by Parker, Ali
“She’s great, Caden. She’s warm and friendly, knows how to joke and have fun.” He smiled as if a memory fluttered by his vision. “She’s the kind of woman I could see you with, but not Luke.”
“Why not Luke?” I crossed my arms over my chest as the overwhelming need to protect this girl raced through me.
“Let’s be real right now. Your brother is a dick that sleeps with anything that moves. You know he’s cheating on that poor girl. She doesn’t deserve that shit. She’s classy, man. Unless she’s the world’s greatest actress, then I’m the idiot in all of this.” He stood up and gathered his trash. “Either way, I’m thrilled she’s coming to work here. I hope it works out. She’s awesome.”
“Do you have proof that he’s cheating on her, or are you just basing it on the fact that he’s Luke?” I tossed the rest of my sandwich back onto my plate. There was no way in hell this was my Olivia. She wouldn’t date a dickwad like my brother. She held herself to far too high of a standard. Hell, the fact that she’d dated me for those years when I had no plans for a life beyond football was a miracle all its own.
“He’s Luke. He’s cheating on her.” Jeremy walked away and left me to stew in my thoughts alone.
If my brother was cheating on this girl, I needed to tell him to tread lightly. It wasn’t my fucking business at all, but bringing her into the firm would only give her more insight to the real him. I wasn’t sure that was something Luke wanted.
“Jeremy.” I looked over my shoulder. “What’s her last name?”
“It’s something weird. Detrom? Desrand?”
Luke walked into the room and rolled his shoulders, obviously catching the ass end of our conversation. “It’s Olivia Desmant. Why?”
Her name spoken aloud hit me in the gut like Luke had swung at me with a baseball bat. I tried to think of something to say, anything that wouldn’t come out in a pathetic groan that wreaked of self-pity.
“No reason.” I turned back around as my heart broke. Fuck my life. It was her.
Chapter 10
Olivia
“No fucking way.” Dana walked around my bedroom as I lay on the bed with my hands pressed to my face. To say I was a hot mess would have been a vast understatement.
“Yes, I’m an idiot. I should have looked into it the minute I met Luke.”
“What? Why? Taylor is a really common last name, Olivia. Cut yourself some slack. These kinds of things don’t happen—well, not to most people. You just seem to be uncommonly unlucky.”
Uncommonly unlucky. Yeah, that sounded right. In a city as big as New York, I’d managed to find and fall into a committed relationship with the one man that should have been off limits.
Caden Taylor’s motherfucking stepbrother.
How could I have missed that? How could I not have wondered at the shared last name? I knew Luke’s last name had legally been changed to Taylor a long time ago. It wasn’t the name he was born with but rather one he adopted for business reasons.
I rolled over and pressed my face to the bed. “I have to break up with Luke.”
“What? Hell no.” She crawled up on the bed and lay down on her side, propping herself up with her elbow. “You’re not breaking up with Luke. You’re going to show Caden Taylor that your life is all you wanted it to be. He fucked things up back in high school. Hopefully, he’s suffering.”
“My life is nothing like I want it to be.” I rolled onto my back as a sob lodged in my throat. “I’ve just buried everything so deep inside of me that I’ve created a new life around it. A fake set of goals and ambitions that have little to do with who I really am. Who I was.”
Hot tears burned the sides of my face as I counted the ceiling tiles and prayed that the floor would open up and swallow me whole.
“Then get back to being you.” Dana reached over and brushed my hair from my face. “And don’t you change a damn thing for that bastard.”
“What if he’s not a bastard?” My voice broke as I rolled on my side to face her. I hadn’t felt so insanely vulnerable in more than six years. Caden Taylor wasn’t just in the city but at the firm I was going to work for, at the party I was going to that night. He was the brother of my lover.
“Then we work through it day by day. Moment by moment.” She wiped a tear from my face. “You remember when your dad used to say that all the time?”
“Yeah, I do.” I discarded the memory as I didn’t need another reason to cry. Caden was enough. My father dying my freshman year of college was still too real. Too raw. Even after five long years had passed. I’d created a new me. One that fit beautifully next to Luke and would one day rule the world of finance, but I didn’t feel much like that solid fortress right then.
“We’re going to that party tonight and when you see him, you have two choices.”
“Fuck no.” I shook my head and sat up. “There is no way I’m going tonight. I can’t imagine seeing him after all these years.”
“I bet he looks like heaven.” She sat up and bumped her shoulder against mine.
“Wait. Are you for him or against him?” I moved to the edge of the bed and glanced back at her.
“I don’t know.” She shrugged and flopped back down. “I feel like people deserve a second chance and maybe we didn’t get the full story in high school, you know? I mean, seven years of being the best boyfriend ever and then you guys sleep together and he’s all of a sudden a horrible asshole that doesn’t give you the time of day?”
“I was a lousy lay. At least that’s what he told everyone. Remember?” I swallowed my regret and got up. I wasn’t a lousy lay anymore. I’d slept with enough guys to prove to myself that I was possibly the best lay in all of New York. I ignored just how badly that same truth hurt the parts of me that only wanted one man in my bed for life. That girl was dead and buried. She was weak and stupid to believe in such a thing.
“That’s bullshit and you know it.” She rolled off the bed and stood up. “We’re going tonight. You need to face the past and show it, or really him, that you’re good. Put this to bed tonight.”
“And if I crumble?” Tears blurred my vision. “If I can’t keep the part of me that wanted him beside me forever tucked away, then what, Dana? Are you going to rescue me? Take me back to Dallas with you and help me start over?”
“You’re not running from your life over this idiot. It was high school. You have to find a way to make peace with this. It’s been fucking with you far too long. Maybe this is exactly what needs to happen in order for you to finally close the door on everything that happened at graduation.”
I walked to the closet to grab the sexiest dress I had. “What if this was never supposed to be my life in the first place? What if it was just a way to recreate myself?”
“Then run hard and fast. Ignore me completely because of all the people in my life, you’re the last one I would have ever wanted to see change. Face him tonight and figure out what happened.”
* * *
Nerves tore up my insides as we drove to Kadia. I had to get Dana to drive because my hands were shaking so badly, it looked like I had a form of palsy. Bile rose in my chest and threatened to put me on my hands and knees before the closest toilet if I didn’t chill the fuck out.
“You all right?” Dana reached out and squeezed my hand softly.
“I will be when this is over. I’m going to have to go in completely bitch mode to survive this shit.” I swallowed and reached up to turn the air conditioner vents toward me.
“I’ll be right beside you all night. If you need to get out of there, we’ll leave. If you need me to divert him, you just give me the look and I’ll step in.”
I laughed in spite of my insides turning to mush. “You remember back in school when we used the code words, ‘dill pickle’ to get help from a shitty situation?”
She laughed loudly. “Yes. Why did we pick such stupid words? Do you know how hard it was to squeeze in the words ‘dill pickle’ in the middle of a conversation with someone so you wou
ld know I needed help?”
I chuckled and pointed to the club. “Right up here on the left. The big, beautiful place with all of the lights.”
“Is Luke already here? I’m looking forward to meeting this guy you’ve changed your persona for.” She snorted and pulled up to the front of the club.
“I didn’t change anything for him. Me changing just drew his crooked ass in like a moth to the flame.” I got out of the car and ran my hands down the front of my black cocktail dress. I’d gone for business sexy instead of all out sexy. Grabbing Caden’s attention and showing him what he was missing was only one of my objectives for the night. The other was to actually impress some of the people in Luke’s office just in case I decided there was some way I could still take the position with him.
From a career standpoint, it was a smart, great new step. From an emotional standpoint, I was fucking myself hard without lubrication. It was ugly.
“You look incredible.” Dana moved up beside me and slipped her arm into mine. “You just stick beside me and I’ll get you liquored up enough to relax.”
“Please do.” I smiled at my pretty dark-haired friend. The dark hues of her skin mixed with her hazel eyes left me smiling. Caden would probably be quite surprised to see she’d grown up from the wiry little tomboy she’d been when we were kids to the beautiful girl she was now.
Had I changed at all? Being head cheerleader of our high school and fit as a fiddle back then, it would seem that if I did, it would be for the worse.
“Stop trash talking yourself and lift your chin,” Dana mumbled from beside me as we walked into the expansive club.
“What? How did you know?” I forced a laugh as I pulled my ID from my wallet and showed it to the bouncer at the door.
“Your chin is pointed down and your shoulders are rounded. I’ve known you my whole life, remember? Hello.” She snorted and pointed up to the third floor. “Why is it so dark up there?”
“Sex room, from what the whispers on the street say.” I shrugged and pulled my arm from her grasp. The last thing I wanted to do was to let anyone think I had a weakness. Luke only knew what I wanted him to know about me, which wasn’t much. Our relationship was only surface deep, which was a good thing, seeing that it was going to most likely be over soon. There was no way in hell I could keep dating him or rather marry him with the notion that Caden and I would then be tied together forever.
Fuck that.
Kadia smelled like sweat and vodka. The club was alive with flashing lights and thumping music I could feel in the soles of my shoes. Dana and I wove through the crowded pathways, snaking our way to the bar. I was desperate for a stiff drink or something to take the edge off. I hadn’t been this nervous in ages.
Since that night at the lookout with Caden in the bed of his truck, come to think of it.
I shuddered at the thought. I hated this vulnerability. I hated the way I could feel the panic and fear coursing through my veins. I hardly felt like the badass businesswoman I’d become. She was slipping away with every step I took and the insecure cheerleader was coming to the foreground.
I hadn’t even seen Caden yet and he was impacting how I felt. How I moved.
I spied Luke coming toward us through the crowd. People parted for him. Women’s heads turned on swivels as he passed and they looked him up and down, their gaze lingering on his ass, which I had to admit always looked good in his perfectly fitting slacks. He drew up in front of me wearing his classic lopsided smirk. He took my hand and spun me around so that my back was to him and I was facing Dana. I gave her an apologetic look as Luke pressed his cheek to mine.
He had a bad habit of making sure everyone in the room knew I was his.
“Oh my. How is the most beautiful creature in the world tonight?” Luke’s hand slid over my hip and pressed to my stomach as he flattened his chest to my back and leaned down to kiss my neck a few times. “Hmm, how’s my girl?”
“She’s great,” I lied. She wasn’t great at all. She was practically spilling over with nerves. I turned and kissed him before moving back and gesturing to Dana. “Luke, this is my best friend, Dana. Remember you met her a little while back when she came to New York on her first visit?”
He smiled and offered his hand. “Of course. Dana, so nice to see you again. I’m expecting to hear some old tales this time. I’m starting to think that Olivia might keep everything about her past from me, but I’m thinking I have an ‘in’ now!.”
Dana flashed him a smile of her own. “Oh do I have stories.”
“I’m not the only one with secrets.” I gave him a cheeky grin and brushed my hand down his chest. He had a swimmer’s body, lean and strong, but not at all the type of man that could make my body ache. His brother on the other hand—Stop it.
“Get yourselves a drink and join us over there. I want to introduce you to everyone.” He kissed the tip of my nose and ran his hand over my side to squeeze the top of my ass. “You mind if I tell them you’re a new investment advisor that’s considering working for us?”
“And your girlfriend? Oh, the stigma I’ll have to overcome.” I pushed at his chest a little.
“I quite like the idea of giving them something to talk about.” He winked and glanced toward Dana. “But then again, Olivia will tell you that I’m quite the attention whore.”
“Amongst other categories of whore.” I chuckled and turned toward the bar, motioning for Dana to join me.
“Damn,” she mumbled. “He’s insanely hot.”
“You should see Caden.” I sighed and stood in front of the bar. “He’s only gotten better with age.”
“That’s a scary prospect.” She glanced over her shoulder and I suspected she was watching Luke make his way back to his table. Shaking her head, she faced the bar and scanned the back shelf of liquors. “Caden was a looker even when he was younger. I can’t imagine how he could possibly have gotten more attractive.”
“Tell me about it.” Every cell in my body woke up at the thought of seeing him in person again. It had been far too long, and as scared as I was, I was equally excited.
Chapter 11
Caden
I walked into Kadia stiff and contemplating faking some rare illness that would put me out of commission for a few days. I’d gone so far as to research a few legit ones. I could have easily come down with some sort of flu that left me with a high fever, the sweats, and bouts of uncontrollable vomiting.
Hell, I felt like that anyway. Why not be as honest as possible?
But I didn’t have the luxury of bailing on this night. It was important to Luke, the company, and our employees. Keeping staff moralr up was important. Of course, the salaries offered at Taylor, Taylor, and Barden were enough to keep them from complaining, but getting out and socializing during a fun night was something different. Cutting loose with coworkers had always been fun, and as long as I gave Annie a wide berth, things should be fine.
Except that they wouldn’t because Olivia was going to be there.
What was I supposed to say to her? Hello? It had been six years, and the last time I saw her, we’d said some pretty choice things to each other. She’d hurt me more than anyone else ever had in this life, and even though I missed her more than any man had any right to miss anyone, I couldn’t see past that pain.
“Hey, brother.” Luke walked up beside me and pointed to the darkened windows of the third floor of the club that loomed over the dance floor. “You know what that is?”
Forcing a chuckle, I gave him a look. “I’m overworked, not dead.”
He laughed and wrapped an arm around the back of my shoulders. “All right. No hitting on my girl tonight, but if you find one of your own, I’ll cover for you if you want to take her up to the fuck tank.”
The Fuck Tank. Right. That wasn’t really my style. I could see the appeal for others, like the men in well-fitted suits wandering around the third floor balcony with women they likely didn’t arrive with hanging off their arms like accessories, itching f
or a good fuck and maybe a bit of cash to be thrown their way. It was sometimes hard to tell at Kadia which women worked there and which ones were customers.
I rolled my eyes and moved with him toward the bar. After ordering two shots of whiskey and a beer, I turned to face him. “Where is this Olivia chick from?”
“I don’t know. I’d say California by the looks of her.” He glanced around and took a sip of his beer. “She’s going to knock you off your feet. Just keep your thoughts to yourself.”
How long had they been seeing each other again? Hadn’t he said off and on for three years? Yes, that timeline sounded about right. The thought of my girl—I paused, caught myself, and amended my train of thought. She wasn’t mine anymore. She hadn’t been for a long time. But the fact that the girl who used to be mine was with my stepbrother for so long confounded me. So did the fact that he didn’t even know where she was from.
She’d lived down the street from our Houston ranch my entire life.
“You’re my brother. I’m not going to hit on your girl.” I took the liquor from the bartender and nodded toward Luke. “Put it on his tab?”
The bartender chuckled and nodded. “I think he’s paying for just about everyone tonight.”
“Yep. He’s a great guy like that.” I turned back to Luke. “Stop looking for her. You’ve been together for three years. You’re acting like you just started dating.”
“She makes me feel like I could dance on water, bro. She’s the real deal.” He brushed his fingers over his lips and turned back toward the crowd, scanning it as if nervous.
That couldn’t be. Luke didn’t get nervous. Or flustered. Or apprehensive. He was in a constant state of bold confidence.