Any Way You Want It (Brand Clan #2)(19)

“Yes, you can. Besides, you don’t have much of a choice. I’m disabling your access to the building that week—”

“What?”

“—so you might as well take your country ass down to St. Lucia and enjoy your birthday.”

Mona glowered at him for a moment, then contemplated the plane tickets in her hand. Remy could see the corners of her mouth quirking as she fought a smile.

“You couldn’t just bring me back a souvenir like normal people?” she grumbled.

“You couldn’t just squeal for joy and jump up and down like a normal girl?”

The smile broke through, but only for a moment. Briskly clearing her throat, she straightened her shoulders and gave Remy a stern look. “You have a meeting to prepare for, and I have work to do.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Remy teased, watching as she pivoted on her heel and marched across the room.

Reaching the doorway, she paused and glanced over her shoulder at him. Her expression was soft. “Thank you.”

Remy smiled. “Don’t mention it, kiddo.”

After Mona left, he set aside his empty coffee cup, then swung his legs down from the desk, rose from the chair and moved to the windows. Standing with his feet apart and his hands folded behind his back, he stared out over the industrial landscape.

As a SEAL he’d operated in the shadows, attacking where he wasn’t expected and vanishing before the enemy could strike back. He’d adopted that same mentality when scoping out territory for his new company, searching for areas that wouldn’t announce his presence to the world. He’d chosen the warehouse district for the obscurity of its location, which was also important since his firm housed millions of dollars’ worth of high-tech equipment and computer systems programmed with military applications.

Remy closed his eyes for a moment, his mind traveling back to three years ago.

After getting discharged from the navy, he’d struggled to adjust to life as a civilian. He’d spent nine years as a member of SEAL Team Three, and he’d lived for every moment of it. He’d always expected to retire on his own terms, but when his insubordination during a gruesome combat mission landed him in the crosshairs of the whitewashed bureaucrats at the Pentagon, he’d been bounced out on his ass.

For months afterward he’d felt adrift, angry and depressed. He became surly and withdrawn from his family and friends, and he’d often wandered out alone on frigid winter nights to walk the streets for hours, haunted by memories of what he’d seen and experienced.

Over lunch one day with Roderick, his twin had given him an ultimatum: find a new purpose in life, or move to Outer Mongolia to spare everyone from having to watch his continued descent into self-destruction.

Roderick’s dose of tough love was just what Remy had needed. That same day, the idea for Brand Security Solutions was born.

Though Remy would always miss serving his country as a Navy SEAL, he enjoyed running his own company and answering to no one.

Well, almost no one.

At the sudden knock on his door, he turned from the window, prepared to explain to Mona why he was daydreaming instead of preparing for his nine o’clock meeting.

The words died in his throat at the sight of the man standing in the doorway behind his assistant.

Lieutenant Commander Sam Keegan.

In the flesh, as if he’d been conjured by Remy’s trip down memory lane.

Mona looked slightly aggrieved. “Sorry to intrude, boss, but you have a visitor.”

“I’ll be damned.” Recovering from his shock, Remy rounded the desk and crossed the room to greet his former commanding officer. “It’s good to see you, sir.”

“Likewise, Lieutenant Brand,” Keegan said, strong fingers grasping and pumping Remy’s hand. “You look good, son. And I see you haven’t lost your grip.”

“On reality or...?”

They laughed at the old joke.

“I apologize for just barging into your office,” Mona told Remy, “but Mr. Keegan was too impatient to wait in the reception area.”

Remy grinned. “That doesn’t surprise me.”

Sam Keegan was tall and robust, with piercing green eyes and the erect bearing of the decorated war veteran he was. Before retiring from the navy two years ago, he’d had a reputation for being a formidable, ass-chewing leader who was both feared and revered by the men of SEAL Three. A fellow Chicagoan, he’d mentored Remy from the time he joined the Teams until he was discharged, earning Remy’s undying loyalty and respect.

“Hope I’m not catching you at a bad time,” Keegan said.

“Actually—”

“Not at all,” Remy spoke over Mona. He gestured to the chair across from his desk. “Please have a seat.”

As the commander strode toward the proffered chair, Mona pointed to her watch to remind Remy of his nine o’clock meeting. He nodded before closing the door in her face.

As he rounded his desk and sat down, Keegan observed with wry humor, “She’s a pistol, isn’t she? Ex-military?”

Remy laughed. “No, believe it or not.”

“Too bad. She’d have made one hell of a drill sergeant.”

“I know. Uncle Sam’s loss is my gain.”

Keegan huffed a gravelly laugh.

He’d grown out the military buzz cut, but his steel-gray hair was still meticulously groomed, and he wore a well-tailored charcoal suit with the same air of authority he’d once worn his navy blues.