Nicholas blinked twice, thinking he had not heard Shayla correctly. “Come again?”
He knew those two words were a mistake the moment they had left his lips. They were the same two words he had passionately whispered in her ear last night while making love to her, coaxing her into a second climax.
“Could you repeat that?” he quickly clarified, dragging in a deep ragged breath.
“I said, Thomas Jordache is my father.”
That’s what he’d thought she’d said. Did she actually expect him to believe that? His lips pressed together, still hard and untrusting, he looked at her and said, “That’s a good one.”
Shayla flashed him a look of irritation, then paused. Liquid gold eyes held hers in a challenge, but she refused to let him bait her. She owed him the full story. “I need to start from the beginning.”
Nicholas leaned against his desk as if bored. “Then by all means please do, Ms. Kirkland.”
Hauling in a quick breath, Shayla began. “My mother used to work here, for this company, over twenty-seven years ago.”
Raising an eyebrow, Nicholas said nothing.
“I found her diary a week or so after her death, while going through her things. While working here she met Thomas Jordache and began dating him, not knowing that he was one of Chenault’s biggest competitors.”
Shayla looked down for a second, remembering the words her mother had written and how they had affected her after reading them. “During that time someone was spying on Chenault for company secrets to pass on to Jordache, and when my mother’s involvement with him became known, it was erroneously assumed that she was the one doing it. She got fired because of it.”
She lifted her head and boldly met Nicholas’s eyes, forcing him to see the similarities in her and her mother’s situation. “She was innocent. She also discovered a week or so later that she was pregnant. The one night she had slept with Jordache had resulted in that. When she told him about her condition he told her to get an abortion. Instead she left Jacksonville and went to Atlanta and married her childhood sweetheart, who willingly agreed to accept the child as his.” Shayla looked down again, to retain her composure.
Straightening, Nicholas frowned as he pushed away from his desk. Something in the tone of Shayla’s voice was compelling, almost believable…but still. “Go on,” he said stiffly.
Lips compressed, Shayla met his gaze, then continued. “After reading her diary I became furious at the humiliation my mother suffered from the false accusations at Chenault Electronics, and from Thomas Jordache’s total disregard of her. So I decided to make Chenault and Jordache Electronics pay for what they’d done to her. I was going to ruin both companies.”
Nicholas’s eyes flashed with anger. “Is that why you came to work here?”
“Yes,” she replied honestly. She drew herself up, clasping her hands in front of her. “I had intended to succeed at my goal until I met you. Until I really got to know you.” And she added, in a soft voice while his gaze was heavily on her, “Until I fell in love with you.”
“Really? How touching,” he snapped sarcastically.
“Yes, it was touching. Actually, Nicholas,” she said in a near whisper, her gaze still locked to his, “it was more than touching. It was everything I ever thought true love would be.” For one instant, Shayla thought she saw some emotion pass through Nicholas’s eyes but when his expression didn’t soften she thought she had imagined it.
“Once I realized that I’d fallen in love with you, knowing that I had not been completely honest with you about my reason for seeking employment here, I knew I couldn’t work here any longer. That’s why I gave you my resignation. But you wouldn’t accept it.”
That much, Nicholas thought, was true. He hadn’t accepted it. He had wanted to keep her around, and had been willing to break every rule he’d ever put into place to do that.
“One day I received a phone call from Thomas Jordache requesting to meet with me,” Shayla said. “The first time I’d ever laid eyes on him was at the Mings’ dinner party. As far as I was concerned, he and I didn’t have anything to talk about. In fact, I was surprised he’d figured out who I was, since the truth about me not being Glenn Kirkland’s biological child had been a closely guarded secret.”
Nicholas raised a brow. “Indeed?” he taunted.
Shayla met his gaze with narrowed eyes. “Yes, indeed. The only people who knew the truth were my mother, my father, and my aunt. But when Jordache saw a picture of me and my mother together in a newspaper article shortly after my father’s death, he put two and two together and figured she had not gotten the abortion he’d told her to get.”
“Why did Jordache want to meet with you? To offer you compensation to spy on us?” Nicholas’s words were asked through clenched teeth.
“No, actually he was concerned with the recent incidents at Chenault. They pointed to him as being the person behind them. He claimed he was innocent, and was concerned that Trent would believe the worst and he didn’t want that. He’s convinced that someone at Chenault is behind those incidents. He asked if I had noticed anyone suspicious.”
Nicholas shook his head. “You were so gullible you believed him?”
“Yes, I believed him. Because he’s dying, Nicholas. Thomas Jordache has terminal cancer, and has less than a year to live. He wants to die with his son believing he has changed. Yes, I believed him, because my father, Glenn, died of the same type of cancer. The same symptoms were there—the dry cough, the wheezing, and the raspy sound of someone barely getting by on one good lung.”
Nicholas frowned. He remembered his last conversation with Trent, the one they’d had before Trent had left on his cruise ship, and the favor he had asked of him. He had been concerned with his father’s health. But still Nicholas wasn’t ready to buy Shayla’s story. “If you were convinced that someone who worked here was actually behind those incidents, why didn’t you come tell me or Paul?”
“Because I knew the two of you were distrustful of Jordache. I felt the least I could do was to keep my ears and eyes open. I haven’t noticed anything or anyone suspicious, and when I met with Jordache again yesterday that’s what I told him.”
Nicholas studied her, her eyes, her face. He wanted to believe her, but…“That was a pretty tidy story, Shayla. It may explain this page torn out of your planner, Jordache’s two phone calls to you, and your two meetings with him, but it doesn’t explain why I was with you every time there were incidents at my company.”
Shayla frowned. “They were merely coincidences, nothing more. Think about it. Were any of those times calculated planning on my part, Nicholas?”
Her words, which had been quietly spoken, hung in the air between them, raising several questions in Nicholas’s mind. He couldn’t help remembering those two times in question, and she was right. There hadn’t been anything calculating on her part. If anything, there had been on his. He had wanted her, and had deliberately set out to seduce her. His chest tightened, and his thoughts began whirling. What if everything she had just told him was the truth?
Shayla bit her lip when Nicholas didn’t answer, although she saw signs of wavering in his features. She knew he was weighing what she’d told him, trying to decide whether to believe her. Taking a chance, she crossed the room to stand in front of him. She had to make him believe her.
“I admit I’m guilty of coming to work here for the wrong reason, and you can fault me for that, if you want. But I won’t let you fault me for something I didn’t do. You don’t know how confused I was when I had the perfect chance to ruin your company and made a decision not to. I could have screwed things up for you big-time with the Ling Deal…but didn’t. It was only later that I accepted the reason why. I had fallen in love with you.”
She took in a shaky breath. “That’s why I knew I had to leave here, Nicholas. That’s why I gave you my resignation. If Jordache was paying me to spy on you, why would I have turned in my notice?”
Nicholas knew that he should back away from her and give his mind time to sort through everything she had told him. He needed to remain objective. He owed it to her and to himself to be fair in his reasoning. But how could he be fair and objective when his heart was all into it? How could he be fair and objective when the person he loved more than life was standing before him, pleading with him to believe her?
“If what you’ve told me is true, Shayla, then why didn’t you come to me after we became intimate and tell me the truth about why you came to work here?”
Shayla’s eyes became misty. “I was going to tell you the truth. Today, in fact. The reason I didn’t tell you before was because I didn’t think the time was right. I thought if I told you I’d push you away.”
His eyes searched hers for a better understanding. “What made the time right today, and not before?” he asked, still holding on to that one piece of doubt, wanting to let go but afraid to.
Shayla took another step forward, bringing herself toe-to-toe with him. She looked up and met his gaze. It was still distrustful, but not as much as before. “Because,” she said in a soft shaky voice, “last night, for the first time, you told me you loved me.”
Tears pricked at Shayla’s eyes. She tried holding them back, not wanting Nicholas to see her cry, but failed when water gathered in her eyes. “You once told me that you believed that true love could overlook a multitude of faults.” She swiped at a tear. “I admit I wanted revenge on your company, Nicholas. Go ahead and fault me for that, but if you truly love me you’ll find it in your heart to overlook it. However, I won’t let you fault me for something I didn’t do. I didn’t betray your trust, Nicholas. I could never do that to you. I love you too much. If nothing else, you have to believe that.”
Nicholas’s golden eyes held Shayla’s dark ones for the longest time. Over the past thirty minutes or so, he had heard what she’d said. He had listened to her explanations and the one thing he couldn’t discount was the fact that she had come through for him with the Ling Deal, a fact that had somehow gotten lost in his rage. If she had been working with Jordache from the first, why would she save a big deal for his company? Everything with the MC Project had hinged on that deal. She had read the reports, and knew that. Yet, she had miraculously pulled it off for him.
Then there was something else. As much as he wanted to believe she was a consummate actress, he knew that wasn’t true. The hurt and pain he’d seen in her eyes when she’d told him about finding out about her mother’s past had been real. He had felt it, because he had suffered a similar experience with his own mother last year.
He inhaled deeply. He believed that someone from inside the company was working against him, but now, at this very moment, a part of him refused to believe it was the woman standing before him, waiting for him to decide their fate. The decision of whether they would have a future together rested in his hands…or so she thought.
In reality their fate had been sealed the moment she had walked into his office for that interview. He had loved her from that moment. And she was right. He did believe that true love overlooked a multitude of faults.
Reaching out, he tenderly wiped a tear that flowed down her cheek. His finger lowered, then drew out the chain, lifting the pendant from its hiding place beneath her blouse. Clasping it in his hand, he fingered it for a few seconds before releasing it. Their eyes locked, and the silence stretched. Then he spoke. “Have you finished explaining everything now?”
His voice had deepened to a smooth tender sound and that, along with his touch, slowly eased the tension from Shayla’s body. The tension was gone, but the heat remained. She nodded and drew in a deep breath. “Yes.”
He leaned closer to her. “Promise me that you won’t keep anything from me ever again. We are to share everything.”
“I promise.”
When his mouth was mere inches from hers she whispered softly with her gaze on his face, “I love you, Nicholas, and I’d never deliberately hurt you.”
“I know,” he murmured, pulling her into his arms. “I know that now.” His mouth captured hers. His kiss was possessive, ravenous. It took all that she was offering, and more. They had come close to losing each other, but were back in each other’s arms. For the moment that was all that mattered.
Nicholas dragged his lips from hers only long enough to whisper on a long-drawn-out sigh, “I love you, too.” Then he drew her back to him for another slow, passionate, intimate kiss.
Outside Nicholas’s office Carl Stockard checked his watch for the hundredth time, nervously wondering what was going on behind the closed doors. How long did it take to fire somebody? Why was it taking so long? Mr. Chenault had been furious when he had reviewed the documents given to him. Surely he wasn’t letting the woman talk her way out of it.
He nearly jumped when the phone rang on Leanne’s desk. Moments later she hung up, gave him a quick glance, and said, “Mr. Chenault wants to see you.”
Stockard smiled, thinking it was about time. He would take pleasure in escorting Shayla Kirkland out of the building. He didn’t hesitate in crossing the lobby and entering Nicholas’s office. Then he stopped dead in his tracks.
The boss was smiling.
Still holding Shayla in his arms, Nicholas turned to Stockard. “It seems a mistake was made. Ms. Kirkland is not spying on us for Thomas Jordache.”
Stockard heard him, but didn’t believe him. “But what about the evidence? I saw her meeting with him twice.”
“She has explained everything.”
Stockard’s hands were balled into fists at his side. “And you believe her?” The words came out abrupt and loud, laced with disgust and incredulity.
Nicholas stiffened. His hold around Shayla’s waist tightened as he brought her closer into his arms. His eyes narrowed, and he considered the man steadily. “Yes, I believe her. You have a problem with that, Stockard?”
“Yeah, he does,” Paul Dunlap said, walking into Nicholas’s office with an attractive lady at his side. “And I know the reason why.”
Shayla’s features registered her surprise. “Aunt Callie! What are you doing here?”