Brother to the Boss (Managing the Bosses 8)

“Well, I understand why he did it, I guess. But it's not—” Mark cut himself off with a sigh. “I don't want to lose what we've been building together, Jamie. I didn't let Nicholas play golf here to hurt Alex. I just didn't think letting some rich guy none of us like spend his money on my business was going to do anyone any harm. I guess that I didn't think it through.”

Jamie took a moment to consider her next words, eyes on the pot of pasta sauce. “I think,” she said carefully, “that maybe for some people it wouldn't have been. But Alex hates Nicholas after everything that happened, and your relationship with him is still fairly new, no matter how strong it's grown in that time. The combination of those things means that he didn't feel as secure with you, and seeing you entertaining someone who has tried to undermine him every step of the way kind of hurt him, Mark.”

“I know,” Mark said. “I know it did. Fuck. That wasn't what I meant to do.”

She thought he sounded like he was pacing, breathing a little too fast.

“But, listen, Jamie. I've got a plan, okay? One that will help Alex. And once he sees what it is I'm sure that he'll listen to me again. In the meantime, could you at least talk to him? Tell him that I'm really not trying to betray him? That I care about him?”

“Of course I'll talk to him, Mark. I don't like this separation.” Jamie paused, lifting the spoon to her lips to blow on it carefully so that she could taste the sauce. Just about done. “What is this plan you're talking about?”

“I can't tell you,” Mark answered. “I know that seems kind of silly, but trust me. You'll know when you know.”

It wasn't so much silly as worrying, but Jamie didn't push the issue. Both of the Reids could be rock- stubborn when you pressed them, and she didn't really want to spend half an hour trying to break through Mark's defenses.

“I'll talk to Alex,” she said, because that was really the only thing to say.

“Thank you,” Mark said. “Really, Jamie. Thank you for everything. We wouldn't have a relationship at all if it weren't for you.”

“Just... be careful, okay, Mark? Because I don't want you to get hurt.”

“I'm not going to get hurt, Jamie. I promise. Things are just going to get better. For all of us.”

The call ended. Jamie set her phone down and stood looking at it for a moment, eyebrows drawn together. Whatever Mark was planning, she wasn't sure that it was actually safe, and she was a little worried. She turned off the heat under the pasta sauce, and then started serving pasta up out of the other pot on the stove, filling up a bowl each for her and Alex, and then two little ones for the twins, setting them where they could cool before she gave them to Benton and Lilli.

When that was done, she picked up her phone again and shot off a quick text to Christine, asking her to keep a bit of an eye on Mark. At least that way she would know if he did anything obviously stupid.

Alex appeared in the kitchen doorway, hair still tousled from towel-drying it after his shower, dressed in a T-shirt and an old pair of jeans. Jamie resisted the urge to lick her lips as she looked him over, but he must have seen her desire on her face because when he smiled it was wicked. Later, she promised herself. Later they would have all the time in the world.

She set the bowls out on the table, and she and Alex took their places on either side of the twins.

“Workout go well?” she asked.

“Went great, actually,” Alex answered as he ladled sauce over his pasta. “I forgot how good it could feel to get physical like that. Things have just been too busy lately to let me.”

“Well,” Jamie said, smiling sweetly at him across the table. “We'll just have to make sure that you have a chance to get physical more often.”

Alex laughed, and Jamie took the ladle for the pasta sauce, spooning some over her own dish, and grinned at her husband. The twins giggled because their daddy was laughing, and all was right with the world.

Chapter 13

The more Mark had thought about it, the more he’d felt like maybe Erica had a point after all. Nicholas may not have been breaking any laws, but he knew what he was doing was wrong. If he was going to try to ruin someone’s life, Mark wasn’t going to shy away from making sure that he could stop Nicholas’ machinations.

Even so, he bought the recording devices with cash. He wasn’t an idiot. A dummy maybe, but definitely not an idiot.

Since the argument, Erica had been kind of avoiding him. But after he went out and picked up the bugs, Mark told her that she had been right. The law didn’t mean as much as his brother did. Helping Alex was more important. And he’d held her, and told her that she was important, too. Since the club had gotten popular their relationship had been suffering, the threads of it fraying the same way that he was worried that Jamie and Alex’s were. He wished he had had talked to Alex about that, made sure that everything was okay, but he hadn’t exactly had

the opportunity, and he wasn’t going to have one again until he did something that got his brother’s attention.

When he’d spoken to Jamie, she had promised that she would talk to Alex, but he didn’t hold out much hope for the results of that. He of all people knew exactly how stubborn his brother could be. Which meant that he had to get something good on Nicholas.

The recordings were mostly a lot of meaningless chatter between different guests. Mark didn't listen to more than a few minutes of any of them that didn't contain Nicholas. He wasn't going to violate anyone else's privacy if he could help it. But he didn't really know what he was looking for with Nicholas either, and that was the problem.

During the day, he still took care of the country club. The work load hadn't gotten any lighter. If anything, it had increased. But he'd started interviewing new staff, including a manager who could deal with a lot of the everyday emergencies that were starting to run him ragged.

It had actually been Erica's idea. She seemed to have a lot of them lately. Not that Mark minded. He was using all the help he could get.

At night, Mark sat up too late and went through the recordings they had. Over the last week, Nicholas had only been in three, and all of them had been completely useless. He didn't talk about Alex or Reid Enterprises. He didn't even really talk about business, and Mark started to wonder if he used the business meetings angle as an excuse. Maybe he just wanted to come out here to golf and get away from the things he was supposed to be doing for his business. Mark had the same urge sometimes. Although not to golf. Golfing wouldn't really take him far away from his responsibilities.