“That’s love,” my sister said, her voice all swoony.
I groaned. “Audrey’s a hopeless romantic. It’s her only flaw.”
But she made me think, too. Things between Donovan and I were a mess too. I wanted to wring his neck, and I was aching inside with him so far away. Was I so far in that I was in love with him?
Well, wasn’t that going to be a bitch if it was the case? Because next time I saw him, I was planning on killing him.
“Weston, I can call my driver anytime you’re ready to—” The man who’d walked in stopped when he saw us. “Oh, excuse me. I didn’t realize you had company.”
I stood up straighter, immediately on guard. I didn’t know the man. His suit was expensive and he had brown wavy hair and a British accent. He appeared older than us by at least a dozen years, but was quite attractive and distinguished. What was odd was that a stranger was wandering the office halls after hours.
“I can go anytime,” Weston said in reply. “But this is perfect. You haven’t met Sabrina yet, have you?”
The man frowned. “Can’t say that I have.”
Weston shifted to me. “Sabrina, this is Dylan Locke. He’s in the States this week to visit his son.”
That explained things. Dylan Locke ran Reach’s London office. He was one of the founders of the company. There were five of them in total—Nate Sinclair, Weston, Donovan, Dylan, and Cade Warren, who ran the Tokyo office.
“It’s a real pleasure to meet you,” I said, shaking his hand. “I’m the director of marketing strategy here.”
“Ah, you took Robbie Wise’s place when he came over to our office in London,” Dylan said. “Robbie’s fine at his job but he isn’t as lovely as you. And he smells.” He turned to Weston. “Is it entirely sexist if I say I think you got the better end of the deal?”
“Donovan got the better end of the deal actually.” His subtext suggested he’d mentioned me to Dylan before. That this was his way of saying, This is her. The one that Donovan was involved with.
Which was fine. But I didn’t want to talk about Donovan right now. “Weston, please…”
“He called earlier,” he said soberly. Simply. As though he knew the words would knock the wind out of me, and still he’d thought the best way to present them was plainly and without a fuss.
“He called you?” I hoped no one noticed the hitch in my voice.
“He told me not to say anything.”
“To anyone? Or to me?” Fuck, I shouldn’t have asked. I didn’t want to know. I already knew. If he’d wanted to talk to me he would have called me.
Weston lowered his head, confirming my suspicions. “I’m sorry.”
It was sweet that he cared how I felt. And nice, I supposed, that he’d bothered to tell me about it at all. Though Weston and I had formed a friendship over the last several weeks, he was Donovan’s friend before mine. He didn’t owe me any loyalty.
I couldn’t bring myself to thank him at that moment.
“I don’t care,” I said, when he took a step forward to comfort me. “He can do what he wants. I don’t care anymore.” Lies. But maybe if I kept saying it, someone would start believing it. Maybe even me.
And now things had gotten awkward.
“Hi! I’m Audrey. Sabrina’s sister.”
I wanted to shoot her a thank you glance for breaking the weird mood, but her attention was completely on Dylan. The way she flipped her hair and threw her shoulders back told me she wanted his attention on her too.
“I see the resemblance.” Fortunately for Dylan, he kept his gaze on her eyes, the place any decent man in his forties should keep them when he meets a girl half his age.
If he’d looked anywhere else, we may have had to have some words, owner of my company or not.
“Do you work here as well?” he asked.
“Nope. Just getting the tour. It’s my first time in the city. It’s exciting.”
Dylan seemed to be taken by surprise by her enthusiasm, though not exactly put off. “Yes. I’m sure it is exciting the first time.”
“Been too long since your first time, Locke? Have you forgotten what it’s like to get your cherry popped?” Weston teased.
“Apparently I’ve forgotten what it’s like to spend an evening with you and your innuendos.” The look he gave his partner made me think he’d appreciate those innuendos more if he weren’t in mixed company. Spending time with Weston would be a lot more fun for the older man if he wasn’t worrying about offending his young female employee and her even younger sister.
Which was why I didn’t expect it when he next said, “We were just going to dinner. We’d love it if the two of you would join us.”
Chapter 2
“Art conversation?” Weston asked, an hour later, his fork paused mid-air.
Of course we’d accepted the invitation to dinner. Audrey seemed so smitten with Dylan’s British dialect that she likely would have killed me if I’d suggested we do anything else. And I wouldn’t have anyway. When your employers invite you somewhere, you try to go.
Though if I’d known the destination planned was Gaston’s, I might have considered my options, for no other reason than I didn’t want to be at a restaurant that Donovan owned.
Perhaps that was the reason I’d gotten so tipsy. I didn’t know why the others had.
“Art conservation,” Audrey repeated, over-enunciating in that way that told me she was also not quite sober. She was only a little more than a semester away from completing her master’s at the University of Delaware in their art conservation program, and Dylan had just asked about her degree.
Weston swallowed his bite of foie de veau and nodded. “That makes a lot more sense. Is that like the people who work in museums to preserve the paintings?”
“That’s some of it. It’s a little chemistry, a little archeology, a lot of art, a whole lot of art history. Not nearly as exciting as your jobs.” She was way too modest, in my opinion.
“I’m not sure what Weston does day-to-day, but it sounds a hell of a lot more exciting than my job,” Dylan said.
While Weston had gotten louder as the wine had poured, Dylan’s lips had gotten looser. It was a great way to learn about the new man, actually. Though I’d only gleaned surface details—born in Southampton, lived in the US for a number of years, back to London, secretly loved Metallica, played electric bass in a local pub band—he was turning out to be quite fascinating.
“That’s because you handle finance. There is nothing creative about finance,” said Weston, obviously quite smug about the fact that he handled marketing.
“I think your father finds finance to be quite creative,” Dylan retorted.
“Rumors. No one can prove anything.” Weston took a swallow of wine. “But also why I don’t work for him.”
Donovan and Weston’s fathers dominated the financial industry. I’d never gotten a straight story on why the guys had decided to go into advertising instead of following them in the family business.
This breadcrumb was one I ate up eagerly.