Cherish Hard
Page 24

Breathing past the urge to plant another one in Cody’s face—it’d be unsporting against such a pathetic opponent—he said, “And what about your wedding? Bit too late for regrets, don’t you think?”
Cody nodded, face set in glum lines and his white nose growths now faintly pinkish. “Suzanne’s got everything planned. I just have to turn up on the day.” A shuddering sigh, his hand rising to cradle his jaw once more. “Do you know something? Her family doesn’t even have as much money as Ísa’s.”
Sailor looked at his scraped knuckles and seriously considered smashing Cody’s nose in, unsporting or not. He managed to control himself only because he realized he’d probably already done a very stupid thing for a man trying to get a new business off the ground, one that required bank loans and the trust of CEOs like Jacqueline Rain.
And yet he couldn’t make himself be sorry.
“If you’re planning to press charges,” he said, “here’s my phone so you can call the cops.” Cody’s phone had fallen out of his pocket when he crashed to the ground; the screen was so cracked it looked like someone had taken a hammer to it.
“I don’t want people to know the real reason why you punched me.” Cody lifted pleading eyes to Sailor. “Don’t tell anyone, okay? I’ll make up some story to explain the face and jaw.”
“Fine.” Sailor turned and got back in his truck before he shoved the fungal growths even further up Cody’s nose, his anger at the other man unabated.
Finally getting to his feet, Cody called out, “Hey, so is she your sister or not?”
Sailor thought of Ísa’s lips under his, her thighs so sweetly tight around his body, the scent of her drugging his senses, and said, “No Ísa isn’t my sister… but she is mine.” He screeched out of the parking lot before Cody could reply.
Sailor had to get to a job, finish the work he’d promised to do.
Again, his eyes fell on the scraped knuckles with which he held the steering wheel. Nope, not sorry. No one had a right to do what Cody had done to Ísa.
* * *
ÍSA MADE IT THROUGH HER first day in the vice presidential office without murdering Jacqueline. She’d never admit it to her mother, but the company had a nice feel to it, the employees cheerful and genuinely happy to be there. As for the work, it was difficult, but to Ísa’s intense horror, she understood it all. She couldn’t even fake stupid questions—she was a terrible liar. In desperation, she tried working slowly, so as to annoy Jacqueline, but found that her brain refused to cooperate.
It was like her mother had brainwashed her while she was still in the womb.
Frustrated with herself for being so good at a job she hated, she deliberately took every single break to which she was legally entitled, using that time to work on the poetry that was her outlet and the saver of her sanity. The breaks slowed things down a little. But not anywhere near enough.
When Jacqueline came to see her after lunch, she had a beaming smile on her face. “I knew you’d be perfect for this position,” she said. “Look how well you fit in.”
Ísa banged her head against the desk after the door closed behind Jacqueline.
She had to figure out a way to sabotage this without breaking her word, or her mother would be blackmailing her into eternity. But how could she let down Catie and Harlow? Harlow would probably survive—his heart would be broken, pulverized more like it, but he was a smart kid. He’d be all emotionally messed up, but he’d be able to support himself and he’d eventually set up a business to rival Jacqueline’s.
But Catie… Catie needed her mother in ways she’d never articulate. And if Jacqueline cut Ísa off in punishment, she’d lose her ability to make sure Jacqueline paid at least some attention to her thirteen-year-old youngest child. Clive certainly wouldn’t be able to manage that—he hadn’t even been able to make mother-child moments happen while he and Jacqueline had been married.
It was a teenaged Ísa who’d negotiated time for Catie in her mother’s schedule.
In return, she’d agreed to learn the ropes of the company without complaining.
“Knock, knock.”
Glancing up at her open door, she saw Ginny with a huge latte balanced on the tray she’d clipped to the arms of her wheelchair so it’d be stable. “It’s like you read my mind,” she told the other woman as Ginny wheeled herself in and put the latte on Ísa’s desk. “You’ve been fantastic today.”
“It’s far more interesting working for you than being Jacqueline’s junior assistant,” the brunette confessed. “I haven’t had to make a single stupid craft thing all day.”
“Don’t get too used to it,” Ísa warned after stretching out her back, then taking a restorative sip of the coffee. “I have no desire to be trapped in Crafty Corners hell.”
Ginny’s face fell. “Oh, come on Ísa,” she wheedled. “You’re really good at this—I did some work for the last person your mother put temporarily in this position, and you’re like a rocket compared to his hand-powered car. You have the instinct.”
That was the last thing Ísa wanted to hear.
“Oh,” Ginny said, “I almost forgot. A small package arrived for you.” She reached into a bag she had on the back of her wheelchair and pulled it out.
“Thanks, Gin.” Putting the unassuming brown box aside as she returned to the work she’d been doing, Ísa forgot all about the package until seven that night. Ginny had already clocked out, and Ísa was packing up to go too when her eye fell on the box.
Guessing it was either a corporate gift from a client or a sample from a hopeful craft inventor, she made quick work of opening it. “Ouch!”
She instinctively brought her finger to her mouth. But there was no blood, not even a real dent in her skin. Opening the flaps of the box with more care this time, she frowned at what she saw within. Not quite certain what it was about, she began to cut open the box so she could remove the object without further stabs.
Box surgically dissected, she pulled out the packing peanuts to free the perfectly potted cactus within. Dark green with wicked spines, it was potted in a pretty terra-cotta pot… on which someone had written in white ink: Pointy spiky things don’t scare me.
Beside it was a tiny sketched image of a kitten-heeled shoe.
Ísa pressed her lips tightly together to keep from smiling.
Putting the cactus aside to take home, she looked in the remains of the box for any other sign of who’d sent it, found nothing. The external packaging didn’t provide much of an answer either. There was no return address. But Ísa didn’t really need any further evidence. Who else but a gardener would fight with plants?
Her lips tugged up at the corners despite herself.
She carried the cactus carefully down to her car, then into her apartment complex. Slogging up the stairs instead of taking the elevator, she tried to think of a fitting rejoinder.
“No, Ísa,” she ordered herself. “No playing this game. He’s too young, and you have a plan.” To find a man who was ready to settle down and create the kind of family foundation she’d always lacked.
A firm place on which Ísa could stand and where she could shelter Catie and Harlow. And a strong pair of arms on whom she could depend, a man as rooted as an oak, with a heart in which Ísa wasn’t an afterthought but a priority.