Page 63 of The Rebel

I could practically feel his hands on my skin.

A blend that was so powerful, so overwhelming, so consuming that it forced me to look up.

To gaze across the table.

And lock eyes with the man whose stare I’d been avoiding since I’d walked into this room.

Cooper’s expression was easily readable.

It was the same look Rhett had worn when my father dropped the merger on us.

But Cooper’s face took things one level deeper.

Because he wasn’t just looking at the woman who hadn’t been honest about her identity.

Or a woman who bore the last name of his family’s biggest enemy.

Or a woman who was employed by his largest competitor.

He was looking at a woman who, as of next week, would be his business partner.

THIRTEEN

Cooper

You have to be fucking kidding me.

From the moment Rowan had walked into The Dalton Group’s conference room, that was the thought that continued to repeat in my head.

But it wasn’t the only thought.

I had plenty of others.

Like,Why the hell didn’t she tell me she was a Cole? Why did she continue to string me along, goad me, fucking work me, if she knew I was a Spade?

I was assuming she had known who I was based on some of the things she’d said that I was now piecing together, which meant the three nights we’d spent in her suite, the run-in at the liquor store, the text conversations, the SexTime—it was all lies.

Lies that had been calculated.

Lies that made not a single second of what had gone down between us real.

But why?

Was it to get information out of me?

An attempt to bury Spade Hotels?

Because I couldn’t think of any other reasons, not when she had known that the two of us could never be more than a one-night stand.

Not when the Coles were our biggest competitors.

But they weren’t just opponents.

When it came to business, they were our archnemeses, a name that had been spoken with disdain for as long as I could remember.

Because Ray had been my father and Walter’s rival since day one.

The Coles were the reason we had lost so many properties, the reason deals slipped through our hands, the reason opportunities dissolved into thin air.

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