The Executive's Decision ~The Sweetened Version~ (The Keller Family Series)

by Marie, Bernadette

  “Come on. Dinner is ready, and Regan brought a friend.” Their mother walked Arianna toward Zach.

  “Well, she did good.” Arianna winked at Regan when she saw him standing beyond the crowd. “Arianna Keller.” She stuck her hand straight out and met Zach’s.

  “Zach Benson,” he greeted her. The sisters’ eyes, hair color, and smiles matched. However, he could see no restraints on Arianna as he had with Regan. He was sure she was the type of woman who went after anything she wanted and got it. “Congratulations on your move to Broadway.”

  “Thank you. I’ve worked very hard, it’s about time.” He’d heard that siblings could be different, and looking at Regan and Arianna Keller, he saw that was obvious. Regan, even in her casual sundress, was refined and put together. Arianna, on the other hand, was dressed in tight pants with a fitted shirt, and she wore heels that made her tower over her family. Long earrings dangled from her ears, and it had been a very long time since he’d seen that many rings on ten fingers. Her personality was as outward as Regan’s was inward. He already enjoyed the differences.

  Arianna followed Emily to the kitchen. Zach caught Regan’s arm as he noticed the men who had walked in with Arianna. He pulled her to his side and shook his head. The doctor she’d hugged at the hospital and the stranger from Regan’s house stood before him, casting suspicious glances over him.

  “Zach, right?” Curtis held out his hand to him.

  He pushed back his shoulders and cleared his throat. “That’s right.”

  “Curtis Keller.” He shook his hand, and Zach nodded when he heard the name the man had in common with Regan. She’d let him think the handsome doctor was her lover, but in fact he was her brother. She’d been very careful with what she wanted him to know.

  Regan curled herself around Zach’s arm. “This is my other brother, Carlos.”

  He was the man he’d recognized at the Nashville site. “You work for me.”

  “Guilty. Thank you for the job.”

  “My pleasure. John is a great man to work for.”

  “He sure is.” Carlos looked around them. “Did I leave my children here?”

  Carlos slapped Zach’s shoulder as he slid past them and found his kids still on the couch. Clara had found her way to them and held tight to her father. It was an exchange that tugged at him. A man that picked up his daughter and held her as if it was the last time he’d see her. Had his parents felt that way when he returned from school after months of being away?

  “That’s why you brought me here,” he whispered in her ear. “Those are the men in your life.”

  That flash of fear stole into her eyes again as she bit on her lip, and his chest ached at her pain. Someone had hurt her deeply, and it had her hiding and holding onto her family. It was as if she’d wanted to protect them from him in case—he didn’t know what she’d protect them from. But he was sure, by the sizing up he’d had done, they were there to protect her from him.

  “I told you, they were serious, but no worries.”

  “No worries? So they won’t beat me up?”

  “Oh, I didn’t promise that.” She kissed him quickly as they walked to the dining room to gather for dinner.

  Zach watched them all assemble. For a family they were an eclectic mix. The parents were older than he’d imagined. Both had white hair, were fair skinned, and had crystal blue eyes. Curtis looked like his father, but neither of the girls looked like either Emily or Alan. Their complexions were much darker and their eyes were brown. Carlos, he assumed, wasn’t blood related. But then again, what did he know about families beyond his own?

  “Zach, where are you from?” Emily asked as she passed the plate of fried chicken.

  “I’m from Nashville. But I spent most of my childhood in France.”

  “Oh, my.” Emily raised a hand to her chest. “France. I haven’t been to France… well since I too was a child.”

  “So Carlos is working on one of those enormous buildings downtown?” Alan interjected.

  “Yes, I saw him there with my own eyes,” he said then shifted his eyes to Regan, who averted her stare to her plate.

  “Pop, it’s just temporary,” Carlos assured his father. “I have applications into five more schools that haven’t gotten back to me.”

  “They should call me,” Alan said with his mouth full of biscuit. “I’ll give them a reference. Then I’ll show them my checkbook.” Carlos shook his head.

  Zach recognized the argument. He’d had it many times with his own father and grandfather.

  “Carlos, what do you teach?” Zach tried to save him from the beating he saw coming.

  “Math. Junior high.”

  “That takes a very special person.” He lifted his glass to him.

  “Oh, that’s my Carlos.” Emily patted his hand.

  “They don’t care what my family thinks.”

  “Well, you’re safely employed until then.” Zach nodded, and Regan’s hand slid to his knee beneath the table to give a gentle squeeze. He covered her hand with his and gave her a smile. He hoped she knew he’d do anything for her, including employ her entire family if needed.

  When dinner was over, Emily pushed Zach and Regan from the house, sending them to the front porch. They were guests for the night and exempt from cleanup. Carlos let him know that next time things would be different. Eduardo, Christian, and even Arianna all set forth their complaints about being guests as well, but Emily would not hear them.

  Regan sat down on the porch swing and pulled Zach down next to her.

  He draped his arm around her shoulders and with his other hand caressed her face before he pulled her to him in a kiss intended to melt away any doubt she might have left about his feelings for her.

  “I’ve waited all day to do that.” He nipped at her lips again.

  “I’m still scared,” she admitted, resting her hand over his on her cheek.

  “What are you scared of?”

  She dropped her head. “I don’t want to be hurt again, and I don’t want my family hurt either.”

  “I would never hurt you.” He lifted her face with a finger under her chin. “Why would someone hurt you and your family?”

  Regan shook her head and shifted her eyes to the ground. “I’m not going to talk about it. I just don’t want to have it happen again. I don’t want this to be the catalyst for it to happen again.”

  He sat back slightly. “Just because I’m your boss?”

  “Yes.” She turned her head. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. Now I know that I’m the only man in your life kissing you like this.” He dipped his head down again, engaging her tongue in a dance that was sure to send her pulse racing. “Come home with me tonight.”

  Regan sat up straighter, pulling from his embrace. “I’m not ready.”

  He sucked in a breath to calm the anger he felt rising in him—it wasn’t geared toward her, but to the SOB who’d hurt her. “I can wait. Regan, I’m not going to rush you or hurt you.”

  “I know.” She took his fingers and interlaced them with her own. “I just need some time.”

  He hated the fear in her eyes and the way her body stiffened when he’d mention anything about them taking things to the next level. “I’ll give you time.” He pulled her close so that her head rested on his shoulder.

  He was used to his projects taking years. He could wait out Regan’s fear. If she needed to trust him, then he’d be the man she could trust. And if she needed his protection, he’d certainly do that too. But he hoped she would fall in love with him and realize they were much more than employee and employer. They were already in a partnership.

  Arianna backed out the front door, her arms loaded with plates of pie.

  Zach stood quickly. “Let me help you with that.” He took two of the plates and handed one to Regan.

  He sat back down on the swing and took a bite. “Oh, God, this is wonderful!”

  “I told you pie makes me happy.” Regan took a bite for herself
.

  “Got it!” Sensing he should keep the mood light, he shoved another piece in his mouth. “How embarrassing for my mother! She bought you a pie.” He laughed as he took yet another bite.

  “It was very nice of her.”

  Yes, his mother could buy her a pie. She could wine and dine her like she was the one in a relationship with Regan. But he now understood that pie was so much more than dessert to Regan. It was family time and family dinners. It was her father wanting her brother to succeed. It was a hug from little girl who missed her daddy. It was the excitement everyone shared when you came home with news that you’d succeeded. Pie was what he wanted with Regan—every piece and every crumb.

  He let his eyes wander from his plate to her. “I assume you bake pie like this too, then?”

  “I’d say we all have some very profound pie-making experience.”

  “You could say that again.” Arianna laughed at her sister’s comment.

  “We all had our share of working in Mom’s bakery. Her parents started it when she was little and she inherited it. So yes, I certainly can turn out any baked good you might need.”

  “Tiramisu?”

  “Or a tiramisu.” She laughed.

  “Lucky me.”

  Arianna watched them. “So, how long have you two been together?”

  “Since about two o’clock yesterday,” Zach answered and Regan jabbed him in the ribs.

  “I work for Zach,” Regan said, her voice very serious and her tone threatening.

  “You both will have to make a trip to New York to see me. You know, on Broadway,” she sang the word and wiggled in her seat like an anxious child waiting for a gift. “I guess you get to keep the house a bit longer. Unless Carlos has kicked you out completely.” She broke off the crust to her pie and popped it into her mouth.

  Regan grinned. “He told you he’s been staying?”

  “Clara.” They both laughed. “C’mon, Mama wants to open that wine you brought.” She nodded toward the house.

  They opened the wine and all sat down in the living room with their glasses.

  At eight thirty, the doorbell rang and Carlos moved for the door with Clara close in tow. Soon Eduardo and Christian gathered their belongings and left the room. Regan patted Zach on the knee. “I’ll be right back.”

  A few minutes later Regan sat back down and Carlos sauntered back to the room, alone. “I’m gonna head out. Mama, thanks for dinner.”

  Emily rose to kiss him. “I love you, Son.”

  Regan and Arianna kissed him as well, and Zach shook his hand. “It was nice to meet you and your children.”

  “I’ll see ya on the site.” He waved to them all and left the house.

  Arianna sipped her wine. “He’ll get over it soon enough.”

  “It’s been two years. It’s time,” Alan said pragmatically, still focused on the television.

  “I suppose we should go.” Regan stood and took Zach’s wine glass to the kitchen. Emily followed.

  Zach stood, meaning to follow too, but he heard Emily questioning Regan. He stopped just outside the door, unsure whether he would be intruding. “You’re careful?”

  “Mama, I’m fine. Nothing like that has happened. Besides, I’m thirty-three years old. I’m not a teenager.”

  “I know. I don’t want your heart broken again… or anything to happen to you.”

  “Neither do I.”

  Zach backed away from the door. They were all watching out for her, and it was his job to make sure they were satisfied that she was happy and safe. Eventually she’d need to tell him what had happened. It wasn’t just a relationship that had ended badly. There was obviously much more.

  She was quiet on the way home, but he took solace in the fact that her fingers remained laced with his.

  “So, while you were around”—he smiled—“I was looking at the pictures on the wall. Is Carlos adopted?”

  She laughed and turned her head to look at him. “Huh, what would give you that idea?”

  “Curtis is the only one who looks like either one of your parents. You and your sister look exactly alike, only she’s about two inches taller than you even without those shoes on.” He looked at her, and her eyes were smiling from behind the curtain of dark lashes. Even when he spoke of her family, it made her happy. “Then there’s a picture of just you and your sister when you’re really little, and other family pictures of the two of you and your parents. Then another where Arianna is holding Curtis as a baby. Then there is a family picture of you all, and Carlos is right in the middle. I don’t know, maybe he was six or seven. Spill the story.”

  “Mama and Papa were married fifteen years before they had children. What they got was me and Arianna. She was two and I was three months old when we came to live with them.”

  “You’re adopted?” She nodded with a smile. He shook his head and let out a quick laugh. “I should have guessed that. You are all so wonderfully different.”

  “They were our foster parents. We were born to a young couple and the state took us away. They placed us with the Kellers and we never left.” She smiled. “Mama was told she couldn’t have any children, but the day our adoption went through—I was already two—was the day she found out she was pregnant with Curtis. She was forty.”

  The reality that he was almost forty hit him. Family. It was something he’d always thought he’d wanted, and after dinner with her family, he was sure of it.

  “So what about Carlos?”

  “Ah, Carlos became my brother when we were seven. He’s two months older than I am.”

  Zach couldn’t even begin to imagine sharing everything with others. He had no cousins or siblings. No one was ever in his space, and he never had to vie for his parent’s attention. Even at school he’d had his own room. “How does that work when your family is already established?”

  “You adapt,” she said. “He just blended. His parents had brought him here from Puerto Rico when he was four. They belonged to our church, and we were friends. His family was very poor and the church helped them a lot. Mama helped too by giving Carlos’s mother work in the bakery and around the house. His father worked odd jobs fixing things.” She adjusted in her seat and looked out the window.

  “They were in a car accident going home one night. The roads were slick.” She took a deep breath. “Carlos was the only survivor. Mama stayed with him at the hospital for days while he cried for his mother. When he was ready, they released him to my parents. They were still foster parents and they took him in. And just like me and my sister, Carlos never left.”

  He gave her hand a squeeze then lifted it to kiss her fingers.

  Family. How amazing it was that everyone’s family could be so different. He’d always appreciated his parents, but sitting among Regan’s family, there’d been a different kind of acceptance. Among the different eye colors and backgrounds, beyond the mismatched china and glassware was a family that valued each person.

  He wanted that. He could marry, have a child, and no expense would be too much to shower his child with anything they wanted. But he’d finally seen where that wasn’t important. If Regan was the other part of his fantasy, a house full of children and a marriage full of love, he knew there would be a perfect balance in their home, just as there had been in the Keller house each time a new child came to live there.

  “Carlos is the only one with children?” he asked, and she took her hand from his.

  Turning her head from him, she answered. “Yes. He married very young. He and Madeline were sweethearts in high school. Eduardo came when they were only twenty. A couple of years ago, they got divorced and she married his best friend.”

  “That had to have been quite a blow to Carlos.”

  “It was. She didn’t have an affair with him, though Carlos accused her of it. Truth is times were tough. He was out of work a lot and going to graduate school, she was working two jobs, the bills were piling up, and the kids were little. It wore on them. Really, it’s too bad. Made
line is a wonderful woman, and Carlos loves her so much.”

  How could someone love someone and just walk away from their marriage? Was that what it all came down to? Walk away if it became too hard?

  He wondered how Regan felt about that. She’d been very forward about how she felt about dating her boss. Would she walk away if it became too hard? “Why didn’t they just stay married?”

  She shrugged. “I’m not sure they know. But she’s married now and they share the kids. And the kids are wonderful!”

  “They love you a lot.”

  “They are my world.” She gathered his hand again as they pulled up in front of her house.

  “Ask me in.” He looked at her, covered in shadows.

  “No.” She was firm. “Let’s see how it goes for a while.”

  He couldn’t hide his disappointment, but he reminded himself he had time. “You’re killing me.”

  “I know. But it’s for the best.”

  He nodded in agreement. She needed that space, and he’d give it to her. But everything inside of him wanted to take her up those stairs, close the door behind them, and please her in every physical way he could. “I’ll walk you to the door.” He opened his car door and she shook her head.

  “No. If you do, I’ll want to pull you in. I need to be very strong.” She leaned over and kissed him hard, then pulled away leaving him wanting more. “Tomorrow we go about our day as though nothing has changed. Between eight and five, we are coworkers only. No special treatment, no secret kisses.” He dropped his shoulders and let out a ragged, long breath. Her mouth tightened. “I’m serious. If this is going to work…”

  He didn’t like the fear in her eyes. It took over every time he thought they’d taken a few steps forward. “Regan, it’s going to work.” He nipped her lip with his teeth then kissed it gently. It was going to take more than seduction to prove to her that he was the man for her. He pressed his forehead to hers and sucked in a deep breath. “Go before I carry you into the house.”

  She smiled. She climbed out of the car and walked up the steps without looking back.

  The house was dark, but she knew Carlos was there when she shut and locked the door.