by Kira Blakely
Then I became aware of the hunger. I remembered that we’d never finished our dinner; at least I hadn’t. I had my hands full trying to corral Collin from embarrassing me. I felt sorry for Stephanie. She had hitched her caboose to the wrong train. I could tell she was jealous of Harper. Who wouldn’t be? She was beautiful, intelligent, had a great sense of humor and a spirit for fun. Stephanie would do better to hang close to Harper, not compete with her. It was certainly what was appealing to me; that spirit of fun.
I had some tough decisions to make. I could tell that Collin wasn’t going to go away—not ever, and no matter what kind of deals I made. He knew it. We both did. My bribing him with a year on me had only delayed the next battle. When that time came, he’d show up, make an ass of himself and I’d be back to shielding him. I wished I hated him. But Campbells couldn’t do that. Kin stuck together and the black sheep always came out on top.
I texted my chef and asked him to send up a special breakfast for Harper and myself. She was beginning to stir next to me.
“Hey, sleepyhead. Did you sleep well?”
“I think so, from what I remember, that is.”
“Me, too. I guess it was that late-night recreation.” I grinned, patting her bottom. “I’d like to put in a standing order, if you don’t mind.”
She rolled over. “Hmmm… we’ll have to talk about that.” She was in her playful mood; the one I liked the best. This was the girl from high school, the one who was up for anything.
“Well, pull yourself together because Chef is sending us up a breakfast cart.”
“Oops!” She rolled out of the bed, and I heard the bathroom door close as there came a knock.
I answered the door and found a tall young man in a monogrammed jacket with a cart laden with covered dishes. “Hello. Jeremy, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Campbell. Good morning to you.”
“Thank you, Jeremy. Has Chef sent up something palatable?”
“Oh, yes, sir. I watched him prepare it and if you don’t want it, I’ll be glad to help you out,” he joked.
“Well, Jeremy, when you go back, tell Chef I said he is to fix you a special lunch; anything you like, on me.”
“Oh, sir, couldn’t do that, sir.”
“Why is that?”
“Well, sir, it would make the others jealous. Preferential treatment, you understand. Make them feel bad and they’d get back at me, in little ways.”
I nodded. “Jeremy, thank you for breakfast and thank you for the wisdom. You may have just given me an answer to a problem.”
Harper emerged as I shut the door behind Jeremy. “What problem is that?” she asked, toweling her hair. She’d taken a shower and was standing naked, her skin glowing from the sun and her magnificent hair like a halo about her. I closed the distance between us and took each breast into my mouth.
“None, now,” I murmured, running my hands over her soft skin.
“Bray, stop now. We’re both hungry and a perfectly beautiful meal is sitting right there and you must have work to do. Someone to supervise or some detail to see to.”
“You make me sound like a workaholic.”
“Well? If the shoe fits.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Oh, Bray, come on. You have more money than you could ever spend and yet you still come here every day and work longer hours and harder than anyone on your payroll. Why is that? You must be getting something out of it.”
She had a point and it added to the realization I’d had upon waking.
“Okay, assuming there’s a shred of truth in that, what would you do if you were me?”
“I don’t know. That’s for everyone to decide for themselves. Knit stockings or serve food at the homeless shelter or study the mating habits of a snail; I don’t care. I don’t have your money, but I’m choosing to do something that makes me happy.”
“And that is?”
She looked at me like I’d missed the entire premise of a movie. “Haven’t you been listening?”
“You’ve never been really impassioned, it was easy to miss.”
She lowered her voice into an even tone one might use with a young child. “I’m going to build a dating website. I’ve explained it to you before,” she enunciated with exaggeration.
“Oh, that.”
“Yeah, oh, that. Did you think I was going to spend the rest of my life living in your guest cottage?”
“Hadn’t really thought about it.”
She suddenly went quiet and then it occurred to me that I probably shouldn’t have said that. “Well, you know, Harper, I want you to figure out what you want.”
“No problem. I want to build my website but if that interferes with what you need me to do, let me know and I’ll move along. I need something with a future.”
The words hung between us like icicles on a polar day. Our minds were screaming the words but would not let us speak them. So, it stopped and turned a corner.
“Are you coming back or just staying here today?” she asked me.
“I’ve got a change of clothes here, unless you’d like me to go with you home.”
“Nope. I’m fine. I need to get some things done anyway.”
We finished our meal with the news on the television. It was a barrier to verbal mistakes and we both appreciated that. I had no idea what to say or where we stood. The larger problem was my brother and until that was resolved, I really couldn’t make future plans. I just hoped she could live with that. God, but I hoped she could live with that.
I walked Harper down to the dock and put her safely into Captain Bob’s capable hands before returning to my office. I texted Collin and asked if he had a minute to stop in. I knew he’d probably been up all night so there was a good chance I wouldn’t hear from him until the afternoon, which actually gave me more time to think about how I was going to word my proposition.
The bus boy, Jeremy, had innocently presented a point of view I’d not yet considered. Was it possible that Collin was acting out because he felt like a failure? As my elder brother, it would have made more sense that he’d be helping me out, instead of the other way around. I couldn’t spend my life running interference between him and my own reputation and there had to be something out there that would be a greater incentive to him than screwing with my life. Was Collin feeling left out? Worthless? Were people giving him a hard time because he’d never amounted to much?
Did I trust Collin? That was the kernel of the bigger question. How far would he go to ruin me before he could grasp the idea that using me as a base, he could exceed anything I’d accomplished to date?
Collin, alerted that there might be something in it for him, rose from his bed, dressed roughly and was in my office a short time later. He was curious; that much I could see. I thought I could also spot a bit of desperation. It served to cement my intent and I invited him to have a seat.
“This will help,” I told him, handing him a Scotch on the rocks. Collin was a functioning alcoholic. No matter how drunk he got, he still managed to be up to no good. I hoped I had the ability to change all that.
“Thanks, bro, you read my mind,” he said, his voice gravelly and low. He wore a thick, gold ring on the pinkie of his right hand. It was a star sapphire he’d won in a poker game from a man who had gone all in with the only possession of value he had; the ring he wore was one of five, each belonging to his brothers. The brothers were all dead and he, alone, still wore the ring. Collin took it, along with the honor that went with it. He considered it a souvenir of stupidity. Damn, but I wished I could hate my brother.
“So, Collin,” I began, sitting down in my chair and leaning back, crossing one leg over the other. “I don’t think it comes as any surprise that you made a nuisance of yourself last night.”
“Did I?” It was a rhetorical question.
“You’re no fool. You know what you’re doing, and I’m so busy playing guard against you that I’m losing opportunities that could help the both of us.”
“In what way would that be, bro?”
I let the question hang there a moment, letting his imagination fuel what I was about to propose.
“So, here’s the deal, Collin. There’s nothing I’ve done to get to where I am that you can’t do equally as well.” I gave the devil a short noose and he nodded, sliding his head neatly through it.
“I’ve had some investors approach me to expand Utopia and build some closely identical facilities in various places around the world.”
“You don’t say,” he commented, sipping his Scotch.
“I knew it was too big an undertaking for me alone. That’s when I thought of you.”
He scoffed at me, shifting in his chair and setting his glass on my paperwork, intentionally creating a wet ring. “Don’t bullshit me, bro.”
“I’m not. It’s a legit deal.”
“Not what I’m talking about, and you know it,” he scoffed at me. “How stupid do you think I am?”
I sat up and looked him straight in the eyes. “Quite the opposite, bro,” I emphasized his vernacular. “You’re one of the most intelligent men I know and that’s why I’m talking to you. You want the truth? The no-bullshit truth? Okay, here it is. You’re an asshole. And what’s more, you know and you work hard at it. Does that make you stupid? You tell me. You can use what God gave you in that head and your looks and your ability to charm the pants off anyone in your path, or you can continue to be an asshole and see where that gets you. So, you tell me, Collin. Are you up to the challenge of using your talents for something that lets people know what you’re capable of?”
I knew my voice was loud and Collin might take exception to that, but the time had come to deal with him man to man. The question was only whether he’d rise to the challenge.
“Calm down, Brayden,” he growled. He hadn’t called me by my first name in years. He sighed; a sign that a change was in the offing. “So, what the fuck is it that you want me to do?”
“Let’s get this straight. There is an offer on the table to me, and I’m inclined to pass on it. I think you can pull it off, and I’m handing the ace to you. You can keep it, or you can pass on it. It doesn’t matter to me because I have no skin in this game. It’s all about the investors.”
“What kind of investors are we talking?”
“What the hell? You want a list?” I was growing frustrated and not entirely sure this was worth it. “Look, they’re people with money who have stayed here and who travel. They’d like to see a place similar to this in other countries.”
“Like where?”
“They’re talking Paris.”
“France?”
“There’s another?”
“Don’t get smart. When?”
“They’re ready to go as soon as I give them a thumbs up.”
“Who would I report to, them or you?”
“Initially me, because it’s supposed to be like Utopia so it only makes sense for me to lay the groundwork. As soon as you’re comfortable with the process, you’re on your own and only report to them.”
“What’s in this for me?”
What was up with him? He had nothing, someone was offering him a helluva job and he was getting all sanctimonious. “That’s between you and the investors. If I had to guess, I’d say salary and bonuses based on profits, maybe an ownership percentage, I don’t know.”
Collin stood up and went to the window, his back to me. “Is part of the deal that I leave you alone?”
I knew that question was coming. “You won’t want to be here. You’ll have a life of your own.” It was the best response I could come up with that would preserve his ego and still make the point.
“Can I ask you something?” His voice was serious and yet sort of sensitive.
“Ask.”
He turned from the window to look at me directly. “Why have you never told me you live on an island?”
I wasn’t ready for that one. I couldn’t tell him the truth.
“I like my privacy, and you can see me here anytime.”
“You just didn’t want to contaminate your precious little house.”
“Not true. It’s not a big place, there’s only the one house and it just happens to be where I live part-time. I also live here, you know.”
“Bullshit!”
“Collin…” My tone was warning him.
“Never mind. Save it. I get the picture. Tell your investors that I’ll take their damned job, and I’ll make you look like a boy scout.” Collin strode to the door and left, slamming it behind him.
I considered the meeting successful. He knew there were no investors, that it was all me. He wanted to salvage enough pride and pretend, and I let him. The end was that Collin was leaving the country, and I knew him well enough to know he’d try to kick my ass and beat me at my own game. That was exactly what I wanted.
All thanks to Jeremy, the bus boy.
Chapter 19
Harper
I was feeling completely off balance. I guess in my little girl mind, there was a logical progression of how a relationship moved forward. I’d believed that you became friends, then confessed that you liked each other, dated for a while and maybe were exclusive, then came kissing and sex, then the proposal and the marriage. I guess I’d fallen off a hay wagon because obviously things didn’t work that way.
I’d thought that Brayden was making overtures to keep me in his life, and yet the words weren’t there. I guess I’d just become another one in the long line of women he’d most likely been with over the years since I’d seen him. I’d been reading too much into his gesture to have me stay at the guest cottage. I was there as a companion to Meghan. He’d said that she was lonely and needed people around her. What was I thinking?
There was nothing I could do but back off and concentrate on building my business. I had everything I needed; my laptop, my knowledge, a place to stay and a dear little friend in Meghan.
We were growing closer with each day. The day after the tenor’s reception, she was waiting on the dock for me, waving wildly. “I’m so glad you’re back,” she prattled on. “I had more I wanted to tell you about the new friends I made by Mrs. Sims’ sister’s. They do each other’s hair, put on makeup, and talked about boys the whole time.”
“I think you already have a marvelous sense of style, honey. They should be learning from you.”
“Oh, I know. Really, I think I do have a knack for it, but I didn’t want to be a show-off or anything, you know?”
“Good thinking. They’ll figure it out on their own.”
“So, I was wondering, do you think Uncle Brayden might let me invite them over for a sleep-over sometime?”
I had to curb my smile at the image of Brayden surrounded by a group of giggling young girls with curlers and vivid violet eye shadow. “Well, gee, honey, I don’t know. He might let you invite them to Utopia and have your sleep over there, though. You might try that first.”
“Good idea, Harper. I hadn’t thought about that. That might be extra cool because of the pool and tea room and everything. I’ll bet Chef would make us some cupcakes with pastel frosting and sprinkles.”
“He might do just that, but before you start making out invitations, I suggest you talk to your uncle. And don’t be surprised if he doesn’t jump on it right away. He’s got a lot on his mind right now.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Oh, nothing wrong, exactly. Just a lot of responsibility and special events scheduled.”
We were sitting by the pool and Mrs. Sims brought us out two lemonades and a bowl of chips. “Ohhh, I love this,” Meghan said, digging in. “You know, Harper, I like spending time with you. You’re not really like most moms; you’re lots of fun.”
I didn’t know how to answer that but opted to simply say, “You’re easy to be fun around, honey.”
“Thanks! Hey, would you like to hit some tennis balls with me?”
I was a little tired from the night before, but we were on a go
od conversation roll and I didn’t want to slow that momentum. “Sure. Let me go and get changed. I’ll meet you on the court in about twenty minutes.”
“Okay,” she agreed and sipped her lemonade as I headed toward the cottage. It felt good to be back there and I dropped my bags on the bed and went in to brush my teeth and pull my hair into a ponytail. I found some shorts and a t-shirt in a drawer and dug socks out for my sneakers. I hoped they had an extra racquet since that wasn’t something I owned.
Heading toward the tennis court, I noticed someone standing with their back to me, talking to Meghan. I looked around for a sign that Brayden had come back or that Captain Bob was on the dock, but no one else was around.
As I drew closer, the voice sounded familiar. “Meghan?” I called and they both turned around. It was Collin!
“Collin, we weren’t expecting you,” I stuttered.
“Oh? I was just having a chat with Meghan here.”
“Is Brayden here with you?”
“No, he’s busy working. So, Meghan,” he said, turning toward the girl, “how is it you came to live here?”
“Meghan…” I interrupted but the girl was too well-mannered. She looked up at Collin and said, “Uncle Brayden took me in when my parents were killed.”
“Is that so?” He spun around and gave me a look that frightened me.
“Meghan, please go up to the house and ask Mrs. Sims to come down here. I need to speak with her immediately.”
Meghan looked surprised, but obeyed me and started skipping up the incline toward the house.
“What brings you here, Collin?”
“I believe you know.”
I shook my head. “Not really.”
“I find that fascinating since it appears that my brother has adopted my niece without so much as letting me know she exists.” His face was stormy. I wasn’t sure whether it was appropriate, but I was a little afraid of him at that moment.
“I really don’t know a lot about it. You know, Collin, you should have let Brayden bring you over. This is his house, and I know he would have liked to be the one to show you around.”
“Yeah, I know about how much I’d see with him. That’s why I came on my own. Wasn’t too hard to find, since I had a guide.” He pointed out someone standing down by the dock.