Everything changes by Megan Hart.pdf

Everything Changes

Megan Hart

InTempted,Anne gave in to her passion for both her husband, James, and his friend, Alex. Now it’s time

for Alex’s side of the story….

When Jamie tells Alex he wants him to sleep with his wife, Alex thinks it will only lead to trouble. Sure,

Alex thinks Anne is hot and they’ve talked about sharing a woman before, but that was a long time ago.

Before Jamie knew what Alexreally wanted.

Still, Alex can’t resist the pleasure of being with Anne—andwith Jamie….

Contents

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She’d left them on the bed, folded neater than he ever would have and tied with a hot pink ribbon that

matched the smiling faces printed on the black material.

Hello Kitty.

Alex Kennedy, thirty-five, single and devastatingly fucking handsome, looked in the mirror. Straightened

his tie. Smoothed his shirt. He slicked a hand back over his hair and stared into his own eyes for so long

he imagined, for just a moment, he saw something there.

A blink and another slide of his hand across his hair, and he looked at the bed again. They were only

pajama bottoms, and they wouldn’t bite. But Genevieve could, and had, and he wouldn’t have put it past

her to try again.

She’d written his full name across the front of the card. She was the only person who’d ever insisted on

it.Alexander. The Great, she sometimes added with that low, throaty laugh. Usually when she had his

cock in her fist. She’d said it the last time she jerked him off while some dude they’d picked up at a club

got between her legs and ate her until she came.

The gift had been waiting for him when he got home from the meeting, which had been short and to the

point. Global Communicom was buying him out, utterly, and taking over the transportation business he’d

built here in Singapore. So sorry, Alex old chap, but there’s no room for you on the executive board, not

even in a consultant’s position. Take the money, please, and get the fuck out. Alex wasn’t stupid enough

to think it had nothing to do with the fact he’d been fucking Reginald Bell’s wife on and off for the past

six months. Which was probably why she’d left him this present, he thought with another glance at the

bed and its perfectly made-up sheets, the comforter pulled smooth over the top. She must have used her

key to get in while he was out.

He looked again at his reflection. Transcom had meant everything to him, had been built with sweat and

blood. He’d left behind his entire life to come here and start it up, and in less than ten years had made

himself a millionaire. Take the check, he thought. And get out, fuck you very much, have a nice day.

Alex tugged one end and the smooth, slippery ribbon twisted around his fingers as it came loose from

the floppy bow. The pants were cotton, black, with hot-pink Hello Kitty faces all over. Women’s pajama

pants, but the elastic waist would be big enough to fit him, easily. She knew him well enough not to

misjudge something as simple as a size. He should be considering himself lucky she hadn’t sent him a pair

of ladies’ frilly panties instead.

He tried to think if she’d ever left him a note before, but couldn’t remember. Text messages, sure.

Dozens of them, usually filthy just like her mouth and just like she loved him to be. Well, not loved.

Genevieve Bell didn’t love anything but herself. Even her pets had been chosen for their use as

accessories and investment rather than anything as base as an emotional connection.

How many swipes of her tongue had licked this flap closed? He tore the paper, thinking of her mouth.

She’d have laughed if she knew. Maybe she did. She knew a lot about people, even the ones who tried

like hell not to let her see anything important. Especially those people.

Him.

The front of the card was blank but for a small black square in one corner, a stylized gift. Inside:Happy

Birthday . That was all. Two words, no summons or command. Not even a signature. He’d walked out

on her, but it was Genevieve who’d cut him loose.

Thatwas worth a thank-you, if nothing else was, but because he was the asshole she’d called him more

than once, Alex didn’t call her to give it. He looked around his flat at all the pretty things he didn’t care if

he never saw again.

He had enough money to go anywhere and do anything he wanted, but in the end there was only one

thing to do. One place to go. One person to call.

“Jamie,” he said when the man on the other side of the world answered his phone. “Guess what? I’m

coming home.”

The woman in the kitchen stood with a bowl in her hands, her face crunched in concentration. In profile

her features were not as soft as they’d been in her wedding picture, but her hair hung halfway down her

back in a mess of red-brown curls a man could get lost in. Alex watched her from the doorway, thinking

what a lucky bastard Jamie had always been. Looked like the luck had held out.

“Hello, Anne.”

She screamed and dropped her spoon. He tensed to duck, but she didn’t throw anything at him. She set

the bowl on the counter with a clang. There was more to say, an introduction to make, but looking at her

wide, startled eyes and her mouth, half-open, Alex couldn’t seem to find one.

It lasted a long time, that first moment. He got to see the color of her eyes and watch the rise and fall of

her shoulders as she caught her breath. He’d known she was pretty from her photos, as if he couldn’t

have guessed just from the fact his best friend had married her. But the woman in front of him was more

than an alignment of features, a curve of ass and tit and belly. This was the woman who’d married Jamie.

She could’ve had three eyes and an ass the size of Arizona, and Alex would’ve wanted a piece of her.

The silence drew out. Just before it got awkward, he made a show looking over the rims of his

sunglasses around the kitchen and back at her. “Hi. Anne.”

“Alex? Wow. I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting you.”

He was the big bad wolf when he took off his sunglasses, all the better to see her with. Released from

the shadows made by the dark lenses, her face sprung into high relief. Every freckle, every line, every

curve. She had smooth, straight eyebrows no entirely straight guy would have noticed. Not that Alex

gave a damn. He hadn’t been entirely straight since the eighth grade.

“Yeah, sorry about that. I rang Jamie’s cell and he said to head on over. He said he’d call you. I guess

he didn’t.”

“He didn’t.” She laughed and ducked her head, wariness in her gaze.

What had Jamie told her about him? More importantly, what had he kept a secret?

“Bastard.” The kitchen hadn’t changed much since the days when he and Jamie would bike their way

over to hang out with Jamie’s grandparents and swim in Lake Erie, which edged the property. He made

himself at home as Anne watched him with an expression he doubted she knew looked so cautious.

Women liked smiles. It put them at ease. He gave her one of his best. “Something smells good.”

She was baking bread and making brownies, and from the too-casual way she described it, he knew it

was more for Mrs. Kinney’s benefit than anything Anne herself wanted to do. Jamie’s mom had stopped

making Alex nervous a long time ago, but that’s because he’d stopped giving a fuck what she thought.

Then again, he hadn’t married her son.

He studied Anne’s efforts and listened to her describe what she’d done so far. He could do this, help

her out. Prove right off the bat that no matter what stories Jamie had told, Alex wasn’t all bad. He might

be a rascal, but he could bake a kick-ass brownie.

Another smile, as charming as he could make it. Once on a trip out West he’d gone to a prairie dog

farm, where the little rodents would take a peanut from your hand if you sat very, very still. He felt a little

something like that now, like she was some skittish, pretty creature he ought to do his best to tame.

“Want to know the trick?”

“Of making brownies?” Her face showed him she was expecting another sort of trick, maybe one on

her, and Alex pricked his mental Mrs. Kinney doll with another set of pins.

“Want me to show you?”

Butter, chocolate. A low flame. He didn’t really need magic, just patience. In another few minutes the

batter was finished and ready for tasting.

He tasted, and so did she. He grinned at her. “Brownies fit for a queen.”

“Or James’ mother.”

“Even her.”

Her first real smile had been worth waiting for. It was easy to see why Jamie had fallen for her. He was

very glad to see she didn’t look scared of him any more.

She was a better wife than he was a friend, though, because she cleared her throat and moved back, just

an inch or so, but enough to matter. “I should go shower. Your room’s ready, I just have to get some

clean towels.”

Alex had been with women who’d have made that an invitation, but not even his ego let him think she

was coming on to him. “I don’t want you to go to a lot of trouble.”

“It’s not any trouble, Alex.”

His name slipped out of her mouth, casual, an afterthought. Her smile had connected them but saying his

name sewed them up tight together. He wanted to hear her say it again. It had been…

“Perfect,” he said, not meaning the towels or her effort, though she didn’t know it.

Maybe there wasn’t a moment. Maybe it was in his head, but Anne broke it anyway with her laugh and

a gesture at the chocolate all over her clothes and hands from where she’d gripped the bowl. He

watched her lick it from her fingertips and there was no more denying it. Hewas an asshole.

“You have some just…there.” His thumb traced the corner of her mouth, which opened at his touch.

Fuck, her lips were soft. The tip of her tongue hovered and he wanted to slide his thumb into her

mouth’s heat. He wanted to kiss away the sweetness on her mouth…but he didn’t.

She backed away, her eyes going over his shoulder, and Alex already knew what he’d see. “Jamie,” he

said as though he hadn’t just been thinking dirty thoughts about his best friend’s wife. “How the fuck’ve

you been?”

The dinner part went as well as anything involving the Kinneys could. Evelyn curled her lip at him but had

been polite, at least. She was always polite in front of other people. Alex reminded himself he didn’t give

a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut what the old hag thought, or had ever thought, or ever would think.

He made sure to linger around Jamie and whisper in his ear when he saw her watching.

The look she gave him then was well worth the look on Jamie’s face, that sort of half-startled, half-lazy

leer Alex bet Jamie didn’t even feel in his eyes and on his mouth. Leaning so close his lips brushed

Jamie’s ear, Alex could smell the new cologne his friend wore. Underneath it, the scent of the same soap

he’d used for years, that and fabric softener. In a blink they were back in junior high, wrestling over a

copy ofMad Magazine on Jamie’s bed.

“Goodbye, Mrs. Kinney,” he made sure to say sweetly when Jamie’s family left. “Great to see you

again.”

She was too much of a bitch to know he meant it. Once upon a time Jamie’s family had been his, too. At

least he’d thought so then. He knew better now.

Anne went to bed early, and as soon as she did, Jamie was pulling open the cabinet to bring down a

bottle of Jack so dusty his fingers left a mark on the glass. He put it on the table with a triumphant grin

and brought out two shot glasses, too.

“Let’s drink.”

After leaving Singapore and making his way through Amsterdam, Germany and a few other countries,

Alex and the hours on the clock still weren’t seeing eye-to-eye. Jet lag had nothing on the bone-deep

level of exhaustion threatening to topple him, but the shower he’d taken before the Kinneys arrived had

woken him, as had the company. He was too jazzed to sleep but too tired to make much sense of things.

“Hell, yes.” The first shot tore through his veins and slashed a sliver in his throat, making him cough so

hard Jamie had to pound his back.

“Jeeze, man. Don’t die on me—you just got here.” Jamie looked down the hall to the bedrooms.

Interesting, that he didn’t want his wife to know he was knocking back a couple shots with his friend.

“Let’s go out on the deck.”

He took the bottle. Alex followed. Outside the chill breeze drifting off the lake felt good on his face with

the fire from the liquor still burning its way to his gut. Alex shuffled in his pocket for the Marlboros he was

going to quit one of these days. The lighter flared and he drew in smoke, deep, before easing it out

through his nose. He looked up at the night sky.

Jamie eased into the space beside him, close enough the heat from his bare arm pressed at Alex’s

through the fabric of the shirt that had been too fancy for the dinner party. There was plenty of room for

the other man along the deck railing. Jamie didn’t need to stand so close.

Alex slung an arm around Jamie’s shoulders, pulling him closer and pinching Jamie’s bicep before

shoving him a few steps away with a hip. “Your mom seemed glad to see me.”

Jamie laughed. He gripped the railing with big, strong hands. He’d grown since college, thicker through

the shoulders and thighs. The arm Alex had pinched had nothing much to grab on it but solid muscle. He

wasn’t much like the skinny kid who’d sat behind Alex in homeroom in junior high. Neither of them were.

“You know my mom,” Jamie said, which wasn’t an excuse for her but didn’t invite criticism, either.

What must it be like for Anne, Alex wondered as he drew in another long, slow breath of sweetly

burning smoke and let it drift from his nostrils. Married to the golden boy? Evelyn must’ve tried her best

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