by Lee Kilraine
“Of course. It’s too bad you didn’t stay part of the family business, Sam, but your little company has certainly put its footprint into the Raleigh market.” Dean shrugged, then turned his focus back to me. “But not as big as Six Brothers Construction. Impressive. Very impressive, Thorne.”
“Thank you. We’re proud of how far we’ve come.” A couple of months ago, I’d have been hyped to hear Dean Devine had looked into our company. Now? Not so much.
The man had built one of the top ten home building corporations from the ground up—a man didn’t do that without good business acumen. I hated the way he’d treated Sam. And if he treated his own daughter this way, what did it hint at how he treated other employees? Other than his stepsons that is.
A few months ago this man could have been the answer to my problem. Today, I couldn’t back away fast enough.
“In fact, I’m so impressed I want you to come work for us. What do you think about being Devine and Sons, Vice President in charge of sales?”
Sam’s gaze shot to her father’s in disbelief. No kidding. Because what he’d just done was beyond fucked up. I saw Sam’s shock and pain, and I didn’t want to have any part of that. But before I could even open my mouth, Sam did.
“Congratulations, Beck.” Her eyes met mine for only an instant before they jerked away. “If you’ll excuse me…”
She walked back inside with her back ramrod stiff and her chin held high, leaving me with her prick of a father.
Fuck. Why couldn’t I have won the damn lottery to get out from under this mess?
“So what do you say?” Good ole Dean kept right on going, as if he hadn’t just broken his daughter’s heart for the millionth time.
“I say no thanks, Dean. I’m not interested.”
“I think you might want to reconsider. You’re still on the small side for a company at the five-year mark.”
“We’re happy with where we are. We’ve shown steady growth for the last three years. Maybe in a few years, we’ll even compete in your market, Dean.” I grinned at my own joke. I didn’t need to be a nationally ranked builder. My brothers and I had simple tastes. We liked to pay our bills, have a roof over our head, and food in our kitchens. A little extra to pay for a fishing trip or two, maybe a good whiskey now and then, and we’d be set.
“We eat small companies like yours for breakfast every day. I can undercut every bid you make on a job or a parcel of land until your books are bleeding red. Trust me—you do not want to mess with me.”
“No, I really don’t.” He was kidding, right? Apparently he had no sense of humor. “To be honest, I’m not sure why we’re having this conversation. Sam said you’ve got your sons working for you.”
“I’ll tell you why… Between you and me, my stepsons have shit for brains. They’re good at spending money. Not so good at making it.”
“Why wouldn’t you offer the job to Sam? She’d be perfect for the job.”
“A female vice president? No. That would never fly with our shareholders.”
“And you just had to offer the job to me right in front of her. Anyone ever tell you you’re a bastard?”
“All the time,” he said, the slick smile making him look proud of it. “In fact, I had my lawyer look into your background; you know a good father can’t just let anyone around his daughter.”
I narrowed my eyes at his bullshit. Good father my ass. More like a greedy, controlling prick. “Let me guess… You found out I lied about my background. So what?”
“Well, that might be important to some people in this town, but no. You’ve got a good model, Beck, but your debt ratio’s too high. The loan is weighing your business down. Did you get caught with your pants down when the housing market crashed?”
“I guess that’s one way to put it.”
“Did you know over-extended credit is one of the top five reasons businesses fail?”
“I know that, yes.”
He laughed a good ol’ boy laugh and hit me on the back. “That’s good, son. See, not everyone always knows when their ship is taking on water. Lucky for you, my offer will help bail you out. I’m offering to pay that off when you begin working for me.”
“Like I said, thanks but no thanks. We’ve got other options to explore.” I didn’t know what those options were yet, but I knew I wanted no part in hurting or undercutting Sam.
“I should probably mention your creditor was having a fire sale.” Dean’s gaze slammed into mine as his mouth slid into a knowing smirk. “I bought up your loan.”
Well fuck.
I stared over at him trying to decide if he’d meant that to sound like a threat. He stared right back, eyebrows raised, daring me to turn down his offer. Yep. The bastard had meant it. He knew exactly what he’d just done. The silence hung between us while we had a modern day duel of pointed stares.
“Well, Thorne? How do you feel about my offer?” His gaze bore into mine in triumph as he casually shook the ice in his glass of bourbon before taking a satisfying sip.
“It sounds like an offer I can’t refuse, so I guess that means I’m interested. Of course I’ll need to discuss this with my brothers as this will affect them too.”
“You do that.” He slapped me on the back again and smirked before he strolled away.
Why did life for the Thorne brothers never have easy answers?
If my only choice of saving SBC and my brothers from losing the company meant accepting a job with Devine and Sons… I’d have to consider it. But before it came down to that, I’d start praying one of my brothers found another option. And I’d buy a lottery ticket.
Chapter 28
Samantha
“Well, I’d say that was a success,” Beck said as he stood in front of me, his hands in his pockets, looking handsome in a dark suit and crisp white dress shirt. He wore a blue tie that made his eyes glow, and their intensity made my stomach clench. “Hey, look, Sam—about your dad—”
“I’d rather not talk about it.” I tightened my jaw, trying to control my frustration. The open house had finally wound down, and I really needed to find my best friend so I could unload everything on her supportive shoulder. Sadly, nothing surprised me about what my father had done. Not his lack of praise for my work. Not the job offer to Beck. Not even his insensitivity of making it in front of me. But that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. No, it hurt like heck.
“There you are! Hey, I was just about to head out.” Margo smiled at us both. “Are your feet up for heading over to Eddie’s with everyone else? I’m feeling the urge to celebrate while we bask in the glow of the many compliments we received from the peers in our business.”
Darn it. I should go to celebrate with the crew. We couldn’t have pulled this off without them, but I hesitated trying to judge how much longer I could fake a smile and hold it together.
“Oh… Unless you’re going over to Beck’s to celebrate.” Her gaze flicked between me and Beck.
“No,” Beck and I answered at the same time.
I was definitely not going over to Beck’s. We’d said our goodbye last night. Our unplanned, frantic, and bittersweet goodbye.
“Okaaay.” Margo’s eyebrows lifted at our abrupt denials. “So I’ll meet you over at Eddie’s then. I’m thinking of hitting on one of Beck’s brothers.”
Beck winced and shook his head with a laugh. “I think that’s my cue to leave. I’ll see you ladies over there.”
I gave him a nod and watched him walk away, hating my father and the way he’d stomped all over another great moment in my life.
“Is everything all right?” Margo searched my eyes, trying to read what was going on.
“I’m just not up for another crowd,” I said. It was true. I was all smiled and small-talked out. Plus I needed to vent to my best friend. Maybe even cry on her shoulder and listen to her cuss out my father until I felt be
tter. “Can we go over to my place instead?”
“Sure. Let’s go.” Margo linked arms with me, and we escaped out into the cool December night.
Twenty minutes later, we arrived at my apartment. I went straight to the fridge to grab a bottle of white wine. Margo knew the drill; she’d already scooped up two glasses and met me on the couch.
“Spill it. What’s going on? Is it Beck? Is there trouble in paradise?”
“It’s not Beck.” I poured out the wine, handing one glass over to her. “Not really. I mean, maybe it’s a little Beck. But not Beck’s fault. Nothing he did. He was just an honest man in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or, hell, maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m the problem. I probably should call Dr. Tracy for an emergency session. Or maybe she can commit me somewhere for the next twenty-four hours. Or twenty-four years.”
“Oh, hell. I saw your father at the open house. Did he pull another asshole move?”
“He sure did.”
“Please don’t tell me he brought your stepbrothers too.”
“God, no. I’d have thrown the bums out.” I took a sip of my wine and lifted my spirits by imagining myself tossing them from Lila’s house. It felt so good that I imagined escorting my father out Lila’s front door too—before he could offer Beck the job right in front of me.
Right. In. Front. Of. Me.
“My father’s a mean jerk.” I took another sip of wine. A big sip.
“Tell me something we don’t already know.” Margo squinted one eye at me, apparently not liking what she saw, and took a large gulp of her wine. “Okay, tell me. How did he twist the knife this time?”
“He offered Beck a job—my job, not that I’d take it—right in front of me.” It was dumb, but saying it out loud made it hurt more. Damn. Maybe it was time to put Dr. Tracy on speed dial. “The only saving grace to the whole situation is that Beck didn’t seem too thrilled about it. And thank God for that because I think if Beck had acted interested—knowing everything about how my dad’s treated me—that would have felt like a betrayal.”
Margo stared at me for a long second, then drained her glass and poured another one and drank that down too.
“Fuck.” Margo slammed her wineglass down, picked up my paisley silk accent pillow from the couch next to her, and crushed it in her hands. “Fuckity fuck fuck fucking fuck.”
“What?” I sucked in a breath and prepared to take the next hit. “Just go ahead and tell me. I can take it.”
“Yeah, I’m not so sure.” Margo took another sip of wine. “When the open house was winding down, I went looking for you, and I must have heard the tail end of that conversation after you left. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but fuck me, it makes sense now.”
“Tell me. Honest. I’ll be fine.”
Margo shook her head. “When I first walked up, they were staring at each other. It lasted so long it was kind of weird. Then your dad said, ‘Well, Thorne? How do you feel about my offer?’”
“Right. I was there for the offer.”
“And Beck said, ‘It sounds like an offer I can’t refuse, so I guess that means I’m interested.’” Margo’s eyes held both sympathy and anger.
It felt like she’d punched me in the face. My hand jerked, spilling wine on my dress, but I just sat there frozen. “What? That can’t be. That—”
I was as unprepared for that answer as I was for my heart to clench. That didn’t make sense. Not the Beck I’d grown to know. I’d told Beck about my father and how he’d treated me no matter how hard I’d worked or how much I’d accomplished at Devine and Sons. It was never enough to earn his praise. My contributions were glossed over, or worse, passed off to my stepbrothers, and they raked in the praise and the job advancements. Beck knew all that. He knew how much it had hurt.
“Oh, heck, you’re still frowning. What else?” I knew from working with Beck these last five months that he was driven to succeed. He’d talked a few times about wanting to get to the next level, and —I remembered his praise of my father the morning he realized I was related to the great Dean Devine. I slumped back against the couch, feeling lost and betrayed.
“He said he had to talk with his brothers and he’d get back to him.”
“He did?” I took a sip of wine, a big sip, and then rested my head against the couch, blinking like crazy until I’d beaten back the sting of tears.
“He did. I’m sorry, Sam.”
“I’m sorry too.” I rolled my head toward her, forcing myself to see the pity in her eyes. “Sorry because I thought Beck was different. Although, there’s nothing wrong with being ambitious. I can’t fault him for that.”
“I can. Because I liked him too. I liked the two of you together. I liked how happy he made you, the jerk.” Margo sighed. “So it stinks that now I have to hate him for all eternity.”
“This is really nothing new from my father.” I waited for the pain in my chest that always came when my dad found a new way to prove I amounted to nothing important in his life—but it didn’t come. That was weird. It was always part of the process.
I sat up and took inventory. I replayed my father offering the job to Beck—the job that should have been mine two years ago—and…nothing, no pain in my chest. I even pictured my dad offering the job to my stepbrothers, and not even a blip of anger or envy flowed through my veins.
“Want me to punch your dad for you? I will too. I’m so done with watching him hurt you over and over again.”
“About that…I think I’m…fine.” I was still trying to figure out how this miracle had happened. “I mean, him offering the job to Beck. I honestly couldn’t care less. What hurts is hearing Beck’s reaction.”
“Look, I understand that no amount of money or job title could get you to crawl back to Devine and Sons, but I’ve seen it crush you each time he called or stopped by to dangle it in your face.” Margo leaned closer and stared into my eyes, trying to read my emotion. “You don’t have to pretend otherwise. I know how much it hurts you.”
“That’s just it—it doesn’t. It really, really doesn’t.” I smiled and remembered the moment tonight when I’d looked around at Lila’s house, the gorgeous showcase of a house I’d helped create, listened to the praise of respected peers in my industry, and had literally felt my chest glow with some spectral, magical inner light. “It’s the craziest thing, Margo. I think I realized something important tonight.”
“What?”
“For the past two years, I thought for sure I was out to prove to my father that I could be a successful businesswoman. That I was worthy of his praise. And his love.” I looked at Margo in clear understanding for the first time in my life. “But that isn’t what I’ve been doing at all.”
“It isn’t?”
“No. I think I was proving it to myself.”
Margo smiled. “I think you just had what your Dr. Tracy calls a breakthrough.”
My phone lit up with a text and a chirp on the coffee table in front of us. Margo and I both sat staring at it. That pain that had been absent when I thought about what my father had done… It flew at me like an arrow piercing me through the heart, thinking about Beck’s response. That went deep.
“Ten bucks that’s Beck,” Margo said. “He probably went with the crowd to Big Eddie’s. The man has lots to celebrate, doesn’t he?”
“I don’t want to see him tonight.” I couldn’t. And what would be the point? He didn’t owe me any loyalty. He had the right to work for any company he wanted to. Although why he’d want to work at a soulless company like Devine and Sons was beyond me. Oh, right, he’d feel right at home with the closed-off, cold-fish of a father figure he looked up to. “Beck and I are already over. You’d think that would make this easier to absorb, but it doesn’t.”
I still couldn’t pick up the phone, but that was because the tears welling up and spilling over and down my face made it
too hard to see. “I can’t.”
Margo grabbed up the phone and texted a response, then shut the phone off.
“What did you tell him? You didn’t use the f-word did you?” I sniffed into my glass of wine.
“I refrained. Barely.” She rolled her eyes. “I told him we won’t be joining the crew at Eddie’s. We’re having a celebratory girls’ night in, and we’d see him at the gala. Now, what can I get you? More wine? A photo of Beck we can throw darts at?”
“Medicinal chocolate.”
“Is there any other kind? Let’s get chocolate drunk and make plans for life after Lila’s job.”
In other words…life after Beckett Thorne.
Chapter 29
Samantha
The next morning, Margo and I went out for breakfast. We’d just placed our order and were enjoying our fist sip of coffee in the early morning sunlight when we experienced a total eclipse.
“Hey, Sam. I thought that was you. Where’s Beck? Parking his truck?”
I peered up into the wall of three Thorne brothers so tall and big they blocked the sun.
Well, damn. If I’d known I’d run into Beck’s brothers, I’d have passed on Margo’s breakfast invitation. Although, no I wouldn’t have. Dani & Dani’s Diner had the best chicken and waffles around. It was to die for, and I’d decided after last night’s chocolate that the best part about a broken heart was getting to eat my way through it. I’d earned it, thank you very much.
“Actually, no. I don’t know where your brother is. We aren’t seeing each other anymore.” Not that we ever had been, not in any real sense. Obviously Beck had been tight-lipped around his brothers about it.
Eli threw his brothers a look and said, “I told you there was trouble in paradise.”
The brothers pulled out chairs at our table and sat. Only Ash and Beck were missing, or Margo and I would be hosting a Thorne brother reunion.
