The Secrets Between Us (Billionaire CEO Romance)

by Katie Mettner

  “There are plenty of leftovers. Now you don’t have to cook tomorrow either.” I winked and she blushed, her eyes focused over my shoulder at the fire. After sitting through dinner with her, my eyes trained on her neck, I couldn’t stop myself. I had to touch it. My hand rested over the necklace that slipped between her cleavage. “I’m thrilled, and a little bit surprised, that you’re wearing this.”

  She glanced down at the necklace and back to me. “I haven’t taken it off since I found it on Christmas morning. Thank you. It meant a lot to me. It means a lot to me.”

  I didn’t remove my hand when I answered. “I’m glad, and to be open and honest with you, seeing it around your neck means more to me than you’ll ever know,” I promised, banging my fist against my chest twice. “What did you decide about it?”

  She tipped her head to the side. “I’m confused. Decide about what?”

  “Decide what the Star of David means to you,” I answered, tugging up on the chain lightly until the star appeared from under her shirt.

  Her hand curled around it like she was protecting it from my prying eyes. “I … I decided in light of the situation it meant a new life.”

  “A new life?” I asked and she nodded.

  “You said you believe it means mercy, and I had to agree with you. What happens when someone is granted mercy?”

  “You get to start anew,” I answered. I smiled and traced my finger along her jawline. “I knew you’d get it without me having to explain it.”

  “Why didn’t you call me, Hayes. Especially after you left without saying goodbye.”

  I pointed toward the store. “I told you, I was af—”

  She held up her hand. “You were afraid of rejection after a week? Sorry, but I don’t buy it.”

  I nodded and bit my lip to keep it from trembling. “The real answer is, I didn’t call because I didn’t know how you felt about me. It was easier not to call than to call and find out you didn’t have any feelings for me at all.”

  My tie slid through her hand and she stared at the geometric pattern on the silk. “You needed me to need you.”

  I tipped my head to the side in agreement. “I guess in a way, yeah. Part of me was trying to let you guide whatever was happening with us and the other part of me just needed you to need me enough to reach out. If you reached out then I figured we stood a chance together.”

  She stared at her lap, her fingers picking at some fuzz on her pants. “Nice story, but hard to believe. I tried to reach out and all I got back was crickets.”

  “What?” I asked, sitting up, my voice loud and confused. “Who did you reach out to? It certainly wasn’t me.”

  “I called the number they gave me when they made the first reservation here. You never gave me your cellphone number, so I had no other way to reach you. I barely got two words out of my mouth and the woman who answered the phone told me you weren’t taking any calls, then promptly hung up on me.”

  I sat back as if I’d been slapped. “There were a lot of reporters and news channels calling during that time. We were screening the calls heavily, but I did tell Ange to put you through if you called. Did you talk to Ange?”

  She shook her head no. “I believe her name started with a V, like Vicki or Violet.”

  “Vanessa?” I asked, my voice thin and tight.

  She snapped her fingers. “That was it! Vanessa. Yeah, she was a real bitch, no offense.”

  “Dammit,” I sighed, my entire body shaking with anger, “Vanessa is Caleb’s henchwoman. She runs the security department when Caleb is gone. I’m so sorry. It never dawned on me that you didn’t have my cell number.”

  “What about all the emails I sent?” she asked quietly, her voice soft and tentative.

  “Emails? What emails? I never got any emails. If I had I would have responded like that,” I promised, snapping my own fingers.

  She dug out her phone and punched around on the screen. Satisfied, she picked it up off her lap and turned it to show me. I took the phone and checked the email address. “Shit,” I swore softly. “This email was compromised after the news story came out. I transferred my contacts to a new one and never looked at this one again. I had the tech department monitoring it for client information, but it never crossed my mind that you’d email me there. I’m so sorry.”

  She reached for the phone, but I was busy reading the emails. The first one was a simple thank you for the necklace. The rest were different variations of the same question, why? Why did you leave me without a word? It broke my heart to read them, a little piece of me dying with each new sentence, paragraph, and email where she got no response. Yet, she kept writing, even if the emails became angry and judgmental, she kept writing them.

  I handed her the phone back and pulled her against me. “I’m so incredibly sorry for what I put you through,” I whispered, my voice reticent. “I should have stopped being afraid, stopped wanting everything to be perfect, and just come out here.”

  “Wanting what to be perfect, Hayes? What were you waiting for?”

  I held up my finger to her. “Let me grab my briefcase?”

  She nodded and I stood, loosened my tie, and counted to ten with my eyes closed. I stood over the bag, my heart pounding, and ran everything I wanted to say through my mind so I could remember all the points I wanted to make. When I turned back to her, she was watching me curiously, but there was another look in her eye. For a brief second, the look said I love you before she shut it down.

  I joined her again and opened my briefcase, pulling out the red folder. I rested it on my lap and laid my hands over it. “This is what I was trying to finish before I saw you again. It’s taken a lot of hours to put together, and we aren’t done yet, but we’re getting closer.”

  I lifted my hands and opened the folder on my lap so she could see the pictures inside. Her eyes scanned the diagrams, images, and mission statement. She glanced up at me, breath not moving in or out of her lungs for a split second before she jumped up and bolted from the room.

  Mercy

  I hung my head over the bowl, my stomach squeezing to force everything I’d eaten today to come up with little provocation. A strong pair of hands wrapped around my waist and then he was talking to me soothingly, his warmth against me like a balm to my heart, but at the same time, I couldn’t stop shaking.

  I rested against him for a moment until the wave of nausea passed and then I flushed the toilet. I took a couple of deep breaths and he directed me to the sink to clean up.

  “Are you going to be okay?” he asked, his hands rubbing up and down my ribs. “I’ll give you a few moments if you are. I don’t want to leave you in here alone if you’re going to pass out on me.”

  I shook my head without turning to look at him. “Nope, I’m good,” I promised, and hoped my voice sounded jovial and unaffected. It wasn’t like I could pretend I wasn’t unaffected, but I did want five minutes alone before I went back out there.

  The door clicked behind him while I washed my face and brushed my teeth. Then I stared at myself in the mirror for multiple minutes. I had to go back out there and face him, but I had to have a game plan. Why was he doing this now? What was his endgame? As much as it pained my heart to think about it, I knew what I had to do.

  I yanked the door open, determined to stomp down to the living room and kick him out, but he stood lounging against the wall, his tie open and his eyes filled with exhaustion. That little part of me that melted every time I saw him didn’t melt this time. It crumbled. I walked to him and put my arm around him, holding him tightly as we acknowledged each other’s shortcomings. We also acknowledged how much we needed each other in our lives.

  He slung his arm around my shoulder and walked me back to the living room, his lips finding my temple to kiss it before he sat me down. He knelt in front of me and took my hand in his, holding it tightly. “I’m sorry, I had no idea it would upset you that much. I’ve put it away and we won’t discuss it again.”

  “No, I’m sorry
for overreacting. You took me very much by surprise. I have no idea why, but my body just dumped a huge amount of adrenaline into my system and that always makes me ill. Why is Rutherford Designs dabbling in this?”

  “It started with Caleb, actually. He made a comment when we were talking about what direction we wanted to take the company in and it got me thinking. We started working together to branch out into different subgenres of architecture, and with our charitable contributions. My mom has had too much time on her hands, so she’s been doing law work to help us develop a charitable foundation within the business. What’s in that folder is part of that foundation.”

  I rubbed his arm, a genuine smile on my face. “How awesome, Hayes. You’re definitely a different man since you were last here. I’ve noticed that in just the two hours you’ve been with me. You’re less intense and focus better on having a relaxing conversation.”

  “I’m not overly relaxed right now,” he said, and I knew he wasn’t joking. “I’m majorly stressed out. I didn’t think this would go so poorly.”

  I glanced around the room and back to him. “Nothing is going poorly. We’re just talking,” I promised. “I’d like to know more about how you decided to branch into the subgenre of 3D prosthetic hand designs, though.”

  He laughed, self-deprecatingly. “Nice segue.” I winked and he hoisted himself back onto the couch to sit next to me. I gave him the universal sign with my hand for him to get talking. “It’s a funny story, actually.” I raised one eyebrow and he chuckled. “Okay, not funny so much as inspiring. You inspired me.”

  “I inspired you? I truly hate being inspiring.”

  “You do? Why?” he asked, all of his attention focused on me, but I forced my eyes to focus on anything but him.

  “It’s actually condescending to always hear how inspiring you are because you can take a bath with only one hand, or manage everyday tasks without help.”

  He grasped my shoulders between his strong, warm hands. “Not the kind of inspiration I meant. I think I would hate those kinds of condescending comments, too. Maybe I should say you sparked my curiosity.”

  I held up Justice. “Because I don’t wear a prosthesis?”

  “Sort of. It was more when you told me you couldn’t afford one.”

  “Yeah, not many arm amputees can afford the microprocessor arms. Most insurances don’t pay for them and their price tag is way too rich for my blood. Sure, I could have a hook prosthesis, but I know it would take me twice as long to do everything as it does without it. I tried one and didn’t like it. It was heavy and the hook got caught on everything.”

  He nodded and leaned over his lap. “I was really rather surprised by the wide range of prostheses available for arm amputees. They ranged from the very basic, all the way up to arms that cost more than my new SUV.” He winked and I bit back the smile wanting to shine through.

  “It’s beyond ridiculous, to be honest. There’s no way the average amputee can afford it.”

  “Which I also learned,” he agreed. “What I wanted to do was set up a way to make 3D hands and arms for patients who couldn’t otherwise afford one. We’ll start with domestic cases, but eventually we’d like to sponsor mission trips to third world countries to make hands and arms for amputees there.”

  I rested my hand on his knee again and patted it. “A noble cause, but you can’t make prostheses for people. You don’t have the training or the knowledge needed to fit them, and that’s just for starters.”

  “I agree,” he said, chuckling when he saw the expression on my face. “What Rutherford Designs plans to do is offer our services to prosthetic clinics who have candidates for us. We’d take their specifications and make the hand or arm, but send it back to them for fitting.”

  “Can you do that legally? Don’t you need a special license?”

  He reached out and tweaked my nose. “You ask a lot of questions and they’re always spot on. Yes, it is legal and yes, we do need a license. We’re in the process of getting the license in place, but while we wait, we’re also looking to hire a prosthetist or someone who understands the process better than any of us. Okay, someone who actually understands the process at all. I can scan the plans into the printer and hit print, but I can’t do anything that leads up to that or anything that comes after.”

  “What you’re saying is, you’re a front man,” I said, hoping he’d clarify since I was still slightly confused.

  “I guess, yeah. I can do one part of it but I need so many other people to help me with the rest of it. Until I have those people in place, being able to cut out 3D hands on a printer is a useless skill.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say useless,” I teased. “How exactly did I get involved in this, Hayes? I’m not a prosthetist. Hell, I can barely even spell prosthesis, much less have a clue about how to make one.”

  He lifted Justice and started working on the muscles in my arm with his magical and warm fingers. His massages always loosened the tension and relaxed my entire body. “I don’t know, to be honest.”

  I motioned at his briefcase by the couch. “You spent two months ignoring me to get this perfect and you don’t know how you want me involved? I find that hard to believe, too.”

  His hands continued to work on my arm but he avoided eye contact. His posture was ramrod straight and there wasn’t an ounce of him that said he was having a relaxing time at the moment. He was ready to bolt and I found it curious that he was so unsure of himself tonight. “I’m hoping, to start, once we get a prosthetist onboard and a license, you’d be willing to give one of our hands a test run. Maybe you’ll hate it. Maybe you’ll love it. Maybe you’ll find it useful for one thing and not another, but that’s the exact kind of information we’ll need.”

  “You want me to be a test subject?” I asked, biting back laughter. “I’m pretty sure you can find plenty of those without driving all the way out here.”

  His head snapped up and he finally made eye contact. “No, not a test subject. A participant in the process that might someday become part of her life in a bigger, more defined way. It’s a chance for you to test the waters. To see if you can find a position within the organization that gives you the same freedom you have out here while helping other women.”

  “Women like me?” I asked skeptically. “You do know me becoming an amputee because of that situation was rare, right? There aren’t a lot of women out there who are amputees because they lost their leg or arm to domestic abuse.”

  His hands stilled on my arm. “No, maybe not to domestic abuse, but there is a large population of amputees who have lost a limb to infection, at least from what I’m told. Considering that’s ultimately how you lost your arm, we think it makes you the perfect person to work with us on this project.”

  I leaned over onto the couch and smiled. “It’s not that, Hayes. It’s just that I have a life here and I don’t know if I’d survive living in a city again. I don’t know if we would survive working together.”

  “We?” he asked, raising a brow.

  I closed my eyes and swallowed. “I’m an idiot. You didn’t come out here for me. You came out here for you. My mistake.”

  His hand tightened around my upper arm. “You are not an idiot and I did come here for you. I came here for you one hundred fucking percent,” he growled before his lips were on mine and his tongue pushed its way through. He leaned me back on the couch, braced his hands on each side of my head, and kissed me until I couldn’t survive on the last vestige of air within me. “Don’t ever fucking question my intention for being here again,” he hissed, his breath coming in short bursts. I blinked twice and he read my reaction to his intensity. His arms went slack and his forehead rested against mine tenderly. “I’m sorry, but I was always coming back, Mercy. I just thought in order to walk back in that door, I better have a good reason for staying gone so long.”

  “It hasn’t been that long. Considering we only knew each other a week, you had every right to leave and never come back.”

&
nbsp; He sat up and grasped my chin in his hand. “Maybe, but my heart wasn’t having any of that. If only my brain would have listened to it and stopped being so fucking logical.”

  “Your heart?” I asked, my own tap dancing around inside my chest. Does he feel the same way I do?

  He tapped his sternum with his finger. “It’s this thing in here that keeps me alive. The last ten years, that’s all it did for me. Then I walked through the door of Cashmere Camp and the moment I laid eyes on the beautiful woman behind the counter, it started beating differently. It started telling me things that distracted me from my work, and it turned my life upside down.”

  “Are you sure that was your heart and not your other head?” I joked, going for teasing, but his finger came down on my lips to hush me.

  “Oh, trust me, my other head stood at attention, too. Her beautiful chocolate eyes that were always filled with suspicion and doubt hit me in the solar plexus, but when I was able to convince her lips I was so much more than she had me pegged for, it was heady.”

  “Probably just infatuation,” I whispered, my voice cracking enough I had to clear it.

  He shook his head slowly, his half-open tie swinging from the movement. It was like a pendulum on a clock that was ticking down to when he’d walk out my door again.

  “No. Caleb explained it to me,” he said, winking. “He told me infatuation doesn’t last very long. It burns out. It doesn’t burn deeper or harder when you’re apart. From what I’ve learned in the last two months, infatuation also doesn’t make you bite off the heads of everyone you work with on a regular basis. It doesn’t have you waking up from dreams of the girl, your boxers wet like when you were a teenager. Infatuation doesn’t do that.”

  “What does then?” My voice was shaking when I asked and he lowered his lips to mine, his body hanging over me like a hawk.