Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Fury
I had just finished giving Gavin a more detailed picture of the Arthur Dalton I had known when someone knocked on the door. Gavin went to open it, and for a moment, I only saw Sienna; then my brain registered the other woman with her.
“Rose?” I moved past Gavin to hug my sister. I heard Sienna say something before leaving, but I was too caught up with my sister showing up here to pay much attention to anything else. I led her into the office. “Gavin, this is my little sister, Rose. Rose, this is Gavin Manning. He owns the club.”
“It’s nice to meet you.” Rose smiled as she shook his hand. “I’m sorry to interrupt. I needed to talk to my brother and couldn’t get a hold of him at his office.”
“Jules told you I was here,” I said.
“I’ll give the two of you some time,” Gavin said as he headed back to the door. “I have a few things I need to do out of the office, anyway.”
I waited until Gavin closed the door behind him before turning to my sister, my curiosity burning. “What are you doing in New York?” I asked, following up with an equally pressing question. “Is everyone alright back home?”
“Yeah, everyone’s fine,” Rose replied hastily. “At least, as far as I know. I’ve only spoken to Maggie.”
“Tell me,” I urged, sinking onto the plush leather couch and patting the spot next to me. “What’s going on? More shit hitting the fan at the ranch?”
Rose had bought a horse ranch in Colorado over a year ago, and initially, things seemed to go smoothly. But this past March, she’d called me in a panic, needing help. When I’d shown up at her place, she’d cryptically told me something felt off, but she didn’t have the skills to investigate properly. I did.
She’d handed over the books and asked me to take a look, not wanting to plant any preconceived notions. It hadn’t taken long for me to uncover the truth. One of her employees had been embezzling funds from the ranch. They’d done a piss-poor job of covering their tracks, which is how Rose had noticed the discrepancies. I’d offered to stick around and help her deal with the fallout, but she’d thanked me for my help and sent me packing back to Palo Alto.
“I fired that thieving son of a…,” Rose said, her gaze fixed on her hands, unable to meet my eyes. “But there have been some... unsavory rumors circulating about me and the real reason I fired him. Between what he stole and the gossip in town, I sold the ranch a couple of weeks ago.”
It took a moment for her words to sink in. She’d sold her ranch? The place she’d dreamed of owning her entire life? The horses she adored?
“Shit. Why?”
She started twisting her fingers together nervously, a habit I recognized from childhood. Whenever she was trying to keep her emotions in check, she’d do that, even as a little girl.
“I knew someone interested in the property, and it just seemed like the best solution for everyone involved.”
I reached out and placed my hand over hers. “Why didn’t you come to me? Or Blaze, or anyone else in the family? Any of us would’ve been more than happy to float you the cash to cover whatever you needed.”
Honestly, I couldn’t fathom how, even with the embezzlement, she hadn’t been able to keep the ranch. All of us, regardless of how we fit into the bizarre McCrae-Carideo-Gracen family tree, were worth an obscene amount of money. And we’d all been taught how to handle our finances responsibly.
She shook her head. “It was more about the rumors than the money. And before you ask why I didn’t seek help with that, I wanted to handle things on my own. I needed to prove that I wasn’t just the baby of the family who needed everyone to coddle her.”
“No one thinks that about you,” I protested.
She finally met my gaze, her expression speaking volumes. “Everyone else has these big, important careers, and I just wanted to work with horses. No one has to say that out loud.”
“Rose,” I began.
“I didn’t want anyone to know,” she interrupted. “That’s why I came here instead of going back to California or heading to Baltimore to see Blaze. People would start asking questions, meaning well, but making me feel like a complete idiot.”
I wanted to argue and tell her that our family would never do that, but I knew, as well as anyone, that sometimes people tried to be helpful, yet it just made everything worse. I could easily imagine our older brother, Blaze, grilling her about why she hadn’t hired a competent bookkeeper who could have caught the embezzling sooner or why she hadn’t done more thorough background checks on her employees. He’d be trying to understand, but she’d feel like those were things she should have thought of from the start.
“I knew Maggie would get it,” Rose continued. “And the last time we talked, she mentioned wanting to hire some help with the twins. So, I called her. She and Drake said I could stay with them as long as I want.”
“You know you could stay with me too,” I offered. “The condo isn’t massive, but there’s a guest room.”
“I know,” Rose replied. “But Maggie understands what it’s like to not want to air your dirty laundry to the family. And since I’m not in any danger, she supports me by keeping things under wraps for now.”
“I won’t breathe a word,” I promised. “But I think it’s probably going to come out at some point.”
“Thank you,” Rose said, offering me a smile that almost reached her eyes. “And I know. I just need some time. I’ll probably tell Carson since he lives in the city too, but I wanted you to know before I even got settled at Maggie’s, since you were already in the loop about the ranch drama.”
“Well, if you need a break from screaming babies or from a sickeningly sweet couple, you know where to find me,” I said.
Her phone chimed with an incoming text. “That’s Maggie. I asked her to pick me up here instead of at the airport.”
I glanced at the time. “Let me walk you out, since the club’s just opening. It shouldn’t be too crazy yet, but I don’t want anyone mistaking you for an employee or a member.”
Rose rolled her eyes. “You do remember that I’m twenty-six, right? More than old enough to drink or have sex, even the kinky stuff that goes on here.”
I winced. “Come on, kiddo. I really don’t want to hear my baby sister talking about sex.”
She chuckled, and I decided it would be worth feeling uncomfortable if it got her to laugh like that.
“You know, now that I’m here for who knows how long, maybe I should look into getting a membership. It’d give me something to do,” she teased.
“You’re killing me, Rose,” I groaned. “Please, don’t do that. I know you’re old enough, but I really don’t want to risk coming here and running into you grinding on some leather-clad stud.”
Now she let out that loud, boisterous laugh that I had always loved, and I felt some of the tightness in my chest ease. She was going through a rough patch, but she would be okay.
“Come on,” I said, opening the door.
The music when the elevator door opened on the ground floor was deafening, so we didn’t talk as I escorted her through the club to the front entrance. To my relief, nothing too wild was happening, though I had to shoot a couple of ‘big brother’ death glares at a few guys who were clearly eye-fucking Rose. I knew that, technically, she was old enough to make her own choices about who she dated, and if she chose someone from here, I’d accept it.
Well, after a very thorough background check and a conversation where I made my intentions crystal clear for her potential suitor, then I’d accept it.
Maggie’s car was pulled up to the curb right in front of the club, so we headed straight for it. The driver opened the door for Rose while I leaned down to greet my step-cousin. It didn’t surprise me that Drake had Maggie using a driver, but I was a little shocked that she’d given in. We didn’t chat long since this wasn’t an actual parking spot, but it was enough for me to tell both women that we needed to get together soon and to ask how the little rugrats were doing.
By the time I headed back into the club, I was smiling despite still being slightly worried about Rose. I was halfway to the elevator, completely intending to go back to Gavin’s office to finish what we had started, when I saw Sienna standing next to the door to a private room. That strange magnetic pull I always seemed to feel around her came back with too much force for me to resist.
I changed direction and headed straight for her, running over possible conversation starters in my head. However, I didn’t even have a chance to say a word before she snapped at me.
“What do you want?” She glared at me, folding her arms across her chest.
I pretended not to notice how her particular stance pushed up her breasts into a cleavage that was even more mouth-watering than normal.
“I just wanted to say hello, but apparently today’s not a good day for that,” I shot back. “Though I would like to know if you’re biting the heads off of every guy that talks to you like you’re some sort of praying mantis, or am I just special?”
Her mouth twisted into a scowl, and she turned on me with a finger already out to jab into my chest, but froze when a tall guy in a ‘Security’ shirt walked by. A snide remark was on the tip of my tongue when she grabbed my arm and dragged me into the private room next to where she was standing.
When it closed behind me, all the noise from the club cut off, making her next words crystal clear.
“You are such a pain in my ass!”
“Is that what you’re into?” I stepped closer into her personal space. “Because spanking your ass until you can’t sit without thinking of me is awfully appealing.”
Color crept into her cheeks, and I wondered if her ass would turn that same pretty shade of red under my hand. She didn’t, however, back down. Instead, she closed the last of the distance between us, leaving barely an inch of space. Looking up at me, her eyes flashed, heat mixed in with the anger there. That electricity between us was stronger than ever, and my blood rushed south.
“You’ve got a high opinion of yourself,” she said. “Want to put your money where your mouth is?”
I smirked at her. “I’d rather put my mouth somewhere else and show you why I can think highly of myself.”
There was a beat, and then she was pulling my head down and crushing her mouth against mine. It only took a second for my brain to catch up, and then I was pushing her up against the wall and taking control of the kiss.