BRIAN (The Callahans Book 1) (69 page)

Joey

I was giggling behind my hand, but Jason was laughing full on, not even trying to hide his amusement. We had the paper spread out in front of us, pictures of the attendees of the party last night displayed in front of us. There were quite a few of the two of us, walking into the hotel, his arm around me and my face hidden a little by his arm, standing in the lobby, me looking around like a lost child, and us in the ballroom, smiling and greeting other guests. There were pictures of Jason alone, too, when he was making his way to the stage for announcements, and pictures of him on the stage, speaking to the crowd. He was photogenic, though he didn’t believe it when I told him. But I was already planning on cutting these pages out of the paper at home and pasting them into my journal.

Yes, I keep a journal. Don’t judge.

“Why is it that there are dozens of pictures of me, but only one or two of Justin?”

“He’s not nearly as pretty as you.”

“We’re practically twins.”

“No, you’re not.” I gestured to the newspaper. “His chin’s not as wide as yours. And he’s an inch or two shorter.”

“Besides that.”

“His eyes aren’t as blue as yours.”

Jason shook his head. “That’s not true.”

“It is.”

He looked over at me. “So it has nothing to do with the fact that everyone thinks I’m going to give up my company to run the Wallach Foundation?”

I lay back on the mattress and stared up at the ceiling. “Are you?”

“Not anytime soon.”

“Then why would they think that?”

“Because my mom’s been telling people that since I graduated college. It’s her dream to watch me take over. I take her family’s foundation and Justin takes Dad’s business. That’s why they had two sons.”

“They planned it that way?”

“You’d think so by the way my mom is always talking.”

“But they didn’t plan on you having dreams of your own?”

“Pretty much.”

I ran my hand over his arm, playing with the dark hairs that made his skin look even darker than it really was. “Must be interesting, having your entire life planned out for you.”

“Isn’t yours?”

I shrugged. “My parents just wanted to see us graduate college. I’ve done that.”

“They had no career expectations for you?”

“My dad’s a cop. My mom’s a cashier at the local Piggly Wiggly. They just wanted us to do better than they had.”

“Then you’ve already exceeded their expectations.”

“Maybe.”

He leaned close and kissed the top of my head. “Enjoy your freedom, Joanne. It’s much better than knowing that you’ll disappoint someone if you don’t live up to their expectations for your life.”

“Have you ever told your mom you don’t want to run the foundation?”

“No. But I’m not sure she would hear me if I did.”

He bent and kissed my forehead before turning his attention back to the paper. I watched him, fascinated by his features. I remember watching him come and go from the building when I first started working for JB Graphics. The other girls in my department and I would stand in the lobby and pretend we were busy with something—usually just pretending to wait for the elevator—and watch as he walked through the lobby, strutting to that private elevator he had at the back of the building. He always kept his eyes straight ahead—even though he must have heard us giggling and whispering. Classy, I remember thinking. He was classy to not respond to our immaturity.

I wondered now how uncomfortable we made him when we did things like that. And I wondered how different things would be for me if he was a different kind of guy, if he was the kind who would have responded, if he was the kind of guy who would have worked his way through our little group, dating and/or using each one of us.

I was grateful he wasn’t aware of just how beautiful he was. That he was kind and gentle and saw me as more than just a girl who didn’t know any better than to giggle when a handsome man walked by me.

“Your sister-in-law remembered me.”

He glanced at me. “What?”

“From that night with the cake. She’s the one who let us in.”

“Did she say something?”

“No. Not really. But I thought you should know in case she said something to you or Justin.”

“Sara’s discreet. She knows how to behave.”

My eyebrows rose. “Is that an important character trait in the Brooks family?”

He focused on me. “It might be.”

“Hmm…”

I climbed off the bed and started across the room.

“Not that I don’t like watching you walk around my room naked, but where are you going?”

I could feel heat rising on my cheeks, but I didn’t turn around.

“I’m not the kind of girl who knows how to behave. So maybe I should be on my way out.”

“Oh, well, it doesn’t take much to make a disobedient girl behave.”

“Yeah?”

He grabbed me from behind and lifted me off my feet. I expected him to carry me back to the bed, but, instead, he carried me to the small loveseat set off to one side of the bed in a little sitting area where his television was set up, throwing me over his lap as he sat. We were both naked and, already, I could feel his cock beginning to come back to life as he ran his hand over my ass.

“A little spanking is always a good reminder to behave.”

“You wouldn’t dare!”

“Don’t test me, my love.”

He ran his hand over my ass and then smacked me, one quick slap that vibrated up my spine.

“Hey, that hurt!”

“It was meant to.”

I tried to roll over, but he held me firm with an arm across my back. And then he smacked me again. I cried out—despite the fact that the pain was almost pleasurable as I felt him growing more and more aroused. And then he let me go. I stood, pushed out my bottom lips and pretended that I was deeply offended by the whole thing.

“Sorry,” he said a little sheepishly. “I couldn’t help myself. You set yourself up so perfectly.”

“Oh, so I brought that on myself?”

He tilted his head just slightly. “A little.”

I started to walk away, but he grabbed my hand and I found myself climbing onto his lap, grasping him and pulling him inside of me. He cried out as he made contact with my opening. I sank down against him, loving the pressure that offered a small bit of relief to my aching clit.

“I won’t promise to ever behave,” I whispered against his lips.

“Then I promise to always punish you just like this.”

I groaned when I tried to laugh. But already pleasure was rushing through my body, the familiar tingles settling in my lower back. I was going to come, and it was going to be as beautiful as it had been every moment before. He could spank me any time he wanted—as long as he promised to keep loving me like this.

Jason

I woke alone on Sunday morning because Joanne worked at the bar last night. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have let her out of my sight. I wanted to hang out at the bar and watch her work, but she was afraid I would scare off her best tippers if they felt threatened by me. I didn’t see what was wrong with that, but she put her foot down—it was so cute when she put her foot down!—so I stayed home. Alone.

I reached for my phone the moment I could focus, as was my habit, and pulled up the morning news. I was reading about the presidential race, the debates that took place just a few nights ago, and a storm that was brewing on the East Coast when an alert popped up.

I have an alert set to let me know whenever my name appears on any internet page, whether it is in the context of a legitimate news story or on a gossip page. This alert had flagged a blog of some sort. My name rarely showed up on blogs that weren’t affiliated with a national publication, so I was curious.

I touched the link and waited for the page to load. When it did, there was a picture of Joanne and me walking into the fundraiser. Underneath was the caption:

Jason Brooks slums with employee.

My heart sank. I knew immediately what this was and where it’d come from. Frank was once again trying to attack me where it would hurt me the most: my family’s reputation.

But what really bothered me the most was found in the body of the blog post. It implied that I was somehow using my position as Joanne’s boss to force her to go out with me. To force her into my bed. Like she didn’t have a mind of her own or didn’t feel safe to tell me no.

Whoever the author was, was essentially accusing me of rape.

I climbed off the bed and headed for the shower. I needed to deal with this before it got out of control. But first, I needed to warn Joanne.

It was a quick ride to her apartment this early on a Sunday morning. I hoped as I knocked on the door that I was waking her. I should have known better than that.

She opened the door, dressed in a flour-covered apron, a soft smile on her full lips.

“Hey, this is a surprise,” she said.

“I wish it was a happy surprise.”

A frown immediately creased her forehead. “What’s going on?”

I gestured toward the living room behind her. “Do you mind if I come in?”

“Of course,” she said, stepping out of the way.

The apartment smelled like heaven. There was something baking, chocolate cake it smelled like. I walked over to the kitchen bar, wondering if she’d be terribly upset if I stuck my finger in the raw batter that was sitting in a bowl there.

“Orange sponge cake,” she said, gesturing to the bowl. “We have a client who ordered chocolate and orange cakes for a nephew’s birthday party.”

“Smells heavenly.”

She smiled again, pleasure dancing across her face. “Thanks.”

“If I’d known you were such a wonderful baker…”

“What? Would you have wanted me to bake a cake I could jump out of?”

“Maybe?”

She laughed, and I found myself wishing I could just keep her laughing instead of having to dump the latest crap on her. Why couldn’t Frank just leave us alone?

Because I fired the asshole for cheating my company, that’s why.

“Is your sister around?”

She shook her head. “It’s just me. She’s at her boyfriend’s.”

She was carefully pouring the batter into greased pans, the beautiful orange silk of the batter falling like melted orangesicles. I couldn’t help myself. I stuck my pinky into the flow and licked the wonderful orange flavor from my skin. It was heavenly!

“So what’s happened now?” she asked, as she dropped the bowl into the sink and turned back to face me.

The look on her face told me that she had a good idea what was going on already. I’d shown her the picture that made its way to the internet on Friday. And she was there when Frank threatened me as I walked through the police station. She knew what was happening.

“There’s an article on some blog. It essentially says that as my employee, you have no choice but to go out with me.”

She laughed. “Was it written by a woman?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never heard of the blog before.”

“What’s it called?”

I pulled out my phone and pulled the article up again. When I turned it for her to see, her eyes widened.

“Dear Elizabeth is a popular blog around here,” she said. “I’m surprised my sister hasn’t called yet. But, again, she probably isn’t awake.”

“Your sister reads this stuff?”

“Lives and breathes it. It features all the gossip in the city. And my sister is something of a celebrity watcher.”

“A lot of people read this?”

“Yeah.”

I stared at my phone, trying to figure out what people found fascinating about this sort of gossip. It was akin to reading the supermarket rags, a bunch of made up stories that had very little foundation in the truth.

“What are you going to do about it?”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “Put my lawyer on it, I suppose.”

Joanne bent to take the chocolate cakes out of the oven. She set them to cool on the counter and slid the orange cakes into the oven in their place. I sat on the same stool that guy had been sitting on Friday night when I came to pick her up—Rahul. What kind of name was that, anyway? And why was he around her so much? I’d known her five days and already I’d seen him in her presence twice.

“What can your lawyer do?”

I looked up, a little too lost in thought to follow the conversation. I had to mentally shake myself to get back on track.

“Force them to take it down.”

“But, by then, most people will already have seen it. My sister gets an alert every time there’s a new story, so I’m sure most of Dear Elizabeth’s readers do, too.”

“But if she’s forced to take it down, people will realize it wasn’t true.”

“Or Elizabeth will put up another story that claims she was the victim in the whole thing. She’s done it before.”

“Has she?”

“There was a story on there a couple of months ago about a local politician. The story disappeared a few days later, but then there was a new story about how certain politicians don’t mind suppressing the right to free speech, but claim to be great supporters of the constitution. No names were used, so nothing could be done. But everyone knew who she was talking about.”

Joanne leaned against the counter and studied my face. “Maybe you should just ignore this one. Maybe the storm will pass quicker that way.”

“Maybe.”

She straightened again and grabbed a couple of bowls that had been sitting in the dish drainer and started cracking eggs into one.

“What are you doing?”

“I have three yellow cakes I need to make for an order due to go out Tuesday morning.”

“Can I help?”

“Do you know how to bake?”

I shrugged. “How hard can it be?”

She laughed, but she gestured for me to don the apron hanging from a nail in the corner of the room. I picked it up and groaned.

“Seriously?”

It was one of those funny aprons with the imprint of a woman in a French maid’s outfit on the front.

“My sister thinks it’s hilarious.”

“Wait until she sees me in it.”

“Awe, I think you’re beautiful.”

I grabbed her arm and pulled her into my arms. “And I think you’re pretty awesome.”

She smiled, and I couldn’t help but wipe that smile away with a very thorough kiss.

She taught me how to sift flour, how to measure out baking soda, and explained why salt was important even in baking. And I managed to get yellow cake batter all over the front of my apron—breasts splattered in sweetness is wonderful when it’s not plastic replicas—and when she laughed, I managed to smear it over the end of her nose.

I’d never had quite so much fun in the kitchen.