“I’ve completely fucked things up. Right now my sub is on a bus, going to help her ex-boss, who is an asshole, bait a trap to catch someone who’s selling company secrets. Worst of all she tried to tell me and I brushed her off. How could I do that?”
Sloan looked over at him calmly as he stopped at a red light. “Everyone fucks up.”
“I kept her at arm’s length all this time because I was afraid of getting hurt, afraid of getting my heart broken after what my ex-wife did to me.”
“Whoa man, this is getting a bit touchy-feely for me.”
“Shut up,” Alex said without anger. “If you didn’t want to get involved you shouldn’t have come with me.”
“I didn’t have a choice; you were going to wrap yourself around a pole in your state.”
“You’re nosy. Just admit it.”
“Old women are nosy,” Sloan replied, offended. “I was doing my good deed for the year.”
Alex rolled his eyes. “Can’t you drive faster,” he said tensely.
“If we get pulled over by a cop this is just going to take us longer. Stay calm.”
“Speak for yourself. That’s not your sub out alone at night, walking along the same street where she was mugged just a few weeks ago.”
“Mugged? Jesus. And if Tara were my sub she wouldn’t be allowed to leave the house without my knowledge. I would know what she was doing every minute of every day.”
Alex looked over at him and snorted. “Bit over the top don’t you think?” He tapped his fingers against his leg. By now she would have reached the office building and they were still ten minutes away. How the hell would she get inside when she no longer worked there? If he ever saw her boss again he would give him an earful. Why the hell hadn’t she asked for him to take her? Because he hadn’t been there for her in any way except financially.
“I thought that if I kept her at arm’s length then she couldn’t hurt me the way my ex-wife did.”
Sloan groaned. “Do we really have to do this?”
“That it would be enough to look after her financially. To make sure she was safe and protected. Then I could go on with my life secure in the knowledge that she was taken care of. That as long as our emotions didn’t get involved we would both be okay, that this could work. What an idiot I was. I even wrote it into the contract. That she wasn’t supposed to fall in love with me.”
“Kill me now,” Sloan muttered.
Alex ignored him. “I kept pushing her away and so when she needs me she thinks I won’t be there for her.”
“Look man, I don’t go in for this touchy-feely shit. If you love her, tell her. If you just want to fuck her, tell her. But stop pussyfooting around.”
Alex looked at him for a long moment. “You’re right.”
“Thank fuck. Can we talk about something manly now before my balls shrivel up and die?”
Chapter Eleven
Tara stepped out of the elevator. Rob was on security duty. After a few minutes chatting to him, she’d made her way up here. She placed the laptop and pen drive on the desk in her office. She didn’t know exactly what Tim was up to and she didn’t really want to. Setting a trap seemed a bit risky to her.
“What are you doing here?”
Tara screeched and jumped. Turning, her hand over her heart, she gaped at Eloise in shock.
“Eloise! You scared me half to death! What are you doing here?”
“I work here,” the other woman said coldly. “What’s your excuse?”
“Just dropping off my pen drive and laptop. Tim left me as message asking me to bring them over.”
“So you rushed over on a Friday night?” she asked sceptically.
Tara shrugged. “I wanted to get rid of them.” Plus she hadn’t wanted to sit around home thinking about how she’d just broken things off with Alex.