Bargaining with the Bride (Honeybrook Love, Inc. 1)

"So, I'm stuck. No reason to stay here or to go anywhere else. No job. No…anything." Rachael blinked her eyes back open and stared at her sister's lined face. "So what do I do?"

Eliza offered her a half smile. "Have you ever considered joining a traveling circus?"

A laugh bubbled from Rachael, surprising both of them. "Not yet."

"I would work on either stilt walking or gymnastics and try to make a life of it." Eliza shrugged.

"I know you would."

After a pause, Eliza sighed and said, "Do you want my real advice?"

"Yes."

"I think you need to really consider what it is you care about. What it is you want, I mean. You were going to marry Lance for mom and for Lance, but not for you. What do you want? What would make you happy? Really think about that, and then once you figure it out, you need to go after it. In the end, that's going to be the only thing that matters.”

Rachael bit her bottom lip. She knew what her sister was really saying, even if she wouldn't give the directions aloud. Following her lead, Rachael asked, "But what if that thing...the thing I want? What if it hurts me to go after it?"

Eliza patted her hand again. "If I were a betting woman, I would say it's probably going to hurt a hell of a lot more if you don't try at all."

* * *

It felt like ten years since Garret looked up from the papers, but when he finally did, it was to find his brother leaning in his office doorway.

He rubbed his eyes, and then glanced at the clock.

"It's ten," his brother said, and then held up the box in his hand. "And I have a feel you haven't eaten."

"No, no, I had..." He scratched his head, and then rubbed a hand over his face. "Tuna fish. Yeah, that's it. Tuna fish."

"Seven hours ago." He plopped the bag onto the desk, and Garret rushed to pick it up again and sweep away the papers beneath. What if grease got on them? Or food stains? All his hard work, all that effort would go entirely to waste.

His brother craned to look at what he'd been working on, but he flipped over the paper. It was none of his business. When he had results, he'd let him know. Until then, this was his work and his alone.

"Why are you here?" Garret asked, though his confusion didn't stop him from picking a sandwich out of the bag on his desk. Now that he thought about it, he was a little hungry. His stomach growled in agreement as he pulled the brown paper away to find the food beneath.

"Your secretary had been sending me messages."

"Not her too. What did I tell you about sleeping with the staff?"

He guffawed. "I'm not sleeping with her. Not my type. Besides, word on the street is that you've made some compromises in the fraternization department yourself."

His brother craned to look at the papers again, and Garret opened a drawer and swept the whole lot into it. It would be a bitch to organize and color-code them again later, but that would be nothing compared to what might happen if his brother read the file.

"I don't know what you mean." He pulled the second sandwich from the bag and thrust it toward him, them motioned for him to sit.

His brother followed his lead, but not without some slight hesitation. "Don't play dumb with me. Are we business partners or not?"

Garret bit into his cheesesteak, choosing to focus on the cheesy goodness instead of the swill his brother had apparently come to spit.

"Look," he held up his hands in mock innocence. "If you don't want to talk about Rhonda—"

"Rachael," Garret corrected, and then wished he'd bitten his tongue off.

His brother raised his eyebrows. "Right, Rachael. If you don't want to talk about that, it's no skin off my ass. I don't care if you sleep with the entire research department. Frankly, I've always thought you and four-fingered Frankie would be an adorable couple."

Garret sighed, ignoring the joke. "If this isn't about Rachael, then why are you here?"

He waved the end of his already half-eaten sandwich at him. "I'm here because you're scaring the staff. You don't come out of your office; you forget to tell the secretaries to leave, and half the time to fall asleep at your desk. You have to go home. Live your life. For god's sake, your secretary has sent me mayday signals every day for a week. What is so important that you've holed up in here to kill yourself over it?"