about international trade agreements, but he’s pissed as hell that you aren’t taking his advice on production outsourcing. And both of you have some good ideas on how to structure these agreements. So why don’t you say what the hell has been bothering you and just let the rest of it go? Because I have news for you. You’re not going to wake up in a magical world where you get everything you want all of a sudden, and that’s actually okay. Everyone in this damned world has things they want and can’t have, so why don’t you both get over yourselves and do what’s best for everyone else for a change?”

They stared at me, open-mouthed. Apparently, no one ever read rich guys the riot act. It was possible they hadn’t been yelled at in years. I waited, raising one eyebrow, for them to give each other an apology. And then, unexpectedly:

“What do you want that you can’t have?” Dave asked me quietly.

I blinked. It wasn’t a sarcastic question. He really seemed to want to know.

“Yes.” Nathaniel was buttoning and unbuttoning his suit jacket, an adorably nervous gesture, but his eyes were serious. “What is it that you want?”

There were a lot of things that I wanted—for instance, all of the things I’m pretty sure they expected me to say. A quiet office, maybe. A non-stressful few days. People that worked for my company not yelling at each other in the elevator bank. And I opened my mouth, in fact, to say just that.

“I want you,” was what came out.

Oh, shit.

“What?” Dave asked.

“Which one of us?” Nathaniel asked.

The two of them actually exchanged a look that was, for once, not tinged with distaste, and I swallowed. They waited. I tried to think of anything to say other than the truth, because I’d finally figured it out. My cheeks were so hot that I thought I might explode.

But there was no keeping the words back.

“I want both of you,” I said quietly.

There was a silence.

“What?” Dave finally managed.

“I’ll go.” I picked up my purse, burning with shame and already rehearsing excuses to be out of the office tomorrow. “I’m so sorry, that was so, so—”

“Intriguing?” Nathaniel suggested softly.

“I’m sorry, what?” It had to be a joke. Only he wasn’t grinning like it was a joke, and Dave’s eyebrows were raised speculatively. “You have got to be kidding,” I said, a bit desperately.

“Were you?” Dave asked me. He was at my side a moment later. “Because if what it takes to have you is watching you with him, too…” His eyes darkened with desire, and his breath was coming short. “I don’t think that would be so bad.”

“Agreed.” Nathaniel’s breath stirred the hair on the back of my neck.