Today his sister’s castigation got under his skin. Maybe because he was already so angry—he would still be with Natalie if not for her revelation, and company regulations could go to hell.
“I suggest you draft a new policy,” he stated with a patronizing smile. “One that spells out exactly when it’s appropriate to dally with employees. Because right now it appears to be a gray area.”
“First of all, Theo offered me his resignation,” she said testily, counting on a finger. “Even though, technically, Jaya was no longer working for us when they got together.”
“About twenty minutes technical, from what I gather, but okay. I’ll resign. Are you done?” Demitri said, dead serious, but she ignored his offer and touched a second finger.
“And he married her. Are you in love, Demitri?” she scoffed with cold disparagement. “Are you settling down to have a family?”
A hard fist clenched around his chest, suffocating his lungs and squeezing his heart so it pounded hard enough to hurt. No, he wasn’t in love. What kind of emotion was that anyway? It was something that had kept their mother with a man who used her attachment to torture the bunch of them. Natalie was far too sweet and special to abuse with such a vile thing as love.
As for family, it was nothing but obligation and politics and bad memories swept under a rug. Did Adara not remember where they’d come from? Family was the reason he was the black-sheep clown that drew attention so it didn’t land on her and Theo.
Resentment came up in a rush, gathering strength from her scorn. Did she think he had never wished he could be good like them? All those stupid, asinine, outrageous things he’d done over the years had been for her—trying to protect the two of them. If he had to spell it out for her, fine.
“You know what it was?” he challenged, lying, but wanting her to see for once that he was loyal to the family in his own way. In the only way he could be. “I was keeping another opportunist from trying to poach your husband. I took one for the team, okay? If you want to fire me for that, go for it.”
Adara went chalk white. He realized immediately that he’d screwed up, hitting her where she felt most vulnerable.
Remorse arrived like a westbound train, but before he had a chance to backtrack, the door he’d started to open pushed into him, knocking him into taking a step forward, clipping his shoulder hard enough to make him swear.
“What the hell—”
Natalie.
She confronted him with such horrified hurt that his guts turned to water. Her expression was shattered, her lips white and parted in disbelief, plunging him into a bath of emotion far worse than remorse. He wanted to slink away in utter disgrace.
“Really?” she demanded.
He opened his mouth, distantly aware of his sister taking in a shocked breath.
His brain rapid fired with reactions, all of them too revealing. Adara would realize how much Natalie had come to mean to him, and it was too much to let anyone see. Even Natalie, because she was shaking in a tremble of shock and rage, skimming him with a contemptuous gaze, as though filth coated him, filling her with repugnance.
He couldn’t let her see how much that hurt.
“That’s all it was?” she spat with loathing. “Even though I told you—”
“No,” he protested, reaching for her arm.
Natalie knocked his hand away, adrenaline making her instincts fast and violent. She wanted to hit him. Punch and kick. She really did. Her heart was racing, her entire body hot, her ears ringing, her muscles twitching in aggression. She was sure that he’d believed her when she’d denied having planned to seduce Gideon.
“I told you I didn’t expect anything except...” A good memory. So much for that.
She couldn’t continue. Her face crumpled. Her control unraveled.
She shouldn’t have walked down here thinking she could explain. She shouldn’t have stood outside the door eavesdropping, hoping to hear he did love her.
Quite the opposite. He had complete disdain for her. He thought she was some kind of husband stealer and had only slept with her out of familial obligation. That put her somewhere lower than a pity—
She ducked her head, nausea climbing as reaction settled in.
She turned and left. Bolted from his call of her name and the equally sharp cut of Adara’s voice. She dived into the first ladies’ room she saw, eyes burning with tears she couldn’t hold back.
She was such an idiot.
And now she’d lost her job. She was sure of it. They weren’t going to fire him. The affair had been consensual. In its best light it looked as if she’d been trying to climb the corporate ladder. At its worst, Adara would believe her marriage had been threatened.
Fighting back tears, Natalie reached for a hand towel, but couldn’t look herself in the eye to dab at her makeup. Her face ached with the effort of holding back a flood of emotion.
Men. Why hadn’t she learned her lesson from her father, who’d left, and Heath, who hadn’t really been there? Had she really expected Demitri to show up for anything but what she’d been putting out?
Heels clipped toward the door, and she swiftly stepped into a stall. The main door opened and Natalie heard a woman enter. The door whispered closed and a lock was turned. There was a sniff and a rustle while Natalie held her breath.
Through the crack in the door, she saw Adara dialing her mobile. She spied her own handbag sitting next to the sink. Damn it, why hadn’t she grabbed it? This was a nightmare.
“It’s me,” Adara’s tear-strained voice said.
Natalie opened her mouth, not sure what to say, but Adara continued.
“I should have told you why I had to come to Lyon. I think I just fired Demitri. Or he quit. I’m not sure.” Another sniff, then an impassioned “No, it’s not okay, Gideon! I feel awful.”
Natalie let her head drop into her hand, wondering if this could possibly get worse. She didn’t want to listen to this!
“Do you remember Natalie from the Canadian...? Yes? Demitri has been seeing her and— Oh, hell. I have to go. No, I’m fine,” she added quickly, voice steadying. “But Natalie is in here. I can see your purse, Natalie,” Adara said, making Natalie wince behind her hand and stay exactly where she was. Beyond the stall, Adara continued to her husband, “I’m fine, Gideon, honestly. Just upset. But I have to talk to Natalie. I’ll call you back in a few minutes.”
An expectant silence manifested.
Feeling cheap and pathetic, Natalie pulled the creaking door inward and exposed herself. “I swear to you I did not have designs on your husband. I would never, ever go after a married man.”
Adara’s mouth pinched. Her eyes were red and her makeup threatening to run, but she was still incredibly beautiful in her quiet and conservative way. Long dark hair, clear olive skin. She was class personified, and Natalie felt incredibly cheap being in the same room with her.
Adara pulled open a drawer and took out a makeup bag along with a white facecloth. Her reflection smoothed to neutral, yet remained distantly defensive.
“Demitri said it to hurt me. He wanted to hurt me, which is why it did. He does a lot of infuriating things, but he doesn’t usually set out to wound. Lately, though, everything he does seems to be an effort to push Theo and me away.” She wet the facecloth and wrung it out. Her glance came up to meet Natalie’s. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I’m upset.” She held out the cloth to Natalie.
It seemed too nice a gesture, especially on the heels of such an insult. Adara was suggesting that if it hadn’t been Natalie, Demitri would have taken up with a different employee just to alienate his siblings.
She really didn’t want to think he was that childish or that mean.
She’d like to think Adara was only saying it to spite her, because she was angry, but Adara wasn’t angry. She was watching Natalie with a pleading gaze, her expression so sympathetic it could only mean she pitied Natalie for becoming a weapon in a family feud.
Natalie came forward to accept the cloth, more to hide her face than dab at her ruined makeup. Adara pulled a second from the drawer and worked on her own, making Natalie feel even more foolish as they repaired themselves in thick silence.
“I don’t...” Adara began, then tsked as her phone chimed with a request to connect. “Not yet, Gideon,” she muttered, adding with a sober look toward Natalie, “He worries. Especially when it’s family stuff.”
After a brief bit of typing, which Natalie assumed was a text to her husband, Adara set down her phone and gave Natalie an apologetic look. “My business head is telling me to record this and say as little as possible, but I can’t do that. Natalie, I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Natalie asked, askance. “I knew what I was getting into.”
“I highly doubt that.” Adara offered a tight smile.
Natalie had to look away. Adara was right. She had thought that at the very least their fling was based on mutual attraction and desire. Instead... Humiliation ached through her and would for a long while.