by Hope Stone
The coffee came quickly and I was shocked to find out that he’d been completely right. It tasted amazing. It was smooth, strong and delicious without being overly bitter. I didn’t even miss the vanilla syrup I usually added to my lattes. He looked at me expectedly, waiting for my verdict on the coffee beans he’d been bragging about.
“Yes, it really is as good as you said,” I said, sighing in an overly dramatic fashion. We both chuckled a bit and finished our coffee. He wasn’t as bad as I had thought. Maybe he’d had an overnight attitude adjustment.
Soon, we were back on the road. His playlist really was quite entertaining; it was a mixture of Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, and Eric Clapton, as well as many classic rock hits. I watched the world whiz by as he drove. He was going pretty fast, but I didn’t feel unsafe with him. I guess that might have been because we were out on the open road and there weren’t many other cars around.
I don’t know when I dozed off, but I felt myself wake up abruptly when the car finally slowed to a stop. I looked out the front windshield and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. This was not a house… it wasn’t even a mansion… no, it was an estate. This was the type of place that had east and west wings, and other things that rich people liked saying.
“Welcome to my family’s humble home away from home,” he said, smirking at the look of wonder on my face. I knew he was rich… but I hadn’t realized that it was old money.
“Come on, let me show you around. I’ll send someone out to get our bags,” he said as he lead me into the entrance hall.
The ceilings were high, there was art on the wall that could have cost the same as my apartment and I encountered three members of staff after only just walking in. It was truly something spectacular. I knew that I was going to have to work hard to organize an event that would impress these people.
Before I knew what was happening, a helpful stranger had my bags and was showing me to the “guest wing.” I almost laughed out loud when he said it, but I caught myself just in time. The room he lead me to was huge and had the most amazing ensuite bathroom. I couldn’t believe it was almost the same size as my entire apartment… and I thought I had a pretty large apartment for the city.
“Mr. Alistair suggests you relax for a bit and unpack and then I will call you for cocktails with Madame Harrington and Alistair. Is that to your liking?” I nodded, but I really wanted to ask whether they made him speak like that or if that was just something that he’d picked up while working for the extremely wealthy. Of course, I didn’t. That would be impolite.
I spread out on the bed and took in a deep breath. It really was beautiful. If I wasn’t careful, I could get used to the natural light and beautiful décor. I had to remind myself that after this weekend, I would likely never see a place like this again. I was here to work and I couldn’t let myself forget that.
I unpacked my bag and took a quick shower and changed. Just as I was finished applying my makeup, the butler who’d taken me to the room came back to tell me it was time for drinks, which would be followed by dinner.
I followed him down the stairs, pausing for a second to ask for his name. He smiled and said, “You can call me Eddie.” It seemed like not many guests ever asked the name of the helpful strangers who staffed this estate.
I was lead down a large staircase and into a beautiful hall and then out onto a veranda. There, I saw why Madame Harrington wasn’t organizing the party herself. She was pale and sitting in a comfortable looking chair with a blanket over her legs. She smiled widely as she saw me and extended her frail and shaking hand.
“Hello, my dear. I heard you’ve been helping my son plan his brother’s engagement party. Your name is Anna, yes?” I nodded my head. “Well, mine’s Ella and it’s lovely to meet you.”
“It’s lovely to meet you, Ella,” I said and took a seat next to her, not sure of what else to do. Just then, Alistair came strolling in.
“Mother, you’re looking well.” He stooped over and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
“Liar. I look like I’m on death’s door, but I appreciate your kind lie,” she laughed lightly.
“When will Mason and Georgia be arriving?” he asked, and I could see him trying not to grimace as he said his brother’s name.
“They’ll be up on Friday in time for the party,” she said, deliberating ignoring her son’s strong feelings about his sibling. “He’s very busy with the company, you know.”
“Ah, yes, the company he stole from me.”
“Please don’t speak like that, my darling. You’re brothers. You love each other… no matter what has happened in the past.”
“Sure thing, Mom,” he said, giving in.
Chapter 6
Alistair
After cocktails, we went through to the dining room for dinner. I could tell that my mother wasn’t hungry, but she was trying very hard to eat as much as she could. I felt really bad for her. She shouldn’t have to pretend around me. But I knew that her pride was important to her.
Soon after dinner, her nurse came to get her. It was only 8 pm, but we had a big day ahead of us, so I suggested to Anna that we retire to our separate rooms to relax because the next day was going to be busy.
“Yes, I agree. I’ve set up back-to-back meetings with four local vendors who have indicated that they would be able to prepare things in time for the weekend,” she said very matter-of-factly.
“Great, well, I’ll see you at breakfast.”
I went to bed and lay down, ready to sleep. But I found myself thinking about Anna. It was strange, but I found her quite enjoyable to be around. She had a mission… to save her business… and I liked that. Most of the women I’d spent time with in the past and dated weren’t very ambitious. Sure, they wanted things… but nothing of substance. They all seemed to want to marry rich and pretend to be happy for the rest of their lives in exchange for material wealth.
I stopped my thought process. Anna was here to help me organize an event for the brother that I couldn’t stand. That was all. I shouldn’t be thinking of her at all. What I should be thinking about was how I was going to make it through a weekend entirely dedicated to a man I couldn’t stand without losing my mind.
Eventually, I managed to get to sleep. And when I woke up in the morning, I realized that I’d overslept by the knock on the door. It was Eddie, coming to tell me that Anna had asked if I was ready to start with our meetings.
Crap. I panicked. I got up quickly, brushed my teeth and changed into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt without much consideration.
I ran down the stairs and Anna was standing there, perfectly put together, waiting with a look on her face that said she wasn’t exactly pleased with me.
“I’m sorry, I overslept,” I apologized while I grabbed my car keys and headed out the door.
I started speeding the minute she got in the car with me. Only, halfway down the road, I realized that I didn’t even know which direction we were going in.
“Um…”
“Just take a left, we’re going to visit a baker about desserts,” she said. There was no anger in her voice. In fact, she sounded kind of amused at how rattled I was.
“Okay, great. Just keep the directions coming, please.” I smiled at her, my eyes still apologizing for being late. She smiled back… apology accepted, it seemed.
We arrived shortly after entering the small local village. I was surprised to see an old acquaintance standing outside the bakery waiting for us.
“Elaine… it’s been a while.” I smiled at my old school friend.
“Alistair, you’re all grown up,” she laughed.
I turned to Anna to explain that we’d gone to school together for a while in the village before my brother and I had been sent to a private boarding school to finish off our education.
“So, I hear this is for an engagement party… this weekend? You were always late with your assignments, even in school,” Elaine giggled.
“Yeah, well, it’s for Mason. He doesn�
�t deserve the time it takes to plan these things,” I muttered.
“Wow, what happened? You two used to be so close,” she asked genuinely. I shrugged. I wasn’t about to go through that whole story, especially not when we had business to discuss.
Elaine took us through a list of possible desserts. “What about mini pecan pies?” Anna asked. “Those are always a hit with salted caramel ice cream. And then maybe a few chocolate options as well.”
I nodded along. “Sounds good. Pecan has always been a personal favorite.” I glanced through the glass box display of delicious pastries… I had skipped breakfast, after all.
“Yes, but isn’t Mason allergic to nuts?” Elaine asked in a concerned voice.
Anna shot me an unimpressed look. “How could you leave out a dietary requirement like that? Seriously, I could have killed your brother!”
“How was I supposed to remember that? I mean, maybe he grew out of it…” I trailed off defensively.
Anna sighed angrily. “Elaine, could you please give me a minute…” and then she stormed outside. She was even polite when storming off, I thought to myself.
Elaine gave me a look and said, “You should go speak to her… I don’t think it’s me she’s not happy with.”
I walked out to the street where Anna appeared to be pacing while silently screaming. Eventually, she noticed that I was standing there and looked me dead in the eye, “Are you purposefully trying to make me lose my mind? Is that your goal? Because I’m just trying to do my job, a job you’re paying me to do, and you seem to think it’s all some kind of joke.”
“Look, I’m sorry,” I sighed. “I will behave myself and be better, I promise. I know I’ve been acting like a petulant child. It’s just that my brother does this to me. He’s not even around and I’m annoyed… and I’ve been taking it out on you. I really apologize. I know this means something important to you and I’ll be serious about it.”
She stopped pacing up and down the sidewalk and looked at me. She took a deep breath and then finally said, “Okay, well then, let’s do this properly.”
Chapter 7
Anna
I couldn’t believe that I’d lost my cool in front of a client and a vendor. But Alistair had a way of getting to me. He was… frustrating. And it didn’t help that he managed to look great for someone who’d taken literally five minutes to get dressed. I mean, the disheveled look definitely suited him.
Maybe the fact that I was attracted to him was making me behave unprofessionally. Or perhaps it was because he was actively trying to ruin this party. Either way, he agreed to be serious about what we needed to do and he seemed to be intent on keeping that promise.
The next few meetings went smoothly. He even offered me valuable advice on the kinds of flowers his brother’s future wife liked. Of course, it was a guess as he hadn’t met her yet… but still, he was trying. And by 3 pm, we had almost everything organized and could finally relax until Saturday morning… that’s when the true work started.
“Look, I skipped breakfast and we didn’t pause for lunch, so what do you think about grabbing a snack before we head back to the house?” he asked, genuinely doing his best to act more agreeably.
“Yes, of course. You must be starving,” I said… realizing that I was hungry and I’d had a huge breakfast before he had even woken up.
His face widened into a huge grin. “I know exactly where to take you…” He took my hand and lead me down an alleyway. If we weren’t in a quaint countryside village and he wasn’t a relatively decent human being, I would have been a little worried.
Soon, we were at the door to a hidden-away Irish pub that looked completely out of place on the cobblestone street. “Believe it or not, this place has the best hamburgers in the world,” he said as he lead me into the bar with low-hanging lights and slot machines in the corner.
“I don’t think this is the kind of place I’d normally eat,” I replied, choosing my words carefully. I wanted to say that it looked more like the type of place you’d get stabbed than get a good meal.
“Oh, don’t let appearances fool you,” he said snarkily.
The bartender greeted him with a smile. “Well, at least these days I can be sure that you’re old enough to actually be here, Al,” he chuckled.
“Is Joe still working the grill?” Alistair asked as he pulled out a chair for me at an empty table. To be fair, there were many empty tables.
“Yeah, he’ll be working the grill until the day he dies. You want a burger?” the bartender replied.
“Make that two,” Alistair ordered, giving me a reassuring smile.
I didn’t exactly have high hopes for the burgers produced in the kitchen of what seemed like a dive bar. And I couldn’t believe that I’d been brought here by a billionaire with a name like Alistair. But when the burgers arrived, I had to admit that they looked pretty damn good… and they tasted even better.
“Told you they were the best damn burgers,” Alistair gloated as he saw the highly impressed look on my face.
I was starting to soften up to the handsome billionaire. He was far more interesting than I had initially thought… and a lot less stuck up. But I had to remind myself that he was a client and that after this weekend, I would likely never see him again. And anyway, men like him didn’t date ambitious small business owners like myself. I’d seen his previous girlfriends online, and they all looked like supermodels… not business school graduates.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked after I’d been silently thinking to myself for a while.
“You’re not what I expected,” I said, deciding to be honest… but leaving out any indication that I was even remotely attracted to him.
“Thanks. I’m assuming you thought I was just another arrogant rich kid?” he responded with a smile on his face.
“Yep,” I laughed. “Sorry, but that’s exactly what I thought.”
“Well, I can’t blame you. I haven’t exactly been acting like myself lately. This whole thing of having to plan a party for my brother… it doesn’t sit well with me. It feels fake and I hate doing anything that’s not one hundred percent genuine.”
Chapter 8
Alistair
I quickly motioned for the bill, trying to distract Anna from asking me once again what my problem was with my brother. I didn’t like to talk about it. It was hard to explain, anyway. If it was just one thing, I would have gotten over it by now. But it wasn’t. It was a lifetime of being Mason’s younger, lesser-known brother. At school, I wasn’t as popular as him and didn’t make the top of the honors list every year. I was never as good as him at anything.
But then, when we started the business together all those years later, I handled everything. I came up with the idea, I wrote the business plan, I hired the first staff. And I was damn good at it. And then, years later, once the company was thriving and we had tens of thousands of employees and very happy investors, he conspired with my second-in-command to cut me out of the business. And the worst part was that my second-in-command was about to be my wife and he was sleeping with her. See, there were a lot of things that made me hate my brother. He was calculating, manipulative and didn’t have a conscience.
I never told my mother what had happened. She would have been mortified. And he brushed off my dislike of him, saying that it was just business and I was being unreasonable. Well, at least my ex got what was coming to her when he dumped her after he got full control of the company.
I’d done pretty well for myself since then, at least. I had a new business and it was thriving. It was smaller than our previous company, but the profits were double. Part of me was hoping to rub that in his face over the weekend, but another part of me just wanted to avoid the whole thing.
“Now, what are you thinking about?” Anna asked me, breaking the silence as we drove back to the house.
“How delicious that burger was.” I laughed.
By the time we reached the house, it was 5 pm and we were invited into th
e drawing room for pre-dinner drinks. I was told there were guests and I suddenly forgot to breathe. I hoped it wasn’t my brother. I was actually having a good day and the thought of seeing him would ruin all of that. But it wasn’t my brother. It was my cousin Laura and her husband and kids.
I immediately lightened up as I introduced Anna to my favorite cousin and her family. Laura and I were the same age and had grown up almost as if we were brother and sister. She was lots of fun to be around and I was even godfather to her twin daughters, Laila and Lisa. The kids had loads to tell me about and I spent a good deal of time going through the pictures that they had drawn for me.
By the time dinner arrived, Anna and I looked at each other with a knowing look. Neither of us was hungry but we also weren’t going to risk being rude to the chef or my mother who had organized the surprise family gathering. So we moved the food around our plates as best we could and occasionally took a mouthful and made noises of appreciation for the delicious meal.
After dinner, Laura and I were in the wine cellar looking for another bottle to take to the table. “You like Anna… I can tell by the way you were looking at her over dinner, like you had some kind of big inside joke. You only ever give that look to people you like.”
“She’s great… but, I mean, she’s here for work… and I’ve only just met her. It’s not like we’ve been flirting or anything,” I said, trying not to lie but also not get too much into the truth of how I was feeling.
“Seriously, Al. It’s written all over your face and I don’t know her very well, but I’d be willing to take a bet that she’s developing feelings for you. Ted and I knew we were going to get married after knowing each other for four hours. With these things, time doesn’t mean anything.” She paused while she picked out a bottle of wine and then asked, “Did you take her to the Irish pub for one of those burgers?” I nodded, feeling myself blushing a little. “Then you were flirting… you just flirt a little differently than other people.” She laughed.