The Secrets Between Us (Billionaire CEO Romance)

by Katie Mettner

  “What?” I asked, taking his arm. “Did you forget something on the lake?”

  “No, it hit me that I don’t know how to clean fish. How are we going to eat this guy for dinner if neither of us can clean it?” He bit his lip in frustration and stared at the creature he had been so proud to bring me just a few seconds ago. I wanted to put the smile back on his face, so I grabbed his wrist tenderly.

  “We can do it together,” I promised. “I know how to clean fish, but I can’t do it one-handed. If we work together, we can get the job done.”

  He threw the paper towel away and twisted his arm around to take my hand and twine our fingers together. “I like that idea. We’ll work as a team,” he agreed, squeezing my hand with his. He leaned down to kiss my lips in a perfunctory kiss of satisfaction.

  “Perfect. I can’t pass up a fresh walleye dinner, especially when you worked so hard to catch it.”

  He shrugged, but ran his finger down my face in a gesture of tenderness and caring. “I decided I had to find a way to put my dad to rest. I needed to change the last memory I had of him from horror and pain to calm and peaceful. He used to love ice fishing, and my biggest regret is that I didn’t go with him enough. My brother was always the sportsman of the family.”

  I patted his chest and winked. “I’m glad you found some time to spend in nature with your dad. It’s important to find a way to let the grief out.”

  He nodded, a sad smile on his lips. “It was nice to do nothing but sit and watch the birds fly around, and the rabbits hop from place to place without a care in the world. I even saw a couple of deer walking across the lake. Too bad you weren’t with me. We could have solved your venison problem.”

  I rubbed his chest absently, his parka unzipped enough I could feel his soft chamois shirt underneath. “I’m happier knowing you got to experience their beauty. Those deer will live another day. You were wound up tighter than a drum this morning, but you’re much more relaxed now. I’m glad you went out there, and not just because you brought me walleye.”

  He dipped his head and tasted my lips, tongue, and everything in between. “Some of that tension was your fault,” he panted when the kiss ended.

  “My fault? What did I do?” I asked, stepping back.

  “You exist. You’re a beautiful, smart, sassy woman with a body to die for.” He held my arm and closed the distance between us. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since I arrived. After this morning in the woods, I don’t know if I can leave.”

  “Hayes,” I warned, while he took my hand and placed a gentle kiss on it. “I’m not the right woman for you.”

  “So you say, but I know for a fact you’re the right kind of woman to eat that fish with me. What do you say we get on with it?”

  I smiled and rolled my eyes to the ceiling, knowing he’d won. “My mouth is watering thinking about turning that bad boy into some parmesan crusted walleye fillets.”

  “My mouth is watering too, but it’s not for walleye,” he promised, his lips lowering to mine again. “Definitely not for the walleye,” he whispered and then his lips were on mine and our tongues tangled.

  A moan ripped from his throat and I forgot every argument I had about why this was a bad idea.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  HAYES

  “This is incredible.” The fish melted in my mouth with every bite. “I can’t get fish like this in the city.”

  She rolled her beautiful brown eyes around in her head. “Probably not, since it’s only been what,” she checked the clock, “three hours since you caught it and we’re already eating it. That doesn’t happen unless you’re eating at a seaside restaurant.”

  I pointed at her with my fork. “Which is impossible in the middle of North Dakota.” She laughed, which is what I was going for. I wanted to memorize the sound. I wanted to remember her laughter forever. “Where did you learn to cook?” I asked conversationally while we finished our fish and baked potatoes. “And don’t say anyone can cook because I can’t cook like this.”

  “My mother worked at a small mom and pop type deli. They let me get off the bus there after school and I’d sit and watch them work. I learned how to cook from them.”

  “Did you work there once you were old enough?” I was enjoying the chance to get to know her better, even if the stories she had to tell were unlike any other woman’s I had ever met.

  She shook her head and swallowed some wine, her gaze not meeting mine. “I’ve been on my own since I was sixteen.”

  “Did you run away?” I set my glass down, the look on her face telling me there was more to the story than running away.

  She rubbed her temple and stared at the remains of the fish on her plate. “You have to understand that Mom and I went on the run for years after she killed my dad.”

  “Wait, back up. She never talked to the cops about it?”

  “Never. She said they’d put her in prison and I would go to foster care. She promised me I’d be molested and abused if that happened, so I stayed quiet. She changed my name to Amelia when I was eight. I hated it and changed it back to Mercy when I was sixteen.”

  “Back to the being on your own part. Why?” I asked, intent on convincing her to finish the story.

  She twirled the stem of her wine glass a few times and had an internal debate about how much to tell me. I could tell by the expression on her face, but she finally spoke. “Mom and I started living with this guy she met at the deli. They were in love.” Her eyes rolled around in her head again with disdain. “I could see he was just like my father, but she refused to listen to reason. I went off to school one day and when I came home, they weren’t there. I didn’t think much of it, but when they didn’t come home the next day, I called the cops and reported them missing. They found them three weeks later, and they were both dead. The cops think it was a drug deal gone bad, but I think Dusty did her in and then shot himself. They were too decomposed to know the exact way it went down, but whatever the reason, she was gone. Rather than go into foster care, I took off. I started using the name Mercy again and no one from that part of my life was ever going to find me. Truthfully, they probably didn’t care. I was another mouth to feed in the system if I stayed, so good riddance, you know?”

  I lowered my wine glass to the table in shock. “No, not good riddance. You deserved far more than you got as a child, but what you did took guts. I’m impressed with your tenacity for life.”

  She swallowed another gulp of wine and refilled the glass. “Don’t be too impressed. Self-preservation will always kick in if you give it the chance.”

  We drank our wine in silence and stared each other down. “I feel inferior in so many ways right now,” I admitted.

  “What? Why? To me? Are you drunk? You’re three times as educated and affluent as I am. You have nothing to feel inferior about.”

  I laughed freely, loving her sassy attitude while knowing she was all heart underneath. “I’m not drunk, unless you count on you. Inferiority doesn’t apply to only education or socioeconomic status. Part of the definition of inferiority involves ability. I wouldn’t have survived a childhood like that.”

  She grunted and set the glass down, waving her finger. “No, see this is where things get muddy. Looking at my childhood from the place your sitting now, you can’t see yourself surviving because you lived such a different life. If you had lived the life I had, everything would look different.”

  “You’re saying it’s the old comparing apples to oranges idea.”

  She pointed at me before she slammed back the rest of her wine. I filled it again and she gladly took another drink before she picked it up and walked into the living room, leaving the dishes to sit. I took a few moments to clean everything up and run water in the dishes, so they could wait until morning. I grabbed my glass and the bottle and strolled into the living room. She had the fire going and the tree on, but that was the only ambient light in the room.

  “I talked to my mom today.” I lowered my
self to sit next to her on the couch.

  “What did she say?” She turned to lean against the arm of the couch, so she could make eye contact with me. I loved how nice it was to connect with someone the way I connected with her. There were no cell phones, television, or other distractions to keep us from being in the moment with each other.

  “She didn’t say much. She cried, a lot. I guess I have to admit you were right.”

  She held her hand out to the side and I noticed she fought to keep the other arm from making the same motion. “When it comes to moms and Christmas, it’s a no brainer. You don’t miss that day unless you're dead.” She dropped her head and shook it. “Sorry, I didn’t mean for it to come out like that.”

  I tipped her chin up and winked at her. “I know what you meant. I barely hung up with her and my brother, Caleb, called to yell at me about it.”

  She blinked, twice and then scratched her temple. “I thought Caleb was your best friend?”

  I grinned, her confusion and slight drunkenness adorable on her. “He’s both my brother and my best friend. We work together at Rutherford Designs. He runs the security division and generally keeps my butt in line.”

  “Which is why he called and yelled at you today.”

  I tipped my wine glass and winked at her before I drank from it. “He was right, though. I promised him I’d be back for Christmas Eve. I promised him things were going to change. I just have to figure out how to make that happen.”

  She tucked her glass between her legs and rested her hand on my arm. “You will. I believe in you. It’s your company now. Hayes one, two, and three are gone. You’re the only Hayes here who can change the world. You will, I know it.”

  I trailed my finger down her cheek and kissed her lips. They tasted of sweet wine and my head filled with the desire to be with her again. “We could change the world together, you know.”

  Her eyes closed as though the words she knew she had to say were choking her. “I’m not the right woman for you, Hayes. You need a woman who can give you Hayes Rutherford the Fifth and be everything that entails.”

  “Mercy, I had a vasectomy ten years ago. There’s no Hayes Rutherford the Fifth without a massive amount of medical intervention.”

  Her head tilted to the right and her breathing paused. “You said in the woods that you took care of birth control. I was confused, but I was too, uh …”

  “Turned on?” I asked, smirking at her uncomfortableness.

  She laughed around her glass of wine before she lowered it again. “Yeah, that. I was so lost in the moment I totally forgot about it until now. Why did you have a vasectomy? Ten years ago you were only twenty-five.”

  I stared at the angel on the top of the tree rather than her face. “I had it done during a time of my life that was filled with turmoil.”

  “Kind of like your life is right now,” she deduced, her hand massaging my neck.

  I tipped my head to the left and took another swallow of wine. “Worse, if you can believe that.”

  She kept massaging my neck tenderly and with purpose. “I’m sorry, I bet there are times you wish you hadn’t made that decision.”

  I shook my head as her tiny hand worked at the knots in the muscles around my shoulder. “No, never, at least not until today,” I whispered, taking her hand and kissing it.

  Her eyes told me exactly how those words made her feel.

  Wanted.

  Cared about.

  Worthy.

  The word hit me in the gut. She’d never been worth anything to anyone before. I could see it in her eyes in a way that made my heart ache and my stomach churn. This woman, the woman my body, and if I’m being fair with myself, my heart, cried out for, had never once been told she had worth. She had never once been told that someone needed her or that someone would be bereft without her. It took me a full thirty seconds to force air back into my lungs while I gazed into her molten chocolate eyes. I wanted to show her just how much she was worth to me. I wanted to be the one who taught her that she was good and just and pure, regardless of what her demons from the past said.

  My hand went to my hair and I squeezed the locks between my fingers. I had less than a day left here. How was I going to teach her something that massive and abstract in one day? I couldn’t. Showing someone their worth took far longer than a day. Sometimes, it took an entire lifetime. I wouldn’t be here for her lifetime and it was slowly killing me inside to admit that to myself. I was going to walk away tomorrow and I’d never look back, even though she would be the woman who ruined me for all others. She would be the woman I compared every other woman to, and none of them would ever hold a candle to her. She would forever be the one who got away. My heart squeezed hard enough at the thought to cause me real, physical pain. I’d never wanted anything more than to pretend the world outside this fishing camp didn’t exist. I wanted to stay immersed in her and the idea that we could be something together.

  A jolt of electricity shot through me at the thought. I’d never, ever had that thought before. I’d dated women with pedigrees and never wanted anything more than a good time from them. What the hell was happening to me?

  “All the same, Hayes, you need a woman who can fit into your world. Someone who understands your world.”

  “Do you even hear yourself?” I dropped my hand to my lap. “I don’t need a woman with a title or the right family name, if that’s what you think it means to fit into my world. I need a woman who keeps me on my toes, understands when I need space, gives me an instant hard-on just by smiling, and gives as good as she gets when I kiss her. I’ve never met a woman like that in the city.”

  “At least the women in the city have two arms. At least the women in the city don’t have a family legacy like mine.”

  I grasped her arm, holding it loosely but firmly, so she couldn’t pull it away. “What happened to your arm, honey? Is it somehow tied to your so-called family legacy? Hell, what is your family legacy? You refer to these things in some kind of shameful code. A code I don’t understand even though I want to. Tell me, Mercy.”

  She stared over my shoulder at the fire, the set of her jaw and the look in her eye saying she wasn’t going to tell me a damn thing. She may never tell me, but it didn’t matter, I already knew. I still wanted her to say it. I wanted her to say it aloud to another person. It wasn’t that I was sadistic or wanted to torture her. In fact, that was the last thing I wanted to do. I wanted her to say it because I suspected she’d never uttered it aloud to anyone before. It’s surprising the hold a secret that big can have on a person. If she could tell me her deepest, darkest secret, the grip it had on her heart, and mind, would slowly weaken. I might not be here when it happened, but I’d be comforted by the idea that I had a small part in moving her forward in life while mine stood at a standstill. Mercy Jane Denfield would never be mine, but for a brief instant tonight, she could be. That’s all I wanted. One last night to hold her and show her she was worthy of a man’s time and attention.

  She finished the wine in her glass, as though she didn’t notice or care that I was caressing Justice while we sat in silence. I grabbed my phone, pulled up a playlist, and then the room filled with a soft jazz version of Santa Claus is Coming to Town. I let her arm go and lifted the bottle, holding it up in a silent question of more? She held her glass out and I filled it, topping mine off with what was left in the bottle.

  “This is nice.” Her voice was barely audible over the music, which wasn’t loud to begin with. “Christmas carols have never been my thing,” she admitted.

  “Well, you are Jewish, so …” I said, tongue in cheek.

  She laughed slightly drunkenly and budged me in the shoulder. “I’ve been on my own for years and haven’t once considered exploring Judaism. I think that ship has sailed.”

  “You know, you can decide to celebrate Christmas. It’s not defection or anything. Especially considering you never went to temple once in your life. Your words, not mine.”

  “I’ll tak
e it slow. I’ll start with the tree and Christmas movies, which by the way are nothing more than romance movies taking place in the middle of December. Maybe I’ll move on to the real reason for the season eventually.”

  I rubbed her shoulder absently. “Or maybe you won’t, and that’s okay. You’ve lived an unconventional life thus far and I don’t see that changing just because you put up a Christmas tree.”

  She pointed her little finger at me as she drank from her glass. “Exactly my point!” she exclaimed. “My life is unconventional and yours is scary conventional. I live in a cabin in the middle of the wilderness and you live in what, a high-rise in the middle of a metropolis?”

  I did the so-so hand. “Close. I have a house in the middle of the suburbs.”

  She laughed hysterically and her wine sloshed around in her glass. I plucked the stem from her fingers before it spilled and waited until she slowed to a giggle. When she could breathe again, I tickled her ribs playfully. “What’s so funny?”

  “You said you live in the suburbs. Can you picture me in the suburbs filled with soccer moms and minivans? You could make a movie and call it Lumberjack Tina Takes on the Suburbs.”

  I gave her half a lip tilt. “I don’t live in that kind of suburb. It’s a gated community where everyone is kind of like me.”

  “Damn,” she whistled high and sharp. “An entire suburb filled with rich, bearded men who drive Mercedes and jog to stay in shape?” she asked, her words slurring slightly the longer she spoke. I liked her when she had a buzz on. She didn’t put on airs when she was sober, but when she was drunk, she actually allowed you in the front door of her psyche so you could see the destruction firsthand. It was enlightening. Sad, but enlightening.

  I laughed and tickled her until she cried uncle, twice. I sat back, the wine hitting my system and heating my cheeks. “For your information, some of them don’t have beards.”

  She pounced on me and started tickling me back, but she was at a disadvantage because she only had one hand. We laughed until we couldn’t breathe and then I wrapped my arms around her, snugging her body against mine perfectly.