Page 13 of The Billionaire's Secret Heart

"I don't care about that," I protested. "And it's not like there's really anything going on. We only went out once."

"Did you see the paper this morning?" he asked, his voice expectant.

"No, why?"

"Let me see if I can find it," he said, taking his phone out of his pocket and tapping on the screen as he went on, "I never look at this crap, but my roommate's girlfriend loves the Style section, and she left it open this morning." He tapped a few more times, then held the phone up in front of me. "Here."

It was a picture of Holden, his arm around a gorgeous, very busty redhead, smiling down at her with clear affection. The date on the article was the day before. The headline said something about the Winters family and a charity event. I bit my lip, forcing back the stab of pain, and shrugged, pretending a nonchalance I didn't feel.

"We only went out once," I said, using every ounce of self-control I had to hide the nausea turning my stomach inside out. I barely heard Darren as he said,

"Well, you know who he is, right? He's got a different girlfriend every week. He and his cousin are huge players. My roommate's girlfriend couldn't shut up about it. I guess she knows someone who dated him and said he's amazing in bed, but an asshole otherwise. You're better off without him."

"I guess," I said, shrugging again. I would have bet everything that Holden wasn't an asshole. Maybe there was another explanation for the picture. I wasn't going to condemn him based on a picture in the paper. That would be foolish. If he called, I'd let him tell me about the redhead.

If he called.

With each hour that passed, Holden calling was looking less and less likely.

I followed Darren to the lab, ignoring him talking about Holden and his cousin, nodding along like I was listening. I didn't have the energy to tell him to shut up. I was afraid that if I opened my mouth to object to everything he was saying, I would start to cry. I was not going to cry in the middle of lab. I could at least wait until I got home and crawled into bed with a sappy movie and some ice cream.

I headed straight for my workstation and went back to poring over the code I'd written, trying to isolate the bug, while Darren and Angie worked on tweaking the glasses. When Darren asked to use my phone for a test, I handed it over, saying only, "Use the newest version of the app. I updated it when I got here."

I wasn't paying too much attention to what they were doing until I heard Angie shout, "You got it! You got it!" Tearing my eyes from the lines of code on my screen, I watched as my phone connected to the glasses with a wire and began to vibrate in a pattern when Angie turned the glasses until they faced an obstacle. I hadn't found the problem with the Bluetooth, and we were nowhere close to working out the patterns for different obstacles, but the spatial field recognition was working.

Mesmerized by the sight of months of work coming to fruition, I almost forgot my recent heartbreak. Almost. Beneath my excitement every time the phone buzzed, that hollow place in my chest echoed at me, reminding me that I'd lost something I didn't even know I wanted.

I stayed later than the rest of the team, ducking their attempts to get me to join them for a drink. We had a lot to celebrate, but I wasn't in the mood. I spent another hour squinting at the screen until my head was pounding before I gave up and dragged myself home. As much as I loved her, I was grateful Emily wouldn't be there. She had her weekly gaming meet with her team, the one night of the week they put aside their projects and played together. I knew she wouldn't be home until well after I was asleep.

My head throbbed each time my feet hit the pavement. By the time I opened my apartment door, all I wanted was to close my eyes. I dropped my phone and bag in the kitchen and headed straight for bed, peeling off my clothes once I shut my door behind me. As soon as I was down to my t-shirt, I crawled between the covers and let my eyes shut, willing myself to sleep.

Sleep didn't come. Instead, now that I was away from curious eyes, the hollow place in my chest expanded to my stomach, leaving me feeling as if all the happiness had been sucked out of me. Stupidly, I didn't care about our triumph in the lab. Alone in my bed, I longed for Holden with an intensity that was absurd, considering how little time we'd spent together.

Funny, you'd think it would be the orgasms that would be on my mind. I'd never had sex like that, and I probably never would again. Holden had known my body better than I did, and he'd made every part of me sing for him.

But I didn't miss the sex. Well, I did, but it wasn't what made hot tears seep from beneath my closed eyelids. No, that came from remembering the way his fingertips had traced over my back as we'd lain together in his bed. The way he smelled, woodsy and male. The way he'd understood my problems at the lab and commiserated without trying to solve them for me. The way, aside from my mentioning his family, we'd fit so well together. He'd managed to push every sexual boundary I had, yet make me completely comfortable otherwise.

When I'd left his bed Monday morning, it had never occurred to me that he would blow me off. I was tempted to think there was some comical misunderstanding going on, but he had my number and knew where I lived. Even if that picture of him with the redhead was a mistake, I'd left him a message two days before and he'd never called back. He didn't have amnesia, and if he'd been in some horrible accident, I would have known. It would have been all over theAtlanta Journal-Constitution. I was going to have to face facts. Holden had gotten what he wanted from me. We were over. He wasn't going to call.

As that depressing knowledge sunk in, I began to sob in earnest. Curled up in my quilt, I cried myself to sleep, hoping I'd be able to wash Holden out of my heart with my tears. I had a terrible feeling it wasn't going to be that easy.

CHAPTER EIGHT

HOLDEN

Isat at my desk in the back office at Mana, scowling at the accounting program on my screen. Neither of us really enjoyed accounting. Normally our club manager handled the books, but he was on vacation and I was in such a foul mood, Tate had banished me from the club.

He may have had a point. I'd been at the bar, waiting for a beer, and had shot down a co-ed so hard, she'd gone back to her friends in tears. Maybe I'd been a little harsh, but her bleached hair had reminded me of the sunlit streaks in Josephine's dirty blonde. Beside the memory of Josephine, the co-ed had looked like a plastic doll in her short, low-cut dress, her fake boobs and fake hair all shouting, "Look at me!"

When she'd put her hand on my crotch and called me by name, I'd told her to get her hands off my cock and go slut it up somewhere else. Not the most gentlemanly response I could have given, I know. The co-ed had burst into loud sobs, running off with an exaggerated flounce that had almost tossed her tits out of her dress. Tate, standing at the other end of the bar, had grabbed my beer from the bartender, shoved it into my hand, and said, "Go back in the office before you scare away any more paying customers."

I was too pissed off to argue. I tried to tell myself I didn't know what was wrong with me, but that was a lie. I knew exactly what was wrong. Fucking Josephine. Or, more accurately, not fucking Josephine. She'd left my bed Monday morning, and that was the last I'd seen of her. Four days with no Josephine. I'd called her Monday night, and she'd called me back, leaving a halting message asking me to call her. That was the last I'd heard from her.

The mess at work that had kept me busy all day Monday had gotten worse by Tuesday. I'd been stuck in conferences until Tuesday night and had gone straight home to pass out. I didn't get clear of it until Wednesday afternoon. Since then, I'd called her five times. Nothing. I'd texted her. Nothing. I knew the crisis at WGC had delayed my call long enough that she would be pissed, but I'd more than made up for it since. I'd left messages asking her to call. Five of them. It was more than clear that she was done with me.

Fuck her. At the thought, I groaned, putting my head down on my desk. I wanted to. I really did. If only it were as simple as a fuck. I didn't need Josephine to get off. The problem was, I wanted her for so much more than that. I remembered the co-ed at the bar and glared at my computer.

Most of the women I met were like her, thinking because my family was rich and prominent, they could lead me around by my dick. The women who pursued my older brothers and cousins were subtler, better at the game. Tate and I got the young ones, the stupid college girls who thought a tight body and a willingness to fuck were all that it took.