His Brand of Passion (14 page)

Zoe jerked her mind back to the conversation she’d been having with several socialites. ‘An art therapist.’

‘I didn’t know there was such a thing.’

Briefly she described her work, sensing their scepticism, and then to her surprise Aaron jumped in. ‘It’s especially effective with children. They’re much more likely to be able to communicate their feelings through pictures than words.’

Zoe stared at him in surprise while the two glamorous women nodded. ‘I guess that makes sense.’

Only because a gorgeous billionaire had told them, she thought cynically. When she and Aaron were alone, sipping champagne, she gave him a teasing look over the rim of her crystal flute. ‘You sounded pretty certain back there.’

He shrugged. ‘I guess I’m converted.’

She gave a little laugh. ‘Really? How?’

‘You’re very passionate about what you do and believe. I admire that.’

‘Passionate,’ Zoe repeated, and saw Aaron’s eyes flare with heat.

‘Passionate,’ he agreed huskily. ‘Now, how about we get out of here?’

She could only nod. Her heart had started thudding and her palms were slick. Now it would happen.
Finally
.

Aaron took their glasses and deposited them on a waiter’s tray. Then he was taking her by the elbow and whisking her out of the party into the crisp autumn night. The limo was waiting as always, and as Zoe slid in she felt her first attack of nerves. Stupid, maybe, when they’d already slept together. This wasn’t the first time.

Yet it felt like the first time, because it was so different now. At least, she wanted it to be different. She wanted it to feel like more, to mean more.

Yet she was still afraid it might not.

‘You look nervous,’ Aaron said and took her hand.

Zoe tried to smile. ‘I am,’ she admitted. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t be, but—’

‘I’m a bit nervous, too.’

Zoe let out a shocked laugh. She could hardly believe Aaron could ever be nervous about anything. He certainly looked relaxed sitting there, his legs stretched out, one arm resting on the seat above her head. ‘You are not,’ she said.

‘Well, I must admit anticipation trumps any nervousness. I feel like I’ve been waiting a long time for this.’

‘So do I,’ she whispered.

They didn’t speak again as they arrived at his building, and just as she’d imagined they rode up in the lift in a silence that was tense with expectation. Zoe could feel her heart beating so hard she wondered if Aaron could hear its thud, or see the pounding underneath the thin silk of her evening gown.

The doors swooshed open; Aaron took her by the hand and led her into the darkened apartment. Her dress whispered
against her bare legs as he drew her to him, his hands framing her face in a way that was so achingly tender, infinitely gentle.

He kissed her once, softly, barely a brush of his lips against hers. Zoe sighed in surrender.

And then his phone buzzed in his pocket.

It almost seemed like a joke. It was certainly fitting, considering the nature of their first meeting. She felt Aaron tense, felt his hand leave her face and reach for his pocket.

‘Aaron,’ she said desperately, because she had a terrible instinct that if he took that call their night would be over. And maybe she should be understanding; he had a high-pressured job and this was, after all, only one night.

But it was an important night, a defining moment, and Zoe felt all her uncertainties and fears rise up in her as she put her hand over Aaron’s, trapping it before he could reach his phone.

‘Don’t.’

‘Zoe, it could be important—’

‘Could be,’ she repeated, her fingers twining with his. ‘And this is important, Aaron, isn’t it? What’s happening between us?’

His voice was low and rough with want. ‘Of course it is.’

‘Then please, just leave it for a few hours. Surely it can wait?’

‘And you can’t?’ He spoke tonelessly, but she knew what he was asking her. Was she giving him an ultimatum?

Zoe hesitated. She didn’t want to be demanding; she wanted to make this work. But neither was she willing to accept what little Aaron had to give, or set a precedent where everything but her came first.

‘No,’ she said finally. ‘I can’t.’

Aaron hesitated. Zoe held her breath. Had she just made a huge mistake? Had she ruined everything already by pushing yet again? And yet it had been necessary…hadn’t it?

The phone buzzed again.

After a tense and endless moment Aaron removed his hand from hers. He took his phone out of his pocket and without looking at it tossed it onto a chair. ‘There.’

‘Thank you,’ Zoe said, and she stood on her tiptoes to kiss him, another brush of the lips, but Aaron took it and made it his own, deepening it so his tongue thrust into her mouth and Zoe felt as if her soul had been set on fire.

There was a raw urgency to Aaron’s kiss, to his hands, as he unzipped her dress and slid it from her shoulders. He kissed her mouth, her throat, and then moved lower to kiss her breasts, slipping aside the scrappy lace of her bra.

Zoe gasped at the feel of his mouth, so cool and hard, hot and soft all at once, on her bare flesh. She rested her hands on his shoulders to steady herself as he moved lower, slipping the dress down her hips and legs, his mouth following a blazing trail.

‘Aaron…’

‘I need you, Zoe. I need you so much.’ The words were raw, a guttural confession that Zoe knew Aaron meant—even if he didn’t want to. And, while need wasn’t love, it was something. It was a start.

She kicked the dress away from her high-heel-shod feet as Aaron sank to her knees in front of her. She swayed where she stood as her hands clenched around his shoulders and his mouth found the hot, pulsing centre of her.

‘Aaron…’ she said again, amazed at how quickly he could bring her to that precipice of pleasure. Already she felt the first waves of her climax crashing over her, and she was helpless to stop it. Her knees buckled as she cried out and Aaron swept his arm under her legs, carrying her easily to the bedroom.

His eyes were dark, his face almost savage with intent desire
as he stripped off his tuxedo so he was gloriously naked, all hard, taut muscle and sleek skin. Zoe reached for him.

The press of his naked body against hers had her gasping aloud from the sheer, intense joy of it, and as he kissed her, his hands moving over her body, his fingers finding her secret, sensitive places, Zoe found her body straining towards another climax.

‘You’re going to kill me,’ she gasped and he laughed low in his throat as his fingers slid inside her.

‘It would be a good way to go.’

‘Yes, it would,’ she agreed, and with a superhuman effort—because what he was doing felt so amazingly good—she slipped out from under him and pushed him onto his back. ‘But this isn’t a one-man show, you know.’

‘No?’

‘No.’

And then it was her turn to explore him, every kiss and caress evoking a shuddering response that had her thrilling with seductive power—and a far greater emotion.
Love
.

She loved him. She’d been fighting against it, lecturing herself not to, and yet here it was, pure, simple and so very right. The doubts fell away and as Aaron finally rolled her over and entered her in one pure stroke, Zoe felt tears come to her eyes.

Just as before his gaze locked with hers and she felt the moment of raw need stretch and grow into something greater, something more powerful than pleasure.

‘I love you,’ she whispered and Aaron tensed above her, his face a mask, but Zoe didn’t care. She felt, in that moment, that her love would be enough. She put her arms around him and arched upwards as he drove into her again, filling her up into completion. ‘I love you,’ she said again, and Aaron didn’t answer.

He buried his face in her neck as he moved inside her, and
then Zoe couldn’t think or worry about his silence because she was swept away on a tide of pleasure too great to resist, too wonderful to worry about anything else.

Aaron lay in his bed, his arm around Zoe’s shoulders, his heart thundering in his chest.

I love you
.

The words had humbled him, felled him, because no one had ever said them to him before. Not his father, who had lectured him about responsibility and duty; not his mother, who had been too wrapped up in her own misery. Not a woman, for the women he’d been with before, if they’d deluded themselves that they cared about him at all, would certainly have known better than to say as much.

But Zoe was different. And he was different with Zoe, because when she’d said those three words he’d wanted to hear them. He’d received them with a kind of dazed joy, even if he wasn’t sure if he could say them back. He still didn’t know if he had that depth of emotion in him.

‘You don’t have to say anything,’ Zoe said quietly, and although she sounded calm he still heard a faint thread of hurt in her voice. Of course she was hurt. Generally, when a woman said ‘I love you’, the man was supposed to say something—‘I love you, too’ being the preferred option. He knew that much at least.

‘I’m glad you love me,’ he said, pulling her close, and she let out a little laugh.

‘Well, that’s something.’

‘I’m glad you think so.’

She rolled over, her hair brushing his bare chest as she kissed him. ‘You’re glad about a lot of things, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, I am.’

She smiled softly and from the other room Aaron heard a
sound that had him tensing, a sound he’d blanked out in the last hour. His phone.

He needed to answer it. Part of him wanted to ignore it, wanted to stay in the safe and warm cocoon of Zoe’s embrace, but he knew how much unrest there had been in both the economy and Bryant Enterprises. He needed to check his messages.

‘Just a minute,’ he said, and slid from the bed.

Zoe propped herself up one elbow. ‘You’re going to check your phone, aren’t you?’

‘It’s been an hour.’

‘I didn’t realise you’d set a timer. Or is it just your internal clock?’ She sounded waspish, and Aaron felt the first flicker of anger.

‘Be reasonable. It could be something important.’

‘Fine.’ She rolled over, her back to him, and with an impatient shrug Aaron slid on his boxer shorts and stalked to the living room.

He reached for his phone, his heart seeming to freeze within him as he saw how many messages he’d missed. He listened to the first voicemail with a numbing sense of disbelief.

‘Aaron, there’s been an emergency meeting of the board of trustees. Apparently, it’s allowable when there is a majority shareholder…’

The mystery man who was trying to buy up his company. He listened to the next message, and then the next, as his second-in-command detailed the events of the meeting.

And then the verdict—stark, impossible: ‘You’ve been voted down as CEO.’

He’d lost Bryant Enterprises. And all because of a woman.

Z
OE LAY IN
bed, her body still tingling from Aaron’s love-making even as she berated herself for being so bitchy about him taking his messages. Honestly, would she ever learn anything from her past relationships? It was just that she was so desperate and afraid. Neither were admirable qualities, and certainly not ones she wanted to possess in any relationship—especially not this one, the most important of all. She hated feeling like the person who gave more, who needed more, who cared more. Who loved.

She’d told Aaron it didn’t matter if he didn’t love her, but she knew it did. Of course it did. If he loved her, she’d hand him his stupid phone herself. She’d understand, she wouldn’t care about such trivial moments. It was because she knew he didn’t that those little moments became far too important. Defining.

Sighing, she stared up at the ceiling. Only moments ago she’d felt so joyously certain, yet now the doubts crept right back in. She took a deep breath and forced herself to stay calm. She’d be honest with Aaron. She’d apologise to him for being stupid about the phone. She’d tell him what she needed.

It seemed like a good plan and Zoe had sat up in bed, the sheet wrapped around her, when Aaron strode into the bedroom, his face as frighteningly blank as it had ever been.

Still, she had to try.

‘Aaron, I’m sorry I was obnoxious about you checking your phone. I know it’s such a small thing, and I clearly overreacted.’ Aaron didn’t answer. He sat on the edge of the bed, his back to her. ‘Aaron?’ she asked uncertainly. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘Is something wrong?’ he repeated tonelessly. ‘You could say that.’

A cold, creeping fear took hold of her heart. ‘Was it the phone? Was there a message—?’

‘There were twenty-two messages.’ Aaron cut her off, his voice still flat.

‘Oh.’ She hugged her knees to her chest. ‘I guess it was something important.’

‘You guessed right.’ Aaron raked his hands through his hair, his body in the grip of some terrible emotion. Then he dropped his hands and Zoe had the horrible feeling that he’d just come to some major decision—and one she didn’t want to hear.

He scooped her dress off the floor and tossed it to her. Zoe caught it instinctively, the sheet slipping from her breasts. ‘You should go.’

‘Go?’

‘This isn’t working. It never could have worked. Everything between us has been a mistake.’

It was as if he were saying every fear her heart had whispered, turning them into terrible realities. ‘You don’t mean that, Aaron.’

He turned to her, his eyes hard and cold. ‘I mean it absolutely.’

‘You’re just going to end it like this? Kick me out?’

‘A clean break is better.’

She shook her head slowly, still numb with disbelief. Ten minutes ago he’d been inside her. ‘Who the hell was on that
phone?’ she asked and Aaron didn’t answer; he just gathered her underwear and shoes and deposited them on the bed.

‘I’ll have my limo drive you to Millie and Chase’s,’ he said, and left the room.

Zoe sat frozen in the bed they’d just shared, her crumpled dress between her clenched fingers. Her mind spun uselessly, for she had no idea what had just happened…or why. Had a single phone call really made such a difference, or had Aaron been stringing her along the whole while? In either case, she had judged badly—again. And now she was left reeling and hurting more than ever before.

She dressed quickly, feeling sordid and shamed as she put on her crumpled evening gown. She slipped on her heels and did as much repair as she could to her face and hair. Then she took a deep breath and headed for the living room and Aaron.

She didn’t know what to expect, but when she emerged from the bedroom he didn’t even look at her. He’d dressed in a business suit, which seemed odd at this time of night. It had to be nearing midnight.

She walked to the lift doors and still he didn’t say anything. In stunned disbelief she realised he was just going to let her walk out of his life for ever. In fact, that was what he seemed to want.

Emotions tightened in her chest and clogged her throat. ‘I think,’ she managed after a moment when he still hadn’t so much as turned his head, ‘I deserve an explanation at least.’

‘There’s no point.’

‘Really?’ Her voice choked and she strived to even it—then wondered why she wanted to hide how much he’d hurt her. Devastated her. ‘And how did you come to that conclusion?’

Finally he looked at her and then Zoe wished he hadn’t. He was the same man she’d first met at Millie’s wedding, cold and pitiless, arrogant and hard. A man she hadn’t liked or respected. Was that the real Aaron, and the rest had been
no more than a facade? ‘It doesn’t matter, Zoe,’ he said flatly, and he sounded impatient, as if he could barely stand to give her these few seconds of his time. ‘All that matters is that this—us—was a mistake.’

‘A mistake.’

‘Yes.’

She stared at him, searching for some crack in the mask, some sign that he still was the man she wanted and loved underneath. There was nothing. Even so, a part of her longed to try to reach him, to cross the frozen silence between them, take his face in her hands and kiss his lips. To insist that she knew him now and he wasn’t this man. He was someone kind, tender and good. He was the man she loved.

The words were there, clogged in her throat, on her lips. A flicker of impatience crossed Aaron’s face like a shadow, and with it came Zoe’s defeat. She’d done this before—tried and begged and believed when she shouldn’t have. When Tim had ended it, she’d insisted she could change for him, that it could work. She’d begged him not to give up on her. The memory now was unbearably shaming; long ago Zoe had promised herself she would never debase herself so again. Then she’d gone on basically to do the same thing in three other relationships.

She wouldn’t do it now.

Lifting her chin, she met Aaron’s gaze straight on. ‘Goodbye, Aaron,’ she said with as much dignity as she could muster. He didn’t answer, and as the lift doors opened and she stepped inside she couldn’t keep from some of the awful hurt spilling out. ‘I hope you go to hell,’ she spat, the words ending on a sob, and the doors closed on his stony, unchanging expression.

Two days later Aaron sat in his former office and stared at the remnants of his life. A few boxes of confidential files were
pretty much all he had. There were no photos, no mementoes, no personal items beyond a spare suit to remove from the executive office of Bryant Enterprises. The high-rise office building in midtown had been in the Bryant family since it had been built back in the 1930s.

Now it belonged to someone else, some techno-wizard from California who had masterminded the hostile takeover of his company. Today was Aaron’s last day.

The newspapers’ business pages had been full of his failure:
Bryant Enterprises Crumbles!
And
No More Bryant in BE
He’d read every article, punishing himself even as he refused to give into the pulsing pain that coursed through him unrelentingly. He would not succumb to self-pity. How could he, when this was all his fault?

He knew it wasn’t the simple matter of not taking a phone call. He wasn’t so paranoid as to believe the course of his fortune had changed overnight. No, it had happened long before that; it had started at Millie and Chase’s wedding when Zoe Parker had taken his phone and he’d let her. He could have got it back sooner. He could have handled that whole situation differently, but instead he’d given her control because he’d been so in lust with her right from the beginning. Enthralled and excited by her daring, by her playful smile and the spark he’d seen in her eyes.

And from that moment on he’d lost his focus—asking her to move in with him, coming home early because she’d asked him to, spending two
weeks
on a remote Caribbean island. All of it added up to a perfect opportunity for someone to step in and sweep away all his work like so many flimsy dominoes. And he’d allowed it to happen.

Enough. Aaron rose from the desk. Self-recrimination was almost as bad as self-pity and a waste of time. What was done was done. He was hardly destitute; he’d received a substantial pay-out and St Julian’s, owned jointly by all three brothers,
remained in the family. His apartment was his own, without a mortgage, as was a summer house he owned in the Catskills. He had some personal investments. Everything else was gone.

He’d practically given it away.

Shaking his head, Aaron reached for his coat and the briefcase he wouldn’t need any more. He’d have one of the errand boys bring down his boxes. He’d have to take a cab; the limo was a corporate perk.

‘Hello, Aaron.’

Aaron jerked his head around to see, to his surprise, his brother Luke standing in the doorway. ‘Come to gloat?’ he asked, hearing the bitterness mixed with gallows humour in his voice. ‘I suppose I deserve it.’

‘I’m not gloating.’

‘I know I never gave you the control you wanted.’ For fifteen years Luke had worked for Bryant’s retail arm, but Aaron had still initialled every decision. It had been a deliberate choice, because from the beginning everything had felt so perilous. Losing control would have meant losing the company…just as he’d done now.

‘It’s true you didn’t,’ Luke said, stepping into the office. ‘Why didn’t you, as a matter of interest?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I always thought it was just because you were a control freak. Or that you didn’t trust me.’

‘I didn’t trust you,’ Aaron answered bluntly, and Luke let out a short laugh.

‘So it really was that simple.’

No, nothing had been simple since his father had died and he’d discovered the empire he’d inherited was rotten to the core. He’d never felt so betrayed in that moment, abandoned by his idol, alone at twenty-one to resurrect a business bankrupted by his father’s folly. And he’d succeeded…for a while. Until his own foolishness had cost him everything.

‘I didn’t trust anyone,’ Aaron said. ‘Not even myself. And I was right, wasn’t I?’ He let out a bitter laugh. ‘I lost everything.’

Luke was silent for a long moment. ‘And don’t you think that was a choice?’

‘A choice?’ A bad one, then, to follow his libido rather than his brain. His heart rather than his head.

‘Aaron, I know you’re piling the guilt on yourself now, but you are one hell of a sharp guy. I don’t think an upstart computer geek could steal your company from under your nose without you knowing about it.’

Aaron stilled, his gaze narrowing in on his brother. ‘What are you saying?’

‘I’m no shrink, but I’m saying that some part of you knew this was happening—and allowed it.’

‘No.’ The denial was immediate, instinctive.

‘Father always put far too many expectations on you, even when you were a little kid. I think you knew you were going to be CEO when you were about six. Is it any wonder you might want to rebel against that?’

Aaron didn’t answer. His mind was spinning with this new knowledge, this sudden realisation that Luke was right—that he’d known about the possible takeover for weeks, maybe even months, and had in some secret part of himself wanted it to happen. Had wanted to lose Bryant Enterprises because for once he wanted to be his own man, free to chose his own path.

A path that would have included Zoe…if in the first shock of loss and fear he hadn’t pushed her away and destroyed any chance they had together.

‘How do you feel now?’ Luke asked quietly. ‘Now that it’s all gone, and none of it matters anymore?’

Aaron considered the question. He’d been numb since it all started unravelling three days ago, getting through the mechanics of each day, of taking a life apart. And now? ‘I feel…
free,’ he admitted in a kind of hesitant wonder, and then he looked away. The confession felt like a betrayal.

‘That’s how I felt too,’ Luke said. ‘When I walked away from Bryant Enterprises. I didn’t realise what a shackle it had been until it was gone.’

A shackle. Yes, it had chained him, maimed him: the endless attempts to rebuild a company teetering on the edge of disaster; all his beliefs about his father; his family destroyed.

‘Bryant Enterprises has been in our family for a hundred years,’ he said in a raw voice. ‘You can’t just walk away from that.’

‘That was the problem, wasn’t it?’ Luke answered, his mouth twisting sardonically. ‘It was damn hard for me to walk away. I can only imagine how difficult it’s been for you.’

‘Even so.’

‘That company was killing you, Aaron. Maybe you can’t see it, but I can from here.’

Aaron blinked hard. He knew Luke was right, even if he hated to admit it. Even if his freedom felt like weakness. ‘Still,’ he said with a ragged sigh, ‘I made a huge mess of things.’

Luke remained silent for a moment. ‘You mean Zoe.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I don’t, really. Chase told me a little. Do you love her?’

Yes
. The admission, made in the silence of his own heart, stunned him. He knew it was true. And it was too damn late. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘How can you say that?’

‘Because she won’t forgive me,’ Aaron snapped. ‘Even if I wanted to be forgiven.’

‘And you don’t?’

Did he want to go back to Zoe a defeated, ruined man? No. He wanted to return to her on his terms—proud, in control.
Arrogant. Autocratic. A control freak, just as she’d once called him.

Was he capable of change? Was he capable of going to Zoe and admitting his weaknesses, his failures? The thought was abhorrent…yet necessary.

Perhaps this was the only way. He gave his brother a wry smile. ‘This is tough.’

Luke let out a laugh and shook his head. ‘Don’t I know it.’

‘You’re happy, though, with Aurelie,’ Aaron said, and he nodded.

‘Absolutely. And you can be too, Aaron, but you’re right, it’s not easy. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth it.’

As he left the building for the last time Aaron felt that shackle finally slip off. Strange, how liberating it truly was. He had no idea what he’d do now, but the realisation that Bryant Enterprises was no longer his responsibility, his burden, almost made him giddy with relief…instantly followed by an instinctive disgust.