Page 32 of Mark my Words

“Sam Langley,” he smiled as my brother gave me a loaded look, slowly shaking Sam’s outstretched hand. “Kristine and I just finished working on a project together.”

“I’m sure you did,” Greg laughed. “This one is a handful, isn’t she? How often did she try to tell you that you were doing your job wrong?”

“Oh, only a few,” Sam laughed as he kicked his foot out under the table, grazing my heel with the tip of his shoe. “She knows what she’s doing, though, so I tend to listen when she’s bossing me around.”

“Alright, that’s enough,” I interrupted, pinning Sam down with a loaded stare before turning on my brother. “Just text me where you want to meet, and I’ll show up. I’m assuming Daddy is paying.”

“Oh, come on, Krissy,” he smiled, knowing I hated that name. “I’m a big boy now. If you haven’t noticed, I have my own job and everything.”

Don’t worry, I noticed. I also see your five-thousand-dollar suit that screams, ‘My mommy picked this out.’

“You should bring your friend.” Greg lifted his chin toward Sam, and my eyes widened.

“I...uh...what...he’s not.” Fuck. Now he was going to know something was going on. I was stuttering like a pubescent boy discovering porn for the first time. “Sam’s busy.”

“And you know this how?”

Glancing around the room, I noticed Sloane off to the side with Adrian and Isobel, curiously watching Greg talk to me. She had to know he was my brother. The last name was a dead giveaway, as well as our matching hair color and hazel-hued eyes. We may have had wildly different personalities, but we looked like siblings. Another Willard trait that I couldn’t shake, the gene pool was as dominant as the personality traits.

“I just do. I’m sure you’re busy, and Sloane needs to...”

“Krissy, relax. I’ve got the afternoon free. And Sloane looks occupied.” He glanced over his shoulder, making eye contact with her and smiling. She grinned back, obviously another powerful woman to add to his fan club. Ugh. “What do you say, Sam? Want to join my sister and me for dinner? You can fill me in on what it’s like to work with this little troublemaker.”

I felt my face flame as I twisted in my chair to face Sam, mouthing ‘NO’ with a slight shake of my head. He looked a little nervous, his eyes shifting to Gregory and back to me.

“I was going to go to the gym to run a few miles after work,” he started.

“See, Greggy? Told you he was occupied.”

“I told you to stop calling me that,” Greg narrowed his eyes at me, and I gave him a wide smile in return.

“And I told you to stop calling me Krissy when I was five. It’s annoying when people don’t do what you want, isn’t it?”

“Anyway,” he smiled, looking back toward Sam. “I’m sure you can go hit the treadmill another time. I’d love to get to know my sister’s friends here. You should join us.”

“Let it go, Greg.”

“You seem adamant about keeping me away from your friend Sam here, Krissy. I’d hate to have to ask Mom why that could be.”

Fuck. That was low. She’d have our wedding planned before Greg could even hang up the phone. She’d assume he was rich because why else would you ever date someone? Boy, would she be disappointed to see me cavorting with a man without influence. In her eyes, I was already a failure, refusing to take a job in New York so she could continue to try to marry me off to her friends’ pretentious offspring. Add in that I earned my career on my merit, and I was the feminist outcast.

“Fine,” I growled, looking over to Sam. “Would you like to join my obnoxious brother and me for dinner, Sam?”

“Well, when you put it like that, how can I refuse?” he laughed as he kicked his toe against my shoe again, his eyes twinkling with amusement. He had no idea how much of a shit show my family was.

“Great.” Greg clapped, reaching forward to squeeze my shoulder. “I’ll text you the address. Make sure to wear a dress, Krissy. I need to make some calls. I’ll see you tonight.” He glanced at Sam, smiling widely. “I look forward to picking your brain about this one.”

Fucking nosy-ass bastard. He was almost worse than our mother with digging for dirt.

Sloane called the small meeting to order, telling us about the three new positions coming available in the next several months. First, two copy editor positions within the Boston branch, in non-fiction—ick–and fantasy. Then another in the New York office in the contemporary romance division. That would have been a perfect position, but I was never moving back to New York. It just wasn’t going to happen.

“Hey, you okay?” Sam cornered me in the hallway outside Isobel’s office, pulling me in the door and leaning his arm on the wall next to my head as I sagged into the corner.

“I’m fine,” I muttered, trying not to look into his concerned eyes. I didn’t want to need him for comfort. I didn’t want to need him, period, but he’d been on my mind nonstop for days, and not even the parts I expected. I could have compartmentalized better if it was just a physical attraction, but this was different. I wanted his arms around me and to have him tell me he’d protect me from my brother’s prying. That he’d listen as I vented about how my family wouldn’t let me have my own life, far away from theirs. I could explain to Sam that my father was probably behind my brother’s visit to our office.

He’d let me yell that I suspected my father was behind the position at the New York office since I knew that Isobel’s counterpart had just been hired two years ago. Sam thought his mother was annoying when she tried to control him from across the country. He had no idea what it felt like to not know for sure if your professional future was something you earned or was just an orchestrated move on my father’s chessboard to try to draw me back.

“Look, if you don’t want me there tonight, I can devise an excuse, but maybe it wouldn’t be the worst idea to go with a little backup.”

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