LITMIR.BIZ

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Sort of. Trying to find breathing room to center her control and ease the disappointment that clawed at her every time she thought about him and what could have been. “Lately, when I come over I text first to make sure you’re gone. Happy?”

      His arms slid down until they hung at his sides again. “Isn’t that a bit extreme?”

      “No.” It was self-preservation.

      She refused to get snared in another Jameson trap. She trusted Derrick. He’d delivered on every promise he’d made to her back then, when he begged her to stay with the company after...Spence.

      “Sooner or later, we’re going to need to talk to each other,” Spence said.

      “I disagree.” Not her most mature answer ever but probably the most honest one.

      “Abby, come on.”

      The tone of his voice suggested he was done playing games. Well, that made two of them. “It’s fascinating that you ran off without saying a word months ago, but now you want some big chatty moment with me. I guess us talking is fine so long as it’s convenient to you.”

      “We’re adults.”

      Lecturing. Great. Just what she wanted from him. “One of us is.”

      With that, she turned and walked out. She’d reached her maximum load on Jameson testosterone for one day. She needed her shoes off and her feet up. Some wine. No Spence.

      A Spence-free zone. The idea made her smile as she walked down the hall then closed the front door behind her.

      * * *

      “She’s not wrong,” Derrick said as he slowly walked down the stairs.

      “You want to clue me in here?” Because Spence felt deflated and empty. The gnawing sensation refused to leave him. He’d blown out of the office all those months ago. Traveled around. Helped out on random building sites across the east. Lived a life so different from the spectacle he’d grown up in. All that competition. How his father pitted the three of them against each other. How Derrick always tried to protect them from Dad’s wrath, especially Carter, the youngest.

      They lost their mom to cancer. Their father didn’t even have the decency to let her live out her life in peace. No, he moved her to a facility then marched in there one day and demanded a divorce so he could marry his mistress. He thought she was pregnant but she wasn’t, so he quickly dumped the mistress, too. Then he ran through others. He was on wife number four and insisted this one had changed him. Yeah, right. The man treated women as disposable and his sons as property.

      All that playing, all that acting at being a Big Man, and he let the business slide. Derrick had stepped in and saved it years ago. They all had to work there from the time they were teens. It was a family requirement, but Derrick was the one who rescued them all—including their father—and restored the family checking account when he took over the day-to-day operations four years ago.

      That incredible turnaround was one of the reasons Spence stood on Derrick’s first floor now. He owed Derrick. He also loved Derrick and wanted to help. That meant sticking around. Worse, it meant facing his demons and dealing with Abby.

      Spence wasn’t good at standing still. He’d always been the brother to keep moving. Go away to school. Go farther to a different school. Try to work somewhere else. Delay full-time work with the family as long as possible.

      The Jameson name choked him. He didn’t find it freeing or respectable. Forcing his feet to stay planted was taking all of his strength. He didn’t have much left over to do battle with Abby.

      “Are you admitting you’re clueless? That’s a start.” The amusement was right there in Derrick’s voice.

      At the sound, some of the churning in Spence’s gut eased. He had no idea how to handle Abby, but he could do the fake fighting-with-his-brother thing all day. “Don’t make me punch you while your fiancée is on bed rest. She shouldn’t see you beg and cry right now.”

      “Are you quoting from a dream you once had? Because that’s not reality.”

      They’d physically fought only once. It was years ago, over their mother. Spence had been desperate to keep her in the house with nurses. Derrick, barely in his twenties, had tried to make it happen but couldn’t. Spence had needed an outlet for his rage and Derrick was right there. The perfect target.

      There was an almost three-year age difference between them, but Spence still got his ass kicked. And he’d deserved it because his anger really should have been aimed at his father. Spence was thirty-three now. In theory, he knew better.

      “Spence, she’s one of the best we have.” Derrick sat down on a step a few from the bottom and started counting out Abby’s attributes on his fingers. “She can multitask and oversee projects, keep things moving. She’s smart. She’s a great negotiator.”

      It was an impressive list, but Spence already knew it by heart. Every time he tried to run through her sins in his mind, the image of her face would pop up and his thoughts would stumble. “I feel like you’re reading her résumé to me.”

      “Don’t scare her away.”

      There was no amusement in his tone now. Spence got the message. “You do understand she screwed me, right?”

      “I don’t know what happened back then because you bolted and when I tried to talk with her, in part to make sure we weren’t going to get sued, she refused to say one single negative thing about you.” Derrick threw up his hands before balancing them on his thighs again. “Hell, I can name twenty bad things just sitting here and without thinking very hard, but she protected you.”

      “She sure has no problem listing out my faults now.”

      “Do you hear what I’m saying?”

      “That you’re nosy as hell.” Spence dropped down on the step two down from Derrick and stretched out sideways so he could look at Derrick. “What’s your actual point?”

      “Maybe you got it wrong back then.”

      Spence leaned his head back against the staircase railing and stared up at the ceiling. “I saw her kissing Dad.”

      “Right, because our father never set anyone up or did anything to mess with us.”

      That got Spence’s attention. His head lowered and he looked at Derrick. “I don’t—”

      “When rumors were going around about me in an attempt to convince Ellie to dump me, Abby’s name came up.”

      “What?”

      “Some people think the two of us had a thing. There are whispers, none of them true, but they’re out there.” Derrick shrugged. “Ellie heard, wanted to apologize to Abby for dragging her into our personal mess, they met and, honestly, it’s like they’ve known each other for years.”

      Derrick and Abby. Fake or not, there was an image Spence never wanted in his head. But Abby and Ellie? No one was safe if those two put their powers together. “That’s just great.”

      “For you, no. Abby is going to be around here for Ellie. And she’s a big part of the managerial team at work.” Derrick dropped his arm and touched the step right by Spence’s shoulder. “I want you here and I will do anything to keep you in the office and in town, but even I can’t work miracles. You have to fix this because I can’t.”

      “I’ve never heard you admit that before.”

      “You’re going to run into her.”

      Derrick sounded so serious. Spence wanted to make a joke or ignore the whole conversation. He knew he couldn’t do either. “I can handle it.”

      “I’m wondering if the rest of us will survive it.”

      Suddenly, so was Spence.

      

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