: Chapter 17

I was still glowing when I sailed into JFI the next morning. After starting the coffee maker, I sat down at my desk to get a little email correspondence done. Then I researched different kinds of leather. By the time I heard Brick’s voice in the hallway, only an hour and a half had passed, yet I’d gotten an entire day’s worth of work in already.

Which was probably a good thing. Brick was as chatty in the office as he was everywhere else. It slowed my workflow considerably when he was around, so it was just as well that I got as much completed before he arrived.

He laughed, talking to some other man, as he entered the room, only to slow to a stop and inhale deeply. “Damn, you even brew the best-smelling coffee, kid.”

I grinned, soaking in the compliment like a flower greedily inhaling sunlight, even as I wanted to deflect and say the coffee beans had done all the work aromatizing the air, not me.

Popping to my feet, I brought the cup I had ready directly to him. “Thank goodness you’re here. I wanted to get your opinion on these quotes I’ve gotten from—”

“Later,” he said, wiping out business talk with the swish of a hand. “First, I want you to meet Robert King. Rob, this is my sister, Kaitlynn.”

“Nice to meet you.” Rob stepped forward, his palm outstretched to shake with me.

After we greeted each other, Brick, who was already at the coffee station, adding creamer to his cup, said, “Rob’s an associate with Cobb King Real Estate. He’s going to take you around today to find a new place to live.”

The smile I was giving Mr. King froze on my face. I blinked at him about four times before transferring my frozen smile to Brick. “New place to live?” I repeated from stiff lips that felt fossilized from my fake pleasantry.

“Yeah.” He waved a dismissive hand, then smacked a couple sugar packets against his palm before ripping them open. “You know, since you’re getting paid big-kid money now, you can afford something better. And don’t worry… If you don’t want to buy right now, he can help you find the best condos to rent too.”

“Brick,” I said, not sure where to start, and afraid I might blow a gasket if what I really wanted to say burst from my lips. I shook my head. “I appreciate your concern, but I don’t—”

“Hey, no thanks needed.” He poured the sugar into his coffee and stirred. “I told you I was going to make sure you got into a better place, and I am. Promise fulfilled.”

“And yet…” I shook my head, still too flustered to talk before blurting, “And yet you forgot to find out if I even wanted to move.”

He paused, confusion filtering through his gaze. Frowning Mr. King’s way as if I’d spoken another language and he needed a translation, he finally turned back to me. “Why would you want to stay in that place? It’s a shit hole.”

“Because,” I sputtered, spreading my fingers in the air. “It’s my home.”

“And that’s where Rob comes in.” Brick motioned to him, nodding with encouragement. “To help you find a new home.”

“But I don’t want a new home,” I ground out, glaring at him, only to transfer an all-is-good-here smile to Mr. King.

Brick scowled, not caring about the realtor’s presence in the least. “Why the hell not?”

“Brick,” I muttered, losing my patience. “Can we talk about this later?” Say, when strangers weren’t around. I was never comfortable talking about personal things in front of people I didn’t know, which suddenly reminded me how okay I’d been in the flower shop with Gabby, Camille, Shaw, and Isobel when we’d discussed my relationship with Ezra so openly.

Huh, curious, that.

Anyway, back to the situation at hand…

Brick had never suffered from any such affliction. Totally unconcerned by Mr. King shifting uneasily between us, he lifted his own hands and frowned back. “Why can’t we talk about it now? Rob’s here. He’s ready to show you around. What’s the problem?”

“I don’t have a problem.” Oh, gosh. I probably sounded like one of those contrary, always-disagree-with-everything people now, because clearly, I had a problem. I just didn’t want to talk about it here and now.

“Jesus, Kait. Just tell me what’s going on.”

Jesus, Brick, I wanted to grumble back. Leave it the hell alone already. But he only kept staring at me, clueless.

“Fine,” I muttered, casting one last glance toward Mr. King before glaring at my stepbrother. “The last place I lived was the only home I’d ever known until your mother kicked me out on the street the day after my dad died. I know my little apartment isn’t the Ritz, but I’ve made a home out of it, and by God, it’ll be a cold day in hell before anyone forces me to leave my home again. Got it?”

Brick’s mouth dropped open.

“I, uh.” Mr. King backpedaled toward the door. “I think I’ll check back with you later, Carmichael.” In the next instant, he disappeared from the room.

“Holy shit,” Brick finally murmured, staring at me as if I’d just appeared out of thin air. “I never knew she kicked you out. I thought, fuck… I thought you decided to move out because you wanted to get away from her… Like months later. Definitely not the next day.”

Hugging myself and feeling more insecure than I wanted to appear, I glanced away and said, “Yeah, well… You’re wrong.”

“What…” Setting his mug down, he stepped toward me. “So, what did you do? Where did you go? Christ, kid, why didn’t you come to me, tell me about any of this?”

I shrugged. “I thought you already knew.”

“Fuck no, I didn’t know.” Grasping my chin, he gently coaxed me into meeting his gaze. His eyes were full of apology. “I’m sorry,” he said, shocking the crap out of me, because I was pretty sure I’d never heard him say that in my entire life. “I should’ve been there for you, and I wasn’t.”

Shaking my head, I gripped his arm. “No, don’t. You didn’t know. It’s not that big of a deal.”

“Not that big of a deal?” he cried. “How long were you homeless?”

When I only bit my lip, his eyes grew wide with alarm. “Holy shit, days?”

I winced.

“Weeks?” he guessed, running his fingers through his hair. “God, if you say years I’m going to—”

I waved my hands. “It wasn’t even three months,” I assured him with a big smile.

He blinked. “You’re fucking serious, aren’t you?”

“I crashed on some couches, had some school friends let me use their showers. It was like a fun adventure.”

“Right,” he said slowly. “And all the while, I was trying to decide if I wanted to a get a new Audi or a Corvette with my inheritance money from your father?”

I winced. “Oh, you definitely should’ve gone with the Corvette. That Audi was butt-ugly. I swear, you pick the worst colors for cars.”

He frowned. “The Audi wasn’t ugly.”

I rolled my eyes, letting him know it so was.

He sniffed, grumbled a second under his breath, and finally said, “The fact of the matter remains, from here on out, I’m going to be there for you, okay, kid? No more going homeless and broke without me knowing about it, and… Hell, I’ll even let you pick out the color of my next car.”

A grin broke across my face. “Deal.” I lifted my hand for him to give me a high five so we could seal the agreement. “It’ll be blue, by the way. Like a light blue.”

He snorted even as he slapped his palm against mine. “What? So I can be like your boyfriend? Pass.”

I pulled back, not understanding. “Huh?”

“Oh, don’t act as if you have no idea what Nash drives.” Glancing down at my desk to the scratch pad I’d been writing on in the midst of my research and email correspondence, he pointed. “What’s this?” He picked up the notepad, curious. “Changing your doodles from Elton to Nash, yet?”

I scowled at him and ripped my notepad from his hands. “No, I have not—hey!”

He swiped the pages right back from me only to spin away so I couldn’t steal them again.

“Give that back!” I lunged around his shoulder, but he lifted his elbow to block me and then went and held the notepad just out of my reach before he turned the page, revealing one of my drawings.

“Huh,” he said in surprise. “It’s a shoe.”

“Congratulations,” I muttered, wiggling my hand in a silent demand that he return the sketch. “You recognize basic objects. I’m so impressed. Now give it back.”

But he kept staring, tilting his head from one side to the other. “Open toe, chunky heel platform with buckles,” he murmured. “Interesting.” Pointing out one part, he said, “You went with an ankle strap instead of t-strap.”

I stared at my design over his shoulder, feeling suddenly nervous, not sure I liked how it was being dissected so thoroughly. It was kind of my baby. “Yeah, I, uh… Yeah.” I shrugged. “I don’t like how the back of my heels look on my feet, so I thought… Hide those suckers away, right?”

Brick glanced at me. “Shiny finish, I presume?”

I shook my head. “No. Actually, I was thinking suede.”

“Suede,” he murmured, turning his attention back to the design. “And what are these dots here?”

“Oh. Those are silver beaded rivets.”

“Really?” His eyebrows lifted.

“What?” I demanded, beginning to chew on the inside of my lip. “What’re you thinking? Stupid? Overdone? Ridic—?”

He lifted his eyebrows at me as he held up a single finger, making me stop talking. A second later, he said, “I think you’ve managed to design something that’s sexy, yet innocently adorable, with a hint of hardcore all mixed into one.”

Uh, was that even possible?

I glanced at my design. After a moment, I nodded, beginning to see his point. I mean, the buckles and rivets did kind of lean them in the direction of bondage boots, while the heel and ankle strap made it sexy. But innocent? I tilted my head the other way, wondering about that until… Okay. Maybe, I could see it. The wider heel and thicker back part of the ankle strap, plus the softness of the material, could suggest some comfort and security, possibly. The hint of innocence.

But really. Who knew so much personality could be derived from a single shoe? Brick was right about everything he’d said, though. The shoes were pure sexy, hard-core innocence. The only thing was…

I turned to Brick, biting my lip. “Is that a good thing?”

It took him a second to respond. At first, I wondered if he was trying to think up a polite way to let me down easily because he found my strange mix so terrible, but then he blew out a breath and shook his head. “I’d say it’s fucking brilliant. They’re like a good girl who secretly wants to do dirty, nasty things, like she’ll give a hand job in her Sunday dress while I’m driving her out to meet my mother.”

I frowned over that description and opened my mouth to defend my poor shoes, only for him to cut in with, “A general, normal mother. Not my mother, of course.”

Flustered by his interruption, I only sighed and shook my head. The man was impossible.

He lifted the notepad again and drew in a deep breath. “Oh yeah,” he murmured and nodded, a slow grin spreading across his face. “I would totally find these shoes on my dream woman.” He tore the picture from the notepad.

I jumped as if he’d just torn an appendage off me instead. “What…what’re you doing?” I’d actually liked that design. If he even tried to throw it away, I’d—

“I’m showing this to Hayden. He’s the one who deals with shoes.”

I blinked at him, at first unable to believe what I was hearing. It was just too startling for someone to think one of my designs was good enough to show someone else, but to show it to the person in charge of the Shoe department at a fashion-design company made this feel suddenly too real. My heart began to thump. Nervous anxiety clashed with excitement in my stomach.

As Brick grabbed his portable scanner next to his computer and tugged it toward him, even more reality struck me.

“How the hell do you work this thing?” he muttered, rotating the scanner this way and that while scowling at the poor thing.

Overcome, I grabbed the design from his hand and squeaked, “You can’t show this to Hayden!”

He looked up at me, blinking. “Why not?”

Reasons. Geesh, did I really need a good, logical one other than the fact I was scared to death? What if Hayden didn’t like the design and killed me with biting criticism? Not willing to tell Brick that fear, however, I blurted out the second thing to hit my brain. “Because he hates me.”

Brick’s eyebrows lifted, his surprise obvious. “What? Hayden?” He snorted and shook his head. “Hayden doesn’t hate you. Whatever gave you that idea?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the fact that he ignores me at all cost. Then, when he’s forced to acknowledge me, it’s only to scowl mutely like he’d rather be somewhere else.”

“Ah, that. Yeah…” Brick waved a dismissive hand and rolled his eyes. “He’s just a suspicious, antisocial, moody asshole by nature. He’s like that with everyone. Don’t take it personally.”

I opened my mouth to argue the point, until I realized… You know, I guess I’d never seen Hayden soften toward anyone else, either. Maybe brusque behavior from him wasn’t exclusively held back for me. Huh. Why hadn’t I ever considered that option before?

Brick released a sigh. “Would it make you feel better if I told him it was my idea?”

I glanced from the design to his face, once again chewing on my lip. “Then he’ll only say he likes it to spare his brother’s feelings.”

Huffing out a sudden laugh, Brick shook his head before answering, “What the fuck ever. Hayden has never spared my feelings. The man is bluntly honest, especially with me. If he doesn’t like something, he says so.”

“But wait.” I held up my hand. “What if it’s the other way around then? What if he dismisses the design because he thinks it’s yours?”

“Christ, kid.” Brick tossed me an exasperated glance. “You’re becoming just as suspicious as he is. Hayden isn’t the type to cut off his nose to spite his face. He’ll either like it or he won’t, and he gives his opinions without prejudice. He’s not our mother.”

Realizing I kind of was painting my older stepbrother with the same brush I used on Lana, I forced myself to take a breath and relax my shoulders. “Okay,” I said. “Sorry. I was just—”

“Don’t worry about it.” Brick waved a hand before impatiently growling, “Just show me how to use this damn thing. I swear, technology is too fucking complicated.”

“Really?” I said, taking the scanner from his hand when he picked it up and manually shook it as if that would suddenly make it comply with his wishes. “You think that will make it suddenly work.”

“Well, it couldn’t hurt, since it’s not working now.”

“Oh my God. There is literally one button on the entire machine. It’s not that difficult.”

He pushed away from his desk, rolling his chair a few feet back as he gestured for me to step in and scan the shoe design for him. “Then by all means, push the one button to make it work.”

Realizing this was really happening—my design was a true consideration—I blew out a breath and ignored the sudden shake in my fingers. “First, you open the feed tray,” I explained. “Like this. And once the little wheels inside stop revolving, warming it up, you slip the paper in here, face up, and push… What do you know… This one single button right here.”

“Smart-ass,” Brick grumped with his arms folded moodily over his chest, even as he rolled a few inches closer to watch what I was doing.

“Then the scanned image pops up on the screen.” I pointed to his computer. “And you follow the prompts to save it as a PDF file.”

Frowning at his screen, Brick tugged his keyboard and mouse toward him to do as I instructed. When he was done, he pulled up his email program. The nerves in my stomach took a massive dip, and I pressed my hand against them, hoping to help calm the juices down. But they merely gurgled angrily against my fingers.

Brick lifted his gaze my way. “Sure you don’t want me to give you credit for it?”

I gulped, thinking it through. Then I nodded, not ready to deal with feedback from Hayden. “I’m sure.”

“Okay, then.” Brick tapped another few buttons before pressing Send.

“Oh, God,” I uttered. It was done. Then I glanced toward my stepbrother. “How… How long does it usually take him to respond?”

Brick shrugged without a care in the world. “No idea. I’ve never sent him a shoe design consideration before.”

“You what?” I screeched. “Why not? Do they make him mad?”

“Why would they make him mad?” He frowned and shook his head. “It’s his job to look at people’s design ideas.”

“Then why haven’t you ever shown him one before?” I accused, unable to stop stressing.

“Seriously, Kaity. You need to chill.” He lifted both hands and stared at me as if I were some kind of rabid animal he needed to declaw.

When I blew out a breath, deciding he was right—calm was better—he nodded, approving.

“I’ve never shown him a shoe design because I’ve never come up with one before,” he finally explained.

“Oh.” I cleared my throat and nodded, very calmly. “But what about someone else from your department?” I pressed. “Surely, one of your people have—”

“Taken them straight to him,” he finished for me. “Nash’s side of the company doesn’t work like Mother’s. People don’t have to get approval from their department head every time they take a piss. Here, it’s okay to be open and fluid and team up and plan together between departments, as long as it helps the workflow.”

“Oh. Cool.” My shoulders settled even more. “That’s good to know. And I actually like that ethic.”

Brick nodded. “Reason number nine hundred and thirty-four why I work under Nash.”

“Yeah,” I murmured, smiling and unable to hold back the pride in my expression. But hearing other people rain praise on my man felt good. It made me want to find him and do a little of my own praising. “He is pretty amazing, isn’t he?”

“Watch it, little sister,” Brick suggested dryly. “Your crush is showing.”

Scowling, I pulled my shoulders back indignantly. “It is not.”

When he merely lifted his eyebrows, I mean-mugged him and spun away.

Behind me, I heard pages flipping. Remembering he still had my notebook of sketches, I whirled back to Brick, scowling. “What’re you looking for now?”

He shrugged, still flipping pages. “Just looking. You’re not a bad artist actually. Not as good as me, but not bad.”

I lifted a single eyebrow and crossed my arms over my chest, dryly answering, “Gee, thanks.”

He kept browsing. “But I’m feeling a little left out here. Why don’t you have any good purse designs for my department?”

“Oh, huh,” I murmured, tipping my head to the side. “I never thought about designing a purse before.” An image of Camille, Mabel’s granddaughter with the purse fetish, sprang to mind. Now I kind of wanted to design a super-cool purse that would make her drool. A second later, my brain waves twisted in a new direction, and I found myself tipping my head in Brick’s direction, asking, “Hey, how did you end up in charge of the Purse department, anyway? Purses don’t really seem like your thing.”

He held up a finger as he keep his attention on my sketches and continued to browse through them. “I prefer the term Handbag department, if you will,” he answered. “Sounds more gender-neutral. And anyway,” with a shrug, he explained, “they offered me Undergarments when all the departments were reconstructed last year, which I would’ve totally rocked.” He finally glanced up to wiggle his eyebrows lasciviously. “But alas, Purses was the last department left under your sweet, wonderful Ezra’s domain, so I snagged it while I could.”

I sent him a short scowl. Even though I’d just mentally thought of Ezra as mine, I said, “He’s not my—”

A sharp rap at the entrance of Brick’s office diverted my attention that way, where I found Ezra framed in the doorway. My insides instantly seized with awareness and whatever I’d been about to say was gone. Because, yes, yes, he was mine. He was definitely mine.

“Hi!” I said, maybe a bit too quickly and definitely too perkily. “Good morning. How are you? Are you here to see Brick? What am I saying? Of course you’re here to see Brick, since it’s, you know, his office and everything. So… I’ll just… I’ll go sit at my chair right over there and… And let you talk to Brick now.”

Ezra grinned, mute to my rambling as he remained standing in the doorway, so I felt frozen in place, unable to sit at my own desk as I’d just said I was going to do.

And so I stood there, staring at him… Like a weirdo.

Groaning, Brick shaded his hands over his eyes as if watching us was too much. “Jesus,” he muttered. “You two are so freaking obvious. Get in here and shut the door already, man.” He waved Ezra into the room, which Ezra did, quietly shutting the door behind him and still looking at me.

“Just so you know,” Brick went on, “if my mother catches you guys within ten feet of each other, she’s instantly going to realize what’s up.”

Well there went our dirty, tawdry secret. Thirty seconds in, and the stepbrother was already onto us.

“We’re not—” Ezra started, but Brick cut him off with a sniff.

“Yeah, don’t even bother trying to feed me that bullshit. The fumes from the chemistry wafting off you two is making me freaking lightheaded and nauseous.” He pinned a scowl on me. “Didn’t I tell you how dangerous it would be to start anything with him?”

I winced. “Yeah, but that’s why we decided to keep things, you know… On the down-low.”

Another disgusted sound exited Brick’s lungs. “Down-low? Yes, because this here is so stealthy.” When he waved his hand between me and Ezra, Ezra growled out his displeasure.

“Hey, stop attacking her. I’m the one who walked in the room, and I’m not even here to see her, anyway. I’m here to talk business with you, Carmichael.”

Brick didn’t seem convinced. He lifted a single eyebrows. “Is this a business question you could’ve asked me via email?”

Ezra’s return stare darkened as he refused to answer.

Making a humming, knew-it sound in the back of his throat, Brick nodded. “Then you’re here to see her. Not me.”

“I just needed to know if you ever heard word back from the leather company or not?” Ezra demanded, forcing the conversation to business and refusing to answer to my stepbrother about such a personal matter.

After a moment to pause, Brick said, “I don’t know. I gave the task to my new assistant to take care of.”

Both he and Ezra swung simultaneously my way.

I jumped, realizing I needed to enter the conversation.

Okay, then.

“Actually, not completely,” I answered. Clearing my throat, I hurried to my desk to bring up some email correspondence to better respond to Ezra’s question. “I made contact with our representative yesterday, and we’re still going back and forth on prices. Also, I wasn’t sure if we wanted goatskin or calfskin, because both are perfectly durable for… Handbags.” I glanced at Brick, making sure to use the word he preferred.

“The lambskin they kept trying to sell me made a smooth finish, but it tore and scratched way too easily for anything of good quality, not good enough for any purse over the size of a wallet. And I didn’t even consider the pigskin, because we’re not selling footballs here. So…” My fingers flashed over my keyboard as I called up the email I wanted. “Ah… Here. They just sent a new quote.”

I opened the file and lifted my eyebrows. “Wow, they must really want our business. After only just a little haggling, they’d already dropped their offer thirty percent.”

Ezra set his hand on the back of my chair and leaned over my shoulder to read the figures on my computer screen. “Holy shit,” he blurted a moment later, unable to hold in his surprise. “That’s not a bad price.”

I grinned up at him. “I know, right? All I did was talk a little about how important purses are to the people who use them and how this was for such a worthy cause. I mean, my entire life can be found in my purse. I swear, they’re like little treasure chests into a person’s soul, and they should be protected like such. So I gushed a little about how awesome and important their leather was going to be for providing the very fabric of people’s lives, and boom…” I splayed a hand toward the screen. “Thirty percent off their original quote.”

When I looked up at Ezra again, he looked down into my eyes, and something glittered in his expression. “You’re good at this,” he murmured, seeming impressed.

Heat stole up my face. I was torn between the urge to kiss him and burst into tears over such a heartfelt compliment.

“I just…” Motioning with vague, indiscernible gestures, I sucked in a sharp breath. “I just wanted them to know we actually care about the satisfaction of our customers; we’re not just, you know, looking at price tags.”

He nodded. “Well, that was a smart move.” When his gaze dropped to my lips, I couldn’t help it… My tongue darted out of its own accord, wetting in preparation for—

“Seriously,” Brick groaned, snapping me out of my Ezra trance. “Cut it out already. I swear, you two just got me pregnant with that little eye-fuck from merely being in the same room as it. You both are going to have to learn a little restraint, or—”

“Shit!” At the beginning of Brick’s rant, Ezra had jerked his attention from me to scowl moodily at my stepbrother, but now his eyes were going wide as he glanced past Brick and out the windowed wall of the office. “Get down.”

Suddenly, his hand was palming the top of my head as he shoved me toward the floor behind my desk.