For Her Son's Sake

“In what way?” he asked, shoving his hands through that thick hair of his, leaving it disheveled.

Her fingers actually tingled with the need to reach out and smooth his hair. God, she was a mess. She needed distance from Kell instead of more meetings.

“I’m just so aware of the consequences associated with risk now. I’ve become very cautious.”

He nodded and walked around the desk to lean a hip on the front of it. “To your detriment. Your hesitancy left Infinity Games vulnerable to me and my takeover.”

She chewed her lower lip as the truth of what he said sank in. Helio’s death had changed her, taken her to the edge and left her a hollow shell of who she used to be. These last few months when she’d been scrapping with Kell had been good for her but she was still scared.

“That’s the difficulty. I can’t live the way I used to and you’ve shaken things up and made me realize that I have to change. But an affair with you isn’t sensible. It would complicate things.”

“Who said it has to be an affair? I’d be happy with a one-night stand,” he said, wriggling his eyebrows at her and giving her a cocky grin.

“You said that about a kiss and it wasn’t enough,” she said carefully.

“That’s right. I did,” he said, crossing over to one of the guest chairs and sitting down on it. He leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees, and stared at the floor for a minute.

She was reminded again of how human he was beneath the corporate robot image that she’d had of him. He wasn’t an automaton. He was a guy trying to figure out life the same way she was. They’d both been screwed by their family legacy, the feud that could be put down to greed on one side and bitterness on the other. There had been no winners, even in their generation. Not unless you counted her sisters and his cousins.

“If I thought there was even half a chance we could be intimate and still work together, I think I’d go for it,” she said, but that was a lie. She knew it as soon as the words left her mouth. Kell made her feel again. And if she’d learned one thing from losing Helio, it was that she didn’t want to be that emotionally dependent on anyone again. Sammy and her sisters were the very limit of whom she could care about. Her sisters’ new babies were already making her feel uncomfortable because she worried about them. Like Hannah’s fever last week that had been so high for so long. Luckily they’d finally gotten it lower after a few hours in the hospital.

She’d been on the edge then. Worrying for her sister Jessi and for little Hannah...it had served to remind her of how fragile life was.

Fragile. Dammit, it was. Should she really give up a chance to be in Kell’s arms because it might not end well when she knew that no one was guaranteed a tomorrow?

There was a knock on the door, then it opened and Jessi walked in. “Sorry. I didn’t know you were in a meeting.”

“Come on in,” Kell said. “We have a task for you.”

Emma bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling as Jessi hesitated to come any further.

“What kind of task?”

“Focus group. That’s right up your alley, isn’t it?”