Page 20 of Fake Dark Vows
“We’ll find Frankie and Charlie.” I turn to Kelly. “Bandaids—kitchen or bathroom?”
“Kitchen. I’ll come with you.” She goes to follow, and I shake my head.
“I’ll get lost,” I say with a grin.
Walking back to the house, the silence between the two people behind me is a tangible thing, like solid metal keeping them apart, and I wonder if this is down to the unmistakable sibling rivalry. I glance up in time to see Damon watching me from an upstairs window.
CHAPTER 7
Brandon
I’m straightening the collar of my polo shirt in front of the full-length free-standing mirror in my room, watching Jennifer prowl across the bed towards me like a cat. She’s sexy as fuck. Probably the sexiest woman I know, because it’s effortless with her.
It’s her aura, she once told me.
On her knees, wearing one of my cotton shirts with nothing underneath, she wraps her arms around my chest from behind and nibbles my earlobe. “Do we have to go downstairs now?” she murmurs, her breath warm on the back of my neck.
“Uh-huh. Cocktails at six. My mom will be watching the clock and making a mental note of anyone who’s late.” I untangle her arms and turn around to face her.
It isn’t the reaction she wanted, and in different circumstances, I’d incur my mom’s wrath for being thirty minutes late because of Jennifer, but my mind is elsewhere, and my body isn’t cooperating.
Jennifer’s smile is wistful, but she hides her disappointment well. “You weren’t joking about the punishment.”
“I never joke about such things. My mom has spent years perfecting these rituals—she has them timed to the second, and heaven help anyone who interferes with the schedule.”
Her expression turns serious, her eyes narrowing. “You want to talk about it?”
I smile and shake my head. “Nothing to talk about.”
Jennifer places the palms of her hands on my chest. “Hmm, I know you better than that. How many takeover bids have we screwed through in the past, huh? How many economy near-crashes? How many presidents for that matter? This isn’t about work, is it?”
Did I let Jennifer get too close? It’s the reason why I don’t allow myself to get involved—one of the reasons anyway. You let a woman in, and before long, you begin sharing parts of yourself that you’d rather keep private. You wake up one day and find yourself accounting for your time, your affection, your thoughts.
My mom knows my dad’s diary better than he knows it himself, and he might act like he’s in control, but she has always been the one pulling the strings. When I joined the business, I promised myself that I would never become the puppet, always the puppeteer.
I remove her hands from my chest and step away, just out of reach. “Leave it,” I say coldly.
Jennifer taps her top lip with one perfectly manicured scarlet fingernail, a grin tugging the corners of her mouth upwards. “Okay, not business. This is about a woman.”
I arch one eyebrow, allow it to do the talking for me. She’s good. She probably knows me better than anyone else does, including my own mother, which means she also understands that I’m not about to divulge a name.
“Someone has got to you,” she says. “I don’t think you even realize it yet, but they’re breaking through the barriers.”
Her eyes bore into mine like she can see what’s going on inside my head.
“This is going to go one of two ways. Either you’ll add reinforced steel to the barriers and become someone I won’t enjoy spending time or doing business with, or you’ll soften like butter left out in the sun and become a little more human.”
I laugh out loud. “You read that in a book, didn’t you?”
“Oh, Brandon, when are you going to learn that not everything in life is black and white?”
Despite myself, my thoughts immediately return to seeing Rose and Kelly on the boardwalk together. Spending the week in Kelly’s company is going to be harder than I thought it would be, and of all the people in New York my mom could’ve found to replace Ines, she had to go and choose Rose.
The janitor’s daughter—I’m still finding it difficult to think of her as anything else.
The name Rose conjures up an image of someone fresh-faced, a smattering of freckles across their nose when they step out of the English countryside and into the sun. Not someone who wields their raw, sultry beauty like a sword to get what they want.
She’s already taking over with the kids, and Kelly is going to stand back and allow it to happen. My mom will convince herself that she’s one of her precious gems that she simply cannot part with, and by the end of the week, Rose—the janitor’s daughter—will have become a permanent member of the Weiss staff, with a raise and the promise of a supervisory position for overseeing the upbringing of the Weiss granddaughters.