One of the first things Shayla noticed when she reached Nicholas’s office was the number of security men sitting in the lobby. She raised an eyebrow when Carl Stockard looked at her with what appeared to be a smirk, then she frowned. She’d never liked the man since the first day he had introduced himself to her.
As she approached Leanne’s desk she couldn’t help wondering why Nicholas had changed his mind and decided to come into the office, and why he wanted to see her. Something must have happened. Had there been another break-in?
“Good morning, Leanne. You called and said Mr. Chenault wanted to see me.”
“Yes, go right in. He’s expecting you.”
Shayla frowned at the briskness of Leanne’s response. “Thank you.” She crossed the lobby to Nicholas’s office, opened the door, and walked in, closing it behind her.
He was standing with his back to her, looking out of the window as if deep in thought. Light snow had fallen earlier, and now everything was bathed in a beautiful white frosting. At any other time she would have thought Nicholas’s musing was about the scenery, but something about the stiffness in his stance dismissed that idea.
Something had happened.
She immediately crossed the room to him, stood on tiptoe, and kissed him primly on the cheek. He automatically jerked back, recoiling from her touch. “Nicholas, what’s wrong?” Instead of answering, he turned to face her. The eyes that looked down at her were filled with anger. They were cold, brittle, and hard.
“Ms. Kirkland, now that you’re here we can get started,” he said in a very clipped tone.
Shayla glanced around, making sure they were alone. Why had he called her Ms. Kirkland, when there was no one else in the room? “Nicholas, what’s going on?”
Nicholas’s eyes glittered stone. “What’s going on is that you’re about to be fired.”
“Fired!”
“You heard me. And if there was any way possible, I’d make sure you’d never work in this city again.”
Shayla closed her eyes, certain she was hearing things, certain when she opened them again this would all be a bad dream. However, when she did reopen them, she saw Nicholas standing in front of her with a face of stone. “I think you’d better tell me what’s going on,” she said in a strained voice. “You owe me an explanation.”
Nicholas stood silently, all his attention on the woman standing before him. She was a consummate actress. Sterling ought to put her in one of his movies. Here she was standing before him looking innocent…and so beautiful. It hurt just to look at her, but he couldn’t take his eyes off her. He had loved her deeply, physically and mentally, and she’d only been using him.
“I don’t owe you a thing, Ms. Kirkland,” he was finally able to say through clenched teeth. “But you do owe me. We never got around to doing it on the desk, did we? Since you were willing to sleep on your back to get information for Thomas Jordache, you might as well have gone all the way.”
Shayla froze, and the color drained from her face. “Jordache?” she asked in a painfully soft whisper.
“Yes,” Nicholas snarled as rage engulfed him. “Did you think I wouldn’t find out about your lover? How much is he paying you, Shayla? How much were you getting to sleep with me? What does one earn for pillow talk these days? You weren’t so bad in bed. I could have beat his price.”
Shayla swung and slapped Nicholas full force on his face. “How dare you! How dare you insinuate that I’m a whore,” she hissed, eyes blazing with the same fury as his. “You’re the only man I’ve ever slept with.”
Nicholas rubbed the cheek that was still stinging from her assault. His entire body shook with exploding violence. Never in his life had he been this angry. “That’s right, you were a virgin, weren’t you? I’m sure that must have increased your value.”
When Shayla raised her hand to slap him again, he caught it in his. “I wouldn’t advise you to try that a second time, unless you want to spend the night in jail. I’ll press charges against you so fast it’ll make that pretty head of yours swim.”
When he let go of her hand Shayla jerked it down and balled it into a fist at her side. “There’s been a mistake, Nicholas. You’re wrong about me,” she whispered. The tightness in her throat made the words hoarse, ragged. “Please let me explain.”
Nicholas heard the raw pleading ache in her voice and felt a part of him beginning to melt. But then, just as quickly, icy coldness covered his heart again. He would not succumb to her innocent act. He had loved her. He had trusted her with his heart. He had cherished her with his body, mind, and soul.
His jaw tightened as he reached on his desk and picked up the paperwork Stockard had presented to him. “Can you explain these, Shayla?” he asked in a voice tinged with fury and pain.
It was the pain more than the anger that Shayla’s mind suddenly latched on to. She took the papers he was handing her and studied each one, realizing how he could think what he did, but hurt nonetheless that he had. “Yes, I can,” she said quietly.
Nicholas’s gaze held hers, once again feeling his anger trying to dissolve. He fought to retain his pride, his dignity, and respect. “Can you also explain why both times there have been incidents with my company I just happened to be with you?”
Her gaze never leaving his, she shook her head and said softly, “No, that I can’t explain, other than to say they were coincidences.”
His eyes darkened even more. “Coincidences like that don’t just happen.” Summoning the last vestiges of his control, he once again hardened his mind and heart against her and her claim of innocence. He took the papers from her hand. “I don’t want to hear any explanations you claim you can give. You’re fired. I’ll have my security men escort you out.”
By determined will and sheer stubbornness, Shayla refused to let him believe the worst about her. She refused to be put in the same position her mother had been placed in by this same company twenty-seven years ago. She refused to let Nicholas dismiss her from his life. She loved him. He was wrong about her, and she was going to make him see it.
“I won’t let you fire me, Nicholas, without hearing me out first,” she said, tilting her chin and folding her arms over her chest.
Nicholas frowned. For one heart-stopping moment when he looked into her eyes he thought he saw the same pain and hurt he knew were reflected in his. “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say, Shayla. And if you insist, I’ll have my security men carry you out of my office.”
Shayla held his gaze, the look on her face furious. “I’d like to see them try. Call them, and see how big a scene I’ll make. Then I’ll leave here and go to the authorities and claim sexual harassment. You’ve slept with me a number of times, and you can’t deny it. Just think what the price of your stock will look like in the morning after such negative publicity.”
Nicholas stilled. His face hardened. His anger deepened. He was so mad he could have strangled her.
But, amazingly, a part of him wanted to make love to her, instead.
He drew back. The woman had him crazy, demented, foolishly in love. From the very beginning she had found a vulnerable chink in his armor, and now she was using it. He dragged in a deep breath, feeling hopeless against her. Her pull on his heart was too strong, too tight. But still, he refused to weaken, refused to let emotions get in the way of common sense and self-control.
“Say what you want to say by way of explanations. Then I want you out of here. After today I never want to see you again. And if you’re ever seen on these premises for any reason, you’ll be arrested.”
Shayla swallowed hard, and part of her composure almost slipped, but she stopped it from happening. She would not let Nicholas bring her to tears, at least not in his presence. “Fine, and if you still feel that way after I’ve explained things to you, then you won’t have to worry about seeing me again, because you’ll be the last man I’ll want to see.”
Nicholas watched as she slowly walked over to the window as if to collect her thoughts. He wondered if he was making a mistake by letting her remain in his office and listening to her.
He was going through a slow burn as he watched her, feeling tightness in his groin area. Exhaling slowly, he allowed his gaze to move over her when she reached the window and stood with her back to him. Her pose gave him an ample view of her soft curves and her shapely backside, which the skirt she wore couldn’t hide.
Just looking at her curvaceous backside made him recall the wee hours of the morning, right before dawn, when he’d passionately kissed her awake before easing her onto her stomach then settling his body over hers, lifting her hips with his hands and then smoothly easing into her, finding her moist and ready. His body had fit hers snugly as it spooned her backside and then after they’d established their rhythm, the primitive sounds of their mating had driven them to frantically increase their pace. The only sound in the room had been the slap of flesh against flesh as he repeatedly smacked against her backside with the hardness of his thighs, plummeting into her with a desperation that bordered on mania. The force of their climax when it followed was gripping, compelling, overwhelming, and had left them gasping, luxuriating in the aftermath of such perfect and profound lovemaking.
Nicholas snapped out of his thoughts when Shayla turned around to face him. Her features were a mask of remorse and regret. Her voice was menacingly soft when she spoke.
“Thomas Jordache is not my lover, Nicholas. He’s my father.”