In those days, he hadn’t objected to much.
He hadn’t known she was married, not at first. By the time he’d discovered that fact, he’d been in too deep.
He’d never expected to fall for a woman he couldn’t have. And not just because she was already taken. Diana was much more infatuated with herself than she’d ever been with anyone else, even if her parents still thought she’d walked away from her job and handed it to Spencer to protecthim.
After all, he hadn’t been family and Diana’s happiness was paramount to them. If she hadn’t gone to bat for him, they might’ve fired him for creating unnecessary drama. She’d helped him out by stepping aside and campaigning for him to be allowed to stay. All out of the goodness of her heart.
It was a lovely story if one believed in fairy tales. Too bad he didn’t.
Her goal had been simple enough—buying his silence after discovering she was pregnant. She still loved her husband, she claimed, and wanted to use her surprise pregnancy to try to save her marriage. She insisted there was no chance the baby was Spencer’s and that she’d had a “miracle” one-night reconciliation with her husband.
Hurt and overwhelmed, he’d agreed to keep quiet about their affair. But he doubted her version of the story in light of her confession she’d been attempting to have a third child with her much-older husband for years, to no avail. They’d argued. A lot. She’d begged him to understand.
And he’d tried. He really had. Then the baby died and the last of his feelings for Diana died with him or her.
They’d ended things quickly and quietly and he’d taken over her position as regional manager, a position even higher than the one he’d coveted. Since then, he’d been busting his ass to prove to everyone—including himself—that he’d earned that job, that he was earning it every day.
He’d made mistakes, yes. Big ones. But nothing mattered more to him than the store. Hadn’t every failed relationship he’d ever had proved that? No woman could compete with his need to prove himself to Diana’s parents. To his sister, who still thought he was some sort of indiscriminate fuckup, despite all he’d accomplished. To his parents, who thought his little brother Adam, the whiz kid athlete with all the money and the magic touch with real estate, practically shit gold.
He’d never slept with anyone else he’d met on the job. But somehow Kelly had broken every one of his rules.
Even when he’d suspected maybeshehad set her phone on his desk to lead him right to her—and possibly for reasons beyond pleasure—he hadn’t been able to resist. He didn’t want to believe she would stoop as low as he had to get what she wanted. Hewouldn’tbelieve it.
For three years, he’d used all their differences as examples of why she’d never fit in his world—or his bed. Even so, his reasons for wanting to maintain his distance weren’t sufficient to keep him away. Now that he’d had a taste, they felt more insubstantial than ever.
They were adults. Consenting, unencumbered adults. Their…liaison didn’t have to interfere with work at all.
Fuck and duck. Easy enough.
Jaw clenched, he powered down his computer, already rearranging tomorrow’s schedule. He’d get everything done so he could be in Virginia as planned. If he needed to work all weekend, he would. If he had to tabulate those damn P&Ls on the plane, he’d do that too. Whatever it took.
He smiled despite himself as he grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair. And if they ended up in jail…well, she’d said it best.
What was life without risk?
* * *
Kelly stared forlornly at Kink’s entrance, the drink she held not doing anything to blunt the disappointment trickling through her.
“You look like a puppy waiting for its new owner,” Alana said over the music, grabbing the cherry off the tiny sword in Kelly’s drink. “Your new pal must’ve been great in the sack.”
Much to her surprise, Lan had yet to abandon her. She also had yet to stop looking at the door. The two of them made quite a pair.
“There wasn’t a sack involved,” she said absently, sipping her amazingly potent Midori Sour made by the ebullient Jack. Tonight she’d actually been smart enough to eat dinner before hitting the club. “Wall.”
“Ah ha! So you did do someone.”
Kelly shrugged and braced an elbow behind her on the bar. She’d worn her second-most provocative outfit, a turquoise tube dress that stopped abruptly below her thighs.Justbelow. The leers she’d received since sitting down motivated her to keep her legs tightly closed.
If Spencer didn’t show, she was going home. She’d yet to see anyone else who rated so much as a second glance. Even if she had, she wasn’t interested in this lifestyle.
To her, sex was pretty much a sport for two. Maybe watching could be hot sometimes but she wasn’t going to hang out forever sipping loaded drinks and pining.
“What about you?” Kelly asked, glancing at her friend. Alana had gone for a plaid schoolgirl-type skirt and obscenely tight pink blouse, unbuttoned just enough to reveal her ample cleavage. “Where’s Ramon?”
When Alana waved off the question, Kelly rolled her eyes. She didn’t get what Lan saw in him. Package size only went so far. She also didn’t understand the secrecy. Alana and Ramon had hooked up countless times.
Then she saw Spencer, gliding through the crowd like the blond oh-my-God hot piece of ass he was, and she forgot all about her best friend’s love life.