by Rebecca Foxx
She flung herself down on the couch beside him and patted his leg sympathetically. She knew just as well as he did how difficult the parentals could be. It was just part of growing up with as elite of a bloodline as they had.
They may have had more money than god and an estate that rivaled Buckingham Palace, but none of that came without strings. There were certain expectations put on them and they were non-negotiables. Basically, there wasn’t a whole lot of room for defiance in the Kennedy family, whether open or covert.
As if summoned by Falcon’s mere thoughts about them, his father and mother waltzed regally into the room. As much as Falcon respected them, he had a moment where he had to fight to stifle a laugh.
They just looked so goddamned regal. Everywhere they went it was like they were posing for clamouring throngs of paparazzi, even if the only people there were their own children. This evening was no exception. His father led his mother by the hand, depositing her in a lavish wingback chair before taking his place beside the fire’s mantle.
He looked almost exactly the same as he did in the portrait above him. That’s what people from the outside world didn’t understand about Reginald Kennedy. The way he was, well, it wasn’t an act. He lived and breathed the foreboding wealth and power he exuded with everything he did.
There was never even a moment where he let any part of that exterior crack.
“Falcon! Don’t you know better than to keep your mother waiting? She’s been calling for damned near forever now. What’s wrong with you?”
“Sorry, pops, I guess I was distracted. I didn’t even hear her.”
His mother raised an eyebrow and Clarissa delivered a discrete elbow to his ribcage. Both responses, in all honesty, were well deserved. If Falcon knew anything it was that his dad was not a fan of being spoken to in such a casual, offhand manner.
Calling him “pops,” for example, was playing with fire, asking for trouble he probably wouldn’t want in the end. It was him testing the waters against the alpha male, and the strain it caused was obvious to everyone.
“Don’t make excuses, and for the love of god, don’t call me pops.”
“I was just playing around.”
“Well, don’t. If you keep that kind of thing up one of these days you’re going to slip up and talk to me that way at work and then I’ll have to fire you.”
“Oh god, would you really fire him, daddy? Would you?”
“Of course I would, if he deserved it. I’ve already given you two more than most people get in a lifetime, in ten lifetimes. That will not extend to outright nepotism in the workplace. There is still a business to run, fortune or no. Being cavalier with that sort of thing is how one loses everything. I’ve told you that many times before.”
“And my guess is you’ll tell us again,” Falcon mumbled under his breath. That comment got an even bigger jab from his sister, and with good reason. Now he really was playing with fire. He was about to get his dad good and pissed off and that was something none of them wanted to put up with.
“You’re right,” he said grimly, “I will. I’ll tell you as many times as it takes.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry, father. I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t know what’s gotten into me.”
“Probably too much scotch,” Clarissa giggled, “that would be my guess.”
“Very funny, sister. Like you’re one to talk.”
“You’re right, I’m delightfully tipsy. I probably learned it from you, big brother.”
“That’s enough children,” their mother said good naturedly, “if you learned it from anyone it was probably from us. Now, listen to your father, will you? Disrespect is not something we take kindly to in this household. I thought I had raised you better than this.”
As much as he disliked being chastised at thirty years of age, he nodded quietly. He may have been up for some back and forth with his dad, but his mom was a different story. She held a very special place in his heart, one he wasn’t quick to tamper with. He had a feeling, in fact, that she was the little voice of reason inside of all of their heads.
“Sorry, father. I’m just playing around. What’s going on? Why did you summon us here?”
“For a kind of summit, of sorts. I wanted to let you know that your cousins are coming to visit, to make sure that you’re prepared for them being here.”
“What? When? When are they coming?”
“Clarissa, calm yourself,” their mother warned at the rising note of panic in his sister’s voice, “don’t let yourself get riled up.”
“But mother! This is a pretty big thing to spring on us!”
“Clarissa,” their father said with a warning voice, “mind your mother. I don’t care if you are twenty-seven. You will listen to her when she speaks.”
Clarissa’s mouth snapped shut but her face was bright red, seething with anger. Falcon understood her frustration, and he definitely felt bad for her.
See, the thing about the Kennedy family was that it wasn’t only their shifter blood that made them different, nor was it the exacting standards their father demanded they live by.
Because those same standards extended into the personal lives of the Kennedy youth. If you were born into the Kennedy family, you were in no way free to follow your heart when it came to matters of the opposite sex.
No, it was all about preserving the bloodline. It was a rare bloodline indeed, both shifter and illuminati, and the idea of muddying it with anything but more of the same was unacceptable, unthinkable.
So for Falcon and Clarissa, the cousins coming to visit wasn’t just a social thing. It was also a potential set up, something to ensure the integrity of the line and strip the two siblings of all of their romantic free will.
Falcon would have been every bit as angry as Clarissa if he had still had the energy, but there was just too much to be angry over. For Falcon it was even worse than it was for Clarissa. Not only was he expected to marry one of a few select people, he was also charged with the task of taking over the family business once his father retired.
Right on cue, as if he could read Falcon’s mind, his father turned to him with a severe look.
“And Falcon, don’t forget. I expect you at the office tomorrow, no excuses. It’s high time you start taking your responsibilities, learning to take an interest in your future. Do you understand me son?”
“Yes, father, I understand you. I understand you perfectly.”
Chapter Two
“Michelle! What the hell? I’ve been waiting here for like, forty-five minutes. Happy hour isn’t very happy when you’re sitting all by yourself.”
“Sorry, sorry, I know. I’m awful. I had to go shopping for new work clothes. You know how much I hate shopping, for anything, but shopping for clothes for a job I’m afraid of going to in the first place. Well that’s just about the worst way to spend an afternoon I can possibly think of.”
“Well then you, my friend, are the perfect candidate for an appletini. I took the liberty of ordering you one.”
“Thank god. You’re the best friend a person could have.”
Michelle set her myriad shopping bags heavily down on the ground and sat down with aching, angry feet. Even with all of the things she had bought she knew it wasn’t going to be enough, which meant she was going to have to repeat the whole ordeal over again.
She couldn’t think of anything she would less like to do. Shopping wasn’t something she revelled in like a lot of other women she knew. Some people thought that it was because of her size. She was what people might describe as curvy.
She was a thick woman of irish descent with long, wild red curls and striking green eyes. She had the kind of breasts that made men forget how to speak and thick, creamy thighs they dreamed about running their hands up the inside of.
She had a body that couldn’t help but make men think of a good roll in the hay, and it was something she didn’t entirely know how to handle.
The important thing to know about Michell
e was that, while she may have the outstandingly curvacious body of a woman who flat out embodied sex, her mind was not quite in line with the image that body projected. Her figure screamed lingerie but her mind craved the comfort of a warm cup of tea and a really good book.
She was sweet, shy, still not entirely sure how to navigate the sea of attention her smoking hot body got her from the opposite sex. It wasn’t that she was completely innocent, not one hundred percent, but she was a hell of a lot more innocent than her body led people to believe.
It was odd, how men reacted to a thing like that. In her experience it drove them wild, made them want her even more, but what they never seemed to grasp was that if they really were interested in getting her into bed, what they needed was more than an interest in her. They needed to make her interested in them.
Since none of them had managed that, Michelle was pretty much safe from the lustful eyes of her would be suitors. For now, it was just her, her best friend Adele, and the fantastic appletinis their favorite bartender whipped up.
“Oh, I am,” Adele said with a devious grin, “and don’t you forget it. Now cheers me!”
“Cheers, lady. Thanks for pulling me out of my shopping misery. It was getting pretty dicey there for a little while.”
“Oh honey, don’t you worry about it. I may not understand your hatred for the most sacred pastime ever gifted to the female race, but I do know how to cheer you up. Rest assured, I will always be there to lift your spirits with, well, spirits!”
“Well played, Adele. Clever little play on words you got there.”
“I am a pretty outstanding girl, what can I say? Now, down to business.”
“Uh oh,” Michelle said with a mock dread in her musically lilting voice, “I don’t like the sound of that.”
“I bet you don’t. But worry not, I just have a question. Why is it that you’re so damned nervous about this job? I’ve seen you do pretty much every single thing you’ve ever set your mind to, and this doesn’t come close to topping the most difficult.”
“I know,” she said mournfully, looking into her disturbingly green drink as if it might somehow magically have all of the answers.
“It’s like, not even close.”
“I know. Believe me, I know.”
“Well? Then why? Why is this time different?”
“Because, you should see these people, Adele. These are not ordinary people. These are like the most beautiful people you’ve ever seen in your entire life. On steroids. Seriously. Not every single person who works in the office, of course, some of them are totally normal like me, but the actual family. Reginald Kennedy, the guy who owns the whole place, is good looking even though he’s got to be at least sixty, and that’s bad enough. But you should see his son! I don’t know his name yet, but I’m pretty sure I will never be able to talk to him and keep my cool. He looks like Brad Pitt, only with dark hair. Really, how am I supposed to work around something like that?”
To Michelle’s great annoyance, her best friend in the entire world started to laugh. Ok, yes, it might not seem like the absolute worst problem in the world to be saddled with, but to Michelle it kind of felt like it.
The only saving grace she had was that the son didn’t really come around all that much. She wasn’t trying to eavesdrop or anything, but she was Mr. Kennedy’s personal assistant and whether she meant to or not, she sometimes overheard things. Like phone conversations.
She got the impression that father and son didn’t exactly see eye to eye on what the future should look like. She was guessing that when you were the son of a billionaire business tycoon and the only son at that, dissention amongst the ranks was not a welcome thing.
She actually felt kind of sorry for him, which she would never say out loud because feeling sorry for a beautiful billionaire playboy would probably seem pretty stupid to most normal people, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t glad that he wasn’t around to make her nervous. And now, now she was being laughed at. Which was awesome.
“Gee, thanks, Adele. This is exactly what I needed.”
“I’m sorry,” she giggled, trying not to choke on her fancy cocktail, “honestly, I am. I’m just messing with you. It’s just that I’m pretty sure there are a lot of people out there with more major work complaints than a sexy boss and son duo. I know how you get kind of tongue tied, though. It would be hard to be shy and be working in a place like that. Fortunately for me, that’s not an affliction I happen to have.”
“Ha! I would have to agree with you there. Oh shit, hang on.”
Michelle and Adele’s playful banter was interrupted by the angry buzzing of her phone. Michelle rolled her eyes, looking at the identity of her caller grudgingly. She was a girl who didn’t have a whole lot of love for technology at the best of times.
She was always going to prefer the smell and feel of a good book to reading off of a screen and texting was something she had only learned to do at the badgering insistence of Adele.
She was smart and so she was highly capable with computers in her job, but that didn’t mean she enjoyed being tethered to an electronic device. Unfortunately, that was just part of her job description.
Mr. Kennedy was a man that expected immediate action in all things which meant a fancy cell phone to reach her with. As she suspected, Reginald Kennedy was exactly who was calling her. But this was supposed to be her day off, for christ’s sake.
Unfortunately, those didn’t seem to mean a whole lot for her anymore.
“Hold on, sorry. I have to take this.”
“Hell no! We have a cell phone rule for happy hour. Which is that there are no cell phones. It’s like, the cardinal rule. Just like in Fight Club, where the first rule”
“Is don’t talk about Fight Club. I know. But this is real life, and it’s my job. So I have to take this.”
Fine, but that means drinks are on you.”
“Ok, ok, drinks are on me. I’ll be right back.”
Michelle hurried outside and took a deep, nervous breath. She had worked for these intimidating people for almost a month now, but it didn’t seem to have gotten any easier to talk to them. It was times like this that she deeply wished for the kind of spunky, outgoing personality that seemed to come to Adele so effortlessly.
Still, stalling wasn’t going to get her anywhere, at least not anywhere good, so she shook her shoulders to loosen up some of the nerves and finally pressed the answer button on her phone.
“Mr. Kennedy, hello.”
“Michelle! I was starting to think you weren’t going to answer.”
Crap. This was not a good start. This was why this guy made her so freaking nervous! There was absolutely nothing about him that spoke to her warm and fuzzy side.
“I’m sorry, I just wanted to get to a place where I could here you better.”
“No matter, this will be a quick call. I just wanted to inform you that I’ve had a long talk with my son and we have arrived at the conclusion that it would be best if he started to take more of an interest in the family business. So starting tomorrow morning, he will be joining me, daily, in the office. This means that you will be acting as the personal assistant to both of us. You will be compensated for the extra work, of course. And should you decide that this is not a task you would like to take on, I can always hire someone else to pick up the slack.”
“No! No, that’s ok.”
“Is it?”
“Yes. I’m sorry to interrupt you, it’s just that I want you to know I’m enthusiastic about the opportunity.”
“Well that’s fine. I can work with enthusiasm. Then I’ll expect you bright and early in the morning. Does that sound acceptable to you?”
“Yes, absolutely. Thank you sir.”
“Good. Then enjoy the rest of your evening. That will be all.”
Without any kind of an actual goodbye, Mr. Kennedy hung up. Michelle was left standing there, staring down at the fancy high-tech phone in disbelief. If she had still been harboring some nerves a
bout the job before this phone call, well now, now she was borderline terrified.
“Good lord,” she whispered to herself in a daze, “what on earth have I gotten myself into?”
Chapter Three
“Ready for a wonderful day in the office, sweetpea?”
“Save it,” Falcon growled dangerously into the phone, “I am in no kind of mood for your shit. Did you really wake up early just so you could call me and tease me?”
“I did indeed!” Clarissa cackled, clearly delighted with herself for doing so.