by M. S. Parker
My sister was grinning at me. “Before we go any further,” she deftly cut into what Toni was saying. “I should make formal introductions. Ash, this is my amazing new assistant, Toni Gallagher. Who, as you can see, is not a man. Toni, I'd like you to meet my big brother, Ashford Lang. You can call him Ash.”
I scowled. No, she most certainly could not. “Employees address me as Mr. Lang.”
Isadora ignored my comment and continued, her smile tightening the way it did when she was upset. “She’s right, by the way. You can’t possibly decide who'd be best for me to work with because you're more interested in having people hover over me than talk to me.”
There was a hint of displeasure, maybe even hurt, in her voice, but she looked away before I could figure out just what I’d seen. Scowling, I went to jam my hands into my pockets before I stopped myself. I wasn’t in the jeans I preferred to wear when I wasn’t working. I was still in the suit I’d put on that morning, and tailored suits weren’t exactly designed for men to shove their hands into the pockets. Ruined the lines.
Focusing back on what Isadora said, I slid Toni a look.
No, she definitely wasn't a man.
I gave myself a mental shake. I didn’t think she was amazing either. People around my sister needed to be scared of me, not dismiss me like I didn't matter.
“We’ve talked about this,” I told Isadora as she turned her attention back to Toni.
Neither of them said anything to me as Toni went back to explaining whatever idea it was that she'd had. I waited a few more moments, expecting them to draw me into their conversation. People did that. People wanted my involvement. They wanted my input. They wanted my approval, and more often than not, my money.
Isadora didn’t need the money, but she usually sought my approval. I'd raised her since our parents died and we had an odd combination of a brother-sister, father-daughter relationship. In some ways, I was the only parent she'd ever know. But she didn't even look my way.
After a few more moments of being ignored, I turned on my heel and stalked out of the room. I was going to have to dig into this woman’s background. Since I hadn’t hired her, I had no idea what kind of person she was or what kind of skeletons she was hiding.
As I came out of the parlor, I caught Doug’s eyes and indicated with a jerk of my head that he was to follow me. He gave me a differential bob of his head, but it didn’t do shit to cool my temper. Once we were inside the large office that took up much of the southeast corner of the family home, I turned on him, needing to take my frustration out on someone.
“You’ve got less than five minutes to convince me why I shouldn’t fire you.”
He didn't even flinch. “Miss Isadora gave me the name of her new assistant just this morning.” His gaze flicked to my desk. “Once she told me she’d hired somebody without speaking with you first, I started the background check. I sent you an email as well, but you must not have received it.”
Feeling a little deflated, I skirted around my desk and saw the file folder sitting in front of my computer. I flipped the file open and saw the answers to the same routine background check I did on all my employees. Well, maybe not exactly routine. It was a bit more thorough than average, but for good reason.
I hadn’t allowed anybody near my little sister without an extensive background check since she was ten. I’d always been protective, but an incident during her birthday party had made me realize that I hadn't done enough to keep her safe. When she'd been coming downstairs before the guests had begun arriving, a new employee – one of the grounds crew – had approached her and started talking to her. Later, she'd told me that it had been innocent at first, but then he'd become crude and vulgar. Then he’d exposed himself, and grabbed her hand, tried to make her touch him. I'd beaten the shit out of him and then called the cops, but the damage had already been done.
Isadora hadn’t talked for a month after that.
She’d been so outgoing and happy as a child up until our parents died. Then, just as she'd started to come out of her shell, that sick fuck had twisted her up again.
I'd gotten her the best help money could buy and I'd promised her that I'd never let anyone hurt her again.
Since then, I'd made sure I knew the dirt on anybody and everybody coming in contact with her. And I made sure all of them were intimidated by me, if not terrified.
The file on Toni wasn't complete, but if Doug had just started it, there would be more coming. I reached up and pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to calm myself.
“Okay,” I said tiredly. “I should know you’d be on top of things.”
“Mr. Lang, if I may…” Doug’s words were solicitous. His tone was blunt. He’d been my father’s right-hand man for several years before my parents died, and he'd stayed on to help the overwhelmed and grieving nineteen year-old I'd been. He was the closest thing to family Isadora and I had. I trusted him more than I trusted myself sometimes.
“You may.”
He was quiet for a moment, and then his eyes met mine. His voice was soft as he spoke, “At some point, you will have to let Isadora live her life.”
“She is living it.” I flipped the folder closed. He was the only person I'd let make such an observation.
“No,” he countered. “She’s existing. She goes to parties only after you’ve approved the guest lists. She has dates only once you’ve made sure you’re aware of the itinerary, and only with a driver you've vetted.”
“I'm protecting her.”
“Ashford.”
I started at his use of my first name. He'd been allowed to use it for years, but he rarely ever did. Usually it was when he wanted to make a point.
“When you found out she’d left the house to see a man she’d recently met, you made her feel like she isn't smart enough to know her own mind. That you don't trust her or her judgement. She feels like you treat her like a child.”
I ignored the majority of his statements and focused on the one I had a response for. “That idiot doesn’t deserve her.”
“He makes her happy.” Doug inclined his head. “Is that worth so little? Where he comes from matters more than Isadora’s happiness?”
If it had been anyone but Doug making these observations, he would have been on his ass as soon as he'd opened his mouth. As it was, I turned away and braced my hands on the flat surface of the file cabinets that ran along the wall behind my desk. I couldn’t quite put a name to the emotions surging inside me. It stung, I realized. It stung a lot, and the worst part was, I knew he was right.
“She’s dated a lot of men who’ve made her happy.” The words sounded hollow.
“Not like this.” I heard the weariness in Doug’s voice.
I heard it, and understood it. We’d had this sort of argument more than once. We’d have it again, because I couldn’t stop trying to protect my sister. We’d lost our parents. All we had was each other. I knew he wanted to protect her too, but it was different. He was like family, but he had his own. Isadora was all I had.
“Finish the check on the Gallagher woman. As long as she’s clean, she can stay.” I shoved away from the cabinets and headed toward the door.
Toni made Isadora happy.
Doug wasn’t wrong. That should count for something.
It didn't mean that I had to like her.
Chapter 4
Toni
He was entirely too pretty and entirely too bossy.
He was also an asshole.
That pretty much summed up my opinion of Ashford Lang.
Ashford. The name itself made me smirk. I could see why Isadora called him Ash. Ashford made me think of snooty men in striped coats with boater hats who walked around twirling canes as they talked about their trophy wives, Muffin and Cupcake, or whatever random pastry they were named after.
He’d brought Isadora to our lunch meeting instead of letting her take a cab or town car. Not that it was much of a meeting. We’d talked for maybe two minutes about a party she was t
hinking of having, and she asked if I’d ever planned a party. I told her I had planned a surprise party for my parent’s fortieth anniversary just last month, and if I could wrangle my family, I could do almost anything.
She laughed, then asked me about my family and the conversation had devolved from there.
And Ash – no, I wasn't allowed to call him that – Mr. Lang had watched us from the elegance of the bar. He didn’t even have the decency to pretend he wasn’t watching, either.
A few times, I glanced up and he’d been checking his email on his phone. Or maybe he'd been watching internet porn or checking the stocks. I couldn’t tell from the arrogant and slightly bored expression on his face. But for the most part, all he did was stare at me.
Determined not to let it get to me, I kept my attention focused on Isadora.
She ate some sort of fish entrée that looked more like art than food, while I nibbled on pasta that hadn’t had a price on the menu. I was secretly thankful she’d told me it was her treat. I was smart enough to know that if there wasn’t a price, then I couldn’t afford it. Not even on what she was paying me. Since I had only three weeks between finals and the start of my summer session, I had to save everything I had to buy more books.
“Four brothers…” Isadora blew out a breath.
I'd just finished telling her how I’d brought home my first date to find all of them strategically waiting in front of the house. My date hadn’t even tried to kiss me, he’d been so nervous. He hadn't called me after that either.
I wished I could say it had been an isolated incident, but it had been more like a regular occurrence. My brothers, except Vic, were all under six feet tall, but that never seemed to make them any less scary to the few guys I'd dated over the years.
And the few that had managed to get past my brothers hadn't lasted long either. In one way or another, I ended up overshadowing them. I didn’t know how else to put it. I was too smart. Too straight forward. Too...something.
I hadn’t had a serious boyfriend since I was nineteen, and I’d dumped that shit when I'd found out he was sleeping with me just to copy my schoolwork.
My experience had made me somewhat leery of guys in general. I still held out hope that, at some point, I could find a man who was strong enough to handle someone like me. At the moment, I wasn't looking though. I had enough on my plate to worry about without having to deal with some asshole who felt like his manhood was threatened because I was smart and didn't back down from a fight.
“It made for an experience.” I grinned at Isadora before glancing at Ash – Mr. Lang. I didn’t want to think of him as Ash, even if Isadora had said that it was okay. A nickname was too sexy, too casual. Too intimate. It made him sound too...normal. I preferred for him to sound like the snooty asshole I knew him to be. Even if he was a sexy snooty asshole.
“Oh! I needed to get you something…” Isadora clapped a hand to her forehead. “I know you need to go soon, but you have to have this. It was the whole reason I wanted to see you today, really.”
Sipping from my soda, I watched Isadora dig around in her purse. When she still couldn’t find a pen, I turned over one of mine. I had to move if I was going to make it to my class today. I was just grateful I had finals next week, and then three weeks off before I had to talk to her about adjusting my schedule for my summer classes.
She scrawled something on a piece of paper and shoved it at me. “Here.”
I blinked at the number, trying to understand what I was reading. She shoved a phone across the table at me and beamed.
“It’s the newest version. Doug picked it up yesterday. You need a better phone,” she said.
She couldn't be serious.
“You can just use this one for work, if you want.” Isadora leaned forward and touched my hand. “But if you want it for personal use, you can use it for that too. It’s just…” She shrugged. “I saw you grumbling at your other one yesterday and...and, well, I’ll make you work a lot and a better phone will help.”
I was still staring at it. Everything that wasn’t vital fell to the wayside while I was paying for school. A new phone wasn’t vital. As long as my old one worked, then I’d stick with it, even if the battery sucked, the browser was outdated, and few apps worked on it anymore...
“And it has unlimited data so you can even use it for school stuff while you're waiting on stuff for me.”
I jerked my head up. “What?”
Isadora bit her lip and looked away, her pale skin flushing pink.
“What did you say about school?” I demanded.
“Ah…” She shrugged and looked sheepish. “I kind of know you're finishing up your Ph.D in psychology.”
“How do you know that?” I managed to keep the question calm. I hadn’t mentioned it on my application and I'd only told Robson Findley that I was finishing up school. I'd never mentioned which degree I was pursuing.
“My…” Isadora hesitated, and then finally heaved out a sigh. “Ash did a background check on you. Like a work-for-the-president kind of check. He does it on everybody who works for us. Especially anybody coming in close contact with me. I’m sorry, Toni.”
The look in her eyes was so forlorn, I had to force myself to smile. I didn’t want her feeling bad. It seemed like she'd had to deal with the repercussions of her brother's behavior quite a bit.
As for her brother...I absolutely wanted him to feel bad. Guilty for putting his sister in this position. And guilty for sticking his nose where it didn't belong.
Shifting my attention toward him, I gave him my best glare, the kind that had always let my brothers know they'd crossed the line.
He simply cocked his eyebrow and met my gaze head on.
Asshole.
***
There was nothing like family dinners with my folks.
Exhausted after a week of running from home to school, and then all the way uptown to work with Isadora, I practically collapsed into my customary seat, ready to eat until I popped and then fall asleep. I just kept telling myself that I had to get through finals and then I could rest before the insanity started up again.
“How’s the new job going?” My mother stood at the stove, her face pink from the heat, her eyes glowing and bright.
Mom was fifty-eight years old, but she looked like she was in her early forties. People were always surprised to hear her actual age. She was beautiful, her hair cut to chin length and her eyes just as blue as mine. She'd been eighteen when she'd married my father, and he still looked at her the same way. I'd often wondered if that was the reason I'd never found someone I could settled down with. I wanted what they had.
“It’s…” I opened the refrigerator, rummaging through for the condiments I knew we'd need as I searched for the right word. “Interesting. We’ll go with interesting for now.”
“Working for somebody rich, and all you can say is interesting?” Vic asked as he came striding into the room. “Heard you were working for the Langs. Damn, Toni. That’s some serious money there.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, and none of it's mine.”
“Boo-hoo.”
Franky, my middle brother at thirty-one, flung himself down into the chair next to Vic’s while his wife came in and immediately went to my mom for a hug. Yvette and Franky had been married for seven years and had three kids. I could hear them all out in the living room, chattering away to my dad. The table squeaked as Franky settled his elbows on the surface and leaned forward, drawing my eyes back to his light brown ones. Out of all of us kids, he looked the most like dad, even with the slight auburn tint to his hair.
“I heard where the house was. Working at some swank joint on Fifth Avenue for a rich, pampered little princess. What’s her husband do? Sit around and sip martinis all day?” He grinned at me.
“No.” Irritated for reasons I didn’t understand, I set the butter dish down with more force than necessary. “She’s not married. She’s this twenty year-old, cute little darling.” I looked over at Mom
then, my heart aching with the realization that Isadora didn't have this. “She lost both of her parents when she was seven. Her older brother raised her.”
I remembered, then, how she told me that everyone had assumed she'd be sent away to England to live with some distant cousins of her mother. Strangers she'd never met. How Ash had been only nineteen and away at school getting his MBA when their parents died, but he'd come back and transferred to NYU so he could have custody of her and she wouldn't have to leave their home. Ash had gone from being a carefree teenager enjoying the college life and its freedom, to being a single dad to a grief-stricken little girl.
And he'd never complained.
Dammit.
He wasn’t Mr. Lang in my head any longer.
All because he’d pushed to take care of his little sister.
Family mattered.
Unaware of my distraction, my mother sighed at the stove, shaking her head. “How awful. Those poor kids.”
“I don’t think poor is the right word, Mom,” Vic said as he got a beer from the fridge and went back to his chair.
My dad passed behind Vic at the worst possible moment for my brother. The crack to the back of my brother's head was hard enough to sting, but not hard enough to actually hurt.
“There’s more to life than money, Vic,” Dad said, shaking his head.
At sixty, my father was still as strong and broad as he’d been in his twenties, although his brown hair had long since gone to gray. He claimed that we were responsible for scaring the life out of it. We probably were. Vic more than any of us.
I smiled at my dad and he winked at me before moving up behind my mom and grabbing her around the waist, planting a loud kiss on her neck.
She laughed and leaned into him for a minute before elbowing him back gently. “Come on, Thomas. If you keep that up, it'll be midnight before we eat.”
“Good things come to those who wait, my beautiful Margie.” He nuzzled her for a moment longer, and then moved away, sneaking a scoop of the potatoes she was mashing. He fired a look at me, his brows arching. “So, the Langs. Deacon told me. They okay with you leaving in six months?”
