Restraint - Adriana Locke Page 0,3
you for a favor? Well, not for me, but for Sienna?” he asks.
“Sure.”
“Can you meet up with one of her brothers and pick up some paperwork or some shit?” The sound of metal crashing onto a hard surface ricochets through the line. “Fuck!”
I laugh. “What are you doing?”
“Come finish this before I stick a fucking wrench in it!” The line gets muffled before he comes back. “I was trying to take an oil filter off a tractor, but it’s stuck. God knows I’m not gonna get any help with it either. I just shouted for someone to come finish it, but it’ll be there a day from now if I don’t circle back to it.”
“Hey, it’s job security,” I say through a laugh.
He chuckles as the sound of water in the background trickles through the phone. “Anyway, can you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Meet with one of Sienna’s brothers?”
Something about the way he says “brothers” takes me back to the man at the airport today. He was devilishly handsome in his business suit with a Rolex strapped around a thick, muscled wrist. He spoke well and seemed educated, which were bonus points to his light-colored hair and jade eyes.
The problem? I see men like him every day. My office is full of them. That controlled, alpha vibe stops being attractive when you peel off the suit. They’re just like other men—overgrown children who want a woman to fight for them.
And fight for herself.
Because if she doesn’t fight for herself, no one is going to fight for her.
“I’m not sure what my schedule looks like,” I say for the second time today.
“You don’t have a fucking schedule. I made your schedule.”
“I’ll happily refund your money and come home.”
“The hell you will.” He sighs. “It won’t kill you to do her this one favor.”
“For what? So, you can get laid?”
“I’ll get laid regardless …”
“Ew!” I say, getting to my feet. “How did we get here? I don’t want to talk about this.”
“I’ll text you the address, okay?” Walker asks.
Moseying across the sage-colored carpeting, I gaze across the water. Families are holding hands, letting the waves rock against them. I wish I could do that—just throw all caution to the wind and let my guard down. But I can’t. Or if I was like that, I’m not anymore.
“Fine,” I say finally. “But tell Sienna she owes me blueberry muffins when you pick me up from the airport.”
“Will do. Talk to you soon, Blaire.”
“Bye.”
The line goes dead as he shouts at our cousin again.
Tossing the phone to the sofa, I stretch my arms overhead. For once, I don’t feel the weight of the world on my shoulders, don’t have to look over my shoulder for a colleague or client. It’s an odd sensation that somehow makes me feel more guilty about this little getaway.
I glance at my briefcase. There are only two files situated inside the leather case. My boss plucked the rest out of my hands before I left and shoved me out the door.
Two files. I can have them worked over in forty-eight hours. Tops.
My phone dings with Walker’s text, and I wonder how I, Blaire Gibson, got relegated to running my brother’s girlfriend’s errands.
I sink on the couch next to my phone and sigh.
This might be the longest three days of my life.
Three
Holt
“What in the hell took you so long?” Oliver hits the gas, barely giving me enough time to shut the door to his sport utility vehicle.
“Delayed flight.”
My briefcase sails across the floorboard in the back, ramming the door behind my brother, as he takes a tight right turn onto the freeway.
“You know, we could always buy a private jet.” He looks at me like he just proved a point he’s struggled to make for years.
As the president of Mason Ltd., I control the purse strings and major financial decisions. I remind him of this with a simple quirk of a brow.
He scoffs. “We’re going to be late to our meeting with Graham Landry.”
“And what the fuck should I have done about it? Explained to the weather gods in Portland my little brother needed me for a business meeting and the storm should just vanish because I said so?”
He’s not entertained. With a roll of his eyes, he sits back in the leather seat and hits cruise control on the steering wheel.
“And stop fucking calling me every twenty seconds and handle shit like a big boy,” I add for good measure.
“Really, Holt?”
We watch each other, a heated standoff like only brothers who