Hate to Crave You

by Bella Love-Wins

  But she wasn’t that little girl anymore and he wasn’t the boy he’d been.

  They were both adults living in a cutthroat world and he was doing what needed to be done.

  She rolled over on her side in her sleep, a soft sigh escaping her and he rubbed at the back of his neck, even as some small part of him wondered if maybe it would have been possible to do what he needed to do without manipulating her and using the attraction he’d sensed they’d both felt.

  She’d felt it for certain, he knew now.

  And it was too late to undo anything.

  Maybe she’d never find out about the ruse and all of this brooding would be for nothing.

  He padded back across the floor and slid back into the bed with her. She mumbled something in her sleep and rolled into him, her body a warm sweet weight.

  That didn’t help the sting of guilt at all.

  Let it go, Roman, he told himself.

  She would have done the same thing if she’d had the chance.

  He kept on telling himself that until he fell asleep.

  6

  Julianna

  Julianna woke with a yawn and stretch, her body aching in the best way. Memory rolled through her on the heels of that realization and she lay there, smiling for a moment before rolling onto her side to look for Roman.

  He lay on his side, facing away from her, one muscled arm flung over his head. He was…absolutely delicious. Morning light gilded his long, muscled frame and her fingers itched to touch.

  Slipping closer, she reached out to rest a hand on his belly and his muscles flexed under her touch.

  Smiling, she eased away and pressed her lips to his jaw.

  He muttered in his sleep.

  She slid her mouth to his and whispered, “Wake up.”

  “I’m awake.” His arms came around her and before she had time to process it, he’d rolled them over and he was lying between her thighs while she lay sprawled on her back.

  “You are indeed,” she said, a throaty sigh escaping her as the heat of his cock settled up against her folds. Sliding a look to the right, she spied the box of condoms on the nightstand.

  He followed her gaze with his eyes and reached out.

  Before he managed to secure a condom from the box, Julianna heard a familiar ring coming from somewhere in the apartment. She grimaced at him, sliding her hands between them and pushing up. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to answer that,” she said, more than a little regret threading its way into her voice.

  “Why?” he asked, pressing his lips to the side of her mouth.

  “Because, if I’m being called this early, it’s probably important.” She pushed again and after a sulky look that looked entirely too sexy on his beautiful face, Roman rolled away and she slid from bed. She hurried into the living room, although the phone had already stopped ringing. “Damn it,” she whispered. Pulling her phone from the outside pocket, she peeked into her purse and checked the yellow padded envelope nestled inside.

  A look at the screen showed that it was her father who’d called.

  Damn it.

  She swiped at the screen to call him back and paced over to the far edge of the room, keeping her eye on the hallway that led to Roman’s room with a discreet eye.

  “Why didn’t you answer when I first called?” he asked, voice stern.

  “I was tired,” she said honestly. He didn’t have to know why she was tired.

  He groused a moment, then said, “I need you at the downtown lab. It’s urgent. Can you be there soon?”

  She glanced down at herself. “I’ll need a little bit, but I’ll hurry.”

  She disconnected just as Roman appeared in the doorway. “I’m afraid I’ll have to cut our time short, Roman.”

  The trip home was a quick one. She took a taxi rather than wait for her driver, although she did text him and let him know she’d need him to pick her up from her condo.

  Moving into her office, she reached into her purse and withdrew the padded yellow mailer that held the prototype. She tapped it on her hand for a moment, then left it on the desk.

  She had no idea what her father wanted, but she assumed it was important so she’d better hurry.

  After showering and changing into a sleek, steel-gray pantsuit, she headed back downstairs with a hope that her driver had picked her up a coffee as he often did.

  She was gratified by the fragrant scent of life-giving caffeine as she slid through the door he held open for her. Giving him a grateful look, she said, “John, you’re a miracle worker. I needed that caffeine today.”

  He just gave her a nod, but there was a smile on his face.

  She took the cup from the holder in the middle of the bench seat and sipped it. Perfect. Two creams and a sugar. He didn’t miss a trick, that guy.

  “We’re going to the gem treat factory today, John,” she told him as he slid into the driver’s seat.

  “Of course, Miss Julianna.”

  As he merged into the New York City traffic, she pulled her phone from her purse and sent her father a text, giving him an estimated time of arrival.

  There wasn’t a response, but she didn’t expect one.

  Just as she went to put the phone up, it rang and she eyed the unfamiliar number for a moment. She almost just slid it back into her bag, but on a whim, answered. “Yes?”

  “Good morning, Julianna,” a warm, inviting voice said into her ear.

  Wow. Roman’s voice was as good as the rest of him. She’d noticed he had a nice voice, but when the rest of the package was there to distract her, it was hard to focus on something as simple as a voice.

  “Roman.” She smiled a little. “How did you get my number?”

  “I have my ways. Besides, if you’re nice, you would have given it to me before you left,” he teased. “It’s awful to give a man the night of his life, then disappear the way you did.”

  “Ah, yes…that’s me.” She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Taking her cup of coffee, she added, “Love them and leave them, that’s my motto.”

  She sipped at the hot beverage as he laughed in her ear.

  “I can believe that. Listen, I meant to ask you before you left, but you had to leave so quickly, I didn’t have a chance…are you going to the gala fundraiser for STEM in a few days?”

  She blinked, a little caught off guard.

  The STEM gala was one of her personal favorite events, a rather new one in the city, but she’d been attending since the first year when it had just been a handful of couples. In the past few years as the support for STEM projects grew, the popularity of the gala had grown as well.

  “Of course, I’ll be going.” She sipped her coffee and looked outside, taking in the familiar sights of Lower Manhattan.

  “Do you have a date?”

  She laughed. When had she last had time to go on a date? She couldn’t remember, but it had been months, at least. “No, I don’t have a date. I’ve been…busy.”

  “Perhaps we could go together. I haven’t had time to find a date either.”

  “You and me. Going together.” She tapped her index finger on the side of the coffee cup and shook her head at the very idea. “Eyes would pop out if the two of us arrived at an event like that together.”

  “All the more reason.”

  The humor in his voice tugged at a sense of mischievousness she’d long kept buried and before she realized it, Julianna found herself saying, “Yes. Why not?”

  It wasn’t until after she’d disconnected the call that she realized what she’d just committed to, though. There were a million reasons as to why she shouldn’t go and very few reasons why she should.

  But she wasn’t going to call him and tell him she’d changed her mind.

  Instead, she eyed the number on her phone, then went to edit the contact so she could save it.

  After all, she’d have to call him to make plans for their upcoming…date.

  7

  Roman

  Roman was torn bee
n smiling about how the night had gone and scowling because Julianna had rushed out of there before they could fit in a morning fuck.

  He had hopes of at least one more chance with her since she’d agreed to go to the gala with him, but he wasn’t sure if it would happen or not.

  If she found out—

  He cut the thought off before it could finish. He had to stop brooding over his actions. He’d done what was necessary to secure the future for his family’s company as one of the top jewelers in the world.

  If the prototype Templeton had bragged about was truly everything he’d made it out to be, then the Montrose family had to be the ones to win the bid.

  Spying his father through the glass walls of the family boardroom, he smiled and tipped his coffee cup in greeting. He also took note of those two people with Michael Montrose, both company employees. One of their top gemologists, Meredith Chin, a Chinese woman in her fifties with sharp brown eyes and an even sharper sense of humor. She rarely let it out of the box, which made it all that much more cutting. Roman’s smile widened as he saw her. He’d always liked Meredith. She inclined her head in greeting but continued her conversation with the senior Montrose. The third person in their room was another one of their top people—a member of one of the science teams, although Roman couldn’t remember his title. His name was Douglass…something. Roman rarely had reason to meet with him and the man hadn’t made much of an impression on him.

  Idly, he recalled some of the questions Julianna had fired off at Edgar Templeton and he suspected that Julianna would remember exactly what the man’s title was, if he’d been one of her employees, and she could explain exactly what his function was.

  Roman would have to be honest—some of the more scientific aspects of the business bored him senseless. He could follow the science and tech well enough, but he found it uninteresting.

  He wondered if the geological surveys and the dry data that lie behind the glamorous face of the gem and precious metal industry was something that would appeal to Julianna.

  He didn’t know and he found that he was irked by that lack of insight.

  And he didn’t know why in the hell that was the case. He wanted to know more about her. Everything, a small voice inside him whispered. He silenced it because that wasn’t going to happen. Their brief time together was already almost over.

  Pushing his way through the boardroom doors, he greeted everybody and sat down across from his father.

  “Were we able to find out what we needed?” he asked in lieu of greeting. His father wasn’t one for small talk and Roman had learned by example.

  Michael gestured to Meredith and she turned her gaze toward Roman. “It’s an interesting prototype for certain, and I can see where Templeton had reason to be excited.” A grin tugged at the corner of her lips and she offered an elegant shrug. “I would have liked a bit more time with it, to be honest.”

  “I hear a but coming,” Roman said.

  “You do, indeed.” She gestured to Douglass. “Fenwick did the majority of the testing since we were so pressed for time and it was the tech aspects we were most interested in at the moment.”

  Fenwick, Roman reminded himself. The man’s last name was Fenwick. Turning to Douglass Fenwick, he cocked a brow and waited.

  Douglass pushed his glasses up his nose, his pale brow beaded with sweat despite the coolness of the room. “Meredith is right. The prototype is interesting, but it wasn’t what I would have expected from the tech arm of Templeton Legacy. I have to say I was excited to get my hands on it, but…” Reaching for the material in front of him, he shuffled the papers, then flipped through them, clearly checking for something. “It was a bit of a disappointment.”

  “Cut to the chase, Fenwick,” Michael said, cutting Roman off before he could suggest the very same thing.

  “The prototype does make improvements on current treatment methods,” Fenwick said, bobbing his head deferentially at the head of the Montrose enterprise. “But it’s nothing that we can call a game changer. Clarity is improved marginally…” He checked his papers and rattled off a percentage, then gave a few more details, ending with a shake of his head. “After learning about the changes that Templeton brought to the precious metals industry, I was expecting something along that scale. But that’s not what we have here. Maybe in a few more generations, or if they’d invested more time…” He shrugged. “And that’s not to say our people can’t improve on it. But even then, I don’t see it turning into a game changer.”

  “I get it. Templeton was overstating things,” Roman said shortly.

  “I’d say so.” Meredith took over and glanced at Michael for a moment. When he gestured at her, she continued. “Roman, your father briefed me on the details of the talk with Templeton and while the mines themselves are a huge benefit, it seems he was trying to sweeten the pot with this tech. I wouldn’t even take it into consideration while putting together the bid you’ll make on the mines—those mines need to be your main concern when bidding.”

  “Understood.” Roman met his father’s eyes, then nodded at the two employees. “Thanks for the time you put into this. Why don’t you take the day off and get some rest?”

  His father frowned at him, but Roman didn’t take back the offer.

  Hell, they’d stayed up most of the night doing rush tests on the damn thing. He was a little tired himself, but he’d had a chance to rest in between bedroom antics and dinner with Julianna. With a faint smile, he mused that his part in the whole charade had probably been the most enjoyable. It still left a sour feeling in his gut, but what was done was done.

  After Meredith and Douglass left the room, Roman looked at his father. “How do you want to proceed?”

  “Dig into the mines. Make sure they’re worth what we think they’re worth,” Michael said, reaching for the phone on the desk. He punched a button and when a woman answered, he said, “Sybil, send Geoffrey down.”

  Geoffrey Adams was the CFO.

  The request had Roman arching a questioning brow at his father.

  “We’ll go ahead and make our bid. Let Templeton think we’re dead set on getting those mines.” His lip curled faintly. “And that prototype.”

  “They did say it has some use,” Roman said.

  “Some use. Hardly a game changer. I heard them as well as you, Roman.” Michael’s words dripped with scorn. “Edgar is trying to fleece us. He should know better.”

  It sounded to him like Edgar was trying to get the best deal possible and wasn’t above some showmanship and chicanery. Roman didn’t know that he’d go so far as to say the other man was trying to fleece them. Had the prototype been useless, that would be a different story.

  Geoffrey only took a few minutes to make his way to the boardroom and Roman listened as his father gave instructions. “Put together a bid. Roman will have figures on what the mines themselves are worth by the end of the day. Once you have them, pad it a bit for the so-called prototype—you can look at Meredith’s report to get an idea what its value would be to us, then get that bid together. In the meantime, put a call in to Templeton Legacy’s team. You have the number of the man I was instructed to call.” Michael paused a moment, waiting for Geoffrey’s confirming nod. Then he grunted. “Good. Let them know we’ll make our bid when the Castles make theirs. We don’t need seventy-two hours. We want those mines.”

  His father’s determination to go forward without taking their time on the prototype made Roman a little uneasy, but he remained silent until Geoffrey was out of the room.

  “You’re certain this is the road you want to take?” he asked as he rose from his chair. Fastening the button of his dark gray suit coat, he hesitated as he waited for his father’s answer, although he already knew what it would be.

  “Yes. Get that information on those mines.”

  Roman simply nodded and headed toward the door.

  “Oh, one more thing…have the team check and make sure the land around the mines is free and clear. Have them loo
k into any claims and easements and check if there are private access roads on the properties,” Michael added.

  “Of course.” Without bothering to say goodbye, Roman left the boardroom. It was going to be a tedious day.

  In his shirtsleeves later that afternoon, Roman took a break to contact his personal assistant about the gala that following evening.

  It had been in the back of his mind ever since Julianna had agreed to go with him.

  But second thoughts had started and they weighed on him hard. Was this the best idea?

  People would talk.

  His father might well have a stroke. He grimaced as the thought circled through his mind, because it wasn’t just speculation. Michael Montrose would be pissed. He’d been furious with his son simply for talking with a Castle back when the two of them had briefly shared a hospital room and Roman hadn’t even known about the family feud then. He’d been eleven, for fuck’s sake.

  Now, though…well, he was fully aware of the feud, even if he didn’t fully understand it. He was also a lot older than eleven, too.

  Furious wouldn’t touch on what his father would feel.

  But if he canceled, Julianna would wonder why, especially after he’d gone out of his way to contact her and ask her to attend with him.

  Besides…if they didn’t attend together, he wasn’t likely to get one more night with her.

  And he very much wanted that one night.

  One night probably wasn’t even enough, but it was likely all he’d ever get, so he’d make the most of it.

  8

  Julianna

  Most men looked good in a tuxedo.

  But then there was Roman.