by Piper Lawson
Sealed
by Piper Lawson
Chapter 1
Lex
“Three words. Swarovski. Crystal. Thongs. Think about it.” My best friend Ava narrowed green eyes at me from across the coffee table.
“No. Bunnies, spray painted purple.”
I shot a look at my roommate, Jordan, who reclined on the couch.
“With animal-friendly paint, of course,” she added in her trademark deadpan. Her blond hair was pulled into a messy topknot and her jeans had holes in them. Not the designer distressed kind; the “I wore these until the fabric gave way to my lifestyle” kind. “Wait, here it is: Knee-high socks that say ‘WALK’ on them.”
Ava sat up and blinked. “With Swarovski crystals!”
I fell back in my chair. “Come on, guys. When we agreed to brainstorm what to put in the Elle Duchesne VIP bags, this wasn’t what I had in mind.”
Jordan and Ava were both insanely talented, which was part of the reason we were business partners. Ava was the designer for the fashion label we’d launched together two years ago. I’d met Jordan through the magazine I’d interned at, and she’d eventually come onboard with Travesty to manage suppliers and distribution. My official role was to head up marketing and finance.
My unofficial role was to keep these two brilliant kooks in line.
“Lex, we’re doing this as a favor for the magazine,” Ava reminded me from the overstuffed living room chair, her legs on one arm and her shoulders on the other. “They’re bags for a Fashion Week show. I know you’re an Elle groupie and you want free tickets, but you don’t even work there anymore. The bags don’t have to be perfect.”
“They do,” I insisted. “The magazine’s sponsoring the fashion show, and Kirsten asked us to do this. I interned with her forever. You guys both know we wouldn’t have Travesty without her.”
They weren’t buying it.
“I thought your big thing was making Travesty an international success story. How is arranging tissue paper going to take us global?” Jordan arched an eyebrow under her thick fall of blond hair. At least, I think she did.
I shifted in my seat. Jordan wasn’t wrong. Maybe it was her entrepreneur dad’s influence, but she had this uncanny ability to see through crap and latch onto the heart of an issue.
We’d spent the last two years getting Travesty, our clothing line, up and running. Since graduating college, we had three seasons under our belts and our clothes were selling online and in boutiques in New York and LA. Now, I’d let myself dream bigger. I wanted more for us. For the work we’d poured our hearts and souls into. And every spare moment went into thinking about how to make that happen.
My friends knew every detail of my not-so-sordid life. From fights with my mom to screwups at work to my freakout last year about getting my period two weeks late. But they didn’t know this.
I took a deep breath. “OK. There’s something I should tell you guys. The thing is—” A knock on the door interrupted my thoughts. “Is that Nate?”
“Doubt it. He’s at work. He always is, lately,” Ava replied, frowning. “He won’t even come to part of Fashion Week. Can you believe the guy’s pushing thirty, lived all of it here, and never gone?”
I thought about the lawyer Ava’d moved in with in our building after we’d both moved to New York from Cali. “Yes. I can.”
“He’s got some kind of project on the go. He won’t even tell me what it is,” Ava went on as I rose, tugging at the hem of my skirt.
When I looked in the peephole I didn’t see anything.
“That’s weird.”
I pulled on the handle and my heart stopped.
The guy on the other side was all wrong and all right at once.
Tall enough I had to tilt my head back to meet his gaze, taking in more than six feet of distressed dark jeans and an olive green Henley on the way. The clothes clung to his body, which was hard and lean in equal measure. His chocolate brown eyes were warm enough to turn my insides to mush, and the way his hair fell across his face was achingly familiar.
“Dylan?”
“Hey, smart girl,” he murmured.
I did what any twenty-three-year-old woman would do when confronted with more than six feet of unexpected, gorgeous guy.
I tackled him.
Chapter 2
Dylan
As the youngest of four siblings, I spent the better part of my early years at the bottom of a pileup. Add high school and college rugby to the mix, and I’d been jumped, crushed, kicked, and hit every way there is. Pileups pretty much always suck.
Unless you’re being jumped by a girl who shares zero of your genetic code. One who’s soft in all the right places and clinging to you like she’s never letting go.
“You going to invite me in or do you want to do this in the hallway?” I murmured in Lex’s ear as I wrapped her in my arms. I breathed her in, burying my nose in her hair. Nothing smelled that good in California. Fucking nothing.
My girlfriend pulled back, silver eyes sparkling. Her smooth skin had the faintest dusting of freckles you could only see in the right light. “I suppose you can come in.”
Fuck, she was cute. It literally took my breath away, like the time my brother Ethan had sat on me until I’d admitted I’d taken his G.I. Joe apart and dropped the pieces into Mom’s cake batter.
Refusing to let go of her hand, I kicked my duffel bag across the threshold as I stepped into the apartment after her.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but what are you doing here? I’m supposed to fly to you next.”
“Guess I couldn’t wait a month.”
The schedule was our best attempt at managing the reality of living on opposite sides of the country, at least until I finished college the following year.
I tugged on Lex’s hand to bring her face-to-face with me. Every time I went home, or she did, it was like I forgot a bit. Like I decided she couldn’t possibly be so vibrant just by existing. Now, Lex’s knowing smile and addictive smell were doing strange things to my head.
At least one other girl was in that apartment. Possibly two. If any of the blood in my body had been going in the direction of my brain, I probably could’ve named them.
Instead, I stepped into Lex, my fingers threading in her hair as I kissed her. I couldn’t have cared less about the audience when her hands landed on my chest, fingers tightening in my shirt. Or when her hips pressed against mine, like she knew she should resist but all she wanted to do was grind into me.
My arm banded around her waist to haul her against me and I felt myself groan at the feel of her body. Every part of me burned to be closer to her, to feel her skin with nothing between us.
I crushed her mouth with mine, her soft lips opening for my greedy tongue so I could taste her, explore her. Normally I’d have a little more finesse. But finesse could fucking wait, and I couldn’t.
The throat clearing finally got loud enough to break into my brain. Harnessing some massive self-control, I pulled back to find Lex’s pink lips bruised from my mouth. I felt a twinge of regret at what I’d done.
One that was completely erased by all the things I still wanted to do.
“Can you not make babies in my living room?”
“We’re exceptional human beings. It’d be a crime not to.” I turned just far enough to catch sight of my big sister lounging in a chair. Lex’s roommate, Jordan, looked on from the couch with an inscrutable expression. “Besides, don’t you live…somewhere in this building that’s not here?”
“Technically.” “Big sister” was the wrong term for Ava, who was the size of a peanut with the personality of a habanero. She waved a dismissive hand, and the light blinked off the half-dozen bracelets
on her arm.
“Good. Because if you told me you’d ditched Nate, I would’ve had to beat some sense into you. And since I’m only here for three days, I don’t have time.”
Jordan rose from the couch, brushing herself off and crossing to the door.
“Where are you going?” Lex asked.
“To buy a pregnancy test. Watching that might’ve made me conceive.”
Ava snorted.
“But—we’re not done with the bags…” Lex trailed off.
“There’s also the tiny matter of opening the store we run. Which, last I checked, required one of us to do.” Jordan stepped into a pair of shoes without help from her hands, clapping me on the shoulder on her way out the door. “See you, Dylan.”
“How did I not know about this visit?” Ava demanded as the door closed behind Jordan. “Are you running from the law?”
“Nope. You’re still the only Cameron who’s served jail time, Rocky.” Ava glared as I took a seat on the couch where Jordan had been, Lex settling in beside me. “Actually, most of the engineering firms are hiring now for next year. There was a last-minute sale on the red-eye, and I wanted to take a few days before school started to talk to some. And—” I glanced at Lex “—I thought it’d be more fun to surprise you.”
It was the truth. At least, part of it was.
“So do you have interviews set up?” Lex asked.
“Yeah. Nate’s been helping me make connections. Speaking of Nate, I’m supposed to meet him soon.” I checked my watch.
“Seriously? That’s so sweet that he’s helping you,” Ava cooed.
“Aren’t you exhausted?” Lex asked.
“Nah. Just stopped in to see you. Thought I might grab a shower too.” I cut a look toward the bathroom, a very attractive visual taking shape in my mind. “You want to join me?”
“Hey!” Ava interjected. “If I have to forgo sex to make party favors for Fashion Week, so do you.”
“Lex, do you hear something? I think your apartment’s being haunted by the ghosts of roommates past.”
Ava threw a pen that whizzed past my ear.
Lex groaned. “Ava’s right. We should finish this now. When will you be back tonight?”
“Six.”
Lex pressed a lingering kiss to my mouth. “Can you make it five?”
Chapter 3
Dylan
Despite the half-dozen trips I’d made to Manhattan, the scale of it blew me away every time.
On the West Coast, the most impressive infrastructure is of the natural variety. New York should be an engineer’s dream—steel and glass and concrete designed to hold and move and house millions of people. But I’d be the first to admit I had a hard time getting why people would line up to call it home.
I found my way on the subway despite Ava’s warnings that it was a man-eating maze, and three stops later I was back above ground. My phone GPS directed me to the building I needed, and I held the door for a mom pushing a stroller before following them inside the lobby.
The sign inside the fourteenth floor foyer announced Jackson Mansfield, LLC.
I’d first met Nate Townsend last year, before he and my sister had started dating. Then, he’d been working at his dad’s ultra-conservative firm in midtown. Though I didn’t know the whole story, he’d taken a new job this spring at a shop that was miles from his father’s—geographically and politically.
“I’ve been waiting for you.”
The flirtatious voice came from the thirty-something woman sitting behind the front desk with the air of a captain commanding a pirate ship. Her dyed black hair was pulled into a ponytail. She had four studs in one ear and a phone wedged between her shoulder and the other.
I looked both ways to make sure she was talking to me.
“I’m looking for Nate Townsend. Am I in the right place?”
“Dammit!” she exclaimed, her brows pulling together as she slammed the phone into its cradle with no regard for whoever was on the other end. “All the good ones are gay,” she explained, flashing a mile of cleavage as she leaned forward. “I’m Krissy. I’m new.”
“Hi, Krissy.”
“So, are you?” she demanded, and I raised a brow. “Dating Nate Townsend?”
I waited until a man and a woman in suits passed by on their way to the elevator before lowering my voice. “I don’t kiss and tell.”
“Ugh!” She slapped a hand on the desk before rising from behind it. “I should’ve known some guy had him tied to a bed when he wasn’t here.”
I couldn’t come up with one single response to that statement, so I followed her down the hall.
“Here you go!” she chirped, pulling up halfway down the row of offices and sweeping her hands across the open door, game show style.
The man inside had a few years on me and wore the uniform like it was made for him—the pressed navy suit, and a haircut that probably cost more every month than mine did in a year. Nate looked up from his desk, cool blue eyes warming with recognition the second he saw me.
“Mr. Townsend, Mr. …?”
“Dylan,” I supplied.
Krissy winked at me before turning back to Nate. “Mr. Dylan is here for you.”
“Thanks, Krissy,” Nate said.
“Want me to shut the door?” Another wink.
“Yes. Fine.”
“She has a lot of personality,” I offered once we were alone.
“That’s one way of putting it. She just started last month. We’re all adjusting,” he said dryly. “Can I get you a drink? Coffee? I just bought an espresso machine.” Nate’s eyes brightened as his gaze flicked to a chrome contraption on the sleek file cabinet behind him.
“Nate. Are you hiding from Krissy?”
“I think she tries to count my balls through my pants every morning.”
“Ava would pull out Krissy’s eyes and shove them down her throat if she knew.”
“That’s why I keep them apart.”
“Ah, love.”
The first time I’d met Nate, I’d figured he and my sister would be the last people to hit it off. But seeing him and Ava together… They might’ve been from different worlds, but under the shallow arguments, they were completely in sync.
I dropped into one of the two visitors’ chairs in front of Nate’s desk. “Listen. Thanks for helping me line up those interviews for tomorrow. I know that when you offered to help last year, you probably thought I’d forget about it.”
Nate folded his hands on the desk in front of him. “Nonsense. Anything I can do. I know it’s competitive to get into an engineering firm right out of school. Besides, what’s the point of having family connections if you’re not going to use them?” He took a drink from the mug on his desk, watching me over the edge. “I’m curious, though. If this doesn’t pan out, what’s your plan B?”
“Huh?”
The shoulder of his suit lifted an inch, but his expression stayed friendly. “If you can’t find a job in New York when you graduate.”
My stomach tightened. “There is no plan B. This is the plan. I have to get a job.”
“Well, I applaud your confidence.”
“You think it’s crazy.”
His face split into a grin. “I think I’ve learned in the past year that you have to go after the things you want. Because they won’t wait around. Speaking of which, what about the other part of your trip?”
His face was a mask of concentration as I filled him in. When I finished, he shook his head slowly. “And you’re going to do that in…?”
“The next forty-eight hours,” I confirmed.
He wrote something on a pad of paper that had his name printed across the top, ripped the sheet off, and handed it to me. “I promised you a name. This guy, Ramone? Start with him.”
“You’re the best.” A notification lit up the corner of the computer display just behind Nate. Most of the screen was taken up by a complex-looking table. “What’s that?”
He turned to follow my ga
ze. “Billables. We have to account for every six minutes of our time.”
“Seriously?”
“Sometimes being a grown-up sucks,” he agreed.
“So you need to put something for the time I’ve been here.”
Nate glanced at the clock. “Two somethings, actually. I could put down ‘Mr. Dylan,’ but only if you want Mr. Dylan to get a bill at the end of the quarter.”
“In that case, let’s call it Operation Lockdown.”
Nate looked off into the distance. “Operation Lockdown. I like it. Sounds like special ops stuff.” I couldn’t stop the chuckle. Nate caught me. “Give it three years. When you spend most of your time in a suit behind a desk, you have to take your fun where you can get it.”
“Right. Well, this is for you.” I dug an envelope out of my pocket and handed it to him. “Thanks for your help, Nate. With everything.”
He set the envelope on his desk. “No problem. In another year we’ll both be living in New York, and I don’t see either of us going anywhere soon. We have to look out for one another.” He walked me to the door of his office. “Sorry I can’t take you for a drink right now. I have a corporate case this afternoon. This company declined to pay out this guy’s pension.”
“Good luck with that.”
“I don’t need luck. They’re bringing us an offer in—” he checked an expensive-looking watch “—about eight minutes. Which means they’ll be eating it in ten.” His eyes flashed with anticipation.
“That was fast.” Krissy craned her neck to see over the counter as I passed her desk on my way to the elevator.
“Operation Lockdown is a quick business.”
She smiled knowingly. “Which one of you fine gentlemen wore the handcuffs?”
Chapter 4
Dylan
The sun was still high in the sky when I let myself up to Lex’s apartment with her spare set of keys.
It was smaller than the house I shared with three guys in San Diego just off the college campus. I didn’t know how much Jordan had to do with the tidy coat closet or the purses hanging by the door instead of on the floor like they’d been in my house growing up, but I suspected the new pictures in the hall—a series of photographs with bicycles in different colors—were her influence.
