Chapter 4
FEAR OF FAILURE
“What do you think of Spencer?” Paris asked once Spencer was out of their office suite.
London shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s a lawyer. We were raised by one. I’m trying to get a feel for him.”
Paris laughed. “I can’t believe you’re comparing him to Dad. Though now that you say it, I think you might be right.”
She frowned. “Me, right? In your eyes I’m always wrong.”
“Hardly that. You know it. If you were, I wouldn’t use you as the hammer to get my way.”
She brushed her knuckles across her silk shirt. “That’s right. We tag team people. It’s our superpower and we are going to put it to work in our business.”
“We’re going to make it, London. Trust me on this.”
“I do,” she argued. “Why would you think otherwise?”
Even if she was lying through her teeth. And she knew her twin was aware of it.
Maybe she appeared the confident, cocky one, but deep down she had a massive fear of failure. Of letting everyone down.
Including her twin. She was the older one. The one who had to be protective.
Even Paris admitted London was the shield.
Out of nine kids, only Phoenix was older than her. It was hard to feel as if she had to step up to be the older sister for everyone.
The one they came to when they had questions or needed a fighter on their team.
“Because you’re the one who is so set on no one knowing West is our first cousin. You know it’s going to get out quickly.”
“Spencer doesn’t know.”
“Now I know you’re messed up in the head this morning,” Paris said. “He absolutely knows.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Braylon and West said they weren’t telling anyone.”
“Do you really think that Braylon would hire anyone who couldn’t figure out something as simple as this with a few keystrokes?”
Her shoulders dropped. “Shit. I didn’t even think of that.”
“Because you’re so worked up over failing. It’s not going to fail. We’ve got a long client list and a lot of work to do. That’s just what West is giving us.”
“And it will only last so long,” she argued. “We have to prove we can get clients on our own.”
“We will and can, but we can’t overextend ourselves in the process. Which means the people we hire have to be our support, not someone we’ve got to babysit.”
Her lips flapped with the air expelling out of her lungs. “Fine. Go fire, Beau.”
“Oh, now I get to be the bad guy,” Paris said. “You wanted to hire her, you should be the one to let her go.”
“But you do such a better job of it than me. You’re the HR expert. You heard Spencer.”
“Don’t play that game with me,” her twin said over her sister’s praising words. The ones that had a sarcastic undertone.
Her nose twitched. “Rock, paper, scissors.”
“Deal,” Paris said. “On three—one, two, three.”
They both threw out rocks. Then both threw out scissors. Then both threw out rocks.
“This never works. It’s like we know what the other is going to do.”
“Superpowers,” Paris said. “Picking numbers doesn’t work.
” Her sister walked out of the conference room and came back with a blue and yellow sticky note she was folding into a tiny square.
She picked them up, turned her back, then twisted around and put her fists out in front of her.
“Whoever gets the blue one has to do it. You pick.”
It was the fairest they could get. She didn’t hesitate and went right for the left hand. Paris opened it and showed yellow. “See, you should have just done it. Have fun.”
She turned and went to her office while Paris went to talk to Beau.
Twenty minutes later, Paris was grinding her teeth and marching back in. “You owe me lunch for that.”
“Why? I didn’t hear any yelling. No crying either.”
“Because you had your earbuds in listening to music,” Paris said, narrowing her eyes.
She winced. “I would have heard yelling. She didn’t do it.”
“No, but she cried. And you know how much I hate that.”
“Did you cry with her?”
Her sister could get emotional but rarely let people see it.
“No,” Paris said, her voice dripping with the same sarcasm as London had thrown out at Spencer earlier.
“But her eyes got all full of water, then the faucet opened up and big tears dribbled out. She asked what she had done wrong. Before I could answer her, she started listing all her offenses.”
“You’re joking.”
“No. She explained that she should have gotten right to work rather than playing with her figurines. But she needs them to keep her company and has to learn to talk to them in her head and not out loud.”
“No way.”
“I just thought she was giving herself a little pep talk on her first day. Not the end of the world,” Paris said.
“What else did she say she did wrong?”
“That she thinks she broke the copier. It’s jammed and she can’t get anything to print. It’s a mess. The lights are all flashing. I have no idea what she did and I’m going to have to put a ticket in to IT.”
“I have no words.”
“You’ll have some. She broke your Big Ben coffee cup. My Eiffel Tower one is still intact, but Big Ben lost its handle.”
“What the fuck,” she said, throwing her arms up. “That’s why I couldn’t find it when I went to get my coffee.”
“She was hiding it in her drawer. She said it was an accident. She thought it was neat and then just dropped it.”
The snarl was kept from her lips... barely. “Anything else?”
“She asked if it was because she was texting her friends all morning about her new job and posting it on social media rather than working on the list.”
“Fine,” she said. “You were right. I was wrong. You can hire the next person.”
“Oh no,” Paris said, shaking her head. “Don’t put that all on my shoulders because the minute the person doesn’t work out, you’ll blame me. We are doing it together and each have input. But you have to listen if I have concerns. It’s about getting the right person, not the fastest.”
Her shoulders slumped. “I should have known when she said her stage name was Rainbeau and she wanted to be called Beau. She didn’t shut up about why she picked that name for ten minutes in the interview.”
“Exactly. She lost focus easily and it was all about her. Sound familiar?”
“Hey, I never lose focus.”
Paris snickered. “No, but you like making it about you.”
“Bitch.”
“I learned how to be one from my sister.”
“Sienna can be one,” she said.
“The same with Raleigh, but I’m talking about my older sister. That would be you.”
“It’s not as if I haven’t been called it before,” she said, reclining back in her seat. “You liked that other one who applied. What was her name?”
“Molly.”
“I liked her too, but she has to give like three weeks’ notice. We can’t wait that long.”
“It’s going to be longer if we place an ad and have to interview again.”
London hated when her sister was right.
“Fine. Call and offer it to her. I did like her and her references checked out. It’s only been a few days so she might think we are just getting back to her rather than having gone with someone else.”
“I’ll make it worth it for her to take it,” Paris said. “Leave it to me.”
“Back to Spencer. Thoughts?”
“Personally or professionally?” Paris asked.
“Both.”
“He’s handsome.” She held her sister’s stare, not wanting to give anything away, but when Paris laughed she knew she’d been caught. “He seems friendly. Has a lot of patience. He’ll need that with you. You were laying it on pretty thick.”
“Was not.”
“Oh, you were like the big dog coming in and marking your territory. If you had a dick you would have lifted your leg all over the office before anyone arrived.”
She burst out laughing. “That’s sick.”
“But true.”
“Wouldn’t it be nice to have a dick. Maybe then we wouldn’t have to look like bitches half the time to say the same words.”
“That’s you, not me. I’m fine being who I am.”
“Then why do you use me as the bad sister?” she asked.
“Because you enjoy it and don’t say otherwise.”
No use disputing that. “What do you think of Spencer professionally? Especially since you think he knows who we are.”
“If you’re asking if I think he’s competent, that’s a ridiculous question. Braylon would never hire anyone who wasn’t and he sure the hell wouldn’t assign him to us.”
That’s what she was afraid of.
There’d be no getting anything by this guy.
It was bad enough she couldn’t slip things past her sister, but the attorney she’d be working closely with. A man who she’d found attractive when she needed to focus on her new career.
Yeah, not good.
And no way she could let Paris know!