Chapter Fourteen
Alexi stormed into the room—or at least he tried to. Two pairs of big hands clamped around his chest and held tight.
“Just hold on a sec.” Eaton’s no-nonsense voice warned from behind.
“Calm down,” growled Morales.
He shook them off and powered forward.
“It’s not what you think.” Pierson scrambled from his seat, sending it crashing to the ground.
“It’s exactly what I think.” Alexi slammed his fist on the desk, mostly to ensure he had Pierson’s attention, but it was nice to see the fancy, pretentious globe tilt to the side, too. “If you weren’t old enough to be my grandfather, your ass would be on the ground right now.” He took a breath. “Luckily for you, I was taught to respect my elders.”
“She…she was hitting on me. Asking for favors…in return for sex.”
“You lying bastard,” hissed Lily.
Alexi couldn’t turn around and face her.
He took in the smug trappings of wealth, the sense of entitlement oozing from every overpriced antique in the place, the bullshit family man photo on the wall, and his fury only grew. His father had been exactly the same way. Sure the world owed him. Sure he was entitled to anything he wanted.
“She’s the liar,” growled Pierson.
Realizing this was probably as calm as he was going to get, Alexi swiveled to face his rival. “You okay?” The words came out rougher than he would have liked.
Her gorgeous eyes were too big in her pale face. “I’m fine. What you saw—”
“Won’t happen again.” He turned to his friends, hovering close by. “Eaton, give it here.”
There was a long pause. “Are…are you sure?”
Alexi jerked his palm a single time.
“Fine.” In the next instant, the file was slapped into his palm—because thankfully, Eaton carried his briefcase with him everywhere. A suddenly endearing trait Alexi wouldn’t let Morales make fun of again.
He threw the file on the desk. A few deposition pages slid out onto the desk. “Look familiar?”
Watching the old man’s face lose all color was even more satisfying than expected. “You…you said you wouldn’t use those. It’s illegal. Those are sealed. They’re…they’re private.”
“Not anymore.”
“Look,” whined Pierson, “I know I told you I’d get the vote to go your way, and I will.”
Alexi ignored the faint, feminine gasp that told him she really had thought this was a fair fight. So cute.
“I was just…I was just…” Pierson’s sputtering trailed off.
“You were just drawing things out to put your hand on Ms. Bennett’s thigh.” Alexi tapped the files. “That seems to be a trademark of yours.”
He turned toward the smell of peaches and honey to explain. “In addition to testimony from his staff that yesterday he bilked Paul Winslow out of thousands of dollars in exchange for a promise to support his bid to be head, these files contain several sealed harassment suits from young female interns and law clerks against Pierson. We discovered them a few days ago. He’s been paying them all off and burying the trail deep, but we managed to pull the rat into the light.”
Her eyes flared. “He’s done this before?”
Alexi’s gaze shifted to the thickness of the file. “More than a few times.”
Her back went ramrod straight. “But it ends today.”
“Hold on.” Pierson skittered back a step. “What do you want?” He swallowed hard, his gaze shifting between the two of them before settling on Alexi. “You want me to call the board now and tell them to vote for you? I will. I’ll do it, but per our initial agreement, those files go to me, and this topic remains closed.”
“Nope,” he said.
At the exact same moment, a honeyed drawl shouted, “No damn way.”
Something in his chest loosened. It was a nice to hear her feisty as ever.
“My colleague Ms. Bennett is exactly right,” he agreed. “That was the old plan. Thanks to your pervy, asshole ways”—he blew out a breath—“there’s a new plan. A fairer plan.”
Behind him, Eaton muttered, “He is definitely not himself.”
“I gotta admit, even I did not see this coming,” offered Morales.
Alexi ignored them, the image of that speckled, old hand on Lily Bennett’s thigh making any other reaction impossible.
“Effective immediately,” he told Pierson, “you will hand in your resignation.”
“What? Absolutely not,” protested the scumbag. “I’ve been head of the Winthrop board since the beginning. I—”
“Have worn out your welcome.” Alexi slammed his hands flat on the desk. “If I could, I’d insist you resign as head of your law firm as well, but I know a lot of people count on you for their jobs, so I’ll just say this.” He loomed over the desk and into Pierson’s personal space. “I’ll be watching, and if I ever hear of any more stunts like this or any more harassment suits, you will be gone. Not from this job. Not from the legal profession. But from this planet. I don’t like bullies, and I don’t like men who prey on women. You. Have. Been. Warned.”
“You can’t just—”
“We can. We have.” His troubling obsession stalked to his side. Badass as ever.
Was it any wonder he wanted this woman so much?
He kept his glare locked on the steadily shrinking man. “Eaton? Morales? Do me a favor and take this piece of trash upstairs. He can announce his resignation to all present board members—and then call it a night.”
“But this is my event.” Pierson’s voice had risen to an outraged shriek. “You can’t just order me around.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.”
“Come on, Pierson.” Morales got a good hold on the man’s elbow and led him around the desk. “I suspect it’s way past your bedtime anyway.”
Flanked by both Eaton and Morales, the asshole was still complaining as he disappeared through the door.
A charged silence filled the room.
He took a breath, unlocking the fists he hadn’t even realized he’d made, his blood still running wild and hot, even as his logical mind shouted what the fuck and catalogued the shit-storm implications of what he’d just done.
Because in making things right for Lily Bennett, he’d wronged Lena, casting aside a critical yes vote and squandering his chance to end this here and now in Lena’s favor.
So much for ordered, simple, or keeping his protective impulses in check.
“Thank you.” The whispered, Southern-tinged words produced a low tug in his belly.
“No problem.”
Understatement of the year.
He blew out a breath and swiveled to face his tormentor, the surge of lust and need that coursed through his veins at the sight of those big eyes and carnal lips knocking him off-balance yet again.
And if that was all there was to it, he could probably turn around and follow his friends back to the party and let them get their squawking and complaining out of the way. Play it smart from here on out. Find another fall guy board member and bribe him into securing his takeover… But his gaze was already running over every inch of her to make sure she was okay and his feet were set in stone.
He cleared his throat. “Guy’s a scumbag, and you never should have been in that position in the first place. He needed to be set right.”
“I wasn’t thanking you for that.” As usual, she surprised him. “Not that I don’t appreciate your help with Pierson. He was being an asshole. But I could have handled that on my own. I was about to handle that on my own.” She sucked down a deep breath and stepped closer, invading Alexi’s space and sending his body, already on high alert, into white-hot awareness.
“What I want to thank you for is not believing his lies. For not assuming I was trading sex for votes.” A flush pinked her cheeks. “With the way you and I keep going at it, I wouldn’t be surprised if—”
“Didn’t cross my mind.” Truth. “And if you ever again compare what you and I did to what that scumbag was trying to get you to do, there will be consequences…bad ones…the orgasm-denial kind.”
“Wow. You really are presumptuous.”
He moved closer. “Am I?”
The pull between them wound tighter.
“I’m not sure anymore,” she admitted, taking another welcome step in his direction. “When I was younger, I confused attention with respect, but I’m not so stupid now.” Another step. “Still, even with all the extracurricular messing around, I liked thinking I was earning your respect these past few days…I would hate to lose it.”
A small dark part of him, one he’d kept tucked away for years, one he hadn’t allowed out since Anastasia, inched closer to Lily Bennett’s light. Not because he wanted to. Because he had no choice.
“You’ve got my respect, my admiration, and my attention.” He captured a strand of silky hair between two fingers. “The question is what do you want to do about it?”
Anticipation crackled in the air.
The battlefield between them suddenly narrowed to this one single moment.
“This.” Slowly, deliberately, eyes locked with his, she wrapped his tie around her knuckles and drew him to her inch-by-sexy-inch.
When only a sliver of space remained, he locked his neck muscles, ensuring his lips hovered just above hers. “Be sure, Lily,” he warned. “Be very sure. Because this time there’ll be no stopping. This time you’re all mine. And I’m not interested in treating you like a business partner or a rival, but like the woman I want to spread wide and fuck hard.”
Her eyes flared wide before narrowing with challenge. “Prove it.”
Without hesitation, she leaned forward and molded her sweet, smart, lush mouth to his.
For once, he wasn’t surprised by her courage.
Fucking thrilled. But not surprised.