Laurel grimaced as she tried to find the invoices for the jobs she needed to log into the system. They’d been in her small desk at work on Friday, but, suddenly, they weren’t. Remembering her sister was still on the phone, she shifted it from one ear to the other and held it between shoulder and ear. “Bryna. It’s not the end of the world. He won’t ever know I’m your sister. Besides, I’m surprised he didn’t remember that we’d met before.”
“Oh, right! When you knocked him over.” Bryna didn’t bother to conceal the chuckle. “My, it’s a small, small world, isn’t it?”
“Aha!” Laurel pulled out the file of invoices from the back of a drawer with a flourish. “Now, how’d that get all the way back there?” She puzzled over the mysterious way things seemed to move around. “Sprouting little legs, are we?”
“Laurel?”
“Sorry.” She spoke into the cell again. “I was searching for something and found it. Anyway, yes. Yes, it is a small world. And, speaking of small worlds, I can’t believe I ran into Jason on Saturday night.”
“Yeah. He gave me hell about not telling him where you were. Something about family ties and how being your brother entitled him to that knowledge.” Bryna sighed. “He’s such a drama queen sometimes.”
Laurel chuckled as she flicked on her ancient computer. “Yeah, well, it was nice seeing him again. Did you give him my address?”
“And have you kill me? No, I didn’t.”
“Good. It would be really hard to explain to Jason why it’s okay that I practically live in the slums.” She pulled up the program she needed on the computer and began to carefully type in the required information. “Either way, though, I’ll definitely enjoy catching up with big brother. I’ve missed him.”
“I know.” Bryna’s voice softened. “He’s missed you, too. I’m glad the game of hide and seek is over. He’d been asking me about your whereabouts every year since you left. Good thing I don’t have to lie anymore.”
Laurel squinted at what she’d scrawled on one of the orders. “Oh, yeah. Thanks for being so strong, Bryna. I’m proud of you for going to work today, too.”
There was a small sigh on the other end. “Well, I’ve been sitting in my car for the last twenty minutes in the parking lot of Apollo. I’m just nervous about seeing Nick. He was so hurt on Saturday, Laurel. I don’t like knowing that I can make him miserable, too.”
“Must be love,” Laurel quipped before turning serious. Bryna needed serious at the moment. “Bryna, just take it a step at a time. We’ve discussed this. Walk in there and go to work on what you have to do. If Nick shows up, deal with him without all the pettiness you two seem to lob at each other. If he doesn’t, then, hey, no worries. Right?”
“Right. I hope it won’t be awkward for him and Matthew Davis to work together. It’s not right that a new artist have a grudge against a board member.” Laurel could practically hear Bryna gnawing worriedly on her lip.
“Bryna. Things will happen the way they’re meant to. Pull yourself together and get in that building. Everything will be fine. Besides, Jason’s practically watching out for you, too,” she reminded Bryna.
“Okay.” Bryna took a deep breath. “Thanks for being a part of the pep talk, Laurel. I love you.”
“Love you, too. Now, go.”
When Bryna had taken a deep breath and said goodbye, Laurel wished her luck and got back to her own work. Bryna would be fine because she had the courage to stick through whatever mess awaited her. Hopefully, Laurel thought, Nick would catch the right drift soon and fall for Bryna, too. It would make everyone and everything happier than it, and they, were.
As for her and James, well, Laurel decided she’d wait on that one. James hadn’t called her yet, but it had only been a day and a half. If he didn’t call her by Wednesday, though…
“Let’s leave that for later, Laurel,” she muttered to herself, pulling out another order and setting aside the finished one. “One dramatic issue at a time.”
Bryna squared her shoulders as she marched towards Apollo’s doors. She felt a lot less confident than she’d let Laurel believe, and, though part of her hoped she wouldn’t see Nick, another bigger part perversely wished he’d show up. Not to harass her, but just so she could watch him and wonder why he never looked at her the way she needed him to.
“You look ready to do murder.”
Stopping with a hand on the door handle, she turned to see Brian approaching. His eyes twinkled humorously even though his brows were raised curiously. “Brian. Hi.”
“Everything all right?” he asked in that soft southern twang she’d always liked since she’d met him.
Opening the door, she stepped inside and waited for Brian to follow. “I hope so, Brian.”
“Hey.” He placed a hand on her shoulder, stopping her in front of the bank of elevators. “If you’re worried about Nick, don’t be. He’s mostly harmless.”
She sighed a little and mustered up a smile for him. God, she was transparent. “I know, B. I just wish things were different with us, you know.”
Of course, he knew and sympathized. He’d been the first person she’d told when she’d realized that she’d fallen in love with Nick. It had been at Brian’s high school graduation party. Nick had teased her and pushed her to tears, and Brian had felt bad enough to follow Bryna and apologize for his friend’s behavior.
“It doesn’t matter what he says, Brian!” she sobbed. “I just figured out I’m stupidly in love with the asshole. And I don’t know what to do!”
He’d never forget feeling a little shocked and awed that someone fourteen years old could feel so much. At the time, he had doubted her words, for, really, who could truly trust in the feelings of a teenage girl? As the months and years passed, though, it became harder and harder for everyone to doubt those feelings. He’d watched her battle that love for Nick for eleven years and still…
“I think he’s starting to figure out something. Not sure what, but you’re getting to him,” Brian told her now. “If it’s any consolation, he was miserable last week when you weren’t here.”
“Really?” Her spirits brightened a bit before plummeting again. “It was probably because he had to work more than his share to get things in by deadlines. He’ll never feel the same way about me that I do about him. I’m tired of convincing myself that he will.”
Brian wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pressed the button for the elevator. “Bryna, don’t give up on him. You know you couldn’t have fallen for him if there wasn’t something inside of him for you. Love doesn’t just come to one person and not to the other.”
“Really?” She turned curious doe brown eyes on his face. “But isn’t that how it is between you and Leighanne?” And winced when she saw his expression. “Sorry, Bri. Don’t mind my comments, here. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
He shrugged it off. Almost. “Don’t worry about it, Bryna. Besides, Leighanne and I are getting on track with each other. It was a good weekend for us.” He flashed a smile at her as they stepped onto the elevator. “We’re figuring each other out and warming up to the idea that we’re going to be married.”
“Lucky you,” Bryna murmured. “I guess I should just try to forget about him for the moment, right?”
“Hey, he’ll march straight to you and demand explanations if you ignore him,” Brian suggested with a wink. “He’ll work harder to get to you if you seem unconcerned with him. It’ll bother him to distraction.”
Bryna found it hard to stop the smile forming on her lips. “You’re a smart man, Brian Littrell.”
The doors opened on his floor, and Brian stepped off. He turned and grinned at her. “Thousands agree with you. Good luck.”
And the elevator doors whisked close to carry Bryna to where her work, and Nick, awaited her. She hoped she’d survive it, dignity intact.
He creased and re-creased the slip of paper and worried over it like a bad toothache. All he needed to do was pick up the phone and call. That was all. And yet…And yet, he was more nervous than he’d thought he’d be. There was a very good reason why James Apollus, owner and CEO of Apollo Records, was a bachelor, and apparently the hottest one, at the age of thirty one.
He was terminally shy.
Of course, he hid it well. In the business he was in a guy couldn’t let his weaknesses show, or the competitors would chomp him to bits. It was a little like being bait in a pool of sharks. Act cool and unbait-like, and you’d be fine. If they drew blood, well, you were out for the count.
The friends he’d had since he was in high school were the one group that he’d never worry about being himself around. They knew him inside out, and he’d never been embarrassed to admit to any of them that he needed to start dating again. He hadn’t been out with a woman since the one he’d nearly married two years earlier.
In retrospect, he wondered why he’d ever thought Carrie Henderson, of the Hendersons who owned a huge chain of hotels around the world, was the perfect woman for him. She’d pushed and prodded him into taking her to movie premieres and parties ripe with paparazzi. They were the type of events he’d hated, but she’d thrived on them and the attention she’d garnered from being on his arm. He’d nearly stuck a whopper of a ring on her finger before Brian had pointed out that Carrie was an attention-seeking whore. Well, he hadn’t put it that way because Brian was nothing if not polite and tactful. But it had basically been the same thing.
So, here he was, two years later, driving himself crazy over a simple phone call to the woman he’d met at the club two nights earlier. She hadn’t appeared to know who he was and, if she had, had hid it well.
“Uh oh. Looks like there’s trouble. What do you think, Kev? He seems troubled.”
James looked up to see Kevin and Brian grinning at him from the doorway of his office. He must have been obscenely distracted if he’d missed their arrival, he decided.
“At a guess, Brian, I’d say there’s trouble of the female variety,” Kevin replied, his eyes gleaming mischievously.
“Shut it, you two. I know a guy who knows a guy who knows the boss,” James began. “I could have you sacked if I really felt mean.”
Brian moved towards the desk where James was seated. “But you wouldn’t, would you? Besides, where would you find people as good as we are to fill our positions?”
“I hear Duncan in Accounting and Reynolds in Legal at the LA offices are doing damn fine work.”
“They’re also sleeping together,” Kevin said with a straight face. When James’ expression ran the gamut from confused to horrified to outraged and, finally, to realization, he couldn’t hold back the laughter. “Sorry, man. It was too easy.”
James shrugged and stared at the piece of paper in his hands again. “Whatever. It took me a second to remember they were married.”
“I figured you wouldn’t remember that detail. Or the fact that Duncan is a woman,” Kevin added with a grin as he deposited several files on James’ desk.
“There are far too many people that work under me,” came the muttered reply.
Brian edged a hip onto the side of the desk and studied his friend with concern. “Seriously, though. What’s bothering you, Apollus? It’s Monday morning, the beginning of another week that makes you millions, you had a good weekend, and, now, we find you sitting here like the burdens of the world rest on your shoulders. What’s happening?”
“Kevin was right,” James replied after a few moments. “It’s a woman.”
“The one whose number you got on Saturday night?” Kevin remembered. “Did you call her yet?”
“No. Which is why I’m worried.” He sighed and set the slip of paper in a drawer. “I don’t know if today is too soon or if I should call her now. Maybe I just shouldn’t call her at all.”
Brian patted his shoulder. “I think you should call her up and see her. From what you told me, she sounds like a good bet. You did have a conversation with her at a bar for a half hour in the middle of a busy club. That, and her first reaction to meeting you wasn’t, ‘Oh, my God! You’re James Apollus! I saw you on the magazine cover last month!’” Brian batted his eyes teasingly at his best friend. “I say go for it.”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m not cut out for this whole dating deal. I mean, look how well I did the last time.” He stared forlornly out the window at the wide expanse of city. “Maybe I’m not meant to find the woman I’ll spend the rest of my life with.”
“Oh, please.” Brian slid off the desk and paced in front of it. “That’s crap, James Apollus, and you know it. You figured out what Carrie really was before you made that relationship permanent.”
“With your help,” James muttered.
Brian rolled his eyes and shot a look at Kevin. Kevin sighed before answering the sullen remark. “As your friends, we’re bound to look out for you. Of course, Brian was going to tell you what she was really like before you made a mistake. It’s not a strike against you or your judgement. Either way, you’re making this more complicated than it needs to be.” He reached over and pushed the telephone near the younger man. “Pick it up and call her. Do yourself, and all of us, a favor. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“She’ll say no,” James said irritably.
“Then she’ll say no. That’s that.” Brian lifted the receiver and held it out. “But you’ll never know until you call.”
James looked from one man to the other then at the phone. After a few moments, he sighed and took the telephone. “Here goes nothing.”
Five minutes later, a grin had replaced the worried frown on his face, and Brian and Kevin teased him about being scared to call up a woman.
“Big, bad James Apollus terrified of one woman. Wait until I call up the tabloids and tell them about this one,” Brian chuckled. “I’ll even recount our conversation word for word for them.”
It was James’ turn to roll his eyes. “Whatever. I don’t care what you say because Laurel said yes. That’s all that matters.”
“We knew a Laurel once,” Brian remembered and turned to Kevin. “Hey, Kev. Remember Laurel Caine, Jason and Bryna’s stepsister? She disappeared after Ian Caine’s death. I wonder what happened to her.”
Kevin did remember and, with the memories, he remembered his wife’s current misery. “The two of you were attached at the hip. Wherever Brian was, Laurel was sure to be found and vice versa,” he explained to James. “And then, one day, she was gone. Speaking of the Caines, Clarissa’s busy selling a good portion of Starlight Productions’ stock to Paramount. Kristin and her family are sick about the whole deal.”
“Can’t Kris’s parents veto the sell? I mean, they own the other half of the company.” James sat up and thought of the intricacies of the business dealing. He loved the ins and outs of such things.
Kevin shook his head. “They own it, but they have no say over what Clarissa does with her part of it.”
“Do you think, if Laurel was here, the deal could be stopped?” Brian wondered. “I mean, I’m sure if she’d been around still, Clarissa wouldn’t have as much control as she does, right? Mr. Caine left his shares and business holdings to Laurel with Clarissa’s supervision. Laurel would’ve been in complete control of it once she turned eighteen.”
“But she’s not here,” Kevin replied. “And the whole thing is just going sour, now.”
James opened his mouth to speak when his intercom buzzed. “Yes, Helen?”
“Sir, a Miss Theresa Chambers is here to see you,” his secretary’s voice crackled over the speaker.
The three men frowned and exchanged puzzled glances before James cleared his throat. “Let her in, Helen, but hold any refreshments.”
“Of course, sir.”
“I don’t get it,” Brian said once the intercom was off. “She’s never had a single thing to say to you in seventeen years, and, suddenly, she shows up here out of the blue?”
James shrugged but the frown didn’t disappear. “I love Bryna, but her twin creeps me out. Let’s hope she’s in and out of here fast.”
“We’ll get out of your way then,” Kevin began but the door opening behind them cut him off.
“Oh. I’m terribly sorry. I didn’t realize there was a meeting in here.” Theresa stopped just inside the door and studied the three men. Rich men, she reminded herself and hid her thoughts with an apologetic smile.
James came around his desk to meet her. “No, there’s no meeting. I believe you know Kevin Richardson and Brian Littrell.”
“Of course,” Theresa replied with a smile to them. Brian thought it seemed more piranha-like than anything else, while Kevin wondered how it was possible that this woman had shared the womb with Bryna.
“We were just on our way out,” Brian said with a slight smile and moved to the door.
Kevin acknowledged her smile with a slight nod and followed Brian. “Nice seeing you. We’ll catch you later, James.”
When they were gone, James turned to the woman in front of him and pasted a smile on his lips as he wondered what she could possibly want with him. “Have a seat, Theresa.” He gestured to a chair across from his desk. “We rarely see each other.”
“I know.” She settled into the seat and, put her purse down, leaning over just enough to offer James a glimpse of the black lace and creamy skin beneath her low-cut gray blouse. She’d calculated every movement she’d make to entice the man. And, being a man, he was bound to fall for it. “I was thinking about it yesterday and thought I’d drop by to see you and maybe convince you to have dinner with me sometime.”
James caught himself before rolling his eyes at the way she’d crossed her legs in a way that edged her short, snug skirt a few inches higher on her thighs. It was pathetically obvious what she was trying to do, but he couldn’t quite figure out why she was baiting him. Deciding to play along and be a good host, he smiled at her. “Well, that’s certainly a tempting offer. I’ll have to check my schedule and get back to you.”
“Wonderful.” And too easy, she thought gleefully. He was ripe for the picking, and she was more than willing to pluck him off the money tree. “So, tell me, how have you been? I saw you on last month’s People. You looked satisfied with yourself.”
And here we go, James mused before mustering up a reply. It was going to be a long meeting.
