“Morning, sis,” I greeted, stepping inside Soho Lingerie. We’d decided on the name easily enough—they made great key words for search engines, and when we eventually expanded (we had big dreams) it would serve us well. Soho was known all over the globe.
Tess looked up from the counter, where she was hunched over her laptop. “Oooh, you come bringing coffee. I love you more every day, I swear.”
I handed her the cappuccino, admiring my sister’s fashion sense. Currently wearing a knee-length white lace dress with long sleeves, she also had a red belt around her waist. Tess rocked whatever she wore, no exception. She had her own style. Her hair was light brown with blonde strands—sometimes she added pink or green highlights in for fun, especially since her hair was getting so long, almost reaching her waist now.
I peered over her shoulder. “What are you doing?”
“Answering customer complaints.”
“We should really hire someone to help us with the online shop.”
Tess pressed her lips together. “We’ve got this.”
Yeah... except we didn’t though. We had a backlog of emails, orders... everything. We’d had the online shop for four years, and we’d run that while holding full-time jobs. I only remembered that time in a blur, as if it happened to someone else. We’d quit our jobs just before opening the brick-and-mortar store. I loved interacting with customers, finding the perfect lingerie for them.
I loved every nook and cranny of our store. We’d handpicked everything. The customer couches were dark green velvet. We had two of them, one in the front and one in the back, separating the changing rooms. The brass light fixtures and light pink walls were just beautiful. We’d replaced the original flooring, which had been a gorgeous wood, but it had darkened the place too much. We’d gone with a light oak, and it made the shop look bigger.
As much as I loved our store though, I couldn’t deny it—we were running on a hamster wheel.
We had two sales associates, Jane and Olive, but still handled too much ourselves. We also had a secret weapon: our family.
We were tight-knit... and there were a lot of us. Tess was the oldest of the group. Then came our cousin Hunter, just one year behind. He’d lived with us as a teenager, so sometimes we even forgot he wasn’t actually our brother. I was two years younger than Tess. Our brother Ryker was two years younger than me, and Cole came directly after him. Mom had confessed once after a fabulous meal where we’d had far too much to eat and drink that he was the surprise baby. At thirty-two, I still considered my siblings my best friends.
Anyway, Cole, Ryker, Hunter, plus Mom and her husband were pitching in to manage the store on Sundays. Honestly though, that wasn’t okay. Everyone had crazy busy schedules without spending their time here. Cole and Hunter were running a real estate empire. Ryker was a Wall Street guru. Mom was a school principal, and her husband was in charge of setting up concert stages. They could all use their time off for a break.
I knew they wouldn’t stop dropping by until Tess and I hired someone though. It was just the way our family worked—every time someone was in over their heads, the others came to the rescue.
My family had always been close, especially after our dad left us. Once upon a time, we’d been the picture-perfect family. Then our financial situation imploded, and to make matters worse, Dad left Mom for another woman. It had been such a difficult time that I mostly tried to block it from my memory. We’d been living in Boston in a large house. Mom had been a homemaker, so we were suddenly in a terrible position. Luckily, she got a job at a school here in New York. Mom started as a teacher and worked her way up to principal.
She was tough as nails and raised her own four kids and our cousin by herself. She was my role model. She’d taught us the value of hard work and independence and sticking together. We’d taken that to heart and added a few indispensable attributes to our family dynamic... namely teasing each other about absolutely everything.
Even though the rest of the gang worked in various fields, we had one project in common, the Ballroom Galas. From September to June, we organized galas raising money for charity. Working on that meant we met up regularly. Now the events were on summer hiatus, but we still found plenty of excuses to get together. By the time we met next, I hoped we’d have made some progress in finding someone to cover for us on Sundays.
Right now, I didn’t even have time to think about it, because the store was bustling with customers as soon as we opened.
We only took a real break shortly before lunch, both sitting on the couch next to the counter.
“Sooo... want to tell me a bit more about last night? You were saying something about a hunk before you rudely hung up on me and then didn’t call me back,” Tess said, batting her eyelashes.
I laughed. “Well, I told you the essential information over the phone.”
“But I live for details. Is he tall, short? Blue, green, brown eyes? How long is his hair?”
“Geez, woman. Slow down. Breathe.”
Tess pressed her lips together, a sure sign that she was barely holding back what she really wanted to say. She kept batting her eyelashes like she had something in her eye.
“First of all, he actually overheard me saying that stuff.”
Tess’s eyes bulged. Giggling, she covered her mouth with a hand. “Oh, Skye.”
“Hey, not funny. I was trying to make a good impression.”
“I bet he was impressed.”
I blushed just remembering that daring smile on his handsome face.
“You think he’ll take the house?” Tess went on.