by Sophia Gray
“It’s great to love your work. I know I love mine.”
Annie slid into the seat, relaxing a fraction of an iota. “What do you do?”
“I’m run a productivity improvement firm.”
“What?”
It was Cora’s turn to square her shoulders with pride. “My job is to go in when a company’s production is low. I try to figure out why and solve the problem.”
“Oh, that sounds…” Annie trailed off.
“It sounds boring.” Cora smiled and took another sip of her long-cold coffee. “I know. But, honestly, I love it. People being happy with what they do professionally means a lot to me. And why not? The relationships you build inside of your professional life last longer than most of the personal ones. They ought to be good. I want to make sure everyone is getting the best out of their work.”
“Okay,” Annie said, clearly trying to be polite. It was clear to Cora that she didn’t know why this conversation was happening but wasn’t yet sure she should leave.
“Do you like working on the east coast?”
Annie hesitated. “Not really. My aunt—she raised me on account of my parents passing away—she’s sick. Alzheimer’s, early onset. It’s…rough. I don’t make the kind of money to get live-in help, and we can’t afford to send her to one of those nice places either. So I am the main caretaker. Being away isn’t easy for either of us.”
Cora felt an ache of compassion and respect take root in her chest. It was one thing trying to build your career. It was another thing entirely to attempt that while having to take care of another human being. “I’m really sorry about that. Maybe I can help.”
“Wait. What?”
Cora nodded again and waited long enough to make sure the girl was listening. Annie wasn’t just sitting in the seat now; she was leaning forward, with a hand on either one of the rests. Her eyes narrowed and her lips thinned as if she was waiting for the proverbial shoe to drop. “One of my clients is Michele Bruno.”
“The cosmetics lady?” Annie gushed. “Are you for real?”
“Very much so.” Cora set her now empty cup aside and leaned forward. “I know for a fact that she needs new models for the upcoming spring line. Your look is very fresh and very natural. Perfect for that kind of work. I would be happy to put a word in for you.”
A flurry of emotions crossed across Annie’s pretty face. No, Cora decided, the young woman, and she was a young woman, wasn’t just pretty. Pretty was the word you used for a vase or a well-done but uninteresting piece of artwork. Annie was striking. Her lips had that perfect pouty quality that photographers went nuts over, and she had the long body of subtle curves that would age well. She even had the natural sun-kissed color that wouldn’t need much to keep picture-ready. When her expressions finally settled, Annie’s eyes were back to being narrowed. “What’s the catch?”
“Halvsies on your free cosmetics that you’ll get as part of your contract.”
“You want free makeup?”
“I do wear it nearly every day.” Cora motioned to her face.
“You don’t want me to stay away from Finn?” Annie sat back in her seat, crossing her slender arms over an equally slender chest.
Cora laughed and shook her head. She couldn’t quite stop herself. “Finn isn’t mine.”
“He seems to think he is.” Annie flicked her eyes in the direction that Finn had left. “He thinks a lot of girls are.”
Cora shrugged. She agreed with the words, if not the bitter sentiment behind them. “We kissed once.”
“He’s good at that.” Annie’s pouty mouth twitched into a shy smile.
Cora agreed. “He certainly is.”
“Most women I know would be jealous if they found out the guy that they kissed had been mackin’ on me.” Annie tossed her hair over one shoulder. For just a moment Cora was very aware of how young the other woman was. It had nothing to do with her age; there were some ladies who could be eighty and still be young.
Cora steepled her fingers in thought. “I don’t get jealous.”
“Everyone gets jealous,” Annie shot back.
“All right, I don’t stay jealous.” When Annie continued to look disbelieving, Cora continued. “Okay, so let’s say Finn was my man, and he was, as you put it, mackin’ on you before we were dating. I can’t really hold that against him. It happened before me. If he was cozying up to you during our imaginary relationship, I might feel a smack of jealousy…right before I tossed him to the curb.”
Annie chuckled. “I like that.”
“But even if that were to happen, that jealousy still doesn’t extend to you. Not really. You are an attractive woman, and my man might think about seeing you naked. I can’t blame him for that; I think about naked men all the time. But that doesn’t mean he has to act on those thoughts. If he does…the wrong is on him.”
“You don’t think a woman should tell a man no if she knows the man is taken?”
Cora shrugged yet again. She crossed her legs and motioned flippantly with one hand. “If that woman is free and single and willing, that’s her life. He’s the one breaking the rules.”
Annie sat there for a long moment. “I think I like you.”
Cora smirked. “I think I like you, too. I heard you tell Finn you were free this afternoon. How about a little indulgent shopping?”
Annie’s lips spread into a grin. “Okay.”
# # #
Annie was easy to be friends with. After getting over her initial distrust, the two of them had gone to every shop and boutique Carson had to offer. Admittedly it wasn’t much, but it was enough that both women came away with a spur-of-the-moment purchase. Cora hadn’t let Annie pay for hers.
“I expect a pretty decent amount of cosmetics from you in the future,” Cora had told the girl as she pushed the turquoise-and-copper earrings in the other woman’s hand. Annie had responded with a cheerful hug. It had felt good to spend some time doing something just for the fun of it. Why couldn’t everything else in her life be as simple as buying earrings?
Her thoughts meandered to Finn. He was anything but simple, and that was a problem for a plethora of reasons.
She had always managed the men in her life. Cora didn’t see anything wrong with that. She knew exactly what she wanted from a man and, like in the world of business, if he couldn’t meet her needs she moved on to the next one. Cold, perhaps, but why? Cora would much prefer to be alone than waste time with the wrong man at the wrong time.
As an attractive woman, she had never had any issues getting a date. It wasn’t arrogance, just the truth. Men had been looking at Cora ever since puberty had walked all over her. Getting a second date had been an issue from time to time since there were plenty of men who were intimidated by a self-sufficient woman. Even then she’d managed to enjoy men for as long as she needed one.
Finn was…not that kind of man. She could do her best to control him, but he was like a wild horse. You could jump on his back and tug on the reins, but you couldn’t really expect him to comply. He was, however, helping her with their mutual interest of Oliver, and that gave him credit where she was concerned.
When Cora got back to her apartment that evening, she was surprised to find it was occupied. Finn was standing in her kitchen, surrounded by several opaque plastic grocery bags. He was wearing a deep blue tank top that left his blue-collar-forged arms very bare. Swirling lines of tattoos slid over his golden skin from elbow to shoulder and crept toward his neck. Most of them weren’t pictures but shapes, tribal in nature, that twisted over one another. The blue fabric clung tight enough that she could see the flat plane of his stomach. It was tucked into a pair of well-worn jeans. She wondered if he owned any pants that weren’t made of denim. Probably not.
An image of her undoing his zipper with her teeth hit her with enough force to cause her breath to go uneven.
“What are you doing here?” Cora demanded. She wanted to fist her hands on her hips, but the effect would have been ruined by th
e shopping bags she was carrying.
His hair was pulled back with a red headband, keeping the locks out of his angular face. He reached a tattooed hand up to scratch the broad ridge of his nose. “I had planned to have dinner ready when you got home, or at least started. But your fridge was fucking empty. Do you run on wine and takeout?”
“The tears of my competitors, too,” she responded, setting her purchases on the couch. “How did you get in?”
He gave her a bemused look. The quirk of his lip was nearly enough to make her smile back.
“Right,” she said. “Criminal. I assume calling the cops on you for breaking and entering would be pointless?”
“I’d get Oliver to vouch for me.”
Her eyes went wide. “Oh shit, Oliver.”
Finn’s lips twitched into a sly grin. “You terrible woman. You forgot him, didn’t you?”
Cora snatched up her purse with enough force to pop open the zipper. Lipstick, credit cards, her cell phone, and a slew of business cards made a debris of personal supplies across the countertop and onto the ground. She cursed vehemently and tried to gather everything up. Her hands were shaking too hard. How could she have forgotten her own brother? What kind of guardian was she?
Finn wandered around the small island and knelt next to her, carefully picking up what she was currently fumbling with. She felt the heat coming off his arm as it brushed against hers. She dropped the cosmetics onto the floor again. The blush cracked and sprinkled pink powder on the cheap linoleum.
“He’s probably running around wild now,” he said, pushing her credit cards back into their neat little sleeves. “Jeez, do you have one for each of these?”
“It’s keeps them from being cloned. So yes, I do. Keys, where the hell are my keys? Oh God, he’s probably out doing something crazy. Did you call him? I’m used to him texting me when he gets out of his last class. The text never came. Crap.” She found her keys and tried to shake the blush off them.
Finn sat back, his long golden arms wrapping around his knees. He looked utterly relaxed. She didn’t know how he could. Maybe she had been wrong about everything. He wasn’t completely invested in Oliver’s well-being. He was just happy to be in her kitchen making her dinner while they had alone time. He was using this all as some scheme to get into her pants, wasn’t he? A shock of anger built inside of her chest.
“Why would I call him?” Finn asked easily.
Yes, she thought, why would he call him? It wasn’t Finn’s job to pick up Oliver. It was hers. She had failed. Her hands shook harder as she swept the keys down her pant leg in an effort to clean off the last bits of powder. “I’ll be right back. We will discuss this dinner thing when I return.”
“You better find him before he burns down the entire town.”
She froze with her hand on the door. There was something in his voice that had her glancing over her shoulder at him. He was grinning wide enough to make his eyes crinkle. He reached up and tried to cover his mouth with his own fingers.
“You know exactly where he is, don’t you?”
He jerked his chin toward the hallway. “He’s in his room. I picked him up when I got off work.”
Her first response was to throw him a dirty look. He ran his tongue over his teeth and held his hands out in surrender, but it didn’t quite match the mischievous light in his eyes.
A wave of mixed emotions swarmed through her. Yes, she was happy Oliver was safe. But she was also angry that no one had told her he had already been picked up. She was angry she hadn’t even noticed until she got home, and surprisingly amused that Finn had managed to keep up the charade as long as he did. For the span of a few breaths, she wasn’t sure what she was feeling, or who her feelings were for. She settled on wrapping herself in calm frustration, equally distributed. “I can’t believe I forgot.”
Finn stood and returned to the kitchen, pulling a large sack of flour out of one of the bags and plopping it on the speckled counter. Granules of fine dust floated off the surface, caught in the stream of sunlight that came in from outside. “Honestly, so am I. I assumed you remembered…you know…everything.”
She gave him an unfriendly look. “Normally I do. I guess I was having too much fun on my much-needed shopping date with my new friend.”
“Friend?” he asked, continuing to pull items out of the bags.
“Annie,” she said with just a little bit of spite. “I think you are familiar with her.”
His eyes went wide until they were circles of pure sapphire on a lake of perfect white. “You made friends with Annie?”
Cora shrugged with a lot more flippancy than she actually felt. A very petty part of her was pleased that he was as comfortable now as she had been a few moments ago. Okay, probably not anywhere near as uncomfortable, but she’d take a little disquiet over the smug look he had been giving her. “Why not? We have something in common.”
“Me?” His smirk returned.
Cora rearranged her purse until everything was back exactly where it belonged. “As she has taken a ride on the Finn train and I have not, that would be a definite no. We are both, however, self-employed businesswomen. And that is a rather exclusive club.”
“Huh?” He pulled a sack of potatoes out of one of the other bags, setting it down next to the flour. The scent of starch and earth floated across the room. It was surprisingly comforting.
“You were right, she is a model. Freelancing. It takes serious and dedicated chops to go out there and freelance your work. It’s all talking with clients, negotiating your prices. Delivering on time. She showed me some of her work while we were out. She’s very good.”
“Wait…what?”
It was Cora’s turn to look smug. “What? Did you think she just showed up and got her picture taken?”
It was clear by the look on his face that he absolutely did. “I never really thought about it.”
“Men,” Cora said, lifting her chin. “They rarely do. They just see a pretty woman on the cover of a magazine and never think about the time or effort that took to get her there.”
He paused. “There is a whole world of bitterness in that statement.”
There was, and Cora knew it. Maybe it was a little unfair of her, but she was still feeling a tad petty. As a woman, she had struggled to be taken seriously, first as an employee and later as a business owner. It always bothered her that certain career choices, usually those that were held predominately by women, were often seen as somehow softer…lesser.
“A little,” Cora admitted. “And I’m sorry for that, but I’m not interested in talking about flippant sexism in the world of business. Aren’t you supposed to be cooking me a hot meal?”
“Is that what you want?” he asked, his voice dropping a little until it was like listening to liquid gold. “A docile man to clean your house and cook your meals while you go out and bring home the bacon?”
She gave him a completely unapologetic look. “And if it is?”
His response was to reach into his back pocket and pull out a length of stiff bright red fabric. At first, she didn’t recognize it. He flicked his wrist, and it unfurled into an apron that read “Hot Stuff Coming Through.”
“Some big bad criminal you are.”
“Stereotypes are terrible things,” he shot back.
“I live with them all the time.” She waved her hand.
He laughed and nodded. “Man, you really are something else.”
“Good or bad?” she asked, legitimately curious.
He didn’t answer at first. Instead he pulled a few more items out of the grocery bags and arranged them over the countertop. He bundled the plastic between his hands and squeezed until it was just a ball between his palms. “A little of both, really,” he finally said, “but that’s all right.”
There was something about the look he gave her. It was playful and warm. She had to resist the sudden urge to walk around the bit of furniture that separated them and kiss those smiling lips. She swallowed it down and
walked past him.
“I’m going to go check on Oliver.”
“Okay.”
She paused. “What is for dinner exactly?”
“Pierogis stuffed with potato and cheese, served with a tomato sauce.”
She blinked and took another look at the ingredients he had purchased. There was no canned sauce, no frozen premade food. She glanced from him to the counter and back again. “Are you serious?”
His obsidian brow dashed up his golden forehead. “Do you doubt me?”