pertinent information.
Taylor asked a question, drawing everyone’s attention. Royce watched her openly, not a hardship since she was beautiful. He appreciated the way she’d come in today sans drama about Saturday night. She’d always been professional at the office, even though he remembered her differently when they were kids. She and Gia were about the same age, but Royce was six years older than the girls, and only a few years older than Bran. While Royce didn’t exactly hang out with any of them when he was younger, social situations mashed them together.
Charity functions, raffles, art shows and galas like the Valentine’s Day celebration on Saturday put them in fancy clothes at fancy affairs on the regular. Even when he was a gangly sixteen-year-old and she and Gia had been fifth graders. He hadn’t thought of Taylor as more than his sister’s friend, including when the girls were teens and attending those same functions in ball gowns.
As he’d aged up, so had Taylor. He could begrudgingly admit that her changes hadn’t gone unnoticed. Charles Thompson’s candid discussion about how Taylor wasn’t a good romantic option for Royce had prompted no argument. Charles was like a second father and Royce respected the man immensely.
But since that very conversation, Royce had noticed attributes about Taylor that he hadn’t previously. Physical ones, sure, but also the way she handled her life. She wanted everything and wanted it all at once. Like a kid at a buffet who agonized over how she’d fit a spoonful of everything onto the same plate.
Royce was simpler than that. He did better when his focus was narrow. Unfortunately for everyone, it’d been Taylor who’d narrowed his focus to a fine point on Saturday night.
No matter the reaction to a rogue kiss, the wisest course of action was to set them back on the path from which they’d strayed. They both cared greatly for ThomKnox, Taylor having been thrust into the position of COO after her father passed last fall.
It was a loss she took hard and he noted now, and not for the first time, that those feathered lines around her eyes were a new addition. Grief had taken a toll on Taylor and her mother, Deena, most of all. Jack Knox and Charles Thompson were best friends who didn’t always see eye to eye but made the best decisions for the company. Since Charles’s death, Jack had been less about the company and more about skydiving lessons, traveling to Africa for safari and scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef.
His father might be having some sort of late midlife crisis, but Royce supported Jack’s decision to retire, regardless of who was chosen for the CEO position. Both brothers wanted it. Bran had a knack for fusing fun and hard work and ending up with a blend both investors and employees enjoyed, so he was a valid choice. Probably the better choice.
Approachability was not Royce’s strong suit. He was methodical and careful, prepared and concise.
Stella finished answering Taylor’s question, and Taylor smiled, her bow-shaped pink lips forming the words thank you. Royce felt a pull from the center of his stomach down to his groin.
When Taylor grabbed hold of him and kissed him at the gala, he hadn’t expected it. He’d only thought of her over the years as someone he shouldn’t be kissing. Ever. That kiss had snapped his control in two and ushered in a loss of equilibrium that had changed his world.
Who wouldn’t be tempted by that?
But temptation was a temporary dalliance. The moment had passed. He was determined to cram the meddling genie back into her glass bottle, wedge the cork and toss it out to sea. There was no room in a company about to lose their CEO and appoint a new one for squabbling between brothers. Especially over a woman as well respected as Taylor. She was in the upper echelon of ThomKnox. Investors liked stability. Nothing was more important than righting the already upset apple cart.
There was a certain order that Royce liked to keep and though change was inevitable, he preferred to get through it as quickly and painlessly as possible.
Taylor swept a lock of blond hair behind her ear, shifting in her chair so that one long leg slipped over the other. She circled her foot, wrapped in a tall black high heel and he allowed his eyes to trickle up a rounded calf to a supple thigh that vanished beneath the demure hemline of a black dress.
Stella’s voice faded into background fuzz and his brain blurred in much the same way. It wasn’t hard to admire Taylor before, but now that he’d had his lips on hers, he could easily imagine pressing those lush breasts to his chest and sampling her neck, smelling her soft perfume as he allowed the tip of his tongue to dip into her cleavage...
“Royce?”
By the sound of Stella’s voice, that wasn’t the first time she’d said his name. He jerked his attention to her, raking over Brannon’s grouchy visage on the way. Stella smiled patiently. “The numbers you wanted to share?”
“Yes, thank you, Stella,” he replied evenly. He flipped from one screen to the next on his tablet and pulled up the report, but the numbers stopped him cold. They were wrong. This wasn’t...
Fantastic.
The report he’d queued up was from last quarter, not the careful one he’d been preparing for the bulk of the morning.
“Um... One second.” Aware of every pair of eyes in the room on him, he opened a file in the Cloud and hoped to God he’d remembered to back it up there. Then he remembered he’d emailed it to both Brannon and Taylor. All he needed to do was pull up the sent email to access the correct report. He opened his mouth to tell Stella as much when Taylor spoke.
“I can take that question, Stella.” Warm hazel eyes swept over him, almost slate gray against the backdrop of her black dress. “Royce and I were discussing that this morning, and there was some confusion as to who was presenting. It appears that the numbers for this quarter showed a nice increase going into next...”
Royce, rapt, listened as she smoothly read the numbers he’d crunched this morning, numbers he’d planned on presenting. He hadn’t expected her to take over for him. But she had, sliding in and saving his ass as easily as she’d tugged his mouth down to hers last weekend. Impressed by her knowledge and ease with the topic, he couldn’t tear his eyes off her for a solid minute.
When he did, it was only because he felt Brannon’s gaze pinning him where he sat. Taking in his brother’s ire was nothing new—there were plenty of times when they’d seen the world differently. Their father assured them that it was healthy for brothers to bicker, but Royce didn’t think this situation was what Jack had in mind.
Locked in silent battle with Taylor between them, well... There was nothing healthy about it. It was bordering unhealthy. Royce could feel the animosity radiating off his brother and hoped to God no one else picked up on it.
He wouldn’t stand for it.
Within ThomKnox were their careers—all of them. The entire Knox family’s and Taylor Thompson’s, too. His father was retiring soon and her father had left her with bigger shoes to fill as well. They were the next generation of ThomKnox. Time they started behaving like it.
Royce had never, to his memory, missed his cue in a financial meeting—in any meeting. The wild card that had changed everything?
Kissing Taylor Thompson.
The last intimate moment they’d ever share.
He had to put this behind him—for the sake of their future. His eyes clashed with Gia’s and she quirked her lips in amusement as if saying Something on your mind, big brother?
Yes.
And he couldn’t afford to have his mind anywhere other than work. The company was about to undergo a massive transition. Either Royce or Brannon would be CEO soon—they’d each been groomed.
The smoother the transition went, the sooner they could return to their regularly scheduled programming.
Royce glanced at Brannon, only this time he’d made a decision. He was going to have a conversation with his younger