Styled (Travesty Book 4)

by Piper Lawson

  I wanted to see more of that side of him. Hell, I wanted to see more of every side of him.

  “There’s a problem, though,” Ethan went on. I forced myself to focus on his words, and not the way his muscles pulled the shirt tight across his body. “I found something in the documentation that suggests they’re not building the environmental upgrades to specs.”

  The business part of my brain snapped on. “Did you ask them about it?”

  “This is my new boss, Jordan. Potential new boss, actually. You think I should say ‘thanks for considering me, and by the way are you committing fraud?’”

  “That’s exactly what you ask them. Because at the end of the day, you still have to look at yourself in the mirror. Whether you make ten dollars or ten thousand. And if you can’t do that, what do you have?”

  He reached up to rub his chin. “I do like to look at myself in the mirror.”

  I grinned. “Stop it. I’m serious. It’s easy to lose sight of what’s important. Does it matter how much money you make, or how many deals you do if you aren’t proud of the way you show up in the world?”

  “Damn. This charitable outlook thing you have going on is seriously hot, you know that?”

  “Ethan—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. ‘Stop talking about sex or I’m going to beg you to strip me naked and fuck me on that desk’.” He grinned, but I couldn’t stop the flush. “I’m focused. So any more thoughts on that Montana Ave store?”

  I forced my gaze away from the broad, sturdy-looking desk between us, which was suddenly the only thing I could think about. “The thing is, I can see us in there. I can. I’m just working up the nerve to show it to Lex and Ava. It’s way beyond our original scope.”

  Ethan shifted in his seat. “You’ll convince them.”

  “Yeah?”

  “No doubt.”

  His words gave me a burst of confidence and optimism.

  “So what happens with Travesty when you’re spending all this time in LA? Is it falling to pieces without you?”

  “Most of it can be done from anywhere.” I popped open my email and held the phone in front of him. “Take your pick. Today one of our fabrics was just discontinued. Web development is behind schedule on the concepts for the fall website. Photos from the photographer of Ava’s clothes weren’t right. And my personal favorite—a girl in Missouri is claiming that a sundress she ordered from us online was possessed by the devil and got her pregnant.”

  “The immaculate spring collection. Nice.” I laughed. “You handle all this on the road?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s pretty badass.” The admiring expression on his face had warmth flooding through me.

  My heart tripped in my chest.

  Oh boy.

  I get it. Why girls do stupid things for guys.

  Because they feel like this.

  Like I could save the world in a day. Run a hundred miles in heels. Fuel the energy needs of an entire country with what’s bursting to escape from my chest.

  The thought that’d been flitting through my head like a butterfly just out of reach finally came to rest.

  What if Ethan has more than your body? What if he has your heart, too?

  Oh, fuck.

  Ethan glanced down at the burrito wrapper in front of me, oblivious. “As someone older, I’m going to give you a piece of wisdom. Are you ready?”

  I shoved down the nerves that’d sprung up from nowhere. “Hit me.”

  “OK. That pepper you just deigned to consume might be yellow now, but it was green once. Yellow peppers are just green ones left to ripen.”

  “People can change. Why can’t vegetables?”

  Ethan shifted back in his chair. “Wow. Your LA education is done. You’re one farmer’s market away from running for office, Ms. Briggs. What’s your take on public transit?” He held out his fist like a mic.

  “You don’t have any.”

  “Ouch.” He grinned.

  I tried not to stare at Ethan, second-guessing the way he looked at me. He liked spending time with me, but that didn’t mean he felt the nervous anticipation I felt when I looked at him. The craving to know everything about him. He hadn’t said a damn thing that would make me believe he cared about me like that, and I wasn’t silly enough to fabricate it in my mind.

  “Isn’t there anything you don’t like about LA?” I asked as he gathered up our garbage, rising and tossing it into the trash.

  He rounded to my side of the desk, taking a seat on the edge, his legs on either side of mine. I willed my face to stay neutral. There was no way I wanted him reading the confusion I was feeling right now, which only worsened now that he was close enough to smell. To touch.

  “Everyone walking down this street is hungry for something, and it’s not a burrito. Fame, power, influence. In my line of work, it’s the next house or office building. Then when they get it, the next hit, they realize it didn’t matter as much as they thought it would. By the time they get their head out of their ass, they’re bankrupt. Or their husband leaves them. Or whatever. And they realize they’re one of millions of faceless people trying to do something that should be easy, but is closer to impossible.”

  “Which is what?”

  An enigmatic smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. “To do something that matters. Be someone that matters.”

  His earnestness made my heart trip. I couldn’t hold back the words that sprung to my lips. “You do matter, Ethan. You matter to your family. The work you do matters to your clients. I mean, you spent yesterday chasing around a dog. And it wasn’t for the money, no matter what you say. It’s because you care about your clients, and your work. Travesty’s lucky we have you. I’m lucky I have you.”

  “Yeah?” His smile was easy, the crinkles around his eyes familiar. But it was the affection in his expression that had my chest tightening. That had that traitorous part of me hoping. Wishing. Needing. “Maybe I’m lucky I have you too, Jersey.”

  Over the next day, I tried to make progress on work. With less than two weeks until the wedding, we needed to finalize decisions and planning for the store.

  But lunch at Ethan’s office had changed things.

  The extremely unlikely had become a possibility. Ethan Cameron might actually feel something.

  For me.

  I would’ve laughed at the idea, if I hadn’t seen that look in his eyes. The way he smiled at me, like we were the only two damn people in the world.

  If it was hard to think about anything but him before? Now it was impossible.

  I was behind on my work on pretty much every front, including updating on the orders for fall.

  I’d already had to move my meeting with the new manager to tomorrow on account of Ethan yesterday.

  I’d even dodged one call from my business partners. Not just because I was behind, but because I didn’t want them to take one look at me and see that something was different.

  Ethan texted me a picture of a document, too far out to see what it was.

  What’s that

  Offer on Axe’s place

  I grinned.

  Congrats

  Your congratulations are not accepted

  But I will accept them tonight at this address

  I clicked through the GPS coordinates he sent.

  Your house?

  My bed

  I’m going to be collecting for a long time

  The words had my body aching with an emptiness I hadn’t known existed. The idea of spending time in Ethan’s bed got me hot. But I wanted more than that.

  I wanted him to see me, and want me.

  I wanted him to see me, and feel.

  The idea of having someone not only to confide in but to spend time with, to hold close, to be responsible for and to, had never appealed to me. Now, it was all I could think about.

  I tried to pull my thoughts together for my Skype call with Ava and Lex, but my head felt as scrambled as my notes, pieced together in different doc
uments and notepads.

  “Sorry I’m late,” I said when I signed onto Skype that afternoon. “I wanted to show Kent the Montana store. I’m actually sending it through—” I hit the “send” button on the half-finished email. “Take a look and let me know what you think.”

  Ava’s and Lex’s familiar faces peered back at me from across the Skype connection. I heard the click of a mouse, then had that creepy feeling like they were staring at me when they were actually staring at the screen.

  “Jordan, what is this?”

  “You guys don’t like it?”

  “It’s great,” Lex hedged. “But it’s way out of budget.”

  “But it won’t be,” I plowed on. “I think with the right store we can grow our revenue projections.”

  “I was reviewing next season’s orders this morning. Everything’s lining up except for Taylor’s boutiques. I followed up with her, and she told me you guys had talked.”

  I face palmed. I’d forgotten to tell Lex and Ava about that. “I’m so sorry, guys. That’s on my list to take care of. I’ll do it before the wedding. What’s she ordered? I’ll talk to her.”

  “Nothing. And she says she’s not going to.”

  “What?” Ava exclaimed. “She’s our biggest client in LA. That Monique sweater? I pretty much designed that at their request, and they’re not even buying any?”

  “It’s not just the sweater, A,” Lex sighed. “Taylor’s a quarter of our revenues.”

  A pit formed in my stomach. “Shit. I don’t know what happened.”

  Lex’s brows drew together. “Can you talk to the new manager about this? Maybe she’ll have some suggestions.”

  “Good idea.” I opened up my email, guiltily scanning the dozen unread ones. How had it gotten this bad in just a few days?

  Some were more than a week old, I realized. Fuck.

  I did a search for conversations with our new manager. An unread email from earlier that day floated to the top.

  I clicked it open. The brick in my stomach doubled in size.

  “The manager I was hoping to hire got another offer and she’s not taking our job.”

  Ava’s jaw dropped. “What the hell? I thought we had her sign a contract?”

  I swallowed. “It was supposed to happen yesterday but I rescheduled for tomorrow.” So I could meet Ethan for lunch, I thought guiltily. “Things have been busy…”

  “What things, tanning?” Ava demanded.

  “I’ve been running specs on the new store.”

  “Which we can’t afford. And we now don’t have a manager for. And we’ve now lost—”

  Lex held up her hand. “Ava, calm down for a second.” She turned back to me. “Jordan, you know we’re lean already. Hell, we even get a deal on this apartment. We don’t have any breathing room. If things go south, we don’t have anything to fall back on.”

  I pushed a hand through my hair. “I know that. I’ll fix this.”

  “Jordan, what’s going on with you? Are you OK? Is it about Colton—something he said to you in Vegas?”

  Guilt clawed at me. Lex didn’t need this stress with a wedding in less than two weeks. But of course she wouldn’t make this about her. Which made me feel worse.

  “No, that’s not it. I just lost sight of things for a couple days.”

  “You don’t lose sight of things,” Ava commented. “Of the three of us, you’re the one who sees everything. That’s not just your job, it’s who you are.”

  “I think what Ava’s trying to say is that we need to figure this out. We can’t go ahead with the store you want on our current projections if Reve pulls out. And we need to find a new manager, which is going to take time we didn’t really have.”

  Ava held up a hand and squinted at the camera. “What’s that jacket by the door?”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s a leather jacket. It’s eighty degrees.”

  “I borrowed Ethan’s Ducati.” Saying his name made me feel guiltier.

  “What do you mean you borrowed it?”

  “I mean he let me drive it back from your parents place. He doesn’t need it and figured I needed wheels to get around, so—”

  “I touched that bike one time and he nearly broke my arm. He loves that bike. Why would he lend it to you?” Her face screwed up like she was working through a problem. Then her baffled expression cleared. “You and Ethan. Oh my God. When I told you to get laid, I didn’t mean that you should actually do it! And I sure as hell didn’t mean you should do it with my brother.”

  Defensiveness clashed with irritation. “Then maybe you should have clarified—”

  “Listen,” Lex interjected, raising her voice. “Maybe we can stay out of Jordan’s personal life since she didn’t invite us into it—” those words felt wrong too “—and focus on what’s best for the business. We can be professional for one second.”

  It hurt that she had to say that. Because yeah, we were in business, but we’d always cared about each other too.

  I shook off all the things I wanted to say. The apologies. The mess of feelings running through my head. Instead I focused on Lex’s words. Be professional for one second.

  “I’ll re-run the numbers. Right now in fact. Without Reve. And I’ll try to think of some way to get Taylor, and our manager, back on board. I know we can’t take this store without solid projections.”

  Lex nodded but her eyes were worried. “Expanding is risky to begin with. If we can’t find something that fits our needs, we can’t go forward.”

  And everything I’d done here would be for nothing. A waste of money and time and energy. A total failure.

  I swallowed the metallic taste in my throat.

  “I’m on it.”

  A buzzing sounded from the other side and Lex grabbed her phone. “Sorry, it’s the caterers. I’ll be back.”

  “Listen. The slideshow’s nearly done, but is there anything else I can do anything for the wedding?” I asked Ava.

  She stared at me through the connection.

  “Just get the store back on track. Lex isn’t going to be able to enjoy this if she’s worried about our business crashing into the ground in a big ball of flames.”

  Ava’s gaze held as much worry as her friend’s, plus a fierce protectiveness I’d seen before.

  It just sucked to be the one she was protecting Lex from.

  26

  Ethan

  “Todd. It’s Ethan.”

  “Ethan, good to hear from you. I trust the plans for your presentation are progressing.”

  “Absolutely. I wanted to call and clarify something. I’m sure this is a mistake, but I saw this on the specs…”

  Dom appeared in my doorway as I started to explain what I’d noticed. Dom’s eyebrows shot up and he waved his hands at me. No. Don’t do it.

  “I’ll look into it,” Barlow said when I’d finished.

  “By doing what?”

  Irritation crept into his smooth tone. “Excuse me?”

  “How will you look into it? As someone who’ll be selling this build in a week’s time, I need to be confident in our product. We’re asking people to make the biggest investment of their lives. I can’t sell these condos in good conscience if I can’t look my client in the eye.”

  “Ethan, what the hell did you just do?” Dom asked after I’d hung up.

  I huffed out a breath. “Hopefully the right thing. Barlow has to fix this. If he doesn’t do it by the time I’m scheduled to present to them…” Discomfort worked through me. “I’m not sure what I’ll do.”

  “Speaking of. They want to do a meet and greet over drinks the night before.” Dom named the hottest new restaurant in LA.

  We talked it over, but my mind was only half in this. My fingers tapped on the surface of my desk. I needed something but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

  The ultimatum to Barlow had been the right thing to do.

  Hadn’t it?

  Or maybe I’d screwed up the biggest chance of my life. S
econd-guessing myself wasn’t something that happened often, but now, unease spread through my stomach.

  I needed to talk to someone. Not Dom.

  I wanted Jordan. She had no stake in this, yet somehow I knew what side she’d take.

  Mine.

  Yesterday she’d brought me lunch, but I couldn’t tell you what I ate. It was overshadowed by her presence. She’d walked into my office, lit it up with her slow smile and all-seeing eyes.

  More than that, though, there was a moment.

  A moment when she’d looked at me like I was fucking everything. For that moment, the world had stopped.

  Other women had looked at me with want, and need. It was nothing like this.

  With Jordan it was like being worshipped. Like the very fact that she had all her attention on you meant that you were worthy, and in turn, you had to act like it.

  It made me want to be better. Better at everything, for her.

  When I’d texted her after getting the offer on Axe’s place this morning, all I could think about was having her under me. Now, I still wanted that.

  But first, I wanted to know how her day went. To hear her laugh. To find out if she liked watching House of Cards on Netflix, and if I could coax her into submitting to a marathon.

  Of episodes.

  Then of something else.

  I didn’t want to wait for tonight. I wanted to see her, to hold her. To make her laugh.

  After Dom left, I grabbed my bag and skipped out of the office.

  “I told you to be nice.”

  The music blasting out the speakers lowered automatically as a female voice came over my headset.

  “Ava? Can this wait? I’m in the middle of something.”

  “Oh, you have no idea what you’re in the middle of. Jordan? Seriously?”

  I tried to focus on the conversation even as I honked at a guy who’d cut me off. “What about her?”