by Alisha Rai
We’re also not fighting.
If you figure out how to sustain that whole no-fighting thing, let me know.
They’d never fought, ever. At least, they’d never fought right. When things had gotten really dicey, when their frustration and disagreements became overwhelming, they’d resorted to cutting at each other with words before running off to lick their wounds. They never resolved or apologized or compromised on anything.
Tatiana opened her eyes and met her own gaze in the mirror over her vanity, bleakness turning them a stormy green.
How smug she’d been, thinking the best way to make things work was to bite her tongue and stay sweet.
We’re not fighting. The fighting had never been the problem. The lack of talking anything through? Big problem.
They weren’t avoiding the mistakes of their past. They were repeating them.
Chapter Nine
Wyatt folded back the cover on the tablet and handed it back to his chief of security. They had an event scheduled in their ballroom for the upcoming weekend. Normally, Wyatt didn’t concern himself with the nitty-gritty of every wedding, bat mitzvah, and anniversary party that went down at Quest, but the birthday party was for a particularly good customer, a CEO whose parties often turned into a raucous celebration. A little consensual debauchery was all well and good, but Wyatt wasn’t in the business of burying bodies for anyone.
Protecting rich people from themselves and each other was a second full-time job. After all, they had to stay rich to continue lining his pockets. “Make sure you vet the outsourced security personally.”
His employee nodded. “Yes, sir. And I’ll get right on fixing the cameras on your floor. I’m sorry we didn’t catch that on our own. Someone will be up today.”
Though Wyatt had developed a certain fondness for that blind spot, he didn’t want any cracks on what his eyes in the sky could see. While he was sure the bigger target for a criminal was the vault and the floor, his money was insured. Tatiana was not. “Good.”
He slipped out of the security office and made his way up to his own. Esme, his assistant, glanced up when he entered. “Anyone call?”
“No, sir. It’s pretty quiet.”
He glanced at his phone, which had yet to give a silent vibration, signaling a call or text from Tatiana. “I’ll catch up on some work then.”
“I thought Tatiana was in town.”
“She is.”
“Oh.”
Wyatt couldn’t blame the other woman for her confusion. Normally when Tatiana was anywhere in his vicinity, he was raring to clear his desk off quickly so he could go be with her. Since he’d spent the last decade as a chronic workaholic, it was an adjustment to want to be with someone more than he wanted to build his pile of money.
Sometimes, he worked from his laptop upstairs, so he could watch her while she twisted metal and manipulated jewels in the bright sunlight streaming into the penthouse.
She complained that made her self-conscious, but since she didn’t kick him out, he figured she liked it.
“She’s busy. With her parents,” he explained. And we sort of stupidly fought yesterday, and now I don’t know what to do.
Esme’s plucked eyebrows flew up behind her thick spectacles. Plump and rosy-cheeked, she looked like—and was—a cuddly grandmother. Her eyes danced in merriment as she turned slightly in her swivel seat. “Oh, why don’t you join them? I really can hold down the fort.”
“I have no doubt about that.” In the past few months, Esme had taken on increasingly more of his responsibilities. “I saw her parents yesterday. I’m waiting for her to be done now.”
Esme smiled. “Ah. Once was enough, huh? My Ben used to be like that, with my family.”
Wyatt liked Esme’s husband, whom he’d met at various get-togethers that he’d attended. They were so kind and wholesome, sometimes Wyatt wondered why the couple weren’t milking cows in some perfectly idyllic place like Iowa.
He leaned against the doorjamb. “Really?”
A small dimple creased her cheek. “Ben couldn’t stand my mother.” Esme shook her head. “My god, the fights we had. Took a few years of banging their stubborn heads together for them to find anything in common, but they came to be friendly. Makes for an uncomfortable Christmas, if you can’t get along with your in-laws.”
Could he be friendly with Tatiana’s parents?
He caught himself about to sneer. Well, seeing as how he couldn’t even think of them without making a face, probably not. “I can’t imagine you and Ben ever disagreeing over anything.”
She raised an eyebrow. “How boring it would have been if we’d spent the last thirty years agreeing on everything.”
“Boring?” No, that sounded perfect to Wyatt. He was aggressive, and he had a temper, but it took a lot to get it started, and yelling and shouting wasn’t his style. The world knew to fear him when he glared or spoke quietly, and that was how he liked it.
“Sure. Fighting can be fun.”
It was not fun. Fighting was painful. Angry. Something to be avoided.
It used to drive him crazy, Tatiana’s need to confront every little problem, usually loudly. She’d gained control over her temper, because when they were younger, it had snapped fast and boiled hot. His neighbors had once complained to him, We can hear your woman down the block when she gets mad.
“I think you and I have different notions of fun.”
“Well, maybe not the actual fighting itself. After.” A secretive smile spread over Esme’s lips. “That’s the fun part.”
Wyatt had come to think of Esme as a maternal figure in his life. So he hoped she wasn’t somehow referring to make-up sex. He forced a smile. “If you say so.”
“Oh, come on. Doesn’t it feel good, that catharsis? Feeling like you solved something?”
He didn’t feel like he’d solved anything, fighting with Tatiana last night. “Maybe I haven’t been fighting right,” he responded lightly.
Esme chuckled. “That must be it.”
Wyatt nodded to her, walked inside his office, and closed his door. He sank into his seat but didn’t bother turning on his computer.
He pulled his phone out, placed it on his desk, and glanced at the blank screen again. As if staring at it would make it vibrate.
Groaning, he dropped his head into his hands. All day, all he’d been able to think about was the way Tatiana had looked when he’d left this morning. Wary, drawn, closed-off. God, he’d hated that. It wasn’t the girl he knew, with the sassy mouth and the take-no-shit attitude. Fun? No, this wasn’t fun.
Wyatt rubbed his chest. That goddamn dinner last night. Couldn’t they pick up and move on? Did they have to drag the awkwardness out for days? He’d gone, hadn’t he? What more did she want from him?
He was veering dangerously into petulant territory. Wyatt picked up the letter opener on his desk and turned it around in his fingers, watching the sunlight flash off the silver.
Maybe she doesn’t want to have to feel scared to tell you her family is in town.
He stopped, the letter opener balanced on his knuckles, his pouty, self-indulgent mental wanderings drowned out.
Huh.
He tugged on that stray thought, pondering it. Oh, those instincts of his were screaming. Disassociating and assessing the players in any game was his specialty, a trick which had served him well over the years. In business, however, he wasn’t emotionally involved. With Tatiana, he was fucking emotionally enmeshed, which made disassociating extremely difficult.
She shouldn’t have been scared to tell him.
He circled that, examined it for weaknesses, for ways to slip out of it. Poked it for accuracy, prodded it for truth.
The statement held up.
So, why? Was her nervousness valid? He barely even spoke about her family.
When he played poker, he created an elaborate system in his brain, a diagram, the appearance of each card telling him something about another. The cards were turning over now, and
he barely breathed, fearful of losing the epiphany.
She shouldn’t have been nervous.
She’d been nervous because he treated her whole family like pariahs.
She’d been justified in dreading telling him.
He’d been a dick.
Wyatt blinked. He’d refused to dignify her Christmas invitation with a response. Refused to see Ron, though her brother lived a stone’s throw away. And then, when he’d had no choice but to face her parents, he’d acted like some fucking teen rebel without a cause, angry at the world and angry at them for daring to impose upon his precious time with her.
He shook his head in disbelief. Was he fucking crazy? He had learned how to use charm to win over some of the wealthiest people in the world, to encourage them to open their bank accounts and bleed their wallets all over his building. He should have had her mother laughing and eating out of the palm of his hand, her dad giving him his grudging approval, her brother singing his praises for the part he’d played in reuniting the siblings and not sending him to prison.
Instead he’d done exactly what her father had accused him of doing. Forcing her to choose between him and them, because he wouldn’t even dream of letting their worlds collide. He didn’t know if Tatiana loved him yet. He wasn’t sure if he loved her. But this wasn’t some sort of fling they were having. He was trying to build something here. Why had he thought he could shut out her family forever?
He tapped on his phone to pull up his messages and texted her. Where are you?
He turned the letter opener around and around while he waited for her answer. Tatiana had a tendency to turn the ringer off and then forget to turn it on again for days. Annoyed, he’d doctored her phone during their last visit so her camera flash went off when he texted or called.
Her reply came a few minutes later. Upstairs.
Wyatt stared at the phone, a chill sneaking through his blood. She’d come back to his place without letting him know? Without sending him a teasing note or tempting him with the promise of a nooner or an office blowjob?
He saw his life split in two directions, somehow understanding the import of this decision. One where he did nothing, sat here, and avoided the awkward conversation and her renewed anger over this whole debacle.
That was a tempting path. Tatiana’s temper cooled as quickly as it heated up, so he knew he could get away with it. The stilted conversation would soon ease, especially if they were both naked.
The other, going up and eating crow. Telling her he was sorry for making her feel like she couldn’t tell him her family was around.
She might yell. Or even throw things.
Stop being a coward.
Oh, but he was. At least where Tatiana was concerned.
His phone beeped again. Are you working?
Wyatt’s jaw hardened. A coward he might be, but his desire to please this woman was stronger. All she had to do was crook her little finger, and he’d run. It would be terrifying, if it wasn’t so thrilling.
Chapter Ten
Wyatt didn’t notice anything amiss until he closed and locked the door of his home. He dropped his laptop case to the floor and stared at the sight in front of him. “Hi.”
Tatiana glanced up at him, her hair sliding over her bare shoulder. “Hello.”
He rubbed his hand over his mouth, trepidation taking a back seat to amusement and arousal. Yes, he enjoyed watching her work. He would have enjoyed it a lot more if he’d ever seen her work like this.
She lay on her stomach on the carpet in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, dressed in nothing but a pair of skimpy mint-colored bikini panties and a matching bra. In one hand, she held something that flashed green, a pair of small pliers in the other. Her other work materials were scattered about. Chains of gold and silver snaked over the carpet, twining through a field of crystals.
He came to stand above her. Nudging a string of pearls aside, he sank down to sit, unsure of what to say. This wasn’t a business associate he had to calm down or a customer who was unhappy. There were no social rules that he was aware of that would help him navigate this path and bring them back to their previous state of bliss. “What’s up?”
She looked down at her hands and ran the unfinished piece through her fingers. “Not much. Working.”
Her skin was flushed. He traced his finger along the bridge of her nose. “You look like you got some sun.”
“Went to the pool at the Wynn.”
With her mother. Don’t be a dick. Wyatt schooled his face so it remained expressionless. “The Wynn’s pool is acceptable,” he said grudgingly, high praise for him.
“We went to the topless one.”
He nudged her bra strap. “I see a tan line.”
“My mom went European, not me.”
He did not want that picture in his head. Ever, ever, ever. “Ah.”
She gave him a small smile. “If you’d been there instead of my mom, I might have.”
He flicked her nose. “If I’d been there, I would have made you.”
“I know.” Her reply was contemplative, not throaty and sexy.
They both looked away. Their silences hadn’t felt like this before, filled with unsaid words.
A flash of something shiny in her hair caught his eye. “You have something here.” He picked out the green crystal that had gotten caught. The sunlight reflected through the prism, and he froze. “Tatiana.”
“Yeah?”
He held the stone up. Small but perfectly cut, the color was vibrant. “This is an emerald.”
“Yeah. Everything gets stuck in my hair, huh?” Her competent, scarred hands fidgeted with the piece she was working on. Smooth semi-precious beads, darker in shade than the emerald he held, had been strung together, probably the beginning base of some larger piece.
He glanced around. Jesus. He didn’t have to pick them up to know that the various stones he’d assumed were red and blue and clear crystals were worth a lot more.
He dragged his avaricious gaze away from what he now realized was a treasure chest of jewels. “Tatiana, why is there a king’s ransom lying around?”
“Told you. I’m working. Working helps me think.”
“You’re naked.”
A bare shoulder lifted in a delicate shrug. “Working pantsless is the best way to think.” Her words were measured and precise.
Since she was usually meticulously careful with her expensive materials, he figured there was only one explanation. “Are you drunk?”
She squinted at him. “No. I might have been, earlier. But I’ve sobered up.”
He placed the emerald on the carpet with a final caress, trying to resist the urge to gather all of the materials and go stick them in his safe. He paused. “Wait. Don’t tell me you got on a plane carrying all of this?” His voice rose as he spoke. Was she kidding him? Thank God he’d insisted on picking her up from the airport. What if she had slipped inside a cab with an unscrupulous driver who drove her into the desert and mugged and killed her?
An unlikely scenario, he knew. But even a .001% probability of something bad happening to this female made his palms sweat.
She rolled her eyes. “Calm down. It’s just money.”
This from the woman who fretted for hours if her weekly budget didn’t balance perfectly. His concern grew. “Tatiana…”
She braced her hands under her and rose to her knees. He got sidetracked by another small jewel falling off her to the carpet, his heart seizing at the potential loss of revenue. “Whoa. Careful there. Why don’t we clean this up, and…”
She was wrapped around him before he could finish his sentence, her arms encircling his neck, her legs wrapped around his waist. She pressed her nose against his. “Hi.”
Forget the goddamn jewelry. Her eyes were clearer and more flawless than the purest emerald. “Hi.”
Wyatt adjusted himself so she could straddle him better, and slid his hands up her back, his fingers flirting under her bra strap. He glanced down between them
. Her breasts were plumped up against his chest, the cups almost revealing the areolas. It would take a flick of his fingers to unhook her bra and pull those nipples into his mouth.
“You didn’t ask me what I was thinking about.”
Attention caught by the words and the serious tone of her voice, he looked up from her breasts. “I think I might know.” I was an asshole. And I’m probably going to be an asshole again at some point. But forgive my latest display of assholic behavior.
She kissed him, her lips soft and sweet. He tasted strawberries and wine and her. Hours could be spent on this, hours where they wouldn’t have to fight, hours where he could get drunk off of her.
Tatiana pulled away, too soon, and he tensed until every muscle was locked, aware of what was coming. You deserve this. Let her get it out of her system.
“Why did we break up?”
Caught off guard, he could only stare at her. “What?”
“Why did we break up? Back when we were kids?”
What did this have to do with anything? “I— Lots of reasons.”
“Do better than that. What were they?”
He opened his mouth and closed it again. He didn’t know. No, he knew. But he couldn’t verbalize it.
Fuck that anyway. It was ancient history, and hardly relevant right now. “Does it matter?”
She fiddled with his tie, loosening it. Her sparkly pink nail polish was starting to chip. That would drive her crazy. “My mom asked me that today, and for the life of me, I couldn’t answer it either.”
He took a deep breath. “Tatiana. Why don’t you get dressed, and we can—”
“No!” She had the element of surprise on her side, so she was able to knock him backward so he lay flat, a hundred and fifteen pounds of furious woman on top of him.
Yes, it was the surprise. He winced at the twinge in his lower back. It wasn’t that he was getting old and slow.
“I don’t need to calm down. I don’t need to relax. I am not hysterical.”
“Okay.” He wrapped his hands around her upper arms, trying not to flinch at the loudness of her voice.
