Brother to the Boss: Billionaire Romance (Managing the Bosses Series Book 8) (5 page)

ONE WEEK LATER

“What do you say we take the peanuts out today?” Alex suggested over breakfast, wiping a stray crumb from Lilli’s face. “We could go somewhere fun.”

Jamie took a sip of the coffee she hadn’t quite finished, and looked over the rim of the cup at her husband. She loved watching him with the twins, seeing how much he cared about his children. He really was the best man she could have found. Gorgeous, devoted, and an amazing father. What else could she possibly want?

A little less of a workaholic
, part of her suggested, but Jamie pushed the thought away. Alex had been late last night but he’d more than made it up to her, and now he was home all day, with the promise to ignore work. They’d given Briana the weekend off.

It was exactly what Jamie wanted.

“Where are you thinking?” she asked, setting the coffee cup down and moving across the kitchen to wrap her arms around his shoulders.

He leaned back against her with a content sigh. “I don’t know. What’s a good place to take kids in New York?”

Jamie laughed. “You know, I haven’t really given that much thought. I think most of the city attractions will be a bit too grown up for them.”

“What about the beach?”

“Are you sure that’s safe?”

Alex tipped his head back to look at her. “We’re not going to let them run around on their own, baby. But they could play in the sand. Get a little sun. It’ll be fun. We’ll pack some leftovers and have a picnic.”

It did sound tempting. Jamie hadn’t been to the beach since, well, her wedding/honeymoon. This wouldn’t be quite the same thing, but some sun and surf might be just the ticket for a lazy Saturday.

She did a quick Google search for local beaches while Alex prepared lunch, and then they packed the kids and the cooler in the car and headed down to the beach. It had, Jamie decided as they got out of the car, been a good idea after all. The beach wasn’t as crowded as she expected it to be, and the breeze off the bay was cool in the late summer sun. Alex helped her get the twins out of the car and into sun hats, and then they carried them down to a spot on the shore where they could watch the waves roll in.

Benton and Lilli tried to dump as much sand as possible onto whoever was nearest. Despite the fact that she was sure she was going to be finding it in very uncomfortable places later, Jamie found herself laughing.

“I’m glad we decided to do this,” she said, looking up at Alex. “I’ve missed you.”

He reached across the blanket and took her hand. “I’ve missed you, too. I promise, Jamie, I’m going to try to be home more. I know that things have been rough lately, but we’ll get out ahead of Nicholas soon. And once all this is behind us we can just relax.”

She hoped it was true. Except something always seemed to come up. Their entire relationship, she sometimes felt, had been one ridiculous thing after another. Every time it settled down there was a new problem to overcome, and sometimes she wondered if their lives would have been easier without so much money involved.

“You know what we should do?” Alex said, breaking into thoughts that were turning a direction Jamie didn’t want them to go.

Jamie looked up. “What?”

He grinned at her, and Jamie felt a little stirring of want in her core. He was so hot. “We should build a sandcastle.”

It was such a surprise that Jamie laughed. She looked down at the twins. “What do you think?” she asked them. “Want to build a sandcastle with Daddy?”

Lilli smiled a big, gap-toothed smile, and Benton waved both hands in the air.

Jamie took that as an enthusiastic yes. “We should have brought buckets,” she said as they moved themselves and the twins down closer to the waterline, where the sand was damp and easy to shape. “Then we’d really be in business.”

“Next time,” Alex said, holding Benton’s tiny hands in his own and guiding him to pat sand down over the little mound of it they’d formed.

It didn’t look much like a castle, but Jamie was pretty sure that the twins weren’t going to be complaining about that. She took Lilli’s hands in her own, following Alex’s example, and they added their efforts to the guys’, building another little hill of sand and patting it into vague tower shape.

The whole venture lasted about five minutes, which was as long as it took for Lilli to decide it was way more fun to knock towers down than to build them. Alex shook his head as he watched her squealing in delight, turning their lopsided castle into a sad little pile of sand. Benton, always happy to join his sister in wanton messiness, added his pudgy fists to the effort. The indulgent smile on Alex’s face was one that Jamie was pretty sure she was going to be seeing a lot more around the twins — and especially Lilli — than she was going to be happy with. But she couldn’t really begrudge him that when she was probably going to spoil both of them just as thoroughly as their father was obviously planning to.

Alex’s phone rang in his pocket, and he pulled it out to glance down at the screen.

“Do you have to answer that?”

He looked up at her even as he swiped his thumb across the screen to answer. “It’s Zander. I told him not to call unless it was important. I’ll keep the call quick.”

“We’ll be here when you’re done,” Jamie said, offering a smile that she hoped was supportive.

There was no answer. Alex had already lifted the phone to his ear and was moving away from them, nodding along to something Zander was saying.

“Looks like Daddy’s going to be busy for a little bit,” Jamie said, moving so that she sat between the twins and the ocean just in case one of them decided to make a break for it. They didn’t seem to be particularly bothered by the fact that Alex had just walked away, which Jamie supposed was a plus. Hopefully by the time they were old enough to notice sudden departures, those would be few and far between.

Shaking her head, she built up another makeshift tower, and watched as the twins rapidly reduced it to scattered sand. Despite her frustration with business calling Alex away yet again, she smiled. It was hard to watch the amount of delight they took in smashing the sandcastle to bits and stay annoyed.

Minutes passed, and Alex still hadn’t come back. Jamie looked up from the towers she was constructing for Lilli and Benton and scanned the beach for him, but she couldn’t make out his familiar form anywhere in her line of sight, and wondered where he’d gone. What was the conversation that was so important?

When she looked down again, Lilli wasn’t there.

Jamie felt her heart stop. She had just looked away for a second. How could it be long enough for her daughter to be gone? Frantically, her eyes scanned the beach, her heart racing.

There. Lilli was five feet from her, toddling toward the water. Jamie scooped up Benton so quickly that she must have startled him, jogging across the sand to take Lilli’s little hand in her own and catch her back. She realized as her fingers closed around her daughter’s that she was shaking, and she sank to her knees, legs too weak to hold her up.

“No,” she said it firmly, turning Lilli to face her. “We don’t do that, Lilliana! Do you understand me? We do not run away from Mommy.”

Lilli looked wide-eyed at Jamie, then back at the ocean, and Jamie pulled her around again with just enough force to get her attention.

“Lilli! You don’t run away from me. No.”

She wasn’t sure if it had any effect or not. She knew Lilli could understand the word no, but she didn’t know if her daughter would understand why it was being said or what she’d done wrong. Benton was struggling to get out of her hold, undoubtedly so that he could make a dash for the water himself, and Jamie let him down but took a firm hold of his hand. Both of them were tugging at her then, trying to get her to take them down to the edge of the water. They pointed, babbling in their baby language that wasn’t quite words yet.

Where the hell was Alex?

As though summoned by the thought, there were footsteps in the sand behind her, and Jamie craned her neck around to find Alex looking down at her, an amused smile on his face.

“They’re looking pretty serious about making it to that water.”

“Lilli,” Jamie said, suddenly on the verge of tears, “almost did. Without me. Because I looked away for one second and then she was gone.”

Alex’s smile dropped and he leaned down to pick Lilli up despite her protests, holding her close in his arms.

Jamie gathered Benton up and stood. “Which wouldn’t have happened,” she said, “if you had stayed with us.”

He reached out a hand to her, and Jamie hesitated for just an instant before she stepped into the offered embrace, burying her face against her husband’s shoulder and taking a long, shuddering breath.

“She could have made it to the water,” she said, voice catching in her throat. “If I’d been just a second slower, she could have.”

His arm tightened around her. “It’s okay, baby. You got here. She’s here. She’s safe. They both are.”

They were both safe. Jamie nodded against Alex’s shoulder, still shaky, but able to breathe again. Nothing bad had happened. It was okay.

“I’m sorry that I walked away,” Alex said gently.

Jamie looked up. She shook her head as she stepped out of Alex’s arms, boosting Benton into a better position on her hip while he squirmed and protested being held. She sighed. “It’s okay,” she said. “It was important or you wouldn’t have taken it.”

“It
was
important,” Alex said, “but it’s dealt with now. And you’re what’s important.” He looked down at the twins, and then back up at Jamie, the smile on his face again. “What do you say we take them down and introduce them to the ocean?”

Jamie laughed, the last of the tension finally seeping out of her muscles. “Yeah,” she said, “okay. Let’s do that.”

Despite their earlier enthusiastic attempts to run open-armed into it, the twins were not very impressed with the ocean water, which this far north wasn’t all that warm even at the end of summer. Lilli slapped at it with one hand, then looked down at her fingers and shook them, trying to get rid of the feeling of the water.

Alex laughed. “I guess it isn’t as exciting as she thought it was going to be.”

“I guess not,” Jamie agreed, grinning at him over the twins’ heads.

Benton chose that moment to stick the hand he’d dunked in the water into his mouth, and promptly made a noise of disgust that set Jamie laughing and Alex off again.

“Okay,” she said when their mirth had faded. “We should probably take them back up the beach and get them some food.”

This time, the twins didn’t reach back for the ocean when Jamie and Alex started carrying them away. They would probably enjoy it a bit more in a few years when they were really allowed to play in it, but for now Jamie was glad they didn’t seem that excited about it anymore. If it meant no more attempts to run in unattended, she would breathe a little easier.

They pulled food out of the cooler they’d brought with them and set it up on the blanket, feeding themselves between bites for the twins. The breeze off the ocean was just cool enough to offset the warmth of the sun, and around them there were other families laughing and playing. Under the noise of their activity, the rhythmic hush of the waves provided a serene backdrop. It was exactly what Jamie had wanted.

Their family needed times like these. Time to just relax, to be together and bond and share the sunlight and the sound of the ocean. She knew Alex knew that, and wanted to be part of it, but he seemed to struggle with implementing the concept. With everything that had been happening at Reid Enterprises, finding time to get away was difficult. If he would just give more of the control to Zander, he could let go a little. Spend some time with them without having to worry about his phone ringing.

When the twins were born, Jamie had thought that would get him to do it, let go of some of the reins of the company and spend more time at home. And he had, to an extent. There were no more fifteen-hour days. No more falling into bed at midnight just back from the office. But she wanted them to have more. More days like this, sitting together on a blanket and watching the waves roll in.

Somehow, Jamie was going to make it happen.

Mark woke a week after the news interview to the sun spilling in through the window, the light of it visible even through his closed eyelids, Erica curled against his chest and wrapped close in his arms. It wasn't a bad way to be woken up, really. In fact, it was a pretty nice way to wake up, and Mark smiled as the woman in his embrace stirred, not yet fully awake, and snuggled closer. His arms tightened around her.

“Mmmm… mornin’,” Erica said without opening her eyes.

“Morning,” Mark replied, his voice sounding low and husky. There was also a smile in his voice to match the one on his face. “We should get up.”

Erica sighed and Mark laughed, reaching a hand up to run it through her hair. “Come on. Up you get. I’ve got things I’ve got to do this morning, unfortunately.”

She opened one eye, and gave him a looked that conveyed her definite lack of interest in getting up, but after a moment she opened them both, and Mark let his arms fall away so she could stretch and yawn, levering herself upright. While he sat up, she crawled out of the bed, bending to go through the drawers that they’d designated hers for something to wear.

“Well,” Mark said, knowing she wouldn’t mind hearing it, “that's a lovely view.”

Erica gave her hips a deliberate little wiggle that made Mark groan low in his throat and wish that he didn’t have things to do after all, because there were far better things they could be doing in here. Alone. Preferably before Erica put clothes on. She glanced back over her shoulder at him, fully aware of what she had just done, and gave him a smile that was entirely too sweet to be believable.

“If we had more time,” she said, “I'd let you get a closer look. But, as you so firmly pointed out, we’ve got places to be. And things to do. You’re running a hell of a popular hangout for the rich and famous these days.”

It was true. Since the piece on the country club had aired, the influx of customers had been—if Mark was honest with himself—almost more than they could handle. Which wasn’t a complaint. He had wanted the country club to succeed from the beginning. But the workload was putting stress on everyone. They were going to have to bring in more staff.

And things had been strained with Erica. The constant concerns of running a rapidly-expanding business hadn’t exactly made Mark the nicest person to be around; he knew that. And Erica didn’t take well to that.

Last night, though, had been good. For both of them. And the sex had been amazing. Mark buttoned his shirt as he watched Erica put makeup on, and wondered if there was any way he could manage a repeat performance later.

On his way out of the room he leaned over to steal a kiss, supporting her face gently in his palm and lingering for a long, delicious moment over her mouth. Then it was downstairs and to business, the pleasures of the bedroom put aside until after the work day had passed.

***

The phone was ringing again. At the reception desk, Christine picked up the line, answering smoothly, and Mark turned to head back toward the kitchen, where they would inevitably be having some kind of problem with something that he desperately needed to fix, as usual.

“Mr. Reid.” The head chef met him just inside. “The cabbages we got in are terrible quality. Half rotted, some of them. I can’t serve those to guests.”

And there was the problem, just like he’d expected. Honestly, they’d been open for long enough that the kitchen shouldn’t be having trouble with such mundane things, and if they did they should be able to handle it without him. But of course, they couldn’t. Mark sighed.

“Mr. Reid,” said a voice behind him. “You’ve got a Mr. Burwick on line two, demanding to speak with the owner of the country club. He won’t take no for an answer.”

“Chef Blake,” Mark said. “Go ahead and call the supply company. You’ve got the go ahead from me. And talk to the manager in charge of this stuff. He’s probably better help than I’d be.”

He crossed into the lobby again, taking the phone Christine offered.

“Yes,” he said. “This is Mr. Reid, owner of Little Lake Country Club. How can I help you?”

The voice that came down the line was overly loud. “Yes. Mr. Reid. Thank you for speaking with me. I think I misplaced my wallet while I was visiting. Have you had anything come through lost and found?”

“If someone’s wallet had been found, it would come directly to me,” Mark said. “We keep any lost and found valuables in my office. There hasn’t been anything today or yesterday.”

“Then it was stolen,” the man on the other end said. “And I’m holding the club responsible.”

Mark ran a hand through his hair, pausing to lean against one of the walls that was out of the way enough that he probably wouldn’t be run over by any of the serving staff moving back and forth between the kitchen and the restaurant, but was also not within the public eye. The last thing he needed to do was have an argument with a customer in front of his clientele, even over the phone.

“Mr…”

“Mr. Hill.”

“Mr. Hill,” Mark said. “If your wallet
was
stolen while you were at the club—and you have no proof of that—but if it was, then we aren’t responsible. It was your personal property, and on your body. We have no liability. There are signs clearly posted in the change rooms, fitness rooms, and several other locations throughout the club. If your wallet does—”

“You’re telling me that you’re going to just ignore the fact that my wallet was stolen on your property?” Mr. Hill demanded, shouting into the phone at a much higher volume than was polite or at all required.

“Your best option in a case like this is to call the police,” Mark told him, forcing his voice to stay calm. He wasn’t going to yell back at the man. Whatever the guy’s attitude, he was a customer, and Mark had a reputation as a business owner to uphold. A reputation which, some days, was beginning to feel increasingly unimportant in the face of the things some people thought they could get away with. But he hadn’t come this far for nothing. “Let them know that you think your wallet was stolen. I highly suggest you call your bank and cancel your credit cards if you haven’t already. They’ll be able to help you out a lot better than we will.”

“I’ll be sure to mention that in my review of your establishment,” Mr. Hill said sharply.

The line disconnected.

Mark straightened up, shaking his head, and started back toward the main part of the kitchen to deal with the cabbages. The never-ending nonsense had to settle down sometime. Eventually, everyone would settle in and they’d have a regular clientele and a well-oiled machine of a country club. But Alex might have warned him that running a business was going to be so chaotic before he’d encouraged him to do it.

Maybe Mark would mention that the next time they talked.

In the meantime, he had a dozen other things to deal with before the Saturday night crowd showed up in a few hours and he was expected to play socialite as well as business owner.

***

By the time the dinner service was over and the ballroom opened for dancing and drinks, Mark was pretty sure he was on the verge of falling asleep standing up. It had been one thing after another after another since the call from Mr. Hill, and not all of them had been as pleasant as that discussion. But it was a little bit of a reprieve to be released from the more demanding parts of the job and allowed to circulate through the guests, checking that they were having a good time and occasionally stopping to chat with one or two.

At least, it was until he happened to glance over toward the far side of the room and find Erica standing between two well-dressed men, a glass of Champagne in one hand and a smile on her face. Mark’s jaw tightened. This was one of the things that he didn’t like about the after-dinner socializing on the weekends. There was always someone, or more than one someone, trying to get Erica’s attention, and more often than not she was happy to give it, like she didn’t realize just what they were angling for.

He edged his way closer to the little group, careful to keep out of their line of sight.

“So, Erica,” he heard one of the men say, standing entirely too close to her. “What brings you to Little Lake? You planning on touring again next summer?”

“Actually,” Erica said, “I work here. As one of the golf instructors. So this is kind of where I spend all of my time these days.”

“Oh. Well, then. I guess we’ll have to be on our best behavior.” The tall blond man gave Erica a grin that she would have to be blind not to realize was a blatant invitation, and exchanged a glance with the slimmer dark-haired man beside him. “Wouldn’t want to get in any trouble with the employees.”

Erica laughed, and took a sip from the glass of Champagne in her hands, head tipping slightly to the side. “What about you? What brings you to the country club, Arthur?”

“Oh, you know, what brings most people. Golf. Good food. A chance to watch bored rich people try to pretend like they’re having a good time.”

Mark saw both of Erica’s eyebrows lift. “Do you think they aren’t?”

“It’s hard to tell with them,” Arthur said. “They have a habit of always looking vaguely constipated, and you never know whether that’s because they actually are, or because they’re trying not to say that they find the whole situation so terribly gauche or something.”

She laughed again, and Mark resisted the urge to growl. They were just talking, he reminded himself, picking up a glass of wine from one of the trays that was circulating around the room in the hands of the wait staff. Erica wasn’t doing anything wrong, and he really should be entertaining some customers himself, but that didn’t stop the jealousy from curdling in his stomach.

“So you’re not rich yourself? Or bored?”

The man she’d called Arthur grinned. “Neither of the above. I guess you could call me fairly well off, but some of the people around here make me look like a pauper in comparison. I’m not one of the multimillionaire, home in the Hamptons, and yacht on the bay type. And, if I’m being honest, I appreciate the aesthetic value of country clubs more than the social atmosphere. I’m mostly just here to take pictures.”

That got Mark’s attention. Apparently Erica’s, too. She leaned in a little closer. “You’re a photographer?”

Arthur nodded. “Yup. The kind that even makes a bit of money off their photography now and again. Richard just tags along because he has nowhere better to be. But he’s totally anti-social.”

His grin made the teasing obvious even to Mark, who really needed to pull himself together and go talk to some of his other guests. These two were obviously doing fine. Erica had them on the hook, thoroughly enjoying their night. He just couldn’t seem to drag himself away. Still lingering, he saw the dark look Arthur’s friend gave him which was ruined by the barest twitch of a smile at the corner of his mouth.

“It’s not so much that,” Richard said, with a conspiratorial smile for Erica that looked a lot like flirting from where Mark was standing, “as that it’s impossible to get a word in edgewise around Art.”

It was Arthur’s turn to glare. He did it much more convincingly.

Erica laughed. “So what do you come out here for, then, Richard?”

“I’m a writer,” the man answered. “I come up here for inspiration.” He shot a look at Arthur from the corner of his eye, smile widening lazily. “Art relentlessly quashes it.”

“There’s nothing to quash,” Arthur said. “I’ve seen the kind of stuff you write.”

“You see?” Richard said. “He’s a tyrant.”

Arthur gave the other man a narrow-eyed look, but Mark was more concerned with the fact that he was sliding neatly closer to Erica. Way too close, in fact, for his comfort, and he considered stepping in.

“If you think she’s going to hide you,” Arthur said. “I think you’re mistaken.”

The sidelong look he gave Erica then was definitely flirting. Mark took a step forward.

“Not at all,” Richard told Arthur. “She’s just better-looking than you are.” Another grin directed her way. “And she smells nicer.”

“Flattery,” Erica said, “will get you nowhere, you know.”

“You are,” Arthur said moving closer on her other side, “a very beautiful woman. Are you sure that flattery won’t do anything for you?”

Erica’s eyebrow lifted, and she gave them both a look that Mark knew meant she wasn’t interested in the least. “What is this? Compliment Erica from every side time?”

“That's exactly what it is,” Richard said. “You’re thoroughly deserving of it.”

And that was really it. Enough was enough. Mark stepped forward.

“And also thoroughly not interested,” Erica said just as he reached her side. “Sorry, boys.”

She turned toward Mark, offering him a smile, then looked back at the men who’d been trying to hit on her and were now obviously aware that they’d been moving in on something that they weren’t welcome to, because they’d both taken several steps back.

“Arthur, Richard,” Erica said, as though she hadn’t noticed their sudden change in attitude. “This is my boss, and the owner of Little Lake Country Club. Mark Reid.”

He could have pointed out that he was also her boyfriend, but they hadn’t really discussed labels yet, and Mark wasn’t going to risk being shot down in front of them and giving them the idea that they were welcome to flirt with Erica after all. Because they weren’t.