Meant For Love (Meant For #3)

Chapter 1

One

Nash

I push open the glass door and step out to the parking lot. The sun is slowly coming up. The waves crashing on the rocks not far away fill the quiet morning, along with the birds soaring in the cloudless sky. “It’s going to be a beautiful day,” I mumble as I walk toward my car, gym bag and protein shake in one hand. With my ringing phone in the other hand, I see it’s my brother Caine’s name flashing on the screen. The picture is of him glaring at the camera, wearing a tux, sitting on a stool—a beer in his hand taken at his wedding—when I answer. “Nash Griffin,” I mock him since that is the only way he answers his phone, which irritates the fuck out of me.

“He’s a comedian,” he says right away, picking up on the joke. “I thought I’d find you sleeping.”

“You thought wrong. I’m just leaving the gym,” I tell him, opening the trunk of the car before tossing my bag in and walking over to the driver’s door and opening it. Putting the phone on speaker, I start the car, and the Bluetooth picks up, but as soon as that happens, the FaceTime ring hits my phone.

He waits until he can see me before he talks. “You were just leaving the gym,” he says, his voice in disbelief, “it’s what… six o’clock there?” I see he’s sitting behind his desk at the office, suit jacket hanging already on the back of his chair, tie a little loose with one button open.

“Yup,” I confirm, putting on my sunglasses and exiting the parking lot. “Just a little after.”

“And you’re already done with your workout?” he asks, flabbergasted.

“We can’t all be going for the dad bod,” I joke with him, earning me one of his famous glares. “I was going to tell you when I saw you last that you’ve been letting yourself go.” I roll my lips because I know he’s going to come back and tell me to go fuck myself.

“Fuck you,” he hisses, his face coming so close to the phone it’s all I see, making me smile, knowing how well I know him. “I’d rather be home in bed with my wife than in a sweaty gym.”

“But the question is”—I look around as more cars enter the almost vacant parking lot, which won’t be like this for long—“would your wife want you to be in bed with her, or at the gym keeping that figure like it was when she fell in hate with you?” I laugh. When Grace and Caine first met, they loathed each other. More like my brother was a donkey who would say the wrong thing over and over again. I figured it out quickly. He did that because one, he was stupid, and two, he really, really liked her. She got under his skin like no one else. “So what’s the answer?”

“I’d rather him be in bed with me,” Grace’s voice chimes in, then she comes into the camera view, rounding the desk to stand next to him. He looks up at her with a smile, his hand going to wrap around her hips while she wraps her arm around his shoulders. “All day, every day.” She looks down at him with pure love written on her face.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite sister-in-law,” I say softly, her eyes flying back to the screen and she tilts her head to the side. “How’re you doing, sweetheart?”

“She’s doing fine,” Caine hisses, pulling her closer to his side, “and don’t talk like that to her, all smooth and shit. No one wants to hear that early in the morning. And especially don’t call her fucking sweetheart.”

“I don’t know. I can name a couple of women who would like me to call them sweetheart.” I chuckle while Caine groans, and Grace just shakes her head. “What are you guys doing calling me at six o’clock anyway?”

“You are almost always at your desk by six thirty,” Grace reminds me, “so thirty minutes isn’t much of a stretch.”

“A lot can happen in thirty minutes,” I point out, and it’s Grace’s turn to be the comedian.

“Not too much can happen in thirty minutes that most women remember.” Caine laughs out loud now, but not for long, when Grace turns her attention to him. “You remember that in the morning when you want to quickly get in there.”

“Burn,” I snap. “What I’m getting from this conversation is she’s not satisfied in the bedroom.” I make my way over to my office. “Caine, how does it make you feel that not only have you let yourself go but now you aren’t even satisfying your wife?”

The growl makes me laugh each time. “Can you be professional for once in your life?”

“Hey,” I say, “I answered the phone using my whole name.”

“I know, so much different from ‘Yo,’” Caine retorts while I pull up to the office. I park in my designated spot, seeing my name right above the company name, Cottrell Group. A company my parents started when I was born. They were both working for investment firms and decided to take their portfolio and see what they could do independently. They worked out of an office at home for many years until they outgrew it. Then they decided to open a branch in New York because of Wall Street. Their portfolio only grew. Caine and I got the bug to follow in their footsteps, so I graduated from the University of Philadelphia with a bachelor’s degree in finance and economics. During this time, my parents expanded to California, Chicago, Texas, and Washington, DC, where Caine runs the show. I took over the California office, dipping my toe into the Texas office every now and again. Even though we have our own branches, we still like to occasionally drop in to each other’s offices.

“Is this why you’re calling?” I ask, getting out of the car and walking toward the building. A building we bought not too long ago and moved everything over to.

“No, I’m calling because we seriously need to discuss hiring someone to take over the PR of the firms. Someone who will handle all aspects of media,” he huffs out on a deep breath. “Mom and Dad just let their assistants do it for the time being, but even now, they are done with it and don’t see the need for it.”

“Mom and Dad don’t know anything about social media, so they don’t see the need for it. I can see where they were twenty years ago, fuck, even ten years ago, but it’s a different time. The new generation is coming up, and everything, and I mean everything, is done online.”

“I agree,” Caine says. “Which is why I’m handing it to you. The cool kid.” He grins. “Besides, I don’t want to handle it.”

“You don’t want to handle it?” I tilt my head to the side. “Or you can’t handle it because of your age, Grandpa.”

“At this moment, if you calling me Grandpa means you’re going to take care of it, so be it.” He chuckles.

“So this is how it goes?” I pull out the key to the door and unlock it before stepping in and disarming the alarm. “You don’t want to do something, so you give it to me.” I shake my head. “That’s so generous of you.”

“You’re the hip one.” He leans back in his chair as Grace bites her lip to avoid laughing. “I’m the dinosaur who still answers my phone with my name instead of Yo. I also don’t know all those letter thingies.”

“Letter thingies?” Grace asks before I get a chance.

“Yeah, like ttyl or byob or iykyk.” He throws up his hands. “All these fucking alphabets.”

I can’t help but laugh at the last one. “That last one took you a whole five minutes of thinking before you pulled out your phone.”

“More like thirty. He fought the hard fight.” She grabs his face and kisses his lips. “You’re perf.” She abbreviates the word perfect, knowing it irks him.

“You know it’s one more syllable,” he mumbles as she shakes her head and stands. “It’s not so hard.”

“Before your brother irritates me even more this morning,” Grace says, “I have a list of names of people I think you guys should reach out to.”

I walk past the waiting area; the receptionist’s desk is empty, and the chair is pushed in under her desk. Making my way down the corridor on the left-hand side, where the offices are, I go into the first one. “Send me the list of names, and I’ll go over them,” I tell her, walking to my desk and putting down my protein shake. “I’ll set something up with a couple of them this week, and we can meet and see who we mesh well with.”

“Mesh well with?” Caine says. “Does that mean who has experience enough to do the job?”

“It’s something like that.” I pull out my chair and sit down, turning on my computer. “You also have to ensure we’re all on the same page. It’s about experience and also about who vibes well with your company.”

“That’s what mesh well with means.” Grace looks over at him, smiling. “In case you didn’t get it.”

“I got it,” he snaps, and her eyebrows go up in a warning of sorts.

“Okay, Batman,” she huffs. “Now if you will excuse me, I have an email to send out.”

She storms away from him as I smirk at the phone. “I don’t know a lot of things about relationships, but something tells me she didn’t like your tone.”

“This is all your fault.” He points at me.

“My fault?” I put my hand to my chest. “How did this become my fault? I was minding my own business when you called me to give me more work,” I continue when the sound of pinging comes from my computer with the emails coming in. I notice the top email is from Grace. I click on the email and see the names she told me about. I scan the list of names. “Why isn’t Zoey Richards on this list?”

Caine laughs. “You think Zoey Richards is going to work for us? That’s like an HR nightmare. No way would you be able to keep your dick in your pants.”

“Um, excuse me?” I look at him. “I’m not the one who banged my assistant.”

“She’s my wife.”

“She was not your wife when you banged her the first time.” I laugh. “Besides, I think I can control myself.”

“You think?”

I shrug. “I mean, if she throws herself at me, I’m not going to say no.” I wink at him. The minute I met Zoey Richards two years ago was the first time you could say I believed in love at first sight. She took my breath away. If someone asked me to paint a picture of my dream girl, it would be Zoey. From her strawberry-blond hair to her almond-shaped green-gray eyes to the soft freckles that span over her nose. To her amazing smile that just lights up her face, fuck, she’s fucking gorgeous. To top it all off, she’s smart, she’s sassy, and apparently, according to everyone around me when we met, she’s totally off-fucking-limits.

“That right there.” Caine’s voice disrupts my daydream about Zoey on the beach wearing her bikini while she smiles at me. “That look right there is why we can’t hire her.”

“What look?” I try to act like my cock didn’t just get hard remembering her face.

“The look where your eyeballs turn into hearts and bounce in and out of your sockets.”

I pfft. “Would it be better if I was a condescending prick to her on her first day?” I throw the first day he met Grace in his face. “Would that be better?” I don’t even wait for him to answer. “Let me call her and see if she’s even taking new clients.” He just glares at me. “For all I know, you’re getting your panties in a twist for nothing.”

“Nash, I’m not kidding on this.” His tone is very much like a father would use to tell his kids that he was done playing around.

“Aye aye, cappy,” I say, saluting him. “Now if you will excuse me, some of us have to get the day rolling.” I don’t bother waiting for him to disconnect before I pull up her number on my phone, opting to text her in case she’s in the Pacific Time Zone.

Me: Hey, Zoey, I have a question for you. Call me when you get a chance.