4. Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Eric

I woke up extra early to get in a run before work. I didn’t get great sleep last night and I needed something to wake me up.

I tossed and turned all night thinking about what the hell I’m supposed to be doing with Mia here in my home. Am I supposed to invite her to dinner even though I’m probably shit company like we’re Beauty and the Beast?

I can’t believe I agreed to this. Although, to be honest, I didn’t really agree to this.

The morning’s fall chill was exactly what I needed to wake my brain up despite its desire to go back to sleep. I walk back inside to get ready for work. My grey shirt is sticking to my body from all the sweat. I do my best to wipe the sweat pouring down my face with the bottom of my shirt as I stroll into the kitchen.

To my surprise, Layla and Mia are standing at the kitchen island clutching coffee cups. I must’ve missed Layla’s car parked in my driveway.

My sister’s face lights up when she sees me. I do my best to offer a small smile, hoping to make up for being a bit of an unwelcoming dick to her friend last night. I don’t handle things being sprung on me last minute very well.

There’s also the fact that I’m still questioning why a thirty something year old woman needs to stay at my place. Is there a motive? Does she know how much money I have and is looking to worm her way into my life to take advantage of it?

I wouldn’t be surprised. Poor Layla is too kind to see through it.

“Morning ladies.” I nod and look at Mia. “I’m sorry about last night. I was a bit worn from work. I hope your first night went alright.”

There, I did it. I was nice. Layla mouths thank you to me, knowing that none of this is coming natural to me.

Mia smiles at me. “I’m sorry to be intruding in your personal space. And my first night went well. Thank you for asking.”

Her response feels just as forced as mine.

As I pour my coffee, I glance over at Mia while her and Layla continue talking. She’s pretty. Not the usual type I go for. Kim was blonde and stick thin with little curves.

Mia has brown hair, pulled up in a messy bun right now. She’s wearing pajama shorts and a baggy t-shirt, so I can’t get a read on her body.

Not that it really matters. I’m not interested.

After I take a long shower, I dress for work and grab a bar and banana for the road. Not the healthiest or most filling breakfast, but I just need to get out of the house. I heard Layla talking about wanting to taste Mia’s cooking tonight.

I suppose that means I will be coming home to company again.

It’s not that I don’t like being around my family, because I do, but lately they have been making more and more comments about my life. Everyone wants to know when I’ll get back out there and date again. It isn’t that simple. I don’t want to be in a relationship ever again, but I don’t have the heart to tell them that. That will just invite more questions, and I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to talk about Kim.

I walk into my office and switch on the lights a little harder than necessary. Being out of my element and routine is already stressing me out.

Charlotte follows me into my office with a pad of paper and a pen. She takes a seat across from me. “Tough morning, boss?”

I fall into my chair and run a hand through my hair. “You could say that.”

“Anything I can help with?” she asks.

I wish. Charlotte is an incredible assistant, and can make many of my problems go away, but this isn’t one of them.

“No, I’m just having a bad morning. Didn’t get much sleep. I’ll get over it. Let’s go over the agenda for the day.”

She nods her head, thankfully not asking anymore questions. “You have a morning meeting with Adam to go over the staffing analysis for your current project. He wants to get some questions answered before he goes any further. Then you have an eleven o’clock with your team. After lunch you have a meeting with Peter.”

She can’t make eye contact with me when she says the last part. My hands instantly ball into fists as I try to compose myself.

“Why does Peter want a meeting with me?” I say through clenched teeth.

Peter and I generally do our best to avoid any one-on-one contact. We don’t get along, but it’s not something that has ever really been openly acknowledged.

“This is a big acquisition. He said he wants to make sure everything is in order to make sure it is successful.”

Of course he does. While this does fall under his list of responsibilities, we’ve done just fine by me working with the VP of Acquisitions. Today, of all days, he wants to meet with me.

I do my best to suppress my anger under the appearance of indifference. “Fine. I’ll meet with him,” I say with contempt.

She nods at me, not calling me out on the fact that I have no say so in the matter. He’s the COO and while I don’t directly report to him, you don’t get to decline a meeting with him.

After she leaves me, I kick the garbage can under my desk, knocking it over. What the hell is going on with my life? Why does it feel like I’m losing the tight grip of control that I worked so hard for? It’s the only thing that’s kept me together in the last couple of years. That and my hobby, which nobody else knows about. I don’t know why I keep it a secret.

Yes, you do.

I look at the time and know that the next hour will be a bitch to keep my brain occupied until I meet with Ryan. I’m far too pent up to work productively. I might need a night out with the guys to find a woman to bring home. This energy needs to be released somehow.

I manage to get through most of the day, but I’m dreading this moment as I walk into Peter’s corner office.

He’s on the phone but holds up his finger at me to wait for him. I manage to turn around before I roll my eyes. He has pictures hanging all over his office of every important person he has ever met or done business with. It’s a wall to brag about how important he thinks he is. Not a single picture in his office of family members, not even her .

Goes to show what he thinks is worth bragging about.

I turn around at the sound of the phone being placed on the receiver. Peter stands up and extends his hand. My body cringes at the feeling of his hand on mine.

“Thanks for meeting with me, Eric,” he says as he unbuttons his jacket and sits back down. “I know I’m not your favorite person.”

I feel suddenly weak and vulnerable in the face of his confidence.

“Let’s just focus on the reason for this meeting,” I bite.

“Fair enough,” he agrees.

While he talks logistics, I can’t help but take in the slight belly he seems to have acquired since I last saw him. The man is showing his age of fifty-two. It should make me feel better, but it just seems to create another surge of anger.

Peter walks me through exactly how he wants this acquisition to go, like I’m some kind of fucking moron who doesn’t do this for a living. He also just proves to me how this is all about image for him, and not about making decisions based on what’s best for our company and our employees.

Whether he likes it or not, the employees at this company that we are acquiring know the ins and outs of the business more than we do. I have found that listening to them and doing whatever we can to keep them on board through the transition is beneficial.

He just wants to make it as profitable as possible, whether or not that will work out well for us in the end makes no difference to him.

Instead of voicing my opinion just so he can flex his power over me and shut it down, I nod along so I can get the hell out of here as soon as possible.

By the time the meeting is over, I decide I need to get out of this office. Instead of sticking around, I head home.

All I want to do is head back to my barn to decompress, but when I pull in my driveway I realize that’s not going to happen.

Before I even open my front door I hear the commotion happening inside which doubles in octave once opened. I quickly wonder if I can escape to my barn without anybody realizing that I’m home. All I need to do is sneak into my bedroom and change out of my suit.

“Uncle Eric,” my niece Brielle screams as she runs up to me and wraps her arms around my leg.

She’s one of the only people in my life who can still bring out the softer side of me. Her presence instantly makes me feel better.

I reach down and pick her up. She’s four years old, and the best thing that has happened to our family. She lost her mom to cancer when she was an infant. It was a hard time for all of us. I didn’t think I would see my brother make it out of that situation. Luckily, he met Charlotte who is now pregnant and due in a couple of months. She’s the best mom to Brie and an incredibly supportive wife to Asher.

“Hi, sweetie,” I say, then give her a big kiss on her chubby little cheek.

“I missed you. You didn’t come to my recital. I was sad.”

Shit, tear out my heart why don’t you? I tried like hell to make it, but I was stuck in a meeting with executives. Needing to leave early for my niece’s dance recital wouldn’t have gone over well.

“I’m so sorry. I wanted to be there so badly. Did you get the cookies and flowers I sent over? Your daddy sent me the video. I watched it a hundred times. You were the best one out there.”

She giggles in my arms. “You think so?”

“I know so.”

We walk into the kitchen where my entire family is huddled around my large island laughing.

“Oh, Mia,” my mom says with an arm around her. “This food all smells amazing. How lucky we are to be treated to your family recipes.”

Ever since mom and Layla worked out their differences not too long ago, she’s been so different. She shed the entitlement that came with my father’s business taking off years ago, now back to the old women we once knew.

Mia smiles. “I’m so happy to cook for you guys. You’re so sweet to spend the evening with me. And I’m slightly obsessed with your son’s kitchen, so any excuse to use it.”

Well, at least someone puts this kitchen to use. For as much time as I spend in my home, making home cooked meals hasn’t been a part of my routine. It wasn’t when Kim lived here, and it certainly hasn’t been since she left.

It’s not that I don’t want to use it, but there’s something about cooking for one that’s depressing. With Kim, it was like cooking for one because she wouldn’t eat anything but salads. It was like living with a rabbit.

“Hey, look who’s home,” my dad shouts over the noise.

Everybody turns to me with my niece still in my arms. I don’t know why, but I focus in on Mia’s reaction. I watch her eyes as they look me up and down then, as if embarrassed by something, back to the pot in front of her.

“I didn’t think we would see you until after dinner,” Layla says as she greets with me a kiss on the cheek then proceeds to steal Brie out of my arms.

Since she is the only kid in the family at the moment, until Charlotte has her baby, we all fight over her. I hope we don’t turn her into a diva as she gets older.

“I guess it slipped your mind to tell me I was hosting a dinner at my house tonight,” I mutter to her under my breath.

“Sorry. I’m trying to make Mia feel more at home here. She’s going through a tough time and just really needs to feel the love.”

I’ll bet she’s going through a tough time, and she needs a rich man to come to her rescue. I still would love to know if she even has a job.

Despite my foul mood, I walk over to my mom and give her a kiss. I know she still worries about me daily, with all her text messages and phone calls. She thinks I’m depressed and am going to do something stupid one day. She may not know that I can see through it. If I don’t answer her for more than a day, she’ll just happen to be in the neighborhood at ten o’clock at night asking me a million questions about my mental state.

I have a desk drawer filled with therapists’ business cards that she hands to me like their Tic Tacs.

“I’m so happy you’re home early,” she says with a smile. “See, maybe Mia being here will be just what you need.”

Well, that’s not awkward at all to say as Mia stands right next to us. Annoyance prickles my body. I pull at the tension in my neck. I don’t know how to respond.

“That smells good, Mia,” I say in an effort to deflect. “What are you making?”

She bites her bottom lip. “It’s cacio e pepe.”

“Mia made these noodles this afternoon by hand…from scratch,” Mom says proudly. “This is what you need in your life. A woman who can cook.”

Mia coughs uncomfortably. I do the only thing I can think of in the moment—walk away. I find my brothers and dad who are now in the other room watching a football game.

It’s some extreme nineteen fifties shit going on in my house right now. The women in the kitchen while the men watch football.

“I didn’t know you got married man. Congratulations,” my youngest brother Liam slaps my back.

I roll my eyes. “Fuck off.”

“Seriously. Had I known Layla’s friend was so hot and could cook like an eighty-year-old Italian woman, I would’ve offered up my place.”

I don’t know why that grates on me. “Well, I doubt she would want to shack up with you in your bachelor pad. She would also probably have to be okay with listening to you have sex with a different woman every weekend.”

He shrugs. “If she was living with me, I could focus on just her. She’s the kind of beautiful you settle down with and give up the bachelor lifestyle for.”

Of course he would be pining after Mia already. Is she classically beautiful? Yes, in an effortless way. I would be lying if I said I didn’t notice her full lips just now or the hint of cleavage under her top.

But all that does is stir a sense of fear and dread in me instead of arousal. Those are the dangerous ones. The ones who make you think that you could settle down with them and build a life together.

I know the reality of love. It can break you and make you second guess everything you’ve built in your life.

“Well, she isn’t living with you,” I reply coolly.

I try to focus on the game despite being fully aware of his eyes on me. “You like her or something?”

I chuckle to myself at the mere idea. “I think I’ve said five words to her. I don’t even know her.”

He shakes his head in dismay. “It wouldn’t kill you to be a little more friendly to the woman staying in a stranger’s house.”

“Do you know why she’s staying here?” I ask curiously. Maybe he knows something that I don’t.

He shrugs. “No clue.”

“Do you think it has anything to do with my money?”

His dark eyebrows arch at my words. “Kim really did a number on you, didn’t she?”

“What does this have to do with Kim?” I bite out angrily.

“You tell me, man. You’ve been the leader of this anti-women campaign ever since you two broke off your engagement.”

“I don’t see you settling down. What are you afraid of?”

“I just haven’t found the right one yet. You, on the other hand, are too afraid to find the right one.”

A burning sensation spreads across my chest. “Maybe the right one is all a bullshit illusion we tell ourselves to justify this societal construct that we’ve created around the idea of love and forever.”

“Dinner is ready everyone,” Mom calls from the dining room.

I storm away from Liam, itching to get out of the conversation. The dining room is set up already with plates and fancy wine glasses. It’s strange seeing so many of my things being put to use. We normally eat at my parents’ house or Asher and Charlotte’s home. I didn’t even know I had this many plates.

“Take a seat gentleman,” my mom instructs. “We will bring in the food.”

She walks off with a big smile on her face. I don’t know what she is so happy about. She’s acting a little crazy if you ask me.

Josh takes a seat to my left. “You hanging in there, buddy?” he asks, sounding slightly concerned.

Good to know at least one person cares about me.

Charlotte walks in holding a big wooden bowl of salad. She places it in the middle of the table then proceeds to take a seat. “Don’t look so glum brother-in-law. You get to spend an evening with family that invited themselves over.”

A smirk breaks through despite my best efforts to stop it.

The rest of the women walk in carrying food, Mia last as she holds a big bowl of pasta. My stomach growls in response to the aromas that are floating in the air.

Layla sits next to Josh, seeming happy to relinquish control in the kitchen. She’s a chef and owns her own restaurant here in Savannah.

Mia is the last one to take a seat, on the last empty chair directly next to me. I adjust myself in my seat, feeling claustrophobic all of a sudden as I inhale the scent of her floral perfume.

“A toast,” Dad says as he holds up his glass, “to this wonderful meal cooked by an even more wonderful lady. Thank you for all the hard work you put into this.”

Everyone else toasts enthusiastically, nodding in agreement. I sneak a glance at Mia who is biting her lip with a blush on her face. My eyes follow the blush that extends down to her neck and then to her chest.

My dick twitches in response. I wonder if I could get her embarrassed while fucking her, telling her how good she looks taking my cock.

Shit. What the fuck am I doing? I can’t think of her like that. She is off limits.

I take a big gulp of my wine, drinking half my glass in one sip. Those thoughts are not allowed to happen. Not with someone like her, someone I’ll be forced to spend time with. I can’t risk it.

If I need to blow off steam, it has to be with a chick at a bar I know I’ll never see again. It’s safer that way.