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This was news to me. Impossible news. I sipped my whiskey, pretending to look around the room, feigning focus on anything that wasn’t this conversation I wasn’t a part of. Axel slung his arm around my shoulders, bringing my head close to his mouth.
“Are you going to pick your jaw up off the floor, or should I?”
His cocksure smile was begging for someone to slap it off. I’d happily volunteer. “Fuck off.”
“Just curious. Because if you don’t plan to, Jessa might get the wrong idea about her new boss.”
I elbowed him in the ribcage.Hard. “There are no ideas for her to get. Can you stop harassing me? You are the last person to talk about workplace ethics.”
Axel’s grin turned devilish. “Listen, just because I’m enacting a hostile takeover of Margulis Realty doesn’t mean I don’t have workplace ethics. Are you going to tell Jessa that you used to be in love with her in high school, or should I do that too?”
I sent him the most lethal look I could muster. It only made his grin spread wider.
“The way you’re looking at me tells me I’m going to have to.”
“Shut the fuck up,” I warned him. “If this is your definition of stress relief, it’s fucking annoying already.”
Cora suddenly turned toward us, reaching for Axel. Her mulberry grin jostled us out of our quiet argument. “Axel? Can you get one of my cards out of your pocket for me? I don’t have any left in my handbag.”
“Of course, sweet cheeks.” His face was pure mischief as he rummaged through his inside breast pocket.
“What were you guys talking about?” Cora inquired.
“Just some unresolved issues from Lipscombe High.” Axel winked at Cora and Jessa. I delivered a stealthy punch to his lower back which made him cough abruptly. He produced the business card a moment later.
“I’m gonna fucking kidnap you and send you on a helicopter to the Bermuda Triangle,” I warned him once Cora and Jessa were wrapped up in conversation again. “You are being the ultimate douche-scraper.”
“Tell me,” Axel said, “is douche-scraper an implement one uses to remove douchery, or is it a sky-high building of douchery?”
“It’s a sky-high building of douchery,” I clarified for him, practically hissing into his ear. “One of the ultra-tall ones. You know, the buildings that only get approved because of the shady-ass contractor.”
Axel nodded sagely while Trace sent both of us a judgmental arched eyebrow. “What are you guys bitching about?”
“Nothing,” I told him.
“Trace, tell our brother how many times we caught him staring at Jessa like a lovesick fool our senior year of high school.”
“Fifty-two times,” Trace reported. “An average of once a week during the calendar year.”
I rolled my eyes. “You guys clearly have nothing better to do than to flip through our old yearbook and make up stories.”
If there was any doubt that I needed no one else in my life beyond my brothers, here was my proof. Between Axel and Trace, I had my hands more than full. I had the essentials: my closest family, the mingling of work and pleasure on the weekends, and the knowledge that I was doing good for people. My work was my atonement for my past failures. I was helping kids, even though I hadn’t been able to help my own little sisters.
A painful wrench in my chest left me gulping for air.
“Hey, you need another drink?” Axel asked me. “I don’t think we’re getting our ladies back anytime soon.” He tipped his head toward Cora and Jessa, who were currently fawning over the details of Jessa’s dress.
Our ladies.That was a joke. Jessa would never be my lady, because I’d never haveanylady. Not long-term, at least, and not any time soon. Not when I had the beast of the SEC investigation over my head and I had to figure out which exciting new way my life might begin to deteriorate when I was least expecting it.
“Whiskey,” I told him, handing off the empty glass. Axel took Trace’s order as well and then slipped into the crowd, heading for the bar. Really, we knew he wanted to mingle too. As the social butterfly and chameleon, mingling was Axel’s specialty. My job at these events was to simply remain alive and blinking until it was an acceptable time to leave. Trace fell somewhere in the middle: sociable enough, but he was a homebody at heart.
“Gosh, I haven’t even made it over here to say hello!” Jessa’s sweet voice wrenched at my insides again, my thighs tensing. I tipped my head in her direction.
“Welcome, Jessa.” Trace leaned in and gave her a loose hug. Her cheeks flushed as she looked over at me. My palms itched, wanting to extend the same, but I couldn’t. Not with the line I’d drawn in the sand. She and I were to remain boss and employee. That’s the only way that made sense.
“This place sure is fancy,” she said, smoothing her hands down the front of her dress. “So many fantastic outfits here tonight.” A handbag dangled from one wrist—something simple and silver. When her eyes swung my way again, I caught the same glint of silver in her eyes. “Are they carrying shrimp around on a tray?”
“The appetizers are good tonight,” Trace said.
