Double-Cross My Heart (31 page)

How easy it was to recommend the cut-and-run to Cheryl. Why didn’t it seem as if she had the same option?

She didn’t. It was a simple as that. There’d been too many months and years of investment, too much of herself on this particular line. There were things she’d had to prove to herself, and maybe to her family, as pitiful as that sounded. How did she give up on something she’d made her life work?

***

“So,” Alex said, grinning at his sister, “you have a date with Bryan.”

The sound of snow pelting the windows made a steady background.

Lauren looked up at him from the vegetables she was chopping. “Give me a break. We’re meeting for lunch next Wednesday. It’s not any big deal.”

“You lie,” he said, “and you’re blushing. I thought you’d gotten over that.”

“I’m cooking,” she said with mock irritation. “You get a little flushed when you’re hanging over a stove.”

“Then I ought to recommend Bryan to suggest you two take a culinary class together. I think he’d like to get you ‘flushed’.”

“Good grief,” she said in exasperated tones. “You’re just as bad as you were in junior high.”

“Yes,” Alex agreed with satisfaction. “I may have gotten older, but I pride myself on retaining my youthful goofiness.”

“No danger there,” Lauren said dryly.

“Bryan’s a decent guy,” Alex said more seriously, “but in a pinch I’d always choose you over him.”

She smiled. “Good to know. Now I can date him, marry him and hold his job over his head without any danger of him standing up to me.”

“You never have to worry about that,” Alex said. “The guy is a lawyer. They generally don’t stay unemployed for long.”

“True,” she said laughing. “So, let’s talk about your love life.”

Alex met the glance she threw him. “Okay.”

“Are you still dating Eden Whatshername?”

“Yes,” he confirmed, nodding.

“And still…interested?”

“Why would I still be seeing her if I wasn’t interested?”

“I don’t know.” Lauren stirred the soup she was making. “I guess I’m asking
how
interested you are.”

“Very,” he said slowly. “Very interested.”

He couldn’t help worrying about Eden. She seemed more distressed—worried and shut off, somehow. He knew the looming board meeting occupied most of her thoughts. After the showdown, the pressure would ease up. But he hated it for her.

“Really?” Lauren turned away from the stove to look at him. “That’s great. So you’re bringing her to Thanksgiving dinner next Thursday?”

“I don’t know,” Alex said, getting up and wandering over to stand next to her. He picked up a carrot and took a bite. “Eden’s not big on holidays. Bad family experiences.”

“That’s too bad,” his sister said sympathetically.

“Yeah.” He turned to lean against the counter where she continued chopping vegetables to add to her soup.

Lauren looked at him. “This is…different for you. Really serious.”

“Yes,” he admitted, taking another bite of the carrot stick he’d swiped. “I met her because of a business deal I’m working on—the cosmetics company I told you about.”

“Michele Cosmetics. I remember.”

“It’s all very much still behind the scenes,” he told her. “We’re planning on laying a proposal before the board at an up-coming meeting.

His sister nodded, still chopping.

“The trouble is…I started this thing as business-as-usual and it has…taken a turn.”

Lauren glanced at him, waiting for him to go on.

“I’d been researching Eden’s company and I wanted to get a toe-hold, you know, a little information to leverage our bid.” Alex paused, finding it difficult to put into words the fact that he’d initiated his relationship with Eden for business purposes. “I had my investigative firm check out the executives of the company. There were several possibilities—people I could have approached—but I had photos of Eden….”

He stopped, struggling with the reality of how deceitful he’d been. It sounded even worse when spoken aloud.

“So you went ahead and got ‘information’ from her because you wanted to meet her?” his sister asked.

“Yes,” Alex said heavily. “I needed to approach someone in the company and she was—“

“Really attractive,” Lauren finished for him. “I understand that. So you’re attracted to her and, since she’s seeing you personally, I’m guessing she was attracted to you, as well as, working with you. So, where’s the problem?”

“That last part,” he said, his lips in a wry twist. “Eden doesn’t know…she didn’t know what I—“

His sister put down her knife, saying in disapproving disbelief, “You got involved with her because of the company and didn’t tell her that? You told her you were just interested in her?”

“I
am
interested in her,” Alex said emphatically. “Very. That’s the problem. Usually we research the principals of a company to decide which one to approach initially. Naturally, we approach them through other-than-business channels because to do it directly would draw reprisals on their heads.”

“But you don’t usually date them?” Lauren said, the disapproving note still in her voice.

“No!” Alex knew his frustration was visible. “This was different
because
I wanted to meet her. I saw her pictures and just…had an impulse. And then when I got to know her….”

Picking up her knife, Lauren pointed it at him. “You know where that impulses like that get you. How many times have we talked about you needing to follow the ‘rules’ more? Your ‘situation ethics’ have finally gotten you into trouble.”

Struggling not to feel like he was fifteen again, he said, “Yes. That’s fairly clear at this point. And if I didn’t have feelings for Eden, I’d just bail out of the personal side—which I shouldn’t have ever gone into. At least, not like this.”

“But you do have feelings for her,” his sister said in a softer voice. “That does make things more complicated.”

“Thank you.” He walked over to look out the window at the snowstorm. “Now you see my dilemma.”

“Yes,” Lauren said slowly. “I do.”

“There’s more….” Alex hesitated. “When I was researching her background—something we always do before approaching someone—I discovered that, on her original application, she lied about having a relative in the business. They wouldn’t have hired her if they knew she had a blood relative in the business.”

Lauren stopped chopping, slewing around to look at him. “And you told her you’d found this out?”

“Yes,” he admitted. “But just to help her see that she had to do something, had to take action before someone else found out and fired her.”

“Wow.” She went back to cutting the vegetables. “So you told her you knew her secret and you then suggested that you and she should take-over this company? You didn’t give her much choice, did you?”

“No,” he said. “But I never planned on revealing her secret to anyone at Michele Cosmetics, regardless of whether she worked with me or not. Just the fact of Eden’s family connection to a business rival put her job in jeopardy. If I found out, so could other people. All the way around, my plans for the company made the most sense for Eden.”

He stopped, hating that the entire thing sounded sleazy as he stood with his sister in her cozy kitchen.

A silence fell in the room, broken only by the pelting of the snow at the window and the rhythmic chopping of her knife.

“This isn’t about the money for you anymore,” Lauren concluded.

“No, it’s not. And it hasn’t been from almost the beginning.” He went back to the table, sinking into the chair he’d vacated. “The situation at Michele Cosmetics is all fucked up. Michele Broussard has brought in some bimbo to groom for the job Eden should have. Hell, Eden’s been running the company for nearly a year. It’s crap.”

Finishing her chopping, his sister wiped her hands dry on a towel and turned to face him, listening.

“From very early on in this game,” he said, “I’ve wanted to help Eden get what she deserves. She’s worked her ass off for this company and they’re shoving her out the door.”

“She’s losing her job?”

“Not immediately,” Alex said, his words grim, “but eventually. It’s as clear as a bell. The woman who will drag this company down will first fire Eden. Eden’s too damned competent for this bitch to let her hang around.”

“So you’re going in and taking over the company. Dismantling it, partly for Eden? You’re trying to…fix it for Eden? Trying to make sure she gets her due?”

“Something like that,” he said with a sigh.

“Another bad habit on your part,” Lauren said with brutal candor. “You have a good heart, but it wouldn’t hurt you to do things a little more straight-forward, you know? You need to tell Eden exactly what you’ve been up to. All the little details that you’ve undoubtedly left out.”

The thought scared the crap out of him. Alex protested, “She knows I want the company. Eden’s very clear on what I do.”

“But she’s not as clear on what you’ve done,” his sister said meaningfully. “I’m sorry, Alex. But you need to take responsibility for your part in this. It’s really important that men own up to their part in relationships.”

He knew she spoke partly from her own experience with her ex, but her words still sliced into him.

Eden would walk away from him forever, her heart bleeding inside. She’d lose the company she deserved and he’d lose her.

Alex didn’t think he could face the possibility
.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Eden glanced at the falsified Bergere report on the table between her and Alex. Around them, other restaurant patrons chatted and ate.

“I’m glad you could get away long enough to meet for lunch. Now I don’t have to wait till this evening to see you,” Alex said with warmth. He looked across the table at her, a hint of concern in his eyes. “Are you sleeping okay? This work load you’re under seems to be wearing you down.”

“I’m okay,” she said briefly, reaching over to shift the report closer to his plate. When she’d planned this whole double-cross, she’d failed to anticipate how much she would hate telling him outright lies. It was one thing to lie by omission, but this bald-face deceit made her stomach hurt.

What she really wanted was to climb into his lap and kiss him senseless. Why couldn’t love be simple?

Taking a breath, she said with effort, “As you can see Bergere confirmed his initial reports. The anti-aging cream is nothing special. One more disappointment for Michele and Wendi. The board is being kept informed of new product development at every board meeting—just a brief update. They were hoping this product would expand the company into a rich, growing demographic. Obviously, it’s no gold mine.”

“That’s both good and bad for us,” he commented, reaching out to settle her hand in his. “With the disappointing results, the board is more likely to vote my way, so that’s good. An anti-aging product formula would have been easy to sell to another company, though.”

The clasp of his hand was warm and solid, sending a tingle through her body. She loved his hands, loved him touching her. Eden found her throat aching with how much she despised what she was doing. He might have set her up and used her, but she kept feeling like
she
was the one doing the betraying.

“Yes, it would have been a high volume seller,” she said, lifting her water glass to take a drink. Pulling out of his hold, she draped her napkin across her lap and practiced her next lie again in her head. Taking another breath, she said, “There’s something interesting to tell you about office politics.”

“Oh?” He looked up from his meal with an enquiring glance.

“I think Michele managed to annoy Sarah Briggs and maybe even Sol.” She put down her fork, her fingers trembling.

No matter what he’d done, how could she do this to someone she loved? She loved Alex, regardless of his devious actions. It may have been stupid, but there was no avoiding the truth.

“Really?” Alex asked. “How did Michele do that?”

“She sent out a memo,” Eden said, the rehearsed words sounding surprisingly normal. “Michele listed two or three staff ‘complaints’ about Wendi and told the board members ‘not to listen’. Sarah Briggs and Sol Klineman both called me and asked about it.”

If Alex had known Michele Broussard at all, he’d have seen through Eden’s deception, but he’d never even met Michele and he had no way of knowing about her supreme indifference to her employees at present. It hadn’t always been that way, Eden recalled sadly.

“So she’s pissing off her board members in defending Wendi?” Alex laughed. “That woman is brainless.”

“Yes.” Eden chewed her mouthful of tasteless salad. This was hell. She was living in hell, but losing the company…that would be even worse. None of the other options were any better.

How could she have fallen in love with this man, of all men.

“I’ve also contacted the reporter for the
Wall Street Weekly,
the woman I talked with before?” she lied.

“Oh, yeah?” he said, glancing up from his plate.