I groaned. “Look, Max, my debts are not your problem. Hell, they’re not even my problem.” I spoke on autopilot and shouldn’t have.
“What do you mean? Whose debt are you paying?” He stood and placed his hands on his hips. The sunlight struck his shiny belt buckle, momentarily blinding me.
“None of your business.” I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to avoid the light. That brightness shone as though it were piercing me with much more than a blaze of sunshine, but the truth, right at the heart of its wicked arrow.
“Of course it is. You’re my sister.”
“Pretend sister,” I reminded him with a warning tone. The kind that usually made people listen. Not him. He wasn’t fazed by it at all.
In a flourish, he pulled off his Stetson, set it on his desk, and ruffled his fingers through his unruly hair. When it fell down, all golden blond layers around his ears, he looked beyond familiar. He looked like my baby sister Maddy for the briefest of seconds. Jeez, even he had me drinking the Kool-Aid.
“Look, I’m not going to go into the debt details. Just know I’m handling it.”
“But what about college? If you’re here, you’re obviously not in school.”
I pressed my fists against my eyes. This really was none of his business. Most of my clients didn’t get this close to the personal details of my life this soon. Only Wes, but that was different. In the back of my mind, I knew he was someone more. It just took a while to confirm it. Now, I had this giant cowboy all up in my business, and from the looks of his tight jaw and firm stance, he was not going to budge until he got some answers.
Taking a deep breath, I leaned forward. “I dropped out of school long ago, Max. The tuition payments are not for me.”
His hand went to his jaw. “Then who are they for?”
“My sister, Madison. I’m paying for her schooling.”
His hand dropped to the desk where he leaned heavily, the wood creaking under the pressure. “You have a sister?” he gasped.
“Um, yeah, five years younger. She goes to school in Nevada, going to be a scientist,” I said with absolute pride and affection. My baby sister was my one true claim to fame. Everything I did in life, I did for her, because of her. She would have everything that life could offer, and I’d done my best over the years to make it so. Then I laughed, realizing a tiny important detail and taunting the cowboy with it. “I thought your little investigator would have mentioned that.” I wagged a finger at him.
When our gazes caught, I noticed his eyes were tortured and hardened. He swallowed a couple times, opened his mouth, and then closed it again. “Another sister,” he whispered. “Madison.” He said her name as if it were a prayer, something to be held up high on an altar and worshipped. “Two sisters. All I’ve ever wanted. I’ll be damned.” He shook his head, closed his eyes, and a tear slipped down his cheek.
What. The. Hell. Just. Happened.
Chapter Five
“Max, what’s the matter?” I asked as he stood, walked over to the window, and ran his monster-sized hands through his golden locks.
He cleared his throat. “Uh, nothing.” He sniffed, trying to pull himself together. I was at a total loss. He’d gone from talking oil business to invading my personal life and then a one–eighty-degree spin to tears. It didn’t make sense. I mean, I’d kind of figured out that he had a soft spot for family, but nothing I’d said would warrant a big man like him to breakdown and cry.
I got up, went to the window where he stood, and placed a hand on his shoulder. It was firm, denoting his physical strength. He definitely didn’t sit around on that farm and put his feet up. No, I got the impression that Max was the type who worked with his hands, and often. “Is it your dad?”
His eyes were absolutely tortured when his brows narrowed, and he shook his head. Tension radiated off his form like a physical wall of magnetic energy. Before I knew it, I was pulled into his arms, my face planted in the center of his chest. He held my head while his enormous form quaked. For a guy his size, that meant the whole ground seemed to shake with him. What was a girl to do in this situation but hold on for dear life or get swallowed whole by the sheer force of his grief? I held on and whispered words of comfort.
“It’s okay, Max. You’ll be fine. He’s in a better place.” That last comment seemed to cause him to squeeze the life right out of me. I figured a different tactic might be in order. “Calm down. Remember, you’ve got a beautiful wife, an adorable daughter, a family who loves you.” His arms tightened, and then loosened incrementally with each breath.
Max coughed, took a step back, and turned around. He wiped at his cheeks, cleared his throat, and coughed. Wanting to be considerate of his needs, I moved around the room, giving him some space to clear his head, compose himself.
After a bit, he spoke.
“I’m sorry, Mia. I uh, didn’t realize I had that locked under the plate of armor.” He battered a fist against his chest. “It would be kind of you not to mention it to anyone.” He glanced down and away.
I shrugged. “Hey, we’ve all got shit to deal with, Max. Yours is just more recent.”
His stance and the way he held his jaw showed the power nestled under the surface. “Come, let me show you the rest of the campus.”
“Lead the way.” I extended my arm, showing that I was ready.
We passed Diane on the way out of his office. Her smile was bright and big. Her hands were clasped together and held to her chest. She beamed as Max crooked his arm once more for me to hold. I giggled and leaned toward him for his benefit as much as mine. I think he needed a friendly body to lean on. Even if he wouldn’t do the leaning, I would on his behalf.
For a couple hours, he walked me from department to department, introducing me as his sister over and over. I could have sworn that, with each introduction, the level of pride in his voice went from fake to genuine in a less than half a heartbeat. The entire scenario boggled the mind and made me feel strange, as though I were a boat on a lake with no anchor and no paddle. I had nothing but the strength of my arms paddling endlessly in the cool water to get me back to land.
Maxwell took me to the engineering department where he introduced me to a willowy woman with long brown hair tied back in a French braid. She wore a set of rimless glasses and a pinched expression. The moment we entered the office, a haze of distrust swirled in the air around her. I knew instantly that she was going to pose a problem to our little game of hide-the-real-sister.
“Mia, meet my cousin, Sofia Cunningham. She runs the engineering department here and sits on our sponsor committee as she has a vested interest in the company.”
I offered my hand, and she looked at it with disdain before clutching it so hard I cringed and stepped back, yanking it from her clutches.
“Good to meet you,” I lied.
“I’ll just bet. So, Mia, the missing sister that no one knew about.” Her snide comment hit its target, which was Max, not me. He groaned. Me, I could hold my own, so I stared at her with a blank expression, allowing her no hint of my feelings. “Where have you been hiding all this time?”
My eyes instantly rolled. I couldn’t control them any longer. “Uh, Vegas?” I answered truthfully, since that’s where I’d been the bulk of my life. If anyone looked that information up, he’d find it was true.
“Is that right?” She cocked a hip and pushed her glasses up from the tip of her nose to the bridge. “Interesting how all of a sudden my uncle dies and leaves you half of what we’ve all worked our asses off for over the past decade.”
Knowing that with this type of chick I couldn’t back down, I swiped my hair off my face, hooked my arm through Maxwell’s, and snubbed my nose at her. “Guess I’m just lucky, huh?”
Sofia harrumphed and then waved us over to a table. She pointed at a big sheet with a bunch of stuff on it that very well could have been in another language for all I could understand of the lines, formulas, and marks. “Max, these schematics need to be reviewed by the committee, Lega
l, and a check cut by Finance in order to get ahead on the project for the East Asia plant. When are you going to be available to check them?”
Max curled an arm over my shoulder. “Sof, I’ve just met my sister. We’ve had a day together. Maybe you can give me a couple days to get to know her before you bust my balls on work issues? I warned you, once she was here I was going to be out of pocket for a while.”
She sighed and her lips went down into a pout. “You know I don’t like to get behind. This is important, Max. More important than some stranger,” she half snarled.
His body went rigid. “Sofia, you know what family means to me, and I’ll not have you talking that way about my sister. She’s family too, same as you. Just because we haven’t known about her until now doesn’t change that simple fact.”
“Yeah, well we’ll see about this sister business.”
“You going to look into her credentials?”
Her eyebrows rose into her hairline. “Maybe I will. What would you say to that?”
He leaned a forearm on her desk and got right into her face. “Iron clad, cuz. Look all you want. Ain’t nothing to find. Feel free though. Do your searchin’. I know what you’re up to. I know you have a stake in the ultimate prize of getting that forty-nine percent, but the will is fact. Talk to Legal. Check on the specifics. Dig all you want. You ain’t gonna to find nuthin’ but the truth.” He rolled up the schematics she had displayed and put them under his arm. “I’ll give these a gander when I have a chance. When I’m not busy visiting with my sister.”
On that note, he turned, put a hand on my back, and led me out of the room.
“So, your cousin, she always been a bitch?” I asked with absolutely no malice in my tone. The last thing I needed was to piss him off after that interaction.
He started laughing and hugged my shoulders, bringing me close to his big body once again while we walked down one of the ridiculously long hallways. I hated to admit it, but I enjoyed the closeness of what felt like bonding between a man and a woman, one without the sexual aspect to cloud the simple human connection. With Maxwell, it was easy. It worked on a level I wouldn’t have expected had I not been here to experience it myself. Max was a good guy, and the more time I spent with him, the more I found I really enjoyed his company. Liked that he was straightforward, no nonsense, a real man’s man.
And of course, on that thought, my mind drifted to my own modern day cowboy. I thought he’d get a kick out of Max. They actually had more in common than not. They both held their family in high regard, enjoyed the simpler things in life while being able to easily afford more lavish luxury. They both worked hard, and as far as I could tell, loved their women beyond compare. The memory of Wes’s arms around me as we headed to the airport rushed through my subconscious like a freight train.
Wes’s arms looped around my waist loosely. His fingers made dizzying circles along the sensitive skin of my lower back. “I don’t want you to go,” he said plainly, as if I didn’t already know what he was thinking. Ever since we’d admitted our feelings for one another, I could sense his moods and work out his thought processes much quicker. Maybe before, I’d been blocked from that side of our relationship, not wanting to allow that level of closeness.
“I’ll be back in three weeks, and we’ll talk every night.”
“Promise?” The way he issued the request made my heart thump, pounding in a rhythm that weakened my knees. I leaned heavily into his chest. He hummed that content sound, the one that made me purr, and I rubbed my nose into his shirt, ensuring his scent was all over me so that all I’d have to do on the flight to Dallas was inhale deeply and he’d be there.
“Three weeks and I’ll be back here. Unless you tell me to meet you somewhere else, I’ll plan to go home.”
Every time I mentioned his Malibu house as home, a ridiculously beautiful grin adorned his face. “I love when you refer to our home.” He slid his hands down to my ass and squeezed, pressing me into his groin, where his erection was at half-mast.
“I know. I can also tell how much you’re going to miss me.” I thrust against his hardening shaft, and he grumbled a profanity and slid his hands up into my hair, tugging at the roots, forcing my head back. I was completely at his mercy and loving every second.
“You’re so easy to be around, Sis.” Max broke through my two-day-old memory. I glanced around to see if anyone was watching. The hallways were quiet. Murmurs came from each door as we passed. The chatter from someone on the phone, a too-loud speakerphone, a person smacking a rolled up magazine against his hand as he paced the floor. Even the clickity clack of a computer keyboard sounded extra loud, but there were definitely no bodies around.
So why had he called me his sis? Perhaps he was just trying to get used to the new endearment. Although I realized, rather belatedly, that I enjoyed hearing it far more than was healthy, and if he kept it up, I would lose sight of the fact that I wasn’t really his sister, but someone playing a role. An actress for hire.
I played it off, nudging him in the shoulder, which was more like his bicep since he was so damn tall. He maneuvered me through the vast building to the cafeteria. Only it wasn’t a normal cafeteria you’d see in the movies. This place had four restaurants, a snack cart, and plush wooden tables and seating for those who had brown-bagged it.
Max pointed to each restaurant. One was Italian, one American Cuisine, another Asian, and the last Tex-Mex. “Where would you like to eat? They’re all free.”
“Free?” I said, shocked, while considering my options. I was in Texas. I’d be remiss if I didn’t have Tex-Mex at least once, so I pointed to the restaurant with the big chili pepper and a sombrero on the sign.
“Yep. My employees often work twelve to eighteen hour shifts. Heck, some of them stay overnight in what we call the bunker to grab a few hours of shuteye and then get back at it.”
I cringed. “Why do you work them so hard?”
He led me through the restaurant that was a full service business except there was no cash register or hostess. We sat where we wanted and the menu was already on the table.
“It’s not on purpose, but sugar, some of our projects are extremely time-sensitive. Could mean the difference in the cost of oil per barrel the longer the project lasts. That’s time and money lost to us, which inevitably gets passed on to the consumer, the average Joe at the gas tank.” I nodded and sat down, pulling out a menu. “It’s hard work; I won’t lie, but my staff is paid very well for any inconveniences. For example, the food in these restaurants is free. There’s an onsite daycare, gym, and game room for folks to let off some steam when the pressure gets too much. Heck, there’s even a Zen garden for people to walk through to feel in touch with nature.”
“Wow, sounds like you do a lot for your staff.”
He smiled and waved a hand at one of the waiters passing by. “We try. I want my team, regardless of where they fall on the scale, to work hard and know that they are appreciated, valued, you know?”
I nodded. “I mean I get it in theory, but I’ve never experienced that myself. Well, until now. Millie takes good care of me.”
“Millie?”
“Oh, sorry. Ms. Milan, as she prefers to be called. She’s actually my aunt.”
“On your dad’s side?” he asked immediately.
Twiddling with the saltshaker, I shook my head. “Nope. My mom’s.”
Max put his elbow on the table and rested his head in his hand. “Tell me about her.”
If I’d been thinking normally, not swayed by the coolness factor of the environment and the ease with which I found myself talking to Max, I would have found his interest odd. Who cared about someone’s random aunt? “Um, I guess for starters, I’d say I got my looks from her and Mom.”
“That’s true,” he said, and I narrowed my eyes. How would he know if that statement were true?
Before I could ask, we were interrupted by the waitress. We both ordered the same thing: a combination plate with a tostada and a chee
se enchilada, but Max added two tacos. The guy was a massive wall of man. It had to take a lot to fill him up. He probably ate his wife out of house and home on a daily basis.
“So continue. Aunt Millie is your mom’s sister and she runs Exquisite Escorts. Right? And that’s how you got into the business?”
“Yeah, I needed to make money and fast.”
“Can I ask why?”
I huffed. “I just don’t understand why you care.”
He looked away, his cheeks pinking. “Call it curious. I like you as a person, Mia. I can tell already you’re good people, and I want the rest of your time here to be worth something. At the very least, when you go home, you’ll have another person you can count on. I’d like to be that person.”
I’d learned through this journey not to be so cynical about these things. Tai, by nature, was the same way. A man who protected women, all women, not out of some kind of outdated, old-fashioned idea, but because he cared. Max had that vibe as well. I took a deep breath and decided I’d be honest. Lay it all out there, and if he thought differently of me for it, so be it. I had to take chances in life. Real chances with people and relationships, if I wanted to have any that mattered in the long run.
“My pops got into some trouble. He’s a drunk most of the time, but a gambler all of the time. Usually he’d bring home just enough to cover the rent. The rest—food, utilities, the other things people needed to live comfortably—had to be paid in other ways.”
Maxwell’s eyes turned icy. “And how did those things get paid while you were growing up?”
I tipped my chin and focused on the tea the waiter set down in front of me, adding my heaping dose of sugar and squeezing in the lemon. “Usually, I worked to make the extra. Bought clothes for Mads and me at local thrift stores. I’d be really careful with my clothes, knowing that I’d need to pass them down to her one day. And you know what, she never once complained. She’s the better of the two of us, my girl.”
August: Calendar Girl Book 8 Page 5
