Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Wade
“What. The fuck. Was that?” I narrow my gaze at my brother. “Please, explain.”
Holt sits back with a smug grin. “What?”
His cheekiness is fuel on a fire that’s erupting into an all-out blaze in my chest. I clench my hands at my sides to keep from smashing them on my desk.
Be calm, Wade.
I uncoil my fingers. Blood rushes to my fingertips.
The past few minutes replay through my mind so quickly that I can’t keep up. And I always keep up.
“Can you please explain to me what the hell you were thinking by inviting Dara to your fucking wedding?” I ask, my voice wavering with the anger I’m trying desperately to hold back.
Holt’s unaffected. He crosses a leg over the other and stretches an arm over the back of the chair that Dara just vacated.
“Well, I was thinking that it could be a good opportunity for her,” he says breezily. “She said she wanted to get into landscape photography and the Bartholomew Gardens—”
“Holt? Shut the hell up.”
He chuckles. “You just asked me to explain what I was thinking.”
I get to my feet. The suddenness of the movement sends my chair rolling backward until it hits the wall.
This is my fault. I held out from seeing her for a whole week. Why did I call her today? Why?
I knew having her come by was bullshit, but I did it anyway. I didn’t need to see Dara this morning. Nothing about her project was pressing or demanded that I summon her to my office. And when I sent her the text to come by, I was already conjuring up an excuse that she … and I … would buy.
This is why I don’t let my guard down. It’s never worth it.
This situation—one I can’t even start figuring out how to negate—is a product of my failure. Had I just focused on the multitude of projects on my desk and not on the sparky little brunette, then Holt wouldn’t have met her, and she wouldn’t be going to his wedding.
With me.
Fuck!
“Did you have a date?” He raises a brow. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had already acquired someone to—”
“You know I didn’t have a fucking date. Stop patronizing me.”
My words don’t affect him, but he pretends they do. He leans back and presses his lips into a thin line.
“Do you not think she’s hot?” he asks. “Because she’s gorgeous, Wade.”
“No fucking shit.” I groan in frustration. “She’s my client. I can’t take a client to your wedding. When did we start mixing business and pleasure?”
He grins cheekily. “I’d correlate her with pleasure too.”
I turn away from him before I blow up.
Holt knows my reaction has nothing to do with Dara being a client. Hell, Boone has mixed business and pleasure every day since he was old enough to come to the office and pretend he was working. And Oliver? He married his executive assistant, for heaven’s sake.
Clearly, that’s not the issue.
The real issue is something that Holt doesn’t understand.
I tug at the collar of my shirt. I feel trapped—in my clothes, in the office, and in this fucking situation.
“Hey, if I overstepped …” Holt says.
When I glance at him over my shoulder, my gaze locks with his. His eyes are wary, full of concern, and a streak of sympathy rips through me.
There’s no way he could know.
I pull my chair in front of me and grip the headrest as if my life depends on it. My brain scrambles to unearth an excuse that will make sense.
“She told you that she is Bowery’s granddaughter,” I state.
Holt shrugs. “Yes. So?”
“So what’s going to happen if I take her to this family event, she reads too much into it, and then the project falls through? What happens then? What happens to your relationship with Bowery?”
He sighs and wanders around my office. I’d tell him to stop touching everything if I wasn’t afraid it would distract him from our conversation.
“She’s an adult, Wade. You didn’t invite her.
I did.” He blows out a breath and stops next to a fig tree in the corner.
“Look, by all accounts, I just did her a favor. She wanted an in to the gardens, and I just handed that to her. And she expressed feeling awkward, and I pointed out you would be there. She won’t be in a sea of people she doesn’t know. ”
Dammit.
“Unless something is going on between the two of you that would give her some impression that there’s something more there, I think she’ll understand that this was a professional opportunity.
And,” he continues, “if you think about it like that, this will probably help our situation with Bowery, if anything.”
Not what I wanted to hear. I wanted him to panic and help me find a way out of this.
“I think it’s a terrible idea,” I say through gritted teeth. “And if this does get ugly, you are handling shit with Oliver and Bowery. I’m not.”
“Fine.”
“Fine,” I say back.
My brother stands tall. “I came by to ask you if you’d be up for giving a speech at the reception. I didn’t choose a best man, but I need someone to do the honors before dinner. I thought maybe you would help me with that.”
I release the air out of my lungs.
The hope in Holt’s eyes shines, and I hate that I see it—especially now. And I hate even more that this is happening on the heels of the Dara debacle because it feels like he gets one over on me. Twice.
“Do you think I want to give a speech?” I ask.
He grins. “No.”
“But you asked anyway?”
“Yes, Wade. I asked anyway.”
I hum.
“Just tell me that you’ll do it so I can get back to the office,” he says. “I’m sure you have shit to do too.”
This visit has been nothing but manipulation in its purest form.
“You opted out of being in the wedding,” Holt says. “Surely, you can find it in your cold, black heart to give a speech and pretend you’ve enjoyed being my brother for the past few decades.”
I sit at my desk. “You know, Blaire is making you soft. You used to drive a hard bargain. Now you just get sappy and expect everyone to capitulate to your wishes.”
“Is that a yes?”
My head falls back to the headrest, and I close my eyes. “Yes. Fine. But it’s going to be short. I don’t have a lot to say.”
“I would expect nothing less.”
“Good.” I lift my head. “Now get the hell out of here so I can figure out what just happened.”
“Will do.”
He turns toward the door.
“And Holt?”
“Yeah?”
“Next time—knock.”
He grins before escaping.
As soon as he’s gone, the room feels smaller. Eerily quiet. The energy is definitely stained with the events of the last hour.
I growl, getting to my feet as if I have somewhere to go. But I don’t.
Every cell in my body wants to move, to do—to fix some of the mess I’ve found myself in.
But I don’t know how to fix it.
Dara Alden is a slippery slope. I knew that the day she walked in here spouting off about relational intimacy and giving hugs like they’re free.
Still, I saw her again.
She drove home the potential hurricane my life would become with her in it the day I saw her at the park.
Still, I saw her again.
It was crystal clear at Hillary’s House and even more apparent at the property with the lake.
Still, I saw her again.
I saw her again because she’s embedded herself in the back of my brain like some kind of parasite that I can’t shake. I’m not sure what it is about her that makes me think of her on and off all day.
She’s beautiful. Her smile is infectious. She’s smart and clever and creative.
Everything about her frustrates me. She frustrates me. And now she’s my date to Holt’s wedding.
I run my hands through my hair and tug on the roots.
“I’ll be with her for hours,” I say out loud, trying to work through the situation. “There will be pictures. Dancing.” I tense as the thought of having her in my arms on a dance floor barrels through my brain. “Fuck.”
I’m stopped in my tracks by the sound of the phone buzzing.
“Mr. Mason? Sir?”
“Yes, Eliza,” I say, my tone tense.
“Mr. Correra is on the line for you, sir.”
My body stills as I hear Eliza—maybe for the first time. I hear the caution in her voice, the heavy hesitation. She doesn’t ramble on like her predecessor and doesn’t fumble around for the information she failed to prepare.
Dara is right. Eliza isn’t comfortable, and while I don’t particularly want her that comfortable—comfortable people don’t do their job to the best of their abilities—I also have no interest in her being anxious.
“Eliza?”
“Yes, sir.”
“First of all, please, for the last time, do not call me sir.”
“I’m sorry.”
I sigh and squeeze my temples. “Also …” I grimace. “Thank you for being so efficient.”
The words come out in a rush as if I’m spitting them out to get it over with. Maybe I am. But the fact is that I said them, I meant them, and now she knows.
Even if it was cheesy and ridiculous that I have to be so … whatever that was.
“Wow. Um, thank you, si—Mr. Mason.”
I roll my eyes again. “Can you send the call to my voicemail, please?”
“Absolutely. And, Mr. Mason?”
“Yes, Eliza?”
She pauses, the line crackling. “Thank you for saying that. It really means a lot.”
A brief shot of warmth shoots through my veins, and I try to shake it off. But as I war with the feeling, another one sparks through me too.
Dara is the one who pointed out Eliza’s discomfort.
“Maybe … compliment her occasionally.”
This second sensation is a chill that puts out the heat of the first.
“Your refusal to make your employee feel seen is a reflection of your apparent disregard for intimacy in relationships.”
Whether she was reaching or speaking from a place of understanding, Dara was right. I do have a disregard for intimacy in relationships. The main point being—I don’t want it.
Never again.
But what did Dara mean by that? Was her focus on Eliza as an employee or Eliza as a potential recipient of a relationship with me that would include intimacy?
“Surely not …”
I pace around my office, going back and forth in front of the windows. No matter how I look at it, I can’t conclude anything that I feel good about.
But what if Dara thinks I’m interested in Eliza? What if she thinks I keep Eliza at arm’s length because I’m attracted to her?
The more I think about it, the more it makes sense. And the more it makes sense, the less suffocated I feel about accompanying Dara to Holt’s wedding.
I collapse in my chair. Relief comes in small waves. If Dara thinks I’m into Eliza, then maybe this won’t be as bad as I fear.
I need to think about it more, but this is a start.
My cell phone rings, and I look down to see Boone’s name flashing on the screen.
“What?” I ask in lieu of a formal greeting.
“We are brothers, after all.”
I sigh, the sound filled with exasperation. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m proud of you, Wade. I really am.”
“Boone, I don’t have time for your bullshit today.”
“Imagine my surprise when I heard from a little birdie that you have a smokin’ hot date to Holt’s wedding. I almost couldn’t believe it. But, do you know something? I’ve always suspected that you were a pimp beneath those dorky glasses—”
I hang up the phone.
Then I look at the ceiling and wish for the day to end too.