Jason was a good guy, and I’d watched him wrestle with the decision to announce who he was. It took a lot of courage, yet the reward he’d been given was to be shunned by his family.
“You’re not doing it,” I said, “to make friends with Mitch. There are a ton of closeted people here, and you have a chance to make a statement. You show them how a decent human being should be about this, and maybe Cape Hill will follow your lead.”
Because at the end of the day, money was power, and Macalister had more of it than anyone else. Tragic history and sordid past aside, he was still the de facto king.
Macalister considered it.
“He is an asshole,” he said in quiet agreement, like that settled it and Jason was as good as hired. His eyes hardened and pierced deep inside me. “There’s a rather important name that appears to be missing from this charm offensive you’ve drafted.”
My pulse quickened. Our primary focus was the HBHC board of directors, and I hadn’t mentioned Liam Shaunessy yet. “I’m still working on that one.”
“I see.” He let out a tight breath, perhaps relieved I wasn’t going to make him play nice with a man he utterly despised. His broad shoulders rolled back. “Now you’ll tell me the rest of it.”
My blood froze in my veins. “No.”
His eyebrow arrowed up into a perfect upside-down V. He was a man who’d grown up never hearing that word, and something like eagerness ringed his blue eyes. We were quite the pair. I enjoyed seeing him displeased, and he thrilled in how I denied him.
“No?” he repeated. “You’re not in a position to tell me no.”
Did he have any idea how hot his stern voice made me? I licked my lips but stayed quiet, and the tension between us contracted until the large room felt microscopic.
His order wasn’t playful or cute; it was as harsh and cold as a Nor’easter. “Tell me.”
“I’ll tell you anything . . . except for that,” I whispered.
Frustration teemed in his eyes, and for a moment, he looked like he was considering either throwing a tantrum, or me out into the rain. But instead he lifted his chin with a smugness that was arrogant and sexy, and delivered the evilest smile I’d ever witnessed. “You’ll tell me anything? All right. What happened between you and Tate?”
I reacted on instinct, bolting to my feet and my gaze flying toward the door. I wanted to run. But if I did, my bluff would be called, and Macalister would fire me. He’d put up with a lot from me already—more than I had expected him to. And I’d come into this knowing that in order to achieve my goals, I’d likely have to sacrifice something.
Pride wasn’t that valuable to me, anyway.
A sigh seeped from my chest. “We slept together last year. It didn’t,” I struggled with how to put it, “really go that great.”
He sobered and seemed surprised. “The sex was bad?”
“Like, everything was bad.” My face had to be a million shades of red because it was on fire. “Tate’s girlfriend had just broken up with him, and we ran into each other at some stupid party. He was kind of drunk, and maybe I was too.” I wasn’t, but I wanted to save what little face I could. “He was single and lonely, so when I saw the opportunity, I took it.”
It was strange how he looked at me. There wasn’t judgment, only curiosity. “You seduced him.”
“Yeah,” I answered, my voice clipped. “I mean, it didn’t take much. He was horny, and he didn’t really care who he was with that night.”
“But you cared.” There was a gravel in Macalister’s voice that made goosebumps pebble on my forearms.
I tugged the corner of my mouth into a sad smile. “Yeah, I cared a lot.” I used nervous fingers to brush my hair back behind an ear. “So, anyway, the sex was awful. Like I said, he’d been drinking, and I’d wanted that moment for so long, I had all these expectations that were totally unrealistic. But it was just so awkward.” I winced as I remembered our fumbling frustration, followed by Tate falling asleep on me. “In the morning, he was hungover and miserable, which meant he wasn’t exactly subtle about how much of a mistake he thought he’d made with me.”
I fiddled with the pleating on the side of my dress while my gaze drifted down to Macalister’s black dress shoes.
“That was really hard,” I said, “and I didn’t handle it well. I gave him this big speech, like a fucking idiot, about how much I loved him. I’d thought if I just laid it all out there, he’d—”
“Fall in love with you.” Macalister turned to stone.
I nodded. He understood somehow.
There was a long hesitation before he finally broke the painful silence stretched between us.
“Perhaps,” uncertainty hazed his eyes, “you can take some comfort in the fact you did not give him this speech on his wedding day.”
Confusion nearly made a laugh climb out of me, but it died when the meaning of his statement slammed into me.
Holy shit.
He’d done the same thing? Confessed everything to Marist out of hopes she’d fall for him?
One of my hands went to my mouth, covering the worst of my gasp. “You didn’t.”
“Oh, I did.” He grimaced. “It was . . . poorly received.”
That had to be an enormous understatement, and I couldn’t stop the short sound—too joyless to be a laugh—that it punched from my lungs. I remembered the morning of her wedding when he’d blown into her room like a storm and demanded a moment alone with the bride. After he’d left her, Marist had been as white as her dress.
“Does it help,” I asked, “to know that she’s happy?” Because knowing that Tate would rather be alone than with me had been crushing.
“Yes,” he answered simply. “It makes it easier.”
Either he’d crept closer during our conversation or I’d drifted mindlessly toward him, because only a foot separated me from Macalister now, and I peered up at him with unasked questions crowding my eyes.
Was he over her?
Did he want to move on?
Had he spent every available minute today thinking about what I tasted like, as I’d done with him?
His gaze traced over my face so slowly, he had to be studying and cataloguing every inch with his icy eyes. It was hypnotic, and I sighed softly as he pushed closer. This time I didn’t try to run from him. The room was stifling, filled completely by him, but I didn’t mind.
His voice was velvet as he tipped his head down, his lips drawing near. “You don’t have to tell me your secret tonight. Just give me the name.”
It was like being ripped from a cozy hot tub in the dead of winter, the way he took me from my dreamy spell to the harsh reality. He’d tried to use his power to manipulate the secret from me, and Christ, it’d nearly worked. I stumbled backward, eager to put distance between myself and the heat he could generate in a single look.
“No,” I snapped.
Gone was the seduction from a moment ago, replaced by the cold, irritated demeanor he’d had when he first arrived home. “I suggest you save us both the time and stop fighting what’s inevitable. This isn’t a battle you’re going to win.”