Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Luke

R ay, my business partner, knocked and plunged into the office before I could invite him in. “Ridgemont Development just signed with us,” he blurted. “They’re planning to go all green for their new neighborhoods.”

“That’s great, Ray.” My gaze was still glued to the office window. I wasn’t easily distracted, but this morning, something in the square below had caught my attention. Kiosks and rolling carts, offering a variety of things from mocha cappuccinos to spinach and mango smoothies, surrounded a large fountain with three lion heads shooting water from their mouths into a pool of sea green tile. People sat around the base of the fountain, enjoying the cooling mist while finishing their morning breaks. A group of pigeons waited anxiously nearby, hoping a muffin or croissant crumb would tumble their way. But it wasn’t the ferocious, water-spitting lions or the people scrolling through their phones and finishing their blueberry muffins that had my attention.

“Hey, Ray, is that the usual woman running the coffee cart this morning?”

Ray huffed in aggravation behind me. “I come in to let you know we just signed a huge contract, and you’re asking about the coffee girl?” He pressed his face to the window and looked down into the square. “The blonde? She’s cute, but I had to stop buying those coffees.” He patted the soft pile of dough hanging over his belt. “They were making me fat.”

I laughed. “And here I thought it was those five-course lunches you were eating down at Luisa’s Italian Bistro.”

“Yeah, yeah, I should probably cut those out, too.” He glanced my way with apparent disgust. “We can’t all have rock-hard abs. I’m going to get the contracts over to the legal office for a once-over before you sign them.”

I nodded absently. My gaze was still riveted to the window. For the past hour, there had been an unusually long line at the coffee cart, and the woman, petite with silky blonde hair piled up in a loose bun at the back of her head, raced around to fill orders. More and more pale gold strands came loose from the bun as she hurried back and forth behind the cart.

“Luke—” Ray’s voice broke through my trance. I finally pulled my eyes from the window.

“Boy, you really don’t have your head in the game this morning. I guess your sister’s wedding and the prospect of hanging out with the whole Greyson clan has gotten to you.”

“Yeah, should be a hoot,” I said, wryly. “Always look forward to being cornered by my mom and grilled about my love life.” I moved some papers around my desk, hoping to give Ray the hint that I needed to get back to work. I was worried about the wedding, but not for the reasons he thought. I picked up a folder as if it was something important and crucial, but it was only last month’s office utility bills. “Like you said—time to get my head back in the game. Great news about Ridgemont Development, Ray.”

Ray could be dense, but he took the hint and walked out, but not before insisting on a fist bump over the new contract. It was a big deal, after all.

No sooner had he walked out than Rosalie, my assistant, popped her head into the office. “Your sister is on line three, and are you ordering anything from the lunch truck?”

“Not today. Thanks, Rosie.” She closed the door, and I picked up the phone. “Hey Rachel, how’s it going?”

There was a long pause.

“Rach?”

“Mom is driving me nuts, but then, what else is new? I can’t wait for you to get here so she can focus all her annoying attention on you. And the wedding is a disaster. The linen colors are all wrong. We wanted seafoam green, and they sent—gosh, I don’t know what you’d even call it—neon chartreuse comes to mind. The caterer couldn’t get enough squab for three hundred guests, so we’re switching to prime rib?—”

“Whoa, whoa there, sis. Now, why don’t you tell me what’s really wrong?”

“You’ve never been married, Luke. These are all calamitous in the world of weddings.”

“The important thing is—are you excited to be marrying David?”

She huffed loudly into the phone. “Here we go again. My weekly Lucas Greyson therapy session. David is fine.”

“David is fine,” I repeated. “Do you hear that? When I ask you about David you say he’s fine, like you’re settling for just any man as long as he has an important family name and an eight-figure bank account.”

“Those last two qualifications are nothing to sneeze at. You know Dad would never let me marry anyone outside of our social circle. David ticks all the boxes.”

I laughed. “Well shame on me for thinking this wasn’t a match made in heaven. After all, he ticks the boxes.”

“I called you so I could rant about Mom and my wedding problems, and this is what I get?”

“Sorry, you’re right. There. Putting on my supportive big brother hat. What can I do to help? Although I don’t have any seafoam linen or squab lying around, so you’re on your own there.”

Another pause and this one I could feel deep in my chest. Rachel had been dating David Whitford for three years. Our dad, Marcus Greyson, and David’s dad had basically arranged the relationship and subsequent marriage. The Greysons were in shipping (old money) and the Whitfords were in steel (not old money but old enough, according to our dad)— a perfect match , in their eyes. I just wasn’t convinced that Rachel agreed.

“You don’t have to go through with it,” I said.

“Oh, stop. It’s fine. I’m fine.”

“‘Fine’ seems to be a heavy word in your vocabulary today. It’s a great word that goes right along with words like ‘nice’ and ‘good’ and ‘fair.’”

“And here I was calling you to give you a warning—” Rachel said tersely. “Now, I’ll just leave you hanging, and you can figure out what I was going to warn you about.”

My gaze drifted back toward the square. Morning break was over, and most people had returned to their offices. The woman behind the coffee cart was taking a much-earned breather as she scrolled through her phone. My mind instantly shot to the notion of her texting a boyfriend or lover, and for some inexplicable reason, I felt a tug of jealousy.

“Mom’s trying to set me up with someone,” I said, returning to the conversation.

“Darn. You knew.”

“No, but I do now.”

“Well, then, I should sweeten the news by telling you she and Alexandria’s mom are already picking out wedding colors. Alex is actually a lovely woman; snobby, of course, but smart and beautiful. You might actually like her.”

“I already don’t, because she comes recommended by Mom.”

“Well, got another call coming through. I’m waiting to hear from the florist. She was having a hard time getting enough white roses for the table settings. Ugh, never again. Next time, I elope.”

“Says a lot about this marriage when you’re already talking about next time,” I said.

“I’m hanging up now because you apparently put your obnoxious big brother hat on today, instead of your supportive one.”

“I’m sorry, Rach. I’ll see you soon.”

“Yes, I should be just a step from the madhouse by then. Goodbye. Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

Ray was right. I really wasn’t in a working mood today. I got up to head out for a walk to clear my head. Admittedly, the pretty, energetic barista was part of my motive for heading outside.

My assistant, Rosalie, or Rosie, as I called her, was a dynamo. People in the office referred to her as the Energizer Bunny on jet fuel. She handled everything with efficiency and ran her own life the same way, especially when it came to her health habits. She always spent her lunch break at the gym on the corner, and she woke up every morning at five for a run. She was equally regimented with her food. She kept a digital scale in her desk drawer to weigh out her snack, raw almonds, to make sure she didn’t eat too many. I could tell the day of the week by what she ate at lunch—a Cobb salad with low-fat dressing on Monday. Tuesday was a dry chicken breast with broccoli, and the meals only got more drab from there. Rosie prided herself on extreme self-control, even keeping a glass candy dish on her desk, filled to the top with M&M’s. Visitors could help themselves. I’d dipped my hand in there on more than one occasion, but I’d yet to see Rosie take even one candy from the bowl. Which was why I was in a state of shock when I stepped into the front office and caught Rosie in the middle of taking a bite of a small, sticky-looking cake. She didn’t notice me at first and looked up from the bite as I reached her desk. She wiped quickly at the white cream on her bottom lip. There were what seemed to be tears in her eyes, but they were tears of joy, not sadness.

She swallowed hard, as if knowing she’d just committed a terrible sin but couldn’t do anything to stop herself. “The woman was giving them away at the coffee cart. I thought I’d grab one and, you know, just inhale the sweet scent for the day before tossing it in the trash.” She looked at the last half of the small cake sitting on a brown napkin with the coffee cart logo. “It’s the best thing I’ve tasted in a long time.” Considering her strict, low-fat, low-carb diet, that wasn’t saying much, but I’d never seen Rosie lose her self-control.

With great hesitancy, she pushed the remaining cake away. “I’ll have to do an extra spin class this week,” she told herself.

“Rosie, that small cake is not going to hurt you.” I knew my words were falling on deaf ears. “I’m going out for a walk. Be back soon.”

I caught her gaze flitting toward the cake as I turned to leave. I glanced back as I pushed out the door. She finished the last bite of cake. It seemed I’d solved the mystery of the extra-long line for coffee.

There were a few more customers at the coffee cart. They blocked my view of the woman behind it. I headed to the fountain and found a quiet spot to sit. The air was warm, but the cool mist behind me made the temperature bearable. It was easy to see why the fountain was a favorite spot for coffee breaks. I scrolled through my texts and found two from my brother, Bryan, about getting in a round of golf this weekend. Golf was his sport, not mine. Bryan was three years younger than Rachel. I was a year older than Rachel. We grew up close. Growing up in a wealthy family was not exactly movie nights on the sofa with microwave popcorn and chatty dinners where stories from the day were laughed about. Our dad, heir to Greyson Shipping and Exports, spent a lot of time on the road and in business meetings. Margaret, our mom, spent so much time in her social circle, she had little time for her kids. So, we grew up with nannies and governesses, some of them likable and some not. Rachel and I clung to each other in those younger years. Bryan, too, once he was old enough to leave the nursery . The other person I clung to was Hazel, my dad’s mother. She was the only person I felt I could go to when I had a problem to solve or was feeling down. Grandma Hazel always knew exactly what to say.

I texted Bryan back. “Not sure about golf. I’m sure we’re going to have most of the weekend planned for us. You know how Mom gets at these country house weekends.”

I dropped my phone in my pocket and glanced back through the sprays of water. There were no customers at the coffee cart. The barista was leaning down behind the cart when I approached.

“I heard there was free cake today,” I said.

She popped up with cornflower blue eyes, round as saucers. Her bottom lip, pink and plump, parted from her top lip. “Uh, hello, yes.” She shook her head. “I mean, no. I’m sorry. I ran out.”

“Too late, I guess. Too bad. My assistant says it’s the best thing she’s tasted in a long time.”

Her pink lips turned up into a smile. “That’s nice to hear. I’m working on recipes for my future bakery.”

“So, you baked them yourself?”

She lifted her chin, and I was instantly drawn to the small cleft. It went perfectly with the spray of freckles on her nose.

“I’ll take a coffee, black.” I pulled out my wallet.

It took her a second to respond. Admittedly, I was enjoying her reaction a little too much. “Right, a black coffee. Right away.” She filled the cup and I paid.

“Thank you.”

“Anytime,” she said, then blushed. “I mean, my pleasure.” She shook her head and sighed. “I’m sorry there were no cakes left,” she added.

I nodded and headed back to the office thinking she’d been well worth the distraction.