“Brooke?”
“Yes, Martin?”
“So I’ll see you at six. I’ll text the address when we hang up.”
“Wait. I don’t have my black-and-whites with me.”
“What are you wearing right now?”
If Martin were in my line of sight, he would be writhing in pain from my death stare. “I have on a chartreuse-and-emerald-green blouse with a black skirt and over-the-knee boots. Totally inappropriate for serving. I can’t do it as I’ve said.”
“So you go buy a white blouse on your lunch hour and wear the boots. It’s some sort of corporate celebration and most of the guests will be men. I’m sure they’ll appreciate the boots over your beautiful long legs.”
Ewwww. What a grotty little arsehole. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just make a sexually suggestive comment about my performance on a job and move along to payment, shall we, Martin?” Serving in heeled boots wasn’t going to be easy, plus I’d be out the cost of a new shirt as well. If Martin didn’t like it, then he could fuck on off.
Eduardo giggled and gave me two thumbs up.
“Double time, Brooke, just be there.”
As much as I wanted to decline, the extra money would be helpful right now. “Fine, I’ll do it, but Martin, if you want me in future—give me some notice so I can make arrangements for the night.” If there would even be a next time. Maybe a job search was a good idea.
After I ended the call, I pointed a finger at Eduardo and gave him only a slightly less violent version of my death stare. “You are in trouble in case you didn’t realize. You are to go tell the bosses we are leaving to shop for a blouse for me and will return with their lunch. And you get to pay for mine today.” I then smiled sweetly before getting up from the desk to put on my coat.
“Yes, my condesa,” Eduardo sang before bolting up to the second floor to get Jon and Carlisle’s lunch order.
While he was busy upstairs, I needed to let Nan know I wouldn’t be over to see her tonight. She would get a kick out of me having a sleepover at Eduardo’s place, though. I tried to see her every evening for a short visit and didn’t want her wondering where I was when I didn’t show. My call went through to the front desk, which wasn’t a surprise. Nan rarely stayed in her room, especially when there were activities going on.
“Blackstone Therapy Center, Lilah speaking. How may I assist you?”
“Hi Lilah, this is Brooke calling.”
“Your grandma is in a painting class right now, working on a seascape.”
“Ah, sounds lovely and I can’t wait to see it. Can you please let her know I’m working for Martin tonight? She will understand, and tell her I’ll visit tomorrow as usual.”
“Sure thing, Brooke, and thanks for letting us know so she doesn’t worry, because she would you know.”
Placing Nan in a temporary nursing facility while she recovered from a knee replacement had been our only option. She couldn’t be left alone in the cottage all day trapped in a wheelchair while I was working in Boston. She never complained, but I knew she would rather be at home, as anyone would.
I wished she could have in-home nursing care and that I could provide it for her, but it just wasn’t possible on her very fixed income, or mine. Once the Blackwater estate closed and she was forced to retire, her money had to be carefully managed to make ends meet. She wasn’t old at only sixty-one, and I suspected she missed her job very much, as well as the camaraderie with her workmates. In fact, the fall that resulted in the need for her knee replacement had happened after she’d lost her job, while she was bored stiff all alone in her cottage. Thank God her friend Sylvie was due for tea later on that day and discovered Nan at the bottom of her cellar steps—frightened and in terrible pain.
I often wondered if the Blackstone family who’d employed my nan bore any kind of conscience at all to dismiss a loyal servant after more than three decades with hardly a thank-you and good-bye. No pension or departure compensation—nothing at all. Deplorable came to mind. Selfish arseholes did as well. There was no defense for their behavior. None at all.
Blackstone Island was primarily a place where a few very rich people, with oceanfront vacation homes worth millions of dollars, came to play at summer holidays. Unfortunately, it was also a place where a great many poor people worked very hard to serve those same rich people and had little to nothing to show for it.
Caleb
The last thing I wanted to do at the end of my day of shit was go to a client appreciation reception for cocktails and hors d’oeuvres with my face looking like it did from being smacked by Janice’s Valentino. All day long I’d fielded the concerned inquiries from people who weren’t assholes along with the jokes and harassment from the people who were most definitely assholes. I don’t think many of them bought my lie about slipping in the shower and colliding with the marble soap dish. What they didn’t know was I couldn’t care less what they thought of me in my personal life. As long as they respected me in business, I was good. I could make money grow from just about anything. So what if I had terrible emotional skills when it came to relationships with women. I just didn’t feel anything for those women like I probably should if I cared about them for more than sex. But I’d never felt anything beyond an admiration for their beauty, along with the desire for some shared pleasure if they were interested in the same. I wasn’t stingy, either. Before we were done, I made sure they were well satisfied. I didn’t know how to operate any differently, and until I figured my shit out, I should just stay away from women altogether. It made the most sense.
The fact it was my father’s law firm hosting this gathering was the only reason I’d set foot inside the door. There was a part of me that still wanted to make him proud, even though I’d made my own successful career apart from his. Now that he was gone, I’d taken on his business as well, and I knew his peers were watching closely to see how I would do. My brothers had their own interests and money, as well as a share in Dad’s holdings, but they weren’t involved in the day-to-day management like I was. Lucas lived like a hermit on the island, designing game systems, and Wyatt divided his time between LA and New York doing his thing, which nobody seemed to know much about. Being the oldest child, followed by identical twin brothers, and then five years later by another set of twins, but this time girls and fraternal, I was the odd man out. Willow was engaged to her Ivy League professor, and Winter was in grad school, so everyone was focused on their own goals as they should be.
My mother was very proud of the fact she’d given my father five children and only suffered through three pregnancies. And Mom made sure we all knew it was suffering of the worst kind to give birth to every one of us. Maybe that was why she resented me. All that effort only produced one baby—me.
My relationship with my mother was just the start of my women troubles. I’d had a not-so-pleasant conversation with her on the phone earlier today. Janice had gotten to Mom quickly, crying out a sad tale of disrespect and broken promises on my part. I didn’t tell her that within five minutes of leaving me, she was deep-throating James Blakney. Thinking my mother didn’t need that visual, I didn’t say much in response except that Janice wasn’t the girl we all thought she was, and she definitely wasn’t going to be anything more than a friend of the family to me from here on out. Mom then took the opportunity to tell me I’d made things very difficult for her friendship with Janice’s mother. I offered her the advice that a generous donation to their nonprofit would probably smooth things over. I suppose she didn’t care for my suggestion because she ended our call quickly after.
I would give this thing two drinks max before I was outie.
Nodding and saying the right things, I shook hands with the colleagues who’d known my father and accepted condolences from others. I made a mental note of the people who’d made the effort to mention his name to me, and I would write their names down with the event and date as soon as I got home.
I’d worked my way through the room, as I had been taught by my dad—by
the best to ever work a roomful of potential deals—when I decided I’d accomplished what I’d set out to do tonight. It was time for me to go. After setting my glass down on an empty table, I started for the door . . . until I saw her.
Just like that. She appeared in my line of sight and I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
The beautiful girl from this morning at the Starbucks on Hereford Street.
I knew it was her because how could anyone forget those sexy boots? Her blonde hair wasn’t down like it had been this morning, though. She’d pulled it back into a sleek ponytail . . . but she was serving at this event? I’d seen her go into that design studio next to Starbucks. She probably had two jobs. Industrious . . . beautiful . . . sexy.
I quickly returned for my half-empty glass and snatched it up from the table. I suddenly felt like an appetizer or two.
She saw me approaching and moved closer with her tray. “What are these called?” I asked without sparing her tray a second glance. Bad move on my part, but I was too busy taking in her golden eyes and hair, and everything else I could now see up close. Perfect skin, dark lashes that framed spectacular eyes, and a scar along the hairline of the right side of her face. Something had hurt her at some point in the past, and I found it utterly insane that I was disturbed by it.
She rolled her pink lips together as if she was trying to suppress laughter. “Well, they’ve told me it’s something called a . . . meatball. Very unusual gourmet creation. You should try one. They’re said to be quite delicious.”
That voice of hers was . . . fucking beautiful.
“Okay.” I picked up a meatball and popped it in my mouth. Didn’t taste a thing. I could have been chewing slaughterhouse by-products and I wouldn’t have known. My brain had shut off everything except her beautiful voice.
“You are either messing with me or that blow to your head must have been devastating. I would wager you’ve had a meatball before.”
“I am.”
She lost her smile. “You are messing with me?”
“No, I am devastating—I mean devastated—by the blow to my head.” What in the mother fuck was I even saying to this girl? I sounded like Rain Man minus the IQ. I needed to stop talking.
“I’m sorry to hear that. It looks painful.”
“It doesn’t hurt me now.” I thought I smiled and shook my head but couldn’t be sure. Just call me the village idiot because I knew I was acting like one. I did love the sound of her voice, though.
“Another rare and precious meatball?” She offered her tray and studied me this time. She had to be disgusted by my appearance and turned off by my behavior, but she didn’t show it if she was.
“Yes, please.” I took another meatball but I didn’t eat it. “You are British.”
“You are American,” she said with a fast wink, before turning away to serve other guests.
I watched her walk away from me and felt the pounding of my heart vibrating throughout my entire body.
Something had just happened to me.
I wasn’t completely sure what exactly, but I was crystal clear on the reason.
Her.
I did not leave as I had planned to do.
I stayed in that ridiculous meet and greet so I could stalk a girl I did not know.
I, Caleb Blackstone, became a stalker in that moment and was not apologetic about it in the least, either.
Oh, for the next hour or so I put on a good show and kept schmoozing with people I hardly paid attention to, so I could watch her walk around the room, serving meatballs in her tight skirt and fuck-me boots. I even managed to paint an image of her wearing nothing but those boots in my head. My thoughts were downright filthy, to the point my cock wanted in on the action.
Badly.
This wasn’t happening to me in a roomful of business associates. My dick was not getting hard from watching a pretty girl offer up food.
Yes, it was.
I also figured out I wasn’t the only one looking at her, and those boots weren’t exactly helping her fade into the background at an event like this one, made up of mostly men thinking about sex once every fifty-two seconds. Seeing her, it was impossible to think about much of anything else.
“I’d take my time tapping that tight ass nice and slow—with the fucking boots on.”
Kevin Aldrich was a dipshit investment banker with a receding hairline, an expanding waistline, and a big trust fund inherited from his old-money grandfather. He also had a wife, two or three teenage kids, and a drinking problem. The sad truth was he probably did get beautiful women like her to fuck him because he had the money to help them get over the fact he was a complete and total douchebag.
I said nothing, but I felt my blood start to boil. In that instant I truly understood the meaning behind the expression “it made my blood boil.” Mine was going nuclear.
Aldrich lifted his drink and all but drooled in her direction to call her over. She noticed him and came forward with her tray of what I knew were individual shrimp cocktails. I’d not make the same mistake again.
“Shrimp cocktail strike your fancy, gentlemen?” she asked pleasantly.
“You strike my fancy, Sexy Boots,” Aldrich said with an obvious leer. Okay, the guy was worse than a disgusting douche. He was a moron with the social skills of a cockroach.
“Clever. I’ve only heard that fourteen other times in the last hour and a half,” she said smoothly. “Can I offer you a shrimp cocktail?” she repeated, clearly not amused and her golden eyes showing it.
Aldrich was either too drunk or too stupid to catch the clues, however. “How about your number instead? I’ll take you somewhere where we can eat all the shrimp we want.” He flicked his tongue at her, and I just about lost my shit. Forget my boiling blood, I wanted to kill him.
“No fucking way, Aldrich, you did not just do that!”
He did two more really stupid things nearly simultaneously. He reached his arm around to drag her body against his and said to me, “Don’t cock-block me and Sexy Boots here. We’re just getting acquainted, and she looks like she can use a long slow ride in those b—”
Aldrich didn’t finish his sentence however, because he received an immediate and skilled defense move of an elbow to the front of the nose. Her elbow. His nose. Too bad I tried to get in there first and push him off her. The back of his bulbous head caught me on the chin and he went down hard, taking me with him, along with tiny glasses of cocktail sauce and airborne pink shrimp that sprayed out in an arc, catching anyone within a ten-foot radius.
Silence ensued as all conversations ceased and focused their attentions on us.
“You fucking cunt! You broke my nose,” Aldrich bellowed from behind the hand trying to stem the gushing blood pouring from his mean little face.
“You put your hands on me. Nobody does that and gets away with it anymore,” she told him in a steely voice before bolting off in the direction of the kitchen.
“Get the fuck off me, Aldrich!” I shoved him away and got to my feet. “Stupid goddamn shit you just pulled, man. Very goddamn stupid,” I said as I removed a lone shrimp stuck to my jacket by its tail.
“But she assaulted me. You saw it happen, Blackstone,” he yelled. “I will sue that bitch for damages, the fucking whore!”
I grabbed him by the collar and dragged him right up to my face. “You will do nothing of the kind or you’ll live to regret it. Go home to your wife and family if they’ll even have you at this point.”
“Fuck you, Blackstone.” But it came out sounding more like, “fung gew, Blaxsdone,” on account of his broken nose. Lost a lot of its impact that way, too. Arrogant asshole.
“And make sure you take a cab to protect the populous of the city from yourself,” I added. “You’re too fucking drunk to stand right now, let alone drive anywhere.” Then I let go of him and watched as he fell back down to sprawl on the floor, soaked in his own blood and a shitload of shrimp cocktail.
I found her having it out with her boss in the
kitchen.
“Why in the hell did you hit him?”
“Sexual assault is against the law, you idiot. Why in the hell did you put me in this situation tonight, Martin, and then abandon me to that pack of dogs out there? Hmm? Do you have any idea what I’ve had to put up with tonight?”
Ouch. I dearly hoped she didn’t lump me in the same category as the rest of the dogs in the room tonight.
She reached into the front pocket of the red apron wrapped around her hips and pulled out a handful of business cards and tossed them at her boss. “That’s how many of the dogs want to get to know me better and show me a banging good time, emphasis on the bang! I shouldn’t have to deal with that sort of thing when I am trying to do a job.” Jesus Christ, she’s right.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Brooke, it wasn’t that bad out there. You totally overreacted.”
She really didn’t. “He put his hands all over my arse and flicked his tongue at me, and you think I overreacted?”
Her boss had the brains to keep quiet about her last comment at least, I’d give him that. “Go back out there and get names and numbers, apologize, and clean up the mess. We’ll have to cover the dry cleaning at least. Do that and you can keep your job.” I don’t think you know your employee very well. She’s done with you, asshole.
She gaped at him in shock for a moment, then put her hands down and began untying her apron. It took a few seconds for her to get the crisscrossed ties free, but the passage of time only seemed to increase the anger coming off her in waves. Her idiot boss just stood there watching her, waiting for her to drop the apron.
Which she did. Right at his feet to lie with the scattered business cards the dogs had given to her. Good girl.
“No, thank you, Martin. I quit this hideous job, and don’t you ever try to contact me again.” Smart girl.
“Brooke,” he yelled after her, “who is going to pay for all of this?” I think that would be you, Martin.
But Brooke had already grabbed her things and was at the door when she turned back one last time, her long blonde ponytail whipping around her neck from the force. She was so very angry, but her composure was a thing of magnificence—and her words spoken in that accent of hers, awe-inspiring. I couldn’t take my eyes away for anything.