by Layla Hagen
Since I’m no good at reading people outside of my family, it took me a while until I got a grip on weeding out the wrong crowd. I swallowed bitter disappointments but also sharpened my claws. No one will take advantage of my siblings if I have anything to say about it, and I typically have a lot to say about everything.
The ongoing joke in our family is that the older siblings protect the younger ones, but we youngsters have done our share of protecting the older trio, if only by serving as a wall, not letting moochers get to them. Sebastian, Logan, and Pippa had to fend off their own share of moochers without having to deal with the ones coming via our recommendations. Pippa’s first husband was a jackass who only married her for money. The divorce scarred her deeply. She’s happy now, but she was unhappy for a long time.
“Ms. Williams, stop giving me mojitos,” I complain.
“Don’t you like it? I can also make you a ‘sex on the beach.’”
“No, I really should go find my friend. We were supposed to—”
“Go out for drinks?” Nate’s voice sounds from my right. He’s approaching us fast, nodding at my glass and then at his. “We’re in the right place.”
“Ah, smart and sexy. My kind of guy,” Ms. Williams says. “I’ll leave the two of you and chat with some of the other party animals here.”
The second she leaves, I let out a sigh. “You always rescue me. Why? I don’t need it.”
“Yes, you do if you don’t want to be drunk as a skunk.”
“Hey! I’m just a little inebriated.” When he stops right in front of me, I realize I’m just drunk enough to lose my head. Shit. I can barely resist his charms when I’m one hundred percent sober. How am I supposed to resist all this manliness? Steel pecs, strong arms, three-day beard. Scent so sexy it makes me want to lick him. Oh boy. I set my glass down.
Amusement dances in his eyes. “How many drinks did you have?”
“No clue. My glass is just always full.”
“Looked like it to me from the other end of the room.”
“You’re drinking too.”
“No alcohol. I’m driving, remember?”
“I’m perfectly capable of walking in a straight line.”
“How about dancing?”
“With you?”
“Yes.”
Oh boy.
“Sure.”
Setting his glass on the table too, he takes my hand, pulling me on the dance floor, and I feel eighteen again. Thank heavens the music is slow, requiring nothing more than balancing from one leg to the other.
“This is just like prom night. You’re my knight in shining armor again.” He pulls me against him, and hot damn, those abs really are like armor. “Why do you always save me? I don’t want to need saving.”
“No, you need someone with whom you can make good memories. I’ll always volunteer for that.”
“Is it really okay that we’re here? I didn’t mean to stay so long—”
“But Ms. Williams kidnapped you. I saw.”
“We can go out. It might be the last time we’re together before you leave.” At this, he pulls me even closer to him, and I was close enough already. But now our chests touch and my breath catches. His eyes are snapping fire, electrifying me too.
“I’m here for another two weeks. This isn’t the last time.” Bringing one hand to my face, he rubs his thumb along my jaw. His gaze pierces me with an intensity that turns my knees weak. We’re so close that our noses almost touch. I can feel his breath on my lips. Luckily, the music ends, and he pulls back. Being on his best behavior, like I asked him to. He keeps being a gentleman for the rest of the night. We dance, we mingle with the seniors, and he quickly becomes the soul of the party, cracking jokes and sharing funny stories. He’s always been very charismatic. Afterward, he talks to several of the seniors who are too shy to join the crowd, preferring to hang around the buffet or just sit and watch.
Nadja, the manager on shift tonight, looks around, leaning against the table with the buffet. I’m pouring water into a glass, intending to chat her up, when I see Nate crossing the room to her. He’d been talking to Ms. Everly, a lovely lady who has been morose the entire evening. She and her husband would have celebrated sixty years of marriage on Saturday, but unfortunately, he passed away six months ago.
“Nadja, can you do me a favor?” Nate asks. I try to focus on my glass, but I’m too close not to overhear.
“Sure.”
“Can you take Ms. Everly to Alcatraz on Saturday? I’ll pay for all your expenses and have a car and a private boat ready for you in the morning. She said she and her husband used to go there each time they celebrated another decade.”
“Oh, the poor woman. Of course I can. Very generous of you.”
“Here is my number. Let me know the schedule.”
Yep, I’m not swooning or anything. As I watch him return to Ms. Everly, I sigh. This is what always called me to him. Not just his sinfully hot looks, though those also contribute.
But none of this matters. We’ve lived separate lives until now, and that won’t change. I won’t do anything to risk the friendship we have while he’s here. Undressing him with my eyes doesn’t count, right? Such a fine specimen of a male must be admired, often and with gusto. I volunteer for the task.
Chapter Five
Nate
“Earth to Nate. What’s going on? You’ve been like a zombie the entire morning,” Clara says the next day during the lunch break, tapping her foot against the hardwood floor of the studio while holding out two sandwiches. “Turkey or cheese?”
I grab the one with the turkey label. “Thanks.”
It was four o’ clock by the time I got into bed, waking up two hours later feeling almost hungover. Now it’s lunchtime, and my head still throbs. Clara and I go out to the balcony overlooking the inner patio. It’s become our designated lunch spot. Everyone else heads to the nearby restaurant, enjoying the hour off, but Clara and I typically only take half the allotted time.
“So? Any particular reason why you could barely keep your eyes open today?” She’s practically bouncing up and down on her toes. I sit on the bench, unwrapping the foil from the sandwich.
“It’s called a private life, Clara. Weren’t you nagging me about having one?”
“Yes, but it interferes with your work. I’ve had to cover for you, saying you stayed up late to edit the last segment, and that’s why you can’t focus.”
I stop midchew, standing straighter. “Who complained?” I pride myself on being able to do my job better than ninety-nine percent of my peers, even with my eyes closed and my hands tied behind my back. I don’t want to give anyone reason to think I’m not giving my best just because I’ll be leaving in two weeks.
Clara stares at me intently, right before bursting into laughter.
“You didn’t have to cover, did you?” I ask, feeling sucker-punched.
When she eventually stops laughing, she shakes her head. “No one complained. Your work is great, as usual, but I just wanted to have leverage against you. To make you talk.”
I don’t have any siblings, but I always imagined if I had a little sister she’d be just like Clara, nosy and annoying.
“I went with Alice to a senior center last night. We were there until three o’clock in the morning.”
Watching Clara’s reaction is downright comical. I’ve talked to her about the Bennett family often, and she knows I’m pulling strings for Alice. When I mentioned Alice, her eyes went wide with surprise, but they narrowed to thin lines at the words senior center.
“Odd choice of a place for a date.”
“It wasn’t a date.”
“Oh. So you were out until the early hours of the morning… why?”
While we eat our sandwiches, I explain everything, and Clara listens quietly, which is very unlike her. After I’m done, she remains quiet, which makes me nervous. A fact I’ve learned over the years: when a chatty woman is quiet, some major shit will go down.
; “So, you have the hots for Alice.”
“Well—”
“It wasn’t a question. It’s a fact.” She holds her palm up, and all I can do is chuckle. “Why don’t you ask her out?”
“I’m going to move in two weeks. What’s the point?”
“The point is you glowed while talking about her.”
I coil. “Clara, for God’s sake. I’m a man. I don’t glow.”
“So if you weren’t moving in two weeks, you would ask her out?” she continues undeterred.
“Good question.”
“What’s your answer?”
“Alice and I are different. She might not admit it, but she has stars in her eyes, believing in happy ever afters and all that jazz.”
“True. Plus, her parents have been married for almost four decades. I suppose it contributed to her being a believer.”
Usually I appreciate the fact that Clara remembers everything I tell her. Except when she’s turning my words against me. I have a hunch this is what’s about to happen.
“And your parents getting divorced when you were thirteen and still not standing to be in the same room with each other all these years later turned you into a nonbeliever.”
I shake my head, not really in the mood to delve into this topic.
“Clara, no offense, but I don’t believe in that crap. Justifying my choices by my parents’ mistakes is a coward’s way out. There’s only so much one can blame on childhood stuff.”
“It’s not crap. It’s scientifically proven. Our childhood years mark us.” Clara’s voice catches and she glances to her hands.
Way to put your foot in your mouth, Becker.
“Your story is different,” I say gently. Her parents died when she was young, and Clara spent most of her childhood in foster homes. Of course that kind of background shapes you. “My parents just divorced. Half the marriages in this country fall apart.”
She smiles weakly. “This is the last thing I will say about this, but there is a lot of research on the topic, concluding that people are afraid to perpetuate the same unhappy pattern they’ve seen in their family. So a child of divorce would not be a believer in marriage because he’d subconsciously fear that any marriage ends in divorce… and possibly kids going through the same thing he did.”
I brush the theory off, even though it doesn’t sound farfetched. In fact, it hits home surprisingly hard.
“How about I always choose work over relationships. There are only so many hours in a day.”
“Suit yourself, but if you think about it more, you’ll see I’m right.”
We finish our sandwiches in silence afterward, and my mind slides to Alice and all the fun we had yesterday. If someone had told me that partying with a bunch of seniors would go down as one of the best nights of my life, I would’ve told them they’re insane.
Then again, it wasn’t the best night because of the seniors. It was because of a certain spitfire brunette who is monopolizing my thoughts.
After we head inside, Clara and I go over the schedule for my remaining days in San Francisco.
“We should squeeze in the meeting with the producer one day at dinner,” Clara says. Dinner meetings are the last resort—something we do when every other option fails.
“Works for me. How about next Friday?”
She shakes her head, surveying her private calendar. “I can’t. I have plans.”
“Date?”
“Nah, I’m going out with Alice’s sister Pippa and some other girls from the family.”
“I didn’t realize you knew them personally.”
“I dropped by one of Alice’s locations after the Delicious Dining team said they might be interested in featuring all three restaurants. Wanted to check it out for myself. Pippa was there and one thing led to another.”
“Why am I suspecting I was the talk of the town?”
“Because you have great instincts. I like Pippa.”
Clara becoming friends with the Bennett clan is an excellent thing. She doesn’t have any family, and I like knowing she’ll have someone to rely on after I move to London.
“Me too. But I’m also afraid of her.”
Clara elbows me, chuckling. “You’re a smart man. I haven’t met all of them, but I think all the Bennett girls should be feared. Even those who married into the family.”
I nod thoughtfully, imagining the women Sebastian and Logan married are fierce and determined too. It still boggles my mind that both are married, and the older set of twins, Christopher and Max, are engaged.
The image of Alice slightly off balance after one too many drinks pops in my mind. She turned into a lovely goof, but she also lowered her guard, leaned in too close, felt me up with no regrets. I knew it was time to stop dancing when I started imagining the front buttons of her dress popping open all on their own. I only have so much self-control, and Alice was testing it with dedication.
She was sober by the time I drove her home, and we agreed to meet again before I leave, even though I have a hunch things will escalate next time I see her.
Chapter Six
Alice
Go, Alice. You can do it. I repeat this over and over as I push myself to the limit, hoping to reach the six-mile mark today. I try to increase the limit each Monday. Training for a marathon requires as much mental discipline as it does physical strength.
Once I cross the mark, I slow to a walking pace, breathing in deeply. The afternoon air is cool and humid, and judging by the dark gray clouds hanging low in the sky, we’re in for rain later on. I hate rainy evenings—people prefer to remain indoors and order in, which is bad for business.
I head into the restaurant through the back door. I keep training equipment at both my restaurants and often go for a run during downtime, which is usually between three and five. When Blue Moon opens, I’ll keep equipment there too.
My office is equipped with a shower and I hop right in, mentally going through my to-do list, which is growing to epic proportions what with the opening of the third location—even though Blake is doing most of the work, bless him. I shudder thinking what my workload will look like once the location is open, but I’ll have to learn to delegate better. Right now I suck at it. I have managers in each of the locations, but I double-check everything they do so thoroughly that I might as well do the job myself. I have no idea how Logan and Sebastian built Bennett Enterprises, or how they run that mammoth. Pippa, Christopher, and Max all work there too. They make quite the unstoppable team.
Once I’m dressed again and ready for work, I check my phone, which I didn’t have with me while running. I have ten missed calls from various business partners, as well as messages from Nate. We haven’t seen each other since Thursday.
Nate: I have some great news.
I check the time he sent me the message, ignoring my quickening pulse. Five minutes ago.
Alice: Do tell.
Nate: Nah, it has to be delivered in person. Can I come by for a quick snack? I’m in the neighborhood.
Alice: Sure. I can have lunch ready for you when you drop by if you tell me what you want.
Nate: Already had lunch, but I won’t say no to a snack.
Alice: Done.
I try not to get ahead of myself imagining what the good news might be, so instead I focus on my to-do list. Thank God for downtime. Usually that means having about five to eight guests, but today there is just one, Colin. He works nearby and often has a late lunch here. Unfortunately, he’s also asked me out, and I’ve turned him down often enough that it’s almost embarrassing to meet his eye. We’ve chatted often enough for me to realize we have nothing in common. I’m not looking to date for the sake of dating or to have some action under the sheets. I simply don’t have any more energy to pursue things I know will go nowhere. I greet him politely but then avoid further interaction while arranging the centerpieces on the rest of the tables. At the end, I bring him the bill, since all my servers are on break. And then he makes his move.
; “Alice, do you have time to grab a drink tonight?” His voice is low, clearly intending to come off as seductive. Despite his best efforts and his English accent, he fails to incite an appropriate reaction in me. My pulse isn’t quickening. There are no butterflies in my stomach. Still, I don’t find it in myself to wipe the hopeful smile off his face. I might be known for my take-no-prisoners attitude, but I’m not heartless. On the other hand, how often am I supposed to tell him no before he stops insisting? I decide to go with an ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ explanation. Truthfully, it is me.
“Colin, I’m not looking to date right now. I can offer you friendship but nothing more.”
His smile doesn’t fade. “I’ll wear you down. Have a nice day.”
Great. Not what I was hoping for, but before I can come back with a firmer statement, he winks and takes off. It’s only as I watch him walk out through the front door that I see Nate was inside already, sitting at a table. Damn, did he listen to our conversation?
“I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Saw you were busy, so I kept quiet. So, this Colin guy—”
“None of your business.”
His shit-eating grin tells me he indeed listened to the conversation. “You could have been firmer. Now he’ll keep pestering you.”
“Maybe I’ll change my mind,” I tease.
His grin fades a tad. “So you’ll go out with him?”
I give a noncommittal shrug, curious to see where he’s going with this.
“What do you see in him?”
“He’s a nice guy!”
“He’s a wimp.”
“You don’t even know him.”
“What else?”
“What else what?”
“What else do you like in him?”
“His British accent.”
Nate snorts, shaking his head. “I’ll never understand women’s fascination with the British accent. Anyone can fake it. ‘I’ll have a bloody gin tonic, please.’”