Eight Ways to Ecstasy (5 page)

“Bullshit. Why didn't you show that thing you've been working on? The church painting. It's right there.”

Kate glanced across the studio at the canvas she'd left propped up on her easel. It was just as much of a mess as it had been the night before. “It's not ready.”

“You do understand the purpose of critique, right?”

“Of course I do.” They were supposed to be learning from one another. Working together to grow as artists.

“So sometimes it's okay to show a piece that's not ready. Hell, with how stuck you've been—”

“I'm not stuck.” Who the hell did she think she was fooling? “I mean.” She slung her bag over her shoulder and pushed her hair back from her face. “I figured it out.” This new portfolio challenge had the gears spinning in a way they hadn't been before. The theme of space and evoking the power of it…There was potential there.

Liam's mouth tilted down. “Since last night?”

Since five minutes ago. “A lot can happen in a night.”

Holding his hands up in front of himself, Liam retreated a step. “All right. Well, if you want to catch me up on it sometime…”

And was that another invitation? She nodded even as she was turning away. “I will. Soon.”

Just as soon as she got her head on straight.

Rylan got halfway through his second cup of coffee before he had to clench his hands into fists to keep from throwing something against the wall.

He was puttering around Lexie's penthouse, reading the news, and it was just—

It was the same. He'd traveled halfway around the globe, and here he was still, killing time in an apartment that wasn't his, wishing he were lying beside the girl who'd changed his mind about so many things. Waiting, and he didn't ever know what for.

Finally, just before noon, he heard the slotting of a key into a lock, and that was something at least. As the door to the apartment swung open, he kept his gaze steady on the tablet perched on his lap. Expression serene, like he hadn't been about to tear his hair out.

Impassively, he said, “You're home early.”

Heels clicked loudly across the tiled entryway before getting muffled by the carpet in the living room. Lexie plopped a white paper bag down on the coffee table in front of him and folded herself onto the other end of the couch. “Nice part about living close to the office is getting to pop home for lunch.”

He snuck a glance at her as he reached forward to grab the bag. And it was strange. His sister had been a regular figure around the Bellamy headquarters for as long as he had, but before, she'd always had this little-girl-playing-dress-up air to her. That was probably a douchebag thing to say, considering how hard she'd been working to convince people to take her seriously, but it'd been true.

Whatever might have been left of that ingénue was gone. Her look now was all calculated, polished sophistication. A narrow skirt and a fitted top, black and white with a pop of purple at her belt. Her dark hair was twisted up in a severe bun at the back of her neck, but it didn't make her look matronly. No, she looked—

Shit. His baby sister looked sexy.

“Jesus, Lex. When did you grow up?”

She laughed, one short, sharp sound. “Like we were ever children.”

She wasn't kidding about that. He examined her more closely this time, trying to pinpoint the change, because there had been one. In this year that he'd been gone, something had happened to her. Maybe school, maybe finishing her MBA. But he didn't think so.

Turning away, he opened the bag she'd brought him. Pastrami on rye. His mouth watered, his stomach reminding him he'd given it nothing but coffee so far today. “Katz's?”

“Where else?”

He pulled it out and took a bite, restraining a groan. “I didn't think I missed New York, you know.”

“But there are some things you can't get anywhere else.” She reached into her own bag to extract a salad. “Order pizza tonight, and you'll never want to leave again.”

For a flash of a second, he lost his appetite. It was exactly what he'd suggested to Kate the night before.

Something of his dismay must have shown in his expression. Lexie looked him up and down. Then delicately, she said, “So you never told me how things went last night.”

“Fine.”

She regarded him for another moment, then deliberately directed her attention to her salad. “Okay.”

“That's it? Just ‘okay'?”

She shrugged. “You were expecting something more?”

“You had plenty of questions when you came to see me in Paris.”

“When I came to see you in Paris, you were a mystery wrapped in an enigma. There's not a whole lot I can't guess this time.” She poked around and stabbed at a tomato. “You pulled a full-on
Good Will Hunting
and ran off to see about a girl, then came back fit to spit nails and looking for a place to stay. Now you don't want to talk about it. Doesn't take a genius to figure that one out.”

A flash of pain squeezed his ribs, and he dented the bread under his fingers. “Nice to know I'm such an easy read.”

“You always have been. At least to me.” She shifted her position, a casual stretch that had her foot grazing his knee for just a second. “Is she in the picture at all anymore?”

“Maybe.” God, he hoped so. “She asked me for some time.”

“Just as well.” She set her salad aside and turned to him more fully. “Because now that you're back, we have work to do.”

He groaned aloud. But it wasn't just that Lexie wanted to talk shop already. It was the lunch, the requisite five minutes of conversation about personal matters. It was pure Dad, was what it was. “I got back yesterday and went straight to a board meeting.”

“Which I already thanked you for.” She pulled her briefcase into her lap. “And which we need to capitalize on immediately. If we want to get control back from those asshats, we've got our work cut out for us.” She plucked out a file and handed it to him. “I made a list up this morning of all the major players and who are our best shots for applying some pressure. If you have any favors to call in…” She kept going, while Rylan stared at the file.

He could stand up right now. Give her back her manipulative sandwich and walk away. Or even better, slap the papers from her hands. He'd come here in good faith, intent on helping out. But the fact of the matter was he hadn't decided yet what kind of role he wanted at the company, or if he wanted one at all. The epiphany he'd had while taking off his father's ring be damned.

Yes, he wanted to fix the mess he'd made. He wanted to salvage what he could from this place his father and he had built.

But it was going to be his choice this time. Not his father's. And certainly not Lexie's.

He forced himself to take a deep breath. And then he
chose
to take the file from her outstretched hand.

Lexie positively glowed.

As she continued on, he opened the file and scanned the list she'd put together. Their father's best friend, McConnell, the one who should've gone to prison with him, was circled in red, as he should be. Public enemy number one. The rest of the board members and division heads and VPs were listed more or less as he'd imagined they would be, with Thomas, their one unequivocal ally at the top. Except—

“Where's Jordan?” he asked.

Jordan was only a decade or so older than Rylan, a Harvard-grad hotshot their father had brought in a few years ago to inject some new blood into the company—most likely to light a fire under Rylan's ass, too. A reminder that he wasn't irreplaceable if he kept dragging his heels about taking on a leadership role.

It hadn't worked. He and Jordan had hit it off immediately, and in the end, he'd been one of the select few Rylan had trusted in the whole bunch.

Lexie's eye twitched, and Rylan frowned. He'd thought the two of them had been on good terms. Right before it had all fallen apart, Lexie had recommended him to lead their European division, even. But he knew her tells.

“Lex?”

“You can add him, if you want. We don't really work together much anymore.” With that she changed the topic to some other soft targets. Rylan let himself be distracted, but he made a note of it for later.

By the time both their lunches were gone, they'd agreed to a short list of people to reach out to first. Taking her portion of the names, Lexie capped her pen and closed her file.

“I think that'll be a good start,” she said. She stood and smoothed out her skirt. “You bought us another ninety days, but they know we're coming now, so we have to work fast.”

Rylan still didn't love the kinds of assumptions she was making about his level of involvement, but he nodded all the same. There was a familiarity to sitting around, spit-balling ideas and talking strategy with her like this. That their father wasn't a specter hanging over them made it all the better. “It's good to be working with you again, sis.”

“I knew you missed me, Teddy.”

He leveled her with a look.

She rolled her eyes. “Fine, fine.
Rylan.
”

“I may let you get away with it at the office, but at home…”

She leaned in and patted his cheek. “My home, my nicknames.”

He really had to convince Kate to let him stay with her. Soon.

Stepping back into her heels, Lexie gathered her things and made her way toward the door. She paused to check herself in the mirror, patting down the one hair that had dared to get out of place. “I'll probably be working late, so you're on your own for the evening. If you're staying here…?”

He nodded and sighed. “For the foreseeable future.”

It ached, and not because he didn't love his sister. This apartment just really wasn't where he wanted to be.

“You know,” Lexie said, pausing with her hand on the door. “I ran into Chase at the gym this morning.”

That got Rylan's attention. “Oh?”

“I hope you don't mind I told him you were back in town.”

Rylan winced. “Was he pissed?”

“Find out for yourself. I told him you'd give him a call.”

Great. “Roger that.”

She blew him a kiss that was only 90 percent sarcasm.

Once she was gone, he picked up the detritus from their lunch and flopped down on the couch again, firing up his tablet. But the aftermath of his sister was the aftermath of a storm, and it suddenly felt too quiet, the space around him pressing in.

Different day, different continent. He'd traveled miles and hours, but some things you didn't leave behind. A hollowness that had been echoing around inside him since…since forever really, but with a new sharpness to it ever since that summer, cut into him.

He huffed out a breath and sat up to reach for his phone. He pulled up his contacts and, for the longest time, hovered with his thumb above Kate's number.

But she'd asked him for time, goddammit all. Worse, he'd only convinced her to promise him a handful of nights, and he didn't have a plan yet for them. If he wanted to make them all count, he needed to get his head on straight. He needed a strategy.

He scrubbed his hand across his face. Maybe what he really needed was a drink.

Chase was already seated at the bar by the time Rylan got there, a square-cut glass with two fingers of amber liquid set out in front of him. His coppery hair was a little longer than it had been the last time Rylan had seen him, but nothing else seemed to have changed—not the cut of his suit or the loose circle of his tie. Definitely not the smirk he wore as he chatted up the girl behind the bar.

Rylan made it almost all the way over before Chase caught sight of him in the mirror. Holding up a finger to the girl, he turned, but as he met Rylan's gaze, his smile slipped away.

Rylan braced himself. Tone was hard to read over text, and Chase's reply to Rylan's invitation had been carefully neutral, for all that it had been an acceptance.

The thing was, after his father's trial, Rylan had let absolutely everything go. His position at what was left of the company, his condo, his things. His friends. Most of them had been work buddies anyway, and his relationships with them had been strained since the indictment, when Rylan had first started closing himself and his anger away. But he'd known Chase since prep school. Chase hadn't deserved the cold shoulder or the unreturned calls. The shit he must've gotten from everyone over at Gander and Sons when their biggest client had turned into a cautionary tale. He hadn't deserved any of it.

Rylan opened his mouth to speak, but before he could get so much as a greeting out, Chase reared back, his hand curling up into a fist.

So that was how it was going to be.

Rylan went stiff, but he didn't raise a hand to defend himself. He had this coming. His stomach dropped as Chase lunged.

Except Chase pulled his punch, and in the end all Rylan got was a soft jab to his upper arm.

Chase grinned like they were fourteen all over again. “You asshole,” he said, and then he pulled Rylan into a hug.

Relief just about dripped from Rylan's pores. “Jerk.” He thumped Chase's back before they both let go.

“You don't write, you don't call. And then I hear from your sister of all people that you're back in town?”

“Sorry about that.” Rylan settled himself on the stool beside Chase's and gestured at his drink. The bartender nodded and got going pouring him one of his own. “In my defense, I've been back now for”—he checked his watch—“thirty-two hours?”

“Excuses.”

“Anything else I can get you boys?” the bartender asked.

Chase shot her a smile as he sat back down. “Besides your number?”

“Besides that.”

“Can't blame a guy for trying.” Chase waved her away. “We're good.”

Rylan waited until she'd moved down the bar to shake his head. “You never turn it off, do you?”

“Like you do?”

With a sad chuckle, Rylan picked up his drink. “Not sure I remember how to turn it on anymore.”

Chase did a double take. “Wait. I'm sorry, I thought I was meeting Rylan Bellamy for drinks.”

Rylan shrugged. He and Chase had gotten into a lot of trouble together in their day, but things changed. He had changed.

He set his glass down and managed a smile. “So what the hell have you been up to?”

As it turned out, Chase had been up to kind of a lot. Gander and Sons had been growing like crazy, even after the fallout from the Bellamy scandal. They'd stayed on as general counsel for Rylan's father's company, though Chase had mostly moved on to other accounts.

Rylan shook his head. “I'm still sorry about that. If I'd had any idea what the old man was doing…”

“No one knew.”

But Rylan should have.

Rylan caught a glimpse of his own face in the mirror behind the bar, and hell. He glanced away, working to smooth out his expression, to wipe the poison from his mouth.

Chase paused for a second. Apparently sensing the need for a change of subject, he segued into an account of all the shit their social set had been getting into in the past year. Heiresses and moguls. Hushed whispers and betrayals. Rylan'd always had a vague sense of all the goings-on before, but hearing it in summary was worse than a soap opera.