BRIAN (The Callahans Book 1) (4 page)

I slipped into Brian’s office, looking over my shoulder at every tiny noise, even the noises I made with my clunky shoes. Brianna had told me…it didn’t matter now.

There was a password on his computer, and there didn’t seem to be anything beyond office supplies in his drawers. He was a careful man, always had been. But I did find what looked like an old list of addresses for his kids. I quickly typed them into my phone, whispering a silent prayer as I did.

I’m sorry. Please don’t hurt them. I’m sorry. Please don’t hurt them. I’m sorry. Please don’t hurt them.

I was nearly done when someone cleared his throat.

I bit back a scream as I looked up, slamming the desk drawer closed with my knee and sending the message with my thumb.

“You must be the new assistant.”

“Cassidy Myers,” I said, standing and making my way as calmly as possible around the desk even though my insides were like jelly, fear dancing around in my chest. “And you are?”

“Killian Callahan, head of public relations.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Killian,” I said, his name almost getting lost on the tip of my tongue. This wasn’t the first time I’d met him, but he clearly didn’t remember me. And there was no wonder…he’d been two when I met him the last time.

He looked a lot like his father. He was tall and broad shouldered like Brian. And he had those deep green eyes. But his hair was dark, and his nose was thin, his jaw a little narrower. There were definite aspects of his mother in there and that, for reasons I didn’t want to explore, killed my soul a little.

“I’m glad my dad managed to hire someone. It’s clogged up the system a little, him being without an assistant.”

“So I’ve noticed.”

“He never was good at the emails and stuff, but he’s a damn good CEO.”

There was pride in Killian’s voice and that killed my soul just a little bit more. I didn’t want to be here; I didn’t want to be talking to this man, who was once a child I cuddled to my chest and dreamed of stealing away from his mother. I brushed a hand against my cheek and forced a smile.

“I need to finish up a few more emails before I go.”

“Of course,” Killian said, stepping aside. “I was just looking for my dad. Do you know where he is?”

I glanced over my shoulder as I passed him. “He said something about having a date.”

Killian laughed. “I thought he was seeing someone. Good for the old goat!”

Again, the forced smile. Then I stepped into my office, closed my eyes as I stood against the door, and took a deep breath before glancing at my phone.

Those are his kids. I know those names. Get me something better! Something I can use!

What the hell was I supposed to do?

Brian

“I hired a new assistant today.”

Rachel curled up against my naked chest, her own nudity making me feel like I was twenty again. I ran my hand slowly down her back, loving the way she pressed her bare breasts, nipples hard as little pebbles, against my side.

“Good. I called you twice today and the stupid secretary pretended she didn’t even know who I was.”

“Sorry.” I kissed the top of her head. “What’d you call for?”

“Just…my editor’s putting pressure on me to finish the story about you.”

“You’re still going with that?”

She raised up enough so that I could see her pretty face. “Why not?”

“Because we’ve been fucking for almost two weeks.”

“I can be impartial.”

I touched the side of her face, sliding my fingertips over the curve of her jaw before tangling my fingers in her hair. I pulled her up to me and kissed her roughly.

“I’m not sure I can be.”

She groaned. “This is important to me, Brian.”

“What’s the article going to be about?”

“How you turned a small security firm into this big conglomerate. You own like three fast food franchises, a car wash franchise, and a couple of casinos. That’s pretty impressive.”

“Is it?”

“And you have your sons working there at the company with you every day. How do you do that without stepping on their toes, or making them feel less than successful?” A dark cloud flashed in her eyes. “I don’t think I could work with my dad. I’d be too afraid of disappointing him.”

“My boys know that they couldn’t disappoint me—no matter what they do.”

“That’s bullshit.”

I groaned. “I love it when you talk dirty.”

She laughed, even as she untangled my fingers from her hair and climbed from the bed. “Tell me something the whole world doesn’t already know about you.”

I watched her walk around the room, searching her pockets and her bag for something.

“I desperately want to bend you over my desk and fuck you till you can’t walk straight.”

She shot me a dirty look.

“What? No one else knows that.”

“Seriously, Brian.”

I lay back and threw my arm over my eyes. “I hired a woman as my assistant that I had an affair with years ago.”

“You what?”

I peeked at her, wondering what she looked like when she was jealous. However, she had stepped into the living room, so all I could see was the reflection of her naked form in the mirror on the back of the bedroom door.

“The woman I hired today. We had an affair years ago.”

“Why did you hire her?”

“Because she needed a job, and I needed someone I could work with.”

“But you’ve slept with her?”

I peeked at her again and found her watching me from the doorway. The light was dim, laying shadows all over her curves, but there was no hiding those perfectly rounded breasts or those full hips with the perfectly trimmed bush between them. I rolled onto my side, hiding the erection that was beginning to make itself known. But she could see it, I knew she could. There was a slight tilt to her mouth, a smile that was as suggestive as it was expressive.

“Should I be jealous?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Would you be jealous if I bedded another woman?”

“Of course. This might not be a committed relationship, but I like to think it’s mutually monogamous.”

That made about as much sense as Abigail’s argument that our separations were meant to be a time of deeper commitment, not less. However, I liked the idea that Rachel could be jealous of anything I might or might not do.

And there was little chance I would cheat on her simply for the fact that I couldn’t keep up with her, my work, and another woman.

“When did you have an affair with this woman?”

“Years ago, when my boys were babies.”

“Sean and Killian.”

“Yeah. Killian was like two and Sean was still cooking.”

“You fucked around while your wife was pregnant?”

“She threw me out of the house.”

“And you took that as permission to take a lover?”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“No. I would assume she was hormonal or something.”

“Yeah, well, you didn’t know Abigail. She didn’t get hormonal. She was just judgmental.”

“Why’d she throw you out?” she asked, coming back and crawling into bed with me.

“Because I was running with a bad group of guys, doing things she didn’t approve of. She was afraid I was going to go back to jail.”

“So she threw you out…wait!” She sat up a little and stared at me. “You went to jail?”

“A couple of times.”

“Really?”

“Back when I was in my late teens, early twenties. Robbery once or twice. Assault several times.”

“No, shit!”

I laughed, touching her face again, loving the admiration dancing in her eyes.

“You were a bad guy?”

“I was an errand boy for the mafia. But that was years ago.”

“And this woman? Your new assistant?”

“She was a student at Boston College. We had a fling for a couple of months.”

“She didn’t care about your police record?”

“I don’t think she knew about it. I didn’t take her around my friends.”

“Did she know you were married?”

I nodded, as I ran my hand slowly down Rachel’s side. She took my hand and pressed it between her legs, forcing my fingers against her opening and closing her eyes as I sought out her swollen clit. I brushed my finger against it, rolling into her, pressing my cock against her ass as she pressed her back into my chest. She fit perfectly against me, her body slim and delicate against my broad chest and wide hips.

“I told her after we’d been together for a couple of months. Told her so that she wouldn’t get too attached.”

“Did you always know you’d go back to Abigail?”

I thought about it for a moment, remembering how Cassidy’s body fit against mine. Abigail was a beautiful woman, but she was broad-hipped, a woman who didn’t remain slender and fit into middle age, but I loved her just the same. And Rachel fit against me so perfectly that it was almost too perfect. But Cassidy…her curves were the kind that kept me up at night. Even years after I sent her away, years after I returned to Abigail and I held other women, it was still Cassidy’s curves that came to mind at the most inopportune moments, making me burn with a need that wasn’t likely to be fulfilled.

“Does it matter? Abigail and I managed to get past our differences after a while.”

“After ten years of marriage. That’s a long time to go back and forth between your wife and your stable of mistresses.”

“Do you think that’s what I had? A group of women just sitting off to the side, waiting to crawl into my bed?”

She pressed my hand tighter against her cunt. “If I’d been one of them, I would have been more than willing to wait.”

“Is that right?”

“I’m still here, aren’t I?”

She leaned back and kissed my jaw, her lips sliding slowly up to my ear. I slid a finger inside of her, and she groaned, moving her hips back against me until my hard cock slipped perfectly between her thighs, pressed high against her ass and that lovely cunt. I moved my hand as she pushed against my cock head, shoving me against her opening and sighing as I slid inside of her.

“So fucking good,” she said with a sigh, pressing her hips back against me. “If I were Abigail, I’d have put a padlock on your zipper.”

I nibbled at her shoulder before my lips came to rest against her ear. “She tried. That’s part of why I strayed so often.”

“Then the secret is to pretend this isn’t as good as it is?” she asked, a little breathless now.

“Maybe.”

“Impossible.”

I would have laughed, but I was concentrating too hard on each stroke, on the feel of her tight, little cunt wrapped around my length. I was too involved in the idea of this hot, beautiful girl writhing against my body, her swollen clit against my finger, her lips forming my name.

So fucking good!

***

I was late arriving at the office the next morning because I fell asleep in Rachel’s bed and I didn’t want to show up in the same suit I’d been wearing the night before. I had a spare at the office, but Cassidy would know, and a part of me didn’t want her to know. My personal life was my business, no one else’s.

She was in her office, tucked into a corner beside mine, thin, wire-framed glasses perched on her nose as she studied her computer screen. She glanced up when I walked past. She immediately grabbed a pad of paper and pencil as she stood to follow me.

“Morning,” I mumbled, dumping my briefcase on my desk.

“Good morning,” she said softly.

I snapped the briefcase open and searched through the contents for my laptop. I don’t know why I bothered to take it last night. The briefcase sat in my car while I was at Rachel’s, never opened, no work done. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d taken work home and actually looked at it. But it was a habit.

“We need to go over today’s schedule. I believe I have a couple of meetings this morning—”

“At ten and noon. The first is with the lawyers to discuss the new pizza franchise and the other is with a group of investors who want to discuss the car wash.”

I looked at Cassidy, a little surprised by her efficiency.

She gestured with her pad. “It’s all on your calendar.”

I knew that. I was just scattered because…I didn’t know why I was scattered. It was so strange staring at Cassidy. She was dressed quite professionally in a dark skirt and pink blouse. It was nothing like the jeans and t-shirts she’d favored when we knew each other before, but those curves were still there. I found myself thinking things I shouldn’t be thinking, especially after last night. I had to force myself to move my attention back to my briefcase, even as an image of her curled up on the old, creaky bed in my rented room all those years ago flashed through my mind.

“I’ve talked to human resources, and they’re okay with me coming down at five to deal with the paperwork, so I’ll be available to you during these meetings.”

I glanced up. “Great.”

“How should I…?”

Her eyebrows rose as she studied me, finishing her question with a look.

“You’ll come with me, furnish me with any information I might need—the research for both meetings should be on your desk or already loaded onto the computer. And you’ll hold my phone, answer any calls that come in, inform me of anything that can’t wait.”

“I can do that.”

There was a little catch to her voice as she spoke, but I was so distracted I didn’t stop to ask what it was about. My head was slowly shifting into work mode. I was about to ask her to give me a minute when Killian tapped on the open door.

“Do you have a minute? I wanted to go over the announcement for the pizza franchise.”

“Of course.” I gestured to Cassidy. “Have you met my new assistant?”

“We met last night.”

Cassidy was a little flushed. It took me a second, but then I recalled that she met Killian once all those years ago. Killian clearly didn’t remember, and he shouldn’t. He was barely two. It was…it was a mistake. I had Killian with me that afternoon, but I hadn’t expected Cassidy to come over. When she showed up, I couldn’t exactly ask her to leave. It was an awkward situation that underscored to me the fact that I had to make a choice.

It was that afternoon that made me see that it was time to stop playing with Cassidy’s affections and go back to Abigail.

I cleared my throat, old guilt settling on my shoulders.

“If you could give us a minute,” I said to Cassidy.

She nodded immediately, barely meeting my eye before she walked away.

“She seems nice enough.”

I shrugged, tugging out the laptop and setting the briefcase on the floor. I settled in my chair and bit back a sigh. A sudden exhaustion settled on my shoulders.

“Are we good with the pizza franchise?”

“Great.”

Killian dropped a folder on my desk that had proofs of the print ads we’d be sending out this afternoon. I glanced through them even though I’d seen them at the various stages of development and knew pretty much what to expect. It was simply an announcement—a change of management thing—that most consumers wouldn’t even take note of.

“I talked to Jack yesterday. He says that the gun deal went down as planned.”

“Good. I’ll let everyone else know.”

Killian started to turn, but stopped when I asked, “Did you know Stacy’s getting married?”

Killian shrugged. “Ian might have said something.”

“Why didn’t she call me?”

He crossed his arms over his chest and regarded me for a long moment. Killian was the oldest, the one all the other kids went to whenever they had a problem. But he was already in high school by the time Stacy came to live with us. At ten, she was a handful, but something about Killian just walking into a room calmed her without fail. If anyone knew what was going on in her head, it was likely Killian.