Trinity's hands stilled above the folder she was leafing through. Sam stood by the tall window, but for once his eyes weren't on the skyline. His gaze was trained solely on her, awaiting an answer. And her mouth was suddenly dry and unresponsive.
God, Sam was a handsome man. He had struck her the same way yesterday. Five plus years of marriage, and all the time they had dated in college before that, and she still wasn't inoculated against it. The dark, wavy hair; the chiseled, immaculately shaved jawline; the skin as pale as a tragic Greek hero carved in alabaster. He knew how to dress himself, too, which is more than she could say for her ill-fated date in the ill-fitting slacks.
"Well…a lot of dates are a bust when you're a thirty year old divorcée," she replied.
"You told him you were married?"
Before she could respond, the door to the conference room blew open, and Eddie Jameson strolled in. His eyes searched the room, passing over his brother's presence completely until he found Trinity. "Hey, Trini!" He grinned and held out his arms for a hug.
Sam looked absolutely nothing like his brother. Eddie was just as well-manicured, but that's where any sibling similarity ended. Whereas Sam was always buttoned-up, his hair always carefully reined-in, Eddie pulled off his open collar and less expensive suit effortlessly. Eddie was like a fresh breath of perpetual summer: his auburn hair was always just the slightest bit tousled, and his skin always glowed with a healthy natural tan.
"Eddie." Trinity laid on a little extra warmth as she rose and stepped into his offered embrace. "How are you? You look great."
"So do you." Eddie withdrew and glanced over her shoulder. The charming lines that always fanned around his eyes when he smiled smoothed immediately. "Sam."
"Eddie."
Well, she didn't know what she had been expecting. She had certainly never seen Eddie greet his brother with the same enthusiasm he had just shown her—not even as a guest at their wedding.
The two brothers squared off across the table, their postures rigid.
"All right…welcome, everybody." Trinity cleared her throat and gestured for Eddie to take the seat beside her, and the three of them sat down. "It's good to have us all finally able to meet in the same room."
"Is it?" Eddie leveled the question at Sam, who just stared impassively back at him.
"You've both already received copies of the agenda for the first official sit-down," Trinity said as she passed out the schedule for good measure, "but I'd prefer it if we kept things a little more informal for today's meeting. Please consider these as guidelines more than a checklist. And if anyone has any suggestions for how to start us off, I'm all ears."
"Well, he can start by completing the online sexual harassment course," Sam stated.
Trinity winced. "That's…." Where did she even begin to parse the callousness of that statement? Every word of it was problematic, even down to Sam's refusal to acknowledge his brother's presence in the room. "…while I agree that will be necessary—as it is for every Jameson hire, and the last thing we want to do is make you appear to be a special exception—I was thinking something more along the lines of the in-person workshop." Trinity slid the pamphlet out of her folder and passed it to Eddie.
"You mean there will be roleplaying?" Eddie's grin returned immediately, despite Sam's apparent best efforts to dampen it. "You can count me in for that. Sounds fun."
"Good. But maybe don't tell the person moderating the class that you intend to enjoy it," Trinity mentioned. Eddie's enthusiasm for her ideas was a welcome change, though.
A welcome change that didn't last. Sam leaned forward and pinned the pamphlet to the table with his fingers; Trinity thought he was going to commandeer it, but he simply left it on the table between the three of them. "The online course exists for a reason," he said. "The less room for error and embarrassment in this instance, the better. Eddie fails the course, he makes another attempt at it and no one's the wiser."
"Almost sounds like you expect me to fail, big brother." Eddie's eyes flashed, but it wasn't with his usual good grace and humor.
"Nobody expects you to fail, Eddie." Trinity hadn't meant to emphasize the word, but it just so happened to fall on the moment she yanked the pamphlet back from beneath Sam's uncompromising fingers. "We've had great results with the in-person training. It puts a human face on everything."
"Sam knows all about human faces, considering he has to put his on every morning," Eddie volunteered.
"All right, settle down." Trinity commanded. If the two brothers were going to regress to immature sibling jibes this early in the process, then she at least needed to keep a clear head. "William approves of the in-person training, so it stays. Next item."
"I want Eddie to sign off on a list of requirements for using company funds—specifically for client entertainment," Sam said. "And I want to start him off wi
th the minimum allowance and see how well he does."
Eddie threw up his hands. "An allowance? Are you kidding? You see what I have to deal with, Trini? I'm already being set up to fail. Fine. Whatever you say, Dad."
The temperature in the room chilled to subzero. Trinity was surprised when her breath didn't fog.
"I have an even better idea," Trinity interrupted, gracefully ignoring the annoyed look Sam shot her. "Why don't we have you complete a trial entertainment session with a client, and your budget going forward can be based on that? Getting you out there ASAP is in the company's best interest, and totally in your wheelhouse anyway, Eddie. You're good at entertaining those hard-to-impress customers." She avoided looking at Sam as she said this. No sense calling attention to the big exception.
Eddie laughed. "I love it! It'll be just like that time in Mykonos. You remember those backpacker chicks we met at the bar?"
Trinity shook her head and tried to suppress her smile at the memory…or at least, what memory she still had intact of that wild weekend spent abroad. "I think a few less flimsy bikini strings will go a long way in this instance."