by Tawna Fenske
Stiff Suit
A Ponderosa Resort Romantic Comedy
Tawna Fenske
Contents
About Stiff Suit
Also in the Ponderosa Resort Romantic Comedy Series
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Epilogue
18. Your exclusive sneak peek at MANCANDY CRUSH
Don’t Miss Out!
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Tawna Fenske
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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Text copyright © 2019 Tawna Fenske
All rights reserved.
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No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.
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www.tawnafenske.com
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Cover design by Craig Zagurski
Created with Vellum
Dedicated to my street team, Fenske’s Frisky Posse. Thank you for naming my characters, dressing me for events, and generally keeping me sane. You’re the best batch of unpaid cheerleaders any author could ask for, and I can’t imagine doing this without you.
About Stiff Suit
James “Iceman” Bracelyn is wound tighter than a vintage Rolex. Besides his CEO role at Ponderosa Resort, he’s guardian of the family’s biggest secrets, including a doozy that keeps him up at night. Alone. In that big bed he’d rather not share, thank you very much.
That’s fine with Lily Archer, who likes her flings flaming hot and fleeting. Her man-eater rep might be slightly exaggerated, but she’ll gladly dial it up to rescue James from himself—and a bottle of Glenlivet—at his brother’s wedding.
Intimacy’s the last thing either one wants, but it’s tough to dodge when they’re drawn together by the world’s drooliest dog, a TPing escapade gone wrong, and a good old-fashioned desktop hookup. That’s problematic for James, whose ability to hide the family’s riskiest secret is complicated by the secret’s refusal to get the hell out of his guest room.
Can Iceman keep his frigid shell intact while falling for the hottest science geek sex goddess he’s ever met, or will the ticking time bomb blow it all to smithereens?
Also in the Ponderosa Resort Romantic Comedy Series
Studmuffin Santa
Chef Sugarlips
Sergeant Sexypants
Hottie Lumberjack
Stiff Suit
Mancandy Crush (novella)
Prologue
JAMES
Dear diary,
I’m in hell.
There’s simply no other way to describe the fact that I’m sitting at a conference table scribbling like a pre-teen girl in a leather-bound journal which I swear to God my sister would have covered with flowery stickers if I hadn’t wrenched the damn thing from her hands.
We’re supposed to be writing our feelings, which is asinine.
Fine.
What I’m feeling right now is irritated that Bree wrangled us into this conference room under the pretense of reviewing the resort’s Q4 marketing plan. Instead, my freshly pregnant sister blindsided us with a family therapy session complete with a bespectacled shrink named—I kid you not—Dr. Hooter. The esteemed doctor is watching over us like a constipated headmistress who found a frog in her bed.
Mark’s in the corner gripping his pencil in a fist, possibly contemplating stabbing himself in the eye to get out of this. Sean’s scribbling like mad, but it’s probably a to-do list for his wedding in a few days. Even Jonathan’s here, visiting between humanitarian missions and probably regretting this stop considerably right now. He’s been here just a handful of times since our father’s funeral, and I suspect he’ll run like hell once this is over.
Secrets.
Headmistress Hooter just said that word.
She said several other words, too, but I tuned her out because I’m busy thinking about how I need to get back to my office and run the TRT numbers for this week.
Fine, she has a point. The Bracelyn family has a history of bottling up our biggest secrets and shaking the Dom Perignon bottle until it explodes all over our interpersonal relationships. Sean, Bree, Mark…everyone’s done it, which is precisely why Bree wrangled us in here today.
Reading my mind—God forbid—my sister looks up from her journal and smiles. Then she waves her pen like a wand, urging me to keep writing. I’m considering walking out to get coffee. Brazil, maybe.
Then Bree shifts uncomfortably, resting a hand on the rounded bump that’s incubating my niece or nephew, and something softens inside me.
Goddam it, I love my family.
Fine. Dr. Hooter thinks we have secrets?
She doesn’t know the half of it.
Has no idea what it’s like to be the oldest in a family sired by a patriarch who changed wives with the frequency his fellow billionaires swap sports cars. Cort Bracelyn never liked cars. He liked women, and he liked spreading his DNA around the far reaches of the Earth. That’s why we’re all here.
Maybe the Bracelyn spawn weren’t raised with much connection to each other, but we’ve taken our late father’s vanity ranch and turned it into the top luxury resort in the Pacific Northwest, thank you very much.
I miss the asshole sometimes. Our father, I mean.
How’s that for a secret?
Cort Bracelyn—a man whose disinterest in raising children was superseded only by his interest in producing them—still leaves me wishing I could pick up the phone and call him. He always had the best stock tips, and the bastard could make me laugh.
I glance up again, and Jonathan’s watching me. Christ, it blows me away sometimes how much he looks like our father. Same build, same cleft chin, same green eyes. He glances at Headmistress Hooter, sees her back is turned, flips me the bird and grins.
Nice. I dip my chin to my necktie, hoping no one sees me smirking. There, that’s a secret, right?
But it’s nothing like the ones I’ve kept for our father. The secrets Cort Bracelyn entrusted to his firstborn are hardly fodder for a journal tucked under my pillow each night.
Some secrets you don’t put in writing.
Some secrets you share with no one.
Some secrets you swear on all that’s holy you will take to your goddamned grave.
Chapter 1
LILY
“I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.”
My best friend, Amber, throws her arms around her hot husband’s neck and lays a kiss on him that makes the minister blush. I flash her a thumbs-up from under my bridesmaid bouquet, keeping it subtle because I am a classy and refined lady.
As opposed to the sort of lady who spent half the wedding mentally undressing the groomsmen because hello, the Bracelyn brothers are hot. I’d never touch a friend’s man, but yeah, my brain flashed for two seconds on an image of Mark in lumberjack plaid boxers, and I threw a mental high five to my pal Chelsea, who gets to go home to that every night.
/> Very nice, though not my type.
My type…well, he’s falling into step beside me because apparently the wedding is over and we’re marching out to Beyoncé singing about putting a ring on it, which makes me love Amber even more.
I loop my arm through James’s, just like we did at rehearsal yesterday, and I can’t help giving his bicep an extra squeeze. He glances down like he’s just now noticing there’s a female attached to his arm.
“Lily,” I remind him, since I doubt he remembers all the times I’ve hung out at the resort for girls’ nights with Bree.
He clears his throat as we step out the doors of Amber’s family chapel and into the sun-dappled meadow overlooking the Cascade mountains. “James.” He glances around like he’s trying to figure out how he got here.
“Well, James. If we make a beeline for the bar, we’ll be first in line.”
He looks mildly startled, but also like he’s considering it. There’s an odd play of emotion in his eyes. Something I would blame on wedding-induced, misty-eyed sentimentality if I didn’t know his nickname is Iceman, and that he’s famous for showing no emotion. Not in the courtroom where he was some fancy-pants lawyer, and definitely not at his brother’s wedding.
“Very well.” He gives a curt nod, and I nearly stumble in surprise.
But James keeps me steady with his arm holding mine and keeps striding like we’re in the middle of a business discussion. “I suppose it is customary for groomsmen to buy drinks for bridesmaids.”
“It is?”
“Certainly.”
I take his word for it because a guy who uses words like “customary” and “certainly” in everyday conversation probably knows more about etiquette than I do, and have I mentioned he’s hot?
He’s also moving rather quickly to the edge of the lawn where there’s a bar with no line, so I hurry to keep up, grateful he’s still holding my arm. Grateful Amber urged us to skip the heels and wear cute sandals instead. Mine have saucy little rhinestone straps across the instep and sparkly laces that wind up my calves. My dog, Magma, chewed one off last night and then chomped the buckles. I fixed them this morning with my mini welding torch.
We’ve reached the bar, and James leans coolly against it and regards me with a green-eyed stare. “What are you having?”
“Whiskey. Or Scotch. Whatever.” I can never remember the difference.
He nods and turns back to the bartender. “Do you have Glenfiddich 15 year by any chance?”
“Nah, but we’ve got the Glenlivet 18 year French Oak Reserve.” He holds up a bottle so James can inspect it. “Groom picked it out himself. Said it was his old man’s favorite.”
An odd look passes over James’s face. “That’ll do.” He turns back to me. “Single or double?”
“Double’s fine. Rocks, please.”
He politely says nothing, though it probably pains a guy like him to see me watering down zillion-dollar Scotch. “Triple, please. Neat.” He pulls out two bills I could swear are hundreds and tucks them neatly in the tip jar. “Thank you.”
The bartender’s eyes widen, but he keeps his cool and pours the drinks. I appreciate James’s discretion. He’s not trying to impress me by flashing cash or one of those fancy black credit cards I glimpsed in his wallet. Caring what’s in a guy’s bank account has never been my MO. Caring what’s in his pants, on the other hand—
“Tell me something I don’t know about you, James.” I throw that out there to keep my brain from going too far down that path, and I wonder if he has a clue I’ve undressed him in my head about a dozen times since the start of the wedding.
He stares at me a long time, probably because as far as he’s aware, I know nothing about him.
This is true, but I wouldn’t mind changing that.
“I was a corporate attorney in New York for a number of years before we started Ponderosa Luxury Ranch Resort.”
“Everyone knows that.”
“Everyone?” He accepts both drinks from the bartender and hands one to me as we step off to the side to let the hoard of wedding guests place their orders.
I take a slow sip, savoring the oaky-almond flavors. It’s not often I get a chance to swill the top-shelf stuff, so I want to enjoy it.
James is watching me, watching my lips as I touch them to the rim of the glass, studying my throat as I swallow. A stray droplet lingers as I bring the glass down, and I run my tongue over my bottom lip. His eyes darken, and for a second, I think he’s going to say something sexy.
Instead, he lifts his own glass and knocks back half of it in a gulp. Just like that, hundred-dollar-a-bottle Scotch down the hatch. I dated a guy who was a snob for distilled spirits, and that Glenlivet stuff isn’t cheap.
“You were saying,” he says as he lowers the glass. “That everyone knows my career history?”
“Pretty much.” I offer him my most non-threatening smile. Not the one Amber calls my man-eater smile, the other one. The one I reserve for budget meetings where I show up in my lab coat and sensible shoes to request money for my research. “Welcome to small-town life,” I add. “We make a sport out of being all up in everyone else’s business.”
“Really.”
I can’t tell if it’s a question or a statement, but his tone is as dry as this Scotch. On the other side of the meadow, the DJ cranks up one of Amber’s favorite pop songs, but James doesn’t react to that, either. Would he react if I stuck my tongue in his ear? The thought has me holding back giggles as I picture myself chasing him around the pasture the way I did in first grade when I tried to kiss all the boys.
“Small town life is something else,” I add cheerfully. “It wouldn’t take much for me to know all your secrets. The name of your high school girlfriend and whether you wear boxers or briefs.”
His flinch is so infinitesimal I almost miss it. The guy is well-versed in masking his reactions. Maybe it’s the lawyer thing, or maybe it’s something else. Either way, his posture’s like someone soldered his spine erect.
Erect. There’s a word I like thinking about in the presence of James Bracelyn. Just for the hell of it, I lick my lips again.
His pupils dilate, but the rest of his expression doesn’t change. “Should I be alarmed you’ve spent time considering my underwear?”
“And your high school girlfriends,” I add, in case he missed that part. “It’s a game I play sometimes for entertainment.”
“Entertainment.” He says the word like it’s a foreign language.
“Entertainment,” I repeat. “Amusement, distraction, pleasure? Any of this ringing a bell for you?”
His eyes flicker on that last one, so I know he’s with me. Even though he doesn’t respond, he’s paying attention.
I sip my drink and glance around the swelling crowd. There’s a good mix of people I grew up with—Amber’s crowd, of course—and Sean’s culinary friends and prep school pals. There must be two hundred people here, plenty of whom I don’t know, which makes the game more fun.
“It’s a good way to keep yourself alert in dull meetings or events,” I explain, scanning the crowd. “Take that guy, for instance.”
James frowns. “That’s my cousin, Michael. I’d prefer not to take him anywhere, and I’d definitely prefer not to picture his underwear.”
“All right.” I keep scanning until I land on a guy who bears no resemblance to any Bracelyn I’ve met. I’m pretty sure he’s Amber’s uncle, and he’s leaning against a tree drinking a beer. “That guy.” I nod and study him. “First girlfriend was named Karen, and he wears tighty-whities that get so frayed his wife has to sneak them out of his drawer and buy him new ones.”
James lifts an eyebrow. “His wife, Karen?”
“Of course not. He’s not the sort of guy to marry his first love.” Of this detail I’m sure. I know men. Pretty sure I’ve got the underwear right, too.
James is studying me like this is either the weirdest or most intriguing first conversation he’s ever had. My money’s on the for
mer.
But he’s sticking around instead of wandering off where his brothers have clustered near a buffet table, so I keep going.
“That woman over there.” I nod toward a grandmotherly sort with a salt-and-pepper perm and a glass of seltzer water in her hand. Mrs. Angela Percy, retired teacher and the town’s biggest busybody. “If you didn’t take time to watch her, you’d go with something obvious like Floyd for the boyfriend and parachute granny panties. But you see the way she’s checking out Brandon Brown’s ass?”
James gives his trademark curt nod. “Certainly.”
“Oh, look—she’s going in for the pinch.”
James winces. “I happen to know she spent months pestering Bree’s fiancé to disrobe for a charity calendar.”
“Exactly. She’s a badass.” I’d like to be her when I grow up.
I sip my drink again as James signals a roving bartender for another. Mine’s not even half gone, but his is empty. I file that away in my brain, wondering if there’s a reason he’s hitting the sauce hard.
“So, the older woman,” I continue. “Mrs. Percy. You’re going with Rafael or Javier for the boyfriend and maybe a red lace thong?”
He frowns. “Is it appropriate to speculate about the undergarments of senior citizens?”
Before I can answer, Mrs. Percy turns and flashes a salacious smile at me. She makes a gesture I think is the universal sign for blowjob, or maybe she’s choking.
