Chapter Three
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It was growing dark when Aubrey woke. She heard someone in the kitchen as she came down the stairs.
“Mom?”
“It’s me.”
Griffen. Her heart stuttered and she paused before entering the kitchen, dragging at her composure, and tightening the belt on her robe so she could face him.
“You’ve been here all day?” She glanced at the small mobile office he’d set up on her kitchen table: laptop, cell phone, cup of coffee. It made her feel weird. Looked after. She’d scared herself, fainting like that. It warmed her to know she hadn’t been alone if she’d had a relapse.
He cared.
Careful, Aubrey, she cautioned, not letting her heart soar. Someone probably paid him. This man rarely did anything that didn’t benefit himself in some way.
“Mom was supposed to come check on me,” she recalled.
“She did. She offered to stay, but I was already here.”
“That must have surprised her.” It floored Aubrey. Griffen was a master delegator.
“She said she didn’t realize we were seeing each other again.” He was warming soup on the stove and set out bowls, very much making himself at home, which also made her feel weird. Not invaded, precisely, but not comfortable. He was a territorial man. Was he staking a claim? Why?
He glanced at her and she worried he could see into that place where she hid her feelings toward him—the ones that were needy and girlish and unrealistic.
“I didn’t know you told her about us the first time. I thought we were being discreet.”
She jerked a shoulder. They had kept things on the down-low so it wouldn’t be weird at work. “Mom is very discreet.”
“She let me know what she thought of me,” he scoffed, taking a spoon to the table and pulling out a chair for her.
“That doesn’t sound like Mom.” Aubrey ignored the chair and fetched a glass from the cupboard. “Her manners are usually excellent. What did she say?”
“Nothing. She was incredibly polite, but she gave me the same look you do when you think I’m behaving like a pile of shit.”
“The fact that you’ve seen that expression often enough to recognize it should tell you something.” She batted her lashes at him.
“Is it my lack of old money that pisses her off? Or loyalty to her wronged daughter?”
Aubrey turned away to open the fridge, not wanting him to read any twinges in her expression. She might have crushed a few tissues when telling her mother about him as she’d made the move to Cutting Edge. Her mother had been quite upset about Drake’s existence and her father’s obligations to him. Aubrey had been trying to distract her by talking about Griffen, talking up how good it was for her to make the move, maybe spilling too much about the fractures in her heart.
“Mom is a snob. I can’t deny that. She’s also old school about my dating men I don’t intend to marry.” She refused to look at him as she said that, not wanting him to think she was hinting at anything. “She was a virgin when she married and thought I should be, too. And, yes, marry into one of the approved families. She put me through the whole debutante rigmarole.” She glanced over her shoulder, always willing to laugh at herself when she mentioned that.
“You went to a cotillion?” His brows went up to his hairline.
“Learned to dance with Daddy and everything.” She brought out the jug of orange juice. “It’s not as superficial as everyone thinks. It looks like a bunch of pretentious socialites congratulating themselves on how great their children are, but we did some fundraising and served tea to old folks. The formal ball keeps a youth center open. I did it for fun, but Mom genuinely thought I would meet my husband there.”
“Why is this house bequeathed to her?”
“Mom? Because this is where she grew up and I don’t have children yet.” She poured from the jug of orange juice.
“I mean, why wouldn’t it go to your brother?”
She spilled some of the juice, as she imagined she was intended to. Shakily setting aside the jug, she took a sip of the cold, tart, sugary liquid, letting it soak into her brain. She had been lulled by this homey vignette into thinking they were no longer adversaries.
They were.
He was not here because he cared.
That hurt. A lot. The bastard.
She swallowed back the lump of hot words that flared in her throat and looked right into his supercilious expression.
“My brother was stillborn,” she said, calm and truthful. “It took Mom years to work up the courage to get pregnant again. She didn’t risk another after having me.”
It was one of the things that fed Aubrey’s ambition. On the one hand, her mother wanted her to be the perfect daughter. On the other, her parents still grieved the son they’d had such hopes for. Aubrey had grown up feeling she had to live for both children and accomplish for two.
Griffen bent with the dishcloth and wiped the puddle of juice, then put the jug back into the fridge for her, all the while emanating an air of knowing tolerance.
“I called him. He’s very passionate about his tests, isn’t he? Took him a while to get back to me. He didn’t seem bothered that he was under a hostile takeover. Said it was your job to worry about shareholders and stock prices.”
She’d woken feeling much stronger, but now she was shaking again, mostly on the inside. She took her half-empty glass and the soup crackers with her to the table where she folded a leg under her as she sat.
“He would have made a terrible family doctor,” Griffen noted. “His bedside manner is lousy.”
“You don’t exactly bring out the best in people.” She nibbled the corner of a cracker, took another sip of juice and made herself swallow. “It’s not that Drake doesn’t care about business or profit. He’s just, as you say, very passionate about his work.”
“Explain to me why you had to go work for him. Because he’s the real reason you left, isn’t he?”
The jig was up. She knew that, but she wasn’t ready to let her mind go all the way down the road to what it meant for her and them and his takeover. Not yet.
“Drake was trying to get Cutting Edge off the ground. He’s quite brilliant, but had a modest single-parent upbringing. He didn’t have the capital for the kind of space and equipment he needs. His mother decided it was time his father, our father, gave him a leg up.”
“Your dad is eyeing the presidency next election, isn’t he?”
“That’s not official, but let’s say he’d like to keep his options open.” She’d grown up under the practiced diplomacy of PR specialists. She knew how to say nothing and something at the same time. “It wasn’t like she was threatening Dad, though. She had never told him about Drake because Drake didn’t care who his father was. Dad doesn’t want the affair made public because it would kill my mother. She was really depressed after losing her son.” She didn’t know if Griffen had a shred of decency in there somewhere, just aimed and shot, hoping to find one. “Dad found relief from his pain in another way, obviously.”
“The press might have questioned why your father chose to dump a pile of money into an untried research and development outfit. That’s why he asked you to take the job there?”
“It’s not about his indiscretion,” she defended. “If Dad had known about Drake, he would have made arrangements from the beginning. He wants to help him. I wanted a CEO position. You always knew that about me. I wasn’t lying when I told you it was a career move.”
He acknowledged that with a small tilt of his head. “And it allowed your father to throw money into it and appear as though he only wanted to help his daughter succeed in her new job.”
“It’s a solid investment. And it’s a piece of my inheritance that was released and invested. Technically, Dad hasn’t sunk a penny into Cutting Edge.”
“That’s what you’re telling people? Don’t you resent that your inheritance went to a stranger?” He poured the soup into two bowls and brought them to the table.
She waved at the house around them. “I’m doing fine with what I have from my mother’s side. I work. Whatever Dad leaves me is gravy.”
“So you went along to protect your parents.”
She gently swirled her spoon through her soup, trying to hide that her heart had begun hammering again. Oh, this man was a stealthy hunter, coming upon his quarry on soft, soft feet. Don’t run. Don’t let him see you’re scared.
But if he knew she had left him to protect her parents, he knew she could be pressured to do other things for the same reason. Come back. All the way back.
The first rule of business was not to invest more than one could afford to lose. The emotional risk of restarting her affair with Griffen would be too high. She couldn’t do it.
She doubted whether he would give her a choice, though.
“I wanted to get to know my brother,” she deflected. “It’s strange to meet a sibling when you’ve grown up thinking you didn’t have any. We’re alike in bizarre little ways. I wouldn’t have missed this opportunity for the world. It’s why I want to stay at Cutting Edge and keep things exactly as they are.”
So there, she silently added, as she took a mouthful of soup.
*
Her color was better and she sounded more like her old self. That was a relief. Griffen wasn’t used to holding back the aggressive side of his personality. As she had said, he rarely brought out the best in people. He had spent the day peeking in on her, torn between letting her rest and shaking her awake to ask, Are you all right? He was glad to see her back in fighting form.
He liked to think he brought out the most stellar sides of her at least.
“One of the things I always valued in you, Aubrey, was your practical nature—”
“No, Griffen.” She held up a stern finger. “You can’t have it. Huff and puff but go blow.”
“I’m willing to stay silent on your true relationship with Yarrow,” he offered. It was nothing less than he would do with anyone else in a similar situation. If he had a bargaining chip, or a means to lean on someone, he used it.
He expected the pissy look her mother had given him, like he had tracked mud across the floor. What he got was a lengthy stare that slowly dimmed, as though she had expected better of him.
An extremely misguided notion, he shot back at her through a steady look. But as her gaze fell and the silence lengthened, he tensed. The pit of his gut knotted.
“You don’t feel pain like other people, do you?” Her tone was kind of pitying. “Even Drake’s mom had the compassion to wait thirty years before blowing up my mother’s life. Can you imagine how much agony that is? Losing your son, then having your husband go out and make another with someone he barely knew? Drake’s mom wasn’t a bitch about it when she contacted Dad. She asked for what was rightfully Drake’s. While you…”
Here came the disdainful look of censure, chin setting in confrontation. But this time the patrician lines of her face were also taut with hurt.
“You want to take what doesn’t belong to you for… Why? You don’t need the money. It’s points on a scoreboard to you. That’s all. Are you really that much of a heartless bastard?”
“Have I ever claimed to be anything else?” He ignored that, for once, the condemnation stung.
She was so white he was reminded that she was sick.
“Go back to bed. Take the week off to recover properly.”
“So you can continue your takeover unopposed? Don’t pretend you give a fuck about me, Griffen.” She pushed her soup away. “Can I keep my job as CEO? Will you at least keep Cutting Edge running and not kill it and eat it?”
“Maybe. If you cooperate.”
“And what would that cooperation look like?” She was trying to sound scathing, but she already knew the answer and was excited by it. He watched a flush stain her cheekbones. She licked her lips and crossed her arms to hide that her nipples had tightened.
Her eyes were shiny and she was looking much as she had when she’d stood in his office, begrudging the effect he had on her.
“I do enjoy the way we make each other feel, Aubrey. So do you.”
“And when you get bored and want to move on, I lose Cutting Edge anyway? No thanks.” She stood abruptly, reaching for her bowl and carrying it to the sink.
She wound up closing her eyes as she leaned weakly against the cupboards.
“Would you stop doing that?” His heart lurched as he shot to his feet and put his arms around her, afraid she would pass out again.
“I’m fine,” she said through her teeth, but the resistance in her was feeble as he led her back to her chair and sat her down.
“No work for a week. That’s not negotiable,” he told her flatly. “If you’re not smart enough to take care of yourself, you’re not smart enough to be anyone’s CEO.”
“You’re such a jerk, Griffen.” She propped her head in her hands.
His fingers involuntarily reached for the clip that held her hair in a loose gather. He didn’t know why he removed it. It happened and she was staring up at him, brunette waves framing her naked face, before he realized what he was doing.
“I like your hair down,” he reminded.
“Let’s say this in clear terms.” Her voice rasped. “You want me to sleep with you for the privilege of keeping my job. Oh, and not destroying the lives of my parents. Have I got that right? Do you realize how immoral that is?”
He wouldn’t say she poked at his conscience, but the way she looked at him with such persecution in her face tugged at something inside him. There was a similar feeling abrading his sense of autonomy. He had tried to forget her. She had quit her job and their affair without compunction and he’d told himself he didn’t care.
But he cared. He gave a huge fuck.
No other women had interested him since she’d left. He had felt her absence to the point he couldn’t not look into what she had been doing since leaving him. He had been impressed by the things she and Cutting Edge were accomplishing, but he’d concluded she was sleeping with Yarrow and that had grated.
He had orchestrated the takeover with the intention of leveraging her back into his bed. He wouldn’t back down now he was this close to making it happen.
“Tell me you don’t want to sleep with me,” he challenged. “Look me in the eye and say it.”
Her shoulders sank. She didn’t look at him, and her mouth trembled when she spoke. “I don’t want—”
He tensed.
“—to want to sleep with you.”
Such a small statement to send him on such a rollercoaster dip and rise.
He didn’t enjoy being a slave to this want either, but here they were.
He reached to cup her cheek and noted that his hand wasn’t quite steady.
Her skin was soft and warm, lightly flushed, but not feverish. Aroused? He dragged the pad of his thumb across her mouth, feeling the tiny response of her lips pouting to kiss his thumbprint.
A sob of hopelessness rang in her throat. She pulled away rather than let him tilt her face to force her to look up at him.
“I don’t want to wait until you’re better,” he said. “We both have our crosses to bear.”