New Beginnings (121 page)

“She is!” Zane’s vehemence told me he had real feelings for this girl and would likely get his heart broken if he learned he wasn’t the only guy in her life.

“Listen,” I said, sighing. “There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just gonna say it. She has a boyfriend, Zane.”

“What?” He sat up straighter, his fists clenching on his knees. “What’re you talking about?”

“Her dad told me she’s been seeing some guy for the past four months. Apparently, he doesn’t go to your school. She met him at the mall, where she works.”

“That lying little bitch!”

I could understand his anger, but I didn’t want to encourage him to disrespect girls. “Did she ever tell you that you were the only one she was seeing?”

“Well, no but—”

“So you just assumed?”

“If her parents hadn’t come home when they did, we would have…” His blue eyes flashed with anger. “I can’t believe she’s been playing me!”

My son’s first hard lesson in dealing with the opposite sex, one he would undoubtedly remember for a long time. “Here’s the thing, Zane,” I said, trying to reframe it in a way that wouldn’t make him feel like he’d been had. “You guys are way too young to be getting serious. She should date other people, and so should you.”

“Mom said she only dated one other guy before she hooked up with you.”

He had me there. “If I’d been a better man,” I said, smirking, “I would have given her more time to explore, weigh her options.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“The truth?” Zane nodded and then I continued. “I was afraid she’d find someone better and I’d lose her. I was pretty insecure back then. I’d never dated anyone like your mom before, and I was constantly questioning whether I was good enough for her.” It still pained me to admit how long it had taken for me to accept the fact that she really loved me and wanted to spend the rest of her life with me.

“I’ve wondered about that with Brit too,” he admitted. “She’s a cheerleader, ya know? She could have any guy she wants.”

Zane didn’t have the same issues I did at his age. He didn’t have a chip on his shoulder or a bad attitude. He didn’t get into trouble at school or leave a trail of broken hearts in his wake. He was a good kid, and he had every reason to believe that
any
girl would want him.

“I know it’s easy to get caught up in that surface stuff at your age,” I said, removing my seat belt and shifting in my seat to face him. “But when you get a little older, you’ll realize it’s what’s inside that counts.” I chuckled when he rolled his eyes. Leaning over to mess his hair, which I knew he hated, I said, “You don’t have to believe me. But you’ll get what I mean soon enough. The most important thing is to find a girl that you connect with and believe you can trust, but just remember you’re just starting out. You have years to find the right girl, and you should take your time figuring all that out.”

“I will, Dad.” He hesitated. “Thanks for not freakin’ out and tellin’ Mom about what happened last night.”

Zane’s trust was important to me. I wanted him to feel he could talk to me about anything, even when it was awkward or embarrassing, so I decided to keep this under wraps for now. Telling Mac would only put her on high alert and cause tension between her and Zane.

“Just promise me something?”

“What?” he asked, looking wary.

“When the time comes, you’ll make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons, with the right girl, and you’ll use protection.”

He nodded. “I promise.”

“Good.” I hooked a thumb at the vintage muscle car beside me. “Looks like your Uncle Nex is still here. You wanna come in and say hi? I have to grab my laptop and then I can drop you off at home.”

“Yeah, I just want to make a call first.”

I knew he was probably calling Brittany to have it out with her about the secret boyfriend. Whether it happened now or later was irrelevant. I knew it would happen. “Sure, just come on up when you’re done.”

I would give him some time and privacy to deal with this. Hopefully after he talked to her, he would have some resolution, maybe even realize she wasn’t the right girl for him after all.

I punched in my security code to open the front door leading to the upper level offices. Most of my employees were still here since first shift didn’t end for another hour.

“There he is!” Nex called out when I passed by his office. “Ronnie was lookin’ for you.”

Ronnie was our production manager. In other words, the guy who helped me maintain my sanity. “You know what he wanted?” I asked, pausing in the doorway.

“Yeah, the painter wanted to know which shade of purple you wanted for that doctor’s bike. I had it on file, so I gave him the info.” He frowned. “You okay, bro? You don’t look so hot.”

I could always rely on my kid brother to give it to me straight. Even when I wished he’d sugar coat it every once in a while. I slammed his door before sinking into his guest chair and propping my boots up on his desk. “Where do I begin?”

Nex laced his hands behind his head and kicked his boots up on the opposite side of the desk. “At the beginning. I got nowhere else to be.”

I didn’t bother reminding him I paid him seven figures to be my V.P. Right now I needed to bend his ear more than I needed his business acumen. “Mac and I…” I thought of my talk with Zane. No way would I disrespect Mac by saying we’d
hooked up
. It was so much more than that.

“You what?” A cocky grin slipped over Nex’s face. “Ah, say no more. Congrats. So, why do you look like somebody pissed in your cornflakes?”

“We got into a fight after.” I’d had a lot of time to think about it, while I was channel surfing instead of sleeping, and realized I’d overreacted. I put too much pressure on her instead of just being easy about it and letting things evolve naturally.

“Ah, man,” Nex said. “How could you be so stupid? It took you six months to get her back into bed, and when you finally do, you screw it up by arguing with her?”

“I know I’m an idiot,” I said, sighing. “What I don’t know is what I should do about it.”

Nex laughed. “You’re asking the wrong guy. I’m usually trying to get rid of them, not figure out how to keep ’em.”

Sad, but true. My brother was pushing thirty, but I was beginning to think he’d never want to settle down. “You’re no help,” I muttered.

“When was the last time you sent her flowers?”

I rolled my eyes. “Flowers, Nex? Seriously? How original.”

“Women dig shit like that. Makes ’em feel special.”

“You’re an idiot if you think I’m going to fix this with flowers.”

“Okay,” Nex said, looking smug as he folded his arms over his chest. “What’s your bright idea?”

“I don’t have any ideas yet.”

“By the time you come up with one, she’ll be serving you with divorce papers.”

“Shut the hell up, asshole. Don’t say shit like that.” Even though Mac had left her wedding rings behind, I still refused to believe it was over. Maybe I was deluding myself, but hope was the only thing I had left.

“It’s a start,” Nex said, his tone softening. “Send her flowers with a card saying you’re sorry about last night. I’m not saying it won’t take a hell of a lot more than that to fix whatever the hell you did, but it might get you a foot in the door.”

I supposed he was right. It couldn’t hurt to try. “Okay, thanks.”

“Hey, I’m meeting up with our lame-ass brothers at the bar tonight. You wanna come for a drink? We haven’t gotten together in a while.”

“When you say the bar…”

Nex grinned. “Yeah, the one your favorite bartender works at.”

I guessed I could kill two birds with one stone: reconnect with my brothers and tell Natalie I wasn’t interested. Apparently, ignoring a dozen texts and half a dozen voice mail messages wasn’t clear enough.

“What time?”

“Around nine?”

“Cool. See you then.”

I was back in my office when I heard Zane talking to his uncle Nex about the car our brother was restoring. My brother Sebastian was a master at classic car restoration, attracting clients from around the globe. It reminded me that I should call and ask him if he could fit me into his schedule. I had a little surprise for my son if all went according to plan and he managed to stay out of trouble.

“Hey, Dad.” I looked up when Zane tapped his knuckles on the door. “Can I come in?”

“Sure. I was just packing up,” I said, grabbing my leather case from under the desk and shoving my laptop inside. “You reached your… friend?”

“Uh, yeah.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his baggy jeans. “I don’t think I’ll be seein’ Brit again, so you don’t have to worry.”

Since they lived across the street from each other, the odds were in favor of them seeing each other sooner rather than later. “So, she filled you in on the boyfriend I take it?”

Zane shook his head. “Can you believe she played me like that? I thought I knew her.”

I knew this wasn’t the time to lecture him about being cautious with his trust. He’d already learned that lesson the hard way. “At least you found out before it was too late, right?”

“Uh yeah, sure.”

“Let’s get out of here.”

“You wanna grab a burger or somethin’ on the way home?” Zane asked.

I put him in a headlock on the way out of my office, grinning when he broke the hold effortlessly thanks to all that expensive martial arts training. “Since when do I turn down the chance to spend more time with my kid?”

Mackenzie

Even though I wasn’t in the mood to go out, Molly talked me into it, reminding me of the alternative: sitting home and feeling sorry for myself.

I felt terrible about the way I’d left things with Ryker. Even if we couldn’t be together, we still had to find a way to be cordial to each other for the sake of our kids, and after the way I’d stormed out on him last night, I wasn’t sure that was going to be possible.

“Why’d we come here?” I asked, wrinkling my nose at the sight of motorcycles lined up in front of the old building. “It looks like a biker bar.”

“And you like bikers,” she said, giving me a hip check. “Imagine that.”

“If you’re thinking about setting me up with another loser, don’t. I’m not interested.”

“You’re just too picky,” she grumbled.

Maybe she was right. After twenty years with Ryker, it was hard to settle for just any man.

“How’d you even know about this place?” I asked, looking up at the sign. Downlow. At least that’s what I assumed it would have said if N and W had been lit up. “It seems like a seedy part of town for you.”

“I go wherever the hot men are. You should know that by now,” Molly said, laughing. “Seriously, a date took me here a couple of weeks ago.”

“He took you to a classy place like this? Must have been a friend of Kyle’s.”

“Oh, shut up,” she said, linking her arm through mine. Hauling me through the door, she said, “We’re going to have fun tonight…” Her gaze travelled to the bar. “Or not.”

Ryker was cozying up to a trashy blond bartender while his brothers commandeered a table near the pool tables. Great.

“I’m sorry,” Molly whispered in my ear. “I didn’t think he’d be here. I just wanted you to get a look at the chick he went out with.”

I stepped into Molly’s path, my back to the bar. “That’s the girl Ryker went on a date with?”

“Yeah.” Molly bit her lip. “She looks just like the kind of girls he used to date before he met you, don’t you think?”

Exactly.
He may claim that he’d grown up, that marriage and family had changed him, but his taste in women hadn’t changed that much. This one looked like she was about ten or fifteen years younger than him with bleached-blond hair, Daisy Dukes, and a cut-off T-shirt showing off her obvious assets.

The last six months of working hard in the gym faded in light of the truth. Nothing was going to turn back time. I was middle-aged and would never look like
that
in a pair of jean shorts again. “Let’s get out of here. I really don’t need this tonight.”

“Too late,” Molly whispered. “Here comes Nex.”

“Damn it.” I’d maintained my friendship with Nex since we worked out at the same gym, but I was not in the mood for his dry sense of humor tonight. “I don’t want to—”

“Hey, gorgeous,” Nex said, wrapping his arm around my waist. “How ’bout a kiss for your favorite brother-in-law?”

I had five brothers-in-law and the only one who’d ever claimed Nex was my favorite was Nex.

“Hey,” I said, kissing him on the cheek. “What the hell have you been drinking?” I asked, waving my hand in front of my face. “You better not be driving tonight.”

Since their mama died and Nex was ten years younger than me, I’d always looked out for him like a big sister. He’d been only ten when I met Ryker, and I’d watched him grow up from a little tyrant to a lady killer, seemingly overnight.

If there was one thing the Steele brothers were not lacking, it was charm.

“You know I don’t drink and drive, sweetness. We’re takin’ a cab.”

“Good.” Except that meant Ryker planned to get loaded too. No telling what might happen, or who he might take home, after a few shots of Jack Daniels.

“Has Ryker seen you yet?” Nex asked, releasing me to give Molly a peck on the cheek.

“No, he’s been too busy to notice,” I muttered. God, I sounded like a jealous old hag. “We were thinking about getting out of here. I have—”

“No!” Nex grabbed my hand. “You can’t go yet. Hey, Ryk, look who’s here!”

Not only did Ryker turn to look, so did every guy in the bar. And since most were bikers, that was not the kind of attention I wanted to attract… anymore. The thrill of a bad boy may have been fun when I was twenty, but after living with my very own hell-raiser for half my life, I was thinking it might be time for a whole new outlook.

Ryker’s blue eyes narrowed as his heavy boots ate up the steps between us. His leather boots crunched the peanut shells strewn all over the floor. The only thing that took his attention from me on the short trek was shooting dirty looks at all the guys sizing me up.

I knew it was a mistake to ask Molly to help me pick out an outfit. A low-cut black tank top, thigh-high skirt, and high-heeled sandals was an outfit for a girl, not a woman with two teenagers at home.