Double-Cross My Heart by Carol Rose

told his friend. “Hopefully, she sees our deal as her best option.”
    Bryan smiled. “If she’s as discontented as we suspect, then we should be a go.”
    Alex shrugged, refusing to worry about what he’d do if she told him to get the hell out of her life. “Once she’s had time to study the deal, I think she’ll see the offer as being consistent with her own best interests. We arrange a very lucrative severance package for her and she takes her resume and a fat bank account into her next job. Simple as that.”
    Only it wasn’t. How did he begin to quantify the emotions she stirred in him. Business was facts and logic, this thing he felt for Eden wouldn’t be reduced to a black-and-white level.
    “Did things get ugly when you talked about our interest in the company?” Bryan asked, his unease at the thought clear on his face. “I know you’ve been losing sleep over this deal with her.”
    “You know I never sleep,” Alex said, shying away from a verbal admission. If he said aloud to his friend how much he’d been worrying about the relationship consequences, it was like asking for the worst to happen. “No, there was no ugliness. I never lied to her about who I am and she knew me by reputation. It wasn’t such a big leap for me to suggest using my talents to assist her in her situation.”
    Bryan laughed, the sound grating in Alex’s ears.
    “Assist her and assist yourself to several million dollars.”
    Alex didn’t look up. “A solution that works for everyone. Like I said, Eden’s both very attractive and very intelligent.”
    “Translation—she’s the kind of woman you could get seriously interested in,” Bryan pointed out.
    There was a knock on the door and Alex opened it.
    Rosie, stuck her head into the room again. “Your sister is on line two, Alex, and I’m running down the hall a minute.”
    “Thanks,” Alex said absently, as he walked over to the desk and reached for the phone. Across the desk, Bryan seemed to sit up straighter and Alex hid his half-smile as he picked up the phone to talk to Lauren.
    Razzing his friend, he said seriously, “Shall I tell her you’re here and that just the thought of talking to her makes your tongue go numb?”
    “What?” Bryan said, flustered, “No—yes, no! You don’t have to say anything about me. Wait! Just tell her I said, ‘hi.’”
    “You’re sad,” Alex said, pushing the button to engage the line where his sister waited to talk to him. “Hey, Lauren. Bryan says, ‘hi’. Listen, I’m going to have to come over another night. I have an important date this evening.”
    His sister’s voice came clearly through the phone. “Say ‘hi’ back to Bryan and I hope your date is pretty and very friendly.”
    Alex laughed at her teasing. To Bryan, he said, “Lauren says ‘hi’, too.”
    He went back to his sister. “Your good wishes are always welcome.”
    “The girls will miss seeing you tonight, but they know you need some grown-up time.”
    “Bless their little, rough-housing souls. They’re doing okay?”
    “Yes. Kelsey’s been sick and had a couple of bad nightmares last night, but she’s better today.”
    “I feel her pain,” he said, his voice level. His niece’s troubled sleep wouldn’t long disturb her, he trusted, but it still drew his heart-felt sympathy.
    “Yes,” his sister replied. “I know you do. How is that going anyway?”
    “How is what going?” Alex asked, waving as Bryan left his office.
    “You know. The sleep thing,” Lauren said, her voice exasperated at his obtuseness.
    “Oh, about the same. There are good nights and other nights.”
    “Alex,” Lauren’s voice grew serious. “Even if you hadn’t fallen asleep that night, it still would have happened.”
    “I know, sis,” he said, “and, if I didn’t know, the therapist I saw when I was in college told me the same thing.”
    “But you’re still not sleeping well,” his sister said sadly. “And you still aren’t married or even