Kiss Me Kate (The English Brothers Book 6) (5 page)

The English were skirmishing.

Kate’s Uncle Tom had convened a meeting that included her, Barrett, Fitz, and Stratton, to vote on whether or not English & Company would pursue the acquisition of Rousseau Shipbuilding. Despite Kate’s assurances that she didn’t mind working with the Rousseaus, the conversation had still dissolved into a family quarrel.

“Have we forgotten our history with that family?” demanded Stratton, looking sideways at Kate.

Barrett sighed heavily, shaking his head in consternation.

Fitz and Stratton were passionately against any business venture that included the Rousseaus, while Barrett and Tom both insisted that the best business decision would be to pursue the purchase. Before it turned into a deadlock, Kate decided to cast her vote.

“I’m with Barrett and Uncle Tom. It’s in our best interest to buy. And that’s not all…I
want
to run lead on this.”

Fitz whipped his head to look at Kate. “I’m a lawyer, too, Kate. Let me do it.”

Her uncle shot down that suggestion. “You’re having a baby in six weeks, son. You won’t be reliable.”

“I can do it. I took a few legal courses,” said Stratton.

Kate cocked her head to the side, leaning close to Stratton’s ear and whispering, “You’re really making me angry.”

“I’m trying to protect you,” he shot back.

Meanwhile, Fitz was trying to convince his father and Barrett that he could handle the legal side of the deal and Daisy’s pregnancy at the same time.

That was it. Kate slapped her hand down on the conference table hard enough to make her uncle’s coffee jump and said, “Listen!”

Five pairs of blue eyes turned to Kate in surprise.

“English & Company will benefit from this acquisition, so forget any thoughts of sidelining the Rousseaus
right now
.” Barrett’s lips quirked up slightly, and he nodded at her with pride and respect. “And
I
am the legal counsel for English & Company. Not Fitz, and certainly not Stratton
. Me.
Kate. So
I
will be on point with Rousseau’s counsel on this deal.” Stratton started to say something, but she raised her voice and rode right over him. “We are family and I love all of you very much. But this is business, and if any of you
ever
use my personal life to isolate me from a project again, I will consider bringing a discriminatory suit against this company. Is that clear?” Kate checked off the eyes of her cousins and uncle one by one before turning to Stratton. “How about you, Mr. CFO? You ready to see me as a full business partner?”

“It’s your grave, Kate,” murmured Stratton, adjusting his glasses as he stared down at the table. “I hope you don’t regret it.”

“I won’t,” she answered evenly, then softened her voice and added, “I won’t because I will be legal counsel for the ninth largest shipbuilding company in the world.”

She looked across the table to see Barrett smiling. “Way to go, Kate. I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

“Barrett,” she continued, gathering her files and standing up, “I’ll need your notes so I can get up to speed. Have them on my desk within an hour.”

“Oh,” he said. “One thing…I already scheduled a meeting. Today. With J.C. and Étienne Rousseau at their offices.”

Kate’s breath caught, but she nodded without a hitch. “Great. What time?”

“You don’t have to go.”

“Barrett…” she warned him.

“Four o’clock.”

“Four’s fine,” answered Kate crisply, heading back to her office to slog through the legal documents associated with the acquisition and force herself not to anticipate seeing Étienne in a few short hours.

Six hours later, Kate looked at the clock, shocked to see that it was after three. Her desk was covered with half-filled coffee cups, an open bag of chips, an empty muffin wrapper, open highlighters, two law books and several piles of sorted paper. Amazingly, the time had flown by once Kate had hit stride, throwing herself into the legal issues that she’d need to manage for this deal to take place.

It was a pretty simple deal, actually. English & Company would acquire Rousseau Shipbuilding for a sum of $180 million, and would then merge the new acquisition to the other two. There would be some staffing redundancies, but that would be up to Barrett to handle after the merger. The only tricky bit Kate could see was that the company had been inherited and since it was based in Louisiana, she needed to figure out if the state laws would bring any unexpected paperwork to the sale. That, she assumed, would be Étienne’s bailiwick.

Étienne.

Her hand trembled as she picked up one of the coffee cups for a bracing sip. She’d see him in just a few short minutes, which seemed impossible after so long, and her heart thundered in anticipation.

“You almost ready to go?” Barrett said suddenly from the doorway. Kate jerked in surprise, spilling a healthy splash of black coffee on the front of her dress. She winced, patting at the cool wetness.

“At least you’re wearing brown,” said Barrett, giving her a lopsided smile. “You can’t really see it. Meet me downstairs. I’ll get us a cab.”

Kate shoveled a pile of papers into her briefcase, still swiping at the top of her dress as she made her way to the elevator bank.

Good Lord
, thought Kate, looking at herself in the shiny brass door of the elevator. Her hair stuck out of its once-tidy bun in haphazard chunks and wisps, and she pulled two pencils from said bun with wonder. The splotch of coffee on her dress looked like a nursing leak over her right boob, and her skirt was wrinkled with tiny crumbs of muffin sticking to the sweater-like material. She’d thought the simple, brown, sweater dress chic at one point, but she had to admit, it had seen better days. It had stretched out over the years, losing its shape, and the cowl neck in the front revealed a little more than was proper if she let it fall victim to gravity. She messed with it, covering the deep line of exposed cleavage and brushed off the sack-like, shapeless skirt.

Huffing at her reflection, which didn’t look much better than it had two minutes before, she reminded herself that she wasn’t going out on a date: the reason for the meeting was business.

Business, business, business,
she repeated in a mantra as she stepped onto the elevator.

Any notions of Étienne Rousseau, as anything other than her legal co-counsel, needed to be banished from her mind. And with any luck, he’d be a complete and total jerk and make it easier on her.

The elevator arrived in the lobby and Kate lifted her chin, stepping forward and clutching her briefcase with sweaty palms as she exited the building and found Barrett waiting in a cab at the curb.

“Sorry,” she said, sliding in next to him.

“No problem. We’re not late.”

Kate gave her cousin a brief smile, noticing his strange expression. “What?”

“You have…um…” He reached over and pencil number three was pulled from her hair.

“It’s a bad habit,” she explained, “from law school. I was always losing pencils, so a friend of mine told me that every morning she made a bun in her hair and stuck pencils in it. I copied her idea and always had my own supply after that.”

“Smart,” said Barrett, chuckling softly.

Kate opened her purse and took out a brush, loosening her hair and brushing out the long waves. “I guess I should try to look a little more presentable.”

“Not on my account,” said Barrett.

As she went to bind her hair back into a ponytail, the rubber band in her fingers snapped. “Damn.” Looking through her purse, she realized she didn’t have a replacement. She’d just have to wear her hair down. Twisting it as tightly as she could, she laid it over her shoulder, then jammed her brush back into her purse.

“Don’t be nervous,” said Barrett gently, watching her fuss. “It’ll be okay.”

“Oh, I’m fine,” answered Kate a little too quickly.

Barrett gave her a look.

“Okay,” she admitted. “I’m a little nervous.”

“What happened between you two? You and Étienne? I’ve heard the stories, of course, but I was at college at the time so all of my information was secondhand.”

Kate shook her head then shrugged. “He was a Spring Break fling.”

Lie. He was much, much more than that.

“Were you in love with him?” asked Barrett, crossing his arms over his chest and looking at her thoughtfully.

“Yes.”

“Are you still?” he asked.

“No,” she answered, though the blunt sound of her denial felt oversimplified or maybe even cowardly, and it sat like rotten egg smell on her lips, making her wrinkle her nose. It felt like a half-truth or a third-lie or just not the right word at all. She pushed back on this feeling as hard as she could, and added, “I think he’s a jackass.”

“No arguments here.”

“Anyway, there’s Tony, and he’s—”

“Yeah, Tony. He seems nice.”

“He
is
nice.”
And eventually, one day when he’s ready, he will draw me into his elegant arms, and—

“So, you two are…serious?”

Kate paused before answering.
Were they?
She and Tony had been more or less exclusive for weeks, but it didn’t feel serious. Sometimes it didn’t even feel substantial enough to be relevant. Tony certainly hadn’t made her feel—yet, she still had hopes—the way that Étienne made her feel all those years ago. Then again
, no one
had ever made Kate feel as Étienne had. Despite several college boyfriends and a serious relationship a few years ago in New York, memories of Étienne still felt more vibrant than real life.

Which is why you need to be reminded of how things ended, not how they began.

“I don’t know,” she said cautiously, offering Barrett a small smile as she answered his question about Tony. “We’ll see.”

They lapsed into silence, but despite her best efforts, her mind wouldn’t settle, as one heart-thumping thought circled round and round in her brain: in a matter of minutes she’d be face-to-face with the man to whom she’d willingly and lovingly surrendered her virginity.

Looking through the rain-covered window, Kate thought of the last time she ever saw his face in person: She’d turned and looked back at him once more before slipping through the hedge and returning to her aunt and uncle’s house. Her body had still been warm from his, the space between her legs tender, her skin sensitive, and her heart thundering. The way he’d gazed at her, with such profound tenderness and wonder as she waved goodbye, had made her eyes brim with tears of gratitude and love. It had been pure hell to leave him, but she had forced one foot in front of the other, secure in the knowledge that even though she’d leave for New York in the morning, and despite the guaranteed disapproval of her parents if they ever found out, her love story with Étienne was just beginning.

She winced at her blurry reflection. Later she’d discovered—over the silent days and weeks that followed—that it wasn’t beginning at all. In fact, their short romance was already over.

And yet, she couldn’t help wondering as she watched the drops of rain slip soundlessly down the glass like so many tears…Would he still speak in that low, silky, accented voice that had so captivated her as a teenager? Would his hair still be black and thick, tousled and unruly like he just rolled out of bed? Would he tease her with backhanded compliments and sexy smirks? Would his eyes seize hers as they used to, searching and direct?

Would he recognize her?

Would he be kind?

“We’re here, Kate.”

She looked up as they stopped in front of a nondescript office building. Barrett paid the fare, and Kate stepped out of the cab, taking a deep breath. Barrett opened an umbrella, placing his hand under her elbow as they walked briskly across the wet sidewalk and up the steps to the office building lobby.

Stepping off the elevator on the fourth floor, they were greeted by glass doors directly in front of them that read
Rousseau Trust
. As Barrett pushed the door open for his cousin, he leaned down and whispered in her ear, “Breathe. It’s just business.”

Kate smiled at him gratefully, steeling her resolve to put forth only the most professional demeanor with Étienne, regardless of their history.

“Good afternoon,” said an administrative assistant, who looked up as Kate and Barrett entered the small reception area. “May I help you?”

“Hello,” said Kate, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her ear and offering a warm smile, despite the fierce hammering of her heart. “Kate and Barrett English here to see—”

“Me.”

***

Étienne would have known her anywhere.

His eyes drank in her loveliness after such a long absence from it—the golden blonde of her thick, wavy hair that beckoned him with its softness, wordlessly urging him to touch the glossy lock recently tucked behind one ear. His fingers curled around the crooked curve of his cane, bracing himself as she turned from the receptionist, raised her chin, and trained her summer-sky blue eyes on his. They widened just slightly as her lips parted, tilting up in a small smile as her breath caught with a barely-there gasp of wonder. Her face softened in recognition or remembrance as Étienne gazed back at her—her features at once so familiar and so missed, he wouldn’t have thought it possible after so many years. But the way his heart lurched and galloped confirmed what Étienne already knew: Kate English was still a weakness for him. Even all these years later, she was Kate and he was Étienne—and once upon a time, he had loved her madly.