One Wicked Week. Nicola Marsh
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back, glad she couldn’t see his reaction to her proximity.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He’d assumed six years apart would’ve rid him of his one-sided attraction. He’d cursed his inability to keep his hands off her on grad night, and for the simple fact he couldn’t get her out of his head for months after she’d snuck out of his grungy flat.
He’d lusted after her for a long time during those interminable coding lectures in their undergrad degree, never anticipating when he finally got his hands on her that the sex would be stupendous. For those few deluded minutes when they’d cuddled afterwards, he’d actually considered letting a woman into his life for the first time.
And the last, as it turned out.
He didn’t need to emotionally invest in anyone. Coding, he understood; women, not so much. He’d slept with his fair share since Jayda. Initially to eradicate her memory, later because he could: validation for how far he’d come from the poor geek. Wealth certainly had its perks. Women noticed tailored clothes and handmade Italian shoes and a twenty-thousand-dollar watch. He enjoyed the spoils of his hard work, knowing with every million he made he’d done it all himself.
Wishing he’d never agreed to this meeting no matter how curious, he sat opposite and gestured to the waiter. ‘What will you have to drink?’
‘A diet soda and lime, please.’
She met his gaze and he hoped she couldn’t see the stab of annoyance. She’d always guzzled diet sodas all through uni, even at parties. He’d thought she didn’t like the taste of alcohol, not having a clue that her obsession with calories infiltrated all areas of her life.
She’d revealed so much that night of their graduation, making his chest ache until he had no option but to take her into his arms and prove exactly how spectacular her body was, the body he’d coveted for years. It had been a gift taking off her clothes to finally see the lush curves he’d lusted after. Around the time he’d undressed her he’d switched from comfort mode to full-on caveman, pleasuring her, worshipping her. The sex had been more than memorable for him: but not enough to make her stay.
He’d been glad initially. He didn’t do emotional entanglements. But when he couldn’t get that astounding night out of his head, he grew to resent her.
Had she been slumming it? Had she only turned to him out of desperation because of what that other prick had done? Had she regretted it?
‘What did you want to see me about?’ His curt question bordered on rudeness and her eyebrows rose.
‘I need your help,’ she said, annoyingly calm when a host of uncharacteristic emotions churned in his gut. ‘I’m setting up an online business but I’ve been out of the IT game too long and my skills are rusty.’
The waiter placed her drink in front of her and she flashed a wide smile in thanks. He wanted to deck the guy.
‘You never forget what we learned at uni.’
Heat stole into her cheeks as he belatedly cursed his choice of words. They’d learned a lot more than HTML that one night they came together.
‘I’ve been working for my parents since I graduated, doing general marketing for their charities.’ Her nose wrinkled. ‘I ended up being a glorified party planner and I hated it.’
‘Why do you want to work at all?’
The snide question popped out before he could censor it and the hurt in her eyes made him feel like a bastard. It had been a bugbear of his back then, that she’d swanned through uni as if it meant little because she had the wealth of her parents to fall back on if she failed, while he’d had to work two part-time jobs to make ends meet.
‘Because I want to give something back. Because I want to help kids who need it.’ She tilted her head up, staring him down. ‘Because I’m not the rich bitch you wrongly thought I was all those years ago.’
He grimaced and swiped a hand across his face. ‘I was out of line. Sorry.’
‘Is it wealth that annoys you per se or is it me?’ She leaned forward, indignation pursing her plum-glossed lips. ‘Because I’ve researched you and you’re a millionaire ten times over these days.’
A fact he was infinitely proud of. He’d worked his ass off to prove he was nothing like his folks. With every dollar he saved he breathed a little easier. He would never, ever, be dependent on anyone for his livelihood.
‘I’ll admit I did resent you back then,’ he said, settling for a partial truth. The rest, where he lusted after her so badly he could barely concentrate in lectures most days, he’d keep to himself. ‘You didn’t have to be there and it looked like you treated the whole thing as a joke.’
‘I studied. I passed.’ Anger glinted in her eyes, sparking indigo flecks amid the deep blue. ‘I didn’t get a free ride.’
Brock stiffened at the jibe, glaring at her with obvious distaste, so he saw the exact moment she realised her faux pas.
Crimson suffused her cheeks and she shook her head. ‘I didn’t mean it like that—’
‘Let’s skip the trip down memory lane and focus on your needs.’ He lowered his voice deliberately, drawing emphasis to ‘your needs,’ wanting to make her as uncomfortable as she’d made him.
He’d hated being a scholarship kid in high school and that feeling of worthlessness hadn’t abated through four years of a university degree. The fact Jayda would fling it in his face...he didn’t like to admit it but her opinion mattered now as much as it had back then. It shouldn’t. They didn’t know each other. They never had. Beyond an intimate knowledge of each other’s bodies that haunted him to this day.
‘You need my IT expertise on getting a new business started, correct?’
She nodded, and absent-mindedly worried that bottom lip again. Yep, he should never have agreed to meet her.
‘I want the coding on the site to be state-of-the-art. Up to date, with the latest technology, and no room for error.’ Sadness clouded her expressive eyes. ‘That last one is imperative. I want to ensure every donation is easily accounted for and properly allocated.’
Something had happened. He saw it in her look-away glance, in the sudden rigidity of her jaw. But now wasn’t the time to delve. He didn’t want to complicate their business arrangement with anything messy and that was exactly what would happen if he started asking questions regarding her motivations.
‘You want to know what happened,’ she said, her tone soft. ‘You’re pretty easy to read.’
Bullshit, because if he was she would’ve known he’d had a permanent hard-on for her all through uni.
Feigning lack of interest, he shrugged. ‘You’ll tell me if you want to. Otherwise it’s not relevant to our prospective working relationship.’
She hesitated, as if contemplating the wisdom of divulging something to him, before giving a brief nod. ‘While working for my folks I discovered discrepancies in their accounting. At first I thought it was a software error but then I delved deeper.’
She dragged a hand through her hair when a thick lock tumbled across her face. ‘Turns out the only reason they wanted me working for them was because I’m a stooge, someone they can easily control and have done for longer than I care to admit.’
She took a sip of her soda. ‘So here I am. Utilising my trust fund and wanting to do some genuine charity work, making sure it’s all top notch before I launch.’
She pinned him with a piercing stare. ‘Think you can help me?’
Brock should say no. He could delegate this task to any one of the highly skilled staff he employed to run his IT empire. That way, he could be the good guy helping her out but from a much-needed distance. It was the logical thing to do and he always relied on logic.
Instead, he found himself