Beg for It(16)

He was getting out of control.

Both Tony and Corinne were staring at him. Keeping his expression bland, Reese leaned back against the diner booth as though he didn’t have a goddamned care in the world. He didn’t seem to have fooled his assistant, who was still smart enough not to say anything about it, but he gave Reese a look that said he’d be asking about it later.

When Tony had gone, Corinne turned as though she meant to leave too. Reese snagged the soft fabric of her jeans at the knee, letting go at once when she looked down at his hand, then at his face. He’d seen that look before. He’d overstepped.

“Sit,” he said. Then, more gently, “Please?”

Corinne slid into the booth across the table from him. “What kind of game is this?”

“This is called coincidence. I had no idea you’d be there tonight. How could I?”

“You want me to believe you come back into town after about a million years, trying to buy the company I work for, and you show up at the diner where we first met, and that’s a coincidence?”

He would always remember the first sight of her behind a coffee pot with a plate of eggs and potatoes in her hand. This might have been the place his father brought him on Saturday mornings, but it was also the place with strong memories of her. Reese frowned.

“I wanted something to eat.” He sounded defensive and cursed himself for giving her any hint that she was affecting him.

Her gaze softened, though her mouth did not. “So you came for breakfast.”

“It always was the best I ever had.”

“I bet it still is.” Her eyes met his, held his gaze. Challenging him the way she’d used to, and it wasn’t about the breakfast.

Reese shrugged, giving Corinne the look his last lover had called “the smug bastard expression.” Amber had hated it. He was sure Corinne wouldn’t like it any better.

Corinne, however, smiled. She tilted her head and looked him up and down, and though it had been a long, long time since she’d studied him that way, he’d never quite forgotten how it had felt to be the center of her attention. Object of her affection. Nobody else had ever come close to making him feel for even one second what Corinne had done with such casual cruelty.

“Maybe you should tell me what’s going on,” she said when he didn’t speak.

“I buy and sell businesses that are faltering, and I grow them and sell them for a profit,” he told her. “I saw Stein and Sons listed in a report I get about small businesses that are considered to be in need of acquisition.”

Impulsive. Mom had said he was impulsive, in response to Dad’s somewhat harsher assessment of “flighty.” Reese had grown to think of it as following his gut.

Corinne’s smile twisted on one side. “And you…what? You saw I worked there and decided to buy it? So you could somehow f*ck with my life, Reese? What the hell?”

“Is that what you think of me? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. You never did give me the benefit of the doubt.”

Corinne’s smile disappeared entirely. “I guess that must be what you think about me.”

More words wanted to shoot from his mouth like bullets, finding the best places to hurt her. Over the years he’d often imagined it, some grand speech that would put her in her place and leave her reeling, maybe even begging him to forgive her. Now faced with the chance, all Reese could think about was how he needed to tell her the truth. Things had ended between them because of broken trust that had never been repaired. It had changed and ruined everything between them, and it had changed and sort of ruined him too.

“I wanted to see you again,” he said finally.

“Coffee, hon?” The waitress caught a glance of Corinne’s face and frowned. She looked at Reese. “Oh. Sorry. I can come back?”

Corinne shook her head. “Coffee’s good, along with a cup of ice, please. And I’ll have some of that Stein and Sons full cream Eddie keeps. Thanks.”

When the waitress left, Corinne looked at him. “You wanted to see me again.”

He nodded.

Then, shit, she was going to cry. Tears glittered. Her lips quivered. How could he have ever thought that was what he wanted, to hurt her?

He wanted to take her in his arms and kiss away the tears, but didn’t move so much as an inch. Too much time had passed. He didn’t know her anymore.

“You could’ve just called me or something,” she said when she won the struggle to get herself under control. “Found me on Connex, for God’s sake.”

Connex had paid for his house in County Galway, Ireland, but he wasn’t going to tell her that. “I don’t have a Connex account.”

The waitress brought the drinks and the cream. Corinne took her coffee the way she always had. He remembered. Three sugars. Enough cream to turn it white, but she would refill her cup several times without adding more. She added the coffee to the cup of ice and stirred.

“It’s a terrible offer, and you know it,” she told him after she’d sipped.

He wasn’t going to admit that. “It’s a fair offer, considering the losses the company has taken over the past few years and the changes in the marketplace.”

“You really want to run a small town specialty dairy? This isn’t some tech company that you can oversee from afar,” Corinne said, then raised an eyebrow at his look. “Yeah, I did my own research on Ebersole Enterprises. You’re a hands-off kind of corporate mogul, aren’t you? You like to buy up businesses, tear them apart, and sell off the pieces.”