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CHAPTER FIVE

KAYLEE TAPPED THE toe of her Louboutin on the tiled floor. Her usual coffee shop was under renovation this week—a fact she’d forgotten until she’d seen the sign on the door directing her to this location and thanking her for her understanding.

Judging by the length of this line, she wasn’t the only displaced coffee patron looking for a fix. She pulled her phone from her purse to check the time. She had about twelve more minutes to spare before she needed to be in her car and on the road. Otherwise she’d be late for work. Max might be an ocean away, but knowing him, he’d tasked his executive assistant, Sherri, with sending him daily reports about the office. Kaylee considered it a matter of pride not to give her exacting older brother anything to call her out for when he got back. The world didn’t stop turning because he was gone, and Whitfield Industries wouldn’t stop, either. She might have quit before he left, but it was her name on the building, too.

The memory stung. She’d let her emotions get the better of her that day. Last week, out of the blue, Max had announced a security breach, scrapped Whitfield’s project, turned their father in to the Feds, and then told her he was flying to Dubrovnik, leaving Kaylee to pick up all the pieces as PR director, daughter, and interim CEO. Something inside her had snapped, shocked that he would just dump all of that on her with no warning, and she’d given him her two weeks’ notice in a fit of pride. Truthfully, she was hurt that Max didn’t respect her enough to keep her apprised of the life-altering decisions he’d made.

But now that things were somewhat under control again, she was regretting her resignation. The six days since Max had taken off had reminded her exactly what she loved about PR—the challenge and the rush of making people think and do what she wanted them to. It was something she’d never really pulled off in her personal life, but she excelled at it in her professional life. Despite everything, she was damn good at her job, and that was because deep down, family drama aside, she loved it.

As if she’d conjured him, the phone in her hand buzzed, flashing Max’s photo and number across her screen. With a frown, she declined his call. Again. She was too busy and too pissed off to talk to him yet.

But underneath the skin-deep layer of mad, there was concern she just couldn’t quite purge. It was there in her bones. No matter how much her family infuriated her, she couldn’t help but care about them. And the entire situation was just so unlike Max.

No. No emotions.

Being good at PR meant being calm and collected, and if there was one thing that Kaylee excelled at, it was swallowing her feelings. She supposed she could thank her mother’s lifelong obsession with perfection for that.

“A lady remains poised and calm no matter the situation at hand.”

Besides, screw him, she decided with a certain measure of detached equanimity. She was an adult with a caffeine addiction, and she’d get to work when she got to work, whether he had his assistant tattling on her or not. Max didn’t deserve this loyal streak she couldn’t quite banish. He hadn’t thought twice about walking out on her in the middle of the biggest PR crisis to hit the company since she’d started working there.

She glanced at her phone again. Seven minutes until she should hit the road.

But caffeine wasn’t optional today. She hadn’t slept well all weekend, haunted by hot, furtive dreams of Aidan’s hands on her, of him thrusting deep and driving her out of her mind.

God. She hadn’t known sex could be like that. She wasn’t sure if it was the naughtiness of semipublic sex, the danger of being caught, or Aidan himself. Maybe it was the magical combination of all three.

The memories brought a secret smile to her lips, even in the midst of the busy coffee shop. Made her square her shoulders. Made her stomach muscles clench with a shot of hot lust. Sex was good for the soul. And good sex, well, that was even better. She seemed to be oozing sensual satisfaction. She’d been hit on three times in the last two days.

“Well, well, well...”

Make that four times in three days, she thought at the sound of the deep voice close behind her. She prepared to deal firmly and disinterestedly with the ever-classy What do we have here? and its accompanying leer, but when she turned, her mind short-circuited and her mouth refused to open.

Which was okay because the man behind her didn’t even say, What do we have here?

Nope. He said, “If it isn’t little Kaylee Jayne Whitfield all grown up,” and she had no firm-but-disinterested answer to that, especially not when he was smiling that rebel smile at her—at her—the sexy one that flipped up the right side of his sinful mouth.

“Aidan!” She took an awkward step back on her high heel, bobbled on the slick tile. And he reached out to steady her, like he had Friday night when they’d bumped into each other, but not before her phone crashed to the floor.

The sickening clatter left no doubt that it hadn’t survived its run-in with the tiles, but she could barely bring herself to care—not when Aidan had his hands on her again. God he was beautiful.

Get it together, Kaylee.

She pulled free, crouching to retrieve her phone at the same time he did. He beat her to it by virtue of his longer arms.

His handsome face grew serious—almost annoyed—as he picked up the phone and looked at it.

“Bad news,” he told her, turning it so she could see the shattered screen. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Ouch.” She did her best to smile as he handed her the useless phone, but his fingers brushed hers, and her skin tingled to life. Which was really inconvenient. She didn’t need all her nerve endings sparking up an electrical storm right now. She needed to focus on acting like a grown-ass woman instead of a gangly teenager with braces and heart eyes for her older brother’s adventurous best friend.

She stood quickly, needing space and cursing the cruel irony that would see all of her mysterious sex-goddess vibes destroyed by the man who’d gifted her with them in the first place. She dipped her head, let her hair shield her face, felt herself getting smaller, trying to escape notice. She couldn’t have him ruining her incredible secret night by recognizing her as the woman from the supply closet. She wished she had the darkness of the club at her disposal now. Or at the very least, the magic, confidence-giving power of her sparkly pasties.

Then he stood, still close enough that she could smell him—man and fresh air and leather and motorbike, all warmed by his bronzed skin.

“Stand up straight, KJ,” he teased, his voice soft and low as he quoted her mother, tacking on the nickname that only he had ever called her. It reminded her of their past, when he’d sometimes felt like her only ally. A tiny smile curved her lips despite herself as she lifted her face to make eye contact.

But the chaste sweetness of the moment morphed into heat as she looked up at him.

He might not recognize her from the club, but her body recognized every inch of his big frame. Her nipples beaded instantly, and she was glad she was wearing a padded bra beneath her ivory blouse.

Her childish crush on him had been based on nothing but his kindness and her journey into puberty. But what was happening now was built on torrid, sexy memories that raced along her skin. Her belly pulsed back and forth like the shoulder blades of a jungle cat preparing to pounce. And she wanted to pounce. Her whole body purred at the idea of being in his arms again.

Could he feel the sizzle that had taken up residence beneath her skin, or was the heat only flowing one way?

He leaned close so she could feel the warmth of his breath on her cheek, and her heart stuttered an SOS, even as her chin notched up involuntarily to bring their lips into alignment. “Line’s moving.”

She released the exhalation stuck in her chest in a disappointed sigh as she stepped up to the counter. “I’ll have a vanilla latte, please.”

“Can I get a name for the cup?”

“Kaylee,” she started to say, but before she got to the second syllable, Aidan stepped close behind her, and the dazzled barista stared distractedly over Kaylee’s shoulder.

“You can add a black coffee to that.”

Aidan handed her a couple of bills before Kaylee managed to retrieve her wallet.

“Oh! You don’t have to pay.” Kaylee dug into her purse. “I can...”

Aidan’s fingertips brushed her wrist to still her hand, and her voice trailed off. Her pulse fluttered madly beneath her skin. “Your money’s no good here, right...” He spared a glance at the smitten barista’s name tag before adding, “Tanis?”

The girl nodded dreamily. Kaylee was pretty sure Aidan could have said, This is a stickup—empty the till into this bag or I’ll kill everyone in here, and still gotten the same reaction. Seeing it reminded her that she wasn’t a teenager anymore and went a long way toward making her feel more like herself. She tucked a wayward strand of dark hair behind her ear. “Thanks.”

“Least I can do. It’s been a while.”

Two frustratingly horny days, her body reminded her. “Um, almost ten years, I guess?”

It wasn’t a guess. She knew. Aside from Lola Mariposa, in the storage room, with Aidan’s candlestick, she’d been seventeen the last time she saw him, freshly graduated and all packed and on her way to study at Oxford. Her crush on him had cooled by that point—no sense in pining over someone who would never see you as anything more than a kid sister—but that hadn’t kept her from reveling in the goodbye they’d shared.

“You got this, KJ,” he’d said in a way that made her believe him. And then Aidan had hugged her. The only hug she’d received. Max hadn’t. Her mom and dad hadn’t. And for a scared seventeen-year-old leaving her home for the first time, that hug had buoyed her courage, as though being wrapped in his arms had transferred some of his strength to her, some of his wanderlust.

It was a moment that had meant the world.

It was nice thinking someone believed in her.

“So what have you been up to?” he asked.

“University, grown-up job, the usual stuff,” she averred. She didn’t want to bring up anything that might ruin their easy camaraderie. Besides, she wasn’t exactly sure how Aidan and her brother had turned into mortal enemies. It was safer to steer the conversation away from her PR position at the company named after her family and run by her brother.

Aidan shot her a look that said he had other ideas. “Nope. Not buying it, Ms. Public Relations. This is a no-spin zone, so stop being modest and tell me about how you’re putting that fancy Oxford education to use nowadays.”

The realization that he remembered her major and her alma mater combined with the interest on his handsome face edged the lust in her belly with a sweetness she hadn’t expected. Maybe that was why she still didn’t mention Whitfield Industries by name, just left it hanging like a guillotine blade, hoping it wouldn’t sever this thread of...something that was pulsing between them.

“Mostly I write media releases and deal with questions from the press. And every now and then a scandal breaks out and things get interesting.” The words fell out of her mouth without her meaning them to, and the sharp pain of the current situation knifed through her gut. That Max had worn a wire, turned their father in for blackmailing Emma Mathison, the head of R and D for SecurePay. That Charles was currently wearing an ankle bracelet, under house arrest after ponying up the five-million-dollars bail. That she’d been completely in the dark about her own father until it had all gone down...

“How about you? What have you been doing with yourself for the last decade?”

He grinned, and her heart stuttered at the flash of straight, white teeth. “Before or after I got gored running with the bulls in Spain?”

She couldn’t help but smile back. She’d always loved Aidan’s stories. He was the reason she’d begged her mother to let her study abroad. Actually, getting as far away from Sylvia Whitfield’s nitpicking as possible was the reason she’d done that, but Aidan’s stories had given her the courage to persevere, to board the plane when her mother had unexpectedly relented and let her go. “Liar.”

Her mouth went dry as he reached down and lifted the hem of his T-shirt up his side, revealing that jagged scar across his rib cage. The one her fingers had traced during their time in the storage closet. The one her fingers wanted to touch now. Oh God. It must have hurt and everything, but damn. Like the man needed to be any sexier.

The two ladies chattering at a nearby table stopped to take in the deliciously masculine sight of Aidan showing off his wound.

Oblivious, he dropped the white cotton. “Twenty stitches.”

“I have a vanilla latte for Karly and a coffee for Hot Guy,” called the barista, and Aidan quirked a conspiratorial eyebrow, startling a smile from her. It might not be the heat that had sparked between him and Lola, but it was nice to see him as herself, too.

They grabbed their coffees from the counter. The grande cup looked small in his hand.

“Got time to sit with me for a bit?”

She wanted to. Wanted to indulge the desire simmering in her belly. But she had a meeting that she couldn’t blow off, and the prudent part of her—the part that knew the longer she tempted fate, the more likely it was that Aidan might connect her with her alter ego—warned her to get out immediately, before her secret came back to bite her.

With an apologetic smile at the handsomest man to ever flash her at a Starbucks, Kaylee put herself out of her misery. “I’m sorry, Aidan. I really need to get to work, but it was great seeing you.”

She reached into her purse to grab her keys. Despite her very smart decision to leave, her whole body shivered when he reached out and touched her hand to stop her. She swallowed against the resurgence of lust as she looked at him. “Then see me again.”

“What?”

“Lounge 360. Nine o’clock. I’ll buy you a drink.”

She really shouldn’t. Max would hate that. Her mother would hate that.

“I’ll be there.”

Shit.

He shouldn’t have talked to her. Liam’s tech was good enough to install without making contact. That had been the goddamn plan.

She’d been completely oblivious to him when he’d taken his place in line behind her, but he hadn’t been able to keep his mouth shut.

In his head, she was this gangly, shy teenage girl with braces who stared at him like he’d hung the moon when she thought he wasn’t watching. At four years his junior, she’d been mostly off his radar when Max would invite him over.

When she was on his radar, it was just because she’d always seemed so...lonely. He’d felt sorry for her. Sylvia Whitfield had been on her constantly and about everything—Kaylee, stand up straight; Kaylee, your hair is a mess; Kaylee, stop being so noisy.

And Max had been weird about his little sister, keeping a very conscious distance, though he’d never explained his reasons.

But she wasn’t an awkward girl anymore. And some perverse part of Aidan had been too curious to content himself with the brief glimpse of her profile he’d gotten in the parking lot while he’d waited to see if she’d show up like his intel guy had predicted.

He’d wanted to see the woman she’d become, and so he’d broken his own damn rule and talked to her.

Stunning. That had been his first thought when she’d turned to face him. Then her hazel eyes had flared with surprise and recognition as they scanned his face, and her skin had flushed in a way that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Her full lips, slicked shiny with gloss, had popped open in an unconsciously provocative O that had hooked him in the gut right before she stepped back in surprise. He hadn’t expected the jolt of familiarity, hell, of attraction, that had arced up his arm as he’d steadied her.

He spared a brief moment to wonder if she’d felt it, too, or if it was just the surprise of seeing him again after so many years that had sent her phone tumbling to the ground, smashing both the screen and his plan to install the spyware and get the hell out.

That’s what he got for thinking with his dick, which obviously didn’t care that she was part of the enemy camp. Though to be fair, neither did his brain, judging by his offer to take her out for drinks tonight. Fucking drinks with Kaylee Whitfield.

Now all he could do was hope that she’d replace her phone before they met up again, or this whole day would be a complete waste.