Unfinished Seductions

by Raleigh Davis

  “Anjie never suggested it?”

  He shuffles the stack in his hands. “I told her I’d deal with my own office.”

  “She listened to you?” Anjie is the only person who can override any of these guys. I’m surprised she left his office alone.

  “Anjie always listens to me.” His tone is curt, like I’ve confused him and he’s angry about it.

  I let the art issue drop. Fine, he wants to keep his office sterile and impersonal—it’s his life. Even though he’s my brother-in-law, I don’t have to like him. I only have to tolerate him.

  Elliot passes over another massive sheaf of papers. “Sign here and here and here.”

  I glance over it. This is the employment contract for the media company. I make a show of looking through it since I have the silly notion I might impress Elliot if it looks like I know what I’m doing.

  “Everything in order?”

  I stiffen at his question. But when I look at him, his expression is clear, free of mockery. Holy heck, he meant that seriously.

  “Um, I think so.” I sign quickly and pass it back to him.

  He hands me another sheaf. He’s not looking at me again.

  He’s my brother-in-law, but he can barely look at me. And I can barely make conversation with him.

  “Why don’t you like me?” I decide to go the blunt route, even though my every nerve is screaming at me not to do this. I hate confrontation, but Elliot might appreciate the honesty.

  He lifts his head. “I… It’s not you. But you hurt Logan.”

  Logan hurt me too, but I don’t think Elliot will see it that way. I never had a sibling, but I imagine Elliot feels about Logan the same way I do about my mom. She can drive me crazy, but I’m the only one allowed to complain about her.

  “Logan and I have some issues to work out.” It’s silly to pretend we don’t. “But before I left, you didn’t like me then either.”

  He shifts in his seat, then tugs down his waistcoat. He dresses so formally it’s almost a costume. “When Logan first started seeing you, he was different. More… distracted. It wasn’t like him, and I was worried.”

  It worried Logan too. I imagine that Elliot’s issues with his dad are about the same as Logan’s. It’s certainly turned the both of them into workaholics, although Logan actually has a sense of humor.

  “There’s plenty of Logan to go around,” I say. “We can share him.”

  Elliot shakes his head. “That’s not true. You either get all of Logan or none of him.”

  I don’t want to believe him. Yes, Logan is obsessed with his work, but he doesn’t have to be. He can take a moment, look around, and see that we have enough. That we have each other.

  Isn’t that what he’s been doing the past week? Seeing what we could have if he slowed down?

  If that’s not what’s happening, if this is only him playing at being the husband I need, I don’t know what I’ll do.

  Actually, I do—I’ll have to leave again. For good this time.

  I wet my lips. Elliot needs an answer, an argument, and it will have to be airtight. He argues for a living.

  “Logan is very focused,” I say. “But do you really think I stole Logan from you?”

  His hand on the desk curls up, almost forming a fist. I’ve rattled him. “He’s my brother. He seemed happy enough with you at first, but then he wasn’t. And then you left, and he really wasn’t.”

  “Wait, he wasn’t happy? Before I left?” I never noticed. I was so consumed with my own misery, I never saw his.

  “He didn’t say so, but I can tell when he isn’t.”

  Of course. Elliot has a lifetime of reading Logan’s cues. “What did he do?”

  “He worked even harder once you were married.” Elliot tossed that out like an accusation. “Like he was afraid he couldn’t make enough to satisfy you.”

  I pull in a painful breath, but my lungs refuse to fill. “I never… I never made him think that.”

  It was exactly the opposite—I wanted him, not his money. And I couldn’t make him understand that.

  “Really?” Elliot’s angrier than I’ve ever seen him now. “You quit your job, you started all that charity stuff, and you never went to business events with him. It takes a lot of money to keep up the lifestyle you were living.”

  I did those things because I thought that was what was expected of me. That’s what the wives around here did. I was trying on that role, seeing if it fit.

  “I think I should be discussing this with your brother,” I say shakily. Have we been coming at this marriage from the wrong direction this entire time? The both of us?

  I want us to be better than that. I want us to be in love enough to weather anything.

  Elliot shrugs. “You asked why I didn’t like you. I told you the truth.”

  “You always speak the truth, don’t you?” Even if it cut so deep I think I might be bleeding.

  He snorts. “No. I’d be a piss-poor lawyer if I did.”

  I try to hide my smile, because I don’t think he’s joking. And I’m still hurting to be honest. But then I catch the amused gleam in his eye.

  Letting my smile widen, I look back at him, encouraging him to join in my amusement. He did make a joke after all.

  His mouth twitches, almost against his will. But there, there’s a hint of a smile. The only one I’ve ever seen on Elliot—I don’t think he even smiled in our wedding photos.

  “So you do experience lesser emotions,” I say.

  He turns serious again. “I love my brother. Dearly. And I’d kill for what we’ve built here, all the Bastards together. If he wants you, and you make him happy, I’ll be there for you. All the way.”

  It sounds lovely, all for one and one for all. But I’ve never been included in the all part of the equation.

  “You don’t think I make him happy though.”

  He spins a pen on the desktop, a deep frown line appearing between his brows. “You do, but you can also make him really miserable.”

  I give a short, humorless laugh. “Funny, because he does the same to me.”

  Elliot spins the pen again. “He’s been happy since you came back.” That comes out haltingly, almost a confession. “Like he was when you first started dating.”

  My back snaps straight as I suck in a breath. I needed to hear that, and I never knew I needed it until Elliot said it. He’s given me an incredible gift here even if he didn’t mean to.

  We might have a second chance, Logan and I. Start over and come at this marriage the way we should have from the beginning.

  I clear my throat. Logan isn’t the only one I need a second chance with. “Do you think maybe you and I could start over? Start fresh? I want Logan to be happy as much you do. I swear.”

  He hesitates, long enough to make my stomach drop. If I can’t get along with Elliot, what hope do Logan and I have? We can’t go on with the Bastards hating me. It would tear Logan apart in the end.

  Elliot takes a deep breath, his expression sagging. He looks more human than I’ve ever seen. Then he holds out his hand.

  It’s odd, because a handshake between him and me is way too formal, but also touching. Elliot isn’t a hugger, but this is what he can give me, assurance in his own deeply formal way.

  “We’ll start over then,” he says.

  I take his hand, not shaking it, but clasping it tightly. A hand hug. “Good. I want us to get along. Maybe even be friends.”

  “You’re my sister-in-law,” he says stiffly. Which I guess means we can’t be friends. But being real family is better.

  “We both love your brother.” I let go of his hand. “I hope this time around, he and I can make it work.”

  Elliot doesn’t say that he hopes it will too. I get the impression he doesn’t deal in hope or even believe in it much.

  Instead, he hands me another kind of olive branch. “You’re right about the art,” he says. “I could use some in here. Maybe you could pick something out?”

  He�
��s not looking at me—he’s gone back to studying the contracts—but something delicate shimmers between us anyway.

  “Sure,” I say, fighting to keep my voice neutral. “Except, I don’t know what you like. Maybe you and me and Logan could go to some galleries one weekend?”

  I don’t know if Elliot takes weekends off. I’m guessing that he doesn’t. But he might, to make his brother happy.

  He looks up then, wearing a frown. “I don’t know what I like. I don’t know anything about art.”

  “I’m sure we can find you something. Consider it my payment for working out all this legal stuff for me.”

  His frown eases. He likes that idea. “All right then. It’s a deal.”

  Chapter 29

  Logan is actually sleeping on the jet.

  We’re on our way to LA, taking the Bastards’ private jet. I’ve only been on it once before, when we went on our honeymoon. There’s a dining table, lush leather seats, a big-screen TV, and even a private bedroom. Most people’s apartments aren’t as nice as this jet.

  We’re both in the plush seats in front of the TV, although the screen is dark and work is spread out before us. I never would have guessed Logan was someone who could sleep on a plane—he never did it on our honeymoon, not that we slept much on that trip.

  Some of his hair has fallen over his forehead, and his mouth is slightly open, and he looks so damn vulnerable I want to hug him. But then I’d wake him up and the spell would be broken.

  With him asleep, I don’t have much to do. My initial design ideas have been sent off to the web designers, the managing editor is handling the extra hires we need and organizing our launch, and Elliot has all the legal issues in hand.

  I’m back to just being a graphic designer, which I don’t mind. But I’ve also got an itch to write. I’ve been pouring myself into The Silicon Wife for so long that it feels odd not to, even when I have some good feelings to pour out.

  Maybe I should take Brienne’s example and write an anonymous column for the website. No one can tell me no.

  Logan shifts next to me as if sensing my thoughts in his dreams. He probably wouldn’t be too happy about it—he’d worry about my being exposed and the fallout from that.

  Well, no one knows about The Silicon Wife except for Brienne. I can still use it to write out my feelings.

  The jet has Wi-Fi, which is almost the most luxurious part of it. Comfy seats, plenty of legroom, accommodating crew, and free Wi-Fi? It’s like a dream, only it’s true. I pull out my laptop from beneath my sketchbook—I was doodling earlier—and open up my blog.

  The cursor blinks in the Title box, waiting for me to give this post a name. I want to call it “Reconciliations,” but that would be giving too much away.

  Or would it? I used to think that no one in the tech world really cared about me. I could write away in anonymity because no one thought about me enough to connect the dots.

  But Fuchs thought about me, enough to use his stupid site to hurt me. He doesn’t know I’m the Silicon Wife—in the end, I’m still only Logan’s wife to him—but other people in the tech world know that I’m putting together my own site. That I’m taking steps to make my own mark in their world.

  Some of them might be smart enough to figure things out.

  I pull my fingers from the keyboard without typing a single letter. The Silicon Wife is still anonymous, but I’m not. And I don’t know how I feel about that.

  It was my refuge, but I’m not sure I need it anymore.

  Logan comes awake with a start, like he was dreaming he was falling. Without thinking, I slam shut my laptop. Then I grab his shoulder, partly to reassure him and partly to steady myself. He scared me, jumping awake like that.

  “You okay?”

  He blinks, looking way too handsome for someone who’s been asleep on a plane. “I fell asleep.” He sounds confused.

  “Do you not usually do that?” My fingers itch to smooth away the hair that’s fallen over his forehead or even to simply touch him in this rumpled state.

  “Hell no. Who falls asleep on a plane?”

  I bite my lip as I look at him. “You.”

  He rubs a hand over his face, his smile wry. “I guess I did.”

  My heart does a silly dance, because he felt secure enough with me to fall asleep on a plane. And I’m feeling secure enough with him to not need my blog anymore.

  He stretches and the last of the sleepiness disappears from his posture. He’s alert, focused Logan once more. As he does, he catches sight of my sketchbook.

  Damn, I’ve forgotten to put that away. He leans over my sketchbook, frowning at it.

  “When did you start doing watercolors?” he asks.

  I run my fingers along my skirt, which is silk and slips along under my skin, smooth and cool. “When I was… gone.”

  “Oh.” One of his shoulders shifts like he’s going to straighten up, but he stops himself. Instead, he reaches out to touch one of the paintings.

  “No one in tech wants watercolor graphics,” I explain too rapidly, “and there were these amazing roses in the garden, so I tried something different.”

  My nerves are pinging and popping as he flips through the book, probably because the paintings are a record of when I was trying desperately to be anything but his wife. Trying to cut myself entirely out of his world.

  I don’t feel that same desperation anymore, but the reminder still unsettles me.

  His expression is still and calm though, a reflection of the mood in the paintings. I was unsettled when I made them, but what came out was gentle, organic. It’s hard to make aggressive watercolors.

  “They’re beautiful,” he says finally. “You should keep it up.”

  I shrug, even as I inwardly preen at his praise. I’m an artist—I like hearing someone appreciates my work. “It’s just a hobby.”

  Logan doesn’t even have any hobbies unless you count making money. He certainly doesn’t need any more wealth, yet he still keeps adding to it—so yeah, that could be a hobby.

  Or an obsession.

  “That was what I always loved about you.” His long finger traces a petal, pink and curving. I was never happy with that particular petal, but his hand caressing it makes it look utterly perfect. “That you were focused, driven—but you transformed that into passion. And you could turn it off when you wanted.”

  He’s focused too, beyond driven, much more so than I am. But turning it off—he’s always struggled with that.

  I draw a sharp, silent breath as the realization hits me—he will always struggle with turning off his focus, his obsessions. It’s embedded in him as deeply… as deeply as his hair color or his eyes. It’s just him.

  But in the past few weeks, he’s been trying. Trying, because he wants to please me. And now I have to ask myself: Is trying enough for me? Because we won’t go on like this forever. Eventually he’ll be back in the office and I’ll be on my own at the website and then…

  I don’t know what will happen then.

  “Is your office almost done?” I ask.

  His face shifts. He knows what I’m really asking—is this magic interlude almost over?

  “I don’t know.” Something vibrates deep in his tone. Something like… reluctance?

  I’m shocked he doesn’t know that, that he doesn’t have an internal timer counting down to the exact second when he can be back in his usual workspace.

  “But…” I lick my suddenly dry lips. “But it will be done soon, won’t it?”

  He shrugs, the motion sharp, lacking his usual precision. “Probably. And the website will be too.”

  Meaning we’ll be at our deadline. I’ll have to decide if this experiment is worth continuing. If I trust him enough again to keep trying.

  “Yep.” I wish I had my old sweater, even though the cabin is perfectly climate controlled. “We’re maybe a month away from launch.”

  “And then we’ll have to decide what to do.” He finds the ends of my hair, rubs them between
his fingers. “Have you been thinking about that?”

  I have. Along with a lot of other things. “I’ve been thinking about your dad.”

  Logan drops my hair and falls back into his seat, his mouth flattening. “What about him?”

  All right, so he really doesn’t want to talk about this, but we have to. I’ve been thinking about the baby, the one that never was, and how Logan wasn’t there, and it all seems to come back to his dad.

  “He might have seemed like a failure to you… but you did see him.” I twist my hands in my lap, wanting to reach out for him. But his body says leave me alone. “He was part of your life.”

  “So was my mom. And she struggled so hard. After he died, but even before. When you’re the only responsible one, when there are two kids depending on you…” He closes his eyes tight for a painful moment. “I never want you to struggle like she did.”

  I’ve been thinking about that too. I take his hand and link his fingers through mine. His hand is so much bigger, stronger than mine. “I never would. If something happened to you”—God, what an awful thought—“I’d be fine. You’ve worked so hard, achieved so much more than your father ever did. Even if you stopped right now, spent the rest of your life doing nothing, your achievements would forever dwarf his.” I squeeze his hand. “And there would be more than enough to keep me safe.”

  He hangs on to me as if I were a life raft. It’s almost painful but in the best way. “You don’t know that. You can’t know what will happen.”

  “I do. Because if civilization were to end and your money was no good, the Bastards would still take care of me. Wouldn’t they?”

  He frowns like that was a silly thing to ask. “Of course.”

  That’s another thing I’ve been thinking about—his relationship with his adopted brothers. They might not love me, but they do love him. They’d honor that by caring for me if anything happened to him.

  In many ways, the bond they’ve built together is even more impressive than the wealth they’ve built.

  I give his hand a little shake. “See?”

  Logan’s mouth twitches. “So you want me to retire?”

  “No, of course not. You love your work. I wouldn’t take that from you. But—”