More Than Hate You (More Than Words)

“I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”

“Oh, please. You don’t give a shit about anyone except yourself and that doppelgänger of Satan you work for. If I needed any more proof of that, Jeremy gave it to me. When I threatened to expose the fact that he deceived his client and sold us to the enemy, he panicked and confessed. I blackmailed him into staying quiet so you and I could have this touching moment together.” Her gaze rakes me up and down.

I’m hardly modest, but her glare has me reaching for the sheet to cover myself.

“Until then, I believed you. You said all the right things.” She scoffs. “I really believed you cared what happened to Reservoir.”

I won’t lie to her and say that I do. “No, but I care about you.”

“Stop. That tripe won’t work on me anymore. What I want to know is how you convinced Jeremy to betray us. Did you coerce him, despite the fact you’re supposedly his friend? Or did you just pay him off?” She tosses me a disdainful glare. “You’re underhanded enough for either.”

Oh, she’s pissed. And if I don’t do some damage control, she’s going to hate me. “He and Aria really did break up recently. She got pregnant by his older brother, and he found out. They were engaged at the time, and it crushed him. I caught him in a vulnerable moment.”

“And you took advantage of him. That sounds like you.”

I sit up and try to cross the room to her—but I’m stopped short by the cuff. I huff in frustration. “I’m not out to hurt anyone. I’m just doing my fucking job.”

“To get dirty so that Evan Cook doesn’t have to?”

Affirming that opinion won’t help my cause. “Let’s get to the bottom of this. You want me to be honest, fine. I’m not trying to fuck you out of anything but the Wynam deal. In every other way, I was sincerely trying to help you because you’re a skipper captaining a sinking ship. Bless you for trying. I admire your grit. I mean that. I don’t know many people with your backbone. But you dissected that annual report for yourself. You saw where the money is going and what that will lead to. You wouldn’t even have known if I hadn’t pointed that out.”

“Don’t pat yourself on the back. I had been pushing to get that report for weeks. You called me to give me a supposed heads-up a day before I would have dived into it myself. I still would have seen what Shane’s doing and gotten to the bottom of it without you.”

She has a point, but… “Shane is on to you and the VPs are all complicit. If you’re in danger—”

“No. But apparently my high school drama skills aren’t as rusty as I feared.”

It was all an act?

I lunge for her—only to be stopped short again by the damn cuff tethering me. “You fucking lied to me?”

Sloan huffs. “You can ask me that so righteously with a straight face? I lured you here so I could expose and humiliate you.” She looks me up and down, lingering on my cock, which isn’t standing quite so tall and proud anymore. “I’d say mission accomplished.”

When she turns for the door, I lose my mind…and my temper.

“You fucking better not leave me.” I rattle my cuff against the metal pull impatiently. “Not like this.”

“Hmm.” She turns back, finger pressed to her pursed lips that still have the power to snag my attention. “You’re right. Let’s trade. I’ll give you this”—she snaps the handcuff key on the desk beside her, way across the room—“and in exchange, I’ll take that.” I’m not sure what she means until she walks to the luggage rack and snatches up my rolling suitcase. “Thanks. When you get back to Satan, tell him I said he can fuck off, too, because Reservoir is here to compete.”

When she strolls for the door, I gape at her. “Wait! You can’t just leave.”

Once she walks out of my room, I’m afraid I’ll never get to explain. And I’m terrified I’ll never see her again.

“The hell I can’t. We both know your seduction was bullshit.”

It wasn’t, but I won’t convince her of that now, so I grasp at the first excuse to keep her here. “You can’t take most of my clothes and leave me butt-naked.”

Sloan turns back to me, her hand pressed to her chest, lashes batting, as if she wonders how she could have possibly been so thoughtless. Bullshit. Sarcasm must be her middle name because it perfectly fits her now. “You’re right. I can’t take most of your clothes.” She plucks my pants up from the floor, leaving my wallet there when it tumbles out. “I’m taking all of them. Enjoy the rest of your evening. Buh-bye.”

I should have known that 5 Seconds of Summer song playing in the bar last night was an omen. Sloan’s touch was so sweet, but she clearly fights dirty, and her heart has teeth.

At least that’s what I’m thinking when I rip the drawer from the nightstand so I can reach the cuff key, then don the hotel’s provided bathrobe to find my suitcase and pants sitting next to the fucking elevator.

Things go from back to worse when the next day dawns with an angry call from Evan.

“’Ello,” I manage to rasp out, rubbing my sleep-deprived eyes.

“What the hell happened? Sloan O’Neill left me a furious voice mail at the office, letting me know she has every intention of winning Wynam’s business. She also called me a cocksucker, then she told me I need a leash for you because you’re a lying dog.”