"Merina." His blood had gone from boiling to simmering, but his cock hadn't received the memo. If she didn't stop teasing him, he'd throw her down right here in the…Where the hell were they, anyway?
"You have two kitchens?"
"Apparently." He blinked around at the smaller kitchen area, which, of course, he knew he had. Then he tightened his hold on Merina's hand and dragged her with him, picking up the pace as her laughter echoed through another open, empty room.
The moment they passed a downstairs bedroom, the one overlooking the pool, he had his bearings. But those bearings had come with a memory of the last time he'd set foot in that room.
Five years ago…
"I'm not sleeping in the same house as you. You can fucking keep it!" Reese shouted as Gwyneth tossed her clothes from the closet to the bed. She was sobbing and part of him wanted to go to her. He refused. He was the one whose world had been torn to shreds. He was the one who had been betrayed. It was Gwyneth who chose to take their four years together and throw them into the incinerator.
"You're being unfair!" She pointed at him with a dress on a hanger.
"Me?" He stepped back into their shared bedroom, the one overlooking the pool because she liked to swim in the morning. "Hayes, Gwyneth?" His voice rose, but pain had eked into his tone. "You could have chosen anyone to fuck me over for, and you chose goddamn Hayes Lerner?"
Her lip trembled but he didn't let himself care what she was feeling. He couldn't. If he gave her an opening, she'd talk her way back into his life and he couldn't afford to be this wrong. Not ever again. Whatever she was going through paled in comparison to the earthquake now splitting his entire being in two.
"Anyone!" His voice cracked and he forced down a lump of misery. He would not let her see him wounded. He would come back from this. When he did, she and Hayes could fuck in public for all he cared. The problem was that right now, he did care.
Later that night, when he escaped to Crane Hotel and the uppermost suite on the same floor as his office, he realized the mistake that had been made was his.
He'd watched his father after his mother died. Watched him wall up and move forward. Alex's mind was on his business, his sights honed in on profits, numbers, and facts. Things that could be measured and quantified. Things that could be counted and delegated. Alex marched onward for a decade after losing Lunette, and in the process Reese had learned an invaluable lesson.
Women were not for keeps.
His mother's death had left all her boys unprepared. Scrambling. When fifteen-year-old Reese would have collapsed under the weight of grief, when Eli, just a year younger, would have beat the shit out of every kid in school for fun, and when Tag, at the tender age of eleven would have hidden from the world instead of cashing in on his big personality, Alex had stepped up and done what his family needed.
He'd soldiered on. They didn't call the man Big Crane for nothing. Yes, he was in charge, but it also took a big man to move past what would have put a lesser man in the grave alongside his wife.
Reese knew that lesson but temporarily forgot it over what amounted to a pair of great tits and a swish of strawberry hair. Gwyneth had made him forget his purpose. Forget his priorities. Heartbreak was his payment, and he'd earned every shattered piece. With it came the reinforcement of that long-ago learned lesson. Women weren't for keeps. Women didn't stay.
That night, he made a decision. Focus on building his future on something tangible, something that wouldn't go anywhere. Crane Hotels. Alex would retire in the next five or ten years and the board would be looking to appoint one of his sons the new CEO. Big shoes to fill, but Reese had big feet. He was going to be the one, and he wouldn't let a woman stand in his way.
Not ever again.
Merina's aerated laughter cut into his thoughts the moment Reese opened a door and ushered them into the foyer.
"Thank God," Merina said, dropping his hand. "I thought we'd end up in the garage next."
He turned and found her smiling, her shirt buttoned wrong, the edge of her tattoo peeking out. She was tempting and made him want to bury his bad memories in every inch of her smooth skin. To forget what had happened long ago and take the reprieve.
But his body had grown cold at the memory that had assaulted him, and he wouldn't be put in a position of explaining it to Merina.
Whiskey could be his bedmate tonight. It worked almost as well as sex to help him forget the past.
"You can find your way from here, I assume," he muttered, taking a step away from her.
"I can." She cocked her head inquisitively, sensing the change in him.
"Then do it." Moonbeams sliced across the foyer, and he backed from the light into the shadow of the kitchen.
Chapter 10
Reese never came to their shared bedroom last night, so when Merina woke in the morning, it was to a strange room in a strange bed by herself. Which was pretty much par for the course since her marriage. But last night was especially odd.
She'd gone from stripping for him, to accepting his kisses, to nearly having sex on a desk, to…nothing. She'd peeled back another layer of her husband in that moonlit office. Heat had sizzled between them as per their usual, but this time he'd been almost…dare she say it? Fun.
By the time he'd turned on her in the foyer, shooting her with a cold glare and snarling lip, she was completely confused. And the last thing she'd been willing to do was chase after him when he stomped into the kitchen. She'd instead watched his retreating figure wondering what had set him off.
Getting lost in the house had them laughing and bantering—it was more funny than frustrating, so she didn't think that was what turned him. After that near-kiss in the corridor, she'd expected him to haul her upstairs over his shoulder and have his wicked way with her. Instead, he'd clicked like a switch. All over her one minute and disinterested the next.
No, not disinterested. There had been something else freezing the air between them. Something he hadn't been willing to talk about. Something that had sent him running from her instead of to her.
She tried to tell herself she didn't care as she dressed for work. Tried to convince herself that whatever had happened between them, it was for the best that they hadn't acted on their desires. But the moment her heels clicked from the foyer to the kitchen, she'd gone from contemplative to enraged.