Page 31 of Captivated By You

“I have many enemies. It comes with the territory. Forster can get in line.” I pierced her with my gaze, enjoying the way she shuffled in her seat. “So, Miss Doherty, can I assume the intern position at our Seattle property is no longer vacant?”

She drew her top teeth over the corner of her bottom lip and hesitated. But only for a second.

“Yes. You can.”

“Excellent.” I rose to my feet. “Let me take you on a tour, and then I’ll leave you in the capable hands of Malcolm, the assistant manager. He’ll be your primary contact until Philippe arrives.”

Whistle-stop tour completed, I reluctantly left her with the assistant manager. As I was leaving the hotel to make my way to our head office building, my phone rang, Dad’s name flashing up on the screen.

“Hey, Dad. Did Johannes call you?”

“No, and something tells me that the fact that I’ve turned up at his house and can’t get an answer means he should have.”

I cursed underneath my breath. At times, I could happily strangle my brother. Sure, he’d had a rough few years, but it was about time he put the past behind him and knuckled down. He was twenty-eight, not eighteen. He had a business to run and people who relied upon him to do his fucking job, and he couldn’t even bother to call our father and tell him he wasn’t at home.

“He’s here. In Seattle.”

The whistle of air through my father’s teeth as he sucked in a breath came down the phone line. My father was extraordinarily tolerant of Johannes. He hoped that by giving him responsibility, of putting him in charge of something he had a passion about—namely our growing nightclub business—he’d grow the fuck up. Hadn’t happened yet. Sometimes the only hope I had for my middle brother was for him to meet the right woman and pray she had broad shoulders and a sharp tongue to pull him into line. So far, there was no sign of that happening. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time I saw my brother with a woman on his arm.

Then again, I could hardly talk. I was thirty, and if I remembered correctly, my longest relationship had lasted four months. I was in no position to reprimand Johannes for not finding a woman to settle down with.

“Tell him to stay put,” Dad said, a weariness to his tone that shouldn’t be there so soon after coming off vacation. I could empathize. Johannes would test the patience of a saint. “I’m on my way back.”

“Will do. Travel safely. Let me know when you land, and I’ll do my best to corral him to my place and handcuff him to the fucking fridge.”

Dad chuckled. “At least he won’t go hungry.”

I hung up on Dad and called Johannes. The phone went to voicemail. I left a message.

“Johannes, get your ass to my place and fucking stay there. Dad is on his way back from LA. Call me when you get this message.”

Since I’d now have to work from home until Johannes showed his ugly mug, I stopped by the office to pick up a few things. Priya greeted me with a broad smile and a bunch of messages that needed my urgent attention.

“The top five are the most pressing. I put them in order.”

“Thanks. I need to work from home for the rest of the day. Do me a favor. If Johannes stops by, call security and have them lock him in my office until I come for him.”

She rolled her eyes. Priya knew my brother all too well. “I thought he was in LA.”

“He’s supposed to be. Dad flew there to see him this morning, and while he was in the air, Johannes showed up at my place.”

“Oh.” She stifled a smile. “I hope Mr. K. gives him hell.”

Priya always called my father “Mr. K.” He loved it. The vast majority of our employees liked and respected my dad, and I’d worked hard to emulate his style. I knew a lot of CEOs who were assholes, and I didn’t intend to become one. I had my moments, as Forster had found out, but with valued members of my team, I liked to think I had a reputation as a fair and approachable boss.

“You can bank on it.”

I grabbed the plans for the new Kingcaid hotel scheduled to break ground in the Bahamas and returned home to wait for Johannes to show up. Two hours passed without him returning my call. I left several additional messages, each one more pissed off than the last. Eventually, he wandered in without a care in the world, carrying several bags.

“You went shopping?” My jaw flexed. “That’s what you’ve been doing?”

He tossed the bags onto my couch and helped himself to a juice from the fridge. Removing the cap with his teeth, he fired it at where I was sitting at the dining room table. I hadn’t wanted to work in my study in case he snuck in without me hearing him. I snapped out a hand and caught the bottle top.

“You know I like that store over in Ballard. They don’t have my sweaters in LA.”

“Did you even get my messages?”

He tugged on the neck of his sweater and hitched a shoulder. “Haven’t checked my phone.”

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