Resolutely she opened the first drawer and began to sort through the files. An hour later, after memorizing every client name from A to M, Trish came to the Mansfield file, the one Adam had requested. He still wasn’t back from his meeting so she looked through the file, studied the issues involved in the deal, then laid the thick folder on Adam’s desk.
Finished with the tasks he’d assigned her, Trish checked her e-mail, printed her list of job priorities. She vowed to be on time every day and to do her job to the best of her ability while creating a pleasant work environment for everyone around her. She would make herself an invaluable member of Adam’s team.
And then she would destroy him.
Two
“I’m telling you, the woman’s gone off the deep end with this marriage thing.” Brandon Duke paced in front of the Dunsmuir Bay Yacht Club’s wide bay window, ignoring the picture-perfect view of sailboats and blue skies lying beyond the glass. “She’s obsessed.”
“Why is that a surprise?” Adam grinned, then took a quick sip of strong coffee. “And why are you so freaked out? It’s not like this is the first time Mom’s tried to talk us into getting married. She wants grandkids and we’re not cooperating.”
“That’s right,” his brother, Cameron, said, sitting back in the comfortable captain’s chair. Despite the thousand-dollar business suit and silk designer necktie, Cameron looked completely relaxed. But Adam knew he never relaxed. A former Marine, Cameron was more driven, possibly more ruthless, than anyone Adam had ever known. Except himself.
“Remember when she forced us all to watch videos of her wedding day?” Cameron asked, shaking his head. “She thought it would soften us up or something.”
“That was gruesome,” Brandon agreed. “But the wedding cake looked good.” He stretched his wide shoulders, glanced around the busy dining room, then sat down at the table and studied the yacht club breakfast menu. “Are we eating or what?”
“Are we breathing?” Adam said with a laugh.
“You’re always eating,” Cameron said to Brandon as he picked up the menu.
Brandon ignored his older brothers and signaled the waitress over. “I’ll have pancakes, eggs and bacon. And toast. Better make it a double order of toast.”
“I’ll have the Denver omelet,” Cameron said, and set the menu down. “And throw in a short stack, will you, Janie?”
“You bet, Mr. Duke,” Janie, the waitress, said. She turned to Adam. “How about you, Mr. Duke?”
“I’ll stick with coffee,” Adam said. He needed the jolt to snap him out of the knee-jerk reaction he’d had to his new temporary assistant earlier. If he’d been more awake, she never would’ve caught him so off guard.
Janie poured more coffee, then scurried off.
Brandon said solemnly, “Look, guys, about Mom. This time it’s different. She’s serious. You should’ve heard her on the phone with her pal, Beatrice. She’s lined up a whole squadron of friends to work on this thing. They’ve already got women lined up for each of us.”
“Oh, yeah?” Cameron said with a leer. “I’m always on the lookout for new women. Remind me to thank her when I see her this weekend.”
Adam raised an eyebrow. “If you really want to date someone Mom picked out, there’s always Susie Walton.”
Cameron shivered visibly at the high school memory. “Why’d you have to go and spoil my appetite like that?”
“That’s my job.” Adam turned to Brandon. “Did you tell her you’re on to her?”
“Hell, no,” Brandon said. “The woman’s a runaway train and I don’t feel like getting flattened.”
“Smart.” Adam stared out at a sailboat passing by under motor power until it made its way into the marina channel. He shook his head. “What makes her think I’d marry any woman she threw at me?”
“Good question,” Brandon said, stymied.
“What makes her think we’d marry anyone, ever?” Cameron said.
“She’s Mom,” Brandon said with a shrug.
“Yeah.” Cameron sighed. “She’s like a heat-seeking missile when she gets a bug up her butt.”
“Interesting mixed metaphor,” Adam said as he lifted his coffee cup. “But apropos nonetheless.”
Cameron shot Adam a look of derision. “Dude, apropos? Nonetheless?”
Brandon slugged Cameron’s arm. “Leave him alone. He’s using his words.”
Cameron snorted. “Right. Sorry.”
Adam disregarded them. “The bottom line is, she’s not setting me up,” Adam said easily.
“That’s my point,” Brandon persisted. “She’s not setting anyone up. It’s going to be a surprise attack this time. She told Beatrice, and I quote, ‘They won’t know what hit them.’”
His two brothers shared a look of amusement, but Brandon wasn’t cowed. He shook his finger at Adam. “Ignore me at your peril, dude.”
Adam glanced at Cameron, who raised his eyebrows at his brother’s adamant tone but said nothing.
Brandon saw the exchange and held up his hands. “I’m just saying, watch out. You’re first on her list, Adam. And if you fall…”
“I won’t,” Adam said.
“Good luck,” Brandon grumbled. “The woman’s diabolical.”
Cameron took a sip of coffee, then wiped an imaginary tear from his eye. “It’ll be so poignant watching Adam tie the knot.”
Brandon grinned and joined in with a few fake sniffles. “Our little guy’s all grown up.”
“Very funny,” Adam said tightly. “I’m not tying any thing.” He looked from Cameron to Brandon. “And neither are you two. We made a pact.”
The men grew silent as Adam’s words took them back to the day when three eight-year-old boys were forced to make peace with each other. They’d been fighting all morning until their foster mother, Sally Duke, had had enough. She put sandwiches, chips and boxes of juice up in the custom tree house she’d had built for them and warned them not to come down until they could learn to live as brothers.
They were up in that tree house for hours before the dark and dirty secrets began to spill out. Cameron confessed about life on the edge with his junkie mom. Brandon talked without emotion about his father, who beat him regularly until the man was killed in a bar fight. His mother had disappeared long before that, so Brandon was put into the foster care system.
Adam had never known his parents. He’d been abandoned outside a hospital at age two, then raised in an orphanage and a series of foster homes, one worse than the next. He’d been thrown out of four homes and was on a collision course with juvenile hall when Sally Duke found him and took him home.
All three boys were considered bad risks, but that hadn’t deterred Sally, a young, wealthy woman who had recently lost her husband and had plenty of love to share. Sally’s beloved husband had been a foster kid, too, and she wanted to give back to the system that had produced such a fine, self-made man as her husband, William.
Up in that tree house, having divulged their secrets, the three boys swore allegiance to each other. From that moment, they were blood brothers and nothing would split them apart. As part of their pact, they swore they would never get married or have kids because, based on their experience, married people hurt each other and parents hurt their kids. Even if Sally kicked them all out of her big house on the bluff overlooking Dunsmuir Bay, they swore they’d remain brothers forever.
But Sally was determined to make sure the boys knew that her home was their home, that they were a real family now. She was strict when she needed to be, but always warm and loving, and all three boys had thrived in her care. Eventually, she was able to adopt them and give them her last name. The Duke brothers grew up as a force to be reckoned with.
“Here you go,” Janie announced. She placed their breakfast plates down and Adam watched his brothers begin to eat with gusto.