Did that mean they were rescheduling?

  “She was unfortunately needed elsewhere this morning, so I was asked to conduct these interviews. However, I am still fairly new to my current position within this company and I didn’t think it was fair for me to conduct these interviews without a senior staff member overseeing the proceedings.” She gave me a small smile. “See, I understand that job interviews are more than just applying for a new job. They are someone’s potentially new means of support. I didn’t want my lack of experience to result in an unfair opportunity for someone.”

  I sat there stunned at this woman’s insight into humanity. The world needed more people like her. “I appreciate your honesty and I’m grateful for your consideration on this matter.”

  There. That sounded professional, right?

  Ms. Proctor gave me a genuine smile. “Mr. Alexander had to step out to take a quick ph-” she was interrupted by the sound of the conference room door opening. “Oh, there you are.” When she stood up to receive him, I thought it would be best if I did too.

  I stood up-my stupid bag still clutched to my chest-and turned around with my hand already stretched out to take his in a hand shake and introduction.

  I couldn’t stop my eyes from widening to the size of dish platters.

  It was Blue Eyes.

  Fuck. My. Life.

  Kane~

  This morning was turning out to be shit. I was in my office, changing my tie, when my cell phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket and saw that it was Chase, so of course, I answered, “What?”

  Laughter rang out from the other end of the phone. “Good Morning to you, too, little brother.”

  I took a deep breath. “Sorry. It’s been a crappy morning.”

  “What happened? Last night’s flavor still there this morning?”

  “Fuck you, dude. First of all, I work around the clock, so I don’t have time to fuck around during the week. Secondly, I make sure they’re never confused about the sleeping arrangements.” Hell, now that he mentioned it, I can’t remember the last time I got laid. “Are you calling this morning just to check on the status of my dick or did you actually want something?”

  “Damn, dude! What’s gotten into you?”

  “Nothing, everything.” It took only two seconds for me to come clean. “I stopped by Mom’s this morning just to check in on her and I caught her on the phone with Dad.”

  Chase let out a hiss. “Fuck.”

  I set the phone on my desk and put Chase on speaker so I could finish tying on my tie. “Yeah, exactly. I swear, Chase, I tried not losing my shit on her, but she fed me that crap about it doesn’t matter if people have parted ways, when you create life with a person, you don’t just cast them aside like they don’t exist.” My mother’s words did nothing but fan the flames that licked at me every time she gave my father the time of day.

  “I get it. I’ll talk to her,” Chase promised like the big brother he always has been. Our piece of shit father was abusive when we were growing up. He would beat and cheat on our mother constantly and with no remorse whatsoever. I have a half-sister somewhere to prove it. Chase left home at age of eighteen and even though he only left us for a year, it was a year of pure hell. The more successful my brother and his friends became, the more our father became embedded in jealousy and bitterness. He tried, once, to drag my mother back home after we had moved out, but Chase had a fist to face talk with him and convinced him to leave her be.

  I shook my head to erase my mind of that man and this morning. “Anyways, why are you calling?”

  “Okay, yeah…so, you’ll need to check your bad morning at the door, dude. You’re still coming out to Dante’s with us, right?” Shit! I had forgotten about Isabella’s bazaar bachelorette party. “And before you try to weasel out of it, know that she wants you there and Julian will murder you if you don’t show.”

  I wasn’t a fool. Julian would really murder me. “Yeah, I’ll be there.”

  “Cool. Hey I have to go, but I promise to talk to Mom.”

  “Okay, thanks. See you tonight.” I hung up with my brother, and not twenty seconds later, my office phone rang.

  At least my damn tie was on.

  “Alexander,” I answered.

  I heard a rush of female breath come through the other line. “Kane, thank God!”

  I propped the handset between my ear and shoulder as I picked up the stack of messages and memos that were sitting in my inbox. “Wanda?”

  “Yes. How many other distracted and overworked females do you have in your life?”

  I laughed. Wanda was good for me. “Only you, sweet pea. What’s up?”

  She let out a huff. “I’m in a meeting with Patrick Branson and Melanie Dwayne. She’s accusing him of favoritism.” She rushed on before I could comment. “I asked Elise to conduct the interviews for the open receptionist position, but I don’t feel comfortable with her limited amount of experience with these things. I need you to oversee the interviews.”

  I take back that moment of insanity when I thought Wanda was good for me. “Wand-”

  “Please, Kane! Please, please, please! That position needs to be filled as soon as possible and it’ll take an hour tops. You can gift me a measly hour, Kane.”

  “You did get a rundown of the hierarchy here when you got hired, right? I’m supposed to be the boss,” I reminder her as I dropped all the paperwork I had in my hand back down on the desk. Looks like I won’t be getting to any of the messages this morning.

  “Don’t make me call your momma, young man!” Wanda was only ten years older than me.

  “Fine. But if this takes longer than an hour, I’m going to make you pay, Wanda,” I threatened.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” She hung up before I could remind her again that I was the boss.

  This Friday morning was turning out to suck donkey balls. First that shit with my mom, then getting coffee spilled on me at the café and now sitting through interviews.

  It wasn’t often that I had bad days. Growing up in the Deep East neighborhoods of Oakland, California, I am very familiar with the true definition of a bad day. My childhood was everything that was portrayed of inner city ghettos. But my brother and his two best friends, Julian and Nicholas, had worked together to invest all the money they earned working odd jobs after school and had made a lump sum investment when Chase had turned eighteen. Within a year, they had more money than anyone ever thought possible. Chase moved me and our mom out of the Oakland to San Jose where he, Julian and Nick had set up their own financial investment firm. Within a few years, they were a powerful force in the financial community. Chase sent me to college after I graduated high school and from there, they helped me bring to life K.A. Financial. I wasn’t raking in the billions that they were, but I was raking in more than I’d ever need.

  I was so grateful for every blessing I experienced each day that I rarely huffed and puffed, but I was finding it very difficult to brush that shit off this morning. Thoughts of my dad did that to me. The last thing I wanted to do was sit through interviews. That’s what I had Wanda for and she just left me to run off and chase her dreams.

  Okay, maybe not to run off and chase her dreams, but the abandonment was very real no matter what excuse she had. It wasn’t that I didn’t like people or I thought interviewing was beneath me, I was just very self-aware of most of my character flaws and in the current mood I found myself in, it was a bad idea to have me in these meetings…just saying.

  I plopped myself down on my leather desk chair and ran my hands through my hair in irritation. Leaning my head back against the headrest I thought about tonight. Julian’s fiancé had wanted to have a wild night of debauchery at Dante’s strip club. She was a karaoke addict, so I was surprised she didn’t pick a karaoke bar for her outing, though to be fair, it wasn’t really a traditional bachelorette party. It was just going to be Julian with his fiancé, Isabella, Nick with his fiancé, Avery and Chase with his girlfriend, Quinn at this weirdo party.

  Nick and Avery were really engaged and were going to begin planning a wedding in the near future. Julian, however, had just asked Izzy to marry him two days ago. She said yes on the condition that she gets a bachelorette party and no wedding. As God as my witness, we are all set out to fly to Las Vegas tomorrow just so Julian and Izzy can get married and then we’re all flying back.

  Those girls marrying into my family were strange little lambs, but I’d take a bullet for any of them in a heartbeat.

  For some reason, thinking about the girls steered my mind to this morning at Zoey’s and the waitress who spilled coffee on me. As annoyed as I was from the visit with my mom and as frustrated as I was at crashing into her-because truth be told, I was so caught up in my thoughts, it could have been my fault-I noticed way more about her than I should have.

  She was a short little thing, even shorter than Quinn’s 5’3”. And being 6’1” I had to really look down to her when she started apologizing. She had different shades of auburn gathered up messily in a clip, so I couldn’t make out the length, but her bangs fell above two perfectly matching delicate brows. Her irises were a deep russet brown encased in wide full lashed eyes. Of course, it could have been shock and embarrassment that widened her beautiful eyes. Her nose was straight and dainty and her lips looked like a man could live attached to them forever.

  When she had jumped back from the collision, I was able to make out two perfect handful sized mounds through her coffee soaked blouse. She wasn’t in danger of tilting over due to oversized silicone additions. She was all natural. As my eyes continued to follow down the path that was her body, I could see her body curve into a narrow waist, but it wasn’t until I saw what was below her waist that I almost sputtered in my tirade. Waitress Girl was blessed with a hell of a set of curvy, sexy hips that tapered down to a pair of thick thighs.

  Just reimagining her now had my dick twitching. But all that was nothing in comparison to when her boss came over and excused her. When she turned around to leave and presented me with an ass so spectacular, I almost bulldozed over her boss and ran after her, with every intention of kidnapping her.

  My laugh cut through the silence in my office as I thought of how Chase must be rubbing off on me. That’s, after all, the way he managed to snag Quinn. He kidnapped her one night and fake married her. Did I say earlier that only the girls in my family were strange?

  I knew I couldn’t put it off any longer. I dialed Elise. “Good Morning, Elise Proctor.”

  “Good Morning, Elise.” I didn’t need to identify myself. During the hellish year in which Chase was gone, my dad and I got into a rather violent fight while I was trying to protect my mother from him. He had managed to wrap his hands around my neck and he strangled me hard enough to damage my vocal cords. The result was my voice was now deep and gruff.

  “Oh. Good Morning, Mr. Alexander.”

  “I just hung up with Wanda and it seems as if I’ll be partnering up with you to conduct interviews this morning.”

  I could hear her expel a shaky breath. “Yes. Mrs. Manjorie told me you’d be sitting in.”

  “Just tell me where and when.” I took note of the time and realized they were scheduled to begin in a few minutes. I ended the call and stopped by the adjoining restroom to my office and gave myself one last look to make sure I looked the professional that I’m supposed to be. My new tie matched well enough and I couldn’t do anything about the finger tracks in my thick hair, but I truthfully didn’t care. I wasn’t sitting in these things to be discovered as the world’s next top model.

  I joined Elise in the second floor conference room and sat silently by while I observed her interviewing the candidates for receptionist. I could tell she was a bit nervous, but overall she was doing a good job. She began each interview apologizing for the situation and explaining my presence. My respect for her leveled up a notch at the insight she possessed. She came across as warm and not ‘corporate’.

  My phone rang in my pocket as she was finishing up with our only male applicant. I glanced down at the screen and saw that it was my mom. “I’m terribly sorry,” I interrupted, “but I need to excuse myself for a moment.”

  Elise gave me a quick nod and I made sure to shake hands with Gregory before I made my way through the opposing exit door. I answered, “Hey, Momma.”

  “Hey, Honey.” She paused a bit.

  “You okay?” I love my mom very much. Her happiness was very real for me.

  “I…I just finished talking with Chase.” She let out a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry, Kane. I know you boys don’t like it when I speak to your father, but everyone needs compassion and I’m just sorry it upsets you.”

  I closed my eyes and tried to beat off the red hues that were tainting my vision. Why can’t she just apologize without telling me what she thinks that sonofabitch is entitled to? “Momma, look, can we talk about this later? I’m in the middle of employee interviews and I just can’t do this right now.”

  “Okay, Son. I’m sorry.” She said quietly before she hung up.

  Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!! I hated hurting her feelings.

  I closed my eyes and counted to ten. I needed to get my shit together before I went back into that conference room. Fuck, maybe I should just let Elise finish the rest alone. She was doing a fine enough job. She didn’t need me. But then what would that say about me as a boss if I abandoned her?

  Like Wanda abandoned me.

  I walked back into the conference room and almost stumbled when I recognized a head full of auburn silk pinned up in a clip.

  No fucking way.

  Elise stood up to announce my presence and introduce me and when the applicant turned with her, I was once again greeted with a set of beautiful brown eyes.

  And once again, they were a big as saucers.

  Chapter 2

  Gluttony: Because, once the first curse word is out, why not just ramble them all off?

  Kamala~

  I knew my face had to resemble that of a cartoon character’s shock and awe, but seriously?? I also knew I couldn’t let his appearance ruin this opportunity for me, even if he was important around here.

  Ms. Proctor was oblivious to the tension that seeped into the air. “Ah, yes. Ms. Edwards, I’d like you to meet Mr. Alexander. As I explained earlier, he’s the one who’s been sitting in on these interviews.”

  Mr. Alexander??

  Mr. Alexander?! Fuck! Shit! Damn! Damn! Damn!

  Oh, please, please, please, let him be a cousin or younger brother or nephew or someone other than The Kane Alexander.

  I pulled myself upright as tall as I could make myself and kept my hand outstretched. “Good Morning, Mr. Alexander. Thank you for your time.”

  He shook my hand and because he knew, he set out to embarrass me. “Here, Ms. Edwards, let me take your bag.”

  Before I could decline, he literally ripped the bag from my hands and plopped it down on top of the conference table. I heard Ms. Proctor let out a small gasp. I instantly turned to her and started explaining, but not before my face flushed an unflattering red. “I…I…uh…I had a little mishap earlier and I thought it’d be better to show up a little…uh, harried than show up late to an interview.” I could feel this job slipping out of my hands. “I don’t normally look…I wouldn’t…if I got this job-”

  Ms. Proctor took pity on me. “These things happen, Ms. Edwards. Why don’t we all take our seats?”

  I snatched my bag off the table and placed it in front of my chest again as I sat down again. I was not going to let him bully me out of this job. If I didn’t get it, it was going to be because someone else was better qualified, not because I caved under his intimidating blue eyes. Ms. Proctor sat back in her seat as Mr. Alexander took the seat at the head of the table.

  Ms. Proctor cleared her throat and began asking all the basic Interview 101 questions. I answered them all as politely and as professionally as I could, but after a while, even she could feel the animosity radiating off of Mr. Are-You-Going-To-Replace-My-Tie.

  “I see here in your work history that you used to work as a receptionist for Allied Insurance. May I ask why you left their employ?” she asked.

  “I actually really enjoyed working for them and the work was really fresh and educational, but I had…uhm, I had some personal issues that needed my attention.”

  He finally broke his silence. “That’s surprising Ms. Edwards. Most business will work with a good employee when personal crisis arrive. Why wouldn’t they work with you?”

  I turned my head from a very shocked Ms. Proctor and gave Mr. Alexander my full attention. I didn’t miss how he stressed the word ‘good’. “They did…work with me, that is. Unfortunately for both of us, the personal time I needed off extended what they could grant me realistically as a business. We parted on very good terms and I was grateful for all they did allot me.”

  He leaned back in the chair. “So why didn’t they hire you back once you got your…uh, personal issues resolved? They are resolved, are they not?”

  I could feel my face heat with the rush of angry blood flowing through my body. This man wasn’t asking me these questions as part of the interview. He was asking them to humiliate me for some imagined slight. “They haven’t had any current openings for a while. As I stated, they are a very good company to work for, not many people quit.”

  He raised a perfectly arrogant brow at me, letting me know that it didn’t go unnoticed that I didn’t answer the personal issue portion of the question. “And your personal problems?”

  Ms. Proctor finally jumped in at the word ‘problems’. “Ms. Edwards, I think what Mr. Alexander is trying to…uh….well, do you foresee any difficulties in fulfilling the outline job requirements?”

  I turned my attention back to Ms. Proctor. “No, ma’am, I do not.”

  “Are you sure, Ms. Edwards?”

  I had to bite the inside of me cheek before answering Mr. Alexander again. “I’m certain, sir.” I almost choked on the word ‘sir’.

 

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