Cream of the Crop (Hudson Valley, #2)(10)

“Natalie.”

“Hmmmm?”

“Natalie,” I heard again, and I blinked. My mother, father, and brother were looking at me with amusement, my croissant squished in one hand.

My forehead was damp and I was hot all over, my pulse pounding. Good lord, I’d been daydream-f*cking Oscar at Sunday brunch?

“Excuse me,” I said, heading into the kitchen.

My mother was close on my heels. “We lost you there for a minute. Where’d you go?”

“Nowhere special.” I sighed, quickly drinking a cold glass of water. The chill spiked through my haze, bringing me back down to earth.

“Sure looked special, from the dreamy look on your face.” She started slicing more bagels for round two. “Anything going on that I should I know about?”

I’ve imagined an entirely separate life for myself based on the word Brie . . .

I haven’t been able to concentrate on one guy for more than an hour at a time ever since I saw the Cheese Man . . .

There was a moment yesterday where I thought thumb-stroking could quite possibly be my new favorite thing ever . . .

“Nope. Same old, same old,” I said. “But I landed a new account on Friday.”

“Sweetheart, that’s wonderful! Did you tell your father?” An artist by trade, my mother was tall, like me, but even more fair-skinned, which she took great pains to maintain. She kept the wide-brimmed-hat business hopping. Her long, thick red hair was usually worn in a lazy bun.

“Go tell your father, I’ll bring this along in a moment. Ask your brother if he ate all the olives already . . . I could have sworn there were some for the platter . . .” As she looked for the lost olives, I smiled and headed back into the dining room.

My father had begun the crossword puzzle, so before he got too far into it, I sat down next to him and plucked the pen from his hand. “I’m supposed to tell you I landed a new account on Friday,” I announced.

Todd peeked over the top of his newspaper. “Congratulations!”

“Thanks. And I’m supposed to ask you where all the olives are. Mom’s going crazy trying to find them.”

My brother grinned. “Olives? Never heard of ’em.”

“She’ll kill you,” I said with a knowing look.

My father took off his glasses and cleaned them with the edge of his shirt, looking at my brother. “If you’ve hidden them somewhere, I’d strongly recommend that you go put her out of her misery.”

Todd headed into the kitchen with a grin, and a moment later we heard, “Stop teasing your poor mother!”

“So, tell me about this new account,” my father said, giving me his full attention. I told him everything, from how I’d come up with the pitch, to the research I’d done into past campaigns and how effective they’d been in the marketplace. He listened and nodded, asking a few questions as I went along.

“I know Mike Caldwell, the guy you pitched to. He’s tough,” my father said, a look of pride on his face.

My father was head of Grayson Development, a real estate development company operating in the five boroughs. He’d moved into Brooklyn ahead of the renovation curve twenty years ago, and could have retired long ago based on that building boom alone. He developed some commercial, but he mostly concentrated on residential. Occasionally high-rises, but mostly prewar conversions in the smaller buildings. He loved a brownstone.

“You could have asked me for an introduction, Natalie. I would have been happy to put in a good word for you and MCG,” he said.

“I know that.” And while he would have called up this client in a heartbeat, he also knew that I didn’t need him to. Which made him even more proud. Which in turn made me all preeny. From the beginning, my father had instilled in my brother and me that you carve the path you wanted, and then you work like hell until you get it. Not that he’d ever be opposed to offering a helping hand, as in introducing me to Mr. Caldwell. But I was proud knowing that I’d gotten where I was in life on my own. “I did kind of kill it in the pitch,” I said with a quiet smile.

“Of course you did!”

My mother came into the dining room with the bagel platter then, and all shop talk ceased as brunch continued. Where my father instilled the “get where you need to go on your own” mentality, my mother instilled the other half of my “take no prisoners” attitude. Family first, but never sacrifice yourself in the process. She was already an up-and-coming artist when she met my father, and in the middle of their whirlwind romance they had an unexpected surprise: my brother. She could have set her own life aside to make a home for my father, but they were equals in every way and they made sure neither sacrificed more than the other.

As I watched them move around our dining room, each perfectly complementing the other, I sighed in contentment, knowing that no matter what happened outside these walls, my mother and father would be inside, keeping it together.

Brunch continued, plans were discussed for the upcoming week, and other than an occasional look from my mother that told me she definitely knew something was up but was biding her time, I managed to keep my dairy fantasies to myself until I got home.

When I got in bed that night, however, I let them fly.





Chapter 3

“Okay, team, did everyone bring their agenda with them?” Dan asked the assembled group, and was greeted with the usual acknowledgments. Monday-morning meetings were early, they were efficient, and they were murder without coffee.