She slid her hands underneath his hoodie, her fingertips cool against his abs. How was it possible to not believe something was happening and want more all at the same time? He had no fucking clue, but he was right there. He wanted—needed—all of her even though he shouldn’t. Words like “gold digger,” “brother’s so-called friend,” and “enemy” zipped around in his head, but they had all the impact of a buzzing gnat, easily waved aside for the pleasure that was kissing Hadley.
He didn’t mean to reach for her skirt, to pull it upward so he could slip his hand underneath, but there he was with his palm gliding up the outside of her smooth thigh and the round curve of her hip. Fuck, she felt good, better than he’d imagined too many times to count. He cupped her glorious ass, too much awesome to fit in his hands, and pulled her close so he could feel her heat against his hard cock straining against his jeans. Hadley let out a soft moan of encouragement, rubbing against him as she forced her hands between them and reached for the top button of his jeans.
A better man would remember why she was awful. Why she couldn’t be trusted. Why this was wrong. But he wasn’t a better man. Will was drowning in Hadley and he couldn’t think of a better way to go.
Then a bright light cut through the semidarkness of the coat closet—a reality spotlight landing right on them—followed by a knowing, cruel chuckle that he was all too familiar with. Obviously startled, Hadley jolted away from him, but it was too late.
“Having some fun with the help, Will?” said Mia, his ex, a cold, close approximation to a smile curling her lips. “You know that’s something I would have overlooked.” She paused for dramatic effect, looking them both over with clinical detachment. “I’ll leave you to get straightened up.”
The door swung shut behind her.
He shoved his hands through his hair. Fuck. What had just happened? What had he done? Mia wouldn’t keep her mouth shut. This would be the amusing anecdote of the fundraiser told and retold over cocktails and coffee. He had to protect Hadley somehow.
“Hadley,” he said.
It took a second, but she turned toward him—her eyes wide with a what-the-fuck surprise and her fingers pressed to her kiss-swollen lips—and said, “Web.”
A slap to the face would have been less of a blow than hearing her say his identical twin brother’s name at that moment. The worst part being that it was a self-inflicted wound. He knew better. Of course Web would be her first thought. After all, it would be damn hard to scam a guy into falling in love so she could walk away with half his billions if she banged his brother.
You’re an idiot, Holt.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice deadly flat even to his own ears. “Exactly.”
He swiped his raincoat off a hook and made it to the door in two strides, yanking it open and walking out, his steps measured, his breathing even, his heart going a million miles per hour. He never looked back.
Mia was already halfway to the bar when he spotted her, earning her keep as an impoverished (by Harbor City’s high-society standards anyway) woman from a storied family who kept things entertaining with the latest gossip. There was no point in pursuing her, though; it would only add legitimacy to her story. The air moved behind him and the extrasensory alert that always went off when Hadley was near blared out a warning.
A little too late, don’t ya think?
There was no point in talking to her—it wouldn’t change anything. What could make a difference would be talking to her boss. No doubt Mia was angling to get Hadley fired. He wasn’t going to let that happen, because it would make Hadley more sympathetic to Web and, therefore, make it easier for her to become a gold-digging success story.
And that’s the only reason?
It was. It had to be.
And after that, he’d do whatever it took to stay the hell away from her from now on.
Chapter Two
“You! Are! Shitting! Me!”
Hadley’s roommate, Fiona Hartigan, stood in the middle of their galley kitchen, her mouth agog and her organic fruit smoothie stopped halfway to her mouth. Sure, it was a little overdramatic, but then again, so was Fiona in the absolute best way possible.
“I wish.” Hadley filled up the Money Honey travel mug she’d gotten in a goodie bag at a philanthropy management conference a few months ago and added an extra shot of store-brand hazelnut creamer. “The Evil Twin stood there in the middle of the event that should have made my career and told my boss that Mia was slinging crap because he would never in a million years kiss someone as lowly as me.”
Fiona’s green eyes rounded to practically manga-character levels, and she took a long, loud slurp on her straw as she shot Hadley a considering look and then asked, “He used those words?”
Ugh. Okay, maybe she was being a wee bit over-the-top, too. “Okay, he didn’t use exactly those words, but that was the gist of it. And you know everyone in my office just happened to be circling around the boss like a bunch of gossip sharks that smelled blood in the water. Everything about fundraising in this cliquey environment is about your reputation and who is in your corner.”
“What did you say?” Fiona asked, leaning one hip against the smidgen of counter space in their teeny, tiny, way-too-expensive-to-be-this-cramped Harbor City apartment.
“What could I say?” She set her travel mug down and marched three paces to the end of the kitchen and three paces back, her cheeks burning at the memory of the look her boss had given her over Will’s shoulder. It was the same look her mom had sent her way whenever she’d taken a practical joke too far and was in for it. “I got the hell out of the you’re-going-to-get-fired-this-very-moment zone and did my job like the professional I am.”
“So you hustled triple-time in order to be too busy to have an uncomfortable discussion with your boss?”
“Pretty much.” Haley slumped against the fridge, the magnet clip holding up the invitation to her sister’s wedding stabbing her in the back, and let out a miserable groan. “Oh God. I’m going to lose my job for being unprofessional. Whoever the hell I pissed off in a former life, I offer up all my apologies.”
Fine. She was the overdramatic one. Right now, she was totally all right with that, because if kissing her nemesis and then having her entire professional world think she’d probably done a helluva lot more than that with him in the coat closet and was therefore banging her way into getting donations wasn’t the situation in which one should be overdramatic, then she had no clue when it was.
Fiona tapped her straw against her chin. “Maybe this is fate working for you.”
“By making me lose my mind and do something as ridiculous as kissing Will Holt?” Oh God. It sounded worse when she said it out loud.
“Well, that was probably just for giggles, but—” Fiona held up her hand as if to stop Hadley from protesting, which she totally was about to do. “Hear me out. What if this is a nudge from the universe to finally start your own consulting firm? You’ve been talking about it forever—maybe this is the time to make it happen.”
Oh yes, The Donavan Agency. Somewhere in a box stuffed under her bed, she had business cards and everything. There was a fully formed business plan in her Dropbox. She’d even worked out a potential client list, determined a charitable-giving area of specialization, and had a finished website just waiting to be launched. What didn’t she have? Money—for an office, for employees, for health insurance, for client acquisitions, pretty much for anything beyond the basics of food, shelter, and Netflix. Well, mostly.
“Yeah right.” Hadley sighed and pushed off the fridge, going straight for her travel mug waiting for her on the counter because like it or lump it, she had to go into the office today if she wanted to get paid. “You need money to make money and in case you forgot, you’re still waiting for my half of the utility bill.”
Which was why she was depending on twice-run-through K-cups for her caffeine intake.
“Today’s your payday,” Fiona said. “I know it’s coming.”
Travel mug in one hand and phone in the other, Hadley gave her roomie and friend a quick hug, careful not to spill any weak coffee on her. And to think when she’d answered that ad for a roommate three years ago, her only hope was that she wouldn’t be rooming with a serial killer. For once, the reality of her life in Harbor City had far exceeded her hopes. If only the rest of her big city existence had lived up to her dreams when she’d left her small-town Nebraska home…not that she’d be admitting that to her family back on the ranch anytime soon. They already thought she was a few hay bales short for leaving in the first place.
“What did I do to deserve such a sweetheart of a roommate?”
Fiona squeezed her back. “Obviously something spectacular.”
It was true, and it had to have been in a past life because this one was kind of a mess—and definitely not the shiny, happy, perfectly Instagramable version she shared with her family. When failing wasn’t an option, a person faked it until they made it. That had been her game plan since she’d arrived in Harbor City, and she had no plans to change it. As long as she could keep up that perfect-life pretense, it would happen.