by Shayla Black
promises mocking him. Backyard barbecues, family dinners, and rug rats playing. Eric and Tate headed toward a destination he couldn’t handle. It would benefit everyone if he kept himself apart.
But what if he could have some stolen nights with her? Not alone, of course. He would utterly respect their claim on her. After all, they would take care of her financially, mentally, emotionally. He would just be the one who brought her momentary pleasure.
Belle sank down into the chair next to him. She’d sat at the table of honor during dinner, but as soon as the dancing had begun, she’d returned to them. “Come on, guys. It looks like Kinley is going to play this to the hilt. Pray she doesn’t ask me to toast the bride and groom. I have no idea what I’ll say.”
But she would come up with something. Hell, if Kinley asked her to serenade the dogs, Belle would get up and belt out a tune because she was fearless.
“Before we get to more dancing, I wanted to invite the maid of honor up to say a few words about the bride and groom and their beautiful love for one another.” Kinley nodded toward their table.
The bride was asleep, curled up on her chair. The groom was scratching his ear as he looked out over the room.
Belle sighed, but rose to her feet. “All right, then. My friend is insane and I’m going to talk about dog love. Just another day in my off-kilter life.”
He watched as Belle crossed the room to Kinley and took the microphone. “Love comes in many forms. Gigi and Butch…”
She continued on, talking about adoration, respect, and commitment.
“Tate is right. I think we should go in.” Eric asked. “What do you say?”
“Are you serious?” When he nodded, Tate’s eyes widened. “Thank god. I got on the dance floor and we started talking. I couldn’t think of anything to say except how much I admired the symmetry of her face. I gave her percentages as proof of how symmetrical her face is because I extrapolated measurements from her pictures. It was either that or offering her my penis.”
Eric sighed long and hard. “It will be a miracle if she says yes.”
Kell silently agreed. But if she did, he might have a couple of nights of happiness. His friends would cocoon her in their protection and care. They would make sure he didn’t hurt Belle. “All right. If we’re going to approach her, we’ll need to formulate a game plan soon. No more percentages or numbers, Tate. We play this smooth and easy. She won’t know what hit her.”
* * * *
Eric stared down at Belle two hours later, wishing they’d had a chance to plot her takedown and wondering why the hell they had wasted so much time. As they swayed to the music, she sighed softly and rested her head on his shoulder. She felt so perfect in his arms.
Of course, he thought everything about her was perfect, so it shouldn’t surprise him. What also felt right was the fact that his two best friends were waiting in the wings to continue the seduction. Well, Kellan was. He was pretty sure Tate was still planning on offering her his junk in a weirdly formal speech that would make Eric cringe.
Thankfully, Belle knew Tate well. She would probably just laugh.
“She’s trying to get me to take one of those fugly puppies.” Wrinkling her nose, Belle glanced back toward the main table.
Eric had seen the aforementioned creatures. Those three little things had been wreaking havoc all evening long. The Anders brothers had been trying desperately to contain and control them, but those puppies had been romping everywhere, yipping and chewing on a disturbing mix of drapes, buffet food, and shoes anyone had kicked off in favor of dancing. “Just tell her no.”
Belle frowned. “It’s hard to say no to Kinley. And it’s not like I have a crazy, full life. Maybe I should think about a pet.”
She didn’t need to think about anything except that she’d soon have three lovers who would require most of her attention. He fully intended to have her moved into the house he shared with Tate within the week—hopefully minus a rambunctious critter. “Later, maybe. Right now, you need to think about something more important.”
Her gorgeous dark eyes widened. “Like what?”
Eric drew in a bracing breath. It was time to see if he could lead the witness where he wanted her to go. “It means you should think about your future, Belle. What do you really want out of life?”
Even as she moved against him, he could see her contemplating his words. “I’ve been giving this some thought, actually.”
That encouraged him. “Yeah?”
“Well, since you’ve read my resume, you know I went to the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn for interior design. Lately, I’ve been thinking about using what I know.”
Her words threw him for a loop. What did design have to do with her love life? “You’re talking about decorating?”
Yes, he’d known from the minute she walked into the offices of Baxter, Cohen, and Kent that she wouldn’t be happy as their administrative assistant forever, but he’d thought she would stay a little longer. And he’d definitely thought that tonight, after the wedding—even if it was a doggie union—that she’d have romance on her mind.
“Yes. I’ve always loved designing homes especially. Even when I was a kid and we were living in a two-bedroom apartment, just my mom and me, I thought about all the ways I could make it pretty. People are happier when their surroundings are efficient and lovely. I really enjoy listening to the client’s problems with a space, then making it both more functional and elegant.”
He’d known she’d gone to the Pratt Institute and gotten a bachelor of arts, but he’d never asked what her concentration was in. He’d been too busy looking at her boobs to ask. Now that burned him. She was gorgeous and so genuine it hurt sometimes. He should know more about her—wants, past, dreams, and desires. He would bet Tate knew everything down to the last detail. “How old were you when your dad died?”
Her expression didn’t change at all. “Eleven. I wish I remembered more about him. My mom was the housekeeper for the Kohl family.”
Kinley’s parents. He’d known that Annabelle had grown up with the Kohl family in their brownstone on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. She’d seen the good life, but hadn’t really been a part of it because she’d lived in the servant quarters. “Is that how you became such good friends?”
It was obvious, but he would ask any question if it kept her in his arms.
She nodded. “We grew up together. Despite her family’s money, they sent her to public school, too. We often had the same classes, but no one could keep us apart after school. My mom would make us both snacks while we did our homework together.”
She wore such a wistful expression.
“Why did you leave New York?” He frowned.
“I got a job at a design firm here in Chicago, but it went under a month after I hired on. I was stranded without any money. I could barely afford my crap apartment and I had a hundred thousand dollars in college loans to repay. I thought about moving back to Manhattan, but I just couldn’t go back a failure. So I started looking for other jobs. I was the assistant to a CEO for a while and learned the administrative function before I had to leave.”
Yes, he’d wondered about the very short assignment listed on her resume. He had his suspicions about how it had ended. “Had to leave? Why?”
“My boss decided that my job should be more…intimate.”
Was she saying what he thought she was? “Come again.”
Annabelle sighed. “He chased me around his desk and told me I should do more of my job on my back with my legs spread.”
So the asshat had sexually harassed her, just as he’d suspected. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Anger raged through Eric. Yet wasn’t that pretty much what he’d been planning on asking of Belle? Though he hadn’t imagined having to chase her. He’d hoped she would simply want to spread her legs for him.
Well, hell. Now what?
“That’s a scary look.” But Belle didn’t appear even a bit afraid as she searched his face. Then her lips curved up in a smile.
“Wow, it’s always the quiet ones.”
Eric recoiled. Had she guessed what he was thinking? “I’m not the quiet one.”
Sometimes he was the only guy in the office who would talk. When Tate got obsessive and Kellan started to brood, Eric had to find the right welcoming or soothing words for their clients.
“Sure you are. Oh, you might be talkative and social, but you hide more. Kellan growls at the world, and while the lion won’t tell me how he got that thorn in his paw, it’s obvious he’s wounded. And without any sort of filter, Tate doesn’t have the faintest clue how to hide what he’s feeling. But you…” She studied him, wearing an almost quizzical expression. “You’re the one I can’t quite pin down.”
Tate was better at hiding his feelings than she gave him credit for since she hadn’t yet figured out how crazy he was about her. Eric hoped she didn’t before she was in too deep to be freaked out by Tate’s personal brand of interest. “I’m an open book, sweetheart.”
“Really? Then why did you just go all caveman on me?”
“Caveman? I’m dancing like Astaire. I didn’t grunt or growl a word.”
“Maybe not, but you looked ready to kill someone. I’ve never seen you like that. You’re usually smooth as silk, even when you’re angry.”
Because he’d been very careful around her. “I didn’t like the thought of some old letch trying to use his position to get you into bed.”
Kellan had a million and one reasons of his own and Tate wouldn’t know how to verbally seduce even a hooker out of her clothes, but Eric was nervous about the whole “boss” thing. He’d never admitted it, but that was one reason he hadn’t made a move, along with the Tate factor…and what she’d likely see as a “ménage surprise.” Despite those multitude of reasons not to go after her, Eric saw only one real reason he should—because he couldn’t stand the thought of never knowing what it meant to make love to her.
“Well, I found you guys, and now I don’t have anything to worry about. You don’t need to bang the secretary. You’ve already worked your way through half of Chicago’s female population.”
Was that bitterness he detected? She’d had a couple of glasses of wine. Belle was always in control, so polished and smooth.
Eric managed to chuckle. “Certainly, it’s not anywhere close to half.”
She shrugged with a little roll of her eyes. “It doesn’t matter. When did you and Tate start sharing your girlfriends?”
It was the first time she’d acknowledged that she knew they took women together. Maybe the ménage wouldn’t be a surprise after all. Had she guessed…or paid attention? Eric wasn’t sure. Belle had asked the question without a hint of disdain, sounding simply like one friend asking another about a curiosity.
Hope started to thrum through his system. He was good at reading body language, seeing past simple words to the hidden meaning beneath. Unlike Tate, most human beings didn’t just throw themselves out there. They talked their way around a problem. They asked questions—just like Belle did. “We were in high school.”
“Are you serious? Gosh, in high school I was worrying about finals and whether or not I would get asked to the prom.”
He wondered if he would have been smart enough to have seen her back then. Probably not. He’d been pretty damn dumb. He hadn’t cared past the next game, the next party, the next lay. “Well, I didn’t worry enough about finals, which is why I ended up meeting Tate.”
“I would have thought you came from different social circles.”
“Completely. Tate’s mom and dad were both academics, professors at the nearby university. His brothers were all into science. I was a dumb jock. My dad drove a truck. My mom was a waitress. All I wanted was to be a quarterback in the NFL.” It seemed funny now. He’d come so far from the narrow path that had once seemed like his only way out of the lower-middle class existence he’d loathed. His dad had coached him to want it more than anything.
She shook her head as though she couldn’t imagine it. “What happened?”
“Algebra II. I got benched because I was flunking math the fall semester of my junior year. My mom was actually happy because I’d had my second concussion that season.” He could still hear his parents arguing as they’d stood in his hospital room. His mom had insisted that he quit football then and there, and his father asked what the hell else his son was good for.
The point had become moot when his Algebra II grade had dipped below passing and he’d been temporarily benched. In need of a tutor, he’d met Tate, a dweeb of the highest order. For whatever reason, something between them had clicked, and they’d fallen into a friendship that had shaped the rest of his life.
“Did you pass?” She sent a curious little smile his way that almost looked flirty.
He would never forget the way it felt when Mr. Zimmer had passed him that final exam. “Ended up with a B. I went on to take calculus. I switched from the normal track to honors classes and I went to college on a scholarship. I thank Tate for that. He taught me that I was smart.”
“And what did you teach him?”
“That he was more than the sum of his knowledge.” He’d been Tate’s first real friend. “His parents hate me to this day because they believe I swayed him to the dark side—in other words, girls.”
“Did you?” Annabelle looked amused.
“No. Tate was always interested in females. He just didn’t think he had a shot. I helped him improve his chances.”
“By sharing girls with him?”
“Not at first. To begin, we started working out together after school. I taught him how to dress. I still haven’t been able to impart any level of smooth talk to him, but it’s cool. I’m not sure I’d know what to do with a Tate who didn’t shove his foot in his mouth three times a day.”
“I like how honest he is.” She swayed as the music changed to a slower beat. “I can always trust what he says because he can’t be bothered to lie. Of course it also means that when I ask him if I look fat in a pair of jeans, I get a percentage. He told me I only looked three percent larger and then went on to explain how the cut of the jeans slightly added to the visual footage. I didn’t understand his calculation, but I stopped buying boot cut jeans anyway.”
That was Tate in a nutshell. “He didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”
“He didn’t. He also said that given my relative dimensions, such a low percentage of change in perceptive body mass did not diminish my attractiveness.”
Eric couldn’t help but laugh. That was how Tate would tell a woman he thought she was hot.
He caught sight of his friend, who stood just off the dance floor, obviously watching them and waiting. Would Belle be shocked by what they wanted?
“I’m glad everything worked out for you two. It’s just not working as well for me. I think I might go back to design.” She said the words so quietly he strained to hear her.
“What do you mean? On the side?” She already worked pretty late hours. If they were in the office, she tended to stay, too. He wasn’t sure how she would work in a hobby.
“No. I’m thinking about making a change. I guess I should warn you guys. This just isn’t what I wanted to do with my life. It’s not that I don’t like my job, and you all are great, but I need something more. I watch you, Kell, and Tate. You have purpose. You’re doing what feeds your soul. I need to find that something for me.”
He had to force himself not to stop in the middle of the dance floor. “You’re telling me you’re quitting?”
That wasn’t supposed to happen. Eric tried not to panic. They needed her close. Nothing would work if they didn’t see her daily. Now, he might not see her at all.
How the hell had this happened?
“No, I’m not quitting. I mean, not yet. I need to find the courage to find another design job or go out on my own. Wow, I just realized how mercenary I sounded. I’m not trying to use you. Like I said, I like all three of you. I just need a career I love.” She was the one who stopped, he
r feet seeming to plant on the floor beneath her. Her gorgeous face twisted in regret. “I shouldn’t have said anything. This whole wedding has me throwing myself a pity party. Please don’t fire me.”
He felt like he’d been tossed into the middle of a hurricane. One minute she was quitting, and the next he was going to fire her? He felt his control slip. Crap, he had to get himself together. He couldn’t rely on hotheaded Kellan. And Tate wouldn’t know the words “emotional control” if they whacked him in the face. Somewhere in the back of his head, Eric knew they were all in trouble if he lost it, but he couldn’t seem to help himself.
“Why the hell would I fire you?”
She shook her head and spoke slowly, as though she realized he was struggling to keep up with her. “Because I just told you I’m going to quit eventually. You might think it’s a better move to replace me now.”