Chapter One #2
Eavesdropping on my boss and his brother is easily grounds for termination. But my feet have apparently declared mutiny, and my hand is still holding this stupid cup of coffee and the door is swinging open and—
Levi and I are face-to-face. Surprise flashes in Levi’s eyes as I jump back—coffee burning my hand as it sloshes over the rim again. He wasn’t expecting to see me, and I suppose the feeling is mutual.
Levi smirks as if my reaction is somewhat entertaining. I don’t even feel the burn from the coffee because every nerve in my body is focused on the man standing behind Levi.
Everett stops short. For half a second, surprise flashes across those hazel eyes—and then it’s gone. He straightens to full height, posture turning into the CEO iceberg he’s famous for being.
"Aria." My name sounds like a liability he’s tired of paying for. "This is my brother Levi. Levi, Aria."
He says it fast, like he’s hoping Levi will nod politely and leave.
But Levi doesn’t nod politely. Or leave.
Instead, he steps forward with a grin that could melt steel. All the Kauffman descendants are unfairly attractive in their own way, but that’s what you get when you can handpick your surrogates. I can only imagine that Conrad made sure that all of the Kauffman children have gorgeous mothers.
"Aria, nice to meet you," Levi says, extending his hand. His six-foot-plus frame towers over me, just like Everett’s. "I’m Everett’s much better-looking brother."
I take his hand, trying not to blush.
Everett looks like he swallowed a lemon.
"Leave her alone and let her get back to work. Don’t you have a casino to buy somewhere?" he snaps.
Levi raises a brow and glances over his shoulder at Everett. "I’m being friendly." Then he looks back at me, a smirk lifting at the corner of his lip. "I’m also clearly the nicer one. With all his charisma, it’s almost impressive Everett’s still single, wouldn’t you say?"
Everett’s jaw twitches. "I don’t see you racing toward the altar."
"Your disaster first, brother." Levi tilts his head, a glint in his eye telling me he knows exactly what he’s about to do.
"Wouldn’t want to steal your thunder." His gaze drops back to me. "But now that I’ve met Aria, maybe you’re right, Ev.
Maybe I should start looking for a bride.
" He smiles. "Aria, any chance you’re single? "
My mouth falls open.
Is he teasing? Is he serious?
"She’s off-limits—"
Everett practically growls it. The words are so sharp, so sudden, all three of us freeze.
Levi’s brows shoot up, like even he didn’t expect that reaction.
My mouth falls open another inch. Everett’s eyes flick to mine—wide for the briefest second, like he can’t believe that came out of his mouth—before his expression goes blank again, every trace of emotion locked away before any of us can touch it.
It’s shocking how fast he can do that.
"She works for me," he says. "It’s inappropriate."
Levi grins like a cat that caught the mouse. "Right. Sure. Crystal clear, Tin Man."
I clear my throat. "I should get back to work. It was nice to meet you, Levi."
"Likewise. Very informative morning." He gives me a wink, then shoots Everett a look that seems to carry a whole conversation I can’t decode.
"You were just leaving. Remember?" Everett says.
Levi chuckles, shoves his hands in his pockets, and strolls down the hallway without a care in the world and no urgency in his step.
And then it’s just Everett Kauffman and me—alone... no buffer. Him towering. Me holding a mug of coffee that’s now half-empty because I’ve been spilling it everywhere like a walking catastrophe.
For one horrible second, I think he’s going to fire me. The thought lands like a punch—immediate and so very final.
"Forget what you heard," he says instead.
"Already forgotten."
I’m lying, of course. He knows I’m lying, too. I know he knows. We’re both standing here pretending this is a productive conversation.
His eyes drop to the mug. "Is that my coffee?"
I look down at the sad, half-spilled cup in my hand. "It was."
His jaw tightens—the tiniest flinch, like I’ve said something he wasn’t expecting. Not a smile. Everett doesn’t smile. But it’s the closest thing I’ve seen in weeks.
"How many sugars?"
"One and a half."
He takes it from my hand. Our fingers brush, and I pretend not to notice.
"Interesting choice," he says, and walks back into his office.
No grimace this time.
Which is either progress or a sign that he’s so distracted by his impending marital doom that he’s lost the ability to taste anything. I’ll take it either way because at least he didn’t fire me on the spot for spying on him.
I walk back to my desk and sit down slowly, like my body is rebooting one limb at a time.
Everett Kauffman needs a wife. He has weeks. All eight siblings lose everything if he doesn’t find one.
And he said I was off limits.
I stare at the papers I’m supposed to organize. The letters blur.
What did Levi call him? Tin Man.
It fits. Everett walks around like someone installed a steel door where his heart should be. All logic, all control, and perfectly neutral expressions.
Except for that growl when Levi asked if I was single.
I shake it off. Whatever that was—anger, possessiveness, reflex—it doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have heard any of this.
But one thought keeps circling, refusing to go quiet.
Everett Kauffman needs a wife. And fast.
Saturday morning, and I’m pulling into the Brookhaven parking lot with a cardboard drink tray and a white bakery box balanced on one arm. Fall has come and the parking lot is full of red and orange leaves falling from the trees.
"Good morning, Aria," Gladys, the head nurse, says when I push through the double doors. "He’s already asking if you’re coming today.
That makes me smile and wince at the same time.
Asking means he’s having a good day. Good days used to be rare—until he came here.
"I brought the pecan rolls he likes," I say, and she smiles and buzzes me through.
Brookhaven always feels like a warm exhale when you walk through its doors. Fresh-cut flowers on the reception desk, soft music through the ceiling speakers, nurses who genuinely smile when family shows up. This isn’t the place where people disappear.
This is the best facility my father has been in since the accident three years ago. A traumatic brain injury that stole whole chapters of his memory and took his body down with it. He had to learn to walk again. For a long time, the good days were so rare I stopped expecting them.
But here? Here they’ve been multiplying.
His occupational therapist, Lena, sat me down last month and told me something no one at the other three facilities ever had.
She said my father has come a long way—real, measurable progress.
Not just holding steady, but actively improving.
His neural pathways are rebuilding, not maintaining.
Two to three more years at Brookhaven, and he could move into his own apartment with weekly check-ins instead of round-the-clock care.
But only here. Only with this team. Only with the people who figured out how to reach him when everyone else had given up.
Which means I need to keep paying for Brookhaven.
Which means I need to keep my job.
Which means I need to figure out Everett Kauffman’s goddamn coffee order.
I walk by the plaque on the wall before I turn into my father’s room. Kauffman Family Wing. The Kauffman's, in all their philanthropy, are one of the largest donors to the Brookhaven Memory Center.
I find my dad in his room by the window.
His right side is still weak—probably always will be, which is hard to witness since my father was a foreman for the railroad.
Tall, broad shoulders, barrel chest, a laugh that used his entire body and sounded like Santa Claus.
.. larger than life in every way. He used to carry me on his shoulders when we'd go for walks in the park with my mom. To see him like this is hard. At least he’s no longer bound to a wheelchair 24/7.
When he sees me, his whole face changes.
"There’s my girl." His smile makes every exhausting choice I’ve ever made feel worth it. "Did you bring my favorite?"
"The big one’s yours. They just released their fall flavors so these have a pumpkin spice icing," I open the bakery box.
"You spoil me rotten."
"Get used to it. I will always take care of you," I tell him. Not just because of the insurmountable guilt I feel for him being in here, but because he's my father and the only parent I have left.
He studies me while he eats. My father does this thing on his good days where the fog clears completely, and he’s fully present—the man he was before the accident. The man who remembers everything and sees too much.
"You look tired," he says.
"I’m fine."
"Liar." He chews his pecan roll like a man who has earned every single bite. "How’s work? How’s the new boss?"
A scoff escapes before I can stop it.
My father doesn’t need to know that Everett is a humorless, emotionless robot of a billionaire with more money than charm. If Everett were a color, grey would be offended by the association.
He might be brilliant in business—I’ve heard that more times than I can count—but the man’s social skills are alarming. Or maybe it’s just me. He can’t spare a single "good morning," or "the coffee tastes great," or even a half-assed smile.
I’d take a nod at this point.
"He’s fine," I tell my father. "Just different from Phil."
"Phil is a good man," my father says. "If you see him again, tell him for me? He always took care of you, and that’s all a father can ask."
I look away because the lump in my throat is too big to swallow.
"You should be living your life, Aria." His voice goes serious. The fog is nowhere near today. He’s all here. "Chasing your dreams. Falling in love in France like your mother and I did. Anything but sitting in this room worrying about an old man."
"You’re not old."
"Old enough to know when my daughter’s carrying too much." He squeezes my hand. "Just send me back to the place insurance covers. Then you won’t have to work for that jerk you don’t like. Everett, is it?"
I hate that my father can feel my disdain for Everett no matter how well I hide it.
I glance around his room—the warm lighting, the quilt I made him last Christmas, the photo of my mother on the nightstand, the schedule board where Lena tracks his therapy milestones.
He’s walking to the bathroom without a cane now.
His good days outnumber the bad ones three to one.
Last Tuesday, he remembered my birthday without being reminded.
Two to three years. That’s all. Two to three more years here, and he could be living his own life again.
There is no Plan B. He has to stay here if I want any chance of getting him back and for him to have a full life again.
"I’m not going anywhere, Dad. Neither are you. You promised me you would take me to the French Riviera yourself and show me where you met Mom, remember?"
He studies me for a long moment, then pats my cheek. "I do. You look just like her, you know?"
Out of all the things he’s forgotten, including his own name, he’s never forgotten my mother, and that’s the greatest gift.
I stay for another hour. He tells me about his friend Pearl, who apparently cheated at cards again yesterday, and I pretend to be scandalized while he describes her technique with the enthusiasm of a man who respects a good hustle.
He tells me about Martin, who’s been stealing extra Jello from the nurses’ station late at night.
When I finally leave, I sit in my car for a long time, staring at the steering wheel while Seattle rain hammers the windshield.
One thought keeps circling, refusing to quit. As much as I want to quit and tell Everett what he can do with his coffee cup, this job is the only means by which I can afford Brookhaven.
I need this job more than I need my dignity.
I have to make Everett see that I’m not redundant.