by Lee Kilraine
“You know that saying: all work and no play makes Sam and Margo no fun to hang around,” he said, lifting the glasses of white wine in his hands before setting them in front of us. “I brought drinks.”
“Why thank you, Brady.” Margo was either wheezing or had turned into Marilyn Monroe. “That’s very nice of you.”
I turned to look closely at her. She was blushing the prettiest pink. Margo and Brady? What? When had this happened? And was it mutual? My head whipped back up to Brady to check. Sure enough, his eyes had been lingering on Margo until I caught him looking, and then he quickly diverted his eyes.
He took a seat at our table but avoided looking at me. Of course he did, because I’d asked him not to hit on Margo. I’m not a prude, but I liked Brady. He was a good friend. I didn’t mind if he dated Margo. It was the part about after they broke up that I wanted to avoid. Because they would. And it wouldn’t even be Brady’s fault.
Nope. When it came to men, Margo had ADHD. Short attention span theater. She was like a hummingbird flitting from flower to flower. So when Margo was ready to move on, I’d have to watch Brady go through Margo withdrawal. Margo withdrawal wasn’t pretty. I’d had more of Margo’s exes crying on my shoulder than I cared for. Worse was when they sat in a corner of the bar looking shell-shocked for a week or two.
Maybe Brady was made of stronger stuff, but I didn’t want to chance it. Plus, I wanted to keep both my friends and we all know that rarely happens when two dating friends break up, right? Someone gets lost in that divorce.
Seeing Margo’s blush, I was pretty sure the Margo-Brady train was already pulling out of the station. They did made a striking couple.
Remember when I said Brady was the best defenseman for the Roughnecks? Part of the reason for that was his size. He was a big guy. Margo was tall, like one of those high-fashion models tall. They looked good together. Like a matched set. Brady would be smart to finally stop chasing after those puck bunnies and date someone as smart and nice as Margo. Except Margo didn’t do permanent either. Maybe she was a long-lost Thorne sibling? The bunch of them were like hit-and-run accidents.
“Some heat wave we’re having, huh?” Brady’s brown eyes stared across at Margo who sat with her chin in her hand, elbow on the table, gazing all googley-eyed back at him.
I had to poke her on the leg to get her to snap out of it.
“Oh, yeah, it’s like summer or something.”
“I’m going to get a drink at the bar,” I said, and scooted out as quickly as I could. I wasn’t knocking that. AT. ALL. I totally got sexual tension so strong it could freeze you in place. But being caught in the middle of it between two of my good friends was weird.
Over at the bar, I found a place to squeeze in to patiently wait my turn. Big Eddie saw me from the other end and nodded. He took care of his regulars. That’s what made Big Eddie’s so popular. I didn’t mind waiting; the longer the wait, the more time Margo and Brady had to stumble their way through the awkward flirting stage.
Plus I liked to listen to the music on the nights Big Eddie tended bar. He played rock but mixed in classic Motown. Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, The Supremes—I could go on. The other bartenders played today’s stuff, but Eddie was my music soul mate.
A large, firm body moved into the space next to me. Very next to me. As in I could smell his cologne. And it smelled good. Very nice. Not too strong. Maybe a bit too much “I’m looking to get laid” but nice.
He leaned into my space as if he had a secret to share with me. “Hello. This is going to sound like a line, but it’s not a line. Have we met before? Because I feel like I’ve seen you somewhere recently.”
Turning to look up at him, I knew his face. It was too similar to Beck’s not to see the resemblance. One of his brothers, and based on the smooth line, I’d guess Gray. Gray had a reputation as a ladies’ man.
“No, I don’t think we have,” I said, resting my elbow on the bar and looking back to watch Eddie work.
“I think we have. I swear I saw you earlier today.”
Man, the Thorne brothers were something else. Gray was gorgeous. Like put Jude Law and Tom Hiddleston together, then roll him in salted caramel and dip him in praline crunch gorgeous. But for some reason he didn’t affect me the way his brother did.
“Gray.” Beck’s voice sliced down my spine and left me unsettled. “I don’t believe you and Sam have met before. Samantha Devine, my brother, Gray.”
Gray’s eyes flared in a sudden recognition. I guess Beck would have talked about me with his brothers, seeing as Beck and I were about to go at it—so to speak. He snapped his fingers. “Pin—”
Beck clapped his hand on Gray’s back, bringing him to a stop and throwing him a look.
“Ah, right. My mistake. I believe you’re right. We’ve never met. I must have met your doppelganger somewhere. You know how tha—”
Beck cleared his throat.
“Nice meeting you and good luck. I think I see someone—I’ll just be going.…” He nodded and turned abruptly, pushing his way through the crowd at the bar, leaving me alone with Beck.
“Sam,” he said, only this time his voice was private, low and gravelly just for me. It dripped across the nape of my neck like warm honey. He moved into the spot Gray had left, leaning an elbow on the bar and giving me a look with his light eyes that sent a twisting heat low in my belly. “Can I get you a drink?”
“No thanks, Big Eddie’s got me,” I said, flicking my eyes over to Eddie and hoping he would get that drink over here pronto so I could leave. But no, I saw him see Beck, and Eddie smiled his big smile and pointed at him, and Beck nodded back.
So now I guess I was waiting for both our drinks. I started to go over the design in my head in an attempt to not think about Beck standing one foot away from me and smelling even yummier than his brother. Maybe I’d just been around him way too long today. Two hours at least, and he had me in sensory overload. His clean scent, his warm heat, and his big, toned body were making me—I jumped when his hand touched my forearm. I was on edge I tell you.
“I know this is a bit awkward, but I want you to know I respect your talent.” I knew he was telling me the truth and not feeding me a line because his eyes were rock solid and steady on mine. Or he was awesome at shoveling bullshit. “I looked through the portfolio on your website today, and you’ve done some great work.”
“You did?” I narrowed my eyes at him. “You were checking me out? I mean, as the competition.”
He smiled. “Of course I did. You totally checked out SBC’s website too, didn’t you?”
“The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind.” It hadn’t, but I totally would now. I couldn’t believe it wasn’t even on the to-do list I’d recorded into my phone on my way over here. I shrugged and looked over at Eddie, giving him my “hurry, please” look. The one I reserved for when some crazy guy was hitting on me and I needed a rescue. His eyebrows went way up, and he finally grabbed our drinks and sashayed over.
“Beck, are you bothering Sam?” Eddie didn’t sound very threatening like he normally did when he helped scare off unwanted men. Probably because he knew Beck and liked him. Most people did. All the Thorne brothers, really. Who wouldn’t love a bunch of big, hot, manly men? Gloria Steinem maybe, but no one I could think of around town.
“Not intentionally. And I’ll go out of my way to be non-annoying. Nice even,” Beck said with a lopsided smile aimed at me.
“I knew I could count on you to make sure Sam’s enjoying herself.” Eddie slid the drinks, a cabernet for me and a coffee to-go for Beck, across to us. Then he winked and left me with the enemy.
I wasn’t even mad at Eddie because all I could think was… Beck’s drinking coffee at happy hour? “So…coffee? Is that your drink of choice for happy hour?”
“Not usually, no.” He looked at the cup in his hand, still too hot to drink, b
efore glancing back at me with a grin on his face. “I plan on working late tonight. Got to beat my competition.”
Why the heck didn’t I think of that?
“Were you serious about being nice to me, Beck?”
His blue eyes went dark and warm. “Of course.”
“That’s mighty sweet of you.” I pushed my cabernet away and stood, which, with my three-inch heels, brought my eyes even with his chin. Tilting my head back to keep contact with his eyes, I bit my bottom lip, making sure I had his undivided attention. Then I took his to-go cup out of his hand. “Thank you for sharing your coffee. That is very nice.”
And I walked away putting a little extra sway in my hips.
“That’s not how sharing works,” he called after me.
* * * *
“I can’t focus.” I tossed my pencil on the table, watching it skid across the surface until it hit the plate of muffins. I’d been attempting to sketch for the last hour. Usually, the feel of the pencil in my hand, moving, lightly scratching, filling up the page, helped me connect to the feel of the design. Not today.
My hands felt frozen in place. The few lines on the paper looked awkward and wrong. My head was floating above me—disconnected from the task at hand. My normally creative brain was hitting a blank wall. I groaned, dropping my forehead to the table, covering my head with my hands.
“I can’t think.” I sat back up with a shake of my head. “I can’t get all the elements in the room to marry together. It’s feeling piecemeal, like a room you’d see in a consignment store—odds and ends simply sharing space instead of blending into a harmonious design. I’ve had stressful jobs before with even tighter turnarounds. Why can’t I focus?”
“First off, because you haven’t eaten anything all day.” Margo plated one of the muffins and slid it to me. Obviously she didn’t know about the peanut butter cups, bag of cheese popcorn, and the leftover General Tso’s I’d consumed. “Second, take one of those cleansing breaths Dr. Tracy makes you do. Go ahead. Breathe.”
I broke off a big chunk off the muffin and shoved it into my mouth to chew while I closed my eyes and sucked in a lungful of air. I needed to multitask. Chew. Breathe. Chew more. Another breath.
Slowly, my mind cleared, and I could see Lila’s master bedroom in my head. I saw the sunlight streaming through the windows, lighting up the gorgeous soft sea foam walls, the graceful yet solidly grounding king-size bed, and Beckett Thorne draped across the bed, naked and waiting. Dammit.
My eyes flew open on a groan. “It’s Thorne. He’s messing with my head.”
“Are you sure it’s not your father? Every time he calls, you have a mini-crisis of confidence. And you know my theory about that.”
“Yes. That he purposefully squashed my confidence, hoping one day I’d crawl back to the family business. For the record I would never crawl back for my old job.”
Now if he’d offered me the job I’d earned based on the work I’d done during the nine years I worked for him—before he demoted me to assistant to Thing One and Thing Two where I had the fun job of doing all the work and letting them steal all the credit—then I might never have left Greenville. That had been the last straw for me. It had been my wake-up call.
Much to my father’s shock and his warnings of the huge mistake I was making, I’d struck out on my own. I was bound and determined to prove to my father and my selfish stepbrothers that I was smart and talented. And standing up for myself was bigger than just me. Because my little sister was already being groomed to take my place, playing cleanup crew to my stepbrothers.
“I’m not saying that’s not in my head too, because it always is. But this is definitely Thorne. He was trying to psyche me out at the meeting with Lila. He’s competitive and sneaky like that. Plus, he’s an unknown quantity.”
“What do you mean? We looked at the portfolio on the Six Brothers website. We’ve seen their work.”
“Exactly. We’ve seen their work—as in all of them—but we don’t know what Beck is capable of. I don’t know his style or his talent. He’s like the deepest part of the ocean—unknown and unpredictable. I feel like if I knew what to expect from him I could stop obsessing about it.”
I didn’t think it would be helpful to tell Margo that when I obsessed over Beck, when he invaded my brain—he was usually naked. All his talk about giving clients exactly what they want and leaving clients satisfied was distracting me. I needed to figure out a way to get him out of my head. Quickly.
“I see what you mean,” Margo said, tapping the eraser end of her pencil against her lips but pinning me with her sharp hazel gaze. “Not. You can lie to yourself, Samantha Devine, but you can’t lie to your best friend. I’m calling you out. With your talent and experience I doubt you’re intimidated by a man who, as far as we know, has no specific training or specialty in interior design. That’s not to say one of Beckett Thorne’s skills isn’t distracting you, but I’d guess it’s his skill in the bedroom.”
“Have I ever told you that I both love and hate how well you know me?” I frowned across at Margo because she was right. And I loved that my best friend called me out when I was lying to myself. But I hated it too because it wasn’t convenient. In this case the truth made me feel itchy and vulnerable and needy. I didn’t want to be distracted by a man who’d for all intents and purposes already said no thanks to me. “I’m pitiful.”
“You aren’t pitiful. You’re stressing yourself out. You know what’s good for stress? An orgasm,” Margo said so matter-of-factly she left no room for doubt. “Scientists have done studies on it. So, head on over to Beck’s. One good orgasm and you’ll be back on track and back to your design.”
“I can’t have sex with Beck.” No matter how good I knew it would be. And it was good. Better than good. Like rock my world and clean out the cobwebs in my head good. Darn. That sounded perfect. But wrong.
“Of course you can have sex with Beck. It’s a proven fact,” Margo said. “If you mean you don’t want to—that’s different.”
“I don’t want to have sex with Beck.” Even if that’s all I could think about. “I mean, that would be crazy and counterproductive. It would eat up, I don’t know, an hour or two that I don’t have.”
“So ask him for a quickie.”
“Not a helpful suggestion.”
“Look, Sam, time is ticking away while you sit there stuck. You’ve been at it for eight hours today and you’re coming up with a big fat goose egg. At the very least, it won’t hurt to go by Beck’s place, tell him you want to wish him good luck and bury the hatchet. If you end up in bed together—problem solved. If he turns you down, you leave, no harm-no foul.”
“And I’ll have wasted more time and walked away with nothing.”
“That’s why the sex is a good idea. At least you’ll walk away with a smile.”
No, Samantha, pull yourself together.
“No. I’m not that pitiful. I’m in total control of said needs. I’m good. I can do this. I’m talented. I’m capable. I’m going to finish this muffin”—I stuffed another quarter of the muffin in, chewed like crazy, and swallowed—“ease up on the caffeine, shove a few people out of my head, and get to work. I’ve got this.”
Chapter 6
Samantha
“You are a design badass.” I stared at the poised designer looking back at me in the rear-view mirror. Because I’d finally wrangled Beckett Thorne into the vault and given all my attention to my design. Hallelujah.
“I’m going to win this contract.” How was that for a positive affirmation? I was excited to make my presentation to Lila this morning. I exited my Volvo station wagon with my soft leather computer bag and my confidence. So much confidence that I already had an image of Beck’s grim face when Lila delivered the news that she was awarding the contract to me.
And lest you think I was too cocky for my Spanx (which I so wasn’t
wearing with ninety-seven degrees in the forecast), my confidence was because without Beck clogging up my brain the last twenty-four hours, I’d been able to focus with clarity and amazing creativity. I could happily say I’d put together one of my best bedroom designs ever.
I was so jazzed about my presentation I didn’t even let the hot, humid air crowding out a fresh breath bother me. Although in deference to the heat, I’d dressed in a loose-fitting white tank dress with my wedge sandals instead of one of my power dresses and killer pumps.
Tina let me in and waved me back toward the sunroom again where déjà vu poked me in the eye. Guess who was sitting relaxed and laughing with Lila? I gritted my teeth and pushed up my falling smile. I was not going to let Beckett Thorne intimidate me.
“Sorry if I’m early,” I said, really, really hoping this was the case. “I can wait in the foyer if Beckett needs more time to wrap up his meeting with you.”
“Come on in. We’ve been waiting for you.” Lila beckoned with one hand. “I hope you’ll humor me but when I woke up this morning I had this incredibly strong feeling that I needed to see your designs together. It was like someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘do this,’ which was odd. So, I called my spiritual counselor and she said I had a moment of clairsentience and I absolutely could not ignore it.”
Clairsentience, whatever it was, and the spiritual counselor didn’t bother me. It was having to present in front of Beck that tripped me up. Literally. I would have fallen on my face if Beck hadn’t reached out one of his hands to help steady me. His big, warm callused hand may have had me upright but not even close to steady.
“I’m fine with it,” Beck said and I almost believed him except the jagged scar on his chin was white and his jaw clenched.
Well, of course he wanted this job as badly as I did. Pitting us against each other face-to-face only ramped up the tension and the competition.
“Fine here too.” Not really fine at all, but if Beck was going along, then I would too.
