Cherish Hard

  In all their years together, Isa had only heard Nayna swear maybe five times. So she didn't hug her best friend--she could tell the other woman was as furiously angry as she was sad. Instead, she said, "I know you don't like to talk about it, but part of the reason you went the whole arranged-marriage route was to make your parents happy. Are you rethinking that?"

  Nayna put down the drumstick. "This isn't just about my father. There's also my grandmother. I want her to be happy--she never got to have the big wedding for her granddaughter that she dreamed about while we were growing up. I want to give her that."

  Isa scowled. "Your grandma loves you unconditionally, you egg." Isa had been hugged by those same soft arms, her impression of Nayna's grandmother a fusion of textures and scent--the softness of the white sari that was her daily wear, the hint of incense that clung to her because of her early-morning prayers, the fancy perfume she loved and that Nayna gave her for her birthday every year.

  "She's had a lot of pain in her life," Nayna countered. "A lot of loss. I want to give her this one bright, shining moment."

  "You really think she'll be happy when she realizes how unhappy you are?"

  Nayna stared at her empty plate. "I should've bought ice cream when I got the salad."

  "Please," Isa muttered. "Like I'd ever run out of ice cream. But read this in the meantime." After pulling up Michelle's messages, she handed her phone to Nayna. "It'll make you feel better."

  Nayna was laughing in open glee by the time Isa returned with the two-liter tub of rocky road ice cream and two spoons. "If you ever find the man who did this to Cody's face--and to Suzanne's precious wedding," Nayna said, her eyes shining, "you need to offer him a blow job at least. It'd only be polite."

  Isa's face went hot red between one second and the next.

  Of course Nayna caught it. "You know who it was!" she accused. "Tell me!"

  "I'm not sure." Isa thrust the cold container of ice cream into Nayna's lap.

  Not the least distracted by the cold of the ice cream, Nayna waggled her eyebrows. "Anyone to whom you'd be happy to offer a lusty sexual favor?"

  When Isa's breath turned shallow, her face even hotter, Nayna's smile cracked her face. "It was him, wasn't it? The hot gardener? The one you went skinny-dipping with at the party? I knew he couldn't be an asshole, not with the way he looks at you! And oh my God! He avenged your honor!"

  "I'll tell you when I know." Isa pointed her spoon at her grinning best friend. "And I thought you were depressed."

  "Hearing about Slimeball Schumer's comeuppance has had a reviving effect." Having opened the container, she put it between them and dug in.

  One spoonful later, she said, "Isa, seriously--if Mr. Sexy Blue Eyes punched out Cody for you, he might be a keeper."

  Isa stabbed her own spoon into the ice cream. "He's twenty-three." And definitely, absolutely not anything like the kind of man for whom Isa was searching. Even if he haunted her in her dreams. Even if she kept seeing that image of him on the stairs, a maturity to him that belied his age. Even if she kept hearing him whisper "spitfire" in her ear while promising to lock her up using handcuffs.

  * * *

  AFTER FINALLY GETTING HOME AT eight that evening, Sailor dug out a frozen meal. He showered while it was cooking in the microwave, then pulled on a pair of low-hanging shorts and, taking the meal to the kitchen table where he did most of his theoretical work, sat down to fine-tune the plans for Fast Organic.

  Jacqueline's assistant had sent him a message to say that a representative from the company would be meeting him tomorrow at three at the first Fast Organic site to go over the details. She hadn't sent him a name, noting that she'd send through final details tomorrow, once this new project was integrated into everyone's schedules. Given Jacqueline's driven nature, the rep had to be someone equally intelligent and competent; they'd no doubt have countless questions.

  Sailor wanted to have all the answers ready.

  After he finished this, he'd have to get to work on his taxes. The problem with being a one-man shop was that he had to do everything. Which didn't leave a lot of time for extracurricular activities. He played rugby during the season, ran for exercise during the off-season, but that was about it. Today, however, he decided that he needed to add "flirting with a cute redhead" to his schedule.

  When he was around her, he felt young in a way he hadn't felt since he was fifteen and had set himself the goal that drove him every single day. She made him realize that he'd put part of himself into deep freeze a long time ago--but there was no ice around her and never had been. His redhead had hit him straight in the gut from the first night he'd laid eyes on her.

  A man would have to be very stupid to walk away from that.

  Sailor wasn't stupid.

  He was also very, very determined.

  The cactus was just stage one of his plan to lure his redhead into his lair.

  * * *

  ISA RAN INTO HER LEAST favorite person in the entire world the next morning after she parked her car in the Crafty Corners parking lot. She hadn't slept well, tormented by dreams of a man with devil-blue eyes who teased her body without ever offering relief. What she needed was a tall black coffee. What she got was a tall, blackhearted swamp creature.

  "Hello, Trevor," she said with a tight smile and tried to walk past him.

  "Hey." He put his hands on her upper arms. "Is that any way to talk to your stepbrother?"

  Not about to put up with unwanted contact, Isa deliberately stepped back. If he touched her again, she'd break out the painful little-finger twist she'd learned in a self-defense class. "I don't think it works that way when parents marry after their children are adults." It wasn't the first time she'd made the point.

  Trevor laughed, his perfect white teeth gleaming in his perfect square-jawed face with its perfect salon-tousled blond hair. He was like a living, talking, walking magazine model. It was creepy. "Are you going in to see Jacqueline?" he asked. "I was hoping to have a word with her."

  "I don't know if she's in yet," was all Isa said. She had no desire to know what Trevor wanted to discuss with Jacqueline, though she could guess. Trevor had been angling for a senior position at Crafty Corners ever since his father Oliver had the good fortune to marry Jacqueline.

  While Oliver Jones was a somewhat vague professor who, oddly enough, seemed to "get" Jacqueline in a way none of her previous husbands had, Trevor Jones was very much a smooth operator out to line his pockets. He'd quickly figured out that getting into Jacqueline's good books was in his best interest.

  Unfortunately, good-looking, charming men were Jacqueline's weak point.

  Except in business, of course. Nothing distracted Jacqueline in business. Not even "a nice piece of ass."

  Trevor had, so far, managed to walk the fine line between being a charming man whose company Jacqueline enjoyed and a calculating operator who wanted to wheedle his way into her business empire. Isa wondered how long that would last. Jacqueline might have a weak spot for charming men, but she also had a razor-sharp intellect--sooner, rather than later, she'd figure out that Trevor was muscling in for a piece of the family pie.

  That might've intrigued Jacqueline had Trevor been up to her standards, but Trevor wasn't even on Jacqueline's radar as someone she'd employ. While he was apparently a competent lawyer, he wasn't a shark who could rip the competition to shreds without ever losing his smile. Jacqueline's entire legal team was made up of sharks--which occasionally made for interesting office politics, but when it counted, the sharks worked together as a team.

  They'd chew Trevor up and spit him out without so much as pausing in their work.

  "I hear Jacqueline's made you acting vice president." Trevor's smile was so dazzling that she half expected to see a glint off one pearly white. "Congratulations."

  Isa settled the strap of her satchel and gave him the same tight smile as earlier, hoping he'd get the message. "It's only for the summer," she said. "I'm sure she'll find someone permanent durin
g that time."

  "Oh, don't be modest, Isalind." Trevor's smile rang hollow. "We all know you're a genius. You've got your mother's instincts."

  Now what the hell was he up to? "Um, thanks," she muttered. "I'd better go in. There's a lot to do." She had an evening class to teach tonight, the reason why she'd arrived at Crafty Corners so early. She wasn't about to do extra hours for Jacqueline, but neither did she plan to shirk on her part of the blackmail bargain.

  Trevor fell into step beside her. "I don't want to keep you. I know how important this is to Jacqueline. She looks to you as her successor you know."

  That was hardly a state secret.

  "I want you to know," Trevor added in a tone that dripped sincerity, "that if you ever need a hand, I'm here. Being thrown into the vice presidential position at only twenty-eight has got to create an immense amount of stress on you. I've got the legal know-how to give you backup anytime you need."

  It was a good thing no one from Crafty Corners' in-house crack team of sharks was present to hear Trevor's offer--she wouldn't have given him high odds of survival in that situation. "Thanks," she said, deciding to take his words at face value. It was possible he was genuinely trying to be helpful and nice. Maybe she shouldn't think of him as a blackhearted villain just because he checked all the boxes.

  Probably she should feel bad about mentally naming him Trevor the Creeper. But just like ivy crept over a wall until it smothered it, Trevor was on a campaign to creep all over Jacqueline and Crafty Corners.

  He touched Isa on her lower back.

  She elbowed him hard enough in the gut that he spluttered out an "oof" of breath. "You shouldn't startle women," she said calmly instead of apologizing, because she was Jacqueline Rain's daughter and her mother had taught Isa never to apologize to men who were attempting to force their way into her space.

  Every so often, when meetings or conferences or networking events didn't interfere, Jacqueline had been one hell of a mom.

  Still a little breathless, Trevor held up his hands. "Sorry, my fault," he said with a dental-commercial-worthy smile. "I was just going to suggest we should have dinner together. Our parents are married, and yet I feel I don't know you at all. How about it, stepsister?" He made the last word sound vaguely incestuous.

  Ew.

  "I'm sure we'll get to know each other over the summer," she said rather than answering his invitation. "Mother's been talking about having more family dinners." Actually, it was Isa who'd been talking about family dinners--but she hadn't been thinking of Trevor at the time. She wanted her mother to pay attention to her other two children.

  Catie, the child to whom she'd given birth.

  Harlow, the son whom she hadn't birthed but into whose life she'd blasted at a critical point.

  When Trevor opened his mouth again, Isa beat him to the punch. "I've got to head up and make a start on work. Have a great day, and I hope you manage to catch up with Jacqueline." She deliberately made sure the door locked behind her after she entered.

  With it being so early, there was no one else around to let him in.

  And oh, oops, she'd developed temporary hearing loss and couldn't hear him knocking.

  Devil Isa grinned.

  After reaching her office, she got immediately to work. It was about an hour and fifteen minutes later that she got up and went to see if Ginny had arrived; she needed the other woman to find some records for her.

  Ginny's computer was up and running, but Isa couldn't spot her.

  Detouring to the staff room, Isa grabbed a mug of coffee before wandering back into her office. A little potted plant sat in the center of her desk. She blinked, glanced over her shoulder--and saw Ginny coming back from the photocopier.

  "Did you see where that potted plant came from?" she asked her assistant, her heart thumping triple time.

  "Apparently it was dropped off at reception by that hunky blue-eyed contractor. Looks like he wants to make nice with the boss." Mischief in her expression, she added, "James said he was wearing khaki work shorts and a sand-colored T-shirt. There was also mention of a thigh tattoo." She pretended to melt into her chair. "I wish I'd seen him. Such a dishy sight to start off the day."

  Cheeks threatening to blaze, Isa made some vague statement before shutting herself in her office. And surrendering to memories of the first time she'd seen adult Sailor--he'd been wearing his work shorts then too, a gorgeous, sweaty man who looked good enough to lick.

  Isa shivered as she made her way to her desk. The potted plant was another miniature cactus, this one tiny round balls with a thin "fur" of spikes. Tiny yellow flowers erupted from the tips. It was adorable.

  But what she was really interested in was the message.

  17

  Operation Catch the Redhead--Stage One

  PUTTING DOWN HER MUG, ISA plucked out the note tucked into the soil. It proved to be a small envelope. The envelope was homemade... Very badly homemade.

  It was like he'd never been near a Crafty Corners store in his life.

  Lips curving, she tore open the well-glued and duct-taped miniature envelope to withdraw a piece of notepaper that had been folded multiple times. Inside, she found a message written in neat writing with generous loops. It said: I have spike-resistant gloves. Just FYI.

  Isa couldn't help her smile.

  Even though Sailor Bishop was a big, sexy distraction from her goals, a charming man who was threatening to derail all her carefully laid plans.

  And why exactly was she even thinking about this?

  She had work to do, blackmail to pay, playful men with blue eyes to forget.

  * * *

  SAILOR WASN'T SURPRISED NOT TO hear from his redhead. Whose name, he'd discovered, was Isalind Rain. Unique and exotic and as pretty as her. Well, Isalind could be stubborn all she liked. Sailor could out-stubborn a goat.

  And he was still in stage one.

  "You're not getting away this time," he murmured as he hefted a bag of soil... and thought about lifting Isa up to his mouth for a kiss so deep it was sex. She was gloriously, lusciously naked in his fantasy--the end goal of Operation Catch the Redhead.

  He was adding fine details to the fantasy when his phone chimed with an incoming message. It turned out to be from Jacqueline's assistant--she was confirming the meeting he had later today with one of Jacqueline's people. It was, he saw, to be their VP.

  The name beside the title made him blink... and then begin to cheerfully whistle. His day had just gotten monumentally better.

  * * *

  ISA MANAGED TO FORGET ABOUT the cactus for the next few hours; okay, she was lying through her teeth--she never forgot it, but she managed to ignore it for long enough to get the work done. It was two hours after lunch when her cell phone chimed with a rock 'n' roll ringtone from the eighties.

  "Catiebug," Isa said with a smile. "What are you up to today?"

  "We ran out of money," her thirteen-year-old sister muttered. "Dad got hold of my bank passbook. It's like he's one of those money-sniffing dogs they have at the airport."

  That, Isa thought, was giving those hardworking dogs a bad name. "He cleaned you out?"

  "Yeah. The electricity company just called to say they'll be cutting us off if we don't pay the bill in the next week."

  Isa wanted to drive down to Hamilton and punch Clive in the face. How could he do that to his own daughter? And how could Jacqueline allow it to happen? She should've fought for custody of Catie--Clive was a lovely father at times and a clearly incompetent idiot the rest of it. But Jacqueline's choice was hardly surprising; she hadn't even fought for custody of Isa, her first born with the "killer" instincts.

  "It's all right, Catie," Isa said through her fury. "How much do you need to pay off the current bills?" She wrote down the number on a piece of notepaper.

  It wasn't too bad.

  The real damage was to Catie's account. "Did he take the money I gave you to use for movies, manicures, and mayhem over the summer?" No teenage girl should ha
ve to be stuck at home during her summer vacation; Isa had made sure Catie understood she could and should spend the gift money for fun.

  "Yes," Catie admitted. "I don't know why the bank let him have it. You're meant to be the only person other than me who can sign for the money."

  "I'll talk to the bank myself." Isa had already specifically discussed the financial setup with the bank, but Clive was Catie's legal guardian. He had the papers to prove it, and he took full advantage of those papers. "For now I'm going to transfer the money you need, fun money included, into Martha's account." The former nurse was Catie's live-in helper and utterly trustworthy. "Take the cash she gives you and hide it in your underwear drawer." Even Clive wouldn't stoop to searching his teenage daughter's underwear drawer.

  "I know you don't have that much money, Isa," Catie began.

  "I'm a millionaire," Isa pointed out dryly, her fingers playing with the tops of the fuzzy round cactus Sailor had brought her. "It's fine, Catiebug. I'll take the money from the shared-income account." Isa never touched that money for herself as a matter of principle--she wasn't going to use Jacqueline's money when she didn't want to work in Jacqueline's company, but she had no qualms about accessing it for Catie.

  Catie began to cry down the line, the break sudden, as if she'd been holding the tears within until something snapped. "I'm so sorry, Isa. I let you down."

  Heart twisting at hearing her usually sparky little sister be so down, Isa spoke in a firm tone. "You have nothing to apologize for. And if it makes you feel better, we all have our moments of weakness--look at me, I'm currently sitting in the vice president's office waiting for the Dragon to come in and breathe fire at my face."

  Wet laughter. "So, are you enjoying being a highflier?"

  "Like you wouldn't believe." Her dry tone made her sister laugh again, and this time it was less wet and more Catie.