Page 32 of Have To Be Mine

“You know what your problem is?” He leaned over me, forcing me to look up at him. “You think you have it all figured out. You show up with your cargo pants and your military discipline and your color-coded spreadsheets, and you think that makes you better than me.”

I stood up to meet him. I was not going to let him intimidate me. “I don’t think I’m better than you. I think I’m more prepared than you.”

“Same thing.”

“It’s really not.”

We were standing close now. He’d put on cologne and brushed his teeth. The combination of mint and cedar was intoxicating.

“You want to know what I think?” he said, his voice low and dangerous. “I think your own family must be a mess, so you just moved into mine.”

Surprisingly astute and ridiculously painful. I glared back at him. “My family is just fine.”

“You might as well be one of the Blackwell brothers.”

One of the brothers.

I’d spent years becoming harder, more efficient, more masculine. I’d traded dresses for cargo pants, skipped makeup, buried every soft thing about myself so deep I’d almost convinced myself it didn’t exist. I wanted to be the son my father never had. It cost me but I told myself it was okay.

But hearing it from him made me realize how much I’d lost. How much of my mother’s daughter had withered away.

“You’re an asshole,” I retorted.

It wasn’t the witty comeback I would have preferred, but he’d thrown me. He had pressed on the wound I kept hidden under Army shirts and cargo pants. He found it anyway.

“You’ve turned this entire operation into a military exercise. That’s not support, Krista. That’s a hostile takeover.”

“I’m doing my job.”

“You’re doing my job.”

We were practically nose to nose now, both breathing hard. I could feel my pulse pounding in my throat. His chest was rising and falling beneath that perfectly tailored shirt.

“You want to know why your family doesn’t trust you?” I said, my voice shaking with anger. “Because you act like nothing matters. This is all a game to you. You’re so busy being charming and carefree that you forget other people are depending on you. Every single person on that shoot needs their paycheck. And if you can’t get your shit together, they don’t get paid!”

“And you want to know why you’ll never understand me?” he fired back. “Because you don’t know how to be human. You’re trying to be a machine. When was the last time you let yourself have fun?”

I felt tears prick at the corners of my eyes and hated myself for it. Hated him for seeing it.

“You don’t know anything about me,” I said quietly.

“I don’t need another brother, Krista. I have three of those already. I used to anyway. I suppose that’s why they sent you. They’re too busy with their own lives to work with me on this shit. So, see, you are a Blackwell brother.”

I was about to try and stuff his very large body through one of the very small windows when the flight attendant appeared. “I have some refreshments,” she said with a bright smile. “I think a little food and a cold drink is just what you need. I really don’t want to try and break up a fight ten thousand feet in the air.”

I glared at Dash and sat down. I deserved hazard pay for this job.

11

DASH

Istepped out of the car and stared up at the building Krista had booked for us. A four-star hotel that looked like every other generic Mediterranean resort I’d ever seen. White walls, blue shutters. The kind of place that tour groups stayed when they were trying to see Greece on a budget.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said.

Krista was already out of the car, her jaw set in a way that meant she was about to lecture me. Again. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine. Do you see this place?” I gestured at the building. “There are a thousand people milling around. I can hear them from here.”