“You’re not cute.”

  He lifts the sheet so he can see his cock beneath and scrunches his nose up as he shrugs. “It is kind of cute. But this is where we can get hung up on adjectives again.”

  I shake my head and fight a laugh. How can he be this relaxed? This okay with everything? It seems sex brings out a side to Holden that I was thoroughly unprepared for.

  Aren’t guys like him supposed to be cold and aloof after? Treat sex like a transaction?

  But here he is with a sexy smile and an incredible body, cracking jokes and looking relaxed and comfortable.

  I have to get this back on track.

  “This isn’t a joke, Holden. This—us—tonight—can have serious implications for us professionally. For me professionally.” I think of the board, of our managers, of my family. What they’d all think if they found out. How I basically proved every stereotype placed on me right with what just happened—that I let my emotions rule rather than my common sense. Just like women do. “This can’t happen again. It was just sex. It was a moment of weakness on both of our parts.”

  He snorts. “Speak for yourself because I beg to differ. There was nothing weak about that performance. I knew exactly what I was doing.”

  “I know but that’s just it. I—”

  “Did you go hide in the bathroom so you could make up some kind of Venn diagram to explain to yourself why this can’t happen? Did you make sure that ‘Rowan’s pleasure’ and ‘Rowan working with Holden’ didn’t intersect so that you can control the narrative? So that you can deny how I just made you feel?”

  “You’re making me sound like an idiot.”

  “For the record, Row. No one controls me. Not a diagram. Not your type A personality. Not the fucking norm. Nothing.” He runs a hand through his hair and the ruffled look of it only makes him sexier—if that’s even possible. “And ‘just sex’? Were those your words? Someone only says that when they want more. Do you want more, Rowan?”

  “God. No,” I sputter.

  “I’m taking offense to that. Grave offense.”

  “I told you. This was a mistake. It can’t happen ag—”

  “Again. Yes. I heard you. If I can’t take offense, can I be insulted, then?” He chuckles and the sound has me thinking of what it felt like when he laughed with my nipple in his mouth. The shockwaves the sensation sent through my system. “I’m thinking I should be insulted.”

  “No. I—I’m not doing a very good job explaining myself.”

  “I’m all ears.” His smile is slow and mischievous … and reignites the spark in my lower belly.

  “This. You and me. It was just sex. Just the physical. Only one time. Only tonight to get each other out of our systems.”

  “Is that so?”

  “It is. I—I still loathe you.”

  “Yes. Uh-huh. You sounded like you hated me as you begged me to make you come harder.”

  “See, that right there.” I point my finger at him. “You can’t say shit like that. No one gave you permission to.”

  “Right.” He nods but doesn’t fight his grin. Clearly, he finds this conversation more than amusing.

  “I’ve got to get out of here.”

  “Good. You should. I mean, why would I want to lie here and watch your nipples poking through the fabric of my shirt?” His eyes wander down the narrow strip of his shirt where my bare skin shows. I yank it closed and cross my arms over my chest.

  “Yes. I will.”

  “You’re forgetting one thing.”

  “What’s that?” I ask, distracted, as I look for my clothes.

  “This is your house.”

  “For fuck’s sake,” I mutter and just hang my head and laugh. I’m never flustered by a man and yet here I am, flustered and acting like an airhead.

  “Was the sex that good that you forgot? Because one minute you’re telling me I have to go and the next you’re—”

  “You just don’t get it.”

  “Clearly.” He scoots up in bed so that he’s resting against the headboard, one knee bent, and the sheet dipping dangerously low so I can see the outline of his cock beneath it. “Explain it to me.”

  “What if someone saw us tonight?”

  “I kissed you in a locked bathroom. You kissed me in a public parking lot. That one’s on you.” He angles his head to the side and studies me. “What does it matter if someone saw us?”

  He knows why, but he’s going to make me explain it, and I’m not sure if that makes me like him or hate him more for it.

  “It’s hard enough for me as it is—”

  “Thank you.” His grin returns right along with his ego as he cups a hand over his cock on the sheet.

  “No … Jesus.” I roll my eyes. “Being a woman in Westmore—one who has aspirations beyond being married and meeting all the societal goals—isn’t easy. It’s taken me forever to earn the respect of the board, of my colleagues, of our suppliers. If someone saw us, if they knew I slept with you, you know any upward mobility on my part will be met with the assumption that I slept my way to the top. Men get praised for sleeping with bosses. Women get slammed for it.”

  He gives a measured nod. “When I’m running the place, your position is earned by doing the work.”

  “Or by sleeping with the boss.”

  “No.” The word is curt and unforgiving as he rises from the bed, no shame as he stands there in all his naked glory. “Is all of this about how other people perceive you, or about how you perceive yourself? One I’ll accept. The other I don’t give a flying fuck about.”

  “You … you just have to go.”

  “So you’ve said, but you still haven’t answered my question and I think that’s what you’re struggling with. You slept with me. You wanted to. I wanted to. That doesn’t make you a bad person. Not in my book. It makes you you. Human. A woman. Someone with needs. What happens in this bedroom has no bearing on what happens outside of it.”

  I slept with the man trying to ruin my dreams. That says a whole shit ton about me. A whole lot I’m not proud of.

  I nod, my words caught in my throat, my voice barely a whisper. “We can’t do this again.”

  He chuckles, clearly not believing me. “So you’re telling me the sex was so mediocre that resisting me—resisting there being a next time—will be easy.”

  “I didn’t say anything about the sex.”

  “So that part was good?”

  Incredible. Phenomenal. Everything.

  I shrug and nod.

  “And the resisting me part?”

  Our eyes meet, and I turn to find my discarded clothes. Anything to do with my hands so that I don’t have to face him. So that I don’t show him denying or resisting him will be anything but easy.

  “You’re a fucking liar,” he says as his laugh rumbles around the room.

  Yes. I am.

  I jolt when Holden’s hand touches my neck and moves my hair to the side. I never even heard him cross the room. “Don’t worry, Sunshine.” He presses his lips there and murmurs as he slides his hand inside his shirt I have on. His touch against the bare skin of my abdomen detonates little earthquakes everywhere. “Your secret’s safe with me. The gray is a lot of fucking fun sometimes. It’s addicting. You’ll step into it again with me regardless of what you say.”

  I close my eyes and try not to be affected by his words, by his touch, by the feel of his lips on my skin, but I am.

  I know I am.

  I don’t know what to say.

  How to respond.

  Because he’s right.

  But I don’t need to say anything because suddenly Holden isn’t behind me. The heat of his body is gone. I turn to see him pulling his pants up over his hips, tucking his cock inside of them, grabbing his shoes in his hand, and then walking out of the house without another word.

  I stare at the bedroom door, at the empty bed, and question my own damn sanity because hell if I don’t already want him again.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Holden

  You’re a fucking liar.

  Was that meant about you or about her, Knight?

  Huh?

  Who’s the one sitting in his car staring at her house long after he left? Watching the lights go on and off with her perfume still clinging to his skin and the scent of her pussy still on his hand?

  This is not supposed to be anything.

  She is nothing more than a way to dig the knife deeper into their backs. To stake a flag on a mountain because you laid claim to her like she is a piece of property.

  But tonight happened. The bar where I was supposed to simply annoy. The bathroom that she came charging after me in. The diner where I shouldn’t have taken her.

  Her bed where I was supposed to fuck her but feel absolutely nothing in turn.

  This was a game. This is a game. One where there can only be one winner. Me.

  Then why can’t I get her eyes out of my mind? Why did I want to stay when I should have been gone the minute she hit the bathroom? Why am I already planning on proving how she can’t resist me?

  Because fuck if I can’t resist her.

  Not after earlier.

  Not after just now.

  Lock it down, Knight. Fuck her to fuck her. Fuck her for the pleasure. Fuck her for the revenge.

  Nothing more.

  Nothing less.

  And yet I still sit here in the early morning hours staring at a house because a woman is inside it. A woman I can still feel beneath me and wrapped around me.

  It’s the hard-to-get thing, right? No woman has ever kicked me out of her bed. That has to be it.

  But lies are only good if you’re telling them to someone else.

  Jesus fucking Christ.

  Talk about complicating fucking matters.

  Talk about making the gray the darkest fucking shade it can be.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Holden

  FIFTEEN YEARS AGO

  “Mason! Help!”

  I hear the words yelled.

  Over and over.

  Again and again.

  I can’t register that it’s my own voice, that they’re my own screams as I run to him.

  Oh my god.

  There’s blood. It’s everywhere. Coming out of his ears. Out of his nose. On the asphalt.

  “Help.”

  I don’t know what to do. His eyes are closed. His breathing unsteady.

  “Please.”

  I go to pick him up but stop. Broken bones. Spinal injuries. His brain.

  Don’t move him.

  Don’t move him.

  Don’t move him.

  “Call nine-one-one,” I scream. “I’m here, Mase. I’m here. Help is coming. I’m here.”

  I lie down in the street with him, a mirror image on my side so that we can be face-to-face, so that he can hear me.

  “Somebody call nine-one-one,” I shout again as the sounds of people around me start to register.

  “They’re coming,” someone says as footsteps run beside me.

  “C’mon, buddy. Stay awake. Help’s coming.” Tears streak down my cheeks as I squeeze my brother’s hand.

  Please. Please. Please.

  There are voices around me.

  “Where’s the fucking ambulance?”

  “We’re the last on the list. You know how it is here.”

  “Did anyone see anything?”

  “Hang in there, buddy. Help is on the way.”

  It’s all white noise to me. White noise and the thundering of my heartbeat and the rattle of his breath.

  “Help him. Please help him.” I can barely get the words out as I look up to the crowd of eyes gazing down at us. But that’s all they’re doing. No one is touching. No one is helping. No one is fixing.

  I need a car. I need to drive him to help myself. I look from person to person. “I need a car. Your keys. I need to take him myself.” From my knees I try to gather Mason up myself, but someone pulls me back.

  “Stop. No. You might hurt him more,” a voice behind me says as hands pull me back.

  I struggle against them. “He needs help,” I plead. “He needs help and they’re not coming. I need to get him to the hospital.”

  “Let him go,” someone says in front of me. There’s a clank as he kicks something but I’m so busy fighting against the person at my back that I almost miss the subtle shake of his head and knowing look.

  “No!” I scream the word out and fight everyone off of me. I drop to my knees and gather my little brother in my arms. I hold him tight and try to squeeze my life into him. I try to make him hold on. I barter with the universe and every fucking thing in it to trade me for him. “Mase.” My lips are against his hair. “Hold on.” My heart is beating against his, willing it to do the same. “I love you.” I rock him back and forth. “I’m so sorry.”

  There’s a strangled sob.

  It’s mine. It has to be mine. But I can’t remember making it.

  I hold on to my little brother.

  It feels like forever.

  Murmurs around.

  If I had a car, I could get him help faster.

  Sirens in the distance.

  If I hadn’t wanted a computer, we would have one.

  Medics prying him from my arms.

  If I hadn’t caved and told him to go outside.

  The finality in the slam of the ambulance doors.

  I had one job to do.

  The sound of sirens again.

  Keep my brother safe.

  The silence as the sirens fade, and the crowd staring at me standing in my brother’s blood.

  And I couldn’t even do that right.

  THIRTY

  Rowan

  “I don’t understand.”

  I look up from my laptop and the various maps spread all over the conference room table. My brother is standing on one side of the table, brow furrowed, face more than impassive … but fidgety.

  “Nothing for you to understand,” I say and go back to the spreadsheet on my laptop. The last thing I owe Rhett is an explanation for anything.

  “What is all of this?”

  I shrug. “To be honest, I’m not one hundred percent sure. I came into the office today and Audrey had all of these on my desk. She said Holden wants me to look for property and land for sale in neighboring counties.”

  “Why?” he snaps.

  What’s your problem? I bite back the retort. The last thing I want right now is to fight with my brother.

  “Like I already said once, I’m not really sure. All I was given was a set of maps, a blank spreadsheet to fill in, and some parameters around what to look for.”

  “But that’s not your job.”

  “Just like marketing isn’t your job but you stick your nose into it all the time.” My smile is insincere at best.

  “I’m the CEO. I have the right to stick my nose in anything I want.” He crosses his arms over his chest and leans over to study the various maps.

  “Sure. Yeah. Whatever. Why are you acting so weird?”

  “I’m not acting any way. I just think it’s crap that Holden is asking you to do his grunt work for something that obviously has nothing to do with the company.”

  “One, I have no idea if it’s for him, and two, Holden didn’t ask me. Audrey did,” I say, just to be a pain in the ass.

  Rhett snorts. “He’s too important to ask you himself, I take it.”

  I stare at my brother and blink. No, he’s not too important. He’s simply respecting my wishes and all but avoiding me today because of what happened this weekend.

  In fact, I haven’t even spoken to him or made eye contact with him. When he walked in the office this morning, he called out a general “good morning” as he walked down the hall, cell to his ear, discussion in full swing. Since then, he’s been behind closed doors doing whatever it is that Holden Knight does behind those closed doors.

  Disappointed. Pleased. Confused. All three are the emotions that have swirled through me today. He’s doing what I asked, so why does part of me think I deserve a decent greeting?

  A greeting that would most likely have my resolve and my insides collapsing like a house of cards.

  “Not too important. I’m assuming he’s busy—like you are.”

  “So, you’re looking for property you know nothing about for some reason that hasn’t been explained. Got it,” Rhett says sarcastically.

  “Not everything has a grand scheme behind it,” I say, but I had many of the same questions my brother does. “There could be a dozen reasons. A location for a new warehouse. A place to bring our outside manufacturing in-house. Who knows.” All things I would do if I were running it. It would increase cost in the short term, but not having to pay the middleman markup would net a significant profit in the long run.

  “Maybe he’s doing something shady.”

  “Says the man who was going to do the same thing before Holden came into the picture. A new distribution center, was it? A run for city council to grease some palms to ensure it? I mean … c’mon, Rhett. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”

  “Just weird is all.”

  “So is this situation on the whole, but I’m doing my best with it.” I lean back in my chair and watch my brother as he shuffles through the maps on the table, taking note of the red circles I’ve placed around the locations of the properties I’ve found that meet the criteria given.

  Rhett keeps studying the maps, way more engrossed in them than I expected him to be. If he’s looking for a pattern, rhyme or reason, it’s not there. I know because I’ve already looked.

  The upside? Maybe while I’m doing this, I’ll come across a place that’s reasonable to rent or buy for the Sanctuary.

  It’s a long shot, but I’m still checking.

  “You seem quite chummy with him,” Rhett says.

  “So doing my job is being chummy now? You’re the one who made a deal with the devil. Not me,” I say.

  He snorts in response and then looks at me, our gazes holding while I do everything I can to seem normal. “Are you still happy with your decision to sell?” I ask.

  “Happy isn’t exactly the word I’d use. Resigned is probably a better one. For the company as a whole. For us as partial owners. For our family name.”