by Pamela Yaye
There was only silence, which eventually drew her gaze. The portfolio slipped from her fingers when she discovered that the knock hadn’t come from her colleague but her husband.
Ex.
Graedon Clegg filled the doorway with shoulders that threatened to brush the frame.
“Spare a little time for me, Tel,” he said.
Chapter 2
He didn’t give her the option to accept or decline. Of course he wouldn’t. Any man who had to angle sideways to clear a doorway didn’t wait for permission to enter any room. When he knelt before her instead of entering, though, Tielle jumped as if she’d been scorched.
Grae bent to retrieve the portfolio Tielle had dropped. He offered her the folder, smiling so slightly that it may’ve been missed when she didn’t reach to take it.
Grae hung on to the portfolio, using it as an added excuse to move deeper into the office. There, he set the presentation on the desk and took a seat on its edge.
“Close the door.”
He was asking if she would close the door. Again, there was rarely another answer besides yes when Graedon Clegg asked a question. Tielle had always considered it an annoying habit. That was before time in her husband’s—ex-husband’s—presence had clued her into the fact that it was purposefully done. He asked questions in such a manner that to respond in the negative seemed strange.
Close the door. Spare a little time for me, Tel.
Tielle closed the door, leaning back against it in hopes that her stance would seem easy as opposed to wilting.
“You’re a little early, aren’t you?” She forced herself to speak with the same ease she was hoping to perpetuate in her stance.
“Meaning?” He smiled at her query.
“I haven’t even given an answer yet.”
“Answer.” He frowned. “Answer for what?”
Tielle pushed off the door, not completely closing the distance between them but moving just close enough for her to study his expression.
Good one, Ti, she silently admonished herself.
Studying Grae Clegg’s expression was only a sidebar to the real intent, which was just...studying. Marveling, actually, over the combination of features that created a divinely constructed face. She blinked, having caught the faint smile that he was never quite fast enough to hide from her. He revealed it whenever he knew he had achieved whatever it was that he sought.
“I told your brother I needed time to think on it.” Tielle coolly added distance between them, moving behind her desk. “But I told Faro I didn’t think it was a good idea.” She didn’t sit, merely stood tapping her fingers to the semicluttered surface of the desk.
“Tel.” Grae spread his hands in sync with his grin while pretending to come clean. “I got no idea what you’re talking about.”
“That’s impossible.” Suspicion clouded the clear cognac hue of her eyes. “You know every move he makes.”
“That was only when he tried to make them with you.”
She bristled. “He never tried to make them with me.”
“You never realized it.”
“Which brings us back to why it’s impossible for you not to know what he’s up to.”
“Not exactly.” Grae smoothed the back of his hand across the dark shadow of whiskers on his cheek. “The moves you make are no longer any of my business, are they?”
The outright question put Tielle in her seat, yet she managed to make the move appear graceful enough.
“Faro says he wants to book the estate exclusively for one week. He wants to hold a Clegg family retreat.” She shared the explanation politely enough. Admirably, she subdued the wound his words had opened. She wanted to maintain eye contact. Sadly, all she could focus on, as Grae sat there stroking his jaw, was his sleek beard, which added an intimidation factor and needed no additional emphasis.
Those inky whiskers contrasted so richly against an otherwise flawless palette of light caramel. They felt like mink against her skin when he kissed her...wherever he kissed her—used to kiss her...
“He told you what prompted such a great idea?” he asked.
“Well, I don’t know, Grae. Maybe he thinks he can fix your family.” With a laugh, she stood and left the desk. Silently, she reiterated the conversation she’d just had with Faro. “I’m pretty sure a fast no is the right answer here. Listen, Grae, I have a meeting I’m already late for.” Hastily, she rounded the desk and began collecting her things.
Grae was blocking her way before Tielle even moved from the desk, causing her to swallow around her heart in her throat.
“I’d like for you not to do that, Tel.”
The urgency in the canyon depth of his voice gave Tielle pause. “Tell me why?” It was her chance to mask command in the form of a question.
Grae clenched his jaw, revealing the defeat he felt. “I honestly don’t know, Tel, but going through with this thing might bring it all out.”
Tielle dismissed the voice warning her not to ask and asked anyway. “Can’t Faro want to retreat for exactly what retreats are meant for? To fix things?”
Graedon smiled, but the gesture held no humor and very little softness. “Still blind when it comes to my brother,” he accused.
“So are you.” She smiled and shrugged. “I guess we’re a perfect pair then.”
“We used to be.” A more pronounced element filtered the bronze of his stare.
“Is it refusal or acceptance you want, Grae?”
When he smiled, Tielle wondered if he was confused about what she should have been refusing or accepting.
“Acceptance.”
Confusion crept in on her then. He was frowning in that way he did when seeking to relay the importance of what he was saying. Tielle refused to get lost in his very capable ability to spellbind her.
“Why would you want me to accept Faro’s request? Wouldn’t that make him a little too happy?”
“May be the only way to get to the bottom of what he’s really up to.”
“Grae...” Tielle rubbed at the bridge of her nose. “What does all this suspicion get you?”
“Not nearly as much as it’s lost me.”
“And yet you continue to pursue it.”
His jaw clenched again. “I pursue it so that I can crush it.”
A soft spurt of laughter rippled past her lips.
“What?” His eyes raked the length of her, focusing on Tielle’s bottom when she turned away.
She set her meeting materials back on the desk. “Just that your...pursuit might be self-defeating, is all.”
“Okay,” Grae prompted.
“It didn’t lose you anything. You did.”
Grae bowed his head and shook it as though he wasn’t surprised by her point of view. “He’s not what you think, Tel. He never has been.”
“It must be so sad to live your life only seeing the worst in everyone.”
“Not everyone, Tel. Just him.”
When she turned away with a submissive sigh, Grae came down off some of his anger. “Tel—”
“Don’t, okay? The quicker all this gets started, the quicker I get all of you out of my hair.” She distanced herself again. “I’ll give Faro a call after my meeting...”
Grae was barely listening. The reference she’d made to her hair had his eyes fixed upon the fluffy mass. Coarse-textured and flowing, it framed her round face like an enchanting dark cloud. He knew she usually tamed the wild tresses into a thick ball, only leaving it wild about her face when she was heading out for the evening or going to bed...
Who did she say she was meeting again? he wondered.
Something to do with business, but it mattered little. Tielle could capture a man’s eyes and stir his appraisal—no matter the venue. Her curvy proportions,
untamed hair and baby-doll allure had anchored him with an invisible yet irresistible hook since the day he’d met her.
He was still anchored to her. Of course he was, with only his anger and suspicion to hold on to. She was right—what he’d lost, it was all on him.
“Grae?” Tielle waited until he’d focused on her. “Is that it?”
He watched her so meaningfully in that moment that Tielle was forced to glance down at her dress to see if it was still clinging to her body.
“For now.” He pushed off the arm of the chair. “Thanks, Tel.”
She managed to stay on her feet until he’d pulled the door shut behind him.
* * *
“I’m so sorry, Ti.” Laura offered her apology while adding more of the ginger dressing to her salad. “He was already here when I got in this morning.” Done with the dressing, she blew at a tuft of her bobbed hair. “And we must not forget our helpful man-crazy staff. They’d already given him your full itinerary for the day.”
“Our man-crazy staff?” Tielle gave Laura a look of mock reproach. “Are you trying to suddenly distance yourself from the bunch?”
“Well, hell, Ti, I mean, can you blame us?” Laura was crunching around a mouthful of salad by then. “Especially when it’s Graedon Clegg who comes a-callin’? What woman wouldn’t drop everything to...help him?” She closed her eyes over her word selection and winced. “Sorry.”
“No...” Tielle was giggling a mite helplessly. “I need the laugh.”
“So?” Laura pretended to be focused on the wide salad bowl she clutched. “You gonna tell me what happened in there? Every woman out here was falling all over the man when he got here. He was polite enough.” She shrugged beneath the lime-green cropped neck sweater she wore. “He really was pretty sweet, but he didn’t really come alive until you walked in. You were ranting so...didn’t even notice him following you to your office like you were dragging him along with a leash. Humph...pretty amazing to watch.”
It was pretty amazing to hear, and Tielle listened to the recap in awe.
“It’s been a year and I still can’t quite wrap my head around what happened.” A shiver touched her arm, and she began a slow rub to rush warmth to the limb. “We loved each other—wanted each other all the time.” Tielle let her lashes drift downward and swallowed with effort as emotion promised to close her throat while memories set her arousal mounting. She shook her head in a poor attempt to ward them off.
“What went wrong between us didn’t have to.” She looked out at the sunny environment beyond the long windows running past the tables in the staff cafeteria where she and Laura had their lunch.
“I’m sorry, Ti. It—it’s none of my business.”
“It’s okay.” Tielle leaned over to warm her fingertips against her teacup. “Maybe talking about it will help. Nothing else does.” She looked at Laura squarely then. “Grae wanted me to stop talking to his brother and I wouldn’t. I thought I could fix whatever was wrong between them.” She considered the shade of the blueberry tea then. “I didn’t know how impossible that was until I lost him—until I lost my husband. It’s not like I didn’t see it coming, but helping people find their way back to one another is what I’m supposed to be best at, right?”
Laura replied with a sympathetic smile. Yes, if anyone had a knack for fixing things between people, it was Tielle Turner. She got it honest. It was, after all, in her blood.
Named for her grandmothers, Tina and Danielle, Tielle had continued the women’s legacy for helping mend relationship fences. Tielle had never met a lost cause she turned away from. She had continually found great success in helping people—families, especially, through their trials.
That was before she’d taken on the task of trying to fix what was broken between her ex-husband and his brother.
“He wanted you to go against who you are,” Laura noted.
Sighing, Tielle raised her brows in a resigned fashion. “I’m just as much at fault. I should’ve left it alone...at the very least I should’ve suggested that they talk with someone else, and then I should’ve just let it go.”
“But what was wrong was hurting him, and that’s hard to turn away from,” Laura argued gently.
Tielle finally gave attention to the chef salad she’d ordered. “I thought it was hurting him—” she sprinkled on pepper “—but it was just the way things were between them. The way they’d always been. No need to be fixed—Grae had accepted it long ago and had accepted it so much that I didn’t get how serious he was when he told me to leave it alone or we were done.”
Laura munched through her salad for a time and then looked up at Tielle. “Do you think he’ll come to the retreat if it all goes through?”
“Sounded like he was fishing for something...” Tielle’s voice had a faint introspective quality. “He’d need to be here to get what he’s after, right?”
“And what does that mean for you?”
“You know I never stay around for the retreats.” Tielle favored Laura with a wink. “That’s what I pay my team of savvy fixers to do.”
“But aren’t you curious?” Laura’s voice was hushed.
“I’m not even a little curious.” Tielle gestured as though she were wiping her hands. “I plan to call Faro, hash out the details for the event and then get the hell out of here before the first Clegg arrives.”
“And what’ll you do if you’re one of the Cleggs he wants here?”
Tielle only hesitated momentarily before saying, “I’m not a Clegg anymore.”
“Because of him,” Laura reminded. “What if he wants to fix what he broke between you and Grae?”
“Faro didn’t break anything, Laura.” Tielle shook her head defiantly. “The prize for all that goes to me and my ex-husband.”
* * *
Though the decision was already made, Tielle gave herself a couple of days more before making things official with Faro. His unexpected call the week before had better prepared her to hear his voice when his assistant patched him through. Yet memories stirred of the good and bad times comprising her old life and made getting through the call more of a chore than was expected.
“My assistant, Laura Cooper, will be your facilitator for the event. We’ll be forwarding an information packet for you to review and sign,” she said as the call rounded out. “You can give her a call with any questions.”
“And can you be reached at this number, or is your cell still the best?”
“No, they’re both fine, but you won’t need to talk to me since Laura will be handling it all.”
“Smart move. That way you’ll have the chance to enjoy the retreat as a guest.”
“Guest?” Tielle stopped the idle tap of a pump-shod foot against the bottom drawer of her desk. “Faro, I’m no longer involved once the initial organization of the event is handled. I never take part in the retreats—least of all as a guest.”
“Understood. But I will need you to make a special exception in this case.”
“Faro...I—”
“This is your family, too.”
“Faro, not even when I was married to Grae. It was never my family.”
“Don’t you think it’s time to change that?” he challenged.
Tielle puffed out her cheeks, her taps to the bottom desk drawer gaining force. “Faro, considering the fact that your brother and I are divorced—”
“For only a year.”
“Divorced is divorced.”
“He still loves you, Ti.”
“Don’t do this, Faro. It’s long past time. I’m as done with this as Grae is.”
“Humph. Well, Ti, that’d mean you aren’t done at all. Honey, Grae...well, he’s changed a lot since he lost you.” Faro’s sigh carried on a defeated breath. “That...bad side that people hope they never see, much less h
ave directed their way, is pretty much all they have to work with these days.”
“That’s got nothing to do with me.” Tielle gave a nervous tug to the end of her low ponytail. “That bad side is pretty much all I saw toward the end and that was before he lost me, Faro.”
“He lost you because of me—”
“Faro—”
“That kind heart of yours won’t let you admit that, but you know it’s true. I need to fix things with you as much as I do with my blood relatives.”
“Faro, listen to me.” She kept her tone measured as though she were speaking to a recalcitrant child. “I have no anger that I’m holding on to toward you. I need you to accept that.”
“All right, Tielle, all right. But I need honest emotion from everyone. I won’t get that from Grae unless you’re there.”
“So Grae is coming?” Tielle tried to sound airy, but merely came off as nonplussed.
“I’m still working on it, but my chances would be better at encouraging him if you—”
“I don’t want to play those games, Faro.”
“Tielle, I need you guys there if I plan to start mending those fences. That’s all. I’d think you of all people could appreciate that.”
Tielle pushed out of her chair and gave the air a frustrated kick when she stepped from behind her desk.
“Ti?” Faro called when long silence had held the line.
“I’ll do my best to be there and that’s the best answer I can give you right now.”
“Understood.” Faro sounded as though her words translated into a flat yes to his request.
Tielle heard the glee loud and clear, but she had no energy to stifle it then. “Goodbye, Faro.” She disconnected without waiting for a farewell from his end.
* * *
Back in Portland, Oregon, Faro Clegg’s smile mirrored his inner glee. That emotion, however, was short-lived when a knock hit the door and his brother walked into the office without waiting on permission to enter.
“Got all your RSVPs in place?” Grae asked, giving Faro’s desk an assessing bronzed stare.