The Negotiator

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The Negotiator Page 6

by Avery Flynn


  “What happened in the closet can’t happen again,” he said, capping the pen and putting it back in his jacket.

  Her head tilted up and her grin was anything but perky. It was sexy, teasing, and exactly what his dick didn’t need right now. “Okay, so we avoid closets.”

  “Clover, you know what I mean.” And God did his dick object to him putting that detail into words.

  “Got it.” She nodded her head solemnly, ignoring the creamer pyramid that had been so fascinating only moments before. “No super-hot, make-my-toes-tingle kissing in a supply closet or anywhere else.”

  She was laughing at him. His male ego objected, but that was nothing compared to the official complaints being filed in triplicate by other parts of him. Without glancing down at the napkin, he signed it and slid it across to her for review, realizing too late that he hadn’t written down the last requirement.

  Paging Dr. Freud.

  Clover didn’t seem to notice. She just signed it, folded it up, and put it in her purse before closing it with a snap. So there it was. He’d woken up this morning with a normal life. By noon, he had a personal buffer. By ten o’clock, he had a fake fiancée. He couldn’t even imagine what new little adventure tomorrow would bring.

  Chapter Seven

  The next morning, Clover’s phone vibrated on the bedside table, buzzing and bouncing against the glass tabletop. She peeled an eyelid open, holding a hand up against the early morning sun shining through her window like a laser beam. The rest of the apartment she shared with her bestie was silent—except for the buzz, buzz, buzz of her phone. Letting her eyelids droop back down, she slapped her hand blindly against her bedside table until she made contact with it, swiped right, and brought it up to her ear.

  “Hello,” her voice came out sounding like a rusty door in a haunted house.

  “Jane, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me, but I’m just too excited to care,” her mom said, obviously already on her second pot of coffee. “Congratulations! When’s the big day? Tell me all about Sawyer. I want details now, young lady.”

  Clover’s eyes flew open, and she was suddenly fully and utterly awake with the icy dread only her mom could inspire sliding down her spine. “Hi, Mom.”

  “Don’t you ‘hi Mom’ me, young lady,” her mother said, going Mach Two. “I want details about this engagement, and I want to know when you and Sawyer will be coming home for Sunday dinner. It’s bad enough that I only found out because Kelly Osgood posted about the news on Facebook after seeing it on some Harbor City gossip blog. There’s no way I’m going down to Heber’s Deli for your dad’s pastrami without details of my own.”

  Sapo tonto! Not only was she a stupid toad, she was a naive idiot who’d thought she just might make it through this fake engagement without her family finding out. Why did her mom’s oldest friend also have to be a gossip junkie?

  “I can hear you breathing, Jane.” Her mom gasped. “Oh God, tell me this isn’t another one of your silly adventures. It’s way past time when you needed to start acting like an adult.”

  Translation: When was Jane finally going to settle down and start mass producing grandkids like a human rabbit? Okay, her mom hadn’t used the words “mass producing” or “human rabbit,” but that’s basically what she wanted. Thirty was just around the corner, according to her mom. Funny. Last time Clover had checked, it was still four years away. A fake engagement should have lessened some of that pressure to settle into a boring life just like her mom’s, instead it had all the markings of adding gas to the fire under her mom’s ass.

  “I’ve been acting like an adult for years, Mom,” she said through gritted teeth. “I paid my own way through college. I have good friends. I pay my bills on time.” Even if this month it had been by the skin of her teeth. “You may not like the life I lead, but it’s mine and I like it.” And she liked that it was as different from her mom’s staid life in Sparksville as possible.

  Her mom’s sigh was as weary as it was familiar. “I just worry about you, that’s all.”

  And BAM! the mom-guilt cannon landed a direct shot.

  Deep inhale. Deep exhale. She mentally closed the door on her annoyance. “I know, and I’m sorry I make you worry.”

  “So help me stop worrying about this engagement that came out of nowhere.”

  The truth hovered on the tip of Clover’s tongue, but she’d promised no one would know. And if her mom knew, so would all of Sparksville—plus the truth wouldn’t do any good but make her mom worry even more. They weren’t alike in any way and tended to argue more than agree, but they were family and that meant a lot to both of them.

  “It happened kind of fast.” Not a lie. And not exactly the truth, either, Khwāy pạỵỵāx̀xn. Moronic water buffalo, indeed. But Clover drew the line at outright lying to her mother.

  “I’d say so,” her mom said. “How long have you been seeing him?”

  “It was kind of a whirlwind thing, you know how much I travel, and we wanted to keep everything hush-hush until we knew for sure it was the real deal.” Her palms were sweaty and her mouth dry. God, she really did suck at this. Good thing she’d never listed life of crime as a dream goal.

  “And you’re ready to get married already?”

  There it was, her mom’s Jane-why-can’t-you-just-do-things-like-a-normal-person sigh. It brought out the reflexive snarl in Clover.

  “When you know, you know,” she said, her voice as sweet as high fructose corn syrup. “Isn’t that what you always said about Dad?”

  Her mom let out a surprised chuckle before the natural staidness settled back into her tone. “May you live long enough for your own words to be thrown back at you.”

  “I know it seems crazy.”

  “Love often does—especially when it comes at you out of the blue.”

  That unexpected understanding from a woman whose thinking Clover rarely, if ever, clearly comprehended left her momentarily speechless.

  “You still there, Jane?”

  “Mom…” The urge to spill it all tightened her throat. She hated lying. Even if she’d been any good at it, she’d have hated it.

  “I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t worry you were rushing, but I’ll table it until I can set my own eyes on him and see for myself,” her mom said, covering Clover’s silence with her own chattiness. “When are you bringing him up for Sunday dinner? We’re only two hours away. You could come next Saturday, spend the night, and head back to the city after lunch. Can I mark the calendar for next weekend?”

  That was not going to happen. “I’ll have to talk it over with Sawyer. I know his schedule is packed.” Or it would be until she got on the plane for Australia in six weeks.

  “See that you do, otherwise I’ll be forced to show up on your doorstep.” It came out like a joke, but only a fool would believe it was one. “Love you, Jane.”

  “Love you, too, Mom,” she said before hanging up.

  The truth of it was that she did. For all of their differences—and her bone-deep commitment to never grow up to be her mother—there was a lot of love between them. It was just the prickly kind most days.

  A shriek sounded outside her door a half second before it flew open, and Daphne rushed into her room.

  “You’re getting married?!” she cried out in one very loud voice.

  Since hiding under the covers wasn’t an option, Clover nodded and steeled herself for Lying To The People You Love Sucks: Part Two.

  …

  The fact that Sawyer needed to get to his brother Hudson before their mom did was only one reason why he was in his personal gym on his phone at seven in the morning on a Friday—the one day he blocked out the world and worked from home every week. The more important reason was that Hudson was not a morning person and some things didn’t stop being fun the older Sawyer got. Busting his brother’s chops by calling before Hudson’s surprisingly agile brain had awakened was definitely one of them.

  Settling into plank position with the phone turned to
speaker mode and placed near his fisted hands, he listened to it ring. And ring. And ring.

  It went to voicemail three times before Hudson finally picked up. “Are you outside the cabin with a spoon?”

  Sawyer laughed, the move making his abs hurt more than the second minute of holding a plank normally did. “No.”

  “Is Mom okay?” his brother asked, concern sharpening his tone.

  Sawyer dropped out of his plank, regretting that he’d even put that thought in his brother’s head. “Mom’s fine.”

  Two beats of silence followed by a less than cheery, “Then fuck off.”

  Chuckling at Hudson’s obvious misery at being woken up before the crack of noon, Sawyer started in on pushups. “I want you to be the best man at my wedding.”

  “Who is this and what did you do to my brother—not that I’m complaining, but our mom would be upset.”

  “He had a spoon,” Sawyer said, sweat starting to bead on his forehead. “It was either him or me.”

  “You’re fucking hilarious.”

  “You’re not the first person to tell me that.”

  “Bullshit.” Hudson snorted. “No one ever says that about you. What do you really want?”

  “I need you to tell Mom that I’ve been dating Clover on the sly for months ever since I met her in Singapore on one of my trips to see Mr. Lim.” He pounded out another set of pushups, then rolled onto his back for a breather while Hudson’s brain caught up.

  “Who is Clover?”

  “My personal buffer.” Sawyer downed a gulp from his water bottle while telling himself that the pickup in his pulse was because of the workout, not because of the blonde and her sparkly crop top he’d spent the night thinking about. “But Mom doesn’t know that either so keep that to yourself.”

  “Wait. I thought you refused to hire a personal buffer.”

  “I did, but then Clover scared off Mom. How could I not hire her after that?” Just the memory of the look on his mom’s face before she’d stormed off would be cheering him up for weeks.

  “This is Jane Lee we’re talking about, right? She was the only female buffer candidate I sent your way.” Hudson’s voice was thick with disbelief. “Does she have superpowers? Is she suffering from radiation poisoning?”

  Sawyer picked up his phone and slid it into the wall mount by his pull up bar. “Not that I know of.”

  “Then how did she do it?”

  “She told Mom off.” He gripped the bar and pulled himself up, curling his legs to a ninety-degree angle.

  “And she’s still alive?”

  Sawyer couldn’t keep the smile off his face as he began to ease back down, slow and controlled. No one—and he meant no one—ever told Helene Carlyle what to do. “Yep.”

  “I kinda want to marry her myself.”

  His grip slipped and he landed with a thunk on his feet, his grin gone. “You can work your charms on her once she gets back from Australia.”

  “That’s mighty…uh…generous of you.”

  He wiped his palms on his basketball shorts hard enough to make his thighs sting. “It’s a fake engagement to keep Mom off my back so I can close the Singapore deal, not an actual real relationship.”

  “Of course,” Hudson said with a sigh. “It’s work.”

  “Exactly.” He gripped the bar again and jerked himself up. “In six weeks, Clover leaves to go help walnicks or hallababies or something.”

  “Wallabies?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Are you drunk? None of this sounds like you. Who came up this idiotic plan?”

  “I did.” His arms burned on the way down and back up. “She told me off at the fundraiser, I announced we were engaged while giving a speech at the event, we made out in the closet, and then we sealed the deal at Vito’s.”

  What in the hell was he doing telling his brother all that? It was just the type of ammo Hudson wouldn’t hesitate to use. Just because you can’t stop thinking about that closet doesn’t mean you need to talk about it, dickhead.

  “You fucked her at a diner?”

  “No, you asshole, we came up with a contract at the diner.”

  “Now that sounds more like you.”

  “Actually, she insisted.” That had surprised him. It was not what he was expecting from someone with Clover’s resume.

  He knocked out five more quick pull-ups before his brother got in his next question. “So what’s she get out of this deal?”

  “Fifteen grand.”

  “That doesn’t sound legal.”

  “It’s not for that.” No matter how much he’d thought about fucking her every which way possible last night. “She’s an employee—well, an independent contractor. I’m not going to sleep with her.”

  “Making out was that bad?” Hudson asked.

  Sawyer dropped to the ground, glaring at the phone. “I’m not answering that.”

  “So it was that good.” Hudson barked out a laugh before using a fake German accent, “Very interesting.”

  His brother was a jackass—but one that he needed or this whole plot would implode. Now that was a big picture he didn’t like the looks of. “Are you going to back up my story or not?”

  “What happens when Mom finds out that the whole thing was a sham?”

  “She won’t.” He’d make sure of that. “Clover and I already discussed it. We’ll come up with a believable breakup story and that will be that.”

  “Uh-huh. Sure it will.”

  “It’s a business arrangement, and I know those inside and out.”

  “Yeah.” His brother chuckled. “But you don’t know shit about women.”

  Ten minutes later they had a workable plan and his brother was back to doing whatever it was he did while at his cabin. He always claimed he was with a date or three, but Hudson was always saying stupid shit to cover up the fact that he had a perfectly good brain behind his pretty-boy face. Things like Sawyer not knowing women. He didn’t need to know them. He just had to make sure he and Clover were on the same page, which according to their contract, they were. No need to stress over imaginary details.

  Shaking off the doubt creeping across his shoulders, he got on the treadmill, ready to run until even the possibility that his brother was right was gone.

  …

  Sitting at the table in her sunny kitchen, Clover drained the morning concoction in her Keep It Weird oversize mug—four sugar packets, half a cup of milk, and a generous splash of coffee—without spitting it out in laughter at the look of absolute horror on Daphne’s face.

  “You can’t be getting married,” she said, her brown eyes were huge, and if she’d been wearing pearls she would have been clutching them. “You barely know him. What if he’s a serial killer who only gets away with it because of his money and connections?”

  The croissant and coffee had just been a trick. As soon as Clover thought she was safe, Daphne had started in on the best friend version of the Spanish Inquisition before helping her throw the contents of her closet into an oversized vintage suitcase she’d gotten at a flea market and restored—with her own little tweaks, of course.

  “He’s not a serial killer. He’s a businessman. He’s…” Clover floundered trying to find the perfect word to describe Sawyer Carlyle, but the information she’d gained through her Google-fu after he’d rushed her out of his office yesterday had been frustratingly limited. Their “date” at the charity fundraiser last night hadn’t answered any, either—beyond the fact his kisses melted her brain.

  The man may run one of the largest international construction firms in the world, but he wasn’t much of a chatter. A few quotes here or there in various business articles, but no Twitter, no Facebook, no Snapchat, no social media at all. She wasn’t about to tell Daphne that, though…she loved the woman like the sister she’d never had but saying Daphne was a worrywart was like saying soccer players’ legs were a thing of jaw-dropping, panty-melting goodness. It was just a fact of life.

  “He’s really busy,�
�� Clover finished lamely.

  “You mean he’s really fucking hot,” Daphne said, twisting her miles of dark hair up into a knot on top of her head.

  There was no doubt about that. The man was all broad shoulders, square jaw, and the kind of big hands that made promises about other parts of his anatomy—ones that she’d confirmed for herself in the closet last night. Sawyer Carlyle may not talk to the press, but they loved him anyway, blasting out photos of one of Harbor City’s most eligible bachelors taken at society events, charity fundraisers, and on the street. She couldn’t blame them. Even when he was glaring at the camera, the man took a hell of a sexy picture.

  “But you gotta remember,” Daphne said, “Ted Bundy was hot, too.”

  “Okay, no more true crime TV for you.” Clover warned and cut up the pancake Daphne had shoveled onto her plate.

  Clover took a bite to be polite but…yeah, eating the whole thing wasn’t going to happen. Daphne was going through a healthy-eating phase and the pancakes were pumpkin and quinoa mixed with little green bits she was pretty sure were kale.

  She was saved from having to actually take a second bite by Daphne’s own single-minded determination and 100 percent commitment to melodrama. “It’s all happening so fast. I can’t believe you’re moving in with him—let alone marrying him!”

  And if her stomach wasn’t in rebellion enough from the hipster pancakes, the guilt from lying to her family and friends gave even the air an acidic taste.

  “What can I say?” Clover shrugged. “He just wants me near him 24/7. Anyway, what kind of serial killer would ask a potential victim to marry him?”

  “Those creepers who are always posting about wanting foot models or bikini babes for calendars on Craigslist,” Daphne said around a mouthful of the barely edible pancakes.

  Clover shook her head. “And you look like such a normal person.”

  “I know.” Daphne grinned, her dark good looks not even hinting at the snarky personality behind her pretty face. “It fools the boys every time. Don’t change the subject. Something about this quickie engagement stinks.”

  Clover opened her mouth to argue, but managed to close her trap before she reminded Daphne of her last boyfriend who’d turned out to be a serial cheater and general asshole. There. Now that was a good sign. The filter between her brain and her mouth was usually broken as she’d proven over and over again yesterday.

 

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