by Renee Carr
A Dangerous Curiosity (The Holbrook Brother Shifters)
Book 3
Renee Carr
Contents
A Dangerous Curiosity
1. Brighton
2. Lily
3. Brighton
4. Lily
5. Brighton
6. Lily
7. Brighton
8. Lily
9. Brighton
10. Lily
11. Brighton
12. Brighton
13. Lily
14. Brighton
15. Lily
16. Brighton
17. Lily
18. Brighton
19. Lily
20. Brighton
21. Lily
22. Brighton
23. Brighton
24. Lily
25. Brighton
Epilogue - Brighton
Author’s Note
A Little Bit of Wild Temptations
1. Christian
2. Libby
3. Christian
© Copyright 2020 by Renee Carr - All rights reserved.
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A Dangerous Curiosity
1
Brighton
Leaning back in my desk chair, I kept my pen against my knee, staring at the picture on my desk. I grabbed it, smiling at how ridiculous my brothers and I were. It had been two years since I had gotten back from college, ready and prepared to take on the family business at my father’s side. I should have known that hitting the ground running was not really how my father did things. It was more like hit the ground at a very slow and steady walk, pausing for long periods of time to listen to him ramble on about specific grains of wood and the different manufacturers of the small bolts that went in the underside of the high-back dining room chairs.
In the grand scheme of things, two years was nothing, but in my world, in the little town of Galena, Illinois, two years could either go by in the blink of an eye or they could seem like fifteen. On that day, it definitely felt like the latter, maybe even twenty. The picture I held in my hand was comforting, though: my brothers and I all piled on top of each other six months before at Eric’s wedding. It was crazy how Christian had gotten married just a year before that and I was the last standing single brother of the group. I had a really good feeling it was going to be hard for me to find a wife in small-town America, not that I was looking.
I had to admit, though, that as boring as Galena tended to be, the last two years had been full of craziness. When I had first returned from college, my oldest brother, Christian, was scratched by something and almost died. You could call it fate, or luck, but that was actually how he met his wife, Libby. She was his nurse. After that, some time went by and my other brother, Eric, got sick, something I learned about after the fact. I wasn’t really sure where he met his wife, but she kind of came out of nowhere. Apparently, we went to school with her, but I was quite a few years younger than them and really didn’t pay much attention to the girls in Galena.
Swiveling my chair back and forth, I planted my feet and launched myself across the room. With my outstretched hand, I reached for the bottle of soda I had left on the side table. Before I could get to it, though, the chair rammed into one of the large storage boxes stacked to the side of the room, almost tipping me over.
“Come home and learn the company,” my father had told me. “It’ll be great, you’ll be your own boss.” He had been buttering me up since I was seventeen.
Standing up from my chair, I grabbed the soda and huffed, making my way back across the makeshift office inside of my father’s country estate. Owning a multimillion-dollar company that my father started from the ground up sounded fancy and rich, but the reality of it was that my father wasn’t going to retire anytime soon. In the meantime, he made some room in the storage area, slapped a desk in there and a computer, and called it my office.
It really wasn’t that bad, I guess. I had wanted to take over the family business my whole life. I went to college so that I could have the degree and learn the basics. I thought I would get out and take on the world. Then reality hit. What I actually had been doing for the last two years was basically becoming my father. In the grand scheme of life, it could have been worse—the company had been around for so long, it basically ran itself. We were getting ready to launch ourselves into the next phase of the company, which was a modernization of both the product and the way the company did business. It had been my one big contribution up to that point, letting my father know that times had changed and if the company was going to stay afloat, it had to change too.
Walking my chair back over to the desk, I paused for a moment, picking up the gold-plated nameplate that my brothers had given me as a graduation gift. On the front of it they had the words “Big Cheese” engraved in fancy cursive writing. Chuckling to myself, I shook my head, setting it back in its place.
“Your brothers are quite the jokesters,” my father said from behind me.
I smiled, tapping my hand on the desk as I turned around. “That they are. I wish we got to see more of them.”
My father took in a long, deep breath and ran his hand across one of the boxes, looking at the built-up layer of dust covering his fingertips. “That’s what happens when you grow up, get married, and have your own life. But yes, I do wish that we could see them more often. It’s a phase, and it’ll pass too. Eventually, we’ll all be getting on each other’s nerves again and wishing for a bit of quiet time.”
Both of us chuckled, but there was a pause of silence afterward; we knew full well that we didn’t know what the future would hold. We were a close family, but my brothers had been a bit off ever since Christian’s accident. I still had hope that it would go back to the way it was, but you could never tell with those two. Eric had his own life just like Christian, but they definitely seemed more distant than they ever had before.
My father changed the subject, being a master at doing so. “Did you have a chance to read over the reports I sent? I thought maybe it would be good for you to see exactly where every bit of money went when brought into the company. With so many locations, there’s a need to keep track of everything going in and out, which makes for a lot of accounting. Each location has its own accounting reports, and then we, as corporate, keep track of everything. It’s important when you own a multi-location business like this one that you have a really good accountant.”
Glancing over at the enormous pile of spreadsheets that my father had sent in for me, I could almost feel the headache begin to thump in my skull. I still didn’t understand why my father didn’t go completely virtual with those kinds of things. It actually took him more work to print it off since his accountant sent it in virtual form. He was old school, though, and I was hoping eventually he would trust me enough to take us to the next level. Until then, I was stuck in a tiny office/storeroom at my father’s house, swimming through piles of spreadsheets.
“I got through some of it. I think it might take me a bit more time than if I were just scrolling down an Excel spreadsheet,” I chuckled.
My father gave a half-smile, ignori
ng my comment. “You’ll get through it, there’s no rush.”
I winced at the comment, knowing full well my father wasn’t planning on going anywhere for a very long time, and those words alone were a good indication that he didn’t plan on handing me any type of rope, even a short one, in the foreseeable future. I knew I was never very good at being patient, but my father was testing that beyond belief.
It was my turn to change the subject, not wanting to deal with his old-school mentality. “Did you take a look at those sketches I sent over?”
My father nodded. “They were very good. You definitely learned something in that very expensive college I sent you to. We can go over them tomorrow at lunch. There’s a couple of things, fundamentally, about the furniture that I think will help you grow in your design skills. Altogether, though, I think they would be a great addition to one of our next-year collections.”
I lifted an eyebrow, making sure my father wasn’t just messing with me. It would be the first time that he ever thought about adding anything I had created to the family line. “Are you being serious or are you just teasing me?”
My father laughed. “I’m being serious. I know I can be difficult sometimes but I’m not cruel. Besides, your ideas are fresh and streamlined and that’s exactly the feedback we’re getting from our clients. There’s a lot of demand for more modern-looking pieces. Yours fit the bill, not to mention the fact that you’re one of us, part of the family. I like to keep it that way. I want this company to always be family-oriented.”
After hearing that statement about a thousand times, I had to keep myself from rolling my eyes. Nonetheless, I was just glad he hadn’t excommunicated me from the family yet. Walking into the company my father had built from the ground up was a bit daunting, especially since I knew how particular the man could be. It was his way of telling me that he appreciated the work I was doing. He wouldn’t put an entire collection on the line if he didn’t completely agree with how it looked.
My phone buzzed on the desk and I leaned over, looking at the name on the caller ID. I smirked and turned to my father, holding it up to him. “Speak of the devil and one of them shall appear.”
My father rolled his eyes and turned to walk out of the room, waving his hand in the air. “Tell Christian I said hello.”
Smiling, watching my father walk out of the office, I clicked on the phone and held it to my ear. “Dad begrudgingly says hello.”
Christian chuckled. “I guess that’s better than letting me have it. Then again, he was never very good at letting people have it.”
Inching my way around the desk, I laughed, shaking my head. “That he is not. He’s more the silent and deadly type of guy.”
“You got that right,” Christian scoffed. “There was nothing more terrifying than growing up and fearing silence when you knew your father was there. You definitely knew you did something wrong if he didn’t say a word.”
Sitting down at my desk, I cringed at the memory of it all. There were a lot of silent times in our house after our mother had passed, our father wanted nothing more than to ship us all off to military school. He wasn’t angry or mean, and he loved us very much. We were a handful, though, and there was no getting around it. Christian did his best to corral us, but he was just a kid too.
I shook my head and picked the pen back up, twisting it through my fingers. “So, what’s up, big brother? I feel like you left town.”
“You wish you could be that lucky,” he replied. “I was actually calling to see if you had dinner plans for tomorrow night?”
I glanced over at my calendar, not the least bit surprised that I didn’t have a single thing scheduled. “Not busy. I haven’t been busy since college. None of my friends are here anymore, and it’s not really the place where I foresee myself meeting the love of my life.”
“Ha! That’s because you’re stuck up. If you open up your mind a little bit, you may just realize that the people around town aren’t that bad. Then again, it did take me getting scratched by a wild animal and being out of town to find my future wife,” Christian replied. “Nonetheless, I figured you might want to meet Eric and me for food. The girls are out of town and we were just talking about how we hadn’t seen you in forever. Figured we could have a guys’ night.”
I glanced up at the office door. “By guys’ night, do you mean you’re inviting Dad too? Don’t get me wrong, I love our dad, but I also live with him. We eat every meal together.”
“Nah, I gave up on inviting Dad out a long time ago. I know he’s going to say no, so I figured it would save him the angst of telling me.”
We always made Christian ask Dad everything. He had a special way with him, one that prevented him from giving Christian any type of lecture. Most likely it was because our father knew exactly how much Christian had helped him when we were kids, but it was also because Christian owned a sporting goods store in town, and had been pretty successful in his career life, at least in our father’s eyes.
“I will be there,” I replied, half thinking about writing it on my schedule so that I didn’t feel so bad about my social life. “Text me where and when tomorrow and I’ll make sure that I use it as an excuse to get Dad to let me go early from work.”
Christian laughed loudly. “That’s what we’re here for. See you then.”
Hanging up the phone, I smiled, knowing that seeing my brothers was exactly what I needed.
2
Lily
“I can’t believe you’re leaving me,” Tanya said with a bit of hurt in her voice.
Staring out the window, holding a sweater in my hands and watching as the evening traffic rushed by, I let out a deep sigh. “I know you’re upset. It’s not like I’ve been chomping at the bit to move out to the middle of nowhere. But my grandmother needs me. She’s never asked me for anything in my whole life, until now. I know that if she’s asking me, that means she really does need the help.”
“I know,” she grumped.
Turning away from the window and walking over to my suitcase, I shrugged my shoulders. “You know if my father and mother were happy about it, that means that she’s getting a lot older. With all the prep work they took over the years to sculpt me into their image, and then to postpone me working at their company, there has to be something pretty serious going on with her.”
Tanya was sitting on my bed, her legs crossed in front of her, folding different pieces of clothing for me. She handed over a button-up satin shirt and tilted her head to the side. “But what if you go out there and, like, meet the man of your dreams or something and never come back?”
I laughed loudly, making it as dramatic as I possibly could. “Are you kidding me? I can promise you the chance of that happening is so minute that you shouldn’t even consider it a chance. Besides, I have my whole life planned out for me back here. I have to come back. My father and mother are so obsessed with their businesses that they’ll never let me go. It’s been written in the family stars since I was conceived that I would take over the company when my parents are ready to retire. Me going to my grandmother’s house only derails their plans for retirement that much further.”
Tanya wrinkled her nose. “And you’re okay with this? With your whole life being planned out basically from the get-go?”
I zipped up one bag and put it on the floor before picking up the next and opening it up. “I try to think about the positives of it all. Unless I completely take myself out of this family picture, there’s no way for me to get around it. I’m lucky. I’ve always wanted a career, and I’m not the kind of girl to just meet somebody and stay home raising children. I have the one thing that most people don’t when they get out of college—a set and unchangeable future. How many people can say that?”
Leaning back on her hands, Tanya shrugged her shoulders. “I guess I’m the same way in some respects. My parents, giving most of the responsibility to my older brother, always just expected me to find someone, get married, and live as their little trust fund youngest
child. While I wouldn’t mind having a career, I have no idea what I would do. Nothing interests me. I am realizing, though, that finding a decent man in southern Maryland is like finding a needle in a haystack. I do not want to get married and live the rest of my life watching drag races or going to seemingly endless late-night afterparties in DC. There doesn’t seem to be a middle ground.”
I sat down on the edge of the bed and patted Tanya’s knee. “Personally, I think it’s because you won’t open up the opportunity for anyone outside of your specific parameters of dating to take you out. You’d be surprised how nice these guys can be. Of course, you wouldn’t be surprised at how many douchebags are out there either. To me, it’s not even worth going on a date until I’m older, and the guys are older too. I’ve got far too many things on my plate to worry about that right now.”
Tanya smirked. “It looks like all you have on your plate at this moment is geriatric appointments and denture cleanings.”
I laughed, shaking my head. “My grandmother is very special to me. She was always the one that kept me grounded. I don’t mind doing this for her. It’ll be like a little vacation, and I get to spend some time with her. It’s been forever since I went to see her. It’s not like I’m a stranger to Galena. I spent time there as a kid. It has its charms.”
Tanya raised an eyebrow. “Is that what we’re calling no high-end salons or the majority of the town owning vehicles?”
