Chapter 1
The flames in the fireplace were nearly extinguished, the curtains on the high windows of Elijah Crane’s office drawn. Rain pattered on the glass, providing a soothing backdrop for his work. He pecked at his keyboard, mind on the email, when a mousy, quiet voice lifted in the darkness.
“Mister…Crane?”
The only other light was the desk lamp and the slice of natural light that made its way past the doorless entry to his office. His newest temporary assistant stood in that light, her shadow a long wedge.
“Reese Crane called,” she said as she walked into his office. “Your brother.”
Like he needed that reiteration?
“I know who Reese Crane is, Melanie.”
“He asked me to…” Her small voice grew smaller until it vanished altogether. The reason being because Eli had just taken a deep, rumbling breath and pushed himself up from the desk.
Slowly.
Let it never be said intimidation wasn’t an art form.
He kept his eyes on the woman now standing at the other side of his desk. She was young, probably in her early twenties, and from what he’d gleaned in the last eight or so hours since she’d started this position, weak. He’d bet he could run this one off in record time. Not that he was keeping track, but maybe he should. He was getting good at it.
He blew out that same breath, keeping his lip curled, his expression hard. He let the breath end on a growl.
“What did I tell you this morning?” he asked, his voice lethal.
The temporary personal assistant currently putting a massive cramp in his style blinked big, doe-like eyes at him. “Not to interrupt you, but, Mr. Crane—”
“Not. To. Interrupt. Me.” He made a show of pulling his shoulders straight and hobbling around the table. Her gaze trickled down to the prosthesis at the end of his right leg as he affected a limp. One he didn’t have. One he’d trained himself not to have.
For some reason, the help found him more intimidating when he reminded them he was an amputee. He’d used it to his advantage on more than one occasion. “Do I look like I need to be bothered with trivial questions, Melanie?”
“N-no, sir, but it’s about Crane Hotels, and I was hired to—”
“You answer to me,” he told her point-blank. “I don’t care if it’s a memo from the pope. I asked not to be interrupted. I expect not to be interrupted.”
“But the board meeting…” Melanie trailed off, her eyes blinking faster as if staving off tears.
Tough shit, sweetheart.
The sooner word reached his brothers that the ninth—or was Melanie the tenth?—PA to set foot in Eli’s warehouse left in tears, the better. He didn’t want to be bothered with Crane business. The thickheaded men in his family didn’t listen when he’d clearly and concisely said no to a pencil-pushing position at the Crane home base, so he’d resorted to showing, not telling.
“Mr. Reese Crane said all you need to do is read and give your opinion. I can reiterate on the conference call for you,” she squeaked.
He elevated his chin and stared her down. She didn’t hold his gaze, her eyes jerking left then right and very purposefully avoiding dipping to his missing limb for a second time. Sucking in a deep breath, he blew out one word.
“Fine.”
“Fine?” Melanie’s eyebrows lifted, her expression infusing with hope. She was a sweet thing…Who was about to get a lesson in hard knocks.
“Fine. I’ll give you my opinion.” He lashed a hand around her wrist, snatched the folder from her hand, and tossed it into the fireplace. They were mostly embers now, but a single flame crawled over the edge of the folder, where it fizzled, then smoked instead of igniting.
Well. That was unimpressive.
“You-you’re…” Melanie’s fists were balled at her sides, her eyes filling yet again.
“Spit it out. I don’t have all day.”
“You’re a monster,” she said, then turned and ran—yes, ran—from his office, through his living room, and to the warehouse elevator. He stepped out from behind his office wall to watch the entire scene, arms folded over his chest. There were only a few doors and walls in his place, so not much hampered the sight of another victory won by Eli “Monster” Crane.
He walked back behind the wall of his office and stomped on the smoking file folder at his feet. Once he was sure he wouldn’t burn down his house, he chucked it into the wastebasket on the side of his desk.
“Sorry, Reese,” he said to thin air. “You’ll have to manage without me.”
They’d managed without him for the years he was stationed overseas, so he didn’t see why they couldn’t put one foot in front of the next now. God knew being away for years hadn’t improved Eli’s ability to weigh in on financials.
His cell phone buzzed with a text—not from one of his brothers, but from a contact he’d made earlier this week. He felt a real smile on his face as he lifted the phone and walked smoothly from his desk to the kitchen.
Yep, still in business, it read.
He tapped a reply. Let’s talk more next week. Give me a choice of dates.
Then he pocketed his phone and opened a beer, feeling a charge shoot down his arms. This was what he was supposed to be doing. Real work. Work that would change the worlds of men and women who’d made sacrifices. For their country, for their families. Men and women who’d returned home with less than they’d left with and were expected to drop back into the flow of things seamlessly.
Whenever Eli thought of the opening for chief operations officer of the gargantuan Crane Hotels, he felt two things. One, he had no time to trifle with meetings and operations of a hotel chain that had been humming along for decades without him. Two, his oldest brother had COO on lock. There was nothing Reese couldn’t do, and the last thing Eli needed was to be in a position of power when he did not give a shit about it.
Eli’s answer was a solid, resounding no. And if Reese and Tag—and hell, even his retired father—continued to push him about COO? No problem. Eli had become adept at running off PAs. In fact, he’d become more inventive about the ways he could get them to quit.
He covered his smile with the tip of the beer bottle and drank down half the contents.
Next, he’d move to a creepy mansion atop a hill so the villagers could murmur about the beastly man no one dared bother lest they suffer his wrath. He let out a dry chuff.
Sounded like heaven.
* * *
The phone was ringing off the hook today, which normally would be a good sign. But the caller on hold sent Isabella Sawyer’s stomach on a one-way trip to her toes.
“Isa?” her assistant asked from her desk. “Do you want me to take a message?”
“No, Chloe, I’ll take it.” She didn’t want to take it, but she’d take it. She shut her office door and in the minimizing crack watched as her best friend’s face morphed into concern. Isa gave Chloe a thumbs-up she didn’t quite feel.
Isa lifted the handset of her desk phone. “Bobbie, hello,” she said to Reese Crane’s secretary.
“Hold for Mr. Crane,” Bobbie said in her usual curt manner.
She’d had similar conversations with Reese several times already. Ten of them to be exact. Isabella was pretty sure this was the “you’re fired” call she’d been expecting three personal assistants ago. But that was okay, because she had prepared a response.
“Isa. Here we are again,” came Reese’s smooth voice. She’d met him once in passing, at an event she’d attended on behalf of her personal assistant company, Sable Concierge. Reese Crane was tall, intimidating, handsome, and professional. And married.
Not that he was Isa’s type. Business guys in suits for clients, yes. Business guys in suits for dating potential, no thanks. She’d been there, done that, and picked up the dry cleaning.
“Mr. Crane, I’m sorry we aren’t speaking under better circumstances.”
“So am I. You promised me you’d found the ideal PA for Eli this time around.”
Melanie hadn’t exactly been second string, but Isa had already sent her top choices. Elijah Crane had chased off every last one of them. They were down to her assistant Chloe or a new hire named Joseph. No way would he last thirty seconds.
Isa refused to pull her other PAs off current assignments to cater to Elijah Crane. If she lost the Crane business, she’d need her current clients or they’d all starve.
“Solve my problem.” Reese’s commanding tone brooked no argument, nor should it. Isa was at his beck and call for one simple reason: his seal of approval would boost her budding business or, if she continued to fail at finding a suitable assistant for his brother, could tank it. She wanted a foot in the door with the elite in Chicago, and Reese held the key.
“I have a solution,” she said. “A PA who has over three years’ experience at my company, a decade prior to that working as right-hand woman at Sawyer Personal Finance, and I guarantee your brother absolutely will not succeed in scaring her away.”
“And who is this maven?” he asked, but the lilt of his voice suggested he already knew.
“Me.”
A quiet grunt that could have been a laugh came through the phone. “I take it you’re not much of a wilter.”
“No. I’m tenacious and stubborn.”
“An exact match for Eli.”
“Once I convince him to get more involved in Crane Hotels, I’m sure I can place one of our many qualified assistants in my stead. I do have a company to run.”
She cleared her throat, her mother’s scolding voice in the back of her mind. Be polite, Isabella. No man likes a woman who disrespects him.
“My foray as his assistant will be brief,” she continued. “But there’s no need for him to know I’m top brass. I’ll act as if I’m number eleven and give him a run for his money.”
“Eleven,” Reese repeated, and Isa could have kicked herself for reminding him how many assistants they’d run through already.
“I apologize for the lack of follow-through you’ve seen so far. I appreciate you giving Sable Concierge another chance. My company is one I want you to lean on any time you’re in need of help.”
“Your company came highly recommended, Ms. Sawyer,” Reese said, his voice softening some. Isabella knew why. Reese’s voice did that whenever the topic of his wife came up.
“Thank Merina for me again,” Isa told him.
“I will. Your success is imminent, I presume.”
“You can bank on it.” She said her goodbyes and hung up the phone, pulling in a steady breath. One more shot. She had one more shot to pull this off. No, Reese hadn’t said it, but he hadn’t needed to. She’d fire her if she were him. Wife-recommended or no.
Last fall, Isa randomly scored a position for one of her assistants at the Van Heusen hotel with Merina Crane. Merina had suggested Isa’s company for Elijah’s transition from the military to Crane corporate. In comparison to what Merina’s brother-in-law had been through already, placing a PA should’ve been easy. Eli had already been through the physical hoops to regain his mobility using a prosthetic leg, and his warehouse home was equipped to accommodate his working at home.
The assistant’s job was to help him field conference calls, answer and forward emails, and tend to the light load of work Reese had handed down to Eli to oversee.
Eli had done none of it.
Isa had sent in seasoned help each time, and a startling number of her employees left either in tears or so angry Isa nearly lost them altogether. Elijah, regardless of the team’s sensitivity training and the day they’d all spent with a rehabilitation expert for amputees, was not an easy guy to feel sorry for.
He was “mean,” according to one of her employees, “miserable” according to another, and to poor Melanie, who unfortunately had turned in her notice after her first and only day at Eli’s, had referred to him as a “monster” on her way out the door.
Isa wasn’t having it. If Eli sought misery, he could ruin his own life, not her company’s future. She’d expected Melanie to last two days. She lasted half that. Isa believed in always being prepared, so she’d been training Chloe to run the office in case of just this circumstance. Isa could run Sable Concierge after hours, answering emails and returning phone calls during lunch or early in the morning.
As owner and operator, Isa was willing to do what it took to shove her business to the next level. If she had to work two jobs, so be it.
Elijah Crane hadn’t given her much of a choice.
* * *
Eli sat at the kitchen table and watched the hubbub in front of him, chin resting in his hand, scowl on his face. His sister-in-law, Merina, was bustling around, setting the table. She paused in front of him.
“You look like your brother when you do that.” She hoisted an eyebrow and dropped it.
“The one you married or Tarzan?”
“I heard that,” Tag said, loping into the room with three bags from Chow Main, the best Chinese food joint in town. Eli’s mouth watered at the sight of the generic paper-inside-a-plastic bag. On it, a yellow smiley face, and beneath that red lettering that proclaimed HAVE A NICE DAY!
Tag’s girlfriend, Rachel, followed him, a bottle of wine in each hand.
“Hey, Rach,” Merina greeted, setting the last place. She accepted one of the bottles and spun the label around. “Ohh, good choice.”
“It’s a customer favorite. Or was, when I bartended.”
Reese filtered in next, wearing his suit from work. Merina loosened his tie, standing on her toes to press a lengthy kiss to his lips.
“Sexy man,” she murmured.
“Vixen,” Reese commented, his hand on her ass.
Patience shot, Eli gestured at the dishes on the table and bellowed, “Can someone please explain why we can’t eat Chow Main out of the containers like normal human beings instead of dealing with this bullshit?”
He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at his family, all of whom had their eyes glued on him. Merina clucked her tongue. Reese looked mildly irritated. Rachel bit her bottom lip and stepped closer to Tag, who opened his mouth and let out a hearty laugh.
At that laugh, the tone of the room shifted back to light and fluffy, and the chattering continued as Rachel and Tag unloaded the food onto the table.
It seemed the only person Eli was capable of scaring off were assistants. His family was entirely immune to him.
“We’re here,” came a call from across the warehouse. Eli looked over to see his father, Alex, and his assistant, Rhona, file in together, her hand in his. It’d been recently discovered that Alex and Rhona were partnering in more than business, and since Eli’s old man was retired and had been for some time, Eli guessed that Alex and Rhona were partnering more often than not on a personal level.
“Hey, Eli.” Rhona pulled a patterned scarf from her neck—it was only September, so he had no idea why the scarf—and smiled brightly at him.
He lifted a hand and gave a brief wave. Rhona merged into the fray, cooing over the wine as Merina apologized about not knowing she was coming and pulled an extra set of dishes from the cabinet. A low sigh worked its way through Eli’s chest as he watched.
Happy. Every last goddamn one of them.
“Beer, bro?” Tag asked, collapsing next to him into a chair. His brother’s hair was down in golden-brown waves, his beard full like Eli’s, but neatly trimmed, not like Eli’s.
Eli accepted the bottle. “What, no frosted glass? Shouldn’t we have coasters?” He gestured to the set table, in the center of which rested a bowl of oranges his last assistant brought over. She’d probably been instructed by Reese to monitor his vitamin C intake.
“It’s been half a year, E,” Tag said, leaning back in the chair and sucking down some of his own beer. “You’re going to have to get used to us being in your face. We missed you.” That last bit accompanied an elbow jab, and Eli, though he grunted on the outside, knew they’d missed him. He’d missed them. Just because his brothers’ (and hell, now his father’s) happiness was soul-sucking didn’t mean he didn’t love them. He just wished they’d be adorably coupled off somewhere far, far away from Eli’s sanctuary.
“I can go out into public you know,” he grumbled, setting the bottle down next to his plate. “You guys don’t have to come in here and serve me.”
“Oh, but we do, Lord Crane.” Merina smiled as she leaned over and handed him a glass. “We know you don’t want to deal with the public right now. Trust me, I spent enough time with the media breathing down my neck. I don’t blame you.”
Eli liked Merina. She was tough. She was bold and clearly had enough forearm strength to pull the stick out of Reese’s ass. At least partway. Eli had never seen his oldest brother this…joyous. And now that Reese was living a utopic existence with his dreams coming true, he wanted Eli on board to tiptoe in the tulips alongside him.
No, Reese wasn’t through pressuring Eli into coming back on at Crane Hotels full-time, but he had lightened up some. As evidenced when he returned to the dining room sans tie and jacket. Unlike Tag, Reese was always suited. Tag was the opposite, typically in cargo pants and a skintight Henley to show off the biceps he pumped into ridiculous sizes.
Eli was as comfortable in a suit as out of one. He could don fatigues, jeans and tee, or Armani and feel like himself. The clothes, in his case, did not make the man. Even his body didn’t make the man, though Eli had worked his ass off to maintain his. The better shape he was in, the better he felt about the leg.
“The media doesn’t give a shit about me,” Eli said. Just the way he liked it.
“They will when we name you COO,” Reese piped up.
Eli sent him a death glare. Reese didn’t flinch. Eli’s sleeve of tattoos and surly attitude didn’t intimidate his oldest brother. Reese knew him when he sleepwalked to the neighbor’s house, so he wasn’t about to be intimidated by a grumpy ex-Marine.
“We found you a new PA,” Reese said.
“No.”
“She starts next week,” he continued as if Eli hadn’t spoken.
“Well done, Reese.” Alex took his seat. He leaned an elbow on the table and smiled through a snow-white goatee at Eli, looking very “Most Interesting Man in the World” in that position.
“You’re wasting your time. I’ve told you repeatedly, I’m not interested in Chief Pencil Pusher, but if you insist, Clip…”
Tag barked another laugh, proud to hear his nickname for Reese (Clip, short for Paper Clip) used by someone other than himself.
“You’re the most like me, Eli,” Alex said, starting up a familiar speech. Because Eli had heard it about a dozen times over the last five months, his vision had already begun blurring at the edges. “Reese has my business savvy. He was made for COO.” On that Eli couldn’t disagree. Reese bled Crane Hotel’s black and white. “Tag is my free spirit, winning hearts.”
“He won mine,” Rachel said, sliding onto Tag’s lap instead of her own chair. Eli looked past lowered eyebrows to see her nuzzle Tag, who smiled like a lovesick fool. Must be nice.
“But you, Elijah,” his father continued. “You have my sense of duty. You have a lion’s heart. That same sense is what propelled me into the service.” Alex pushed up a sleeve, revealing a faded tattoo reading semper fi. Eli turned his arm to show off his matching tattoo. They did have that in common. “But now your duty lies elsewhere, son.”
Here it came. Don’t say it. Don’t say it.
“It’s time to be the man Crane Hotels needs you to be.”
Next to Eli, Tag snorted. Reese even cracked a smile.
Eli referred to this as Dad’s “Batman” speech. It always ended with that same ode.
“I’m busy, Dad,” Eli said.
“We’ll see.”
“Okay, food!” Merina gestured to the spread. Typically, Tag ate three entrees on his own, but Merina preferred to have a bite of everything on the table. If Eli wasn’t fast, she’d dig into his without asking. “Ohh, Eli. Your shrimp pad Thai looks amazing.”
He made a shooing motion. “You have to give me an extra crab rangoon if you steal my food.”
She slid a glance at Reese. “Did he used to be nicer?”
“No,” Reese deadpanned.
So it went every other Friday since Eli had returned after leaving part of himself in Afghanistan. Yes, his leg, but also two friends. While he was away, a lot had happened to him, and as much had happened to his brothers. Reese was married, Tag, practically married, and Dad…whatever was going on there.
Eli understood that they thought he’d slip into the slot saved for him at Crane Hotels now that he’d retired from the military, but for him, it wasn’t that simple. He didn’t fit anywhere. A large part of him wondered if that was simply because he felt incomplete, and not for the reason anyone thought. He cared about different things now. He wanted different things now. He glanced around the table at his family.
Reese dished out some of his Mongolian beef onto Merina’s plate while she stole a sip of his wine. Rachel slid off Tag’s lap with a smile and Tag lifted her hand to kiss it. Rhona unwrapped a pair of chopsticks and handed them to Alex.
Eli didn’t want what they had. None of it. His reasoning was simple.
He refused to want something he couldn’t have. Life had spoken. He was listening.
He didn’t need another relationship to be whole.
He didn’t need anyone.