to kitchen.
“Don’t go,” he said.
He was on his feet, swaying.
“Sit down and drink your coffee,” I insisted.
“I think this is a dream,” he muttered to himself.
“Price, sit down. Drink your damn coffee. And sober up because we have work to do.”
He squinted at me from across the room. “You’re bossy like the real Emily.”
The man was beyond frustrating. And, okay, adorable. Also so gorgeous it hurt to look at him.
His pants were untied, hanging off his hips and showing off that cut torso to its best advantage. His silky hair stood up in tufts, and the dark stubble on his jaw gave him a bad boy vibe. My mother insisted that men who didn’t shave were unseemly. The woman didn’t know what she was missing out on.
I ditched the glass in his recycling bin and returned to the living room. I stopped at the end of the couch, not trusting myself to get closer. We had business to attend to, and he was a little too vulnerable and appealing like this.
“Sit,” I said again.
He pinched himself on the flat of his stomach. “Ow.”
“What are you doing?” I pushed him back on the couch. He landed gracelessly and dropped his head back against the cushion. I sat on the opposite end of the couch, keeping a safe distance between the two of us.
“I’m seeing if you’re real.”
“Oh, I’m very real. Now drink your coffee.”
Obediently, he picked up the cup and sipped, still eyeing me.
We sat like that in silence for long minutes.
“Are you here for my apology or yours?” he said, finally breaking the peace.
“Mine?” I scoffed.
“Alright, let’s hear it, then.”
“Are you still drunk?”
“I may be vaguely drunk and very, very hungover, but I still know that we both owe the other an apology.”
And this was why I loved the man.
“Why did you decide to get shit-faced last night?” I asked, changing the subject abruptly.
“Why?” His voice boomed through the space. “My girlfriend was under attack, and she didn’t trust me enough to let me in!”
“I mean, did you get drunk because you lost me or the game?”
His brow furrowed.
“You’re asking quite complex questions when I’ve got more alcohol than blood in my veins.”
“It’s not that complex.”
“It is when you assume they’re independent of one another. I let you down,” he said. “I underestimated the threat. I didn’t protect you from it. And I allowed myself to be put into a position that made it look as though my loyalty was divided.”
“Lita.” I said the name without any of the emotions I felt.
“Is a manipulative psychopath who is so envious of you she won’t stop until she destroys you. And you believed her over me.”
Maybe the man was due a small apology.
“Do you still?” he asked darkly.
“Still what?”
“Do you believe that I came on to her? That I was the mastermind behind it all? That I never cared for you?”
I wasn’t ready to address all that. There was work to do. Revenge to be had.
“Let’s keep this professional for now,” I told him. I slid the contract to him on the table.
“Professional?” It was his turn to scoff. “You want to talk business?”
“It would seem that you didn’t hold up your end of the bargain, Mr. Price,” I said, uncapping a pen. I laid it on top of the contract. “I have some papers for you to sign.”
47
Derek
The woman was a mercenary. And that mercenary was merrily making herself a cup of coffee while I read through her blasphemous contract.
The contract that gave Emily Stanton fifty percent of Alpha Group.
I’d lost the bet. I’d guaranteed her the IPO, and instead she’d be losing everything in another—I glanced at the clock on the console table—four hours.
I’d failed her. She’d lost. And yet…
I watched her wander back in from the kitchen. She sank down on the end of the couch and pulled her feet up under her. I didn’t see grief or fear in those eyes that haunted my soul. Denim and platinum.
I saw fire.
“Well?” She arched a slim eyebrow.
Wordlessly, I reached for the pen.
This contract would bind me to her and vice versa. There was nothing that would stop me from making that happen. I’d fight my way back into her heart, her bed. And this partnership gave me a foothold. She couldn’t just walk away now. The contract was my hope, and she’d handed it to me.
If this was what it took to prove my loyalty, my heart, then she could have everything I owned.
“Wait,” she said, stilling my hand with