by Nicole Fox
Dane stood up from his bended knee and swept her into his arms, just like he had the day he'd gotten out. Her arms around his neck, they kissed, their smiles barely contained as he spun her around and around.
Later, Benton and Dane divvied up the steaks and seasoned them before slapping them on the platter. The coals were hot and ready on the grill outside and they didn't have time to waste. Laughing and talking about their plans for the company, they both headed outside with them.
On the way, Emily came in and distracted Dane, baby in arms. “She wants to see Daddy,” Emily explained to Benton, and he just rolled his eyes and headed towards the backyard.
“I'll get 'em started. You guys worry about Aunt's Charlene's favorite niece.”
Dane laughed as he pulled the mother of his children into his arms, kissing the top of her head. Their daughter, Paula, had gotten the blonde hair from Emily's side of the family, along with her smile. He knew she'd gotten his strength, though, from the way he grabbed his finger and tugged at it.
“She's so feisty,” Emily said, smiling so widely that it didn't seem like her face could contain all her joy.
“Just like her mother,” Dane said, squeezing Emily tighter.
“I was thinking more like her father,” Emily said.
“Dad!” Dane Jr. called from the back door. “Uncle Benton says you need to grab some more seasoning from the kitchen.”
Dane laughed, his heart full to bursting with the love that it could barely contain. This house was so full of life and happiness. His brother was rebuilding his life, while still being mindful of what he'd left behind. This, right here, was what dreams were made of.
“Well, of course they are,” his wife said, smiling up at him as she agreed with his thoughts.
“Of course, they are?” Dane asked, squeezing her tightly. “What do you mean?”
“Dreams, silly. They're made up. Like this.”
Dane awoke with a gasp on the couch, his eyes wide and staring at the dark, blank ceiling. The fan circled in a low, lazy motion, barely casting a breeze on the cold sweat that dampened his chest. He centered himself and remembered where he was.
He was in Benton's tiny apartment. He'd been exhausted and crashed for the evening, and he could see the dim light coming from beneath the door of his brother's room. He got up from the couch and padded into the living room, grabbing a glass of cool water from the tap and drinking it down to try and clear his head.
It didn't work, so he drew another and put the glass to his head, savoring the feel of the cold surface against his skin. He groaned, knowing it had all just been wishful thinking. Eventually, he knew, even those wishes would go away.
Wouldn't they?
# # #
Emily
Emily stared blankly at Ian as he blathered on about the car he and his buddies had been working on. It was an older one, a 60s mustang that his friend had been restoring for as long as she could remember.
She wasn't sure what he was talking about now. Maybe the paint job? Or trying to find the right tires for it? God, they were only on the soup course. How much longer till their entrees came out and they could get out of here?
“So, yeah, we managed to track down an almost mint condition steering wheel . . .”
Nope. That was it. Emily stifled a yawn.
It wasn't that she didn't like cars. She loved them. Just, she wanted to be included in it if she was going to have to hear about it all night, no matter what it was.
Her mind drifted away from Ian, though, quickly finding a gentle, sloping path back to Dane. She hadn't been able to get him out of her thoughts, especially not after his goodbye. She didn't think Ian had come close to making her feel so much pleasure in bed. Sure, he got her off. She would have had to teach him how to if he couldn't.
But it still wasn't the same. Even with how gentle Dane had been, for a change, he'd still been more domineering and forceful than Ian. And, God, those muscles of his. He must have been doing nothing but working out for the last year.
Things would have been so different with Dane over the last year if he hadn't gone to prison. Emily sighed internally, while smiling for Ian to continue with his pointless story about himself.
Dane would have been by her side this whole last year. He would have supported her as she crawled back to the top, as she got her next position and kept moving with her career. Instead of Ian, it would have been him sitting across from her at dinner, those piercing brown eyes of his making her a quivering mess as she waited for them to get home. Or maybe just to the car . . .
They would've been talking about the garden right now. Or places they'd been and seen. Not his buddy's old mustang.
A flash of inspiration entered her mind, a perfectly clear image of herself as she slipped the engagement ring from her finger and slid it across the table cloth to Ian. She could do it right now. Sure, the wedding planning would all have been a waste, and her fiancé would be crushed.
But . . . what did Emily want?
She touched her engagement ring, the pads of her fingers just barely brushing over it. She sighed internally again as she grabbed her glass of wine and took a sip.
“You okay?” Ian asked after a minute.
“What?” Emily asked.
“You just seemed distant, Emily. Everything all right?”
She smiled. “Just tired, that's all.”
She left the ring where it was on her finger.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Emily
“That sniveling little asshole!” Emily swore under her breath as she stormed into her office, Jas Robertson hot on her heels. “Who the fuck does he think he is talking to me that way?”
“Em,” Jas said as she quickly and quietly closed the door behind them. “He didn't mean anything by it. He just forgot to include you on the CC from the email. Anyone could do it. It was just a mistake.”
Emily rounded on her, eyes alight with rage. This was exactly the kind of thing that, if you let it go once, it would just keep happening.
Jas had followed her from BioSphere, just like Emily knew she would. Especially when Pharma went belly-up after the lawsuits, settlements, and fines. She was more than happy to have her old assistant along.
“Em,” Jas soothed. “You're really on edge. You need to take a deep breath and think about what you're doing.”
“I don't need—” Emily began, her voice raised almost to a yell, but Jas quickly cut her off with a single finger held in the air. She shut her mouth when she saw the finger, realizing what she was doing.
“What have I told you, Emily? What will I not stand for as an employee?”
Emily took a deep breath. “I can be your boss,” Emily said, “but you're not my whipping boy.”
“Exactly. I had that shit before, when I was younger, but I won't put up with it from anyone. You're yelling at me, and I did nothing wrong. Now, like I said, I think you're on edge.”
The new CEO took a deep, measured, cleansing breath, and nodded again as she slowly blinked her eyes. “I think you may be right.”
“Thank you. Now, this was all just a mistake on Vincent's part. He didn't mean to exclude you on the email chain. You're respected here, okay? Everyone thinks you're going to be great for the company, including the shareholders.”
She was right, too. Upon news of Emily's hiring as the new CEO for the pharmaceutical giant Wat-Cor, shares rose nearly ten percent by end of the trading day.
Emily took in her friend's words and nodded. “Okay,” she said, sitting down at her desk. “Okay. You're right.”
“I hate to say it, though,” Jas said as she sat down in one of the chairs in front of the desk. “But, you've been on edge for weeks. Ever since the engagement.”
Emily groaned. She hadn't told Jas about Dane showing up at her door. She hadn't told anyone. She felt like, maybe, if she didn't ever say anything to anyone about it, it would all just be like it never happened and she wouldn't have to think about it again.
Unfortunately, she couldn't get it out of her head. She couldn't get him out of her head.
“I just feel like your heart's not in it, Emily,” Jas said quietly.
“The wedding?” Emily asked. “Of course it is! Look at all the work we've done on it!”
Jas shook her head. “I don't mean the work you've done. It's going to be a beautiful wedding—huge and glorious. But you don't seem like you're going to enjoy it. It feels like you're putting together something from a magazine, from some fairy tale girls are supposed to want. There's no love in it, Em. No part of you.”
That wasn't true. That couldn't be true. Or was it? Emily frowned and looked away, hoping that she could somehow dismiss Jas's argument if she didn't pay any attention to it.
“I think you miss Dane,” Jas said quietly.
Emily closed her eyes and put her hands on the desk. “Jas,” she warned.
“I think you should try again with him,” Jas continued, pushing forward despite the warning her boss had just given her.
“I can't,” Emily said. “I'm getting married to Ian. You know that. The invitations went out, and the wedding is just weeks away. This is just stress, maybe a little bit of cold feet, but just stress. Why would I choose a psychopath over a nice guy like Ian?” She leaned forward. “Do I need to remind you that he took you hostage in a fucking elevator?”
Jas smiled a little. “Yeah, but he called me ‘sweet thing’ when he did it. Ian would never have had the balls to do it the first place, and he'd never be so nice while he did it.”
Emily sighed. “Because he's not a fucking psychopath, like Dane Besides,” Emily continued, groaning. “I can't break Ian's heart. He doesn't deserve to suffer like that, just because I'm getting some pre-wedding jitters. Things will be good with him, especially when all this shit is over with. I promise I'll try to get better with controlling my anger, okay?”
Jas sighed and stood up from the chair, heading for the office door. “Fine. And remember, no yelling at your assistant. I'm here to make your life easier, not to be screamed at. You should be thanking me for keeping your head from exploding, particularly while you're planning a damned wedding.” She opened the door and turned to leave just as she was finishing.
/
“I know, Jas,” Emily said. “I know. And, by the way?”
“Yeah?” Jas asked as she was about to shut the door.
“Thank you.”
# # #
Dane
“Got a minute?” Benton asked, as Dane swung his sledgehammer into the wall, blowing through a chunk of brick and the drywall behind it like he was wielding Thor's own hammer.
They were on their first job already. Dane was astonished at how fast they'd been able to pick up jobs. Surprisingly, a lot of them had come from first responders around the city, people who knew Dane by reputation alone, and wanted to give them the work to get started out. They knew about Benton, too, but to them, he was more a warning sign for them all. It was very much a, “there I go, but for the grace . . .” kind of thing, and both brothers knew it.
But, no matter where the work was coming from, they'd been raised to not look a gift horse in the mouth. These first few jobs were enough to get them going, but how well they performed them was going to determine their futures. And they both knew it.
“Sure, man,” Dane said, as he brought his hammer back under control and used his forearm to swipe some sweat from his forehead. “What's up?”
“I've been thinking about what we talked about a few weeks ago.”
“Remind me,” Dane said, grinning. Work had been a godsend for him. It was really the first time he had been able to clear his head since Benton had been put away. He came in, planned the job with Benton, then he and the guys got to swinging. Not surprisingly, blowing holes in walls was pretty cathartic and kept his brain occupied. Meaning he wasn’t thinking about Emily West.
“About Emily.”
Dane groaned and turned away. “Not this shit again, man. I told you, I'm getting over her. If she wants to be with this Ian guy, that's her deal. I know I've just gotta pick up my life and move on.”
Benton clapped a hand on his shoulder. “It's not that. It's just, me and Charlene, we're getting a little more serious. I've been giving it some thought, bro, and I think you should try again with her.”
Dane's shoulders slumped and he tossed the hammer away. He whirled on his brother. “Don't you think I did, man? I went and saw her before I saw you, remember? She didn't want me back!”
“What I don't understand,” Benton said, taking a step toward him and slapping both hands on his twin brother's shoulders. “Is why you only tried once! You literally took down a massive corporation almost single-handedly! But one try at her, and that's it?”
Dane brushed his brother's hands off his shoulders. “Just let me get back to work, Benton. Okay? I just care about Emily's happiness, and she seems like she'll be happy with this Ian guy. I can't make her love me, can I? What do you want me to do? Force her to leave him? It doesn't work that way.” He grabbed his sledgehammer up off the ground and went back to swinging. Every time it collided with the wall, every chunk it sent flying, he felt a little closer to a job well done.
Still, though, no matter how fast he swung the hammer, no matter how hard he made it strike, he couldn't get Emily Winter's out of his mind—the smell of her, the feel of her, the way she cried out his name, the way she called him, “sir.”
It just wouldn't leave him. And, deep down, he knew it never would.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Dane
“Hey Dane,” Charlene said, an obvious grin to her voice. “You got a minute?”
This was weird, to be getting a call from his brother's girlfriend on his cell phone. “Uh, sure,” Dane said as he grabbed a beer from the refrigerator. “What can I do for you?”
“Well, I've been thinking. Okay, honestly, Benton and I have been thinking.”
Oh shit, this was going to be about Emily again, wasn't it? He was getting pretty sick of it. She was getting married, and not to him. End of story. Dane braced for whatever bullshit was going to come next.
“I just wanted to say thank you. Formally.”
That was a surprise. He hadn't expected the conversation to take this kind of turn, especially because he'd never really thought about it that way. Charlene had been there, and was one of the only reasons he'd been able to accomplish what he had. He'd never expected a thank you from her.
“I never have before, I realized,” she continued. “You're the reason I have my own show, and you're the reason why I'm with your wonderful brother. If it hadn't been for you, we never would have met, and, so, I wanted to give you one little inside scoop, like you gave me.”
Completely disarmed and surprised, Dane just laughed. “Sure, Charlene, shoot. What is it?”
“Emily's wedding.” She spilled off the date, time, and location before he could object.
Dane groaned into the phone. “What am I supposed to do with this, Charlene? What can I do? She's getting married to some other guy.”
“Dane, I've been an investigative reporter almost my entire adult life, and part of being one is learning to read people, especially when they aren't being completely honest with you. And do you know what I read on Emily's face when we did that interview together, and Benton came out as a surprise guest?”
He didn't respond. He knew she'd tell him anyways.
“She thought it was you, Dane. She thought your brother was you, until they hugged. I saw a woman who was ecstatic to see who she thought was the man she loved for the first time in almost a year.”
After his trip to Emily's house, and their final passionate moment together, he'd convinced himself that he'd hallucinated seeing that look on her face when Benton had shown up on stage. “You saw it, too?” he asked.
“Fuck, yes, I saw it!” Charlene yelled, forcing Dane to take the phone from his ear.
“Well what the hell should I do, then?” h
e yelled back, forgetting that this was his brother's girlfriend on the line.
“You need to go in there and do what you did last time, you idiot! Make her listen to you, like you managed to do about the cover-up!” She hung up before Dane had a chance to respond, to either shoot down the whole idea or just keep yelling back.
He tapped the phone on his chin, thinking. “The same way I made her listen the last time?” he asked the empty kitchen. He stuffed his phone back in his pocket and popped the cap on his beer.
“Last time?” he repeated to the empty kitchen, hoping the spoken words would somehow give him a burst of inspiration, a piece of divine revelation like some angel's song from on high.