Anyone But Rich (Anyone But..., #1)(57)

I finally let him slide back down, but I knew I wasn’t far from losing my temper again. “You’re going to tell me this all goes away if I break things off with Kira. Is that right?”

“No, not exactly. I’m going to tell you that you will break things off with Kira, and you will propose to Stella.”

I hadn’t realized Cade and Nick had caught up to us until I heard Cade suck in a breath between his teeth. “That’s not going to go over well,” Cade whispered.

“Agreed,” Nick said.

“How much are they paying you?” I asked Mayor Summerland.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. This was my idea.”

“Right. Because you have so much personally invested in Stella and me getting engaged.”

The mayor conceded his lie with a small tilt of the head and a shrug. “It doesn’t really matter, does it? The facts are clear. You do what we want, or your headquarters is going to fail every inspection and commit every code violation in the book. It’ll be years before this is anything but a hunk of expensive materials. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you boys and your company invested quite a bit in this little stunt, right?”

Cade whistled. “Damn, Mayor Summerland. You should grow a pointy little mustache so you can twirl it after you say diabolical shit like that. Seriously. It’s all that’s missing.”

“A top hat would be good, too,” Nick added. “It would cover the fact that he’s starting to go bald.”

“Well, what is it going to be?” asked the mayor. “Do you boys want to test my patience, or have you realized there’s only one smart way out of this?”

“Me?” I asked. “I’m going to go find your daughter. I’ll tell her how much I enjoyed last night, and then I’ll take her out again tonight. Maybe we’ll start off at the town fair and work our way back to my place.”

Nick cleared his throat. “I’m not sure if that’s tacky or not, considering the circumstances.”

“I approve,” Cade said. “Personally, I think Rich should’ve added a little more detail. You know, tell him how his daughter likes it rough or something.”

Mayor Summerland was watching us with a clenched jaw. It was good to see I’d finally broken through his cocky indifference. I didn’t care if I’d crossed any lines. The man was lucky I had enough restraint to stop myself from releasing with my fists the anger that was boiling inside me.

“I’ll let them know you’ve made your decision, then,” the mayor said. He walked into our building, and I heard the sound of the doors locking.

“Did he just lock us out of our own building?” Cade asked.

“Yeah,” Nick said, “but the south wall isn’t even finished being built yet. If we really wanted in, we could just walk around to the back of the building.”

I shook my head. “I can’t do what he wants.” I looked between my brothers and wondered if they would resent me for this. The company was ours. It was our asses on the line and our money. I had the power to undo all the damage that was coming, but I knew I wasn’t going to do what they wanted.

“I don’t want you to,” Cade said. “I wish he’d told me not to do something too. I can’t even have justice sex to spite that dickless dweeb.”

“Justice sex,” Nick mused. “I’m fairly sure there’s no such thing.”

Cade looked at him like he was an idiot. “There are all kinds of sex. I wouldn’t expect you and your inactive dick to understand that, though.”

“Is this really the most important conversation we should be having right now?” I asked.

“Inactive dick?” Nick said. “Just because a woman is willing to have sex with you, it doesn’t mean you should. I have higher standards than you. That’s all.”

Cade laughed. “Okay. First of all. I’ve turned down plenty of women. Second of all, I happen to be very selective about who I will spend my time with. And third, let’s not kid ourselves. ‘High standards’ is just code for you having such a hard-core crush on Miranda that you’re not willing to date anyone else.”

“And you’re over Iris, I guess?” Nick asked.

I opened my mouth to try again to get them back on a more important topic, but I knew better. When the two of them got into arguments, there was no separating them until they’d hashed it out.

“Um,” Cade said, “obviously. She’s a small-town police officer. I mean, come on. I can’t think of two less sexy words than that.”

“Are you being serious? Small-town police officer. That’s four words, you idiot.”

“They are compound words. Now who is the idiot? When you say them in a pair, it only counts as one word.”

Nick threw his hands up in frustration. “Forget the words. I’m just saying if you didn’t still want to get back with Iris, you wouldn’t have been so eager to come here.”

“You three could argue about all of this somewhere else,” came a muffled voice from behind the door of the headquarters. It was Mayor Summerland. “I was just waiting for you all to leave, and then I was going to go to my car.”

“Fuck you,” shouted Cade. He slammed his fist into the door three times to emphasize his point.