Cherish Hard

by Nalini Singh

  Cody took a step back. "Look, Sailor"--he lifted up his hands, palms out--"whatever you've heard, I didn't do it. I haven't even thought about you in months, not since that last game."

  That last game where Cody's team had been beaten to a pulp by Sailor's. And where Sailor might've taken a little too much pleasure in tackling Cody facedown into the muddy earth.

  He always had the most fun at the games that involved Cody. He hadn't consciously realized why until this instant. No one could arrest you for assault on the rugby field. Not when body-slamming contact was part of the game and bruises expected.

  "Back in college," he said, "do you remember Isa?"

  A sudden blink... followed by a tide of creeping red. "Yeah." Cody dropped his head to stare at the oil-stained concrete of the parking lot. "She was sweet. She never ragged on me like Suzanne does."

  "So why were you such a fucking asshole to her?"

  A long silence before Cody sighed. "Suzanne told me if I said those things, she'd go out with me."

  "Are you kidding me?" Sailor's hands fisted. "You're blaming your fiancee?"

  "I was just going to break up with Isa when Suzanne... when she told me she wanted me, but Suzanne has this thing against Isa."

  Because Isa was blindingly beautiful in both body and spirit. Something Suzanne's jealous little mind couldn't handle. "And you went along with this plan to hurt Isa, hurt the girl you were supposed to love? What the fuck kind of man are you?"

  Cody looked up with a befuddled frown. "I didn't know she was your sister."

  That was when Sailor decided there really was no point to the conversation. Instead, he said, "This is for Isa."

  And then he punched Cody.

  15

  Isa the Barracuda

  THE MAN HAD A GLASS jaw. He crumpled to the asphalt with a whimper.

  Sitting up afterward, his suit jacket torn at the elbow and his hair no longer so flawlessly combed, Cody cradled his jaw as blood poured from his nose. "What the fuck?" Pinching his nostrils shut, he tilted back his head. "You punched me." The words came out whiningly nasal.

  Sailor flexed, then fisted his hands. "Tell me you didn't deserve that."

  Going pale when he lowered his head and saw Sailor's hands, Cody gulped. "Jesus. Yeah, yeah I did." Weirdly, the words actually sounded genuine.

  Sailor watched as the other man sat up on the concrete with his back against his fancy car and dug around in his jacket. Finding a wadded-up tissue, he tore it up and began to plug his nose.

  "I think I made the wrong choice that night, Sailor." A pitiful moan, the torn tissue sticking out from his nose like a fungal growth. "I've been thinking about Isa for months. Ever since I saw that photo of her on Trevor's page. She was at some theater event with her mother that Trevor's cousin put on."

  Sailor had no idea who Trevor was and he didn't care. "You're too late," he said. "I don't think she'd give you a chance even if you turned up with a truckload of chocolates and diamonds." The idea of Cody going anywhere near Isa ever again had him seeing red.

  Breathing past the urge to plant another one in Cody's face--it'd be unsporting against such a pathetic opponent--he said, "And what about your wedding? Bit too late for regrets, don't you think?"

  Cody nodded, face set in glum lines and his white nose growths now faintly pinkish. "Suzanne's got everything planned. I just have to turn up on the day." A shuddering sigh, his hand rising to cradle his jaw once more. "Do you know something? Her family doesn't even have as much money as Isa's."

  Sailor looked at his scraped knuckles and seriously considered smashing Cody's nose in, unsporting or not. He managed to control himself only because he realized he'd probably already done a very stupid thing for a man trying to get a new business off the ground, one that required bank loans and the trust of CEOs like Jacqueline Rain.

  And yet he couldn't make himself be sorry.

  "If you're planning to press charges," he said, "here's my phone so you can call the cops." Cody's phone had fallen out of his pocket when he crashed to the ground; the screen was so cracked it looked like someone had taken a hammer to it.

  "I don't want people to know the real reason why you punched me." Cody lifted pleading eyes to Sailor. "Don't tell anyone, okay? I'll make up some story to explain the face and jaw."

  "Fine." Sailor turned and got back in his truck before he shoved the fungal growths even further up Cody's nose, his anger at the other man unabated.

  Finally getting to his feet, Cody called out, "Hey, so is she your sister or not?"

  Sailor thought of Isa's lips under his, her thighs so sweetly tight around his body, the scent of her drugging his senses, and said, "No Isa isn't my sister... but she is mine." He screeched out of the parking lot before Cody could reply.

  Sailor had to get to a job, finish the work he'd promised to do.

  Again, his eyes fell on the scraped knuckles with which he held the steering wheel. Nope, not sorry. No one had a right to do what Cody had done to Isa.

  * * *

  ISA MADE IT THROUGH HER first day in the vice presidential office without murdering Jacqueline. She'd never admit it to her mother, but the company had a nice feel to it, the employees cheerful and genuinely happy to be there. As for the work, it was difficult, but to Isa's intense horror, she understood it all. She couldn't even fake stupid questions--she was a terrible liar. In desperation, she tried working slowly, so as to annoy Jacqueline, but found that her brain refused to cooperate.

  It was like her mother had brainwashed her while she was still in the womb.

  Frustrated with herself for being so good at a job she hated, she deliberately took every single break to which she was legally entitled, using that time to work on the poetry that was her outlet and the saver of her sanity. The breaks slowed things down a little. But not anywhere near enough.

  When Jacqueline came to see her after lunch, she had a beaming smile on her face. "I knew you'd be perfect for this position," she said. "Look how well you fit in."

  Isa banged her head against the desk after the door closed behind Jacqueline.

  She had to figure out a way to sabotage this without breaking her word, or her mother would be blackmailing her into eternity. But how could she let down Catie and Harlow? Harlow would probably survive--his heart would be broken, pulverized more like it, but he was a smart kid. He'd be all emotionally messed up, but he'd be able to support himself and he'd eventually set up a business to rival Jacqueline's.

  But Catie... Catie needed her mother in ways she'd never articulate. And if Jacqueline cut Isa off in punishment, she'd lose her ability to make sure Jacqueline paid at least some attention to her thirteen-year-old youngest child. Clive certainly wouldn't be able to manage that--he hadn't even been able to make mother-child moments happen while he and Jacqueline had been married.

  It was a teenaged Isa who'd negotiated time for Catie in her mother's schedule.

  In return, she'd agreed to learn the ropes of the company without complaining.

  "Knock, knock."

  Glancing up at her open door, she saw Ginny with a huge latte balanced on the tray she'd clipped to the arms of her wheelchair so it'd be stable. "It's like you read my mind," she told the other woman as Ginny wheeled herself in and put the latte on Isa's desk. "You've been fantastic today."

  "It's far more interesting working for you than being Jacqueline's junior assistant," the brunette confessed. "I haven't had to make a single stupid craft thing all day."

  "Don't get too used to it," Isa warned after stretching out her back, then taking a restorative sip of the coffee. "I have no desire to be trapped in Crafty Corners hell."

  Ginny's face fell. "Oh, come on Isa," she wheedled. "You're really good at this--I did some work for the last person your mother put temporarily in this position, and you're like a rocket compared to his hand-powered car. You have the instinct."

  That was the last thing Isa wanted to hear.

  "Oh," Ginny said, "I almost forgot. A
small package arrived for you." She reached into a bag she had on the back of her wheelchair and pulled it out.

  "Thanks, Gin." Putting the unassuming brown box aside as she returned to the work she'd been doing, Isa forgot all about the package until seven that night. Ginny had already clocked out, and Isa was packing up to go too when her eye fell on the box.

  Guessing it was either a corporate gift from a client or a sample from a hopeful craft inventor, she made quick work of opening it. "Ouch!"

  She instinctively brought her finger to her mouth. But there was no blood, not even a real dent in her skin. Opening the flaps of the box with more care this time, she frowned at what she saw within. Not quite certain what it was about, she began to cut open the box so she could remove the object without further stabs.

  Box surgically dissected, she pulled out the packing peanuts to free the perfectly potted cactus within. Dark green with wicked spines, it was potted in a pretty terra-cotta pot... on which someone had written in white ink: Pointy spiky things don't scare me.

  Beside it was a tiny sketched image of a kitten-heeled shoe.

  Isa pressed her lips tightly together to keep from smiling.

  Putting the cactus aside to take home, she looked in the remains of the box for any other sign of who'd sent it, found nothing. The external packaging didn't provide much of an answer either. There was no return address. But Isa didn't really need any further evidence. Who else but a gardener would fight with plants?

  Her lips tugged up at the corners despite herself.

  She carried the cactus carefully down to her car, then into her apartment complex. Slogging up the stairs instead of taking the elevator, she tried to think of a fitting rejoinder.

  "No, Isa," she ordered herself. "No playing this game. He's too young, and you have a plan." To find a man who was ready to settle down and create the kind of family foundation she'd always lacked.

  A firm place on which Isa could stand and where she could shelter Catie and Harlow. And a strong pair of arms on whom she could depend, a man as rooted as an oak, with a heart in which Isa wasn't an afterthought but a priority.

  She could almost taste it, she wanted that dream so much.

  A twenty-three-old with demon-blue eyes was not going to be on the same page as her. He'd just begun to stretch his wings, sow his wild oats. Even Devil Isa knew that. Though it didn't stop her from whispering sinful suggestions in Isa's ear about how she should follow Jacqueline's advice and have a whole lot of fun with him.

  Naked fun.

  Handcuffs and leg cuffs included.

  Isa's toes curled... before she was smothered by a blanket of self-recrimination. Look at her, thinking about using a man for her own degenerate purposes. A man who was younger than her and... well, okay, he wasn't exactly innocent, but that wasn't the point! She was acting just how you'd expect the offspring of Jacqueline Rain and Stefan oskarsson to act.

  Like a barracuda.

  Maybe this was who she was--a ruthless corporate machine created by two other ruthless corporate machines--and it was time to stop fighting destiny. If genes made the woman, Isa's genes were written in business black.

  Putting her bag on the counter on that indigestible thought, not even the adorable little cactus lifting her mood, she was thinking about running away to join the circus when she got a call from Nayna.

  "Can I come over?" her best friend asked. "I don't feel like going home for dinner. The folks are all excited about the next meet and greet they're trying to set up."

  "You know you never have to ask," Isa said. "I just got in myself. I was going to grill some chicken and make bad-for-the-hips buttery mashed potatoes."

  "I'll pick up a mixed-bean salad from our favorite place." Nayna's tone was brighter already. "See you in half an hour."

  Feeling better now that she knew her friend and confidante was on the way, Isa got out of her work clothes and into a pair of shorts and a spaghetti-string tank top that she only ever wore at home--she didn't want to risk blinding blameless strangers with her whiteness. Nayna, however, had seen her in a bathing suit during their mutually hated phys-ed classes in school.

  After pulling her hair up into a jaunty ponytail, she got the chicken pieces into the oven, set the potatoes to boil, then took a quick minute to check her phone. She smiled at seeing that she had a couple of messages from a friend she caught up with maybe three or four times a year.

  She and Michelle, aka Micki, had been in many of the same classes at university and though their lives had gone in different directions, with Michelle already married and a mother of one, they still had enough to talk about that those coffee dates were fun for both of them. Expecting that Michelle wanted to set up a meet, Isa clicked open the message. But her friend had something far more juicy to share this time: Oh my God, Isa, did you see this picture of Cody? I thought you'd enjoy it!

  Attached was an image of Cody with what looked like a broken jaw, the bruising ugly and his eyes scrunched as if in pain. His nose didn't look too great either, and he definitely had the beginnings of a black eye.

  Her own eyes wide, Isa scanned down to see that Michelle had also screenshotted the message posted along with the photo. Suzanne had apparently been the one who'd posted the image. And she was fuming.

  Look at what some loser did to my amazing fiance! Cody was only trying to help a woman who was about to get her bag snatched! He's my hero even though he refuses to go to the police because he doesn't want to waste their time. And that woman he got hurt helping ran off too, the bitch! That's what you get for trying to help people. And now Cody's jaw is broken and our wedding is going to be ruined!!

  Isa blinked and read the message again. Cody? Valiantly fighting to help a mugging victim? Isa's bullshit meter swung over to blazing red.

  She quickly typed a reply: Micki, is this is for real?

  Michelle must've been online because she answered almost immediately. Absolutely, she said. I lurk on Suzanne's friends list just so I can gossip about her. I have no shame. Not after she turned frenemy when we were sixteen and stole my boyfriend. She thinks I forgave her--ha-ha! Micki never forgives or forgets!

  Anyway, I heard from another mutual friend that Cody really does look like he went two rounds with a professional boxer and came out the loser. Jaw's not broken, sadly. Not like the drama queen says. But that ass is still going to be bruised for the wedding, which means Suzanne's wedding photos will forever make her grimace, and that makes my evil heart cackle.

  Isa messaged back with a row of cackling faces of her own.

  Then she put down the phone and thought of the playful man with steely confidence who'd scowled and said someone needed to teach Cody a lesson. Surely, surely... Her heart thumped. No, it couldn't be. She was just a teacher who'd molested him in a parking lot and then gotten naked with him in a secluded little water spot.

  There was no reason for Sailor Bishop to have punched out Cody on her behalf. Cody had probably fallen on his face and made up that heroic story to explain the bruises so Suzanne wouldn't blame him for her ruined wedding photos.

  Isa's hand clenched around her phone.

  She had Sailor's number.

  16

  The War of the Cacti (with a Cameo from a Swamp Creature)

  A KNOCK ON HER DOOR, Nayna no doubt having used Isa's security code to come up.

  Figuring that was a sign from the gods, Isa put down her phone and went to open the door, dying to fill her friend in on Cody's unfortunate facial situation. Then she took in Nayna's own expression.

  "Hey," she said, enfolding her friend in a huge hug. "What's the matter?"

  Nayna made a face as they drew apart. "Sometimes," she muttered, "I get tired of being the dutiful daughter." She shut the door behind herself. "Let me help you finish prepping dinner, and then I'll tell you the story of my sad, sad life."

  It didn't take them long to get everything together.

  Taking their plates, they sat on the sofa in front of the television; i
t was currently playing their favorite trashy reality show.

  Nayna began to speak halfway through the episode. "It's Madhuri," she said, referring to her older sister.

  "Has she done something rebellious again?" Isa asked, well aware of the big scandal in Nayna's family history--the eldest Sharma daughter had eloped with a boy from her college when she'd been a bare nineteen years of age. Nayna herself had only been fourteen at the time.

  Shaking her head, Nayna mumbled her next words through a huge mouthful of mashed potatoes. "She's mostly the reason why my parents have been so strict with me, but today she was sitting in the kitchen at breakfast, chatting away to our parents while I helped my mom make breakfast."

  "Your sister's been welcome back in the family for a few years." Isa ate a big scoop of the bean salad, made an "mmm" sound that had Nayna nodding.

  "I don't care what strange herbs and spices they put in that salad," her best friend said, "they'll pry my bean salad out of my cold, dead hands."

  Swallowing her current bite of sweet, salty beany goodness, Isa said, "Anyway, I thought you loved having her around." The family estrangement had lasted six long years, during which Nayna had desperately missed her big sister. Her parents had refused to talk to their eldest daughter even after Madhuri's relationship broke up four years after the elopement.

  "I do." Nayna's face fell. "But today I truly realized just how much my father loves her." Wet in her eyes, her voice thick. "She was always his favorite--the one who could make him laugh, coax him to give us extra sweets, or let us stay up to watch TV. She was the sister with the spirit, the child full of color and joy and wildness. That's part of the reason I've always loved her too."

  Personally, Isa had always thought Madhuri an attention-seeking flibbertigibbet, but she figured everyone had blinders about something. Nayna's happened to be about her sister.

  Nayna tore off a piece of chicken with her teeth even as a tear rolled down her face. "Today I saw that, despite everything, she's still his favorite. I don't mind that, I really don't. It's just... I can't even get him to give me a 'well done' hug."

  Another gnawing bite of the chicken as she sobbed. "I'm trying so hard to be the perfect daughter, Isa, and it just struck me today that none of it matters." She gesticulated wildly with her drumstick. "I will never be well-behaved enough, never ever follow the rules well enough, never see my father's eyes light up with pride. I'm fucking killing myself toeing the line, and it doesn't fucking matter!"