A Clandestine Corporate Affair(12)

She shouldn’t be doing this. She was still vulnerable. She was only setting herself up to be hurt. For all she knew he could be involved with someone else now. Maybe that was part of the reason for the trial period.

Character flaws, she reminded herself. She couldn’t find them if she didn’t spend at least a little time with the man.

Just this once, and after this, she would see him only if Max was there.

“Then you’re in luck,” she told him. “Because I have both.”





Four





“If you’re sure it’s no trouble,” Nathan said, a part of him hoping she would say it was.

“No trouble.”

She walked to the kitchen and he sat back down. He wasn’t sure what the hell he thought he was doing. He came here to discuss his son, and now that they had, he had no reason to stay. The problem was, he didn’t want to leave.

Maybe it was time to admit what deep down he had known all along. He still had unresolved feelings regarding his relationship with Ana. Despite what she probably believed, ending it hadn’t been easy for him, either. Ana was the only woman who had ever made him feel like a whole person. Like he didn’t have to hide. Almost…normal. But he knew that eventually his demons would get the best of him—they always did—and she would see the kind of man that he really was. Knowing Ana, and the kind of woman she was, she would want to try to fix him. Well, it wouldn’t work. He wasn’t fixable. And the less time he spent with her, the better. Especially in situations where Max wasn’t there to act as a buffer. So why wasn’t he stopping her as she walked to the kitchen and pulled two wineglasses down from the cupboard? Why didn’t he get up, grab his coat and get the hell out?

Damned if he knew. Although he was sure good old-fashioned stupidity played a major part.

“So,” she said from the kitchen. “You said you’re up for the CEO position?”

He turned to face her. She was standing at the counter opening a bottle of red wine. “It’s between me, the CFO Emilio Suarez and my brother Jordan.”

“Your brother, huh? That must be dicey.” The cork popped free and she poured the wine. “If I recall correctly, your relationship has always been…complicated.”

“Is that the polite way of saying he’s an arrogant jerk?”

“I actually met him at a fundraiser last year,” Ana said, carrying the two glasses into the room.

“Did he hit on you?”

“Why? Are you jealous?” She handed him one, their fingertips touching as he took it from her. It was an innocent, meaningless brush of skin, but boy, did he feel it. Way more than he should have. If she noticed or felt it, too, she wasn’t letting on. She sat back down in the chair, curling her legs beneath her, looking young and hip and sexy as hell. And yes, maybe a little tired.

“I ask,” he said, “because Jordan hits on all beautiful women. He can’t help himself.”

“I believe he was there with a date.”

Nathan shrugged. “That’s never stopped him before.”

“No, he didn’t hit on me. Although maybe it had something to do with the fact that I was eight months pregnant and as big as a house.”

“Somehow I can’t see that stopping him either.”

She laughed. “Come on, he’s not that bad.”

He didn’t used to be. When they were growing up, Nathan had been his brother’s protector. He couldn’t begin to count how many times, when they were kids, that he had taken the blame for things his brother had done to shelter him from their father’s wrath, or stepped between Jordan and their father’s fists. As the older brother he felt it was his responsibility to shelter Jordan, who was quiet and sensitive. A sissy, their father used to call him. But instead of the loyalty and gratitude Nathan would have expected, Jordan learned to be a master manipulator, always pointing the finger at Nathan for his own misdeeds. At home, in school. He became the golden child who could do no wrong, and Nathan had been labeled the troublemaker. Not that Nathan hadn’t gotten into enough trouble all on his own. But after all these years it still chapped his hide.

“Jordan is Jordan,” Nathan said. “He won’t ever change.”

“When will the new CEO be announced?” Ana asked.

Not until the investigation into the explosion at Western Oil was complete, but he couldn’t tell her that. Only a select few even knew there was an investigation. The explosion was caused by faulty equipment—equipment that had just been checked and rechecked for safety—and as a result thirteen men were injured. The board was convinced it had been an inside job, and they suspected that Birch Energy—specifically Ana’s father—was behind it. The goal was to flush out whoever was responsible. But it had been a slow, arduous and frustrating process.