He didn’t move. “After me—what?”
I was wrecked for another man. “I made out with a guy in a bar a few weeks after I left you.”
The tension in the office seemed to ratchet up.
“I kissed him, and I hated myself. Because he wasn’t you. Because he didn’t make me feel the way you did.” No other man did. No other man could.
And when had she taken a few more steps toward him?
“I didn’t fuck anyone else,” Jason said, “because no other woman would do.”
“Why did you stay away for so long? If you were dreaming of me, why didn’t you come see me sooner?” No, had she just said that? When his eyes widened, she realized she had.
Jason straightened away from the desk. “Did you want me back? Cause, love, when a woman leaves your bed in the middle of the night and tosses her wedding ring behind her, that’s usually a pretty clear sign that she wants you to stay the hell away.”
But she’d foolishly hoped that he’d come after her. That he’d tell her how wrong she’d been. That she mattered to him. Only there had been…nothing. The days had passed. So had the months.
“But maybe that wasn’t what you wanted.” He lifted his hand. Helplessly, she’d moved closer to him, so close that he could touch her. His fingers skimmed over her cheek. “What is it that you want?”
You. That was the problem. Beneath the pain and the hurt, she still wanted him. “You have secrets.” She knew this with certainty. There was more that he hadn’t told her.
“We all do.” His hand fell away. “What do you want?”
She didn’t want to run from him. Didn’t want to be some pawn in a game that she didn’t understand. “Someone’s trying to wreck my life.” She turned from him. Made her feet move a few steps away. “I want that to end.”
But his hand closed around her shoulder and Jason whirled her to face him. “What about what I want? Aren’t you going to ask?”
She was afraid to ask. Hadn’t he realized yet that she had serious cowardly tendencies? “What do you want?” Cat forced herself to softly ask.
“I want you naked on my desk.”
Her nipples tightened.
“I want your legs around my shoulders.”
Her panties seemed to melt right then.
“I want you to fucking be as crazy for me…as I am for you.”
He was crazy for her?
Her gaze slid to the desk behind him.
“That’s what I want,” he growled then he pulled her flush against him. “And it’s what I’ll have.”
Chapter Five
Cat’s head tilted back as she stared up at him, waiting for him to kiss her, waiting—
He wasn’t kissing her.
“I guess that’s what you want to,” he murmured, and Jason’s lips quirked, “or else you’d be tearing me a new one right now.”
Her lips parted. “You—”
He kissed her. And, damn it all to hell and back, this was what she wanted. To feel alive. To feel passion coursing through her veins. He made her feel this way. Without him, all those months, she’d been…
Alone. Waiting.
His hands slid down her body. Curled around her ass and he yanked her up against him. His arousal shoved against her. Long and hard and thick and she squirmed against him. There were so many reasons why she shouldn’t be doing this. So many—
A loud crash sounded behind her. What? She pulled her mouth away from Jason as she realized that someone had just thrown open the office door. That crash had been the sound of the door slamming into the wall.
“Get your hands off my daughter, you bastard!”
That voice was a sickeningly familiar bellow.
But Jason didn’t get his hands off her. He did pull Cat to his side. He kept his arm around her, tightly holding her to him.
And she found that she didn’t want to go anywhere.
Her father filled the doorway. Jason’s rather horrified-looking assistant, Finn, was trying to pull him out of that doorway.
Her father hadn’t come alone. He’d brought reinforcements with him. Cameron was there, face tense. And at Cameron’s side, she saw Brock Mayer, one of Donnelly Dining’s main executives—and pretty much her father’s right hand man. Brock wasn’t glowering, but he did look uncomfortable as all hell.
“Well, let’s just make this a little party.” Jason’s voice was droll. “Finn, forget trying to shove them out. Just close the door and go take a very long break.”
Finn’s horror gave way to relief as he hurried out of the office. The door shut behind him.
Nathaniel Donnelly marched toward Cat and Jason. His eyes weren’t on Jason, though. His gaze—and his fury—were all on Cat. “Do you know what you’ve done?” Nathaniel yelled.
Jason tensed, then his body shifted a bit so that he was positioned in front of Cat. “I know what I’m going to do. Knock the piss out of you if you don’t stop yelling at my wife.”
“My daughter!”
She leaned to the right, glanced around Jason’s formidable body, and saw that her father’s face had purpled. He jabbed an angry finger toward her. “You couldn’t keep your legs closed, that’s what this is about? You screwed him, you didn’t give a damn about our company—hell, you never tried to work in the business! You thought you were too good, better than the rest—”
“No, I thought I wasn’t good enough.” Those words tore from her. And they were true. Mostly because her father had told her…over and over…that she didn’t have a killer instinct. That she wasn’t strong enough to handle the pressure of Donnelly Dining. Cat blinked as she straightened her own shoulders. She stepped away from Jason. She didn’t need his protection as she stood on her own. “You made me feel that way.”
Her father’s eyes were furious blue slits. “I woke up this morning to an email—a picture of you naked with this bastard!”
“Unfortunately, lots of folks have seen that picture.” She could feel the fire of embarrassment in her own cheeks. ??
?Someone took the video without our permission. Someone—”
“He did it,” her father snarled. “To make a joke out of me! To bring Donnelly Dining down in the muck with him—”
“You’re rather boring,” Jason said, his voice flat and calm. “That’s disappointing. For our first in-person meeting, I rather expected more from you.”
This was the first time Jason had met her father?After the revelations about Jason’s past, she should’ve realized how painful this scene would be to him. Cat reached out for him. Her fingers curled tightly around his hand.
Jason glanced over at her, a faint furrow between his strong brows.
She squeezed his hand. Surprise flashed on his face. Then his fingers locked tightly around her own.
“I heard you shut down the Crimson Star.” That was Cameron’s voice. Sounding calm while her father was enraged.
Jason inclined his head. “I made the owner see the error of his ways.”
Cat risked a glance over at her brother. He was staring back at her, looking worried. He didn’t do it. “Someone used your company email address,” she blurted. “To send those pictures to Sam Young at the Crimson Star.”
His brows climbed. “What?”
But then Brock surged forward. Tall, blond, imposing, Brock had been working for Donnelly Dining for at least ten years. He’d been in the coveted inner circle for the last two years. She’d been forced to attend the big party for his promotion. Brock slanted her a worried stare, then focused on Jason. “I assure you, our online security is top-notch. There is no way anyone broke through our system.”
Jason shrugged. “Then I guess that means Cameron sent the email himself. He delivered the pictures of Cat to the Crimson Star. Then he left that rag in the elevator for her to find because the twisted fool enjoys hurting his own sister—”
“The hell I did!” Cameron took a fast step forward as his eyes narrowed. “Cat, you know I would never do anything to hurt you!”
She nodded.