6

Caleb

Yes,” I said when her text came through, maybe a little too enthusiastically, but what the fuck did I care? I owned the company, and Brooke had just given me her number.

Victoria stopped her rundown of my schedule and looked up from her notes curiously.

“I need to make a call—we’ll finish after lunch,” I told her, knowing she understood what I really meant. Which was, “get out and give me privacy.” Victoria Blakney was no dummy, and that was why she was my PA. She was also my best friend’s little sister and the perfect candidate for the job as my personal assistant. I’d known her since she was a toddler, and she knew the world in which I moved as well as or better than I did. Since it was the same world for her.

“The red peonies?” she asked as she got up from her chair.

“Maybe.” I added Brooke into my contacts and ignored Victoria.

“Thought so.” I could hear the smirk in her voice as she went out, closing my door with a soft click.

I hovered my finger over Brooke’s number for just an instant, realizing I was making a conscious decision to pursue her. So much for my vow to swear off women for a while. There was something about her I couldn’t turn away from. I had to know more.

My finger tapped the green circle.

It rang five times before she picked up, and with each ring I think my grip on the phone grew a little tighter.

“Hello, is this Caleb calling?” Ahhhh . . . that voice of hers had power . . . over me. She spoke and for some reason I lost the ability to speak. It was insane.

“Yes, Brooke, it is.”

“You have excellent taste in flowers. I’ve been enjoying them all morning, but why did you send them?”

“I thought you needed some cheering up after what happened last night.”

“Ah, that’s very kind of you, but how did you know I worked here?”

“I’d say it was fate, Brooke.”

“And how’s that?” I couldn’t tell if she was getting ready to tell me to get lost or not, so I figured I had nothing to lose by telling her the honest-to-God truth.

“I saw you yesterday morning getting coffee at Starbucks, and then you walked into the offices next door. When you showed up at the cocktail party serving, your boots reminded me that I’d seen you just that morning. I had to take a call and stepped under the eaves of your offices to be out of the way of sidewalk traffic, and I could see you through the front glass.”

“That was you?” A shot of something hit me painfully right between the chest, and I had to bring a hand up to rub it.

“Uh-huh, it was me. Why do I get the feeling you saw me as well, Brooke?”

“You were wearing sunglasses on account of the blow to your head?” Yep, she saw me.

“Yes. I was devastated by it, remember?”

She laughed and I wished I could see her. “Oh yes, I remember very well just how devastated you were, Caleb. You had absolutely no recollection of what a meatball was.”

“Right. I think my memory was slightly damaged from the devastating blow to my head, but thankfully you were there to clear up my confusion. I was lucky.”

“How is your injury today?” The fact that she asked was nice.

“Looks worse, but it doesn’t hurt a bit.”

“Well, I am happy to hear that, but Caleb, how did you know my name was Brooke?”

“I heard your boss call after you when you left the room.”

“You’re quite the Sherlock Holmes, aren’t you?”

“Not really, but my hearing is pretty good. For example, I heard you tell your cab driver to take you to the Blackstone Island Ferry Company, so using my superior powers of deduction, plus the fact you said you were going home, I am guessing you live on the island.”

“Are you stalking me, Caleb?”

Yes.“Not at all, Brooke, just being observant and taking note of some things we have in common.”

“Such as?”

“Blackstone Island, of course. My family has a home there near the West Light, and my brother lives there, too, but he has his own place a few miles down the western shore. It’s a great house with a private beach—perfect for a weekend away from the city.” Okay, that was a lie. I’d never been to Lucas’s place on the island because I hadn’t set foot on the island in nearly a decade. I only knew of it because he’d sent me the realtor link when he bought the property two years ago.

“Your brother’s home sounds lovely, but I can assure you we don’t have much in common as far as the island goes.”

Was that sarcasm in her voice?

“What do you mean?” I sensed displeasure, and doubt had started to creep in to kill the happy buzz I’d had when we first started this conversation.

“Not everyone who lives on the island has a mansion with a private beach, Caleb. In fact, most of the permanent residents struggle to find work that will keep them housed and fed year-round. The tourist trade is seasonal, and it’s a very different reality for the rest of us who don’t live on the western shores.”

“Oh . . . where do you live?” I asked hesitantly.

“In my grandmother’s cottage on the hill above Fairchild Light, where there are no private beaches and no estates. And no job for a woman who gave thirty-five years of her life working for one of those fine west-side mansions before they closed it down and dismissed everyone.”

“That’s a terrible thing to do. Was that your grandmother who worked for them?”

“Yes, she was in charge of the housekeeping and general management of the house.”

“I’m so sorry to hear she lost her job.”

“Why? It’s not your fault, Caleb. You can’t help it if your family is west-side and mine is south-end.”

Awkward silence stretched out between us and I wasn’t sure how to respond. Brooke took care of it and saved me from having to think of something to say.

“Listen, that was rude of me and I apologize for the rant. I forgot myself for a moment, sorry. I do want to thank you for the beautiful flowers. They really are so lovely, and I don’t think I’ll ever look at a meatball in quite the same way again.”

“You’re very welcome for the flowers, and please feel free to think of me whenever you see a meatball. I am so honored.”

She laughed but it wasn’t the same as the first time. The magic had gone and been replaced by something vaguely unpleasant.

“Good-bye, Caleb.”

“Take care, Brooke.”

I sat on my ass and pondered where that conversation had taken a wrong turn. Because it most certainly had. Was I attracted to her only because she was beautiful and spoke with a sexy accent that turned me on? Had I indulged in preconceived ideas about her because she appeared so confident and intelligent? Had I evaluated her status and assumed she came from money because of where she lived and because she worked in a professional office? And had I believed that would be the only necessary criteria to continue my pursuit?

I didn’t think I’d done any of those things, but maybe subconsciously I had. I couldn’t recall what I’d thought when I discovered she lived on the island, but it never occurred to me she might be—what—poor? I didn’t think about it at all because such an idea wasn’t in the scope of my realm. I dealt in money, and making sure that money grew into even more money. Poor wasn’t part of my vernacular, and it never had been. Never would be.

I was guilty of letting my dick lead me again. A pretty girl had caught my attention because she spoke in an oh-so-sexy English accent. I must be losing my goddamn mind. Wake up, fuckhead, and pull yourself together.

I texted James to see if he wanted to meet for lunch. I still needed to get the recap on Janice and maybe hanging with my bestie would straighten my stupid ass out.

October

“YOUR suit came back from the cleaners with a note. He can’t get the stains out, and since the fabric is gray, they still show. Something in the cocktail sauce makes the stain set permanently he said.” Victoria held my Brioni Colosseo on a hanger underneath a dry-cleaning bag. “What do you want me to do with it?”

“Donate it to charity I guess. Someone must be able to make use of a five-thousand-dollar suit stained with cocktail sauce.” I wondered how long it would be before Brooke’s dipshit catering manager came calling for the cleaning bill for the rest of them. “Anything else?”

“A guy named Martin called and said he needs to talk to you about damages you agreed to pay for an event he catered.”

Bingo. I could predict this shit like clockwork. “Let me guess—several light-colored suits need to be replaced because the stains are permanent.”

“He mentioned seven or eight suits, yes. It was hard to follow his explanation to be honest. Something about the enzyme in the horseradish, blah, blah, blah,” Victoria said with a shrug.

“I don’t want to talk to that asshole. Just tell him to collect the claims with the receipts and send them over, and I’ll see they are paid.”

“I’ll tell him.” She walked out of my office with the dry-cleaning plastic covering my favorite-but-now-ruined suit fluttering behind her.

If all those suits combined came in at a dime under fifty grand, I’d be surprised. Yeah, well, a promise was a promise, and my word was good. I’d said I’d cover damages, and eight ruined designer suits certainly constituted as damages. Fucking waste of good money. It wasn’t the damages being out of my pocket that bothered me really, it was the cause of the whole thing—an arrogant prick taking advantage of a nice girl just because she was pretty and he’d decided he wanted to fuck her.

That was how it went down. I was there. I saw everything happen almost as if it were in slow motion. If Brooke had just taken Aldrich’s abuse, as he assumed she would, then no flying shrimp, no ruined suits, no damages—just another example of SOP in the after-hours corporate world. The number of hits she’d received that night alone were proved in the business cards she’d tossed at the feet of her shithead boss. That must be a horrible thing to have to put up with while you’re trying to do your job. She shouldn’t be in that situation at all. I wished I’d never gone to that fucking reception in the first place.

And I wouldn’t know her name was Brooke, or that she lived on the island with her grandmother, or that she needed a second job because she didn’t make enough money at Harris & Goode as an interior designer to pay the bills. Oh, I’d had plenty of time to think about Brooke over the last few weeks. The things she’d said to me on the phone. How much she resented the people who had fired her grandmother. The regret in her apology when she realized she’d said too much to the wrong person. And maybe even the same disappointment I’d felt when we both realized our little attraction—or whatever the fuck it was—wouldn’t be going anywhere because we came from different sides of the tracks.

I’d gone to the Starbucks twice, hoping I might bump into her accidently.

No sign of her.

I’d come close to calling just so I could hear her voice again, but what would I say? “Your voice is so sexy I get hard like a teenage boy when you speak. Wanna go out with me?” She already suspected me for a stalker, and it would barely put me above Aldrich if you really got down to the brass tacks of what I wanted from her. And what in the mother fuck was that exactly?

I don’t think I’d yet figured out what I wanted from Brooke. Sex? To be her boyfriend? Something even more than that? I’d only cared about the sex in the past. Oh, I’d love to take my time with her in bed, and I’m sure it would be spectacular, but for the first time since I could remember, sex was not my main motivation. Why the fuck was that? What made Brooke unique in that way? Why was Brooke so tantalizing to me I couldn’t get her out of my head?

I remembered something else, too, and I suspected it was a biggie. What she’d said to Aldrich right after she broke his nose. “You put your hands on me. Nobody does that and gets away with it anymore.”

It made me crazy that Brooke had been hurt badly by some guy in the past. Who the fuck would touch her with anything other than respect? Adoration? The fuckwit certainly hadn’t deserved her. Did I? Was it important to me that I deserve her? I’d never had to entertain that thought before and it confused me. I didn’t really have a handle on what I was doing in regards to Brooke . . . at all.

Taking time I really didn’t have, I considered my options.

And then I called my brother Lucas.

“Caleb, long time, no talk. To what do I owe—”

“Lucas, who is the girl named Brooke with an English accent living on the island with her grandmother?”

“Umm . . . bro, don’t you remember Ellen Casterley, the housekeeper at Blackwater? She worked there for our whole life.”

“Ellen Casterley, our sweet British housekeeper, is her grandmother?” I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up.

“Yeees. Brooke came to live with Mrs. Casterley after her parents were killed in London. Brooke was like fifteen at the time, and it was kind of big news on the island. I remember everybody talking about it—why don’t you know this?”

“That’s a fucking good question, little brother. When did this happen?”

“Oh, probably eight or so years ago. Sylvie, my housekeeper, would be the one to ask if you want better details. Sylvie and Mrs. Casterley are good friends, and she knows Brooke very well.”

I did the math. That would make Brooke twenty-three now. Eight years ago I was twenty-three, and I don’t remember visiting the island for holidays. I hadn’t been around when Brooke came to live with her grandmother. “Okay, but why would Brooke say Blackwater was closed and all of the staff dismissed? That’s not true.”

A long pause preceded the heavy sigh from my brother on the other end of my phone, and I knew something was terribly wrong. “Caleb, do you ever speak to Mom? She closed it down nearly two years ago when Dad got sick. The place is boarded up and for sale. When a buyer comes along, it’s gone.”

“No. No way would Dad ever allow Blackwater to be sold off from the family holdings. He loved it there.”

“When was the last time you were at Blackwater?” My brother’s question felt like a metal spike in my heart. He was right. Our father had loved it there. And we’d enjoyed our summer holidays there when we were kids. But then we grew up and lost interest. Or maybe it was just me who lost interest and never went back.

Too fucking long ago.

“How do you feel about putting your clueless brother up for the weekend in your fancy beach house?”

“Plenty of empty rooms for you to choose from, Clueless Brother. You taking your chopper or do you need me to send mine over there to get you?”

“Funny. I always take my own chopper, asshole.”