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She waited until he looked at her. “Is Jamie Donovan here?” Her skin burned with regret as she spoke the name.
The man—a boy, really—leaned forward. “I’m sorry? I didn’t catch that.”
The music had seemed quiet when she’d walked in, but now it swelled in her ears, along with the noise of the early Friday crowd. “Jamie Donovan?” she said more loudly. “Is he available?”
“He’s not working the bar tonight. Is there something I can help you with?” He said it as if the request was a common one. As if women walked in here all the time looking for a man named Jamie who’d lied his way into sex. A scalding wash of shame crashed through her. She’d been laughed at before, and she couldn’t do it again. She couldn’t. So she nodded and started to back away.
A door opened to her left, and she jumped in horror, thinking it could be him. But it was just a customer coming out of the bathroom.
When Beth realized that she’d felt genuine fear, she smashed it down and turned it into anger, like pressure turning coal into diamonds.
She stood straight and met the gaze of the bartender again. “I need to see him. It’s personal.”
The boy’s eyebrows rose, but after a wary moment, he shrugged. “I’ll see if he’s in the back. What’s your name?”
“My name is Beth Cantrell. Tell him that and see if he’ll come out.” She put a hand on the bar, not to steady herself but to give her fingers something to squeeze, because the anger was eating her up.
And then she waited to find out exactly who she’d had sex with six months before.
ERIC PICKED UP A HALF-FULL bottle of pilsner and squeezed the neck tight in his hand. He wouldn’t throw it against the wall. He wouldn’t. But this damn bottling machine was supposed to have been fixed last week, and now it was doing an even worse job, jostling the bottles so much that half the beer foamed out before it reached the capping station.
“Shut it down!” he yelled at Wallace.
Wallace scowled and shut down the line, and when the roar of machinery died down, Wallace’s stream of creatively foul curses pealed through the cement-walled room.
Wallace didn’t care about bottling or distribution or profit margins. His only concern was the beer, and a lot of it was slowly crawling its way toward the drain in the floor.
Eric cursed. “I’m going to have that mechanic’s head on a platter.”
“Not until I’ve torn it off his neck,” Wallace yelled.
Eric glanced down at the tubing that snaked across the floor. “Goddamn it. You know what needs to be done. There’s no way we’re getting this back on line today. Maybe not even tomorrow.”
Wallace bit back what sounded suspiciously like a sob, but it was hard to read his emotions behind the thick beard that covered his whole lower face. His giant shoulders sunk, bringing his height down from about six-six to six-five. “It’s a damn tragedy,” he wheezed before turning to stomp toward the door that led to the tank room. A moment later he was back, the valve having been locked, and he mournfully unhooked the hose from the bottler and moved it over to the drain. He thumbed the valve and pilsner poured from the tube directly into the screened hole in the floor.
“I’ll kill him,” he muttered.
“We probably shouldn’t.”
“That batch was fucking stellar.”
“And there’s plenty of it left.” Eric put a reassuring hand on Wallace’s shoulder and they shared a moment of silence over the beer as it spiraled down into the sewer system.
Wallace sniffed, but Eric was afraid to look and see if there were tears wetting his beard. “I’ve got to make a phone call about this.”
“Rake him over the fucking coals,” Wallace insisted.
Eric strode through the silence of the tank room and emerged into the chaos of the…well, it was a kitchen now, though it never had been before. In fact, two men were currently wrestling a gigantic pizza oven into place against the far wall.
Months of prep work had led to this very event, and Eric wished he felt more than just happiness for Jamie. He wished he felt excited instead of nervous. But Jamie was grinning as he turned away from the stove and headed toward the doors to the front room, Henry hot on his heels.
“Henry,” Eric called before the boy could disappear. “Are you working cleanup tonight?”
Henry jerked to a stop, his hand already on one of the doors. His freckles stood out against his pale skin, as if Eric had frightened him.
“I am, but…Jamie has me filling in at the bar so he can supervise the installation.”
“Great. But when you’re done I need you in the bottling room. Dump all the beer and put the bottles into recycling, then mop the floor.”
“Got it.”
Henry disappeared and Eric retreated to his office. He wanted to spend time helping Jamie, but he had his own work to do, boring as it was. His muscles tightened to stone as he shut the door and called the mechanic.
He felt a little better after yelling at the guy and demanding that he get his ass to the brewery at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow, Saturday or not. Eric hung up with a little less tension in his shoulders. Still, there was no silencing the laughter from the other room. It reminded him of his brother, and how different they were.
Eric tried to make himself smile at the sound of it. He wanted Jamie to be happy. Without a doubt. But Eric couldn’t help the feeling that his own happiness was slipping away. Melodramatic, maybe, but still true.
This place was his whole life. This brewery. This office. This role he had here.
Eric dug his fingers into the back of his neck and took a deep breath. There was no point sitting around brooding. He had work to do.
A minute later, someone knocked on the door. Eric looked up, expecting to see Jamie, but it was Henry. “Hey, did you get to the bottling room yet?”
“No. Um…some woman is pissed at Jamie and he asked me to come get you.”
“If she’s pissed at Jamie, then it’s Jamie’s problem, not mine.”
Henry’s face creased with embarrassment, but he just stood there with his fingers wrapped around the door.
“Fine.” Eric sighed. “I’ll be there in a second.” What the hell was this? A year ago, Eric wouldn’t have been surprised by anything involving Jamie and a woman, but now…Jamie had a girlfriend. A really nice girlfriend. If he was screwing around on her, Eric didn’t want to know. It would put a whole lot of strain into their newly easy relationship.
Still, he felt a little surge of satisfaction. This was like the old days, when Jamie had needed him. In fact, if Jamie’s girlfriend hadn’t been a consideration, Eric would’ve smiled as he stood up and headed for the barroom, off to make sense of Jamie’s screwup again.
The workmen stood in the doorway, holding the doors slightly open as they peered out. Their eyes widened when they saw Eric coming, but he ignored that and tipped his head in the direction of the oven. They shifted toward it as if they were only pretending to go back to work, but Eric held his tongue. He didn’t want to step on Jamie’s toes.
He pushed through the doors. “Jamie,” he said when he spotted his brother standing at the end of the bar with his arms crossed. “What’s the problem?”
And then Jamie shifted to the side, and Eric’s world split apart as if an earthquake had just torn through the ground beneath his feet.
For a long moment, Eric could only look at her. Her. He should have anticipated this, after last night. But his relief had made him stupid. And now here she was, standing next to Jamie.
Reality hit him then, with all the subtlety of a two-by-four across the face. Eric’s eyes shifted to Jamie, who was also staring at him, though his eyebrows were raised in incredulity. “Eric,” he said, and Eric caught the way Beth blinked in shock.
Oh, shit. This was bad. Worse than bad.
Jamie cocked his head. “Eric, this is Beth Cantrell. There seems to be some confusion about something that happened at the business expo earlier this year.”
Something that happened. Okay. Maybe he could still salvage some part of this. If Beth hadn’t said anything to Jamie yet… “Beth—” he started, but she stalked toward him like a vengeful goddess.
“Eric?” she sneered. “Eric?”
His eyes darted to Jamie. “I can explain.”
One of her elegant fingers poked him in the chest. “You can explain? Explain why you told me your name was Jamie?”
“I didn’t actually—”
“Explain that you lied to me?”
“Beth, if you’ll just—”
“Explain,” she yelled, her finger digging a hole in his sternum, “that you let me think you were someone else when you had sex with me?”
“What?” Jamie yelled.
That was it. This was an official disaster. The solemn silence that had fallen over the barroom seemed to confirm the horror of the situation.
“I can explain,” Eric said again, weakly. He thought the low growl was coming from Beth, but he couldn’t be sure, because at that moment Jamie surged forward, grabbed Eric by his shirtfront and twisted.
“Henry!” Jamie shouted, as if Henry wasn’t standing right there, wide-eyed. “Cover the bar. You…” His green eyes burned into Eric. “Into the back. Right. Now.”
Oh, this was a new experience, being the one who’d done something wrong. Something hot and scalding slid into his veins. Shame. Eric didn’t like it one bit.
He pulled away from Jamie’s grasp and kept his eyes on Beth. “Beth, let’s talk about this. Alone.”
She moved toward the doors with a jerky nod, and Eric held his hand up to stop Jamie from following. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“You’ll fucking talk to me now,” Jamie countered.
As Beth pushed through the double doors, Eric spared a look around the room. Every eye was on them, and it was a Friday evening, so there were a lot of eyes. “Let me talk to Beth alone. She doesn’t deserve to be in the middle of us.”
“Seems like she’s already right in the middle of us. Or did I misunderstand something?” But Jamie had fallen back on his heels, and his jaw jumped with frustration instead of aggression, so Eric turned and followed Beth into the back.
She was pacing across the kitchen area, her movement followed by the workmen’s fascinated eyes. She wore the same kind of hip-hugging skirt he’d seen her in last night, but this time her stiletto heels were dark purple instead of black.
Eric swallowed hard. “My office is this way.” He gestured toward the hallway and she glared at his hand as if she wanted to snap it off.
“We might want to stay out here. Whoever you are, you’re less likely to end up dead if there are witnesses.”
One of the men made a noise that was somewhere between a bark and a laugh, but when Eric shot them a glare, both men pressed their mouths into straight lines.
When he didn’t respond, Beth passed by him with a sneer and stalked down the hallway. He gestured toward his office and the chairs in front of his desk, but she didn’t sit down. Instead she paced to one corner and then spun around to glare at him.
“You came back,” he said quietly as he shut the door.
“Yes, I came back. Is that your big concern right now? How about, who the hell are you? How about we start with that?”
“Of course,” he said, his face flaming with embarrassment. This was no longer a gorgeous secret they shared. It wasn’t a quiet whisper he could offer into her ear to make her smile. There was no more titillation in this for her; it was all betrayal.
Her eyes looked furious and frightened.
“I’m sorry, Beth,” he said. “I can’t… Listen. When we met, you thought I was my brother because of the name tag on the table. He was supposed to have been working the booth that day.”
“Well, that explains the first fifteen seconds of our relationship,” she snapped.
“I know. I mean, I knew at the time that it wasn’t right. I did try to correct you—”
“You’re kidding, right? Did you try really, really hard, Eric?”
“I—”
“This is…this is horrible. You lied to me just to…”
“No, it wasn’t like that. I swear.” Eric felt sweat prickle along his hairline, and his stomach turned as he registered the hurt on her face. “Beth, I’m so sorry.”
“Why would you do that? I don’t understand.”
“I don’t know. At the time…at the time you said you’d heard of my brother, you knew his reputation, and maybe that made it easier.”
“You pretended to be him because you thought that’s who I wanted?” she shouted.
“No. Not that. I knew you wanted me.”
Her gaze had been shifting wildly around his office, but her eyes flew to him at those words. “You should have told me. Right at the start. Or later, when we met for wine. Or—” Her voice stopped as if the words had been cut in half. They’d met for wine the first day of the expo, and he’d touched her in that hidden booth, making her come while the rest of the bar moved around them unaware. The memory seemed to flash over her face and turn into shame.
“Who are you?” she growled, her hands clenching to fists.
“I’m Eric. Donovan,” he clarified stupidly. “I’m Jamie’s brother. I thought it would be easier if…” Hell, what else was there to add? He was the brother of Jamie and Tessa Donovan and he helped run the brewery. There was really nothing more he could think to say. That was all there was. Which was why he’d been able to talk himself into this mess in the first place. Because he hadn’t been willing to risk ruining the brief, wild spark that had arced between him and Beth. He’d needed that moment to be someone he’d never been before.
Beth closed her eyes and shook her head. “You thought it would be easier,” she whispered. “Easier to get me into bed.”
“That’s not what I meant. I swear to God, Beth, that wasn’t it. We were just… It was all just a fantasy, wasn’t it? I didn’t want to make it…”
“Real?” she filled in. And yes, that was what he meant, but it sounded cruel now. It sounded horrible.
Tears flashed to life in her eyes, and Eric reached for her, knowing he shouldn’t. She stepped back and his hand fell, but she watched it as if it were a snake.
“You made me into a fool.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“And now—” She swept an arm in the direction of the barroom. “Now I let everyone know you made a fool out of me. Jesus.”
He shook his head.
“I did,” she insisted. “But that’s okay, because I wanted everyone to know that you were the one who should be ashamed. Not me.” She pressed a finger to her mouth. Her eyes looked far away. “I didn’t want it to be me feeling that.”
“You shouldn’t. I wasn’t trying to trick you. I just didn’t know how to stop and say, ‘Can we start over? My name’s actually Eric.’”
“That’s no excuse.”
“No, it’s not.”
“You should have told me then. Or last night. Or anytime in the past six months.”
He nodded, and Beth met his gaze again, her dark brown eyes deep with sorrow. “You’ve ruined it.”
“I know.” He did. It had been a perfect memory. A perfect moment in his life. Her body and her mouth and her trembling hands. And now it was something sordid.
Beth stood a little straighter and seemed to reset herself. The tears stopped and her chin rose in disdain as she stepped forward and brushed past him. “I just wanted you to know that. That you ruined it. Don’t ever call me. Don’t get in touch. But I guess that was your plan from the start, right?”
She was right, so he didn’t dare touch her arm to stop her. He didn’t even apologize again. He just let her slam his office door and disappear from his life as quickly as she’d reappeared.
Eric collapsed into a chair, let his head fall into his hands and called himself every name in the book. And yet there was still that small, stony part of him that didn’t regret what he’d done. Not at all. It was that same part that had always been selfish, but lately it seemed to be growing.
CHAPTER THREE
AS SOON AS SHE’D SLAMMED the door behind her, Beth lost her ability to hold it together. She couldn’t draw enough air. She was breathing too hard, too fast, and she worried she might pass out at any moment. That would be the only thing that could make this unbearable situation worse: being found passed out in the back hallway of the brewery as if she were some delicate flower of womanhood, overcome with sexual shock.
So Beth put her hand to the wall and made herself breathe slowly in and slowly out. She bowed her head for one moment, keeping an ear out for the sound of Jamie’s—Eric’s—door opening behind her.
But he didn’t follow her, and Beth calmed down, and when she opened her eyes she was steady enough to walk. There were two men on the far side of the kitchen, and they watched her as if they feared she might snap at them like a mad dog. She ignored them, and was reaching for the double doors when they swung inward.
She stopped short, clasping her hands to her chest. It was him. The man who was really named Jamie. And it was all so obvious in that moment. This man was the Jamie Donovan she’d heard rumors about. He was handsome and roguish-looking, and she could perfectly picture him wearing a kilt and flirting as he delivered beers to customers. Eric, on the other hand, looked like a man who never bothered with flirting. If he wanted you, he wanted you; it was as simple as that. It certainly had been the night they’d met in his room.
“Hey,” the real Jamie said, his eyes looking down the hall for a moment before refocusing on her. “Is everything okay?”
She almost laughed. Sure, everything was just great. Except that she’d been betrayed and used and made a fool of. Her cheeks warmed. “I just want to go,” she said, hugging her arms to her chest.
“Oh. Sure. I’m just sorry about the…” His eyes darted toward the offices again. “Confusion,” he finished weakly.
“Confusion. Right.” She wanted to smile, to pretend it was no big deal, but instead she found herself blinking back tears. “Sorry I yelled at you earlier,” she said quickly. “I was a little surprised.”
She brushed past him and started to push through the doors, but he turned and held out a hand to stop her. “Do you want to go through the back?”
She froze. At this point, she could only pray she didn’t know any of the customers who’d so eagerly watched the argument. What if she walked toward the front doors and a friend stopped her for more details? “Thank you. The back door would be perfect.”
He walked her to a steel door set into the far wall, but when he opened it to let her out, he kept walking with her. She hid her look of irritation, and simply stared straight ahead. “You don’t need to keep me company.”
“I just want to be sure you’re okay.”
“I am,” she said, but it was a moot point now. They were already in the parking lot. He looked like he wanted to say more, but there was nothing else she wanted to hear. She never wanted to see any of these people again.
She beeped open the door on her car. “Thank you,” she said, then slipped inside. She started the car immediately, but when he simply stood there, she gave an impatient wave.
By the time he walked away, it was all beginning to sink in.
How had she let this happen to herself? It was as if she’d been the butt of some fraternity-boy joke. I’ll pretend to be my brother to get her into bed.
She meant to pull the car out right away, but her face was so hot she had to press her cool fingers to her cheeks. Her stomach rolled with sickness. She’d been proud of her fling before this. It had been exactly the sort of brave and selfish pleasure she’d wanted for years.
And now it was nothing. Less than nothing. It was a scar on her pride. It was humiliation. Why had he done that to her?
“It doesn’t matter,” Beth told herself. “It doesn’t.”
She didn’t believe it, but somehow the words helped her calm down. Or just the sound of her own voice, solid and strong.
Whether it mattered or not, it was done. And she’d never see Eric or Jamie Donovan again, thank God.
ERIC HEARD HIS BROTHER’S footsteps long before Jamie got to his office. And that said a lot about Jamie’s mood; these floors were solid concrete.
Pushing to his feet, Eric told himself he was ready for this, but he still ground his teeth together when the door flew open and banged a tall filing cabinet. “What the fuck?” Jamie ground out.
“I know. It looks bad.”
“It looks bad? It looks like you used my name to get a woman into bed. But you’d never do something that sleazy, would you?”
Eric swallowed and didn’t answer the question.
Jamie leaned forward and put his fists on the desk. His eyes blazed with fury. “Would you, Eric?”
“It was a mix-up,” he managed to answer, trying to control the fury rising up from his guilt.
“You fucking bastard,” Jamie growled.
“Listen, Jamie—”
“I’m not listening to shit. This is… Christ, I wouldn’t have expected this from anyone I know, much less you.”
Eric clenched his hands and pressed a fist to his forehead. He’d never been in this position before. He was the brother who did the lecturing. Who demanded answers. Who did the right thing for his family. He wasn’t the one who had to be ashamed.
Except that now he was, and Eric felt as if he’d explode from the frustration. And the regret. “It wasn’t like that,” he tried again. “She called me by the wrong name, and I didn’t correct her. And then…I’d let it go too long. It seemed like it wouldn’t hurt anything to let it stand.”
“Jesus, are you kidding me? You can’t see what it would hurt to have a woman out there who thought she’d slept with me?”
Eric answered honestly, realizing it was a mistake even as he let it happen. “I didn’t think it would make much of a difference. You’ve slept with a lot of women.”
Jamie’s hand was a blur when it shot out and grabbed Eric’s shirt. “First of all, fuck you. Second, that woman is a stranger to me, so don’t let yourself think I’m honored she thinks I did her. Third, I have a girlfriend, in case you hadn’t noticed. You could have screwed up a lot of things for me.”
“It was months ago,” Eric said.
Jamie’s sneer let him know that wasn’t quite the point. “Have you done this before?”
“No!”
Eric sat back in his chair when Jamie let him go. He watched his brother pace the short distance to the door and then back again. “Why would you do this?”
“I didn’t use your name to trick her into anything. We…we had a connection. Chemistry. But she thought I was you. A carefree, easygoing bachelor. A guy who could offer no-strings-attached fun. So I used your reputation as…permission.”
“That’s so damn ironic it hurts.” His laugh certainly sounded as if it was jagged with pain. Eric cringed.
“You’ve spent your whole life telling me I was doing the wrong things. For years, you’ve basically said I was a no-good, irresponsible jackass.”
Eric pushed to his feet. “That’s not true. I—”
“And then you turn around and use my name to fuck around?”
“Jamie…” Eric’s thoughts had scattered. He didn’t know what to say. It had seemed harmless at the time. A little white lie.
Jamie pointed his finger at Eric as if it was a weapon. “If you ever, ever throw my past in my face again, I swear to God, I’ll make you sorry.”
He already was sorry. “Jamie—” But Jamie just turned and slammed out of the office, leaving Eric standing there, his lips still parted.
Jesus Christ. He lowered himself slowly to his chair, his chest tightening until he couldn’t draw a breath.
It had been only six months since that night with Beth, but it felt like a lifetime ago. It felt as if someone else had done those things.
Eric Donovan would never slide his hand between a woman’s legs in a public place. He’d never make a woman come after only knowing her for hours. He certainly wouldn’t rent a hotel room for the express purpose of one meaningless, animal encounter.
And he would never, ever lie to make that happen.
He wasn’t that person.
He looked down at his hands. The hands that had touched Beth Cantrell. The hands that had held her hips as he’d thrust into her. That wildness had been all for him—it had had nothing to do with Jamie’s name or reputation.