by Cat Carmine
And then she met Brendan.
Brendan was a surfer-turned-yoga-instructor that Lacy met at an Ashtanga class. I guess she liked how bendy he was, because three months later they eloped. They had a beach wedding in California. A pretty fun affair, I think, or at least it looked that way by the pictures she posted on Instagram. No one from our family was actually invited.
She quit her job at Good Grant Media, and a few weeks later she was pregnant.
That was seven, eight months ago. My family’s still reeling from the shock of it, I think. Especially my father. He was always — well, mostly — willing to let me fuck off and do my own thing, but now with Lacy reinventing herself as a beach bum, he’s been showing a renewed enthusiasm for meddling in my life. I guess he feels like he needs at least one Grant offspring to pass the family business on to.
Hence his announcement last month that he was appointing me acting CEO of Good Grant Books.
I look around the office. Aside from the shelves and shelves of books — seriously, so many books — there’s a big window with a decent view of the Empire State Building, and a big oak desk that looks way too much like the one my father always had in his den when I was growing up. It’s even got one of those black leather blotters on the top. Once, when I was seven or so, I scratched my initials into my father’s with a letter opener I found in his desk. Dad wasn’t the corporal punishment type, but in that moment, he looked like he wished he was. All I had wanted was some of his attention, and I sure got that in spades.
I shake my head. What a weird memory to call up.
I don’t have any more time to dwell on the desk situation, because someone knocks on my door at that moment. I ease into the leather chair and sit up straight before calling for them to come in.
Then I inwardly groan. At least, I hope it’s only inward.
At my door is Diana Cunningham. Technically my VP, although if we’re being honest here, she’d be better suited to this role than I am. I’m pretty sure that fact’s not lost on her either, at least judging by the way she looks at me most of the time.
“Mr. Grant,” she starts, but I’m already waving my hand.
“Please, Diana. Tyler is fine. Really.”
“Fine. Tyler.” She says my name disdainfully, like I’ve just told her to call me Pop-Tart. “Accounting has asked me if you’re done reviewing the quarterly outlook yet.”
“Right.” I scan the files on my desk. I’ve been trying to get up to speed on everything, but I’ve never had much patience for paperwork. I don’t even remember seeing the quarterly outlook, never mind actually reviewing it.
“Not yet,” I tell her.
Diana makes a harrumphing noise. “Fine. I’ll let them know it’ll be late. Have you reviewed the publicity plan for the new self-help line? The first launch is tonight. I’m sure Keagan has told you.”
“Yes, of course. I’ll be there.” Keagan is my assistant, and he’s told me so many things in the last few days that I’ve lost track of them all. The self-help thing sounds vaguely familiar though.
Diana raises her eyebrows at this. “You’re attending?”
Shit. I assumed that’s what she was getting at. Oh well. Might as well go with it now.
“Of course I’m attending. I think it’s important for me, as CEO, to support our authors.”
Diana’s lips are still pursed, but she doesn’t say anything.
“Is that all?” I shuffle through a random stack of papers on my desk.
Diana tugs on the hem of her bright red blazer, straightening it. She’s an attractive enough woman — mid-fifties, with a blunt grey haircut that makes her face look more severe than it already is. It’s her expressions that really send a shiver down my spine, though. The woman looks like she might devour babies in her spare time.
“That’s all,” she says curtly. “Let me know when you’re done with the outlook. I’d prefer not to keep accounting waiting forever.”
“Of course.” I smile smoothly. I may not know a lot about publishing, but I know people. A charming smile can get you pretty far.
But Diana just sniffs, and turns on her heel. As soon as she leaves, Keagan busts in.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to let the Viper in. I swear she waited until the minute I left for the photocopy room.”
The Viper is what Keagan — and apparently half the office — calls Diana. It’s partly a play on her VP title, and partly due to the swallow-you-whole way she has of looking at you. I wouldn’t admit it out loud, but it’s a fairly apt nickname.
I wave off Keagan’s concern. “It’s fine. But can you remind me if I’ve seen the quarterly outlook? Accounting’s looking for it.”
He scans my desk, then pulls a plain manilla folder out of a tall stack of identical folders.
“Here. You just have to look it over. It’s a formality, really. Mr. Dee never used to do much with it.”
Mr. Dee, also known as Mr. Decker, was the previous CEO. He retired last month, and unfortunately for me, he was beloved in this office. Everyone expected that Diana would be promoted into the role when he left — including Diana herself. I’m pretty sure she’d even started measuring for curtains. But of course, my father had decided to pull one over on everyone and stick his parties-too-much son into the role instead.
I have no doubt that I could buckle down and do the job if I want to. I did graduate with Honors from Harvard, after all. I just have no idea if I actually want to be here or not. I’ve spent my life avoiding the Good Grant legacy, and the only reason I’m here now is because my father decided to pull the plug on my trust fund.
Keagan is unloading another armful of file folders into my inbox. The stack is about a foot high now. I sigh.
Keagan notices my exasperation and grins. “It won’t be that bad, I promise. Most of these are FYI only. All you have to do is flip through them, stick a pink post-it note on them so I know you’ve seen them, and dump them in the outbox. Or on my desk.”
“Or in the garbage?”
He grins again. “No. Preferably not there.”
Keagan is what my mother would describe as a good egg. He’s barely more than twenty, and he’s got the kind of good looks that are better suited for a boy band than an office. But he’s efficient as hell and seems to know every piece of gossip in this entire office. That alone makes him invaluable as an assistant.
“Oh, Keagan, one more thing.” I stop him before he gets to the door. “Was I supposed to go to that book launch tonight?”
Keagan wrinkles his nose. “No. Usually only the publicity team goes to those. Mr. Dee never went.”
“Oh. I might have told Diana I was going.”
He chuckles. “Do you want to go?”
“I don’t know … might be interesting?”
He shrugs, laughing. “If you say so. I’ll forward you the invite so you have all the details.”
An hour later, I have the invitation. When I see the event’s being held at a bar called Veneer, I suddenly find myself a lot more interested in attending. My buddy Wes and I used to haunt that place all the time, and I’d been in again not that long ago. It seems like an odd place to have a book launch, but hey, they serve cold beer. That’s really the only thing I care about right now.
The book itself doesn’t look like my kind of thing, but then, I can’t say I ever would have chosen to do a self-help line in the first place. It’s all a little too woo-woo for me. This book in particular looks like a real prize, too. It’s called Miss Emma’s Rules for Dating: A Guide to Modern Relationships. I picture a prim 40-something librarian-type lecturing young women on how they should keep their legs closed. Obviously not a philosophy I share. But I suppose I can smile and nod for an evening, especially if I have a beer in hand.
I decide to go straight to Veneer instead of heading home first. They have decent food there, and I figure I’ll grab dinner before this thing gets started.
The warmth of the bar hits me as soon as I walk in. It’s
busy, although it’s too early for anyone to be here for the book launch yet. This looks more like the post-work crowd — a few suits, some college-aged kids, some trendy-looking hipsters that probably work at one of the design agencies downtown. Everyone seems in a good mood, and the stress of the day starts to melt away as I make my way to the bar.
That’s when I see her.
Perched on a bar stool, staring down at a glass of red wine, is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life. Dark hair that falls in perfect cascading waves down her back. A lithe body tucked into a crisp white shirt and snug skirt. Red lipstick that shows off plump juicy lips. I watch helplessly as they part, as her tongue darts out and runs over them.
I move towards her like I’m pulled there. The bar stool next to her is empty, so I slide onto it and clear my throat. She doesn’t look at me. She’s still staring at her wine glass. When she finally picks it up and takes a sip, I watch her throat bob, her perfectly delicate fingers on the glass. Her eyes roll back, and the look of pleasure on her face does something very, very nice to my cock.
I watch her as she takes another sip. This time, she lets out the smallest little groan. Sweet mother of God. Someone get me a bucket of ice.
When the bartender approaches me, I have to clear my throat. “I’ll have what she’s having.”
She finally snaps her eyes open and looks at me. Her cheeks pink up in the most deliciously sexy way I’ve ever seen. She puts her glass down carefully. Everything about her is so graceful, so deliberate. Like God sculpted her himself.
So, yeah, I flirt with her. Can you blame me? I’m sitting in a bar next to a stone-cold fox after I’ve had a stressful day. A random hook-up seems like the perfect way to cap off the day.
Except … shit. I’m here for this stupid book launch. Maybe I can convince her to stick around for it. Then I can take her home with me and do every dirty thing that’s suddenly dancing through my mind.
But I’ll worry about that later. Right now, I’m too focused on the turn of her lips to think about anything beyond the next minute.
When the bartender drops a grilled cheese sandwich in front of her, I almost laugh at the conflicted expression on her face. Part of her looks like she wants to dive face first into it, while the other part of her is trying to be restrained about it. Instead of taking a bite, she shoves the plate towards me.
“Want half?”
The question surprises me. I can’t say I’ve ever had a woman offer to split a grilled cheese sandwich with me at a bar before. Most of the time, they either throw themselves at me, or, in some misguided attempt to play hard to get, ignore me completely. Either can work, but only because I want it to work. I’m not one to fall for any kind of play. I practically wrote the playbook, after all.
But this girl throws me for a loop. Even though I’m sitting on a bar stool, which is set firmly on a polished concrete floor, I have the strangest feeling that I’m bobbing along through uncharted waters.
And then the undertow of her pulls me under completely.
She takes a bite of the sandwich in front of her, tilts her head back, and moans. When she opens her eyes again, she says, “I think that’s the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth.”
I don’t know why, but it slays me to hear those words coming out of her perfect red lips. I don’t think she means it to sound dirty, which is somehow what makes it so endearing and so fucking sexy.
Equally endearing and sexy is the way her cheeks turn pink when I laugh. I imagine that blush spreading all the way down over her chest, across the generous tits that are begging to be set free from that crisp shirt she’s wearing.
I blame my distraction — and the fact that half my blood is currently located below the belt — for what happens next. I reach for a napkin, and my hand knocks against hers as she’s lifting her wine glass. Ruby red liquid splashes all over her once-white shirt.
And she looks pissed.
Really pissed.
Three
I stare down at my chest in horror. Wine is pooling like blood, spreading across my chest like I took a bullet to the heart. Which, hand to God, I actually feel like I did.
I try not to shriek, but I let out a noise that sounds a bit like a baby rabbit being mauled. I glare at the guy sitting next to me. It wasn’t even technically his fault, but I haven’t spilled a drink on myself since I was about eight years old, so he’s getting the blame for this one.
“I’m so sorry,” he says. “Let me.” He’s already reaching for the napkins, but I grab them out of his hands and start dabbing frantically at my chest. It’s not enough. I need to rinse this shirt, stat.
I make a beeline for the bathroom. I’m unbuttoning my blouse before I even get in there, and I run the cold water in the sink as I rip the shirt from my body. I thrust it under the tap and try to get as much of the wine out as I can.
There’s wine on my stomach and chest, and my pretty, lacy, pink bra is probably ruined, but I can worry about those later. Right now, I have to get this clean. I can’t stand up in a room full of people with a huge wine stain on my shirt.
I wrack my brain, wondering if there’s a way I can get a fresh shirt in the next half hour. Rori’s already running late and won’t have time to stop and pick something up for me, and Blake and my parents are coming in from Connecticut, so they’ll have already left. Maybe Lucy, my roommate?
“How’s it looking?” The deep voice comes from behind me, and I bang my wrist against the faucet as I jerk in surprise. I spin around and find my mystery man. I don’t even ask what he’s doing in the women’s washroom. He’s looking chagrined and holding a stack of napkins and a pint glass of something that looks like club soda.
Well. That’s … surprisingly helpful.
“Not good,” I tell him grimly. He holds the glass out to me.
“Club soda,” he confirms. “My mother swears by it.”
“Thank you,” I say grudgingly. I set it on the edge of the sink, dip some napkins in it, and start blotting at the stain. It’s faded to a lighter pink, but it’s still completely visible.
Angry, frustrated tears prick my eyes, but I won’t let myself cry. Especially not in front of this guy. Tonight was supposed to be perfect — my big night — and everything’s going wrong. My sisters stood me up, and I made an ass of myself, and now my shirt is ruined.
I try to concentrate on scrubbing at the shirt, but the pink isn’t getting any lighter. I let out a frustrated groan.
“I have an idea,” the guy behind me says.
I spin around to face him. “I’m all ears.”
I’m sure I sound quite sarcastic, but he grins. His grey eyes are glinting, even under the harsh fluorescent light of the bathroom, and I have the sudden realization that I’m standing there in front of him in nothing but my bra. I hold the soggy shirt up in front of my chest and try to maintain at least some level of dignity, but that only makes him chuckle. It’s a deep, throaty sound, one that makes my nipples pebble under my wet bra. I clutch the shirt closer to my chest. Definitely don’t need him to see that.
“Here.” He slips his jacket off his shoulders — definitely charcoal, now that I can see it better. He lays it on the counter and starts unbuttoning his shirt.
I watch his fingers move nimbly over the small buttons. His watch gleams. My tongue darts out involuntarily, running over my lips. I can’t help it, okay? The man is dead sexy, and even the fact that I’m having the worst night of my life can’t detract from that.
He grins at me as he shrugs out of the shirt. He’s got a tight white undershirt on underneath. It hugs the hard muscles of his chest, and I can almost make out the lines of his taut abs below. I give myself a minute to let my eyes rove over his biceps and broad shoulders before I realize he’s holding the shirt out to me.
I stare down at it. “I can’t wear that.”
“Why not?” He’s still grinning. “It’s dry and, most importantly, a hundred percent wine-free.”
“But i
t’s … your shirt. And it’ll be too big for me. And it’s … your shirt.” I lick my lips again as he laughs.
“I’ll just wear this,” he says, pointing his thumb towards his undershirt. “Under a blazer, no one will know the difference. It’ll look like a t-shirt. And as for this one being too big, I don’t know — you women are always good at making that work. Just tie it or something.”
I reach out to take it and am horrified to realize my hand is trembling. I snatch the shirt out of his hand and hold it up. It’s a nice white shirt, Armani, expensive. And he might actually be right — I could tie it around my waist. With the pencil skirt, it might even look kind of cute.
Certainly better than the wine-soaked one, that’s for sure.
I shrug it on. The scent envelops me immediately. His scent. Spicy and masculine and sun-drenched, somehow. Even the fabric is still warm and soft from his skin. It sends a hot chill through me as I slide my arms into the sleeves, as I start to pull it closed around my chest.
I’m suddenly overcome by how sweet the gesture is. Here’s this perfect stranger, sacrificing his shirt for the crazy girl having a meltdown in the bathroom. It’s good manners, is what it is. And God, there’s nothing sexier than a man who was raised right and can still look at you like that.
Because the way he’s looking at me right now …
Like he wants to peel this shirt back off my shoulders and run his lips over my collarbone.
Like he wants to push me up against the sink and lift my skirt up over my hips.
Like he wants to fuck my brains out.
I swallow. His grin gets wider.
And then … I don’t know how to explain what happens next. My feet move of their own accord, crossing the dingy bathroom tile in two, three steps.
