by Linda Kage
Pushing open the front door, I started to exit, only to be jostled backward against the portal when a kid between eight and twelve years old with floppy black hair came racing inside at a dead run, laughing and shouting, “Watch out!” as he went.
He dashed off, not even pausing to check whether I was okay or not.
I blinked after him as he sped down the north hall of the first floor until a voice from outside shouted, “Miguel! Dammit. Slow down. You’re supposed to make sure I can always see you, remember?”
Since I was still standing in the open doorway with my back pressed against the exit, all I had to do was turn my head to see her.
And just like that, time switched into slow motion.
Juggling three heaping paper sacks full of groceries in her arms, the woman hustled toward the entrance in hot pursuit of the boy.
“Sorry about that,” she told me, out of breath as she reached the entrance. “Are you okay? He can be such a brat sometimes.”
But she didn’t pause to wait for an answer, too busy hurrying inside so she could get a visual on the boy again. Brushing past where I was inadvertently holding the door open for her, she had her arms so full that her elbow barely glanced across the plane of my stomach, causing all my abdominal muscles to tense dramatically.
I sucked in a harsh breath.
She passed by so damn closely, in fact, that I got a vivid picture of her in side-profile, and I knew for certain I’d never forget that face.
She was quite simply stunning.
Her hair was dark and shoulder length, cut in varying lengths so a few tendrils spiked out in a fashionable mess. Her eyes were a chocolate brown fringed with the curliest lashes I’d ever seen. And her pink painted lips were equally as full on the bottom as they were on the top.
Her hair that was tucked behind one ear revealed two earrings, one a black stud just above a green emerald. And three droplets of sweat coasted down her jawline, making me imagine licking the salty flavor away with my tongue.
The neckline of her gray sweater was large enough that it threatened to slip off her shoulder completely. It revealed the black strap of her bra, leaving me filled with the temptation to drift my fingers over that strap, barely grazing smooth flesh as I went.
Then there was her scent. God, she smelled comfortable and cozy, like wood smoke and cinnamon apple pie on a cold day, just after you’d come inside to warm your hands in front of an open fireplace. Everything about her seemed like a haven of heat and security and passion.
Instant craving unfurled inside me. I honestly couldn’t recall ever wanting a complete stranger as much as I wanted to just lean into this one and soak in all the things that felt so strong and tranquil yet exciting about her.
Not once in that brief moment she brushed past me, however, did she even look up into my eyes.
“Miguel!” she shouted, as soon as she was inside, making me blink past the awareness and yearning I’d just experienced. “Get back here now. I’m going to skin your hide for taking off on me like that.”
But the kid who had raced on ahead of her was long gone. Only his laugher floated back to taunt, “Hurry up, Gabby. Last one home’s a rotten egg.”
Gabby.
So, her name was Gabby, huh?
I liked that. It fit her.
“Oh, you are so dead,” Gabby muttered, shuffling after him as fast as she could with her arms full of groceries. “You’ll think rotten egg for scaring me like that.”
Having completely forgotten about me, she hurried after him, disappearing as quickly as Miguel had.
She’d been somewhere between ten to twenty years older than the kid, so it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that she’d been his mother, but he’d called her Gabby, which made me think not-the-mom, even though I referred to my own mother by her given name. I had the sense those two didn’t have the same kind of cold, distant relationship Lana and I did.
Sister was my first guess, then maybe aunt. Probably not a babysitter, as their connection had felt more familial.
Not that it mattered what their relationship was. I doubted I would ever see them again. Which made me realize I’d been standing there in the open entrance, my back still pressed against the door, gazing at the spot I’d last seen her like a lovestruck idiot.
Annoyed by my own reaction, I shook my head and stepped outside, grasping the lapels of my jacket before jerking it to rights again, straight and wrinkle-free. Then I strode toward my car.
I didn’t have time to daydream about pretty girls. I had a job to get to. And a mystery to solve.
Chapter 2
Hayden
Judge Fashions Industry sat in the heart of the city’s downtown. If legend could be believed, Marcella and Arthur Judge had started the business in a crumbling building that once stood in this very lot, on the second floor above a laundromat with a single Singer sewing machine Arthur had given Marcella on their wedding day and bits of material neighbors had cast off from their own darning endeavors.
Marcella had been the art and creation—or what her husband had termed the soul—behind the clothes they made, while Arthur was the businessman. With his animated and persuasive personality, he could’ve sold sand to people on a beach. He could’ve been anything. But what he was most proud of was his wife, so he put his life’s work into selling the designs she made.
And within ten years, they were millionaires with three dozen employees and business ventures around the globe. They bought the entire block around that deteriorating laundromat, razed all the buildings, and built up JFI as it stood today.
But as I glanced up at the three-story building in front of me after I parked my car, I wondered if the Judges would’ve changed anything in their climb to the top if they’d had any inkling how their futures would play out.
The world had been at their fingertips. It might’ve taken them years of trying until they finally had the child they so yearned for, but once Kaitlynn had come along, their life had been made on every front, a veritable fairy tale.
But then Marcella had died of cancer when her daughter was six, and Arthur—the heartbroken widower—had latched on to the first gold-digging viper—er, woman—who smiled prettily and convinced him she could take care of his sweet daughter.
That viper had been Lana Price-Carmichael, and she’d been another sort of cancer altogether, a deadlier, more destructive sort.
Within two years of Marcella’s death, Lana had slipped her way into Arthur’s life until she’d become Lana Price-Carmichael-Judge. She managed to leech off him for the next dozen or so years until he died from a massive heart attack. Then she somehow inherited the entire company and most of his fortune along with it.
Which I believe was utter bullshit.
Lana didn’t exactly have Arthur’s business acumen, though, and she listened to advice from others even less. Not even a year after Arthur’s death, JFI found itself on the brink of financial ruin, and Lana had been forced to sell half the company off to Nash Corporations to save face.
So here we were, another year later, and the company was back in the black—because of Ezra Nash, Lana’s co-CEO from Nash Corporations—and business was looking up again.
Except I’m not so sure Arthur would be reassured by that bit of news. His only daughter was still destitute and barely keeping her head above water. That wouldn’t sit well with him, no matter what was going on with his company. She was what had mattered; I’d known him long enough to be well aware of that. Which made my mission to find out the truth behind his will even more persistent.
Because none of this made sense.
Arthur had left Kaitlynn mere scraps, which entailed a trust fund that had paid for her college tuition, then allocated a grand each month until she was allowed to take control over all of it when she turned thirty. Compared to the net worth of Arthur and his company, that had been nothing. Nothing at all. He’d donated more to his least favorite charities when he’d been alive. Hell, Brick and I had walked
away with more inheritance than Kaitlynn had.
It was all just wrong. And what made it even fishier to me was the fact that Lana had gained so much: the money (which she wasted), the houses (that she’d sold), the company (she’d nearly lost). And Arthur hadn’t even been that fond of her. It hadn’t taken him long after they married to discover her true nature; I kind of had the feeling he’d only stayed with her because he hadn’t wanted to abandon Brick and me.
So why had he left Lana so much and Kaitlynn so little?
He hadn’t; that was the only conclusion I’d been able to come to.
It had taken me some scheming, but I’d managed to get my hands on Arthur’s last will and testament without Lana realizing it, and I’d pored over the document, searching for discrepancies. When I found none, it left me at a loss but no less determined to discover how Lana had managed such deceit. She’d done something to get what she wanted; I was sure of it. I just had to figure out what that something was.
Opening my car door, I stepped from the vehicle and made my way up the walk toward the rear entrance of the building. As I passed the opening to the garden that grew in the courtyard, I could barely make out the statue in the center of the trees and bushes that Arthur had erected of Marcella after she’d died.
To me, it made the courtyard feel like a damn cemetery, though honestly, the entire company had felt dead after Arthur’s passing. Hell, even I felt dead inside. But Nash had pumped some life into the place when he’d arrived last year, so I was determined to do my part to help restore it as well.
I was going to cut out the rest of the cancer.
I was going to expose Lana for all her lies and trickery, and I was going to get her removed from JFI and hopefully my stepsister’s life forever. It was the only right and just thing to do.
Once I pushed my way inside, I bypassed the elevator bay and walked up the three flights to my office instead. It was one of those days I felt antsy and needed to keep on the move. That could’ve been because of my interaction with Darmon this morning, but deep inside, I knew it was more because of the dark-headed beauty I’d crossed paths with in the entrance of Kaitlynn’s building.
Gabby.
Beautiful women like her tended to make me question why I’d given up on dating and relationships. Because I liked women. They were soft and supple, and Jesus, they smelled divine. I especially liked the craftier, sly ones who kept you on your toes and your mind sharp. My body began to crave the physical contact I hadn’t had with one in what felt like forever until all I could remember was the brush of that elbow that had barely grazed my stomach only minutes ago.
Gabby.
Instinct told me she was most likely a fervent lover. She’d called out to that boy—Miguel—with a healthy level of heat and passion, her worry for him and irritation bleeding out of her with the brightest of color. How could she kiss or touch or fuck with any less tenacity?
Damn, I needed to stop thinking about this.
I hurried up the staircase a little faster, reminding myself that along with sex, women came with something far more dangerous:
Feelings.
I shuddered and shook my head. Feelings I could do without. As soon as feelings were involved, shit got nasty. When you let someone in, you let them cut into you and expose your soft inner tissue so they could see everything and know you inside and out, the good and the bad, the strong and the weak, the bitter and the ugly. And as soon as you trusted them with your most vulnerable bits, that’s when they struck, when they belittled and nitpicked, when they scoffed and pointed, when they humiliated and hurt you the most, and then eventually turned away, leaving you abandoned and nothing but a gaping, bleeding wound.
Yeah, I could do without soft and pretty if it was just going to land me in that kind of clusterfuck.
Suddenly relieved of my itching, craving desire for sex and a certain dark-haired angel, I exited the stairwell and made my way to my office.
And I know what you’re thinking. Office? I actually worked here? For the company I was certain Lana had stolen from Kaitlynn? Just what the hell kind of hypocrite did that make me?
I talked a big game about seeking justice for my stepsister and eradicating Lana from our lives completely. All the while, I sat up here in my big, cushy office with a head-of-department position, which Lana had given me, and drove my nice car with the money I’d inherited from Arthur, wore my nice clothes, and lived a pleasant, luxurious life, all while Kaitlynn struggled to make ends meet, lived in a shithole, drove a piece of junk, and worked as an unpaid intern for Lana—aka the devil herself.
Well, I’ll tell you why I lived the lie. Because this operation needed an inside man, that’s why. If I openly defied Lana, if I questioned her and let her know just how suspicious I was of her, if I publicly supported Kaitlynn and held her hand out in the light of day for everyone to see, then Lana would never trust me again. She trusted me very little as it was, but she confided just enough for me to get my foot in the door, which was honestly all I needed.
Getting close to her and staying close was a distasteful side effect, but I was banking on the fact that the ends would justify the means. Whatever it took to expose what she was up to so I could stop her, I was willing to do.
And meanwhile, it couldn’t hurt if I put everything else I had into helping JFI return to its former glory. It needed to be in good shape when it moved to Kaitlynn’s hands, anyway.
After seating myself at my desk, I scanned my schedule for the day. A couple email replies and a phone call later, my personal assistant arrived, silently setting a cup of coffee on the corner of my desk.
I thanked him distractedly and told him to set up a meeting for me with my top designers as I read a new development I was scanning over on my screen that just might change things in our lineup for the spring fashion show. Trends seemed to shift more often than every six months these days. It was difficult to keep up. But as the head of the Shoes department for one of the top companies in the industry, I was determined to do just that.
“Lace-up boots,” I muttered, jotting down notes as I read the report in front of me. “Rhinestones on pumps, retro sneakers, square toes, platform boots. Jesus, not platforms again.”
The last time we’d gone through that fad, it had ended before we’d even gotten our stock on the shelves. We had experienced quite the loss in profit there.
I rubbed at the spot on the center of my forehead that began to ache whenever I grew stressed and wondered if anyone would notice if we simply skipped over platforms this time around. It was definitely an idea worth broaching to my people in our meeting this afternoon.
“Shocking news,” a familiar voice announced as my brother swept into my office and settled himself negligently in the chair across from me.
I arched him a dry glance as he perched his feet on the corner of my desk, dangerously close to my cup of coffee.
“So, I see,” I told him, frowning at the way a crumb of chocolate dropped onto the lapel of his suit jacket when he took a bite from the Snickers bar he was eating. The candy was probably his breakfast. “You’re actually here before nine a.m. Shocking indeed.”
Rolling his eyes, Brick flicked the chocolate off him and retorted, “Once again, your humor falls flat, bro. But no, my news is actually this: Nina, the vixen I’m currently banging, has a sister coming into town this weekend, so we need another guy to fill out a double date. Dinner, a show, and most likely knocking a whole lot of headboard against the wall before the night’s over, if big sis is anything like Nina. And I have chosen lucky you to be number four for the evening, so you’re welcome. Don’t say I never gave you anything.”
With a sigh, I kept working on my notes for the upcoming meeting as I mumbled, “No, thanks.”
“No, thanks?” Brick screeched incredulously, tearing his feet off my desk and sitting upright. “What do you mean, no, thanks? I’m handing you a sure thing there. What’s to refuse?”
Feelings, I wanted to answer.
“Hey. What makes you think she’s the ugly sister?”
I rolled my eyes. “Because you’re willing to pass her off to me.”
“Well, for your information,” he went on primly. “Both women are equally gorgeous. Not that it should matter. Gah, you’re such a shallow prick, Hayden. Only concerned about a woman’s appearance and not her personality. Big sister might be a perfectly lovely woman, you know.”
I glanced at him dryly, surprised his pants weren’t smoking from all the bullshit he was firing at me. “So you like this Nina woman you’re banging for her brains, is that it?”
He winced. “God no. She’s as dumb as a post and a bitch to boot. But she’s got an ass that won’t quit and she’ll take it in the back door.” Lifting his hands, Brick shrugged as if he were helpless but to capitulate. “Who am I to complain about her lack of smarts? That seems like a prejudice against the academically-challenged to me.”
Now that sounded more like the little brother I knew.
“So, if they’re equally gorgeous,” I countered. “Then why aren’t you chasing after both of them?”
Brick paused with his mouth agape as if to contradict me, but then he frowned, thinking my suggestion through and lifted a finger. “You know what? That’s a damn fine idea. So fuck off; I recant my invitation. You’re out, and I’m in. Both of them.”
Wagging his tongue, he stood up to tap out a farewell rhythm on the corner of my desk with his hands, then he veered toward the doorway.
“Yeah, good luck with that,” I called after him sarcastically.
He lifted a finger over his shoulder. “Don’t need it, but thanks for the sentiment.”
Once he was gone, I set an elbow on my desk and rested my chin in my hand, studying the chair where my brother had just sat.
