She lifted cold eyes to him. “Yes, boss?”
“Do you have access to the shared drive?”
“I think so.”
“There’s a folder called Chevalier.” He drummed his fingers on the top of her cubicle’s divider panel. “The contract they sent us is in there. Read it through and give me comments.”
“Okay,” she said like he asked her to make him a cup of tea, no milk, no sugar, all she had to do was steep a bag in scalding water. “When?”
“When you finish.” He’d barely made a dent in the thing with everything else going on. “A couple of weeks.”
Her brows cinched together. “You don’t want to speak to me for a couple of weeks?”
“Have a good night.” He would be lucky if he lasted that long.
“Good night?” She checked her watch. “It’s eleven am.”
“I’ve had enough for one day. I’ll be in my apartment. If the building’s on fire, call me. If not, I’ll see you tomorrow.” He didn’t wait for another comeback.
She was in law school, he assumed she had hundreds. All those twisty words to get the responses she wanted to go in for a kill. Because she was like him. Except, she left him breathless and reduced to grunts. Not to mention wanting a drink an hour before noon.
Luke had willy-nillied his way through this CEO job for years, but when Tristan got back from his Caribbean cruise last Christmas all fired up about keeping the hotel, he realized the man was an unstoppable force. And Grayson was on Tristan’s side for a change.
Luke had stepped up and acted more like a CEO than a dilettante. That’d been two months ago. He earned enough points to be a shitty boss for one day.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Luke
Luke banged on the door to Penthouse C. He’d been two seconds away from using his master key, when the door flew open.
“What?” Grayson answered the door with bloodshot eyes. And nothing else.
“No auditions today?” he asked, avoiding the view of his naked brother’s body.
“Fuck you,” Gray said and wandered back inside.
All three penthouses were the same size and layout. With the corridor having one wall made of glass, the apartments were on the opposite side and had the same south-facing views. The similarities ended there. The initial interior designer gave them three different styles as far as décor. Luke took his dad’s penthouse apartment. The modern design of PH A’s grays and golds fit his style. Tristan and Laney in PH B enjoyed the warm look with cream, cocoa, and navy blues everywhere. Gray’s PH C with black leather couches, burgundy carpeting, and the wide mirrored wall in the living room, the place could double for a strip club.
Grayson dove back on his couch and pulled an afghan up to his shoulders. He closed his eyes like he couldn’t bother keeping them open.
Each apartment included floor-to-ceiling windows with views of the Empire State Building. Luke hit the switch near the kitchen. The motorized shades flipped to sheer and allowed daylight to illuminate the living room. Gray didn’t seem to notice it was morning. Or cared another day was wasting away.
“I can see why you’re complaining about your housekeeper.” Luke gave the place a once-over and wrinkled his nose. The sun also revealed the mess. “Does she even bother to clean this place, or do you pig it up the second she leaves?”
“Both. What do you want?”
“I’m not gonna lie, I need a drink.” He set his hands on his hips.
Gray opened one eye at him. “You own a lobby bar.”
“I don’t think it’s wise for the employees to see the CEO getting sloshed at 11 am.” Luke frowned at the coffee table. There was a box of tissues and...lotion. Subtle much? A few lowball glasses lay scattered about and each had a puddle of something on the bottom. The pill bottles concerned him the most. He reached down to read one of the labels.
“Hey, get your own drugs.” Gray sat up and snatched the bottle out of his hand, the power in his swing shocking Luke.
“I’m tempted to ask what you’re taking. But I’m more curious about why they’re all sitting out here and not in the medicine cabinet. Do you even go into your bedroom?” Luke strained to see if either had an unmade bed.
“Which one?” Gray rolled over to face the cushions, the blanket twisting in his thick thighs and not covering his ass.
“What do you mean which one?” Luke looked away and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I haven’t picked one yet.” He’d moved in a few days after New Year’s Eve when the girlfriend he’d had at the time kicked him out.
“Where are all your—” He stopped and noticed several duffle bags on the dining room table.
And I thought I had problems. If he considered having the most beautiful woman he’d ever laid eyes on sitting outside his office ready to fuck him on command a problem. He couldn’t have her, though. He never crossed the line with an assistant and he wouldn’t do it with Alexis. It would blow up in their faces. They’d never leave his bed. She wouldn’t get her bonus and wouldn’t go back to school. She wouldn’t get her lawyer dream. And Tristan would be furious for blowing the Chevalier deal. The company gave them a hard deadline and that expired in thirty days. The Sterling had kept them dangling long enough. He hated how the weight of everyone’s world rested on his ability to keep his dick in his pants.
“Is your scotch close by, too?” he asked his brother, his throat itching for something strong.
Gray reached between the couch and the coffee table and lifted a bottle of Macallan 25.
“Any glasses?”
“In the kitchen,” Gray mumbled into the cushions.
Luke’s mouth tightened wandering down the hall to the chef’s kitchen installed in each penthouse villa. Gray’s dark cherry cabinets set against glittering quartz countertops and bright red hanging pendants held no interest for his brother, apparently. It was shockingly clean since Gray had camped out in the living room and just ordered take out.
“I have to talk to Tristan about him,” he mumbled to himself. Their brother was melting down. Laney pregnant or not, Gray needed an intervention.
“Did you bring me one?” Gray asked, rubbing his eyes when Luke returned with one glass.
“No. I’m not Mom. Or those girlfriends who baby the crap out of you.”
Gray snorted. “I guess you never met a woman who worships the ground you walk on. Sad.”
Maybe I have. Except, he didn’t want that. Okay, maybe a little. He trudged back to the kitchen and came back with a second glass. Gray sat up with the blanket in his lap, hiding a boner maybe. Great.
“I need to talk to you,” he said, questioning his judgment about coming up here to whine about Lexi.
Maybe he should have gone for a run in the gym. No one went in there, anyway. He’d have the place to himself. Pound the treadmill and let the stress sweat out of his body. He loved running shirtless there without having to worry about anyone staring at him.
“What’ve I done now?” Gray stood and stretched. Yep. Boner.
Grayson had been walking around naked since he was a little kid. That old saying, with each kid the rules were laxed more and more. His mother had all but given up by the time Hart number three came along.
Luke fought an eye roll. “Not you. Me. And if you need to rub one out, go do it now.” It’d been years since Luke had gotten a gander at his baby brother’s gigantic dick. “And Jesus, man, what kind of asshole reputation do you have as an actor that a guy as good looking as you can’t get roles? If nothing comes in soon, you and that monster cock of yours should consider doing porn.”
“Is my career what you want to talk to me about?” Gray yawned like he just didn’t give a fuck about anything.
“No. I fucked up. Now, go clear your head so you can rag on me for a while.” He pointed toward the bedrooms.
Gray stared at him with tired eyes. “You fucking up and getting yelled at by Tristan isn’t the best visual to make me come. This will take me a while.”
His brother had the attention span of a gnat these days. Gray may not process Luke’s over-analysis of himself of how before the hotel got dumped on him, he’d worked so much in his law firm, he only had time for casual hook ups here and there. Then he became part owner of a swanky hotel. Being the exciting CEO playboy knocked his dry spell out of the park with a vengeance. After three years, though, he’d lost his taste for endless women in his bed.
Lexi had looked at him like she saw the real Luke. The man he was before he got lost. She brought that guy back, and that’s who she wanted again. The good guy he used to be before a life of never-ending parties got in the way.
Luke grunted and said, “Okay, try this. Last Friday I brought a woman back here and fucked the living crap out of her. I came so many times, I lost count.”
“Getting there.” Gray sat and positioned the blanket back across his lap, but rubbed himself over the afghan.
This sure bordered on creepy, but there were no secrets between the Hart brothers. Except Luke had been piling up a few. “She’s downstairs now. Tristan hired her as my new assistant.”
“Oh, that’ll do it.” Anything to get his brother to focus better. Luke remembered what it was like in his late twenties. When non-stop hard-ons and craving sex ate into his every thought. After tasting Lexi, that man had returned to him. “Be right back.”
“Wash your hands, please,” he said, watching Gray’s round hairless ass walking away. Maybe he was already doing porn.
Living a posh lifestyle, Luke gagged at the pigsty he found himself sitting in. After a long swig of the Macallan, he took off his suit jacket and grabbed a trash bin from the kitchen. In ten minutes, he had the living room cleaned up, and placed a call into housekeeping to get a crew up there with a vacuum and disinfectant.
Luke made the executive decision to move Gray into the southeast facing master suite. He dumped the duffle bags on the bed and brought his brother’s shave kit in the bathroom.
“What the hell did you do to the living room?” Gray asked, standing in the doorway, a towel around his waist.
“I called housekeeping to clean it up, but I needed to get rid of your crap first. Can you put clothes on? Or better yet, take a shower.”
Smiling, Gray dropped the towel. “Jealous?”
He and his brothers shared a room growing up. While he and Tristan jerked off quietly under the covers or in the shower, Gray wasn’t as discreet.
All the limo and black-tie sex had kept Luke in the game. But he’d never felt more powerful when he’d let loose and had gone all night with Lexi.
Damn, woman.
Gray moseyed past him and ran the water in his black and Carrara marble shower. “So does your being here have anything to do with the woman you have to work with now?”
“Yeah.” He appreciated Gray had listened to a syllable of what he’d said, what he’d been agonizing over.
“Because you banged her? What makes her different?”
I like her. I really like her.
“Our devious brother hired her and gave her the Chevalier contract to close with me.” He leaned on the vanity, avoiding the glass shower panels preferring not to see Gray soaping himself up.
“How can an assistant work on a contract?” his brother asked, his voice muffled from the running water.
Luke glanced at the man under the spray. “She’s a law student.”
“How did a law student you fucked end up as your assistant in the hotel?”
“It’s a tangled story. She’s having money problems and took this semester off. Tristan said if she helps me close the deal, he’ll pay her tuition.”
“She’s here for money, then. Pay the tuition. Drive her and her short plaid skirt back to school then bang her after classes.”
Luke didn’t know what part of that suggestion to grapple with first. The water stopped and Gray stepped out all dripping wet. Deep planes of stomach muscles glistened smooth except for a patch of dark reddish blond hair matted down around his navel. Luke tossed him a towel.
Fucking show-off.
“Well?” Gray said.
“She won’t take a handout. And let’s just say she did and then she and I start going at it regularly, it’ll feel like I’m paying for it.” Just that thought riled him up again. The anger of being denied the woman he wanted.
“You and your rules.” After Gray toweled himself off, he grabbed an unmarked brown bottle and rubbed oil all over his chest.
He eyed his brother. “This all stays between us, okay?”
“Shoot.”
“I can’t stop thinking about her, Gray. After Friday night, I started thinking what it would be like to be in a relationship.”
“Wow.” Gray stopped rubbing himself and caught Luke’s stare in the mirror. “I’ve got to meet this woman if she’s already brought you to your knees. Or have you brought her to her knees?”
Luke’s mind spun off the rails remembering Lexi going down on him. “Both. But Tristan has me under a fucking interrogation lamp. I dumped so much of the hotel on him and now he’s counting on me.”
“And what’s the problem? Sounds like it will be consensual with this girl.”
Girl. Student. God, she was too young for him, right?
He drew a quivering breath. “I don’t think I can be the good guy, here. Not yet. Not like this. I’m not ready to be on every minute of every day. Get it?” All night when the only thing new couples thought about was getting off, sure. He was a grumpy son of a bitch when something went wrong. Anything and everything happened in a hotel. Dealing with the public was damn unpredictable. “I can’t take this chance with someone so important to get this deal done. I wanted to take things slow with her. Ease myself into the idea of being in a relationship.”
“And you think she wanted a commitment? Plenty of girls don’t, you know.” Gray raised a bushy eyebrow at him and grabbed the towel again now using it to swab up the left-over oil.
“When she found out it was me she was working for, she figured we’d just pick up where we left off. She was all over me. I almost broke. She has this power over me, Gray. I can barely make eye contact with her without losing it and wanting to drag her down to the carpet and...”
“Yeah?” Gray licked his lips, his dick tenting the towel now.
Good fucking grief. “You know how that ends. It just can’t happen now. I feel like I have no choice but to be horrible to her.” He pushed away the regret of speaking to her so coldly. Lexi’s sweet body and floral scent could rev them up to one hundred miles per hour. And when they hit a brick wall, there would be no survivors. “She’s young. I bet she’s never had her heart broken before. She may not understand why I might need to take things slow. She still has those stars in her eyes about love.”
“Love? You love her?” The shock in Gray’s voice set him back.
Luke scrubbed his damp hair from the steamy shower. “I can’t, right? It’s too soon. Part of me trembles when she’s near, my body hums, man. It’s visceral. I want to possess her and... What?” he asked when his brother stared at him like he had ten heads.
“Why are we keeping this self-torture from Tristan?” Gray asked, passing him smelling of lavender and oranges.
“This may be the thing that makes him stop talking to me,” he admitted shamefully. “I’ve lost two assistants in two months, then he finds me another one, one he’s excited about because he thinks she’ll help me, help us get that partnership agreement done on time and now here I am thinking of the all the ways I can violate her. I’m not ready. I’ll mess it up and she’ll quit, too.”
“Maybe she won’t quit,” Gray said, shrugging. “Women have become very empowered when it comes to sex. You and Tristan seem to have missed it.”
“Yeah, because we’ve been working, dickhead.”
He let his brother get dressed unable to bear seeing a perfect twenty-nine-year-old naked body. Luke was in phenomenal shape, but guys in their twenties had a whole different lean build.<
br />
A knock on the apartment’s front door dragged his self-pity thoughts away. He let a breath of relief go, when it was the housekeeper, but he inwardly cursed recognizing the woman who cleaned his place. He really liked how she took care of him and Luke worried Gray’s mess would piss her off.
He knocked on the bedroom door and said, “The housekeeper’s here, please come out with pants on.”
The door opened and Gray stood there in jeans, but shirtless. “Relax.” That was probably the best he was going to do.
“Can we talk about something else, while I’m hiding up here?”
“Sure.” His brother swayed back into the living room. “Where’s the scotch?”
“I put it back in the cabinet. I poured us each one glass.”
Gray scoffed and grabbed the bottle. “It’s nice out, let’s sit on the balcony.”
After a moment of relaxing in the early spring sunshine, he let the burn of the scotch awaken his senses. “Do you have...night terrors at all?” he asked Gray.
His brother shook his head. “Then again, I’m so shitfaced when my head hits the pillow, if I do, they don’t wake me up.”
Jesus. His brother had a drinking problem, didn’t he? He had to talk to Tristan about this.
“Dad had nightmares,” Gray added.
“I didn’t know that.” He wondered why his father had never mentioned it. “How do you know that?”
“Mom told me. I heard dad screaming one night. I knocked on the door to see if they were okay.”
Luke scoffed and took a sip. After the burn, he said, “You could have been interrupting them having sex.”
“I was six, I didn’t know what sex was.” Gray fiddled with the bottle. “Mom had told me Dad was having nightmares.”
“Interesting.” He wondered what had been stressing his dad out. Spending so much time at the hotel and not being a father to his sons, or a decent husband? Was that how the brain let you know you weren’t living the best life you could? Watching his brother struggle, Luke was surprised Gray wasn’t tortured too. “When was the last time you worked, G?”
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