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She raised her eyebrows at that. “You said he was difficult and driven, but an asshole when it came to women,” she recalled, frowning and looking aside as if scouring her memory. “And that he was a colossal dick who should have a lifetime restraining order filed against him. Or something like that.”
“Definitely something like that,” he agreed.
“And he stepped down to let you take over the company and mentored you—”
“That was the lie.”
Hartley blinked at him. “I don’t understand. You’d been running Meyer Communications for five years when I met you.”
“Five of the most hellish years of my life,” he said, his voice hard. He stretched out on the bed.
Hartley slid down until she was lying exactly the way he was, propped on her elbow, their bodies in opposite directions but curved toward each other.
“He stepped down, but he took upper management with him—paid them millions to quit, to be accurate. He told my suppliers I was initiating a secret, hostile takeover, scaring them away. Luckily, when he told the same story to our buyers, only a handful believed him. He came into the office—myoffice—every day to tell me I was a useless piece of shit and tanking the company. That’s the mentorship he offered.”
Hartley’s eyes widened. “What kind of father—”
“Exactly.Nokind of father. Not the kind you respect or have any relationship with,” he said. “But in our family, you don’t air dirty laundry like that. So I spun a story around his daily visits, telling my new managers he was mentoring me.”
“Jesus,” she whispered.
“Anyway, my point is, I know where you’re coming from. If you say something enough, you believe it.”
“If you’re telling me this now, does it mean you don’t believe it anymore?”
He turned the question over in his mind. What did he believe? “I guess my lies are part of the Montgomery Meyer myth now: challenged by business, coming out on top. Does anybody need to know the depths of my father would sink to for his own ego? No. Besides, telling the truth would just be a pity play.”
“Until now. You told me,” she noted, looking down at her hand as it lay splayed on the brocade quilt.
“Well,” he said with an ironic laugh. “We’re getting divorced. There’s no reason not to be truthful.”
That made her chuckle, and he was glad to see a spark come back to her eyes.
“We both had our armor on when we met, didn’t we?” She reached out to touch his empty ring finger. “I bet you didn’t let some psycho steal your ring.”
“It’s been in my wallet since…well, for a long time,” he said, turning his hand over to let her fingers rest in his palm. Ironic. Now that he was on the verge of sending her divorce papers, he felt closer to her than he ever had—emotionally close, which was something he’d never let himself be with anybody.
“Now that we’re splitting, it seems we’re finally getting along,” she said, echoing his thoughts. “That’s so us.”
“No, us would be me saying something and you jumping up and finding the heaviest thing in the room to throw at me,” he said, his fingers stroking her palm.
“I doubt that would happen,” she said, lowering her arm and resting on her side. “This whole Lucas thing has wiped out my emotions.”
He felt the slow, luscious pull of desire for her, her dark hair falling over her arm and around her neck. The dark pajamas silhouetted the roundness of her hip. Just looking at her stirred something within him. He shifted his legs to hide his growing erection, as well as the tiniest bit of shame at the lust invading this quiet moment.
“So you want to confront Lucas to prove you’re not a failure?” he asked, going back to the original topic.
She hesitated. “I need to confront Lucas because it would be the first genuine thing I’ve done—maybe ever. I never face things because running away works so well.”
Montgomery felt a pressure in his chest. “I get it,” he said softly.
“Yeah, but you run toward your problems,” she said. “And head butt them like a bull.”
He laughed. “I have fears I don’t face,” he countered.
“Like what? Name one,” she challenged.
He looked into her eyes, sparkling with an unfamiliar emotion. The air between them felt intimate, as if telling each other their secrets was a ritual as old as humankind.
