Hard Rules
“Come with me,” he orders, and the next thing I know he’s leading me into a coffee shop and through the rows of seats, and the only way I can stop him is to make a scene. And since technically he is still one of my bosses, that doesn’t seem smart. It’s an assessment that seems good until he’s leading me into a bathroom, locking the door, and crowding me into a corner.
“You can’t do this,” I hiss, and I don’t know what to do with my hands, flattening them on the wall behind me.
“It looks like I can.”
“You’re a bully and now you’re using my job against me too. This is wrong. I didn’t even know I’d gotten the job. Human Resources called me yesterday morning”
“I told you I am not firing you. Your job is between you and my father.”
“And yet I’m shoved against a wall in a bathroom. With you.” I try to duck under his arm. He steps closer, completely pinning me, and this time my hands can go nowhere but his chest. That I’ve seen naked. And I feel naked right now. “Let me out of here.”
“I was a total ass yesterday, Emily. I’m sorry.”
I blanch, momentarily stunned by the unexpected apology that none of the powerful men I’ve known in my life have offered, not sure what to think. Before I can figure it out, he presses again. “Why did you leave without saying good-bye?” This time his voice is softer, more seduction than demand.
Because he sees things I can’t let him see. But I can’t say that. “I didn’t want the awkward morning after. It was a one-night stand.”
“That wasn’t a one-night stand.”
It’s the answer I both want and can’t accept. “We said—”
He drags me to him, his hand at the back of my head, and before I can so much as breathe, his lips cover my lips. My hand flattens on his chest, my arm firm, and I try to resist, but his tongue strokes against mine, and the taste of him, hunger, and male perfection, assaults my senses. Another stroke, and my elbow softens, my fingers are curling around his shirt only to have him tear his mouth from mine to declare, “Now we’ve ensured it’s more than a one-night stand. It’s here and now and whatever we decide it can be. Come back to my apartment with me.”
“No,” I say quickly, flattening my hand on his chest. “I have to go to work, Shane. Your father won’t like me being late. And this is very complicated.”
He cups my head again and kisses me, deeply, passionately, until his forehead rests against mine. “Does that feel complicated? We’ll work it out. Together, Emily.” And for several seconds we just breathe together and I think, Maybe I can do this. Maybe he’s the light at the end of what has been a dark tunnel. He leans back and looks at me, and what I feel in that moment is something I do not understand. Something warm, and ripe, and undiscovered, that I want to know. “Let’s get some coffee and sit down and talk,” he says, brushing my messy hair from my eyes. “Okay?”
“Yes. Okay.”
A loud knock sounds on the door and I jolt. “Are you done in there?” a woman calls out.
“Just a minute!” I shout back before I whisper to Shane, “This is so embarrassing.”
He leans in and presses his cheek to mine, his lips near my ear. “Hold your head high when we exit and act like it’s normal.” He nips my lobe, sending a shiver down my spine, before lacing his fingers with mine and leading me to the door. Glancing over his shoulder, he gives me a questioning look.
I reply with a choppy nod and he exits the bathroom first, with me doing just what he said, holding my head up and never looking at the woman waiting just outside. We are almost at the end of the hallway when a thought has me tugging on Shane’s arm. He turns to face me, a question in his expression. “How did you go from accusations to this?”
“I heard you meet my brother for the first time and I heard you taunt him over me. No one who was with them would speak that way to him.”
“But after that, by the elevator, you said me sleeping with you wasn’t me making a mistake, inferring that it was calculated.”
“No. I simply said it wasn’t a mistake and I would have come to your apartment and said as much last night, but I had an ex-firm call me about a case that reopened. Anything else?”
“No. Nothing else.”
“The time?”
He glances at his watch. “Six thirty.”
My eyes go wide. “I can’t sit and have coffee. I have to shower and dress and walk to work.”
“We’ll get it to go and I’ll walk you home and come back and give you a ride.”
He’s already leading me toward the counter, and I’m repeating the word “home” in my head. As in my shell of an apartment that I can’t let him see without him asking questions, I can’t answer without lies. And he deserves more than lies, but if I tell him the truth, he’ll hate me.
“What was that sweet concoction you were drinking when I met you?” he asks as we stop at the counter.
“White mocha,” I say and he glances at the woman behind the counter.
“White mocha and a large triple-shot latte.”
My mind flashes back to our dinner, and how he’d nailed my personality off my coffee, and I off his. I can’t do this and not just because I work for his father, which is a whole other kind of complicated. I’m quickly falling hard for this man and I will destroy him in the process. I have to end this and there is no halfway about how. This man goes for what he wants and unless I’m brutally clear, that will be me. Even quitting my job, which isn’t an option until I find another, won’t be enough. We both live downtown and I can’t afford to move.