My eyes close. It would be so much easier to give in. Not worry about the house, Kyle’s therapy, leading Flynn on. “I’m sorry.” I hold back the tears, but my voice cracks.
Cooper’s hands reach up and cup my face, his thumb runs along my bottom lip. “I want to be the one holding your hand in public. I want to be the one to wrap my arm around your waist when another man comes near.” His lips brush against mine.
“We shouldn’t …” I weakly attempt to protest. Undone by the possessive rawness of his strained words, I stop trying to push him away and join him, chasing something we both need in the moment more than the air that we breathe.
“You feeling better?” Flynn asks when I return to my seat. “You got some color in your cheeks back.”
“Ummm … yes. Thank you.” I’m grateful it’s dark because my color has just deepened to a lovely shame of crimson.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Cooper return to his seat. I had to make him promise to wait five minutes before coming back, I wouldn’t have put it past him to follow right behind me, zipper intentionally open. As if she’s a magnet and he’s metal, Tatiana leans toward him the moment he sits.
I force my eyes away from his table and let them drift over the crowd. When they fall upon the man sitting directly across from me, I’m startled at what I find. Miles is seething, nostrils flaring, his unblinking eyes fixed on me in an angry stare.
chapter thirty-three
Cooper
Daylight has barely dawned as I make my way to the office. Leaving Kate lying in my bed, her hair splayed across a pillow and naked body beneath the sheets, was virtually impossible to do. But I’m meeting with my lawyers at seven to go over the terms of the union negotiation before I sit at the table and shake hands on the final deal.
My face is speckled with day-old stubble I had every intention of shaving until I walked into the bedroom and caught a glimpse of her bare ass peeking out. The decision to use the little time I had for other things was an easy one, especially when she mentioned she liked my five o’clock shadow right before I sunk into her.
I find myself thinking about what it would be like to wake up to her beside me everyday. To fall asleep to the sound of her light breaths and vision of her sweet mouth twitching up at the sides as she escapes into dreamland. The realization hits me when I least expect it: I’m in love with Kate Monroe.
The office is empty this early in the morning. I grab coffee, dig out my notes, and start to head to the conference room. Miles’s appearance in my doorway surprises me. “I don’t have time. I have a meeting with my attorneys in five minutes.”
“Make time,” he says with an angry bite.
“Not now, Miles,” I warn.
He ignores me and sits on the couch.
I blow out a frustrated breath, prepared to leave him in my office. Whatever he wants can wait. “What do you need?”
“I need you to keep away from Kate,” he says with an icy tone and a glare to match.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me right.”
I stare at him. There’s an eerie flatness to his voice, cold and loathsome. I freeze.
A slow smile spreads across his face. “I finally have your attention.”
“What game are we playing, Miles?”
He taps his fingers on a jewel case and then looks up to me. “You can have any woman in the world you want. Women fucking throw themselves at you.”
I stay quiet. He needs to show his hand before one of us raises the stakes.
“I let you have your fun. Fucking strolling though Barbados without a care in the world. Without a concern for me. But last night …” His fists ball at his sides. “Fucking that whore in a coat closet.”
Impetuously, I grab him by his shirt with two hands. “Don’t fucking call her that.”
“You’re ruining my show!” he growls in my face.
“It’s a stupid fucking show. She’s playing along for the camera. It’s not ruining anything.”
“You’re a selfish asshole. Dad’s not here anymore. Yet you still need to prove you’re better than me every day … purposely sabotaging my show just to prove something to a dead man.”
“You’re delusional. I’m not sabotaging anything.”
“Ratings are flat. People are tired of watching America’s Sweetheart refute Flynn’s advances. They want to see the action, need to believe she sucks his dick behind closed doors.”
“Shut your fucking mouth,” I spit, tightening my grip. My veins pulse with seething rage.
“Break it off.”
“Screw you.”
“My show is going to get ratings, one way or the other. We can do it the easy way or the hard way. You decide.” Miles breaks free from my grip and heads toward the door. He stops and tosses an envelope and DVD on the couch. “I don’t suspect the video of you two fucking outside of the guest house will sway you. You’re so goddamn full of yourself, you’d probably secretly like seeing your big dick flashed on every news network.” He pauses. “I knew something was going on when Damian told me you came to him for an investigation on Kate. Did you really think he wouldn’t play us against each other for a bigger payout?”
He takes a few steps and grips the doorway, turning back to drive his final stake into my heart. “I have my life invested in this show. Now you will too,” he seethes. “She lied on her character affidavit to get her brother into that clinical trial he’s in. One anonymously sent document and he’ll be out. And I’m sure the medical licensing board will frown on giving sworn testimony to fraudulently obtain medicine. Maybe they’ll let her practice physical therapy in Mexico someday.” He pauses. “You have until we leave tomorrow to decide how it plays out.” Miles walks out without looking back.
My phone buzzes on my desk again. Everything okay? It’s the third text she’s sent today that I haven’t responded to. I fail at my attempt to sidestep the mess of papers strewn all over the floor as I stagger to the bottle for yet another refill. My unsteady hand spills the amber liquid on the table, the floor … everywhere but in my glass. Frustrated, I knock over all the glasses with one angry sweep of my arm. The sound of glass breaking sends Helen running in.
She looks around at the mess I’ve spent all day making, but says nothing.
“Go home, Helen,” I mumble, slurring my words.
“I … I don’t want to leave you like this.”
“Go home!” I yell angrily and she jumps.
“Is there anything I can do? Do you want me to call Miles?”
Maniacal laughter emerges from my chest. With all the crystal tumblers broken, I grab an unopened bottle and stumble back to my desk. “My little brother has done quite enough for the day. Go home, Helen,” I say, the sadness in my angry voice poking through.
She nods and disappears.
I squint to clear my vision through my drunken haze. I wish I had some glimmer of hope that the documents were fake, but Miles’s face was all the verification I needed. I reread the Emergency Room report for the hundredth time.
Diagnosis—Alcohol-induced poisoning. Positive for marijuana consumption.
And then …
Patient brought in by—Sister, Kate Monroe.
Neither one of them could have known what the ramifications for taking a typical teenage partying junket a little too far would mean. Two weeks after that trip to the Emergency Room, Kyle was paralyzed in an accident Kate feels responsible for, even though it wasn’t her fault. Both Kate and Kyle signed character affidavits to get Kyle into the clinical trial that gave them the first glimpse of hope either of them have had since the accident.
To your knowledge, has the applicant participated in the illegal use of drugs? No.