Inarticulate

by Eden Summers

  He held up the Post-It note again and the same message stared back at her—I’m falling for you.

  “Get out,” she seethed.

  The doors began to close and her throat restricted with his lack of movement. They stared each other down, Keenan’s determination matching her frustration as they ascended in silence. She hated the emotion he laid bare for her—the fake, manipulative emotion that encouraged her into this mess in the first place.

  The interest in his eyes wasn’t real. The concerned furrow of his brow was fraudulent.

  The elevator dinged its deafening trill of arrival and she backtracked into the hall, her gaze never leaving his. He remained poised, so arrogant leaning against that wall.

  Once safely outside, she turned. Fled. She made two steps before she shivered at the sound of his accompanying footfalls. “You’re not coming into my room.” He couldn’t. She wouldn’t allow it. Memories already daunted her. They’d shared too much in that bed.

  “Don’t follow me, Keenan.” She marched harder down the hall, trying to gain a lead, but he was right there, his longer, stronger legs eating up any space she made.

  Damn him, and damn her for being so susceptible to whatever it was that made her addicted to his existence. Dominic had warned her. Penny had threatened her. And still she’d wound up in a mess of infatuation she never should’ve become involved in.

  She yanked her room card from her pocket and slammed it against the locking device. There was a buzz, a gratifying blink of a green light, and then she was shoving the door open, her heart thankful for the awaiting sanctuary.

  “Goodbye, Keenan.” She slunk inside, and quickly pushed to close the door.

  Instead of shutting him out, the glossy wood opened further under the heavy press of his palm. He stood before her, an undeniable force, a mask of superiority.

  “Please,” she begged. “Don’t.”

  She backtracked, unable to maintain the close proximity between them as he stalked toward her. Her limbs were trembling, especially her hand as she raised it to stab a finger toward the exit in a silent attempt to tell him to go.

  He ignored her, the door drifting shut behind him, closing them in together. His approach continued, increasing the rapid pound in her chest and the tumbling roll of her belly. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.

  “I’m not playing games. Get out.”

  His focus drifted to the bed, to the suitcase ready and waiting. His eyebrows pulled tight, his lips, too, as he narrowed his attention back on her and shook his head. “No.”

  He reached for her luggage and grasped the zipper.

  “What the hell are you doing?” She watched in shocked fascination as he unzipped her case and pulled out a stack of her clothes. “Stop it.”

  Keeping her distance was imperative, for her heart and her self-preservation, but what the heck was she expected to do when he was unpacking her belongings and stalking back down the hall to place them in the tiny closet?

  “Keenan.” Her voice was more hesitant than she would’ve liked.

  He didn’t stop, his presence taking over the entire room as his hands manipulated her clothes. With painful fortitude, he was doing everything she refused to admit she wanted. He was fighting for her attention, demanding she listen, insisting she stay.

  Just watching him was encouraging her surrender…or maybe it was the alcohol making her pliant.

  Stupid wine.

  Either way, every inch of her was out of control, every nerve highly attuned to his movements.

  “You made a fool out of me.” She was fighting against herself, broadcasting the obvious, not to remind him, but to remind her. “You humiliated me.”

  He paused at the foot of the bed and the harshness of his expression didn’t change. Nothing wavered except his eyes. The deep, smoky depths turned somber. Almost apologetic. He changed his course and stepped toward her, those strong hands and legs and arms approaching.

  “Stop.” There was nowhere left to run. She was already cowering near the window. “Just stop.”

  He didn’t.

  She shoved at his chest, and the hardness of muscle beneath her palm wrought havoc on her senses. “Why are you doing this? Why can’t you just leave me alone? Why did you show interest in me to begin with?”

  She needed to hear his words. To have something other than sterile pieces of paper slammed down between them.

  “I don’t know,” he mouthed with a slow shake of his head. He inched closer, those beautiful lips descending to cause irreparable damage.

  “Don’t.” She looked away, denying his kiss and any chance for him to communicate. He didn’t deserve anything from her, no matter how willing her body was to raise the white flag.

  His fingers encased her chin, the familiar grip stealing a silent whimper from her throat. He guided her face back to meet his and she stood riveted, unable to break the connection. “I need you.”

  She wished she could scoff, or laugh, or glare. She didn’t want to understand him anymore, didn’t want to acknowledge the words that had become so easy to interpret. “I’ll never trust you again. Everything will be a lie.”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his phone. His fingers worked in proficient taps and strokes until he held up an old message for her to read— Nobody has ever affected me the way you do. Nobody. Ever. I leave you and within seconds I have to push myself not to turn back and go in search of you again. It might be a normal feeling for others, but for me it’s a first. And although I don’t have the experience to back it up, I think this uncomfortable, clingy sensation might be something normal people consider a good thing.

  “Not a lie,” he mouthed.

  He tapped over and over and then showed her the screen again. This time it was a new message—I didn’t know you were with Rydel until after you left the bonfire. And by then, it was too late. I wasn’t going to stand you up at the restaurant. Even if I hadn’t given you that note, I was already in too deep.

  Her cheeks heated with gullibility. It had to be a lie. He was playing her. Again. But he played her so well. He played her with such sweet proficiency that she anticipated another betrayal and still wanted to go along for the ride anyway.

  She lowered her gaze to the floor between them and wished she could forget the time they’d spent together. “Can you move back a little?”

  She needed room. He was too close. Too tempting. Instead, he stepped closer, bringing them toe to toe. “Keenan…”

  His arm wove around her waist, pulling them together. The solid wall of his chest beat against hers, his strength making her weak as he typed one-handed—You knew I worked with Penny.

  “Yes. I just didn’t know to what extent,” she admitted.

  But you knew Penny worked closely with the CEO.

  “Yes.” She became hooked on the support of his body, sated by it, until he stepped back and she mourned the loss.

  He flashed her another message—So, like I mentioned earlier, you thought I was worthless. You assumed I lacked the skills to have a position of power. Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you realized what was happening between us had turned into something more than gratification and you decided to ignore the risks. Which is it?

  She stared blankly at the screen, refusing to admit to either when she had to acknowledge she was guilty of both.

  “I want you to leave,” she murmured. He’d dissolved her anger, which was dangerous because now she only had vulnerability to keep her company.

  He lowered his screen. Typed a new message—Do you think I wanted to become infatuated with someone who thinks I’m less of a man because I don’t talk?

  “It doesn’t matter.” She placed her hand back on his chest and lost the fight to push him backward. “It’s over. I won’t risk my job any more than I already have.”

  His mouth curved, the slightest grin dissolving the potent seriousness in the room with the kick of his lips. “Yes, you will,”
he mouthed.

  His hand came to her cheek, then wove gently through her hair. The soft clench of her heart made panic unfurl in her belly. She was falling victim all over again. Her weakness for him was pathetic, and way too powerful.

  “Leave,” she repeated with conviction.

  His eyes narrowed and that perfect grin faltered. He was trying to read her thoughts and she couldn’t allow it. She wasn’t going to let him win. Not twice in one day.

  He thumb-tapped into his phone and kept scrutinizing her as she read—Promise me you won’t leave Seattle.

  “I owe you nothing.”

  He shoved his cell closer to her, demanding she reread his screen—Promise me you won’t leave Seattle.

  “I’ll have you removed from the premises if I have to.” She slid out of reach. “Take the lingerie you sent me as you go. It’s in the box beside the television. The tags still attached. You might be able to return them.”

  He stepped forward, coming to her side. She stiffened, every muscle taut trying to defend from the enticing onslaught. There was no communication, no Post-Its or messages on his screen. There were no mouthed words or gestures with his body. He merely stood there, looking down at her, owning her with his gaze.

  She raised her chin, determined in her stance as he leaned in and placed an excruciating kiss on her forehead. The brush of his soft lips was brutal, destroying her defenses.

  The need to pull him toward her was painful.

  Punishing.

  He spared her one final, torturously long look and then strode down the hall, letting the suite door click shut behind him.

  She wrapped her arms around her waist and stared blankly at the open suitcase on her bed. The thought of repacking her things after he’d touched them made her whimper. She didn’t want to deny him. And in the same breath she didn’t want him to claim victory.

  Staying meant emotional weakness. Leaving showed professional fragility.

  Numb to the world around her, she pulled her cell from her pocket and turned it on. She ignored the continuous beep of updates and the fifteen unread messages noted on her screen, and navigated to her email.

  At the top of her inbox sat Patrick Black’s name, the subject—All Interviews Cancelled Until Further Notice.

  She clicked on the link and smiled at the email addressed to all Rydel staff. It was an apology. A formal notice from the CEO of Grandiosity over the miscommunication and unintentional stress they had caused. He noted that all interviews were cancelled until a suitable, friendlier approach to the transition could be arranged, and promised to create a positive environment for his future employees.

  Savannah wanted to cry in relief.

  Something good and solid had sprouted from the ashes of her lust-inspired mistake. There was hope. At least for the Rydel Seattle team members. Her position, on the other hand, was still unclear.

  She didn’t want to announce to Spencer that she’d made a mess of the upcoming settlement as well as the opportunity to move on from their relationship. The professional failure was a point of pride. The personal defeat would place her in a detrimental position.

  Spencer claimed to want her to move on. He kept poking at her to start dating and broadcasted the lie that he would finally have closure if she found another man.

  In reality, he hoped she would try, but fail in the process. He itched to be the white knight. To make up for the mistakes of his past by picking up whatever weak and vulnerable pieces he thought would be left behind if she wasn’t successful in the dating pool.

  He wanted her in the exact position she was in, which didn’t leave her in a hurry to get back to Seattle. The only other option was to keep her mouth shut and hope Penny didn’t stoop to a level that involved tittle-tattling.

  Decisions, decisions.

  The unread message icon glared at her. A constant taunt. There was no time like the present to get another Keenan experience over and done with.

  She clicked on the button, and gave a derisive laugh as his name sat right at the top of the screen. Her finger stroked over the letters, a brief moment of whimsy in the forest of devastation, before she tapped to open his text.

  She’d been wrong. He hadn’t sent her messages all day. There was only one. Only a solitary brutal notification.

  Keenan: If you leave, Penelope wins.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Savannah slunk into her chair and stared at the far wall. She hadn’t left Seattle, not yet, and every day she questioned her sanity over the decision. It would’ve been easier to repack her things and walk away without a backward glance. Only the nasty clutch of responsibility dug its nails into her neck.

  If she gave up, Spencer would replace her, and that man hadn’t worked a hard day in his life. He wouldn’t give a shit about the wedding. He wouldn’t care if staff were stressed and fearing for their future. He’d only look at the bottom line—the line that determined occupancy levels—and as long as that was in the black, everything else would go to hell.

  All that shouldn’t have mattered, but then she thought of Kelly, whose mother was dying in the hospital. Or Grant, who had only just started to open up to her and speak without stress etching his voice. Or Amanda, who was working her ass off to make the wedding work under the worst of circumstances.

  They didn’t deserve to be abandoned, even when she was currently cursing her guilty conscience for pushing her anxiety to the max.

  “You need to speak to him. It’ll work out. I promise.”

  Savannah raised her focus from the mess of scattered pages on the conference table and met Kelly’s concern. “I know.”

  “I mean, you need to speak to him now. Get it off your chest.”

  A defeated sigh escaped her lips as she nodded. “Give me a moment, will you?”

  She hadn’t seen sunlight for at least six hours. Her time had been spent in this chair, at this table, speaking to different parts of the management team in an ongoing attempt to mesh uncooperative puzzle pieces together.

  She patted the scattered pages in front of her and came up with her cell. There were numerous emails, texts, and calls that she’d missed while it lay silenced on the polished wood, and she swiped past them all to get to her phone directory. Her finger tapped the unfavorable number near the top and the resulting dial tone increased her lazy heartbeat.

  “Savannah…”

  “Hi, Spencer.” His voice batted away any homesick feelings that had festered. “Is your dad free to conference call?”

  There was a pregnant pause, one that spoke heavily of his concern. “Hold on a second. I’ll check.”

  The San Francisco radio station kept her company as she waited. A week had passed since she packed her suitcase to return home. Seven long days, with each one marred with a text from Keenan to greet her in the morning.

  Every correspondence was a demand, a brief few words that exposed no emotion.

  Keenan: Meet me at the Sated Palate, 8pm.

  Keenan: Be at the corner of Lincoln and Park at noon.

  Keenan: I need to speak to you. I’ll buy you a coffee at Winchesters. 10am.

  The list went on, and she’d ignored them all.

  She should’ve been happy he’d kept tabs on her, that he’d snooped to determine she stayed in Seattle. Only every time she received a message it became harder to pretend she was unaffected by his attention. She’d learned to combat the spike in her pulse by occupying herself with work. Morale had increased. Pessimism was in freefall. Penny hadn’t been on the scene, not via emails or unannounced visits.

  Life had settled back into place… too quickly to be comforting.

  The only task she hadn’t been able to kick into submission, now that Grandiosity was in her pocket, was the upcoming wedding. Amanda had shared the long list of intricacies the bride and groom expected for the big day. All Savannah could do was cement a smile on her face to hide her lack of confidence. They didn’t have enough staff to accommodate table service for alcohol, let alone provi
de one server for each table as requested by the happy couple.

  But that was a tidbit they were keeping under their belt. For now.

  The radio vanished and Mathew Rydel’s voice drifted over the line, “Savannah?”

  “Yes, I’m here.”

  “I’m here, too,” Spencer added. “What’s the problem?”

  Nausea threatened to take hold. “I need to discuss something with you.”

  “You haven’t stormed the Grandiosity head office again, have you?” Mathew asked.

  “That was ballsy.” Spencer chuckled. “The pole up Grandiosity’s ass isn’t something to be reckoned with.”

  “It was far from storming.” She hadn’t planned on telling anyone about her meeting with Patrick Black, not until she realized hiding the situation would leave her open to more scrutiny. She ended up calling Spencer three days ago, smothering him with every morsel of information that didn’t involve Keenan and Penny so he wouldn’t be interested in asking more questions. The strategy had worked. He’d been tired of her chatter before she’d finished speaking. “It was merely a conversation—”

  “Where you threatened legal action,” Mathew scoffed.

  Oh, yeah. She’d forgotten that part. “It was a bluff. We both knew it.”

  “Well, now that they’re playing nice, you need to do the same.” Her boss’s tone turned firm. The candor was over. “I want you to leave a favorable impression at the welcome meeting.”

  Welcome meeting? “What welcome meeting?”

  A huff of frustration coursed down the line. “I’m starting to question what you’re getting up to over there. When was the last time you checked your emails?”

  Her chest thumped a little louder, a little harder, and she gripped the phone tight in her now sweaty palm. “First thing this morning,” she bit back. “I’ve spent every waking minute in this claustrophobic conference room, trying to sort out a problem that could potentially cost us a bucket-load of money. That’s the reason for my call. I need to discuss the wedding we have to cater.”