Now there was a compliment.
My phone started to buzz in my purse. Grateful for an excuse to break the intense moment, I dug out my cell. “Hey, Kiley. What’s up?” She started babbling and I was afraid she’d had a run-in with her ex and she’d climbed in the bottom of a bottle. “Slow down. Start over.” When I finally made sense of what she was saying, my heart hurt for her. “Look, I’m on my way home. Do you want me to bring you anything? You sure? Okay. See you in a bit.” I hung up.
“What’s going on?”
“Remember those kids we did the volunteer session with through LCCO? I don’t know if you’re aware that we met in the park that day because they had lost their normal meeting place. With the snow last week, they couldn’t meet in the park. Kiley just found out one of her kids from that group got arrested. And she feels like she failed him because she hasn’t found another place for them to meet. And with crappy weather being forecast for this weekend . . .”
“So they just need a place to let off steam and chill for a few hours?”
“I guess.”
“I have a half court and a full gym at my place. They could hang out there for a few hours.”
I stared at him. “Brady, while opening your home to them is”—crazy talk—“above and beyond, I hate to say it, but these kids are borderline delinquents.”
“Which is why they need a safe place to go, right?”
“Yes, but you were trying to keep a low profile. Brady the accountant, not Brady the heir to a billion-dollar company with a million-dollar car and a multimillion-dollar house in the Old Mill District. You heard Juice that weekend, bragging about his cousin getting into Flurry. What if he does that? Brags to his cousin about the rich white dude with a soft spot for kids with issues? What if their thug friends show up at your place? What if they break in and rob you? What if they threaten you? God, what if they hurt you?”
“Lennox. Take a deep breath. First of all, they don’t have to know it’s me. You don’t even have to tell Kiley I live there. Just let her know you’ve got a place lined up for this weekend through a friend of mine. Since it’s a warehouse built into the back of a bluff, there’s no way they could know what’s on the level above them unless I take them up there. And, baby, I’m a Lund, so my security system is the best money can buy. Nobody is getting anywhere I don’t want them to.”
“You’re serious? It’s not just the afterglow of crazy hot sex talking?”
He grinned. “Maybe. But this volunteer project is special to me. I don’t need to tell you why.”
There was his sweetness again. “I’ll talk to Kiley.” I had a thousand things on my mind as I walked out of the dressing room. I was glad to see someone had fetched my coat and hung it up on the coatrack just inside Brady’s office door.
“Forgetting something?” he said behind me.
I whirled around. “Security. I bet you have to let me out.”
“Yes, I’ll walk you out. But that’s not what you’re forgetting.” He hauled me against him and made my knees weak and my head fuzzy with a reminder of how it had been between us, locked in passion. When he finished ravishing my mouth, he murmured, “Plan on staying with me Saturday after the kids leave.”
Once again I hoped the week went by fast.
Chapter Eighteen
Brady
‡
The three-day trip to Chicago seemed to drag on for three weeks.
Ash and I spent all day Wednesday touring the facilities of the factory we were interested in acquiring. I managed to beg off from a dinner out with the corporate officers, but Ash happily went to represent LI. I needed to clear my head, so I left the Ritz-Carlton and headed down Michigan Avenue and actually wandered into a couple of shops. When I passed the perfume and jewelry stores, it occurred to me . . . Was I expected to bring my girlfriend a gift from my travels? Since I was new to all this, I wasn’t sure. That set me on edge and everything I saw afterward looked cutesy or schmaltzy and that wasn’t Lennox at all.
I ended up returning to the hotel, but stopped in the Harley-Davidson store on the same block. I looked at leather jackets, remembering how damn fine Lennox looked in leather pants and that microscopic leather miniskirt . . .
“Sir? May I help you tonight?”
I turned toward the saleswoman, who didn’t look as if she belonged on Michigan Avenue, with her tats, piercings and chains, her abundantly curvy body squeezed into leather pants and a matching vest. She reminded me of Lennox. I smiled. “Yes. I’d appreciate your help.”
I’d never been an impulse shopper. Until now.
*
Thursday, after a more in-depth tour of the factory, the owner finally opened up his books to me, but not until late in the afternoon. I’d planned to order room service and go over everything so I had a better idea of whether this acquisition would be beneficial to LI, or whether we needed to keep looking.
But again, the owners had made surprise plans for us—we’d all be attending a televised Thursday night football game at Soldier Field. They assumed—wrongly—that since a Lund played for the Vikings we’d be just as happy watching the Bears play. Ash and I exchanged a look. We both hated the Bears, almost as much as we hated the Green Bay Packers. But what could we do? I took several pictures during the game and of the skybox, tempted to send them to Lennox. Ash caught me and scowled. Apparently I was supposed to be listening to the majority owner, Bud, drone on and on about the Bears’ “near perfect” season the year they won the Super Bowl.
Another late night meant no work got done. So the next morning, when I went to organize the papers I’d brought from my office—financial documents—the entire stack was missing. So was the thumb drive that contained that information.
What the ever loving fuck?
I searched my briefcase, my suitcase but to no avail.
Then I remembered. I’d just . . . left the office Tuesday night. I hadn’t packed my briefcase; I’d just grabbed my laptop case and played grab-ass with Lennox as we’d walked out. I’d left everything in my office. And without that information, I couldn’t make heads or tails of the supply lists and manufacturing costs without a breakdown of revenue.
I never did shit like this. Never. Going into a meeting, any meeting, I was always the person who overprepared. Being underprepared was almost as bad and lazy as not being prepared at all.
For the first time in the two years since I’d become CFO, I had completely fucked up. And everyone would know it.
Shame burned me from the inside out.
Ash knocked on my door.
Rather than admit I’d dropped the ball, I decided that since the factory owners had basically stalled us the last two days, it was time to return the favor.
*
At least Ash had his paperwork together.
When it came time for me to present my questions midafternoon, I crashed and burned.
Spectacularly.
After an hour passed and it was obvious I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, Ash stepped in.
“While we’d hoped to wrap this up today, as you can see there are a few unforeseen issues that have come up in our findings that Brady and I need to discuss in depth before we can voice our concerns to you. So is it more convenient for all of you to meet back here first thing in the morning? Or shall I schedule a conference room at our hotel?”
I knew my cheeks, my neck and even the tops of my ears were blazing the same red as my tie.
The group conferred and Bud said, “We’ll meet here. Nine a.m.”
It was obvious none of them were too happy about it.
They had nothing on my cousin. He exploded as soon as we were in the limo with the privacy screen engaged.
“Brady. What. The. Fuck. Just. Happened?”
“I didn’t have the information I needed.”
“No. Shit.” He glared at me. “We’ve been working on this for six weeks. You’ve had every bit of fucking information you needed since day one. If you hadn’t had
it, then we wouldn’t have moved forward. So tell me. What the fuck?”
Time for the reckoning. “I left it all in my office.”
Ash stared at me blankly. “Explain to me how that happened.”
“I had hard copies with all my notes on my desk. I’d scanned most of it and had cataloged it on a thumb drive—which I also left there.”
“Again, how’d you forget everything?”
Well, see, I had Lennox bent over my desk, and in the moment I was slamming into her, spreadsheets, thumb drives and P&Ls were the last thing on my mind.
His mouth tightened at my silence. “You’ve got to be kidding me. She distracted you that much? You blew off preparing for a major presentation because you were too busy getting blown by her?”
Not exactly, but the end result was the same.
“I’m all for you having a life outside of work, but this is inexcusable. You are supposed to separate work and pleasure, not bring pleasure into your damn work space. The office is not a place to fool around—it makes a fool of you. And now it’s made a fool of me.”
I resisted asking him whether he followed the no-fooling-around rule with his admin, since rumor was that she had excellent dictation skills. But this wasn’t about him messing up; it was about me allowing myself to be distracted by Lennox and screwing up at work. “I know. It won’t happen again.”
Ash scowled. “See that it doesn’t. I assume since you hadn’t finished scanning everything that you didn’t download any of it to the server?”
“No.” What the hell had I been thinking? I’d just walked straight out of my office with Lennox that night after we’d had sex on my desk, in my bed and in my shower without any thought to my responsibilities?
“Then you’d better call your admin and have her download the data on the thumb drive to our secure server so you can at least access that.”
Oh, this just kept getting better and better. “Jenna is on leave this week and next week, since I planned to be out of the office.”
“Of course she is. And I suppose next you’ll tell me why Jenna’s secretary can’t download the drive from there? Is she on vacation too?”
“No, but the thumb drive is locked up in my desk drawer and Jenna and I are the only ones with the key.” A lie to save face. I’d left everything strewn across my office like a damn yard sale. That’s how I dealt with sensitive financial information when I was getting laid? I just let it lie about? What the hell had happened to my brain? If this was what it meant to get a life, then I’d pass. I couldn’t stand to lose part of myself that was worth something.
But it’s not the only thing about you that’s worth something, remember?
Ash picked up the phone to talk to the limo driver. “Change of plans. Take us to Midway.” He paused. “No, I’ll be going back to the hotel alone.” Ash pointed at me after he hung up. “It’s a damn good thing the LI plane was already here to take us back to the Cities.”
My stomach churned and I thought I might be sick. “You’re sending me home?”
“Just to get what you need for your portion of the presentation tomorrow. And I don’t give a damn if you’re up all freakin’ night getting it done. You will be back on the top of your game tomorrow, Brady, if I have to pump your body full of caffeine and prop you up on the conference chair myself. Got it?”
“Yes.”
*
I’d had a plan in place by the time the plane landed at the Minneapolis airport. The flight crew stuck around and filed a return flight plan while I hopped in a cab and headed to the office.
Now that I’d been given a second chance, I would comb through every bit of data and have the most complete findings in the history of the world to make up for my epic fuckup.
I hustled across the lobby, my mind on other things, when I heard my name. Any other time I’d be thrilled to run into Lennox since it happened so rarely, so of course we crossed paths the one time I didn’t need to see her.
Her enormous grin spread across her beautiful face, her joy at seeing me evident. “Hey. I didn’t think you were getting back until later tonight.”
I glanced at the ornate clock in the lobby. It was just after six p.m. Good. That gave me plenty of time to get my shit together.
“Brady?”
“Look, I don’t have much time. The cab is waiting for me.”
She frowned. “Cab? I can give you a ride home.”
“That’s the thing. I’m not going home. I have to go back to Chicago.”
“Tonight? Why?”
“Because I left all my presentation materials here. In my office. I just discovered it this morning and we had to postpone the meeting until tomorrow.”
Her eyes were clouded with confusion. “How’d that happen?”
So maybe I acted harsher than I needed to, to get my point across. “Tuesday night? In my office? When I shoved everything off my desk so I could fuck you over it? Then we fucked in my shower and in my dressing room? And then I walked you out and locked the door behind me, forgetting about all the materials I had to take with me to Chicago the next damn day? Because I was too sex-addled to function like a CFO?”
Lennox gaped at me. “You’re blaming me?”
“Yes.” I blew out a breath. “That’s not—”
“My goddamned fault, Mr. Lund, that you’re so disorganized that you can’t function like a CFO when you don’t have Jenna or Patrice packing your briefcase for a business trip!”
I probably deserved that.
“And you sure as hell weren’t complaining about being sex-addled after the first time, since we did it two more times.”
“I was on some kind of sex high, Lennox, because I never act like that.”
“Wasn’t that the whole point? You needed to change your life and wanted to take a walk on the wild side? You did it—what, one time and now you can cross it off your ‘wannabe wild man’ list and move on?” She glared at me. “Because that’s what this feels like.”
“Because of my negligence, I have no idea whether LI would be making a huge mistake acquiring this company. And it is my job—and my job alone—to know that. Except I didn’t do my due diligence last weekend because we were together at the cabin. And what I did accomplish, I left in a pile on the floor after we were together in my office.”
Lennox took a step back and dammit if I didn’t let her.
“So I’m going back to Chicago as soon as I have everything I forgot to try to salvage this mess tomorrow.”
“Wait. Tomorrow Kiley and her kids are supposed to be coming to your place, remember?”
I’d forgotten completely about that. “Well, obviously we’ll have to reschedule.”
“Reschedule? This isn’t a board meeting, Brady. These kids have no other place to go on a Saturday. You offered your space to them. Kiley was really counting on this. So were the kids.” She released a bitter laugh. “I should’ve known you’d back out.”
“That’s not fair. It’s one freakin’ time, Lennox. That’s it.”
“No, it’s the first time of what I expect would be many times and many disappointments.”
When she backed away from me, I wanted so badly to grab on to her and make her understand. This was my real life. Not weekends at a cabin. Not weeknights at the gun range or getting a tattoo. I had to fly off at a moment’s notice because five thousand people depended on me to make the right decisions. She couldn’t possibly know what a huge load that was to bear.
“Don’t worry—although I’m sure you won’t; out of sight, out of mind, right? I’ll tell Kiley that tomorrow is off.”
“Tell her I’m sorry. Tell her I’ll make it up to her next weekend.” I paused. “But that won’t work because I’m in Charlotte all next week.”
“How about if we just forget it. All of it.” Lennox turned and walked away.
Stop her.
A big part of me longed to run after her, but the louder voice in my head urged, Let her go. This is for the best. Don’t dwell on it
. Get back to where you need to be.
But as I returned to Chicago—and sat in my hotel room alone—I remembered that where I thought I needed to be was always so damn lonely.
*
“You were full of shit, weren’t you?”
I faced my brother Walker and bit back a snarl. It’d been a grueling eight days on the road. Dealing with meeting after meeting until they all blurred together. One thing I did know: I’d been absolutely on top of my game.
Another thing I knew? I was completely unhappy, and for once it had nothing to do with my job performance.
“You ignoring me, asshole?”
I blinked at Walker. “No,” I said evenly. “Just trying to figure out why you’re hammering me today, and what I might’ve done.”
“You’ve done nothing. You’ve learned nothing. You’ve changed nothing. That’s why I’m pissed off.”
“You’re talking about—”
“The ritual. Yeah, we know you thought it was stupid, but you don’t get it.” The anger in his face softened to disappointment and that was ten times worse. “See, that night wasn’t about doing shots and torching a piece of paper of your bad habits in the hopes you’d overcome them. It was about Ash, Nolan and me opening up about how worried we are about you, Brady.”
I said nothing because I didn’t know what to say. But I couldn’t look away from the distress on my brother’s face, even in the guise of watching the football game. The whole family had come to Charlotte to watch the Vikings play the Panthers for the Thursday night game. Hard to believe it’d been only a week ago that I’d suffered through the Bears game, not knowing how much my life would implode the following day.
It’d seemed like a lifetime ago.
A chorus of boos from my family rang out behind us. I’d paid little attention to the game since the Vikings offense had taken to the field for a total of five minutes in the first two quarters. But I knew that even if Jensen had been killing it out there, I’d still have felt . . . listless. I’d finished my last seminar and I just wanted to go home. But I was expected to stick around another day, since the Blackhawks were playing the Carolina Hurricanes in Raleigh the next night.
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