by Marie Carnay
Hank’s lips contorted into a snarl as he charged. Trenton backed up, hands in front of his face but Hank was too strong, too mad. He landed full-force, body slamming hard enough into Trenton’s chest to knock him back into the wall. A picture rattled and shook and crashed to the floor, glass spraying everywhere.
Hank crushed him against the sheetrock, pinning him down with his hands on his shoulders. He stared at him with pain and anger in his blue eyes.
“You bought her jewelry, Trenton. Not some buyer from a chain of stores. Not some independent person who thought her work could sell. You!” Hank slammed his fist into Trenton’s ribs, punching the air right out of his lungs.
Trenton coughed and sputtered and Hank released him as he doubled over, clutching his middle. His knees hit the carpet as Hank’s words sank in.
His brother wiped a smear of blood off the corner of his mouth. “I went to the trade show this afternoon and who should I run into, but Dawn. She’s standing there, Trenton, and I’m so confused. I’m thinking maybe Willa asked for your help to pack up or Dawn offered to help her pack.”
Trenton tried talk, but Hank talked over him. “So I go up to Dawn and guess what? She pretends not to know me.”
The room spun and Trenton grabbed the edge of the couch for support as he sucked in painful gulps of air.
“She’s been our PA for what, five years? I think she’d recognize me, Trenton.” Hank shook his head in disgust. “So I ask a few questions and that’s when it all comes together.”
Trenton stared at his brother, still reeling from the last punch. Still on his knees. “I did what needed to be done.”
“Bullshit.”
With a grimace, Trenton staggered to his feet. “No one was going to buy Willa’s collection, Hank.”
“You don’t know that. You didn’t even give her a chance.”
“She’d have been down there all day worried and focused on her business. We’d never have gotten to know her.”
“So you lied.”
Trenton swallowed a mix of spit and blood. “I omitted a few details.”
“You never thought to consult me? To ask me whether I thought this was a good idea?”
“You would have said no.”
Hank almost snarled. “Because that’s the right call.”
Trenton tongued his swelling cheek. “You’ve always been too cautious. Too careful. I’m the one with new ideas, remember? I’m the one who thinks out of the box and innovates.”
Hank stepped forward. “What about all the times you’ve failed, Trenton?” Hank held up his hand, finger poised to count them off. “One, the twenty-four-hour water park. Two, the nudist retreat just off the strip. Three, the themed nightclub. Four—”
Trenton cut him off. “None of that matters.”
Hank grimaced. “Of course it matters.”
“This isn’t business, Hank. This is…” Trenton didn’t want to voice what was in his heart. What this whole thing with Willa had become. All he knew was that they weren’t going to lose her because of what he’d done.
If it hadn’t been for him, they’d never have had the opportunity to fall for her in the first place. Hank had to understand that. He had to know that Trenton did what he did out of love, not selfishness or greed.
His brother stepped around the broken glass and made his way into the kitchen. Trenton watched from the living room as Hank grabbed a pair of dishtowels and handfuls of ice from the freezer.
Wrapping the cubes up in the white towels, Hank stayed silent, eyes on the task.
Trenton didn’t know what was going through Hank’s mind, but he wouldn’t have come at him if he didn’t want Willa in their lives as badly as Trenton did. They hadn’t fought like this. Not ever.
They might have tussled a few times as kids, even given each other a black eye once or twice. But Hank had never had rage in his eyes when he stared Trenton down. He’d never looked at him like he wanted to kill him.
Trenton waited until Hank finished with the towels to ask what he needed to know.
“Do you love her?”
Hank scooped up the icepacks and walked back into the living room. He held one out for Trenton before answering. “More than I thought possible.”
“I love her, too.”
“Then you shouldn’t have fucked it all up.”
Trenton put the ice on his growing bruise with a scowl. Damn, that hurts. “I didn’t fuck anything up. Dawn will make sure her collection is in a set of our stores, we’ll gauge customer reactions, see what interest there is and move them if necessary.”
“You aren’t a jewelry buyer, Trenton, you don’t know the first thing about it.”
“It can’t be harder than running casinos.”
“We agreed years ago that we weren’t those types of owners. That we weren’t going to stick our noses in the details like that. We have buyers for a reason, Trenton. Why couldn’t you have just contacted one of them?”
Trenton exhaled. Hank had a point. Ever since they agreed to open casino-run stores, they’d decided to keep them independent. The more agency they gave their departments, the better they performed. And here he’d gone and done exactly the opposite.
He turned to the window. The Strip stretched out below him, casino after casino lighting up the evening with their garish neon and beckoning displays. Every door enticing gamblers and tourists to step inside and part with their money.
Everything moved so fast in Vegas. If you didn’t pounce on an opportunity, someone else would. “I wasn’t thinking straight. All I could see was the chance to get to know Willa slipping away. If we hadn’t freed up her time, if she hadn’t been riding the high of getting the contract…”
“Then she’d have walked away from us.” His brother came to stand next to him. He looked down on the same street with a frown. Gone was the fire from before. His shoulders slumped as he held the ice to his knuckles.
At last, Hank spoke. “I understand why you did it. But I still think it was a mistake. When she finds out what you’ve done…”
“I’ll what?”
Trenton and his brother spun around at the same time.
Willa stood on the edge of the living room, her eyes wide as she took in the scene. “Tell me. What have you done?”
Chapter 19
WILLA
She’d never seen anything like it. Glass and blood and what looked like coffee were splattered and flung all over the penthouse apartment. Hank’s knuckles were raw and bleeding, Trenton’s face had swelled like he’d shoved a tennis ball in his cheek, and both brothers looked like they’d been through hell.
But it wasn’t the obvious aftermath of a fight that made Willa’s heart race and her fingers twitch. It was the tail end of the conversation she’d walked in on. They were talking about her and whatever had happened this afternoon, whatever they’d done…
It wasn’t good.
“Don’t just stand there staring at me. Tell me what the hell is going on. Were you two fighting?”
Hank closed his eyes. Trenton rolled his lips over his teeth. Neither one said a word.
Damn it. As soon as she’d come upon their open door and saw the debris in the kitchen, she knew something was wrong. Them saying nothing only made it worse.
She crossed her arms and steadied herself. “Just spit it out or I’m leaving.”
“Before you do anything, just hear me out, okay?” Trenton stepped forward, his face racked with pain and worry. “I need you to have an open mind.”
Willa laughed, but not with joy. “I’ve been shacking up with a pair of brothers who own half of Las Vegas, I think I’ve got that covered.”
“Trenton bought your collections. It wasn’t an independent buyer.”
What? That couldn’t be possible. Ms. Hopkins said she worked for a chain of stores and that her boss had seen her display and…
Trenton whirled around, hot on his brother. “Damn it, Hank! I was going to tell her. You didn’t need to drop it like a b
omb.”
Trenton turned back to her, words flying out of his mouth, but Willa couldn’t hear over the rushing of blood in her ears.
She made her way over to Hank. He stood in front of the window, the backdrop of sin city lighting up as night fell around them. His fists were clenched, blood still oozing from his skin as he stared at her.
“Say that again.”
His voice dropped to a monotone, barely above a whisper. “The woman you spoke with today, Dawn? She’s not a buyer. She’s our personal assistant. Trenton set the whole thing up.”
Something cracked inside her. She thought of the woman at the bar who’d told her their PA had set them up. How they only ever dated a girl for a few weeks before they moved on. But it couldn’t be true. They couldn’t have done all this.
“You’re lying.” She turned to Trenton. “Tell me he’s lying.”
“I’m sorry, Willa. I was going to tell you.”
“No. No, no, no, no. It’s not true. She made me sign a contract. She gave me a list of the stores my pieces would be showcased in.” Willa stepped back, her shoes crunching on shards of glass.
“The stores are real. Your jewelry will be in them. It’s just not… She wasn’t…” Trenton reached for her, but as she shrugged away, he dropped his hand. “Dawn is our PA, but she’s as good as any buyer, hell, she’s better. We’ve got control over the stores, we can tell them what to feature. It’s a guaranteed placement, Willa.”
She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. All this time, all these days she’d spent in their bed. Kissing them, touching them, letting them…
All the words Mark used to say… All the times he plied her with kisses and soft touches and then told her what to wear and how to act.
She remembered one of their last nights together. She’d changed into a sexy black dress and pulled her hair off her neck. She had wanted the date to be special, to rekindle a bit of the fire they had lost.
He’d walked in, hands running up and down the length of her. A single kiss and then he’d unzipped her dress. At first, she’d thought it meant he wanted her, but then he’d dropped the bomb.
“No girlfriend of mine is leaving the house dressed like that. Wear something nice, not trashy. And let down your hair.”
She’d done as he wanted, but it had been the beginning of the end. She wasn’t some guy’s plaything. She wasn’t a doll to dress up and pose and play with when convenient.
Willa stepped back, her heart breaking. “You did this just so I’d sleep with you.”
“No!” Trenton grabbed her shirt, clinging to it as he bent to catch her eye. “I did it so you could get to know us. So you could see we could make a threesome work. So you would decide at the end of your trip to stay.”
Willa pried his fingers off the floral fabric one by one. “No. You did it to get in my pants.”
“I don’t know how to get you to understand. There’s nothing wrong with what I did.” Trenton ran his hand through his hair. “Your collection is sold, you got what you wanted out of the convention. Now you can relax and enjoy yourself. You don’t need to worry.”
Willa couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Don’t you get it? Or are you so sheltered up in your ivory tower that you can’t see what this means?” She poked Trenton in the chest. “I wanted to sell my collection, Trenton. Me. On my own.”
“You did.”
“No. You took that chance from me. You made the choice. And I just stood there like an idiot and let you do it.” She dropped her hand and stepped back.
All those times Mark had insisted on making the decisions. All those times he’d just told her what to wear and how to act and what to say. She’d gone along with it because she thought she loved him. She thought he loved her.
But it was all a lie, just like this. “You don’t want a woman, Trenton. You want a plaything.”
“That’s not true.” Hank’s voice warbled on the last word. “If I had known what Trenton had planned, I’d have never let him do it. I know how important selling the collection on your own was, Willa. And you still can. We can rip up the contract. We can connect you with some buyers in town. I’m sure our suppliers…”
“I don’t need your charity, Hank.”
“That’s not what I’m offering.” He stepped closer, his brown eyes shimmering with hurt. “Think of it as a do-over. We can set up some meetings, make some calls. It’ll be like the trade show all over again.”
“And what if no one is interested?”
Trenton spoke up. “Then we can feature you in one of our shops. In any casino we own. You name it, we’ll do it.”
She shook her head. “You think you can just buy me? That I’m going to be one of those trophy women with a shop that her boyfriend pays for so she has something to do with her time? Think again. I’m not.”
“Then what do you want?”
“I want real. I want honest. I want someone who wants me for who I am and not what they can make me into.”
“That’s what we want too, Willa.” Hank waited until she looked him in the eye. “The first minute I saw you I knew you were different. You didn’t want us because we could buy you diamonds and take you out on the town. You saw past my suit and watch and nice shoes to the real me.”
She didn’t want to hear any more of it. “Stop.”
“No.” He swallowed the distance between them in a single step. “I love you, Willa. Please don’t give up on us. Trenton made a mistake, but we can put it right.”
“I love you, too, Willa.” She forced herself to look at Trenton as he spoke. “It’s why I asked Dawn to buy your collection. It’s why I wanted you off the trade room floor. It wasn’t because I wanted to own you or tell you what to do. Don’t you understand? I just wanted to be with you, as much as I could. As long as I could.”
Trenton reached out, fingers brushing her cheek. “Don’t you remember how good we are together? How good we make you feel?”
Her eyelids fluttered as Trenton’s hand wound down her neck. How many times had she crawled back into bed with Mark when he’d done the same thing?
No. I’m not letting them distract me.
She shoved his hand away. “You can’t just seduce me back into your bed.”
“Then what can I do? How can I convince you to give us another chance?”
“You can’t.”
“Don’t give up so easily, Willa. We can make this work.”
She threw her arms out. “Look at this place. Look at the two of you. You’re both bleeding, there’s glass all over, and you expect me to think this would all just work out? That a few I’m sorry’s and we’ll find a way to fix it and I’ll just hop into bed with you and forget my life back home?”
The more she thought about it, the madder she got. They were playing games, just like Mark. They probably didn’t care about her at all, not really. “My flight’s tomorrow and I’m getting on it.”
“What time does it leave?”
She glanced at Hank. “Nine-thirty tomorrow night.”
He looked at his watch. “Give us twenty-four hours to make it right. If you’re not satisfied, then you’ll have plenty of time to catch your plane.”
Willa hesitated.
“Please, Willa. Twenty-four hours.”
The anguish in Trenton’s voice pulled at her heart. She couldn’t shut down her emotions, no matter how hard she tried. “Fine. But that’s all and then I’m getting on my flight.”
Chapter 20
HANK
It had been the worst night of his life. Watching Willa walk out the door, with hurt on her face and unshed tears in her eyes, had crushed him.
He knew Trenton meant well. After Willa left, they’d stayed up most of the night, hashing it all out. His brother loved Willa as much as he did.
They were in so deep, neither one of them could see a future without her.
His knuckles stung as he slid on his jacket, but the injuries were superficial. Even the swelling in Trenton’s ch
eek had disappeared. He’d have a nasty bruise for a while, but it served him right. If they couldn’t find a way to win Willa’s trust, Trenton’s cheek would be a hell of a lot more than bruised by the time he finished with him.
Early that morning, Hank had set out to create a plan. So far, he’d come up empty. They had to do something big. Something that would show her not only how much she meant to them, but would take the sting out of losing out on the trade show.
Willa wouldn’t listen to another apology, Hank knew that.
He walked into the convention center and looked around. Most of the tables were bare. A few women stood around packing up displays and chatting. The buyers were gone.
He’d missed any chance at finding an independent purchaser for Willa’s collection.
Damn Trenton.
Hank walked the aisles, eyes glazed over as he grasped at nothing.
“Willa hasn’t been here this morning, if you’re looking for her.”
He stopped and glanced up. The woman he’d met a few days before smiled at him as she folded up a table cloth. “Melinda, right?”
She nodded. “I’m surprised you remember. When I met you, you only had eyes for Willa.”
“Still do.”
“Well, looks like the Vegas trip was a huge success for her.”
“Right.” Hank ran his fingers over the fresh scab on his knuckle. On the surface it did look like that, but Hank knew Willa’s business had been dealt a nasty blow. He stared at the empty table where her display had been.
If only he could take it back and stop Trenton before he made such a massive mistake.
“Something wrong?”
He hedged. “Turns out it hasn’t been that great of a trip after all.”
Melinda paused. “What more could Willa want? She met a new guy, had a ton of interest in her jewelry. Before you know it, she’ll probably be a household name.”
Not without a contract, she won’t. Hank exhaled. The trade show was a dead end, and he was running out of time. He turned to go, but something Melinda said made him pause. “You said there was a lot of interest in her jewelry?”