Everything But Perfect (15 page)

Days later, she found an
apartment—a crummy one, but usable space in which to drown her troubles in.
Mitch sent her a check for the required allowance. She sent it back.

If he didn’t want anything to do
with her, she certainly was not keeping the money.

Ribbons was his. Carelessly
blinded by need, and unable to see clearly, her eyes were now open.

Regrettable as it was, he’d made
her see love wasn’t a commodity, but a need. He didn’t love her. If he had, he
wouldn’t have thrown her away.

****

Two months later…

“Got a minute?” Carl Dorn asked
from the doorway.

Raising her gaze, her reading
glasses slipping down her nose, she said, “No. Why?”

The past two months were a blur
to her. She barely had time to think, let alone think about what she had to
lose to get to this point.

“Well, this can’t wait. Come with
me,” Carl said. He withdrew from the doorway expecting her to follow.

“What’s so bloody damn
important?” she asked. Carl was already opening the door for the tagging
department in the University.

“You’ll see.” He held the door
open with a smile on his face.

Intrigued, she stepped through.
“Carl Dorn, I have tons of work to do today. This had better not be one of your
practical jokes.”

“Hush, and just follow me,” he
said.

They moved past the walls of
drawers labeled with their latest discoveries. Four years of dedicated research
and painstaking effort, mixed with sweat and tears, all categorized and
preserved.

“Here.” He handed her a paper
mask and nitrile gloves.

Cheyanne donned them quickly, her
heart starting to flutter. Carl was being strange, and that meant only one
thing.

He opened a drawer and said,
“Tell me this isn’t what you have been waiting your whole life for.”

“Is it…Oh, God! It is, right?”
She reached for pick and brush already in his hand. “Where was this found?”

She studied every angle of the
ancient tool, her question coming from years of wanting to know.

“Fred and Angel found it
yesterday afternoon. They rushed it here, knowing you’d want to see it.”

Cheyanne stood up and smiled, the
first time in two months. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” he sighed heavily. “We’re
heading out first thing in the morning to Borneo.”

“Why so glum, Mr. Dorn?”

“Because, I’m now in the position
of being stuck with the three of you again, for God knows how many years…” He
trailed off, his smile as big as hers was.

“Oh, you love it, and you know
it.”

“Yes, I love it. Dirt, dinosaur
poo…what’s not to love?” he said, rolling his eyes.

She stood, handed him the pick
and brush, and said, “Exactly. What’s not to love about dirt and dino poo?”

“A lot. Then again, we do tend to
do things not good for us,” he suddenly said, causing Cheyanne an inward
flinch.

She ignored the fluttering in her
heart. She had to if wanting to stay sane. A find like this…well, it took away
the pain of what she lost two months ago.

Chapter Fifteen

Mitch held his glass to his lips,
looking over the rim. The seductive blonde-haired woman seated across from him
wasn’t turning his crank. Her soft blue eyes were trying to draw him in, but
all he saw behind her lowered lashes was someone other than Cheyanne.

It had taken him weeks to allow
anyone close enough to him. Georgiana was the first to prowl, followed by a
string of others. Some outright asked if he was a married man, his wedding ring
still on, and some didn’t care one way or the other. They wanted the night,
whatever they could get from it, and each went home unsuccessful.

He’d made a few enemies over the
last two months, all of them female.

Such was life.

The Ribbons Corporation was his,
unchallenged. Regina called off the wedding to Jessup. Apparently, the wife of
a pauper hadn’t suited her needs. Last Mitch heard, she’d found someone else,
someone twenty years her senior. If she could stomach that, more power to her.

Joe contacted him only once. The
day after he’d thrown Cheyanne out of his life, Joe called to grovel at his
feet. If word got out the marriage was a lie, the Feds. would start
investigating the takeover. Mitch assured Joe nothing would find the light of
day.

The allowance check he sent Cheyanne
came back to him, unopened. Her one stand against him to how much he’d hurt
her. She needed the money, but she was too proud to take it. Then again, her
not cashing the check could have meant she wanted nothing to do with him. He
never considered this windfall from tossing her away.

After two long months, he could
not get her out of his head. Her eyes were everywhere. Her scent lingered in
his brain.

“Mitch?” the woman asked,
apparently twice.

Jesus! He could not remember her
name at the moment. What was wrong with him?

“Hmm?” He picked up his glass and
downed the contents.

“I said, are you ready to leave?”

“Sure thing, doll.” He stood,
drew back her chair, and when she set her fingernails against his skin, he
flinched.

“We’re going to have to cut the
night short,” he said bluntly.

She turned and her smile fell.
“But the night is still young,” she whined.

“The night may be…but I’m not.
Some of us have to work.”

“I don’t,” she giggled. “That’s
what I have you for…and a little trust fund I get when I turn twenty-one.”

“
When
you turn twenty-one?”
he balked, choking on air.

“Yes, silly. I’m only nineteen.”

Holy crap!

Mitch felt the noose tightening
around his neck. Heath set him up with a nineteen-year-old? Holy crap.

“Um…then it’s well past your
bedtime.” He quickly escorted her to the door, hoping no one he knew saw him
with a nineteen-year-old, hanging on his arm.

“I know, and I can’t wait,” she
said, lowering her eyes.

Mitch stood tall, manning up.
“But it’s not with me.”

“Why not? You and I would be
great together.”

He tried not to hurt her
feelings, but when she latched onto his arm, he could not help it. “I’m
married.”

“What?” Her eyes widened. “Heath
didn’t say you were married.”

“I am.”

“Then where is your wife?”

For a dumb blonde, she certainly
asked the hard questions.

Where was his wife? Mitch didn’t
know. He’d kicked her out of his life, regretting it the instant it happened.
He could barely work; he hadn’t a decent night’s sleep in two months. Hell,
without her, he was falling apart.

He’d been normal…until marrying
the vixen.

The divorce papers were on his
desk, mocking him, and adultery wasn’t something he took lightly. He would take
a woman to dinner, make conversation, but that was all he did.

Another unhappy, desperate woman
wanting to sink her claws into the powerful, rich Mitch Lavede, yet again, the
dagger of rejection came his way. He sent blondie home to her nanny, went to
bed, and suffered through another sleepless night.

The following morning, newspaper
in hand, he stepped out onto the patio to eat breakfast. He had a merger
waiting approval, a stack of unfinished business piling up on his desk, and a
waiting limo downstairs to take him to New Mexico, another building project to
oversee. His eyes suddenly glued to the front-page headline.

‘University Sending Hotshot Team
to Borneo’.

Mitch carefully folded the
newspaper, setting it aside his cup of coffee.

She would be going. Only one
Hotshot
Team
the University had, Cheyanne was part of it. He hadn’t gotten to where
he was today without knowing she’d go back to the arms of her lover—if she hadn’t
done so already.

Sooner, or later, she’d come
crawling back to him, begging for the divorce. He’d buy his time until that
moment happens. Once it did, perhaps then he’d be able to take another to his
bed.

****

“You can’t be serious?” Angel
asked.

Cheyanne turned to her best
friend. Angel’s face, covered in dirt, looked ready to kill her.

“I have to. I don’t see any other
way,” she said, near pleading for him to see her point of view. “If I don’t go
back, it’ll never be over.”

“Wasn’t it over the moment he
tossed you out of his life?” Angel turned away. “Can’t you just send them back
to him, signed?”

They were on a highly profitable
sight. No one in their right mind would leave it, just to go back to New York
to sign crummy divorce papers.

“It’s not as if he cares one way
or the other,” Angel added, tossing dirt through the sieve.

Cheyanne emptied the container
beneath the sieve, ignoring his fury.

“God, Cheyanne,” Angel continued.
“He didn’t even give you the decency to get it over with while still in New
York. What makes you think he’ll cooperate now?”

She stood and looked at him. “It
was something Sara said,” she started.

“So, you’re going to drop
everything over something Sara said?”

“Would you stop being so
hostile?” She turned, glancing at his profile. She’d never seen Angel this mad.
He’d been this way ever since the papers arrived: snippy, edgy, biting off
heads.

“I’m not being hostile,” he
argued.

“Yes, you are. So please stop
doing it. It’s not helping.”

Angel stood, glaring at her. “I
don’t want to be helpful. I want you to tell him to go to Hell.”

“I did. Once. And now look at
me,” she said.

His glare softened. “I have been
looking at you, Cheyanne. For four years, and all that time you never once
looked back at me.”

Cheyanne drew in a quick breath.
“We are not talking about my divorce anymore, are we?”

“No. We’re not. We are talking
about us.”

“Angel…”

He held up his hand to ward off
the rest. “Please, don’t say it? It’ll hurt too much hearing it.”

She reached for his hand, drawing
it down. “Perhaps I need to say it, so there’ll be no mistakes.”

“Dammit, Cheyanne.”

“You are my best friend,” she
started.

“I wanted to be more,” he quickly
said.

Cheyanne’s eyes widened. “I
know,” she whispered.

“He took what should have been
mine!”

“Angel…I’ve never felt that way…”
His other hand rose before she could say ‘about you’.

“Stop talking. Stop saying things
I don’t want to hear. Just go back to him, and stop pretending you don’t love
him,” he shouted, drawing the other’s attention their way.

“Angel, please…” she begged to
deaf ears. Unfortunately, he’d turned and walked away.

Ten seconds later, he was back,
pulling her into his arms.

“When he sends you away again,
please don’t come crying to me. Find some other sap to put the pieces of your
heart back together.” He then let her go, so suddenly, she nearly fell to her
knees.

“That won’t happen,” she said
defensively. “I won’t let it happen. I won’t go anywhere near that part of my
life again.”

“Yeah, right. You’re going back
there to see if it’s still real.”

“It was never real!” she shouted.

All he had to do was lower his
gaze to prove to her just how real it was.

Dammit! If anyone should have
understood the anguish she was going through, it should have been Angel.
Instead, he was coming clean to how he felt about her, too little, too late.

Her fists balled at her hips.
Ever since stepping foot off that airplane, firmly entrenched into Borneo soil
with her team, the regret in her heart kept growing. She released her fists,
placing them over her queasy stomach.

Mitch deserved to know, but how
could she tell him? She’d told Angel, her closest, dearest friend, and he’d gone
ballistic. How could she possibly tell Mitch—a man whose middle name was
ballistic—the truth?

****

Mitch’s mood was far from
favorable. He’d spent the latter part of yesterday trying to gain control of a
building project going haywire. Then, his flight home was delayed because of
inclement weather—two hours late, he’d missed the connection and wasted three
more hours in an airport.

When finally in New York, it
started pouring, the skies a deluge of fury on his head. The limo was late, his
doorman was sick, temporary replaced, and when finally making it to his
penthouse door, he found the surprise of his life.

Cheyanne was sitting on the
floor. She looked as if having been there for hours.

“Cheyanne?”

“Hello, Mitch,” she said softly,
gaining her feet slowly.

He reached down and helped her
up. When righted, she made certain he wasn’t touching her, easing out of his hand.

****

Every ounce of her courage and
rehearsed speech flew right out the window the second Mitch set his hand to her
arm. All thought dissipated, all breath stolen from her lungs.

He was so handsome, so real…and
she was little more than a fool for having fallen for the trap.

“Come inside,” he said, opening
the penthouse door.

She hesitated crossing the
threshold. Once inside, things might go badly. She didn’t want to chance that.

“Can we talk out here instead?”

His eyes rose to the ceiling.
“Cameras, sweetheart. I’d rather no one hears what you have to say.”

She hadn’t known about the
cameras. His security personnel were about to get an eye full of her kicking
his door when discovering him not at home, then, she bursting in a fit of
tears, due to her emotional imbalance as of late.

Why did this always happen to
her? The best laid plans falling apart at the seams? She closed her eyes, took
a deep breath, and stepped inside his apartment, immediately bombarded by his
spicy scent lingering everywhere.

She took a deep breath and held
it, hoping to recapture what she lost.

Mitch had crossed over the
carpeting to the bar. “Want one?” he asked, pouring a scotch.

Even if she did want one, she
couldn’t. She shook her head.

“Suit yourself,” he said, downing
the contents, then growling to lower the flame in his throat.

His eyes reached hers. “I’m
tired, Cheyanne. State what you came all this way to say, then leave.”

“I’m just as tired as you are,”
she quibbled.

“I’m in no mood to argue who is
the more.”

He moved forward, she stepped
back, bumping the back of her knees against the sofa.

“May I sit down?”

“Suit yourself,” he repeated.

Cheyanne sat, afraid she would
crumble.

“How long were you at my
doorstep?” he asked, as he dropped into the couch opposite her.

“Not long,” she lied.

Mitch’s brows rose.

“Fine, four hours.”

“Four hours?”

“Yes.”

“And no one came up to escort you
out of the building?”

“No. I told them who I was.”

His left brow arched. “Really?”

“Yes, really,” she said tartly, and
then lowered her temper. “Let me assure you, your doorman was quite shocked. He
wasn’t pleased he’d not been invited.”

“Invited to what?” he asked,
seemingly confused.

Cheyanne toyed with her wedding
ring, the damn thing still on her finger. Her eyes rose, and she found that
Mitch still wore his.

He suddenly growled under his
breath, removed his tie, and kicked off his shoes, then leaned back on the
sofa. His one arm draped over the back. “Oh, that.” He looked so relaxed, so
alive when here—so vibrantly dangerous.