Owned by Fate (Serve #1)(33)

“Ah, come on. You’ve got a few to spare.”

“Are you asking for a donation?”

He sent her an affronted look, but his eyes were full of humor as he tossed the iPhone onto her lap. “All right, put on your bubble-gum pop music. I won’t tell anyone.”

She scrolled through the selections on Oliver’s iPhone, fingers freezing when she landed on Radiohead. Memories bombarded her. Jonah kissing her furiously; his mouth, hot and possessive; his sure touch delving between her legs while bass pumped from some invisible source. That first night, he’d put one of their songs on repeat, but she had no idea which one. Why was she tempted to put the band on shuffle, hoping it came on? It would accomplish nothing, except possibly make her hot and bothered two feet from her brother.

Yuck.

“The iPhone doesn’t operate under mind control, Ro,” Oliver said. “You operate it manually. Archaic, I know.”

“Sorry,” Caroline said, quickly selecting Lady Gaga and placing the iPhone back in the cupholder. “So…are you still seeing Holly?”

“Holly?” He rubbed a hand over his jaw. “Oh, Holly. No, no. We only went on a couple of dates, but then she bought the cat.”

“Getting a cat was a reason to stop seeing her?”

“She attached an engagement ring to his collar and had him delivered to my office. Along with a written marriage proposal.”

“O-kay. Sayonara, Holly.”

Oliver grinned, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “That’s what I get for breaking my one-date rule. Anyway, I have a date with Nina the ballerina tonight. Just the one date.”

Caroline smiled out the passenger window. “You’ve always been a sucker for rhymes. Didn’t you date Sally O’Malley in high school?”

“Sure I did.” She caught his wink reflected in the glass. “Often, too.”

This was why she loved her brother. No matter what was happening in their personal and professional lives, they were still friends. She should just bring up the article. If he was laughing with her, how bad could the conversation be? She started to talk, but Oliver cut her off.

“So, if you had to guess, how big is the brick our father is shitting right now?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Gross.”

“Sorry, but this is just too poetic.” Oliver’s white teeth flashed as he smiled. “Since your article went live, the IT crew has been working around the clock because our website keeps crashing. Our subscriptions have doubled.” He cast her a sidelong glance. “You might have been pretty noncommittal, but this proves people are curious. And buying.”

Caroline massaged her forehead, but it did nothing to clear her jumbled thoughts. The article had been a success? That was…unexpected. “It’s just morbid curiosity. I doubt anyone is taking it seriously. How many readers have canceled their subscriptions?”

“Significantly less than have subscribed.” His expression held none of the I told you so that it should have. Her brother didn’t have that mentality, but it was there between them nonetheless. Was it possible that he’d been right all along? That their readership could be open to more risqué subject matter?

Look at your punishment, Caroline. You’ve displeased your master.

She wanted to tear her hair out. Why wouldn’t those words leave her alone? After their encounter in the limousine, she’d returned to her office only to be plagued by his scent, killing her concentration. When she’d shuffled aside some papers, she’d found the package of licorice he’d left behind. Instead of throwing it away as she should have, she’d brought it home and placed it on her dining room table, leaning down to sniff the package when she couldn’t resist anymore.

Really, she should be worried about herself. Possibly seeking professional help. If it were simply a physical craving, Caroline could have abandoned her moral high ground and gone back for more by now. But the more Jonah revealed to her, the more she cast aside her own beliefs, and that scared her. The big bad Dom she’d created in her mind was also an unwitting father fighting for the chance to know his child. His plight pulled at her, forced her to see Jonah bathed in a different light. Had his visitation case been affected by her article? Her instincts begged her to find out, to comfort him and make it right.

No. She needed to stay the course. Focus on her investigation into Joseph Kimble’s Ponzi scheme and work on catapulting Preston’s back into relevance—without compromising her father’s vision. Saving her family’s publication needed to be foremost in her mind. Not the man who was somehow ruling her body and mind from a distance.

“This doesn’t guarantee the merger,” she finally managed. “It’s too soon to make a decision.”

Her brother nodded, as if he’d expected that. A heavy pause ensued before he spoke again. “I’m not going to ask how you knew about what happens upstairs,” he said quietly. “Just tell me you’re being careful.”

“I am,” she forced past lips that felt numb.

She breathed a sigh of relief when they finally pulled up in front of their father’s house. Oliver drove through the wrought-iron gate and turned into the long, paved driveway. Their father had bought the enormous house in Garden City, Long Island, the very same day Adele, their mother, told him she was pregnant with Oliver. Both she and Oliver were raised inside its walls and, as always, the sight of her childhood home brought on a wave of nostalgia. Posing for pictures outside the front door every single first day of school. Oliver, attempting to sneak out through his window in the middle of the night and getting his pants stuck in the trellis. Seeing her first car parked in the driveway, the one she’d worked two summers to afford. Despite the family’s financial health, there had been no freebies in the Preston household. Laziness or entitled attitudes had not been tolerated.