eyes; a strong, straight nose; square teeth in a mouth that at the moment was thin-lipped and tight, but that she knew could be warm and clever; a nicely shaped chin in a square jaw that matched the line of his broad, square shoulders.
He was very tall and very fit, and if she stepped up to him her cheek would rest against his chin.
But he’d hate that right now, and she’d had all the rejection she could stand for a while. That she’d applied for and charmed her way into this job meant she was willing to open herself up to rejection again—but not this minute.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Killian demanded as he took several steps into the room. He wore one of the dozen Armani suits that filled his wardrobe, this one gray and quietly elegant.
She pretended surprise at the question and held up the steamer nozzle. “Working,” she replied. “You require that of employees, as I recall.”
He yanked the nozzle out of her hand and leaned down to turn off the machine before draping the hose over it. When he straightened, the last puff of steam lingered between them like mist in the last scene of a love story. But she guessed their story wasn’t going to have a happy ending. At least not yet.
“I don’t want you working for me,” he said, folding his arms as he frowned down at her. “I can’t believe you had the nerve to do this.”
She, too, folded her arms, and regarded him with the same disdain he focused on her. “Well, you should have thought of that before you hired me.”
“I didn’t! A new employee who didn’t know we’d been involved hired you.”
She arched an eyebrow, proud of her cool demeanor. “Involved? We were married, Killian. That goes a step further than involvement.”
He leaned his weight on one hip and mimicked her raised eyebrow. “Really. But not far enough to prevent you from sleeping with another man while you were supposed to be on a business trip. And not just any man, but a lifelong business rival.”
She struggled for an even tone. This was the point where she could lose it. “I didn’t sleep with him.”
“You were in bed and he was leaning over you. You have a history.”
“I told you…”
“That he’d let himself in. I remember. But you were in his room.”
“I explained that, as well.”
“Yes. Your room didn’t lock and his did. You’d returned from a late dinner with others who’d come to Paris for the show, and you couldn’t make the desk clerk understand the problem. So Brian switched rooms with you. That’s lame enough to sound like damning evidence to me.”
She drew a breath, prepared to advance the plan to save her marriage. Getting down and dirty. “That’s because you want to believe the worst of me,” she said, inclining her upper body toward his to make her point. “You were happy with me, Killian, and on some level I don’t understand and you probably don’t, either, happy doesn’t work for you. You’ve chosen against it. You work night and day and offer up on the altar of your sister’s disappearance whatever part of you might once have been fun.”
He took a step toward her, his eyes darkening. “Don’t speculate on what you don’t understand,” he threatened.
“Then tell me about it so I do understand!” she pleaded. “Explain to me what the kidnap of little Abigail did to you. Let me close enough to help you!”
“I don’t need you to do that,” he said with alarming sincerity. “You’re always trying to root around inside me and clean things up with your terminal good cheer. Well, you were like a…an aberration for me! I’m attracted to serious, stable women, not impulsive ingenues who laugh and party all the time as though life were just one big high.”
Hearing herself described as an aberration hurt, but she stood her ground and swallowed the pain. “You fell in love with me,” she said unequivocally.
He denied that with a shake of his head. “At a difficult period in my life, I fell in love with the idea of escaping through you.”
She scoffed at that notion inelegantly by blowing air between her lips. “Escaping it, my aunt Fanny! You thrive on the crunch, Abbott! You love facing down the enemy and making him flinch. The November Corporation is never going to launch a successful takeover and you know it. Abbott Mills is too strong. Brian probably set up that whole hotel-room scenario to rattle you, and you fell for it because you wanted a reason to send me away. I was helping you forget business once in a while and that terrified you because it meant you had to be a real human being instead of a hard drive, a digital modem and a collection of sophisticated circuitry.”
Apparently unimpressed with her assessment of his personal makeup, he put a hand to his chest and asked calmly, “Well, if you’re so offended by this machine, why did you apply for and accept a job here?”
“Because while I am offended by what you’ve turned yourself into,” she replied candidly, “I know the man you really are inside. And I want that man back.”
He stared at her for a moment in silent disbelief. Then his gaze hardened. “I’m divorcing you,” he said finally.
“I have to sign the papers,” she reminded him.
He accepted that with a nod. “If you refuse, that won’t hold it up forever. Eventually, the divorce will be allowed, and that’ll be that.”
“Yes,” she admitted. “But until that happens, I can live in hope that you’ll wake up one morning and remember what life was like when you let yourself be happy. What it was like when we were together.”
Clearly surprised and angered by her stand, he opened his mouth to offer an argument, then seemed to change his mind. He turned and stalked away.
KILLIAN HEARD Cordie following him as he headed for the elevators. She ran around in front of him and walked backward as he kept going.
“Am I fired?” she asked. “You didn’t say. Because I have scores of appointments with suppliers over the next few weeks and several critical shows scheduled for—”
Yes! he wanted to shout as she went on. But that little union troublemaker, Hunter, was pretending to sort through a rack of shorts while clearly tipping an ear in their direction. He didn’t need November to hear rumblings among the employees of an unfair firing.
Jack’s Soprano interpretation of termination would have been simpler than this, he acknowledged to himself grimly.
“No,” he replied, pushing the Down button. “But I’ll be going over your performance with a microscope. And I’ll take advantage of the first excuse I can find to fire you.” The elevator bell dinged and the doors parted. He stepped onto the car and turned to her with an air of dismissal. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going down.”
She looked into his eyes with a gleam in hers as the doors began to close. “Yes,” she said. “You are.”
Chapter Two
In the back seat of a Lincoln limousine, Killian took one last
