Sweet Love

by Kayla, Mia

  I wanted to cry. It was a heart felt speech with utter and gut-wrenching feeling.

  It was then I decided I would help him.

  After releasing a slow breath, I said, “If there is anything I can do that will make a difference, I’ll help you.”

  His eyebrows shot to his hairline, and without thinking, he brought me in, squeezing me so hard and so fast that I nearly fell over. I for sure would’ve fallen over if I wasn’t sitting down.

  He cleared his throat and backed away, visibly embarrassed, but not before our eyes locked in a gaze so intense that I could feel it, taste it, bottle it up.

  “Thank you,” he said, his voice shaky and so soft that it vibrated like silk against my skin.

  I nodded, unable to breathe for a second as goose bumps pebbled along my arms.

  He ran one sexy hand through his hair and stood, turning to go back to his seat. “We can start this weekend.”

  Holy mother heat wave.

  I placed a trembling hand on my neck. “Okay, this weekend.”

  Chapter 8

  Charlie

  I drove slowly in the right lane because I didn’t want to go home to Mommy dearest and my super stepdad.

  As far as stepdads went, he was pretty perfect—for now at least. He was smart and owned his own company, and he doted on my mom left and right. But part of me wondered how long this facade would last. I mean, they had known each other and dated for six months, and then they had gotten married.

  Or maybe they’d last forever. Maybe he’d make her happy. Maybe I was thinking the worst because he simply wasn’t my dad.

  My father had died right before I graduated high school, right before I’d made the decision that would change the trajectory of my life—going to computer tech school. I knew that if my father had been alive, my career path would have ended differently.

  When my father passed years ago, my mother had been devastated. We both were, but for once, she turned into someone I had to take care of, as she went through bouts of depression. One thing that my parents had instilled in me was the importance of family, and because of that and because I loved my mom, I had known that wherever she went, I’d follow.

  After going around in circles, I entered the new McMansion that I now called my home. Richard had bought my mom this house, so they could start a new life together even though his paid-off, older mansion was in the same city.

  They’d bought the place months ago, wanting to start a new life together. Now, here we were—me, mom, my new stepdad, stepsister—all in one big, fake happy, blended family.

  It was odd, driving to this place. Given my parents had been blue-collar workers, we’d only been able to afford a modest home with two bedrooms and a one-car garage. It was as if I had gone from rags to riches overnight.

  My new place of residence was huge. My temporary room had its own bathroom and walk-in closet fit for a queen. When I’d mentioned that I wanted to move out, my stepdad had hired construction workers to remodel the pool house as my own personal apartment. Currently, it was my art room, where I was working on my pieces for the exhibit.

  The maid, Elsa, greeted me when I entered. She tried to take my laptop bag, which I refused to give her because what idiot didn’t know how to put their own stuff away by themselves?

  The door chimed behind me, and I turned. In stepped Sandy. All of my muscles tightened, and I wanted to stomp back out, get into my car, and go over to Casey and Alyssa’s. Sandy with her sandy-blonde hair and her crystal blue eyes and a figure that only belonged on the cover of a magazine. Sandy, my evil stepsister. Evil personified. When she spoke, I pictured her breathing fire through her nostrils.

  She dropped her bag on the floor and handed Elsa her jacket. Remember what I’d said about what idiot couldn’t put away their own belongings? That was my evil stepsister.

  I’d been determined to be nice to her because we were finally family now, but after the tenth time of her being bitchy to me, I’d had enough. I wasn’t even trying anymore. I treated her like the bully she was. I simply ignored her.

  “Charlie, how have your first few days at work been? Did you happen to not offend anybody in the first week?” She brushed her hand through her perfect locks, and I swore the curls bounced like they would in a shampoo commercial. “Do me a favor and try not to get fired, okay?”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t,” I deadpanned. “Actually, I love this job. This is the first job I’ve had in a long time that I feel like I can retire here.” I clenched my teeth into a tight smile, lying like my life depended on it.

  Did I love work? No. But I loved the people I worked with—my newfound friends. I’d upped and left my life in Wisconsin, friends and all, so it was refreshing that Alyssa and Casey had made me feel part of their girl group.

  “Well, thank goodness I own a recruiting firm and that Daddy insisted I help you find a job.”

  More like my stepdad had forced her into finding me this job.

  She lifted her shoulder to her chin. “Like I said, let’s hope you won’t get fired. You’ve never once in your life since you’ve graduated from college held a job for more than a few months, so I guess only time will tell.”

  I wanted to wipe her sassy smirk off her face.

  “Girls.” My mother flowed effortlessly into the foyer. Her flowery skirt hugged her hips when she walked. She had her arms outstretched, and her smile was big, wide, and inviting.

  This was Olivia Grayson, now Buckingham, in her normal form. There wasn’t a curl out of place from her long, flowy blonde hair, and her clothes had been pressed to perfection. That was where our similarities ended—in the color of our hair and our emerald green eyes. Where she was curvy and beautiful, I was not. Where she was tall, I was average. Where her clothes were always immaculate, half the time, I looked like I’d pulled my clothes from the wash and thrown them on.

  My mother brought me into her chest, fiercely hugging me, just like she had when I was a little girl—her little girl—and I melted into her arms. I lived for her hugs. With my mother, she showed how much she cared outwardly, but what she thought and what she said were opposite to her actions.

  When she turned toward Sandy’s direction, her whole face lit up, and mine sank. She brought her in and hugged her as well—a gesture usually meant for only me—but now, I had to share her.

  “Sandy, I like the haircut.” She pulled at the end of Sandy’s blonde locks and walked around her to see the back of her newly cut hair.

  I wanted to tell my mom I had gotten a haircut last week, but she hadn’t said a word about it. But I wasn’t gonna bring it up. Because I wasn’t about to be “overly sensitive”—as my mother often labeled me. I missed it when it was just us—and Dad.

  “In this suit, you look like a model.” My mother ran her hand down Sandy’s sleeve as she admired the tailored fit.

  My jaw clenched, and my gaze flickered to my own suit.

  “Oh, Olivia, I need to hook you up with my tailor. She makes the best suits. Anyway”—she waved a hand—“how’s Granny? Is she okay today? Do you think she’ll join us for dinner, or do you think she’s worn out?” She peered behind her toward the double staircase that led to our rooms.

  Her grandmother was elderly in her nineties. They’d transferred her from the nursing home to the house for home care.

  There were very few times Sandy seemed human, and it was with her interactions with her grandmother that I was able to experience this.

  My mother patted her shoulder, consoling her. Only I didn’t know why because it wasn’t like her granny was gonna die anytime soon. She was old but not bedridden.

  “Why don’t you check on her, honey, and ask her how she’s feeling? We can have Elsa bring her down if she needs to be helped.”

  With an upward tip of her chin, Sandy headed down the hall and up the stairs, and once she was out of my vicinity, I exhaled deeply and relaxed my shoulders.

  “So, how was your day at work, honey?” My mother’s eyes gav
e me a once-over, taking in my suit. She didn’t comment on it.

  Did she like it?

  I gritted my teeth because this was my issue not hers, wasn’t it?

  I was only perfect in my father’s eyes. A pang shot straight to my chest, long and hard and endless, when I just thought of him.

  Good God, I missed him. I missed the way he’d called me the perfect princess. I missed the way he’d made me believe I could do no wrong.

  In my mother’s eyes, I was anything but perfect. I had inherited my father’s bone structure, his lanky frame, his green eyes, but I had my mother’s hair and her full lips. A combination not stellar enough to even be noticed.

  “It was fine, Mother …”

  Fine. Fine. Fine. A word I used often with my mother, even when things were not so fine.

  * * *

  We were all seated at the kitchen table. Granny—or I should say, Sandy’s Granny—wasn’t feeling too well, pushing around her food on her plate.

  Sandy sipped her wine and leaned back against the chair. “It’s just getting so busy. I had to hire two more people to keep up with demand.”

  I focused on my food, trying for the life of me to block her out. If I had to hear about Sandy’s job one more time, I would bang my head against the table until I knocked out and they had to call 911. This was the thing: it wasn’t jealousy that caused me to want to gouge my eyes out every time she talked about her recruiting firm that she owned; it was the fact that she would brag nonstop about it, as though using it to tell me, Look at what I can do.

  “Soon, you won’t have anymore room in that office you rented out.” Richard Buckingham III sat right by my mother, feeding himself with one hand and holding her hand over the table with the other.

  They were always touching affectionately, like the newlyweds they were. Each time I witnessed it, I’d think of my dad. It wasn’t like she was cheating—my father was dead—but I couldn’t help but picture how they had been together, how much love they’d shared, just with one look. As though they hadn’t had to even touch to witness their overflowing passion for each other. Just how they stared lovingly at each other proved it.

  Sandy’s gaze made it my way. “The economy is high therefore, everyone needs a job nowadays, and people want to be placed, which puts my recruitment agency on the top of every company’s list when they’re trying to fill positions.”

  She had gotten me the job’s at Colby’s, yes. Was I grateful? Yes. Did she have to remind me that she had gotten me the job every second? No. Come to think of it, if the request for her to find me a job hadn’t come from Richard, then I doubted she would have helped me. My gratitude should go to him.

  My mother smiled at her stepdaughter. “We’re just so proud of you. You’ve taken your company that you just started a little over a year ago, and you’ve expanded it to where it’s overflowing with opportunities. It’s just … awe-inspiring.”

  This was the part where I wanted to gag, possibly throw up all my mashed potatoes and meatballs onto the kitchen table, and feed it to Sandy.

  I doubted that would do any good because my mother would just have me clean it up, and I didn’t want to do that. There was no reason to add another point on why she was so embarrassed of me.

  “This family was meant to be. Look at that, Charlie. As soon as we moved in, you needed a new job, and lo and behold, your sister owns her own recruitment agency.” My mother clasped her hands together like this was a good thing.

  If I only didn’t need this job, need it for my end game—my exhibit.

  “I hear you can get and eat all the candy that you want. Must be one of the greatest perks at the job,” Mother added.

  Richard lifted his head from his plate. “You’re working for Colby’s?” He eyed Sandy from his spot. “I thought you didn’t do business with that company anymore.”

  My stepfather didn’t pay attention to little details that involved me because if he did, he’d have known I had been hired last week.

  Sandy waved a hand and exaggeratedly rolled her eyes. “Dad, if they’re paying, I’m not about to deny their money. It’s a win for them and a win for me.”

  “I don’t know. It’s not a company I want you dealing with. Especially since I heard it’s going under.”

  I guessed what the company had been trying to keep a secret wasn’t so top secret anymore.

  I decided to tune out the family for the rest of dinner. I tried to think of when I could get back to finishing my latest project—an abstract oil painting. I’d stored my painting supplies and set up my own little studio in the pool house. That way, it wasn’t in the house, and no one could bother me when I was in the deep zone of creating.

  Soon enough, construction would be complete, and I could permanently move into the pool house. I’d had plans to move out, be on my own, until we moved here. But now, with this exhibit, I couldn’t afford a place of my own, not when I’d had to pay a substantial amount of rent to lease the spot for my show.

  When dinner was over and everyone headed to the living room, I helped Elsa clean up. My mother had told me I didn’t have to do so, but I did. Sandy merely scowled without saying a word as though it were beneath her that she shouldn’t and couldn’t help.

  “Miss Charlie, you’re fine. You can go in and spend time with Richard and your mother.” Elsa took the plate from my hand, and I frowned. “Ms. Sandy doesn’t come home often, only since Granny came back from the nursing home.”

  I sighed. I knew she was right, but I didn’t want to socialize. I wanted to drown in paint and canvas and oils, not interact with my new blended family.

  But I did the right thing and trekked toward the living room. Richard sat next to my mother on the worn brown leather couch with his drink of choice—scotch. Sandy was in the opposite lounge chair with her dry martini. Granny sat next to Sandy in her wheelchair.

  My drink of choice was none of the above because liquor made me tipsy, and it made me say things that I couldn’t take back, so I wasn’t about to get drunk, not in front of my new family. Liquor made people honest, me especially.

  Just as I sat down, Sandy stood, ready to go, like always whenever I was around. She put up a show just in front of the family—but not for me.

  “Charlie, why don’t you follow me to the door and lead me out? I’m not sure where my jacket is.”

  I fisted my hands at my sides and gritted my teeth in a tight smile that screamed, I don’t like you, but no one is able to tell because I’m smiling. She knew exactly where her jacket was. I wouldn’t hate her so much if she didn’t have this undying need to make my life uncomfortable.

  Richard and my mother eyed me from their seats, probably wondering if I’d cause a scene for a simple request.

  Nope. Not playing this game, Sandy. Not looking like the bad guy. Not today.

  I followed Sandy out of the living room, down the hall, and to the foyer where she opened the closet and plucked out her jacket.

  “Now, since you’ve found your jacket, I guess you don’t need me anymore.” I smiled. “Unless you want me to help you put it on.” And wrap it around your neck in a double knot.

  She slipped on her coat and fixed her sleeves, never bothering to look up. “It took me a lot to get you a job at Colby’s.”

  “I know, and I can’t thank you enough,” I snapped.

  She reminded me every time she saw me, like a broken record. Her look told me that, in appreciation, I owed her my firstborn child.

  “I’ve got a little bird on the inside, and it looks like you’re not making a good impression thus far.” Her laugh was cynical, high-pitched, and annoying, like a witch—the Wicked Witch of the West.

  Who the hell did she know? How far could her claws reach?

  “So, do me a favor and don’t embarrass me and get fired, okay?” She adjusted the strap of her designer purse over her arm, pulling it further up her shoulder. Only then did she meet my eyes.

  She gave me a once-over—from the top of my baby ha
irs on my head to the toes of my fuzzy socks. With one last sour look, Sandy fixed her collar and was out the door without saying good-bye.

  All of my muscles tightened.

  I hated her more than I hated Brussels sprouts, and damn, I hated Brussels sprouts really bad.

  I pushed back my shoulders and lifted up my chin. Results set deep in my gut, I would excel at this job and do my very best to help Connor with the rebranding initiatives, so whoever Sandy knew in the inside could tell her that I’d had a hand in helping save the company. Take that!

  Chapter 9

  Connor

  We were meeting for our first brainstorming session.

  I was excited to get this started because we didn’t have that much time left to get this done before I had to leave and go back to New York.

  The stirring from the door had me adjusting the Chinese food cartons on the long boardroom table. Charlie’s hair was in a bun on the top of her head, messy but in a sexy way that made it seem like she had gone to the salon to get it done.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey.” She brought in her laptop and a big sketchpad, which dropped on the long mahogany table that cut the boardroom. Then, she frowned.

  And I laughed because her face had just transformed to one of a five-year-old. “What’s the matter?”

  “I just ate.”

  “Oh.” I realized what had upset her, and then I mentally slapped myself because I should have told her earlier that I would be providing dinner.

  We were working late. The least I could do is pay for her dinner.

  “Well, if we’re here late, trying to figure stuff out, we can eat it for a late-night snack.”

  “You think we’ll be here late?” Her brow furrowed, and she teetered in her spot. “If so … I might need to call an Uber.”