Sisters by Choice

by Susan Mallery

By the time she parked, she’d worked herself into a powerful fury, leaving her with all kinds of energy and nowhere to put it. Fortunately, Bruno’s jet touched down just then, providing a distraction.

  She collected the packaged cookies, along with a couple of chicken salad sandwiches she’d picked up at the inn and walked toward the jet. The door opened and the stairs were lowered, then Bruno was walking toward her.

  “Thank you so much for helping me out,” he said, smiling at her. “I had a last-minute stop here before I leave and I wanted to get a few more cookies.”

  “Here they are,” she said, lifting the tote bag. “I also brought you sandwiches, just in case you’re hungry.”

  “Very thoughtful.” He gestured toward the plane. “Do you have a few minutes?”

  She thought about all the things she had to do at home. She really shouldn’t, and yet she was going to. Because her husband was acting like a jerk and if that made her petty and small, so be it.

  “I do,” she said.

  He waited for her to go first on the stairs. Once she was inside, she set the sandwiches on the small counter and the tote bag in one of the seats. It was only then she noticed a bottle of champagne on ice.

  Disappointment slapped her good and hard. Well, damn. He’d brought his girlfriend or something. So much for a few minutes of heavy flirting and a bit of “what if” pretending on her part.

  Bruno reached for the bottle. “Am I being too presumptuous? I thought we could toast my upcoming trip.”

  “It’s one in the afternoon.”

  He smiled. “Yes, it is.”

  She looked around at the luxurious private jet, glanced at the bottle and thought why not?

  “Sure,” she said, taking a seat. “That would be lovely.”

  “Excellent.” He pulled the bottle from the ice. “My grandfather always told me that most people open champagne incorrectly. They think it’s all about the pop of the cork. But when you hear that sound and the champagne spills out, you’re losing the bubbles that make it special. Sometimes quiet is better.”

  He removed the foil, then unfastened the wire but didn’t remove it. Keeping his thumb on the top of the cork, he twisted the bottle with his other hand until the cork was free.

  “You didn’t make a sound,” she said, impressed.

  He winked. “Years of practice.”

  He poured them each a glass before sitting across from her.

  They toasted, then she asked, “When do you leave?”

  “Tomorrow. I fly back tonight, then catch a flight to Paris tomorrow.”

  “Catch a flight?” She pretended shock. “You’re flying commercial?”

  “I know. This plane is due for some maintenance.”

  “You must be devastated.”

  He grinned. “I will power through my pain.”

  “You have an amazing life,” she told him. “It’s so different from mine. I can’t even imagine. I’m a stay-at-home mom with three boys. I make food for you and I bake cookies and brownies that I sell. Every Thursday I stay up all night baking to have fresh cookies for the weekend when the tourists show up.”

  “Why don’t you bake during the day?”

  An excellent question. “It’s complicated. By the time I get the kids off to school and get set up, the morning’s half-gone. I’d have to be cleaning up by three. You know, so there’s no mess during dinner.”

  He didn’t say anything, but then he didn’t have to. How ridiculous. She had to clean up her mess before the boys got home from school? Why was that? They didn’t care. When had she decided that was the rule? Why had she assumed everyone else was more important than—

  “Kristine?”

  “What? Oh, sorry.” She forced her attention back to Bruno. “I was just thinking.” She sighed. “I would very much like to be going to France and Italy.”

  His gaze sharpened. “You don’t mean that.”

  “Oh, I do. An escape from my life sounds pretty great right about now.”

  “Things are difficult at home?” His tone was gentle.

  “Yes. Jaxsen is being a jerk and it’s frustrating. The boys are great. I mean, they’re boys, but I love them. It’s just sometimes I wish I’d made different choices.”

  She could so get used to private-jet life, she thought. To sitting across from a handsome man who knew things like how to open a bottle of champagne.

  “You wouldn’t change anything,” he told her. “And I can prove it.”

  Before she knew what he was talking about, he leaned forward and kissed her.

  It was a nothing kiss—their lips barely brushed against each other, but still, he wasn’t Jaxsen and he’d kissed her on the mouth.

  Before she could figure out what she felt or what it meant or anything at all, he drew back.

  “You are shocked.”

  “Surprised,” she said, touching her lips with her fingers. “You kissed me.”

  “I did.”

  “Why?”

  “For a lot of reasons, but mostly because I wanted to.”

  He wanted to kiss her? Why? She wasn’t glamorous or special or anything like the women she assumed he had in his life.

  “I don’t know what to say,” she admitted, genuinely unable to figure out what she felt.

  “Go to hell or kiss me again seem the most likely of options.”

  He was watching her carefully, as if waiting to see which way things were going to fall. She didn’t see a reason to tell him to go to hell. As for kissing her again, well, she knew she didn’t want that, either.

  She put down her champagne. “I should go.”

  “Of course.”

  He followed her out of the plane. When they were on the tarmac, he took her hands in his.

  “I’ll be gone for a few weeks,” he told her.

  “Let me know when you’re coming back.”

  “I will.” He smiled and released her hands. “Goodbye, Kristine.”

  “Bye.”

  She started for her car, still trying to make sense of it all. Bruno had kissed her. She had no idea why he’d done it or what, if anything, he wanted from her, but he’d kissed her. On the mouth.

  She sat in her car, staring out the windshield. Maybe she was crazy but it sure felt like Bruno would have kissed her again if she’d asked. And then what? Would things have gone further? Did he want to have an affair with her?

  The question was so outside her regular world, she nearly laughed out loud. An affair? Her?

  She thought of how Jaxsen had been acting the past week and for a second toyed with the idea of somehow paying him back. Only she didn’t want to sleep with Bruno. Yes, she was flattered and surprised and just a little bit tempted by his interest, but the truth was she wasn’t anyone who had looked outside her marriage for emotional engagement. She didn’t want another man or a different relationship. She wanted... She wanted...

  “I want to open the bakery,” she said out loud, gripping the steering wheel in both hands. “I want a career that makes me happy. I want to lease the space and move forward.”

  Filled with a sense of purpose, she drove home. She was going to do it, she told herself. She was going to put together a plan and tell Jaxsen that it was time for her to make a move. The kids were old enough and the space was perfect. If not now, then when? She was done with excuses and she was done with regrets. It was time to follow her dream.

  * * *

  Sophie lay on the floor by the box with the kittens. Lily was taking a break from her litter, lying on the windowsill in the sun. Sophie’d come home at lunch to check on the family—something she tried to do at least every other day. Just in case.

  She knew in her head that Lily and her babies were perfectly fine—that what had happened before was just one of those things, but she couldn’t help worrying.


  She heard a knock on the front door. Before she could call that it was open, there were footsteps in the house.

  “Back here,” she called.

  Dugan appeared, a large brown paper bag in his hand. He’d offered to pick up lunch and she’d told him to meet her at the house.

  As always she was struck by how good-looking he was. The deep blue eyes, the chiseled features, the broad shoulders. The man did it for her in a serious way and if she could summon the energy, she was going to suggest a quickie just as soon as they finished lunch. She’d gone into the office at five that morning and was starving.

  “What?” he asked, holding out his hand to pull her to her feet.

  “I was thinking that I want to eat more than I want to have sex. What does that say about me?”

  “That you haven’t eaten in a long time. You’re working a hundred hours a week, barely sleeping, and one day you’re going to crash. Sex is great, but sometimes you need a sandwich, as well.”

  She sat down at the kitchen table and thought maybe he was right. About the food part, not the impending crash.

  “I’m very resilient,” she said as she took the sandwich he offered.

  “Everyone has a breaking point.”

  “Why are you so negative?”

  “I’m factual. There’s a difference.”

  She rolled her eyes and took a bite of the sandwich. As she chewed, she popped open the can of soda and took a long drink.

  “You’re always giving me advice and butting into my business. Why is that?”

  “I like you.” He gave her a lazy smile. “Besides, it’s kind of my thing. I can’t help myself.”

  “You should let it go. Everything is fine.”

  “Did you hire an office manager?”

  “No. There aren’t any good candidates.”

  “I find that hard to believe. Did you actually read their résumés and conduct interviews or did you go through the motions with your mind on something else?”

  How did he know? It was like the man could see inside her head and she didn’t like it.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said, taking another bite of her sandwich.

  “Liar.” His tone was gentle. “The employment agency would only have sent you qualified people. Go through the résumés again and hire one of them.”

  “Someone bad isn’t better than no one.”

  “Usually, I would agree with you, but in your case anyone is better than no one. An office manager will get the rest of the positions filled. While I applaud your success, building CK Industries from nothing to what it is today, you’re not exactly a poster child for good management practices.”

  She wadded up her napkin and threw it at him. “You don’t get to say that.”

  “All evidence to the contrary? Accept it, Sophie. You’re a hard worker and you’re smart, but running a business takes more than that. You don’t have magical powers. It would be better for everyone if you stopped acting like you did.”

  She knew he was right. Maybe. “I liked you better when I thought you were just a pretty face.”

  He grinned. “I’m sure you did.”

  * * *

  Heather told herself there was no reason to be nervous. She’d done the work, she knew the material, she was fine. But even as she moved to the next slide in her PowerPoint presentation, she felt her throat closing just enough to make it hard to speak.

  She’d worked the better part of the week to get everything right. Elliot had asked her to break down the digital marketing plan by type—static ads versus video ads—along with where they were placed. She knew he was trying to get Sophie to move the advertising in-house rather than outsourcing it and her report would be part of his pitch.

  Heather had worked well into the night, collecting information and dissecting charts and graphs. She knew the click-through rate of every ad for the past six months and had started dreaming about cat toys and CK-branded pet food in her sleep. Impressing Elliot seemed unlikely but if she could show him she was at least a little helpful, she was hoping he would keep her on in her current position.

  “As you can see, any video is more successful than any static ad,” she said, hoping the tremor in her voice wasn’t audible. “Ranking the videos by the amount of interaction, the ones with real cats as opposed to cartoon cats do much better.”

  She moved to the next slide. “However, there is a higher cost associated with the live cat videos. They take a long time to produce.”

  Sophie nodded. “Cats aren’t known to be cooperative. Is there information on the cat videos versus the kitten videos? I’m sure there was a kitten video that was just a bunch of cute kittens playing with a voice-over of whatever it was we were selling. What about something like that? We could get a camera crew in to film the kittens and then use the footage to sell whatever we want. Everyone loves kittens.”

  Elliot made a note on a legal pad. “Let’s discuss that after we get through the deck.”

  “But kittens, Elliot.”

  “But information, Sophie.”

  She sighed. “Fine.”

  “We’re almost done,” Heather said quickly. “Just two more slides.”

  She went through them faster than she would have liked, but she could tell Sophie was getting restless. The deck had been sixty slides long. Was that too much? Had she gone into more detail than necessary? She was just about to ask when Sophie bounced to her feet.

  “That was great,” she said, smiling at Heather. “I’m super impressed with what you’re doing.”

  “Thanks.” Heather glanced at Elliot but, as usual, his expression was unreadable. Her boss was never mean or curt, but he wasn’t exactly warm and fuzzy, either. She worried that she was always disappointing him.

  Sophie waved cheerfully before ducking out of Elliot’s office. Heather watched her go, then looked at her boss.

  “What did I do wrong?” she asked, her voice quiet and more tentative than she would have liked.

  “You need to tailor your presentations to the audience. While you need to get the information across, you have to be aware of who you’re speaking to. Sophie wants to know everything that’s happening at CK but her time is limited and she’s always thinking of ten things at once.”

  “Too much detail and too many slides in the deck?”

  Elliot nodded, then glanced at his watch. “Go get some lunch,” he told her. “Then you can start cataloging the ads scheduled to go out in the next thirty days. I want to review them before we give the final okay. I still think we could be doing better.”

  Heather thought about saying she didn’t need lunch—that she could just keep working. Only she was hungry and tired. The late nights were getting to her.

  She collected notes on the presentation and her laptop and took both to her office, then headed for the break room. She was halfway to the refrigerator where she’d stored her lunch when she realized her mother was at one of the tables.

  Despite living in the same house, they hadn’t seen much of each other lately, which meant Heather had no idea of her mother’s mood.

  Fortunately, Amber gave her a pleasant smile. “There you are. I wondered if you’d moved off the island. Did Sophie tell you? I’m in shipping now. It’s really interesting work. People buy the strangest things. There’s a throw that costs seventy-five dollars. Can you believe it? Who would pay that? It’s a throw.”

  Heather got her lunch out of the refrigerator. She’d been planning to eat in her office, but wasn’t sure she could figure out how to say that so she took a seat across from her mother.

  “It’s oversize and has a special design,” Heather said. “Plus, the CK logo is woven into the pattern.”

  “Still. It’s a ridiculous amount if you ask me. A lot of the items are very expensive. It seems to me customers would like to find them
somewhere else cheaper.”

  At first, the words seemed casual, but as Heather took a bite of her sandwich, they took on a different meaning.

  Her mother wouldn’t... Couldn’t...

  No, she told herself. There was no way she would steal from Sophie and then sell online. Even she wouldn’t go that far. Amber wasn’t a hard worker, but Heather didn’t think she’d ever been that level of dishonest.

  Something not to think about, she told herself.

  “I’m glad you’re liking your new job,” she said. “The warehouse is a great place to work. Bear really knows his stuff.”

  Amber sighed. “He does not understand the meaning of the word break, but I’m working on teaching him.”

  Heather didn’t think that was going to go well. “I’m glad Sophie moved her company here and we both got jobs with her.”

  “Of course we have jobs with her. We’re her family. She has a responsibility to give us jobs. She should be paying us more, though, if you ask me.”

  “Mom, it doesn’t work that way.”

  “Well, it should.”

  Heather took another bite of her sandwich. She didn’t want to fight—not again. There were more important things to deal with, like the fact that they were going to have to go look for an apartment.

  “At least we’re both working,” she said. “So we can be saving for the apartment. It’s going to be expensive to move.”

  “Heather, you’re being ridiculous. We’re not moving. My mother is just having one of her fits. It will pass. Trust me on this. I know what I’m talking about.”

  “But, Mom, she said—”

  Amber rolled her eyes. “Stop it. We’ll be fine. You’ll see.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Tina Castillo looked efficient. She was of average height, with brown hair and eyes, and she exuded confidence and sensibility. Her résumé was impressive and although Sophie didn’t remember much about their interview, there hadn’t been any red flags, which was a plus.

  Knowing she really needed an office manager, she’d given Bear a list of the top three candidates and told him to have them come back for a final interview. Then he could pick the one he thought would do best.