Jamie found herself looking at the most amazing picture that she’d ever seen hanging on the wall behind the woman that really didn’t look happy to see her. She’d probably seen thousands of landscape photos in her life, but she’d never seen one quite like this one. The details were…
Enough to make her momentarily forget that she really couldn’t go through with this.
“No, wait! I can’t do this. This was a mistake,” Jamie said in a rush as he guided her over to the desk when all she wanted to do was turn around and make a run for it.
“You’ll be fine,” he said, lying to her because they both knew no such thing!
“I really won’t though,” she mumbled hollowly only to whimper when they reached the desk and–
“Good morning, Amy. I’m going to need you to cancel my conference call with Beijing this morning and see if you can reschedule the meeting with the Paris office this afternoon,” the man that wouldn’t let her run away, said.
“That shouldn’t be a problem, Mr. Bradford,” Amy said with a warm smile as she handed him a stack of messages while Jamie stood there, trying to make sense out of what was happening.
This was Sebastian Bradford? Jamie thought numbly as she looked at him, really looked at him, taking in his meticulously combed short black hair, the thin scar just above his right eyebrow, the way that his eyes lit up with amusement, and the way that he filled out his suit to perfection and swallowed hard, because she’d honestly been expecting a portly old man who would take pity on her andī
Oh, God…
“Would you like me to have breakfast sent up?” Amy asked, already reaching for the phone to do just that when the man that Jamie was here to beg for an interview shook his head.
“No need. My eight o’clock brought breakfast this morning,” he said, grabbing Jamie by the arm and led her toward the large imposing, ornate double doors.
“Is there anything that you need this morning, Mr. Bradford?” Amy asked, not really looking all that concerned that her boss was manhandling someone.
“Tell security that no one gets in without an appointment and hold my calls, please,” Sebastian said as he released his hold on Jamie to open one of the large doors before grabbing her arm again and pulling her inside before she had a chance to make a run for it.
“Umm, maybe we should talk about this?” Jamie said, trying to wrap her mind around what was happening.
“You’re interviewing me,” the man that she probably should have asked his name sooner, said, shrugging as he dropped the bag filled with baked goods on the coffee table to her left before heading toward a mini-bar to grab two bottles of orange juice while Jamie stood there, taking in the large, expensively decorated office that she’d been dragged into and found herself once again nodding like an idiot for no apparent reason.
“Okay,” she mumbled weakly as he handed her a bottle of juice and gestured for her to sit down.
“Where should we start?” the man who never gave interviews, asked as he sat down on a large, brown leather couch across from her.
“Okay,” Jamie found herself mumbling again as she sat down and tried to figure out what she was supposed to do since she hadn’t actually expected to get this far.
Lips twitching, the incredibly handsome man that she’d shared an elevator with helped himself to a lemon Danish from the bag as he said, “Why don’t we start from the beginning?”
And since that sounded like a really good idea, Jamie found herself nodding like an idiot and once again, mumbling, “Okay.”
Chapter 1
Twenty Years Earlier…
“Yeah, I’m not doing it,” Sebastian said as he stared down at his mother’s latest attempt to…
Well, he wasn’t exactly sure what it was supposed to be, but he knew that he didn’t want to put the gray-greenish, crumbling, oozing substance in his mouth. But the problem was that he’d been dared by his brothers, who were both standing next to him, pointing flashlights on the gooey mess as they took turns poking it with a spoon because none of them wanted to touch it with their bare hands.
“Then you forfeit,” Jonathan, his brother and the reason that they were all down here, said with a satisfied sigh as he reached over and plucked the iPad that their mother let Sebastian borrow, out of his hands.
“Wait. I want a turn!” Mathew said loudly, earning a glare, which was the only warning that he was going to get if he got them in trouble.
“You weren’t in on this,” Jonathan pointed out.
“It was implied!” Mathew hissed as he pushed the sleeves of his Scooby-Doo pajamas up, slowly exhaled, picked up the spoon and dug in and right before they had a chance to see if their little brother would survive, they heard it.
The sound of a door opening.
“Go!” Sebastian mouthed to his brother as they both slapped their hands over their little brother’s mouth, grabbed an arm and pulled him toward the back stairs.
“The brownies!” Jonathan whispered, making him frown until he remembered the gray mess they’d left on the counter.
Knowing just how badly this would end if their parents caught them out of bed, Sebastian released his hold on his little brother and mouthed, “Go!” before making his way back to the mess that he never would have guessed was brownies, slapped the foil on top of the pan, carried it back to the fridge, and slid it back onto the bottom shelf next to the brown mush that his mother had claimed was macaroni and cheese. As soon as he was done, Sebastian clicked the flashlight off and headed back toward the stairs.
In seconds, he was racing up the stairs, down the hallway, and sneaking into his room where he plucked the iPad out of his brother’s hands before climbing out their bedroom window with a satisfied sigh.
“Oh, come on!” Jonathan, who just happened to be afraid of heights, hissed while he blindly reached out as Sebastian crouched down on the small roof outside their bedroom window.
“Oh, is this what you wanted?” Sebastian asked innocently as he held up their mother’s iPad just out of reach of his brother’s mad grab.
“It’s my turn,” Jonathan said with a murderous glare as he leaned out the window another inch, but sadly, that just wasn’t going to do it.
“You’re right,” Sebastian said, nodding solemnly even as he shifted on the roof so that he could glance at their sister’s window to make sure that they hadn’t woken her up.
“So, you’re going to give it to me?” Jonathan asked, making Sebastian shake his head with a disappointed sigh, because really, his brother of all people should know better.
“I would. I really would but then, how would you learn?” Sebastian asked, returning his attention back to the iPad in his hands and pulled up Radcliffe Academy’s homepage, curious about the classes they were offering this fall.
“You could have just said no,” Jonathan said with a resigned sigh as he returned to the safety of their room.
“I could have,” Sebastian said, shooting his brother a wink as he stuffed the iPad inside his sweatshirt.
“Just don’t drop it. I want to check out the extracurriculars they offer before tomorrow,” Jonathan said as he grabbed a book off their desk and dropped down on the bottom bunk where he would most likely fall asleep before Sebastian came back.