Forbidden Pleasure

by Taryn Leigh Taylor

  It was how his father had managed to keep Whitfield Industries afloat, even as his stubborn refusal to embrace change had the company falling further and further behind its competitors.

  Max had worked his ass off to turn Whitfield Industries back into a financial leader and secure his and Kaylee’s birthrights. SecurePay was the crown jewel in his plan, the unmitigated success that would win his board’s loyalty once and for all. And convince even those who counted themselves among his father’s friends and cronies that Max had what it took to guide the company to greatness, if they were willing to keep up with the times.

  And put Charles Whitfield’s tainted legacy firmly to rest.

  In retrospect, Max realized he should have known something was up. At the time, he hadn’t given it a second thought—he’d been too furious that Charles had gained access to his building without him knowing—but his father had never passed up an opportunity to charm a beautiful woman, especially if he could make Max look bad while doing it. Yet that day, his father had blown right past charisma to snake oil salesman...almost like he’d been deliberately trying to make her uncomfortable.

  And Emma...

  The color had drained from her face when she’d seen Charles. But that had been before she knew what he’d done. Before Max had told her everything.

  Betrayal hit hard and fast, a sucker punch to the solar plexus. And if he’d thought it had hurt when he found out what a bastard his father was, if he’d thought pain was his best friend vowing revenge on him, well, those things were nothing compared to this.

  “You have proof.” It wasn’t a question. There was a reason that he’d recruited AJ after Wes had caught her poking around in Whitfield Industries’ business. She was one of the best, or she wouldn’t be in his car right now.

  She tugged an envelope from the pocket of her black jacket.

  Max didn’t bother to open it, just tucked it in the breast pocket of his suit jacket. The show of trust lit something he couldn’t quite name in AJ’s brown eyes. “Listen, when I was poking around in your father’s finances, there was an echo.”

  “An echo?”

  AJ nodded. “Yeah. Nothing concrete, but something that happens sometimes, when I’m in the zone. I know it sounds a bit woo-woo, but it’s like I can sense if I’m following a fresh trail, or if I’m stepping in footprints. And with your father’s account, it felt like the latter. Like someone had walked the path before me, you know? I can’t explain it any better than that. But I don’t think I’m the only one who knows what he did for Emma’s mom.”

  Max tried to absorb the ramifications of that, but he couldn’t make sense of it. “I’ll keep that in mind. Where can we drop you?”

  “Near the park is great. I’ll hop out just after the courthouse.”

  Max rapped on the partition, giving Sully their destination, which was only a block and a half away.

  “Before you go...”

  “Yeah?”

  “Were you planning on giving me my watch back?”

  With a long-suffering sigh, she pulled it from her other pocket and handed it back to him. “Fine. I guess I’ll just take my bonus in cash. Like usual.”

  AJ reached for the door handle as the car rolled to a stop, but she hesitated. Looked back at him. Her sudden somberness made the back of his neck prickle with dread.

  “Listen, this is total speculation, more gut feeling from watching bad people do bad things, and I wasn’t going to tell you until I had eyes on it...but your dad’s phone is pinging off a cell tower near here, and when your girl left the hotel today, she grabbed an Uber north...”

  Max didn’t ask how AJ knew Emma was staying at the hotel. Or that she’d taken an Uber. AJ made it her business to know everything. Which explained the sudden burn of acid in his stomach.

  AJ pulled her hood back up as she pushed open the door. “Let’s just say that you might want to stick around for a few minutes. Someone tall, blonde and deceitful might be looking for a ride.”

  The door slammed before Max could fully digest the import of her words.

  As he watched AJ head toward the park, she bumped into a familiar figure with a phone to his ear who was standing near a bank of fenced-in palm trees. The man shot her a dirty look before smoothing his suit jacket and striding toward the black town car—almost identical to the one Max sat in now—that slid up to the curb ahead of him. He watched, sick to his stomach, as his father got inside.

  Moments later, just as AJ had predicted, a beautiful blonde appeared almost exactly where his father had been moments ago.

  His muscles turned to steel as the full weight of her deception sank in, but Max forced himself to open the door, to get out of the car. As though she felt the animosity radiating off him, Emma looked up from her phone, stumbling on her heels when their eyes met.

  His words were full of bite.

  “Get in. Now.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  HE KNEW.

  The proof was in the rigid set of his broad shoulders, the depth of betrayal in his amber eyes.

  And just like that, the cataclysmic collision course that had been spelled out in their crossed stars was set, about to play out beneath the warmth of the California sun and a cloudless blue sky.

  There was relief in not having to outrun it anymore, a resigned sort of peace in not wondering when it would sneak up on her.

  There was also a hurt so deep she could barely breathe through the pain, and she hadn’t expected it to cut so deep.

  But she hadn’t expected to fall in love with him, either.

  “I said get in.” He ground the words from between his teeth.

  She couldn’t summon any ire at the command. In her sorrow, it struck her as Max being Max. And that’s when she realized the missing him had already begun, even though he was standing right in front of her.

  “No.”

  I can’t. Please don’t make me.

  Being alone with him while he hated her was more than she could bear.

  His jaw ticked with fury. Emma ignored the impulse to reach up and soften the knotted muscle. Instead, she took her cue from him and set her shoulders.

  “I won’t insult either of us by telling you I’m sorry for what I’ve done, because I’m not. Not all the way.” She rubbed her right thumb against her mother’s ring.

  “I did what I had to. I needed the money, and I didn’t know you yet, not like now, and the information didn’t...never mind. No excuses. I did it, and I had my reasons. Just like you had your reasons for making me stay, right?”

  His continued silence served as confirmation.

  She nodded, dropped her gaze to the sidewalk beneath her pumps. When she looked up again, her smile was sad. “Only a fool would rehire the prime suspect in a security breach, and you’re a lot of things, Max, but you’re not a fool.”

  His jaw flexed. “I’m not doing this on the street.”

  “I’m not doing this at all,” she said simply.

  It’s already done.

  Emma wondered for a moment if the entire world had run out of air, or if it was just her lungs that the oxygen had abandoned.

  There was pain in his eyes, in his voice, and he let her see all of it.

  “I trusted you.”

  Her heart shattered into jagged shards that cut her chest with each breath.

  “I know.”

  It had meant everything to have him share those broken pieces of himself with her. To share her sadness with him, too.

  Being with Max had helped her find herself again. The Emma she was before her mother had gotten sick, the Emma she wanted to be going forward.

  Even if she had to go forward without him.

  Her gaze dropped to the hand that was strangling his tie.

  The tie.

  Her own hand flexed at the phantom sensation of hi
s fingers entwined with hers.

  He dropped it suddenly, snatching his hand back as though the silk had burned him. As though she had.

  The ravaged look on his face tore at her guts. He tipped his head back. Closed his eyes.

  She could see where he’d nicked himself shaving on the underside of his jaw, near his chin.

  Then he smoothed the mangled silk with economical, precise movements. Restoring order. Setting things right.

  She was losing him.

  When he lowered his head, he was the picture of icily reserved detachment. His amber eyes were flat, controlled, staring through her as though they were complete strangers.

  It was always going to end like this.

  The reminder didn’t keep her hands from shaking, but she rallied as best she could, shoving her emotions back down to the pit of her stomach and locking them away.

  “It’s nothing personal, Max. Isn’t that what you said?”

  His nod was almost imperceptible. If she wasn’t staring at him like he was her whole world, she might have missed it.

  “Just business.”

  She’d fucked up so bad. She loved him so much.

  “Just business,” she repeated.

  “I think this is understood,” Max said, his voice devoid of any particular inflection, “but in case it wasn’t clear, you’re fired, effective immediately.”

  Everything inside her shattered.

  “Perfectly clear.”

  Walk away. Just walk away.

  Standing here wishing things were different was a waste of time, she reminded herself. And Max hated having his time wasted.

  “Goodbye, Max.”

  Something flickered in his eyes. A beat slipped by, when he should have spoken, but he didn’t. Hope pricked her heart. And then...

  “Goodbye, Emma.”

  She needed to go. Her heels clicked against the sidewalk as she forced herself to move, to walk blindly forward, to get the fuck away from him.

  Everything in her hurt.

  When a cab pulled up to let someone out at the courthouse, she crawled in.

  “Where to, ma’am?”

  “Berkshire Suites, please. And then to the airport.”

  She wasn’t sure when the tears had begun streaming down her face, but she hoped to God that Max hadn’t seen them.

  * * *

  It had been a hell of a day.

  All he wanted was to go home, pour himself a glass of Scotch, and then another, and forget he’d ever laid eyes on Emma Mathison.

  But before that could happen, he needed Vivienne Grant to get the hell out of his office.

  “She’s in breach of contract. You can sue the shit out of her.”

  Max shot her a cutting look. “I want this over and done. Just run it as though she resigned. Make sure she gets paid out as per the original agreement.”

  “Minus the inconvenience bonus you tacked on?” Vivienne asked, looking up from her notes.

  “Including the inconvenience bonus.”

  He didn’t like the judgmental look she gave him.

  “You’re my lawyer, Vivienne. Not my executioner.”

  “You want to pay Emma big bucks to not do her job, that’s your business. I just point out your legal options and do what I’m told,” she countered, and the picture she’d just painted of herself as a docile, order-following lamb was so far from the reality of his ball-busting attorney that it brought a ghost of a smile to his lips, despite his sour mood.

  “And that’s why I pay you the big bucks,” he reminded her.

  She nodded in a gesture that he might have described as distracted if she weren’t looking at him with such intensity. Then her gaze dropped to his chest, and when he followed it, he found his hand was clenched around his fucking tie again.

  The one Emma had used that night.

  The night he’d given up control, given her control.

  The night that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

  Disgusted, he yanked the knot loose and pulled the strip of material from beneath his collar, balling it up and tossing it in the general vicinity of the waste basket beside his desk.

  Vivienne raised her eyebrows at the atypical display. “What did that tie ever do to you?”

  Besides fuck him in every way possible? Max thought darkly. He popped the top button, so his shirt would stop strangling him.

  “Just make this all go away,” he ordered, signing the documents in front of him before handing them to her.

  She tucked them on top of her legal pad as she stood. “I’m sorry she’s gone. I liked her,” Vivienne said softly, but she’d already turned on her heel and left before Max could process the uncharacteristic evidence of his lawyer’s humanity.

  He leaned back in his chair.

  The ghost of Emma was all over his office. The comfort of her cheek against his chest after his father’s impromptu visit. The clash of their bodies when he’d shoved her up against the window and torn her skirt.

  His desk.

  Max swore under his breath and tossed the pen he’d used to sign Vivienne’s documents on top of the speech notes Kaylee had left for him to review before the launch.

  Emma had betrayed him with a man he despised, and he was sitting here like a lovesick cuck, remembering her hands on his body.

  Get your head in the game, Whitfield.

  She’d lied to him. The entire time she’d worked for him. The entire time they were fucking. Even last night, when things had been...different.

  At least for him it had been.

  His father’s voice was in his brain.

  You’re soft. That’s your problem. You care too much.

  Well, now she was gone. For good.

  Problem solved.

  Max stood. He needed to move. He needed to go home. He needed that drink.

  As he rounded the side of his desk, his gaze snagged on the limp carcass of his tie. The skinny end of the black and gray material was draped over the side of the waste basket, but the thick end lay unfurled across the carpeting like an abandoned snakeskin.

  He grabbed it and shoved it in his pocket as he headed for the door.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “WELCOME HOME, MR. WHITFIELD.”

  Max nodded to the concierge but kept his pace through the lobby quick. He wasn’t in the mood for small talk.

  “Ms. Mathison left something for you, sir.”

  Her name echoed like a gunshot in his brain, stopping him. “Is she here?”

  Gerald shook his head. “She left earlier this afternoon in a taxi. I’m afraid I haven’t seen her since, nor did she inform me of her destination, though she had her suitcase with her. And if I may say so, sir, she seemed...upset.”

  The concierge looked at him expectantly.

  “You said you have something for me?”

  “Oh, yes. Of course, sir.”

  Max told himself he didn’t care how she’d seemed as he waited for the man to round the reception desk and hand him a beat-up shoebox.

  “Don’t forget this.” Gerald grabbed the manila envelope he’d tucked under his arm and set it on the lid. The way it was torn open struck Max as familiar, and he realized it was the same envelope from the day before. In his office. The one Emma had been carrying after she’d walked his father down to the lobby. Only now it said his name in her elegant, slanted handwriting.

  Max’s fingers flexed against the cardboard as he headed for the elevator, carefully holding the package in front of him with both hands, keeping it straight and still, like he was holding a bomb.

  He stared at the ripped edge of the envelope as he pushed the up button. Its contents had shifted slightly when Gerald had handed it over, and the edge of a photo peeked out, confirming his suspicions.

  Oh, it was go
ing to detonate all right.

  When he arrived on the top floor, Max made a point of keeping his eyes forward, heading straight to his door, not giving into the absurd desire to go to her room and confirm Gerald’s report. To see for himself that she was really gone.

  Max walked into his suite, abandoning the package on the coffee table as he passed it, not stopping until he arrived at the bar cart so he could pour himself that glass of Scotch.

  He drained it in one go, topped it up and took this round over to the sofa with him. Max sat on the middle cushion, his legs spread wide. With a contemplative sip, he stared at the envelope with his name on the front.

  She was a consummate liar. He shouldn’t give a damn what she’d left for him. And even as he told himself that, he leaned forward, set his drink on the edge of the glass table and grabbed the envelope.

  Tipping the contents into his hand, he revealed a stack of images printed on letter-sized paper. He flipped through the photos—candid shots of Emma and his father, a little grainy from the printer, but in focus, with a small time and date stamp in the bottom right corner of each. They were obviously taken with a zoom lens, by some PI his father had paid to document each meeting, no doubt.

  “Leverage is the key to any good negotiation,” he’d always said.

  Bastard.

  Reminding himself to breathe, he continued with the bittersweet torture. About half-way through the stack, the pain of seeing them together started to dull, and he found himself focusing solely on Emma, watching her betray him, again and again, in an assortment of outfits on a dozen different days.

  She was beautiful. Even as she handed papers full of secrets to the man who wanted to ruin him. Even when he was trying to hate her for her treachery. Even when he hated himself for not being able to.

  Max dropped the photos on the cushion beside him and leaned forward. Took a drink.

  What the hell was wrong with him?

  He rested his elbows on his thighs, pressing the glass to his cheek.

  This was madness.