Secrets of a One Night Stand by Naima Simone

Ten

“Iswear, one day you’re going to have to explain to me why you prefer this office in the basement when there’s a perfectly good one with fucking windows on the executive floor.”

Achilles sighed as Cain strode into the office, scowling as he surveyed the workspace as if it were the first time he’d seen it. Which it wasn’t. His older brother just never let pass an opportunity to bitch about the size and location. For some reason, it really irked Cain that Achilles preferred to be down in the IT department instead of on the thirty-second floor with Cain and Kenan.

When he asked, Achilles gave him his rote answer of feeling more comfortable with the people who “spoke his language.” And it wasn’t a complete lie. But neither was it the truth.

He couldn’t tell Cain, or Kenan for that matter, that even something as inconsequential as taking an office next to them and appearing as a unified Farrell front constituted bonds he wasn’t comfortable forming. Not when he had no intention of strengthening or tightening those bonds.

Not when he planned on returning to Washington in a matter of months.

Doing so would just make it that much harder to cut ties when the time came. And if losing his mother and Yvette’s betrayal had educated him in anything, it was that love hurt.

Whether due to abandonment, lies, fists, betrayal...death.

Love always ended in pain.

No attachments. No love. No hurt.

So no, he’d keep his office here on the eighth floor and his brothers at a careful distance. It would be better for them in the long run. And definitely better for him.

“As I’ve repeatedly told you and Kenan, it’s not the basement,” he said, shifting his attention from Cain, who had dropped into the visitor’s chair, and back to his monitor.

“Did I hear my name being taken in vain?” His younger brother appeared in the doorway, carefree grin in place. “Or were you saying it in total adoration? I get that a lot.”

Cain snorted. “This office is already cramped. We damn sure don’t have enough room in here for us and your ego.”

“I told you we should’ve had this meeting in the broom closet down the hall. It’s more spacious.” Kenan shrugged, claiming the other chair next to Cain.

“Are you two finished?” Achilles snapped. “If you feel so claustrophobic, there are perfectly good phones in your offices, and you could’ve used them to call me.”

“What would’ve been the fun in that?” Kenan asked. “Besides, I love the smell of fresh asbestos in the morning.”

Achilles growled, and Kenan laughed, holding up his hands, palms out.

“Fine, fine. I’m done. Cain, can we get on with this before he forgets that I’m his brother?”

As if he could. Achilles curled his fingers into his palm to prevent himself from rubbing at the pang in his chest Kenan’s words generated.

“Here, Achilles.” Cain leaned forward and slid a manila folder onto the desk. “I emailed you a copy of this, but here’s a hard copy, too. Don’t say it.” He turned and jabbed a finger at Kenan, then pointed the same one at Achilles. “I know, I know. And so what? I still like to have things in my hands. Sue me.”

And in the hands of others, too, but okay, he’d keep his mouth shut. That was an argument for another day.

“Anyway, we’re looking at acquiring a software company out of San Francisco. Just from what we’re seeing and hearing, they’re really turning the software-as-a-service industry on its head with their backup technology. They’re making on-premises backups obsolete with their third-party backup software app on the cloud. There haven’t been security issues and it cuts costs. I’m sure there are variables we haven’t uncovered, and that’s where you come in. And before we invest one hundred and fifty million dollars, we need to make sure it’s sound. And that we’re going to make a profit, of course. Can you look it over and give us your opinion on not just the software but the company?”

Achilles blinked. Cain had requested his presence in meetings, but he’d felt like a figurehead. He hadn’t offered his opinions, and he hadn’t been asked for them. Here, in the IT department, he was at least useful, able to answer calls, offer help and fix problems, even install software when needed because he wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty.

But this...

He glanced away from Cain for a moment, unable to maintain eye contact with the same penetrating gaze he met in the mirror every morning. His brother, who’d suffered through too much at the abusive hands of their father, saw too much. Cain, accepted heir of Farrell and renowned businessman, wouldn’t lay the fate of millions of dollars in Achilles’s hands if he didn’t trust him. And Achilles feared Cain would glimpse how much this show of trust, of faith, meant to him.

Because it did.

There went those bonds. Tightening. And he fought them like a man drowning, even as an image of his passion project—his video game—popped in his mind. As did the inane urge to tell his brothers about it. The longing shoved at his rib cage, growing in pressure. He needed to share it with the two people who just might be those closest to him. Who might understand him if he just opened up and let them in...

Love always ended in pain.

No attachments. No love. No hurt.

The reminder whispered through his head, echoed in his heart. And it was sharp, leaving an ache behind.

“Yes, I’ll do it.” Achilles picked the folder up. “When do you need the info back?”

“Next Monday work?” Cain asked.

That gave him a week, which would be more than enough time. “That’s fine.”

“Good.” Cain stood, sliding his hands into the front pockets of his gray tailored pants. “Also, just wanted to give you a heads-up. Devon’s going to be calling you. She’s starting a computer class at the community center since a new donor anonymously donated PCs.”

Kenan coughed.

“Shut up, you,” Cain snapped. “Anyway, I didn’t want you to be ambushed.” He paused. “But you should know, my fiancée has a soft heart. And even if you decide to tell her no, let her down gently or I’ll steal those Dr. Who collectibles in your desk drawer that you think we don’t know about and sell them online for a penny.”

Achilles gaped at Cain, caught between shock and laughter.

“I think you broke him,” Kenan whispered.

More of those bonds.

“Okay, got it,” Achilles rasped.

Moments later, his brothers left, and Achilles still stared at the door. Finally, shaking his head, he got back to work. And if his chest felt a little lighter, well, he attributed it to the challenge of a new project, nothing else.

Hours later, a knock at his office door brought his head up, and another kind of warmth streamed through him. Molten. Greedy. Which made sense, since Mycah stood in his doorway. It’d been a couple of days since he’d seen her, sharpening the need inside him to a knife’s edge.

He glanced at the clock at the bottom of his computer monitor. Several minutes after seven. That meant they were most likely the only ones left on his floor. He rose from his chair as she stepped inside, closing the door behind her.

It’d been almost two months since that night at her parents’ disastrous dinner party—since they’d had sex on his living room floor. And on his couch. And in his bed.

Not that it’d been the last night they’d spent together. More had followed. Many more. But by tacit agreement, they’d kept it between them, a secret, not allowing what they did to each other after hours to cross the boundaries into the office. Since they rarely saw one another, no issues had arisen. Still, he was cognizant that he was an owner of the company...at least for the next several months. And because she’d made her worries about her professional reputation very clear, he ensured he didn’t cause any tongues to wag by behavior on his part.

Still... He would be lying if he didn’t admit that the secrecy irritated him like a pebble in an ill-fitting shoe. After Yvette, he’d vowed never to be someone’s dirty little secret. Never to allow anyone to make him feel as if he were unworthy. And while he understood Mycah’s very valid concerns for her career, he couldn’t help the seeds of doubt that had never been fully uprooted; they’d been sown in hurt and betrayal. The similarities between then and now crept into his mind after the passion cooled and she curled next to him or left his apartment.

Coming to him in the cover of darkness.

Pretending they weren’t lovers around others of influence.

Conscripting him to live a lie.

But then she’d touch him. And the need trumped what he’d ever experienced with any other woman, even Yvette. The loneliness that he’d convinced himself didn’t bother him disappeared.

Maybe he was worrying over nothing, though. Unlike with Yvette, he recognized this...arrangement with Mycah couldn’t go anywhere. It had an expiration date and a definite conclusion. For both of them.

“Hey,” he said, rounding the desk. “What’re you doing here? I thought we were meeting at the—What’s wrong?”

He pulled up short, for the first time noticing the stark look in her eyes and the tension holding her body unnaturally rigid.

She parted her lips, and they moved but no sound emerged. Unease pulsed through him, and he stepped toward her, but she shook her head, holding up a hand, and he stopped. Though everything in him demanded he go to her, pull her to him, slay and then fix whatever it was that had darkened her gaze to nearly black.

“I’m pregnant.”