by Lucy Monroe
Andreas shifted in his seat, trying to control his urge to demand Kayla explain her remark about six years ago. It wasn’t just a restaurant full of strangers he didn’t want witnessing their very private conversation.
Andreas had no intention of giving their nosy cabbie any more fodder for his curiosity.
When they arrived at the hotel, Andreas waited on the sidewalk for Kayla to scoot out of the back seat. He would usually go ahead of her, trusting her to follow, but in her current state, he wasn’t taking anything for granted.
She stopped in front of him, tugging the hem of her sexy little dress down. It hugged every curve, reminding him of how beautiful she was, that no other woman had ever measured up to the perfection of Kayla Jones since that first day he’d seen her across the quad at university.
He shoved those thoughts away. “Are you ready to go inside?”
“Do I have a choice?” she asked, 100 percent attitude.
Rather than grab her, he shoved his hands into his pockets. “You act like I’m some kind of tyrant.”
“Do I need to remind you of the events of the last hour?” she asked in that sarcastic tone that made him want to do things he’d made himself forget.
He forced an even tone. “None of which would have happened if you had been waiting in the suite when I arrived.”
“That was not going to happen.”
“So, you wanted to go shopping.” It had not surprised him to find out she was in the garment district. Kayla liked to shop when she was stressed. She’d worked out a few knotty computer codes with “shopping therapy,” as she called it. It was discovering she was with Jacob Tarkent that had Andreas’s blood pressure spiking. “Did you have to pick up a date?”
Kayla stepped past him with a saucy sway of her sexy hips. “He picked me up.”
“I figured.” Andreas followed, forcing himself to ignore the way her dress and attitude were affecting his libido.
He had six years’ experience ignoring these sexual urges. It shouldn’t be so damn hard.
“So? I’m single. It’s allowed.”
“You are in a strange city. He could have been anyone.”
“But he’s not.”
“No.” As soon as he’d known whom she was with, he’d had a background check run on Jacob Tarkent, by Hawk’s company coincidentally.
They were very thorough and fast.
“So, you knew I was safe.”
He put his hand on her arm, stopping them outside the doors to the hotel. “You didn’t.” And that was the damned point, even if she wanted to ignore it.
“I did.” Oh, she sounded so sure.
“That’s right, you think you can read people.”
“I can. It’s a skill you learn in foster care.” Her feisty expression dared him to contradict her.
“It’s not one hundred percent.”
“Nothing is.” She glared up at him, everything in her demeanor defying him, and that should not have been a turn-on. “Are we going to stand out here discussing this?”
“At least you are finally admitting we need to discuss things between us.”
She rolled her eyes, her lovely latte skin flushed with anger. “I’m really annoyed with you, Andreas.”
“I think you are understating the case.” Furious seemed more like it.
Her gray eyes narrowed further. “Maybe.”
“Definitely.” That was okay. He was pretty pissed off himself. Not that he wanted to examine why. He just wanted to fix it. All of it.
They were friends. She was all he had left of family.
Even if she didn’t realize it.
“Let’s go inside.”
“Whatever you say, Commander.”
“You are skating on thin ice.”
“Oh, I’m shaking in my boots.” Kayla did sarcasm better than anyone he’d ever met.
“You only ever say that when you aren’t wearing any.”
“The irony is all the stronger in that case.”
He shook his head and took her arm again, needing to know she was with him. She didn’t pull away from his hold, and the gratitude he felt was all out of proportion.
They rode in tense silence to the penthouse-suites floor. The old-fashioned apricot roses he’d had delivered earlier filled the sitting room with their heady fragrance. He’d noticed that Kayla hadn’t bothered to read the card Andreas had included with the flowers.
He frowned. She’d also ignored the box of her favorite chocolates on the table.
A bottle of sweet champagne chilling in a standing ice bucket and a platter of fruit had been added to the offerings.
Kayla’s gaze took all this in and then snapped back to him. “What is all of this?”
“I wanted you to be comfortable.”
“With roses, champagne and chocolates?” she asked with clear disbelief.
“There’s fruit too.”
“Isn’t that a little romantic for your employee?”
“You are my friend, my business partner, not simply an employee, and it’s not about romance. It’s about offering your favorites.”
“Typical.”
If by typical she meant he somehow screwed up and then made things better with an offering of food, then yes. It was typical. And usually, she allowed the gesture as the olive branch it was.
She gave a disdainful glance to the champagne.
“I’d rather have tea.” Her tone said she wanted all her wits about her.
He’d thought he could use the advantage of alcohol, but then again, maybe he needed his wits about him too. He definitely didn’t need alcohol lowering his sexual inhibitions around her.
“Do you want to call for it, or shall I?” he asked.
“I’m not sure I could eat right now.”
She never ate when she was stressed.
“I’ll munch on the fruit if I get hungry.” His appetite, on the other hand, never got affected by emotions.
Emotions had no place in life at all.
She would be better off if she could push hers aside too, but then she wouldn’t be Kayla.
She nodded and then crossed plush white carpet to order her tea. Once she’d done that, she headed to the bedroom her luggage had proclaimed to be hers. “I’m changing into something more comfortable for this talk.”
“You look great.”
“Yeah, well, I was dressed for a date. This is not a date. I’m changing.”
He didn’t know why the words offended or he felt the need to argue that point. Andreas clamped his jaw and refused to allow the words of denial to pass his lips.
If the woman wanted to change, let her.
Six years ago, it had taken him some time to overcome urges like this too. That was all it was, the reminder of the sexual relationship they used to have.
Nothing else.
They’d been lovers for two years. She’d been the most satisfying sexual partner of his life, but he’d realized she was something more important. She was a friend he didn’t want to lose, so he looked for a role she could play in his life that would keep her in it. Because lovers didn’t last.
He’d finally figured it out.
A business associate. He knew that meant they had to stop their sexual relationship, but the sacrifice would be worth it. By changing the nature of their relationship, he was guaranteed of keeping Kayla in his life long-term. Lovers came and went, but if she came into his budding company with him, she would be with him for the long haul.
It had worked too.
They’d been best friends ever since.
Only now she was saying they weren’t friends anymore, because he was selling the company. Didn’t she realize he had plans for both of them? Didn’t she trust him at all?
She came out of the bedroom as a knock sounded on the door. Andreas went to answer it though it might have been natural to let her do so.
They were in a large city and though the hotel should be secure, he would not have her answering the door here.
> He opened the door to the waiter carrying a tray with Kayla’s tea things. Andreas directed the man to place them on the table before signing the ticket.
He waited for Kayla to fix her drink just the way she liked, with milk and an even teaspoon of sugar, before speaking again. “Explain what you meant about six years ago.”
Her hand trembled as she picked up her cup, but she managed a sip. Then she looked at him, her beautiful gray eyes filled with pain and a determination that scared him.
Nothing scared Andreas anymore.
He was his own man.
No one could ever take that away again.
She pulled her knees to her chest, wrapped her arms around her legs. Classic Kayla self-protection pose. Even her sweats and hoodie were what he considered her armor.
Most women dressed up when they wanted to feel safe, but not Kayla. She dressed down, in sweats, a hoodie, thick socks. And as far as he knew, Andreas was the only person who knew that.
Her gray gaze regarded him somberly. “Six years ago you figured out a way to use me for your company.”
“That’s one way of looking at it.”
“Is there another?” she asked, sounding like she thought she knew the answer.
“I found a way to keep you in my life longer than a lover would have lasted.”
Her eyes widened, her expression mirroring shock and a little incredulousness.
“I liked you more than any woman I’d ever had in my bed. I had more tender feelings for you than anyone else, like I’d only ever allowed myself to feel toward my mother. I didn’t want to lose you out of my life entirely.”
“But as your lover I had a sell-by date that was fast approaching,” she said, as if with dawning understanding and no small amount of horror.
It was true none of his other lovers had lasted as long as she had. “I didn’t know how much longer we would be together as sexual partners, but I knew as business partners our relationship would last longer.”
“And it did.” She said this with a strange, very un-Kayla-like tone, like she was adjusting her thoughts, but not like the adjustment made her happy.
“It was a good move. We started working together, became friends. Best friends. We’re in each other’s lives in a good way. A long-term way.”
“Not anymore. You’re selling the company. You’re walking away.” Kayla’s voice was filled with such sadness, such finality.
It chilled Andreas right through. “I want you to walk with me.”
“I’m not leaving KJ Software.” There was no doubt there. No give. Absolutely no compromise.
It was like she’d written code with no if...then statement. In Kayla’s mind, this was a closed loop of program.
“You don’t mean that. There’s so much more you could do. So many more puzzles you could solve.” Didn’t she realize? “You’re brilliant. The whole world of computer programming is open to you. It doesn’t have to be cybersecurity.”
“I like the puzzles I solve now. That company is my home. I feel safe there.”
Her home? It was just a company.
But looking at Kayla, for the first time, he realized they looked at KJ Software with completely different eyes. He might own 95 percent, but Kayla was invested in the company in a way he never would be.
Something cold opened up inside Andreas. It had never occurred to him that when all was said and done he would not be able to convince Kayla to move on to the next venture with him.
“No, your home is your condo.” That should be true.
She shook her head, her expression repudiating his words before she ever spoke. “That’s just where I sleep. Not where I feel safe.”
“Don’t I make you feel safe?” If he wasn’t her safety, what was he to her? He wasn’t just her boss.
She stared at him, something he couldn’t read in her gray gaze. “You’re getting married.”
“That doesn’t mean things between us have to change.”
“Yes, it does.”
“No. I say what happens in my life.” He’d made that truth in his life since he’d left the Georgas family and Greece. She had to know that.
“You’re making a new family. I won’t be in it.”
No. Those words weren’t true. He wouldn’t let them be true. “You are part of my life.” Part of his family, but for some reason he couldn’t say the words out loud.
“Maybe we still can be friends, but you can’t be my safety. That wouldn’t be fair to your new wife, to the children you’ll have together. It’s just not the way it works, Andreas. The company. It’s all I have. I have to talk to Sebastian Hawk and make sure he’s not going to take that away from me.”
Realization hit Andreas hard. And it was one he did not like. Kayla needed security he, Andreas Kostas, could not give her. She felt threatened by the loss of the company and his marriage happening at the same time. Both were necessary for Andreas’s final plan to prove to his father and the Georgas family that he did not need them in any shape or form.
Had never needed them. Would never need them.
The only way to give Kayla what she needed was to put off one or both of his stratagems and Andreas simply could not do that. He had worked too hard to make his plans a reality. Besides, he was finished with KJ Software. He’d been itching to move on to something bigger and better for the last year.
Kayla knew that, even if she was struggling with accepting it.
It had never occurred to him that she’d want to stay on. That the company itself had taken on a surrogate family role to her. That she considered it her stability factor.
“I wanted you to keep working with me,” he told her baldly.
The look of utter sadness and acceptance in her expressive gray eyes said it all. “You want to keep building bigger and better businesses.”
“Yes.”
“Sometimes, businesses fail.”
“Mine won’t.”
Her pretty lips tilted in a half smile. “You’re so confident.”
“You’ve called me arrogant a time or three in the past.”
“Well, you are,” she teased in the old way.
He shrugged.
“I’m not leaving the company with you.”
She meant it. She really wanted to stay with the company and had every intention of doing so.
“That doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.” Maybe they wouldn’t work together, but they still lived in the same building.
She drank her tea and stared at him for a lot longer than he thought it should take to answer that statement, but finally she set her cup of tea down and nodded. “I guess you’re right about that. Friendship isn’t about always getting what you want. It’s also about being there for the other person. And I suppose in your arrogant, pigheaded way, you need me.”
“Enough with the name-calling.”
“You broke up my date.”
“I was worried about you.”
“You could have been worried about me tomorrow.”
“Stop pretending like you were going to have sex with him.” The idea was an anathema.
“You don’t know what I was going to do. You think you know me, but let’s face it, Andreas, you thought I’d be okay with the bride pimp and I’m so not. You thought I’d be okay with selling the company and I still kind of want to shred your closet of suits over that one. You thought I’d want to leave KJ Software to start a new company and you couldn’t have been more wrong about that. I’m not sure you know me very well at all.”
He couldn’t argue a single one of those sentences.
And something about six years ago had gone down very differently than he’d thought too, or it wouldn’t have come up today. Andreas had the unpleasant sensation that she was right and that he did not know Kayla Jones nearly as well as he thought he did.
And if he didn’t figure her out, he was going to lose the one person he still considered family.
That was not going to happen. Andreas Kostas had lost all the impo
rtant people in his life he was going to let go of.
Kayla Jones was never going to be one of them.
* * *
Andreas finished answering emails, ignoring yet another text from Genevieve. He’d had no idea she was so demanding when he hired her. She’d acted very accommodating and happy to have him as a client. Her tenacity was well-meaning no doubt, but he had other things on his mind at the moment. Her in-depth questionnaire and business-mogul makeover were going to have to wait.
Why did he need to change his clothes and haircut anyway? He didn’t have any trouble finding companionship dressing like a high-powered businessman. When he’d mentioned that to Genevieve, she’d replied he was looking for a wife, not a hookup.
He was still unconvinced.
He didn’t want a wife who expected some laid-back guy who was going to spend every evening and weekend playing happy families. That wasn’t Andreas.
Dismissing thoughts of his matchmaker, he replied to another text.
Satisfied with his morning’s work, he was considering ordering breakfast and waking Kayla when the second bedroom door in the suite slammed open. She appeared, no wakeup knock necessary, her curls tied up in one of the scarves she wore to bed to keep them tamed. Its bright color at odds with the dark visage of her face. Her glare shot around the sitting room until it landed on him with the weight of a fully locked-and-loaded missile.
Gray eyes narrowing even further, she stomped toward him. Her body moved in ways his couldn’t help taking an interest in, what with the way her peach satin sleep shorts and silky spaghetti-strap sleep top clung to her bouncing curves.
Damn it, he needed to remember that the passion they’d shared had been too consuming for good decisions.
She slammed her beloved smartphone down in front of him. “Fix it.”
The phone beeped, indicating a text.
“Fix what?” They’d long ago established she was the more technically savvy of the two of them.
“That!”
The phone beeped again.
“What?”
She shoved it in his face.
His eyes focused on the screen. The text was from Genevieve. Demanding Kayla get Andreas on the next plane back to Portland.
“You gave your bride pimp my phone number.”
“Yes.” It had seemed like a good idea at the time.
