In the shower, she thought about the company. Luxure owned several high-end chains, some focusing on clothing and others on quality goods from overseas. It wasn’t plastic crap but lovingly crafted, and everything sold for premium prices. The tanking of the economy hadn’t flagged them much. They weren’t marketing to the people most affected, nor had they expanded so rapidly that they couldn’t weather a downturn. A company like that couldn’t possibly want its employees wearing Boner Killer T-shirts and sneakers with the laces untied.
She had a few nice outfits, but were they nice enough? Even if it was just a mailroom position where the dress code might be more lax? Mentally earmarking the money from Wyatt for clothing, she climbed into bed and picked up her cell phone from the nightstand. There had to be plenty of stores that sold serviceable outfits at prices she could afford.
It wasn’t her cell phone. She and Hollis owned the same brand, and kept them in identical black cases. Groaning, she got out of bed and walked down the hallway. Hollis was talking in his room. “Sure, I’ll let her know. Okay. Yeah, sure, some time. All right, Porter, bye.” She knocked on the closed door, annoyed to hear her father’s name, and Hollis called, “Yeah, this is not my cell.”
Aviana opened the door. He was naked on his bed, her cell phone in his hand. She held up his own and he laughed. “Your dad called. I thought it was my phone and just picked up without looking. He wants you to call him back.”
She was still too angry for that. “I picked up yours intending to search online for clothing stores. I want to fit in at Luxure. What do they wear in the mailroom?”
They exchanged phones. “Just stuff like khakis and blouses. You’ll be lugging bags of paper from the shredders to the dumpster and things like that, so no one wears their very best. But no sandals or shorts or T-shirts. No jeans either. That’s way too casual.”
It was hard not to look at his cock. He caught her eyes bouncing off it and grinned. “Is there anything else I can do for you, Ms. Shawe?”
His penis twitched along his thigh. Just from her looking, he was getting an erection. “I’d really like to give you a ride, Hollis.” With his hands clamped on her hips, driving her body down onto his.
He jerked his head to the bed. She went to him.
Chapter Six
Ivy was a gray-haired, four-foot-nine dynamo who spent more time talking about the mailroom in the interview than she did asking Aviana questions. Nor were they seated in a quiet office but moving around the mailroom itself, the older woman tending to a myriad of tasks without a break in stride as she spoke. Sorting, labeling, processing, pointing a bewildered fellow with a stack of envelopes to the outgoing mail bin, she thrust boxes into Aviana’s arms when the phone rang and went to answer it. After a brief conversation, she plunked down the receiver and took the boxes away to give them to someone else.
“And look at their feet!” she exclaimed, gesturing to two clerks working in other parts of the large room. “What do you see?”
“Shoes?” Aviana guessed, hoping that was the right answer.
“Flats. You’re going to be on your feet a lot, so wear flats.” Bustling over to the copier with Aviana on her heels, Ivy lifted the top and slapped down a piece of paper. She closed the lid with a bang, jabbed buttons, and said, “I’ve had three girls come in here wearing platform sneakers and strappy sandals and stiletto boots and one boy in flip-flops like this was the beach. No, no, no! Get yourself a comfortable pair of shoes to wear and inserts if you need them. You’re going to be in and out of every office in this building multiple times a day. It’s not fashion time. Save it for the nightclubs.”
She was talking like Aviana already had the job. “I understand.”
“Good. Not everyone I’ve had does and they end up with plantar fasciitis or some other foot problem that could have been avoided with a little common sense. Now, Hollis told me that you broke your leg when a car hit you?”
“Yes, early this summer. The driver was looking at her cell phone instead of watching where she was going. But it’s better now.”
“I love that boy. Such a charmer.” Ivy swept the copied pages off the tray, retrieved the original, and pushed everything into different boxes in the bank along the wall. “Ice your leg and raise it the first few days you’re here.”
“So you’re giving me the job?” Aviana blurted.
“Be here next Monday at eight. You’ll have to fill out paperwork first with HR but then we can get you started.” The phone trilled and Ivy sighed. Giving Aviana a final nod, she went to answer it. “Hello, you’ve reached the mailroom. What? No, no, no!”
Aviana left the building in a daze and walked to the parking lot. The sun beat down on her. She had a job. She had a job! It wasn’t what she had envisioned all those years she was toiling over her textbooks in school, but this could just be the first rung on a ladder that went to an amazing place one day. Letting herself into the Libation, she turned the key and tilted the vents. The air-conditioning washed over her face.
She wanted to celebrate. I got it, she wrote to Hollis.
He wrote back immediately. Of course you did. Pizza will happen tonight! She looked up to the towering building, wondering which window was to his office. Then she backed out of the parking space and drove away.
It was a quarter after four in the afternoon and she was too excited to go home. Her money situation was going to be perilous for some time, but she just wanted to splurge a little. There was a smoothie joint next door to the supermarket where she had done the shopping the day before, and she drove to it.
She had assumed it would be packed in this heat, but barely anyone was inside. For a long time, she enjoyed her drink on a comfortable seat in the corner. She read the news on her cell phone and looked out the window to the people flowing in and out of the grocery store. Moms with adorable young children in the carts, singles and couples and packs of guffawing teenagers, there were small dogs hidden in purses and carts abandoned on islands and for a moment, she understood what Hollis had felt like in those aimless months after his college graduation. Everything had been accomplished for him, so what was he to do?
He liked her. Whenever they touched, her stomach made the same nervous but joyous dip that she had on roller coasters. The pretty waitress at a restaurant they had patronized one evening tried to catch his interest, but he’d only had eyes for Aviana.
It wouldn’t be that way forever, but she was enjoying it for now. She didn’t want to think about how it was going to end. The last week had been the happiest one of her life. After he came home, they went out for an evening of fun before going to bed together. Every inch of her body was kissed and stroked and once, just once, Hollis let her in. It was afterwards, in the blackness of his room, with the sweat drying on them and sleep nibbling at the edges of their consciousness. He asked if it bothered her that Lynda never kept in contact with her. His mother barely kept in contact with him.
The distance had never troubled Aviana. Lynda had had little interest in her as a child; consequently, Aviana had little interest as an adult. No company was better than poor company, and that was all Lynda had to offer. Aviana returned the question to Hollis, and he answered. Yes, it bothered him somewhat. She was his mother. But when she did call, she couldn’t go five minutes without throwing in a criticism or comparison to Wyatt. In fact, the only time he could recall her being nice to him was when she was doing it to impress a new man. It was better when she just ignored him. “You know,” Hollis said.
Yes, Aviana knew. Out in public and in front of Aviana’s father, Lynda was as sweet as sugar to her. Behind closed doors was a different story. Her criticisms were cutting and ridiculous, like telling Aviana at dinner to lay off the potatoes when she was six years old and a normal weight. Even now, she had qualms when she reached for a second helping. The only reason Aviana hadn’t fallen apart into total neurosis was imagining how her real mother would never have said such a thing. The mother of her fantasies was a loving, generous woma
n who smiled to see her climbing trees instead of slapping her leg and snapping that she’d never catch a boy that way.
Still, it had been easier for Aviana in the long run. In their divorces, her father dated his broken birds though none were as spiteful as Lynda. Hollis had had to deal with a succession of unstable boyfriends as the man of the house. Now and then, his concerned grandparents would take the twins away to stay with them. In their home, Hollis wasn’t the scapegoat for everything that went wrong. Aviana found his hand in the darkness and held it, and he said nothing more that night.
But he had said something, something real, and she held that close to her heart. He opened himself to her, and she was tempted to open up in return.
Her phone rang with an unknown number, shaking her from thoughts of Hollis. She picked it up. “Hello?”
Silence. The caller had hung up. Just a wrong number. But a warning sounded in a deep, primitive part of her brain. She turned to the window, shocked at how long she had been sitting here without a single thought of Milan. Stop being paranoid. No one was in the parking lot save a woman pushing a loaded cart to a minivan, and an elderly couple tottering in.
The employee working the smoothie counter had gone in back, and nobody was sitting at the tables. Making a call wouldn’t annoy anyone. Unwillingly, she skimmed down her contacts and clicked on her father’s name.
He picked up on the first ring. Warmly, he said, “Hey, honey!”
If she were angry, he would get defensive and she wouldn’t get what she wanted. Speaking in a sweet tone that was only surface-deep, she said, “Hi, Dad.”
“I’ve been trying to get a hold of you. Busy, huh?”
“Yeah. Hitting the pavement to get a job.” She didn’t want to tell him that she had one and jinx it somehow.
“That’s my girl. You’ll get something great. How are you?”
“I’m fine. Dad, I’m between interviews at the moment and just wanted to say hello and ask you a question.”
“Sure, what is it?”
She had never told him about Milan. Dad was too involved with himself. “You haven’t given out my phone number to anyone, have you?”
He didn’t ask why, distracted by a feminine murmur in the background. “Well, I gave it to Ramona the other day just in case there was some kind of emergency and she needed to contact you. And there was that call from your school.”
“What call?”
“It was a nice guy named Brett from the Alumni Office. He was wanting to talk to you about donations.”
Irritation filled her from head to toe. She had thousands of dollars in loans to pay back over the next ten years, if her debt didn’t stretch out even longer should she have to defer. She wasn’t about to give them additional dough. “Why did they call your number? Mine should be on file.”
“He’d tried it and kept getting someone else. I told him what it was and he realized there was one number entered wrong in their computer. They’ve got the right one now.”
The Alumni Office would not have called her and hung up, but spam calls did that all the time. “Could you not give out my number to anyone else? Some guy from school wants to get in contact with me and I’d rather he didn’t.”
“Bad date?”
“Uh, something like that. There are weird people in the world.”
“Tell me about it.” Dad laughed. “Having fun with Hollis?”
Wow, was she having fun. “Yeah. Oh, I’m about to be called in. Thanks, Dad.”
They hung up and she put her cell phone in her purse. The Alumni Office was just doing its job, but how much money did they think their recent graduates had? And ditzy Ramona had her number now . . . that made her groan. She could dial back to find out who it was, but she just didn’t care that much.
These small aggravations weren’t enough to bring her down. She would be working by Monday, pulling in her own money and feeling like part of the world. Seeing a youth soccer team exuberantly heading for the smoothie shop, she threw away her trash and exited just before they came in. Then she drove home and parked the Libation in the garage. It was nearly six, but Hollis still hadn’t arrived.
When she walked in, she heard a sound from the kitchen. “Hello?” she called nervously.
“Hey, Avvie.”
She walked in and found Hollis’ back to her. He was standing at the sink and rinsing out a bowl. How had he gotten home without his car? The Phemus had to be parked in back.
“Isn’t cleaning up my job around here?” Twining her arms low around his hips, she pecked his cheek as he put the bowl in the strainer.
It was like she had jabbed him with a fork. He jerked around with an expression of shock, Aviana taking a step back in surprise. Then she saw the scar, and the blood drained out of her face. She had been a nanosecond away from sliding down to stroke Wyatt’s cock. “Wyatt! I wasn’t expecting you.” She should have looked more closely at him upon entering the kitchen. Wyatt’s hair was a tad shorter.
Discontent was heavy on his handsome face as he examined her. Checking her over for her general health and happiness, the furrows smoothed when he deemed her satisfactory. “The project limped to a finish yesterday and I flew home.” He dried his hands on a dishtowel.
“You must be happy it’s done.” Light shined in the window. It was the Phemus coming up the driveway. “Does Hollis know you’re back?”
“No. I had phone calls all the way to the airport, a hundred emails to answer on the plane, and more phone calls all the way home in the taxi. Is there a problem with me being here?”
“No!” Aviana exclaimed. “I’m just surprised to see you, that’s all. It’s been so long.”
“Too long.” A small smile played on his lips. “You thought I was Hollis.”
“I’m a dumbass.”
He held out his arms. She laughed and hugged him tightly as a car door slammed outside. “Wyatt, I would like to see you more often than I do,” she said.
“You’ll see more of me than you want this week. I’ve taken some vacation days for my sanity. How is my car?”
“I took good care of it. I promise. I’ll fill it up with gas tomorrow for you.”
“Don’t spend your money on that,” he chastised.
“But I owe you.” She smiled so that he would know she was teasing. Mostly.
“But I have billions in the bank,” Wyatt said with a warning edge to his smile. “I don’t need your twenty for gas, and I don’t want to discuss it any further.”
Bossy. He had always been bossy, and nothing ever changed. She liked his bossiness just as much as Hollis’ easy-going personality. Returning the keys to him, he slipped them into his pocket.
Would he look the same as Hollis naked? Muscled and powerful, and a tingle went through her at the thought of Wyatt’s knee parting her legs. Then she felt guilty for that split second fantasy. It was just hard to look at Wyatt and not make the connection to Hollis, who was now in the entryway and shouting, “Houston, we have a pizza!”
The brothers were delighted to see each other, Aviana taking the pizza and salad to dish it out as they hugged and talked about the new office. She brought in the food and they sat down in the living room, Wyatt taking the armchair and Aviana sitting down right beside Hollis on the sofa. Too late, she realized how intimate it looked to be so close to him.
“To the new job,” Hollis said, clinking his bottle of beer to Aviana’s.
“What new job?” Wyatt asked as he ate.
“I start in the mailroom at Luxure next week,” Aviana explained.
“And how exactly are you going to get there?”
She had been so excited that she hadn’t worked out the logistics yet. Hollis said, “You can ride in with me.”
“I’m going to have a different schedule than you,” Aviana said. “I’ll just figure out the bus system. It can’t be that difficult.”
“Which will take a twenty-minute commute in a car and make it a two-hour odyssey with bus changes,” Wyatt said. “T
he system isn’t reliable and you’re going to end up late to work. I’ll get you a car.”
She could deal with not paying him for gas, but a car? “Wyatt, no!”
“Something small and sensible like a Chasus. A used one would run about ten to fifteen grand. I’ll see what there is tomorrow.”
“I am going to ride the bus,” Aviana insisted.
“No, you are not,” Wyatt said. “You shouldn’t spend two hours getting there and work all day only to waste two more hours getting home.”
She glared at him. He took in her anger with cool challenge, eyebrows lifted as he waited for her to concede. Wyatt and Hollis shared a face, but each had expressions the other never showed. So alike; so different.
She wanted to give in, but it wasn’t right to accept a gift as big as a car. “If you come home with a car for me, then at least spare my dignity and let me pay you back in installments. Even if it’s only fifty dollars a month.”
“Fine,” Wyatt said, which made her suspicious. It wasn’t like him to settle for anything less than entirely his own way.
Hollis patted her knee. “It’s best to let him railroad over you. It’s how he shows he cares.”
“Is there something else you’d like to tell me?” Wyatt asked pointedly.
Aviana didn’t know what to say. Taking her hand in his, Hollis said, “We’re together.”
It warmed her to hear that. This had been more than an enjoyable yet ultimately meaningless sex romp to him. She was more than that in his heart, and he was more in hers.
Wyatt stared at them, his face unreadable. Then he stood up and walked out of the living room, leaving his half-eaten dinner behind. Moments later, the front door slammed.
She and Hollis looked at one another, and a sudden wave of shame overwhelmed her. What in the hell were they doing? They weren’t blood-related, and there were major interruptions in their childhood when their parents separated and had nothing to do with each other. But still . . . she could remember the boys learning how to ride two-wheelers while she pedaled along behind them on her tricycle. Sitting in the back seat between them on the ride to school . . . making sand castles on the beach as the waves rolled in . . . Hollis slipping a whoopee cushion under her chair . . . She had knocked over her milk by accident at the table one morning and cowered as Lynda turned in a temper to see what it was. Wyatt had taken the blame. The golden boy never got in as much trouble.
Stepbrother Romance: The Complete Box Set Page 11
