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Gabe crossed his arms over his chest and cursed himself. He’d been taken in by a pretty hustler who thought she could protect her cushy job by sleeping with the new boss. Perhaps she’d intended to get the same deal with him that she’d conned Mad into. At least he wouldn’t feel that guilt Connor had warned would hit him later. No. He was going to enjoy every moment of this.
“Miss Parker, please come in. Sit. I think we have a few things to talk about. Don’t you?”
• • •
How was it possible that her weekend fling was her new boss? Everly closed her eyes and shuffled inside.
She was fairly certain this was how Little Red Riding Hood felt when she’d been invited into her grandmother’s cottage that fateful day in the woods. My, what big teeth her personal big bad wolf had. Gabriel Bond wasn’t looking at her the way he had during the days they’d spent together. In fact, his cold, predatory stare now made her want to walk back out the door.
Luckily, she had too much pride to do that.
She forced herself to enter the office as if her heart wasn’t pounding in her chest and settle in the leather chair opposite the big, masculine desk. Why was he looking at her with such contempt, like she was a piece of trash? Everly hoped she was hallucinating that . . . but she didn’t think so.
Was he really that angry to discover his fling had come back to haunt him?
“Yes, we have a few matters we probably should have discussed before now.”
Everly prayed she looked calmer than she felt. She’d been hoping that she would see Gabriel again, but not as Maddox’s replacement and her new boss. This was definitely awkward. But he didn’t seem uncomfortable so much as angry.
Dread tightened her stomach.
“Thank you, Hilary. That will be all.” He nodded to the administrative assistant, who shut the door behind her. She would likely be on the phone to Jennifer in seconds. Despite being older than most of the assistants, she had been Maddox’s go-to girl for the gossip grapevine.
“Eve?” A single brow rose above his blue eyes, holding a wealth of accusation.
She didn’t pretend to misunderstand. Now that she was here, she’d deal with the situation and be as professional as possible. “It’s something my father and close friends call me. It was probably dumb to give you that name since most everyone else calls me Everly. But I noticed that your friends call you Gabe instead of Gabriel, yet that’s the name you gave me.”
“I use my names interchangeably and would have happily told you that my friends call me Gabe. Hell, you could have guessed that yourself. But how was I to get Everly out of Eve?”
He had a point, and she wasn’t being totally honest. “Sorry. The truth is I wanted to be someone else that night. Meeting you felt more like a fantasy than the terrible reality I found myself in. After that first night, it seemed easier to stick with Eve.”
“Interesting,” he said in a droll tone that belied his words. “I suppose the cause of your ‘terrible reality’ was the funeral?”
Maybe he understood a little. “Yes. It had been a hard week, losing a boss, a mentor . . . a friend. At the time, I had no idea that you were his friend, too. You didn’t mention him all weekend.”
One broad shoulder shrugged negligently. “That’s true. But I didn’t lie to you about my first name.”
She tried not to grimace. Gabe had to be under an enormous amount of strain, losing his best friend and having to assume control of Maddox’s company. Maybe under different circumstances he’d be more even-tempered. Then again, she didn’t know him well, so maybe not.
Everly smoothed down her skirt, needing something to do with her hands as she collected her thoughts. “I didn’t lie. Some people do call me Eve. My real name is somewhat unique, and that night I wanted to be anonymous. I was a little unsettled.”
“Ah, so obviously you didn’t give me your real number, then. Because if you were unsettled, I would understand you giving me a fake number to go with the fake name.” His fingers tapped the screen of his phone.
Her cell started to trill. She felt heat creep up her cheeks.
He switched his cell off. “You couldn’t have been too scared. You wanted me to call.”
“I was anxious when we first left the bar Friday night. By Monday morning, I thought I knew a little about you. I didn’t, though. Not really. In fact, I didn’t know a damn thing about you.” Tension forced her to sit tall in her seat, her shoulders back.
“You had no idea who I was?” He sounded unconvinced. His face looked even more skeptical.
“None. You were an attractive man in a bar who procured me a glass of wine and flirted. I was interested. We had sex.” Everly had explained her rationale and didn’t feel like defending herself anymore. “Did you really have any plans to call me again?”
He considered her a moment before sitting back in his chair. “No. I was being polite. Ninety-nine percent of weekend flings won’t call. You should know that by now.”
Even though she felt the lash of his anger, Everly refused to cry. She would stay calm and not show him how much his words had hurt. “Then it doesn’t matter if you knew my real name or not, does it, Gabe?”
“I’ve been going over Friday night in my head and I’ve come to a couple of conclusions.” His monotone voice held none of the sensual affection of their weekend together. “Perhaps you wanted anonymous sex with a stranger and that’s why you withheld the truth. Or maybe you thought I would recognize your name and not sleep with an employee.”
That was unfair. “Employee? So you’re our new CEO. That hasn’t been publicly announced yet, so how could I have known last Friday that you would soon be my boss? I didn’t even have a clue until I stepped in this room two minutes ago.”
“I’m not going to play this game with you, Eve. I mean, Everly. You’ll have to forgive me. I associate you with your hookup name.”
“Are you serious?” Pure indignation kept her from leaving the room. How dare he start this with her. “You don’t know me yet you’re accusing me of some premeditated seduction.”
He looked at her blandly, but his lack of denial might as well have been a silent agreement.
Everly’s fury frothed. “I read up on you yesterday, Mr. Bond. Trust me, I have nowhere near your experience. But then, men like you can get away with any kind of sexcapade. Women like me . . . I’ve had one single fling in my whole life, and I get called a whore.”
“Everyone wants to put that word in my mouth today. I didn’t call you a whore, but I find it interesting that you go right there. A whore is a woman who accepts money for her services. I didn’t pay you. Were you expecting something from me today, like the deal you had worked out with your last lover?” He shook his head. “If so, it wasn’t much of a negotiation since you already gave yourself away.”
Everly had no idea what he was talking about and she didn’t give a damn. That weekend, she’d wanted him and believed that he cared a little. And right now, she’d rather bite off her own tongue than admit that. “Why did you want to see me this morning? Clearly, you had no idea who I was until I came here.”
“But you knew exactly who I was. By your own admission, you looked me up.”
He was twisting her words. She decided it would be a bad idea to admit she’d been cur
ious about him. He would use that information against her somehow, she had no doubt. “After we spent the weekend together. After I was mobbed by reporters on my way out of the hotel and everyone in this office saw the news.”
“I felt a bit bad about that. Now I wonder if you didn’t call them yourself.”
“Why the hell would I call the press to print my own humiliation? Do you think that, as an employee of Crawford Industries, I want to be known for sleeping with the ‘bad boy of Wall Street’ and the new boss? I thought those days we spent together were special, but I guess I fell for your usual scam.” She leaned back, trying not to be angry at herself for being gullible. “I’m probably one of thousands.”
He stood suddenly, pushing off the chair, radiating a powerful vibe that seemed to take up all the space in the room. “I certainly wouldn’t call it thousands. The tabloids exaggerate. I’m certain I haven’t fucked my way out of the low hundreds yet but I can’t be sure. One loses count after a while. So let’s get to the heart of the matter. What exactly were you expecting to come from this plot of yours?”
He paced the office like an animal stalking its prey. Everly felt surrounded, watched.
