“Sounds like we’ve got our first extortionist,” I said loudly, trying to drown out the anxieties screeching inside my head. “We were overdue for one anyway.”
Nobody laughed. It wasn’t funny. No matter what the truth behind this guy was, it wouldn’t be funny.
“I gotta go,” Axel said, checking his watch. “Let me know what you dig up on Ian, okay?” He sent a dark look to Trace and me before heading out of the office. Trace came to standing then, working his jaw back and forth.
“Let me know, too.” He jerked his chin in my direction and disappeared wordlessly, the door shutting softly behind him.
And then it was just me, myself, and the overwhelming swarm of anxieties.
My gut roiled as I got down to work. Each new twist and turn in my adult life looked different, but it all felt the same when it hit—an acid nut in my belly, or sometimes my chest, that took me right back to the beginning of our current trajectory.
The night my biological parents died. Becoming the eldest Haynes at the ripe old age of eight. I was the one who had to figure out the path forward. Navigate through the storm. Protect Axel, and our little sisters Kaylee and Jordan at all costs.
I gritted my teeth, desperate to escape the negative churn of my brain. Sometimes it felt like I’d never let myself off the hook. And why should I? I’d failed two of the most important people in my life. I’d been a kid when our parents died, but that didn’t matter. They’d beenbabies. I’d had some understanding of the world by that point, and it had been my responsibility as the oldest to take care of the others.
My chest tightened the way it always did when I went down this path. Ian showing up was a hard shove into the failures of my past, a road I hated to travel but found myself on nearly every day. I needed to switch into hyper-focus mode, the only escape I knew besides drugs and alcohol.
I reached for my headphones, turned on the best death metal on my playlist, and sank into ultra-productivity mode. This workaholism was 100 percent responsible for all of my success in the tech sector. I knew how to sit down and crank out code for twelve hours on end, and it was all thanks to the insatiable need to turn off the obsessive, irrational part of my brain. This skill would serve me well as I hunted for dirt on Ian.
I began collecting information immediately, gathering everything of note into one organized document that I could present to my brothers as a recap. The most interesting bit of information?Fairchildhad only been his last name for the past year. Previously, he’d been Ian Keller. This reeked of a shoddy con job already.
A movement beyond the computer screen pulled me from the depths of my concentration. My door was open and Jessa stood in the doorway, her mouth moving, though all I could hear was the heady thrum of bass drums.
I tugged my headphones off, instantly annoyed to be back in the real world. Down there, in the relentless pulse of oblivion, I could fucking breathe.
But not up here.
“Sorry to interrupt,” she said, her cheeks turning pink. “I called a few times, but…”
“Yeah. I had my music cranked.” I tossed the headphones onto my desk, looking over the most recent bit of information on my screen. I had to focus on that, because if I looked at Jessa, a different type of tension threatened to consume me.
The woman was built like an hourglass with a circulatory system. She apparently only knew how to select dresses that accentuated every luscious curve. And it wasn’t that I tried to notice; no, I simplyhadto notice. It was my body’s prime directive to notice Jessa Walton. It had been that way since high school. There was something about the slice of her collarbone, the curve of her cheeks, the sway of her hips that fucking yanked at my eyes and forced me to watch.
I couldn’tnotsee her and every last detail about her. And I couldn’t afford to get distracted, because of my current reality and this current arrangement. So I needed to stare at the screen a bit longer.
She stepped closer to my desk. “Can I interest you in some donuts?”
My stomach rumbled in response, even though I tried to glance disinterestedly at the tray she held in her hands. Frosted donuts, coated with red and orange sprinkles, dotted the silver tray. I blinked a few times, weighing my best response.
I could send her and her sweet, thoughtful delivery away…or…
“What is this?” I snapped.
“Just a late-morning donut delivery,” she said, with the sweetestduhtone. Now it was impossible to look away from her, and all I could see was the dark red stain of her lips, the black and cream pattern stretching across her breasts. She was professional, elegant, entirely off-limits. My fingers curled into a fist beneath the desk. “To get us in the Thanksgiving spirit.”
When I didn’t answer, she stepped closer. “Come on. Don’t you want one?”
There was a strategy behind her words, though I wasn’t sure what it was. I stared at the white frosting.
“These were your favorite in high school,” she said, which finally broke me. I deflated slightly and nodded.
“Yeah, I’ll take one.” My stomach growled even louder this time. I usually didn’t eat breakfast. Hell, I sometimes didn’t even eat lunch. I wasn’t very good about taking care of myself beyond daily caffeination and working out.
The grin that lit up her face brought a smile to my own lips. She set the tray down on the corner of my desk and clapped her hands together.
“Great. I’m dying to try one too. These are my second-favorite kind, but I’ll make an exception for you, Damian. You pick first.”
I grinned, swiping up one of the thick rings. I could already tell it was going to be incredible, just from the sponginess of the donut, the indentation of my fingers. Jessa picked one as well, and we shared a conspiratorial smile.