Chapter 2

Caden

"You nervous?" My secretary Annie stood at the door to my office with a smile on her ruby-red lips.

"Never." I continued to tap my fingers in a slow cadence across my desk as I glanced back down at the file laid out on my desk. "I've done this a million times in the last few years. Why would I be nervous?"

"It's a big account." She walked in and took the seat in front of my desk. "You know this could be a game changer for you and Luke."

"And Perry." I glanced up and gave her a knowing look. Everyone at the office liked to ignore the fact that Luke and I had a silent partner in the firm, but I wasn't able to forget him. He was the reason we had Taylor, Taylor, and Barden. The older man had not only believed in me but given quite a sum of seed money to help my brother and I start our empire.

"Of course." She shrugged and cleared her throat. "You know Luke is expecting you for lunch downstairs in ten minutes, right?"

"Damn. Is it already eleven?" I glanced at the clock and closed the folder, ignoring the way Annie watched me. I'd have to have a conversation with her soon, but I was hoping that her odd infatuation would simply disappear.

I had a rule about dating anyone at work, no matter how cute she might be.

"It's almost eleven. You need anything from me today?" She leaned forward and pressed her hand to my desk, shifting just enough so that I could see down her shirt. The creamy-white tops her tits caught my attention, but I ignored her and gathered my stuff. Why my brother wanted to have the most attractive women in all of New York working for us was ridiculous.

Or maybe it was because he was a fucking pig. That's what it came down to. A twenty-eight-year-old manwhore who spoke about a girlfriend that none of us had ever seen. It had become the central joke of the office. Luke's beautiful, talented and brilliant girlfriend that worked for our top competition. He promised to introduce the two of us soon but soon was the promise a year back.

"Nope. Just continue to keep the place held together, and we'll be good." I grabbed my wallet, phone, and keys and moved around her, stopping only as she spoke again.

"You know we're having the office party tomorrow night at Kadia, right?"

"Kadia?" I glanced over my shoulder. "That place is fucking wild."

"Yeah. It's a lot of fun." Her smile was highly inappropriate, almost comically so.

"Maybe too much fun for an office party?" I shook my head and walked out of the office as I tried to think through how I was going to tell my bull-headed older brother that having an office party at the hottest night club in New York was idiotic. They had a sex room on the third floor from what I'd heard. How his reasoning to have the anniversary party for the firm there made sense was beyond me, but we were talking about Luke.

I squeezed into the elevator and turned at the sight of a pretty blonde near the back. My heart fluttered in my chest. Olivia?

No. Stop being stupid. Let it go.

I wanted to let it go. To let her go, but I couldn't seem to do it. Five years of nothing - not a word from her - and then she had the audacity to send in her resume to work for the firm. It'd been a year since it came in, and I still felt like shit for shredding it, but I couldn't have her there. We had too much history between us, too many hurt feelings.

Six years. I was such a fucking puss for still lamenting over her. It was high school and I was far beyond getting over it, but the what ifs drove me into a craze to think through how my life would have been different if she hadn't turned her back on me our senior year.

"Stop. You're too fucking old for this." I ran my fingers through my hair and got off the elevator, not caring who heard me talking to myself. The building we rented a floor on had enough people to fill the small city I was from two times over. Running into someone from our small firm was highly unlikely.

I moved back and waited as everyone left the elevator. The blonde was last off, and she glanced at me and smiled as my heart dropped. Not her.

Good.

I turned and walked toward the overpriced restaurant at the bottom of our building, stopping by the hostess stand only for a moment before hearing my brother call my name. He looked nothing like me, and I was almost grateful for it. He was an asshole no matter who we were dealing with or what audience we were in front of. It was nice to think most people didn't associate us as anything more than business partners. A good cop - bad cop type of relationship, and he was forever the bad cop.

"There you are. Shit. I thought you'd forgotten." He nodded at the chair across from him. "Sit. I have fucking great news."

"Your idea of great and mine are two totally different things." I unbuttoned my navy suit jacket and pulled it off my shoulders as I glanced around the restaurant. "I think you need to fire Annie and let me do the hiring from here on out."

"Why's that? She still after you to take her to bed?" He chuckled and leaned back in his seat. "Just lock the damn door to the office and pop her cherry for her. You know after a hard fuck she'll calm down a little. All women just need to realize who's in charge, who's capable of bringing them to heel."

"That so?" I rolled my eyes and sat down.

"Yep. And a man is what they need."

"And you're that man?" I glanced up at the server, grateful it was a guy. If I had to watch my brother eye-fuck another poor unsuspecting girl, I might have to reach across the table and slap him. We got along beautifully, as long as we didn't broach the subject of women. They were toys to him... and always had been. I couldn't remember a time in my life of ever thinking about them as anything but precious. Maybe I was a puss.

"I was." He sighed as I ordered a beer.

"Was?" I chuckled, unable to help myself. He was such a bleeding heart over his loss of freedom. This invisible girlfriend was cramping his style from the looks of things.

"Yeah. My girl is getting a little pushy about us moving into something more serious."

"Really?" I took the bread basket from the center of the table and fished out a piece of bread. "And you're wanting to take another step with her?"

"Yeah, if it means I keep getting to bury various parts of my body deep inside of her anytime I want." He growled. "She's so fucking hot, Caden. Even after three years of seeing her off and on. The thought of how well she can work her sexy little body drives me absolutely insane."

"Yeah, let's talk about something else. I'm not going over the ins and outs of you ass-fucking this girl again. I'm not interested."

"Because you're jealous. Plain and simple. She's a whore for me."

"Awesome. Keep that shit to yourself." I buttered my bread and tried to keep my pulse steady. I hadn't slept with someone I cared about in too many years to count. A few drunk one-night stands, and I was good to go for a little while longer. Relationships were messy, complicated and hurt like a bitch when they ended.

"You need to stop wallowing in your tears and get a woman. You're being a fucking tit about it." He snagged a roll and tore into it like it was beef jerky.

I chuckled, unable to help myself. "Fuck off. I'll figure out my love life when I'm not married to my job anymore."

"I could ask my girl if she's willing to have us both one night."

"What?" My eyes moved up to his shit-eating grin. "Shut the fuck up. I'm not fucking some poor girl with you. You're sick."

"Sick with lust. God dude-"

"Awesome. Stop. Seriously." I gave him a stern look, wondering why in the hell he was like he was. Our father was nothing like him. Must have come from his mother seeing that he got most of his looks from her too. I was almost grateful that my mother was softer, more empathetic. The fact that we weren't from the exact same gene pool gave me great relief.

"All right. Shit." He lifted his hands. "Can I at least tell you my good news?"

"Yeah, and then we're talking about why we're not having the anniversary party for the firm at Kadia. Shit."

"No, we're not. It's booked, and the guys at the firm deserve all that crazy fucking place has to offer. It's perfect."

"What's the news, Luke?" I was almost surprised by how worn down I was just being around him lately. A few years back when we started the firm, I couldn't seem to get enough time with him, but he'd grown cynical, nasty and vulgar.

"My girl's coming tomorrow night." He wagged his eyebrows. "I mean, she's coming tonight, but you don't get to see that, now do you."

I thanked the server for my beer and glanced back over at him. "I think that's great that she's coming to the party. It's about fucking time that I get to meet her."

"I need you to treat the evening like an interview, okay?"

"What? No. I'm not screening this chick for you. You've already painted her as a two-bit whore that likes it in the ass." I pressed my beer to my lips and pulled my thoughts from depravity as my cock twitched in my slacks. I needed to get laid, to feel the warmth of someone beneath me and soon.

"Not for me, you dickwad. For the company. She's coming to join us. I've almost talked her into it."

I spit my beer halfway across the table. "Have you lost your fucking mind?"

"Nope. She's brilliant, Caden. More than you, more than Perry, hell, more than me."

"No way. That isn't happening. I don't care what she is. We're not bringing her into the firm. That's a disaster waiting to happen."

"You're going to love her." He laughed and tossed a napkin at my face as I wiped up my mess. "Just remember when you see her to keep your eyes above her shoulders. She's likely the most beautiful woman in all of New York."

"Doubtful, and my answer is still no. She's not working for us. Period."