Samuel needed to break something.
Quickly.
Standing before him, a group of investors with the power to change the future of Kane Foods forever vied for his attention. He’d been courting them for over a year at his father’s insistence. Ski excursions in Aspen. Fishing trips in Key West. High-roller weekends in Vegas.
After all that work, here they were offering him everything he’d ever wanted, and he wasn’t listening to a single thing they were saying.
Because of her.
Because of that dress.
Because of the torture that was Arlie Banks.
Samuel had stolen greedy glances as she’d moved through the crowd with Mason at her side, looking every bit the golden god. His brother procuring her champagne. His brother touching his glass to hers. Samuel had nearly bit through his tongue when Mason leaned in, whispering something that caused Arlie to erupt into a spontaneous burst of laughter that vacuumed ten years from her face.
He’d watched as, together, they’d made their way to Marlowe’s side, his brother’s hand at the small of Arlie’s back. Then, just as Samuel had been both terribly pleased his plan was working and quietly dying inside, Arlie had looked right at him.
Not with the kind of darting, nervous glances she’d managed in his office that morning.
Really looked at him. No, not just at him.
Into him.
Like she knew him. Like she knew something about him.
A look that shot straight through to his soul by way of his cock.
“Are you quite all right?” Henry Campbell, father of his sister’s fiancé asked, his posh British accent revealing none of the tension his face displayed.
“Apologies,” Samuel said, desperately sifting his short-term memory for any scrap of conversation he could respond to. “I’m afraid I missed that.”
With his beady eyes, rounded belly, and dark gray suit, Campbell looked like nothing so much as an offended pigeon. “I said, I spoke with your father and we’re ready to move forward, but—”
But.
But the breeze came and Samuel’s head instinctively swiveled back toward Arlie, watching as the panels of fabric of her dress parted, revealing the pale length of her thigh.
A thigh he could easily imagine hooked over his hip as he tasted her mouth, pushing her panties aside so he could—
“If your attentions are needed elsewhere, we can certainly discuss our investment in the Kane Foods gummies division another time.” Now Henry Campbell didn’t just look piqued, he looked pissed. The team of yuppie lackeys welded to his bespoke coattails mirrored his look of refined displeasure.
What the hell am I doing?
“Forgive me.” He did his best to drag his attention away from the lurid scene he couldn’t seem to banish from the screen of his mind. “While we’re certainly excited to have Campbell Capital as a partner, I’m sure you’re aware how...attached my father is to our gummies division. It was the very first automated line in the original Kane Confectionary building. Once we’ve arrived at a reasonable arrangement where equity is concerned—”
“A reasonable arrangement?” Campbell raised an eyebrow. “I thought the percentage we discussed at our last due diligence call was more than generous.”
A predatory thrill coursed through Samuel’s veins.
He loved this part.
Reading his adversary. Learning their weaknesses. Figuring out exactly where and how to apply the proper pressure to get what he wanted.
Because he always did.
“Well, it would be, if your data analysts hadn’t wildly undervalued the division’s recurring revenue streams,” Samuel said, reveling in Campbell’s obvious discomfiture.
He was a man not used to being on the defensive.
“Gentlemen.” This one word, delivered in Mason’s overly affected listen to how charming I am voice, had Samuel’s hands tightening into fists. “May I borrow my brother?”
Even without turning, he knew Arlie was with him. If the acute, electric tingling at the base of his spine wasn’t evidence enough, the appreciative gleam in the eyes of Campbell and his cronies as they looked past Samuel would have been a dead giveaway.
“We’re in the middle of a discussion, Mason. Can’t this wait?” he snapped.
“No,” Mason said, folding his arms over his chest, his skin a tanning-bed bronze against the pristine white of his dress shirt. “I’m afraid it can’t.”
With a heavy sigh, Samuel addressed the entourage. “Gentlemen, can we revert offline?”
“Of course.” Campbell nodded curtly before shuffling off into the crowd, his loyal satellites trailing in his wake.
Once they were gone, Samuel focused his full attention on his brother, doing his best not to look at Arlie, who hovered behind his shoulder like a golden ghost. “What is it?”
Mason beamed an infuriatingly jovial grin. “I thought you might like to introduce Miss Banks to some of our team. Seeing as you are our chief executive officer.”
Samuel’s jaw tightened. “You seemed like you were doing a perfectly fine job.”
“I’m afraid my attentions are needed urgently at the bar.”
Arlie and Samuel both followed the direction of his gaze, where a small congregation of leggy, laughing ladies were worshipping the god of Frosé.
Resentment oozed in Samuel’s gut. As he had with so many assignments before, Mason wanted to hand off the single task he’d been given for the evening.
Clearly, more careful orchestrations throwing Arlie and Mason together would be required.
“Fine,” Samuel said.
“Miss Banks.” Mason bowed, imitating Samuel’s formality from her interview this morning.
They stood there facing each other after Mason’s departure, the twelve years that had elapsed evaporating as Samuel morphed into the helplessly tongue-tied teenager he had always been in her presence. He desperately tried to remind himself of the models he’d bedded, the companies he’d bought and sold, the billions he’d made.
All of it reduced to a heap of ash by her shy smile.
“You really don’t have to,” Arlie said preemptively. “Introduce me around, that is. I know that inviting me to come tonight was kind of Mason’s idea.”
“Yes,” he said. “It was.” After Samuel had suggested it to him.
“Those were investment bankers?”
Samuel watched as Arlie sipped from the champagne flute, the knuckles of her hand white, her lips flushed a vivid raspberry-red.
“Yes,” he answered, trying not to think of how she’d taste if he kissed her at that precise moment.
“And the negotiations are going well?” she asked.
“So far.”
“Are you seeking funding for the nutrition and wellness division expansion that you mentioned this morning?” The question was labored, her tone edged with conversational desperation.
Seeing Arlie’s eyes etched with discomfort he knew he’d caused, Samuel felt compelled to slam his head against the nearest state cabin door.
He wanted to tell her everything.
To tell her how, when they were teenagers, he would write out lists of conversation starters, only to find himself completely helpless every time she entered the room. To explain that, in college, he’d forced himself into every public speaking and debate class his heavily loaded schedule could handle, simply to learn how to speak to other humans. To practice making the vivid world in his head manifest through words. He wished he could show her how hard he had tried not to be as tongue-tied as he was now.
Instead, he settled for, “Yes.”
Arlie’s lush mouth flattened into an irritated line. Draining the last swallow of her champagne, she plunked it without ceremony on the empty tray of a passing waiter.
“Look,” she said. “I’m exceedingly grateful for the opportunity to work for Kane Foods, but it’s obvious you don’t particularly want me here tonight. I’m not particularly thrilled either, but here we are. We can either pretend to have a conversation, or I can excuse myself and get the hell off this boat. Which will it be?”
Anger darkened her irises from cobalt to sapphire, her cheeks flushing beneath the flaxen waves that Samuel longed to drag his fingers through.
“You can’t,” he said.
“Oh, believe me, I can.” Raising herself to the full height on heels Samuel had been imagining fastened behind his neck, Arlie aimed a challenging gaze up at him.
“No.” Samuel inclined his head, jerking his chin toward the red-carpeted dock behind her. “You can’t.”
The Dolce Vita had set sail.
Despite the stab of fear tightening her stomach, Arlie pasted an artificially bright smile on her face before turning back to Samuel. “Well, I guess you’re going to have to talk to me then.”
At that precise moment, Mason’s hearty laugh rose above the general throng, followed by a chorus of female tittering.
Someone who had spent less time studying Samuel might have missed the subtle hardening of his features. “It appears so.”
Flagging down a passing server, Arlie retrieved another flute of champagne.
“For you, sir?” the server asked, looking to Samuel.
“No, thank you.”
“Isn’t that the whole point of these corporate mixers?” Arlie asked. “To make the company more tolerable with booze?” She took a demonstrative sip of her drink.
“It dulls the senses and loosens the tongue. An exceedingly unfortunate choice in circumstances such as these.”
“Something tells me you could use an unfortunate choice or two.” Arlie bit her tongue almost as quickly as the words left it. What in God’s name was she thinking?
“Arlie Banks!”
Panic sent her intestines skittering about twelve inches to the south.
It was her.
Taegan Lynch. Gossip. Busybody. Director of marketing at Gastronomie. The one and only person besides her former boss and the editorial director who knew exactly why Arlie had been let go from her previous position.
Steeling her spine, Arlie watched Taegan sauntering toward her. Toward them.
Her face was difficult to read, but then, copious Botox and other assorted fillers could to that to a person. Glossy dark brown hair spilled over her shoulders, framing the deep swell of her cleavage. The bleached white teeth of her beauty queen smile beamed between collagen-enhanced lips.
Her slim, lithe pantsuit-clad form slithered over to them, Louboutin heels beating an alarming staccato rhythm on the expensive wood deck.
Arlie watched Samuel, hoping to God that she wouldn’t see in him the kind of unabashed lust Taegan seemed to evoke in every single male member of the population.
What she saw was curiosity and careful assessment. Exceedingly dangerous. Especially considering the first thing he did after looking at Taegan was to aim the engine of his analysis back at Arlie.
Very bad.
Very, very bad.
“What on earth are you doing on this boat?” Taegan smacked a kiss sticky with gloss on each of Arlie’s cheeks.
She resisted the urge to wipe them off with the backs of her hands. “I could ask you the same.”
Taegan looked over at Samuel. “I’m a guest of Parker Kane this evening. He reached out about doing a feature on the Willow Creek Winery in the fall issue of Gastronomie.” Taegan glanced back and forth between her and Samuel, clearly inviting her to make an introduction.
“Taegan Lynch, this is Samuel Kane, CEO of—”
“Oh, I know exactly who he is,” Taegan purred. “Parker insisted that I come over and introduce myself. But if I’m interrupting...” she trailed off, daring Arlie to try and stop her.
“Not at all,” Samuel said. “Miss Banks and I were just catching up. She just joined our team as senior food stylist.”
“Is that so?” Taegan’s smile took on a carnivorous edge. “Well, you’re certainly getting a very talented resource. I know we were all just heartbroken when she left so suddenly.”
Arlie’s cheeks prickled as the blood drained from her face. Night air chilled the sudden sweat that had bloomed on the back of her neck.
“In fact, would you mind if I borrowed her for just a moment?” Taegan asked in a voice that suggested sugar wouldn’t melt on her tongue.
Samuel flicked a glance in her direction, a subtle but unmistakable question in his eyes.
Did she want him to go?
As tempted as she was to send a pleading please don’t let her take me look in reply, Arlie was afraid of the conclusions he might draw if she did. She nodded in assent.
“I suppose I’ve monopolized Miss Banks’s time long enough. Pleasure to meet you,” Samuel said with a polite nod in Taegan’s direction before disappearing into the crowd.
“Shall we?” Looping her arm through Arlie’s like an old friend, Taegan steered them toward an unoccupied sofa overlooking the yacht’s back deck.
Arlie accompanied her on wooden legs, the sound of conversations around them muffled by the roaring of blood in her ears.
Taegan seated herself, motioning for Arlie to do the same.
Though she would have far preferred to hurl herself over the deck railing at that precise moment, Arlie perched stiffly on the edge of the sofa cushion.
“Because I know how much you’d like to rejoin your coworkers, I’ll get straight to the point.”
“Please do,” Arlie said, trying to keep her expression neutral despite the polar vortex of fear spiraling in her chest.
“I take it the Kanes are unaware of the circumstances of your departure from Gastronomie?” Crossing one long leg over the other, Taegan rotated the pointed toe of her tan patent leather heel.
Arlie’s heart sank. She had known this was coming. Had felt it in some deep, primordial place the second she’d heard Taegan’s laugh like the tinkling of broken glass on the evening air. “You are correct.”
“And I suppose you’d like to keep it that way?” Taegan arched an artfully shaped eyebrow at her.
The tangle of conversations and music had taken on a shrill edge, as if Arlie were in a disaster movie in that split second before the world began to tip off its axis. “What is it that you want?”
A feline smile leisurely unfurled itself on Taegan’s face. “Information.”
Acid crawled up from a stomach that felt hot and sick. “What kind of information?”
“It’s come to my attention that Kane Foods is planning on branching into the nutritional and wellness space. Seeing as how you’re adept at accidentally gathering confidential information and obviously chummy with Samuel Kane, I thought you might be able give me a little preview of what they have planned.”
“Why would that be relevant to Gastronomie ?”
“That’s none of your concern.” Taegan lifted her wine to her lips, the ruby liquid dancing against the sides of the glass. “Only how you’re going to get me what I need.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Arlie said. “I signed an NDA.”
“Oh, Arlie.” Taegan smiled and laid a hand over hers in a way that would look to anyone else like she’d said something fantastically funny. “That certainly didn’t stop you last time.”
Arlie looked up in time to catch Samuel briefly glancing in her direction.
“Taegan, please.” Arlie didn’t so much say the words as force them from her mouth. “I don’t expect you to understand this, but I’m not entirely sure you actually know what happened between me and Hugh.”
Her stomach clenched at the sound of his name. The charismatic marketing executive of a rival magazine, he had wined and dined her under the premise of a potential job offer only to mine her for information that landed her in the crosshairs of a corporate espionage lawsuit.
“I don’t need to.” Setting her wineglass on the side table, Taegan brushed a tendril of hair away from her cheekbone. “I just need you to be useful.”
Arlie leaned in, dropping her voice to a confidential level. “I’m not going to be useful in any way that compromises Samuel’s project.”
Taegan’s hyena laugh raised the fine hairs on Arlie’s arms. “As ironic as I find your misguided loyalty, it might ease your conscience to know Samuel Kane is even more ruthless than his father in business matters.”
Anger boiled beneath Arlie’s skin, her hands tightening into fists next to her hips.
“No, he’s not.”
“Oh, really?” Taegan smiled widely. “Ask him about Millhaven Foods. Family-run, not terribly sophisticated. Acquired for significantly less than they were worth. Dismantled. An entire family legacy destroyed.”
It was a pattern Arlie knew all too well.
“They had none other than Samuel Kane to thank,” Taegan continued. “I understand he’s exceedingly persuasive when pursuing something he wants.”
By all rights, this statement shouldn’t have sent an illicit thrill surging through her.
“Things like that happen in every industry,” Arlie said. “That doesn’t mean—”
“I don’t know why you’re pretending like you have a choice here.” Taegan inclined her head, stroking the stem of her discarded wine glass. “Unless...you’d like me to walk over to Samuel right now and tell him what I know.”
Together, they looked in his direction.
Surrounded by men whose postures were quickly becoming booze-loose and slouchy, Samuel still stood like he had a javelin welded to his spine.
As if sensing her gaze on his back, he turned his head, his strong chin angled over his shoulder, his eyes alert and assessing.
Samuel might have taken her apparent acceptance of Taegan’s request for a chat, but he had remained aware of them ever since.
Arlie imagined Taegan sauntering over to him, how his features would shift when the words registered. How his eyes would go black and empty like a shark’s.
“Provided I were able to get the information you want,” Arlie said, “how exactly would you intend to use it?”
“Let’s just say that I’m in contact with a company that would come to market with a certain product before Kane Foods saturates the market. It would be a life-changing event for all its employees. For Kane Foods, it would barely be a blip on the radar. No more than a cat scratch.” Taegan shrugged.
Arlie’s eyes narrowed. “But it wouldn’t come back on Samuel Kane?”
Taegan scooted closer to her, a mocking smirk twisting her lips. “You seem awfully invested in his interests for a brand new employee. Is there something I should know?”
“Promise me,” Arlie said, ignoring the question.
“I promise.” Taegan held out her hand.
Arlie stared at it for the space of several heartbeats then shook, immediately feeling like she needed to wash her hand afterward.
“Well,” Taegan sighed, pushing herself up from the sofa. “I’m glad we were able to reach an understanding. I look forward to a mutually beneficial partnership.”
Two hours later, Arlie’s cheeks hurt from forced smiles and her stomach protested its total neglect since the lone piece of beef Wellington she’d been able to get down. Seeking self-preserving solitude, she had snuck away from the crowd and escaped down the back stairs used by the catering staff.
Her kind of people, after all.
Blessedly alone on the bottom deck at the stern of the yacht, she watched the full moon’s reflection shimmer on the waves in the motor’s churning wake.
Arlie felt herself unraveling. The anxiety she’d battled all evening returned to her in a vicious gust. Her lungs refused to fill with air despite her rapid, panting breaths as her whole body began to shake. Tears stung her eyes and she bit her lip to keep them from overflowing and spilling down her cheeks. Gripping the silky wooden railing, she fought to compose herself.
She couldn’t do this here.
She couldn’t do this now.
“Strange night.”
Gasping, Arlie whirled around, squinting into the darkness. Through the pocket of blue-black shadow, she could just make out a man seated alone on the leather bench, a rocks glass of amber liquid in his hand.
Samuel.
He leaned forward, his patrician profile unmistakable against the backlit window behind him.
She drew in a long, slow breath of the cooling night air and turned to lean on the railing. “I thought you didn’t drink at these functions,” she said, trying to sound more casual than she felt.
Ice rattled as he swirled the glass’s contents. “Tonight is an exception.”
She heard him rise, his solitary footfalls on the deck as he approached her.
Warmth draped itself over her shoulders, the sudden and unexpected comfort startling her.
He had given her his coat.
Arlie shifted, as much to feel the silky lining of the jacket still warmed by his body heat on her skin as to make sure she hadn’t just dreamed this. Tilting her chin, she rubbed the edge of her jaw on the coat’s collar, his scent filling her nostrils. Soap and skin. Cotton and subtle cologne.
“Thank you,” she said.
He came up beside her, stooping to lean on the railing that came to the bottom of Arlie’s breasts. They stood side by side looking out over the river, elbows barely touching, that single point of contact becoming the axis of Arlie’s awareness.
“I’ve made many unfortunate choices, by the way,” Samuel said, picking up the thread of their earlier conversation. He brought the glass to his lips and sipped.
Feeling the weight of all that implied, Arlie remembered Taegan’s earlier comments. More ruthless than his father.
“If you’re speaking of your and Mason’s sixteenth birthday party,” Arlie began, a film reel of memories already unspooling on the screen of her mind, “you shouldn’t worry. I don’t think anyone remembers what happened that night especially well.”
Now that was a bold-faced lie.
If any single image persisted to this day, it was Samuel Kane naked beneath the full moon.
Self-conscious and godlike all at once. His perfect dive into dark water. Coming up right next to her, the first spray of his exhilarated exhale landing on her cheeks and wet hair. The scent of it more intoxicating than the pilfered whiskey they’d been passing around on that long, hot summer night.
Which was precisely the point at which he’d realized that, contrary to what Mason had told him, no one else had taken off their bathing suits.
“I’m not,” Samuel said, those sensuous lips tightening into a displeased line. “And I would prefer to never again.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself.” Arlie gripped the wood railing. “I don’t think anyone’s first experience with whiskey ends well.”
“Actually...” He slid her a secretive, sideways glance. “That may not have been my first experience with whiskey.”
“Is that so?” Arlie feigned an air of scandalized disbelief.
An entire ship full of investors and potential acquisition targets, and here they were, discussing high school hijinks.
Her heart fluttered like a nervous bird. Samuel Kane was talking to her.
To her.
How often had she laid in her narrow single bed, the princess canopy above her a dream catcher for feverish teenage fantasies of just this sort?
A passing gust of wind teased the hair from Arlie’s neck. Sailboats skimmed across the river around them, their white sails like the fins of overgrown sharks.
“My father used to hide the keys to his liquor cabinet,” Samuel said.
My father.
Arlie had to work to listen to the rest of the sentence after these two words. At this casual mention of the man who had destroyed her mother’s life and, by extension, their family.
“Did he?” she asked a beat too late.
“He did,” Samuel said. “Imagine my surprise when I found them in his hollowed-out copy of Machiavelli’s The Prince. Naturally, I was curious.”
“Naturally,” Arlie mimicked. “What did you do?”
A rare, soul-warming smile spreading across his lips. “Research.” He paused and cocked his head. Then his hand slowly moved toward her face.
For one fleeting moment, Arlie imagined it coming to rest on her jaw, guiding her mouth toward his until the unaccountable geography of their lips aligned. Something heavy and molten spilled through her middle as she realized that she wanted this.
Wanted it badly.
“Eyelash.” Samuel’s thumb grazed her cheekbone. “Make a wish.”
Gazing up into emerald eyes full of nostalgia and moonlight, stars scattered like diamonds on a bolt of sapphire velvet overhead, Arlie was utterly and completely helpless to stop the words from tumbling out of her mouth.
“I wish I had known you wanted to take me to prom.”