Pretty Broken Girl

by Jeana E. Mann

  “Are you going to need anything else?” I asked when he was finished.

  “No,” he said absently, and then shook his head. “I mean, yes. Where is the report on Stone Creek Properties? I’m going to need it for Monday.”

  I bit my lower lip, thinking. “I put it in your bottom file drawer.”

  “I looked there and didn’t see it,” he said, clearly distracted. He rubbed a finger over his upper lip.

  “I’m pretty sure it’s there.” I crossed the room to his desk and bent over to open the drawer, giving him a full view of my backside. When I drew closer to him, file in hand, his eyes had grown dark.

  He ran a hand around the inside of his collar, as if loosening a constriction.

  “See? Here it is.” I placed the file in his upturned palm and brushed past him on my way to the door.

  He didn’t come out of the office for the rest of the morning.

  ***

  Muriel stared at me with a frown as I scanned the daily menu. We were waiting in line to order our food at the cafeteria downstairs, the first time I’d eaten lunch all week. I stared at the list of items, unable to find anything appetizing. I liked to eat—a lot and often—but this business with Samuel had my stomach tied up in knots.

  “What are you doing?” Muriel nudged my shoulder impatiently. The red-and-yellow plastic bracelets around her wrist clinked against each other with the motion. She looked tropical and exotic in a dress adorned with colorful tulips.

  “Oh, sorry.” I glanced over my shoulder at the people crowding behind us and moved forward.

  “No. I mean what’s up with you and the hunk?” Muriel’s canny brown eyes narrowed. “He watches you like you’re about to steal the family silver or something. The tension between you two is off the charts.”

  I choked on a sip of iced tea. She thumped me on my back until I gasped, unaware of the accuracy of her statement. Inside my purse, my cellphone buzzed with an incoming call. I ignored it and turned my gaze back to the food.

  “Nothing is up with me and Mr. Seaforth,” I said, my tongue stumbling over the formal address. “Except he hates me.”

  The server plopped a roll onto my tray. We fell silent as we moved to the next station.

  “Did something happen between you two?” She lowered her voice and leaned toward me. “I mean, he took your office away and gave it to the bitch-troll.” A shiver shook her thin shoulders. “And he moved you to a cubicle. Why would he do that?”

  I bit my lower lip to keep from pouring out the entire story for two reasons. One, none of my coworkers knew I’d been married, however briefly. I preferred to avoid the inevitable questions regarding the breakup. And two, I didn’t want anyone to think I received preferential treatment of any kind from the boss. I knew how these things worked. Rumors sparked and caught fire in the corporate environment like a match to a haystack. No matter how untrue, that kind of gossip could wreck my career.

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged and summoned a smile, afraid I’d said too much.

  “Rumor has it he’s going to dismantle Harmony Enterprises,” Muriel said in a hushed whisper. “They say he’s going to close the doors and take a select few back to his corporate office.”

  I stared at her, disbelieving. The knots in my stomach tightened. “We’re a viable business. He wouldn’t do that.” I spoke with confidence, but deep down I wondered. Would he? I didn’t know him. Not really. Not anymore.

  “They say he’s got his eye on a new business and that Harmony Enterprises is just a stepping stone to cornering the market.” Her bracelets clanked against each other as she added sugar to her iced tea and stirred.

  We fell silent and carried our trays to an empty table. It was a beautiful spring day. The rain from earlier in the week had cleared, and bright sunshine streamed in the giant windows beside our table. My phone buzzed again. I reached to check the caller ID and frowned at the unfamiliar number.

  “Hello?” I asked.

  “Where are you? I need you in my office. Now.” Sam’s voice, low and commanding, sent a prickle of gooseflesh across my back. I’d forgotten how smooth and masculine his voice was, the way it affected me, shimmering over my ear.

  “Who is this?” I knew damn good and well who it was but couldn’t resist yanking his chain.

  “You know who it is,” he responded, an undercurrent of irritation in his tone. “Why aren’t you at your desk?”

  “It’s lunch time. I’ll be up as soon as I’m finished.” I ended the call, feeling the knot of dread in my stomach loosen the smallest bit.

  “Was that him?” Muriel asked, eyes widening in disbelief. “You talk to him that way?”

  “He’s infuriating. He basically said he plans to make my life hell for the next six months or until I quit.” I took a bite of my sandwich and forced it down.

  “He said that?” She dropped her sandwich back to her plate. “He really doesn’t like you.”

  “That might be the understatement of the year,” I replied. The second bite of sandwich tasted better than the first. Plain ham and cheese on wheat. A dill pickle. Sam’s favorites. He was everywhere, in my dreams, my workplace, and my lunch. It seemed he was unavoidable.

  “Or maybe he has the hots for you.” She leaned forward conspiratorially and raised a thin, penciled eyebrow. “Maybe he wants to sex you up, and it pisses him off.”

  I stared at her, amazed by her intuition. I thought about his hands pushing up the hem of my skirt as he’d lain me on his desk. The way his lips ignited my skin. The tortured look on his face when he’d dismissed me, and his proposition. Maybe we should fuck it out.

  “Uh-oh. Incoming.” Muriel’s voice interrupted my epiphany.

  “What?” A prickle of awareness crawled up my spine. I knew without looking that Samuel was standing behind me. The cafeteria had grown quiet. Curious gazes turned in my direction.

  “Atwell. Upstairs. Now.”

  The menacing tone spurred my rebellious nature. It must be something pretty important if he’d come all the way downstairs, thirty-seven floors, to collect me. Not one of his minions, nor the bitch-troll Dahlia. Samuel himself.

  “In a minute. I’m still eating.” My gaze met Muriel’s. One corner of her mouth curled in a repressed grin. I took another bite of my sandwich.

  “This can’t wait.” He moved to stand in front of me, blocking my view with six-plus feet of male pulchritude. His ominous shadow fell across the table.

  I raised an eyebrow and looked up into his face. “Don’t you know it’s rude to interrupt someone when they’re eating?” I asked. “Besides, I get a thirty-minute lunch.”

  “You’re salaried,” he replied, his voice quiet but still intimidating. “You don’t get shit.”

  “Fire me.” I took another bite of my sandwich, relishing the taste all the more because of his irritation.

  “God, I would love that.” A small glimmer of amusement sparked deep within the emerald depths of his gaze. “But I can’t. So quit playing around. I need you upstairs. Hell, bring your sandwich, if you’re that attached to it.”

  With a melodramatic sigh, I conceded, wrapped my sandwich in a napkin, and shoved it into my purse, knowing I’d never get to eat it. “Fine. What’s the fire?”

  “I’ve got a meeting with MacGruder this afternoon, and I want you to go with me.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Dakota - Now

  THE SAME SILVER BMW I’d seen outside the coffee shop met us at the curb in front of our building twenty minutes later. The driver, dressed in a smart black suit, opened the door for me. I glanced up into the face of Rockwell, now silver-haired with lines creasing his mild features. He smiled back at me and winked.

  “Good afternoon, Ms. Atwell,” he said. “It’s a pleasure to see you again.”

  “You too, Rockwell,” I replied with genuine warmth.

  My mind should have been on the upcoming meeting and I was curious about its purpose, but my thoughts kept straying to all the times I’d been
in the car with Samuel before our divorce. The first time we’d made love in his Porsche at the park. The ratty Subaru we’d driven for the duration of our marriage. The way his hand used to steal across the console to rest on my thigh. My gaze rested on his hand, palm down atop his thigh, forefinger tapping a merciless rhythm. A glance at his features suggested nothing more than controlled calm, but I recognized the gesture. He was nervous about something. I squelched the instinct to take his hand in mine, to soothe his worry, and curled my fingers into my palm.

  A hunger pang twisted my stomach. It growled, breaking the silence in the car.

  He shot me an exasperated look. “Can’t you do something about that? It sounds like you’ve got an alien in there.”

  “Don’t start with me,” I warned. “It’s your fault.”

  He scrubbed a hand over his face, but I had the feeling he was hiding a laugh. I glared at him, daring him to say something more. He ducked his head and coughed. Feeling smug for no reason, I settled deeper into the seat. It was very comfortable.

  “So are you going to tell me why I’m here?” I asked. “I can’t help you if I don’t know my purpose. I don’t want to say the wrong thing.”

  Several minutes passed before Samuel answered. I flinched at the sound of his voice, having given up on his response and turned my attention to the streetscape outside the car.

  “I want to buy MacGruder,” he said, his voice gravelly and hushed. “They need to sell. They just don’t know it yet.”

  I laughed at the absurdity of his idea. Samuel glowered. “Are you crazy? He’ll never sell. His father started that company and he wants his sons to take over.”

  Samuel turned to regard me, his gaze predatorily bright. “You said yourself his sons are uninterested. That they’re incapable of running the business.”

  “You know it and I know it, but MacGruder will never admit it.” I nudged his knee with mine to emphasize my point and immediately regretted it. For a split second, I’d forgotten we were adversaries and had fallen into the intimacy of our old relationship. His focus dipped to the contact, a small frown drooping the corners of his mouth, and I shifted away from him. “You know how fathers are. They dream of passing their empires on to their sons.” Like your father, I added silently.

  “That’s where you come in. We need to show him the error of his ways,” he said.

  “We?”

  “He likes you. Trusts you. I want him to feel the trust.”

  The car stopped. I glanced up to find us parked in front of my apartment building. “Wait. What are we doing here?”

  “You can’t go to a meeting dressed like that.” Sam’s gaze flickered over my outfit and, as always, tan spots of coffee dotted the front of my dress. He raised an eyebrow. “Something a little more—” He waved a hand across his chest in a helpless male gesture. I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Make it dazzling.”

  I jumped out of the car before Rockwell could open the door for me, overwhelmed by irritation and embarrassment. Dazzling? Seriously? I sprinted off the elevator and into my apartment, shedding my clothes on the way to my bedroom closet. After a furious inventory of my wardrobe, I settled on a fitted black dress with cap sleeves and a peplum ruffle at the waist. It emphasized my narrow waist, giving me an hourglass figure. Black pumps combined with the mid-thigh length of the hem, gave the illusion of long legs. After a quick touch of lip gloss and mascara, I twisted my hair into a messy, sexy updo. Still professional but enticing and, combined with my schoolteacher spectacles, a sassy mix.

  I’d just stepped into the elevator when a text came across my phone. Samuel. Today, Atwell, was all it said. I’d been less than ten minutes. Irritation brought a low growl from my throat and a look of cautious concern from the mother holding the hand of a small boy beside me.

  Bite me, I texted and pressed send before I could rethink it.

  Samuel stood on the sidewalk, phone to his ear when I exited the building. A light breeze ruffled his hair. My consternation dissipated a bit when I saw surprise then heated appreciation flash through his eyes as he turned to face me. He stopped talking mid-sentence and drew his gaze over me. His nostrils flared and his eyes darkened in a male gesture that sent an electric tingle throughout my insides. Score one for Dakota. Rockwell stepped forward. Samuel waved him away, opened the car door for me, and resumed his phone conversation.

  We drove to the other side of the city. He continued his conversation in French, eyes firmly fixed on my legs. My French was rusty, but I caught the words “merger,” “hostile,” and “death” somewhere in there. For the hundredth time that day, I marveled at the strangeness of the man beside me. He spoke quickly and easily, running a hand through his hair, with none of the easygoing manner of my ex-husband. I slowly uncrossed and crossed my legs, pausing to rub my calves together, soothing an imaginary itch. He swallowed, and his conversation stumbled.

  A glimmer of an idea began to form in my head. I smirked, eager to take advantage of our close proximity. As long as he intended to torture me with petty errands and meaningless tasks, I intended to toy with his attraction to me.

  “What?” Samuel asked, his voice deeper and raspier than before. He’d ended his call but kept the phone in his grasp.

  “Better?” I leveled my eyes with his, challenging him.

  “Better,” he said on an exhale, once again dragging his gaze along my body.

  His cellphone buzzed. He pulled his attention from me and scrolled through the text messages, but not before I caught a glimpse of the name of the caller: Dahlia. A flash of the slim, well-dressed blonde filled my memory, the way she touched his arm, proprietary and knowing, at the meeting on Monday. Jealousy prickled through my veins. I swallowed it back and shook my head at the absurdity of the emotion. He wasn’t mine. I willingly gave up any claims to him years ago, so why did the idea of him with someone else bother me so freaking much?

  “Your girlfriend?” I asked. “Obviously, you don’t worry about sexual harassment suits from your employees.”

  “I don’t do girlfriends.” Samuel tapped out a return text then tucked the phone back into his pocket. “I have sex with other consenting adults.”

  “Like the one on the phone this morning?” I let the hem of my dress ride up my thighs, enjoying the way his gaze kept travelling back to my legs and the red patches high on his cheeks when I caught him in the act.

  “Yes. And others.” He swallowed hard when I trailed a finger over my collarbone. “Believe it or not, there are plenty of women eager to sleep with me, and I take full advantage of the opportunity.”

  To cover my jealousy, I fiddled with the gold chain around my neck, careful to keep the end of it tucked inside my dress. His eyes held mine. I swallowed hard and tried to keep a cool head. “But there’s not any special one?”

  “No.” His gaze flicked to my chest for a fraction of a second and my traitorous nipples tightened, showing plainly through the clingy knit. I’d never seen such heat in a man’s eyes before. “What about you? Do you date, Dakota, or do you fuck?”

  I chose not to answer, but let a secretive smile curve my lips instead. His expression darkened. There was no one in my life, but he didn’t need to know that. The fingers of his left hand tapped out an unconscious rhythm on top of his thigh. I kept my gaze locked with his.

  “No special man in your life? I can’t believe you don’t have someone warming your bed at night.” He cocked his head to one side and lifted an eyebrow. “Or maybe a rich old man ready to kick the bucket?”

  “Do you think about my bed, Sam? It’s quite warm, I assure you.” We stared at each other, mutual lust and animosity heating the space between us. “But for your information, I don’t do relationships either.”

  “So you just fuck then?” The deep rasp of his voice raked over me, sending a heated chill down my back.

  “Sometimes.” The air felt hot and thick inside the car. “Sometimes I screw.” His mouth parted, and he ran the tip of his tongue over his lower lip. “
And sometimes I take care of myself.” As I spoke, I trailed a hand up and down my thigh, letting the hem of my dress ride higher. He drew his lip between his teeth. He’d never been able to resist when I touched myself in front of him. Some things never changed, I guessed. My heart beat a little faster knowing I could still turn him on with just words.

  “Like where?” By this time, he’d dropped the phone into his pocket and both hands curled into fists on top of his legs until the knuckles turned white.

  “In the shower.” I twitched my thighs together, soothing a pretend itch, teasing him. “On the sofa.” His throat convulsed as he swallowed. The front of his pants stretched over his growing bulge. Recognizing the signs of imminent triumph, I went in for the kill. “At my desk.”

  “Jesus,” he muttered.

  The car swerved as tires squealed beside us. My purse tumbled onto the floor, spilling its contents. Sam threw out an arm to steady me and glared at Rockwell, breaking the fragile magical thread binding us moments earlier.

  “Sorry, sir,” Rockwell said. “Some idiot ran a red light.”

  I’d forgotten about him. Had he been listening to our conversation? How could he not? Mortified, I lifted my gaze to meet his in the rearview mirror. His smile was polite but nothing more.

  Sam laughed, a full-bellied guffaw, at my look of utter horror. “I wish you could see your face right now.”

  “Shut up,” I hissed. The temperature inside the car had risen about ten degrees higher, all of it centering in my cheeks. “You’re an ass.”

  He smiled, showing more dimples than should be legal. I wrinkled my nose and scowled before bending to retrieve my belongings from the floor. Lipstick, breath mints, birth control pills, tampons.

  “I don’t know how you think I can help you today,” I said, eager to change the subject and shift his attention away from the tampon in my hand. I stuffed it into my purse.

  “If you want to keep your job, you’ll figure something out,” he said.