Brazenly Beau Page 5

  “What the fuck are you smiling about, huh?” Denny asks, pulling me from my girlish daydream and back to my shitty reality as he lumbers back to his office.

  I’m sitting at the reception desk, where he makes me “work” in order to earn the money that is technically already mine. Really, it’s just another way he likes to control my life. Little does he know that I’m about to change all of that once and for all.

  Normally, thinking about my plan to get out from under Denny’s rule excites me. But ever since Chase and I shared that brief moment, I can’t help but question whether or not I’m making the wrong choice. I shake myself out of it just as the phone rings, thankfully preventing Denny from berating me for more daydreaming. I can’t be making the wrong choice — I’m making the choice that is right for me at this time, and that’s all that matters.

  “Good afternoon, thank you for calling Miller & Marks Real Estate, how may I direct your call?” I say sweetly into the phone, trying not to laugh at Denny’s rage when he hears me call it that.

  Technically, the company is now called Marks Real Estate; Denny barely waited for my dad to be buried before changing the name. But, because he’s a garbage human who doesn’t deserve the company my dad built from the bottom up, I like to slip up sometimes and call it by its rightful name.

  Sure, I probably shouldn’t antagonize him, since he has the ability to make my life a pure hell — which he has only demonstrated to me about 400 times since my dad died four years ago and Denny was named sole beneficiary of his estate. Which was a surprise to me, since I didn’t even think Dad liked Denny all that much.

  They were not related by blood — Denny was Dad’s stepbrother who came into his life when Dad was in high school. There always seemed to be some sort of one-sided rivalry with Denny trying to outdo Dad any way he could.

  Despite that, their parents forced the brothers to spend time together and eventually invested in Dad’s business with the caveat being that he bring Denny on board.

  Denny ends his phone call and calls me into his office without even the pretense of politeness.

  “I need you to run these down to the Alameda site,” he says, barely looking up from his computer to gesture at a thick manila envelope. “You’re to have those signed and then bring them back immediately. Do you think you can handle that?”

  God, he was so smug and condescending, I wanted to punch him in the teeth.

  Instead, I let my mouth get away from me. “If it’s so important, why don’t you do it yourself?”

  “Oh, niece of mine, when will you learn that pushing back against me will get you absolutely nowhere. I’ll expect those back here before closing tonight,” he says, waving me toward the door as if we hadn’t been in the midst of a conversation.

  Okay then.

  An hour later, after navigating the brunt of LA’s late afternoon traffic in order to reach Burbank, I park my car at the job site and take a deep breath. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a site, but once upon a time, back when my dad was around, he used to let me go to work with him sometimes. He loved being hands on, especially in the early days before Miller & Marks blew up, so he worked right alongside the crew on most of the jobs.

  Those times with him, when he’d let me wield a hammer or direct the crew on what to do next as he laughed in the background — they’re some of my favorite memories of him.

  The last thing I want to do when facing a crew of guys I don’t know is burst into tears, so I steel myself and give myself a little mini pep talk in the car. This is okay. I can do this.

  Of course, I’m not even remotely dressed for navigating uneven and gravelly pavement, considering I thought I’d be in the office all day. I’ve got a pencil skirt on that doesn’t exactly lend itself to taking long strides, plus my adorable summer wedges that look cute but aren’t the construction worker’s preferred shoe of choice. It could be worse, I suppose. At least I’m not wearing stilettos.

  As I teeter down a slight incline leading down to the command tent, I curse myself for being such a stereotypical girl. I can sense all the men around me pausing in their work to stare as I walk by, and I try my best to not trip. I’ve never been one who loved attention like this so, though I’d love to hold my head high and walk in here like Erin Brockovitch, that’s just not my style.

  To the guys’ credit, there are no wolf whistles or catcalls or anything of the sort, which I’m relieved for. Still, I feel their eyes on me as I finally step over a large boulder and into the tent.

  Inside, there’s a gruff-looking man in his late 30s staring intently at a laptop screen and muttering to himself. He barely looks up when I enter.

  “Uh, excuse me… I’m looking for Beau,” I say, and he finally looks up. I don’t know what I expected, but he narrows his eyes upon seeing me, like I’ve displeased him by my mere presence.

  “First of all, who are you? And second of all, what in the good goddamn are you doing here without a hard hat? Are you insane?”

  I almost turn and run from him then, not because I’m scared, but mostly because I’m ashamed that I clearly forgot my dad’s number one rule for job sites: safety first. He would have never let me come visit him at work again if he knew I was walking around without a hard hat.

  I shake myself out of the memory as I accept the hard hat from Beau’s hand.

  “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking. Anyway, I’m Dakota, I work with Denny over at Marks and uh… well he asked me to bring you this and bring back the signed copies.”

  Beau takes the thick manila folder from my hand, seeming annoyed once more. Then, he seems to think of something.

  “You said Dakota?”

  I nod.

  He stands up abruptly and heads toward the tent’s exit.

  “I’ll be right back. Please have a seat if you’d like,” he says, and then he’s gone.

  What the fuck?

  I’m a bit annoyed, though I suppose Beau is just a man of few words. I guess I have nothing else to do but wait like he asked me to do.

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