"It's real easy. I don't like men." I shrugged, winked and got in my car. "Nice meeting you, Talon. Good luck."
"I'll be in touch." His cheeks were pink as he moved back and watched me like a hawk.
Too bad for him that the card wasn't mine. I didn't even know who Sylvia Warner was, but having the card flutter out of my purse on the way into the event couldn't have been a better omen. There was always one asshole in the group if I was lucky. Looks like it was Talon that day.
I chuckled as I headed toward the airport to get Dana. I needed a girl's weekend, but work was too crazy to get away. The transition from my firm to Luke's was going to be hard, but worth the leap. I could only hope that he would try and respect me enough in the office to steer clear of anything relational and simply treat me like the professional I was.
At the office, I was an investment manager, not the girl that rode him every other night until he begged me to stop. We were great lovers, but not much else.
Somehow he'd fooled himself otherwise.
Chapter 2
Caden
"You nervous?" My secretary Annie stood at the door to my office with a smile on her ruby-red lips.
"Never." I continued to tap my fingers in a slow cadence across my desk as I glanced back down at the file laid out on my desk. "I've done this a million times in the last few years. Why would I be nervous?"
"It's a big account." She walked in and took the seat in front of my desk. "You know this could be a game changer for you and Luke."
"And Perry." I glanced up and gave her a knowing look. Everyone at the office liked to ignore the fact that Luke and I had a silent partner in the firm, but I wasn't able to forget him. He was the reason we had Taylor, Taylor, and Barden. The older man had not only believed in me but given quite a sum of seed money to help my brother and I start our empire.
"Of course." She shrugged and cleared her throat. "You know Luke is expecting you for lunch downstairs in ten minutes, right?"
"Damn. Is it already eleven?" I glanced at the clock and closed the folder, ignoring the way Annie watched me. I'd have to have a conversation with her soon, but I was hoping that her odd infatuation would simply disappear.
I had a rule about dating anyone at work, no matter how cute she might be.
"It's almost eleven. You need anything from me today?" She leaned forward and pressed her hand to my desk, shifting just enough so that I could see down her shirt. The creamy-white tops her tits caught my attention, but I ignored her and gathered my stuff. Why my brother wanted to have the most attractive women in all of New York working for us was ridiculous.
Or maybe it was because he was a fucking pig. That's what it came down to. A twenty-eight-year-old manwhore who spoke about a girlfriend that none of us had ever seen. It had become the central joke of the office. Luke's beautiful, talented and brilliant girlfriend that worked for our top competition. He promised to introduce the two of us soon but soon was the promise a year back.
"Nope. Just continue to keep the place held together, and we'll be good." I grabbed my wallet, phone, and keys and moved around her, stopping only as she spoke again.
"You know we're having the office party tomorrow night at Kadia, right?"
"Kadia?" I glanced over my shoulder. "That place is fucking wild."
"Yeah. It's a lot of fun." Her smile was highly inappropriate, almost comically so.
"Maybe too much fun for an office party?" I shook my head and walked out of the office as I tried to think through how I was going to tell my bull-headed older brother that having an office party at the hottest night club in New York was idiotic. They had a sex room on the third floor from what I'd heard. How his reasoning to have the anniversary party for the firm there made sense was beyond me, but we were talking about Luke.
I squeezed into the elevator and turned at the sight of a pretty blonde near the back. My heart fluttered in my chest. Olivia?
No. Stop being stupid. Let it go.
I wanted to let it go. To let her go, but I couldn't seem to do it. Five years of nothing - not a word from her - and then she had the audacity to send in her resume to work for the firm. It'd been a year since it came in, and I still felt like shit for shredding it, but I couldn't have her there. We had too much history between us, too many hurt feelings.
Six years. I was such a fucking puss for still lamenting over her. It was high school and I was far beyond getting over it, but the what ifs drove me into a craze to think through how my life would have been different if she hadn't turned her back on me our senior year.
"Stop. You're too fucking old for this." I ran my fingers through my hair and got off the elevator, not caring who heard me talking to myself. The building we rented a floor on had enough people to fill the small city I was from two times over. Running into someone from our small firm was highly unlikely.
I moved back and waited as everyone left the elevator. The blonde was last off, and she glanced at me and smiled as my heart dropped. Not her.
Good.
I turned and walked toward the overpriced restaurant at the bottom of our building, stopping by the hostess stand only for a moment before hearing my brother call my name. He looked nothing like me, and I was almost grateful for it. He was an asshole no matter who we were dealing with or what audience we were in front of. It was nice to think most people didn't associate us as anything more than business partners. A good cop - bad cop type of relationship, and he was forever the bad cop.
"There you are. Shit. I thought you'd forgotten." He nodded at the chair across from him. "Sit. I have fucking great news."
"Your idea of great and mine are two totally different things." I unbuttoned my navy suit jacket and pulled it off my shoulders as I glanced around the restaurant. "I think you need to fire Annie and let me do the hiring from here on out."
"Why's that? She still after you to take her to bed?" He chuckled and leaned back in his seat. "Just lock the damn door to the office and pop her cherry for her. You know after a hard fuck she'll calm down a little. All women just need to realize who's in charge, who's capable of bringing them to heel."
"That so?" I rolled my eyes and sat down.
"Yep. And a man is what they need."
"And you're that man?" I glanced up at the server, grateful it was a guy. If I had to watch my brother eye-fuck another poor unsuspecting girl, I might have to reach across the table and slap him. We got along beautifully, as long as we didn't broach the subject of women. They were toys to him... and always had been. I couldn't remember a time in my life of ever thinking about them as anything but precious. Maybe I was a puss.
"I was." He sighed as I ordered a beer.
"Was?" I chuckled, unable to help myself. He was such a bleeding heart over his loss of freedom. This invisible girlfriend was cramping his style from the looks of things.
"Yeah. My girl is getting a little pushy about us moving into something more serious."
"Really?" I took the bread basket from the center of the table and fished out a piece of bread. "And you're wanting to take another step with her?"
"Yeah, if it means I keep getting to bury various parts of my body deep inside of her anytime I want." He growled. "She's so fucking hot, Caden. Even after three years of seeing her off and on. The thought of how well she can work her sexy little body drives me absolutely insane."
"Yeah, let's talk about something else. I'm not going over the ins and outs of you ass-fucking this girl again. I'm not interested."
"Because you're jealous. Plain and simple. She's a whore for me."
"Awesome. Keep that shit to yourself." I buttered my bread and tried to keep my pulse steady. I hadn't slept with someone I cared about in too many years to count. A few drunk one-night stands, and I was good to go for a little while longer. Relationships were messy, complicated and hurt like a bitch when they ended.
"You need to stop wallowing in your tears and get a woman. You're being a fucking tit about it." He snagged a roll and tore into it
like it was beef jerky.
I chuckled, unable to help myself. "Fuck off. I'll figure out my love life when I'm not married to my job anymore."
"I could ask my girl if she's willing to have us both one night."
"What?" My eyes moved up to his shit-eating grin. "Shut the fuck up. I'm not fucking some poor girl with you. You're sick."
"Sick with lust. God dude-"
"Awesome. Stop. Seriously." I gave him a stern look, wondering why in the hell he was like he was. Our father was nothing like him. Must have come from his mother seeing that he got most of his looks from her too. I was almost grateful that my mother was softer, more empathetic. The fact that we weren't from the exact same gene pool gave me great relief.
"All right. Shit." He lifted his hands. "Can I at least tell you my good news?"
"Yeah, and then we're talking about why we're not having the anniversary party for the firm at Kadia. Shit."
"No, we're not. It's booked, and the guys at the firm deserve all that crazy fucking place has to offer. It's perfect."
"What's the news, Luke?" I was almost surprised by how worn down I was just being around him lately. A few years back when we started the firm, I couldn't seem to get enough time with him, but he'd grown cynical, nasty and vulgar.
"My girl's coming tomorrow night." He wagged his eyebrows. "I mean, she's coming tonight, but you don't get to see that, now do you."
I thanked the server for my beer and glanced back over at him. "I think that's great that she's coming to the party. It's about fucking time that I get to meet her."
"I need you to treat the evening like an interview, okay?"
"What? No. I'm not screening this chick for you. You've already painted her as a two-bit whore that likes it in the ass." I pressed my beer to my lips and pulled my thoughts from depravity as my cock twitched in my slacks. I needed to get laid, to feel the warmth of someone beneath me and soon.
"Not for me, you dickwad. For the company. She's coming to join us. I've almost talked her into it."
I spit my beer halfway across the table. "Have you lost your fucking mind?"
"Nope. She's brilliant, Caden. More than you, more than Perry, hell, more than me."
"No way. That isn't happening. I don't care what she is. We're not bringing her into the firm. That's a disaster waiting to happen."
"You're going to love her." He laughed and tossed a napkin at my face as I wiped up my mess. "Just remember when you see her to keep your eyes above her shoulders. She's likely the most beautiful woman in all of New York."
"Doubtful, and my answer is still no. She's not working for us. Period."
Chapter 3
Olivia
"I still can't believe you cut your hair." I reached out and tugged at the short strands of Dana's dark hair. "It was almost down to your butt at Christmas.”
"I know. I just got tired of having to deal with it all the time." She shrugged and sunk back into the softness of my over-sized couch. "Let's not mention how sick I am of being called Pocahontas. Now, if a certain John Smith were to-"
I laughed and pushed at her leg with my foot as I reclined against the far side of the couch. It was beyond good to see her, and as always, I dreaded her leaving before she even really settled in. Having been my friend since we were able to talk back, Dana was like the sister I never had.
"You don't need John Smith, just that hottie professor you keep going on about." I tried to hide the smile that tugged at the side of my mouth. We all had fantasies about a college professor bending us over a desk... or at least I did. A hot one, anyway.
"Oh man." She pressed her hands to her face and leaned back. "He's so fucking beautiful, Olivia. Like the perfect man for me, but he's a stickler for the rules."
"So get him off campus." I pulled my legs back and turned to stand. "I have to get ready for dinner with Luke. I wanted to reschedule, but he made me promise not to. Something about a big surprise."
"Seriously?" She jerked her hands down and sat up straight. "Do you think it's a ring?"
"What? No." I walked toward the bedroom to fix my make-up from the war my long day had waged against it. "No. God, I hope not."
"What?" She followed me into the bedroom and jumped up onto the bed. "I thought you were in love with this guy."
"I'm in love with his power, his money, his dick." I glanced over my shoulder as she squealed.
"You hooker."
"Yep. Not much has changed." I was being cheeky for sure. I'd been a prude back in high school, or so Dana and our other friends said. Being a cheerleader had an odd stigma, but I'd kept to my beliefs that sex belonged in marriage until my senior year. Then the drive to lock Caden Taylor to my side forever drove me to do something I promised myself I'd never do. And it had blown up in my face. He wasn't at all the guy I thought him to be.
Seven years of dating down the tube over one night. One mistake.
"Not much has changed?" She laughed loudly as I leaned over and reapplied my eyeshadow. "That's rich. You were a good girl. You might not be now, but you were then. The candle by which the rest of us made it through the dark."
"All right. All right. Don't make me a saint." I stuck my head out of the bathroom and wagged my eyebrows at her. "Those days are long gone. Life's a bitch and Luke has enough of the things I want in a man to settle."
"Are you saying you'll accept his proposal if he gives one?" She sat up and tilted her head to the side.
I laughed and moved back toward the mirror. "Of course I am. He's not a prince charming by any stretch of the imagination, but he's as good as it's going to get, I'm afraid."
"What a shitty attitude on love." She walked into the bathroom behind me, closed the toilet seat and sat down. "What happened to the girl that believed in a happy ever after? Did college here in New York really stain you that much?"
"No, but being realistic just seems like a better option. I'm tired of dreaming that I'll find him." I shrugged and tried to ignore the burn of desire rising in my chest. It wasn't sexy or lusty, but a longing to find someone like Caden again. It'd been six years since high school and yet I still looked everywhere for him. It was sickening. Embarrassing. I needed to grow the hell up, but I couldn't figure out how.
"Him? As in Caden?" She crossed her arms over her chest and slipped in a few more words before I could speak. "You know he's here in New York."
My heart almost stopped in my chest. I'd made myself a promise at our high school graduation when he wouldn't even look at me after seven years of being together. I'd never look back after that day. I'd never go find him or look him up or pray in time that he would be mine. Never.
"Is he now? Good for him." I spread my pink lipstick over my lips and pursed them a few times as my chest contracted and pain laced my insides.
"Awww... come on. It's me right here. I was there for all of it, remember?" She leaned toward the counter where I stood. "Stop acting like you don't still think about him."
"I don't." I ignored the warmth in her chestnut eyes. "There's no need to. He was the perfect lie, and he got what he was after. One shitty night of horrible sex, me crying like a child and the fear that we'd get caught. It was awesome, oh but wait, no it wasn't. Not at all. It sucked, just like him."
She laughed and followed me out of the bathroom. "I think you're full of shit. I don't think this Luke guy is the guy for you at all."
"You think I should turn down this big diamond tonight and go in search of Caden? Confess my dying love for him and hope that he's not married with three kids already?"
"He's not. I checked." She shrugged and gave me a cocky grin as I glanced over my shoulder.
"You sure you're good here? I feel like shit for leaving you on your first night in town." I grabbed my purse and keys.
"I'm great. I'm going to clean out your fridge and leave the imprint of my ass on your big fancy couch." She smiled and walked to stand in front of me. "You don't need to settle. That's all I'm saying."
"I don't know, Dana. Love
isn't what you think it is. It hurts more often than not, and it always disappoints."
"It was six years ago. It's time to get over it and see if something still exists between you guys." She reached out and ran her hand down my arm. "Don't make a mistake tonight."
I nodded but didn't respond. If Luke proposed, I was going to accept. Caden Taylor hadn't been in my life in six years, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to invite him to fuck it up again.
Once was plenty.
****
"Wow. Don't you look good enough to eat?" Luke stood up from the table he was sitting at and reached for me.
"Oh yeah? You hungry?" I moved into his arms and lifted onto my toes to meet him in a long kiss. Where I didn't love him, I liked him - a lot. He was perfect for my life and fit beautifully in the future I had plotted out. Love wasn't part of the charted course, but it was for the better. Love was a weakness that I didn't want to entertain anymore.
"For you? Fuck yes." He nipped at my lips as his eyes darkened. He wasn't the most beautiful man I'd ever seen, but still intensely handsome. His light brown hair was cut close to his head, his brown eyes filled with mystery and his cocky smile fitting him well.
"Good. Let's have dinner and then maybe we can slip in dessert in the back of your car." I kissed him once more before moving across to the other side of the table.
He growled and sat down. "You're giving me a boner in the middle of a fancy restaurant. You should be spanked."
"I should. Agreed." I dragged my napkin down into my lap and picked up the wine menu.
"I already got us a bottle of your favorite." His eyes moved across my face and down as I glanced up.
"What’s the big news tonight? Don't make me wait. You know how much I hate surprises." I leaned back and dropped my hands into my lap.
"So bossy." He licked his lips and smiled. "You know I love you, right?"
Love. Such a strong word.
"I do know that." I turned as the waitress stopped by and offered him a quick sip of the wine before pouring us both a class. I took a quick sip of mine and tried not to show just how nervous I was. He was going to ask me to marry him. I had no doubt. I'd yet to be able to tell him that I loved him because I didn't, but it didn't matter. Much like an arranged marriage, we just fit together in the business world and the bedroom. That was enough for him, and more than enough for me.
Stealing First: (A Bad Boy Single Father Billionaire Novel) Page 17