Aiden Winters was a world-class asshole. I could not believe I’d fallen for his act.

So romantic.

So sweet.

So appealingly bossy.

I’d forgotten who he was. What he was. And in forgetting, I’d proven that I was still a naïve idiot. I couldn’t believe he sat there and told me he knew all about Chase’s company and he didn’t care.

If he knew I was there trying to save my brother’s company, and he knew how much my brother meant to me, how could he say he didn’t care?

Unless everything had just been a line to get me into bed. Unless he was playing me the whole time. And I’d given it up so easily, like the sap that I was.

I punched the elevator button harder than necessary and let out an angry breath. I was an idiot but at least I’d gotten good sex out of it. Fresh tears sprang to my eyes as I thought of the way Aiden had woken me that morning. His lips feathering across mine, his hands…

No. I was not thinking about Aiden.

I was not thinking about anything that had happened over the weekend. Or before that.

I was not going to think about Aiden at all.

I let myself into the empty condo, grateful that Chase wasn’t home yet. I’d need the rest of the week to lick my wounds and figure out where to go from here. We’d left Las Vegas in the middle of the afternoon, but thanks to the time change it was almost nine in Atlanta.

I wasn’t tired.

I was exhausted all the way to my bones.

I left my suitcase on the floor of my bedroom, taking out only my toiletries case, and dropped my clothes on the floor, pulling on a well-worn sleep shirt. Flicking on the TV, I tried to distract myself with reruns of a nineties sitcom I hadn’t watched in ages.

It didn’t work. I lay there, tossing and turning, as season one melted into season two, and the night unraveled in restless sleep. I finally slipped under as the sun kissed the sky, my cheeks wet and my heart shattered.

My alarm woke me right on time for a job I had no intention of going to. I dragged myself out of bed anyway. I needed a shower. I needed to wash away the weekend and get my head in gear. Before I figured out the rest of my life, I needed coffee. I’d barely cleared my doorway when the sound of a familiar voice cut through the room, scaring me half to death.

“What the fuck is this, Violet?” My brother stood in the kitchen, his blue eyes blazing, waving a piece of paper at me.

“Chase! What are you doing here?”

“I live here. What is this, Violet? What are you up to?”

Crap.

In his hand, Chase held my pay stub from Winters, Inc.

Double crap.

I would never have left it sitting around if I’d thought he’d be home this soon.

Inanely, I said, “You weren’t supposed to see that. Why are you home early?”

“The job wrapped up faster than I expected. And no shit I wasn’t supposed to see this. The question is, why do you have it? What the hell are you doing working for Winters, Inc.?”

Chase was pissed.

Chase never yelled at me. My big brother could be a son of the bitch to anyone else, but he was a marshmallow where I was concerned. Unfortunately, he was also overprotective. Bracing myself, I headed for the coffee maker and ignored his question.

“Violet,” he said in warning.

“Yeah, I get it. I’ll explain. Just let me get a cup of coffee. Chill out. I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”

“If everything’s fine, then where the hell were you this weekend?”

Stalling, I asked, “How do you know I wasn’t here?”

Chase lifted one blonde eyebrow and stared me down. “Because your suitcase is sitting in the middle of your bedroom floor, and you set the alarm in away mode Friday morning. You didn’t deactivate it until last night.”

I grunted in the back of my throat. I should have known. Chase was sneaky. Of course, he would have checked the alarm. I poured my coffee, added half-and-half, and leaned back against the kitchen counter, studying my brother.

His golden blond hair was cut short on the sides and a little longer on top, the messy waves falling into his blue, blue eyes. With the scruff on his cheeks and the hint of a tattoo under his sleeve, he looked like a fallen angel.

He was my angel. My big brother was always there for me. When my parents kicked me out he’d dropped everything and driven across two states to get me. He’d given me a home, a job, and more important than any of that, he’d loved me. No matter what.

I knew, no matter how stupid my plan had been, no matter that I hadn’t succeeded, Chase would forgive me for kissing the enemy.

Not that I was going to tell him about the kissing part. There were some things my big brother did not need to know.

Biting the bullet, I took a fortifying sip of coffee and laid out my plan for Chase. If I’d been watching from the outside, it would have been funny the way Chase turned pink, then red, gritting his teeth so hard I imagined I could see steam coming from his ears. As the target of his fury, it wasn’t that entertaining.

In a tight voice, Chase summed up my story. “So what you’re saying is that you got a job there under false pretenses to try to find dirt on Aiden Winters and force him to give us the company back. But they caught you and still let you keep your job. Do you want to explain why?”

“Not exactly,” I said, wishing I could force the blush from my cheeks. I wasn’t a very good liar, and I’d never been able to lie to Chase, not that I tried that often.

“You didn’t find anything on Winters that you could use, right?”

I shook my head. It might have been worth it, worth the ache in my heart, if I’d found dirt on Aiden and forced him to give us the company back. But I hadn’t. My plan had been a failure on all fronts.

“Vivi,” Chase said gently, using his childhood nickname for me, “what have you gotten yourself into?”

“It’s okay,” I reassured, “I’m not going back. It’s over.”

“Do they have evidence against you? Can they press charges?”

“No,” I assured him, though I wasn’t entirely positive that was true. I didn’t think Aiden would press charges against me for hacking his email and files, but he probably could, if he wanted to.

Crap.

“Are you going to tell me where you were this weekend?”

“No, I don’t think I am,” I said. Chase narrowed those familiar blue eyes on me, and I could practically see his brain recalculating.

“Did you spend the whole time you were at Winters, Inc. working under Carlisle Daniels?”

Relieved at the change in subject, I said, “They aren’t making it work without you. Some of it, but the new technology is—”

“That’s not what I asked, Vivi. I can guess exactly how they’re doing with my tech. What I want to know is if you stayed safely buried in the department they made of my company.”

“Not exactly,” I admitted. Chase stared me down. “Aiden Winters brought me on as one of his assistants a few weeks ago.”

“Fuck!” Chase exploded off his stool and slammed his palm into the granite countertop. I jumped, sloshing coffee down the front of my robe. I opened my mouth to yell at him when he said, “Violet! You do not want to get on the radar of a man like Aiden Winters. What the fuck were you thinking? Do you know what he could do to you?”

“He’s not what you think—” I started to protest, and then drew up short.

Hadn’t he told me just the day before that he’d been playing me? That he knew exactly what I was doing and he didn’t care? He didn’t care that he’d stolen my brother’s company and gutted it. If he didn’t care about that, he couldn’t care about me. Which meant Chase was right.

“You spent the weekend with him, didn’t you?” Chase asked. He knew me way too well.

I busied myself wiping at the coffee stain on my robe, as if that would do any good, and avoided Chase’s eyes.

I could feel him staring at me. Then he said, his voice painfully gentle, “You’ve been crying. My poor Vivi. What happened? Did he hurt you? I’ll fucking kill him if he—”

“He didn’t hurt me. Not the way you mean. He was…sweet. Kind of. I liked him. I’m sorry, Chase. I’m sorry. I know he’s an asshole and he stole your company and I didn’t mean to, but I liked him.”

“What. Did. He. Do?” Chase asked, his voice low. Dangerous.

I forced myself to meet his eyes, wincing at the pity I saw there. I was pitiful with my puffy face, my tear stained cheeks, and my coffee-stained robe. I felt pitiful.

Letting out a long sigh, I said, “He admitted he was playing me. He admitted he knew why I was there, and he didn’t care, he just wanted to keep—”

I didn’t need to put that part into words. Not unless I wanted to watch my brother’s head explode.

“I’ll fucking kill him,” Chase said, moving around the end of the island, reaching for his keys.

I set my mug down on the counter with a clatter and dove in front of him. “No! Just let it go. I’m a big girl, and I made a mistake with the wrong guy. I’m not the first woman to do it, and I won’t be the last. I learned my lesson and it’s over. It’s over. Can we just let it go? I’m sorry I couldn’t get the company back. I just wanted to fix everything.”

Chase pulled me into a rough hug, squeezing tight as he rested his chin on the top of my head. “Vivi, it’s not your responsibility. I’m the one who lost the company. I’m the one who didn’t double check the contracts.”

I soaked up my brother’s embrace. “I messed up with Aiden. But it’s over. Don’t go after him. He may have been an asshole in the end, but he was a gentleman.”

Chase gave me a suspicious look. “How can he be an asshole and a gentleman?”

“I don’t know, he just is. He was a gentleman right up until he was an asshole, okay? I just want to move on. I need to find a new job.”

“You know I can find you something—”

“Chase, I can find a job. Maybe after I do that, I can actually get my own place to live.”

“Hell, no,” my brother cut in. “I’m not letting you out of my sight until I’m sure you’re not going to do anything else that’s crazy.”

“When do I ever do anything crazy?” Rethinking that, I amended, “Other than this whole thing with Winters, Inc.”

“Rarely,” Chase admitted. “You’re sensible to a fault. But I don’t like you getting involved with Aiden Winters. That can’t mean good things. I want you where I can keep an eye on you. Keep you safe.”

“Chase, he’s not going to—”

“Humor me. Have you quit? Officially?”

Belatedly, I remembered Aiden saying he’d see me tomorrow. It was tomorrow and I had no intention of going into work.

“Not officially, but—”

“Do it now.” Chase picked up my phone off the counter and handed it to me. “Email your resignation right now, while I’m watching. No loose ends. Just cut your losses and get out. Is there anything you need out of your desk?”

I thought of my stapler and the little cactus and my mug. I shook my head. They weren’t worth the humiliation of seeing Aiden again.

With Chase looming over my shoulder, I opened my email app and composed a new draft, addressed to Aiden.

It said only:

Aiden,

This has gone far enough. I quit.

Violet

My heart twisted in my chest as I tapped the icon to send the email. I don’t know what I expected from Aiden, but somewhere in that sex-hazed weekend, I’d started to hope for more.

I hadn’t been thinking of the end.

But the end was here, and it hurt like hell.