Kathie DeNosky - Fortunes' Women - Mistress of Fortune

“The satisfaction of publicly humiliating me,” Creed stated flatly. “Sending this to me was just his way of rubbing my nose in it.”

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Other than the picture of her and Creed dancing at Case and Gina’s wedding reception, his name had only been mentioned a couple of times. She’d been the one the columnist had focused on.

“You think you’ve been publicly humiliated? How do you think I feel?” she asked, suddenly more angry than hurt. “I’m the one who’s been accused of being a social-climbing gold digger.”

That seemed to drain away much of his anger and, straightening to his full height, he shook his head. “I never meant to dismiss the effect this has had on you, Sasha.”

“But that’s exactly what you’ve just done,” she said, saddened that her friend hadn’t even considered how the story might have upset her.

They stared silently at each other for what seemed like an eternity, each knowing their friendship had suffered a serious blow.

“Are you going to Deadwood this evening?” he finally asked.

She shook her head. “Blake’s flying in later this afternoon to spend the weekend here.”

Creed’s mouth flattened into a tight line a moment before he nodded, and without another word walked out of her office.

Feeling drained from the confrontation, Sasha began to carefully stack the marketing charts she’d been working on when Creed had shown up. After what he’d just put her through, he owed her the rest of the afternoon off. With pay.

As she retrieved her purse from the bottom drawer of her desk, turned off her computer and left her office, she made a conscious decision not to mention the disturbing incident to Blake. The brothers were already at odds and there was no way she was going to add fuel to a fire that was rapidly growing out of control. Nor was she going to be the catalyst that brought their feud to a head.

Getting into the shiny red sports car he kept at the airport for his frequent visits to Sioux Falls, Blake started the powerful engine and headed straight for Sasha’s apartment. It had been four days since she’d left Deadwood and he couldn’t believe how much he’d missed her. He’d called her every night, but phone conversations were a poor substitute for holding her, kissing her and making love to her until they both collapsed from exhaustion.

A half hour later, when he parked the car in front of her apartment building and got out to walk up to her door, he whistled a tune. Life was good. Profits at his three casinos were higher than any of the projections; there hadn’t been any more reports about him and Sasha in the gossip columns and he was going to spend the next three days with the most exciting woman he’d ever known. As far as he was concerned, it didn’t get any better than that.

When he stopped to dig Sasha’s apartment key from his jeans pocket, he smiled. She was going to be surprised and hopefully quite pleased when she came home from work and found that he’d had a caterer deliver a specially prepared dinner for them. She was expecting him to take her out, but after spending the past four days without her in his arms, the last place Blake wanted them to be was in a crowded restaurant.

“It’s past time that you and I have it out, little brother.”

At the sound of his brother’s angry voice, Blake’s good mood took a nosedive and he turned to find Creed storming up the sidewalk toward him. “I don’t have anything to say to you.”

“But I have plenty to say to you and you’re going to listen.”

“The hell I am.” Blake wasn’t the least bit intimidated by Creed’s menacing expression. “I have plans for the evening and they don’t include talking to you.”

“I don’t give a damn about you or your plans,” Creed said, poking Blake in the chest with his index finger. “You’re going to listen.”

White hot fury invaded every fiber of Blake’s being. “Do that again and I’ll knock the hell out of you.”

Although there were six years difference in their ages, they were pretty well matched in size and build. And if it came to blows, Blake figured he had a pretty good chance of taking Creed in a fight.

“Until today, I couldn’t figure out why you’d taken a sudden interest in Sasha when you hadn’t so much as given her a second glance in the four years she’s worked at Dakota Fortune,” Creed growled.

“And you think you’ve figured it out now?” Blake snapped back.

“Oh, yeah.” Creed’s smile was filled with loathing. “Because it appeared that Sasha and I were a couple, you decided to seduce her away from me. But you were too blinded by your jealousy of me to see that there was never anything romantic between us.”

Guilt coursed through Blake. That was exactly the way his involvement with Sasha had started out. Fortunately, it hadn’t taken long for him to realize how special she was and how much he needed her in his life.

But Blake’s need to retaliate quickly became stronger than his sense of regret and before he could stop himself, he lashed out. “I figured that out about the same time I took her virginity.”

Creed laughed humorlessly. “And she was ripe for the picking, wasn’t she?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Blake demanded, barely resisting the urge to plant his fist in his brother’s nose.

“I’ve seen the way she looked at you over the past year. But being a self-absorbed bastard, I don’t suppose you could see that she was attracted to you.” Creed gave him a disgusted look. “Although for the life of me, I’ll never understand why.”

Blake shook his head. “I don’t give a damn what you do or don’t understand. Sasha’s with me now and you’re out of the picture.” Without thinking, he added, “I win.”

“A real man would walk away from this before Sasha ends up getting hurt.” Creed raised an arrogant eyebrow. “But then, her feelings have never been your concern, have they? You were too focused on getting back at me to consider what your little game would do to her. And if the truth is known, you wouldn’t have cared even if you had.”

Blake didn’t think he’d ever despised his brother more than he did at that moment. “I’ve never made a secret of the fact that I’ll do whatever it takes just for the privilege of watching you land on your ass. But that’s not—”

He started to tell Creed that he’d come to care too much for Sasha to hurt her in any way, but the words died in Blake’s throat when he heard the soft female gasp behind him. Spinning around, Blake felt as if he was being torn apart when he saw the devastated expression on Sasha’s sweet face and the tears streaming unchecked from her emerald eyes.

Neither he nor Creed had noticed her opening the apartment door, and Blake knew that she’d heard every one of the verbal barbs and accusations that they’d hurled at each other.

Arriving home from the office, Sasha had barely had time to change clothes and feed her cat, Melvin, before she’d heard the angry male voices outside of her apartment door. When she’d peeked out the window to see what was going on, the elation she’d felt at the sight of Blake had quickly turned to desolation. He and Creed had been embroiled in a heated argument and it hadn’t taken long for her to realize that she was the subject of their battle.

“H-how could you?” she stammered, unsure which of the Fortune brothers to address first.

“Sasha—”

“Sweetheart—”

They both spoke at once, but she’d heard more than enough. “Don’t.” She shook her head. “There’s nothing left to say.”

Blake took a step toward her. “You heard—”

“E-everything,” she said, drawing back. If he touched her, she knew for certain she’d shatter into a million pieces.