Page 16 of Mad Rivals (The Bradley Legacy #1)

Aligning Values

I drive to the bar and figure I can take an Uber home if I need to, and I head inside once I arrive.

I don’t see her, so I slip outside and wait near the door for her.

I’m wearing a hat since I’m dressed down in jeans and a T-shirt, and I’m more likely to be recognized when I’m not in businessman mode, and I keep my head down as I wait for her.

I’m surprised when I see her approaching on foot, and I study her for a beat. She hasn’t spotted me yet, and I’m not sure how I’ve lived in this city for my entire life and never run into her. If I had, out of the context of business, would things be any different?

Would she have given me a second glance if I had nothing to do with Bradley Group?

Somehow I think her dad still would’ve warned her off me, something that feels incredibly unfair to us both. We should be able to explore what we want without our fathers’ mistakes hanging over us, and yet…she won’t.

Which is highly unfortunate. My eyes fall to the way the jeans she’s wearing hug against her body, and I imagine that body moving beneath me .

I blow out a breath as I try to collect myself, and I kick off from the wall to head over to meet her on the sidewalk.

“Did you do something different with your hair?” she teases, and I can’t help it. I laugh. She’s funny as hell, usually because she’s being all demanding and uptight, but somehow being around her makes me feel this sense of joy that’s been missing from my life.

Maybe it’s the challenge, but maybe it isn’t.

I lift the hat from my head, and she tilts her head and pretends to study me.

“Ah, yes. There he is,” she says as I set the hat back into place.

“Less chance I’ll be recognized in a hat,” I say with a shrug, and I gently rest my hand on the small of her back to guide her toward the door.

She glances back at me as if she’s surprised by my touch, and I know this isn’t a date, but it’s also not a business meeting.

It feels sort of like a drink between people who could become friends if we could plot a path to get past our father’s mistakes.

But first, I need to know what those mistakes are.

It’s a Friday night, so of course it’s packed when we walk in, but I slip the hostess some cash, and she manages to find us a table. Kennedy orders a vodka soda, I order a beer, and it sort of feels like the two of us are just continuing our phone conversation here in person.

I lean in a little closer so she can hear me over the loud din of bar noise on a Friday night, and she leans in, too. The smell of coconuts is strong this close to her, and it’s pulsing something unfamiliar down low in me.

Before I can open my mouth to speak, she says, “So how are you going to prove I can trust you?”

I chuckle at her forward question. “I don’t really have a plan, to be honest. I guess I’ll just be myself and hope for the best.”

“Because that’s worked so well for you so far?”

I shake my head. “Because I learned a long time ago that you get a hell of a lot further in life being yourself than by pretending.”

“What taught you that lesson?”

I shrug, not sure I want to get into it, but if I’m going to earn her trust, I need to show her who I am.

“Back when I was in high school, my senior year, we won the state championship. I went to a party with people I didn’t know, and I guess I was trying to prove something.

I smoked some weed, not a big deal, but in hindsight, it could’ve cost me everything I’d been working toward.

If the college I’d already committed to decided to slap me with a random drug test, I would’ve failed.

It was in the morning when I woke up that I realized how stupid I’d been.

I was trying to be the guy who fit in with everybody when I didn’t even care about those people.

I didn’t even see most of them again. What did I care what they thought about me? ”

She tilts her head as if my story affected her in some way. “Have you done any drugs since then?”

I press my lips together and shake my head as the server delivers our drinks. “Only prescribed or over-the-counter ones. You?”

She holds up her glass of vodka. “This is about as hard as I go.”

Seems our values align there.

“I try to live a clean lifestyle. I have to in order to stay competitive on the field, but in the offseason, I don’t mind kicking back with a beer or two on the weekend.” I hold up my bottle, and she taps her glass to mine.

“My friend Clem and I have been known to share a bottle of vodka over a weekend, but that’s about as crazy as it gets,” she says with a smile.

“Clem. That’s the girl from the office, right?” I ask, and she nods. “You two are close. ”

She twists her lips, and my eyes flick there. “Very. She’s my best friend. We met our freshman year of college and have been inseparable since. We lived together after we graduated, worked these awful jobs in a terrible part of town, and quit together to start working for VBC.”

“It feels like there’s a blackmail story there,” I say with a twinkle in my eye, and she giggles.

“My parents have always wanted me to come work for the company, and I told them I would if they hired Clem, too.” She raises her eyebrows as if to say she got her way.

“Tell me more about your parents,” I say, and I notice the caution even in my own tone.

“You first.”

“Yeah, maybe that’s not such a good idea.

” I chuckle, but then I continue anyway.

“My father can be a dick, my mother can be totally absent, and somehow they got together at least seven times unless one of my siblings isn’t my full-blooded sibling.

” I shrug as if it doesn’t much matter to me either way.

“The seven of us were essentially raised by a team of caretakers—nannies, cooks, and housekeepers. My parents were always at the office. Always traveling for work. Always attending charity balls.” I take a long swig of beer before I press my lips together. “Your turn.”

She tilts her head a little, and she takes a sip of her drink, too. I notice hers is almost empty, so I signal the server to bring us another round.

“Similar except for my parents getting together seven times. Just the once.” She flashes a smirk.

“Didn’t need to try again after the first attempt was so successful.

But they both spent their days at the office.

They had the nanny bring me by, likely to parade me around and pretend like they were good parents.

They put me to work as soon as they could.

” She’s quiet for a beat, staring into her drink, and then she drains it.

“Sometimes I think the only reason they had a kid was to have someone to pass the company to. ”

“Do you really believe that?”

She twists her lips a little, and then she nods. “Yeah, I do. And I don’t know if I’m really that person.”

I can’t help but wonder how much vodka she had before she arrived and whether she’d be as honest about that with her supposed business rival if she hadn’t had a few drinks first. I’m also wondering if she doesn’t think she’s the person to take over VBC because she doesn’t want it or because she already thinks of herself as a failure.

She seems to have a pretty good handle on what she’s doing despite only being there a short time. Maybe she is that person, and she just hasn’t realized it yet.

Just as maybe I’m the right person for Bradley Group.

Instead of asking why she isn’t that person—something I can relate to more than she knows—I ask something else that I’m wondering. “Then why are you working there? Why’d you leave a graphic design job for this?”

Her eyes dart to mine, and I know I’ve mentioned it before, but she seems surprised I remember that about her.

The server drops by our next round before she answers, and she helps herself to a generous swig first. “There were a lot of little reasons, to be honest. Clem and I wanted to prove our independence, and we did for five long years. We lived in a shitty apartment in a bad part of town working shitty jobs we both hated.” Another sip of vodka.

“We were both working the kinds of long hours where you don’t even get to have a social life, and it sort of all came to a head.

I closed my eyes on the train home, and someone stole my wallet and my Kindle, and then I fell getting off the bus, and—” She cuts herself off and sets her hand over her eyes for a beat, and then she closes her eyes.

“And?” I prompt. It’s hard to imagine the sophisticated and smart Kennedy Van Buren as anything less than what’s seated beside me.

“And I had no money to buy dinner, limped home with a bleeding knee to listen to my neighbor banging his girlfriend, looked at the cracks in my walls, and asked Clem if she was happy because I was sure the hell not.”

“Was she?”

She shakes her head, and I can’t help but reach across the table and circle my fingers around her wrist. I give it a squeeze, and I’m not sure why. Solidarity, maybe. Sympathy.

Her eyes fall to the place where my hand connects with her skin, and I study her face as she studies my hand.

Her eyes are rimmed in red, and she sniffles a little as she makes these rather surprising confessions.

“All I wanted was a little independence. I wanted to make it on my own. My parents said the door was always open if I wanted to return, and I knew I had the solution for both Clem and me. I know the business. I was raised there. I worked there until I left for college. It just took admitting that I failed to the two people I most wanted to succeed in front of.”

“You didn’t fail.” My voice is soft and tender, and I’m not even sure where it came from.

Her eyes lift to mine, and I let go of my hold on her wrist.

“Babe, your wallet was stolen. You were in a dangerous situation. You got out of it. Why would you think that’s a failure?” I ask.

Her brows dip together. “Did you just call me babe ?”

My brows mirror hers as I think back. “Did I?”

“You did.” Her eyes have gone from red-rimmed to slightly twinkling, and I get the distinct impression she likes that I called her that.

If I did, it slipped out.

But if it slipped out, it’s because I’m starting to feel more and more like there’s something here. There’s enough between us that it feels appropriate to call her an endearment like babe . I just don’t know if she’s ready for it.

“Sorry. I meant to say tiger .” My eyes twinkle back at her, and then I drain what’s left in my second beer as I feel the intensity thicken between us.

And I can’t wait to take it to another level.