Amanda Cinelli - Reunited For The Billionaire's Legacy

He rolled off her and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Fury sizzled through his blood as he stood up and stared down at her. “Was that a good enough performance for the memory book? Or should we do it again?”

Her face lost all its color. She sat up and pulled her dress down to cover her. “No,” she said slowly, “that was perfect.”

“Good.” He waved a hand at the shower. “I’m going to clean up. Feel free to join me.”

But she didn’t. He knew she wouldn’t. When he emerged from the shower ten minutes later, she was gone, just as she’d been gone the last time. He took one look at the bed, threw on some clothes and walked out into the dark, quiet night. If he’d thought it would feel good, this victory over her, it didn’t. It felt as if he’d just impaled himself on his own sword.

* * *

Diana wasn’t sure how she got to Beth’s house. Didn’t even know she was crying until she’d pulled her keys out on her friend’s doorstep and was fumbling while trying to get them into the lock, her gaze too blurred to see. Her palm pressed against the door as she jammed the key in harder. The door opened from the inside, sending her tumbling across the jamb.

“Sweetheart.” Beth caught her forearms and steadied her. “What’s wrong?”

The tears turned into a torrent, sliding down her cheeks unchecked. “I am s-so s-stupid.”

Beth pulled the door shut, retrieved her keys and guided her into the cozy little living room. “You saw him, I take it?”

She choked back a sob at that vast understatement of what had just happened. She had just had steamy, intensely uninhibited sex with her soon-to-be ex, who’d tossed her aside afterward as if she meant nothing to him.

Beth’s lips tightened. “I’m getting us some tea, then we talk.”

Diana kicked off her shoes, curled up on the sofa and grabbed the box of tissues sitting on the coffee table. Images from the night flew at her like jagged pieces of a puzzle that didn’t make any sense in her head. She hadn’t consciously gone to that party tonight to have that showdown with Coburn, but it was clear now that unconsciously she had. Her heart hadn’t mended since that night she’d walked out on him. She still wasn’t over him, and worse, she’d been holding out some hope he might still love her.

A sitcom Beth had been watching blared from the TV. She sat watching it with unseeing eyes. Had she been hoping Coburn would confess he felt the same way? That that was the real reason he hadn’t initiated a divorce?

She swallowed hard. What a stupid, blind woman she was. She had set herself up for that tonight. Set herself up for Coburn’s masterful demonstration of just how little he cared. Because after what he’d just done to her? Those flashes of emotion she’d thought she’d seen in his eyes must had been figments of her imagination. Evidence she’d used to justify the need to be in his arms again. Because being without him had been as if a part of her was missing and she couldn’t seem to get it back.

Was that a good enough performance for the memory book? Or should we do it again?

His brutal words ripped at her insides. Bile rose in her throat. She might have been sick if she’d had anything more than a couple of hors d’oeuvres in her stomach. She swallowed the nausea down, pushing it away. How had she let herself do that after a whole year of telling herself she couldn’t be anywhere near him? Where had the measured rationality she was known for in her work been when she needed it most?

Beth came back, handing her a steaming mug of her favorite peppermint tea. Her best friend since med school sat down on the other end of the sofa with her own mug of tea. “Tell me what happened.”

Diana pushed her disheveled hair out of her face and gave her nose one last swipe. “I saw him and I was so ready to be cool and composed, and then I just— I mean—” She let out a long sigh. “I’m still in love with him.”

Her friend grimaced. “And there’s a newsflash.”

She pressed her hands to her temples. “He gave this toast to Annabelle and Tony that ended up being all about us and, God, it was awful. Everyone was staring at us.”

Beth’s eyes rounded. “He did not .”

She nodded. “Then he insisted on going back to his apartment and talking.”

“What is there to talk about? You two are getting divorced tomorrow.”

“He was angry. He accused me of running away from our problems. He said I was a spoiled little rich girl who’d run back to Daddy when the going got tough.” She threw her friend a despairing look. “But honestly, how many more times could we argue about the same things? It was getting toxic.”

“You tried, Di.” Beth’s gaze softened. “I watched you try, I watched you suffer, but you are just two very different people with very different ideas of what you want out of life.”

And that was the crux of it. It was why she’d left. Her husband’s brutal summation of their marriage echoed in her ears, the matter-of-fact, cynical tone he’d uttered it in making her cringe all over again. “In his speech,” she said huskily, “he said that someone forgot to tell him that sometimes love isn’t enough. That you can love someone madly, blindly, but it still isn’t going to work if you can’t accept each other’s flaws and imperfections.”

Beth leaned forward and clasped her hands. “He’s right. Sometimes love isn’t enough. Sometimes the passionate, intense affairs like you and he have had are the hardest to sustain. They just don’t lend themselves to ordinary life.”

A fresh wave of tears pooled at the back of her eyes. A part of her didn’t want to accept that that could be possible with her and Coburn. But the rational, self-preservative side of her said she must.

Beth squeezed her hands tighter. “I was in the room the night you and Coburn met. I remember what it was like watching you two... It was electric . But that kind of passion? It can blind you to reality.”

A reality she had to accept now. Coburn didn’t love her anymore and she had to move on. If it had been closure she’d been looking for as she walked away from everything she knew, tonight he’d given it to her. As brutal as it had been, Coburn had actually done her a favor.

“You’re right,” she said, grabbing another tissue and blowing her nose. Pushing her shoulders back, she gave her best friend a decisive look. “This was the eye-opener I needed to walk into that meeting tomorrow and do what I need to do.”

Maybe when she was thousands of miles away from Coburn she might somehow be able to banish the shame she’d felt tonight when he’d looked at her as if he’d just finished servicing another of his bimbos. Because if she didn’t, she might hate him forever.

CHAPTER THREE

“WELL, THAT WAS REFRESHING.”

Coburn ignored the sarcasm in his older brother’s voice and kept walking toward the elevators. The board meeting had run long and he was late for his meeting with Diana and the lawyers.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Harrison continued, keeping step with him, “I love how progressive you’re being. God knows we need a more flexible vacation policy, but how do you think it’s going to work when all our employees decide to take the same day off? We have critical processes on the supply-chain side.”

“That won’t happen.” Coburn threw him an annoyed glance. “Employment experts have done studies on it, and it’s clear in most workforces self-ownership of deadlines will regulate all that.”

“And self-regulation will be top of mind when the Christmas holidays hit?” Harrison frowned. “You saw the board in there. You’re pushing hard and fast to make changes here, Coburn. You have a different vision, a different style of leadership. But you need to let them catch up with you.”