Page 5 of And Then There Was Us
“He’s my boss. I park out back, and he doesn’t like me to go out there in the dark by myself. He walks Kat out, too, when she parks there.” She was still smiling about hishusbandcomment.
“After I pay, I’ll be leaving. Want me to walk you out?” Hugh asked.
Kat wiggled her eyebrows at her.
Yes! No! Bad idea. Truly bad idea.Brianna thought of Layla and came back to her senses. She looked down and straightened her T-shirt. “No, that’s okay. Mack will take me. It was nice meeting you, Hugh. Kat, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“When are you on?” Kat asked.
“I’m at Claude’s in the morning. Back here at four, after I get Layla.” For the first time in longer than she could remember, as Brianna said her daughter’s name, an uncomfortable feeling prickled her nerves. When she’d first had Layla and she was learning to shut out the male population, she’d had a few uncomfortable conversations with men about having a daughter. Now she felt that twinge of discomfort, and she hated herself for it. Why should she care if he knew she had a daughter? She was proud of Layla, and everything he’d just said was probably not true anyway. What man says he wants a smart, honest, and family-oriented woman? His good looks must have stolen her ability to think straight.That has to be it.
“Have a nice night, Bree,” Hugh said with a nod.
As Brianna and Mack headed out the door, she wondered what her name would sound like coming off his lips after a long, sensuous kiss.
Chapter Three
“ART, WHAT WERE you thinking?” Hugh spoke into the speakerphone as he drove his liquid-silver Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren Roadster through the gates of his ten-acre estate. He couldn’t stop thinking about Bree, but the thought that he’d been sitting with Tracie when he could have been trying to get to know Bree better pissed him off—and Art was about to pay for that.
“Was she that bad?” Art asked.
“Was she…? Art, you’re my buddy, man. What are you trying to do to me?” He pressed a button on his visor and the garage door lifted. Automatic lights illuminated the interior of his four-car garage.
“I’m sorry. It was a favor. She’s a friend of my sister’s best friend.”
“Dude, really? You’re supposed to protect my image. She was like…I don’t even know what. I’m off the market. Officially, as of right this second.” Hugh ended the call and headed inside the brick Tudor home he’d added to his real estate collection a few years earlier, when he’d found two naked women in his hotel bedroom and had to call security to have them removed. Hugh loved naked women as much as the next guy, but he liked his privacy. Even though he wasn’t in any state for very long, he returned year after year, and purchasing homes alleviated the need for hotels altogether. And after watching his four older brothers and his older sister fall in love over the past few months, he’d begun to feel a pull toward settling down, and he’d begun to want more. With a degree from Cornell in finance, he knew he could never settle down with a woman who wasn’t his intellectual equal, which meant most leggy models and fan girls were out of the equation. For months he’d been actively separating himself from his previous lifestyle.
He grabbed a copy ofThe Art of Negotiatingand kicked back on a leather couch in the large great room. He clicked a remote, and the enormous propane fireplace bloomed in flames of orange and red; then he dimmed the overhead lights, and with another flick of the remote, the reading lamp that arced artfully over his left shoulder brightened. The house had many bells and whistles, which Hugh enjoyed, but he would have preferred something a little smaller. Since he’d purchased during the recession, it had been too good of a deal to pass up, and with the market recovery, he’d already doubled his original purchase price in equity.
He’d just slipped off his loafers and kicked his feet up on the glass coffee table when his cell phone rang.
Savannah.“How’s my newly engaged sister?”
“Happy. How are you?” Savannah had always been a positive light in Hugh’s life, but since getting engaged to Jack Remington, she’d been ridiculously cheery.
“Eh, you know. Life is good, my cars are fast, and my women are, too.” His usual statement fell off his lips like a bad habit, which is just what it had become. It even tasted wrong.
“Are you ever going to settle down?” she asked.
He thought about Tracie and cringed. Then he pictured Brianna’s beautiful face. “Maybe one day, but she’d have to be one heck of a woman for me to even consider it.” Hugh didn’t know why he was still playing the off-the-cuff answer to Savannah, but as he said the words, his mind traveled down a different path, realizing that what he’d been looking for just might come true after all.
“Yeah, well, when you’re not looking, you’ll find her. That’s when I found Jack. Treat will tell you fate steps in. Dad will tell you that Mom has her hand in it. But I think it’s just luck.” Savannah was an entertainment attorney, and her fiancé, Jack Remington, was an ex–Special Forces officer, a bush plane pilot, and a survival-training guide. Hugh pictured her in her Manhattan loft, probably packing to go to the cabin Jack owned in the Colorado Mountains, where they’d been spending their weekends.
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll believe it when I experience it. What’s up, Vanny?”
“We’re having an engagement party at Dad’s, and I wanted to know if you could fit it into your schedule. It’s kind of short notice.”
“Of course. When is it?” Everything in the Braden family was short notice. They were used to dropping everything and coming together for one of their father’s backyard barbeques even though they lived so far apart.
“Two weeks from Saturday.”
Hugh mentally ran through his schedule. “Yeah, that’s perfect. The final race of the season is next weekend, so I should be clear for that. Did you talk to everyone else? Were you able to reach Dane and Lacy?”
“Yeah. It turns out that there’s some sort of function for Lacy’s work in Massachusetts the next week, so it worked out perfect for them, too. Josh and Riley, Treat and Max, and Rex and Jade will all be there. I’m so excited that you can make it.”
It struck Hugh that his siblings were no longer referred to as Treat, Dane, Rex, Josh, and Savannah. Each one was now paired with their forever love. That was a comforting feeling, and something in him longed for the same connection. He sat up as the emotion—which had become even more familiar as of late—gripped him and refused to let go.
“Me too, Vanny. Tell Jack I said hi. I’m going to go chill. It’s been a long night.”
