by Natalie Ann
“Yep, going to put that handsome face of yours on TV.”
She’d been so excited for him when he’d told her last week. He was a little surprised, then wondered why he was. She seemed to put others first, always. Thinking of them and wishing many well. Keeping her nose clean and out of others’ business.
They’d gotten very close in his eyes, so her excitement for him shouldn’t have felt odd. But should it have felt as warm and fuzzy as it did? Something he’d have to think about more closely another time.
“I want you to go with me.”
“What?” she asked, looking shocked now. “How? Why? I don’t get it.”
“I want you to go with me,” he repeated. “How? That’s easy. We’ll fly. Why? Even easier. I want you with me because it’d be nice to spend more than a few stolen hours here and there. A place we can go and relax and be ourselves. I’ll show you around and take you to some pretty awesome eateries. What don’t you get about that?”
“But people will know,” she said, looking panicked, and he tried not to be hurt over that.
“Not if I schedule it right. I’ll take that Sunday off to pack and get ready, but put you on the schedule early. Maybe a half shift and have you make the time up another night. We’ll fly out Sunday around dinner, come back Wednesday morning. It’s just a two-hour non-stop flight. You can work later on Wednesday. Monday and Tuesday can be your two days off that week.” He was trying not to get so frustrated that she seemed to want to hide what they had more than him. Was she embarrassed to be dating him? Nah, no way. Right?
“It’s that easy?” she asked. She was frowning, but he could see some excitement in her eyes, giving him a bit of hope.
“It is if I say it is. I’m the boss,” he said smirking at her.
“How much is the plane ticket?”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m paying.”
“No,” she said.
“Yes,” he said right back. “This is for me more than you. I want you there with me. Maybe I need you to hold my hand and reassure me I’m not a total dork on screen.”
“You couldn’t be a total dork if you tried. I want to say yes so bad,” she said.
“Then do it. There is no reason not to.”
“If you’re sure…?” How much more convincing did he have to do? What was he missing here?
“Positive. Come here and give me a hug so I can prove it.”
She jumped up and took a step back. “You’re just trying to get me going. Not happening. I’m not even going to let you rub up against my leg and pretend it was a mistake.”
She opened his door and walked out before he could say he was dead serious. That he really wanted a hug and didn’t care who saw them. That his little bubbles of contentment were popping ever so slowly by her need to hide everything.
Instead he pulled up the flight schedule and purchased two tickets, looking forward to the first vacation he’d had in almost five years. Maybe once they got there and no one else was around, she’d finally relax.
***
All happy thoughts of time with Nic flew out of his brain when Cade came marching into his office two hours later and dropped the bar menu on his desk. “What the hell is this?”
Aiden picked it up. “Looks like the supplement special menu. Is there a problem?”
“The bottom. What does it say on the bottom there?”
Aiden looked at the menu he’d been preparing for years and nothing stood out. “Spit it out, Cade. Where is there a problem?”
“Cannoli. Moretti Cannoli.”
“Yeah? So. I’ve been selling them on the menu for weeks.”
“You have. But this week you put the name Moretti in front of it. Why? What would possess you to do that?”
“What’s the big deal? Nic is making them. Her last name is Moretti.”
“Is she the only one making them? Does she have an exclusive right to put her name on it? I thought the store was her grandparents’.”
“I make them when they get low, but it’s her recipe. No one else does but the two of us.”
“Did you buy that recipe? Did you get permission to use it from her grandparents? Did you cover your ass in case someone wants to sue us?” Cade shouted.
Aiden looked beyond the window and saw a few eyes turned in their direction. One of them being Nic’s. He knew no one could hear the words, just the muffled voices. The loud muffled voices.
“Why are you so pissed off?” Aiden asked. “She wouldn’t do that.”
“Do you know that for sure? Maybe if you put on the menu, ‘made by Nic Moretti’ I wouldn’t have flipped out so much. Or maybe if you came to me first and cleared it, I could have avoided this. Now I’ve got to backpedal since I was told it’s been like this for a week.”
“Since when do I need to run my menu past you? Never, that’s when,” Aiden said, losing some of his composure. He wanted to shout back but instead just kept his voice firm, his brown eyes drilling into a mirror image of his own.
“If it’s a potential legal issue, then you know damn well you have to. Change the menu right now. Reprint them until you get clearance. If you really want their name on it, then I need to draw up a contract and we have to provide some kind of financial incentive or compensation for that. Which means you need everyone’s permission for that to happen.”
“Bullshit,” Aiden said.
Cade only raised his eyebrow. Normally by now Cade was screaming but that he lowered his voice was a little mysterious. Cade being mysterious was never a good thing. Or Cade being cocky, and right now he was being real cocky. “You know I’m right.”
“What the hell is going on in here?” Brody said, opening the door and then shutting it. “I can see on the monitor Cade throwing a hissy fit in the far corner of the kitchen camera.”
“Get over yourself, Brody,” Cade said. “I’m doing my job. If Aiden did his I wouldn’t be throwing a ‘hissy fit’ as you so kindly pointed out.”
“I’m doing my job,” Aiden argued. “Like I’ve done every damn day for the past five years.”
“Cade,” Brody said, “spit it out. What’s going on? You marched out of the bar like you needed a barf bag.”
“You guys are never going to drop that, are you?” Cade snarled.
“Not as long as you puke every time the earth moves,” Brody said.
Cade narrowed his eyes. “This is my problem.” He picked up the menu he’d flung on the desk. “Putting Moretti’s name on the menu without legal consent.”
“What’s the big deal? Nic works for us,” Brody said.
Aiden was glad he wasn’t the only one that didn’t think there was a problem with it. “That’s for me to deal with. And me to clean up the mess. You know about messes, don’t you Brody?” Cade asked.
“A few days of solitude is worth giving you a shiner again. Can your stomach handle a few days of rebellion when Mom finds out about this?”
Aiden laughed. He’d always enjoyed when Brody and Cade went at it. Until Cade turned back to him. “Explain yourself.”
“You’re not the boss here. I’m the boss in this kitchen.” His voice was rising now. He’d had enough.
“Why are you looking at him that way, Brody?” Cade said. “What is going on now that I don’t know about?”
“Just tell him,” Brody said. “Aiden, why are you hiding it?”
“It has nothing to do with it,” Aiden said. Besides, it wasn’t him that was trying to hide anything.
“You keep telling yourself that,” Brody said, then walked out.
“What?” Cade demanded.
Aiden looked back out into the kitchen, saw Nic looking at him again, then watched as Cade turned and caught the interaction. “No way. Seriously? You too?”
“Now what are you rambling about?” Aiden asked.
“Please. Am I the only one who didn’t know? You’re screwing Nic. That’s what this is about. A payment for a cheap lay.”
Aiden grabbed Cade’s shirt before he cou
ld stop himself and slammed him into the wall, almost like he had so many years ago as kids. Cade was bigger now and fought back, shoving Aiden off, but that didn’t stop Aiden from charging again. Until Brody stormed back in and pulled them apart.
“This is ridiculous. Both of you upstairs, now!”
Still to this day, when Brody used that tone, they listened and they followed. Brody shoved Cade in front of him, then stood in the middle as the three of them climbed the stairs to the conference room upstairs.
Ella came running in. “What is going on? I just saw it all on the monitor.”
“Do you watch us all day long?” Brody asked.
“Of course not. Aimee called up to warn me to expect company. I looked over to see what was going on. What did you do, Cade? Aiden never loses his temper.”
“Why is this my fault?” Cade asked.
“It’s always your fault,” Brody said. “You can’t control your mouth and always say something to piss us off. What, did you insult Nic?”
“Cade,” Ella said, sighing. “Why would you do that knowing Aiden and Nic are dating and he’s doing his damnedest to hide it from his staff?”
“How do you know?” Aiden asked Ella.
“Come on, Aiden. It’s obvious to us,” she said.
“So everyone knew but me,” Cade said.
Ella laughed. “I don’t know how you can be a lawyer and miss the obvious so much in front of you. What’s this all about? Aiden, you start because Cade will just say something stupid again.”
“He’s ticked off I put the Moretti name on the menu without checking with him first. Said it’s a legal issue.”
“He’s right,” Ella said.
“Sure, take his side.”
“I’m not taking any sides. I’m trying to get the facts. What else happened?”
“He said I only put it on the menu because it was payment for a cheap lay.” Aiden felt his fingers start to clench again. Now he understood why Brody always threw a punch at Cade.
Brody laughed, but stopped the minute Ella narrowed her eyes at him. “Cade, if I didn’t think I’d get in trouble with Mom, I’d walk over and hit you myself. Whether your concerns are justified or not, you don’t say things like that about any woman.”
“You tell him, Ella,” Aiden said. Everyone shut up when Ella got on a roll. She was too much like their mother, as sad as that was.
She turned and pointed her finger. “And you. You know better than to let him get under your skin.”
“You just said he was wrong,” Aiden said.
“I did. But you know better than to do what you did without checking with him first.”
He did know better, but he wasn’t thinking. He was just trying to give Nic the credit she deserved for the way they were flying off the menu. It was nothing more than that. “So fix it,” he said to Cade.
“Family meeting has to fix it.”
“Why?” Brody asked.
“Because we’ll have to get a contract to legally use the name. Provide financial compensation for it,” Cade explained. “Why don’t you guys ever think of these things?”
“They won’t want it,” Ella said.
“You don’t know that. And maybe they won’t, but we can’t just use their name without their consent.”
“Fine,” Brody said. “I’m in favor. Do your legal thing. Draw up what you need to. But I’m with Ella. They won’t want anything.”
“My vote is draw it up, Cade,” Ella said.
“You don’t need to know my thoughts. I’ll talk to Nic in a minute,” Aiden said, staring at Cade, glad he was being backed.
“We need to talk to Mason,” Cade said.
“Call if you want,” Ella said. “But you know as well as I do, that he’s known about Nic and Aiden longer than anyone. He’ll be fine with it. You should be too, Cade.”
“I never said I wasn’t,” Cade said. “I just said he needed to come to me first.”
“Whatever,” Aiden said. “That’s not how you made it sound. You made it sound cheap and trashy. I thought better of you.”
“You know how I get,” Cade said. “Shit just flies out of my mouth with you guys. It only happens with the five of us.”
“It’s a good thing too,” Brody said. “I’m going back to the bar. Do you want me to send Nic up here?” he asked Aiden.
“Sure.”
Ella looked at him and said, “Relax. You were wrong, Aiden. You know I hate taking Cade’s side, but he’s right. He just can’t figure out how to approach it reasonably.”
He watched Ella walk out the door, leaving him there with Cade grinning at him. “See, I was right.”
“Get out of here before I put you through another wall.”
Cade laughed and walked out too.
The Truth
Nic was dreading the climb up the stairs and could only imagine what Ella needed to talk to her about.
All she knew was Aiden, Brody, and Cade went up the stairs almost thirty minutes ago, then Brody came in to say that when she got a break, that Ella had some paperwork for her to finish filling out.
She tried to think of what she needed to fill out and realized it was nothing. That whatever reason she was being called upstairs for had to do with the fact that three of the Fierce brothers were fighting. What else could it be?
“Maybe you’re getting a raise,” Scott, another cook on the station next to her said.
“What?”
“Ella does all the paperwork. That’s probably what she wants. I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“Why would I get a raise this fast?”
“Because it happens all the time. I mean, most of us don’t know what the others make, but we’ve all gotten raises pretty fast and called to Ella’s to finish the paperwork.”
She doubted that, but hoped that was the thinking. Only deep in her gut she knew better.
“Do the brothers fight like that often?” she asked out of the blue. If she didn’t say something, she figured it might draw more attention than trying to pretend it didn’t happen.
“Once in a while. It’s usually Cade and Brody, though. Something about Cade sets the rest of them off. Though I’ve never seen Aiden that angry before, but I’ve heard it could happen.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Nic said, finishing up her last order.
“Probably not. Most people like to talk, but really it’s a nice form of entertainment.”
Nic nodded, placed her order on the counter and walked away. “I shouldn’t be too long.”
“No worries,” Scott said. “I’ve got you covered.”
“You wanted to see me,” Nic said outside of Ella’s door.
“What?” Ella said, looking up. “Nope, not me. Aiden’s in the conference room.”
“Oh,” she said, frowning. “Brody said you did.”
“That’s Brody’s way of drawing attention away from the real issue. You can thank him later.”
Great. Just what she needed to hear. She walked down the hallway to the conference room and saw Aiden standing there looking out the window. “Hi,” she said.
“Come here,” he said, moving toward her and pulling her into his arms. Now she really had no clue what was going on and was starting to get nervous.
“Am I in trouble? Am I getting fired?” Her heart was racing for so many reasons. Fear at the top of the list. Then followed by comfort being in Aiden’s arms.
“No. Why would you ask that?”
“I’m trying to figure out what’s going on.”
“How much talk is happening in the kitchen?”
“Not much, actually. Scott thought I was being called up to fill out paperwork with Ella for a raise, but I knew it wasn’t that.”
He laughed, not a funny sound either. “It might be considered that, I suppose. Let me explain. Have a seat.”
She listened to what he said about her grandparents’ name, the cannoli, and financial compensation. All the while she felt her face heating up degree by d
egree. “That’s crazy. We’d never sue you. Why would Cade say that? What would make him think that? What kind of person does he think I am? That my grandparents are?” That Italian temper she tried to hold back was just turning the ugly shade of green like the Hulk getting ready to transform.
“It’s not you. It’s more about protecting the Fierce name. That’s his job.”
“That’s wrong though. That makes me look like I’m sleeping with you to get something out of it. Oh my God, they know. They know we’re sleeping together.” That had to be what this was about.
“They know we are in a relationship. Everyone knew but Cade, it seemed.”
“How did they know? I thought we weren’t telling anyone. I didn’t want anyone to know. Don’t you think you should have cleared that with me first?” She stepped back, feeling like she needed to rip her shirt off and scream, then bang her fists and flex. Stupid green monster.
He cocked his head. “Mason has known how I’ve felt all along. It’s hard to hide those things even without words from the people who know you the best. Brody figured it out because he was in the same position months ago with Aimee. I guess Ella knew because it seems Ella knows all and no one can ever figure out how. Cade saw me look at you when he came in all upset over the menu, then figured it out.”
“And he’s pissed about it?” she asked. That simple tilt of Aiden’s head was enough for her to shrink back to her normal size. No reason to jump the gun when it seemed he wasn’t at the moment.
But there had to be a reason Cade and he started physically pushing each other. Someone said Aiden started it, but she hadn’t been watching carefully and refused to believe he’d do that. He never lost his cool.
“Not pissed. Cade has no control over the words that come out of his mouth when he’s worked up. He said something and it set me off.”
It wasn’t hard to figure it out. “He thinks I’m trying to sleep my way to the top? That I’m using you for money or gain or whatever he called it. Compensation.” She was breathing in and out rapidly now.
“No.”
“Yes,” she said back, her eyes starting to fill. “This is why I didn’t want anyone to know about us. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me they knew. They must all think I’m some kind of a whore.”