Sleeping With the Opposition (Bad Boy Bosses) (14 page)

Chapter Twelve

Leo leaned way back in the black leather chair behind his desk. It was near the tipping point, but he held his balance easily. He clutched the basketball between both of his splayed hands and tossed it straight up. It was nothing special, not like the glass-encased 1975 Red Sox autographed team ball that his partner Jim Baker kept displayed on the bookshelf in his office. No, it was just a ball, so that when he left the office to meet up with Dave from the commercial real estate company downstairs for some one-on-one, they had something to play with.

Right now, the chair didn’t matter. The ball didn’t matter. The unfinished affidavit he’d been drafting didn’t matter. Tossing the ball was just to keep his body busy, a match for the turmoil in his brain.

He was seeing Bria standing in front of the bathroom counter dressed only in her robe, absolute terror leaching every last drop of color from her face. It wasn’t what he’d expected to find the morning after such a passionate reunion with his wife, and the woman in the mirror had seemed like a complete stranger.

He hadn’t said anything in response to her declaration that she was closing the door on having kids…ever. He’d needed time to think it through.

Last night, it had seemed like his determination to fight for him and his wife had finally paid off, but he’d been so wrong. Their reunion had been an illusion.

Leo hadn’t finally overcome her objections with his dogged determination and unfailing support. She still wanted to see into his bleeding soul. Last night, he might have tapped into her physical desire, but not her heart.

Someone knocked on the door and then opened it without waiting for a response, which could only mean that it was his assistant. “I’m busy, Janet.” He didn’t look away from the ball in the air.

“Yeah, I can see that,” she said teasingly. “Well, you’ve got a client.”

He caught the ball again and paused. “There’s nothing in my book until four o’clock.”

Janet crossed her arms and glanced over her shoulder. “And yet, she is still here.”

“She who?”

“Mrs. Cordeiro.”

Shit.
That was surprising. When she’d called him last week and said her husband convinced her to give their marriage another chance, he’d known without being told the details that Bria somehow had something to do with it. Leo had wished Josephine all the best and told Janet to waive his fees to date in the interest of supporting the couple’s reconciliation.

But if she was here now, that could only mean that the reconciliation had failed. Leo sighed. “Put her in the small boardroom. I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”

He tossed the basketball and watched it arc in the air and come down perfectly into the wastepaper bin he kept across the room for just that purpose, then he rummaged through his desk for a notepad and pen before going to meet his client with a heavy heart.

“Josephine, I’m surprised to see you,” he said, walking into the boardroom with a gentle smile. She hadn’t brought her brother this time, for which he was supremely grateful. That guy had volatility issues—Leo’s boxing training had taught him how to spot the type even outside of the ring—and his triggers seemed to revolve around Josephine’s husband. “I had high hopes that you and André would make things work between you.”

She looked pale and angry, and there was no dissembling in her expression this time around. This was a woman who felt wronged, and he could just imagine what had happened.

She twisted her hands together in front of her and swallowed hard. “Mr. Markham, I want to sue my husband for everything he’s got. Can you do that for me?”

He stepped forward with a frown. “Are you really sure you want to take such drastic measures?”

She spun away and stomped to the window with clenched fists. “He tried to tell me that he never screwed around on me, and stupid me, I wanted to believe him. For a while, I
did
believe him. His explanation for those photos seemed plausible, so I talked myself into giving him the benefit of the doubt.” Her voice broke. “But it was all just more lies.”

He stopped just behind her. “How do you know that?”

She turned back to him with a sneer of disgust. “I found women’s panties in my bed…and they weren’t mine.”

Leo swore.

“Can you do it?” she said through clenched teeth. “Can you make him pay?”

Damn it. This wasn’t going to help his situation with Bria.
Why do you still care?
She’d made her decisions, and not one of them had taken his feelings into consideration.
Maybe that’s because she doesn’t know what your fucking feelings are.

He shoved that aside and nodded. “If that’s what you want, then I can do it,” he promised.

…

Bria returned home late that night feeling defeated. Leo’s office—not even Leo himself—had called to put her on notice that Mrs. Cordeiro would be proceeding with claims against Bria’s client, and she should check the fax machine in the morning for an itemization of their demands.

Classic Leo Markham—to push the opposition off-balance and make her sweat it out waiting for his next move. But Bria wasn’t worried about him; she was still reeling from her discussion with André just before receiving that call. When he’d said he and his wife weren’t going to make things work, she’d taken it personally. André had been livid. He’d denied being with any other women and accused Josephine of using his attempt at a reunion to frame him as a cheater in order to invalidate the prenup.

The house was dark and quiet as Bria moved through the foyer. Leo wasn’t home, which was a source of both relief and pain for which she could find no reconciliation.

She changed clothes and unpacked her papers from her briefcase, but when she looked down at her bed, the idea of sitting there to work, where she and Leo had made love all last night, made the blood drain from her face.

Instead, she took her stuff and went downstairs to the study. They used to share it. She would sit at the desk while Leo paced, or he would sprawl out on the sofa with his feet over the edge of the armrest. Then he’d come over, pick her up and take her place in the chair, and plop her down onto his lap. Work would be put on the back burner for a while, and when they’d return to it later, he would take the desk, and she would sit on the sofa.

In the unspoken division of space since their occupied separation, this room had become his, and the master bedroom had become hers. But those boundaries had been crossed last night, so she sat down behind the desk. It was clear of paperwork and files. Leo wasn’t careless enough to leave anything lying around, especially with respect to the Cordeiro case.

She settled in to review her file. With the new accusations Josephine had made against André, Bria would have to find a way to either prove the wife wrong, or prove she’d been just as unfaithful in her marriage. Otherwise, the prenup would fail, and André would pay through the nose.

She knew what Leo would have suggested had they been on the same side of this. He would want to go on the offensive and prove that Mrs. Cordeiro was just as degenerate as she claimed André to be. Nadia would probably have taken the same approach. But the idea put a bad taste in Bria’s mouth. Partly because she didn’t like to work that way, but also because she actually believed that this couple had wanted to make it work, and something had gotten in the way. André had sworn to her he didn’t cheat on his wife and didn’t know how she could have found another woman’s undergarments in their bed.

He was angry now because Josephine didn’t trust him, and because she seemed to be looking for reasons to derail their reunion, but Bria thought he still loved his wife. He was going to regret it eventually if he instructed Bria to play dirty and make Josephine look bad.

Bria rubbed her eyes. This case was too close to home for her. Could Josephine be sabotaging her own marriage? And if so, was she doing it for money, or for some other reason?

Maybe out of fear?

Her whole family still lived in Ireland, but her husband had wanted them to pick up everything and come to America for his career. Maybe she hadn’t wanted to leave it all behind. Maybe she had dreams of her own that didn’t involve trailing after André Cordeiro like another one of his groupies.

But if she’d simply refused to leave her home and asked for a divorce, she would have gotten nothing in the separation. The prenup would have seen to that. So maybe she’d taken matters into her own hands.

Bria shook her head. It just didn’t feel right. If that had been the case, why agree to give the marriage another chance at all?

Unless…

An idea formed, and Bria picked up her cell phone and scrolled to find the number of her investigator, a guy she’d used before—usually when trying to prove that someone
had
been cheating. Now she was going to ask him to prove that someone
hadn’t
cheated.

“I’m sorry for calling so late,” she said when Corey answered.

He laughed. “I do almost all my work when the sun goes down, so don’t worry about it.”

Bria explained the situation, and asked if there was any way he could find the information she was looking for.

“Yeah, sure. Send me what you’ve got, and I’ll do some digging.”

“That would be great, thanks,” she said, relieved.

After the conversation, she hung up the phone and then closed her file. She didn’t want to do any more work on this until she had confirmation or denial of her suspicions. The small lamp on the desk cast barely enough light to read by. The room closed in and swallowed her up, just like Leo threatened to swallow her up. It even smelled like him.

She sighed and leaned back into the leather cushions of the chair. She closed her eyes, but that immediately brought thoughts of him to the fore, especially how she’d hurt him this morning. She’d been able to shut it out of her mind for most of the day, although sharp reminders would poke through her shell here and there at unexpected times. Like when she had spoken with André, or every time her cell phone buzzed, or…okay, pretty much every minute.

Her heart hurt, and it had been impossible to ignore. It was only getting worse.

Damn it. Why had she opened the floodgate and let all the crippling emotion and wanting back in? Now there was no way to put the lid on again. She should have felt relieved when Leo walked away from her this morning, but she was the opposite. She’d started to think that everything she’d been trying to do since coming home from the hospital had been a mistake. A desperate, horrible, cowardly mistake.

The pain and regret were crippling, and she wished there were someone she could turn to for advice. Her mother? If only, but Bria just couldn’t. What she really needed was someone unbiased, who could be neutral, like a judge or a mediator, except that despite all Bria’s talk about dividing assets and separating, this wasn’t a legal matter. This was a matter of the heart, of the soul.

There was one person.

She picked up her cell phone again and texted Julie.

Are you at the hospital with Dez?

If she was, then Bria wouldn’t bother her.

Almost immediately, she got a ping back.

Not tonight. At the club. What’s up?

Bria paused. She’d been to the fight club that Julie and her brothers owned only twice. Boxing had been a big part of her husband’s life growing up, and he liked to go there to watch the matches every once in a while, but she’d never seen the appeal in gathering around a stage to watch a pair of full-grown men beat the living crap out of each other like uncivilized Neanderthals.

She decided to go. Julie was the only one who would understand the agonizing push and pull inside her, and despite the fact that Julie had been Leo’s friend first, Bria trusted her and knew she would be discreet.

She remembered the fight club as a pretty casual place, so she changed into jeans and a jacket and took a cab.

When she got there, she didn’t recognize the big bouncer at the entrance, but he looked her up and down with appreciation before stepping aside. “Welcome to the Dungeon, sweetheart,” he said with a charming grin that showed off cute dimples in his otherwise intimidating mug. “If you want to wait for me at the bar, I’ll come and buy you a drink on my break in about”—he pulled a cell phone from his back pocket and glanced at the screen—“five minutes.”

She smiled and shook her head. “I’m just here to see Julie. Do you know where I can find her?”

He pointed to the back of the massive space. “Up the stairs.” Bria thanked him and turned to go. “But if you change your mind…” he called after her.

“I’ll be sure to find you,” she answered with a chuckle.

She made her way through the impossibly thick crowd. The noise was deafening. A combination of loud music heavy with bass, and the roar of voices fighting to be heard.

The boxing ring was in the center of everything. It was empty now but all lit up, and the crowd was thickest around it, like eager children standing in line at Santa Claus’s podium in the mall at Christmas, waiting for the big guy to arrive.

There was another bouncer standing guard at the bottom of the industrial-looking staircase at the back of the room. “This area is off-limits,” he said, barely sparing her a glance.

“Can you tell Julie that Brianna is here to see her?” she asked, realizing that she’d never actually responded to Julie’s text to warn her that she would be coming. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be an imposition.

The guy took a much closer look at her and pulled a walkie-talkie from a clip at his waist. He murmured into it. After a pause, he stepped aside. “Go on up,” he said.

She thanked him, which he probably didn’t hear over the background noise.

Julie waited for her at the top of the stairs. “Bria, what are you doing here?” She looked over Bria’s head into the club as if scanning the crowd. Her expression was tight.

“When you said you were here, I had to come. I need to talk to someone. It’s a bad time, isn’t it? You’re working, and I’m interrupting. I should have asked before showing up.” She was rambling. “I hoped that maybe you’d have some time to talk, but I’ll just go.”