Page 20 of Crossing the Line
A Night Over
Paisley Grove
The next morning, I’m sitting in my office. The lights are still off because my head needs a moment to make peace with being awake. My elbows are on top of my desk, my shoulders curled forward, and my face buried in my palms.
What a night.It feels too surreal to be true. Fortunately, I don’t need a key to access my parents’ luxury penthouse, which is where I’ve been living for two years too long. My fingerprint granted me entrance at 2:11 a.m. when I made it home.
Walking into his brother’s apartment without calling first at that hour in the morning took real gonads and a lot of entitlement. Yes, indeed—Achilles reminds me of Max.
I didn’t fall asleep until three in the morning, maybe later. I was so worried about my purse being at Hercules’s. My cellphone was in it. I planned to wake up at around six, swallow my pride, and then head over to Hercules’s place to retrieve it. However, this morning, my purse was delivered to me with a note.
Thank you, PG.
That was all he said. Talk about an anticlimactic ending to a lovely one-night stand. At first his insensitive note made me fume. But then I thought it through. Maybe Hercules’s distant words of gratitude were what I needed to hear. We let our passions get away from us last night. The fact that we both scampered to hide our sex-adventure from Achilles says a lot.
Recalling my harrowing escape, I blurt a laugh. Heck, I probably would have told Hercules I loved him or something if we’d kept going. We probably would have made love through the wee hours of the morning until the sun came up. I had no plans to leave anytime soon. I’m certain Hercules wasn’t close to kicking me out of his bed either. We were comfortable together.
And I’ll never admit this to anyone, not even him, but I feel that in his bed and in his presence is where I belong for the rest of my life. That’s silly, though. Because he’s a Lord.
Heaviness descends on my shoulders as I consider telling my parents something like, “Oh, and Hercules Lord is my date for Thanksgiving dinner.” My parents would blow a gasket. Whenever they speak of the Lords, they do so in negative terms.
“Look at her,” my mom once said while reading an announcement on her cellphone. “Priscilla Lord is always social climbing. What does she do all day besides plan elaborate parties for herself?” Priscilla Lord is Hercules’s mother.
And our family is in constant litigation with them. We both own software-development companies. GIT, our company, is a lot more successful than Lord Technical Innovations—LTI—which is their company.
But why did Achilles question Hercules about Lauren? What was that about?
I’ll call Lake as soon as I settle in for the day. Maybe she’ll be able to elaborate on why the relationship between Hercules and Lauren is so “complicated.”
Suddenly, the stress of escaping Hercules’s apartment seizes me again, and I laugh. I barely made it out without being seen.
“What’s so funny?” Max says.
His stern, lifeless voice makes me jump. I take my hands away from my face to glower at my tall, dark, and strikingly handsome brother, who towers over me in front of my desk. Max inherited most of our supermodel mother’s most impressive features—even though he mainly resembles our dad. Without trying very hard, he always looks so put together. Whenever we’re together and women are around, they flirt shamelessly. He’s been passed hotel room keys, naked photos, phone numbers, and on several occasions, mailed packages containing sexy panties. His response to all the extreme measures women go to just to get his attention is simply to have no reaction at all. I’ve been asked many times, by interested parties, if he’s gay. I can unequivocally say that he isn’t. Max has very distinctive taste in women. Even though he always looks impeccable, he’s not attracted to the same quality in the opposite sex. The only girlfriend he ever introduced to me had blonde dreadlocks and her favorite outfit was part of an endless collection of paint-stained, faded coveralls, which she wore with scuffed-up combat boots. She was an artist named Kiera, who talked while she chewed, never minded her posture, and sucked her teeth when she was finished eating. I liked her a lot. I believed Max chose her because he was projecting. Deep down inside, he wanted to be just like her. But he’s been groomed to be the head of the our family’s multibillion dollar corporation from a very young age. I think the responsibility of that, made him more serious than God had made him.
At the moment, I’m staring at my brother because he hasn’t said anything yet. He’s just studying me as if he’s trying to figure out what’s wrong with me.
“And by the way. Could you knock, please?” I snap, remembering how Achilles just let himself into Hercules’s private space too. It seems both of our brothers have an issue with respecting boundaries.
“What’s wrong with you?” he asks with pinched eyebrows.
I fling myself back against my seat. “Nothing. What do you want?”
Again, Max narrows his eyes at me. Then he sighs briskly. I think he’s decided to leave well enough alone. “I’m double-booked this morning. I need you to sit in on an important hearing for me. But I’m not sure you’re up to it.”
I shrug indifferently, even though a pinch of anxiety races through me. For so many years, I’ve done exactly what he’s told me to do, no questions asked, in the name of family solidarity. Those days are over, and we both know it, but still, when he says jump, something inside me wants to ask how high.
“Your call,” I say, opening my laptop. “Plus, I have a day.”
My full day features a lot of work, including correspondence with Lake about the signage for the company’s annualEndow the World with Technology benefit, along with plenty of questions about Hercules and Lauren.
Max drops a manila folder on top of my desk. “I need you to appear at an arbitration hearing on behalf of the company.”
I frown.Arbitration?“Is it a legal matter?”
“It’s arbitration, so yes.”
I check the time on the top right-hand side of my computer screen as I roll my eyes at his smart-aleck reply. “I’m already late getting things revved up this morning. Where’s Leo?”
