Page 20 of Whatever You Need

He rolled his sleeves up to his forearms. “Come on, Amelia.” He cocked his head to the side. “Are you trying to tell me that you’re not sleeping with anybody?”

Thoughts of Marco popped into my head, but I kept my face blank. “What you and I do behind closed doors is no one’s business. However, this”—I pointed to his lap—“is unacceptable. You need to be more careful.”

He loosened his tie from around his neck and walked over to the cart to pour himself a scotch. “Yes, wife.”

“Owen, be serious. We may not be engaged yet, but when the time comes, it will be easier to convince everyone that we are a real couple, if you don’t flaunt your whores around the office for everyone to see.”

He took a long swig of his drink. “I’m not staying celibate, Amelia. Not when I can still have a little fun.”

I fully expected him to sneak around and break every marriage vow there was once we were married. But we couldn’t risk him being so careless and open with his flings. This was the exact reason why his grandfather was so insistent that he needed to change his reputation. People would not want to do business with an unstable leader who could not be taken seriously.

“All I ask is that you please exercise some discretion.”

He raised his glass to me. “I’ll do my best.” He walked around his desk and relaxed back in his chair. “Can I ask you a question?” His tone completely changed. He went from sarcastic to serious.

I perched myself in my seat and ran my hands down the front of my skirt. “Of course.”

He leaned forward. “When did you start hating me?”

His question caught me off guard, so it took my brain a minute to catch up. “Why do you think I hate you?”

He stared back at me with an expression on his face that I couldn’t quite read. “Maybe hate was too strong of a word, but I can feel the resentment every time you look at me. You’re not very good at hiding it.”

While his observation wasn’t entirely true, it wasn’t completely false either.

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” I said, trying to dance around his assumption. “I’m just frustrated with this entire situation.”

He angled his head to the side. “Speaking of ‘the situation,’ we probably should clear a few things up.”

“Like what?” I turned my attention to the window. Could he sense that I was having second thoughts?

He tapped his fingers along his knee. “If you want this to work and for things to be believable, then you’re going to have to start acting like you at least like me.”

“I don’t think you need to worry about that. This company is way too important to me.” I did my best to reassure him, even though I had no idea how I was going to pull this off.

“See.” He pointed his finger at me. “That right there is the problem. You’re all business.” A smugness that I didn’t like darkened his eyes. “You weren’t always this uptight. What happened to you? When did you become so high-and-mighty?”

I stared at him for a long minute. Once upon a time, those blue eyes and handsome face had charmed me into thinking that I was special. Yet even back then, I never felt anything other than attraction to him. He acted like he knew me. As is if what we had in the past was something special.

I pushed to my feet. “I’m not playing this game with you. If you want to have an adult conversation then let’s have one, otherwise we are done here.”

Of course, in true Owen fashion, he ignored my request. “We were good together once.”

A bitter laugh flew from my mouth. “We most certainly were not.”

He flexed his jaw. “You need to let go of that animosity that you’re still carrying around from when I cheated on you. I think it’s time to let it go.”

Sometimes, I wondered how I ever saw him as anything other than the arrogant blockhead that he was. “You took me as your date to prom and hooked up with the head cheerleader and her best friend in the parking lot later that night.”

He rolled his eyes. “I was eighteen. Are you going to hold that against me forever?”

Owen would forever be a perpetual man-child. He will never take responsibility for anything. He will disappoint those closest to him at every turn. Sometimes on purpose. He didn’t put effort into anything, least of all his relationships.

My cheeks burned with frustration. “Some men go off to war at eighteen.”

It wasn’t just the prom incident. It was the boat incident where I caught him making out with Maggie Regan under the swim deck. Or the mall incident, where he snuck off to one of the fitting rooms with a sales associate at Victoria’s Secret while I was looking in the fragrance section. Or the best one, when I found our young student teacher walking out of the side door of his guesthouse.

“I am not going to apologize for being a hormonal teenager.”

---