Reunited in Love (16 page)

Kerri was trying to come up with a suitably cooing response when the waitress appeared to clear their table. That woman deserved a huge tip for her fantastic timing. She’d brought a dessert menu, but Kerri didn’t feel like eating anymore, and Ethan and Gavin both declined.

The sensation of carrying a giant bull’s-eye on her back intensified as they left the restaurant. She looked around the streets, but everyone was hurrying on errands during their lunch break.

If her family suspected she was in Houston, Justin would’ve warned her, right? He knew how much she wanted to avoid them.

But even as the three of them made the short walk to their waiting cars, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was in the presence of somebody who didn’t wish her well.

ON THURSDAY, ETHAN WENT to the airport to meet Natalie. He hadn’t told Kerri because he wanted to talk to Natalie alone, and a leisurely drive was just the thing. Alex had gotten off the plane in New York City for a meeting he couldn’t avoid.

When Natalie saw Ethan, she smiled and gave him a tight hug. “Oh my god, Ethan. You only had to pick my friend up, not me.”

“And why shouldn’t I pick you up?”

“Because you’ve been chained to the office while Alex and I were frolicking in Europe?”

He laughed. “It wasn’t that bad. Besides, dealing with Rossi and his problems was hardly ‘frolicking in Europe.’ I know how he can be.” Alex’s chauffeur, also on hand to pick her up, took the suitcases while Ethan guided her to his Aston Martin.

“Well, at least I’ll be going home in style.” She grinned. “You look good.”

“Thanks. So do you.”

“Yes, I got to work on my tan a little bit.” She climbed into the car. “So where’s Kerri?”

“Working.” He got behind the wheel and started the engine.

“Ugh. Really? I told her to leave all that stuff at the office.”

“Actually she’s not working for Goldreich anymore. She’s working for me,” Ethan said as he guided the car out into the messy airport traffic.

“Wait, what?” Natalie said. “When did she start working for you? Isn’t that a conflict of interest or something? She already has a job.”

“She quit before coming to the States.”

“No way,” Natalie breathed.

It was Ethan’s turn to be surprised. “You didn’t know?”

“She never mentioned it. And I never suspected. Kerri loves the crazy hours. She’s like the worst workaholic I’ve ever met, and that’s saying something.” Natalie frowned. “Why didn’t she tell me? Not like I’m her best friend or anything.”

“Well, you
were
on your honeymoon. And maybe she thought you’d hear anyway. Don’t you still have friends in Hong Kong?”

“Yeah, but it’s been a while. I’m not really in the loop anymore.” She huffed. “Well, I’ll give her a hard time about it later. So what’s she doing for you?”

“Quite a lot, actually.”

Natalie gave him a sidelong look. “I mean professionally.”

Ethan grinned. “Going over some numbers.”

“So she’s working for Global Strategies?”

“No.” He filled her in on the situation at The Lloyds Development.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Ethan,” Natalie said, both corners of her mouth turned downward. “I wish I’d known. We would’ve come home sooner to free up your time.”

“Ah, we’ll be fine. I can fix things. And Kerri’s been doing a great job.”

Natalie grinned. “She’s good, isn’t she?”

“Almost too good. And she definitely works too much.”

“Told you. When she’s not eating, drinking or sleeping, she’s working.”

“Actually… I haven’t seen her touch a drop of alcohol.”

Natalie stared at him. “Are we talking about the same person here?”

“In fact, I believe we are.”

“Did you offer her decent drinks? She doesn’t like chea—never mind. Who am I talking to? Of course you gave her the best.” She crossed her arms and leaned back in her seat, her mouth pursed. “Something’s definitely off. Unless Kerri has some long-lost twin who’s impersonating her.”

“Does she have a twin?” he asked, half-serious.

“I…don’t think so.” Natalie shifted her weight. “But now that you mention it, I don’t really know anything about her family at all.”

Now that was interesting. Why wouldn’t Natalie know about something as basic as her best friend’s family background? “Absolutely nothing?”

“Well, I know they’re from the east coast. And she has some relatives in Texas, I think, although she rarely talks about them. But yeah, not much. Then again, we were always really busy when we were working together. It’s not like we had tons of time to talk about personal stuff.” Arms crossed, she mulled things over. “You know,” she began. “Now that I think about it, Kerri always made sure she would never have to talk about her family and her childhood. Except for the fact that she grew up somewhere in the east, I don’t know anything else. It’s a miracle I know her birthday, and that’s only because somebody in HR made a big deal one year about celebrating everyone’s birthday. She was really uncomfortable.”

“That’s strange.” Most people liked it when someone cared enough to remember their birthday. It couldn’t have been shyness. He remembered the way she’d cut Simon to pieces in front of the board without even raising her voice. She was clearly used to speaking in front of an audience.

“It’s next Wednesday actually,” Natalie said. “I want to do something, but I’m not sure how she’s going to react. She can be kind of odd about celebrating special occasions.”

“Well, when you guys were working together she was probably too busy to bother,” Ethan said, fishing a little.

“I don’t know if that’s quite it. She always made time to celebrate other people’s birthdays or promotions, just not her own. I mean, we’d plan everything. Then we would invite her, but she’d get sort of all weird about it and make some excuse about why she couldn’t do it, some BS about how she was super busy or something.” Natalie shrugged, although her frown said it still bothered her. “But she always came in the end, even though it was like pulling teeth to get her there. I suspect it was because she didn’t want to let anybody down more than anything.”

Curiouser and curiouser. All this new information, combined with her heartbreakingly sad face at the christening party and at the park, was making the puzzle that was Kerri more and more difficult to solve.

He needed to figure her out. Her contradictory nature and attitude baffled him. Women were never simple, but none of them had been
this
complicated. If he’d been less attracted, he would’ve called quits, unwilling to put up with the work required to win her over. However, he was crazy for her, and honest enough to admit his desire for her might never fade. A deeper understanding might help him regain his equilibrium and find better ways to deal with her.

“Anyway, drop me off wherever Kerri’s staying,” Natalie said. “I want to see her.”

“She’s at the Arlington penthouse.”

Natalie raised an eyebrow. “Really? Your place?”

“Technically it belongs to TLD.”

“Technically.”

“Yes.”

Natalie chortled. “And to think that she said you weren’t her type.”

“She said that? Kerri?”

“The very same. She said you’re tall, but not dark. I told her you could always wear a wig, but then she said you weren’t
manageable
.” Natalie rolled her eyes. “Can you believe it? It’s like she’s looking for an analyst to boss around or something. One with benefits.”

Though Natalie seemed to find the whole thing amusing, Ethan knew exactly what Kerri had meant. She wanted a man she could easily leave behind whenever she felt too threatened. His instinct to offer her a “temporary” arrangement with a clear exit had been spot-on. If he’d insisted on anything else, she would’ve refused.

“Anyway, don’t forget: dinner at our place this evening,” Natalie said. “Alex is flying back right after the meeting to join us. He’s dying to meet Kerri.”

*

Ethan dropped Natalie off at the penthouse and drove on to his office. His assistant looked up the moment he walked in the door. “Ethan, there’s someone here to see you.”

He frowned. “ I have an appointment?”

“Yep. With me.”

He turned around and found Gavin rising from the comfy leather seat. “This is a first,” Ethan said. “I don’t think you’ve ever visited me here before.”

“We need to talk.”

“Okay.” Ethan took him inside. “Coffee?”

“No thanks. I’m not planning to stay long. I had to cancel a few appointments to come see you as it is.”

“You could’ve called.”

“I did call—your admin, to make sure you’d be here.” Gavin took an empty chair and crossed his ankles. It was his way of pretending to be loose and relaxed, though it didn’t fool Ethan. “But what I’ve got to say is too important to talk about over the phone.”

Ethan took his own chair, leaned back and put his feet up on the desk, waiting. They didn’t look like brothers, he thought, not for the first time. Gavin had dark hair, dark eyes, and an upright posture that seemed almost military. There was tightness about him, a hungry tension that coiled inside like a starving cobra. Ethan thought his younger brother was too grim and intense, but he refrained from commenting. Gavin was an adult and capable of making his own decisions about how he wanted to live his life.

“You should be careful who you sleep with,” Gavin said finally. “I didn’t really want to get involved—it’s none of my business who you’re fooling around with—but this is important.”

“You’re right, Gavin,” Ethan said mildly. “It’s none of your business.”

“Yeah yeah yeah, but just listen. You know that woman you hired? Kerri Wilson?”

So Gavin had figured out Kerri wasn’t just an employee. But then he had never been slow, except when it came to his own romantic relationships. “What about her?”

“Do you know who her grandfather is?”

“No. What difference does it make?”

“Barron Sterling.”

Now he had Ethan’s attention. “Sterling & Wilson?”

“The one and only. Her father was David Wilson, and he was married to Barron’s daughter Renée.”

Ethan digested that, then shook his head. “Do you know how many women have the name ‘Kerri Wilson’?”

“Quite a few, I’m sure. But I’m right about her family.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. If that’s who she is, she’s the sole heiress to Sterling & Wilson. What would she be doing freelancing for me?”

“Learning all our business secrets?”

Ethan considered the idea for a couple of seconds. “I approached her, not the other way around. And convincing her to work for me took some effort.”

Besides, if she really were Barron Sterling’s granddaughter, why wouldn’t she ever say anything about her family? She’d deflected questions about them as though they were some kind of a shameful secret. Barron Sterling wasn’t just any man. He was a legendary investor and venture capitalist. A family connection to him would’ve boosted her i-banking career, smoothed things out for her. Assuming that she would have had to work at all.

Living a life of moneyed leisure wasn’t the vibe Ethan had gotten from her. She’d been working at the christening party, playing in that quartet. Word around campus had been that she was constantly scrambling for money. Why would an heiress worth several billion dollars do that?

He thought about her wardrobe. Everything was nice enough, but she had nothing super-expensive, nothing that screamed, “Look at the platinum-plated life I was born to!” He’d bet a year’s bonus that she shopped the clearance racks at upscale department stores more often than not.

An heiress wouldn’t do any of those things. And an heiress born to the Sterling fortune would’ve lived her entire life amid luxury and indulgence. She might volunteer time at charities, but she wouldn’t know that things like clearance racks in department stores even existed.

“She could’ve made you think that,” Gavin said. “Women who know how to use their bodies can make men think anything.”

“Gavin, you’re starting to piss me off.” Ethan reined in his temper. “It wasn’t that way. Besides, TLD is doing so poorly that there’s no way Barron Sterling’s going to toss his only grandchild my way to snoop around.”

“Barron doesn’t know we aren’t doing so hot.”

“That’s beside the point!”

“It’s exactly the point.” Gavin looked at him closely. “Ethan… This isn’t going to turn into another Lisa, is it?”

Ethan went rigid. “Don’t even mention her name.”

“There’s something about Kerri—the odd tension and pain.”

He ignored the tension part. He’d sensed it too. “What pain?”

“When you showed her the photo. You couldn’t see her since she was right next to you, but I could. There was nothing on my tablet that should’ve made her react like that.”

“Like what?”

“The expression on her face. It was so…tragic. I actually had a flashback to Lisa there for a moment. Your ex was strange like that, all those ups and downs. And the bitch framed you at the end.”

Christ. Gavin still hadn’t let it go. Ethan knew his family had been furious at how the situation with Lisa had evolved; Ethan had been enraged too, though not entirely at his ex. There had been a lot of complications and issues that he hadn’t bothered to tell them about once his name had been cleared. He’d assumed that they’d decided not to think about her any longer, but apparently he’d been wrong. “Lisa was nothing like Kerri. Don’t compare them.”

The muscles around Gavin’s eyes tightened, creating tiny lines. “All right. I’ve said my piece, so my duty’s done. I hope you aren’t making another big mistake, but like you said, you’re a big boy. So maybe you know what you’re doing.”

Despite the overly casual tone, Ethan knew better. This wasn’t over as far as Gavin was concerned. He had hated the darkness Lisa had brought to Ethan’s life. Every one of the Lloyds still thought Ethan hadn’t said a thing against her to protect her reputation, even after he’d explained to them he didn’t know enough about her motivation or thoughts to say anything for or against her. It was her family he’d held responsible for her death.

The thing was, if Gavin thought Kerri was like Lisa, he wouldn’t sit back and watch Ethan date her. He’d do his best to sabotage the relationship.