rock. I demand it.” I held out my left hand to Rebecca, Elise’s extremely extroverted work bestie. She turned my hand back and forth so the lights from the bar glinted off the aquamarine. “Well, that’s just gorgeous. I can see why you chose this over a diamond, even though I still love the ring Sam gave me.”
Sam was her high school sweetheart, who she never failed to drop a mention of in every conversation.
“Sersh has never been a diamond girl.” Elise took my hand, studying my rings. “He did good.”
I laughed. “That’s because he let me pick it out.” I picked up my vodka cran with my free hand while my other hand was passed on to Simon, Elise’s other work bestie. They had a habit of going out for drinks after work, and I had a habit of joining them. Since Luca and I were off to Wyoming tomorrow morning, I needed this to relax my jitters.
“The rock is stunning, but I’m disappointed in the sheer lack of romance.” Simon was born in the UK and still had a slight British accent that got thicker when he drank or wanted to sound like a royal, looking down his nose at the commoners.
“I don’t know.” Miles rested his ankle on his knee. “There’s something to be said for grabbing your girl, telling her she belongs to you, and marrying her the first chance you get.”
If only that was how it had happened. Not that I would have agreed to marry Luca for anything other than a favor, but when Miles put it that way, it made the whole thing sound sexy instead of sordid.
Elise raised a brow at Miles. “Is that your plan?”
He lifted his drink. “You know me and plans, Lisie. We don’t mesh. But I’m into Luca’s whole vibe. I respect it.”
I held back the eye roll since I was supposed to be crazy in love. “Let’s see what my father and brother think tomorrow about Luca’s vibe.”
Deciding that surprising them in person was a recipe for disaster, Luca and I had video called my Wyoming family last night. My brother Lock had done a lot of grunting. My dad had gotten eerily quiet. And my sister-in-law Elena had become teary-eyed, which was so not her…which had only made Lock gruntier.
“Luca’s known for his charm,” Elise said. “I’m sure once the shock is gone, they’ll be happy for you.”
“These are ranchers, Lise. They don’t get charmed.” I slugged back my drink and set the empty glass on the table in front of me, signaling our waitress for another. “Anyway, let’s talk about something other than me. I’m tired of being the center of attention.”
Thankfully, Miles steered the conversation to his house, which he declared was a money pit but refused to throw in the towel and sell it.
“Every weekend, I’m scraping shit, pulling up nails. I’ve probably inhaled enough asbestos for ten sets of lungs.” He casually drank his beer as though that wasn’t alarming.
“Asbestos? You’re not serious,” Elise pressed.
He shrugged. “It’s hard to say. I’m definitely inhaling particles of ancient building material.”
“There are masks for that, mate,” Simon quipped.
“That’s it.” Rebecca clapped her hands. “Let’s have a building party. I’ll bring Sam and snacks. Someone else can bring the beer. We’ll knock this thing out in a weekend.”
Miles winced. “It’ll be more like a thousand weekends.”
I waved my hand. “My next few weekends are filled anyway.”
Elise gave me a pointed stare. “What friend are you helping now?”
“How do you know it’s that?”
Her chin lowered. “I know you too well. Out with it.”
I took a long swallow of my fresh drink. “Kenji, my friend from when I lived in Japan—”
“Of course you have a friend in Japan.” Simon twirled his straw in his drink. “Is there a corner of the world you haven’t conquered?”
“Sure there is.” I fluttered my lashes at him. “But it’s only a matter of time.”
Elise rolled her hand. “Get to the point. What are you helping Kenji out with for free when you should be charging him?”
“He’s got this pop-up—” The entire table groaned before I even explained what the pop-up business was. And I got their frustration with me. I was feeling it with myself too.
“You have to charge for your time,” Elise admonished. “How many hours did you spend helping Maritza plan for her gardening shop?”
A lot. If I counted the time I’d given away for free…well, I didn’t mind it. I liked being useful and getting my hands on a new project. But at some point, it turned from offering advice to formulating entire business plans—and that was when it went from helping to being taken advantage of. I was a nice girl, but my niceness only went so far.
“I know, I know. And once I’m done with this pop-up, I’m going to take a step back from free labor. You know, I’ve been thinking about starting a consulting business for years. The prospect is just so daunting to do on my own—”
Miles set his beer down on the table. “I’m in.”
My mouth popped open. “What? You’re in on what?”
“Your business idea. Working at my brother’s company has been a learning experience, but I can’t grow there.” He flicked his hand next to his head before I could formulate a response. “I know, I know. You don’t take me seriously. But the minute you started talking, it clicked. I want in on this.”
Elise looked from Miles to me. “He’s an incredibly talented visual marketer. He won’t let me call him an artist, but he is. Miles is the lead designer of the Andes stores.”
Rebecca and Simon nodded. Since all four of them worked at Andes, Weston’s outdoor apparel company, they would have inside knowledge of Miles’s skill set. If they agreed with Elise’s assessment, I had to believe them.
Elise’s brow pulled into a frown. “Are you serious about leaving Andes?”
“You don’t know what it’s like to live in my brother’s shadow,” Miles said. “I’m ready to have my own thing.”
“Pfft. I don’t know what it’s like? My brother is Elliot Levy, billionaire property genius. Actually, I’m not even certain I know what he does.” Elise tapped her chin like she was thinking.
“But you’ve always done things your way, Lisie. Plus, you don’t work for him.” Miles turned his attention squarely on me. “I do have skills I can bring to the table. If that’s not enough, I have a shitload of money I’ll never be able to spend in this lifetime I also bring with me. What do you say?”
I wasn’t sure how seriously to take him. “Are you pulling my leg?”
“Not at all.” He smoothed his hand down his thigh. “Let’s set a time to sit down and talk at a place that doesn’t involve alcohol. But I’m letting you know now if you’re serious, so am I. This feels right.”
As I sat with the idea and drank yet another vodka cran, running it over in my mind again and again, it strangely felt right to me too.
Holy shit.
Back at home, I lay in bed, still buzzed from my drinks. I was restless. My things were packed for tomorrow. I’d showered and put on pajamas. The condo was still and quiet. This was the perfect spell for my passing out the moment my head hit the pillow, but my thoughts wouldn’t stop racing.
Worries about how my family would take the news weighed on me like bricks.
A fluttering of excitement about possibly starting something with Miles yanked me back up.
The constant gnawing of wondering when Luca would come home ate at me.
We were headed on a four-hour motorcycle ride tomorrow and since I’d rather not end up as roadkill, I needed to be rested.
But I kept circling back to Miles’s offer to be my partner. I was trying really hard to temper my excitement—who knew if it would really happen? But I couldn’t get over the feeling of being in the right place at the right time. So, of course, my mind blasted off with ideas and lists of all the things that would have to get done for us to truly launch a business together.
It was all I could do not to vault out of bed, crack open my laptop, and start typing up a plan.
Fuck. I really needed to get some sleep.
There was one thing that never failed to quiet my mind. Rolling to my side, I opened the drawer of my bedside table and pulled out my favorite vibrator.
An orgasm or two was exactly what I needed.
