He frowned. Turning his attention back to the computer, his fingers scrolled across the touchpad and a set of drawings popped up onto the screen.
Lexi leaned forward, trying to make sense of what she was looking at. He tumbled her into his lap, drawing her closer. It didn’t help much; she still didn’t understand exactly what they meant.
“What’s this?”
Another window opened, a full-color drawing popping up onto the screen. And she gasped.
“Something I’ve been working on.”
It was the resort. Only it was so much better than what Bowen had originally submitted. And what Brett had originally designed.
“This is...gorgeous.” And it was. Elegantly rustic. Lexi could just imagine sunlight glinting off the water and reflecting off the soaring wall of windows. “Why didn’t you submit this the first time? These plans might have gotten approved.”
She couldn’t see him, but she could hear the frustration in his voice when he answered. “Because this isn’t the design my boss wanted.”
“But this is what Sweetheart needs.”
“I know.” His hands smoothed up and down her arms. “I’m trying, Lexi. But Bowen is a stubborn man and my job is to get the resort built.”
She twisted, wanting to look in his eyes. “Why are you fighting so hard for this? It’s obvious you realize how terrible Bowen’s plans are.”
Brett set her on her feet. He stood and paced away, scraping a hand through his hair. The still-damp strands stood on end. She might have found the sight funny if his agitation hadn’t been so obvious. Watching his cool, calm facade crack just a little made her heart lurch painfully in her chest.
“When the plans are approved I get a bonus.” He stole a quick glance at her from beneath long, inky lashes, but quickly turned away again.
“I need that money, Lexi. I’ve been trying to open my own firm for years, saving every penny I can. But it’s taken me longer than I hoped. I’ve had to dip into my nest egg a couple times, for tuition, moving my mom to a better neighborhood. Good choices, but still...this bonus gives me the large influx of cash I need to break from Bowen.”
He tried to hide the disgust when he said Bowen’s name, but Lexi heard it in his voice anyway.
“You don’t like him,” she said, a combination of surprise and consternation stealing her breath.
His mouth twisted. “Not really.”
“Brett, if you don’t want to work for him why do you want us to work with him?”
A hand brushed over his face, pushing up and down as his eyes screwed tight.
“Is it just about the money?”
His eyes popped open and he speared her with a sharp gaze. “You know me better than that.”
“Do I?” she countered. She thought she had, but now she was beginning to wonder.
Frustration stiffening every movement, Brett yanked several glossy folders from a stack and thrust them at her.
“I’m trying to find the only way through a minefield, Lexi. Sweetheart needs the resort. Bowen already owns the land. I know him, he’s a bulldog when he gets his teeth sunk into a bone and he wants this. He’ll find a way, somehow, to get what he wants. He always does.
“He sent me those. Dossiers on every member of the town council. On your family.”
“On me,” she breathed out, staring down at her own face smiling back at her through the clear plastic cover.
“Yes, on you. That’s the way Bowen works, but it isn’t the way I work. I’m not interested in playing dirty or extorting cooperation.”
Lexi swallowed, hard. She opened the slick cover. Each page she turned made her cringe even more. Details of her life. Her elementary school grades. A medical report from the clinic she’d used while she was in culinary school.
Anger slammed through her. Wasn’t that kind of information supposed to be confidential? Apparently not. Not for Brett Newcomb and Bowen Enterprises.
There were pictures. Some of them snapshots she recognized from her friend’s social media sites. One in particular caught her attention. Her face was framed by the fuzzy hood of the jacket she’d worn while she was in Switzerland, the Alps rising behind her as she stared into the inviting lens of the camera.
Switzerland. She hadn’t told him about that trip. He’d known about it from the information he’d been fed. Along with the way she preferred her coffee and God only knew what else.
The amount of information was staggering and unsettling.
“How did he get this?” She shook the dossier. Pages on her life fluttered accusingly between them.
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”
Her skin flushed with the force of her anger. She glared at Brett, unsure who she was more pissed at—him or herself. She’d let her guard down, trusted him.
“But you read it.”
“Yes. No. Yes, but not the way you think. Not because I wanted to use the information to seduce you.”
Lexi scoffed at his explanation. Her hands trembled. “Please, that’s exactly what you did.”
God, the details about her struggle with her weight and her self-image issues were practically a road map for what to say and do to win her trust. And she’d fallen for it.
Again.
When would she learn?
He’d lied to her. That first night she’d asked him if he’d known who she was when he bought the cake. Obviously, the real answer had been yes. He’d known full well she was the mayor’s daughter and flirted with her to get what he wanted.
And it wasn’t just about the resort...he had personal reasons. Lexi’s stomach rolled. The heavy ball of chocolate twisted deep inside her. It suddenly hit her. He’d slept with her for money.
Plenty of people had made her feel useless and unimportant in her life, but Brett took the prize for making her feel cheap.
How could he do this? Last night had meant nothing to him. She’d been laying herself bare, stripping away all of her barriers and he’d been deceiving her the entire time.
Tears, hot and weak, stung the backs of her eyes. She refused to shed them in front of him.
Refused to let him see just how much he’d hurt her. She did have some pride left.
In one quick motion, Lexi snatched up her purse and bolted for the door. She’d heard enough.
* * *
DAMMIT! BEFORE HE’D realized what she meant to do, Lexi was out the door. From across the room, he couldn’t catch her in time. And not even pointing out that she was in nothing but a bathrobe had stopped her.
Skidding across the hardwood of the entryway, Brett clamored out onto the front porch just in time to see her SUV peel out of the parking lot. Swearing again, he wasted precious time running back upstairs for the keys to his rental car and a shirt. He was less than five minutes behind her, but her little cottage was completely dark when he arrived and her car wasn’t in the driveway.
That didn’t stop him from pounding on the door and rattling the hinges anyway. His heart thudded unsteadily inside his chest.
Lexi wasn’t the first woman he’d ever pissed off. But she was first one whose anger mattered. He didn’t want her furious with him. He didn’t want her walking away without at least letting him explain.
And now that he knew about her history...of course that report would feel like the worst betrayal. Would put everything he’d said and done in the worst possible light. If he’d been thinking clearly he never would have given it to her. But he’d wanted her to understand that he was trying to find the best way to make everyone happy...and failing miserably at it.
Until faced with the possibility of losing her, Brett hadn’t realized just how terrifying the prospect would be. He no longer gave a damn what happened with the resort. He cared about getting Lexi back.
She had to at least listen.
&n
bsp; Where was she?
Maybe she’d gotten into an accident. She’d peeled out of the parking lot spitting gravel. Driving while enraged and distracted could get her killed.
Brett paced restlessly across her front porch. Or maybe she’d run to her parents. Or brother.
He nervously bounced the keys in his hands, trying to decide what to do. Should he leave and try to find her or wait for her to return?
He wasn’t used to uncertainty and the longer he stewed and stalked the easier it was to turn his anxiety into anger and point it directly at her.
She’d walked away.
Just like his dad. The thought was a lightning bolt out of the blue. Brett hadn’t thought of his dad in years. It was wasted energy and he’d learned long ago that wishing for something unattainable only led to disappointment.
Although Lexi’s flight away had little in common with that situation. His dad had been a selfish bastard who didn’t care about anyone but himself. Brett had been nine when he disappeared. No phone calls. No Christmas cards.
When he was eighteen, a freshman in college, Brett had gotten up the courage to find him. He’d scraped together a little money and hired a private investigator. He’d needed to know. For himself and for Hunter.
He’d expected to find nothing more than a grave somewhere. Instead, he’d discovered a middle-aged man with a good job, a nice family and a house that wasn’t crumbling.
Brett had been so angry. And then hurt and betrayed.
That same combination of emotions snaked inside him, a poisonous mixture that he didn’t like and never wanted to experience again.
He was about to leave, screw this echoing ominously through his head, when Lexi’s SUV pulled into the drive. From his vantage point in the shadows of her porch, he watched her approach.
Somewhere she’d found some clothes, probably from Sugar & Spice. She moved slowly, picking her way up the path. She silently studied him, her deep brown eyes distant and wary. She paused at the bottom of the steps, her hand wrapped around the post of her porch.
She was waiting for any reason to bolt.
“You can’t just leave, Lexi.” His voice was harsher than he’d expected. It was filled with every ounce of betrayal and hurt that he didn’t want to feel and didn’t want her to hear. “You need to listen to me.”
Her mouth tightened and she tossed the long tail of her beautiful blond hair over her shoulder. “I don’t need to do anything, Brett.”
The bright lick of anger heated her eyes for the briefest moment before it was extinguished, replaced by the damnable mask of indifference she’d perfected. But not even she could deny the flush that flamed up her skin.
Brett took a step towards her. She moved back.
“It’s pretty obvious you got what you wanted.”
Her knuckles tightened on the post. Brett could see the white ridge of them and his stomach rolled.
“You’re right, I got exactly what I wanted. You, Lexi. Until tonight have I mentioned the resort to you? Have I tried to change your mind? Have I asked you to speak to your father?”
Slowly, she shook her head. But he could see in her expression that the admission wasn’t enough. Her wary hesitation cut deep. Brett’s back teeth ground together.
“You fascinate me, Lexi. You’re such a puzzle. Sweet and giving and sexy as hell. You...don’t make sense.”
Her eyes widened and her body fell backward as if his words had hit her square in the chest.
“No, that’s not what I mean. I’m used to logical. Easy. In my life things are what they appear. And it’s easier that way. I know exactly what to expect. There are no surprises.”
Brett’s voice dropped low. The words were rough when they exited his raw throat. “I don’t like surprises, Lexi. They’re not usually good. I read the dossier because I wanted to know everything I could about you.
“That first day, I was intrigued when I walked into your store. I was impressed with the way you handled that witch...and me. And then at your parents’...I couldn’t forget the image of you crouched in front of me in that tiny black dress trying to clean chocolate off my shoes. When Bowen sent me the info the next morning I couldn’t resist.”
“You didn’t know who I was at first?”
“I already told you I didn’t.”
“But now I don’t know what to trust, Brett. What was truth and what was a lie.”
Brett growled low in his throat, frustration getting the better of him. “Lexi, I didn’t lie to you about that.”
Slowly, she shook her head. “You need to leave.” Her words were cold, but he could hear the hurt beneath them. He could see it in the way her shoulders slumped forward and her arm wrapped protectively around her waist.
Slowly, he walked forward. The echo of his shoes against the worn boards was the only sound between them.
Stopping, Brett looked straight into her eyes. He reached for her, running a single finger down the slope of her jaw. Lexi pulled back, but she didn’t drop her gaze.
Instead, she let him see just how shaken and upset she was. The force of her emotions slammed into him, overwhelming him. He didn’t know what to do with them.
Finally, she whispered, “We both knew this couldn’t last. Maybe it’s better this way.”
He knew he should agree, but he didn’t want to. But what argument could he make?
Tangling his fingers in her hair, he pulled her to him. She resisted, her neck stiffening to try and hold them apart, but he wouldn’t let her. If he’d known tonight was the last time he would touch her, he would have paid more attention, given her more pleasure, made more memories.
Bringing their mouths close, he kissed her. The heat that was always there flashed between them. Lexi gasped and opened for him. There was a bitter edge to the kiss, a sadness that he didn’t want to think about or examine.
Both of them panted and still he pulled away, leaving her with one thing to remember. For her sake, he hoped she believed him.
“This had nothing to do with the resort.”
15
SHE DIDN’T BELIEVE him. She wanted to, but that almost made it worse. She was such a naive idiot. When would she learn?
Men like Brett Newcomb didn’t want her for herself. How could they?
Lexi tried not to let it hurt, but of course it did. She tried not to let the hurt show, but she couldn’t even manage that.
No stranger to pasting on a smile and pretending, she went through the motions for a couple of days. But her friends noticed. Willow dropped by and asked her where Brett was. No one had seen him around town. Apparently, when he’d left her house, he’d also left Sweetheart.
Lexi wasn’t entirely certain what to make of that. Not that it really mattered. Brett was gone and somehow she had to find a way to get over it. Over him.
But it hurt. Much more than learning Brandon had used her. With Brandon her pride had been damaged. Brett had crushed her heart.
Three days after Brett disappeared, Hope showed up at Sugar & Spice’s back door. They fell into the normal routine, Lexi pulling out a container of lemon bars stashed beneath the counter.
Her friend was surprisingly quiet today, sitting at the table and munching in silence. Her eyes were heavy on Lexi’s back as she dipped apples into a large vat of caramel.
Lexi fought the need to squirm under her friend’s scrutiny. Hope saw too much and knew her better than just about anyone, which made keeping up the charade difficult.
Finally her friend said, “I’m here.”
Lexi shot a quick glance over her shoulder and then returned to the safety of her work. “I know.”
“No. I’m here. Whenever you want to talk about it.”
“Nothing happened.”
Disbelief buzzed in the back of Hope’s th
roat.
Lexi slammed an apple down onto the wax paper a little harder than she’d intended. “We had sex. I found out he was pushing the resort for a huge amount of money. And that he had a fat dossier with information on me, including my elementary school grades and my medical records from New York. He left.”
Hope whistled low under her breath. “That asshole. Didn’t see that one coming.”
Neither had she. That was the problem. She should have. Unlike with Brandon, Brett had told her exactly who he was and why he was in town. He’d made no attempts to hide his ulterior motives. And still she’d fallen for him. Hard.
“Brandon used me.”
Hope’s mouth twisted. “No one likes to be used.”
“But I got over it. I mean, what I worried about more than anything was him printing what I’d told him about Gage, but when that didn’t happen I stopped worrying.”
“This is different,” Hope said, the words a statement not a question.
Slowly, Lexi nodded. She didn’t want it to be different. She didn’t want to walk into her little cottage, her private sanctuary for the past several years, and fight disappointment because she knew he wouldn’t be there. She didn’t want to catch herself watching the sidewalk outside her store, hoping that he might be there.
She didn’t want to wait for him to come back. Because that wasn’t going to happen. She’d told him to go and he’d left.
Sure, after she’d calmed down and thought about what he’d said, some of his statements had rung true. No, he’d never asked her to intervene with her dad or the town council. But that could just be because she’d beaten him to the punch.
“I mean, I knew when we started this that it wasn’t going to be hearts and flowers. I’m not stupid. The council has no intention of approving the rezoning or permits. Eventually he’d have left and moved on to another project. My store is here. His job is somewhere else. It wasn’t like we had a future.”
Lexi felt the burn of tears. She hated herself for the weakness, but couldn’t stop it. To cover it up, she began flinging apples into the caramel with more force than finesse. Which wasn’t like her. She prided herself on the quality of her product.
She's No Angel Page 16
