With his blue eyes so extremely intent on mine, my brain short-circuited and words drifted silent.
Had I been talking? I had no idea what I’d been saying.
“You are so damn cute,” he murmured, his eyes squinting slightly with how big he was grinning.
Oh, boy.
I cleared my throat and glanced away. There. Connection broken. I could talk again. “Because… Because, well, yeah. I need you to understand that nothing between us can ever happen. Ever. And furthermore—”
He leaned in and set his mouth against mine.
When he pulled back a second later, I sucked in a breath and tried to reorient myself.
“I, uh...” I shook my head and blinked him back into focus before tugging my bottom lip between my teeth so I could get more of the taste he’d left behind. It was like coffee and chocolate and cookie. My chocolate chip cookies. Oh, damn, he tasted good. I shook my head again and pointed at him. “What was that?”
“That was me disagreeing with you on the we-can-never-happen-again point you were trying to make.” He shrugged. “I mean, I might’ve been more inclined to listen to your argument if you didn’t kiss me back whenever I kiss you. But you do. Every. Single. Time. So from my perspective, it seems like we could happen quite nicely.”
“Yes, but…” I sighed. “That’s another thing we need to discuss. You really need to stop kissing me, no matter how I respond. Because… Because…” When I didn’t readily come up with a reason, he grinned and lifted an eyebrow, smugly waiting for me to continue. I scowled and sniffed. “You know, there’s more to a relationship than just chemistry, and kissing, and… And…”
“Is there?” he asked with the utmost interest, as if he were vastly intrigued to hear exactly what made up a relationship.
Then he stepped closer, and my breathing went shallow as my mind fizzed out, making me forget everything I was trying to say. I stared up into his too-blue eyes and gulped, wanting him to kiss me again.
“Y-yes?” I whispered, though it sounded more like an uncertain question than an answer, because I’d kind of forgotten what I was even saying yes about. Hopefully it was yes, he should kiss me again.
He smiled at me as if he thought me adorable. “Know what your problem is, Kaity?” He tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. “You’re thinking about this way too much, anticipating every possible problem before it can even happen.”
True. “But—”
He grinned and lifted a finger to stop me. Except it was the wink following that that actually caused me to fall mute.
“I’m not asking you to marry me. I’m not even asking for a relationship. Or sex. Right now, all I want is a meal with you and time enough to get to know you. I’m curious to learn more about the woman whose mouth I know so intimately.” His eyebrows lifted. “Aren’t you curious to know more about me?”
Infinitely curious.
Feeling tempted all over again, I sighed. “Yes. Yes, I am.” And I convinced myself no harm could come from simply talking to a guy in a public restaurant while we both ate our respective meals at the same table.
That was until the elevator stopped and the doors slid open. Ezra swept out a hand, offering me to go first. I stepped into the hallway, only for all the reasons why continuing any kind of contact with him was unwise to come back to me, standing barely thirty feet away.
“Oh my God,” I gasped and immediately reversed into the elevator. “Back, back, back.”
Ramming my spine into Ezra as I corralled him back onto the lift, I slapped at the close door button before we were fully inside again.
“What the hell?” He reached for the wall to regain his balance.
The door finally closed, and I turned to him beyond relieved we hadn’t been spotted, only to be faced with an entirely new problem.
Oh, crap.
From the look on Ezra’s face, I knew there was no way I’d be escaping this elevator without revealing all, especially when he pushed the stop button and turned to me menacingly. “Okay. What the fuck is going on?”
“I’m sorry,” I gushed, clutching my face as my guts twisted with worry. The worst thing was, I wasn’t apologizing for shoving him, but for ruining our lovely night in the courtyard together, which I’m sure I was about to ruin for him…most thoroughly. “I’m so sorry about all this. But… Lana was out there,” I tried to explain.
He cleared his throat, straightened away from the elevator wall and tugged his jacket back into place before very calmly saying, “Okay… And?”
Huh. That was usually all I had to say to people. But not for Ezra Nash, apparently. He needed the entire story.
No matter how poised he sounded, I could tell he wasn’t very composed under the surface. He was beginning to lose patience with me. I cringed. “And… And she can’t see us together. Ever.”
He opened his mouth. Since I already knew he was going to ask why, I answered before he could.
“She hates me. She absolutely detests the very air I breathe. And she wants you. She wants you bad. So if you think she was ever unpleasant to you before, that is nothing like the holy hell she would rain down on both of us if she ever spotted us together, and I mean even just sharing an elevator together.”
Ezra stared at me with the blankest expression for the longest time. I had no idea what was going through his brain. Finally, he held up a finger before shaking his head. “Alright, wait.” Looking mildly sick to his stomach, he said, “What exactly do you mean by she wants me?”
I sent him a telling glance. “You’re a young, attractive, virile, powerful man. What do you think I mean?”
He recoiled away from me, or maybe he was just recoiling from the ideas I was putting into his head, before he backed into the wall of the elevator. Then he grimaced as if he’d just tasted something vile. “No fucking way.”
A second later, he shook his head, and the disgust on his face told me how much he rejected the very idea. “Are you sure? I mean, to me, it seems as if the only strong feelings she has for me is animosity.”
I shrugged with another wince. “I’m pretty sure. I mean, even Brick has commented on the way she looks at you. She’s definitely interested.”
A full body shudder consumed him before he brushed at the sleeves of his jacket as if to clean such filthy knowledge off him. “But that’s just sick.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, biting my lip and feeling awful for being the one to bring this to his attention.
He shook his head and focused on me, narrowing his gaze. “You know what, even if that were the case, which I’m in complete denial about, who cares if she sees us together? We’re both consenting adults. We can—”
“You do realize we’re talking about Lana Judge, right?” I asked, gaping at him incredulously. “It wouldn’t matter if you paraded a complete stranger in front of her on your arm, she’d hate anyone she saw playing with the toy she wants.”
“Um.” He lifted a finger. “I’m not a toy.”
I ignored that, not finished making my point. “But if she knew the very bane of her existence—yes, that would be me—had kissed you, it would be complete and utter mass destruction.”
“See, now…” He let out an uneasy laugh and pressed a hand against his chest. “Up until twenty seconds ago, I would’ve said I was the bane of her existence. So this is hard for me to follow. Exactly who are you to her?”
Letting out a heavy sigh, I backed into the opposite side of the elevator as him and sank to the floor until I was sitting with my knees up by my chin. “Are you sure you’re ready to hear that answer? It’s going to change everything.”
His blue eyes squinted. “Just tell me.”
With my eyes full of apology, I sent him a single, sad wave. Probably a farewell wave. “Hi, my name is Kaitlynn Marcella Judge. It’s nice to meet you.”
Ezra’s eyes went wide. Then he blew out a lungful of air before he sank down to the floor and sat directly across from me. “You’re Arthur and Marcella’s daug
hter. The one I didn’t think existed.”
I nodded.
“And therefore Lana’s… Stepdaughter?”
A wince. Then I nodded again.
“Christ.” He looked about as sick by that prospect as he did about learning Lana had the hots for him. Burying his face in his hands, he wiped his palms over his face before sinking his fingers into his hair.
“It gets worse,” I confessed, sinking lower.
Ezra glanced up, his gaze turbulent. “I don’t see how.”
“I want my company back,” I stated boldly. Shock coated his features and his eyebrows lifted, but he said nothing, so I kept talking. “I was raised to believe JFI would be mine someday. My inheritance. This place is my family’s legacy; I’ve never wanted to be anywhere else. But when my dad died, his will stipulated all of it would be left in the hands of Lana. And of course, she wouldn’t even consider hiring me back on after I graduated from college. So six months ago, I finally talked her into letting me work for her as an unpaid intern until—”
“Wait, wait, wait.” He waved his hands, halting me. “Are you saying you’ve worked here—Arthur Judge’s daughter—for how long, and I haven’t been aware of it?”
“I was just an intern. And unpaid,” I repeated. “There’s no record of me working here. I never filled out a W2, received insurance, gotten any benefits—”
“Is that even legal?” he asked, sounding incredulous.
I shrugged. “I have no idea. I was just so determined to get my foot in the door any way I could, I was willing to do whatever I had to do in order to work my way to the top. Except, Lana fired me last week. But then Brick hired me back on as his assistant, so at least I’m a paid employee now. He also thought it’d be safer for me to work under your branch of the company, anyway, where she couldn’t touch me. But now—”
“So wait. You’re seeking my protection as you attempt to work your way to the top and take my company away from me?”
I gnashed my teeth. “You make it sound worse than it is. I’m fully prepared to buy you out when I can. I mean, isn’t that what you Nashes do? Buy companies and sell them for a profit? You can’t possibly want to stay here forever.”
“Buying and selling is my dad’s thing. I have no plans of leaving JFI.”
“Oh. Well…” I cleared my throat, feeling my face flush with anxiety. This wasn’t going at all how I’d planned. Not that I’d planned any of it. But it felt like it was going south so quickly. “Maybe you’ll play a different tune someday when I make you an offer you can’t refuse.”
His jaw hardened and eyes narrowed. “Why didn’t you just buy Lana out when she sold half the company to my family a year ago?”
I bowed my head, humiliated. “I didn’t have the money.”
He sniffed. “Arthur Judge’s daughter? And you didn’t have the money?”
Scowling at him, I muttered, “It’s not like he left me stupid rich or anything.”
“Didn’t he? I never met the guy, but I knew how generous of a philanthropist he was. I still get charities contacting me for handouts because of how much he had his company donate to them every year. You can’t sit there and tell me he gave away that much money to complete strangers, yet left you—his only true child—destitute.”
The obstinate stare I sent him told him to go to hell, but he merely narrowed his eyes, waiting for an answer. My jaw hardened before I glanced away and bit out, “He left me a college fund, which I used for college, and then another trust fund I can’t touch until I’m thirty. Right now, it pays out a small dividend monthly.”
Ezra arched an eyebrow. “And that’s it?”
My God, what did he want from me? To confess I had billions stashed away in some Swiss banking account? “Yes!” I hissed. “Not that it’s any of your business, but that’s it. The rest went to Lana and her sons.”
Eyebrows knitting with disbelief, he asked, “And you accepted that?” With a shrug, he added, “I mean, it just sounds fishy to me. He left you so little, yet you didn’t question the will or contest it at all.”
Getting irritated, I pushed to my feet and glared him down. “No, I did not question the will. It was my father’s final wishes. Why would I challenge what he wanted?”
Pushing to his feet as well, Ezra dusted off everything that had had contact with the floor. “Yeah, but—”
“No buts!” I boomed, poking my finger into the center of his chest. “He raised me to believe I had to work for the things I wanted. So why would I truly believe he left me with everything and therefore would never have to work for anything in my life again? That doesn’t make sense to me.” Realizing how close I’d stormed to him as I snarled up into his handsome face, I huffed out a breath and eased a step back. “Why are we arguing about this anyway?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted, looking flustered as he took his own step back and ran a hand through his hair, mussing it artfully, which in turn made my fingers ache to play in those dark locks. Lifting his face from his shining black shoes, he said, “Maybe because I don’t want to hear you admit you knew exactly who I was when you stepped into that courtyard with me Saturday night.”
My lips parted.
It was like a punch to the gut to hear him even question it. Our few minutes in the courtyard had been magical—special—and he’d just turned it into something sinister and conniving.
Sure, I’d worried this was exactly what he’d think, but now that he was, it still hurt. More than I thought it would.
“I had no idea who you were then. You know I had no idea who you were.”
“Do I?” he asked, the question in his eyes breaking my heart. “Or are you just that good of an actress?” He lifted his hands. “I wouldn’t put anything past Lana’s daughter.”
Rage, hurt, and shock welled in me. “I am not her daughter.” I was nothing like her. Being compared to her was the harshest blow anyone could serve.
Ezra’s moody blue eyes swirled with suspicion and maybe even a little of his own hurt, as if he felt betrayed. “Then why didn’t you tell me who you were? I brought up your parents, hell, I even doubted your existence, yet you said nothing.”
I shook my head, no idea how to answer. “It didn’t seem to matter then,” I whispered. “At that moment, we were just two strangers in the dark looking for a pair of shoes. It seemed, I don’t know, inappropriate to break the mood between us with facts. And then, later, when I realized who you were and it became important for you to know who I was, then it was too late. This is actually all your fault, you know. You never should’ve kissed me before we learned each other’s names. None of this would’ve happened if you’d just asked me for my name first thing.”
“Or if you had volunteered your name when I started talking about your parents,” he countered through gritted teeth. “And stop looking at me like that, or I’m going to give you what you want and kiss the fuck out of you again.”
I gasped. “I am not looking at you like I want to be kissed.”
He took a step toward me, looking very much as if he wanted to kiss me too. “Yeah, you are,” he murmured. “You want it as much as I do.”
I hated being so open. Grinding my teeth, I muttered, “Well, stop being such a good kisser, damn you, and I’ll stop wanting it.”
He groaned and took another step closer, his hand reaching out, just as the elevator doors opened.
We sprang apart, even though we hadn’t yet been that close. The way we moved, however, like we were guilty of something illicit, made the man wanting to enter pause and eye us as if he had indeed interrupted something scandalous.
My face flushed hot as Christopher Elton shifted his wide-eyed glance away from Ezra to me. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“You’re fine,” Ezra answered stiffly, motioning him into the car with us. I crowded closer to the wall and as far away from Ezra as I could get to make room for Christopher in the middle. All the while, I wanted to sink through the floor and escape.
But
Christopher paused. “Don’t you two need out? We’re on the first floor.”
Oh, Lord, could the moment get any more humiliating?
Yes, yes, it could. Ezra pierced Christopher with a death glare but calmly said, “We decided not to go out to breakfast after all.”
We had?
My gaze shot to him. He sent me a quick glance, only to turn his attention away again and shove his hands into his pockets before studying the buttons on the wall panel.
“Still,” Christopher tried, hooking his thumb over his shoulder as if he had somewhere else to be. “I can just take the—”
“Get in the damn elevator,” Ezra bit out.
“Right.” Christopher cleared his throat and nearly leapt inside with us. When he pushed the button for the second floor, the doors shut and my stomach dropped away as the ground lifted.
Next to me, my old crush sent me a quick uneasy glance before something flickered in his gaze. He pointed to my stain-free chest. “Hey, weren’t you at the meeting last week?”
From the corner of my eye, I noticed the question had gained Ezra’s attention. He looked between me and Christopher with great curiosity and more scrutiny than I wanted.
With a tight smile, I answered, “Thank you again for the white vinegar tip. Worked like a charm.”
Christopher nodded, looking way too intrigued for my comfort. Once upon a time, say a week ago, I would’ve relished that attention, but now, I kind of just wanted him to forget I existed.
“I’d never seen you at a meeting before,” he said, eyeing me up and down, taking in the floor dust on my dark slacks and then checking my chest, probably looking for more stains. “What department do you work in? And I didn’t catch your name.”
The elevator stopped, and the doors began to open.
“Second floor,” Ezra announced. “Your stop.” He nudged Christopher out and away from me.
Christopher stumbled away, only to turn and gape at us as the doors slid closed again, his eyes wide with shock, and my face no-doubt a million shades of red.