All the Right Places (RILEY O'BRIEN & CO #1) (4 page)

Reaching his driveway, he pushed the button to open the garage doors situated below his trilevel Victorian and drove in. Teagan had been silent for so long he wondered if the call had dropped.

“Are you still there, T?”

“Yes, I was just thinking. Maybe we should throw a party to announce the partnership with Amelia. It would generate some buzz for the new accessories.”

“Why don’t you talk to Cal and see what he thinks?”

“I will.”

He shifted the Audi into park. “Are we done?”

“We should offer the penthouse to Amelia. That might entice her to do more of the design work here.”

Quinn sighed. He doubted anything would convince Amelia to spend more time in San Francisco than she had to. He was pretty sure she wanted to avoid him.

Despite his efforts to hide it, his desire for her had been obvious. He was just glad his jeans had concealed his erection. He had no doubt she would have ended the meeting if she had seen it. Riley O’Brien & Co. would have been forced to find another designer, and now that he’d met her, he definitely wanted Amelia.

In more ways than one
, a little voice inside him whispered.

He scowled, annoyed by his surprising and inconvenient attraction to Amelia. He needed to get his shit together and focus on what she could do for Riley O’Brien & Co. She was an extremely talented designer. He needed to give her the same level of respect he would give any other professional.

With that in mind, he said, “I don’t see a problem letting Amelia use the penthouse as long as it’s not booked for someone else.”

“I’ll double-check, and if it’s open, I’ll go ahead and reserve it for the next few weeks.” She cleared her throat. “Quinn, is there something I should know? Did something happen during the meeting?”

Leaning his head against the headrest, he closed his eyes and squeezed the bridge of his nose. He wasn’t in the habit of lying, especially to his sister, and he wasn’t going to start now.

“Working with Amelia is going to be interesting,” he finally said. “I’m home. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He disconnected the call before she could say anything else.

The buzz of Quinn’s alarm clock pulled him from a deep sleep the next morning. Covering his eyes with his forearm, he debated whether to lounge in bed an extra hour or get up and go for his regular morning run.

He’d gone to bed way too late after spending several hours online searching for information on Amelia Winger. He was intensely curious about her, but he hadn’t wanted to quiz Teagan because his sister was smart enough to smell smoke where there was a little fire.

Unfortunately, his research had uncovered very little about Amelia, although she showed up briefly in a number of articles where Ava Grace Landy was the main subject. He’d discovered she and Ava Grace were from a town in Texas called Electra, population 2,772. The pair had been friends since kindergarten, and they were both twenty-six years old.

When Ava Grace had won
American Star
three years ago, she moved to Nashville, and Amelia came with her. They now shared a house outside the city, although he wasn’t exactly sure where.

With so many pictures of Ava Grace on the web, Amelia’s designs were everywhere, and he had reviewed them with interest. In Ava Grace, Amelia had found the perfect canvas
to showcase her designs. With her long, lean body, the country music star was a living mannequin, and no matter what she wore, she looked stunning.

Sighing tiredly, Quinn threw back his down comforter and sat up. He knew he would feel better after he got some exercise, so he swung his legs over the side of the bed and stumbled to the bathroom.

After taking care of business and brushing his teeth, he grabbed a long-sleeve maroon T-shirt, gray running shorts, and athletic socks from his dresser and pulled them on. Stepping over the pile of dirty clothes on the floor, he headed downstairs to find his shoes.

As he made his way into the living room, his feet slid a little on the shiny hardwood floors. He had bought his Victorian three years ago, and prior to purchasing the four-bedroom home in Laurel Heights, he and Cal had shared a condo in Cow Hollow, a trendy neighborhood bordering the Marina District.

He quickly slipped on his running shoes and strapped his iPhone to his bicep. He jogged down the steep front steps, and with his earbuds in place, he headed west toward the park at a slow, easy pace.

Running always gave him the opportunity to prepare for the day ahead and mull over anything that bothered him. He picked up his speed, his feet pounding the pavement to the funky rhythm of Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky.” Meeting Amelia had upset his equilibrium, but he was much calmer this morning than he’d been yesterday during his drive home, and his music choice reflected his mindset.

His most recent girlfriend, Luna, had told him that she could judge his mood simply by the music he chose. His taste was eclectic, and he listened to everything, from classical to country, heavy metal to hip-hop.

He had met Luna in California Pacific Medical Center’s cafeteria. He’d spent a lot of time there while his dad received his cancer treatment. With her cap of shiny, dark hair and olive skin, she’d caught his eye, and he had been intrigued when she jumped into a heated conversation with one of the food servers, Spanish flooding from her lips and her hands gesturing wildly.

Luna had been intense, probably because her job as a pediatric oncologist had been life-and-death stressful. When he had been with her, he listened to a lot of moody and dark classical composers, particularly Wagner and Berlioz. Maybe the music should have been the first clue Luna hadn’t been the one for him.

Looking back, he admitted their relationship had lasted longer than it should have. He had been going through a difficult time. His dad had been sick, and Quinn had been forced to take on more responsibility at work sooner than he had expected. To make matters worse, he’d just moved into his new house and had been living alone for the first time in his life.

Luna had been the perfect distraction. Although their jobs had made it difficult to get together often, he had enjoyed the time he spent with her. She was intelligent, kind, and passionate about her job and her patients. And the infrequent sex had been pretty good, if not brain-melting.

He’d had plenty of brain-melting sex in college. Wild, athletic, anonymous sex.

But that wasn’t his priority anymore. His family was his priority, followed closely by Riley O’Brien & Co.

Unfortunately, Cal and Teagan hadn’t connected with Luna. It had bothered him that his favorite people in the world didn’t like his girlfriend, and when Quinn had confronted Cal about it, his brother was quick to set him straight.

“I do like her. The problem is that you like her, too, and that’s all you feel for her,” Cal said bluntly. “Don’t you get it? You’re not in love with her.”

But when things had gotten rough with his dad, Luna stepped up in a big way. And although Cal had been right when he said Quinn wasn’t in love with Luna, he had been damn grateful for her.

He had happily settled into what he thought was a mutually satisfying relationship. That’s why he had been blindsided when, after being together for more than a year, Luna had admitted she was in love with the father of one of the little girls she’d been treating.

Luna had assured him she hadn’t cheated on him, and he believed her. Nonetheless, he had felt betrayed because he thought she was happy with him.

She hadn’t even apologized. “Deep inside, you’re okay with this,” she said. “Your heart isn’t broken, Quinn.”

He hooked a left at the intersection, shaking off the memory of Luna. Thinking about her wasn’t painful, but it sure as hell didn’t make him feel good, either. As he crossed the street, one of the songs he had recently added to his playlist came on.

Ava Grace Landy’s distinct, raspy voice flowed sweetly into his ears. As she sang the first few lines of her hit “Lost & Found,” thoughts of her best friend Amelia Winger filled his head. An image of her deliciously round ass flashed across his vision, and he stumbled.

So much for calm.

Amelia leaned a hip against the heavy wood table in her workshop and rubbed her forehead. Thanks to the time difference between the West Coast and Tennessee, she hadn’t arrived home until almost two in the morning, and she was exhausted. Even her special “oomph” juice hadn’t helped.

Twirling one of her curls around her index finger, she studied her sketchbook and cast a critical eye over the minidress she’d drawn. She planned to construct the dress out of supple red leather.

It was the first piece of clothing she had ever designed for someone other than herself or Ava Grace, and she had serious anxiety. Most of her unease stemmed from the person who would wear it, a pop princess known simply as Cherry whose star power eclipsed Ava Grace’s considerable fame.

The teen sensation was known for being a diva, and Amelia was nervous about working with her. But, according to Cherry’s manager, Gary Garson, she adored Amelia’s creations.

Picking up a fat pencil, Amelia flipped to a blank page in the sketchbook and started to draft the next piece for Cherry, a formfitting catsuit that would highlight the young woman’s perky breasts, flat stomach, and well-toned legs. She strongly
believed that in the right circumstances, showing less skin was even sexier than near nakedness.

Amelia snorted. Her mother had definitely not agreed. Janna Winger had pranced around their small town in tight cutoff shorts and midriff-baring shirts, even when the weather had demanded layers.

Janna’s clothing had communicated her ambitions more loudly than a bullhorn. She had constantly been on the lookout for a new man, her standards low enough that she’d rarely been without companionship. As long as he’d had the money to buy booze and could get it up, her mother had been satisfied, at least until she found her next victim.

Amelia’s fingers tightened on the pencil. Describing her mother as trailer park trash was being generous, although the two of them had never actually lived in the aluminum ghetto. Janna had been promiscuous, crass, and lazy. While Amelia’s mother hadn’t been a prostitute, she had used her body instead of her brain to survive, and she had paid for that decision.

Amelia’s phone chirped again, this time notifying her that she’d received a text message. With a sigh, she tossed down the pencil and picked up the phone. Only a handful of people had her mobile number, and she didn’t want to ignore an important message.

The two-line text was from Ava Grace. “Home soon. Be ready to talk.”

Amelia grinned at the screen. Ava Grace’s bossiness was a big part of her charm.

She checked the time on her phone before returning it to the table. It was a little after one p.m., so she’d been working for nearly four hours. She picked up the pencil again and resumed sketching.

When she had woken this morning, bleary-eyed and cranky, she’d been relieved to see Ava Grace had already left the house. She had needed time to decide how much of her trip to San Francisco she planned to share with her best friend.

Without a doubt, she knew Ava Grace would have compelled her to spill every humiliating and disturbing detail of her meeting with Quinn within minutes, if not seconds. If Ava Grace hadn’t found fame as a country music singer, she could have been a huge success in law enforcement.

She was persistent, observant, and downright relentless when it came to ferreting information from even the most recalcitrant sources. Amelia had been on the receiving end of Ava Grace’s interrogations many times.

The two of them had grown up together in a little burg that didn’t even have a Walmart. Ava Grace’s family situation had been better than her own, although not by much. Her mother had died when she was a toddler, and shortly thereafter, her father, Chuck, had dumped his only child with his mother. June had been a cold woman who’d been less than thrilled to raise another child, especially one as precocious as Ava Grace.

Now that she was an adult, Amelia had a better understanding of Chuck’s decision. He’d been a roughneck, and his work on offshore oil wells had taken him away from home for months at a time.

As little girls, Amelia and Ava Grace had been linked by poverty and neglect. Hungry for love and attention, they’d become each other’s family. They had tackled life as if it were the two of them against the world, and they’d lived together since Ava Grace’s grandmother had died just days after Ava Grace’s fifteenth birthday.

By God’s grace, June had owned the house she and Ava Grace shared, so Ava Grace hadn’t been homeless. Knowing the horror of Amelia’s own living situation, her best friend had demanded that she move in with her. They’d managed to stay in school and had kept themselves afloat by working nights, Amelia serving greasy food at a twenty-four-hour diner and Ava Grace pressing clothes for the local dry cleaner.

Amelia heard the crunch of gravel as a car drove into the driveway, and she quickly tidied up her worktable. She met Ava Grace as the tall blonde stepped out of her car, a flashy red Camaro she’d splurged on when her song “I’m Not Your Anything” had hit number one.

Ava Grace’s short black dress showed off her long, tan legs, and her hot pink cropped jacket matched her cowboy boots. Her platinum-colored hair was in a long braid down her back, and long silver earrings dangled from her lobes. If Amelia didn’t love her so much, she would have hated her for being so beautiful.

“Hey, girl,” Ava Grace said, pushing the door to her Camaro shut with her hip since her hands were filled with her big purse and a white paper sack. “I figured you hadn’t had lunch yet, so I brought us some soup and sandwiches from Main Street Deli.”

“Yum,” she replied, just now realizing how hungry she was.

Ava Grace hummed her agreement. “And I had Beth toss in a couple of caramel brownies,” she added, chuckling as Amelia licked her lips hungrily. “They’re a bribe for you to tell me
all
about your trip.”

“Why would you think I’d need a bribe to talk about it?” she prevaricated.

“Because Teagan left me a voicemail that you planned to do all your design work here, and that Quinn acted weird when she asked him about it. She also told me they want you to stay in the company-owned penthouse while you’re there.”

Amelia ground her teeth together. “Why didn’t she just pass you a note during homeroom?”

Ava Grace ignored her, and they made their way toward the big front porch that wrapped around the farmhouse. She placed the sack of food on the metal bistro table near the front door before heading inside.

Reaching into the bag, Amelia pulled out two sandwiches wrapped in deli paper, along with two cups of soup. She dug around the bottom and uncovered some plastic spoons and napkins, but no brownies.

The screen door slammed shut, signaling Ava Grace’s return to the porch. She carried two glasses of iced tea, and she’d taken off her jackets and boots.

Frowning, Amelia put her hands on her hips. “Where are the brownies?”

“I hid them inside the house. You can have one after you’ve answered my questions.”

Amelia growled. “You’re such a brat sometimes. No one would buy your music if they knew.”

Ava Grace rolled her eyes before placing the glasses on the table and taking her seat. “I got chicken salad for you,” she said, reaching for her own sandwich.

Amelia dropped into her chair. It was hard to be mad at Ava Grace when she’d been thoughtful enough to get her
favorite sandwich, a creamy mixture of diced chicken, pecans, and red grapes on a buttery croissant.

After they’d enjoyed several mouthfuls, Ava Grace turned her hazel eyes to Amelia. “I Googled Quinn O’Brien before you went to San Francisco. I trust Teagan, but I wanted to know more about him and what you were getting into.”

She wasn’t surprised by Ava Grace’s admission. Her best friend was fiercely protective of her, despite the fact that Amelia had been taking care of herself for most of her life.

Ava Grace leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs, the glittery blue polish on her toenails sparkling in the afternoon sunlight. “From what I read, he’s pretty impressive. But you and I both know very few people live up to the hype,” she said cynically. “All hat and no cattle.”

Amelia nodded, agreeing with Ava Grace’s assessment. They had realized that truth soon after Ava Grace had won
American Star
. Suddenly the two of them had socialized with famous people they’d only read about, and more often than not, they’d been disappointed by the reality.

“So what was he like in the flesh?”

At the thought of Quinn’s flesh, Amelia choked on the iced tea she’d swallowed. Ava Grace thumped her on the back before tossing her a knowing look.

“What’s got you all choked up?” When Amelia didn’t answer, Ava Grace sighed and picked up her spoon. “Are you going to take them up on the offer to stay in the penthouse?”

“Yes. I think it’s nice of them to let me use it.”

“Very nice.” She pointed her spoon at Amelia. “And since you’ll have a comfy, safe place to lay your head, I want you to tell me why you’re not going to stay in California until the project is complete.”

She sighed. This was a situation in which Ava Grace’s bossy nature was decidedly
not
charming.

“Because I’m worried Quinn will distract me, and I won’t be able to do what needs to be done.”

As much as she hated to admit it, she had serious concerns about the sparks that flew when she and Quinn were in the same room. She didn’t want to be unprofessional, and she definitely did
not
want to mix business and pleasure.

Even if Teagan’s redesign project wasn’t successful, this
partnership for the accessories line was important. It was a crucial step in achieving her career goals.

“I’m not sure I understand,” Ava Grace replied after a moment. “You think he’s going to be all up in your business, asking questions and pushing his opinion on you?”

She shook her head. “No. He told me he doesn’t micromanage his people.”

Ava Grace’s eyebrows rose. “Then what do you mean when you say ‘distract’?”

“Distract as in I can’t think about anything else but stripping him naked and pulling him down on top of me,” she admitted.

After a beat of shocked silence, Ava Grace hooted with laughter. “Oh, really?” she teased. “Is he that hot?”

She considered Ava Grace’s question. “Yes, he’s that hot. But it’s more than that . . .” She struggled to find the right words. When she couldn’t, she shrugged her shoulders. “He appeals to me,” she explained lamely.

Without question, Quinn was physically tempting. But she liked him, too. She had enjoyed their meeting more than she had anticipated, and she admired his obvious dedication to Riley O’Brien & Co., even if he had a blind spot when it came to the women’s division.

“Did he give you any idea he might be interested in you, too?”

“I don’t want him to be interested in me,” she replied emphatically.

Heaven help her if Quinn actually turned the full strength of his hotness her way. She’d never be able to resist the temptation.

At that alarming yet enticing thought, she broke down and told Ava Grace about the face-in-the-cleavage debacle, causing the gorgeous blonde to almost fall off the chair in hysterics. When Ava Grace’s laughter subsided, Amelia kicked her best friend’s shin with the tip of her worn ballet-style flats.

“Give me my brownie.”

Ava Grace grinned slyly. “I’ll give you both brownies if you tell me how you felt when his face was
this close
to your ta-tas.”