“Congratulations,” I said finally, breaking the hush. My voice sounded slightly higher than usual, but other than that, I was pretty sure I pulled off calm and reserved.
Inside, however, I was dying. Weston was engaged? What the ever-living fuck? Obviously, he was an asshole. And Donovan was even worse, trying to needle me about it, and no way was I letting him get to me.
“Donovan, you shithead?” Weston snapped under his breath.
“Oh. She didn’t know,” Donovan said in a way that made me suspect he knew very well I hadn’t known all along. Shithead was right. Add goddamn motherfucker to the list.
“No, I didn’t know. But congratulations seem to be in order all the same.” With a tight smile, I scooted over casually so that Weston’s hand fell off my shoulder. This was fine. Totally fine. Just had to keep breathing.
Weston looked from me to his friend. “I told you I hadn’t told her.”
Donovan waved him off. “That was two weeks ago. I assumed you would have told her by now. How could you bring her here without fully explaining the circumstances? That doesn’t seem very fair to Sabrina now, does it?”
“Hey. I’m right here.”
Both men turned toward me at once.
“I should have told you,” Weston said at the same time Donovan said, “He should have told you.”
“Told me that you were engaged? You’re telling me now. I can’t wait to hear all about her, Weston.” I stood up. “I’m just going to refill my drink.”
“It’s not how it seems.” Weston ran after me, fumbling to help me with the scotch.
“It’s really not. Just wait until he explains.” Donovan had moved his ankle to his knee, the relaxed position suggesting he was enjoying this far more than he should.
I tried to ignore him—as if that were possible—and trained my focus on Weston, keeping my voice as even as I could. “How is there any way other than what it seems? You didn’t even have a girlfriend when…” I trailed off, glancing back at Donovan. Even if he knew that I’d spent a weekend in his partner’s bed, it felt somehow wrong to acknowledge it in front of him.
Anyway, I didn’t need to. “Was that not true?”
“It was true,” Weston insisted. “I still don’t have a girlfriend.”
“No, you have a fiancée,” I said.
“A fake fiancée,” he corrected.
“A fake fiancée? Right.”
Donovan chuckled behind us. “This just gets better and better.”
I shot him a nasty glare, but his smile made things worse. It poked at me like a boy with a stick torturing a trapped animal. Jesus, why did he have to be here?
I took a large swallow of my scotch.
Weston put his hands on my upper arms. “Let me explain.”
“Don’t.” I jerked away, louder than I meant to. Taking a breath, I tried again. “Don’t touch me. Please.”
He dropped his hands, then, seeming not to know what to do with them, stuck them in his pockets.
Again, I glanced toward Donovan. Was this why he’d come here today? To drop this bomb? To play with me now in the same ways he had in the past? To see me humiliated and disgraced?
Well, I refused to let him see me like that. I lifted my chin. I was resolute. He wouldn’t see me down.
He met my stare and held it. Whatever he saw—my determination, maybe—caused his expression to sober.
“I should really let you two work this out on your own,” he said, setting his empty glass on the table next to him and standing.
“Thank you,” Weston said.
“Though I won’t say I’m not tempted to turn on the security feed and listen in.”
“Fuck you.”
“Kidding.” Donovan buttoned his jacket. “Leaving,” he called over his shoulder as he brushed past me, shocking me with a jolt of electricity that made me shiver.
I heard him leaving. Heard him open the doors. Dread sank inside me like a lead ball. It was strange and sudden and unexplainable. I couldn’t attach it to current circumstances or to anything at all except the fact that the ghost of my darkest thoughts was slipping out of my realm.
I spun around.
“Donovan!” I called out before I could stop myself.
He halted halfway out the door and looked toward me, but I clammed up. I had no idea what else to say to him. I didn’t want him to stay necessarily; I just didn’t want him to go. Not now. Not so soon. Not when there was still everything left unsaid between us.
Weston watched us curiously, his eyes darting from me to Donovan then back to me.
It was Donovan who filled the silence. “You were right, Weston,” he said, his gaze looking nowhere but my face. “She has grown up.” Then he was gone.
Had I? Grown up? I didn’t feel like it. I felt like I was still seventeen—na?ve, overwhelmed, and pulled apart by someone I’d escaped years ago. Physically escaped, anyway. But here, in the present, in the flesh, he was still the magnet he’d always been, his tug on me as strong as ever.
And Weston, the man I’d thought could protect me from my sick attractions, was engaged?
“Okay,” I said, turning back from the doors that Donovan had closed behind him. I folded my arms across my chest and gave Weston the sternest glare I owned. “You better start fucking explaining.”
Weston took a deep breath in. “It’s going to sound like a story.”
“As all stories do.”
“But it’s not. I’m not making it up. You have to believe me.”
With Donovan out of the room, I no longer felt the need to pretend to tolerate the bullshit. “I can’t believe you if you don’t tell me.”
“Right, right.” He ran both his hands through his hair, leaving a mess that somehow made him look hotter.
This was the first time I’d looked at him since he’d walked in, actually. Really looked at him, anyway. He was wearing a navy blue suit that accentuated his eyes. His face was smooth, even this late, and I wondered if he’d shaved midday. He was devastatingly handsome. So easy to look at.
Funny how I’d forgotten when Donovan was in the room.
But I didn’t want to think about him. “Well?”
“Do you know who Elizabeth Dyson is?” Weston said, surprising me with his turn of conversation.
I decided to go with it. “The daughter of the media mogul?”
“Dell Dyson. That’s right.” Weston walked over to the counter and set his mostly finished drink down. “While it’s not their main focus, Dyson Media has an advertising subsidiary that is especially large in the European market.”
“I didn’t realize that.”
“They’re our biggest competitor overseas.”
It was both embarrassing and irritating that I didn’t know this. But I belonged here, dammit. I wasn’t letting this stupid little fact make me feel out of place.
I racked my brain to try to think of anything else I remembered about Dell Dyson or his company, hoping to prove myself. “Didn’t he die recently?”
Weston nodded, slowly returning to me. “Last year. Since his death—before it even—we’ve been looking to buy out the advertising portion of his company. Dell had shown some interest, but now that he’s dead, we have to purchase through Elizabeth.”
“Let me guess. She’s not interested.”
“No, she is.”