What's Yours is Mine (29 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

In his dream, Will was snug against the delectable rear of a luscious woman; she was warm and firm and curved in all the right places.
 

In his dream, she wriggled against him, sending a rush of blood to his groin. He slid against her back, and she slid against him, so seductive, so heavenly.
 

In his waking dream, his erection slipped between her thighs. She was wet and responsive. He held her breasts in his palms as she closed her legs tight around him, guiding him in, and she was so tight, so hot, amazingly, deliciously welcoming.
 

In his dream, which was no dream, he rose to consciousness to find no guilt, no fear, nothing that said this was wrong. He drove into her with heart and power; she pushed back against him, enveloping him in her heat as she uttered breathy moans and tightened more around him, and just as he was sure he couldn’t stand more of this exquisite painful pleasure, she exploded around him. In her spasming aftershocks, he too felt that rise and tightening, and pulsed into her with total abandon. And then relaxed against her with a sigh, replete.
 

“Wow.” Her voice was ever so soft, a mere exhale.
 

He kissed the back of her neck. “I know.”

It was so much better this way. Better to stop fighting the intense desire. So deeply satisfying to give in, as long as he didn’t think about meaning and future and what the hell they were going to do now.

He fell back to sleep still inside her, that tenuous connection like a promise he couldn’t keep.

~*~

Darcy woke, for the second time, with a yawn and a stretch. Her hand brushed against a male body. A naked male body. Slumbering in bed with her. He mumbled, “Sleep,” and threw his arm across her, pinning her in place.

Oh, she was tempted. Stay in bed all day, make love until every part of her body was languorously sore, then sleep again. Forget the big looming
what now
question, forget Golden Organics, forget the condo ownership. Shut out the world.
 

Not smart. She sat up, slipping out from under Will’s muscular thigh, his tanned arm, away from those talented fingers now reaching out for her, lest she slide back into the seductive vortex of sexual pleasure that solved nothing, but in such a delightful way.

She trod on sweatpants and teddy and a piled mass of bathrobes on her way to the bathroom. Reminders of last night, of an interlude she’d always cherish, no matter what happened next.

By the time she got out of the bathroom, Will was dressed. He glanced at her, almost sheepish.
 

She went to her dresser and started pulling clothes out. “I figured it out. What you did with the money. You stole it, yes, but you didn’t keep it. You redistributed it. Gave it to Grant for his wife’s medical bills.”
 

“And a few other people. Anyone who was falling through the cracks of Golden Organics’ vaunted health-care package. I had signing privileges. I simply decided to use them one last time. A parting gift.” He continued calmly making the bed, as if this huge revelation was nothing.
 

“What do you mean, vaunted? The health plan is pretty good. I get to go to any doctor I want and—”

“Good for executives, sure. And it used to be good for the rest of us. Hasn’t been for a long time.” Will let the sheet billow over the expanse of the bed and settle in a smooth wave.
 

Darcy fastened her bra. “Did Stan know what you did?”

“He knew. I asked them all to write him letters, cc’d to the board, thanking him for the company’s generosity in their times of need.” He dropped a pillow on the bed, straightened it. Frown lines creased his forehead.
 

She grabbed the other pillow and settled it into place on her side of the bed. “That’s why he never prosecuted you. It would make him look bad.” She shook her head in wonderment. “That took some guts.”

Will lifted the comforter across the bed. Darcy moved to help. “I was leaving anyway. Your debacle of a toxic lotion saw to that. And the money earmarked for the project wasn’t going to be missed.”

Darcy dropped her end of the comforter in a heap. “
My
debacle? You still think that was me? After everything? After—after this?” She gestured toward the bed. Her stomach churned. He still believed she was corrupt. That she’d blithely do something to hurt other people just to get ahead. He didn’t know her at all. “Was it just sex for you? A release of tension before we go back to battling it out?”

“No, I…” He took the pillow from her, and she belatedly realized she’d been slamming it repeatedly on the covers. “I know you’re different now. I can see it. You’ve grown. You’d never do something like that anymore.”

“I never did anything like that then! But I’m wasting my breath, aren’t I? You don’t believe me and never will. I was starting to think—but you never gave me even a little bit of your heart, did you?”

She turned away, her vision blurring. Damn, now she was crying. She angrily brushed the tears off her cheeks. This was just wonderful. Just great.
 

She yanked her clothes on, buttoning the shirt with fumbling fingers, not caring if the buttons lined up with their buttonholes. Zipping up her jeans, she ran out of the room.

Will followed her down the hall, reaching for her. “Darcy, listen to me. It’s not like that. Maybe you did it, maybe you didn’t, but it doesn’t matter. I know who you are now, and that’s enough for me.”

She turned. “Not for me. If you can’t believe me, can’t trust me, what can we have together?”

His arm dropped to his side. “This isn’t a relationship. It was just one night.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

She raced through the living room and on out the door and didn’t look back. It didn’t matter. She could hear well enough. Will wasn’t following.
 

He wouldn’t let her off the hook, not ever. Wouldn’t even admit they might be starting a relationship. Just one night, he said, the night that was over. Hell with him. She still felt the chafe from their thorough lovemaking, felt the ghost of his post-intimacy kiss on the nape of her neck. But he wasn’t for her. Couldn’t allow himself to be with her. She was tainted, just like her lotion. No escape from that, not ever, not with him.
 

She ran across the courtyard, the pebbles rough under bare feet. As she inadvertently brushed against the huge bird of paradise, its frond-like leaves scraped her cheek. Unfriendly thing.
 

Somehow in the past five days, he’d become her moral center. To have him reject her as if she’d done this heinous thing, when she’d only been—

She’d been a patsy.
 

Her cell phone chimed, an incoming text. She stopped running and took her phone out of her pocket.
 

It was from Phillip. Her heart started pounding in triple time, the blood rushing to her head.
 

AquaSoap adulterated. Seven nondisclosed chems. Will email results.
 

Mathias hadn’t worked on AquaSoap. Neither had Johanna.

There was no personnel crossover between Slippery Elm and AquaSoap. It wasn’t even processed in the same factory.
 

There was only one person who could be responsible.
 

Oh God.
 

She started shuddering, as if from cold, but it was shock.
 

The answer was obvious. It had been obvious from the start, but she’d been too stubborn to admit it.
 

Stan. Beloved, avuncular, Haight Ashbury refugee, tie-dyed, goofy, long-braided gray-haired hippie Stan Golden with a business predicated on making luxury products with healing properties available for everyone. Hell, he’d distributed free tubes of his Vitamin E hand cream to rescue workers after 9/11 and again after the big Japanese earthquake.
 

Stan Golden. The guy who had started a little soap business after the Vietnam War with whimsical packaging and fun names that simply oozed integrity. The entrepreneur who had made money hand over fist without selling out.
 

Only he had sold out. Sold everyone out.
 

Stan wasn’t just her boss. Wasn’t just her godfather. He was her mentor. He’d taken her on when she was lost and looking for a direction after the stock market mayhem had nearly caused her to have a nervous breakdown. He’d let her off easily when her product had died a sudden death, only moving her to a new spot in the company, a temporary setback. Stan the Kind. Except now it seemed that he’d done that to protect his own ass. To cover up his misdeeds. He’d apparently let Will take the fall for the product failure, let her think of Will as the enemy, all to protect himself from scrutiny.
 

Somewhere in the past few minutes, she’d started to cry, deep, gulping sobs. Kneeling down on the hard ground, she dug her hands into the dirt in a planter box. It felt good under her fingers. Gritty. Real. Grounding.
 

She heard footsteps on the path behind her. She knew who it was without looking. “You didn’t have to come outside. I’m okay.” She’d sound more believable if she could only stop crying, silent tears that dripped down her face.
 

Will knelt down beside her, taking her hands in his, letting his hands, his beautiful hands, get messy with the grit and dirt. “I’m sorry I can’t be more for you. I would if I could.” His voice was deep with unshed tears.

She looked up at him. His face was a mask of pain. She reached up to touch his cheek. “It’s okay. We hated each other on Monday, remember?”

He laughed, and that was a kind of pain too. “I’m not—I didn’t grow up—it’s not easy…” Will, inarticulate?
 

Magically, her tears dried up. She stood up, brushing her jeans off and wiping her face dry with her sleeve. “Let’s go inside. I must look a wreck.”
 

He helped her rise. “Not a wreck. Beautiful.”

She punched him. “Liar. Bald-faced liar.” But she was happy, almost giddy. He’d come after her. He’d given her that much of his heart.

What would happen when she went in to work? She’d have to—

To what? Confront Stan? Or pretend she knew nothing and go on with her comfortable job, her rising career?
 

As she walked back across the paved path, hand in hand with Will Honesty-is-My-Middle-Name Dougherty, she thought about it. Imagined going into work, maybe after the weekend; she might as well have that idyllic interlude with Will. Surely he’d go for that much of a commitment. And then she’d kiss him good-bye, take her suitcases and her laptop case, and head up Pacific Coast Highway. She’d walk into the office, put her stuff down, go into Stan’s office, and give him a hug. He’d smile and tell her,
Thank Buddha you’ve come to your senses, girl, I was starting to worry Dougherty had corrupted you and we’d never get you back.
Then she’d sit down at her desk with a greasy donut and get to work, dealing with suppliers, with sales, with the production line, and never, ever look under the surface again.
 

Could she do that? Was she, in fact, the person Will had told her she was so many years ago (aka this past Monday)? Or was she ready to confront her smiling, warm, wonderful, deceitful boss?
 

Just before they got to the condo, her phone rang. Work calling. She flinched and let it keep ringing.
 

Will frowned at her. “Are you going to ignore that?”

“I was hoping I could.” But Darcy fished the phone out of her jeans pocket and thumbed it on. “Hello?”

“Darcy, my sweet.”

She felt a chill travel through her nerves at the sound of the cheerful tenor voice she knew so well. “Stan.”

“How do you feel about Frankfurt?”

“It’s a city. It’s in Germany. Do you need me to go? I wasn’t aware we had a vendor there.” It was surprisingly easy to slip into her normal repartee with him. Fake on both sides? No, part of him had to be genuine. Had to be.
 

Or was she all wrong? Maybe it was someone else in the company, pulling the strings. Ira, the CFO. Or Johanna. Or maybe it was bitter Mathias after all, though that was hard to believe.
 

“We have a problem.”

“You didn’t like the brochures?”
 

“They were fantastic. You’re a genius, my Rock of Gibraltar, my ace in the hole. But Johanna quit this morning. Via email, can you believe that? She says after she gets out of the hospital, she wants to go find herself in Italy and Tibet, just like in that book, what was it called?”

“
Eat, Pray, Love
, but didn’t she go to India, not Tibet?”

“Whatever.” She could practically see Stan wave his hand in the air, as if she were mentioning irrelevancies, even if he’d brought them up. Emotion threatened to choke her. His voice was so very familiar, so very comforting.
 

And yet. He’d lied to her about Will. About the Slippery Elm project. He’d lied.
 

But. Frankfurt.
 

He was asking her to go to the conference in Johanna’s place. To meet everyone in her senior vice president capacity. Not just store chains and distributors of all hues, but also all Golden Organics’ competitors. Everyone. This was a huge honor, and one she would have earned years ago if she hadn’t been demoted.

She glanced over at Will, who was busying himself in the kitchen, making some amazing-smelling breakfast concoction. Even if this one had twigs and leaves buried deep in its DNA, she’d probably love it. If he let her eat it, that was. Because if she went to Frankfurt, she’d be bailing on Will. She would, in effect, be choosing Stan. Knowing he wasn’t what he portrayed himself to be.
 

Did Will know about Stan?
 
He couldn’t.
 
He thought
she
was the triclosate culprit. He’d said so just minutes ago. But he also had no reason to trust the man who had tossed him out in what now looked like a cover-up.

Breakfast didn’t smell so appealing anymore.