Rub It In (11 page)

The familiar exasperation that accompanied her trips up to Simon’s office filled her, an ingrained habit two years in the making. But the minute she stepped inside, it disappeared.

He was slumped on the sofa that stretched along the far wall. A pile of papers was stacked haphazardly on the floor beside him, upside down, the blank side up. Another stack fanned out across his chest. They rose and fell in a steady rhythm with his deep, even breaths. So far, none of them had slid off, but she didn’t think that could last very much longer.

The sunlight streaming through the windows at the end of the room didn’t reach him, probably the only reason the light hadn’t woken him. His hair, dry and lighter now, brushed across his forehead, the ends falling to hide one closed eyelid. His face was relaxed. It was a surprise to see, because she’d always thought that was his normal, everyday expression. Only now, when she truly saw him without anything pulling his face taut, did she realize that wasn’t true.

It was an act.

When had she begun to realize that? When he’d sprinted down the path to take charge of the chaos? Or maybe when he’d walked into the fire to rescue a man he didn’t know. Or perhaps it was the moment he’d touched her and something hot had sizzled down her skin.

Or maybe she’d known it for a very long time and just hadn’t wanted to admit it to herself. It was easier to hold him at arm’s length when she convinced herself she didn’t like the man he was. But she did like him. Maybe too much.

Shaking her head, Marcy realized it didn’t matter when. Her opinion of Simon had changed.

But her course of action hadn’t. Hopefully in a few weeks she’d be leaving for a new position in the city. It was where she belonged. And all this would end.

She reached for the papers on Simon’s chest, easing them softly out from under his folded hand. He was so peaceful. She didn’t want to disturb him. He’d been through just as much as she had yesterday and from the looks of things hadn’t been able to drop immediately off to sleep as she had.

Snagging the pile on the floor, she walked across to the desk. She meant to scrape them into neat, even stacks and leave them sitting on the top. But something caught her eye and stopped her as she was shuffling the papers together.

At first it was more a realization of what they were—pages and pages of words—than specifics.
What in heaven’s name is he doing?
Why would Simon have a document like this? There had to be hundreds of pages between the two stacks.

Sinking into the leather chair that he normally occupied, she cringed when it creaked, and her heartbeat sped up. Why did she suddenly feel like a burglar trespassing on private property?

Frowning, she looked over at Simon, realized he hadn’t moved and chastised herself. She wasn’t prying. Okay, maybe she was, but she hadn’t started off to do it.

Flipping over the pile from the floor, she immediately saw the words
Chapter One
in bold letters halfway down the first page.

It was a book.

Her gaze flew across to Simon. What was he doing with a manuscript? Reading it for a friend, maybe?

She didn’t mean to read it. But her eyes started moving across the page, devouring the words as fast as she could. She was only a few in when it hit her. This was a Cooper Simmens book.

How had he gotten hold of it? The story was one she’d never read—and she’d read everything of his—so she could only assume it was the newest book, one not yet released. A spurt of jealousy ran through her.

Logically, she realized she should probably put it down. But she couldn’t stop herself. She kept promising herself she’d stop after this scene or at the end of this chapter. But it never happened.

She had no idea how long she sat there, the sun moving in a slow arch behind her. However long it took to read through 120 pages. Because that’s where she was when a quietly menacing voice asked, “What do you think you’re doing?”

11

A
NGER
,
IRRATIONAL
AND
BLINDING
, rolled through Simon. Waking up and finding his manuscript gone was his worst nightmare come to life. Again.

When Courtney had left him he’d been blindsided, confused and upset. But when he’d realized leaving hadn’t been enough for her, helplessness, anger and panic had quickly taken precedence. His work was gone. Not just copied, but every single file on his computer erased. His backup hard drive smashed to bits.

Not only had he lost months of work, but he’d also lost every shred of evidence that could be used to prove the manuscript she’d begun shopping was his. It was a new project, something different from the series he’d been working on previously. There were no common characters he could even lay claim to.

His agent and editor had been aware of the project, but he’d convinced them to let him work on it in secret, since it was a departure from his tried-and-true. He hadn’t even given them a synopsis they could use to help him. He hadn’t trusted his instincts or his talent enough to let anyone see it until it was done. All he had was a contract for an unnamed book that was due. A book he was unable to produce.

He’d been devastated. He’d lost not only the woman he’d thought had loved him, but also months of work. His reputation suffered. His publisher didn’t appreciate the upheaval or the media storm that followed. The saying that any publicity is good publicity was a crock.

The betrayal was almost worse the second time around. Although he had no idea why.

Waking up to see Marcy sitting at his desk reading his manuscript had been like a knife to the gut, reopening a wound he’d long thought healed.

Apparently he’d been wrong.

She jerked her head up when he spoke, guilt clearly stamped across every feature of her face.

“I…I…” she sputtered, a hot flush tingeing her throat and face.

He reached across the desk and snatched the paper out of her hand. Breath hissed through her teeth, shock crossing her face. She turned her hand over, and he watched as a thin line of blood welled across her palm.

For a second he felt guilty. Fought against the urge to kiss it and make it better. No, it wasn’t his fault she’d gotten a paper cut.

She looked down at it for a second, as if she wasn’t exactly sure what to do. Slowly she brought her hand up to her mouth and sucked.

Mumbling around her palm, she said, “What the hell is wrong with you?”

What was wrong with him? “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Why would anything be wrong when you’re sitting in my own damn office violating my trust? Reading my manuscript.”

His voice escalated with each word. He heard himself, but couldn’t seem to stop the outburst.

“I’m not violating anything, you big idiot. You fell asleep with these—” she picked up the papers and waved them in the air “—spread all over the place. I was just…” Her words trailed off and her eyes went round.

Simon didn’t understand what had happened. One minute she’d been yelling at him, fighting verbal jab for verbal jab. The next she was looking at him as if he’d grown a second head.

The heat that had spilled through his body eased, burned out by the explosion of his initial reaction.

“Wait,” she said slowly. “This…” She swallowed. “These—” she gestured again to the papers sitting in neat stacks on the desk “—are yours?”

“Yes.”

“This book is yours?”

“Yes.”

“You wrote it?”

He didn’t know how many different ways she could ask the same question. Was she expecting a different answer? “What did you think?”

“That you were reading it for a friend.”

Well, hell. That would have been a great cover story if he’d stopped long enough to think about it instead of flying off the handle.

“Ohmygod.” She dropped her head into her hands, covering her face. The back of her neck flushed a deep, dark red.

Simon tilted his head sideways, trying to figure out what was going on. Had he woken up in an alternative universe? He looked around his office. Nope, everything looked the same. But Marcy was definitely not acting the same.

“I just slept with Cooper Simmens,” she mumbled into her hands.

With a deep breath and a frown, Simon sank back onto the couch behind him. “Don’t tell me you’re going to turn into a fan girl.” He sighed.

Dropping her hands just far enough to reveal her eyes, she speared him with a sharp gaze. “You know me better than that.”

Well, he thought he did, but then he’d thought he’d known Courtney, too, so that seemed like a really bad measuring stick. His only answer was a shrug.

“But apparently I don’t know anything about you.” She groaned, letting her head rest back against his desk chair. Her eyes closed and without opening them she said, “That’s what you’re always doing in here, isn’t it? Writing.”

“Obviously.”

“Jeez, Simon. You could have told me.”

She jumped up from her chair. Simon watched as she paced across his office and ran her fingers through her hair, ruffling the blond strands into a floating cloud around her face. It was incredibly sexy, the agitated way she moved and the intelligence as the wheels in her brain spun.

Settling back, Simon decided to let her work it all out. And while she did, he worked a few things out himself. She hadn’t known the manuscript was his until he opened his big mouth. His mind replayed the vision of waking up and finding her sitting behind the desk reading.

The look on her face had been pure absorption. His exclamation had startled her and it had taken several seconds for her to refocus on the world around her. That was a good thing, right?

It was entirely possible his initial reaction had been a little much. Obviously, she wasn’t Courtney and hadn’t been in the process of stealing everything he’d worked hard to produce. She wouldn’t have been sitting in his chair if she had been, would she?

Relief mixed with the awareness that never seemed to leave when Marcy was anywhere nearby. It was a heady combination that was difficult to ignore. Especially with a hard-on throbbing relentlessly against his fly.

She finally stopped pacing, spinning on her heel to face him. It was what he’d been waiting for, her undivided attention.

“I have my reasons for keeping this a secret.”

“But you could have told
me.
I was your manager, Simon. You trusted me with sensitive details about the resort, the finances, everything. If you had told me from the first moment it might have changed our entire relationship.”

“And we would have ended up in bed together months ago.”

“Yes. No.” She blinked. “One has nothing to do with the other.”

“Oh, I think it does. All those arguments were just a safe outlet for the passion sizzling between us.”

“That’s not true. I genuinely didn’t like you.”

“Keep telling yourself that. You wanted me from the moment you stepped onto this island. Why not admit it? I sure as hell wanted you.”

Her mouth dropped open. Slowly she shut it.

“Why do you think my actions and attitude pissed you off so much?”

She crossed her arms beneath her breasts, pushing them high and tight against the opening of his robe. The hem trailed higher up her thigh, drawing his attention. He couldn’t stop his eyes from trailing up and down her body.

And she noticed, her lips parting softly and the black of her pupils pushing against the bright blue of her eyes.

“Because you’re damn frustrating,” she said, but her voice had gone soft and airy.

“Oh, absolutely. I didn’t know you from Adam when you first got here. I don’t trust blindly, Marcy, and wasn’t willing to take the risk of bringing you in. Only a handful of people know who I am.”

“Zane!” she exclaimed. “He knows, doesn’t he? Son of a bitch. He told me there was more to you than I realized, but he wouldn’t explain further.”

She was quick. It was one of the traits that made her great at her job, but it was also very sexy.

“Yes, Zane and I were frat brothers in college. He knew me before I sold my first manuscript.” He also knew all the details surrounding the theft of his manuscript, because he’d consulted his buddy in the CIA to see if there was anything he could do. Or any way he could retrieve the data from his computer.

“By the time I might have considered telling you the truth, you’d already been here for months. I didn’t think you’d appreciate learning I hadn’t told you the entire truth.”

“Oh, so it was better to keep lying to me?”

“Lying is such a nasty little word.”

“Then what would you call it?”

Simon shifted uncomfortably against the leather of the sofa. “Letting you keep your own assumptions. I don’t believe I ever told you I wasn’t a writer.”

She growled, low in her throat. “No, but you let me rail at you like a shrew on more than one occasion when simply explaining why you were preoccupied or busy could have prevented a lot of frustration.”

Surging up, Simon grasped Marcy’s wrist and pulled her down beside him. She collapsed onto the sofa in a pile of arms and legs, a huff blasting through her lips. She tried to get up, but he tugged again, keeping her there.

He leaned against her body, bringing his lips to her ear. “Maybe I like it when you’re a bit of a shrew. It actually turns me on.”

Her breath caught in her lungs. But it didn’t take her long to start pulling at her wrist again. “You’re laughing at me.”

“Not on your life. I’m serious. I like it when you get upset. Your skin flushes and your eyes darken and flash.” His lips trailed down the soft curve of her neck. Her pulse beat there, steadily increasing beneath the heat of his caress. “It was the closest thing I could get to seeing you go wild in my arms.”

“You should have told me, Simon.”

“Maybe, but you know now.”

She frowned, tilting her head sideways out of his range. She turned, slowly, to look at him. “Not because you told me. You probably never would have if I hadn’t found that manuscript on the floor.”

Her eyes searched his face. He knew exactly what she was looking for, some sign that he was going to try to lie to her. But he wouldn’t do that. At least, not now.

“Probably not. Don’t take it personally, Marcy. I don’t let anyone in that far. Not anymore.”

She brushed a single finger over his lips. Darting out his tongue, he tried to suck it deep inside his mouth. She wouldn’t let him, instead pulling back.

“And you aren’t going to elaborate on that and tell me why, are you?”

He shook his head, sadness rolling unexpectedly through him.

Simon had no idea what Marcy might have said, what she might have done, because before she could do anything a loud knock echoed through his apartment. Part of him wanted to ignore it, to push her and see where this went. But most of him just wanted out of the conversation before he did or said something he’d regret—like spilling his guts at her feet.

He opened the door to Xavier. Realizing he couldn’t ignore the man, Simon swept his arm toward the office door, inviting him in.

Marcy had pulled her bare feet up onto the couch beside her, burying them beneath the edge of his robe. She self-consciously tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, but other than that gave no sign of her discomfort at being caught in his office practically naked.

Xavier didn’t pause more than a heartbeat before nodding and saying, “Marcy.”

Leaning back against the edge of the desk, he addressed them both. Smart man. Marcy might have told him several times that she wasn’t in charge anymore, but Xavier obviously wasn’t going to burn any bridges just yet.

“I’m taking everyone off fire rotation. Things look fine and I don’t expect any problems. I’ll keep an eye on the area from the Crow’s Nest, though, just in case. Obviously the shed is a total loss, but we can deal with that later.”

Simon nodded.

“We need to talk about the construction crew. They’d like to leave to see to their friend.”

“But we have a contract,” Marcy protested.

“That I really have no desire to enforce,” Simon countered, the right side of his lips twitching upward. She couldn’t stop herself. She might not want to step in, but her work ethic was just too strong to resist.

Throwing her hands in the air, she pushed herself up from the sofa. He was certain it wasn’t intentional, just a tactic she’d learned over the years to compensate for her stature. The power position was never sitting lower than your opponent. “How are we going to finish the repairs and renovations in time if you fire the only crew we’ve got? Not to mention now we have debris to clear away. They might not be the best, but surely they can handle the simple jobs while we look for someone else.”

He liked the way she used the word
we,
but he knew better than to let it mean anything. “What about their friend?” he asked.

“I’m not an unfeeling bitch, Simon. I’ll call the launch myself and have them taken to the hospital right now. Losing one day is better than three or four.”