“Nothing to be sorry for,” he said. His eyes held hers for an intense second, pure electricity, before he moved back to let her pass easily. “It’s been a pleasure talking with you, Julia. I’ll be interested in hearing what you have to say when you’re done singing. I’ll wait for you at my table.” He shook her hand again and the feel of his skin against hers brought another lick of desire. All of her girly parts were doing a little dance. He smiled genially, then shook Kelvin’s hand before they walked back toward the dressing room.
Kelvin was silent until they reached the room and he’d locked the door. Then he spun around and exclaimed, “Is he fucking for real?!?”
She laughed nervously. “He claims he is. But Kel . . . anything that seems too good to be true? Usually is.”
“Shut up and sit down, woman,” Kelvin sputtered. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket as he pulled her down to sit with him on the couch. “Let’s give our foxy Mister Harrison a quick Google, shall we? The audience can wait five more minutes.” His eyes were wild as they swept over her. “He is beautiful. Good Lord, did you see his eyes? Are those not the bluest eyes you’ve ever seen? I almost swooned. No, I am swooning. I am in midswoon.”
Julia giggled and shook her head. “You’re shameless.”
“And that hair! He’s got curls so sweet, I could . . . oh, honey, I could.”
“I don’t think you’re his type, sweetie,” Julia said, glad to be laughing. She hadn’t realized how tense and wired she’d been until now. “Sorry.”
“No, I’m not. He wants you.” Kelvin waggled his dark brows. “The heat between you two could’ve caused third-degree burns in spectators.”
Startled at her friend’s observation, she sat up straighter. “Well, even if you were right, which you’re not, it’s not going to happen. If I take him up on his offer, he’ll be my boss. So end of story.”
“Famous last words,” Kelvin said dismissively as he scrolled on his phone. “Harrison . . . Harrison . . . if he’s the real deal, you just stepped into the best offer of your life!” He stopped, and his eyes flew wide. “Oh. Mah. Gah. Look at this, honey.”
She leaned against his arm to look at his phone. There were many pictures of Dane Harrison. At various hotel openings and celebrity events, in news articles on business Web sites, and even a few paparazzi shots of him with a few gorgeous models and society darlings, women who lived in the same stratosphere he did.
Kelvin tapped one of the links and began reading out loud. “Harrison Enterprises is a multimillion dollar international conglomerate . . . four generations . . . and . . .” Kelvin’s eyes went as wide as they could go, practically popping out of his head. “Holy shit. He is big-time, honey. Big. Time. His family is worth millions. Millions of millions. That sizzling piece of man candy was born into old-school money. And grew up right here, over in Kingston Point.”
Julia had driven past Kingston Point, but never actually through the small community. Why would she? It was home to some of the wealthiest, most powerful people in all of New York—in all of the United States. “Gatsby country,” Randi called it. Kingston Point was the jewel of Long Island’s famous Gold Coast.
Kelvin kept skimming and talking. “Went to top schools . . . yada yada . . . then he went out and founded his own company and made his own million dollar empire . . . sweet Jesus.” Kelvin let out a puff of air that resembled a yelp. “According to this article, Dane Harrison owns seventeen hotels across the U.S., and three in Canada. This new hotel he’s opening? His ‘labor of love’, the one he’s always wanted to open. The hotel is real. The job offer is real. He’s for real.” Kelvin and Julia stared at each other for a minute.
“And he wants to hire me?” she finally said.
“Damn right,” Kelvin said firmly. “Shows that man is more than pretty, he’s smart, too. Knows a diamond when he sees one.”
“Shut up,” she mumbled, trying to absorb everything that was happening. Her heartbeat started roaring in her ears.
“Holy shit, Jules. Holy fucking shit!” Kelvin whooped loudly, his short dreads swinging as he threw his hands in the air. “Um, Miss Thang? Tell me something. Why am I more excited than you are?”
“Because I don’t trust anything that seems this amazing,” she said.
He blew out a disdainful snort and went back to scrolling furiously on his phone. “Honey, you don’t trust anything, period.”
“Well, more specifically, I don’t trust men,” she corrected him. She put her hand on his knee. “But I trust you.”
He stopped cold and looked up at her. With great affection, he slid his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. “I know you do. And I love you too. But listen to me. You’re going to take that job, even if he decides he doesn’t want me in the deal. You hear me?” His smile warmed. “You’re an angel for wanting me to do this with you, and it would be a ball. But if he only wants to hire you, baby, you have to do it. Come on, Jules. There’s no thought process here. Let’s see what else we can find out about him, shall we?” He leaned in to smack a loud kiss on her forehead and she couldn’t help but giggle.
Julia exhaled the breath she’d been holding and tried to organize her thoughts. All her worst mistakes had been things she’d done on instinct, giving in to her feelings rather than facts that were right there had she opened her eyes wide enough to see them. She didn’t want to repeat her past mistakes. She got to her feet. “I drank a lot. I have to pee. You keep looking.”
As she slipped into the tiny bathroom, she realized her breaths were coming in short puffs of excitement and her heart was pounding against her ribs. The possibilities of a job like this . . . it was all so overwhelming. Yet something in her knew she’d be a fool not to go for it. She was forty-one now, with no one to answer to and nothing to stop her. She’d made sure of that.
She also had no life.
She’d turned self-isolation into an art form. If it wasn’t for Randi and Kelvin pulling her back out into the world on a regular basis, and her singing job at the bar, she’d probably go home from work every night, hole up, and not leave her apartment. She’d have turned into a lonely old cat lady. Without the cats, of course. She was highly allergic.
So why not? The timing was right. The setting of the job, if Dane’s description was accurate, was a dream. And making a hundred grand a year, or even the initially offered eighty, if he went back to that? She’d never made money like that in her life. She could bank enough to finally have a tiny but solid cushion for the first time ever.
Dane Harrison thought she was all that? It both surprised and thrilled her. She certainly thought he was all that, though she’d be damned if she’d ever let him know it. He and his offer were certainly tempting. If she could just stay away from him . . . which would be a challenge, considering the inexplicable, rousing draw she’d felt toward him almost the instant they met, and the unavoidable fact that he’d be her boss. But to sing in a new, glamorous Manhattan hotel a few nights a week, and be paid well, was a job most singers would kill for.
Maybe her luck was changing at long last. Maybe it was all another bomb waiting to explode in her face. But she’d survived bomb blasts before, much worse than a job not working out. How bad could it be?
Only one way to find out.
She caught her reflection in the bathroom mirror and smiled widely.
Chapter Three
“Dane?” Tess asked. “Do you ever want to get married?”
He blinked in surprise at his sister. “What? Where did that come from?”
“I want to know too,” said Charles Harrison III, staring at her through his black-rimmed glasses. “That’s an interesting question, especially for this guy.” He gestured toward Dane with his chin.
Laughter bubbled out of Tess’s mouth. “You two! You’d think I asked, ‘Hey, wanna go get our kidneys pulled out?’ Jeez.” She shot a look at Dane and added, “Don’t look so terrified. I’m not trying to set you up with anyone, nothing like that. I was just think
ing about some things, and that led to other things, and long story short, I realized I honestly have no idea if you ever give serious thought to getting married.”
Dane shrugged, sat back in his chair, and lazily crossed one long leg over the other. “Not really. I don’t give it any thought at all, actually.”
He grinned, enjoying the sensation of being truly relaxed. Spending some down time with his siblings always made him feel that way, feel more grounded. They weren’t just his older brother and younger sister; they were truly his two best friends. He was glad Tess had asked him to come out and spend the day with her, and even more so when Charles had decided to join them for dinner—without his three surly kids in tow. Time alone, just the three of them, was more and more rare lately.
Sipping his Cabernet, Dane let his gaze wander along his family’s majestically landscaped property. Up on a slight hill, a hundred or so yards across the expansive emerald lawn, was the Main House—which had always struck him as a funny title, considering it was a twenty-seven-room Georgian mansion. It stood proudly, a testament to four generations of Harrison work and rewards. His father still lived there, but only with a small household staff. The mighty Charles Harrison II had lived there alone since throwing their mother out almost two decades earlier.
Tess had moved back from Manhattan and into the guest cottage two years before, a picturesque four-bedroom house that shared the back property before dipping to the small cliff that overlooked the Long Island Sound. Dane had always loved that vista, one of the very best things about the magnificent estate. Now, the three of them sat outside on her back patio after a delicious dinner Tess had made, enjoying some wine as the sound of the water just beyond lulled them into a state of serenity. The late May sun glowed orange as it dipped slowly into the horizon, turning the sky over the Long Island Sound into streaky shades of purple, hot pink, and deep blue. The briny scent of the Sound carried up on the warm breeze that blew across the estate’s tremendous backyard—all ten acres of it.
“You’re evading the question, Golden Boy,” Charles teased.
“He’s never quiet. I think I scared him witless,” Tess taunted.
Dane chuckled. “I ain’t a-skeered of you two. I ain’t a-skeered o’ nothin’.”
“Still avoiding,” Tess singsonged.
“I guess I’m not morally opposed to getting married, if I genuinely thought I’d found the right woman,” Dane hedged. “But hey. All three of us are single, and with good reasons.” He kept his tone jaunty. “Besides, wouldn’t it be bordering on cruelty to drag someone into our clan? Who in their right mind would want to become a part of the Harrison family dramas?”
“He makes an excellent point,” Charles conceded, and took a swallow of his wine.
“And, well, my standards are too high. And I work a lot. And I travel . . . Hell, I’ve met so many amazing women, why should I have to choose just one?” Dane grinned as his brother and sister laughed at that. “Not to mention: after our parents’ debacle of a marriage and shitstorm of a divorce, and then you doing the same thing, Charles, I don’t need to follow along that path, you know? And then you, Tess, your broken engagement, all that ugliness after . . . I’ve seen enough.”
“More excellent points,” Tess allowed with a sigh. Charles nodded in agreement.
“So, yeah, I’m thinking it’s unlikely I’ll dive into that.” Dane shrugged. “But never say never, right? Like I said, I don’t think about it, to be honest. It’s not on my to-do list. I’m too busy living my life.”
“Fair enough,” Charles said. He glanced at their sister who sat between them and added, “I think he more than answered your out-of-nowhere question.”
“He did indeed.” Tess raised her glass in a toast. “To the Harrison legacy of shitty marriages: may it now be over.” Her brothers both clinked their glasses to hers before they all drank.
“So Tess . . .” Dane eyed her, choosing his words carefully. “It’s been two years since that broken engagement. What about you? Have you recovered from that disaster enough to consider ever getting married?”
“Touché, my dear.” Her usually warm voice turned cold and her face tightened. “But no. I don’t think I’ll be getting married, for most of the same reasons as you. Except for all the women, of course. I live a monk’s life compared to you.”
Charles let out a guffaw. “We all do, are you kidding?”
“Shut up,” Dane said. “I’m not that bad.”
Both siblings started laughing.
“Shut up!” Dane said, half amused, half annoyed.
Charles laughed even harder and dabbed at the corner of his eye. Dane glanced over at his brother. Charles rarely laughed like that anymore. He was so stressed all the time, his mind filled with all the things that went along with being the COO of a multimillion-dollar conglomerate and the heir to a family dynasty. Charles never had fun unless Dane was around. If Dane had to be the butt of a joke to get Charles to laugh like that once in a while, he had no problem with that.
After finally composing himself, Charles let out a deep, cleansing exhale and asked, “Can we talk about something else now?”
“When’s the last time either of you spoke to Mom?” Dane asked.
“Last week,” Tess said. “I called her to say Happy Mother’s Day. We spoke for about ten minutes. You?”
“Same,” Dane said.
“That’s three for three, then,” Charles said. “We’re all wonderful children.”
“I got an e-mail from her today,” Dane went on. “I’d invited her to the hotel opening. She wanted to let me know she won’t be able to make it.”
“What a shock,” Charles remarked dryly, and finished the last of his wine.
Dane smirked. “Yeah. She and Rick will be on a cruise of the Greek islands for the last two weeks of June—so sorry, darling.”
Tess sighed. “She has her own life.”
“She does indeed,” Dane said. He’d given up hoping his mother would come around years ago. Laura Dunham Harrison Evans Bainsley was all about one thing: Laura.
“Speaking of living their own life and ignoring the rest of the family,” Charles quipped, “anyone hear from Pierce recently?”
Dane laughed at the mention of their estranged youngest brother. “Nice segue, Chuckles.”
“I hate when you call me that,” Charles said with a good-humored scowl.
“I know you do,” Dane said. “That’s the bonus.”
“I text with him regularly,” Tess said, referring to Pierce. “You guys could too, if you wanted to.”
“He and I have very little to say to each other,” Charles said flatly.
Tess frowned at him. “There are four of us. You should try to reach out more than you do.”
“Stop,” Charles said. “Pierce is a grown man now. He’s capable of checking in too, Tess. He doesn’t contact us because he doesn’t want to. The only one in the family he gives a shit about is you. This isn’t news.”
Dane reached for the bottle of wine and refilled his glass. “Either of you want more?”
“No more for me, thanks,” Tess said. “You know one glass is my limit.”
“Top me off, old boy,” Charles said, imitating their father’s voice precisely, bringing smirks from Dane and Tess.
Dane filled his brother’s glass, then placed the bottle back on the small table beside him. “I sent him an e-mail last week inviting him to the hotel opening. He also declined.”
“Really?” Tess looked genuinely surprised. “I’m . . . I’m sorry. It’s a big deal for you. I hoped maybe Pierce would—”
“Apparently not.” Dane shrugged. “He’s playing that week, can’t get off. It’s cool.” He wasn’t going to let on that he’d actually suffered a twinge of disappointment when he’d gotten Pierce’s response. He was proud of his younger brother. Pierce was a wild child, but he was also a semifamous soccer star in Europe, for Chrissake. That was a major achievement, which almost offset the bad-boy behavior. Bu
t he kept Dane at arm’s length, like he did everyone, except for Tess.
Pierce had left home at eighteen and never looked back. Dane didn’t blame him. After the divorce, their mother had been driven out of their lives, and the relationship between Pierce and their father was horrendous. If it weren’t for Tess, whom Pierce practically worshipped, he’d probably never come back to the States—as it was, he only returned home for Christmas, and that was it.
But Dane had always tried to stay in contact with his younger brother. Things like texting and e-mail made it easier; they could keep in touch without having to actually talk. And Dane tried. Hell, when Tess had asked Dane to come with her to London for the 2012 Olympics, he’d gone gladly, looking to have a good time. But Pierce had shocked him; he’d gone with them to at least one sporting event every day, and had dinner with them almost every night. It had been an amazing two weeks, and the most time the brothers had spent together as adults. Dane hoped they’d maybe turned a corner, where Pierce would be more open to him . . . but apparently not.
“It bothers you,” Tess murmured, her gaze on Dane unrelenting. “You were hoping he’d come, weren’t you?”
“I didn’t think he would,” Dane said earnestly. “I just wanted him to know he was invited. That he was welcome.”
“And as usual, he tossed your olive branch back at you,” Charles said. “Why are you surprised? Pierce has an attitude problem, always has. He doesn’t care if—”
“Knock it off, Charles,” Tess warned. “I can call him, Dane. I can tell him—”
“Nope. Not necessary, Tesstastic. Like Charles said, Pierce is a big boy. And so am I. It’s fine.” Dane stretched his long legs out in front of him and eased back in his seat. “Come on, we’re enjoying a beautiful sunset here. Breathe in that salty air. Look at the trees. Drink more wine. It’s all good.”
The three of them sat in silence for a minute, taking in the late spring evening. The quiet was interrupted by a series of sharp barks from inside the house.
More Than You Know Page 4