Page 3 of Mad Rivals (The Bradley Legacy #1)

Wild Nights with a Stand-Up Guy

“Are you happy?” I ask Clem after I’ve changed into sweats and cleaned up my knee.

She poured us each a bowl of some off-brand Cheerios, and I guess that’s dinner tonight.

She twists her lips. “Truth?”

“Always.”

She shakes her head. “No. Not even a little.”

“Me either,” I admit.

“This isn’t it. You know? This isn’t what I want out of life,” she says. “Slogging back and forth to a job that sucks with a long-ass commute and no time to get out and just have some fun. No time to meet hot guys and have a wild night of crazy sex. No time to do anything .”

I nod. “Agree. I hate it here. I hate this apartment.” I glance at the crack in the wall that we complained about two years ago that still hasn’t been fixed. “I hate the commute. I hate my job. But I love you.”

“I love you, too. And I love our pact to live together until one of us gets married, but if it’s here…I just don’t know how much longer I can do it. ”

I take a bite of my cereal, and then I clear my throat. “What if I have the solution, but it goes against everything we believe in?”

She focuses her gaze on the slats of the vertical blinds covering our patio doors that have never hung quite right. One is missing, so there’s always a way for outsiders to peep inside at our shitty apartment.

“I’d trade my morals for a better situation any day of the week,” she says.

I laugh, though the truth is that it’s not really all that funny.

“My parents have a job waiting for me back home. One with a big paycheck and plenty of benefits.”

Her brows crinkle. “Okay? Well, I’m happy you’ll get out of this at least.”

I shake my head. “I don’t want it. You know that I’ve never wanted it. But I’ll take it on the condition they hire you, too.”

“Hire me ?” she asks, her hand flying to her chest. “But what will I even do?”

I nod. “We’re in this together, Carter. We’ll find a place for you. And, you know, we’ll only accept if we have somewhere closer to the office to live. We can’t live way down here and commute all the way up there.”

She nods slowly. “I mean, obviously not. But what’s your proposed solution?”

“We move in with my parents until we can save enough to get on our feet and afford a place of our own.”

She twists her lips and wrinkles her nose. “I don’t know about that.”

We both hear our neighbors starting up at the same time.

The walls are thin.

“Oh, Michael, yes, yes, yes!” Katie moans, and good Lord, if I never hear Katie moaning over Michael again, I might actually get some sleep .

Clem sighs as her eyes meet mine, and it’s like the porno going on next door is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. “Make the call.”

I head into my bedroom because I know, I know , that my mother will say something cruel about Clem, and I don’t want her to overhear it.

“Kennedy, darling, how lovely to hear from you,” my mother answers.

We’ve never really been all that close. To be honest, I was raised by a series of nannies more than by my own mother. But she’s still the woman who gave birth to me, and I suppose I don’t call home as often as I should.

When I was a pre-teen and learned where babies came from, I often wondered if I was an accident. When I hit my late teens, I finally realized that I wasn’t.

Only…now I believe I was meant to be a boy—or that’s what they were hoping for, anyway. I’m not, just one more disappointment in a long line of them, but regardless, I’m the sole heiress to Van Buren Construction.

I don’t want it. I’ve never wanted it. But it’ll be mine anyway.

And that is why this call is so goddamn hard to make.

“Mother, hello. Is Father with you?”

“He’s still at the office. Is there something I can help you with?”

I draw in a deep breath and bite my lip, schooling myself as I come up with the words that’ll hit exactly where I need them to without getting too detailed.

I take the easy cop-out rather than getting into the details of Katie and Michael and the bus and my stolen wallet.

“You were both right. Please say the offer to work for VBC is still open?” I beg.

“Darling, of course. You know you always have a place here. After all, this will all be yours someday.”

I can picture her holding up a hand like those models on The Price Is Right as she indicates the entire house, its contents, and the business .

“Right. Well, with that in mind, I have a condition.” It’s just as well that I have a condition since their love for me was always conditional as well.

“What is it, pray tell?”

“That you hire Clementine, too,” I blurt. “And that we can stay at the house until we save up enough to get our own place.”

She sighs heavily. “You’ve always been the type to take in strays,” she murmurs.

“Forget it,” I mutter.

“No, no.” She pauses, and then she says, “Fine.”

“I don’t want to hear another word about her,” I warn.

“I will do my very best. It’s just that we trust you to care for what we’ve built, Kennedy. You know our reluctance to hand it over to a stranger.”

“She isn’t a stranger,” I protest. “She’s the best friend I’ve ever had, and you aren’t handing anything over to her.”

“You know how work and money can come between friendships,” she says a bit haughtily, and no, actually I don’t.

I know that my parents had issues with people they used to call friends, but their life isn’t mine, and Clem would never betray me.

“You’ll get to know her, and you will love her,” I say. “I’m so sorry, but it’s the only way I’ll do this.”

“I already said fine once,” she says curtly. “When can we expect you?”

I glance around the meager bedroom. There’s really not a whole lot to pack up to get the fuck out of here.

And I’m not really all that sure my boss will even care if I don’t give him two weeks’ notice. He’ll find someone to fill the position within twenty-four hours.

Same with Clem’s job.

“Tomorrow.”

“Fine. I’ll have Edith make up your room and the guest room down the hall from you. ”

“Thanks, Mom,” I say. I almost never call her Mom. It’s too soft, but this moment seems to call for it.

“You’re welcome. I just hope your father doesn’t blow a gasket when he hears what I’ve agreed to.”

“He won’t,” I say with confidence. I may not be all that close to either of my parents, but my father at least made attempts to bond with me over the years.

He’d take me into the office and introduce me to the staff, or he’d show me what he was working on.

He’d train me on the basics of what he does with the idea in mind that someday I’d be doing it.

My mother would sweep in and act like I was a nuisance. She worked with him for years and years until she retired last year to spend more time with her “charity work.”

I’ve never seen that woman lift a damn finger.

Katie next door finally hits her orgasm, and they’ll be quiet for at least a half hour before they start going at it again.

And now that I’m changing my life around, is it really too much to ask for me to find someone to have the same kind of wild nights Katie has?

Can I find a Michael of my own? Only…not Michael -Michael.

I stay out of it, but I swear I heard someone who wasn’t Katie over there moaning his name a few weekends ago when she was out of town.

Just some wild nights with a stand-up kind of guy.

And a job that, if I’m going to hate it, at least pays well.

And a nice place to live that isn’t my parents’ house.

Is that too much to ask?

* * *

What a difference forty-eight hours makes.

It turns out my boss wasn’t too happy with no notice, and maybe I should’ve been more careful about burning bridges, but if I’m going to work for my family business, it’s not like I need the reference .

I’m sitting on the couch at my mom’s favorite spa in Chicago with my feet perched on an ottoman across from me.

Clem is beside me, and we’re in thick bathrobes with slippers on our feet, face masks on our faces, and our hair held back from our faces by terrycloth headbands.

I’m drinking tea and munching on an assortment of mixed nuts as Clem chews on some dried fruit that was on the snack bar.

This is the life.

My father felt bad for us as he welcomed us back into the house yesterday, and he told us to take the rest of the week to get adjusted—including adjustments here at the spa. Massages, facials, saunas, he got us the works, and it’s honestly the best welcome home gift I could’ve imagined.

And yet…

It comes with conditions, just like everything always does in the Van Buren household. He’s only doing this because he wants me to see how much better it is to live in their house and work in their office than it was to venture out on the scary streets of Chicago by myself.

Cue the eyeroll.

But the princess in me isn’t exactly going to turn down this sort of relaxation. Clem and I both deserve it after the less-than-ideal work and living situations we endured over the last few years in the name of independence.

Fuck independence. I’ll take these spa treatments and a cozy queen-size bed with a fluffy blanket any day of the week over the twin mattress I had at the apartment.

“Why didn’t we give in to this ages ago?” she asks.

I giggle, though in truth, the answer is less funny and more complicated. I didn’t want to give up my independence, sure, and I was being stubborn. I wanted to pursue my own passions rather than my dad’s.

But it was more than that. It was about me finding my own way without the pressure of the Van Buren name. It was about earning respect from people because of a job well done instead of a last name.

It was about proving myself—and proving to myself that I could do it.

It was about not giving up.

And instead, it was a failure. I am a failure.

Granted, the Swedish massage helped wrestle those feelings to the back of my mind, but once the glow of relaxation wears off, those feelings will rise right back to the surface.

In the back of my mind, I can’t help but think that there must be something I can do with my love of graphic design. There are plenty of graphics involved in the field of real estate development, from branding and logos to property visualizations and sales pitches.

But my father already invited me on a bid walk tomorrow, and I haven’t had the chance yet to discuss with him what my role will be at VBC.

Inviting me on a bid walk makes it pretty damn clear to me what he wants my role to be, though.

We’ll walk a property tomorrow with the other contractors putting in bids to develop the client’s land.

It’s a huge deal, and my dad wants me there to watch the process.

He had me do it during my internship before my senior year of college—the time in my life when I decided I wanted to pave my own path.

But things have changed. Life threw me some curveballs, and maybe this is where I’m meant to be after all. Definitely here at this spa, anyway.