Chapter 2
2
Christa
I t’ll never be the same again.
I’m not sure River knows it, but I sure as hell know it. I can feel the shift between us deep in my bones. As soon as we got back to the party, pretending like we didn’t just have the most amazing sex of our lives, I knew it.
There’s no going back, though. It’s done.
The worst part? I haven’t had enough. I want more. So much more.
“Christa, where are you?” Teagan asks.
I give her a startled look. “I phased out again, didn’t I?” I mumble, quickly looking around to remind myself of where we are. Oh, right, dinner at Lechon. Just the two of us. She and Tony are off on their honeymoon tomorrow.
“You’ve been like this since you got back into town,” Teagan says. “Off. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yes, I’m okay; I promise.” I give her a weak smile.
She doesn’t seem satisfied with my answer, though. In the meantime, I’m trying to scrub the image of River’s gorgeous body out of my mind. I made myself come last night just thinking about him. Then I imagined his brothers joining in on the fun, and that just made me come even harder.
“I don’t know what happened to you in Los Angeles, but I can tell something happened,” Teagan says. “Maybe you’re not ready to tell me everything, and I respect that; I totally do. But I want you to know I’m here for you, okay?”
“Oh, Teagan, I know,” I say and take a sip of my wine.
The waiter comes by to clear our table. We wait for him to leave before I gather the courage to tell her at least some of my truth.
“Los Angeles was amazing,” I say. “It really was.”
“But?” she prompts.
I nod slowly. “I had a good gig there. Took me a while to find a something worth my while after CalTech. You’d be surprised how little a magna cum laud accolade counts over there. But I made it. I carved my path, and I landed a great position at a massive hedge fund management consortium. Massive.”
“Which one?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, but it’s better if you don’t know yet, anyway.”
Teagan frowns slightly. “What happened?”
“I thought I was on my way up. I didn’t care about anyone or anything else. I did my job, I did it right, I was… I am really good at what I do. But at one point, I opened my eyes and looked around and I realized it wasn’t the right place for me. So I left. I lost my boyfriend—”
“You lost him?” She sounds confused.
“Let’s save that story for another day. I don’t want to bum you out before your honeymoon.” I try to move the conversation along because there’s a knot tightening in the pit of my stomach as a slew of unpleasant memories come rushing back to me. “Point is, I left. I left everything behind, and I came back here.”
Teagan’s eyes keep searching my face. We’ve known each other for so long that I can’t easily hide anything from her. Los Angeles was a different kettle of fish. I didn’t have any real friends there. I could conceal more of myself. But Teagan could always read me like an open book.
“Christa, whatever you went through, I’m sorry. I can tell from the way you talk about it that it left some deep wounds,” she says in a gentle voice. “I’m never going to pressure you into telling me more. I just want you to understand something. The longer you keep it in, the harder it’ll be to heal and finally put it behind you.”
“No argument there,” I scoff. “I just want to focus on the future.”
“Ah, the future, yes. That brings us to the next point on this dinner’s agenda.”
“Agenda? We had an agenda?” I raise an eyebrow at her.
“Well, yeah. You’re back. I want to make sure you stay.”
I laugh as the waiter comes back with the dessert menu. “I think I know what I’m ordering, assuming it’s still your house dessert,” I tell him.
“The tiramisu?” the waiter asks with a charming smile.
“That’s it.”
“Two, please,” Teagan says. “And I think we’ll go for two more glasses of wine as well.”
“Same label?”
We both nod at the same time. Once the waiter leaves with our order, I give Teagan a curious look. “I said I’m sticking around, Tee. Why won’t you believe me?”
“You also said you’d come back after CalTech,” she answers with a pair of doe eyes.
“Well, that was the original plan. I just… I saw the opportunities down there, and I changed my mind. I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Teagan replies. “It’s your life, your career. I just want to give you a nudge in the right direction this time. Believe it or not, you belong here, Christa.”
“I want to believe that. I’m just not sure about the job opportunities here for me,” I say. “I don’t know what the fintech sector looks like in Portland.”
“Well, I don’t know either, but I do know that the Hawthorne Steel Mills Corporation is looking to expand into the green energy sector and the cryptocurrency sector, and they need a top-notch fintech analyst to handle an already-massive portfolio. Plus, there’s the crossover into the defense field because Nathan is about to get us a meeting with the DOD this summer.”
“Oh, wow. The Department of Defense...
“Whatever you were paid before, we’ll double it,” Teagan says, nodding.
“Wait, seriously?”
“You’d have your own domain here. Free reins. All the equipment and software licenses you need. Clearance across the board. You name it, you’ve got it.”
“Wait, wait, Teagan, hold on,” I say, trying to wrap my head around the whole thing. “Am I hearing this right? You want me to come to work for Hawthorne Steel?”
She gives me a troubled look. “Would that be a problem?”
“God, no.”
“You wouldn’t be working for me directly. I’m not even a Hawthorn employee, remember. I’ve got my art gallery projects, the museum tours, the social media collab with the Met Gala. My hands are already full.”
“Oh, I know. You were never a steel girl,” I chuckle lightly. “But working for the Hawthornes be considered nepotism of some sort? I mean, I know we’re not technically related, but we’re like family.”
And I just screwed her brother so hard, my pussy still clenches with longing and desire whenever I think about it. Pretty sure there’s a penthouse reserved in the deepest pits of hell for me.
Teagan leans back in her chair. “I know for a fact that my brothers have found nobody they can trust who is even half as qualified for the position as you,” she says. “And they’ve been doing interviews for about six months already.”
“Last I checked, Portland had its fair share of capable fintech specialists. A couple were recruited from here to work for Langham Corp out in Silicon Valley. I met them at a convention in San Francisco last fall.”
“Ah, well, here’s the thing,” Teagan replies with a nervous grin. “Cassius, River, Nathan… You know they had a pretty long career with the Marines, right?”
“Stellar, if their medals of valor mean anything.”
“Yes. A lot of their work was in the intelligence branch. They’ve got a bit of a trust issue, and someone’s screwup almost got the three of them killed during a mission about two years ago,” she says. “They’re annoyingly picky. I get it, though. With the family business, there is no room for error.”
“Would I be working with them directly?”
“No,” she answers quickly. “And Tony is going to do the interview. It’s the one concession I got from them since they’re not working directly with the person they want in this position.”
“Are you sure I’d be a good fit?”
“You are loyal and you are brilliant. That’s what I know about you. The rest, you can figure out during the interview, like if the company is a good fit for you and if you’re a good fit for the company. It goes both ways. But I am confident you are exactly what my brothers are looking for.”
If only she knew what a double entendre she was proposing. But come to think of it, being close to the Hawthorne brothers would be like Chinese water torture. However, I would be working in my field, and, according to Teagan, I’d be paid handsomely for it. After Perry-Sage, I spent most of my emergency savings to cover my tracks and disappear.
If I’m ever forced to do it again, I’d need funds, legally obtained funds.
“It’s not a terrible idea,” I concede. “Alright, I’ll do it. What’s the worst that could happen, right?” I add a nervous laugh at the end.
“You might like it too much,” Teagan plays along.
And that is precisely what I’m afraid of.
I want to settle down in peace; I really do. But after everything that’s happened, I’ve gotten used to having one foot out the door with no end to the tension in sight.