5. Hunter

Fresh-cut strawberries, cinnamon, and whipped cream.

The scent of her had been driving me insane from the moment she left. I could still smell it on the sheets the following morning, could smell it on my suit jacket, could smell it on myself before I showered. Every time, it brought me back to her in my bed. Every time, it brought me back to her on the edge of the couch, my fingers inside of her, black satin barely leaving a thing to the imagination. Every time, it made me want her again.

I could smell her even now. Could smell her over the home-broiled stew Mom was making for our monthly family get-together, could smell her over the scent of their dog, could smell her over the baby lotion slathered on my brother's daughter's skin. Her scent was ingrained in me.

I'd see her tomorrow. It would be her first day on the job. She'd confirmed after three emails of me ensuring she would show up. But seeing her tomorrow meant dealing with the growing urge to have her again, and she'd be well within reach.

I wanted to make that sassy mouth useful.

"Isn't that right, Hunter?"

Blinking away the thoughts of Lottie's lips around my cock, I turned toward the voice, spotting my brother leaning against the kitchen counter with a fork between his teeth. "Sure," I said, not really caring about whatever topic they had landed on. I had more important things to think about.

"See, Dad? He can't even fuck, freaking,pay attention," Fred droned, pulling the fork from his teeth and chewing on something.

"You said a bad word," Harvey, his son, giggled. He was old enough now to police his parents. He was somewhere between four and six, though I couldn't quite remember his exact age.

"He's not fit to be running anything. I guarantee you he's lost in thought about some random woman he can't wait to get into bed with."

I narrowed my gaze at him. He was right about one thing and one thing only—I was lost in thought. "Bullshit. That's coming from the guy who nearly lost us the deal with that Australian company."

"Don't swear in front of my kids," Fred snapped.

"You just said fuck."

Harvey giggled again.

"And if I remember correctly, I'm the one who had to pick up the pieces and save the day after you screwed it all up," I continued.

"You always have to bring that up, don't you?" Fred hissed, pushing himself off the counter and taking a step toward me. "Can't ever let me forget the one time I messed up."

"It hasn't even been a year."

"You've made mistakes too, Hunter," he spat. "I'm just nice enough to not throw them in your face every time I see you."

He took a step toward me, his thin frame barely enough to do much damage to me nowadays. "None of them have ever been nearly as bad as yours," I stated.

"Oh yeah? What about when you fucked that secretary over Dad's desk and she drooled all over the Hamilton's paperwork?" Fred's face turned red as he came closer, his son giggling wildly as he ran circles around Mom. I didn't even bother to sit up.

"There were digital copies. It's hardly the same as talking shit about the company we were meant to be acquiring to the goddamn CEO," I retorted. If Fred wasn't so hellbent on kicking me out of the running for taking over the Harris agricultural empire, I might have even felt bad for him.

"I didn't know it was him!"

"Can we please have one family dinner without you boys arguing?" Mom said. She looked straight at me as if I were the problem, one hand on her hip and a metal spoon in the other, that same look on her face that used to be permanent when we were children.

We never got along much then, either. But that was before everything else happened.

"Surely that's directed at Fred," I deadpanned. I was never the one to start the arguments, never the one to cause chaos in front of the one man we needed to suck up to. But here I was, as always, getting the brunt of the blame because I hadn't ‘settled down' like my brother.

"It's directed at both of you," she warned, her nose crinkling as she waved the spoon toward the dining room. "Dinner's ready. Get your asses in seats or you don't get to eat."

————

Dinner was always the same. The only thing that changed was whatever Mom decided to cook. Quiet, idle chatter unless Fred decided to start a war. Fred's son, Harvey, always complaining that he didn't like the food. Fred's daughter, Ivy, inevitably flinging baby food in someone's face or at the wall.

I hated it.

Dad sat at the head of the table, his usual spot. On his right was Mom. Fred's wife, Penelope, sat next to her children and husband, always fairly quiet and staying out of any drama.

I, ever the black sheep of the family, sat at the complete opposite end from my father.

Normally during our family dinners, I'd find something to keep my mind occupied so I didn't have to talk about business or Fred's ineptitude. Today, though, I had two choices: think about my brother and his dogshit ability to run the Harris agricultural empire; or end up with a raging hard-on from thinking about Lottie, which seemed all my mind was capable of doing lately.

Fred it was.

He had no business running the company. He'd always been Dad's right-hand man, always the secretary to the leader. He didn't dabble in actual business dealings very often, not on the level that I did. I'd been given portions of the company to run entirely by myself, and I'd excelled at every single one of them, bringing in more profits than we'd seen in years. Fred was good at paperwork and not much else.

But he was older than me by three years. He believed he had a claim on it by birthright, and goddammit, he'd do whatever it took to achieve that claim. Even if that meant the business crumbling to pieces, us losing every billion along with it.

"Hunter," Dad said, his voice booming in a way I'd not heard since I was a child. It made me jump, pulling me from my thoughts and nearly making me drop my spoon into my bowl of stew.

"Yes?"

"Were you listening?"

"No," I admitted. "Sorry. What did I miss?"

"I said I'm retiring," he replied, deep brown eyes fixed on me in a way that made my stomach churn. The potato in my mouth suddenly felt like sand.

Retiring.

My mind began to race. I hadn't expected it to come so soon—he was only in his early sixties, still loved working, still ran the show like a champ. Every plan I'd ever had to convince him to give me the business over my brother slammed to the front of my mind—a hodgepodge of half-baked ideas that needed sorting. I had to fast-track this. I had to figure it out now rather than later.

"Don't tell me you're going to make Fred the CEO." The words fell out before I could stop them, a thought I'd meant to keep to myself. The adrenaline had gotten the better of me.

Dad cleared his throat, his brows lowering. "Son," he said. He set down his utensils and smoothed his napkin in his lap. "You know I have full faith in you running your side of the business. But Fred is a family man and he's settled, he's not nearly as much of a liability."

The world turned on its fucking axis.

"Fred will likely take over as CEO," he continued, but the words sounded muffled, like they were being spoken in a tunnel or underwater.

My brother turned to me with the snakiest grin I'd ever seen on his face. It set me on fire in the worst way imaginable, that horrible, gut-wrenching sear that made me want to scream. I didn't have anything to say. Not in that moment and maybe not ever.

The conversation continued without me, leaving me in the muddied waters, and all I could do was stare at my food. Muffled words about retirement partiesand cruise linersfiltered in, but they seemed too far away to comprehend. I felt completely unattached.

There had to be something I could do. Something to show my father that I was as good as Fred, that I could be calm and settled too.

As if she had appeared in my bowl of stew, the idea hit me in an instant.

I knew the perfect woman for the job.