Brad, page 6
She rubbed her stomach, as if she could rub away the ball of shame that came from knowing how easily Tyrone had manipulated and used her. How, oh how, could she have let that happen? What hole in her life had Tyrone filled that convinced her to allow him to treat her the way he had, without ever stopping him or confiding in someone? How could she ever trust herself to fall in love again?
With a sound of disgust, she shut the bedroom door and walked back to the entryway to make sure she had actually dead bolted the lock and secured the chain. Her mind at ease about the task, she went into the kitchen. She needed to get to the point that she didn’t think someone hid under her bed every night before she could get to the point of thinking about a future relationship that probably wouldn’t ever materialize anyway.
She could see it now. “Hi, I’m Valerie. Nice to meet you. My last boyfriend threw me off a second-story balcony and broke my hip. But don’t worry, no baggage here. I do have a lovely scar, though, from my hip replacement surgery.”
Without meaning to, she slammed the kettle onto the stove so that the sound cracked through the room. Realizing what she’d done, she covered the handle with her palm, as if trying to calm it down instead of herself, and took a deep breath. Feeling less crazy, she turned the knob for the burner, listening to the ticking sound of the gas igniting. While the water in the kettle heated, she put a bag of spearmint tea and a squirt of honey into a mug. She leaned against the counter and waited for the water to boil, thinking back to dinner tonight.
It had been so wonderful to sit at that table again, surrounded by the Dixon family. She didn’t even realize how much she’d missed being there for the last thirteen years. Walking through the gardens, pretending to jump over alligators, chatting with the boys, looking into Brad’s eyes and wishing he’d see her as something other than a sister, it all felt good and right and normal. It felt as if the rest of her life had just existed as this out-of-place event that happened to her peripherally, and the Dixon estate and family had all paused and waited for her to put her life back where it belonged.
Silly, though. She’d lived away from Atlanta almost the same amount of time as she’d lived in Atlanta.
After pouring boiling water over her tea bag, she checked the sliding glass door again, made sure that the metal bar security lock was tightly in place, then went back to the front door and double-checked the locks. Leaving the lights on, she moved back through the house and to her bedroom. She plugged her phone in next to the bed, set the five o’clock alarm, and slipped between the covers.
Phillip Dixon looked up from the job schedule he examined and saw Rosaline staring off into the distance. “He’s going to work it out,” he said.
Her lips curved in a soft smile. “Eventually. Doesn’t mean I can’t worry about his heart right now.”
He raised an eyebrow. “We can’t control his heart. That’s up to someone else.”
His wife of forty years set her crochet hook into her yarn basket and stood, lifting her arms above her head and stretching left and right. “She’s back now. Maybe, just maybe, he’ll find peace and contentment.”
“Rosie,” Phillip said on a sigh, “it’s been a long time. They were just fifteen. It’s been almost fifteen years. Tell me something. What makes you think he still feels the same way?”
She walked around to his side of the desk and sat on the edge of it, leaning forward so she could put a hand on each of his shoulders. “Did you see his face tonight, love? Did you see how he looked at her? I did.”
Phillip’s jaw clenched. “I saw him walk out of dinner.”
Rosaline closed her eyes and nodded. “I know, dear. You have a year before retirement. I’m sure he’s overwhelmed, overworked, and now Valerie Flynn is back. Let’s see if things settle with him.”
“He’s the right man for the job, Rosie. I know it. You know it. His brothers know it. What’s more, he’s very good at it.”
“Of course, he is. He’s your son. He has the benefit of your wisdom and hard-earned experience.” She kissed his cheek and he inhaled the smell of her perfume. “He’ll know it when it’s time. God’s called many people who took some kicking and screaming before they settled in. We’ll just continue to pray for him and be here for him. Just like with Jon.”
Phillip felt a rush of anger mixed with sorrow. “That boy. What are we going to do about him?”
“We’ve done it, love. We’ve trained him up. Whether he returns isn’t up to us. We just love him.” She straightened and pushed off the desk. “I’m heading up. I have a women’s club tea in the morning. Don’t stay up too late.”
He stared at the open doorway to his office for a long time after Rosaline left. Pushing thoughts of Jon and his newly declared rejection of a life of Christian faith aside, he focused his mind on Brad. Each of his sons had different strengths. Before he’d promoted Brad to the presidency, he’d contemplated splitting the company up between the three brothers. But that never felt right.
In his early twenties, he’d partnered with Jeremiah Mason and created Mason-Dixon Contracting. They’d grown faster than either could hope for, but a disagreement over a single building contract caused a split between the two men and a division of the company. Jeremiah had gone into massive real estate building and city planning, and Phillip had concentrated on home building and smaller commercial projects. After Jeremiah’s untimely death, Phillip found himself in a position to buy out the company, finishing up the current projects Mason had started, and growing his bonding capacity with the profits.
The higher his insurance company would set his bond limit—the insurance that would protect investors if the builder pulled out of a contract for some reason—the more expensive the projects he could bid and win. Soon, he had his own architects and engineers, in-house legal teams, and accounting teams, and had split the residential from the commercial contracting in terms of project managers and superintendents.
By the time his boys entered his workforce, he owned one of the largest general contracting and architectural firms in the southeast. They had hundreds of jobs spanning six states going on at one time and satellite offices throughout Georgia, Alabama, Florida, and the Carolinas.
If Brad didn’t want to continue as president of his company, he’d have to split it up. He didn’t have another option. Neither Ken nor Jon had the skills to run the entire thing the way Brad ran it. If only Brad would come to see that.
As if his thoughts conjured his son, Phillip heard a footstep in the outer hall and watched Brad come into his office. He wanted to put on the hard outer shell of a disappointed father, but his heart hurt too much for his son to pretend.
“Hey.”
“Hey, Daddy.”
“It’s late,” Phillip remarked, looking at the clock and noticing the midnight hour approaching.
“I wanted to talk to you alone, before the workday starts.”
Brad still wore his clothes from the day, but he’d lost the tie, unbuttoned his shirt, and now walked around barefoot. “Sure.” Phillip gestured at the love seat where Rosaline normally sat.
Brad perched on the edge of the cushion and rested his elbows on his knees, lacing his fingers together. “I want to apologize. I realized, talking to Valerie before she left, that I’ve had a really bad attitude. And, that attitude is entirely under my control. Please accept my apology and know that I will enter the building tomorrow morning with a fresh look at the opportunities God has placed in front of me.”
Phillip felt his chest swell with emotion. He pushed his chair back and stood, walking around to sit next to Brad. “Son, I want you to know that God has you there. This is you giving in to His will, not mine.”
Brad’s lips curved in a smile. “Yes, sir. I understand. I’ve already had a talk with Him about it.”
Phillip laughed and slapped Brad on the shoulder. “Fair enough, son.” He stood and gestured toward the door. As they walked out together, he turned the light out behind them. “I look forward to tomorrow.”
Brad took the stairs twice as fast as his father, stopping halfway up them to smile down at him. “Me, too,” he said, before finishing the climb and going to his room.
As soon as she put the car in park in the gym parking lot, Valerie closed her burning eyes and yawned. She rested her head on the steering wheel for just a second before turning the car off and grabbing her bag off the seat.
She should have skipped yoga this morning and gotten that extra hour of sleep instead. She could have done the workouts from her living room, but she tended to want to hide away in her home. Once she started skipping workouts, she’d just never go back. Over the last four years, she’d learned to force herself to come and go from her home, go out more, stay in less, training her brain to accept that as much as she loved the comfort and security of her locked house, she could not make it her default.
Which meant that even though she went to bed at midnight, that five o’clock alarm still rang, and she still got out of bed and prepared for yoga class, packing her makeup bag and clothes for the day so she could go straight to work from there.
She entered the gym and swiped her membership card at the desk. The young girl behind the counter gave her a very bubbly welcome, and Valerie smiled back, more at the girl’s enthusiasm than anything else. She stopped off in the locker room and set her bag on the foot of the locker and hung her garment bag on the hook.
Even though she’d only attended class here a couple times, this gym felt very comfortable to her. She had attended another gym in this chain when she lived in Savannah, and so much of it had the same feel. Most of that had to do with the identical décor and the same music piping through the speakers, but it still made her feel less like a stranger in a new town and more like someone who belonged here.
She found her classroom and went inside, stopping at the back table to initial next to her name on the roster. She slipped her flip-flops off and walked to the front of the room, finding a spot to unroll her yoga mat.
“Good morning, Valerie,” Brooklyn, the instructor greeted. “How is your Tuesday treating you?”
Valerie sat cross-legged on the mat and leaned back on her hands. “Late dinner party. It’s going to be a long day.”
“We’ll set you up for your day,” Brooklyn said with a laugh. She moved to the next person who had just come into the room.
“Valerie Flynn?”
Surprised to hear her name, she looked behind her and saw Sami Jones sitting on a fuchsia-colored mat. If she hadn’t said something to Valerie, she never would have recognized her as Brad’s secretary. Normally, the dark-haired woman wore bright colors and patterns, always with bold makeup and a hat or a head scarf or some other eccentric accessory. Right now, though, she wore a pair of black yoga pants and a gray T-shirt. She’d pulled her blue streaked black hair back into a ponytail and wore no makeup.
“Sami,” Valerie said with a smile, turning around to face her. “I didn’t even recognize you.”
Sami made a sweeping gesture over her face. “Nakedness. I’ve tried dressing up for yoga, but it feels wrong to leave a makeup mark on my mat.” She laughed and jumped up, picking up her mat and moving to the spot next to Valerie. “It’s so good to see you here.”
“Thanks. You, too.”
“I remember you coming for the first time last week. I just didn’t know who you were then.”
Valerie chose this particular location because of its proximity to the office. “Do other Dixon employees come here?”
Sami shrugged. “Probably. Not in this class, though, and this is about all I do. Sometimes I can do the spin class at night. Most days, I work from seven to seven. Brad, bless him, works long, hard hours. This five-thirty class is my mental prep for the day. I’ve never been out in the gym area, and I don’t take any other classes.”
“I have exercises I use for my hip. So, I’ll do yoga three days a week and the gym area for three days.”
“Your hip?”
Surprised, Valerie’s eyes widened. “You don’t know? Haven’t heard the gossip?”
“No time for gossip. Not much patience for it either, really. Just heard a few things.”
Valerie tried not to scowl. “What have you heard?”
Sami pursed her lips. “I know you’re coming from the Savannah office. And I know Buddy is your uncle and that you’re a childhood friend of the Dixon brothers. That’s about it.”
Valerie looked up at the fluorescent lighting and felt some hidden weight of stress suddenly leave. “I guess the gossip isn’t as bad as I thought. Maybe I’ll relax a little more.”
“You keep saying that. What gossip?”
“I, uh, had an ex-boyfriend who wasn’t a nice man. Since we were both architects with Dixon, I just assumed everyone knew what happened four years ago.”
“Hmmm.” She ran a finger over her bottom lip. “Let me think. Yes, I remember. I knew about it, but I didn’t know names.” She reached over and put a hand on Valerie’s forearm. “I’m so sorry you experienced something like that.”
Memories flashed through her mind’s eye. Shaking her head to bring herself into the present, she smiled. “I am way better these days than I was four years ago. This move was the final step in reclaiming myself. I’m happy to be home.”
Sami grinned and settled herself to face the front as Brooklyn called the class to order. “I’m happy you’re here, too,” she whispered.
Despite the lack of sleep, Brad entered the building whistling, ready to start his future with a new attitude. Something about right now signaled the beginning of the beginning. Usually, he got here before seven. This morning, though, he’d left later than usual and hit heavier traffic than normal, so he came into the lobby at the peak of the morning rush. Several people stopped him to briefly say good morning, to ask a question, or to simply confirm this meeting or that telephone call. By the time he made it to his private elevator, it was nearly eight o’clock.
As he stepped into his office, the overhead LED lights automatically came on. He set his backpack on top of his desk and pulled his laptop out of it. Just as he attached it to the docking station, his door opened and Sami walked in, a cup of coffee in one hand, her tablet in the other. She wore a blue and green flowered silk style dress that fell to her knees. She had her hair pulled up and blue chopsticks sticking out of the bun. She could no longer surprise him with her outfits.
“Good morning. I’m so glad to see you here and healthy. I was about to call you. Or, you know, the hospitals.” She set the coffee in front of him and brought her tablet to the ready. The steam rising from the cup caught the morning light shining through the window behind him.
He smiled. “I slept in, if you can believe it. Late night.”
“Your dad called about twenty minutes ago.”
Brad sipped the coffee and nodded. “He caught me on my cell.”
“And you have the meeting with the design team for the Nashville mall in fifteen minutes.”
“Right. Who’s the interior designer on that?”
Using the tablet, she pulled up the meeting information. “Blank. I’m guessing Owen hasn’t assigned one yet.”
Thinking of Owen Wakefield, the lead architect for this project and his personality and character, he nodded. “Okay. What else?”
“Nothing pressing.” She tapped on her screen then shut the cover on her tablet and turned toward the door but paused and turned back around. “Oh, one thing. How many in your reservation for Calla Jones’ restaurant opening? There’s an email requesting confirmation. Your brothers have all responded separately, so this is just you.”
He started just to say one but changed his mind. He had a few weeks to see what the future held. “Two. Thanks.”
“Two?” Sami smiled. “Got it.” She looked up at the clock on the wall. “Don’t forget the design team. Conference room two. This floor.”
“Thanks, Sami.” As the door shut behind her, he slipped out of his suit jacket, inverted it, and draped it over the back of the chair while he used his cell phone to call the architect. When Owen answered, Brad greeted, “Owen, Brad. Good morning.”
“Morning. What’s up, boss?”
“Have you selected a design architect for the Nashville mall yet?”
“I have. I just haven’t updated the meeting notice yet. Your dad asked me to bring on Flynn, Buddy’s niece, the one who came up from the Savannah office. She did some preliminary consultation on it way back when, so I’ve added her to the team. May I ask why you ask?”
“Nothing. I just noticed the hole and wanted to make sure that the team was complete. Thanks.”
“Sure. I’ll update the documents this morning.”
Brad set his phone on his desk and took another sip of hot coffee. He’d watched Valerie’s work from a distance for the last couple years, but he felt a little excited at the thought of getting to see her work up close, to sit in meetings with her and watch her interact on a professional level.
After fielding a couple time-sensitive emails, he grabbed his tablet and made sure he had the right project pulled up. Leaving his jacket off, he walked out of his office and into Sami’s. She took the empty coffee cup from him and refilled it from the carafe behind her desk. “Thanks,” he said, looking at his watch. “I think I have a lunch meeting today.”
Sami tapped the computer screen with the eraser of her pencil. “Chamber of Commerce. Twelve-fifteen.”
“Right. Thanks.” He pushed open her office door and stepped out into the busy office.
Interns, assistants, business analysts, and junior project managers worked in the maze of cubicles in the center of the floor. The offices of the senior project managers lined the walls all around the floor. Right off the bank of elevators were two glass-walled conference rooms that could have the center dividing wall removed to become one very large conference room. Projection screens and smart boards covered the rear wall.
Brad and his father both had corner offices with internal offices for their assistants. The elevators took up another corner, and the restroom area the last.
