Page 4 of One Unexpected Kiss

She brought a tumbler to her lips and sucked some green liquid through the straw. “Just this kale-and-cucumber smoothie. Why? Do you want to stop already?”

Okay, so probably no mimosas this morning, then.

“No, I’m fine.” I reclined the seat and closed my eyes.

Nope, bad idea.Her driving was even scarier when I couldn’t see what was coming. A semitruck was only inches from my window. At least with my eyes open, I could brace for impact. Although now that I thought about it, that might be a bad thing.Don’t drunk drivers usually survive accidents because their bodies are slack?Or maybe that was a myth. For the first time, I wished I’d worked in the ambulance-chaser division at my former law firm.

“So…” Stephanie dragged out the word. “Have you heard anything else from Reg?”

“You mean since I drunk dialed him and threatened to make him wear his scrotum as a hat?”

Stephanie shrieked with laughter. Maybe one day I’d laugh about Reg, but it was too soon. I was lucky he hadn’t taken a restraining order against me. That would be just his style. Reginald Gregory Hutchinson IV was my ex-boyfriend. Instead of letting me swing by his apartment to pick up the few things he’d allowed me to keep there, he’d had his assistant box up everything and deliver it to me. The trouble was that mixed in with my belongings were several lacy negligees that reeked of sex and weren’t mine. I might have lost my shit just a little.Okay, a lot.

Stephanie eyed me. “You know, Philip could introduce you to someone.”

I sure as hell didn’t want to date, much less marry, any of my sister’s husband’s cronies. Philip was twenty-two years her senior, and unlike the other women in my family, I wasn’t interested in a sugar daddy. In fact, after my experience with Reg, I was pretty sure I wasn’t interested in relationships at all. Most days, I was half a wineglass away from driving to the animal shelter and starting the next phase of my life as a cat lady.

“No, thanks.”

“Walter is getting divorced,” she continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “He had a prenup, so it shouldn’t take long to get it all settled.”

“Steph, I told you…” My brow furrowed as a vision of Walter crystallized in my mind. “Wait, is Walter the old guy from Thanksgiving?”

“He’s a spry seventy-four.”

“He’s old enough to be my grandfather!”

She bristled. “Age is only a number.”

“It’s a lot more than a number. He listened to 8-tracks!”

She appeared perplexed. “What’s an 8-track?”

“Exactly,” I said smugly.

“I don’t understand your point.”

“The point is I am not interested in being someone’s trophy wife.”

She shrugged. “Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.”

I sighed. Stephanie and I had had a version of this conversation nearly every day since I moved into her guesthouse. I was tired of explaining that I wasn’t about to trade in my Harvard law degree for an endless schedule of brunch and spa appointments. I loved my only sister dearly, but we were as different as could be.

“I’m incredibly grateful for everything you and Phil have done for me,” I said. “One of these days, I hope I can repay your generosity.”

“Oh, stop. You’re my sister. I’d do anything for you.” Stephanie reached over and squeezed my hand. It would have been a touching moment except that taking her hand off the steering wheel caused the Land Rover to veer into another lane. Horns blared beside us, and she righted the SUV. “Besides,” she continued, not bothered by our nearly flossing our teeth with the grill of a lifted pickup truck, “if you weren’t working for Phil, we wouldn’t get to go on this road trip together!”

I chuckled. “True enough. But you know it won’t be all fun and games, right? I have to actually do the thing Phil is paying me to do.”

She waved her hand dismissively. Luckily, this time there was no one in the lane next to us when the SUV swerved. “There are some perks to having the boss’s wife as your sister.”

That was exactly what I was afraid of. I wanted to do a good job, to prove to Phil that he hadn’t misplaced his faith in me. Also, I needed to prove to myself that all my time spent in corporate America hadn’t been a waste—that I still had a career and future ahead of me. Because if I didn’t have that, then I had nothing.

I exhaled.One thing at a time.I could manage my sister, just like I could manage these negotiations. Phil was paying me no matter the outcome, but if I was successful at getting his resort proposal approved, I’d earn a bonus that would allow me to get back on my own two feet.

There would be no “if,” I vowed. Iwouldbe successful. That money was a life preserver in the wasteland that had become my life, and I would let nothing stand in my way.

CHAPTER 2

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