Cherish Hard
Page 21

“You weren’t exactly complaining.” Neither was he acting his age—no one five years younger than Ísa should be this self-assured.
“I was expecting flowers or maybe a goodbye kiss,” was the unrepentant response.
Deciding he’d deserved that kick even if he wasn’t guilty of being a slimeball by association, Ísa shoved at his chest. “I’ll buy you pink carnations from the gas station. Now let me go, you rugby-playing lunkhead. I need to catch Jacqueline.”
Chuckling, he finally lifted away, his fingers unclasping her wrist after one last, teasing brush. “You need better insults, spitfire. Don’t worry, I have a whole catalog for you to study from.”
“I won’t be seeing you again,” Ísa said firmly over Devil Ísa’s loud protests. “I don’t cradle-snatch.”
“I haven’t been a baby for a while.” No playfulness this time, just that intense self-possession she’d already noted.
Her hand closed on the stair railing. “I have to go.” She matched action to words.
“Hey,” he called up in a quiet voice meant for her alone. “Don’t forget my name. It’s Sailor. Just in case you need to know it for the next time I take off my shirt and you feel the urge to accost me.” A smile that told her they weren’t done yet. “See you soon, beautiful.”
Ísa had to pause at the very top of the stairs and consciously remember the reason she’d come to the office. Fury poured through her anew the instant she did. Holding on to that fury because she simply didn’t have the emotional capacity to process Sailor right now, she stormed over to confront the Dragon.
It only made her angrier when she was brought to a premature halt by the security door beyond which lay the inner sanctum, the stupid keycard lost somewhere inside her satchel.
Where was the damn—
Fingers closing over the cool, hard plastic, she pulled it out and flashed it across the reader.
Ginny and Annalisa were talking at Annalisa’s desk.
Taking one look at her, Annalisa said, “I can get you ten minutes.” A glance at her fellow assistant. “Ginny? Doable for you?”
The other woman nodded. “Don’t worry. I’ll get the next appointment a fancy coffee and keep him entertained by making him glue together a random crafty thing.”
“Thanks, Ginny, Annalisa.” Striding into her mother’s office without knocking, Ísa closed the door behind herself.
Neither Ginny nor Annalisa would breathe a word of anything they overheard, but this was family business and the two assistants didn’t need to get caught in the cross fire between a dragon and the daughter she expected to be her ruthless reflection.
Jacqueline looked up, a stunning woman dressed in a long-sleeved shirt of dark green that flowed like liquid over her body. While Ísa couldn’t see her lower half, it was a good bet that she wore a fitted pencil skirt in black, high heels of the same shade on her feet.
“Ah, Ísa.” A gleam in her eye. “I wondered when you’d come in, the vanquishing Valkyrie.”
“I knew it!” Ísa could feel steam escaping from her ears. “You planned this!” It was the motivation behind Jacqueline’s manipulative actions that Ísa couldn’t figure out—because while Jacqueline was no maternal tigress, she’d also never been cruel. “How could you do this to Harlow?”
“You know why.” Jacqueline tapped the gleaming gold and black of her Montblanc fountain pen on the edge of her desk as she leaned back in her executive chair. “I don’t want to give the boy any false ideas.”
“The boy is your stepson.” He also happened to think Jacqueline was the most wonderful human being on the planet.
Otherwise-brilliant Harlow had a giant blind spot on the subject of Jacqueline Rain.
The situation was exacerbated by the fact Harlow’s biological parents had both remarried: for the third time when it came to his father, and for the second time when it came to his mother. Each had created a brand-new family with their spouse, complete with adorable children under five years of age. Harlow had been left in the middle, forgotten and left to fend for himself when it came to the kind of emotional support a parent was meant to provide.
“Look,” Jacqueline responded in a crisp tone, “Harlow is a highly intelligent young man, I agree. I also happen to like him more than I do many other people in this world, which is why I continue to stay in touch with him regardless of my divorce from his father. However, he doesn’t have my or Stefán’s killer instinct. You, on the other hand, have both.”
A pleased smile on her face. “Your father and I might not have worked as a couple, but we did our best work in creating you. You’ll build a bigger empire than either one of us.”
Ísa threw up her hands. “I don’t have the killer instinct! Of either variety!” She also had zero interest in building empires.
But this wasn’t about her needs or wants.
Pressing her hands on the aged wood of the desk, she stared down at Jacqueline. “You know Harlow is determined to go into the business world—it’s all he talks about when he talks of his future.”
Ísa’s teenaged stepbrother might’ve only officially been part of Jacqueline’s family for two years, but those two years had had a huge impact on his psyche. “He also admires you beyond any other adult in his life.” The force of Harlow’s worship was a shining glow. “He wants to be you.”
“Harlow’s only seventeen.” Putting down her pen, Jacqueline rose to walk around and brace her hip against the side of her desk, causing Ísa to push off the desk and put several feet between them.
She didn’t trust herself not to strangle her mother right now.
“And, quite frankly,” Jacqueline continued, “I can’t see it—the boy is great at making robots and writing code, but running a business requires an entirely different skill set.”
“He can learn.” Ísa waved the flat of her hand to cut off Jacqueline’s reply.
Her mother’s eyes narrowed… before a smile curved her lips. “You see? The killer instinct.”
Ísa’s hands itched to wrap themselves around Jacqueline’s swanlike neck. “One thing you can’t deny,” she said instead of giving in to her homicidal instincts, “Harlow won the internship fair and square.”
The summer internship at Crafty Corners was hotly contested among high school students—her stepbrother had submitted his application under a pseudonym and done a phone interview so as to avoid any accusations of favoritism. “You chose him as the winning candidate.” Only to reverse her decision once she discovered his real identity.
The one bright spot in all this was that no notifications had been made. Jacqueline hadn’t yet broken Harlow’s hopeful heart.
“I see I’ll have to talk to Ginny again,” her mother responded a little too casually.
“Why?” Instincts spiking to code-red status, Ísa folded her arms. “You told her to trust me like she’d trust you.”
Jacqueline’s smile became that of a dragon, full of teeth. “Take on the vice president position and you can do whatever you want with the internship program. Until then, I make the calls, and I have no intention of granting Harlow the position.”