2. Two
Two
Payton
I ’m going to kill Harlowe. She’s asked me to meet her at a place called the fucking Unicorn Café on a Saturday morning in June. I should be at the coast escaping the oppressive heat and humidity of Atlanta, but she won’t take no for an answer.
My phone vibrates in my pocket as I open the door and get a welcome blast of icy air conditioning in the face. My eyes adjust from the blazing sunshine outside and aqua blue immediately assaults my senses. Blue and white flowers decorate the ceiling and cascade down the walls above the aqua bench seating, with marble tables set at intervals along the periphery. I blink back my surprise as a giant carousel unicorn greets me at the entrance, a bemused smile on my lips.
“Fucking Harlowe.” I laugh to myself as I scan the packed café for her.
She picked the girliest shit imaginable for whatever she has planned, which I suspect is devious. I don't see Harlowe’s tall stature and supermodel face anywhere as I walk up to the pastry counter and scan the menu on the back wall. Every item is called something enchanted, magical, whimsical, or some shit that makes you wonder what they could possibly put in it. Sprinkles and rainbows, most likely. It’ll be a slow death for Harlowe, I decide. Something befitting the lack of normal coffee on the menu. I don’t care if she’s married to my brother or the mother of his children. This is a serious offense.
My pocket vibrates again and I pull out my phone to see a few texts from my brothers.
Zander: RUN. Harlowe’s scheming. This meetup is a trap. She’s going to ambush you.
Hayes: HAHA! I love this for you, Pay. You’re fucked.
Zander: I tried to stall, to give you time to escape. I fucked her into a puddle of submission, but she’s still intent on whatever plan she has to wife you up.
Hayes: This is the group chat, Zand. We don’t want to hear about your sex life.
Zander: It’s inspo, Hater. Pay, you have thirty minutes. Make up an excuse to leave. Save yourself before it’s too late.
Yeah, no shit. I type out a quick reply as I chuckle quietly. His wife’s a scheming woman intent on seeing my single days end because she’s enjoying matrimonial bliss and thinks me being unattached is an atrocity to the family name. But I’m just as stubborn as she is.
Me: She’s been trying to set me up for two weeks and I’ve managed to evade her attempts. If I can maintain our company image through a mine collapse, having our asses handed to us through public smear campaigns and cyber attacks, I think I’ll hold my own against your wife.
I snap a photo of the gold filigree menu board with the frou-frou drink names and the flowers dripping around it and send it to the chat.
Me: Your wife has horrible taste in cafés. This place sucks.
My phone vibrates a moment later.
Zander: That’s her favorite café. Don't say it sucks or she’ll cut you. Again, RUN.
Hayes: Paige loves their high tea. I refuse to go in. You’re a braver man than me, brother.
I pocket my phone, head to the counter, and smile disarmingly. “Do you make a drink that’s not enchanted? Maybe something befitting an ogre who drinks regular old swamp water or something rather than a pretty princess who wants rainbow sprinkles in their coffee?” I ask the woman in an emerald green dress and—no shit, a sparkly tiara—behind the counter.
She blinks at me and blushes. “Everything on the menu is magical. I can help you pick something if you tell me what you like. To drink, that is,” she says, looking away quickly, flustered by her innocent slipup.
I smile wider and lean toward her, wanting to play with her, but she's already flustered because she finds me attractive and I should go easy on her. “How about a plain iced Americano,” I say to put her out of her misery.
“We have an enchanted Americano. It has cinnamon and nutmeg with a golden cold foam topper.”
I suppress a grimace at her description of the bastardized drink and smile again to keep from showing my bad luck. Harlowe owes me for this. “Why not? I’ll live on the magical side and try something new.”
I hand over my black AMEX as more customers line up behind me, waiting to order their drinks. No surprise, it’s mostly women and girls. I’m one of the only males in the place, and the others are clearly here by force of their partners or daughters.
I give my name before turning away from the counter and discovering my next issue. This café is packed. Groups of women are having tea parties, or taking photos of their aesthetic food and drinks on the tables to post on their socials before they take their first sip or bite. Making pretty drinks and food that customers take photos of and post to their feeds is a great PR move by the café. No wonder Harlowe loves it, being a social media foodie and chef herself.
“Enchanted Americano for Payton. ”
I look back at the counter where the barista placed my drink. It’s in a tall glass with a gold-tinted foam at the top sprinkled with cinnamon. I suppress a gag. I take it with trepidation and walk to a table I spotted earlier.
I slide in next to a woman wearing a pink Yankees baseball cap pulled low over her face. Her blonde hair is in a low bun held up by a pen in a way that strikes me as too sexy for how casual it is. It shows off the graceful slope of her neck, looking perfect to stroke a finger along as a reminder for her to relax. She has earbuds in, intently focused, and furiously typing on a laptop. She’s been here for a while, evidenced by the debris of a half-eaten chocolate chip muffin, two glasses—one empty, the other half-full of an iced coffee—and a few crumpled napkins around her computer.
She stands out as the only person working on a computer. This place is obviously a photo op, not used for work, and seeing her with a laptop out on a Saturday while other patrons are here for aesthetic reasons intrigues me. That and it’s the only available spot. Maybe her intense work vibes scared off anyone from taking the table. She doesn't scare me. I work more Saturdays than not myself.
I take a small sip of the Americano and suppress the urge to make a face when I taste the additions that earned it the enchanted moniker. I sigh. It’s the only caffeine I’m getting that won’t come in a teacup or covered in sprinkles. This place is fucking ridiculous. I'll give Harlowe such a hard time when she gets here. I take another sip of the abomination and shudder. It's a travesty to coffee.
A frustrated grunt catches my attention. I look over at the blonde who’s staring in frustration at her laptop, face set in a scowl as the screen displays a page of frozen code instead of whatever she was working on. She taps her fingers on her trackpad, looking for a way to remove it, but can't get the code to go away. She rubs her face and blows out an angry breath. I watch curiously as she inhales deeply and balls her fists. I can almost hear the silent conversation she has with herself to calm down and approach the situation with patience while she slowly blows out her breath. When her eyes snap open, I know her internal pep talk did nothing to quell the storm of violence she wants to rain down on the misbehaving laptop.
I smile to myself as she quietly starts to lose her shit, smacking the keyboard, clicking on the trackpad, and even hitting the power button, to no avail. The code has frozen her screen, keeping her from her work.
“Come on, you piece of crap,” she mutters, clearly vexed, seeming ready to throw the laptop on the floor at this point. Maybe with the amount of caffeine she’s had, she will.
I could fix this for her. It would be so easy. I saw the solution the moment I looked over at her screen. My smile slides off as she wraps her small hands around the laptop and lifts it. Fuck, she’s about to hurl it onto the floor. I quickly place my hand over one of hers to stop the motion, forcing the laptop safely back onto the table.
“I can help,” I say gently, holding back my grin, not wanting to laugh at her tantrum over her tech issue.
She looks up, pretty hazel eyes widening as they lock on mine, plump pink lips that were just set in an angry snarl parting in shock. Something flares behind her assessing gaze, whether in recognition or maybe interest, I’m not sure. She’s difficult to decipher at the moment, and that’s intriguing since I typically read others at a glance. Her eyes roam over my face quickly, taking me in and gauging whatever threat I may present. She lets go of the laptop with the hand not caught under mine and pulls the earbuds out of her ears .
“What did you say?” Her words are clipped. Her attitude meant to end the conversation as she stares me down, unafraid of offending me by not capitulating to the expected niceties of the situation.
“I can help,” I repeat, smiling in earnest at her frigid response. I like a challenge, and, oh boy, is this woman a fucking challenge.
Warily, she unclenches her hand from the laptop and slides it out from under my palm. I liked the warmth of her smaller fingers under mine, so I kept my hand over hers under the guise of preventing a technological travesty. I do hate when people blame a computer for what amounts to user error, but it was nice. It’s also been a while since I’ve touched someone like that. Maybe too long if I’m getting off on manipulating a situation like this.
“Why would you do that?” she drawls, clearly from the South, but not Atlanta, and she’s certainly not charmed by me. She’s wary of my offer and unafraid to question it. She frowns at the laptop, giving the screen of code a dirty look, her fuller bottom lip pouting a bit. I suppress my smile at her hatred. She doesn’t have a great relationship with this machine.
“You’re clearly working and need a functional laptop. I can fix your issue and get you back on task. If you have to work on a Saturday, you might as well get it done as quickly as possible so you can continue with the rest of your weekend.” I attempt to keep the humor out of my tone as I gesture at her laptop. “Mind if I borrow this?”
“If you can get this stupid thing to work and get me back to my story so I can meet my deadline, go ahead. Whatever you do, don’t lose my work. I need everything that was on that screen before this piece of crap wanted to act a fool. It’s been janky since I got it,” she grumbles, confirming my theory that she’s not a fan of the laptop. She huffs and flops back against the seat, crossing her arms over her chest, her tan skin standing out against her white tank top.
“Story and deadline. I’m going to take a guess and say journalist or marketing job of some sort?” I ask, picking up her laptop and setting it in front of me.
“The former. My editor assigned me a story last minute that needs to be in today because of course he’d give the youngest reporter the shittiest story with the quickest turnaround time over the weekend along with the oldest laptop that hates me.”
I stifle my laugh at her explanation as I type in a series of keystrokes and pop up a command prompt box. “It’s not the worst computer I’ve used,” I offer to soothe her worries.
My fingers fly over the keyboard, typing in familiar code sequences and prompts and quickly scanning the returning messages for errors. This is a piece of cake. She has nothing to worry about. Her laptop has plenty of life left for her to continue a long, dysfunctional relationship with it.
“I didn't realize you’re so tech-savvy,” she says, then snaps her mouth shut and straightens up as if she didn't mean to say the thought out loud.
I glance over quickly. She sits rigidly, tension radiating from her as I work on her computer. I smile politely, hoping to disarm her, but I’m quickly assessing the situation, figuring out what she knows. She’s a journalist and I'm a person of interest. A billionaire. A high-profile businessman who’s well-known in this city.
“I guess I’m at a disadvantage here. It sounds like you know more about me than I do about you, despite just sitting down next to you and offering to help when I noticed you were in computer-related distress. How about you put us on even footing while I fix your laptop?” I still my fingers to show her I can just as easily stop my attempt at fixing her problem and leave her to it, or I can save the day and get her back to making her deadline.
Panic crosses her features as she quickly understands my meaning. Her eyes dart to the laptop and back to my face before she gives me a look of resignation, her mouth settling into a line of grim determination and a pink tint rising in her cheeks. The rosy flush sets off her smooth skin, hazel eyes flashing at me, and those damn alluring lips that she’s twisting together under my appraisal. She rolls her eyes and huffs, making a motion for me to continue my ministrations with her laptop.
“I’m Ainsley Montgomery, a staff reporter for the Gazette, a small community paper. I know you’re Payton Olsen of Olympus International fame because I occasionally write articles for the business section, and Olympus comes up often. Well, I write whatever my editor tells me to, which is basically everything because he dumps extra work on me due to the paper being underfunded and understaffed.”
As soon as she starts talking I begin writing code for a program that will initiate anytime she types my name and continue until she stops. “That wasn’t so hard, was it, Ainsley Montgomery?” I drawl, liking the sound of her name in my mouth. “Now, where are you from? Doesn't sound like Atlanta by your accent.” I hold my fingers over the keyboard again, prompting her to continue before I free her laptop from the clutches of her code issue.
She bites her lip and stares at my fingers. I want to reach out and free that soft lip from her teeth, but I keep my hands just out of reach of the keyboard she wants me so desperately to type on. Her eyes narrow like she’s willing my fingers to move without having to give more away than necessary about herself. Tricky girl. I wiggle my fingers at her as a taunt. She brings her gaze up to mine and I smile at the frustration I see snapping in her amber depths. She’s a prickly one. It’s adorably at odds with her pretty pink pout and hat.
“Charleston, South Carolina.” She sighs. No extra information. Just the bare bones provided in resignation. I only have time to type one line of code this time. I’m thankful for my quick typing skills to manage even that.
“Come on, if I’m fixing your computer and you’re putting us on even footing given you know way more about me, you’re going to have to give me more than that. Why are you working in a café where people prefer to take photos of their magical lattes than drink them?” I prompt.
Her shoulders lower a fraction at the simple question. Her eyes meet mine again but with less hostility this time. “I like the chaos. It drowns out the noise in my brain and helps me think. This place is always busy on the weekends, and I can get lost in the people and shuffle.”
I complete more code while she speaks and stop when she does. “What do you like to write about most?”
“I like human interest stories. Things that give insight into who someone is behind the facade and public persona.” She inhales deeply and lets out a sigh as she looks around the café. “This is pointless. If that laptop is dead, just say so and stop wasting your time. I’ll call my editor and tell him this shitty hand-me-down kicked the bucket and cost him my story, and I’ll go home.”
“Don’t count this dinosaur out just yet,” I tell her playfully, typing in my final series of code that will complete my hastily created—but brilliant if I do say so myself—program and issue commands to finish the sequence, watching as a series of pages flash across the screen, replacing the code .
She leans toward me, gaping at the laptop as her document finally appears, just as it was when the code originally popped up. “You fixed it!” she quietly exclaims, her face lighting up with a brilliant smile that should be seen more often because it’s absolutely stunning. She could get people to do anything she wanted just by flashing that gorgeous grin. It’d be a dangerous asset if deployed correctly, yet she chooses hostility and contention. Interesting.
Ainsley Montgomery just became a puzzle I want to solve.
I don't tell her I had the issue fixed with the second command I typed on her laptop and was using the rest of the time to create a program that will initiate if she types my name. I type a final command and close the prompt box before handing the laptop back to her, regretting having finished the task and likely ending our interaction. There’s no reason for someone young, beautiful, and busy like her to talk to me now. But she’ll certainly be reminded of this interaction should I come up in her writing in the future, and that makes me unreasonably happy.
She takes the laptop reverently and sets it back on her table, still smiling as she scrolls through her document, checking to be sure everything she wrote is still there. She hits the save button three times, her eyes narrowed like she doesn’t trust it to do as she asks.
“You only need to save it once, but if it makes you feel better to do it multiple times, you can.” I laugh.
“Better safe than swearing,” she replies seriously. She looks over at me, and her cheeks stain pink once again as she fidgets against the aqua velvet of the banquette. “Um, thanks for the help. I don't know what I would've done if this laptop had died on me and taken my story with it. I would’ve missed my deadline for sure. Maybe given up completely.” She rolls her lip with her teeth and looks down.
“You would have been fine,” I assure her. “You strike me as the industrious sort and would have come up with a solution to your problem that didn't involve throwing the laptop on the ground in a fit of anger.” I can’t help the laugh that breaks out of me this time, remembering how cute she was as she lost her shit and lifted the laptop to do just that. She has so much personality and I've barely broken the surface.
“I was about to before you intervened,” she admits, propping her elbows on the table and hiding her face in her hands.
I restrain myself from reaching out and tugging her hands away from her gorgeous face. That would be something a more familiar person would do, not a perfect stranger like me should. Instead, I lean back and silently watch her, waiting to see if she’ll look over again, or if she’ll take this as her out and get back to work on her story.
A moment later, she drops her hands and glances over at me, her face a mask of anger I wasn’t expecting to see. She sees my casual posture and leans back to match me.
“How am I supposed to repay this act of generosity?” she snaps.
I raise an eyebrow at her tone and resist the urge to bring out more of the brat in her for fun. “That’s assuming I was expecting you to repay it in the first place instead of helping because I could without any ulterior motives.”
“People don’t do nice things for strangers. There’s always some kind of expectation, insidious or blatant.”
She’s sassy and I like it. I want more of her.
“Look at you, pulling out your fancy journalist vocabulary trying to figure out my motives. I helped you when you needed it because I have the skills to do so. That's it.”
I run a hand through my hair and give her a look I hope conveys I purely wanted to help. She narrows her eyes, so I roll mine at her and laugh. She huffs in indignation.
“Just take the help when someone offers. Why question everything?” I straighten abruptly. She sits up quickly, mirroring my movements while appearing uneasy. “Unless you want to owe me a favor, Ainsley Montgomery.” I pin her with a calculating stare, knowing it’s far more intense than anything I’ve sent her way this entire exchange. She squirms under the scrutiny.
“That sounds like a motive to me, Payton,” she fires back.
Fuck, she’s feisty. I like the roiling energy she matches to my easy enthusiasm. I lean my arm on the back of the banquette, entering her space. She refuses to give up an inch of her position, allowing me closer. I breathe in the sweet scent of vanilla and coffee coming from her that smells better than the blasphemous Americano I was drinking. I should start every morning with a hit of her.
“What’ll it be?” I ask softly, instead of letting my mind wander to the what-ifs and remote possibilities. “Take it as something nice a person did for you, or you’re now beholden to me for an unspecified favor of my choosing.”
Her choice will say a lot about how she views the world. She’s already told me plenty just by insisting that strangers don't do nice things for others out of the goodness of their hearts. She expects there to always be a catch. Despite her assumptions, I had no ulterior motives when I offered to help her. But if she willingly chooses to owe me a favor when given the option to accept that it was good luck that I happened to sit down next to her and could fix her tech issue, well then, that seems to be my own good luck. If fate wants to tie Ainsley Montgomery to me so easily, why the hell would I turn that down? I’m an opportunist to my core, and I like the idea of more time with her for some reason.
“Why would I agree to an unspecified favor of your choosing? There are too many uncertain terms in that phrase. I’d be stupid to agree to that.”
She crosses her arms over her chest, drawing my attention to her perky tits that are now straining under the white cotton of her tank top. I look away at the busy café. I have no business checking out the chest of a beautiful woman who has to be a decade younger than me. I’m usually better than that, but I’m unreasonably attracted to her. There’s no denying that she’s my physical ideal from top to bottom, and her attitude has me itching to teach her a lesson on what bratting this hard will get her with me. Apparently, it’s been too long since I’ve exercised my desires thoroughly to ignore the spike of want for her that’s risen in me. I return my gaze once I’m back in control.
“I didn’t say you have to. The choice is yours.” I reach out and playfully tip the bill of her hat up, and she swats at my hand.
“It’s not much of a choice,” she says, adjusting the hat on her head. “I owe you for fixing my computer. I just don’t like your terms. I need them defined in order to agree. Or at least to understand the level of the favor that’s required.”
“I saved your ass today,” I point out as I tip my head at her.
I’m arguing a point I hadn’t even wanted to originally, but now think is hilarious as she takes us down this route when she could have avoided it altogether. I have no problem stirring the pot when presented with the opportunity. Ainsley just happened to give me a very tempting pot.
She bites her lip and narrows her eyes at me, and this time, I can’t stop myself from reaching out to grab her chin gently, using my thumb to pull her lip from between her teeth. Her eyes grow wide as I tap the plump pink softness once before releasing her face.
“You abuse that poor lip when you’re thinking. It’s not nice to do that to something so pretty.” I smile and lace my fingers in my lap to keep them to myself. The last thing I need to be doing is touching a stranger, flirty banter or not. Especially not a journalist who writes about my company. She’ll likely use this interaction against me the next time she’s given an assignment on Olympus. I can see the headlines now, Olympus COO manhandles strangers in cafés off the clock . Just what Olympus needs. I have to rein in my desire to flirt with her for the hell of it. Flirting with everyone may be my go-to and ingrained in my personality, but it doesn't have to get me into trouble when I need it the least.
Her cheeks flush, but she doesn’t look away, her gaze fierce and determined. “Fine. I owe you a favor. I hate that you’re being super vague on purpose and seem to enjoy my displeasure about not knowing your terms of what that means. I don’t like the idea of you fixing my computer and not expecting anything from it even more. I’d feel worse about that.”
My brows rise at her agreement and my heart soars as I study her for a moment. “You’re an enigma, Ainsley Montgomery. Most would’ve taken the help and moved on without another thought. You choose to owe me an unspecified favor. What’s wrong with you?” I chuckle at her look of rebuke at my question.
“Nothing’s wrong with me. I just know the world always expects its pound of flesh. If I didn’t pay you back for this, there would be something far worse waiting for me. Why do you keep saying my full name like that?”
“That’s such a morbid way of looking at life. I say your full name because that’s how you introduced yourself and I like the way it sounds. ”
“Do you always say everything you think?” she growls, pressing her arms tighter against her chest as she grows exasperated, closing herself in more.
I suppress another smile. She has no fucking idea. I haven’t said even a quarter of what I’ve been thinking. “Are you surprised that people can be honest and unfiltered when you keep yourself guarded with this prickly persona for whatever reason?” I challenge back.
She drops her arms to her sides, her hands in fists. “I’m not prickly.”
I grin at her with amusement until she drops her gaze.
“I’m just annoyed by you,” she admits quietly.
I raise my eyebrows in mock surprise. “How very annoying of me to offer help when you needed it the most. If there were even one other free table in this café, I’d take my annoying self away and let you brood in peace over your work that you seem intent on ignoring.”
She glares at me. “I’m not ignoring my work. You’re distracting me.” She narrows her eyes at me. “Why are you here, anyway? This doesn’t seem like your type of place unless you’re a secret unicorn and magical coffee lover.”
I shudder, shaking my head. “Definitely not. This place is horrible. I’m meeting my sister-in-law here. She picked the spot and has terrible taste, but she’s running late, so I get to annoy you by fixing your laptop while I wait. I’m going to need your contact details. Your phone number and email. Probably your address as well.”
“What, why?” she sputters, her hazel eyes widening in horror, making me laugh at her disproportionate reaction.
“For my unspecified favor that I can call in at any time. I need to be able to contact you somehow. Texting or calling is the obvious option, but if you don’t reply, I’d email. If you don’t respond to that, I’d take it upon myself to show up where you live to cash in on that favor. You’ve already told me where you work, so I could just show up there if you’re extra tricky.”
She gapes at me. “You’re insane. You’d stalk me just to call in a favor ?”
“It’s not stalking if I tell you my plans in advance. Besides, you’re the one who chose to owe me the favor and made it that much more appealing. I just want to make sure you’ll hold up your end of the bargain when it comes time to pay up. And don't get any ideas about going back on it now.”
“I would never. ” She leans toward me, her eyes flashing with contempt that I would even insinuate that she would back out.
I fish my phone out of my pocket and open my contacts before holding it out for her to fill in her information. “We’re going to be good friends, Ainsley Montgomery. You’re going to love having me in your life,” I promise with enthusiasm. This is so much fun. I like getting under her skin. It’s so easy.
She takes the phone warily and stares at me. “You’re not at all like I expected.” She types in her contact details and hands the phone back to me with a scowl.
“Oh, Ainsley, you can’t say something like that and not elaborate. What did you expect of me, exactly?” I lean forward eagerly, ready to hear what she has to say.