“Jesus, are you even listening to me?”
“Yeah, Walker, I’m listening.”
“Look, I’ll cut to the chase. Nolan, Jensen and I aren’t firstborn Lund sons. We each do our own things and we don’t feel the pressure of the Lund legacy. But we are aware of the pressure on you and Ash and even Jax—when he’s done with the NHL—to run the company. We just didn’t know who’d put it there. Because it sure as hell doesn’t come from Dad, Uncle Monte or Uncle Archer. So I suspect with you it’s entirely self-driven.”
Some of it was, but not all. My gut churned when I was thrown back to the summer after I’d graduated from high school and first worked at LI. Everyone had thought it was so cool and generous of Grandpa Jackson Lund to step out of retirement to mentor me. It’d been the worst months of my life—yet he’d instilled in me the drive I needed to prove myself worthy of the Lund name and eventual leadership in the company, community and family.
He didn’t drive you. The nasty old man browbeat you, berated you, convinced you that you’d never be good enough or smart enough to amount to anything. That the only reason you’d even have a job at LI was because of your last name. That, as evidenced by your mediocre grades, you didn’t have the mental capability of running a company the size of LI. That you’d be just like your father—sliding by with charm instead of brains.
How had I forgotten that? Christ, how deep had I buried that shit? It hit me like a brick wall that I hadn’t even been aware that proving my grandfather wrong had been my sole focus since I turned eighteen. A man who’d been dead for thirteen years.
“Brady?”
I glanced up at my brother.
Something on my face had him switching tactics. “Talk to me, bro. Honestly. What happened to you in the last week?”
As tempted as I was to lie to save face, I wanted to be beyond that. And it was obvious I was too far in denial about my ability to change things to do it by myself. So I didn’t hold back.
After I finished unburdening myself, Walker got up and grabbed us each a beer. Then he said, “You screwed up.”
“That’s why I’ve thrown myself into this seminar.”
Walker shook his head. “Was there ever any doubt in your mind you’d get back on track workwise?”
“Maybe at first.”
“Dude. Be real. You jumped back in and focused on it until you fixed it.”
“Yeah.”
“You need to do the same thing with Lennox.” He pointed his beer bottle at me. “But you don’t have the first friggin’ clue how to fix things with her, do you?”
I jammed my hand through my hair. Then I tossed a look over my shoulder, surprised that we hadn’t been interrupted. “No. And why would she want anything to do with me after how I acted anyway? I was a dick to her. I blamed her, I let her and her roommate down, and I made it sound like I regretted being intimate with her, when it was the most outstanding sex I’ve ever had. She’s different from any woman I’ve ever been with before.”
When Walker studied me, I figured I’d given him too much information. I prepared myself to take a rash of shit, but that wasn’t what he gave me.
“That day you brought Lennox to the game, I watched her very closely.” He smirked when I growled at him. “Back off, beast. She is damn fine to look at, but what struck me, watching her, was that she kept watching you. As she did, she had such a starstruck look on her face. It might sound sappy as shit, but she just . . . lit up around you. And, bro, you were the same exact way around her. Everyone noticed it. You know why everyone noticed it?” He swigged his beer. “Because for the first time in a long time you looked really frickin’ happy. It was a beautiful thing to see, man. I’m sure part of it was the rockin’ hot sex—”
“Wrong. Lennox and I hadn’t slept together yet.” I corrected his assumption.
Walker’s jaw dropped. “So she acted all love-struck and shit just because she just likes you that much?”
“I guess.”
“You guess.” He set his elbows on the table. “You have a woman like that? Who’s beautiful, smart and sexy, who gets you and likes you anyway—when you’re not being an overthinking workaholic dickhead—you go after her with everything you have. Everything. You do not waste another day waiting around wondering if she’ll forgive you. You do whatever it takes to make that happen. You get me?”
For the first time in a week, I actually had hope that I could fix this. “I get you. But since you’ve got way more experience groveling than I do, then you’ll have to help me out.”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
Chapter Nineteen
Lennox
‡
At first, I’d thought I had weathered the Brady storm pretty well.
Okay, the man had rolled over me like a hurricane and swamped me with emotions I hadn’t been aware I was capable of feeling. I’d always been the one to end things. So to have him call it quits on our relationship and accuse me of distracting him from doing his job because I was too . . . wild?
I’d never experienced anger on that level.
Or hurt.
I let anger rule me the first few days. That’s what I needed because Kiley had been so upset about disappointing her kids again. And since she has an outer shell of armor and a soft, squishy inner core, she used money from her personal account to take the kids to the Walker Art Center. She bought the deluxe art lover’s package for the entire group, which included a personalized tour of every section of the gallery, lunch and a private art class where all the kids got to paint a small canvas.
So I’d made it twenty-four hours without crying. But I broke down completely when all twelve of Kiley’s kids had handed over their paintings to her as a thank you. They knew what it had cost her not to disappoint them again.
That’s when I lost it. Three hundred bucks was a drop in the bucket of Brady Lund’s financial world. But that money would put a huge dent in Kiley’s monthly budget.
In a fit of anger I’d texted her Brady’s number so she could send him the bill. Of course she wouldn’t do that. Then she let me cry on her shoulder, allowing me to pretend I was upset only on her behalf, not because the superfine CFO had proven himself to be exactly what I’d feared: a man who pays lip service to changing, but when it came right down to it, he wouldn’t. I didn’t have the ego to believe the few steps he’d taken toward cutting loose had scared him because he’d liked it so much. No, I could accept I wasn’t like the women he usually dated. He’d gotten a taste and it’d been satisfying enough he didn’t need to go back for seconds.
“What are you having?” Kiley prompted me.
It was our usual Friday night at Sake Palace. Kiley had tried to back out, but I told her it was my treat since I didn’t want to dwell on the misery I’d felt last week by sitting home alone on Friday night. “Is it boring if I say I’m having the usual?”
“A little. But you know what you like and there’s no reason to change that if you’re happy with it.”
I peered over the menu. “You seem very Zen tonight, K. What gives?”
She laughed. “I’m just happy things work out the way they’re supposed to sometimes. It gives me hope.”
I splurged and ordered the rainbow roll for each of us, and my usual spider rolls, spicy tuna rolls and tempura rolls.
The food came fast and we ate in silence. I could hear the restaurant filling up behind us and the activity at the chef’s station increased as the flurry of Japanese between the waitstaff got louder and faster.
Once our plates were cleared, we ordered green tea and let our meal settle.
My roommate seemed preoccupied. “You all right?”
“Fine. Just thinking.”
“So tomorrow. You’ve got a solid plan for the group since it’s supposed to be snowy and cold?”
Kiley stirred sugar into her hot tea. “Yes.”
That’s all she said. I leaned across the table. “You gonna share those plans with your number one volunteer
?”
A smile curled her lips. “Nope. It’s a surprise.”
“I hate surprises.”
She mumbled something like, “You’re really gonna hate this,” but I could’ve misunderstood since she’d spoken under her breath.
Kiley snagged her purse. “I’m going to the bathroom.”
I waited for her to say something smart like, “Don’t worry; I’ll come back,” since the last time we’d eaten there Brady’s date had ditched him. But she’d avoided any mention of his name all week. She patted me on the shoulder as she passed by.
I set my elbows on the table and rested my head in my hands, closing my eyes.
A few minutes later, clothing rustled as Kiley brushed past me and slid into her seat.
I said, “Took you long enough,” and lifted my head to look at her.
But it wasn’t Kiley sitting across from me. It was Brady.
“It did take me seven very long days to figure out a way to apologize.”
He looked . . . sort of crappy, which made me feel marginally better. “Where’s Kiley?”
“She agreed to take off after dinner so you and I could talk.” His hungry gaze encompassed my face. “You look beautiful as ever, Lennox.”
I snorted. “I don’t need your flattery, nor do I want it. Say whatever you’ve come to say, so I can accept your apology and we can both move on.”
Brady took my hands in his. “I don’t want to move on. I want to go back to the way things were.”
Fat chance, bud.
“I’m here to apologize for how I acted. I’m sorry I was a condescending ass. I’m sorry I accused you of things that weren’t your fault. I’m sorry you haven’t heard from me in the last week—it’s taken me this long to figure out how to apologize after my colossal fuckup. And I realized this was something I needed to do in person.”
I waited as he spoke. Didn’t petulantly jerk my hands away, but neither did I go all starry-eyed and blurt out my immediate and unconditional forgiveness. I guessed that’s what I was waiting for. For Brady to slap on excuses for what he’d said.
But he didn’t. He sat there gazing at me so longingly that I had to look away. He shifted his stance too and I caught a whiff of that druglike scent of his skin—warm musk and his cologne.
Retreat!
So I did. I removed my hands from his and grabbed my teacup. That’s when I noticed his knuckles were skinned up and scabbed over. “What happened to your hands?”
He shrugged. “I had a bad week, so I punched things.”
“Did punching things make your week better?”
“No.”
I hadn’t granted my forgiveness. It wasn’t a power thing that held me back, but Brady’s implication that we could just pick up where we’d left off.
“I didn’t know you liked sushi,” he said. Then he sighed. “Dammit. That sounded lame, didn’t it?”
“A little.”
“I’m not a huge fan of sushi myself, so it’s strange that I’ve been in this place twice in the past six weeks.”
Here was my moment of truth.
My mouth made the decision before my head or heart weighed in. “I know.”
Those blue eyes narrowed.
“See, I was here that night you came in with that jailbait-looking waif.”
“That’s actually a very apt description of her.”
“I thought you were on a date with her.”
His posture stiffened, as if to say, Please leave it at that. Don’t pry for more information.
“But it didn’t appear as if you were having a good time.”
Brady shook his head. “It was bloody awful,” he said with a hint of a brogue.
“Her accent was hard to place.”
“Wait. You talked to her? When?”
Why couldn’t I be a smooth liar? And now that I’d opened the door, I had to go all the way through it. “In the bathroom. Look. The truth is, I saw you and planned to stop at your table and say hello, if for no other reason than to see if you felt guilty for dating jailbait”—he snorted—“but I chickened out at the last second and went to the bathroom. That’s where she—” I paused.
He got right in my face. “No editorializing. Tell me. All of it.”
By the time I finished, Brady had dropped his forehead to the table as if contemplating beating his head into it.
I laughed softly.
He looked up at me. “It’s not funny. But damn, do I love to hear you laugh. I missed it . . . So the woman I’d been crushing on from the moment I saw her witnessed my humiliation that night and heard some choice bits, right from the horse’s mouth, about what an uptight ice-cold wanker I am.”
I’d sort of tuned out after his admission that he’d been crushing on me.
“That’s great, Lennox. I’m actually blushing just thinking about it.”
He was. His face was flushed and there was a look I’d seen in his eyes only once before: vulnerability.
Almost without thinking, I reached out and placed my hands on his cheeks.
He put his hands over mine and we locked eyes.
“Why did you agree to go out with me when you saw firsthand what a clumsy, clueless oaf I am when it comes to dating?”
“Because that’s not what I saw.”
He groaned. “It’s worse, isn’t it? You thought I was pathetic and you agreed to a date out of pity.”
I leaned in closer. “Brady. Shut up. If you stop trying to analyze me, I’ll tell you why I went out with you.”
“Please. I’m dying here.”
“First of all, you demanded the date. But if I hadn’t wanted to go, nothing would’ve gotten me in that car with you.” I stroked my thumbs over his cheekbones. “So what if you suck at dating? You aren’t a one-dimensional man. You excel at everything else. Do you really think I would’ve preferred if you were some asshole player? And you’ve never acted like an entitled dickhead around me. Well, except for last Friday.”
Brady watched me with eyes filled with hope and that just did me in.
I was crazy about all the different sides of this man. He’d come here with an honest-to-god apology from the heart, no excuses. What more did I expect him to do? I closed the distance between us and pressed a soft kiss to his mouth. “I accept your apology.”
He rested his forehead to mine. “Thank you.”
We stayed like that for a few moments longer before we broke apart.
“I want to spend the night with you.”
I raised an eyebrow.
That earned me a glorious grin. “Not like that, although I’ve heard makeup sex is hot.” He picked up my hand and kissed my palm. “We can watch TV or something. Hell, I’d even watch paint dry as long as I get to do it with you.”
There was that sliver of sweetness that made me go all gooey inside. “Okay. But my roommate will be home and she’s probably still pissed enough at you to let fly. So fair warning.”
“Kiley forgave me when I promised my place to her and the kids tomorrow with no chance of me backing out.”
The little sneak. No wonder she’d hedged and claimed tomorrow’s location was a surprise.
“And I reimbursed her for last weekend. Plus I gifted her three more Saturdays at the Walker, so if she runs into this problem again, she’s covered.”
“You are so forgiven.”
He laughed.
“I missed that laugh too, Brady.”
“Let’s get out of here.”
“I have to pay the check.”
“Already taken care of.”
I opted not to argue.
Outside in the chilly night, I started to wrap my scarf around my neck when Brady grabbed the end and tugged me against his body.
“My lovely Lennox.” His mouth came down on mine. Not tenderly, not with gratitude or reverence, but with the hunger that quickened my blood and my heartbeat.
I’d missed kissing him like this. A little desperate. A little sloppy. A little impatient to sate the pa
ssion that flared between us.
“Come on,” he whispered against my mouth after he broke the kiss. “Let’s go to your place.”
*
Later, as we were lying in my bed, after we’d watched a movie—The Blind Side, not my first choice, because, hello? sports movie—I finally asked him the question I’d been dying to.
“So everything turned out all right in Chicago? After you retrieved your missing materials?”
He spooned me, with his chin on the top of my head and his fingertips trailing up and down my arm. “Yes. The numbers were solid and we made them a decent offer. It’ll take a few months to transition to our product line, but we aren’t demanding they stop manufacturing for our competitor. Yet.”
“I’m glad you didn’t have any serious setbacks, Brady.”
“Me too.”
“After that you went to Charlotte.”
He stilled his hand. “Checking up on me, were you?”
“No. Patrice took great pains the first two days to inform me of your whereabouts in the employee break room. For the rest of the week I ate at my desk.”
“Smart move. I had meetings with a couple of financial institutions in Charlotte and then I led a seminar on family-business practices. Pretty boring, dry stuff, I imagine. Jens had a game last night, and luckily for the Lund family, Jax had a hockey game in Raleigh tonight, so they’re all cheering him on.”
“Why aren’t you there?”
“Because I’m here. Apologizing and working on fixing things with you. Making it right for Kiley and her kids was more important to me than watching a puck flying across the ice.”
“I’m glad you’re here.” I snuggled into him.
I thought he’d fallen asleep, but then he said, “I had to face the music with my family too, not just you.” A long pause followed. “Remember I told you about the intervention my cousins and my brother staged that night at Maxie’s?”
“Yes, I remember. That’s why you wanted to prove you have a wild side.”
“I wanted to get them off my back because it was annoying, humiliating and embarrassing to have them treating me like a child. So as they showed me they cared about me, I blew them off and followed my own agenda.”
What You Need (Need You #1) Page 23