HIS (A Billionaire Romance Novel) (10 page)

It felt very strange sitting behind my desk again.

I hadn’t entered the Cumberland & Cross building in almost a month, and I’d gotten used to taking a somewhat more casual approach to my position, and my work. In fact, Tyler had me spoiled. We’d spent every day together dangling our feet off his private dock at the lake, or going out for some scrumptious dinner (when he could be bothered to leave our bedroom).

My heart thudded in my chest.
Our
bedroom. Had I really just thought of it that way? Was I really staking a claim not just to part of Tyler’s home, but to the man himself? Had we come so far in so little time?

In a way, it made sense. Maybe we’d only been together less than a month, and maybe what we had was very new and complicated, but we had also been more intimate with each other than most couples had in all their lives, never mind a few weeks. It wasn’t just the sex, either. The way we laid in bed and spoke afterwards, clutching each other as we talked about the things that had hurt us most, as we’d shown off our scars and gaping wounds without a second thought, without even a care that the other person might try to hurt us.

That was the sort of bond Tyler and I had now. It was a little rough around the edges, but I was starting to like it that way. A blossom of hope unfurled inside of me as I thought he might like it, too.

But that was a discussion that would have to wait. Right now, Tyler had bigger things on his plate.

I bit my lip and beamed with pride as I watched him stride through the hall and toward the executive conference room where the board of directors were waiting. There was a steeliness in his eyes and he’d made his face a mask the way he always did, yet when he passed by me, he flashed a covert grin meant for my eyes only.

“You’ll be okay,” I whispered, but he was already on his way toward Mitchell Darling, standing outside the conference room door.

I half-expected Tyler to punch him in his smug, smiling face, or at least give him the cold shoulder. But as he’d explained to me before, business was all an act.

We’d had that discussion only a day ago, right after Tyler had finished fucking my brains out on his dining room table. My legs were still over his shoulder and he was still kissing over my collar bone and breasts when I said, “You have to go back, Tyler.”

After a very long silence, he’d pressed his head against my chest. “I know,” he’d answered.

I had brushed my fingers through his hair, bringing my legs down around his sides as I mulled over what I might say to assuage his fears. Eventually, I’d settled on humor. “At least if you go back, you can take Mitchell down a peg or two. Or have him fired.”

I was just imagining the look on that son-of-a-bitch’s face when Tyler glanced up at me, brow furrowed. “Why would I do that?”

“You’re the president,” I reminded him. “And he bribed your secretary to come down here and seduce you back into the office just so his share values wouldn’t drop. Not only that, but he’s scheduled a board meeting for tomorrow to vote you out. Why
wouldn’t
you fire him?”

“He’s not going to actually vote me out,” Tyler answered, pushing himself up to look down at me. “He’s trying to light a fire under my ass again, the same way he did with you. When I turn up tomorrow, they’ll go through a little song and dance about how precarious of a position I put them in with my absence. Then they’ll make a big show out of taking a vote, only nothing will change. I’ll still be the president, Mitch will get the stick out of his ass, and everything will go back to normal with Cumberland & Cross—provided I can find a fix for Jackie, that is.”

I frowned at him. “How can you be so sure Mitchell is on your side?” After what he’d said to me on the phone, I wouldn’t put anything past him now.

Tyler had smiled. “Because sharks don’t eat sharks.” Then he elaborated: “It’s the law of the jungle. Or, rather, the law of marine life metaphors. Sharks—the people at the top—the people at the top—we go after fair game. The smaller guys. We don’t go after each other. It’s bad for business, and it’s bad form in general.” He shrugged. “Call it an unwritten law, but that’s how it is.”

“And Jackie?” I’d asked him. “Once this is over and done with, what do we do about her?”

“Good God, woman,” he’d laughed. “I’m a billionaire CEO with an anxiety disorder. One bridge at a time, please.”

And then we’d made love again, the burden finally lifted from our backs: he was going back to work.

He’d seemed very Zen about the whole thing at the time, but I was sure he held a grudge against the man who’d never inquired about his state of mind, yet had been very Machiavellian in his efforts to bring Tyler back into the fold. But Tyler greeted him with a smile and a quick, friendly hug, and the two laughed about something I couldn’t quite hear as they entered the conference room.

I peered through the floor-to-ceiling glass panes functioning as the conference room’s walls. It was so strange to watch them. The room was completely soundproof, so while their actions were all transparent—literally—I still had no idea what was going on behind closed doors, and neither did anyone else.

For all I knew, they were telling dirty jokes in there. But their faces all seemed a little too stony, too tight for any of that.

I watched as each man seated around the table shook Tyler’s hand. Not one of their smiles were real, or anything much beyond a slight stretching of their lips, almost like a grimace gone wrong. Maybe these men didn’t know how to smile, or maybe Tyler Cross wasn’t the sort of thing that made them want to.

I remembered what Tyler had said:
Sharks don’t eat sharks.
I wondered how sure he was of that. The more I looked at the men in the room, the more I realized I wasn’t sure of it at all. Not one bit.

But I couldn’t stare at them forever, either. I’d given Tyler as much of myself as I could. Hopefully it would be enough to see him through this.

I roused my computer from sleep mode and tried to concentrate on a few remedial tasks, but all I could think of was what might be happening in there. I still hadn’t been assigned any real work to do, and I wasn’t especially close to the other girls who worked here. I got the feeling they saw me as lazy or incompetent, someone who wasn’t willing to do her fair share or was otherwise so poorly suited for her job that she was in need of hand-me-down assignments from others .And now that I’d been AWOL for nearly a month, God only knew what they must have thought of me.

Or what Mitchell Darling had told them.

Blood rushed to my face. Two of them were standing by the water cooler, and every so often, they looked my way and smirked. I looked straight down at my keyboard, hoping that avoiding their gaze might make them disappear. I was so wrapped up in my childish effort that I almost didn’t see her pass me by.

Her perfume gave her away. I’d had that scent stuck to me after our last encounter. Each click of her heels on the marble floor sent little shocks of dread through my belly until a wide open maw emerged there, dragging all my insides into it like a black hole.

I snapped my head up so fast my neck muscles burned. There, strolling past my desk toward the conference room, was Jackie.

The first sound that came out of my mouth wasn’t even a word. I stood, legs shaking with disgust, with fear, with adrenaline as I willed my lips to articulate complete sentences.

“Hey.
Hey!
” She wasn’t turning around. “You can’t go in there!”

I didn’t have time to cringe at how trite and cliché those words were. I didn’t have time to do much of anything at all. By the time I lurched into action, Jackie was already at the door.

She turned slightly to face me, appraising me over the rim of her tortoiseshell sunglasses. A superior smile quirked one edge of her lips, and then she swung open the door to the conference room and flashed a radiant, devilish smile as she stepped inside.

“Mr. Cross,” I heard her say just as the door drifted closed. “I’m so happy we could have this little reunion…”

And then her voice was gone, silenced by the seal of the door sucking shut behind her.

I stood for what seemed like an eternity, just staring through those windows. The men around the table seemed to react with anything from annoyance to surprise—all except for Mitchell, who regarded it all with some kind of sick amusement.

And then there was Tyler. He stared at Jackie, and every second that he did I could see the mask he wore was crumbling. His jaw twitched and his lips pulled a little at one side, and as he opened his mouth, I saw his chin quiver. Jackie was still talking, slowly making her way around the table, her face lit up with dark delight.

Sharks don’t eat sharks, my ass,
I thought. And then I didn’t bother thinking about anything else.

I shut all the worry, the sense of propriety, and my love of following the rules out of my brain as I flung open the door to the conference room and blurted out much too loud: “Mr. Cross!”

He paused. In fact, everyone in the room did. I ignored their eyes, refusing to let them intimidate me or sway me from what I intended to do. Even Jackie was looking. I could tell. Her beady little eyes were burning holes through my face, and I could feel the heat even without looking back at her.

I looked only at Tyler, my hands at my sides loose and sweaty. He looked back at me and I could see the muscle in his jaw still spasming. There was fear in his eyes, as much as he tried to hide it. And that meant that whatever words he next spoke, he was going to stutter.

I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t let Jackie, or Mitchell, get away with it. I tried to tell Tyler that somehow, tried to make him look deep into my eyes and see it there, my determination and my desperate, angry desire.

And even my love.

I held my breath as he searched my gaze. I heard the men shifting in their leather seats, heard a flighty chuckle bubble up from Jackie’s throat. She was about to sneer something in my direction when Tyler cut in.

“Ms. Hartwick,” he said without a single stammer. He wet his lips before he continued. “I see you’ve arrived to record the minutes of this board meeting.”

A flush crept up through my chest and neck. I hadn’t brought anything with me to take notes.

But Tyler had that covered. He retrieved his iPad from the long table and smiled as he bypassed Jackie to press it into my hands.

With one finger, he lightly stroked the side of mine. I knew what he was saying without him even saying it.
Thank you.

“Yes,” I murmured, forcing myself not to shake as I turned the tablet on. “Of course. Your wish is my
command,
Mr. Cross.”

Anyone else would have considered it a bit of friendly banter, but Tyler knew what I meant. Domination kept him sane, kept him confident. It was the only thing he had to save him from Jackie’s torment, and from the anxiety I knew must be gnawing at him from the inside out.

Jackie knew what I meant, too. She was the only other person who would. The glare she shot me would have killed a lesser person, and perhaps even a few weeks ago, it would have knocked me flat. But things had changed since then, and now I looked at her and smiled as I took a seat near the back of the room, crossing one leg over the other as I tapped away at the touchscreen keyboard of Tyler’s tablet.

“Mr. Cross,” one of the board members was harrumphing, “this is
highly
unusual behavior. Even for an unusual man such as yourself.”

There was a soft chorus of chuckles like leaves crunching underfoot. Tyler smiled and said, “I couldn’t agree more.” He turned to Jackie. To my surprise, he looked her right in the eyes. “Doctor Mansfield—to what do I owe this surprise visit, and during an important meeting, no less?”

“Please,” she replied, “call me Doctor
Cross.
” Her lips twisted into a slimy grin. “I still use your last name, you know.”

Anxiety nipped at my nape. What the hell was she doing? Destroying Tyler this way wouldn’t get her what she wanted, unless she thought that he’d take her back if he had absolutely nothing left.