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What don’t I know and what consequences are there to not knowing?
Chapter thirteen
Harper
Smart girls know their strengths and one of them is wearing high heels, my father once told me. They’re weapons. You can seduce us men with them or you can beat our asses with the end of one of those heels. I’d laughed at the insanity of that idea, but now, I wish fighting was that simple.
It’s my first day back in Denver after Eric’s rejection, and while my body still hums with his touch, I’ve accepted I must find another way to save my father’s legacy. I’m not someone to tuck tail and run. nor do I allow myself to wallow in failure for long. I take my blows, feel them hard and fast, and then dust myself off. I’m already there, already ready to fight again.
I waste no time dressing and hurrying to work, and by eight in the morning, I’m in my office at the Kingston corporate offices. Today my dark hair is tied neatly at my nape, rather than loose the way I like it, a style I see as no-nonsense and all business. I’ve dressed in a black suit, with a pale pink shell beneath it, because I like to remind the world that I’m not one of the guys any more than I’m one of the Kingstons. I need that distinction today, and I hate that part of it is to spite Eric.
No matter what he wants to believe of me, I’mnotone of them. I am not a Kingston and will never be. I’m my father’s daughter, and that means I fight for what I believe in and for others. Right now, I just have to protect our customers, my mother, and even Gigi, who hasn’t always deserved being saved. Maybe she doesn’t now. I understand why Eric despises her. When I entered this family, she was horrible to me, too, but seeing someone almost die and then beg for forgiveness has a way of getting to you.
I sit down at my desk and pull out my MacBook as well as the pad of paper where I wrote the different companies I want to call for aid, but I can’t help myself. I power up my computer and I hatethat I have enough hope left in me that I check one last time for a reply from Eric. I actually hold my breath waiting for my email to load, only to find nothing from him in my inbox. I said I was letting go and moving on, but the enemy of your enemy is your friend. And Isaac and my stepfather have always been enemies, even when I was too naive to heed the warning Eric had given me about being used with no endgame for me but defeat.
I stand up with the intent of shutting my door, only to have Isaac appear in the doorway, and in his ridiculously expensive suit, there’s no way I can avoid a comparison between him and Eric. “I see you’re back to work,” he says, his voice rich with accusation. He’s a good-looking man, his hair perfect, his jawline sharp, clean. He’s refined, and some would say perfectly male, and yet unbidden, that memory of the rasp of Eric’s whiskers on my belly reminds me that Eric is so much more than his brother. And I realize now that the two men do not resemble each other at all. Isaac’s features are sharper, and his presence is all about demand and arrogance. Eric is more rugged male, a force of nature, effortless dominance in his very existence and Issac overcompensates in all the wrong ways to merely stand in his shadow.
“How was your trip?” he asks, hitching a broad shoulder on the doorframe, obviously planning to stay longer than I’d like. Well, unless he’s going to give me the answers he’s been avoiding about the recalls.
“It was a much needed long weekend,” I say, hoping to avoid a topic laced with lies. My lies about why I took off of work.
“Who were you with again?”
“Don’t play coy, Isaac,” I say, fighting the urge to cross my arms in front of myself in a defensive move Isaac is too smart not to read. “We both know I didn’t tell you who I was taking a trip with.”
“And yet, I’m your brother,” he reminds me, an undertone of accusation in his words. He’s suspicious about the trip. I’ve questioned the recalls. I’ve tried to see paperwork he won’t let me see.
“Mystepbrother,” I say, and then I dare to go to the place I don’t want to go, but he’s headed. “One who doesn’t act like a brother and we both know it. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have—”
“I get it,” he snaps, straightening, clearly intending to shut me down before I can go down an awkward rabbit hole of unbrotherly love. “You don’t want to tell me who you’re fucking,” he snaps. “I get it, but I need to know this isn’t a distraction from your job.”
“I live for this place.”
“You haven’t been here,” he replies dryly. “And I have an issue that needed to be dealt with yesterday. You weren’t here to handle it.”
“I had my phone with me at all times. What issue and why didn’t you call me?”
“I didn’t call because this problem needs your full attention, and obviously, that wasn’t here.” He doesn’t give me time to reply. “The union’s bitching about the women’s bathroom in the plant. I have no clue what the problem is, but it’s a distraction I don’t need right now. I need you to run front line on this issue—deal with them. Get them pink fucking toilet paper if you have to. They want to start negotiations tomorrow. I’ll email you the details.” And with that, he disappears into the hallway.
Pink toilet paper is what he wants me to handle? And he wants me to negotiate with the union, which isn’t my job. We have an employee on staff who’s an expert in this area. Angry now, I round my desk and head down the hallway, following him all the way toward the corner office that he calls his castle, quite literally. He disappears inside and I pass his secretary’s desk, thankful she’s not there right now. Not that it would matter. Belinda is in her fifties, quiet, reserved, and a mouse in a cat’s cave who couldn’t be more submissive to Isaac. That’s how Isaac likes everyone.
Submissive.
He tries to shut his door and I catch it. “Why can’t the union negotiator handle pink toilet paper, Isaac?” I ask, certain this is all about keeping me busy.
His green eyes are as cool as they are calculating. “You really aren’t good at taking orders.” He leaves me in the doorway and enters his fancy office, rounding his mahogany desk, a grand mountain view and expensive artwork on the walls on either side of us because he’s showy. The entire Kingston family is showy, while my father instilled humility and graciousness in my mind. Though he spoiled my mother in ways that seem to have made a showy appeal to her or we wouldn’t be here now.
Isaac presses his hands on the desk. “Just do your job,” he snaps. “I have a meeting in fifteen minutes.”
“Since when does a member of the family, a managing member of the executive team, just do their job without asking questions?” I ask, stepping into the room without closing the door. I don’t do small spaces with Isaac. I learned that lesson the hard way yearsago. I stop behind a leather chair and settle my hands on the back. “That’s not what your father taught me. He said—”
“The union is breathing down our throats,” he snaps. “Our product is good. If we have a flaw, it’s human. They don’t like my attitude on this.”
Finally, he’s actually talking about the problem. “How can you be sure our product is good? What have we done to ensure—”
“Everything,” he says. “I have this under control. Just appease the union.”
“Appease the union, or stay busy and out of your hair?”
