Undeniably Asher (The Colloway Brothers Book 2) (20 page)

I don’t miss the underlying innuendo of his thinly veiled attempt at being professional. Smirking, I hold out my hand for the paper he’s now holding hostage in his. “Ah, sorry.”

“No problem,” I say, taking the document and setting it by my computer screen. “Well, that’s really all I need so I won’t waste any more of your time.”

“Actually, I was wondering if Amanda showed you some of the shortcuts in SAP to make your job a little easier. Faster.”

I spent an hour with Amanda earlier in the week, but she just went over some of the basics. I’m fairly familiar with SAP, but CFC has put their own homegrown spin on it, so it’s a little different than what I’m used to. “No, she didn’t.”

“Well if you have a few minutes, I have some time now to show you.”

“Sure,” I reply.

“It may be easier if I come over there and sit with you, if that’s okay?”

I inwardly groan, wondering if this is some ploy for him to get closer to me, but anything that can shave time off my research will be helpful, so I can’t turn him down either. Damn that Amanda.

“Yes, fine.”

For the next forty minutes he walks me through some of the nuances of their accounting system. He even shows me how to run a few simple reports that I can download into Excel for easy filtering and sorting, so I don’t have to wait for someone else to do it. I find Aaron is very intelligent and funny. If I wasn’t head over heels for Asher, I might actually entertain the idea of a date.

“Thanks, Aaron. This was very helpful.” I smile, turning toward him.

“My pleasure.” He reaches up and brushes his thumb against the fullest part of my bottom lip, startling me. I try to pull back, but he curls his fingers around my neck, holding me in place. “You have a crumb here that’s been driving me mad,” he tells me in a low voice.

“Oh,” is all I can manage, remembering that I had a few crackers with my salad at lunch.

His fingers don’t move and I swear his face just came closer to mine. “Do you know what else is driving me crazy, Alyse?”

I swallow hard and shake my head. My brain has clearly not caught up to what’s going on here or otherwise he would have a fist in his face by now.

His eyes have darkened, now flitting back and forth to my mouth. “Your perfume. Jesus, you smell good.”

I start to pull my head out of his grip and open my mouth to tell him how highly inappropriate this is when I hear a throat clear. A deep, male one that does not belong to Aaron.

Oh. Shit.

I can tell by the look in Aaron’s eyes as they leave me and look toward my door that he’s thinking the same exact thing. He drops his hand from my face so fast, it’s like my body is now a conductor for ten thousand volts of electricity.

“Uh, Mr. Colloway, hi,” he bumbles. Pushing his chair back quickly, he stands and starts to walk around my desk. I’m still looking the other way. Knowing exactly how Asher will react to what he thinks he just saw, I bend my head and close my eyes, taking a deep breath to steel myself for when I turn around to see the blazing fury in his.

When I do finally look at Asher, I stifle a sigh. I’ve never seen a man look like he literally wants to commit murder before, but there’s no mistaking he wants to do just that. I’m surprised that his eyes aren’t flashing red and he’s not wielding a bloody scythe with Aaron’s head already rolling out my office door.

“It’s time for you to go,” he grits, punctuating each word slowly. Even through Asher’s tailored suit, I notice his muscles are rippling. He’s fighting to physically restrain himself from hurting Aaron.

This time I don’t even hide the shake of my head at his ridiculous reaction. I have to bite my tongue not to chew his ass up one side and down the other. Mind you, I’ll do that, just not in front of Aaron.

Asher’s one of the most possessive men I have ever known, and while that should be a total turnoff for me, it’s not. Most of the time I find it exhilarating. Today it’s just irritating. And embarrassing.

“I was just showing Alyse some things in the accounting system she needs for the audit.” Aaron’s brows are drawn together in confusion, probably wondering what kind of crazy his CEO just turned into. Asher’s practically morphing into a wild, frothing animal right before our eyes. Aaron apparently has no self-preservation skills or he would have been out of here the second he looked up and saw Asher ready to rip out his jugular.

I rise and make my way around the desk, standing between them. I’m not sure if I’m protecting Aaron or saving Asher from himself. Probably both. “Aaron, thanks for your help. I appreciate it. I’ll call you if I need anything else.”

“The hell you will,” I hear Asher reply under his breath.

Jesus, I hope Aaron didn’t hear that. I do sigh now. Rather loudly. I want to glare at Asher, but I don’t dare look at him or I’ll either kick him square in the little boys or burst out laughing at his utter absurdity.

“Yeah, sure. Glad I could help.” His puzzled eyes dart back and forth between Asher and me. I can tell he’s trying to quickly piece this jagged brainteaser together. He makes his way toward the door, but Asher is still blocking it, not looking like he’s going to move.

Grabbing Asher by the elbow, I gently nudge him into the room and out of Aaron’s way. “Mr. Colloway, please come in and have a seat. I’ll be right with you.” Asher silently walks forward, but I can actually feel his body shaking with rage.

I smile, hoping to hell it looks relaxed and professional, not like I’m about to have Asher’s balls twisted firmly in my palms in about five seconds.

“Thanks again, Aaron.” I quickly usher him out and shut the door. “What the fuck was that?” I hiss, spinning around to face my utterly ridiculous…lover? Boyfriend?
Whateverheis
?

“You’re kidding me, right? That’s my line, sweetheart. The guy practically had his tongue down your throat and you were just sitting there letting him do it!”

Taking a deep breath, I lean against the door and cross my arms. It’s obvious that one of us needs to remain calm. It’s also obvious it’s not going to be him. I lower my voice, trying to gain control of a situation that’s close to exploding into a hurtful verbal war any second.

“Asher, it wasn’t what it looked like.”

“Really?” he sneers, leaning against the front of my desk, mirroring my stance. “Because what I
saw
was his hand touching your skin. What I
saw
was his face about two inches from yours. What I
saw
was a man who was looking at my woman like he wanted to throw her down on her desk and fuck her into tomorrow. And what I
heard
was him tell you how fucking good you smell. So, please…explain to me what I misconstrued.”

Okay, so it
was
exactly what it looked like.

Crap.

I want to break our gaze, but I can’t because then I’ll look guilty. And I’m
not
guilty. I did nothing wrong, but when he puts it like that, I
feel
guilty. Damn him for making me feel like I did something behind his back.

“I did nothing wrong here. I didn’t lead him on. I’ve told him repeatedly I’m involved with someone. Nothing happened, and I wouldn’t have let anything happen. You’re overreacting.”

“It didn’t look like nothing was happening to me.”

“Dammit, Asher. You got here about two seconds before I was about to tell him to back the fuck off.”

“Two more seconds and his mouth would have been on yours.”

“Damn you! Nothing happened. Nothing
would
have happened. I’m
not
attracted to Aaron.”

“He wants you.”

I shake my head. “Well, I don’t want him,” I retort. “I only want you.”

His eyes bore into me, as if trying to ferret out a lie. I wonder who hurt Asher so badly that he doubts me when I’ve given him no reason to. I’m disappointed and offended that he thinks I would do that to him. To
us
.

“I may have a lot of personality flaws, Asher, but adulterer is not one of them. I have never cheated on a man in my entire life. I wouldn’t do it.”

“I won’t share what’s mine, Alyse. That’s a deal breaker.”

“It is for me, too.”

We stand there, eyes locked for several tense minutes, neither of us moving. The five feet that separate us may as well be the goddamn Pacific Ocean. As hard as I’ve fallen for Asher, I don’t know if we’re going to make it if he freaks out like a rabid animal every time a man shows any hint of interest in me.

Possessive is one thing.

Irrational psychotic jealousy?
No. I won’t subject myself to that for any man. Not even Asher.

A knock breaks us out of our strained standoff. I open the door to find a sheepish Tara standing outside.
Lovely
. She’s probably heard half of our fight; maybe she’s even transcribed it for our reading pleasure later.

“I’m really sorry to interrupt, but your two o’clock is here, Asher.” Tara spins, quickly walking away without waiting for a response. I don’t blame her. The tension swirling in this office is now so thick it’s suffocating me with every shallow, harsh breath.

Without a word, Asher pushes off my desk and starts to walk out. Grabbing his arm, I stop him, but he doesn’t look at me. “You need to trust me.”

If you break down his three-word response, each word is innocuous and harmless all on its own, but the way he strung them together hurts as much as being stabbed slowly with the end of a spoon. In fact, I’m not sure any other man has ever hurt me as deeply as the pain those three little words inflict.

“Trust is earned.”

Chapter 20

Asher

“I’m out.” I turn over my cards, including my pathetic pair of twos, throwing them down in disgust. As I attempt to watch the rest of the hand play out, I pick up my Jameson, neat. Taking a long swallow, I savor the slow burn spreading in my nostrils, down my esophagus, and into my stomach.

I deserve it. I need it.

I want it to sweep through my bloodstream quickly and numb my brain, erasing my entire day.

My entire shitty day.

The potential acquisition we’ve been working on for months was flushed down the shitter today because of a huge unfunded pension liability we found during our due diligence. Thank God we found it, because after the HMT patent debacle and the current embezzlement mess we’re in with CFC, the last thing we need is to inherit another pile of financial crap, but we were literally just two weeks away from closing that deal. Months of work, wasted.

Then Tara told me she needs six weeks off at the first of the year because she’s having “female” surgery. Tara’s like my fucking right arm. Without her I’ll be lost, even if it is just for a short period of time. I couldn’t be an asshole and tell her she couldn’t have time off, even though those words were on the tip of my tongue. I wanted to ask if she could work from bed, but I figured I’d probably be violating all kinds of employment laws with that request, so I smiled politely and kept my mouth shut. She assured me she knew of a couple good temps that would work “so well I wouldn’t even know she was gone.” Not highly likely.

And then of course there’s the way I handled the situation with Alyse. I’d gone to find her in hopes of spending a few stolen minutes selfishly getting lost in her, only to find that fuckhead, Aaron, hitting on her.

I handled the situation poorly. I know that. I knew it at the time, but it was like having an out-of-body experience. My body and my mouth had been taken over by some unknown force. I hovered ten feet above, watching it play out like a bad fucking movie that I couldn’t pause or rewind.

I could anticipate the next assholeish thing I was going to say, only I couldn’t stop myself from opening my mouth and vomiting the hurtful words. They were sharp and caustic and not at all the way I felt. The only thing I could envision was Natalie all over again and the certain agony I would feel at Alyse’s betrayal.

Alyse is not Natalie.

Free the chains.

Fuck.

“Hey, asshole. You in or not?” Conn asks.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” I snip.

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because I’ve taken you five out of the last six hands and three of those you should have won. Head in the game, brother, or I’ll clean you out.”

Damn Conn. He’s right. “You can try.”

I’m down five hundred already tonight, so at the rate I’m going, it actually won’t take him long to take the rest. Shit, I should just hand it over and be done so I can go grovel at the feet of the woman who’s been ignoring my calls and text messages all damn evening. By the time the red haze faded so I could actually think clearly, Alyse had already left for the day. I haven’t seen her since I was the Prince of all Jackasses walking out of her office while spouting some bullshit that was completely untrue.

I
trust
Alyse. I just don’t trust anyone with a dick to get within ten feet of her. She has no fucking idea the innate magnetism she exudes. She draws people to her without even trying. I don’t know if it’s her inner beauty or some goddamn scent she emits or the shimmery aura surrounding her that everyone unconsciously sees, but whatever it is, people are powerless to resist.

Especially men.