Sweet As Sin

by Ana Jolene

  It wasn’t until her birthday that she realized how close she’d become to the Happa-Hewitt family. Hell, she felt like she was spending more time with them than her own family.

  They’d been kind enough to throw her a surprise party and she’d never been more thankful. That day, Hutch had also come back too and she’d been so relieved to see him again that she’d thrown herself against him. To this day, she still didn’t know what had gotten into her. She’d never done that before!

  To make matters worse, she’d seen the way Hutch looked. He’d been so surprised that it’d taken him a moment before he’d wrapped his arms around her. Warmth had spread over her at knowing he was safe. But then she quickly realized that they weren’t alone. Not only had she thrown herself at him in front of his family, but all her colleagues from work had seen it too.

  They’d asked her about it after and she’d quickly said it was nothing. The truth was, she’d been embarrassed by her actions. All this time she’d been harboring feelings for Hutch but she never allowed herself to act on it. Not until that day. After that, she promised to keep her distance from him. He was her boss’s son. People would talk.

  When she’d found him in his father’s office, looking pitiful and drunk, her heart had clenched for him. Despite her fear, she helped him. What she hadn’t expected was for him to pull her into his arms and ask her to stay.

  Maison felt goose bumps sprout all over her arms. Damn, even just thinking about it caused her body to react. She had to stop thinking of him that way. Nothing would come of it. Did she really believe that she had a shot with him? She couldn’t even complete a proper sentence with him around since that night!

  Her frustrated growl was so loud in the room that everyone turned to look at her. “Sorry,” she muttered.

  As the meeting ended and everyone left, Matthew and a couple other people remained at the front of the room. “Did Hutch show up yet?” he asked her.

  Maison shook her head. “No.”

  Clive Davenport, Gleam Enterprises’ other co-founder, huffed a laugh. “I haven’t even seen him yet. Have you lost track of him already?”

  Maison felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment as she made her way towards them. Thankfully Matthew was there to quickly draw the attention from her. “He’s probably with some woman.” He gave a shake of his head. “I can’t seem to control that boy.”

  Clive laughed again. “Well, I guess Maison here needs to do more to keep his attention.” He gave her a good-hearted wink and excused himself. Once she was left alone with Matthew, Maison could relax. At least now the meeting was over.

  She caught Matthew’s worried expression and asked, “Are you okay?”

  Matthew shook his head. “I can’t believe that kid. I thought he’d at least have the decency to tell me that the deal was off.”

  “What deal?”

  Matthew blew out a long breath. “You’re probably well-aware that Hutch is a little bit of a rebel.”

  “A little?” she teased, trying to pull a smile from her boss.

  Matthew smirked before he said, “I can never get him to do what I want. So I offered him this job so that I could keep an eye on him. He needs something to keep him busy and keep his mind off of what’s upsetting him, but I’d hoped he’d last longer than this.”

  Maison was about to ask how he thought he was doing when Hutch walked through the doors. He was still wearing the same clothes as yesterday and he looked a little frumpled. His hair was messy around his face, but at least his eyes looked alert.

  “Well, look who decided to show up. Where the hell have you been?” Maison winced at Matthew’s tone. She’d become well acquainted with that tone over the years and it only came out when her boss was really upset.

  “I’m so sorry,” Hutch started. “I didn’t realize—”

  “I don’t want to hear any excuses. You’re my son and I understand that this is my company but I still expect you to behave like a responsible human being. Maison was counting on you to be here and you let her down. Now she’ll have extra work to do because you weren’t here. How does that make you feel?”

  Hutch cut a glance to her and Maison felt her stomach do a flip. Although she’d been upset with him earlier, she felt terrible for the tongue-lashing he was currently getting.

  Whenever Matthew got like this, his voice rose and sometimes you could hear it across the various floors. She glanced around them and realized that several other people were watching them already. Dammit, she had to stop this. “It’s okay,” she said with more firmness than she expected to come from herself. “I’ll handle it.”

  Surprised, Matthew turned to her. “You will?”

  She gave a nod. “Yes, sir. You don’t have to worry about anything.”

  “Well, at least Maison is more forgiving,” he said to Hutch. After gathering his things, he left her alone with Hutch.

  “Maison, I’m sorry—” he started.

  “Stow it.” She wasn’t going to show any mercy today. “Why were you late? I told you before you left that you needed to be here early.”

  “I’m sorry. I spent the night at a friend’s house and didn’t realize what time it was.”

  She felt her heart clench with his words. I spent the night at a friend’s house. “That’s the reason why you were late? Because you spent the night with some woman?”

  “I don’t mean it like that. She’s just a friend.”

  What a liar. Maison hated liars. Quickly gathering her notes, she ignored the pained expression on Hutch’s face. “I’ve got to go. I need to type these notes up.”

  Hutch followed her back to their desks, and on the way, Clive caught sight of them. “Oh, look who decided to show up,” he drawled. He extended a hand for Hutch to shake. “I was looking for you earlier.”

  Hutch shook the man’s hand. “Nice to see you again, Mr. Davenport.”

  “Please, call me Clive. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

  Hutch offered him a small smile. “Okay, Clive.”

  “So I hear you’re working alongside Maison.”

  “Actually, I’m working under Maison.”

  “Is that so?” A brow arched on his too-perfect face. “Well, you’re in good hands. Maison is excellent at her job.” She accepted his compliment with a smile.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” she said, pushing her way past them in the hallway, “but I have some work to do.”

  “Right. See you later.”

  “Later,” Hutch said.

  But Maison was already walking towards her desk.

  Hutch watched as Maison dumped a pile of papers on her desk and settled down in her chair. Within moments, she had organized the pile and was documenting them on a new Word file. She did all this with an ease and confidence, all while also ignoring him.

  Shit. He’d really done it now, hadn’t he? He hadn’t meant to be late but instead of going home to shower and sleep, he’d spent his entire night with Sam.

  He’d slept on her couch while she’d gone to bed in her bedroom. They’d done this countless times before but he really should’ve considered his early morning when he made the decision to stay. Now he was paying for it and seeing Maison angry at him made Hutch feel terrible.

  “Do you need some help?” he offered. Maison’s only response was the soft clicking of her nails against the keyboard.

  Damn, was this what Hunter meant when he’d warned him to not piss Maison off? He couldn’t imagine her mad. He’d never seen her get upset at anyone. But she was clearly upset with him now.

  “Look, Maison. I’m sorry for being late. I should’ve called. I know it’s my fault for not being responsible and making sure I was on time. But please, don’t be mad at me. I really am sorry.”

  He waited for her response. But she simply continued typing. Hutch rubbed his neck, feeling his panic start to rise. Shit, what was he going to do? Maison wasn’t talking to him!

  Sighing, Hutch went back to his desk and proceeded to continu
e apologizing to her in an email. After blabbering on for four paragraphs, he sent it, holding his breath for her reaction. However, when minutes passed and he didn’t receive a response, he gave up hope.

  Maison was really mad at him and nothing he did seemed like it was going to help. Instead of wasting more time, he started on the work that he knew she might need to do later. That way she’d have less to do. He knew he’d messed up big-time but he was going to do everything to get her to smile at him again.

  EIGHT

  After work, Maison went to pick up Rissa. They’d been texting all day and she seemed to be in a much better mood today. Maison wasn’t sure if it was the movie yesterday, or perhaps it was something going on in her personal life that was lifting up her spirits, but she was just glad to see the younger girl smiling for once. Unfortunately, her day hadn’t gone too well and her own mood wasn’t up to par with hers.

  They’d already gone through the mall once, stopping at all of Rissa’s favorite shops, and while Maison was trying to enjoy herself, her mind kept wandering off. Even with flats on, her feet were killing her and she really hoped that this was going to be the last time they went around the mall. “What’s going on with you?” Rissa finally asked.

  “Huh?” Maison cut a glance at her friend and noticed the furrow in her brow. “Oh, it’s nothing.”

  “Yeah, right. That’s the kind of answer I give Mom whenever she asks about something that I don’t want to talk about.”

  Maison flashed an apologetic smile. The truth was, she didn’t want to talk about it, but then she was reminded that this was also the first time that Rissa had ever started a conversation with her. Usually she was the one trying to pry out information from her. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be a downer but something at work happened and—”

  God, what the hell was she doing? She shouldn’t be telling Rissa this! First of all, the focus should be on Rissa, and secondly, this was hardly the type of conversation she should have with her Litter Sister.

  “Did someone make you mad?” Rissa asked.

  Maison cut another glance at her. It was clear that she wasn’t going to drop the subject. “Yeah,” she finally admitted. “Someone made me mad.”

  “Who?”

  Oh, what the hell. What harm could it do? “Well, there’s this new guy at work. He’s actually my boss’s son.” She checked to see if Rissa was still listening. To her surprise, the teen was glued to her story, eyes bright with interest. “We had this meeting this morning and he was late for it . . .” As she recalled the rest of what happened, Rissa sipped at her drink, all the while asking questions that spurred Maison into telling her more about Hutch.

  “So do you like him?” she finally asked her.

  Maison felt herself stiffen. How was she supposed to answer that question? She shouldn’t really be talking to Rissa about this. But there was also a part of her that wanted to spill everything. God, why had she said those things to him? She felt terrible!

  She caught Rissa smiling at her and groaned. “All right, time for a subject change. What about you? How are things going at school?”

  Rissa shrugged. “It’s okay.”

  “That’s it? Just okay? There’s nothing else fun happening at all?”

  Rissa gave her a small smile. “Well, there’s this one guy . . .”

  Maison’s eyes lit up. Was Rissa finally opening up to her? Before she’d felt so crummy that she had no smiles for anyone but now excitement had her grinning at Rissa. “Oh, reeeally . . .” she drawled. “Since I told you mine, now let’s hear yours . . .”

  That evening at dinner, the table was strained. Hutch had done his best to avoid his father for most of the day, but dinnertime was the only time when he couldn’t.

  Now he sat beside Matthew while his older brother, Hunter, and his nephew, Owen, rounded out the rest of the table. Damn, he wished Dacey were here. His sister typically had his back more than Hunter did and if his father decided to hassle him some more, at least he’d have someone around to defend him. He also wanted to talk to Dacey about her time working at Gleam.

  She’d recently quit her job after working there for years. And although she’d worked in a completely different department and floor as their father, Hutch figured that he could get some advice on how to handle things from her. However, Dacey was super busy working on her new career, and he’d likely have to go to the beach house where she was currently staying to see her.

  His brother didn’t seem to notice the tension between them. Or maybe Hunter was just used to it. Seemed like his family argued more than they got along these days.

  “I want more,” Owen chimed from beside his brother.

  Everyone turned to see what he was asking for and when Owen jabbed his fork at the mashed potatoes, Hunter asked him to pass over the dish. That was when his father reached for it at the same time. As their hands collided, their eyes met.

  Not surprisingly, Matthew looked pissed.

  He grabbed the dish and handed it to Hunter without a word. “Thanks,” he said, before plopping a couple more scoops onto Owen’s plate.

  Hutch resumed his eating. He was nearly finished with his meal when his father cleared his throat and said, “You know, you really disappointed Maison today.”

  Hutch stiffened. When he lifted his head, Hunter and Owen were looking at him with twin expressions of confusion.

  “I know you’re only working there because of the deal we had, but I still expect you to try,” Matthew said.

  “I am trying,” he gritted.

  “You’re not trying hard enough. Maison is the hardest worker I know. That’s why she’s my assistant. I trust her to do things correctly and get things done.” Hutch didn’t understand why they were making such a big deal out of this. All he’d done was miss a single meeting. “She was counting on you and you let her down.”

  Hutch bit down on his molars. Damn, he was right. He’d just left Maison high and dry without even calling to tell her that he was running late.

  “Things work differently around here. If you don’t take responsibility—”

  “I get it,” he gritted. Matthew didn’t need to talk to him about that. He’d had enough responsibilities in the Army and had handled it just fine.

  The thing that was eating at him was Maison. He knew just how hard she worked and he also knew that she cared a lot about what other people thought about her. That was why she’d been so concerned when he’d asked her if she’d ever dated anyone from work. He would hate it if people started talking shit about her because of his actions.

  Hutch stood up in a jolt. Damn, he had to apologize to her.

  “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” his father snapped.

  “I’m going to see Maison.”

  “Have you even been to her place before?” his brother called out.

  No. This would be the first. But he wouldn’t be able to think about anything else until Maison forgave him.

  * * *

  Her house was dark when he arrived. As Hutch got out of his car and walked towards the front door, he realized that Maison’s house was a direct reflection of her.

  The beige stucco walls were well maintained and clean, and the concrete terra-cotta roofing made it look sturdy and competent. There were bits of elegant details here and there that accented it beautifully, but Maison kept things mostly functional.

  On his way over, he’d gone through his speech in his head, hoping that it would be enough for her to forgive him. He’d never realized it before but he’d always had a sweet spot for Maison.

  He liked her because she never judged him. There had been times when she’d been present to see his fights with his father, and despite how horrible some of them had been, she had never held it against him. Similarly, he’d never taken his anger for his father out on her either. How could he when she was usually just following his orders? But that also meant that she probably knew more about him than he did of her.

  Even after years of knowi
ng her, Hutch was ashamed to say that he hardly knew anything about Maison. She was also so private about her personal life.

  He knew she was a single child but that was the extent of his knowledge of her. He didn’t even know she liked planning until he’d seen her decked-out planner on her desk. Somehow Greyson had known it before he had and had gotten her an a5-sized leather planner for her birthday. What the hell had he gotten her?

  Nothing.

  God, he was such a douche.

  Once he reached the front door, he rang the doorbell and waited. When minutes passed and no one answered, he gazed at the windows.

  Pitch black. Was she not home?

  He thought back to the last time he’d seen her at work. She’d been pretty upset with him at the time, but he remembered that she’d been texting someone right before she left the office. Was she making plans? Did she have a date?

  Hutch fisted his hands at his sides. He had no idea where that surge of jealously had come from but it’d been wholly unexpected. First of all, he couldn’t even remember when he’d started developing feelings for Maison. This wasn’t like him and she certainly wasn’t his usual type. Even Sam had commented on how weird it was.

  Whatever. That was something he could figure out later. What was important was making sure Maison knew how sorry he was. He never planned on letting her down again.

  Grounding down on his molars, Hutch turned back to his car. His intentions now were useless if Maison wasn’t even home. Where the hell was she? He checked his watch and noted that it was nearly nine. Was she out on a date? For some reason, that thought made him sad.

  Sliding back into his car, Hutch keyed the ignition but instead of heading back home, he turned the other way towards Sam’s place. He needed some cheering up and Sam was the only person who could do it.

  When Sam opened her front door, she wasn’t surprised to see Hutch standing there. “What the hell are you doing here again?” She made a face as he stepped inside. “Sooner or later people are going to think we’re dating.”