by Olivia Hayle
“Did I make Ben Simmons sign an NDA?” he asks, voice trembling with barely concealed fury. “Yes. Did I cut him off from the business? Yes. And I’d do it again in a heartbeat, Skye.”
My chest feels like it’s collapsing, constricting, anger and fear choking off a response.
“And now you’re wondering about my character,” he continues. “What I would do to get what I want.”
I give a shallow nod, clenching my fists hard enough that my nails dig into my palm. “They say you’re ruthless. That you always win. Maybe you knowingly sent one of your men to the bookstore today to rattle us. Maybe you didn’t, but you might as well have, Cole. We made a deal.”
“Hold on,” he warns.
But my thoughts are leaping from one conclusion to another. “All this time, I thought sleeping with me was fun for you. Good sex. Maybe it was for sport, too. But now… was it to throw me off balance? To gain leverage?”
A swift shadow crosses over his face, jaw hardening. “What?”
“You don’t like to lose. Ben Simmons confirmed it. You just confirmed it, when you said he’d spoken true.”
Cole starts undoing the cuffs of his shirt in harsh, quick movements. “No, I don’t like to lose. Neither do you, by the way. We’re both competitive.”
“So?”
“I can be an asshole sometimes. You’ve pointed that out yourself. But to the best of my knowledge, I’m not amoral.”
“I didn’t imply that you were.”
“You just asked me if I’m fucking you to gain the upper hand in our business deal. Not that I understand how that would help me, exactly. Does your business lose profit, one orgasm at a time?” He shakes his head, an unhappy smile on his face. “I’m not, by the way.”
My throat feels like it’s closing in on itself. “You admitted to cutting off your best friend. How could I not ask?”
Cole braces his hands against the kitchen counter. “You want to know the real truth about Ben and Elena, his loving wife? Ben and I built the business together. I did most of the strategizing and he brought on investors. Always had a good eye for marketing and building a story.” He takes a deep breath, shaking his head. “Toward the end, he wasn’t pulling his weight. Skipping out on business trips. Making bad decisions without consulting me. But he was my best friend, so I gave him second chances.”
“Oh,” I breathe.
His voice hardens. “Elena didn’t like me working so much. She was my fiancée, by the way. They didn’t mention that in their little interview.” He looks away from me, jaw working. “They’d been sleeping together for nearly two years when I found out.”
“Oh, Cole…”
“So yes, I forced him out. It wasn’t hard. I had our staff’s loyalty, the majority of our shares, our clients’ trust. But I left him with more money than anyone should need in a lifetime.”
He pushes away from the counter, shrugging off his suit jacket and dropping it on his couch. “Is that enough humiliation for you? Or do you want to accuse me of something else?”
“Cole…”
“Spare me the pity, please. I’ve had more than enough of that from my own staff.”
I swallow against the dryness in my throat. I feel rooted to the spot, not sure if I should go to him or leave him alone. I’d come here to talk, to get to the bottom of things, to make sense of it all. And I’m left feeling like it all went sideways somehow, without knowing where it went wrong.
“Don’t worry,” he calls out, not bothering to turn around. “We’re just sleeping together. Your business deal still stands.”
To my horror, something burns behind my eyes, and I don’t know if the tears are from embarrassment, anger, or something far more dangerous. Hurt. I hurry to the elevator.
Cole doesn’t try to stop me.
18
Cole
The past two days have been an absolute shitshow, from morning to evening. Everyone has read Ben and Elena’s article, it seems. Blair calls me to ask if I’m doing okay, as if she’s just found out I have a terminal illness. My mom calls, too, and is far less tactful. Didn’t you take care of them?
Yes, Mom, but I forced them out of my company and my life. I didn’t order a hit on them.
From talking to my PR team to my assistant to the board of investors, the entire day had been damage control. “We need to put out a counter-statement,” Tyra kept saying to me, one of our company lawyers. “This is terrible for your reputation.”
“No.”
“Mr. Porter… it’s slander.”
“It’s gossip.”
“Gossip that will take root.”
I’d squared my shoulders and stood firm. Repudiating the claim would require explaining what really happened, and I’d had quite enough of humiliation to relive it in front of all of Seattle. Coming home from a weeklong business trip early to find Ben and Elena in my master bed had cured me of any masochistic tendencies.
Bryan had agreed on a tactic of silence. “It makes you look powerful,” he’d said to me in an aside. “Not commenting on it makes it seem like you’re either above it, or it’s true. Both enhance your business reputation.” I had nothing to say to that, not out loud, but I made a mental note to give Bryan a raise.
But I didn’t expect the biggest fallout to be with Skye.
Shame isn’t an emotion I’m used to any more. It had been, when the wound with Elena and Ben had been fresh. But in the years since, it’s faded, until the scar barely aches. But after the fight with Skye, it’s all I feel.
She came to me with legitimate concerns. The picture didn’t look good, and she asked me to fill it in for her. I had—and not in a gentle way. Her feelings had been clear on her face and I’d trampled them with my own hurt and sordid past.
I wince again, remembering the admission to her. Trust Ben and Elena to succeed in screwing me over one last time. Nothing about the situation painted me in a good light to Skye, not to mention the ill-timed visit of one of my underlings to the bookstore.
That’s the first thing I get to the bottom of, the day after the fight. Bryan stands straight in my office when I question him. “Did you send someone to Between the Pages yesterday? The bookstore?”
His eyes light up. “Yes, yes I did.”
“Why?”
“It was a classic shakedown. They have less than a week left of the deal you agreed to, and we need to remind them of the outcome.” He shrugs. “Fairly standard.”
My hand grows white-knuckled around the arm of my chair. “You didn’t inform me?”
“No. I considered mentioning it, but then we had the article to deal with.” Bryan frowns. “Was it the wrong call?”
Yes. A thousand times yes.
But there is no way I can make him understand that without giving away far too much information. “We will honor the deal,” I tell him. “If the store is profitable, they stay.”
Bryan doesn’t comment, but the refusal is clear in his eyes. None of my team understand why I’d accepted Skye and Karli’s challenge in the first place, and I can’t blame them for that. It had been nonsensical.
I don’t look forward to explaining in front of a board of investors and partners why the next Porter Hotel will have a bookstore incorporated in the ground floor.
The rest of the day is miserable. Skye doesn’t text me, and I don’t text her. What is there to say?
I snap at my assistant. I have to re-read emails to understand them. My mind seems stuck on her face from the night before… what she’d accused me of, well, it doesn’t sit right with me. By the time I make it home in the evening, I’m in such a bad mood that I consider hitting the pool and swimming a few lengths. Having already done my workout that morning, the thought of pushing my muscles further isn’t tempting, but I’m far too riled up to remain still for long.
The urge to make things right with Skye grows into an itch that’s increasingly hard to ignore. She hadn’t handled her questioning well, but then again, I hadn’t handled her ques
tions well either.
I’m halfway to the hallway before I’ve even made the decision. Finding the car keys, pulling on a pair of shoes, tugging on my leather jacket. It’s a conversation we should have in person.
But my phone rings as I reach for the elevator button. For a brief moment, indecision is all I feel. It’s likely Bryan or Tyra. Some fire to put out or a late-night contract to sign. With a sigh, I pull it out of my pocket, ready to hit decline.
The name on the caller ID stops me. “Skye?”
“Yeah,” she says on the other line. “It’s me. Hi.”
“Hey. How’ve you been?”
She clears her throat. “Good.”
“That’s nice.”
There’s a pause, her breathing soft through the phone. “Actually, no. I haven’t been good at all. I… Cole, I’m sorry for jumping to conclusions about the article, and inferring things about our agreement.”
“I should have been able to talk about it better,” I say quietly. “You were concerned. I get that.” I put a hand against the wall to brace myself. “And I promise you, I wasn’t aware of the company man who visited your store. Had I been, I would have stopped it. It was unnecessary.”
“Yes,” she says. “It was.”
“Was he rude?”
“Terribly. He called me sweetheart.”
“What?”
“Don’t worry, though,” she says, a tone of both smugness and bashfulness in her voice. “I wasn’t very civil back.”
Despite myself, I want to laugh. “I’m sure you weren’t.”
There’s silence again, but this time it’s warm. Skye is the one who breaks it. “You don’t feel like coming over?”
“I don’t?”
“You know exactly what I mean, Porter.”
I step into the elevator, car keys in hand. “I was already on my way.”
“Really?”
“Oh yes.”
“Good,” she says. “I’ll be waiting.”
Six days. The number hits me as I drive over. Six days until this ends, until the decision has to be made, until it all comes to a head. It fills me with nothing but dread.
The front door is unlocked when I arrive. “Come in!” she calls out from her perch on the couch. She’s in some sort of pajama set—striped shorts and a camisole—looking innocent and domestic. It stirs something in me, seeing her like that, her hair loose down her back. It’s a sight I could get used to.
“Do you want some tea?”
“No thanks,” I say, hanging up my jacket. “I’m good.”
There’s a chagrined look on her face as she sets her cup back down on the coffee table. “I’m sorry, again.”
“You don’t have to apologize.”
“No, I do. I… I believed the worst of you.”
“I would have too, in your shoes,” I say quietly. Most people in the city probably do now.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks. “The article?”
“Hell, no. I don’t even want to think about it.”
“I can imagine you’ve done quite enough of that,” she says with a smile. “Make yourself comfortable.”
I do, sinking down into her couch and stretching out my legs. For the first time all day, I feel like I can take a deep breath and have it fill my lungs. It feels good.
Skye gets up and heads to one of the flowerpots in the corner. I watch as she snaps off a browning leaf. “Sorry,” she says softly, “but I kill all my plants. I’m determined this one will make it.”
“I have faith in you.”
She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear and straightens a pile of books on the coffee table. It’s such a homely thing to do, and in her pajamas, it’s… sweet. This is a proper home. A place to relax and unwind.
I toy with the tassels of a cushion. “That’s why my place is like a museum, you know.”
“Sorry?”
I clear my throat. “I bought it just a few weeks after I found out about Elena and Ben. I’d been staying in one of my hotels after I found out, having just walked out of our apartment. I never went back there,” I say. “Couldn’t, actually. Just the idea of it made me sick.”
Skye sinks down onto the sectional in front of me, crossing her legs. “It’s awful, what they did.” Her voice hardens. “And to think she gets to play the supportive wife in that article. Bah!”
The outrage in her voice makes me smile. “I like your anger more than your pity.”
“No pity,” she agrees. “You did the right thing in cutting them off. But why would they write that article?”
I scoff. “I’m guessing the money ran out. Ben is terrible with finances and Elena has expensive tastes.”
“They’re the ones in the wrong, and somehow your name is the one dragged through the mud. Can’t you set the record straight somehow?”
I grab one of the books on her coffee table, flicking through it aimlessly. “That would mean admitting to the world what really happened.”
“Which wasn’t your fault.”
“Maybe not,” I say, “but I still have my pride.”
Skye shakes her head, but there’s a fondness in her eyes that I haven’t seen before. “Men,” she muses.
I snap the book closed. “You love us.”
“Much to our own detriment sometimes, yes.”
“Why does the bookstore mean so much to you?”
Skye’s eyebrows shoot high, but her face remains open, fondness still clear in her eyes. I want to live up to it. “That’s a non-sequitur,” she says.
“Well, you’ve asked me personal questions. My turn now.”
She tucks her legs up beneath her, her gaze on the bookshelf in the corner. Maybe I’ve pushed my luck with this one. It’s not a topic that the name “Cole Porter” is favorably attached to.
But then she starts to speak.
“I spent a lot of time there growing up. My mom is… well, eccentric.”
“You called her bohemian once.”
Skye looks over. “You remembered that?”
“Of course.”
“Well, she certainly is. A new project every week, a new obsession. She’s not a bad mother, but she’s an absentminded one. She gets lost in stories and ideas easily. And she’s very stubborn about it.”
I resist the urge to smile, thinking that Skye shares some of those traits, and admirably so. Stubbornness. Obsession. A love of storytelling.
“So you spent time in the bookstore?”
“Yes. I loved to read and write. And walking home after school, I’d stop at Between the Pages. It felt like the most wonderful place. Eleanor ran it, back then. She started making me tea, even though I didn’t like it yet.” A smile plays at the corners of her mouth, the look in her eyes a million miles away. “She encouraged me to write. To explore. She put new books in my hands every week and would ask me questions about them. ‘And why did Heathcliff act like that?’ she’d challenge. ‘What are the author’s intentions?’ When I chose to major in English Literature, my mother and sister didn’t understand it. Eleanor did.”
“She was Karli’s grandmother?”
“Yes. I started working there part-time, when I was old enough. It’s more like home to me than my childhood house ever was.” She looks down at her palms, as if seeking answers there. “It’s the place I love the most in the world.”
And I was trying to tear it down.
She doesn’t say the words, but the knowledge hangs in the air in between us, tangible and uncomfortable. An unwelcome intruder. For the first time, I want to undo the whole thing. The bargain. The business project. I just want her.
“Skye, I—”
Her phone interrupts me and the cheery theme song fills her apartment. She tracks it down to one of her kitchen counters, the apartment small enough that I can hear the entire conversation.
I settle down on the couch to listen, completely without shame, a hand under my head.
“Hey, Isla,” Skye says. It’s a name I remember—th
e older sister, Timmy’s mother. This should be interesting.
“No, it’s fine.” A cleared throat. “No, I’m home alone.”
I grin at that.
“Isla, I don’t feel like talking about him any more. It’s all you ask me about!”
I grin even wider.
“Timmy might have been exaggerating on that point a bit. Anyway, what’s up?”
Then she gives a suppressed sigh—I can hear it all the way from here. “Why can’t you use your car? Doesn’t Jason have one?”
Jason doesn’t, apparently, and this is explained vigorously enough that even I hear the mumbled words on the other end of the line.
“Fine, fine. No, okay. I need it this weekend, though.” A pause. “Yeah, that’s fair.” A much longer pause. “All right. Bye.”
I’m grinning at Skye when she comes around the corner. She groans, putting a hand to her forehead. “You heard everything, right?”
“Oh yes.”
“She’s been nagging me about you since the baseball game. Timmy has been laying on the praise thick, let me tell you.”
“As well he should have.”
She tosses a throw pillow my way and I catch it easily. “It’s getting harder to dodge the questions,” she says.
“What have you told her?”
“That you’re someone I’m seeing casually. She’s not buying it.”
I reach out and grab Skye around the waist, pulling her down to the couch. She lands on my lap. “Because I’m your first casual hookup.”
“Yes. How long are you going to lord that over me?”
“Just a few more times.” I smooth my hand over her thigh, the skin soft to the touch. “She asked to borrow your car.”
“Yes,” Skye says irritably. “Last time she had it for almost a week.”
I pull her back against me, our bodies flush. She’s warm in my arms. “Why don’t you stand up to her like you do to me?”
Skye relaxes against me. “Like I do to you?”
“Yes. You have no problem telling me when I’m being an asshole. The first month you told me regularly that you hated me.”
“I still hate you,” she murmurs, fingers trailing up my arm.
