Hate to Crave You

by Bella Love-Wins

  It was odd to hear her talk about her parents, he mused. Odder still that he didn’t mind listening. To think of the Castles as people rather than just the competition.

  When had that happened?

  His musings were cut short as she lifted a chrome briefcase and laid it on the counter. “Here you go. Delivered as promised…even a bit early.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate the discretion.” He laid a hand on the chrome case, glad he wasn’t receiving it in a yellow padded mailer she pulled from her purse.

  She cocked a brow at him. “Thank Templeton. This was the way I received the item.”

  The way I received the item…

  Roman’s jaw dropped.

  The way I received…

  His mind raced, flashing to the padded mailer he’d received from the professional his team had hired to lift from her purse the night they went out to dinner.

  The man sure as hell hadn’t taken it from a chrome briefcase.

  Son of a bitch.

  “It’s business, Roman,” she said softly, as if she was following his every thought.

  And he suspected she was.

  Meeting her eyes, he saw the acknowledgment.

  “When it’s business, the gloves come off,” she added, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. Then she offered him another smile, softer, sadder. “It was fun, you know. If you ever want to hook up again, call me.”

  She turned on one stiletto heel and strode out while he was still struggling to process what she’d just said. It was fun.

  Business, she’d told him.

  The gloves come off.

  “Fuck,” he whispered, mindless of the customers milling around him. “We were had.”

  Grabbing the briefcase’s handle, he spun on his heel and hurried back to the office, running once he was out of sight of the clientele. He had to call his father.

  Although it had been less than fifteen minutes since they’d spoken, he was excruciatingly aware that it might be too late.

  The courier’s on the way—wasn’t that what his father had told him?

  He grabbed the cell phone from his desk and dialed his father’s direct number, pacing the room and eyeing the briefcase he’d left on the desk. Fury boiled inside him and he stormed over to the case just as his father came on the line.

  “What is it, Roman? I’m in the middle—”

  “Stop the courier,” he said, cutting his father off.

  “What?” Michael demanded.

  “Stop the courier!” he said firmly. He stared at the prototype in front of him, his fuck-up even clearer now than it had been. This device was larger, sleeker. More elegant, even. And clearly more advanced. He could see the echoes of the previous device in it and suspected what he’d taken had been an earlier model of this. Shit, had Templeton helped set him up?

  You stole the damn thing from her purse, dumbass.

  He ignored that voice as he spun away from the evidence of his mistake, speaking furiously to his father. “They switched out the prototypes, Dad. The one we took from Julianna the other night wasn’t the right one. We didn’t do tests on the current model!”

  His father exploded.

  It was a brief explosion, thankfully and Roman was put on hold as his father furiously made phone calls, attempting to catch the courier. When he came back on the line, Roman didn’t dare let himself breathe.

  “I don’t know if we’ll be able to stop him. The company is calling, but the delivery might have already been made,” Michael said, a snarl evident in his voice. “Damn it, Roman, how could you have made such an amateur mistake?”

  He wanted to point out that the plan had been formed with his father’s full awareness. If the son of a bitch was so smart, he should have offered some tips.

  But he didn’t.

  “Nothing to say for yourself?” Michael demanded.

  “I have no explanation, no excuses,” Roman said. There was no point in trying to offer any explanations anyway. His father had never tolerated anything less than success. It had been that way his entire life. It wasn’t going to change at this late date.

  A terse silence stretched out between them and finally, Michael said, “I don’t know what to think about this, Roman. You’re my favorite child—the one I’ve chosen to take over when I retire and yet you make a mistake like this. How am I supposed to react?”

  “I can’t tell you that, sir,” he said stonily, staring at the wall.

  He kept seeing Julianna’s smile as she turned, right before she walked away. It was fun.

  Fun, he thought.

  His family’s company might be at stake here and she thought it had been fun.

  12

  Julianna

  “To success!”

  Julianna lifted her glass as her father and mother clinked theirs together.

  They had a formal dining room, but since it was just the three of them tonight, they’d elected to eat in the smaller, more intimate family dining room. It sat just the five of them and her parents were sitting side by side, as they always did.

  The two of them were still so in love and made Julianna smile to see her father lean in to kiss her mother, his mouth lingering on hers.

  She wanted to find a love like that.

  One day, she thought.

  One day.

  Dropping her gaze to her glass, she forced her thoughts away from a pair of searing blue eyes.

  She hadn’t heard from him all day.

  She had no doubt he was furious. She’d seen it in his gaze. He knew she’d set him up to be tricked. It was his own fault, really. They hadn’t asked him to steal the prototype from her purse. Not that he’d done it personally. At least she didn’t think so. She had no idea when it had been lifted from her bag, but it most definitely had been removed. When she’d returned home, it hadn’t been in the inner pocket where she’d put it.

  Whoever had taken it had been very slick about it, because she’d never noticed when it had been taken.

  No doubt it had been at dinner, or possibly during the few moments they’d waited to be seated.

  “Julianna?”

  She glanced up at her mother and smiled. “Yes?”

  “You seem very distracted.”

  “Just a bit.” She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I didn’t sleep much last night.”

  Neither of her parents asked, but she had no doubt they’d clued in on the fact that she’d spent the night with Roman. Her father had been aware she’d been invited to dinner with Roman that evening after the three families had met. And he knew she’d accepted.

  Her father had been the one to ask Edgar if he had another prototype that might work as a decoy—Not that I don’t trust the Montrose family, Edgar…but, well…I don’t, he’d said with a charming smile.

  Edgar had delivered two prototypes. The one Julianna had turned over to Roman earlier in the chrome briefcase and a second one. It’s the first generation, several years old. It should do the trick, but hopefully it won’t be needed.

  Julianna had hoped it wouldn’t be needed either, but she’d seen the avarice in Michael Montrose’s eyes during the meeting and understood what she was dealing with—he was a competitor who believed in doing what was necessary to win. Julianna was a fierce competitor herself, but she did have some limits.

  “How did the exchange go with Roman?” Janice asked.

  Her mother’s question brought Julianna back from the memories of that night. Shrugging, she took another sip of wine as she debated on what to tell her mother. Despite the fact that she knew her parents were likely aware of her nocturnal activities, she didn’t want to discuss them. Yet how much could she say without crossing the line?

  “It was…friendly enough. Up until…” She bit her lip, wincing. “He mentioned the briefcase and I told him that was how the prototype had been delivered. He figured it out then and I told him that when it comes to business dealings, the gloves came off. He was…not happy.”

  “Hmmm,” her mother sa
id, lips pursed. She rose from the table and gestured to the swinging door at her back. “Why don’t you help me bring dinner out?”

  Julianna stood up. On her way around the table, her father caught her hand. “He didn’t get ugly, did he?”

  “Of course not,” Julianna replied, startled. “He was just pissed. I could see it in his eyes.” She rolled her own and added, “I don’t see what room he has to be angry about anything. He was the one playing dirty to begin with.”

  Charles started to say something, then stopped, waving her toward the door. “Go help your mother, darling.”

  Julianna joined her mother in the kitchen. She doubted her mother needed much help. Gourmet cooking had become a hobby of hers over the years and unless it was a large, formal event, Janice often handled the meals for the family. The staff was on hand to clean up because while she loved to cook, she abhorred the clean-up, something that Julianna loved to tease her about.

  But Julianna wasn’t much for doing dishes herself, despite the fact that the boarding school she’d attended had all the students on rotation, learning basic chores. She’d washed more dishes by the time she was ten than her mother probably had in her entire life.

  “What do you need help with?” she asked, joining her mother by the oven.

  “Get the bread from the oven, would you?” Janice gestured to a basket lined with a pretty, embroidered cloth. “Put it in there after you slice it.”

  The kitchen was redolent with the scent of spices and fresh baked bread and her belly rumbled demandingly.

  “Are you all right?”

  Glancing over at her mother, Julianna frowned. “I already told you, I’m fine. Even though we were prepared, I still have no idea when they took the prototype. It was smooth. Although I’m not sure we should be celebrating already. Michael Montrose is a determined piece of work and I think he really wants those mines. We might not want to count our chickens before they hatch.”

  “Hmmm.”

  That drove Julianna nuts. Annoyed, she glanced at her mother. “I hate it when you do that. Hmmm.” She echoed her mom’s little humming sound, the one that could mean everything from yes, honey to I know something you don’t know. “What does it mean this time?”

  Janice laughed. “Why does it have to mean anything?”

  “Because it does.” She finished with the bread and added the last slice to the basket before turning to clean up the mess she’d made. “It always means something.”

  “Well…” Janice sighed as she turned away from the dish she was dealing with, a faint line between her brows. “Perhaps I am…concerned.”

  “About what?”

  “Roman.”

  Roman…

  A mental image of him flashed through her mind, but she banished it.

  “Why are you concerned about him?” she asked her mother, bewildered.

  “Because,” Janice said gently. “Every time his name is mentioned, you smile. Falling for him wasn’t part of the deal, baby.”

  Blood rushed to her cheeks. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh, please.” Janice laughed and turned back to the dish. “Maybe you should have just forgotten your purse at dinner. He would have had to bring it back to you, probably in the morning. It would have been safer…for you.”

  “I was perfectly safe,” she snapped.

  When Janice turned back around, her eyes were a little sad. She held the dish in both hands and started forward. As she passed by Julianna, she paused and shook her head.

  Brown eyes, so like Julianna’s, softened as they met her daughter’s. “It’s not your physical safety I’m talking about, baby. I’m talking about your heart. You didn’t have to sleep with the enemy to make this happen, sweetie. Now I’m worried you’ve gotten attached and it won’t end well.”

  “You’re being a little dramatic, don’t you think?” Julianna grabbed the bread and moved to follow her mother.

  At the door, Janice paused and looked back.

  “You smile like a school girl just at the mention of his name, Julianna. I don’t think you realize that.” Janice sighed and glanced over her shoulder, clearly thinking about the man waiting on the other side of the door. “Nothing can come of this. That’s the only reason I’m warning you. There’s too much bad blood between the families...especially between your fathers. Yours. Roman’s.” She rolled her eyes and murmured, “Goodness, Roman’s father.”

  Julianna cocked her head. “Are you forbidding me from seeing him, Mom?”

  “Forbidding you?” At that, Janice burst out into laughter. “Heavens, no. That would be pointless. If I did that, you’d wind up married to him by sunset tomorrow. You are that bullheaded. No, darling. I’m not forbidding you. I’m just…trying to save you the heartache of learning things the hard way.”

  Learn what? But before she could ask, Janice said, “Come on. Let’s eat before it gets cold.”

  Julianna lay with her back propped up against the pillows, wearing a silk lounge set as she read a book.

  It was late, but she wasn’t as tired as she’d thought she’d be.

  Maybe it was the adrenaline of the day or maybe it was just her racing mind.

  She kept thinking about Roman.

  And the weird talk with her mother.

  She wasn’t falling for him.

  He was just…well, he was fun.

  And he made her laugh. He understood her on a level a lot of guys didn’t. When she started talking about things going on with the family mines, or advancement in gem technology, his eyes didn’t glaze over.

  He got her.

  That wasn’t a bad thing, was it?

  She closed her eyes and groaned as she realized that her mother just might be right. A good ten minutes had passed with her sitting there staring at the same page on her tablet, yet if she’d read anything, she had no idea what it was.

  Her phone buzzed and she looked over at it, a small frisson of worry lighting inside her. Sometimes, the texts that came this late were from her brother and that never signified anything good.

  But it wasn’t her brother’s picture that lit up her screen.

  It was Roman’s.

  She tapped the message and her breath caught at what he’d written.

  Thought I’d take you up on that offer to hook up. Meet me at my place in thirty?

  Julianna bit her lip.

  It was late.

  She should get some sleep.

  She should maybe show some caution, because if her mother was right…

  She tapped out a response.

  I’ll be there.

  13

  Roman

  He’d threatened to demote him.

  Roman was still in shock about it.

  Out of all the things that could have happened in the past few days, this was the last thing he’d expected.

  His last encounter with his father had been terse to the point of being ugly and Michael Montrose’s parting shot had been, “If this goes sideways, don’t be surprised if you end up getting demoted, Roman. I still can’t believe you fucked this up so badly.”

  Humiliation and anger burned in the pit of his belly as he paced the confines of his condo.

  It had never felt so…confining before.

  He felt like he’d come out of his skin and the idea of being trapped in here with nothing but his own anger was more than he could handle.

  He had his phone in hand before he realized it and Julianna’s number was on the screen.

  Why was he thinking about calling her?

  It was her fault this entire mess had happened.

  Except…was it really?

  All she’d done was exactly what he would have done—whatever was necessary to protect her best interests.

  He’d been thinking how he regretted what he’d had to do and she’d already been protecting her own back.

  He couldn’t help but admire that. It was like she’d known what was coming.

  Or had expected
it, to some extent.

  Because she would have done the same thing, he told himself, still staring at his phone.

  And she had the balls to tell him he’d been fun.

  “That’s it,” he muttered.

  He punched in a message and sent it to her, although he wasn’t entirely certain if she’d respond. She’d gotten what she wanted from him and was probably laughing her ass off at him.

  But to his surprise, she responded almost immediately.

  She was coming.

  Anticipation unlike anything he’d ever known curled inside him.

  And under it lay a bright edge of fury.

  It took her exactly twenty-nine minutes to arrive.

  Roman had checked the time.

  He stood outside, leaning against the marble exterior of the building, hands tucked into the pockets of his coat, watching the streets and searching for the sleek black car she’d arrived in the last time he’d seen her.

  But she arrived via taxi.

  As she stepped out, he moved to meet her. Casting an eye over the yellow cab, he asked, “Out slumming?”

  “It’s almost midnight. I wasn’t about to bother John. He’s got a young baby and I imagine he’d like to sleep at some point.” She rolled her eyes, a faint smile on her lips.

  He wanted to kiss it off.

  At the same time, he wanted to grab her and shake her. Echoes of his father’s blistering words rang in his ears and the fury snapped out of control. As the cab pulled away from the curb, he crossed his arms over his chest. “I imagine you’re quite proud of yourself, aren’t you?”

  “Should I be?” Julianna cocked her head to the side. Her shining sweep of brown hair fell forward, the ends curling just at the slope of her breasts. The chocolate brown suede coat she was wearing concealed way too much of her shapely lines and curves from him. He wanted to push it away, to reveal the body that had been haunting his dreams. “I merely did my job.”

  “Setting me up…that was your job?”

  “And stealing from me was yours?” she fired back.