by Naima Simone
The vow came out impassioned, almost furious. But that fury was reserved for himself, the man who’d fallen for a woman who had betrayed him.
Mycah understood that kind of betrayal. The path of it might be different, but that pain? Oh, she was very familiar.
And it could break a person’s spirit. Their belief and trust in other people. In themselves.
“What was her name?” she asked.
He studied her for a moment, head cocked to the side. “Yvette. Why?”
“They say if you give the devil a name and say it aloud, he—or she—no longer has power over you.”
He snorted softly. “That’s what they say, huh?” He shook his head, a faint smile lifting the corner of his mouth before disappearing. “Yvette.” He said her name again, lower this time, and if she hadn’t been so tuned in to him, she might not have caught it. He hiked his chin at her. “What’s the name of your devil, Mycah?”
A spark of panic flared in her chest. Oh, God, where did she start? Easy. She didn’t. Because she was afraid if she did, she wouldn’t be able to stop.
“I don’t have any.”
“Liar,” he murmured, calling her out.
His arm shot out, curling around her waist, hauling her across his thighs. He arranged her so she straddled him, and she moaned, her sex notching against his rapidly hardening cock. But before she had time to roll her hips and get ready for round—what, three or four?—he cradled her face between his hands and tipped her head down so she had no choice but to meet his unwavering scrutiny.
“You, Mycah Hill,” he said, sweeping his thumb over her cheekbone, “are a liar. But that’s okay. We’ve had enough revelations for one day. But when you’re ready, I’ll be here. And you’re going to tell me. Because we both know you have demons. You let me know when you want to name them.”
Then he took her mouth.
And took her under.
And she let him.
Ten
“I swear, one day you’re going to have to explain to me why you prefer this office in the basement when there’s a perfectly good one with fucking windows on the executive floor.”
Achilles sighed as Cain strode into the office, scowling as he surveyed the workspace as if it were the first time he’d seen it. Which it wasn’t. His older brother just never let pass an opportunity to bitch about the size and location. For some reason, it really irked Cain that Achilles preferred to be down in the IT department instead of on the thirty-second floor with Cain and Kenan.
When he asked, Achilles gave him his rote answer of feeling more comfortable with the people who “spoke his language.” And it wasn’t a complete lie. But neither was it the truth.
He couldn’t tell Cain, or Kenan for that matter, that even something as inconsequential as taking an office next to them and appearing as a unified Farrell front constituted bonds he wasn’t comfortable forming. Not when he had no intention of strengthening or tightening those bonds.
Not when he planned on returning to Washington in a matter of months.
Doing so would just make it that much harder to cut ties when the time came. And if losing his mother and Yvette’s betrayal had educated him in anything, it was that love hurt.
Whether due to abandonment, lies, fists, betrayal...death.
Love always ended in pain.
No attachments. No love. No hurt.
So no, he’d keep his office here on the eighth floor and his brothers at a careful distance. It would be better for them in the long run. And definitely better for him.
“As I’ve repeatedly told you and Kenan, it’s not the basement,” he said, shifting his attention from Cain, who had dropped into the visitor’s chair, and back to his monitor.
“Did I hear my name being taken in vain?” His younger brother appeared in the doorway, carefree grin in place. “Or were you saying it in total adoration? I get that a lot.”
Cain snorted. “This office is already cramped. We damn sure don’t have enough room in here for us and your ego.”
“I told you we should’ve had this meeting in the broom closet down the hall. It’s more spacious.” Kenan shrugged, claiming the other chair next to Cain.
“Are you two finished?” Achilles snapped. “If you feel so claustrophobic, there are perfectly good phones in your offices, and you could’ve used them to call me.”
“What would’ve been the fun in that?” Kenan asked. “Besides, I love the smell of fresh asbestos in the morning.”
Achilles growled, and Kenan laughed, holding up his hands, palms out.
“Fine, fine. I’m done. Cain, can we get on with this before he forgets that I’m his brother?”
As if he could. Achilles curled his fingers into his palm to prevent himself from rubbing at the pang in his chest Kenan’s words generated.
“Here, Achilles.” Cain leaned forward and slid a manila folder onto the desk. “I emailed you a copy of this, but here’s a hard copy, too. Don’t say it.” He turned and jabbed a finger at Kenan, then pointed the same one at Achilles. “I know, I know. And so what? I still like to have things in my hands. Sue me.”
And in the hands of others, too, but okay, he’d keep his mouth shut. That was an argument for another day.
“Anyway, we’re looking at acquiring a software company out of San Francisco. Just from what we’re seeing and hearing, they’re really turning the software-as-a-service industry on its head with their backup technology. They’re making on-premises backups obsolete with their third-party backup software app on the cloud. There haven’t been security issues and it cuts costs. I’m sure there are variables we haven’t uncovered, and that’s where you come in. And before we invest one hundred and fifty million dollars, we need to make sure it’s sound. And that we’re going to make a profit, of course. Can you look it over and give us your opinion on not just the software but the company?”
Achilles blinked. Cain had requested his presence in meetings, but he’d felt like a figurehead. He hadn’t offered his opinions, and he hadn’t been asked for them. Here, in the IT department, he was at least useful, able to answer calls, offer help and fix problems, even install software when needed because he wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty.
But this...
He glanced away from Cain for a moment, unable to maintain eye contact with the same penetrating gaze he met in the mirror every morning. His brother, who’d suffered through too much at the abusive hands of their father, saw too much. Cain, accepted heir of Farrell and renowned businessman, wouldn’t lay the fate of millions of dollars in Achilles’s hands if he didn’t trust him. And Achilles feared Cain would glimpse how much this show of trust, of faith, meant to him.
Because it did.
There went those bonds. Tightening. And he fought them like a man drowning, even as an image of his passion project—his video game—popped in his mind. As did the inane urge to tell his brothers about it. The longing shoved at his rib cage, growing in pressure. He needed to share it with the two people who just might be those closest to him. Who might understand him if he just opened up and let them in...
Love always ended in pain.
No attachments. No love. No hurt.
The reminder whispered through his head, echoed in his heart. And it was sharp, leaving an ache behind.
“Yes, I’ll do it.” Achilles picked the folder up. “When do you need the info back?”
“Next Monday work?” Cain asked.
That gave him a week, which would be more than enough time. “That’s fine.”
“Good.” Cain stood, sliding his hands into the front pockets of his gray tailored pants. “Also, just wanted to give you a heads-up. Devon’s going to be calling you. She’s starting a computer class at the community center since a new donor anonymously donated PCs.”
Kenan coughed.
“Shut up, you,�
�� Cain snapped. “Anyway, I didn’t want you to be ambushed.” He paused. “But you should know, my fiancée has a soft heart. And even if you decide to tell her no, let her down gently or I’ll steal those Dr. Who collectibles in your desk drawer that you think we don’t know about and sell them online for a penny.”
Achilles gaped at Cain, caught between shock and laughter.
“I think you broke him,” Kenan whispered.
More of those bonds.
“Okay, got it,” Achilles rasped.
Moments later, his brothers left, and Achilles still stared at the door. Finally, shaking his head, he got back to work. And if his chest felt a little lighter, well, he attributed it to the challenge of a new project, nothing else.
Hours later, a knock at his office door brought his head up, and another kind of warmth streamed through him. Molten. Greedy. Which made sense, since Mycah stood in his doorway. It’d been a couple of days since he’d seen her, sharpening the need inside him to a knife’s edge.
He glanced at the clock at the bottom of his computer monitor. Several minutes after seven. That meant they were most likely the only ones left on his floor. He rose from his chair as she stepped inside, closing the door behind her.
It’d been almost two months since that night at her parents’ disastrous dinner party—since they’d had sex on his living room floor. And on his couch. And in his bed.
Not that it’d been the last night they’d spent together. More had followed. Many more. But by tacit agreement, they’d kept it between them, a secret, not allowing what they did to each other after hours to cross the boundaries into the office. Since they rarely saw one another, no issues had arisen. Still, he was cognizant that he was an owner of the company...at least for the next several months. And because she’d made her worries about her professional reputation very clear, he ensured he didn’t cause any tongues to wag by behavior on his part.
Still... He would be lying if he didn’t admit that the secrecy irritated him like a pebble in an ill-fitting shoe. After Yvette, he’d vowed never to be someone’s dirty little secret. Never to allow anyone to make him feel as if he were unworthy. And while he understood Mycah’s very valid concerns for her career, he couldn’t help the seeds of doubt that had never been fully uprooted; they’d been sown in hurt and betrayal. The similarities between then and now crept into his mind after the passion cooled and she curled next to him or left his apartment.
Coming to him in the cover of darkness.
Pretending they weren’t lovers around others of influence.
Conscripting him to live a lie.
But then she’d touch him. And the need trumped what he’d ever experienced with any other woman, even Yvette. The loneliness that he’d convinced himself didn’t bother him disappeared.
Maybe he was worrying over nothing, though. Unlike with Yvette, he recognized this...arrangement with Mycah couldn’t go anywhere. It had an expiration date and a definite conclusion. For both of them.
“Hey,” he said, rounding the desk. “What’re you doing here? I thought we were meeting at the—What’s wrong?”
He pulled up short, for the first time noticing the stark look in her eyes and the tension holding her body unnaturally rigid.
She parted her lips, and they moved but no sound emerged. Unease pulsed through him, and he stepped toward her, but she shook her head, holding up a hand, and he stopped. Though everything in him demanded he go to her, pull her to him, slay and then fix whatever it was that had darkened her gaze to nearly black.
“I’m pregnant.”
Eleven
I’m pregnant.
Her announcement reverberated in the room like a shout. Except instead of gradually quieting, it seemed to gain volume, growing louder and louder until it assaulted her ears, boomed in her head. Of course, that was her imagination, but staring into Achilles’s stern face, the honed slashes of his cheekbones and jaw jutting out in stark relief under his taut, golden-brown skin... Well, she could be forgiven for her dark flight of fancy.
Not that she could blame him.
She’d had two days to absorb the fact that she—a twenty-nine-year-old professional woman well versed in the mechanics of sex—had fucked up and ended up pregnant. Yes, she. Because ultimately this was her body, her responsibility. No one would love it, care for it, protect it like she could—was supposed to. No, it wasn’t all on her, because hell, he’d been there. But she’d known she hadn’t been on any other contraception; there hadn’t been any need since she... She squeezed her eyes shut. Damn that heat of the moment and that one and only time that had seemed so harmless... Turned out, it hadn’t been.
Fear slicked a path through the highway of her veins, leaving dangerous black ice behind. Oh, God, she was scared. So fucking scared. And alone. For two days, she’d called in sick, claiming a stomach flu when in truth, she’d lain curled up in bed, shell-shocked, grappling with her new reality. A new reality that had twisted and warped into this alternate universe with a plus sign on a stick.
Her job. Her lifestyle. Her family. Those had been her first thoughts, as selfish as they’d been. And she could admit that they had been selfish. She’d worked hard for years to get where she was now. This was just the beginning. There were so many more years of work to put in, and regardless of the foolish woman she’d been years earlier, she hadn’t imagined a man and baby in her life now. Some women wanted all of that and managed it beautifully—she wasn’t one of them. Besides, she enjoyed the freedom of being single, of not having to answer to anyone. Of doing something as simple as going out to dinner or to the store when she wanted—by herself. Or going on vacation. She’d heard enough from friends with kids to know she could kiss that carefree lifestyle goodbye.
And then her family. Jesus. A child out of wedlock. They’d disown her. Even discovering the identity of the father wouldn’t appease them. Finding out Achilles was the father might be worse because he was the bastard, the thug, in their eyes. The nobody. Anger rushed through her. Not that they knew what they were talking about since they’d never even given him a chance.
As suddenly as the anger entered, the emotion evaporated like smoke, leaving her exhausted.
None of those reasons that had bombarded her mattered in the end, though.
Because as she’d stared at another dawn creeping over the horizon, chasing away the night, a certain bone-deep knowledge drove away her doubts.
She was keeping the baby.
Her baby.
Along with that knowledge had come a love so simple, yet so profound. And now, standing in front of Achilles, that love for something—someone, because it was already someone to her—the size of a bean had already consumed her whole.
“You’re pregnant.”
He stated it rather than asked, but she nodded anyway, instinctively crossing her arms low over her stomach where their child slept. Of course that perceptive but inscrutable gaze didn’t miss the gesture, and his gaze dropped to her belly, remaining there for several long moments before returning to her face.
“What’re your plans?” he asked, voice even, calm.
Too calm.
His guarded expression, careful tone... They revealed nothing of his thoughts, and she couldn’t gauge him. It was the Achilles from the bar, and her heart thudded against her sternum. What do you want? her mind railed. Tell me if you want this baby.
But she didn’t loose those words. Didn’t go to him, pound her fists against that brick wall of a chest and act a fool. Maybe he had the right of it. Emotions didn’t belong here between them. After all, hadn’t messy emotions gotten her here in the first place?
If she’d spent only that one night with him like she’d promised herself instead of... Say it, her ruthless mind insisted. If she’d stuck to the one-night rule instead of giving in to how he made her feel, they wouldn’t be in this situation. Not just the physic
al pleasure. As amazing as that was, the hedonism of stripping free of the “Hill” layers and just being Mycah, just being herself, had proved far more addictive. She hadn’t been ready to give that up.
And now they both had to pay the cost. Or at least she did. And she would, willingly and gladly.
Notching her chin high, she straightened her shoulders and met that cold, lupine stare.
“I’m keeping it.” Her arms tightened around her middle. “I’m keeping the baby.”
Fire blazed in his gaze, melting the ice. “Good.”
“Good?” she whispered, shock whipping through her. She hadn’t been expecting that. Or the... Wait... “You’re happy about this?”
For the first time since she’d dropped the bombshell, he betrayed a reaction. Well, no, that wasn’t exactly true. There’d been that breath-stealing flicker of heat in his eyes. But he dragged a hand through his hair, dislodging the tie at the back of his head. He removed it, tossing the band on the desk behind him, and didn’t immediately turn back around. Instead, he braced his hands on the desktop, his broad back straining against the material of his white shirt.
Finally, he pivoted, and the shadows in his eyes... Her chest seized, an invisible clamp reaching inside and squeezing her ribs so she could barely breathe.
“Happy. I think that’s too easy.” His fingers flexed next to his thighs before he seemed to catch the movement and deliberately stilled it. “You know who my father is—a man who impregnated my mother, then abandoned her. Threw her away like she—like we—were trash. But the men who followed? Barron was the kindest.”
That clamp around her sternum clinched tighter and tighter. And she ground her teeth together to imprison the whimper that clawed at the back of her throat. She didn’t think Achilles would appreciate the sympathy it conveyed. He’d probably mistake it for pity when it wasn’t. There was absolutely nothing to pity about this man.
