Her Alpha CEO

Chapter 12

Brian felt panic well up inside him when he realized Nina was going to leave. Really

leave this time. Not just her job, but him. And this time there would be no convincing her to come back. How could she think her job wasn’t important? The work she did was crucial. And how could she think he didn’t consider her valuable? She meant more to him than anything.

Anything. And that was when it hit him. It wasn’t that he needed Nina as his assistant to keep him on track. And it wasn’t that he needed her as his assistant to be successful. And it wasn’t that he needed her as his assistant to make him happy. He just needed Nina. Period. In his work, in his life, in his…In his heart.

“Nina, wait,” he said as she pushed back the covers and scrambled out of bed.

But she ignored him, jerking the top sheet from the mattress and wrapping it around herself with an awkward sort of fury that generated a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. After everything they’d enjoyed last night, after everything they’d discovered, she wanted to cover herself up now. She wanted to get away from him.

She wanted to leave.

“Nina, you don’t understand,” he added as he rose from the bed, too. He grabbed his navy silk bathrobe from the back of the bedroom door as he followed her into the hall.

“Oh, I understand perfectly,” she snapped as she went into the guest room where the bags she hadn’t even unpacked still lay on the bed.

Good God, Brian thought. She didn’t even have to pack her bags. All she had to do was get dressed, and she’d be out of there. He had mere minutes before she was gone for good. “No, you don’t,” he told her. “You can’t understand, because I just figured it out myself.”

She spun around so quickly, her hair flew over her face. Brushing it fiercely aside with one hand, her other tightened where she clutched the sheet until her knuckles were white. Her entire body quivered with her anger, he noted. Or maybe it was with something else. Maybe it was the same thing that was making his body shudder, too. The realization that he’d just found something wonderful — the most wonderful, stupendous, spectacular thing in the world — and were about to lose it, before he even had a taste.

Finally, coldly, she said, “What, Brian? What don’t I understand?”

He opened his mouth to try and explain, to try and put into words, as eloquently as he could, all the things he needed to tell her. How much she’d come to mean to him. Not as an employee, but as a woman. How he couldn’t live without her. Not because she helped him work better, but because she helped him live better. How he couldn’t get through another day without her. Not because she knew how to work his Smartphone, but because she knew how to fill all the places inside him he’d thought would be empty forever. But all he could think to tell her was–

“I love you.”

She went completely still at that. But her fingers on the sheet relaxed, and her expression softened. “What?” she said, her voice a scant whisper.

“I love you,” he said again.

She stiffened once more. “Don’t you dare say something like that just because you’re trying to–”

“I mean it, Nina,” he said. “I may be heartless when it comes to getting my way in

business, but I would never put my heart on the line like this unless I was telling the truth.”

He took a few experimental steps into the room, taking courage in the fact that she didn’t back away from him. But neither did she reach out to him. Nor did she say a word.

“I thought I needed you to come back as my assistant, because I thought that was why you were good for me.” She frowned at that, so he hurried on, “You know me, Nina. I’ve always been married to my business. It never occurred to me that anything else could make me happy. I’m an idiot,” he admitted. “But I’m not so stupid that I can’t learn. And I finally realize, it doesn’t matter what job you do, whether you program my Smartphone or mop the floors at Guidice Games or…or come aboard as my new VP in charge of Public Relations.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “What are you talking about? You have a VP in charge of Public Relations. And I thought you mentioned putting Les in charge of that.”

“Yeah, well, Les’ wife is pregnant with twins, and he wants to be a stay-at-home dad,

so he’s leaving at the end of August. I was going to hire a head-hunter to find someone to fill the position, but I think I already have the perfect candidate looking to come aboard at Guidice Games.”

Her expression was cautious. “Who?”

Did she really have to ask? Well, okay, he supposed she did, since she had asked. “You,” he told her. “I’d like you to come work for me as my new VP.”

She said nothing in response to his offer, something he wasn’t sure was good or bad. So, thinking, what the hell, he decided to go for broke. “There’s just one problem,” he told her. Now her expression turned wary. “What’s that?”

“Guidice Games has a policy that bars spouses from working together.”

Her eyes widened at that.

“Fortunately,” he added, “it’s just a policy, not written in stone anywhere. Besides which, I’m the CEO, so I can do whatever the hell I want. Should, you know, two of the executives want to get… married.”

It occurred to Brian then that Nina had never actually said she loved him, too. Not that he wasn’t pretty sure she at least had some feelings for him. He just wasn’t sure if they were as strong as his were for her.