CHAPTER
SIX
HI? Tell her he said hi? Smooth. Butter would be fucking jealous of him, that’s how smooth he was. Not. Cooper mentally kicked himself in the ass. He sounded like he was fourteen and desperate besides. He wondered if Harley knew about him and Charity. He assumed she did, because in his experience women in general shared everything with each other, and they were twins. So it was highly likely she knew. Which also meant she knew why Charity had chosen to not leave her number when she had bolted from the suite and keep it at just a simple wedding hookup.
That night had popped up in his thoughts multiple times over the past few months and he wasn’t sure why he couldn’t shake it. It wasn’t like he hadn’t had his fair share of one-night stands. Hell, he was sleeping with Holly and she was attentive without being clingy, the perfect no-strings-attached relationship. Yet when he least expected it, the look Charity had given him during sex, her eyes huge, glassy, rose up in his mind, and it was distracting. Frustrating.
Now here he was with Harley, who he had fixated on as some kind of savior to his MJ problems, given how calmly she had discussed his sister with him at the wedding. And yet he was suddenly having inappropriate thoughts about her. It wasn’t right. He knew it wasn’t right.
He was hiring her to be maternal toward his sister, and he had slept with her sister. It was totally dog-in-the-dirt of him to be conjuring up sexual images of her, but he couldn’t help it. Maybe it was because she looked exactly like Charity.
Or maybe it was the good-girl thing. It was the fact that she looked at him and expressed no interest whatsoever in him as a man. She didn’t flirt and the few times they had interacted in person, she had mostly stared at him, like she didn’t dare to say what she was thinking. He couldn’t figure out what was going on in her head, and damn it, that was hot.
Besides, he kept picturing her standing at a fetish club, watching everyone with big, serious eyes, her arousal growing and growing . . .
It was driving him insane, the idea that she was a shy girl who would shatter beneath him in bed, which made him feel like the creepiest douchebag in Charlotte. He’d never had a twin fantasy, so what gave? Why were the McLain twins doing such a number on him?
“So when do I get to meet Mary Jane?” she asked.
Oh, yeah. His sister. “Right now if you’re good with it.”
She nodded. “I think that’s a good idea.”
“Okay, cool.” Cooper picked up his phone and started to text MJ.
Harley raised an eyebrow. It was a look of complete disapproval. “No?” he asked.
She slowly shook her head. “You need to go get her in person.”
If anyone else had told him that, he would have resented the criticism. But there was something about Harley that was gentle enough he didn’t feel like she was judging. She was just suggesting. And she was right. Having someone to guide his actions with his sister was exactly what he needed.
“Give me five minutes,” he said. “And please help yourself to some coffee, or there is bottled water and juice in the fridge.”
With a fortifying sip of his coffee he went off in pursuit of his sister, up the marble staircase. His feet were cold and he wished he’d put socks on. The marble wasn’t a cozy stone, but he liked that it gave the feeling of cleanliness to his house. It was tidy, sparkling, and he dug that. It was the aftereffect of growing up on a farm. There had been altogether too much dirt and chaos in his early childhood. Not that he wasn’t grateful to his grandparents, because they’d raised him well, with lots of love, but he had an aversion to clutter now.
Knocking on MJ’s bedroom door, he checked his phone for e-mails from his team, his boss, and his assistant, and he checked the predicted weather for the weekend. It was Daytona prep and he couldn’t afford to be distracted. He was grateful Harley could start right away; otherwise he was going to worry about his sister all week.
The door opened a crack and his sister’s head appeared. “How may I help you?”
His sister was blond and willowy, her eyes still too large for her head, neck too long, as she maneuvered her way through puberty. She was a beautiful girl, and she looked older than she actually was, which apparently was thirteen, not twelve, as she had informed him a few days earlier. He’d lost a year somewhere in there. Until six months ago he had never lived with MJ and he knew exactly nothing about raising kids. He didn’t even really remember a whole lot about being thirteen himself.
He did remember, however, that he would not have said, “How may I help you?” at that age. MJ was a forty-year-old in a tween’s body, who occasionally threw the temper tantrums of a three-year-old. It was confusing as hell and he was still learning his way around her. He hedged on telling her about Harley. “I’m leaving in a few hours. Going to the track, then heading to Arizona. I’ll be back Sunday night.”
“Got it.” Mary Jane stayed behind her door, which was now only cracked, and looked at him like she couldn’t wait for him to leave. “Good luck doing what you do.”
“Thank you.” Resisting the urge to force the door open, he asked, “Do you have everything you need?” He understood the need for privacy, but she acted like she’d been cutting rocks of crack in there.
“For the most part.” Her expression turned calculating. “So what do you think of Eve Monroe’s brother-in-law Rhett Ford marrying Shawn Hamby of Hamby Speedway? Rather scandalous, don’t you think?”
“Uh . . .” Cooper was so caught off guard he just stared at her for a second. He was surprised she was bringing it up to him directly. “I actually didn’t even know they got married. But why is two people getting hitched scandalous?” He went way back with Eve and her brothers, but he didn’t really know Eve’s husband, Nolan, all that well. While he had known Shawn in his late teens, he hadn’t seen much of her in recent years. Not to mention he didn’t pay much attention to gossip.
“Because they met on a Saturday and married the following Friday. What do you think that is all about?”
Insanity. That was what it was. “I have no idea.” He took a stab in the dark because she clearly wanted an answer and he wanted to foster some sort of friendship with MJ. “Love at first sight?”
“You don’t really believe in that, do you? I mean, we all know that is really lust.”
“We do?” Well, he did, but damn it, how did she know that?
She scoffed. “Mom has been in love at first sight about twenty times. You’re not going to decide to marry a chick on Friday you met the Saturday before, are you?”
So that’s what this was about. She didn’t want him bringing a wife home randomly and disrupting her life yet again. “No, of course not. You have my word on that.”
“You’re not going to marry Holly either, are you? She’s all wrong for you.”
It really made him uncomfortable that his sister knew about Holly. She had only stayed over twice, maybe three times, and Cooper had thought they were being discreet, when clearly MJ had been on to him. Awkward. But he wasn’t going to pretend not to know what she was talking about. He was not going to be having Holly over anymore, that was for damn sure. “No, I have no plans to marry Holly.”
“Good. She’s put together, I’ll give her that, and classy enough, but she’s still just a pit lizard. She’ll take any driver she can get her hands on. Did you know she has dated Ty McCordle and Elec Monroe in the past?”
“Uh . . .” Cooper wasn’t sure what to say to that, and the truth was, he had no idea who Holly had dated before him.
“But that was years ago and she’s been on a driver dry spell, so I imagine she is looking to really hook her claws into you.”
Who the hell was his sister? My God, she was like Nancy Grace in a child’s body. Enough was enough.
“I appreciate the warning. But I am not discussing my personal life with you. And I’m going to suggest you find a hobby, because your knowledge of track romances is frightening.”
She made a face at him. “Knowledge is power, Cooper.”
Whatever the hell that meant. “Come on downstairs. Your new nanny is here.”
“Really? Must we persist in this farce? I don’t need a babysitter.”
She clearly did, but he wasn’t going to have this argument yet again. “You’re lucky I don’t have you doing chores like Grandma had me doing at your age. I had to muck out the stalls.”
At the same time, it made him sad to consider how he had been taught values and hard work by his grandparents, and MJ was being taught what? She didn’t even remember their grandfather, who had passed away ten years earlier, and their grandmother was in an assisted-living facility Cooper paid for. His sister had grown up in a world of sterile privilege.
“I would have cleaned up after the llama if you had let me keep him.”
They were back to the fucking llama. “You know what? Let’s lay down some ground rules for the next six months. If you can stay out of trouble and cut back your spending, we can bring the llama back.” Didn’t all kids need rewards? Goals?
“It won’t be Serge, though. It will never be Serge again.”
“You named the llama Serge?” That amused him for some reason. “We can find Serge, I’m sure. Cami knows where he went.” He nudged her door open with his foot. “Come on. Downstairs.”
MJ was still in her pajamas, but she did comply, sniffing contemptuously at him. She pushed her hair back and he noticed her nails were done, with little bows on each one. He wondered when she had done that. It scared him to think how little he knew about her and what she did with her time. Cooper slung his arm around her, wanting to be close to her. “You want to go out to breakfast?”
“Really?” She sounded surprised. “Okay. Pancakes?”
“Sure. We can do that.”
Harley was waiting patiently at the island as they entered the kitchen and Cooper muttered under his breath, “Be nice to her, okay?”
“I’m always nice,” Mary Jane said.
The truth was, he couldn’t argue with that. She was never rude. She just did precisely what she wanted all the time.
Harley stayed sitting, which Cooper thought was interesting. She smiled at Mary Jane and said hello, but she didn’t start in immediately with questions and false interest the way the others had.
“Have I seen you before?” Mary Jane asked her. “You look familiar.”
“No.”
His sister went into the fridge and pulled out the orange juice. “It will come to me. I know I know you.”
God, he hoped it wouldn’t click since he did not want his sister to know her new nanny had been in a fetish club. Who would have ever guessed Harley would have done that? Or that his sister would know? What a disaster.
“Harley will be moving in tomorrow,” he said.
“Got it.” MJ reached for a glass. “She moves in, you leave. Though I’ve told you like nine million times, I don’t need a babysitter.”
“I won’t be here to babysit you,” Harley said.
The hell she wouldn’t.
“I’m here to babysit your brother, in truth.”
Um . . .
Mary Jane looked as startled as he felt. “What do you mean?” she asked.
Yes, what did she mean? If Harley was going to do anything to him, it sure in the hell wasn’t going to be handing him a curfew.
“I mean that Cooper doesn’t know anything about acting as a guardian and I’m here to both teach him and make sure he’s doing it right. He wants to make sure you’re happy and healthy and he doesn’t necessarily know how to do that.”
Cooper wasn’t sure about this strategy. He was assuming it was a strategy. But it made him sound like a moron. “It’s not like I have no idea at all,” he hedged.
Harley shot him a look of admonishment.
MJ looked intrigued. “That’s true. He means well, but I don’t think he understands teenagers.”
“He’s also standing right next to the both of you,” Cooper said, annoyed. “And I do so understand teenagers. I was one, you know.”
“Like a million years ago.”
Now that was more than he could tolerate. “Mary Jane, I am not that old. I was a teenager only a few years ago.”
But Harley made an incredulous expression. “Sure, when Kurt Cobain was still alive and before Al Gore invented the Internet.”
Smart-ass.
Mary Jane let out a laugh.
“You don’t even know what any of that means,” he told her, exasperated. “So what are you laughing about?”
“I do so. Kurt Cobain was the lead singer of the grunge band Nirvana, and he committed suicide. Al Gore is a Democrat who ran for president who made some statement claiming he created the information superhighway.” Smug, she drank her juice.
She was well informed, he’d give her that. “Y’all are ganging up on me. I’m not sure how I feel about this.”
But actually, despite the reminder that he was damn near ancient, he was relieved. Excited, even. Mary Jane was responding well to Harley. Plus his new nanny was right—he needed to be trained, not his sister. He needed to learn the ropes of parenting and how to set boundaries for her.
It wasn’t going to be an easy road, but he felt hopeful for the first time since MJ had moved in with him. He might not fuck this up yet.
“You’re tough,” Harley said with a sweet and somehow sexy smile. “You can handle it.”
Then again, speaking of fucking . . .
“Thanks. I think.”
“Cooper doesn’t get told no by women very often,” MJ said to Harley. “I would be careful if I were you.”
But Harley just gave her a smile. “I may look sweet, but I can handle your brother.”
Cooper cleared his throat. That statement was meant to be totally innocent, he was sure, yet somehow he felt it in his dick. Damn. Not good.
“I’m going to head out now if that’s okay.” She nodded, looking to him for confirmation. “I have a lot to do.”
He nodded. “Sure. I’ll have Cami call you this afternoon after everything is set up.”
“Thanks.” She gave him a look he couldn’t decipher at all. Pulling her coat off the chair, she slipped into the sleeves.
“I’ll walk you out.” He put his hand on the small of her back to guide her, but Harley stepped away, out of his reach.
“See you soon,” she said with a smile at his front door.
Cooper was distracted by how sweetly attractive she was. How kind her eyes were. “Thanks, Harley. Seriously. For everything. I know you didn’t want to lose your other job, but I feel lucky that you did.”
“I guess we’ll see. Hopefully I can help.” With that she left, the door closing on her, a cold draft sweeping over him.
Back in the kitchen, Mary Jane looked at him, her eyes wide and knowing. Far too mature for her age. “Mom’s never coming back, is she?”
Be honest, that was what he needed to do. Harley was right. It didn’t do his relationship with MJ any good to pretend. “I don’t know, kid. I really don’t know.” But there was one thing he was certain about. “But even if she does, I want you to stay here.” He loved his brilliant and quirky sister. He wanted her to know she was wanted.
“Really?” She looked young suddenly. Vulnerable, her face pale.
For the first time ever he realized how big and sterile and underused his kitchen was. How often was he even in there? Couple of times a week? The counter his skinny sister was leaning on looked very cold.
He threw his arm around her and kissed the top of her head. “Really.”
The corner of her mouth turned up before she caught herself and went sour again. “Okay. Cool. I can deal with that.”
That felt better than a win at Daytona.
* * *
AFTER only three days, Harley was finding her new job way more interesting than she had anticipated. Cooper in no way had prepared her for how unique of a thirteen-year-old Mary Jane was. She had the entrepreneurial spirit of a young Donald Trump and the style savvy of an A-list actress. Harley found her equal parts fascinating and terrifying. She did nothing without a purpose, and from the luxury of her large bedroom in Cooper’s house, she was running a successful gossip blog and planning her future social media domination. She already had paid advertisers and was hoping to secure herself a spot with a major fashion magazine as a consultant.
The business plan she had shown Harley was astonishing and brilliant for a thirteen-year-old. Harley was impressed with her. Mary Jane had also shown herself to be witty and incredibly talented at reading people. It had been an easy transition for both of them, she thought, because they clicked and shared a mutual respect for each other.
“So what do you think of my brother?” Mary Jane asked, digging through her closet, for what Harley didn’t know.
It felt like a trick question. They hadn’t spoken much about Mary Jane’s family in the past few days. Mostly they had focused on the blog, establishing a routine, homeschool work, and discussing Mary Jane’s personal finances, which were impressive for a teen. Mary Jane had already told her she had a million-dollar trust fund inheritance from her father that her mother couldn’t touch. Plus Cooper let her buy whatever she wanted, and her father’s former stepson, Jeff Sterling, gave her extravagant birthday and Christmas gifts, so she had no financial concerns. On that score, Harley had to say she admired Mary Jane. Instead of sitting back and taking advantage of her inherited wealth, she wanted to build her own fortune and her own success. Though she definitely did overspend. Harley was planning to give Cooper a suggested budget to enforce when he got back.
Harley sat on the zebra-striped chaise in Mary Jane’s room and tucked her feet under her. “I think your brother is trying very hard to make sure you’re happy.”
“I don’t mean that.” Mary Jane came and sat down next to her and inspected her manicure. “I know that. I mean, he’s totally a nice guy. Mom ditched me with him and he like barely knows me, because he’s so much older than me and he travels all the time. But he’s trying to be some kind of brother and father figure, which is cool. That’s not the point, though.”
Harley was pretty sure she didn’t want to know what the point was. “Are you glad to be here with Cooper? Or would you rather be with your mom?”
It was a personal question and Harley didn’t want to push, but the one thing she absolutely thought was lacking in Mary Jane’s life was a confidant. The girl was smart, shrewd, savvy. But she had no real-life friends, and despite their differences, Harley had always had a built-in best friend in Charity. She could tell her sister anything and her twin would always be there for her, no questions asked. Which was part of the reason she felt so guilty for not admitting she had slept with Cooper as Charity. Harley wanted to give Mary Jane the opportunity to share if she wanted to.
“Are you kidding? Living with my mother is a nightmare. How many boy toys does one woman need? Seriously.”
One was more than Harley had ever had. “I don’t have an answer for that. I’m not exactly a boy-toy kind of woman.” Though maybe that was what she needed, a man who had to do what she said. Though that wasn’t really her. She’d found her inner dominatrix with Cooper but then had quickly handed control back over to him. So multiple boy toys boggled the mind.
“What kind of woman are you?”
Desperate. Undersexed. In lust with Mary Jane’s brother. “I’m a plain Jane. You’re Mary Jane. I’m Plain Jane.”
“Is that true or is that an excuse?”
My God, it was like being with a therapist. Sometimes Harley wondered who the adult in the room was. “Call it what you want. I don’t like being flashy. That’s not me.”
“Then we’re back to the same question. Who are you?” Mary Jane stretched out her legs next to Harley and reached over to finger her H necklace. “This is pretty.”
Harley put her arm around Mary Jane’s slim shoulder and pulled her in for a hug. “I’m maternal. I like kids and books and flowers. Boring, huh?”
Mary Jane seemed to like the physical contact. She leaned in to Harley. But then she looked up and gave her a coy smile. “Do you like guys?”
“Some of them.”
“What do you look for in a man?”
She knew what she should look for. “Stability. Integrity.”
“What? Are you cray-cray?” Mary Jane asked. “You make it sound like you’re building a bridge or something. You have to feel like squishy inside about somebody, too. Right?”
Except that men who made Harley feel squishy inside were usually all wrong for her. Because squishy was actually lust, and it seemed that brazen, cocky guys would light her fire, and they probably would. But they would also overpower her personality-wise. She knew that. Like Cooper. It was one thing to be with him under the guise of her twin. It was another to hold her own as herself.
It was the ultimate irony that she was wildly attracted to men who would be all wrong for her.
“Squishy only takes you so far if he’s a tool. I want a man who I can trust not to fool around. Who comes home every night. Who is going to think I’m exciting, even when I’m boring, you know what I mean?”
Someone not Cooper. That was what she meant. He would definitely find her boring. That had been proven at the wedding reception. Though if they weren’t talking about an actual relationship, Cooper was her type, obviously. The type that she had always secretly fantasized about tearing the sheets up with while she was waiting for Mr. Right to come along.
Who was taking his sweet-ass time, she might add.
But hey, she’d gotten her fantasy and she should be grateful for that one night, not wishing she could have part two.
“Do you think I’ll ever have a boyfriend?” Mary Jane asked.
It was one of the few times Harley had heard her actually sound like she was thirteen. She sounded vulnerable and melancholy. Harley hugged her closer.
“I can one hundred percent guarantee that.”
Mary Jane was silent for a second, then reverted right back to mini adult. “Should I call my bookie on that one if you’re guaranteeing it?” she said.
“You have a bookie?” Harley was almost sure she was joking. But not entirely. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
“It’s not illegal because it’s an international broker. Don’t worry about it.”
She had a feeling that was akin to having lifeboats on the Titanic. It might save a lucky few, but the rest were going to go down with the ship.
“Tell me you don’t bet on races.”
Mary Jane stayed silent.
“Why aren’t you saying anything?”
“Because you told me not to tell you I’m betting on races.”
Harley winced. “Oh, God. Does your brother know?”
“I don’t know. If he does he hasn’t said anything. I used to play online poker, but that’s illegal in the U.S. now and I haven’t been able to figure out how to redirect my server internationally so it’s untraceable, so I quit. It’s not worth prison time, even though I do like to win.”
That was reassuring. Not. “Good call.”
“Thanks. Can we go to Daytona next weekend? I’m sick of freezing my butt off and I need some color. I’ve lost my summer tan.”
“We can’t just go to Daytona on five days’ notice.”
“Why not?” Mary Jane blinked innocently up at her.
Hell if she knew. It just seemed wrong. “I don’t think your brother would approve.”
“Lame. I can call him and ask him. He has a condo there, you know.”
No, she didn’t know that. As much as she wanted to have an argument against a trip, she didn’t really have one. “I suppose the decision is his to make, not mine.”
“What, like you don’t want to go to Florida?”
Not really. Somehow it made her feel like a Cooper Brickman groupie. Like she was following him. Which was stupid. She was Mary Jane’s paid companion and she would likely never see him the whole weekend. And it was damn cold in Charlotte this winter. “Yes, I would like to go to Florida.”
“Sweet. Let’s do it.”
“Fine. I’ll ask him tonight at dinner.”
“You’re going to dinner with my brother?”
Harley laughed. “No. I mean dinner, here, at home.”
“We don’t do that.” Mary Jane looked disturbed by the very concept.
“You do now. When Cooper gets home we’re going to the grocery store, then cooking dinner.”
“OMG. Does he know?” Mary Jane looked horrified and giddy all at the same time.
“No. But he said he is willing to make some changes.”
“Yeah, but grocery shopping? I don’t think he’s ever been in the grocery store.” Mary Jane tilted her head. “Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever been in the grocery store. Not for real. Just when my mom ran in for wine.”
Oh, Lord. This was going to be interesting then. “It will be fun.” Or hell, Harley wasn’t sure. But it just seemed like if she was going to bring brother and sister together, they should break bread at the same table when Cooper was home.
“What would you like to have for dinner?” Harley asked Mary Jane.
“I get to pick?”
“Yes.”
Mary Jane stood up and went for her tablet. “Sweet. I’m going to look up recipes. Usually I eat a cheese sandwich for dinner. Or cereal.”
No wonder Mary Jane looked like she would disappear if she turned sideways. “Do you like pasta? That’s an easy place to start when you haven’t cooked before.”
“I want something with goat cheese. I heart goat cheese. I would marry it if I could.”
Harley laughed. “Okay then. But I understand. I feel that way about bell peppers.”
Mary Jane tapped and swiped, her eyes lighting up. “OMG, quesadillas. That’s what we’ll make. I’m calling Cooper to tell him and to ask him about Daytona.”
Mary Jane looked so excited that Harley didn’t stop her. Cooper was probably either traveling or busy, but if he truly wanted to make changes he was going to have to expect that he would be hearing from Mary Jane or her frequently. In fact, she’d been firing e-mails off at him on a regular basis whenever a thought came to her.
It was a fair bet that Cooper had no idea what he was getting into when he’d hired her.
And he didn’t even know the full truth.
But when it came to nannying, Harley was in charge.