Beach Reads Box Set

by Madden-Mills, Ilsa

  “I’m so happy for her. She’s been glowing lately. She deserves to be happy.”

  “Absolutely.”

  I chew on the edge of my fingernail as I rule out the possibility of staying at Nana’s. Listening to Sienna and Walker going at it is one thing. Potentially hearing Nana and a guy getting down is a whole other world I’m not ready to process.

  That leaves two options—Holt’s or a hotel in Chicago.

  “Hey, Sienna. I wanted to ask you a question.”

  “Sure. Shoot.”

  “How well do you actually know Holt Mason?”

  Her giggle is ridiculous. I can’t help but roll my eyes.

  “I know him pretty well. We grew up around their family. I know his youngest brother, Boone, the best. He’s closer to my age. But all the Masons are really familiar to me.” She smacks her lips together. “May I ask why you’re inquiring about this specific tall, dark, and handsome man?”

  I roll my eyes again—this time, at myself. The excitement in her voice has worked its way through the phone and into my veins. I fidget as I try to put together a proper response.

  “We had lunch today,” I say. “I’m just curious.”

  “Oooh.”

  “Sienna.”

  She sighs. “Let me love this, Blaire. Please? I’m supposed to love this.”

  “There’s nothing to love.”

  “But there is. You don’t know how this works, obviously.” She sighs again for effect. “See—when you call a girlfriend and bring up a hot guy, that means you’re interested or there’s a story there. It’s your way of bringing the item to the table. So, my job, as your girlfriend, is to be excited for you. Or to be ready to throttle him, but I don’t think that’s the direction this conversation is going to go. Is it?”

  The end of her question is loaded with innuendo. It’s clear she’s giddy over the idea of something happening between her childhood crush and me. And by the smile spreading across my cheeks, it would be clear to her—if she could see me—that I am a little bit happy too.

  “He is hot, isn’t he?” I ask.

  She laughs. “Yes. He so is. Now tell me all the things.”

  I pace in a circle and attempt to slow down my thoughts. “My building in Chicago has asbestos, and I can’t get back in for a week or so.”

  “And …”

  “And I could stay with you and Walker.”

  “Of course.”

  “I was thinking about staying with Nana, but if she’s ….” I wince. “I’m not staying with Nana.”

  She pauses, letting the silence work between us before speaking. “No, you’re not. You’re staying with Holt.”

  I suck in a quick breath. “Well …”

  “Blaire!” she shrieks. “You are? I mean, I was just throwing shit at the wall and hoping something stuck. You’re going to stay with him?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, rushed. “I’m not sure. He offered to let me stay with him, and I’m thinking about it. I just don’t know a lot about him and wanted to at least … explore the possibility, I guess.”

  She giggles. “Say yes.”

  “You’re not thinking clearly, Sienna.”

  “Oh, but Blaire—I am,” she says with exaggerated sincerity. “He’s from a great family. Smart. Kind. He’s funny and always smells amazing, and I know he’d show you a good time—in any way you might want to take that.”

  She drones on and on about Holt’s virtues, but I stop listening. Mostly because my mind starts imagining what it might be like to actually be in his home.

  I pretend to say yes and allow that decision to sit in my stomach. I close my eyes as Sienna veers away from Holt and onto the virtues of getaways and try to see what it feels like to take him up on his offer.

  And strangely, it feels good. Fun. Exciting. Those are three things that are a bit foreign to me but tap pleasantly through my veins.

  “Are you listening to me?” Sienna asks.

  “Yes. I should agree to his proposal. I hear you.”

  “Yes, you should. So … are you?”

  Am I?

  While the idea has nested itself in my psyche, I’m still not positive. Rushed judgments tend to lend themselves to trouble, and I know better. I need to think clearly.

  “Maybe. I’m going to think about it for a while first. Good decisions come after a lot of thought.”

  “Well, good experiences come from impulsive decisions, so don’t think about it too much.”

  “You’re crazy,” I say with a chuckle. “I gotta go, Sienna. Talk to you soon.”

  “Don’t overthink this!”

  “Goodbye, Sienna.”

  “Ugh. Fine. Bye.”

  I end the call.

  Chapter Twelve

  Holt

  “I can move this building here and change the interior concept,” Wade says, moving his finger across the paper on my desk, “but it will be an engineering nightmare.”

  My chair squeaks as I rock backward and take in Wade’s point.

  “Oliver said Landry won’t agree to sell until we demonstrate our intent with the property,” he continues. “Ollie tried to gloss over it as best as he could, but Landry wanted visuals.”

  I tear my eyes away from the design and look at my brother. “With this version, we still have hotel space, two restaurants—”

  “Three.”

  “Okay. And some office space too, correct?”

  “Correct.” Wade takes off his glasses and sighs. “Boone has been working his ass off, believe it or not—”

  “Or not,” I mutter.

  Wade grins. “I’m confident we have solid interest in all the spaces except for the retail section on the east end. If you can get Landry to sell the land to us, we can start securing merchants and investors. It will make us a motherfucking fortune.”

  And if we don’t get him to sell to us, it might cost us everything.

  I sigh. “I know.”

  I push my chair the rest of the way back and get to my feet. My right hand clasps against the back of my neck where the muscles are rigid. As I work my neck back and forth, my thoughts veer from Wade’s monologue on architectural symmetry to Blaire.

  Blocking out a woman—especially when a project of this magnitude is on the table—has never been an issue. I’ve always gotten way more out of a multi-million-dollar deal than a relationship. That’s probably why I’ve never been in a lasting relationship to start with: it can never hold a candle to what I do all day.

  So why in the hell am I tuning out Wade and tuning into Blaire?

  I know better than this. Fuck.

  “Where the hell did you just go?” Wade’s voice snaps me out of my delirium. “You didn’t hear a word of that, did you?”

  I rub a hand down my face. “Wade, I think I’m losing my mind.”

  “Please. No. Don’t leave me with Oliver and Boone all on my own.”

  I can’t help but chuckle.

  Wade takes in the scene before him—my less-than-stellar attention span, mussed-up hair, and wrinkled forehead—and sighs. He sits on the sofa near the door and looks at me unamused.

  I lean against the wall and stare back at him. It’s like looking in a mirror. Our hair is the same color. Both of our eyes a green-gold mix. We’re built the same too. If he didn’t handle his stress better than I do, we could be twins. Unfortunately, I have way more lines on my face than him.

  “Can we get this over with?” he asks.

  “What?”

  “Why are you losing your mind?” he asks as if I’m a baby.

  I glare back at him. “You wanna know what I did today?”

  “No. But here we are, so tell me so we can get on with it.”

  “I asked a woman to stay with me,” I say, my jaw set in place. “In my house. Willingly. This week of all weeks.”

  This gets a reaction. He leans up, pressing his hands against his knees, and makes a surprised face.

  “I know,” I mutter.

  “I h
ave to admit that you’ve stunned me a little bit.”

  “Hell, I’ve stunned myself.”

  He mulls this over. “Do you like her? I mean, you must if you’re subverting your whole ‘my house is my sanctum’ rule.”

  Do I? Do I like her?

  What a stupid question to be asking yourself now, Holt.

  I turn toward the glass that overlooks downtown Savannah and consider his question. Of course, I like her. She’s intelligent and witty and fucking gorgeous. But do I like her enough to stay with me?

  My house is off-limits and has been for years. Ever since Kendra Thompson and I ended things—something I apparently thought was a lot less serious than she did—and she destroyed the walls and carpeting while I was at work and then refused to leave. It took weeks to fix the damage and left me without a place to relax after closing one of the biggest deals of my life. That was four years ago. I’ve held tight for four freaking years.

  So why am I breaking that rule now?

  I’m cracking under stress.

  “This is none of my business,” Wade says, running his hands down his thighs. “But you brought it up, so here’s what I think—you’re lonely in that big old house, and you’re stressed out from this whole Landry thing. You’re probably not thinking clearly, and she’s pressured you into—”

  “No.” I shake my head. “She didn’t. Not in the slightest.”

  “Wow. Okay. Who is she?”

  I force a swallow. “Blaire Gibson. I met her at the airport and then again at the Landrys.”

  He nods, having heard this story from Oliver, I’m sure.

  “Am I?” I ask. “Am I losing my mind? Or does this make as much sense as I think it does? But then again, I say it out loud, and it sounds ridiculous. Like Boone-level ridiculous.”

  Wade cocks a brow, unfazed by my confusion. “You know what I think about women. Ergo, I think you’re losing your mind.”

  I roll my eyes. “I realize you’d rather eat lead than spend time with a woman, but all of us aren’t as self-reliant.”

  “And y’all aren’t as smart, either.” He sighs and stands. “Women are a giant pain in the ass. They demand your time and money and attention, and they wreck your truck.” A fire flashes through Wade’s eyes as the unfortunate night one of Boone’s girlfriends wrecked his truck undoubtedly comes to his mind. “None of you are ever happy when you’re dating someone, so why do it?”

  “Coy looks happy.”

  He snorts. “Coy is happy he’s getting paid to be America’s Sweetheart’s pretend boyfriend. Coy loves money more than he loves women.”

  “I don’t know if that’s true,” I say before getting irritated at the twist in conversation. “But this isn’t about Coy. This is about me. Should I call Blaire and guide her away from staying with me?”

  “Fuck if I know.” He walks across the room and stops in front of my desk. “This isn’t a conversation for me.”

  “Then who am I supposed to ask? Boone?”

  Wade shrugs and rolls his designs up into a log. “I don’t know. This isn’t in my wheelhouse. Call Mom. Call Larissa,” he says, referring to our cousin. “Call Blaire and tell her you want her to have your babies for all I care. But I have work to do while you’re off wasting time with this bullshit.”

  He plops the log onto his shoulder and heads for the door.

  “You know what?” I call after him. “You aren’t my favorite brother anymore.”

  “Good. You were never mine.”

  “Liar.”

  He pauses in the doorway and turns to face me. “You’re only my favorite because the others are idiots, and this side of the company would fall on its face without you. You’re the backbone around here—no pressure.” He gives me a fake smile that slowly morphs into a real one. “But as far as the girl goes—I can tell you like her, so go through with it. Let her stay with you. She doesn’t live here anyway, right? What could it hurt? She’ll have to go home eventually.”

  I shrug.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow about the changes to these,” he says, tapping his free hand against the drawings.

  “See ya.”

  He disappears around the corner without saying another word.

  I drop into my chair again and let out a deep breath. I don’t exactly know how I got into this predicament, but I do think Wade is right.

  What could it hurt?

  Not much. She’ll be chomping at the bit to go home and get back to work as soon as she can. That much I’ll guarantee. The odds of her going Kendra and becoming a huge problem are really moot when I think about it. And hanging out with her in the evenings for a few days might be a good way to recharge while we’re battling Landry.

  Besides, it’s a nice thing for me to do. It’ll get me good karma.

  “She might not even take me up on it,” I say, scooting up to my desk. “I’m probably wildly overthinking this.”

  I grin when I see that Wade left me a copy of his design. I peer over the papers and make a few notes along the side. I’m just about to grab a glass of water when my phone rings.

  “Hello?” I ask, sinking back into my chair in anticipation of Blaire’s voice.

  “Hi, Holt.”

  “Hi, Blaire.”

  My internal rhythms change immediately, evening out into a steady pace. The wariness from my conversation with Wade and the uncertainty I felt as I studied the plans are gone. In their place is an excitement that I can’t—and don’t want to—deny.

  “Are you having a good day?” she asks.

  “Wade just left my office so … not really.” I laugh. “I’m in the office. What about you?”

  “Am I interrupting? Because I can call back or—”

  “No,” I say, sitting up. “It’s just me now. I need a break anyway.”

  She blows out a light breath.

  “What about you?” I ask again. “Are you having a good day?”

  “Yes, actually. Well, I was until the baby across the hall started crying again. I’m starting to think it has colic.”

  I furrow my brow. “What’s colic?”

  “It’s when babies cry for no apparent reason. My youngest brother, Machlan, had it when he was a baby. He would cry every afternoon from four o’clock to seven thirty on the dot. It was the strangest thing.”

  “Huh. Well, I don’t know much about babies other than I’m not sure I’m built for diapers.”

  She laughs. “Me either. My nana keeps pushing me to have kids before she dies, which is a completely morbid thought in my opinion. I’m hoping my brothers hurry up and have kids so the pressure gets taken off me.”

  “But you’re the only girl, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “That might make a difference,” I counter. “She might want to see her maternal line move another generation.”

  “Well, she should’ve had more children and upped her odds.”

  “That’s what I tell my mother. She’s always telling us that we need to have daughters since she had five boys. I tell her it’s not my fault.” I laugh. “Then we tell her that Boone will definitely have daughters with all the estrogen in his blood so it’s not a worry.”

  Blaire laughs. “So Boone is the one you tease?”

  “Nah, we all get teased for different things. Boone’s the baby, so he gets punked a little more just because of birth order … and the fact that he really embraces the baby-of-the-family role.”

  “Machlan is the baby in our family, and he does the punking. Except to Walker. I don’t think they’ve ever actually fought, but I’m not sure who would win.”

  I fiddle with the top button of my shirt. It takes a few tries before I get it undone.

  Rising to my feet, I walk over to the windows. The sun is still warm even though it’s flirting with the horizon. The day whizzed by. This time last night, Blaire and I were on our way to Picante. That seems unreal. It also seems unreal that I might not see her again if she leaves tomorrow.

  “Did you give a
ny thought to my offer?” I ask.

  She hesitates. “Yes, actually. I did.”

  “And …?”

  “I was thinking that it might not be a terrible idea to stay in Savannah for a few more days and see the city.”

  My reflection in the glass shows just how big my smile grows.

  “I think that’s great,” I say.

  “Do you? Because I can always get a hotel room in Chicago. I don’t want to be a charity case. I’ve considered that maybe—”

  “Blaire?”

  “Yes?”

  “You’re rambling,” I tease.

  She laughs. “I’m sorry. I just … I don’t know what to say right now, to be honest. I don’t want to be an inconvenience.”

  I lean against the window. The tension in the back of my neck is gone, as is the ache in my jaw that developed when Wade walked in the door earlier. I feel like I could go for a run or turn on the television—both things I never feel energized enough for or peaceful enough to do, depending.

  “How about you just say that you need my address?” I offer.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely.”

  She sighs. “Okay. Holt, I need your address so that I can come tomorrow after check-out. So probably around noon-ish.”

  I shove off the glass. “Why don’t you just come now?”

  “Because I just told you I’d come by tomorrow.”

  I hear the edge in her voice—the one that serves as a warning not to push her. The strength and fearlessness in her tone makes me fucking hard. It also makes me want to push.

  “Fair enough,” I throw back. “Stay in the room with the crying baby instead of coming to my house where I’ll be working in pure silence while ordering takeout. That makes total sense.”

  I hold my breath as she analyzes my point. It’s a good one. I’m sure of it. The only way she won’t take me up on it is if she’s proving some other point to herself. Or if she pushes back just because I pushed first.

  Which could happen.

  “How about this?” I ask, rethinking my tactics. “I’ll text you my address. You are welcome to come at any time. If you get driven crazy by the colic kid tonight, come on by. Or wait until tomorrow. That’s cool too. Totally up to you.”