TEN
COFFEE. That had to be a staple in every person’s home, didn’t it? It was the great economic leveler. Yeah, okay, so the cost of java could vary, but at its core, it offered everyone the same relief.
And that was something she needed, hence her creeping down the stairs, seeking the kitchen. She’d caught a glimpse of it from the dining room the previous night. Now was a chance to explore. Not out of nosiness, no, she needed to find the caffeine.
Just entering was enough to blow the air from her lungs. The huge kitchen island on its own was possibly bigger than her whole kitchen back home. It didn’t feel right to open and close cabinets, but there was no one around. She didn’t need help, she could—what the hell kind of coffee machine was that? Oh, God, if she broke it—how much did something like that cost?
“Good morning.” Whirling around to witness Struan close a door behind him, she intended to speak, but… The sweats, straining tee-shirt, the damp hair… Her mouth opened, but no words came out. “Have you eaten?”
Did it look like she’d eaten? The only thing that passed her lips was air. It dried her tongue and burned her throat with a desperation to whine in submission. Only as he came closer did she force words out.
“You shouldn’t sneak up on people.”
His quick smile flashed a dimple. “Did I sneak?”
“Yeah, well I didn’t know you were going to creep in from—why are you up so early?”
“What time is it?” He stopped next to her, folding his arms, propping a hip on the counter. “It’s after six.”
Like that was a reasonable time for anyone to be awake and active.
“Is that your bedroom?” she asked, unable to break eye contact as she gestured with her chin. “Why does it lead off the kitchen? That’s weird. No one ever told you that was weird?”
He laughed. “It’s not my bedroom, the fitness suite is downstairs.”
“Oh.”
“You want a smoothie?”
“A smoothie?” Suspicion lit the question. He turned to open the fridge. “A green one?”
Another laugh and he glanced back. They were too close, so she boosted herself away from the counter to go stand on this side of the island a few feet away.
“You want it green, I’ll make it green.”
“I don’t want green. LA is all superfoods, celery and kale, how do you live here?” As he gathered things from the fridge, her admiration may have just maybe slid down to his ass. Shit, the man was hot. “You probably enjoy it.”
“Enjoy it?”
“With a physique like that…”
He came to dump various wares from the fridge onto the counter.
“What’s wrong with my physique?”
“Absolutely nothing.” Licking her lower lip, she dragged it back and forth over her teeth as he spread out cardboard and Tupperware. “No, nothing at all… Which you know fine well.”
“You objectifying me?” God, he was right. It was as wrong of her to do it as it was for any man to do it to a woman. Backing up a step, she started to turn. He caught her wrist. “Didn’t say you should stop.”
Something in the way their eyes danced lit a fire between them. Not even in her or him, them together, the fiery bubble of desire sealed them inside its smokey solitude.
“I should stick to coffee.”
“This will be better, trust me.”
By its stem, he offered a strawberry to her mouth. She caught the tip gently in her teeth and sealed her lips around it. Eyes dropping to the fruit, his throat bobbed in an obvious swallow. Something so simple. So seemingly insignificant, yet it ignited her brazenness. As he eased just a fraction away, she sucked the fruit deeper, returning him to her in a hurry.
He snatched the side of her head, fast and hard, like on instinct, jerking it upward as he came nearer, so much nearer that his arousal pressed against her.
“Yesterday,” he growled, stooping lower, still pressuring her body with his. The edge of the counter dug harshly into her waist, but, man, any pain was worth it. “Yesterday, you said—”
“Hello!” A female voice chirped from an adjoining room. As Struan turned, the beauty came into sight. A tiny brunette stopped in the ingress above the half dozen broad stairs to the next… whatever was through there. “Am I interrupting?”
“Damn, Mieux Penrose, you didn’t get enough of us already?” Struan left her to meet the little woman, who stopped her descent on the second stair to accept his kiss on her cheek. “Thought you didn’t work more than one job in a row with a client.”
“Then it’s a good thing I’m not here for Roman.”
“You’re here for…”
The woman leaned aside to smile at her. “Bambi Bennett?”
Her? “What? Me?”
“Mieux works with the Brooker Agency—”
“So do I,” she said at the same time as Mieux’s—
“So does she.”
On a double take, he backed off. “Guess I’m just in the way.” He returned to his previous place, not to her, to his fruit. “Want a smoothie, U?”
“You didn’t feed me enough on the island?”
“You enjoyed it then.”
Mieux laughed and raised a tablet and folder from her side. “Did I?”
“Yeah, why’d you come back for more if you didn’t?” A pause lingered enough that Struan looked up at the woman approaching the other side of the island. “Rox Out?”
Mieux smiled. “I might’ve got a call.”
“Woman’s persuasive.”
“Especially when she follows up with a ringer.” Mieux unlocked the tablet before she and Struan made eye contact. “Priest.”
In a silent, “ah,” he went back to his smoothie prep. “Got dirt on you?”
“That’s not the way he works.”
“Oh yeah?” he asked, smirking. “Tell me more about how he works, Mieux.”
“He’s been your best friend for a long time. You don’t need a lesson from me.”
“And now you’re here. Just in time.” He opened the blender. “Have you eaten?”
The man had an obsession with feeding people.
“If you’re making the blueberry one, no, I haven’t.” Mieux looked to her. “If he pulls out the parsnips, run.”
Another laugh from Struan. “Ignore her, we just spent a month in the Pacific, she’s grouchy we had to come back.”
“The Pacific…? Alone?”
What was that? Why did she ask that? More’s the point, why did discomfort visit? Jealousy? No, she couldn’t, wouldn’t, go there.
“Working,” Mieux said.
“You miss the waves, U? Sun, sea, sand.”
“It was work.”
“Only felt like that because you were stuck with Ro.”
“You did a lot more wrangling than I did, which I’m grateful for.”
They just talked, openly, about how difficult Roman was? Like it was no secret, or something to be challenged, they just accepted it.
“It’s a bad habit,” Struan said.
To give him a default pass? Yeah, sure seemed that way.
“Enough about him,” Mieux said, setting her focus. “I’ve never been assistant to a colleague before, but I’m always willing to try new things and I can work with anyone.”
“As proven by your work with Roman,” Struan muttered.
“I doubt Bambi will be as demanding.”
“Assistant?” she asked. “I don’t need an assistant. That would just be—why would I need an assistant?”
“Think of me less of a personal assistant and more of a logistics coordinator.” Still none the wiser, she shook her head. “Your calendar’s filling up, and we have requests to vet.”
“Requests? What kind of requests?”
“Interviews, appearances, speaking opportunities…” Maybe it was her mouth falling open that set Mieux’s smile. “Things change fast when you’re in the headlines. I can advise which to accept and which to refuse, but ultimately, it’s up to you.”
“Let me see that,” Struan asked, tossing something in his mouth then extending a hand to Mieux.
It wasn’t possible to reach over the island, so the petite woman came around to put it in his hand.
“I don’t want to talk to anyone. I don’t have any—why would people care what—it doesn’t matter that I—why do I suddenly matter?”
“Got a conflict of interest,” Struan said, scrolling down.
“I know,” Mieux said, dragging her folder around to open it. “And that’s not the worst thing…” Screwing up her face, the woman was contrite as she pushed the folder her way. “I have something you need to sign.”
“What is it?”
Mieux shot a pen over that she caught while trying to—Struan angled the document to read it.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Mieux shrugged. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”
“What is it?”
“An NDA,” Mieux said. “I know you’ve signed one with Brooker, but this is different because it’s—”
“Personal.” The language seemed standard and she understood why it was necessary, but… “My boyfriend wants me to sign an NDA?”
It was difficult not to put “boyfriend” in air quotes or exaggerate the word. Admitting the relationship like it was true was icky. Because it was a lie, or because of the man? Best not to think too much about that.
“You’d be surprised how common it is in these situations.”
With a shove, Struan skimmed the folder back to Mieux. “I don’t want her to sign it.”
“Well, she’s not your girlfriend, Stru.” In another pass, the folder came to stop with her again. “This is a formality.”
“How can I sign this then do interviews about our relationship?”
“It’s a balancing act.” Mieux smiled. “Truth is fluid in these situations. People are less interested in the truth than they are the image.” That didn’t help. “You’ll be coached. We’ll get you the best.”
Invisible weight crushed her chest. “This is a lot.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Struan said. “I’ll talk to him.”
Mieux didn’t have his confidence. “You know this won’t be from Roman.”
“Yeah, but he can stop it.”
“Why would he?” she asked, raising her eyes to his concern.
From the conversation so far, it didn’t sound like Mieux knew the truth of what was really happening. And Roman wasn’t her biggest fan, wasn’t any kind of fan. Struan might think he had sway with his brother. He didn’t. Yeah, he was the only one to speak up against Roman, but his brother did what he wanted regardless.
“I can get you a lawyer,” Mieux offered. “If you want someone to go over it on your behalf. It’ll cost—”
“I’ll pay for it.”
“You don’t get to pay for it, Stru. You’re on the Lowe train, it’s another conflict of interest.”
“Priest’ll pay for it.”
The best friend she’d never seen. What kind of best friend avoided said friend at all times?
On a single nod, Mieux smiled. “That works.”
“He’s got to have a tab with Brooker already, or Breckenridge do, and—”
“He has his own account,” Mieux said then faltered a little. “I mean, I—”
“With Brooker?”
“No. A private account.”
“Oh, yeah?” Struan smirked again, clearly amused. “With little Mieux Penrose? The woman who takes on no regular clients?”
“Ha, yeah, ha, it’s nothing sordid, he had some… personal business. I took care of it for him.”
Her curiosity couldn’t stretch into someone else’s relationship when her own was a hot mess. A real hot mess and a fake relationship, man, she had talent in all the wrong places.
“It’s a conflict of interest for Struan to pay for my lawyer?”
“Yeah, because he works with, and is related to, the other party in your NDA. It could be argued, if it came to it, that the lawyer they paid was biased.”
“Yeah, I get that one. How does it relate to what you said before, a conflict of interest, about the interviews?”
“The show Roman’s on, the one he signed on for, it’s produced by WMC.”
“I don’t understand what that—”
“Whey Media Conglomerates,” Struan answered.
“I know that but—”
“Our friends, and their proffered opportunities, the ones we’d ideally like you to choose, are associated with WMC’s leading competitor: CollCom.”
“Why would Roman sign up with his friends’ competition?”
Both Struan and Mieux laughed. “They’re not Roman’s friends.” Did he have any of those? “My friends, Tripp’s friends.”
“She could do the Stream Queen.”
“Yeah,” Struan said, returning to the tablet. “Might not officially be CollCom, but everyone knows, personally… He’s marrying her best friend.”
“Married already, depending who you ask.”
“Stream Queen?” she asked.
“Lomond’s Delight,” Mieux explained. “Roxie Kyst.”
“I… Wait, I…”
“She’ll do us the favor?”
Mieux gestured at the tablet. “You see it yourself.”
“They still in LA?”
“Last part of the documentary airs this week.”
“Then it’s back to New York?”
All of this talk, their back and forth, all of the… How was one person expected to absorb so much so fast?
“I need a cab,” she said, retreating from the island.
“A cab?”
“I don’t have a phone or any numbers, if someone could—”
“Your car’s waiting in the driveway.” Mieux gathered her things. “Standard Brooker treatment.” Yeah, for other people. “And your phone is waiting in it.”
And that shook some of the shock off. “My phone? How did you get—”
“Other things have been taken upstairs to your bedroom.”
“You went into my apartment? You went through my things?”
“Not Mieux.” Struan’s hand landed on her shoulder. “That’ll be Magnus. Can you give us a minute, U?”
“Sure. I’ll wait in the car.”
After the brunette left, Struan turned her to face him. “Don’t sign anything today, okay? A lawyer friend owes me a favor.”
“A friend?”
“Javier Perez, his name doesn’t matter, anything you get, forward it to me and I’ll put it in front of him. Even if it’s not his area, he’ll know someone.”
“I can’t forward anything to you, I don’t have your number or email.”
“Right.” Digging his phone from his pocket, he unlocked it and handed it to her. “Put your number in there, your email, I’ll send my details.”
Except when he offered the phone, hesitation lingered. “I shouldn’t—we shouldn’t. I’m not your responsibility and—”
“I got you into this mess, didn’t I?” They got into it together. In that basement. In the dark. Alone. “Trust me, Fawn, please.”
That was what scared her. She did trust him. Misguided or not, she did. The instinct that pulled them together the night they met still magnetized them. While that was at work, trying to resist him was pointless.
Taking the phone, she did as asked and handed it back. “Maybe I’m an idiot, but I do. I do trust you, Struan.”
Exploring him as he scrutinized her, their need held them together. She didn’t want to walk away. In all of this, it was only with him she felt safe.
“The energy…” he said, showing his own vulnerability. “It only happens with you, Fawn.”
She could argue. Tell him that he was attractive and plenty of women would desire… except she couldn’t. His twin shared his face; looks meant nothing. She’d never felt anything in Roman’s company, not like the power fizzing around this guy.
“I have to…” Gesture, she should gesture, but damn, she didn’t want to walk away. “Will I see you later?”
“Guarantee it.”