CHAPTER TENI woke up Sunday morning touching my lips as if I could still feel Ezra’s mouth against them.Ezra.It felt so strange to think of him with that name, like someone I didn’t even know. Then again, the man I’d met last night had been a stranger to me, even if he’d ended up being someone I recognized.Nash could stay the haughty but fair CEO I wanted to emulate before I overthrew, but Ezra… Ezra was the kind, compelling, entertaining man with a passion for me that made my head spin and blood heat. Meeting him felt like a dream.I sat up in bed, frowning and worried that maybe he had been a dream after all. Not sure why I would put him in a Maleficent costume and then have a boob war with him in my dream, but hey, dreams were weird things.In fact, maybe the entire night had been a dream. Had Brick really given me a job and called me family? Had Hayden smiled at me and accepted my cookie? It all seemed too good to be true.Acros
CHAPTER ELEVEN“Oh my God,” I gasped, my eyes widening. How the hell had he known where to look for me?Brick glanced up curiously from his phone conversation to meet my gaze across the room. I gaped at him a moment, too frozen to move, before my limbs went haywire and I suddenly dove unplanned behind the filing cabinet where there was a scant foot of space between it and the wall. Perfect for me to hide in.“What in the…?” Brick started to ask as I crouched down out of sight, a split second before a knock rapped against the open doorframe of his office. “Uh, I’ll have to call you back, babe,” he said, and then I heard the squeak of his chair as he must’ve sat forward. “Hey. Come on in.”“Carmichael.” Ezra’s voice was pure Nash: clipped and to the point with his usual CEO tone. It sounded nothing like his Ezra voice he used on me. And yet, I still shivered with the good kind of goose bumps when I heard it, because, yeah, it was him out the
CHAPTER TWELVEAs soon as I acquiesced, Ezra rose from the chair he’d been sitting in. He held a hand down to me. I took his fingers and had to bite the inside of my lip at the thrill that raced through me when his warm touch made contact with mine. Not even glancing down at all the dust no doubt covering my slacks, I continued to gaze into Ezra’s blue-blue eyes as I brushed my knees clean.His smile widened as if he thought my antics were amusing. He kept staring into my eyes and holding my hand as he started toward the exit of Brick’s office.My stepbrother was still on the phone when we entered the hall. He paused talking, and dropped one end of the cell from his mouth so he could rubberneck, his shocked gaze darting from our clasped hands to our faces. I could only imagine how brightly my cheeks were glowing. It felt as if I were under a spell that made me unreasonably content.“Uh…” Brick said, his gaze narrowing on Ezra. “Where do yo
CHAPTER THIRTEEN“Okay, why the fuck did he leave his shoe on my desk?”Brick’s voice from right behind me made my heart nearly leap out of my chest before I spun around in the doorway of his office where I’d been standing and watching Ezra march off. He sat at his desk, Ezra’s shoe in hand.When he waved the familiar black pump, I slumped against the doorjamb and closed my eyes. “Dammit.” Then with a frown, I opened my eyes, straightened, and pointed to my stepbrother. “This time, you’re returning it to him.”Brick lifted a single eyebrow. “This time?”Crap. Said too much.Wincing and then offering him a big smile, I pressed my hands together in prayer before asking, “What’re the chances you could just forget you heard that?”He set the shoe down and folded his arms over his chest as he rocked back in his chair. “About zero, I’d say.”“That’s what I thought.” With a sigh, I fell into the chair across from him and told him everything,
CHAPTER FOURTEENI was still blue when I clocked out of work. It was the first time I actually got to use the JFI time clock to clock out, too. I should’ve been delighted about that alone. I was now a full-time employee at my father’s company. Woot-woot! It felt as if I’d already half reached my dreams. I could practically feel my father’s spirit grinning in pride. The sensation of that’s my girl seemed to shimmer through me as I left the office. I should’ve wanted to celebrate, rejoice.But my encounters with Ezra had left me more maudlin than festive. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d really hurt him. I knew talking to someone a total of maybe an hour and a half all together didn’t make us close or anything, but there’d been something between us, something that made me feel as if I’d always known him, as if my soul had seen his and said, oh, there you are.That was silly, I knew. But I still couldn’t shake the sense that I’d ruined ev
CHAPTER FIFTEEN“Brother?” I whirled toward Isobel, whispering, “No.” I even shook my head to deny it.But then I blinked rapidly as pieces began to come together. Ezra had said his sister was disfigured and still one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen. That description fit Isobel perfectly. She was simply lovely, scars and all.“Oh my God,” I gasped, backing away from her and lifting my hands in apology, though I had no idea what I was apologizing for. “You are. You really are, aren’t you?”She shook her head, smiling out a confused frown. “How do you know Ezra?” Then her expression fell. “Oh, Lord. Please don’t tell me he’s been giving you unwanted attention.”“What? No!” I cried a bit too quickly before flushing. “I mean, it totally wouldn’t be unwanted, if he were… Which he’s not, because why… Why would he give little ol’ me any attention? I’m no one.”Gabby snorted. “I think the girl doth protest too much.”“Definitely,” Ca
CHAPTER SIXTEENI nodded. “Okay.”Talking sounded good.Figuring out the status of our relationship sounded even better.Squeezing Ezra’s hand, I looked up into his eyes. He nodded his approval, so I turned us down the sidewalk. Half a block later, I stopped and faced my building before drawing in a deep breath. “This is it.”He paused beside me, looking up at the crumbling brick walls and ancient cracked windows. Wincing at the big box window in the middle of the top floor that signaled my place, his expression morphed from dazed shock into horror. “You live here? This place looks like it should be condemned.”I rolled my eyes and hooked my arm through his. “Come on, it’s not that bad.” I encouraged him through the front door and grinned up at him, wiggling my eyebrows. “The elevator actually works now. Some mysterious, rich benefactor paid to get it fixed a couple months back. So, yay, we don’t have to walk four flights of stairs today
CHAPTER SEVENTEENI was still glowing when I sailed into JFI the next morning. After starting the coffee maker, I sat down at my desk to get a little email correspondence done. Then I researched different kinds of leather. By the time I heard Brick’s voice in the hallway, only an hour and a half had passed, yet I’d gotten an entire day’s worth of work in already.Which was probably a good thing. Brick was as chatty in the office as he was everywhere else. It slowed my workflow considerably when he was around, so it was just as well that I got as much completed before he arrived.He laughed, talking to some other man, as he entered the room, only to slow to a stop and inhale deeply. “Damn, you even brew the best-smelling coffee, kid.”I grinned, soaking in the compliment like a flower greedily inhaling sunlight, even as I wanted to deflect and say the coffee beans had done all the work aromatizing the air, not me.Popping to my feet, I bro