She turned towards the bedroom.She had to get away from him.This betrayal was cutting deeper than the others had.
He caught her arm before she could take a step.“Stop running.That’s what you always do, run away and lick your wounds.Keep fighting.”
She tried to jerk her arm out of his grip, but it was like a manacle.
“Fight for us.Damn it, stop and listen to me.”
She met his gaze, and the air practically snapped.
“I’m not stealing your idea,” he said, voice gritty as sandpaper.“I’m building on it.”
Latching on to her hand, he pulled her back across the room.He sat her down on the sofa and, when she started to bounce right back up, held her down by the shoulders.
“Look,” he demanded.He grabbed the battered proposal and dropped it in her lap.Snatching up a fistful of other papers from the sofa, he pushed them in front of her face too.“Take the time to actually read my notes.”
He perched on the edge of the coffee table and watched her steadily.His face was dead set with frustration and something else.Anxiousness?Impatiently, he reached out and opened the proposal in her lap.When she finally looked down, he pulled his hand back and settled it against his knee.The way it clenched into a fist drew her attention more sharply that the words he was trying to get her to read.
His knuckles were white.Hewasworried.
Lexie tried to slow her breaths.Her adrenaline was pumping hard, but she forced herself to skim over the notes in the margins of her work.Business was the last thing on her mind, but he couldn’t hide his intentions when they were spelled out in black and white.She would not, could not be betrayed again.
The first series of notes, though, confused her.Instead of implementing her plan, he was taking her idea in a different direction.But why?
She flipped to the next page.“Storefronts?What is this?”
“It’s a business plan.”
Her eyes narrowed.So he and Julian were working on a spin-off?Blaire had warned her they were working very closely.“How is that any different?You’re still starting with my concept.”
“It’s different because it’s not for Underhill.”
So he was already working on his next deal?He had a new client waiting in the wings?
“It’s for us.”
Lexie looked at him blankly.Us?
“I think we should start our own company.”
The papers wrinkled in her grip, but she refused to let her thoughts run away from her.She’d been excited about this concept before, only to have the bottom drop out.She was tired of getting burned.
“Why didn’t you show it to me before now?”she challenged.“Why work on it in the middle of the night?”
“Why did you hide it from me in the first place?”Springing up from the coffee table, he walked around it.Pacing about naked to the waist, he seemed almost primal.“You were going to present it to the entire company at the quarterly meeting.Why couldn’t you run it by me before that?”He let out a growl of frustration and raked a hand through his hair.
Lexie went still on the sofa.She’d seen him confident and persuasive before, but this was different.His muscles were tense, and his steps were clipped.That strong, powerful smoothness was missing.
He was invested in this.He was serious.
She looked down at the proposal in her lap.Her fingers shook as she turned another page.He’d done nearly as much work on it as she had.
“When you dropped your things in the boardroom that day, you left a copy of your presentation on the floor.I was curious about what you’d put together, so I read it.”
She licked her lips nervously.“So you think it’s a good idea?”
“Good?It’s brilliant.”He grabbed another document on the table, the one he’d been carrying when he’d walked into the room.He slid it towards her with a whoosh.“Here’s a preliminary market study.Toys make up a considerable chunk of the money parents spend on their children.Today when a child gives up a toy, it’s usually handed down, sold at a rummage sale or thrown away.Your idea to buy and sell used toys could give consumers another option and bring business back into the sector, educational and otherwise.If we move fast enough, we could position our company to provide that service to all the big players.”
Folding his arms over his chest, he faced her.“Like Underhill Associates—or I should say, like Teach Me, Inc.”
