“I called Killian about your security clearance. He said he knows you through clients. He declined to tell me who they are, but said you were at liberty to reveal that information if you chose to.”
“I don’t.” Her heart clenched in a pulse of discomfort.
Out in the street, there was a faint jangle of sleigh bells. It was the only noise for a few seconds, amplifying his silence.
“My partnership with Killian is reciprocal,” Joaquin said. “I supply some of his hardware. He ensures my proprietary designs are well protected. He wouldn’t set me up for industrial espionage when it could compromise his own interests, but I still find your presence in my father’s company too convenient.”
“For who?” she snorted.
“See? It’s problematic for both of us.”
“You can’t fire me just because I accidentally had sex with you! I didn’t know you were buying the company I was coming to work at.” Dismissing her would be worse than mean-spirited. It was a betrayal of how vulnerable and uninhibited she’d been that night. He had already tossed her away like trash once for it.
“I can’t afford mistakes right now.”
“I didn’t know I was one.” She quit the table abruptly. Angrily. “I told you I hadn’t slept with anyone in ages and this is why.” She pointed at the floor between them. “I didn’t want a man derailing me from my aspirations again.” She had sensed that he had the power to pull her off course, but had found him enthralling enough to risk it. “I never dreamed you were the sort to deliberately sabotage my career. Out of misguided spite.”
“I’ll help you find something else—”
“Oh, don’t do me any favors,” she snapped. “I know people if I want to get hired through nepotism. I don’t.”
She paced across her small lounge, but when she reached the door to the balcony, she was compelled to yank the drapes to block out the colored lights on the neighbor’s balcony. They were another throbbing reminder of that other time she had been profoundly stupid where a man was concerned.
Maybe if Joaquin understood that she really was okay with keeping a firm distance between them, he would let her stay? A pang of humiliation wrenched behind her navel. She refused to beg leniency from a man who had already made it clear he didn’t want her.
She would fight for her job, though. He didn’t get to take her dignityandher nascent career.
“I won’t tell you who Killian’s clients are, but I’ll tell you why I went to Australia to start over,” she decided, turning to face him. “I was living with some of them in London. The man I was seeing used me to get information on them.” She still felt sick when she thought of it. Her eyes grew hot with remorse. With a ferocious desire to reverse time. To go back and not be so caught up in romantic ideals. She’d been so naive. Sooblivious.
“Killian didn’t do a background check?” He turned in his chair to face her more fully.
“Sometimes people aren’t bad until they decide to be bad.” She gritted her teeth at the nausea rising in her throat. “I’m not sure if he dated me in a long game or realized after we started seeing each other that being close to me could be profitable. Either way, he fooled me into believing we were in love.” Self-contempt clenched in her chest.
His expression seemed to harden as the silence thickened, growing potent. Maybe that was her imagination, though. Why would he care about her feelings for another man beyond seeing her as foolish for falling for him?
“I like to think I’m smart.” She forced herself to keep talking. “I already knew people could be self-interested, but he seemeddifferent. Keen and…” He didn’t need to hear all the ways she’d fallen for Gilbert’s charms. “It was coming up to Christmas. He wanted to meet the people who were close to me.” She brushed at a tickle on her cheek. “I brought him into a world where I was entrusted to help keep the jackals out.”
Still, Joaquin didn’t say anything while remorse sat like a jagged rock in her throat. It stayed heavy and thorny in her chest.
“He put together an exposé on them,” she said shakily. “Not a bad light, but it revealed a lot of personal information. He thought he could do it anonymously. He tried selling the story with photos of their children, even though he knew the family worked hard to keep their faces out of the public eye.” She started to tear up,soashamed. So angry at Gilbert and herself.
“Did they manage to quash it?” he asked grimly.
“Yes. Thankfully, they have the money and influence to buy stories like that before they’re published. Then some of Killian’s professionals paid him a visit to ensure he didn’t have copies. He was a promising engineer, but as far as I know he now runs a fish-and-chip truck in a dodgy part of London. The whole thing sits in my gut like an ulcer.”
She gripped her elbows, still stinging with the humiliation at allowing herself to be used. At knowing he hadn’t wantedher.
“I realize that doesn’t make me seem like a reliable person to have on your payroll, but the fact is, I know what it’s like to be manipulated by sex and emotion. I would never do that to anyone. It’s horrible.”
His cheek ticked once before he swore and looked away, then scrubbed his hand over his face.
“It’s not just you.” He rose and took a few agitated steps. “It’shim.”
“Who?” Her pulse skipped at the way he was suddenly in motion. “Your father?”
“Yes. He’s the reason I left San Francisco without speaking to you.” The look he flashed her held something that relit the spark in her chest that she was trying very hard to smother.
She clenched a fist against the sensation.Don’t fall for it.
