What The Heart Knows (23 page)

“I'll
correspond with Emily via email about any issues. I will find a
designer and contractor and set up a plan with them and send them
over to Stars Landing.”

“That's
gonna go over real well with Emily,” Elliott said.

“She'll
learn to live with it,” James said, cringing at the hint of
vengeance in his voice. That wasn't him. He wasn't the revenge kind
of guy. “As for me,” he said, lifting a shoulder. “like
I said... I am going to be more involved in things around here. I
want to get a place. Furniture. A cleaning lady.”

“Take
up knitting. Get a half dozen cats...” Elliott supplied.

“Fuck
off,” James smiled, throwing a pen across the desk at him. “I'm
not turning into a spinster. I just... don't want to live out of a
suitcase anymore.”

Elliott
looked at him for a minute, opening his mouth as if he was going to
say something, then thinking better of it. “Alright. Sounds
like you have it all figured out,” he said, standing up. “If
you need a real estate agent or... a tour of the building,” he
smirked, knowing James had been 'working' there for years and had
probably only seen three floors of the company. “let me know.”

“Hey,”
James said as Elliott reached the door. “I'm sure Carter is
good at what he does and all,” he smiled. “but couldn't
you have hired a woman? All those road trips and hotel stays would be
a lot more tolerable with a woman for company.”

“Sure,”
Elliott said, nodding as he opened the door. “convince Lena to
come back.”

Jame
spent the rest of the day throwing himself into work. Ignoring the
swirling thoughts inside. Burying the frustration between the pages
of plans to take over struggling companies. The floor cleared out at
five, people saying goodbyes, making plans to meet for drinks after
work.

Across
the room, Carter was still on a phone call he had picked up over an
hour ago, his shoulders getting lower by the second. He had a hand to
his face, rubbing at the bridge of his nose, looking completely
frustrated.

“Who
is that?” James asked quietly.

Carter
put his hand over the receiver. “The owner of that little
coffee chain Elliott wants to invest in.”

“What's
the problem?

“Big
corporations know nothing about quality assurance.”

James
snorted, reaching for the phone. “What's her name?”

“Adalaine.”

James
nodded, picking up the phone. “Adalaine, darling, how are you
doing this evening?”

“Who
is this?” the woman's voice said from the other end. “Carter?”

“No,
Addy, this is James Michaels.”

There
was a long pause. “Michaels? As in...”

“The
brother,” he clarified, his voice slipping easily back into his
usual flirtatious tone.

Across
the room, Carter hung up the phone, leaned forward, and started
banging his head off the top of his desk.

James
stifled a laugh as Adalaine started on a long speech about what
happens when big business takes over small chains. The woman didn't
even seem to need to stop and take a breath as she rambled on and on
about employee wages and coffee house authenticity. Her stubborn
devotion to her work reminding him a little too much of Emily.

Fifteen
minutes later, he was rubbing the bridge of his nose too, seconds
from banging his head off his desk as well. “I agree
wholeheartedly,” he said, taking a deep breath. “Right.
Yes. Absolutely. I think a meeting at one of your coffee houses is a
great idea. Let us get the feel for what you are saying. What things
you need to show us that you want to keep the same and yeah. Mmmhmm.
Yes. No,” he said, sending Carter an apologetic look for what
he was about to do to the poor man. “No it won't be me for this
visit. It will be Carter. He is the head of acquisitions here.”

Across
the room Carter was squinting his eyes at him. “Well played,”
he said quietly.

“Right.
Okay. Thursday. Great. He will see you then. Thanks, Adalaine.”

James
hung up the phone, grabbing his hair in his hands, looking at the
ceiling. “Fuuuuccck.”

“I
hate you,” Carter grumbled.

“Dude,”
James said, laughing a humorless laugh. “I think I would quit
before I went to that meeting.”

“Elliott
is obsessed with that coffee. My bonus this year depends on me
landing this deal.”

“Right,”
James said, standing. “then I recommend not planning on buying
anything expensive. She's a raging lunatic. I need to have a drink
after that,” he said, going to the door.

Carter
started banging his head against the desk again, cursing Adalaine St.
James seven ways to Sunday.

James
made his way to the closest bar, threw himself into a bottle of
scotch, and went home with the first woman to smile slyly at him.

And
then he did the same thing the next night.

And
the night after that.

And
the night after that.

Nineteen

Employees
had taken to walking out of the rooms Emily entered. No one really
knew what, exactly, had happened the day after James left. The day
Alec was fired. And no one dared to ask. Because Emily had become a
tyrant. She snapped at the servers when she found them talking in the
kitchen when there were tables full in the dining room. She lectured
Devon about needing to pull his weight. She argued with Meggie about
the menus.

Though,
much to the relief of the remaining staff members, she had single
handedly taken on the responsibility of taking care of the stables.
Everyone had always sort of assumed that Alec spent an hour in the
morning feeding and putting the horses out in the field and then
spent most of the rest of his days hauled up in his office reading or
jerking off to porn.

Emily
learned within one day that nothing could have been further from the
truth. She had gone into Alec's office early the next morning,
turning the light on with a ridiculous surge of unease. Like she
might find images of murdered puppies on his computer or “you'll
pay for this, bitch” scrawled on the walls.

She
had never been in Alec's office since it became his office. The walls
were the same faded white she had been forced to paint it years ago.
There was a small wooden desk pushed against a wall with a computer
and a small pile of paperwork. The walls had glossy charts tacked
into them. One of all the different breeds of horses. One was a list
of supplies used to care for horses with. Like he had been prepared
for the possibility one day that he wouldn't be around and someone
else would need to take care of the animals.

Like
they were his babies.

Which,
she had to admit, they were to him.

Emily
wasn't sure she had ever cared about anything the way Alec cared
about horses. She walked over to the supply chart, looking over the
images of brushes and hoof picks and saddles. About an hour later,
she felt comfortable enough with the differences between a curry
brush and a dandy brush to take the horses one by one into the
grooming stall to pamper them before putting them out in the field to
graze. After she was done with that, there was the mucking out to be
dealt with. Then saddling up the horses for anyone who wanted to ride
them. Bringing them back in. Grooming them again. Putting them back
in their stalls.

It
ended up taking a huge chunk out of her day. But she welcomed the
distraction. She took pride in the sore muscles, in her eyes that
were too exhausted to stay open or cry. Because she had a sneaking
suspicion that if she opened up those floodgates again, that there
would be no closing them back up. That she would spend every day for
the foreseeable future with tears clinging to her eyelashes.

Not
over him, though. Fuck him. Fuck him and his fleeing the inn before
he even gave her a chance to explain about Dane. Fuck him and his
amazing, toe-tingling kisses. Just... fuck him.

It
was the whole situation in general. The upcoming renovations. Her
lack of control. The betrayal of one of her own. The added
responsibilities. The fact that she could never hire someone new with
the kind of blind trust she had in the past. The idea that her fairy
tale little town had some wolves in the woods after all.

It
was a full week before she heard word from EM Corp. In all honestly,
she wasn't sure she would hear from him at all. She had imagined him
on some hot beach fucking everything in a bikini. She thought things
like that. To punish herself. To remind herself that she hadn't lost
some kind of prize. But apparently he was back at EM. Working. Like
actually doing work there.

She
sat at the desk in the stable office, logging into her email.
Something she did every once in a blue moon so all the junk mail
wouldn't pile up or she missed, by some strange miracle, an email
from her absent brother.

But
there, third email down was one that said EM Corporation- James
Michaels, Acquisitions.

There
was a stammering in her heartbeat, like it wasn't quite sure if it
was supposed to speed up, slow down, or stay exactly the same. She
took a deep breath, moving the mouse, and clicking the email open.

Ms.
Brennan,

I
would like an update on the employee theft situation. What actions
have you taken to find the culprit? What are you going to do when you
do figure it out?

-
JM

Emily
squinted her eyes, reading the email again, finding it again sounding
cold and condescending. Where did he get off thinking he could talk
down to her? Treating her like some incompetent minimum wage employee
who wasn't doing their job. She was doing her goddamn job.

She
snorted, opening up a search engine and pulling up the EM Corp
website. She searched for a moment to find the personal email to
Elliott Michaels and started a message to him. If James wanted to
play games, she could play. And she would drag his brother into the
whole mess.

Mr.
Michaels,

As
I am sure you have been made aware, we had a slight employee theft
situation. Rest assured, the issue has been handled.

Give
your wife's belly a pat for me.

-
Emily

There
was no reply for hours, until she went back to the office after
bringing the horses in for the day. And then, again, there was an
email in her inbox. But not from Elliott. From James.

Miss.
Brennan,

Please
direct all replies to me directly. Elliott is the CEO of a
multi-million dollar corporation, he does not have time for issues
pertaining to a small inn.

-
JM

Oh,
it was on. Emily balled her hands up in fists for a second to refrain
from writing the reply she really had in mind. Something with threats
of slow roasting over a spit with a hot poker rammed up the ass. She
needed to reply in kind. Cold. Detached. He couldn't know he was
pissing her off. That wouldn't get them anywhere. She would lose. And
she was tired of losing.

Mr.
Michaels,

We
are glad to hear that our life's work is so inconsequential to the
other Mr. Michaels that he saw fit to put one of his lackies on the
case. We will certainly direct our messages to you in the future.

• Stars
  Landing Inn Management
  

She
sat back watching the screen as if a new email would pop up in a
matter of seconds, ready for it. She wanted under his skin. She
wanted to be an itch, an irritating itch that wont go away. She
wanted it to creep in at night when he was trying to sleep, making
him want to scratch his skin raw. She wanted to know she had gotten
to him.

Her
page refreshed ten minutes later and, sure enough, another email. She
clicked it, greedy for the knowledge that she had ticked him off. It
would come off in the message no matter how he tried to work it. It
would be there in the tone. In the wording. In the sparse lack of
details.

Miss.
Brennan,