by Lisa Cardiff
“Violet?” His voice was soft and barely audible. Her name would have gone undetected if the room weren’t incredibly silent, every sound echoing and amplifying unnaturally.
“Uh huh,” she answered without turning around. She couldn’t look at him yet and then he placed his hands on her shoulders, massaging the tension that had become a permanent fixture over the last year and she couldn’t stop herself. She leaned into his heat again, soaking up every ounce of attention he’d give her.
“I’m just fucking with you,” he whispered next to her ear, his warm breath and darkly sensual voice causing all kinds of turmoil in her mind and maybe an unexpected shiver or two that she’d never admit to. He kissed the top of her head before turning around to face him, his face only inches from her, his dark magnetic eyes sucking her in like nothing she’d ever felt before.
She stepped to the side. “What’s that?” she asked, waving her hand toward the bags on the table. She needed to change the subject fast. For her, a woman who’d only had a couple relationships in her life, this situation was dipping into dangerous territory.
He exhaled loudly before he walked to the table and pulled out all kinds of food, setting them on the counter. “Groceries.”
“Oh.” Her brow wrinkled in confusion. “Is the refrigerator in the basement broken?”
“Nope. I thought I’d make you dinner tonight to celebrate making the fundraising goal for the year.”
“What do you mean? I need two hundred and fifty thousand for the year.”
“Yep.” He placed a stick of butter and a bottle of wine in her refrigerator. “I’ll have it by the end of this weekend, if not today.”
“What are you going to do for the rest of the month?” Her stomach lurched at the thought of him walking out of her life so quickly. She didn’t want him to leave yet. Being the only remaining full-time employee at the Foundation bothered her. Sure, she had the kids, but they weren’t her peers, people she could confide in if needed.
“I’m going to raise money.” He grinned. “Unless you want me to stop, but judging from the condition of the building, overfunding the Foundation isn’t possible. The building needs a new paint job on the exterior and interior, the gym floors need to be refinished.” He shrugged. “The whole place needs to be updated.”
“I’d hate to invest all that money in the building when the lease is only for another year. I can’t count on the owners renewing the lease. I think they’d like to sell it.”
“They want to sell it?” His eyes narrowed.
“That’s what I’ve heard.” She took a sip of the coffee she’d abandoned on the counter. “The rumor is that a few developers are interested in demolishing the Foundation and building apartments for college kids.”
“How much?”
“How much what?”
“What do they want for the building?”
“I don’t know. It can’t be much. You’ve probably noticed that the building is in shambles.”
“I’ll find out.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re going to find a way to buy it.”
She laughed. “You think?”
He smiled. It was only a small lopsided grin, but her heart may have skipped a beat or two. “I know so.” He folded up the paper grocery bags and stacked them next to the sink. “I have some stuff to take care of today so I won’t see you at the Foundation, but I’ll be here at six to make you dinner.”
“Oh.” She hesitated, not sure how to respond. Dinner sounded nice, but dinner with Alec probably wouldn’t be a good thing, at least for her. The tiny spark of interest she felt on the first day she met him was growing at an unsustainable pace. By this rate, she’d be professing her undying love for him in a week or two. Oh hell, who was she kidding, by the end of dinner she’d be at his mercy. “I’ll probably work late again. I can’t seem to finish everything that needs to be done.”
“Hire another person.”
“I can’t.”
“You can. The Foundation has the money.”
“It’s not officially in the account.”
“It’s being wired today.”
“I don’t like to mix business and…” She halted her words midsentence because it suddenly seemed insanely presumptuous of her to assume that Alec wanted to mix anything with business. He claimed to be kidding about the whole women throwing themselves at him comment, but she had a strong suspicion it was true.
Within seconds, Alec closed the space between them, not close enough to touch her, but close enough for her to feel the electricity zinging between them, bouncing off the walls, filling her lungs, making her throat constrict. Holy shit. This man did crazy things to her.
“What exactly are we mixing here, Little Violet?” The way he asked the question, as though he were the big bad wolf and she Little Red Riding Hood, made her knees tremble and her breath kick up a notch.
Her eyes searched his, scanning for what she didn’t know—maybe the real Alec beneath his veneer of danger and angst and a whole lot of anger. And while she couldn’t see anything through his enigmatic mask, she didn’t feel threatened. There was something about him that made her feel safe and alive. Tattoos, lip ring, and scars be damned.
She shook her head and looked down at their feet nearly touching. “I don’t know…maybe nothing.”
“Hm.” His hands cupped her face and then his lips skimmed across hers, igniting all kinds of internal fireworks and alarms as her life turned upside down and inside out. “Maybe something.”
He was so close to her she could see every little detail of his face—the small crinkles at the corners of his eyes, the dark blue rim around his irises, the dark stubble forming at his jaw line. And then her eyes dropped to his mouth, cataloguing every dip, curve and yes…his lip ring. She barely felt it before, and she felt a little bereft, like she’d missed out on the full experience.
Almost involuntarily, her fingers lifted to his lower lip and she ran her finger along it, pausing briefly on the silver ring.
“Are you a fan of the lip ring?”
She dropped her hand back to her side. “I never thought about it before. I don’t know anyone else with one. Do you always wear it?”
“No, not all the time. Does it bother you?”
“No, but I didn’t notice it.
His lips twitched and then he leaned forward again, brushing his lips against hers, lingering a little longer than necessary, but making her want more of him than she should. She leaned into him, resting her hands on his waist, hoping he’d take the hint, but he didn’t. Instead, he kissed her forehead, the tip of her nose, and her lips before he stepped away from her.
“I’ll see you tonight, Little Violet.”
With that he pivoted and left, leaving her and her fevered lips tingling with loss. When she heard the front door shut, she sighed, looking at the clock on the microwave. Ten hours. She wasn’t sure what it said about her that she was already counting the hours until he came back, but it probably wasn’t a good sign.
Chapter Eight
Four hours later and six phone calls with his attorney, Alec sat in his basement apartment reading the contract to purchase the Foundation’s building. Five hundred thousand dollars. He’d made good money over the past two years since Chasing Ruin burst onto the music scene, but not enough that a half a million dollars meant nothing to him.
His attorneys went back and forth with the Barrington Family Trust for several hours, and after thousands of dollars in attorneys’ fees, the price had dropped fifty thousand dollars. They still wanted too fucking much for that dump. He’d do it if that were the only option, but he still had to explore other ways for the Foundation to own the building.
Just as Violet suspected, the family wanted to sell the building to a developer. Fortunately, they hadn’t received many offers because it was overpriced. The real estate market was flat and the location, while pretty close to the campus, wasn’t ideal. It needed to be rezoned for apartments. Alec d
ialed his agent’s phone number.
“Rick,” Alec said when he heard his voice. “How’s the fundraising going?”
Rick exhaled loudly into the phone. “Fine.”
“Then what’s your problem?”
“If you want to raise money for a cause and you don’t want any publicity for you or Chasing Ruin, you’re wasting my time. You should be using this opportunity to create positive PR, especially after that shitstorm Cam caused with his videos.”
They’d been over this a hundred times. He didn’t want to bring attention to the Foundation or his connection to it. He had too many stories he’d prefer remained dead and buried. Any one of them would be worse than what Cam put the band through. The tabloid trash would eat up his drug-addicted mother, his dad’s death, his extensive juvenile record, and his nonexistent childhood. No fucking way. He didn’t want to revisit any of it. “We’ve been over this and I told you I don't want the press connecting me to the Foundation or my hometown. Nobody knows much about my history and I’d like to keep it that way.”
“We could spin it into a real tear jerking success story.”
“No.”
“It’ll come out sooner or later, especially if Chasing Ruin’s star continues to rise. It would be better if we controlled the narrative.”
Rick had a point, but now wasn’t the time. He wanted his month of freedom before he had to be back in the studio working on the new material Cam and Jax collaborated on over the last few weeks and he liked that nobody had recognized him or connected him to Chasing Ruin over the last few days, especially Violet.
Violet was light, rainbows, and sunshine, with her long blonde hair, glowing blue eyes and gorgeously dimpled smile. Since the age of ten, he’d been darkness and shadows, walking a tightrope to hell. He was entirely wrong for a woman like Violet, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to spend time with her.
For the past five days, he had watched the way she interacted with the kids at the Foundation. She believed in those kids, every one of them, even the kids he didn’t think had a shot in hell of turning their life around, and that made him want to be around her, close to her, and this morning proved she was interested in him, and not because he was part of Chasing Ruin. Something begged him to embrace that novelty before reality crashed into him. He just hoped she didn’t hate him too much when she figured out the truth about him.
“Eventually we’ll do it, but not now,” Alec finally answered.
“It’s your call…for now, but if I suspect a leak of this shit, I’m going to take control of the story and spin to our advantage. That’s my job.”
Of course he would. Alec raked his hands through his hair. “Fine, but give me notice so I can do some damage control on my end. Don’t just spring some crazy story on me five minutes before it goes viral.” He needed the opportunity to come clean with Violet before she read it somewhere or someone confronted her with the truth, but most of all he wanted to explore what was happening between them without the baggage of fame.
“I’ll do my best.”
“So how do the fundraising numbers look?”
Alec heard Rick shuffling through some papers on his desk. “Good, I got a commitment for somewhere north of three hundred thousand dollars.”
“I need more.”
“What?” Rick yelled into the phone.
“Double that total and we’ll be good.” Alec hoped if he offered the Barrington Family Trust cash and a twenty-four hour closing, they might accept less.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“I know you will.” Alec hung up the phone and tossed on the sofa next to him.
His thoughts immediately returned to Violet. For two weeks, he’d been avoiding the pull between Violet and him, but he was done. He wanted her and he couldn’t deny it any longer. With each day that passed, his desire for her was eclipsing his common sense.
***
Violet spent most of the morning combing through resumes. She checked the balance in the Foundation’s account and about half of the money Alec promised had already hit the account. Seeing that number…seventy three thousand four hundred and forty four dollars when she checked the Foundation’s online banking, nearly caused her to faint. Since she started managing the Foundation’s funds nearly two years ago, the account had never looked so promising.
Maybe she could push off law school for a little while longer. If Alec came through and the Foundation actually purchased the building and had a steady stream of donations, she could delay her decision to follow in her parents’ footsteps.
Her cell phone buzzed on her desk. Ryder.
“Hey Ryder.” She hadn’t talked to her brother since he left for Alaska to kayak in Prince William Sound and hike Columbia Glacier nearly a month ago. The whole trip sounded really cold and miserable to her, but he’d been saving money for nearly six months to take the trip and it was all he could talk about for months. He lived and died for his next extreme adventure. She always worried she’d get some call about him being involved in some crazy accident, but she couldn’t be mad at him for living his dreams. He always did what he loved regardless of what their mom and dad thought.
“Hey sis. How’s everything?”
She smiled, swiveling her chair to look out the window while she talked. “Well, if you called last week, I would’ve told you everything sucked, but today is a different story.”
“Do you want to elaborate?”
“The Foundation has some new donors, and as of this minute, the account has over seventy thousand dollars.”
“What? How’d you pull that off?”
“I didn’t,” she said. “This guy walked into the Foundation last week and wanted to volunteer for a month. He raised the funds.”
Ryder didn’t say anything for a few prolonged moments. “Violet,” he paused again as if he had something to say, but he didn’t know how to do it so he didn’t hurt her feelings. “Money doesn’t just fall into your lap like that. What do you know about this guy? Have you looked at his background?”
“Of course. I checked his references and did a background check.” She didn’t actually run the background check. She kind of skipped that step because she was desperate for help and, at that moment, she would have accepted almost anyone who promised to lift a finger to help her, especially if they agreed to work for free. Hell, he could have been a snake oil salesman, and she may not have cared. Even pretend help with ulterior motives would give her the illusion that she wasn’t drowning in piles of work alone.
“Okay.” She could almost hear his mind working to find holes in her story. “What does this guy do besides drop into a charity for a month and spread fairy dust around?”
Before answering, she chewed on her fingernail, a nasty habit that she had abandoned long ago when she couldn’t take one more minute of her mother’s constant nagging. “He works at some music talent agency or something in California. LA, I think.”
“What’s his interest in the Foundation?” her brother asked, pressing her for more information.
“He claimed the Foundation helped him out as a kid and he wanted to give back. It seemed perfectly reasonable to me. The Foundation has been around for a long time and it’s done some good things.” Her voice wavered. When she thought about how little she knew about Alec, it made her cringe.
“Can I get a name?”
“Alec. Alec Reed.”
“Hm. The name sounds familiar.”
“Maybe you’ve met him before. He’s closer to your age than mine and Missoula isn’t very big.” Ryder was three years older than her and while they went to the same high school, they never had the same friends. Everyone loved him and she got stuck in his shadow for most of her life, but she didn’t resent him one bit. People loved Ryder because he was fun, a little wild, and completely charming. Her parents hated his crazy lifestyle and the fact that he never kept a girlfriend for longer than a month. They feared he’d spend the rest of his life floating from one adventure to the next ne
ver taking anything serious, but she knew Ryder would find his way eventually. Nobody could rush him.
“Hm. Maybe.”
“So tell me about your adventures,” she said, trying to change the subject. “Any injuries or frostbite to report?”
He laughed. “None worth mentioning, but I’ll be home next week. I just wanted to give you a heads up.”
“Gotcha. I’ll have the maids fluff your pillow,” she answered sarcastically.
“Oh and don’t forget to have them flip my mattress. You know how I hate it to get stale.”
“I’m on it.” She stood up. “Oh and I rented the basement apartment to Alec for the month, so don’t drag home some new friends with you, thinking they have a place to stay.”
“Okay. See you soon, sis.”
“Bye, Ryder.”
She had three more hours until dinner tonight with Alec and her body was already vibrating with anxiety. After their encounter this morning in her kitchen, she didn’t know what to expect. She’d been attracted to him from the moment he stepped out of his truck in the Foundation parking lot, but in more of an abstract sort of way. He was handsome, dark, and magnetic, but not the type of guy to offer much more than a steamy night of sex and she’d never been the type of girl to go after one night with the bad boy. She had boring relationships that she could forget about when they turned south because they always did. She didn’t have the time or energy to invest in a guy at this point in her life.
Between trying single-handedly to resurrect the Foundation, studying for the LSAT, and helping her parents out at the ranch, she only had crumbles of herself left to offer her perspective boyfriends. In the beginning, they all claimed that they understood and supported her, but eventually they all walked away. Some complained that she was too inflexible. Others claimed she never focused on them and was too distracted.