Page 42 of Inked Persuasion

“I wouldn’t say no to a drink,” I agreed.

Beckett narrowed his eyes as he looked at me. “I don’t know. You look a little tired. Maybe you had too much to drink last night.”

I blinked. “Excuse me?” I asked, keeping my voice light.

“Don’texcuse me. I heard from Paige that you went out last night with Jacob Queen.”

“You heard nothing of the sort,” I said quickly.

“No, he stole my phone to check the weather—or so he said—and saw my text telling you to have a good night. I’m sorry,” Paige said as she elbowed Beckett in the gut.

“I wasn’t stalking, but my baby sister is going out on a date with the man who said he hated her. No, not going to happen.”

I narrowed my eyes at him as I poked him in the chest with my finger. “First off, no, we’re not doing this. You don’t get to go allbig brotheron me. Second off, we’re at work. We’re not going to do this now. And if you make a scene in front of Dad, I will never forgive you. We’re all dealing with enough right now. You know that. I cannot deal with his anger over his precious baby girl dating someone.”

“So youaredating someone,” he mumbled, and I narrowed my eyes. He held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. Not here. But I reserve the right to hound you later, just like you hound me.”

I shrugged. “Okay, fine. It’s only right that we’re even, I guess.” Not that I’d let him come at me again. I’d place myself strategically away from the office when the time came.

“Good, now we can get to work,” Paige said, putting her hands together in front of her. “We have a lot on the docket today, and I have a feeling it’s already going to be athing.”

“Pretty much.”

“Red alert,” Archer said as he ran back to where we were standing.

“What?” I asked, alarmed, looking around for a fire.

“I accidentally moved my sleeve up a bit more than usual, and he caught the tattoo.”

I scowled at him, my heart racing. “Archer. I know you wanted a half-sleeve, and it looks wonderful on your forearm, but you had to know that Dad would eventually notice the Montgomery Iris on your skin,” I whispered, frantic now.

My dad did not like the Montgomery Iris. He didn’t want his children to be branded with the other Montgomerys.

Archer rubbed his forearm and tugged his sleeve down.

“It’s just getting ridiculous. He saw the ink, narrowed his eyes, was about to say something, and I kind of ran.” The tips of Archer’s ears reddened. “I know our dad is amazing and nice and a good person. It’s just…he’s not acting like it right now.”

Benjamin walked into the building at that moment, saw the four of us huddled together in the corner by Paige’s desk, and shook his head.

“What did you do?” Benjamin asked, running a hand over his hair.

“Well, Dad is double-checking all of our work again, saw Archer’s tattoo, and is in a bad mood,” I answered.

“And we left him alone with Clay,” Paige added.

My eyes widened. “Crap. Clay’s amazing, we can’t have him quitting.”

“Damn it. I’ve got this,” Beckett said and stormed off, leaving us behind, shaking our heads.

“And you’re late, bro,” Archer said, glancing at Benjamin.

My brother shook his head. “It is too fucking hot for me to spend the coolness of the morning inside, dealing with Dad’s plans, when I could be working on what I need to out at my sites. I get that Dad wants us to work on this as a family because he feels like this is his project, but I’m exhausted. My team needs me to be out there helping them, not in here in a nice air-conditioned unit, when they’re out there sweating to death.”

“I’m sorry, Ben,” I whispered.

“I’m sorry, too. Now let’s get through this meeting so we can get back to our real jobs.”

“You know it’s Saturday, right?” Paige said. “I mean, we all know it’s Saturday. We’re not even supposed to be working today. That was our deal as a family. That we’d take weekends off to protect one another and our staff.”

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