by Blue Saffire
Seeing me, Angus follows. “Do the clothes not fit, Miss?” he says, brow slightly furrowed. “Mr.—”
“I’m sure they fit fine,” I say, pressing the call button for the elevator. “But I’m fine with wearing my own clothes.” The elevator door slides open and I step inside, turning to find Angus standing on the threshold. It’s clear he expects to share the car with me. That he still thinks he’s going to drive me somewhere.
I hold out the cup of untouched coffee in my hand and shove it into his, using it to push him back into Tobias’s penthouse. “I’m also fine with finding my own way home. Tell your boss I said thank you for a lovely evening.”
Before he can say another word, the elevator door slides shut between us.
I don’t realize I’m still holding on to the bracelet Tobias gave me until I’m half-way home.
16
Tobias
It’s her.
That was my first thought.
My second thought was that maybe my 4AM sparring session with Angus resulted in a little more than a dislocated shoulder. Maybe he really did kick my ass. Maybe I suffered some sort of head injury. Because I have to be seeing things. She cannot be here, standing in front of me.
Argenta.
On autopilot, I reach out, shaking her father’s hand and exchanging pleasantries before turning and offering her my hand. She takes it, her smile cooling considerably when she sees my face. That’s the only way I know she recognizes me. Remembers me.
“Mr. Bright,” she says, slipping her hand into mine for a handshake nearly as firm as Patrick’s. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”
That’s how we’re playing this?
Fine.
When she tries to reclaim her hand, the gesture is subtle, like the thought of touching me is distasteful to her but she doesn’t want to seem rude. Instead of letting her go, I hold on, keeping her hand trapped in mine.
“The pleasure is mine,” I say to her, doing my best to match her calm, even tone. To pretend that I’m not staring into the face of the woman who completely destroyed me five years ago. “And please, call me Tobias.”
I can tell by the look she’s giving me that Tobias isn’t on the list of names she’d like to call me. “Shall we sit?” she says indicating the table with the hand I’m not holding prisoner, giving me little choice but to let her go. I watch as Patrick pulls out her chair and she slips into it, automatically turning her knees away from me like even the thought of accidentally touching me is distasteful.
“Patrick mentioned that your company owns several restaurants in New York, Tobias,” Davino says, settling his napkin in his lap.
“The restaurant business is a fairly recent development,” I say, careful to direct my answer in his direction. “The Bright Group is multi-faceted.” Which is a nice way to say that if it turns a profit, I’ve got my fingers in it. Communications. Shipping. Real estate. Doesn’t matter what it is. As long as it’s legal and keeps me in the black, I’ll throw my hat in the ring.
From the corner of my eye, I can see Patrick and Argenta—Silver—with their heads together, talking softly. I think about the hand he placed on the small of her back when he pulled her chair out. The way she smiled when she saw him.
Five minutes ago, I liked the guy. Now I want to drag him out onto the sidewalk, roll up my sleeves and go to work. Despite his easy-going, nice guy smile, something about him tells me he’d give me a run for my money.
Which makes me dislike him even more.
“Silver,” I say, leaning into the table so I can purposely press my knee into hers. “Patrick tells me you’re in charge of the day-to-day operations here.”
“That’s correct,” she says, turning her knees even further away. “I earned my BA in restaurant management from NYU, as well as an MBA from Boston University.”
“NYU?” I pretend to be surprised, pressing forward a bit more. “So, you’ve lived in New York, then?”
Again, she shifts in her seat. If she moves any further away from me, she’s going to end up crawling into Gilroy’s lap.
A mental picture that, if I’m being honest, makes me want to haul him across the table by his tie.
“I—” Before she can answer me, a small army of wait staff descend on the table, pouring wine and offering pre-ordered appetizers while we spend the next few minutes ordering our main courses.
Finally, the wait staff clear out but before I can press her for an answer to a question I already know, she beats me to it.
“May I be blunt, Mr. Bright?” she says, lifting her arm to raise her glass of wine.
“Of course,” I tell her, leaning back in my chair, watching the long column of her throat work while she takes a swallow from her glass. “As long as you call me Tobias.”
“Very well, Tobias,” she says, setting her glass down. “We don’t need you or your money.”
Next to her, Gilroy makes a noise in the back of his throat, something caught between a cough and a laugh while beside me, her father goes an unhealthy shade of purple.
“Silv—”
I hold up a hand to stop him from admonishing her. “It’s quite alright,” I tell him, my gaze locked on her face. God, she’s as beautiful as I remember. Long dark hair that tumbles past her shoulders in thick waves. Flawless olive skin. Luminous gray eyes. Full, lush mouth. Five years later and I still can’t help but want her. “I invited her honestly and I’d like to hear the rest of it.”
“As I was saying,” she says, face tipped down while she smooths her hand along the crease of the napkin in her lap. When she looks up at me, her eyes are the color of storm clouds. “I’m perfectly aware that you’re used to people coming to you, every day, asking you to invest in their business—I’m sure it’s tiresome, listening to people beg you for money on a daily basis—but the New York project is my baby, I’ve worked hard to make it happen and it will happen with or without you,” she says. “We’re not here, hat in hand, to beg you for a handout. We’re offering you a seat at the table, and if you’re not genuinely interested, then I think it would be a waste of everyone’s time and a beautiful bottle of wine, to continue this meeting any further.”
I mean to stand, shake her father’s hand and Patrick’s, thanking them for their hospitality, before leaving the restaurant completely. If I leave now, I’ll still have time to grab Logan, so we can hit that diner he introduced me to with the killer breakfast burritos. I need to get out of here. Away from her, and I need to do it fast.
But then I remember feeding her chocolate.
The way it tasted on her tongue.
The way it felt to move inside her.
The sound of my name in her mouth when she comes.
Five years later and it’s like it happened only moments ago.
“That’s one hell of a sales pitch, Ms. Fiorella.” I reach for my glass and raise it. “One I’d be hard-pressed to say no to,” I say, toasting her while her father and the architect look at me like I just sprouted a pair of wings. “You’ve got yourself a business partner.”
17
Silver
This is a nightmare, right? I’m sleeping and having a horrible dream and I’m going to wake up at any moment and Noah is going to be standing at the foot of my bed, asking if he can crawl into bed with me.
Oh, my god.
Noah.
While my father and Patrick dive into an in-depth discussion with Tobias about property locations and cost projections, I lay my napkin on the table and stand. As soon as I do, all three of them follow suit. “Excuse me,” I murmur to no one in particular, just as Tobias’s phone rings. Not waiting to hear him make his excuses, I spin on my heel and make my escape.
As soon as I’m in my office, I shut the door and lock it for good measure before hustling around my desk to pick up the phone. Dialing fast, I perch myself on the edge of my desk chair, waiting for a rescue.
“Hey, what’s up,” Jane says, slightly out of breath. “I’ve got Noah and we’re
on our way to—”
“Don’t.” I press a hand to my forehead, trying to stop my brain from spinning. “Don’t bring him here.” Being a single mom is hard. It’s less hard when you have friends like Jane who pick your son up from school on her lunch break and chauffeurs him to you at work. Without Jane, these last four years would’ve been impossible. “Can you please take him home,” I say thinking fast. “Delilah is there, she can—”
“You want me to leave your four-year-old son with your sister?” Jane laughs, over the sounds of her buckling Noah into his booster seat. I can hear him in the background she probably still smells like fish. “Why? Does she need a babysitter?”
“Jane,” I say, squeezing my eyes shut. “Please—just…” I trail off, taking a deep breath, trying to smooth over the desperation in my tone. “Just please take him home. Delilah can handle things until I get there. I’m taking the afternoon off, so it won’t be for more than an hour or two.”
I hear the car door shut. “What is happening?” she says, the amusement bleeding out of her voice the second Noah can no longer hear her. “Asking me to take Noah to your place is one thing but taking the afternoon off is entirely another.”
She’s right. My priorities are Noah and Davino’s. There is no room for anything else. I haven’t taken a day off in years. Not even an afternoon to sneak off and see a movie.
“Do you rem—”
There’s a knock on my office door, a brisk-knuckled rap that stops me mid-sentence. Probably one of my sous chefs reporting the arrival of my second crate of Langoustine. “Take Noah home,” I say standing to round my desk. “Tell Lilah I’ll be there in an hour or two and then come back after you get off work. I’ll tell you everything then.” I reach for the door and pull it open, already reaching for the clipboard so I can sign for my shellfish but it’s not a sous chef.
It’s Tobias, standing in the narrow service hall that bridges the kitchen and the main dining room.
“Bring wine with you,” I say into the phone. “Lots and lots of wine.” I hang up on a flurry of questions. “Can I help you, Mr. Bright?” I try for polite and professional but land somewhere between haughty and dismissive.
“I keep telling you to call me Tobias.” He pushes past me, into my tiny, windowless office. He lets his gaze sweep the space, taking in my desk, and the filing cabinets. The computer and shelves full of binders, before finally turning his gaze on me. He hasn’t changed. He still looks like he stepped off the pages of a magazine with his beautifully tailored suit, and gorgeous face. “You keep refusing, I’m going to start thinking you don’t like me.”
Why wouldn’t I like you? Because I woke up from a night of mind-blowing sex to an empty apartment and a stack of cash on the nightstand? Don’t be silly. Who would get mad at something like that? Or maybe because nine months later, I had a baby. A beautiful little boy who breaks my heart every time he smiles because he looks exactly like you.
“It’s not dislike, Mr. Bright,” I say, using the same overly pleasant tone on him that I used with Hank the fishmonger. “It’s caution. This project is very important to me and your offer of partnership seemed rash and to be honest, impulsive. I don’t want to rely on someone who might change their mind or back out due to suddenly lack of interest.”
He cocks his head at me. “Trust me, Ms. Fiorella, when I’m being rash and impulsive, you’ll know it.”
I think about the way he laid me out on his kitchen counter. His mouth pressed against me. His tongue—
“Are you okay,” he says, giving me a slight smirk that tells me he know exactly what I’m thinking about. “You look a little flushed.”
“I’m fine,” I say, opening the door wide enough for him to get the hint and get out. “I just remembered I have another appointment, so I’ll have to—”
“Bring wine with you.” He settles onto my desk, making clear he’s not going anywhere until he’s ready. “Lots and lots of wine?”
“Excuse me?”
“That’s what you said to whoever you were on the phone with—” He crosses his arms over his chest, the sleeves of his jacket pulling back just enough to reveal a watch worth more than I make in a year. Hell, probably ten years. Seeing it serves as a reminder. He was out of my league five years ago. And he’s out of my league now. “I can only assume that your impending appointment involves copious amounts of wine and whoever you were talking to.”
“Who I was talking to is none of your concern,” I say, smoothing a thin veneer of civility over my words.
“You may not appreciate rash impulsivity in a business partner, but I can assure you—” The tone of his voice loses its playful edge. “I appreciate someone who lets their personal life intrude on their professional one, even less.”
“Then we’ll get along famously, Mr. Bright.” I say because I feel both admonished and insulted. “I have no personal life.”
“I’m relieved,” he says, staring at me just long enough to send a warm flush up the entire length of my body before he stands and moves in my direction. “That means you’re free for dinner tonight.”
What?
I shake my head, moving away from the door when he moves to pass through it. “No, I—”
“I’ll pick you up around eight?”
I shake my head as he crosses the threshold. “No, I’m not—”
“Your place.” He’s halfway down the hall, moving toward the dining room before it registers.
My place.
Noah.
Before I can build a plausible protest, he’s gone.
18
Tobias
Things did not go as expected. What I expected was to have lunch with an architect, a temperamental celebrity chef, and his spoiled, princess of a daughter. I expected to listen to them song and dance me about how great the opportunity they were offering was, while dining on overly trendy food and waiting for Angus to bail me out with a fake emergency.
Instead, I spend the better part of the afternoon going over expense reports and cost projections. Blueprints and business plans. The more I saw, the more impressed I became.
I rarely change my mind once it’s made up, but I find myself becoming invested, excited about the project. I haven’t felt that way in a very long time. I tell myself it’s because I’m bored. I’ve been locked in negotiations over this government deal for months and it’s driving me nuts but that’s not it.
What excites me about the project is the prospect of working with her.
Silver returned to the table long enough to make her excuses, telling her father she had an urgent errand to run, that she wouldn’t be back for the rest of the day. Jean-Luc, her assistant, would be handling her front of house duties for dinner service. Then she gave Patrick a quick kiss on the cheek and hurried away without so much as a glance in my direction.
Now, I’m standing in front of my brother’s door, hands dug in my pockets, waiting for him to answer. I’m about ready to knock again when he finally does. Despite the fact that I was supposed to be here hours ago, he looks like he just woke up, wearing nothing but a pair of sleep pants covering in pictures of cats playing electric guitar and the crown tattoo over his left pec. I have the same tattoo.
We all do.
“Nice pants,” I say, giving my brother a critical once-over. He’s the youngest of us and while Gray joined the military and Jase went to college, Logan went his own way. That way landed him in a Boston dive bar in a college town, slinging drinks for Patrick Gilroy. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little disappointed in the outcome.
“Thanks,” Logan says, scratching his bare chest while he stifles a bleary-eyed yawn. “Are you early?”
“No,” I say moving through the door when he moves to let me pass. “I’m about three hours late.”
“Then what are you doing here?” Logan flops back onto the futon he’d obviously been sleeping on and looks up at me. “Don’t you have some important dinner thing to get back to?”
“Cancel
ed it,” I say, looking around the room. It’s sparsely furnished. Futon. Huge flat screen mounted on the wall. An eight-foot-long conference table, dominated by a bank of computer monitors. Hard drives housed in what he once told me were faraday cages. More hard drives cracked open with their guts spilling out and what looks to be a high-end, ergonomic computer chair. That’s it. No pictures on the wall. No end tables or accent lamps. No throw pillows or color coordinated sheets.
If there’s one thing my brothers and I have in common, it’s our aversion to acquiring stuff. Stuff can be taken away. Stuff weighs you down. Makes you slow. Weak. Some people who grew up the way we did become obsessed with it. Need stuff to fill the hole. To feel like they’re worth something.
I’ve got billions.
Cars. Private planes. Real estate. Designer suits.
And not one thing I couldn’t walk away from without a backward glance.
Still, I find myself asking. “You ever met a friend of Patrick’s named Silver?”
“Silver?” Logan runs a hand through his mop of thick black hair, leaving it sticking straight up. I expect him to say, she’s not his friend. She’s his girlfriend. Instead he shakes his head. “Nah,” he shakes his head. “Only woman I ever see him hang out with is Tess.” Logan grins. “Why? Who is she?”
Who is she?
I thought I knew but obviously, I have no idea.
“She’s the daughter of that chef friend of his. The one you hooked me up with,” I say, casting a long look at his army of computers. “She’s spearheading the project and I’d like to know who I’m dealing with.”
Liar. You want to know if she’s seeing anyone.
“So,, you came here to ask your degenerate little brother to hack her IRS files?” He says it like I asked him to borrow a cup of sugar.
“You don’t have to dive that deep,” I say, slipping out of my jacket before tossing it on the futon. “I just want reassurance that she’s a safe bet.”