Kitabı oku: «His Forbidden Kiss», sayfa 2
Three
So, Saturday evening could’ve gone more smoothly.
The only explanation Taylor had come up with for the moment of insanity in the closet wasn’t a pretty one. She’d kissed Royce because she wanted to. Simple as that. One opportunity and a little forced proximity was all it’d taken for her to fulfill the dormant fantasy. The kiss hadn’t been thought out or rational. But since when was the heart rational?
Brannon Knox had nearly proposed to her. He’d taken first place for irrational!
As a result of her unplanned make-out sesh with Royce, the breakup with Brannon happened in the worst possible way. The kiss had put the final nail in that coffin. Actions speaking louder than words and all that. From the time her father declared Royce a no-go zone, Royce had taken up a certain amount of space in her world. He grew to be somehow bigger than life. Celebrity-like. Too far away to ever truly grasp. Which had amped up the attraction tenfold.
Royce had been inaccessible until that stray moment in private at the gala. She’d never been in his circle, not really, because he was older than her. Yes, they saw each other at work often and yes, they’d had meetings—even private meetings—but her professional side was every bit as rigid as Royce’s. She’d never imagined a scenario that would lead to her kissing him in a coat closet. Kissing him ever.
Ugh. Slumping at her desk, she dropped her head into her hand. She wanted to die.
“Hiya, toots.” Gia Knox, the younger sister of the two brothers who had been on Taylor’s mind all morning, entered the corner office and shut the door. Taylor had gone to school with Gia—well, until college parted their paths. Taylor hadn’t had the brains to land MIT, but few did. Bran hadn’t been accepted. Royce hadn’t wanted to go there, not that his father had minded. Jack had a streak of whimsy mixed in with his business acumen, like grenadine in Sprite, and had encouraged each of his children to follow their hearts.
“Good morning.” Taylor kept her reply measured, not sure how her best friend felt about what had occurred Saturday. Taylor spent Sunday with her phone off, cleaning her apartment. As if that would purge any stray guilt.
“They’re both duds if you ask me,” the only Knox daughter said with a wink. Her long dark hair spilled over the shoulders of a scarlet dress that kept her curves contained and professional. She was a Knox genius in Jennifer Lopez’s body.
She was Taylor’s closest friend and the one person she’d considered running to after stepping in it Saturday night. The last place she’d wanted to be was that ballroom in a sea of people, especially with Brannon. He’d been so angry... Justifiably.
That night when she’d followed him outside to explain, he’d spun on her, his voice sharp and unyielding.
“Royce, Taylor? Really?”
“Brannon, it wasn’t—” She’d cut herself short of muttering a clichéd retort, though it was true. It really wasn’t what it looked like. What it looked like was that she and Royce were sneaking off to make out in the closet. In reality Taylor’s emotions had become tangled up in a rogue wave of attraction. “I never meant to hurt you.”
From there the conversation had stalled, Bran’s face dawning with the understanding that she’d seen the ring and fled. He hadn’t stuck around to hear her reasoning for kissing Royce, which was probably for the best. What else was there to say?
“Do you hate me?” Taylor turned from her laptop to face Gia, who gave a blithe blink and dragged the guest chair closer to Taylor’s desk. She sat, leveling Taylor with chocolate-brown eyes a touch darker than Royce’s.
“I adore you.” Gia offered a pitiable head shake. “I had no idea Brannon was going to propose until he huffed back into the party snarling about how he’d made a mistake.”
The blood rushed from Taylor’s face. What had he told Gia? What had he told everyone?
Gia’s hand covered hers. “I stepped out of the ballroom and into a private room with him, so don’t worry about the gossip mill. Royce saw us and joined, and Bran gruffly admitted he’d made a mistake planning to propose at such a big affair. I had no idea he’d planned on asking you to marry him, Taylor. I thought you two were completely caj. Which I told him, by the way. Royce said he went to find you for the Big Ask but instead discovered you locked in the coat closet hyperventilating. Was it one-thing-led-to-another or is there more?”
The lump of dread in Taylor’s throat remained, but she told her friend the truth. “I have no idea.”
She’d been wondering that herself. Was the kiss the start of something? And if so, how could she navigate those choppy waters? Gia knew the truth and didn’t hate her. Royce had greeted her this morning with a gruff “good morning” but he hadn’t seemed upset. Was two out of three Knoxes not hating her enough?
“Are you okay?” Gia rubbed Taylor’s knee.
Great question.
“I’m okay.” Basically. “Brannon must hate me.”
“His pride is hurt. But you don’t have to guilt-accept a proposal.”
Almost verbatim what Royce had told her. You don’t have to say yes to be polite.
“Even if you did guilt-accept a few dates,” Gia added.
Taylor watched her friend carefully. Gia had picked up on that on her own. When Taylor had started dating Bran, she felt like she’d crossed an unspoken boundary. How could she ask Gia’s opinion or voice concerns over her best friend’s flesh and blood? It would have been totally unfair.
“You don’t miss a thing,” Taylor told her.
“I was shocked when you walked into the gala together. I thought for sure he’d have a date and you’d come dance with me.” She pressed her manicured fingernails into her décolletage and fluttered her lashes. “Honestly, I thought you two would’ve broken it off by now. I could see the distance. Or, well, not the distance so much as...the lack of spark.”
“I was procrastinating. I care about him, just...not romantically. Not enough to marry him.” She wondered if Gia would be this forgiving if she’d seen what Bran saw when he’d opened that closet door.
Spark City.
When Royce grabbed her up to kiss her for the second time, she’d been overcome. Laying one on him without any notice was one thing. Him reciprocating... That second kiss was heady. Consuming. Sparks zapped her like a free-swinging power line. They’d coursed through her bloodstream and lit up her brain like a neon sign. One that read Royce Knox can kiss. And boy, could he. She’d shared a few kisses with Bran over the course of their tepid dates, but none of them had measured up to the kiss in the closet with Royce.
That wasn’t due to Brannon’s lack of skill or personality. He was fun and made her laugh on a daily basis. He was distractingly handsome, with a dimple punctuating one cheek and a full, generous mouth. He had Royce’s hard angles but there was an approachability to Bran that couldn’t be denied. The Knox brothers came from good stock—both men were damned good-looking.
But. She’d never been attracted to Bran. He was an incredible friend. Or had been before she ruined their friendship with a spontaneous kiss.
If she could have a do-over, she’d have broken up with Bran a week ago—or maybe never would’ve said yes to that first dinner date. Hurting his pride at the beginning would have been better than at the end.
“I never saw that proposal coming,” Taylor told Gia. “I assumed he’d lost interest. We were pretty much back to normal until the gala. He asked me to go with him and I didn’t see the harm in it. You know how tedious these events can be.”
“Lord, do I. So you two weren’t...” Gia made a lewd gesture to indicate sex.
“No! God, no.” Taylor couldn’t help laughing.
“Hey, it’s harder for me to hear than you, ladybug. If you ask me, this sounds like a big misunderstanding.”
“I half expected him to politely break up with me by night’s end.” Though hoped might be a better word.
“And he would’ve been so nice about it,” Gia said, which only served to make Taylor feel worse. “I’m not saying you weren’t! Don’t look at me like that.”
“I panicked. I never in a million years thought he’d...” She shook her head, picturing the diamond ring in the box. Bran had been admiring the shimmer in the muted overhead light, his face... Wait. His face.
“He was looking at the ring right before I ran off. He... He wasn’t smiling, Gia. He didn’t look happy or excited. He looked... I don’t know. Resigned?” And definitely not like a man in love.
“It really makes me wonder...” Gia let her thought taper off before pasting on a slightly insincere smile. “Never mind. Speculation is never good. Who knows what men are thinking?”
Taylor couldn’t let her friend off the hook after that teaser. “What? What were you going to say?”
“Conjecture. And nothing that would help.”
“It’s not like you to be coy.”
Gia chewed on her lip before she said, “I wonder if the proposal had anything to do with Dad’s retirement. Pending retirement. Bran’s being engaged would make him appear better suited for the role of CEO than Royce.”
“He wouldn’t?” But the sentence came out like a question because... Would he?
Brannon had mentioned time and again that his father would be stepping down. That he could picture himself in the role of CEO. Their “dates,” for lack of a better word, had been consumed by talk of work and Bran’s future at the company.
“Dad will retire sooner than we think, Tay,” he’d told her one evening over a second glass of wine for each of them. He’d described Royce as his “competition.” Bran had also mentioned that he wanted it more, but deserved it less. She’d argued in his defense that he and Royce were equally suited to replace Jack. It was the truth. The Knox boys each had winning qualities and were as dedicated to this company as they were to each other.
“I’m not saying he was using you, Taylor. I don’t think he came up with an insidious plan to toy with you to get what he wanted.”
“No, no, neither do I.” Taylor had known Brannon practically her entire life. Ambition wouldn’t cause him to stoop that low.
“But maybe somewhere down deep he thought it’d help to show some stability. Bran is the fun-loving one, after all.”
“And president of the company. It’s not like he’s goofing around.”
“Right. And you’re COO. A match made in heaven, on paper.” Gia tilted her head, her lips compressing. “Your dad always liked Bran for you.”
He had.
“I couldn’t live with myself if I drove a wedge between Bran and Royce.” Taylor sighed.
“That’s on them. You weren’t the only one in that closet. Whatever amends need to be made, you’ll work it out. What’s done is done. There has to be a part of you that is glad you don’t have to pretend with Brannon any longer.”
“You’re so understanding.”
“Men are babies.” Gia shrugged. “They’ll get over it.”
“I should talk to Bran.” The idea of approaching him hung in the air like a foul stench. But they worked together, and closely. She didn’t want there to be awkward vibes during meetings or conference calls. She didn’t want him to avoid her out of discomfort or pride.
“You will. And you’ll say something brilliant and then everything will be okay. He didn’t act like a man in love, Taylor. I don’t know why he thought an engagement was the right move, but he wasn’t acting from the heart. It was pragmatism and planning if you ask me.”
“I should’ve said what was on my mind that night. That we weren’t working romantically. It would have been a relief for both of us.”
“You should have,” Gia agreed with a curt nod. “But you didn’t. And now you have to make decisions starting from the square you’re standing in.”
A “square” was filled with Royce and her truckload of attraction to him. When she thought about him, apart from everything else, she had to admit it was exciting. Maybe she finally had a chance at a relationship that was visceral and real.
God, how she needed something real.
Even if she never kissed Royce again, she’d had a realization of sorts. She was still sexually attractive. After two years of no dating and her and Brannon’s lackluster romance, Taylor had started wondering if she’d ever find someone who curled her toes.
She hadn’t imagined that someone would be Royce. Years ago, she’d taken her father’s warning at face value. He’d been protective over his baby girl when he’d told her to stay away from Royce. But she was a far cry from a baby now.
“See you in the quarterly meeting.”
“Thanks, G.”
“You’re welcome, doll.” Gia wiggled her fingers in a wave and left the office.
Four
Royce stepped into the financial review meeting, unbuttoned his suit jacket and took a seat at the sleek mahogany conference room table. As CFO, he’d be called upon for input but he wasn’t running the meeting. That was up to the finance manager, Stella, who had already lined up the projector and was sifting through her notes.
He’d had trouble keeping his mind on work for obvious reasons. Work and play didn’t mix. Not that he had time to play. Being in charge of the company’s numbers was an undertaking he took very seriously.
Gia arrived last as per her usual. She sat next to Taylor, who was at Royce’s left elbow. Brannon was across the table, leaning back in his leather chair, tapping a pencil eraser-side down while he glared in Royce’s general direction.
Royce ignored him.
“Everyone ready to get started?” Stella asked rhetorically before doing just that. Meetings were a nuisance but necessary to keep everyone on the same page. Especially now that his father was flirting more and more with the idea of early retirement.
Jack Knox wouldn’t hit the links right away nor was he interested in building birdhouses in his spare time. No, no. Jack planned on traveling, experiencing life and the world. Royce’s old man, now sixty-one, had never truly run out of wild oats to sow.
Bran focused his attention on a paper report while Taylor and Royce consulted their tablets. Gia had a fussy leather notebook in front of her, bejeweled with gems and dotted with stickers. His baby sister wasn’t much for formality. Brannon wasn’t either, though he did follow along. He rarely used the very electronics their company sold, which made Royce laugh.
Or would have if Bran hadn’t been shutting him out for two solid days.
The last conversation they’d had was at the threshold of that closet when Bran had caught Royce and Taylor post-lip-lock. When Royce had come upon Bran and Gia talking later that same night, Bran promptly turned and walked away. Royce understood his younger brother’s anger. Seven unanswered text messages later, he’d given up, until this morning.
He’d stepped right into Brannon’s corner office and addressed him with a “Good morning, brother.”
Brannon had looked up from his laptop to narrow his eyes. Eyes that were lighter brown than Royce’s own, and greenish like their mother’s. He’d picked up his phone, made a call and started talking, ignoring Royce altogether.
That’d been two hours ago and here they sat, ignoring each other again.
With a sigh, Royce glanced at Gia, who was jotting notes and lounging in her chair at the same time. No doubt her big brain soaked up every word Stella was saying like a fresh, dry sponge. Gia had always been able to pay attention to everything around her. Bran was more easily distracted during boring moments like this meeting, while Royce enjoyed the methodology of a presentation. There was a certain order to it that made sense to him.
Jayson Cooper, Gia’s ex-husband who still worked at ThomKnox, was notably absent from this meeting. Cooper was in charge of tech, but he’d sent his assistant, Whitney, to ferry back any pertinent information.
Taylor asked a question, drawing everyone’s attention. Royce watched her openly, not a hardship since she was beautiful. He appreciated the way she’d come in today sans drama about Saturday night. She’d always been professional at the office, even though he remembered her differently when they were kids. She and Gia were about the same age, but Royce was six years older than the girls, and only a few years older than Bran. While Royce didn’t exactly hang out with any of them when he was younger, social situations mashed them together.
Charity functions, raffles, art shows and galas like the Valentine’s Day celebration on Saturday put them in fancy clothes at fancy affairs on the regular. Even when he was a gangly sixteen-year-old and she and Gia had been fifth graders. He hadn’t thought of Taylor as more than his sister’s friend, including when the girls were teens and attending those same functions in ball gowns.
As he’d aged up, so had Taylor. He could begrudgingly admit that her changes hadn’t gone unnoticed. Charles Thompson’s candid discussion about how Taylor wasn’t a good romantic option for Royce had prompted no argument. Charles was like a second father and Royce respected the man immensely.
But since that very conversation, Royce had noticed attributes about Taylor that he hadn’t previously. Physical ones, sure, but also the way she handled her life. She wanted everything and wanted it all at once. Like a kid at a buffet who agonized over how she’d fit a spoonful of everything onto the same plate.
Royce was simpler than that. He did better when his focus was narrow. Unfortunately for everyone, it’d been Taylor who’d narrowed his focus to a fine point on Saturday night.
No matter the reaction to a rogue kiss, the wisest course of action was to set them back on the path from which they’d strayed. They both cared greatly for ThomKnox, Taylor having been thrust into the position of COO after her father passed last fall.
It was a loss she took hard and he noted now, and not for the first time, that those feathered lines around her eyes were a new addition. Grief had taken a toll on Taylor and her mother, Deena, most of all. Jack Knox and Charles Thompson were best friends who didn’t always see eye to eye but made the best decisions for the company. Since Charles’s death, Jack had been less about the company and more about skydiving lessons, traveling to Africa for safari and scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef.
His father might be having some sort of late midlife crisis, but Royce supported Jack’s decision to retire, regardless of who was chosen for the CEO position. Both brothers wanted it. Bran had a knack for fusing fun and hard work and ending up with a blend both investors and employees enjoyed, so he was a valid choice. Probably the better choice.
Approachability was not Royce’s strong suit. He was methodical and careful, prepared and concise.
Stella finished answering Taylor’s question, and Taylor smiled, her bow-shaped pink lips forming the words thank you. Royce felt a pull from the center of his stomach down to his groin.
When Taylor grabbed hold of him and kissed him at the gala, he hadn’t expected it. He’d only thought of her over the years as someone he shouldn’t be kissing. Ever. That kiss had snapped his control in two and ushered in a loss of equilibrium that had changed his world.
Who wouldn’t be tempted by that?
But temptation was a temporary dalliance. The moment had passed. He was determined to cram the meddling genie back into her glass bottle, wedge the cork and toss it out to sea. There was no room in a company about to lose their CEO and appoint a new one for squabbling between brothers. Especially over a woman as well respected as Taylor. She was in the upper echelon of ThomKnox. Investors liked stability. Nothing was more important than righting the already upset apple cart.
There was a certain order that Royce liked to keep and though change was inevitable, he preferred to get through it as quickly and painlessly as possible.
Taylor swept a lock of blond hair behind her ear, shifting in her chair so that one long leg slipped over the other. She circled her foot, wrapped in a tall black high heel and he allowed his eyes to trickle up a rounded calf to a supple thigh that vanished beneath the demure hemline of a black dress.
Stella’s voice faded into background fuzz and his brain blurred in much the same way. It wasn’t hard to admire Taylor before, but now that he’d had his lips on hers, he could easily imagine pressing those lush breasts to his chest and sampling her neck, smelling her soft perfume as he allowed the tip of his tongue to dip into her cleavage...
“Royce?”
By the sound of Stella’s voice, that wasn’t the first time she’d said his name. He jerked his attention to her, raking over Brannon’s grouchy visage on the way. Stella smiled patiently. “The numbers you wanted to share?”
“Yes, thank you, Stella,” he replied evenly. He flipped from one screen to the next on his tablet and pulled up the report, but the numbers stopped him cold. They were wrong. This wasn’t...
Fantastic.
The report he’d queued up was from last quarter, not the careful one he’d been preparing for the bulk of the morning.
“Um... One second.” Aware of every pair of eyes in the room on him, he opened a file in the Cloud and hoped to God he’d remembered to back it up there. Then he remembered he’d emailed it to both Brannon and Taylor. All he needed to do was pull up the sent email to access the correct report. He opened his mouth to tell Stella as much when Taylor spoke.
“I can take that question, Stella.” Warm hazel eyes swept over him, almost slate gray against the backdrop of her black dress. “Royce and I were discussing that this morning, and there was some confusion as to who was presenting. It appears that the numbers for this quarter showed a nice increase going into next...”
Royce, rapt, listened as she smoothly read the numbers he’d crunched this morning, numbers he’d planned on presenting. He hadn’t expected her to take over for him. But she had, sliding in and saving his ass as easily as she’d tugged his mouth down to hers last weekend. Impressed by her knowledge and ease with the topic, he couldn’t tear his eyes off her for a solid minute.
When he did, it was only because he felt Brannon’s gaze pinning him where he sat. Taking in his brother’s ire was nothing new—there were plenty of times when they’d seen the world differently. Their father assured them that it was healthy for brothers to bicker, but Royce didn’t think this situation was what Jack had in mind.
Locked in silent battle with Taylor between them, well... There was nothing healthy about it. It was bordering unhealthy. Royce could feel the animosity radiating off his brother and hoped to God no one else picked up on it.
He wouldn’t stand for it.
Within ThomKnox were their careers—all of them. The entire Knox family’s and Taylor Thompson’s, too. His father was retiring soon and her father had left her with bigger shoes to fill as well. They were the next generation of ThomKnox. Time they started behaving like it.
Royce had never, to his memory, missed his cue in a financial meeting—in any meeting. The wild card that had changed everything?
Kissing Taylor Thompson.
The last intimate moment they’d ever share.
He had to put this behind him—for the sake of their future. His eyes clashed with Gia’s and she quirked her lips in amusement as if saying Something on your mind, big brother?
Yes.
And he couldn’t afford to have his mind anywhere other than work. The company was about to undergo a massive transition. Either Royce or Brannon would be CEO soon—they’d each been groomed.
The smoother the transition went, the sooner they could return to their regularly scheduled programming.
Royce glanced at Brannon, only this time he’d made a decision. He was going to have a conversation with his younger brother—whether Brannon wanted to or not.
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