by V. Hunter
I let her interruption slide.
"Yes, Sofia?"
Her shoes dragged the carpet as she moved close enough to slide a small stack of papers in front of me on the desk. I glanced down, coming face-to-face with a color-by-numbers worksheet with math problems she'd completed in order to fill out the picture. Her familiar, sloppy, kid handwriting made me wince.
Did all kids have such terrible penmanship at her age?
Before Sofia, I hadn't been around kids since I'd been one myself. At least the picture, a palm tree, looked right. Her handwriting was trash, but her math seemed to be okay. The analytical section of her mind seemed to be in good working shape if nothing else.
She got that from her mother. Franco, my older brother and Sofia's father, was the kind of guy that would do anything on a whim. He didn't always think through the consequences of his choices, but he always seemed to come out on top.
Well, almost always.
His wife Irene was his direct opposite. Analytical and shrewd, she treated all of life's problems like a math problem. Everything had a solution—and she would find it, come hell or high water.
Until she didn't.
They were gone now, both of them. And that left me with Sofia, who was currently staring me with those big, round eyes she got from my brother. She looked expectant, like she was waiting for something. Damned if I knew what it was.
Thinking maybe she could use some praise, I told her, "Good job."
Her thick little eyebrows shot way up her forehead. "You're supposed to check all of it." She stared pointedly at the stack until I quickly fanned the papers out over my desk so I could see everything she'd handed me.
The handwriting continued to be just as bad on every sheet. I tried to force myself to look past that. Her papers spanned everything from math to geography to Spanish. It seemed impressive for a girl her age.
What was she? Six? Nine? I promised myself to ask Tomas when she wasn't around to hear. Wasn't her birthday coming up soon? The year before, I missed it. And I didn't even know it until one of my security guys admonished me for not getting her a cake or presents. I felt so guilty I ended up buying her a pony. Which she refused to get anywhere near because it turned out she'd nearly fallen off a horse when she was younger and was now terrified of them.
Live and learn. I wouldn't make any of those same mistakes again.
I hoped.
"Everything looks really good, Sofia. You're a very smart girl."
She let out a small sigh. "Okay."
Not for the first time, I wished kids came with a fucking manual. When Franco and Irene were alive, I got to be the fun uncle that popped in with expensive gifts that made baby Sofia squeal and demand I hold her. Not that I ever did—babies were fucking fragile. Now, I was stuck in some weird role where I wasn't a parental figure or a fun uncle.
"Hey, Sof?" Tomas said, "I think Cooke wanted to make cookies. You like oatmeal ones, right?"
Her nose crinkled. "No."
"Uh-oh. You better hurry up and go tell him before he makes all of them oatmeal raisin."
Sofia glanced between the two of us as if judging the authenticity of his warning. She spent too much time watching the adults instead of being a kid, and because of that she'd picked up on a lot more than seemed appropriate for her age. It made her pretty damn hard to lie to.
"Okay," she said slowly, starting to back out of the room.
I felt pretty sure she decided to leave more to appease us than anything.
The second she stepped out of view, Tomas whipped out his phone and shot off a quick text. He grinned up sheepishly. "I didn't imagine things, she definitely knew I was lying right?"
"I think so, yes."
"Well, I'm sure Cooke will be thrilled now. I just sent him an urgent message that I needed him to bake cookies to cover my lie.”
I popped my shoulders in a quick shrug. “He’ll live.”
I paid the man good money to run my kitchen; he could bake some cookies if that’s what it took to get Sofia showing even the slightest interest in something. Plus, Tomas’ cookie thing got her to leave the room so I could stop making an ass of myself. I always seemed to be doing that where she was concerned.
An idea struck me.
"What's Brooke's degree in?"
"Psychology," he answered without missing a beat. The man was thorough.
Maybe I could kill two birds with one stone.
"Hey, Tomas?" I grazed my hand over my chin, considering my next move.
"Yeah, boss?"
"Do you still have the information for that headhunter? The one we used to find someone to run Franco's film company after Irene died?"
"Sharon Blackwell," Tomas supplied the name.
"Yeah, her. I need to speak with her. I have a solution for Brooke's job problem, but I'm thinking it'd be a hell of a lot easier to get her here if it's a woman doing the asking."
Somehow, I didn't imagine two strange men showing up to offer her a job out of the blue would go over that well. Based on what we knew about her, she grew up living a pretty ordinary life. Something like that would raise all kinds of red flags. Especially considering that while she was in Florida, my home was in North Carolina. And despite my immense fascination with the woman, I had no intention of moving my home base for her. Not even temporarily.
I needed her to come to me.
If I was lucky, I could entice Brooke to my home with the lure of a very well-paying job. Maybe then I would manage to scratch the insatiable itch I'd felt ever since I laid eyes on her. I knew I wouldn't be content until I discovered whether she felt as good as she looked—and I did intend to find out.
5
Brooke
My fingers were starting to prune from being submerged in soapy dishwater for so long. Volunteering to wash the dinner dishes each night had become my only reprieve from the nightmare my life had become since moving home. Everyone felt so glad not to be the one washing them—the dishwasher had given out a few months earlier—that they left me alone for a little while for fear of getting roped into helping.
I couldn't count on getting any peace otherwise. Bridget still lived at home, too, and I was starting to feel suffocated by her constant presence. It didn't help that she kept trying to corner me to talk when no one else was around.
"Go to his house!" I'd finally yelled at her earlier, much to my mom's chagrin.
But c'mon, seriously? It was no secret I was struggling with the new normal of my sister dating my ex. The least they could do was spend more time at his house to give me some space. Instead, he kept showing up at our place like everything was all peaches-and-cream fine. Seeing them curled up together on the couch watching my favorite movie was what finally cause me to snap.
Of course, that only prompted my mom to give me another lecture about what would have been the proper way to handle things. As if there was anything proper about the whole situation in the first freaking place.
"What'd that plate ever do to you, huh?" Dad joked, walking up next to me to put his empty milk glass in the sink.
I responded with a half-laugh that sounded as every bit as fake as it was. Dad sighed and put his arm around me, rubbing my shoulder in the same comforting way he always did anytime Bridget or I were upset as little girls.
"I know it isn't fair to you, Pumpkin, but your sister is going to marry that boy whether you like it or not. If you could just try to stop being so angry for one second you might see exactly why the two of them fell for each other. Family doesn't get to stop being family every time one of us does something another one of us doesn't like too much."
My shoulders slumped away from his touch. Why could no one see that I needed time? Why did I have to be jumping for joy on Bridget's behalf right that very second?
With as much calm as I could muster, I finished washing my dad's glass and pulled the drain for the sink.
"I think I'll go to my room for a little while. Excuse me." I brushed past him, ignoring his protests as
I scampered away as fast as my feet would take me.
My dad mostly stayed quiet until that point, and I convinced myself it was because he was silently on my side. Now, I knew better. Just like everyone else, he didn't care that Bridget felt entitled to take whatever she wanted.
She'd always been like that, even when we were younger. She never seemed to understand that sometimes other people could have things she didn't. Anything that was mine she automatically felt like she could take, but she made it clear that it didn't work both ways. I couldn't even begin to count the number of times she'd cried growing up because I touched her things—even sometimes when I touched things that were expressly both of ours, like the swing set that now sat rusting in the backyard.
We had a great childhood, so it wasn't like either of us were neglected, and most of the time Bridget was a great big sister. She just never got over wanting what wasn't hers, and now I was still the one suffering the consequences of that.
Maybe she hadn't been told no enough as a kid. Maybe neither of us had been.
I let out a heavy sigh as I flopped down face-first on my bed.
The worst part of it all was knowing it was all outside of my control. My dad was right about one thing, they were getting married whether I liked it or not—and sooner rather than later, it turned out.
They already had a date set for early fall and now my parents were planning to host a big engagement party next week. I needed any excuse not to be there but so far I couldn't come up with a single valid reason to get out of it.
Actually... there was one thing.
I reached across the bed to the nightstand and snagged my cellphone. Once I unlocked it, the email I'd gotten earlier was the first thing to pop up on the screen. I'd been reading back over it when I got called to go down for dinner. The first few times I read it, I laughed it off as a bizarre scam, but now I looked it over with fresh eyes.
Sharon Blackwell.
That was her name; according to her email signature, she worked for a private recruiting company in New York City. A quick Google search confirmed that the company really did exist and her picture was front-and-center on the company's website. Despite my initial misgivings, there didn't seem to be any red flags about her—other than the fact that she'd emailed me out-of-the-blue asking me to interview for a job that seemed too good to be true.
My first instinct was to dismiss the email completely and not even bother responding. Now, though, I considered the opportunity before me.
There were a lot of details in her email, but a few stood out in particular. One, that the potential employer wanted to hire someone as quickly as possible. And two, that the trip to North Carolina for the interview would be covered in full. My parents couldn't very well get mad at me for missing the engagement party if I had a very important job interview scheduled for the same time, could they?
I hit reply and let my fingers hover over the screen. I never did anything reckless. If anything, I usually played it a little too safe. People thought of me as reliable before anything else, and they weren't usually wrong about that. I was the first to volunteer to be the designated driver when I went out with friends. I never stayed up late the night before a test. Responsibility was practically my middle name.
But look where that had gotten me.
That thought alone was enough to spur me on. I tapped away at the screen to reply with a brief greeting, then I jumped right to the point with the most important question.
How soon can we set up the interview?
6
Jairo
A pool that size needed a diving board.
I told Franco that when they built the damned thing in the first place but Irene said a diving board would be an eyesore.
The view from my office—that one that used to belong to Franco—looked right out at the pool from the second floor of the house. Normally, I didn't pay the view any mind. It was nice and all but I wasn't exactly a man of leisure these days.
The only reason it got my eye when it did was because I couldn't stop pacing in front of the huge picture window that looked out over the backyard.
Everything went fine all morning—until Tomas called to let me know he'd arrived in Florida to meet Brooke Harris at the airport. It pissed me off that Tomas could be there and I couldn't but he was right to suggest we do it that way. The last thing I wanted after everything going to plan so far would be to scare the woman off at the airport by looking at her as if I was a tiger preparing for its last meal.
I couldn't concentrate on anything else anymore knowing I was only hours away from laying eyes on Brooke Harris again.
I also felt an uneasiness I hadn't expected. It made me think about Cooper, the man I worked for a while before Irene died and I got summoned back here for good.
Wes Cooper was a hell of a horse trainer, but more importantly, he was also one hell of a marksman. He'd been part of the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team once upon a time. Before he linked up in whatever business it was that made him part of Tomas' special circle of friends.
I wasn’t sure why he’d left the FBI, either. But I knew better than to ask too many questions.
Regardless of all that, Cooper was good. Really good. He taught me all kinds of things that had nothing to do with the proper way to feed horses.
My reason for being there was mostly a ruse. I liked the horses well enough but what I'd really needed was lessons in protection and high-speed decision making. Both of which Cooper managed to give me in spades.
“You can’t come in here,” he’d said, putting his hand out to stop me from following him up the porch steps.
“Why not?”
Coop shook his head. “I don’t care who you know.” He was talking about Tomas, our common thread. “You’re still a stranger to me. And if a man wants to stay alive, he never invites a stranger into his home. You hear me?”
It was a good lesson, one that might have saved Franco or Irene. They’d both been killed at home.
All while Sofia slept the right upstairs.
I slammed my hands against the glass. The window didn’t even shake. Bulletproof. Fat lot of good that had done my brother.
He’d been shot in the office. There was still a bullet hole between the two bookcases on the far wall. Tomas offered to patch over it, but I couldn’t bring myself to take him up on the offer. Not yet. Not until I could find some way to bring closure to my brother’s death. Until then, I wanted that reminder staring me in the face every day.
My computer pinged.
I turned quick, leaning over the desk chair to pull up the security program running in the background. That sound was a warning of motion at the front gate.
Sure enough, Tomas’ black SUV filled the screen. He nodded discreetly at the camera, a motion I recognized out of familiarity, but that wouldn’t alert his passenger. Not that she would have noticed anyway. I had a clear view of her over the camera. Her head was turned the opposite direction, looking out over the expanse of trees that forced the road into a dead-end right after the turnoff coming up to the house.
Her hair was pinned back, I noted with disappointment.
As Tomas pulled through, I clicked over to the camera overlooking the front entrance and waited. It took a few minutes before they made it up the winding driveway.
Tomas got out quickly to go around and open the passenger side door. I was surprised he’d let her sit up front. She must’ve insisted, because usually he preferred passengers in the backseat.
“Out of the line of direct fire,” he told me once.
I didn’t understand it… until a few weeks after I took over for Irene. Someone shot out one of the tires on the car we were in, and when I watched Tomas point his right arm and shoot through the passenger side window to hit back at the guy—well, I finally understood.
My jaw tightened as I reached for the notepad I kept on the corner of my desk. I jotted down a quick reminder to chat with Tomas later. Her days of riding in the front seat were over as long as
I had a say in the matter.
I looked back at the camera just in time to watch Tomas motion her to go ahead of him up the stairs. The gesture made me sit up straighter in my chair.
It only took a few seconds for me to see why he stayed carefully behind her. She’d reached the doorway, but hesitated.
“Fuck.”
After all the work I’d put in not to freak her out, she was freaking out anyway. Now that I was looking for it, I could see the other signs.
Her posture was unnaturally stiff. Her head kept shifting like she was trying to take in everything at once. And she was hesitating.
“Fuck,” I repeated.
Tomas didn’t miss a beat though. He stepped around her just enough to push the front door open, but then moved back behind her and gestured for her to go first. He stepped in, pressuring her. She was left with no choice but to either come inside or make physical contact with him. Seeing as Tomas was both a stranger to her and a physically imposing man, it made sense that she wouldn’t go with the latter option.
She stepped through the doorway as I rushed to press the number six key on my keyboard, calling up the camera positioned inside the foyer.
Brooke Harris had officially arrived.
As fucked up as it was, seeing her standing there, knowing she was under the same roof as me, it was enough to make my cock spring to life under the desk. She was a distraction I really couldn’t afford, but damn if it didn’t feel good to know I was about to come face-to-face with the object of my obsession.
I rose to my feet, too keyed up to sit any longer. I needed to burn that energy quick and reign myself in. Otherwise, I risked scaring her away right from the jump.
I wasn’t recruiting the woman entirely under false pretenses. Aside from my more personal intentions, it really would be good for Sofia to have a woman around. All the other staff in the house were men.
Irene had been an incredibly jealous woman, so much so that Franco was only ever allowed to hire men, even at the house. I hadn’t made any staffing changes since taking over—aside from Tomas taking a more prominent position as my right-hand guy.
