It had been a week from hell, trying to shake the last of the rotten apples from the Stone company’s family tree, firing a handful of employees from Brooks who couldn’t be trusted to do their jobs efficiently, and dealing with the fact that something was undeniably in Breanne’s perfume because no matter what I did, I couldn’t shake her delicious scent.
She was hypnotically beautiful and carried herself well as a businesswoman, especially since she’d been on fire all week after dealing with the last of her scandalous employees. If Breanne’s no-nonsense demeanor were the only turn-on for me, I’d probably be safe from her charms. Unfortunately, that damn dimpled smile of hers was going to be my undoing if I wasn’t careful.
She was entirely off-limits for a man who had no limits, cares, or concerns about a woman’s feelings when it came to him achieving what he wanted. Instead of saying that Breanne Stone wasn’t my type, it was the other way around—I was not her type. At all. I was a ruthless bastard who was always one step ahead of the hell hounds from my past that haunted me, and I wasn’t wired to care for a woman, no matter their mental state.
Terminating Tish without caring about her excuses, tears, or pathetic expressions while she begged me to give her another chance was proof of the kind of hard-hearted man I was. The woman had been hired to make sure things were handled properly. She obviously didn’t live up to the job description, and her lack of better judgment cost her in the end. Tish had cost this firm money by allowing her sales team to purchase that shitty property. It was negligent, and I didn’t bend when it came to handling employees who didn’t do their fucking jobs proficiently.
Regardless, Tish Dalton and her team were terminated for failing the company in their trusted positions. When they each cried their sad stories, I offered a tissue for their tears in response. That was a fragment of the son of a bitch boss I could be. In my opinion, they could cry on someone else’s shoulder—especially Tish, who spilled her sob story to me as if I were her therapist or as if I fucking cared.
That was the man I was, and that was merely in business. My personal life with women was even worse. It had always been about me and never about them. No matter how hard I tried, I could never manage to care about a woman’s feelings. Until Breanne, and that’s why I was lost as fuck at the moment.
It was not like me to become enamored with any woman, except the one woman I knew I should never be attracted to, apparently. This was as baffling as something breaking the laws of physics. People like me didn’t get the luxury of giving and receiving love. That’d been taken from me when I was a child, so what the fuck was happening?
All I could conclude was this: my olfactory senses had apparently sent a message to my brain stating that my punishment for being a heartless dick was to be enchanted by my new partner, who was all wrong for me.
It’s because you keep smelling her goddamn fragrance, I thought, pissed I’d wasted five minutes of my time thinking like this. Easy fix. I took a tissue from the tissue box, and with my best effort, I blew my nose, hoping to clear my head of the lingering fresh scent of ocean breeze and lilac. To no avail. I was fucked.
Thank God the day was over. It was time I packed up my shit and prepped to head out and meet the guys. Brandt insisted we visit a new club so that Jim and Monroe could see the potential of his buddy’s place. Maybe I’d get lucky, and it would smell like wings, booze, and other fragrances that were potent at a bar. Mainly strong perfume from single women who outdid themselves to meet dudes. Perhaps that’s the way I’d rid myself of these sappy thoughts—pick up a chick, fuck her, send her on her way, and voila, problem solved.
Fat-fucking-chance! I thought to myself when Breanne sent me a text, telling me she was doing well after seeing off Theo and his husband at the airport today. I know for a fact she wouldn’t have sent the message if I didn’t text her two hours ago and ask, but part of me hoped that she would’ve. These were the unfamiliar, shitty emotions I was stuck dealing with. In my former life, I wouldn’t have thought twice about her emotional state after her friend moved, but I texted her and asked because it’d been on my mind all damn day.
I chewed on my bottom lip, mentally willing myself to ignore her text and leave it at that. She was fucking fine, and that’s what I was worried about, right? I studied her text, and because I was seemingly a man cursed by her perfume, I immediately texted her back.
Alex: See you on Monday
Like a schoolboy, I watched the message get marked as read, and she didn’t respond. Instead of letting it go and getting my ass safely around the testosterone of my best friends, I texted again.
Alex: Everything go okay?
When my second message was also ignored, my brain shifted gears, and I got my ass out of the office and walked out to my car. It was nice to take the cover off this bitch, and let its horsepower shake off this woman from my mind. Even Zeus, my cat, was starting to eye me like the bitch I was acting like every night when I got home from work. My own cat was starting to judge me, and if I weren’t careful, his butt would be running over the top of me next. That’s how lame all this shit was. Me, of all the goddamn people, was the victim of that chubby little love cherub, and I had an arrow shot directly up my ass.
Breanne was likely having great difficulty saying goodbye to Theo. Still, after a week of flirty banter, stressful bullshit, trading in her car, and God knows what else she was up against after being robbed by her employees, I couldn’t manage to get her to confide in me.
It was annoying as hell to be unexpectedly attracted to what I couldn’t have, and that’s what all of this boiled down to. I couldn’t have her, so my predatorial instincts wanted her. It would be easily fixed with bourbon, and I couldn’t get one fast enough.
I walked into Roux’s after ensuring my name was on the list, and I sat next to the youngest man in our group, and the reason we were all meeting up at this place tonight.
“Cameron Brandt, this place is garbage,” I teased, opening my menu. “Obviously, Jim and Spence seemed to have come and gone.” I glanced over to the empty seats at the table.
“Too loud for your precious ears?” he smirked, sipping vodka on the rocks.
“You should know more than all of us that sensory overload can cause nervous breakdowns or something.”
“He’s a pediatric neurosurgeon, dip-shit,” Jake, my good friend, and chief cardio surgeon at Saint John’s, said as he took a seat next to me.
“You are a sight for sore eyes.” I smiled at my best friend’s younger brother, feeling like it’d been forever since I’d seen the guy.
“Well, since Jim made sure Collin and I make improvements on our hospital wards, you’re lucky you see my ass at all.” He opened his menu and wrinkled his nose. “Cam,” he called out to the hot-shot playboy doc, who casually sat across from Jake and me. “What’s up with this menu? Don’t invite a cardiovascular surgeon to some deep-fried club unless you want to piss me off.” He smirked.
“The menu for the health-conscious bitches such as yourself can be requested if you’d like. Everything’s vegan on that one.” Cameron laughed, always able to hold his own.
“You see,” I took the bourbon I ordered before arriving at our reserved table, “that’s the first thing I recommend your friend fixes—or whoever the fuck begged you to haul Jim and Spence down here to have Mitchell invest in them. Fix the fucking menu, doc,” I advised with a laugh.
“Vegan menus added?”
“Yeah,” I said, having been down the restaurant and club acquisitions road plenty of times. “This place needs to diversify if they want to stand out. Especially if I’m going to spend fifty bucks to end up going under Jakey’s knife anyway because of all this goddamn grease.”
“Good point,” Cameron said. “You miss it, don’t you? The acquisitions and being Jim’s VP?”
“I guess I kind of do,” I admitted. “However, I don’t miss getting fucked over by a business that is trying to charm us into investing. Who knows, maybe I do miss working side-by-side with the big guy.”
“That’s bullshit. You hardly miss me,” Jim announced as soon as he and Spencer joined us. “I saw the way you were looking at Breanne on Monday.”
“The way I was looking at her? If I had any look on my face, it was because I knew you were thinking that I’m screwing my partner and going to end up sending her packing, Jimbo,” I said as the men sat.
“Tell me you’re not fucking her,” Spencer said.
“No, Spicy Spence,” I smirked. “I’m not. I wish I could say the same for you and your real estate agent, though.”
“How did you hear about Natalia?” Spencer asked with a look of confusion.
“Oh, you know, through pillow talk. It’s insane what you learn from a woman while you’re fucking and not answering an incoming call while in the act.”
“Hold the hell up right this instant,” Cameron interrupted with a laugh. “Natalia Hoover is your real estate agent?”
“That he fucked.” I sipped my bourbon. “How do you know her?” I questioned Cameron’s amused expression.
The woman was hot, and she made it evident that she wasn’t ashamed to explore her sexuality with men, so I shouldn’t have been surprised that more than one man at this table may have something in common with Natalia.
I had to tame this conversation, knowing that Breanne would kill me if I allowed my friends to shame her friend.
“Natalia is Breanne’s best friend, so let’s keep the shit talk to a minimum, or my partner will bust my ass for bringing up Spence’s sex name.”
“How do you know her, Brandt?” Spence’s voice was filled with annoyance.
“I met her at the hospital, Spicy Spence,” Cameron said with a laugh. “Her sister’s son was brought into my trauma unit after he got a concussion in a soccer game.” He smirked at me. “That would be classic, though; Spence and me with the same woman.”
Speaking of the devil, while Spence and Cam teased each other, I saw Natalia at the bar with another woman. I’d seen the other woman with Breanne the week before when I ran into them at the club. She was the one talking to Bree about trying on lingerie.
I couldn’t help but smile at the fact that Spence was about to cross paths with Natalia again, the woman he’d made an ass out of himself in front of while fucking.
“Seriously?” I said to myself with a laugh that the woman was here on the same night we were. “Fucking hell,” I continued as Collin, our neurosurgeon friend and last of our group to join us, sat at the table. “Of all the people…”
Collin laughed. “I’ve missed your sexy ass too, Alex. Thanks for the enthusiastic salutation, though.”
“Natalia is here.” I smiled at Spence’s wide eyes, then scanned the room for the only woman who I actually gave a damn about seeing. “But where is Breanne?” I questioned too loudly.
“Wait,” Collin held up a finger. “I know Jake and I have been out of the loop for a month or so, but you’re actually asking about your business partner’s whereabouts?”
“He’s obviously fucking her,” Jake chimed in.
Between Jake, Collin, and Cameron, any of the three witty doctors would cut to the chase and call a spade on my ass here and now. Jim and Spence would be a little more courteous, given their inherently more reserved nature, but then again, I’d just poked the hornet’s nest with Spence.
I ignored the men when I noticed Breanne’s ex, Max—the douche who’d burned Breanne somehow. Why couldn’t I just interact with my friends like a normal human being? Instead, I was watching every-fucking-move this prick made since he decided to join Breanne’s friends at the bar.
I watched as Breanne’s friends became more and more upset. Natalia eyed Breanne’s ex-fiancé while she covered her heart, and the once-smiling woman’s face fell, and she glared at the dick as if he’d said something brutal. The looks on the two women’s faces told me this dick-bag had likely said something about Breanne, and now my interest was piqued.
I was on the fence about looking like a complete jackass by walking over there, but watching the women becoming so deeply disturbed while I sipped my bourbon didn’t seem cool either. This fucker had said something, and then he had the audacity to smile smugly at me after leaving Breanne’s friends at the bar with their drinks.
“Isn’t that Breanne Stone’s ex-fiancé? Max, I think?” Cameron questioned, seeing her cocksucker of an ex taunting me with his slimy smile.
“How do you know that?” I asked Cameron.
“I was a guest at their almost wedding,” he responded.
“Bride or groom’s side?” Jim teased.
“My date was with the bride’s family,” Cameron sipped his drink.
“Bree mentioned that she fucked him over at their wedding. Is that true?” I asked, seeing Max walk over to the marketing executives for Jim’s toughest competitor.
“At least we have the answer as to why the dick crashed the merge gala. He’s here with the executives of Brakken. That little fucker is a spy for the competition, Mitch,” Spencer said, using the nickname Jim gained while we were in college.
“It’s about goddamn time our conversations move to office gossip and get off our backs for a change,” Collin said to Jake and Cam. The hospital drama tended to dominate all of our conversations. Any time the subject changed to the business sector, Jake, Collin, and Cameron were usually delighted because it meant not having their balls busted as usual.
“What happened at the wedding?” I asked Cameron, knowing I was officially giving away my interest in Breanne, but I didn’t give a shit what my friends thought at the moment.
His eyebrows shot up, and he smirked into his glass. “You wouldn’t believe it. I almost can’t believe it, and I witnessed it.” He leaned forward as if he were about to drop the best story of all time. “Check this shit out. This wedding was stacked with upper elites. Super gorgeous venue, designed like the royal fucking wedding, right? You know the kind of wedding I’m talking about. The place looked like a wedding planner’s wet dream, and it would’ve likely made it into a bridal magazine, too, were it not for the wreckage that took place when we all were prepped to stand for the bride to enter.”
“What the fuck happened?” I asked impatiently, hearing the muffled laughs from the rest of the table.
“The lights dimmed, then the bridal march song came to a screeching halt. After that, a sex tape played—it was like, projected on the wall or whatever. It was of that dirty prick screwing some broad. Everyone was all indignant about it, but I thought the sex tape was the perfect solution for explaining why she wasn’t marrying the cheating dick. Total humiliation.”
“She played it for all of the guests? Oh, my God,” I said with a laugh, oddly proud of her. “She started to bring up her wedding day and the way she ditched that prick at the gala once, but I had no idea the woman was that fucking bold.”
“That’s so fucking badass of her.” Collin laughed, and then he raised the beer he’d ordered. “Cheers to your partner, man. That’s how you get back at a cheating mother fucker.”
“I’ll drink to that.” Jake followed his best friend’s lead and held up his drink.
“I’d love to stick around and toast her bold behavior, but something’s up with that asshole, and the looks on her friend’s faces makes me think that his retaliation may have just come around.”
“Not your business, Alex,” Jim warned. “She’s your partner, not your girl. This will only cause you problems unless she’s worth it.”
Unless she’s worth it? Why were those words so eerily haunting?
“You know,” Collin grinned at me, “just like when you asked if Elena was worth my trouble. The difference was, I knew what I wanted when I went after my little Cuban goddess.”
“You don’t,” Spence confirmed. “That’s written all over your face, my friend.”
“Listen to the bloodhounds, sniffing shit out. I swear these two are goddamn mind readers,” Jake added with a laugh.
“I’ll see you guys in a few.” I looked at Cameron. “First issue is the vegan menus; then, the bar lighting needs a little work. I’ll try out the wings to see if they’re worth the price, or if it’s just a VIP price point.”
“Got it. Spence is getting ready to add his two cents next,” Cameron smirked. “Bottom line is that the chicks are talking about this place, and it’s on fire with reservations. They’re booking a year out unless you know someone personally.”
“That’s never enough when it comes to sparking my interest,” I heard Jim say as I left the table and walked over to Breanne’s friends.
“Natalia Hoover?” I smiled, seeing the woman was in tears, looking at her martini.
“Alex Grayson, right?” the other friend asked, roughness in her tone but set with a determination that I liked.
“Yes, I’m Breanne’s new partner. It looks like the ex she despises has you both a little upset. I just wanted to make sure everything is okay, especially if that prick said something about Breanne.”
“We both just found out that Breanne is selling the loft she designed with her dad. It was a huge deal when he gifted it to her after college graduation. First, she loses her car, and now we’re finding out from that mother fucker about the apartment.” She glared over to where Max stood, watching me talk to the upset ladies. “He put an offer on it. He’s only buying it to rub it in her face, and he wants to insist on a short sale to get her out fast.”
I smiled back at the man as soon as I gained this new information. “Natalia,” I said, turning to her, “I’d like a non-disclosure agreement signed, and then I’m offering to buy Breanne’s place, all cash.”
There was no way in hell I would allow that man to buy her home—the home she loved and was being forced to sell. Fuck that noise. I was an investor anyway, and I knew if she and her father had designed that place, it was golden.
“She’s selling it. I’m not listing it for her. I didn’t even know she was doing this!” Natalia was still in shock. Apparently, Breanne had been keeping financial secrets from her friends too.
“And she’s selling it to me.”
“You can’t buy it,” Natalia said. “That would humiliate her.”
“It’s why I’m demanding an NDA. She will never know who bought her home until the timing is right.” I pointed toward the dickhead ex, who was sitting with a group from Brakken, Mitchell and Associates’ rival corporation. “That son of a bitch isn’t buying her home. He’s done enough to her. I’m offering fifteen million.”
“Fifteen million cash?” she asked, her eyes wide with shock. “Max said he offered five million over her asking price.”
“Which was?”
“He won’t say. The house isn’t an open listing, or I would’ve seen it.”
“Well, it appears that Breanne doesn’t want any of us to know she’s in financial trouble,” I spoke. “Where is she tonight?”
“Sick,” Natalia said. “Really sick.”
“That sounds like another line of bullshit,” I said.
“No, it’s not.” The other woman held out her hand to mine. “My name is Cass. I’ll give you her address, so you can go over there and see for yourself. Then you can nurse our best friend back to health.”
“You just became my new best friend,” I teased.
“We’ll see about that, Mr. Grayson. Breanne has all but had a nervous breakdown since learning her employees have been stealing from her. Then there’s the merge, Theo moving, the mortifying events that would lead you to cast some judgment on her as a shitty executive, and now we are finding out the girl has been paying her company’s bills instead of her own. She’s passed her limit, but she’s a fool if she thinks I don’t know what one plus one equals. She’s trying to play the wrong people.”
I was confused by what Cass was insinuating, but I knew she would tell me. I could quickly tell Cass was pissed about this, and Natalia was broken.
“And who is she trying to play?” I asked with a smile.
“She’s trying to play us: the people who give a damn about her,” Cass said.
“Do you think she’s really sick?”
“I think she’s ducking out and trying to hide her unfortunate situation from all of us so that she can fix things on her own. As I said, I know what adds up and what doesn’t. I know her too well, and while she thinks she’s trying to save us the burden of helping our best friend, what she’s doing is isolating herself, and I won’t fucking stand for that.”
“Isolating herself only to bring in the wolves to prey on her—namely, Max the dick?”
“Exactly. Now, pull it together, Nat,” Cass said as she looked at her upset friend. “Alex is going to help us out a little. Breanne didn’t have you list the property because she’s stubborn.”
“I know. She’s not letting us help her. I can’t blame her, though. The goddamn car I loaned her blew up on her drive home.”
“That was neglect on your part,” Cass said as she rolled her eyes. “Listen, Alex. You’re going to go to the store to buy whatever cold and flu remedies they have, just in case she really is sick. God knows the girl’s immune system has to be shot after everything that’s slammed down on her at once.”
“Got it, cold and flu medicine.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone. “Here’s my contact info. I’m airdropping it to you both so you can accept it. Text me her address.”
“I’m not done yet,” Cass said. I loved the woman’s sass and willingness to put Breanne in her place for her pride and stubbornness and for hiding things from the people she knew would gladly help her. “Get stuff to make her a hot toddy and shut up about whatever old movie she may have paused on the television when you enter the room.” She smiled knowingly at me. “You can be her prince and save her from Max’s shit and from us, kicking her ass for this.”
“Why me?” I asked. While I was more than onboard to do these things, part of me wondered why they were.
Nat had pulled it together by this point. “Because, Alex.” She arched an eyebrow at me. “You’re the hot piece of ass our friend needs to clear up her year-long dry spell.”
“You’re fucking kidding, Natalia,” Cass said with a stare of death.
“Not even a little bit,” she snapped back at her friend. “She needs a good, strong man in bed. Once she breaks that spell, this curse she keeps mentioning should be lifted.”
“Ignore Natalia. Sex is her answer for everything.” Cass shook her head and smiled at me. “This is why you won’t be curing anything for Breanne with sex.”
“After this devious little plan you’ve conjured up, it’s safe to say I’ll be dead before I know what hit me if you find out I hurt your friend.”
“Oh, no. You would know exactly what hit you and what I hit you with.” Cass smirked. “Once you and your gentlemen friends are finished with dinner, it would be nice to have you catch sneaky Bree—who’s been avoiding us all week—in her little lie.”
“So long as Natalia ensures that condo is sold to me and no one else.”
What the fuck was driving me to do this? I was suddenly inclined to work with Breanne’s friends to call her bluff and play these games to show Breanne we cared about her, and no one fucks with her. I was going to ride with the latter half of that. No one fucks with my partner.
Now, I needed to finish this meal so I could leave. I wanted to see Breanne, and I knew I was at the mercy of whatever wrath was on the other side of her door when she opened it. I knew she was trying to do what she thought was right, but Breanne needed to lose the pride.
After hearing about how she put her ex on blast on her wedding day, it started to make sense to me as to why I was instinctively drawn to her. Something about Bree was alluring to me, and it was the woman I hadn’t truly met yet. It was the woman who’d peeked out at me only a few times, and she held the dimpled smile I was falling for. It was that woman who I was drawn to—a woman who’d been freed from hell, and one who was, at her core, beautifully happy.
I was going all-in with her friends, risking her punching me in my balls, to dig up the real Breanne Stone. The woman I knew was hiding behind this beat-up version of herself, and if this girl’s happier and less stressed personality matched that smile, I was fucking done.
I left dinner at around eight and went directly to the store to grab all the cold and flu products I could find, including a vaporizer and ingredients for the ultimate cold and flu remedy, the hot toddy. Breanne Stone would land safely in my arms tonight, and I would have a look at the place I was about to purchase—until, of course, Breanne repurchased it from me when she was financially able. In a perfect world, I’d have nailed this all down by the end of tonight.
