by Nina Lane
Kate walked up and down Ocean Avenue, casting glances at the high-end boutiques with their beveled glass windows and displays of elegant mini-dresses and designer shoes. She hadn’t intended to come to the pricey shopping district during her daily power-walk, but she was here now, and she didn’t appear to be leaving.
Tyler’s words continued to stream like music in her ears. Raw, impolite music, but music nonetheless. Killer body. Let me feel you move. Fuck, you’re hot.
Even though he’d been trying to manipulate her, she couldn’t help wondering what it would feel like to dress and look like a woman who heard those kind of phrases all the time.
She stopped in front of a boutique and straightened her shoulders. She probably couldn’t afford a belt buckle at a store like this, but it was certainly a good place to find out what was fashionable nowadays.
Kate took a deep breath, adjusted her fanny pack, and opened the door. She stepped into the hushed, dimly lit interior. Classical music wafted from hidden speakers, and expensive clothing glowed from the racks and walls.
She paused by a display, brushing her hand over the smooth silk blouses. She’d read about the importance of wearing clothes that made you feel powerful and confident, but she’d never known how to find those clothes. So she’d always stuck with basic suits that didn’t draw much attention.
She riffled through the clothes, enjoying the tactile pleasure of the woven linen skirts and delicate silk shells. Then she moved to a shelf of folded sweaters and picked up a gorgeous short-sleeved sweater with a V-neck and ribbed hem.
“Excuse me.” A tall woman with short blond hair approached, her gaze sweeping coolly over Kate’s yoga pants and T-shirt. “May I help you?”
Kate’s heart lurched. Melanie McGuffin, even more beautiful in person than she was on social media, stood in front of her. Wearing slim crepe trousers and some sort of flowy tunic, she was like a mannequin come to life.
Kate tightened her grip on the sweater she was holding, belatedly wishing she’d had the foresight to wear something more suitable for high-end clothes shopping.
“I’m sorry, but you’re crushing that.” Melanie smiled thinly and eased the sweater from Kate’s hands. “If you’d like to try it on…?” Her voice trailed off dubiously.
“Uh, sure,” Kate agreed.
“It’s baby cashmere,” Melanie said. “A very rare, delicate fiber obtained from the underfleece of Mongolian baby goats.”
“Okay.”
Melanie’s gaze flicked to her breasts. “Actually, I think you’ll need a larger size. I don’t want this one to stretch.” She took another sweater from the rack and headed to the back of the store. “Follow me, please.”
Kate followed, feeling like a troll trailing after a princess. Aside from having worked up a sweat on her walk to Ocean Avenue, she had her hair trapped in a frizzy ponytail, ear buds dangling around her neck, and she probably smelled.
Yeah. She definitely should have planned this out beforehand. If anyone ever again laughed at her desire to prepare for things, she’d give them the what for.
“Here you go.” Melanie flicked aside a heavy curtain and gestured Kate into the dressing room. “Let me know if you need anything else.”
“Thanks.”
Kate tried not to look at herself in the mirror—not wanting to feel any worse—as she hurriedly tugged off her T-shirt and pulled the sweater on. She ran her hands over her hair and faced the mirror.
Her eyes widened. Aside from feeling like a cloud, the cashmere hugged her curves in all the right places. The pearl color made her skin look warm and creamy, and even seemed to bring out highlights in her brown hair.
Pleased, Kate smiled at her reflection. This was what all the experts meant when they said clothes should make a woman feel good. She could only imagine how she’d feel wearing the sweater after she’d showered and shaved her underarms.
“Everything all right in there?” Melanie sang from the other side of the curtain.
“Fine, thanks.”
Kate took the sweater off and folded it carefully before pulling her T-shirt back on. She likely couldn’t afford the sweater, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask how much it cost.
She started to push back the curtain, then stopped.
“Did you see her?” Melanie’s low voice, laced with derision, hissed into the dressing room as she apparently spoke to another salesgirl. “Who shops looking like that? This isn’t the lonely virgins’ club. She’s going to ruin that sweater, I just know it. I should charge her just for trying it on.”
Well.
Kate battled both a twinge of hurt—because Melanie wasn’t worth a full-fledged stab of hurt—as well as the urge to stalk out there and throw a fit. The other woman had a point that Kate didn’t look exactly presentable, though that didn’t excuse her bitchiness. Probably that was why Miles had given her the boot. Good for him.
Leaving the sweater on the bench, she flicked back the curtain and walked out to the front counter.
Melanie turned, her lips stretching into a smile. “So. How did the sweater work out for you?”
“It didn’t, I’m afraid,” Kate replied coolly, hitching her ear buds back over her ears. “Too bad because I’m shopping undercover. You see, I’m looking for a good, respectful boutique to recommend to my boss’s fiancée for her bridesmaids’ gowns. Perhaps you’ve heard of him. Luke Stone, CEO of Sugar Rush. I suppose his fiancée and all her friends will be shopping at your competitors’ now. Have a nice day.”
She wiggled her fingers and strode out the door, her head high and her heart racing like a greyhound. She rarely, if ever, invoked Luke’s name to her advantage, but if ever a situation had called for name-dropping, that was it. Kate suspected Luke wouldn’t mind, either. In fact, he would probably applaud.
She hurried home, letting the brisk walk carry away the unpleasantness. When she got home, she further eased her prickly feelings with a hot shower.
But Melanie’s “lonely virgin” comment stuck in her mind like a piece of industrial-strength Velcro. Kate wasn’t a virgin, though it had been over two years since she’d had sex and she’d never been sure she was even any good at it. So maybe that made her a kind of born-again virgin.
But she wasn’t lonely…well, maybe she was a little solitary. Okay, a lot solitary. Most twenty-five-year-old women didn’t stay at home on weekends reviewing corporate social responsibility reports. But she loved her job and knew she was indispensable. And she was certainly trying to rectify the lack in her social life.
Her encounter with Tyler made her want to rectify the lack in her sex life too.
She closed her laptop, packed it in a bag, and headed out again, her mind working like an engine. She usually stayed home on Friday nights, but she was still smarting over Melanie’s remark and fidgety over the thwarted encounter with Tyler—not to mention that she hadn’t exactly wanted to thwart it in the first place. Maybe being out around people would give her some clarity.
She walked a few blocks to downtown Indigo Bay, heading toward her favorite restaurant off Ocean Avenue. The Treetop Café was a casual little Mediterranean place where the dress code favored shorts and T-shirts. As she entered, the hostess greeted her with a warm smile.
“Hello, Kate.” She took a menu from the hostess station. “We weren’t expecting you tonight. Table for one, as usual?”
“Table for one,” Kate echoed, following her to the outside terrace. “As usual.”
Chapter
SEVEN
Tyler squinted at his laptop screen, trying to block out the noise of loud voices and video game battles that permeated his apartment.
“She wasn’t anything like Savannah, but she was bangable.” In the kitchen, his friend Ben piled roast beef onto a sub roll. “I got her number. Haven’t called yet.”
“Don’t bother.” John sat forward on the sofa, focused on the video game on the big-screen TV. “Shitty party anyway. You didn’t miss much, Ty.”
“Says
the guy who struck out.” Ben grinned before sinking his teeth into his oversized sandwich.
John flipped him off and nudged Tyler in the side. “Dude, I got the sunbreaker subclass for my titan. Get me past this mission, would you?”
He handed the Xbox controller to Tyler, who shook his head. “I’m busy here, man.”
John swore and continued playing. Tyler glanced at the clock on his laptop screen. He was accustomed to spending his weekends more or less the same way—parties, girls, sports, beer, video games, boating, hanging out with his buddies. Sometimes they’d go bar-hopping in San Francisco or take a road trip to LA. He’d had the same group of friends since college—when they’d also spent their weekends the same way—and he’d always liked their lack of planning.
This was, however, the first time he’d ever spent a Friday night looking at a library sciences curriculum, which turned out to be more complicated than he’d expected. It was more than just alphabetizing and putting books on the shelves—there were things like metadata, classification, and bibliographic databases.
He could try to fake it—stick the books on the shelves, stuff the documents into file folders, and tell his father he was finished, but he’d never been able to fool his father before. No reason why he’d be able to now.
The intercom to his apartment buzzed. He put the laptop aside and shoved up from the sofa to let in the pizza delivery guy. After paying, he left the pizza in the kitchen.
“Didja get a double supreme?” John asked.
“Ben ordered it, not me.” Tyler dug around the countertop for his car keys. “I’m taking off for a while.”
Restless, he headed down to the parking garage and got into his car. For whatever reason, he was in no mood to hang out with his friends tonight. He pulled out of the garage, thinking he’d stop by and see if Polly needed any help with her bakery.
He drove into Indigo Bay, the expensive town of cobblestone streets and vine-covered cottages nestled south of San Francisco on a rocky stretch of the coastline. The wealthy computer-money crowds of Silicon Valley came to Indigo Bay for both the charming atmosphere and the culture—wine-tasting, fine dining, art galleries, theater, shopping, and plenty of society events. The main street of Ocean Avenue was lined with coffee houses, boutiques, exclusive shops, and restaurants.
Tyler detoured toward a stone building laced with ivy. Luke’s fiancée Polly, who owned the Wild Child Bakery half an hour away in the farming town of Rainsville, had recently rented the building for a new branch of her bakery. The place apparently needed a complete remodel, which Polly was doing with her sister Hannah’s help—despite the fact that Luke could have paid professionals to do it in less than a week. Polly was very into being DIY about everything.
Work lights glowed around the bakery’s interior. Drop cloths covered the floor, and a few round tables were scattered by a wooden counter.
Hannah Lockhart, Evan’s girl, sat at one table with a laptop. Polly stood on a ladder, her curly hair hidden by a bandana and her jeans and T-shirt streaked with paint.
“Hey, Tyler.” Polly waved a paintbrush at him. “Come to help paint?”
He picked up a clean brush and dunked it into a bucket. “When’s opening day?”
“We’re aiming for early June.” Polly set her brush down and climbed off the ladder. “If we get all the business permits in by then.”
Tyler brushed paint over the wall, his tension easing as it always seemed to when he was in Wild Child. Like Evan, he’d gotten into the habit of making the half-hour drive to Rainsville for Wild Child’s Declairs, a cross between an éclair and a doughnut that had sparked the bakery’s success. Indigo Bay was already buzzing about the opening of Wild Child’s new branch.
“How’s your job?” Hannah leaned back and looked at Tyler. “Evan said you’re working at the Sugar Rush library now.”
“It sucks.” Tyler focused on making the paint even. “It’s not work so much as a punishment for the speedboat incident.”
Part of him had to give his father and brothers credit. It was a perfect punishment. They’d known he would hate being strait-jacketed into a job he neither wanted nor knew how to do. Even getting to the same place at the same time every day messed with his mind. It was the reason he’d had such trouble in school. Though he’d aced all the standardized testing, he could never concentrate well enough to do what they wanted him to do.
“Dinner call.” Evan entered the bakery, carrying a paper bag and a tray of drinks. “Hey, Ty. What’re you doing here?”
“Helping paint.” Tyler dunked the brush into the bucket.
“You want some of my sandwich?” Evan retrieved a wrapped sub out of the bag.
Tyler shook his head. Evan distributed sandwiches and drinks to Hannah and Polly before sitting next to Hannah at the table. She reached out and brushed a lock of hair away from his forehead.
Cute. Tyler hadn’t been sure Hannah, a woman who had spent the past decade traveling around the world, would be able to settle in Indigo Bay, but she and Evan fit together like two pieces of a puzzle. Evan had regained most of his strength from his heart surgery last year, and he and Hannah were talking about taking a week-long trip to Venezuela next month, where their other brother Adam was setting up the cocoa bean sustainability project.
Tyler continued painting the wall. He’d never had an interest in working at Sugar Rush, and his father had always been okay with that. Warren Stone hadn’t expected any of his children to work for the family business unless they’d wanted to. Though Tyler had done a few summer stints on the factory floor and gift shop when he was a teenager, he hadn’t wanted to work his way up into the corporate ranks. He knew he wouldn’t be any good at it, not like Luke and Evan.
The problem was, he’d never figured out what he would be good at, aside from spending his trust fund money and having fun. He knew how to fix old cars, but that was just a hobby—as his father frequently reminded him.
The wooden gate leading to the kitchen swung open.
“He’s here!” Polly’s friend Mia—a blond beauty who favored tight sweaters and short plaid skirts that gave her a sexy schoolgirl vibe—flew into the room, her long hair flying around her shoulders.
Tyler let his gaze skim over her curvy tits and long legs. He’d have made a move on her ages ago, if she hadn’t been Polly’s friend. Much as he loved women, there were lines he wouldn’t cross. Polly would kick his ass from here to Alcatraz if she thought he was hitting on one of her friends only for sex, which was exactly what he’d be doing with Mia. Or anyone, for that matter. But because of Polly and Hannah, Mia was off-limits. Too bad because he’d bet she was spectacular in the sack.
She was kind of skinny, though. Not much of her to grab. Unlike Kate, who had a damned perfect figure with the right amount of curves and exactly the right sized breasts, not to mention that he could still feel her legs cradling his thigh like she’d been made for him…
“How do I look?” Mia extended her arms and twirled around.
Since she’d asked, Tyler assessed her pert little ass and long legs encased in sheer white tights decorated with little flowers. Mia’s skinniness aside, that was how a woman with incredible legs should show them off. Not like Kate in her support hose or whatever.
“You look smoking hot,” he told Mia.
She came to a halt and narrowed her eyes, though a flush of pleasure colored her cheeks. “I was asking Polly.”
“You look smoking hot,” Polly assured her. “Gavin won’t be able to resist you.”
Tyler and Evan exchanged glances that said, “Yeah, he will.”
Gavin Knight, owner of Knight Securities, which handled all of Sugar Rush’s corporate security and the Stones’ personal security, had been a family friend for years. He was also a machine when it came to security-related crap and apparently some sort of Zen master of self-control and stoicism.
“He’s resisted me for ages now.” Mia sighed, her lips pursing in a pout. “He’s a freaking statue
. If I flashed him my naked boobs, he’d tell me I was a security threat.”
“Well, you do have a couple of bombs,” Hannah remarked, eyeing the other woman’s chest.
“Right?” Mia shook her head. “You’d think a security expert would want to get his hands on them. I’ll go let him in the back.” She turned and hurried through the kitchen.
“She’d totally let him in the front, too,” Hannah remarked.
Tyler and Evan both laughed. Polly shot her sister a mild glare, though her mouth twitched.
“Actually, I admire her persistence,” Hannah continued. “What’s it been, over a year? And she hasn’t given up?”
“It’s a quest now,” Polly said. “He’s the one man who hasn’t paid attention to her, so now it’s become her personal Mordor. He’s the one true ring.”
The door swung open again and Mia reappeared, followed by Gavin, a tall, square-jawed man wearing his standard uniform of black trousers and a black shirt with the Knight Securities logo. He greeted the others before giving Tyler a nod. “Tyler.”
Tyler resisted the urge to respond with “Sir.” Gavin had always had an authoritarian thing going on, not unlike Tyler’s father. No mistaking his faint disapproval either. Straight-laced dude like Gavin, especially since he was in charge of keeping people safe, had never approved of Tyler’s recklessness.
“I’ll take a look at the wiring and see what we can do,” Gavin told Polly, setting a toolbox on one of the tables. “I emailed you suggestions for access management and surveillance systems.”
“Gavin, this is a bakery, not Tiffany’s,” Polly reminded him. “We don’t need to go over the top.”
“It’s a scalable system given the size of your space.” He opened his sleek laptop. “Indigo Bay isn’t immune to crime. I promised Luke I’d give you the best I have.”
“I’m sure you always give a girl the best you have,” Mia remarked, twirling a strand of long hair around her finger.
