She let her gaze travel to the reason his office door had been locked in the middle of the day, the tall blonde dangling off his arm like a cheap handbag. Alex bit her lip when the familiar pain socked her in the chest.

Harden the hell up, Franco. What? You think he’s been a monk all these months?

The guy was rich and incredibly good-looking. He could screw whoever he liked, as often as he liked. And apparently during the day in his office wasn’t off-limits.

His gaze moved over her body, but his face gave nothing away. Her palms got sweaty again, and her heart started to pound harder.

“Well, this is a surprise. To what do I owe this rare pleasure?” She didn’t miss the hint of bitterness in his voice, because the bastard wasn’t trying to hide it.

The blonde hadn’t retracted her claws from his arm and looked Alex up and down like she was something the rodent-sized, froufrou dog she no doubt had at home had just dragged in.

“You know why I’m here, Deke. So cut the bullshit.” Gasps came from the receptionists, whose heads were so close together now they could pass as conjoined twins, and Deacon’s blonde narrowed her eyes like she wanted to scratch Alex’s eyes out of her head.

The blonde turned into him and smashed her impressive breasts into his side. “Who is this, Deacon? We’re supposed to be having lunch.” She batted what had to be false lashes and pouted her bee-stung pink lips like a blowup doll.

Alex snorted, couldn’t help herself. The woman was a walking, talking cliché.

Deacon tried to hide it, but she didn’t miss the way he tensed, or the way that muscle in his jaw jumped several times. He was clenching his teeth—he did that when he was annoyed, always had. She tried to shrug it off. So he was pissed she’d ruined his lunch date. Well, tough shit.

What did she expect? That the guy had woken up one day and boom, he was no longer a complete and utter asshole? That her feelings would have magically disappeared? If only life were that simple. Her feelings hadn’t diminished, not one tiny bit in all these years. She should have known better, should have left this for Piper or Rusty to sort out.

Deacon disentangled the woman from his arm and took a step back. “Apologies. We’ll have to make it another time, Candice.” And just like that he dismissed the handbag.

Candice’s lips thinned. “You have got to be kidding me?”

He pinned her with a look Alex had never seen before and thankfully had never been the recipient of. God, she almost felt sorry for her.

Almost.

“We’ll catch up another time.”

Blondie stared at him openmouthed for several seconds, then with a huff, flicked her long mane over her shoulder and flounced out of the office.

She noted Deacon didn’t watch his date leave, his gaze remained firmly pinned on her. He stepped back and held the door open for her without a word. When she hesitated, the pissed-off vibe he was already throwing ratcheted up a notch. “You’re here to see me, right?”

She didn’t bother answering and stomped forward, sliding past him into his office. Too late to back out now.

The room was big, fancy as hell, decked out with all the best crap money could buy. Massive windows covered half the wall space, giving him a spectacular view overlooking the city of Miami. He’d more than likely gazed out at that view while he banged the human Barbie over his desk. She forced those thoughts from her mind. Deacon’s sordid sex life was none of her business.

Crossing her arms, needing a barrier, no matter how flimsy, she turned to face him. It didn’t matter how many times she saw him like this, she still had a hard time reconciling this Deacon in his power suits and big office with the boy who’d helped out in his father’s garage to save for college.

She looked around, took it all in, and her belly clenched. He’d gotten everything he’d ever wanted. He was a self-made man, a success at only twenty-eight years old, just three years older than her. Too young to be so damn cynical.

God, she still mourned the boy he’d been, the one she’d fallen for when she was just fourteen. The boy she’d trailed after like a lost puppy. Unrequited love at its most pathetic. He’d been her knight in grease-stained coveralls, been there for her more times than she could count.

She didn’t know this Deacon, didn’t know if she wanted to.

“What the hell happened to you?” The words slipped past her lips before she could engage her brain.

His jaw hardened, and the muscle jumped again. “I could ask you the same thing.”

“Jesus. Forget it.” She’d been in the same room with him for less than a minute, and already they were bitching at each other.

His wide shoulders stiffened as he walked to his desk, then rested his ass on its surface. “Why are you here, Alex? I have work to do and now, thanks to you, I won’t get lunch.”

Ouch.

She ignored the coldness in his voice, the way his displeasure at seeing her made her want to crawl into the nearest hole and curl into the fetal position, and focused on her anger. She slammed the now rumpled letter on the desk beside him. “What the hell’s this?”

He glanced down but didn’t pick it up. His expression didn’t change, remained smooth and unaffected. “I own that building, which includes the garage and the apartment you live in upstairs. As your landlord, I’m only required to give you forty-eight hours’ notice to enter your apartment. You’re lucky I decided to be generous and give you two weeks before I brought the valuer in.”

She gritted her teeth. “Why the goddamned valuer, Deke? Are you selling the garage out from under us?”

He shrugged. “I’m thinking about it.”

Her stomach flipped; she hadn’t wanted to believe it. She curled her fingers into tight fists, fighting back the hurt and the feeling of betrayal. Fear settled in the pit of her stomach, heavy and cold. “How could you do that to your own sisters?” How could you do that to me? “Have you told Piper or Rusty you plan on selling our livelihood out from underneath us?”

“It’s time to stop playing shop, Alex. The sooner I get rid of that place, the sooner my sisters can move on with their lives.”

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “That garage is our lives. Me, Piper, and Rusty. It was a big part of yours once, too.”

He didn’t react.

So damn cold.

“You’re a good mechanic. You’ll find another job easy enough.”

“My God, Deacon. Do they remove your heart when you graduate business school?”

He laughed, the sound so bitter it chilled her to the bone. “I wish.”

Alex tried to think fast—she had to stop this. They couldn’t lose everything they’d worked so hard to build. “When your dad died, he left the business to us…he wanted—”

“But he left the building to me.”

“—to make sure your sisters always had security.” The bastard must love this, love making her beg. “Give us time to prove we can do this. We can make it work.”

The business had been a thriving one, but after Deacon’s dad died, they’d lost customers. Men who thought girls made crappy mechanics decided to take their business elsewhere. “We just need a bit more time to build a new client base.”

“Don’t you think you’ve had long enough? How long has it been? Since we buried Dad? Hmm, let me see, six months?” His voice was so emotionless it sent shivers down her spine.

He knew exactly how long it had been. Like he could forget the date of his father’s funeral. Her face heated, and she dropped her gaze from his, unable to hold it any longer.

Not when images best forgotten filled her mind. The way his powerful body had strained above hers, the sounds he’d made as he’d pounded into her, the look on his face right before he’d come, the way he’d trembled in her arms afterward.

The way he’d looked sleeping right before she crept out of his room without so much as a see you around. The worst part was, she’d wanted to stay—God, so much—but she’d already been there, done that. She knew what staying would have gotten her—another dose of heartache and humiliation. Something she actively tried to avoid.