Boardroom Sins. J. Margot Critch

his assistant to start the work. “By 9:00 a.m.,” he promised before looking up.

      Alex also had his phone out, clearly engaged in getting a takeover bid in order for Monday. He and Alex had worked together, known each other long enough to trust each other fully. All Alex needed was to know Brett thought it was a good idea, a good move for the business, and he was on board. Only Alana eyed him skeptically.

      “What?” he asked her.

      “What’s going on with you?”

      “Nothing. We’re just planning what’s next for the businesses.”

      “But it’s Rebecca,” Alana reminded him. “She was my friend in college, and I spent as much time with her as I did you. You guys have this weird history. I know how you are together.”

      “How we were together,” Brett corrected. “And Rebecca was nothing more than a hookup.” When she eyed him skeptically, he amended his statement. “A hookup nemesis?”

      “Who is this person?” Gabe asked, putting his phone back in his pocket. He hadn’t gone to the same college as they had, having attended Harvard Law, and he hadn’t heard the story. “Old girlfriend?”

      “No,” Brett said, definitive.

      “She was in our undergrad and MBA programs,” Alana explained. “She’s so smart and just as stubborn as Brett, so you know they zeroed in on each other. They rivaled each other to be top of the class in every course. They competed for the best grades and for awards, but despite all the fighting and scornful looks, they hooked up all the time. I don’t quite know how it happened, though.”

      Brett sighed. He knew that Alana and Rebecca had been friends, but he didn’t realize that she’d been privy to all of the dirty details. Well, not all of them, apparently—she didn’t know how it’d all started. One late night in the library before finals, they’d fought over the last private study room in the business library. But the fight hadn’t lasted long before they’d agreed to share it. It had been only a matter of time before he had her lying on the small table of a study room, with his palm over her mouth to keep her from screaming out into the silence of the library, visible to anyone who walked by through the small window in the door.

      From then on, they’d still challenged each other, in class and outside, but they couldn’t stop themselves from giving in to their desires and enjoying private moments in public and semipublic spaces around campus. And that had gone on throughout their MBA program until she’d gone off to New York. “It doesn’t matter how it happened.”

      “Okay, then how is she going to react when she sees the takeover bid on her desk on Monday morning?” Alana asked.

      Brett didn’t want to admit to his friends how much seeing her again had affected him, and how much his own reaction had surprised him. He had to fight the discombobulation that had come from being near her tonight, and even though he could still smell her on his fingers, taste her kiss on his lips, he’d immediately shifted back into business mode. Survival mode. When it came to work, he could overcome any feelings to focus on the business. He’d done it before, and he was goddamn sure he could do it again.

      But he smiled, trying to appear more confident in his resolve than he felt. “It doesn’t matter how she reacts,” he told her. “It’s business.”

       CHAPTER THREE

      YAWNING, REBECCA SAT back in her father’s—no, her—chair, and picked up the take-out paper cup that had contained four full shots of espresso only ten minutes ago. She’d taken a sip. It hadn’t been enough. She’d needed more, and she gulped it down, completely draining the cup. The fear that she may need to go back to the lobby café was real. The coffee had done nothing to keep her awake, and she didn’t think there was any amount of caffeine or makeup that would make her look or feel like a human being this morning. She hadn’t slept in two nights, not since Mayor Thompson’s party, and it was all Brett Collins’s fault.

      With a sigh, she dramatically threw her head back and swiveled around in her chair to face the back wall as she remembered how it felt to have him kiss her, touch her again. She’d gone five years not being with him. And she thought she’d rid herself of that ghost, but no. Just one word, one touch, one kiss, a mind-altering orgasm against Mayor Thompson’s terrace wall was enough to bring back the college-aged girl who had made a mistake... Hell, dozens—hundreds—of mistakes because of some weak, hormone-crazed moments during her academic career. Times when she’d hated the man in front of her, but she couldn’t help herself and had bent to his every desire, and bent him to hers.

      She touched her fingertips to her lips, and they still burned with the feel of his mouth on hers. She’d spent half a decade trying to banish him and his devilish hands and wicked kisses from her mind, and she thought she’d been successful. Yet there was no way to quell the feeling that she wanted nothing more than to take the night further. But part of her still held back. Pushing him away had been the right thing to do, even though her body had screamed at her to comply.

      She huffed out a frustrated breath. One moment of weakness had made it all come back at her like a backdraft in a fire. She burned for him, needed him, craved his lips, his fingers, the bulge of his cock that she’d felt pressed against her belly, as he held her close, his hands bringing her to a shattering orgasm. She gripped the arms of her leather chair and she clenched her thighs together. He’d been an amazing lover. They’d learned everything, experimented together, and she didn’t think she would survive being with him when he had five more years of experience literally under his belt.

      A knock on her door startled her, and she whipped around in her chair to face it.

      “Come in,” she called, not sure if her legs were sturdy enough to stand.

      Her assistant, Amy, walked into her office, holding a stack of envelopes. “I’ve got your mail here, and a courier just dropped this off.” she said, holding up an envelope.

      “Thanks so much,” she said, accepting it with a tired smile.

      “You doing okay, hon?”

      “I’m tired. I didn’t sleep well last night.”

      “Need some more coffee? I was just about to head down to get some for myself.”

      Rebecca smiled. “That’d be great. Thanks!” When she was alone in her office, Rebecca tackled the large stack of mail on her desk. There were some invites to corporate functions, some junk mail, but it was the envelope that had been couriered, which bore a return-address label for Collins/Fischer, that caught her attention. Using her letter opener, she sliced open the envelope.

      Her mouth dropped when she read the letter enclosed, and she knew that it had also gone out to the rest of the shareholders at Daniels International. It was a takeover bid. Brett was initiating a hostile takeover of her father’s company.

      Shock and rage made her fingers curl over the paper, crumpling the edges. She pushed away from her desk and stood. She couldn’t let Brett get away with what he wanted to do to her company, the one her father had worked his ass off to build. She’d told them that Daniels International was done playing games with him and Collins/Fischer. She slammed her fist down on her desk, unable to staunch the curse words that flowed past her lips.

      He’d been irritating her for weeks. Now she was angry.

      * * *

      Brett and Alex sat in Brett’s office on the top floor of the BH, the office building that was owned by The Brotherhood. Their mugs of coffee had long since cooled as the two of them discussed the next move in the takeover of Daniels International. They were pleased. Things had moved quickly already, and he had his amazing partners and their teams to thank for it. He and Alex had settled on a very generous offer for DI’s shareholders. They’d been willing to go far enough above market price so that the shareholders wouldn’t be able to refuse, and they’d already been contacted