by KB Jacobs
Harlan gave a nod of acknowledgement. We’d actually met at the reception.
“Tell him I’m normally a nice person before coffee.”
Harlan barked out a laugh but then bit his lip and rubbed at the back of his neck uncomfortably. “Um, Alex, I really need to...” He gestured toward the brewing room. “There’s beer...and um...you know...brewing.”
Her eyes widened in outrage, and she put both hands on her hips as she glared the poor guy down. “Harlan! What? I am nice...always.”
I stood and opened the office door so the poor guy could escape. “It’s okay, Alex. I totally believe you. Let Harlan get back to his job.”
Harlan’s visible sigh of relief and murmured thanks as he scooted out the door was only marred by the uncomfortable split second where his eyes lingered on my scars.
I stiffened. I’d completely forgotten about them.
But then Alex stomped her foot like she was a two-year-old throwing a tantrum, and a smile broke over my face. Working here might not be as bad as I thought it was going to be.
***
Two hours later, the newly married couple had come in with satisfied, happy smiles that warmed my heart. Walsh’s life before meeting Lake had been one rotten, unlucky thing after another, starting with his birth to two of the worst people on Earth. He deserved something good in his life. Anyone could see that Lake was it for him, and I couldn’t be happier for him.
The whole Naked Brews crew had settled into the tables of the tasting pub, drinking coffee and having Danish before the couple left for their honeymoon to Ireland. I stood back against the wall, enjoying the back-and-forth banter and the sense of family that fell over this group.
It was hard to believe that someone here could possibly be trying to ruin all of this.
Alex had found her clipboard and stood in the corner with Lake, discussing something quietly. Walsh watched them with his heart on display for anyone to see. He caught my gaze, and he grinned before joining me against the wall.
“Did you have any problem getting here with the bike this morning?” he asked.
“Nope, none at all.” He didn’t know that my only problem had happened after I’d arrived. He was already worried about leaving the brewery with this possible threat looming. There was no reason to bring up the issue that Alex had been terrified enough this morning to come at me with a bat. That would just make him consider canceling the honeymoon again.
“Good.” Walsh nodded. “They’re a good crew. If you treat them fairly, they’ll do the same for you.”
The unspoken, Give them a chance, give yourself a chance, was right below the surface. We both knew it.
“Just keep your eyes and ears open,” Walsh continued.
I nodded. Just thinking about Alex trying to defend herself with only a bat had my blood boiling. I needed to check on adding security for the brewery. Both Alex and Melissa worked in the office alone a lot of the time. Leaving them here, unsecured, didn’t settle well with me. But I didn’t bring any of this up to Walsh.
Instead, I glanced at the clock on the wall. “Don’t you two need to head out? Check-in for international flights takes longer.”
“You’re right.” Walsh pushed away from the wall, and we walked over to the two women. “Hey, Lake...” He motioned down at his wrist. “We need to go.”
She nodded, held up a single finger, and then pointed at something on Alex’s clipboard.
Alex shook her head and tugged the clipboard away, hiding it behind her back. “I’ve got it. I promise. I’m completely on top of this opening.” She gently pushed Lake toward Walsh. “You go enjoy your man and your honeymoon. When you get back, everything will be ready for the opening.” Alex turned toward the group. “Isn’t that right? The Naked Brews crew is on top of this, so no worries.”
The group cheered and wolf-whistled as everyone stood to wish the couple happy traveling.
“We promise not to burn the place down again,” one of the guys joked. I hadn’t met him.
The younger guy standing beside him didn’t like the quip, though, and shoved him. “Hey, that’s not funny. Melissa could have been seriously hurt.”
“Warner, it’s okay.” Lake settled the two guys. “We all know Joe didn’t mean anything by it. He was just joking, but I’m holding you to that, Joe. No destroying or breaking anything while I’m gone, okay?” She gave both guys the stink eye before another grin broke over her face.
Then the two newlyweds rushed out of the building, leaving quiet behind.
Alex stood and clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention. “Okay, everyone. Break time’s over. Let’s get this brewery going for the day.”
She strode toward the office with her ass swaying and her trusty clipboard clutched to her side.
Melissa stepped to my side and peered up at me with her eyebrow raised, a mischievous glint in her eyes. “Be careful,” she whispered, “you’re drooling.”
“Wh...what? No, I am not.”
But she was already walking away.
I surreptitiously wiped at my chin. Just in case.
Then I followed the two women into the office. It was time to do my job, and incredibly, I was actually looking forward to it.
Chapter Nine
Alex
“I love that you want to help, Damian, but I really don’t have time to teach you our system. I’ve got about a million things to take care of today.” I twirled a strand of hair around my finger and fixed my face into my make-it-happen smile. “Where I could really use your help is getting all of this moved up to the new office space. You look like you work out. I bet you could get it done in no time.”
I gave Damian’s bicep a squeeze. He jerked away from my touch, but not before I found a muscle goldmine. Sweet baby Jesus in a manger. He didn’t just look like he worked out. This guy had enough guns to put Smith and Wesson out of business. My fingers itched to slide over and see if all that muscle extended to his shoulders and chest. I bet I could bounce quarters off those pecs. Or me. He could bounce me.
Melissa glanced over at me from her quiet spot in the corner of the office. She lifted an eyebrow as if she knew exactly what I’d been thinking.
Stepping back, I shook my head to clear away the image. I was supposed to be working Damian, not the other way around. I slid over and perched on the edge of the desk, intentionally crossing my legs in a slow, smooth motion. When the bicep squeeze failed to work, the leg cross always sealed the deal. “You can get started with the filing cabinets.”
No reaction. “How about I call a moving company instead? They could have the entire office moved in an afternoon, and I can spend that time learning the systems.” He smiled at me and batted his navy blue eyes framed by luscious, thick lashes. My breath hitched.
Rat bastard was throwing my moves back at me. I needed Damian out of my way twenty minutes ago. Time for a different tactic. “Or...” I drew out the word as if it had eleven syllables. “You could check out the brewing process with Harlan. Walsh really enjoyed spending time back in the brewery, and they always need an unbiased opinion like yours to sample the wares.”
“It’s a little early for a beer.” Damian slid his chair closer to the desk. “I’m going to call a moving company and then dig into these sales reports.”
Son of a monkey’s uncle. Having Damian in the office was too much of a distraction. And that distraction had nothing to do with the way I imagined the scruff of his beard rubbing along my neck or his long fingers kneading my ass. Nope, completely irrelevant. This was about making sure he was out of the way, so I could focus on getting Ice’s Brew Pub finished in time for the official grand opening.
“Okay, well...don’t change anything. I’ll be upstairs setting up my new computer station if you need me.”
Damian smiled at me briefly before turning his attention back to the computer. The muscles in my legs turned to jelly. It was a good thing I was sitting down, or my legs might have given out on me. Damn. The man was ruggedly h
andsome when he had on his brooding leave-me-alone face. The scars puckering the right side of his face only added to the effect. But he was downright gorgeous when he smiled.
“I run a multibillion-dollar charity. I think I can manage a few sales reports.”
“Right. Okay. Fine.” I grabbed my clipboard and slid off the desk, feeling decidedly less seductive after Damian had deflected all my best moves. “I’ll just be...”
“Upstairs. Got it.” Damian waved from the monitor, barely acknowledging my exit.
“I’ll go with you.” Melissa bounced out of her chair and followed me out of the office.
She kept her lips pressed tightly together as we made our way past the renovated tasting bar and up the reconstructed stairs leading to the new office space that used to be Melissa’s apartment. The smell of sawdust and wood stain permeated the air from the wood-paneled walls.
I closed the glass door and turned on Melissa as she sat down at her desk. “Okay, out with it.”
“What?” Melissa said, batting her big blue eyes and stretching her pressed lips into a thin smile. “I just wanted to get a head start on transferring the payroll over to the new computer system. I have absolutely no intention of busting your balls about the hard time Damian just gave you.”
Her innocent façade broke, and her face stretched into a giant grin.
“Okay, laugh it up. It’s all very funny, I’m sure.” I sat down in one of our brand new chairs and spun it in a circle.
“I’m just curious,” Melissa said, tapping her nails against a desk top. “Has that ever happened before?”
I stopped spinning to stare at her. “Has what happened?”
“Have you ever totally failed at seducing a guy to do exactly what you wanted and then had him turn the tables on you?”
I scoffed. “He didn’t turn the tables on me.”
Melissa mimed pulling something out of her pocket and laid it on the table. “I’m playing my bullshit card. I’ve never seen you so frazzled in my life.”
“I was not frazzled. I was distracted.” Okay, well, maybe I was a little frazzled...and a lot turned on.
“By a pillar of muscle with a tight ass.”
“Melissa!”
“What? I’m in love, not blind.” She grinned at me and waggled her eyebrows. “And it would take a blind woman not to notice all of Damian’s...assets.”
There was no point in denying it. The man was sex on a stick.
“Fine. I noticed.” I shrugged like it didn’t matter that the office downstairs was currently occupied by tall, dark, and sexy. “So what?”
“So what?” Melissa threw her hands up in the air. “Are you not the same woman a few months ago who told me to seize on an opportunity when it presented itself. He’s single and clearly attractive. You’re single and attractive, a fact that has not been missed by our hot friend downstairs. Does the phrase knocking boots ring any bells?”
“Wait.” My heart skipped a beat. I stood up and slid across the empty desk to Melissa. “Damian thinks I’m attractive? Nope, never mind. Doesn’t matter.” Yeah, right. Tell that to my speeding heart rate.
“Of course he does, and of course it matters.”
“Have you seen the way he reacts when I touch him? He can’t get away fast enough.” I shrugged like it didn’t bother me that my touch completely repulsed him. “What are we supposed to do? Sit around naked and stare at each other?”
“That doesn’t sound like too much of a hardship.” She stood again with a file in her hand and a wide, knowing smile on her face.
“Okay.” I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and steered her back toward the door. “That’s enough discussion of the infamous Mr. Thorne. There will be no touching or staring. I’m a very busy lady who doesn’t have time to deal with anyone’s neurosis but my own.”
Melissa put her hand on the doorknob, but paused before turning it. “Can I use that in the toast at your wedding reception?”
“Absolutely.” I pushed her out the door and returned to the desk alone.
It was an easy promise to make since I was never getting married and certainly not to Damian Thorne.
Chapter Ten
Damian
I shook my head and gritted my teeth as the door closed behind the girls. I hated when people tried to manipulate me into doing what they wanted, and Alex had perfected the art. Hell, she might as well have learned at my mother’s feet, she was so good. She just smiled, led, and people followed.
Granted, that smile was distracting as all hell, but I would not be manipulated. I knew she didn’t want me messing with the way they ran the brewery, but she had to understand if they streamlined some things, all those lists on her clipboard wouldn’t be so impossibly long.
In the past two and a half years, GSC had created and improved several businesses like Ice’s Brew Pub. We’d learned the hard way that existing businesses always underestimated what a tax an expansion would be on their personnel. If the expansion was done right, it almost always meant more money and profit for the business, but it also came with a whole slew of new problems.
I started digging into the sales files for the brewery. While some of it was on the computer, way too much of their invoicing was done the old fashioned way—through mail and paper billing, which meant files...lots and lots of files. Who actually mailed things in this day and age?
I couldn’t make sense of any of it.
That was the problem with a certain beautiful brunette who kept invading my thoughts, distracting my ability to think. I closed my eyes and could only see her magnetic, green-eyed gaze in my mind. I couldn’t concentrate. The fact that this office still smelled like her distinctive perfume didn’t help one little bit.
Dammit.
I threw the file down on the desk, frustrated. The walls were beginning to close in on me. I needed to get out of here, to move. And I needed to go do what I’d promised Walsh, talk to the crew and see what I could figure out about who might be sabotaging the business.
I could do that now, since my head was too wound up for paperwork.
Fuck. My back muscles tightened, pulling that scarred skin at the thought of confronting strangers. I stood from behind the desk. I knew from experience that putting it off just made my anxiety worse, not better. I needed to go and face them.
Yes, I’d seen them all—and more importantly, they’d seen me—just a few hours ago. But that was different. I hadn’t been their focus, and I was able to turn toward the wall so my scars were less visible.
I was tempted to throw my sweatshirt back on so I could wear the hood, but the temperature in the building had climbed steadily all afternoon. All the windows were wide open, so we caught the fresh mountain breeze, but if I wore a sweatshirt, I’d be dripping with sweat in minutes. I searched for another idea and noticed a Naked Brews cap thrown negligently on a high shelf.
I reached up and snagged the tan cap featuring an embroidered burnt orange Naked Brews logo down. With a slight adjustment to the snap-back, I tried it on for size, pulling it low over my forehead. This could work. At least I wouldn’t feel so exposed.
I grabbed the folder that held the shipping schedule for the month and headed back toward packaging. As I walked through the brewing room, nobody paid me much mind.
Several people worked in here, including the head brewer, Harlan. I wondered how he felt about Lake taking over the brewery. He seemed like a nice guy, but he was in his mid-fifties and had been working with Pat, Lake’s father, almost longer than she’d been alive. Had he resented someone like her, someone so young, taking over?
With the noise from the machinery, Harlan nodded his head at me in acknowledgement but let me walk by without discussion as he pointed something out on his clipboard to Colby, one of the other brewers.
Colby was younger than Harlan, probably in his mid-thirties. He was a quiet guy, and I hadn’t gotten a good handle on him yet. He’d stayed withdrawn at the wedding reception and watched most of the proceedings a
s a viewer rather than a participant. He wore a wedding ring, but I hadn’t seen any signs of the wife. He might be someone to get to know better.
Less than twenty people worked at Naked Brews. If someone here had a problem with management, it shouldn’t be that hard to figure out.
The break room was empty, which seemed odd. Granted, I hadn’t been back here a whole lot, but every time I had, it seemed like someone was hanging out, napping, or playing on the game system.
As I approached the door to the bottling room, I glanced inside through the glass window at the top of the door. The two young guys that had been joking about the fire earlier with Lake and Walsh were going at one another. One held the other in a headlock, both their faces tight and red with anger.
I rushed through the door just as Joe threw a punch that landed hard against the side of the kid’s head. Dammit, I couldn’t remember the kid’s name, although I knew I’d been told. His head snapped back with a spray of blood gushing out of his nose as he fell to his knees.
The kid came up swinging, fury marring his features. Joe had to outweigh the kid by at least eighty pounds, but that didn’t deter him at all.
The two guys grappled, would separate and come to blows before they’d start struggling again.
“Hey, cut it out,” I yelled. Should I try to shoulder my way between them? Because they didn’t look like they were going to stop anytime soon, and there was no one else around in this section of the brewery.
I dropped the folder to the floor and whistled between my fingers to get their attention. That worked. Well, the combination of the sudden noise and the fact that neither of them had the strength left to stand. They both slumped against the equipment and panted as they glared at each other.
I approached them. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I gestured toward the blood that had sprayed over some of the equipment. I might not know the specifics about running a brewery, but even I was aware that the bottling area needed to be kept sterile...and this wasn’t anymore.
The sound of running feet echoed, and Alex and Melissa careened through the doorway. Their eyes widened as they took in the disheveled men and the mess from the fight.