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I’d found myself staring into the most arresting and determined set of eyes I had ever seen. They were turbulent, intense, and vibrating with energy, and—to my shame—I had felt my traitorous body respond.
I’d told him I’d researched his family business activities; what I should have done was to look him up, too. But I hadn’t, and now I was paying for it.
Thinking of how his eyes had scorched over my body—rendering me hot—I still felt my middle quiver at how coldly he’d thrown my verbal assault back at me, dumping a proverbial bucket of ice over my head.
“God,” I pressed my hands to my eyes. “I had made a jackass of myself, going off half-cocked like some B-rated movies ready to revenge for…for someone spilling his coffee.Ugh.”
Appalled at my actions, I shot out of bed and grabbed the robe I’d thrown over a chair before I’d gone to bed. I’d thought I’d be firmly asleep until I started tossing and turning while playing the interaction with Ethan a hundred times.
I could have come at the issue a different way…
I could have looked into what Sean had said before taking it as gospel truth…
I could have tried to make peace…
Why was twenty-twenty vision always in hindsight?
Padding downstairs, I headed to the kitchen, hoping to get a sweet treat or something. Aside from the low-burning lamp in the front hall, the house was mostly dark. Surprisingly though, further down, the light in the kitchen was on, and when I stepped in, I found my younger brother, Ryan, shirtless and bent over a succulent-looking slice of key lime pie. I hadn’t seen him when I’d arrived. I supposed he had been out with his friends.
“Hey you, why are you up?” I asked.
He snorted. “So I could get the last slice of pie before you showed up. I kinda felt you would be coming by today.”
I smacked him over the head, knowing he was lying about the pie. “Asshat.” I went to check the fridge, pulled out the pie plate, cut a slice, and went to join him at the counter. “So, how is college, my genius brother?”
“Molecular biology is not genius material,” he replied. “Astrophysics and building rocket ships are genius material.”
“It is when you are studying genetics, too,” I replied, digging the fork into the pie. I stopped and went back to the fridge for whipped cream and dolloped it over the slice. “I could never get into the science stuff. I was asking for dolls at six, but at four, you went for the magnifying glass and plastic test tubes instead of the plastic trucks and cars.”
Ryan gave a wry grin, shooting the amber eyes that stared back at me in the mirror every day. “So, let me guess, you’re back home from your master’s degree to what? Talk Mom and Dad into allowing you to get a doctoral?”
“Actually—” I said, pausing at the grim realization that both our parents were still at the University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora, and they didn’t know I was here, “—I came to tell them I’m taking over.”
He paused with his loaded fork to his mouth, one eyebrow inching higher and higher until it nearly vanished in his hairline. “You’re going to take over…from Dad. I’d love to see you wrench the steering wheel from his hands. I doubt you can do that until he’s over the bridge.”
“Dad just had a heart attack,” I said. “Granted, it was a minor one, but it still counts. Besides, he’s sixty-five, and despite the army of assistants he’s got, he still makes sure he does it himself. It’s time he…I dunno, take a cruise, go to a beach somewhere and lay in the sun, roam the markets in Ibiza, something.”
“You know if you force Dad to retire, that might kill him more than the heart attack could have?” Ryan said matter-of-factly. “He loves to work. It’s his life.”
“It’s also his death if he doesn’t take it easy,” I replied. “Look, I’m not going to boot him out of his place. I’m just going to ask him to step down and let me do all the heavy lifting. Mom does what she can, but you know she is never business-minded. She’s more of a homemaker, always was.”
His lips twitched. “Something you never took to. We still have the scorch marks on the wall from that time you tried to cook Thanksgiving dinner.”
I groaned. “For God’s sake, let that go. It was five years ago.”
“Why would we?” Ryan laughed, “Do you know we still get Thanksgiving cards from the fire department every year.”
Huffing, I dumped my plate in the sink and grabbed my bag. “I’ll see you in the morning, pipsqueak. It has been a long drive from Denver.”
He shot me a salute while I headed to the curved staircase in the room behind us, then headed to the last room at the end of the hall.
Moonlight illuminated the ruffled Queen bed, the mahogany furniture, and the assorted pictures on the walls. Shucking off the robe, I slid back into bed and tried to relax.
No dice.
I had to think about business…but my mind kept straying back to Ethan. The way he’d held my face and looked at me with more fire than I had thought him capable of having. For most of my life, the few interactions I had with Ethan had given me the sense he was an aloof sort of guy, very…removed from his feelings.
It was kind of like that sitcom I’d watched the other day when this nerd guy had said his body and mind have a relationship that works best when they maintain a cool, wary distance from each other.
