The Secrets Between Us (Billionaire CEO Romance)

by Katie Mettner

  He leaned on the countertop with his hands braced behind him. “You don’t charge him? That’s nice of you, but bad for business.”

  I brushed him off with Justice, and it wasn’t lost on me that I did it without thinking about it. I’d never been comfortable enough with anyone to do that before.

  Scary.

  Deep breath.

  Stop letting him in, Mercy.

  “He takes care of his rent in other ways. He keeps me stocked with fish, for starters. At this time of year, it’s nice to have the company of someone I can trust way out here in the middle of nowhere.”

  “I thought you liked being alone out here.”

  Checkmate.

  “I still spend a lot of time alone, Hayes. Think of it like your grandpa coming to visit. I’m always happy to see him, but he doesn’t disturb me.”

  He raised a brow and his lips tipped up in a smile. “You’re saying you like the idea that someone is here, but not demanding of your time.”

  “I guess, yeah,” I agreed. “I know I can trust him if I ever need help. He could run the store with his eyes closed and doesn’t mind stepping in to help me with the chores.”

  His sweet blue eyes traveled the length of me, stopping on my lips while he licked his. “You can trust me, Mercy. I promise.”

  “About as much as I can trust the wolves out there,” I muttered. I walked into the bedroom and picked up the bundle of sheets Mr. Boling had left on the floor by the bed. He served in the army years ago and what they taught him was still ingrained in his being. I never had to question if the place would be in tip top shape when I came in to pick up his bedding. After a quick check of the bathroom, I returned to the front room where Hayes was sweeping the ashes from the fireplace. “What are you doing?” I asked, dumping the sheets and towels in the basket by the door.

  He rose to his full height and my breath hitched. Here, in this tiny, airless room, he was all man. I took a step back with each one he took toward me. His head cocked to the left when I backed up and hit the door with the back of my head. He rubbed the spot with his hand tenderly, but didn’t touch me anywhere else. “I’m really not going to hurt you, Mercy. Repeat that, please,” he begged softly.

  “You’re really not going to hurt me,” I stuttered, my breathing fast and uneven from his touch. I didn’t like how his presence affected me. It had only been a few days and suddenly I was weak in the knees over this guy.

  No, stop it, Mercy. You can’t afford his kind of complication in your life.

  The truth was, he couldn’t afford my kind of complication in his life.

  “Then why do you still look petrified? Who hurt you?” he asked, his voice loud in the empty room. His hand dropped to my shoulder and then lower, to grasp the empty sleeve of my sweatshirt. “Who hurt you?”

  I swallowed, the words sticking in my throat. “Every man I’ve ever known,” I answered, straightening my spine. “I doubt you’ll be any different.”

  I picked up the basket and stepped out of the cabin. He plastered himself to my back and we crunched through the snow to deposit the bedding in the store. His presence was unnerving and the way he so freely touched me without permission was dangerous. My reaction to his touch was likely a precursor to death. Eventually, my luck would run out and instead of being the one on the winning end, I’d be the one in the morgue.

  The thought alone caused me to trip on the last step and I pitched forward, my motion immediately stopped mid-air by a strong pair of arms.

  “I’ve got you,” he said in my ear, his breath warm against my cheek. “Stop running, Mercy. You don’t have to run anymore.”

  “The voices in my head tell me otherwise.”

  “Those voices aren’t real, Mercy. I’m real. Will you talk to me, please?”

  My head fell forward and my shoulders heaved. “I guess I owe you an explanation after last night.”

  He took the basket and set it on the stairs then turned me to him. He stood on the step below me and I gazed at him eye-to-eye for the first time. “You don’t owe me anything. You don’t owe anyone anything. Stop making excuses for your existence. Do you understand me? You deserve to be here as much as I do.”

  “I wish I could believe that. It’s a nice fairy tale, but the truth is the complete opposite.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  MERCY

  We walked toward the lake with Beast by our side. My hand was in his, though my trust was tentative. “But the plowing,” I said, glancing behind us toward the shed.

  “The plowing doesn’t matter. As you said, no one will be here for days. Chances are it will snow again in the next two hours,” he said teasingly. “It can wait until after the holiday. Take some time to relax. You don’t have to work yourself twenty-four seven.”

  “Says the boss,” I muttered, my feet finally following him down across the lake willingly. “You know I have a snowmobile, right?”

  “I do.” He nodded as we walked. “I can still remember how remarkable you felt snugged against my groin as it roared across this lake. In fact, it’s all I can think about.”

  “I told you to ride on the sled,” I joked, laughing as he threw the ball for Beast, who took off after it like a shot.

  “I was actually hoping for a second ride before I leave, just to keep the memory fresh.”

  “You missed your chance then. You’re making me trudge through all this snow to please a dog.” I shook my head when said dog came running toward us, his legs flopping around as if they weren’t connected to his body, and his tongue lolling, even with the ball in his mouth. “He does seem to enjoy his time out here with you, though.” He dropped the ball at Hayes’s feet and stood panting, waiting for him to pick it up and throw it again. “You know you’ve created a monster, right?” I asked but he didn’t answer. Instead, he took my hand and diverted us toward the shoreline.

  “Probably, but I have a treat for both of you right around the bend. He’ll be happy once we’re there.”

  I jogged to keep up with him and he helped me up and over the hump of weeds and grass covered in snow. We climbed the small embankment and came upon a campsite. “Must be hunters,” I said, glancing around. “We better find somewhere else to go.”

  He shook his finger at me and reached into his pocket, pulled out a lighter, and flicked a flame to the kindling. It flared to life then crackled and sparked in a myriad of yellow, orange, and red colors.

  “You’re the hunter.” I groaned, the scene taking shape in my mind.

  “No, I’m not doing any hunting. I’m going to sit out here in the fresh air, forget my responsibilities, eat hot dogs over the fire, and talk to this girl who I have a gigantic crush on. I want to get to know her better.”

  “Hayes,” I groaned, but he laid his finger on my lips.

  “I just want to talk, Mercy. That’s all. At least for right now.”

  I nodded my head against his finger, and his eyes showed me the victory he thought was his. The reality was something else entirely, though. I didn’t want to hurt him by saying anything, so when he motioned for me to sit on a blanket by the fire, I sank to the ground immediately. I was surprised by how cushioned it was. “Wow, you did think of everything.” I settled in and let the fire warm my nose.

  He sat next to me and opened a cooler, grabbing a bone for Beast, which he tossed out into the woods, and then a thermos and two mugs. “Thought we might want something hot to drink, but don’t worry, it’s just coffee,” he promised. “No dirty snowmen out here.”

  I accepted a mug and wrapped my hand around it, noting that he’d put cream in it even though he drinks his black. “Thanks,” I said, sipping it and letting the steam tickle my nose. “I don’t usually get to sit in the woods and do nothing. This is nice.”

  He nodded and hugged his knees while we stared at the fire. “I know what you mean. I never get away from the phone or the laptop. I can’t believe I left it at the cabin,” he said, laughing. “It’s like forgetting your pants and going
out in public.”

  I shook my head at him in disbelief. “If you’re that tied to it, then it can’t be good for your health. Downtime is important or you lose your sense of self.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” he agreed, taking another drink from his mug. “I lost myself three months ago and I’m not sure I’ll ever find myself again.”

  I twisted toward him immediately. “What happened three months ago.” I knew, but I was going to act like I didn’t.

  He gave a soft laugh and took another sip of coffee. “As if you don’t know. You know exactly who I am.”

  I rested my head on his shoulder for a moment. “I’m sorry for your loss. I wondered when you said there were still two Hayes Rutherfords left, but I didn’t want to let on that I knew.”

  “Why not?” he asked, his fingers trailing up and down my knee.

  “I decided maybe you were trying to get away from all of it and I didn’t want to bring it up and make you think about it.”

  He smiled and his soft silky beard twitched with the motion. “I appreciate your discretion. I originally came out here to work on a building design for a contract deadline. I’m an architect, which I’m sure you also know. The building design was the last contract my dad signed before he passed. He worked for months to obtain it and the last thing he made me promise him was that I’d finish it for him. As he lay dying, he wasn’t telling his wife he loved her, or his children how important they were to him. No, he was worried about the business. I still feel guilty about it.”

  “Why? That wasn’t your choice. It was his.”

  He tipped his head in acknowledgment. “It was, but that doesn’t make it any easier to face my mom or my siblings.”

  “Which is why you’re staying here instead of going home to spend the first Christmas without him together.”

  “Are you calling me a coward?” he asked. His tone was jovial, but I could hear the layers of anxiety and self-doubt underneath it.

  “No, I’m calling it as I see it. I’m not judging you or saying you’re wrong, I’m just making an observation.”

  He rested his forehead in the palm of his hand. “No, that’s exactly what I’m doing. I can’t face them on Christmas Day. There are so many memories tied to Christmas for our family. I can’t face them, especially now.”

  “Especially now is why you need to be there with them, Hayes. It’s only been three months. They need you.”

  “I lost the contract,” he whispered, his head still in his hand.

  “The one you came here to finish?” I asked confused and concerned. In the last ten minutes he’d gone from bigger than life to sunken and disparaged. I had no doubt he would despise those words being used to describe him, but today they fit.

  His head barely twitched in agreement. My cup went down to the ground and my arm went around his shoulders. “I’m sorry. What happened?”

  He lifted his head and stared at the flames. “Ange called last night right after I left your cabin. She’d been trying to reach me all day to tell me another company had undercut us and presented them with a completed design.”

  “But wait, you had the contract, how does that work? It was a legal binding contract, right?”

  “Sure, but since we hadn’t presented him with a finished plan, he had a clause allowing him to pay for the time spent and walk away, which is apparently what he did.”

  I rubbed his back through his thick parka. “You couldn’t have foreseen that. It’s not on you.”

  He shrugged and his eyes focused everywhere but on me. “The thing is, it was a bad contract to start with. I tried to tell my dad that what he promised this guy wasn’t possible.” He turned to me and took my hand, holding it to his chest like a lifeline he was desperate for. “I’m a specialized architect and I know what can and can’t be done with these new materials. My dad hadn’t done any design work for twenty years, at least. He promised things I couldn’t deliver on, no matter how many times I redid the plans. It was a flaming dumpster fire as soon as he told me what he’d done, but it was too late to do anything but prove it, by failing. I was dragging my feet because I was petrified someone was going to get hurt as a result of the plan, and that would reflect on our company.”

  “Was he already sick when he started the negotiations? I’m sorry, I know he died, but I don’t know how.”

  He shook his head, his lip between his teeth. “He was crushed on a construction site he shouldn’t have been on. He was pinned to a wall by a forklift and had massive internal injuries.”

  “God, I’m so sorry, Hayes. That’s awful. But none of it was your fault. You can’t carry that around or it will eat at you until you’re the one who’s sick.”

  “Exactly what my mom keeps telling me, and Ange, and my best friend. When Ange called me last night, I was relieved for about five seconds.”

  “Relieved?”

  He nodded, taking a swallow of coffee and sighing. “Yeah, relieved to know I could stop beating my head against the wall, but then everything else hit me like a brick. It’s why I drove to Grand Forks. I needed time to think.”

  “What is everything else?” I asked, confused. “You mean letting your dad down?”

  He made the so-so motion with his hand. “Honestly, that was inevitable and I knew it from the get-go. The everything else was the idea that if this other company used the same parameters Mr. Lancaster gave us, someone will get hurt.”

  “I don’t understand,” I admitted, “but I’m not that smart, so it’s entirely possible that’s why.”

  He put his finger to my lips. “Stop doing that. I don’t expect you to know anything about architecture. I just appreciate you listening to me ramble on about it.”

  “I can see it’s eating you up and I don’t want that for you.”

  “I’m relieved, actually. Our firm no longer has to deal with a contract I knew was bad from the beginning, right?” he asked and I nodded. “But I’m scared because the materials Mr. Lancaster wanted to use, and the specific design ideas he wanted in the final plan, means the building won’t be safe. That’s if they even get the building up without someone getting hurt when it collapses. I tried, Mercy. I tried every which way I could think of to make it work. I had multiple different designs where one parameter was missing, but the rest were there. I was going to present them to him, explain why they wouldn’t work together, and pray he’d see reason. The problem was, by doing that, it was taking the full amount of time he gave us in the contract to bring the design to him.”

  I tossed Justice up in the air. “Hayes, your father just passed and suddenly you’re left to run a billion-dollar company. He certainly couldn’t expect you to have the design done overnight.”

  He leaned over his knees and tapped his calves. “Doesn’t matter now. I have to do damage control with the office, and my family.”

  I hugged him tightly around his shoulders. “Once you explain it, they’re all going to understand. I bet your mom already knows the deal was bad from the beginning. Women are like that. We know more than we let on.”

  He gave me a lip tilt and nodded. “You’re probably right. Dad was always running things past her. She’s a lawyer, you know.”

  My brows went up immediately. “I didn’t know that. Does she still practice?”

  “No, she retired when my sister had her first baby. She wanted to be around for the grandkids.”

  I squeezed his hand and held his eyes with mine. “You’re going home tomorrow, Hayes. You’re going to go home and spend Christmas Eve and Christmas with your family. That’s where you should be. Not here.”

  His eyes closed and he swallowed hard. “I want to be here with you. I don’t want you to spend Christmas alone.”

  I trailed my hand down his cheek, his beard soft and smooth against my palm. “I’m always alone. Christmas is just another day to me, but Christmas is something completely different to you. If you don’t go, I know years from now you’ll regret missing this day with your family. I won’t
be the reason you have regrets years from now. I’m not worth it.”

  He grabbed my shoulders, his hands gentle, but firm. “You are worth it, Mercy. Come with me. No one is here, so you can get away for a few days. I’ll drive you back on the twenty-sixth after I trade in the Mercedes for something that doesn’t have the real possibility of killing us.”

  I didn’t laugh, but I did turn away to stare into the dying fire. I tossed another log on it and watched the sparks of orange and red fly into the air.

  “There’s no way you’re bringing a woman like me home to mommy, Hayes. You’re the CEO of a company that pulls in more money in a month than I can make in my entire life. You have eight years of education. I barely graduated high school. Your family is the epitome of traditional and loving. My family was the poster child for dysfunctional.”

  “I don’t care about money. There’s only so much money you can spend every month, especially when you’re single. Last night, I shut down the business for the first time in history.”

  I glanced at him from the corner of my eye. “I’m sure your employees appreciate being able to spend the holiday with their family.”

  “It’s just one of the things I want to change now that Dad is gone. He ran the company like a boot camp rather than a collaborative think tank.”

  “But it’s not a think tank, it’s an architecture firm,” I pointed out. “Why would you want to run it like a think tank.”

  He motioned around with his hands. “Because there are so many subcategories of architecture we could delve into if we took the time to get together and talk.” He waved his hand at his neck. “Forget it. What I’m saying is, I’m tired, I guess.”

  I nodded, sipping my almost cold coffee. “After the last few months you’ve had, I can see why you’d be tired. Grieving is hard.”

  He laughed sadly and threw a rock over the fire. It landed in the snow by the tree line. “I honestly don’t think I’ve had a chance to do that yet. I’ve been too busy putting out fires at the company and working on a now-defunct project.”