Blown Away (4 page)

Brent had hoped
his brother would answer the most important question first so he
wouldn’t have to repeat it. But that was too much to hope for. His
brother lived to torment him. “Is she married? Engaged? Seeing
anyone?” Not that he cared. He’d crush anyone who got in his way.
He’d been waiting too many years to see her again. Nothing would
stop him from demanding answers about why she walked out on him
without an explanation.

Keith held up
the paper with Ava’s photo. “Would her profile be on a dating site
if she was married… or taken?” He shook his head. “How the hell can
you be a genius when it comes to making money and so dense about
everything else?”

Brent glared at
him. “Who was on the Dean’s List? Who had scholarship offers from
every Ivy League school in the country? And you’re calling me
dense?” Brent smirked. “You could barely tie your own shoes without
me to help you.”

With an absent
mother and a father who worked all the time to put food on the
table and a roof over their heads, Brent became his brother’s
caregiver. When it was time for Brent to go off to college, his
brother was still an impressionable kid. Brent didn’t want to see
him go down the wrong path because no one was home to watch out for
him, so he’d sacrificed his dream of an Ivy League education to
give his younger brother the guidance and support he needed. Brent
had never regretted his decision. He’d made it on his own, without
the connections a fancy education would have afforded him.

Keith shook his
head. “And you’re never gonna let me forget it, are you?” That
stung. Brent didn’t want his brother to feel indebted to him. Keith
winced when he saw Brent’s hurt expression. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t
have said that. I know you gave up a lot. Dad and I wouldn’t have a
pot to piss in without you.”

“Don’t say
that,” Brent said, clenching his jaw. “You were always a smart kid
and a good athlete. You would have found your way with or without
me. And we both know no one has worked harder than dad. It means
everything to me that I can finally give him the life he
deserves.”

Their dad
wasn’t the chauffeur-driven, mansion-dwelling type. He drove truck
all his life and still had the first hundred dollars he ever earned
in a frame on his antique dresser. At least he let Brent hire a
full-time caregiver to drive him to and from the senior center and
his appointments.

“I know.” Keith
raked his hands through his hair. “You take good care of us, but
what about you?”

Brent laughed.
“Why do you think I built a fitness center and healthy restaurant
on the main floor? I probably take better care of myself than you
do.”

“I’m not
talking about diet and exercise, and you know it. You don’t have
friends, you have followers. You don’t have girlfriends, you have
escorts.”

Brent tried to
ignore his uneasiness. If anyone could zero in on his insecurities
without even trying, it was the person who knew him best. “That’s
the price of success. I knew that going into this. Letting anyone
get too close is akin to suicide.”

“You’re already
dead inside.” Brent tried to hide his shock, but Keith’s statement
was so unexpected, and so accurate, he didn’t know how to respond.
“You have been ever since Mom left us. You were suddenly on this
quest to control everyone and everything. You think the more money
you have, the more control you have. You refuse to fall in love
because you’re afraid she’ll leave you. Isn’t that what happened
with Jamie? She got tired of trying to make you love her, so she
went looking for it elsewhere?”

Brent couldn’t
believe his brother was blaming him for what happened with
Jamie.

Keith looked
his brother in the eye. “You’re damn near forty and you’ve never
been in love. That’s just sad, man.”

Brent swallowed
repeatedly, trying to coat his dry throat. Everything his brother
said was true, but he would extract his own fingernails before he
admitted it.

Glancing at his
watch, Keith said, “I guess we’d better get to the board meeting.
We’ve almost got ‘em, man.” He put his arm around Brent as they
walked out of the office. “You’re on the verge of taking everything
away from our stepfather the same way he took everything away from
us. Does it make you feel better? Does it give you the satisfaction
you’ve been hungering for?”

Brent prayed it
would. If it didn’t, he didn’t know how he would fill the void he’d
been living with for thirty years. Revenge against his mother and
stepfather was the ticket to his gratification. If he found it
wasn’t, he really was in trouble. The man who always had a plan
didn’t have a backup plan this time.

***

“You’ve gone
too far, Tara!” Ava shouted. “How could you do this to me?”

Tara winced and
covered both ears. “I was only trying to help.”

“Help?” Ava
shouted. “You call this help? You’ve ruined my life! Humiliated
me!”

“How? All I did
was upload your picture and fill in your profile on our site.”

“Yeah, and our
clients have been calling all morning to arrange a date with me!”
She held up her left hand. Her parents had given her a diamond band
when she graduated from college, but it looked so much like a
wedding band that it deterred unwanted suitors. “Why the hell do
you think I wear this?”

“I’m sorry.”
Tara sighed. “I guess I didn’t think it through. You’ve just seemed
so down since things with what’s-his-name didn’t work out.”

“His name was
Carlos, and I couldn’t care less about him.” She sank into the
chair across from her friend’s desk, the fight in her depleted. She
couldn’t stay mad at Tara; her friend was only trying to help. “I
was just disappointed. It seems like every guy I meet is a waste of
time. I’m tired of dating. I need a break.”

“You want me to
take the profile down?” Tara asked, eyeing her computer screen.

“Right now!”
Ava took her ponytail holder off her wrist, secured her long blond
hair, and sighed. It was going to be a long day. She was attending
a benefit that night and she still had to go to Lena and Alisa’s
boutique to pick up her new dress. “I know you were only trying to
help, and you know I love you for it, but I really don’t need any
help. I’m fine. Life is good.”

Ava’s little
Yorkshire terrier, Oreo, toddled out of her mistress’s office,
looking well-rested after her afternoon nap. Ava tapped her lap and
cooed, “There’s my baby.”

Tara rolled her
eyes. “You spoil that little diva. She thinks she owns the
place.”

“She is not a
diva,” Ava said, rubbing noses with Oreo. “Are you, sweetie? You’re
just misunderstood.”

“You haven’t
seen what she does when the courier drops off a package. She may be
small, but she’s feisty. I’m telling you, she’s going to bite
someone one of these days. Then you’ll be sorry.”

Ava frowned.
“Oreo would never do that. She’s a little protective of me, and she
doesn’t really like men, but she would never hurt anyone.”

“Whatever you
say.” Tara blew the dark bangs out of her eyes before reaching for
her latte. “Okay, get out of here. I have to get back to work.”

“Yeah, me
too.”

“By the way,
that new promo we’ve got going with Bryson’s is really paying off.
We’re up twenty-three percent this month.”

“That’s great.”
Ava smiled. More business meant more people were finding their soul
mates thanks to her. She poured everything she had into
Lasting
Connections,
and nothing gave her greater pleasure than
bringing two people together and watching them build a lasting
bond. She’d attended more engagement parties, weddings, and
christenings than she could count, and her calendar was full again
this year. She loved celebrating the best moments of their lives
with her former clients.

“You want to
grab a late lunch?” Tara asked.

“I can’t. I’m
going to check my email, then I have to pick up my dress from
Alisa’s. It was nice of Bryan to offer to take me to the fundraiser
tonight.”

“Please. You
know my brother. If there’s free food, he’s there.”

Ava crossed the
hall to her cozy office, feeling infinitely better after clearing
the air with her best friend. She hated fighting with Tara, but
every friendship had to have clear boundaries, and Tara had just
crossed one. Big time.

“You’ve got
mail.”

Ava wrinkled
her nose. She really should turn off that notification. She cringed
every time she heard it. She’d already responded to half a dozen
emails when one caught her attention. The subject line was:
Remember Me?
Curious, she opened it. There was no message,
just a link to the bio of the Chairman of the Board of an
investment company. But not just any investment company.
Armstrong’s.
Oh my God.
Brent Armstrong was contacting her.
How? Why? Of course, his brother had told him they’d crossed paths.
Her heart thumped and Oreo whimpered at her feet, obviously sensing
her mistress’s distress.

She hadn’t seen
or heard from Brent Armstrong since the night she snuck out of
Tara’s bedroom. That was ten years ago. Why was he reaching out to
her? A sickening thought occurred to her. Had he seen her profile?
Did he think she was still prowling for a man? Thinking about the
way she’d practically begged him to take her virginity made her
skin crawl. She’s been too ashamed to respond to his voice mails
and emails in the weeks after she left Nashville. That, and she
heard the irritation in his voice. She knew he would demand to know
why she hadn’t told him she was leaving. The truth was, she was
afraid he may have been able to convince her to stay.

Ava ran back
across the hall and closed her friend’s office door after Oreo
slipped inside.

Tara barely
looked up from her computer. “Didn’t I tell you I have work to do?
You’re not paying me to socialize, are you?”

“You’re never
going to believe who emailed me!”

Tara gave her
friend her full attention. Gossip, chocolate, and lattes were her
weaknesses, in that order. “Who?”

“Brent
Armstrong.”

Tara slapped a
hand over her mouth, her green eyes wide. “Shut up!”

“I’m serious.”
Ava chewed on her lower lip.

“Stop doing
that,” Tara lectured.

Another voice
saying that slipped into her consciousness. It had the same effect
as always. She couldn’t think of Brent Armstrong without thinking
about the best sex she’d ever had… bar none. “What do you think he
wants?”

“He didn’t
say?”

“No. The
subject line was:
Remember Me?
And there was a link to his
bio on his company’s website.”

“Interesting,”
Tara said, reaching for her latte. “You know he’s still single,
right?”

“Yeah.” He made
the country’s wealthiest bachelors’ list every year, and since she
moved in the same circles as Tennessee’s elite, it wasn’t exactly a
secret. She’d been very careful to avoid any party or event he was
expected to attend. “I know.”

“I still can’t
believe you gave him the brush off after y’all--” Tara wriggled her
eyebrows “--you know.”

“I told you why
I did.” Ava tickled Oreo under her chin. She loved that. “I wanted
to have a good time that summer. I didn’t want to worry about some
guy back home expecting me to check in every five minutes.”

“You don’t know
he would have been that bad.”

“He probably
would have been worse.”

“Is that why
you stayed in Germany?” Tara asked, setting her cup down before
leaning forward. “Were you afraid of him?”

She wasn’t
afraid of
him
per say, just the way he made her feel. “Don’t
be ridiculous.”

“Then why
should it bother you that he reached out now? Just ignore him.”

“Right.” Ava
nodded. “I’ll just delete the email and forget all about it.”

***

Lena’s face lit
up when Ava walked into Alisa’s boutique. Lena was her birth
mother, and the two had developed a close relationship since Lena
maintained a friendship with Ava’s adoptive parents. She was like a
favorite aunt and trusted confidant Ava couldn’t imagine living
without.

“There you
are,” Lena said, opening her arms. “I was just getting ready to
leave, but I was hoping to see you first. How are things?”

“Good.” Ava
widened her smile when Lena frowned. “Great, in fact. Business is
booming.”

“I didn’t ask
about business. I asked about you.” Lena linked arms with Ava and
led her into the ‘Employees Only’ section. “Tell me what’s up with
you.”

“Not much,
busy, busy. One event after another. You know how it is.” Ava’s
cell phone rang, but she ignored it. Her time with her friends and
family was rare and precious, so she tried not to let work
interfere.

“I worry about
you,” Lena said, squeezing her arm. “You can’t keep up this pace
without burning out.”

“I love what I
do. It doesn’t even feel like work.” Ava giggled. “I still can’t
believe I get paid so well to do this. Honestly, I’d do it for
free.”

“That’s how you
know you’ve found your calling.”

“How’s
Alisa?”

“She and that
gorgeous hubby of hers are off on some fabulous cruise while I’m
stuck here doing the grunt work!” Lena winked. “The cow!”

Ava laughed.
She could always count on Lena to make her smile. Her upbeat
personality reminded the people around her that life was never as
bad as it seemed. “You don’t mean that.”

“Of course not.
I’m the one who insisted they take the cruise.”

That sounded
like the Lena Ava knew and loved. “Good for them.”

Lena poured Ava
a coffee, strong and black, just the way she liked it. Brent had
gotten her hooked on the stuff
that night.
After his email,
she couldn’t help but think of him. If she thought he looked good
in faded jeans and long sleeved T-shirts, nothing could have
prepared her for the sight of the billionaire business tycoon he’d
become. She’d only seen his headshot though. Maybe he’d let his
body go… and maybe Oreo would be the first dog to visit the
moon.