“Bobbie’s thorough,” Gabe said, closing the file and looking up at his brother across his desk in his office at Cress, INC.
“Well worth the costly price,” Cole agreed, shifting his watch on his wrist and arranging the sleeve of his tailored shirt to ensure it showed.
At Gabe’s continued silence, Cole looked up to find his brother eyeing him oddly. “What?” he asked.
“Nice threads,” Gabe said, failing at an attempt to keep from chuckling.
Cole stood and pulled the ebony tailored blazer over his matching shirt. He latched the lone button as he came from behind his desk to turn this way and that to show off his new suit. “Jillian suggested I look a little more professional coming to work,” he said, raising his chin as he tightened the knot of his tie.
“Ah, the power of a pussycat,” Gabe said, stroking his beard. “And stop primping. You’re acting like Sean.”
Now that made Cole howl with laughter. It was undeniable that their older brother, who favored the actor Daniel Sunjata, was the star of the family and knew it. In fact, he enjoyed starring in several of the culinary shows Cress, INC. produced, was friends with high-profile celebrities, and had been named one of People’s Top Ten Sexiest Chefs twice in a row. The charmer was as handsome and famous as he was a genius in the kitchen. And Sean knew it.
“Besides, I’ve seen you in a suit before, egomaniac,” Gabe drawled, setting the file atop his brother’s desk.
“Yes, but never in the office,” Cole pointed out before removing the blazer and reclaiming his seat.
“Short of a DNA test to confirm things, it seems Lincoln Cress is indeed our brother,” Gabe said.
“Our eldest brother,” Cole corrected him.
Gabe shook his head and winced. “Phillip Junior won’t like that.”
Good.
Of all the Cress brothers, Phillip Junior was the most competitive and backbiting. He held an outdated belief that as the eldest son of the Cress family, he should be the undisputed heir to the company’s throne. Learning that Phillip Senior had instead opened the opportunity up to all his sons had created a divisiveness among the brothers that was unsettling.
Cole removed his wallet and money clip from his pocket and counted off enough crisp hundred-dollar bills to cover his half of Bobbie’s bill.
Gabe took the cash. “I’ll cut her a check today,” he said.
Cole nodded and rested his elbow against the arm of his chair before propping his chin in his hand. “Everyone needs to know about this,” he began, thinking of the secret already weighing him down. “We have to call a family meeting.”
“Do we speak to our parents alone or tell everyone at once?” Gabe asked. “You know, as hard as he has been on us, he was there every day—raising us, teaching us, reprimanding us. There are many things about our father that I doubt. But I know he loved being a father. Sometimes his sternness was this overreaching need to be for us what his father was not for him.”
Cole shifted his gaze out the window as he fought with whether to share’s his father’s infidelity—a part of his father’s life that was not in that file from Bobbie Barnett. And thus he took little comfort in her report of his current faithfulness. “Let’s think about it and make a decision soon,” he said, reaching for the file to carry it across his office to the safe inside his closet.
“Another Cress brother,” Gabe mused, shaking his hand before releasing a light laugh.
“Maybe,” Cole declared, locking the safe and returning to his seat.
They locked eyes.
Of all the brothers, Cole was closest to Gabe, who was older than him by just two years. And he knew they were thinking the same thing.
“A thousand,” Cole offered, reaching in his wallet for another ten bills.
Gabe nodded and stood to remove his platinum money clip to do the same. “He looks just like us, Cole. He’s our brother,” he said. “Face it.”
“I’m not against it. I’m just not as sure as you. That’s all.”
Betting was their thing since childhood. Be it a guess on what was for dinner or whether one would win the charm of one pretty girl over the other. The brothers had brought the act into adulthood.
Cole gathered the bills and slid them into a Cress-monogrammed envelope, removing the paper strip to reveal the adhesive as he sealed it.
“I should have bet you that you and Jillian would fall in love,” Gabe said, remaining standing as he slid his hands into the pockets of his gray three-piece suit.
Cole put the envelope in the top drawer of his desk. There was another already sitting there. He opened it. There was five thousand dollars inside. “Who says I’m in love?” he asked as he tried to remember the reason for the cash.
“Are you not?” Gabe countered.
He showed his brother the envelope. “Did we bet on something and forget?” he asked.
Gabe chuckled as he strolled to the door. “I didn’t forget. I lost. Your launch went off without a hitch,” he reminded him over his shoulder.
Well damn.
Cole moved the money from the envelope into his money clip. “Gabe,” he called before looking up.
His brother paused in the doorway.
“Would it bother you if Monica was still best friends with her ex-husband?” he asked, alluding to his doubts for the first time aloud.
“Ouch,” Gabe said before wincing. “Um, I’m a good man, but I’m not a perfect man, so I don’t know how I would feel, but I’m happy as hell that I don’t have to worry about that. Also, I do believe that if it’s bothering you, you might need to admit what you feel for Jillian.”
Gabe locked eyes with his brother. “I care about her,” he confessed.
“I know,” Gabe said with a smile before tapping the door frame and walking away.
* * *
The sounds of Beyonce’s “All Night Long” echoed against the walls of Cole’s condo as Jillian paused to do body rolls before checking on the baked macaroni and cheese in the stylish navy-blue Viking oven. In a great mood, she wanted to reward herself and Cole with a down-home Southern meal. The kind her grandmother Ionie taught her to cook before her entry into culinary school to excel at French cuisine. Baked turkey wings smothered in brown gravy with onion and peppers, chicken pilau rice, cabbage cooked down with fried pork jowls, the mac and cheese with five kinds of cheese, candied yams, and cornbread.
A Southern feast.
She paused, wondering if Cole had ever had a traditional Southern meal. She certainly had never prepared any for the Cress family when she’d been their chef. And it was well known that all of the Cress chefs favored French cuisine.
“Well, he’s getting fed some tonight,” she said, using silicone mats to remove the glass dish from the oven to set on a large trivet on the counter.
“Some what?”
Jillian looked up in surprise to find Cole walking into the dining room from the hall leading from his in-unit parking space. He held his suit jacket and house keys in hand. “Soul food,” she said. “That ‘down below the Mason-Dixon line’ comfort food.”
He crossed the spacious kitchen to press a kiss to her temple as he looked at the bevy of serving dishes on the countertops. “Looks good,” he said.
“You ever had a spread like this?” she asked, bumping her bottom back against him as she removed lids to show off her skills.
“No...and good thing because I would have looked more like Lucas growing up,” he said before opening his mouth as she offered him a spoonful of her candied yams.
“Your brother Lucas was chubby?” she asked in surprise. “Sure doesn’t look it now.”
Cole playfully swatted her bottom. “How does he look now?” he asked.
Jillian cut her eyes up to him as she sucked the rest of the yams from the spoon, playfully wiggling her shaped brows at him.
; He laughed and picked her up by the waist to sit her atop the island before standing between her open legs.
“Don’t worry, I have the Cress brother I want,” Jillian reassured him. “Lucas who?”
All of the Cress men—including their father—were good-looking, but it was only Cole who had drawn her appreciative eye. From the moment she’d looked past his mother during her interview for the chef position and seen him standing there watching her, she had been caught up in the man’s web. Trapped by his looks. Enticed by his flirtation. And hooked by his sex.
Cole kissed her mouth and squeezed the top of her thighs. “Why the big meal?” he asked, still tasting the sweetness of the yam’s brown sugar, cinnamon and butter glaze on her lips.
“Good news. My grandmother finally got into the rehab facility we wanted...” Jillian began as she undid his tie and loosened the top buttons of his shirt.
“Excellent,” Cole said, truly looking pleased with the next step in her grandmother’s recovery.
“And I got a new personal chef position,” she said.
“Congratulations, beautiful,” he said with enthusiasm.
“For Warren,” she added, leaning toward him to press kisses to his neck.
Cole leaned back. A scowl lined his handsome face.
Jillian was shocked. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
He turned and strode over to the Bose sound dock on the glass table behind the sofa. Soon the sound of Beyonce stopped mid-falsetto-note abruptly. He began to pace back and forth in front of the fireplace.
Jillian slid down from the island to join him in the living room. “Cole, what’s going on? What’s this about?” she asked.
He stopped his movement and eyed her. “Which is it, Jillian?” he asked. “Do you not see that Warren loves you? Do you not care that he loves you? Do you want him to love you still? What?”
“Warren does not love me, Cole,” she said, waving her hand dismissively.
And instantly remembered giving her mother the same gesture.
What’s going on with you and Warren?
She also remembered the grunt her mother had given her.
That grunt had said so much without saying a thing.
“He loves you. He wants you. Now, where are you with this?” Cole eyed her across the divide.
Jillian was confused by his anger. “Wait. What?” she asked. “You want me to turn the job down? Stay unemployed? Stay strangled by new debt? Not work? What?”
Cole wiped his hand over his mouth. “I would never try to control you like that, but I would like for you to be aware enough to understand when you are putting yourself in a compromising position,” he said.
“A compromising position,” she scoffed.
Cole jerked the hem of his shirt from inside his pants as if feeling restrained by it.
“Don’t be blinded by jealousy, Cole,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief. “I didn’t even know you had a problem with Warren.”
“Blinded by jealousy?” he snapped.
“Yes,” she insisted, turning to walk back into the kitchen.
Cole followed.
She ignored him as she removed plates, linen napkins and cutlery from the cabinets and drawers to set the dining room table.
“Do you want a relationship with your ex?” he asked.
“Which one?” she asked sarcastically as she breezed past him.
“Jillian,” Cole said calmly.
She set the dishes down on the corner of the table and looked to him.
“Do you want a relationship with Warren?” he asked.
“Definitely not,” she insisted. “I see him as nothing but a friend. Damn near a brother, if we hadn’t made the mistake of crossing the line from friends to more.”
“He doesn’t feel the same,” Cole insisted.
“You’re wrong. You don’t know him. You’re assuming,” she said, now focusing on setting the table. “As a matter of fact, you’re wrong about me. Why assume I would be inappropriate with an employer?”
“You were with me.”
That felt like a blow.
She looked at him again, fighting an urge to toss something at him. “Really, Cole?” she asked, her tone accusing. “I guess I spread it out for everyone right along with the meals. Right?”
Cole released a heavy, harsh breath before pressing his fingers to his closed eyes. “I didn’t say that.”
“You said a lot,” she charged.
Cole shoved his hands into the pockets of his slacks as he leaned his tall frame against the wall. “And what would you do if you found out I wasn’t wrong and Warren loves you and wants you back?” he asked, his voice low and deep.
She frowned. “He doesn’t. Damn!”
“What if he did?” he countered. “Would you still take the job?”
“Yes,” she asserted.
He nodded in understanding. “At first, I hated the idea of you working for him because I was worried that something would happen. That you would betray me in a way I can swear I would never do to you...” he began. “But now, more than hating you being around him, I pity him because it’s cruel, Jillian, to be blind to his feelings for you and to continue to hang around him while actively ignoring the heart he wears on his sleeve. Hoping for more than friendship.”
“So now you’re looking out for Warren?” she asked in sarcasm and disbelief.
He shook his head. “I remembered the offer my mother made and how you had no clue that I had any feelings outside of sex for you,” he said, a chill entering his tone.
She swung between frustration with his assumptions and annoyance at him, clinging to the past. “I thought we were beyond that,” she said.
“So did I. I was wrong.”
Stunned.
That was the only word for how she felt at that moment.
They stared at one another. Cole looked away first.
That stung.
“Maybe I should give you some space,” she said, even as she desperately yearned for him to implore her not to go.
“Maybe we should give each other some space,” he countered.
That hurt.
It also spurred her to want to be away from him. Quickly.
She moved around the apartment, gathering her things and fighting not to let one single tear fall.
“What about the food?” he asked, still leaning against the wall from where he’d crushed her heart.
Jillian released a bitter laugh. “Please don’t push me to tell you what you can do with that food,” she snapped before snatching open the front door and leaving, wishing she could slam it closed.
She leaned against the door and hyperventilated, seeking control and not finding it.
The crash of dishes echoed through the solid wood and she froze at the shock. Turning, she pressed a hand to the door as she lowered her head.
What the hell just happened?
Ten
Two weeks later
“You ready, Cole?”
He looked up from the copies of Ionie’s medical bills for her care at the rehab facility. Bobbie Barnett had been able to retrieve the paperwork for him, along with the accurate information on where to send payment. “One sec,” he said as he opened his checkbook and paid in full the substantial bill that remained after the contribution by her medical insurance. He sealed the envelope and left it in his tray for outgoing mail that his assistant would ensure was handled.
In his and Jillian’s brief time in a formal relationship, Cole had forged a cute relationship with her grandmother, Ionie, and he no longer wanted that financial burden on her or her family. A minimal loss to him could change the very fiscal outlook of their lives, and that didn’t sit well with him.
And Jillian would be none the wiser. He had already included a request for anonymity.
They hadn’t spoken since that day in his condo, and the last thing he wanted was for her to believe his gesture was a move to reconcile. He missed her, but his doubts about her relationship with Warren lingered. Be it she was complicit in the man’s love for her or uncaring of it, neither was to his liking. Both hit too close to home with his own issues.
It was why he’d resisted serious relationships in the past.
“Ready,” he said, grabbing his cognac leather bomber to pull over the navy dress shirt and denims he wore with polished brown boots. As the brothers walked together to the elevator, Cole removed a navy fitted sweater cap to cover his head and ears from the biting cold of winter outdoors.
“Welcome back.” Gabe eyed Cole’s return to more casual attire.
“Thank you,” he said as they rode the elevator down to the lobby. “Now, if the weather will magically warm up so I can get some hours in on my food truck, I will be a very happy man.”
“No, you won’t,” Gabe said as they strode across the massive, busy, sky-lighted lobby and through the automated glass doors of the Midtown Manhattan building.
Cole said nothing in response. There was nothing to say. It was true. He was miserable without her. Again. And this time at his doing.
The brothers climbed into the rear of one of the company’s vehicles as the driver held the door open for them. “Thank you,” both said to Harvey.
They fell silent as Harvey reclaimed his seat and eventually pulled away from the parking spot in front of the building. The mood was tense. Neither was looking forward to this visit to the Cress family townhouse.
It was time for the truth to be revealed.
Cole looked out the tinted window at the city as they neared the prominent and historic Lenox Hill section of Manhattan’s Upper East Side. His brother was silent as well, the investigative file resting on his lap. But Cole didn’t bother to wager what occupied Gabe’s thoughts. He was too focused on his own.
This will not go well.
The driver slowed the SUV to a stop in front of the five-story, ten-thousand-square-foot townhouse. Both men opened their rear doors and exited before Harvey could. “Give us an hour,” Gabe said as Cole stood on the pristine sidewalk and looked up at the towering structure.
The Rebel Heir Page 13