They had been so happy as a family. Her father would raise her in the air and she would be an “airplane.” Her mother would teach her to bake every Saturday because a woman had to be a “complete” package and know a little of everything. They had called each other dear and my love and honey, and they had called Monica their baby. Then they had started calling each other bitch, asshole, and whore, and Monica had stopped getting hugs and kisses from them for months before their end.
She had been so careful not to let anything like this come inside her.
And now she sat here, in her very own boardroom of the very company she had dedicated the last decade to; here she was struggling to push out all the emotions she had stupidly let in by asking Daniel Lexington to sleep with her.
Why, oh, why, had she sought Daniel out?
She’d thought it would solve her problems with Roland and help her unearth her strange lack of affection for her romantic partners. She’d thought she would begin a healthy relationship with her own body, not believing that a woman who could have made such a success with Davenport’s could have such a lousy private life to begin with.
Except her body was rebelling against her logic, and now it craved more.
It craved everything from a man who could easily have other “special friends” at the moment. He was Daniel Lexington, and he would never belong to a woman, even when he was sleeping with her. He would be as untamable as a storm, and Monica would be stupid to step deeper into the eye of it.
These were the sorts of feelings that made people do stupid things. Like fire your prized assistant. Commit infidelity and murder. Take your own precious life and leave your daughter behind like she meant nothing.
Her mind drifted to Roland.
He was her shield against all of these memories that hurt her, all these passionate feelings that went up so mighty and high, there was no choice but to suffer when they came plummeting back down. Roland was safe and gentle. He didn’t get accosted by groupies hounding him when he went out, who launched at him and kissed him like his mouth was public property.
Exhaling thinly as she searched for calm, she avoided Daniel’s gaze and focused on the love of her life—Davenport’s—until the meeting was adjourned.
She said good-bye to everyone with a “See you next week,” then walked to him. “Can I talk to you privately?”
He followed her to her office and shut the door as she went to her desk, where she braced herself slightly before she spun to face him. “You seem to find it funny that my assistant puts her breasts all over you,” she said.
He shrugged, smiling wickedly. “Nothing new.”
“Oh. So she’s done it before?”
He cocked his head, and was surveying her like he were the ringmaster, and she were an animal that had just stepped out of its ring.
“And you let her?”
His smile remained, but the light in his eyes was dimming. “Considering that it’s both amusing and harmless and I’m used to it, yes, Monica. Whatever body part she presses against me makes no impact on me.”
“I can’t believe this.”
He was such a sexual force, he was even used to these sorts of come-ons!
Daniel closed the distance between them and cupped her face, his hands as warm as his voice. “Hey … you’re wound up. We both are. Nothing’s going on here. I’ll come over tonight.”
She stiffened at the stroke of his thumb across her lips and quickly moved away. “Please don’t. I’m sure we both have better things to do. But I do apologize for my assistant. I’ll talk to her.”
“Monica—”
“You’re a member of my board, Daniel.”
“It’s not the only board I’m on.”
“Well, I care about my board, not the others.” My board and my man! Scowling at the last thought, which was as senseless as all the emotions she was feeling, she went to the window and stared down at the city without seeing any of it. “Her behavior is rude and unprofessional. I expect more from my employees. You should’ve told me.”
She thought about Roland and how she didn’t have this sort of problem with a man like him, and she immediately wanted him to take her back. Today. Tonight. At the gala, where they would meet. Then she heard Daniel behind her, his voice low and a little rough. “Are you jealous, Monica?”
When she refused to answer that, indignant he even asked it, he came closer, pressing softly against her, his voice insistent. “Are you?”
She’d die before she admitted it, even to him. Jealousy, anger, the rage. Her parents had raised her. Good, normal people, in all appearances. But too obsessed. Too in love. She ducked her head and rubbed her temples. “I miss Roland, that’s all,” she said, as softly as he had spoken to her.
It was a good, much needed reminder to herself. Daniel may have tons of lovers. This was not a novelty to him, but this was a novelty to her, and before she started thinking of him as anything other than a friend, she’d sooner end their arrangement.