Heather Macallister - Personal Relations

And then the phone rang.

“Hi, Brooke! Are you busy?” Courtney sounded way too happy.

“What’s wrong?”

There was a disgusted sigh. “Nothing is wrong. Why do you always think that?”

“Where are you?”

“With Jeff. Rehearsals were canceled while the choir director works with the soloists, so we thought we’d come downtown and go ring shopping! Jeff is getting the money from his brother right now. Want to come?”

Ring! Unfocused, irrational thoughts bombarded her. “I—I have an appointment this afternoon,” Brooke said. “In fact, I should be leaving right now.”

“Okay!” Courtney said breezily. “Just thought I’d check. You wouldn’t want me to settle for a ring that was too small, would you?”

Brooke saw an out. Jeff would probably freak when he saw the price of diamonds. “Oh, most definitely not. After all, you’ll be wearing this ring forever. It’s got to be special. You don’t want it to look chintzy.”

“Well, no.” Courtney sounded uncertain.

“All your friends will see it.”

“Yeah, they’re gonna be jealous.”

“Just remember the four C’s.”

“What are those?”

“Cut, color, clarity and size.”

There was a short silence. “That’s only three C’s.”

“Well, the other one means size.”

“Oh. It probably doesn’t begin with C because it’s the most important.”

Brooke was too frazzled to contradict her. “Whatever. Have a good time.”

“Okay, bye!”

Brooke gripped the phone and tried to take deep, calming breaths, but only succeeded in making herself light-headed.

Carat. The fourth C was carat. Oh, well, never mind. She’d planted the seeds of greed and it might make Courtney think twice about marriage.

That didn’t sound right, but she wasn’t going to worry about it now. Grabbing her purse from the bottom file drawer at her desk, she headed for Chase Davenport’s office.

“HEY, MAN, like, I need to borrow some major bucks.”

Chase winced and tilted back in his chair. “How major?” he asked Jeff, keeping his voice deliberately casual. “Concert ticket major? Car major? Spring break trip major?”

“Engagement ring major. You know, a real diamond.”

Ice formed in his veins. “Jeff.”

“And I’m not talking about a promise ring here. I want the real thing—like my mother has.”

Zoe’s diamond size had increased with each marriage. The one she had now could serve as the practice rink for the Olympic ice-skating competition.

“I see.” Chase straightened, thinking quickly. “Why don’t we talk about this when I get home tonight?”

“’Cause Courtney and I are going ring shopping now. No rehearsal today, so we’ve got time.”

“Jeff—”

“Courtney’s asking her sister to come with us to make sure we get a good one. She said something about C’s and that size was important.”

A red haze crossed Chase’s vision. “Make sure you inform Courtney and her sister that any major withdrawals from your trust account must be approved by me.”

“Well…like, that’s not going to be a problem, is it? I mean, if you’ve got issues, I can always ask my mom.”

Who would see nothing wrong with her son buying a diamond.

Back off, back off. “Hey, it’s your money, but I couldn’t look your mother in the eye if I let you buy an inferior stone. You know how she is about diamonds. Just don’t buy anything without me seeing it first.”

“Hey, no prob.”

Yes, prob. Big prob.

CHASE DAVENPORT worked in a nice, shiny building several streets over from Brooke’s own office building. She was able to reach it through Houston’s underground tunnel system, though she had blisters on the backs of her heels by the time she arrived.

As she took the escalator from the tunnel and emerged through the atrium, she was relieved to see that his company, the MacGinnis Group, was, like hers, one of the last bastions of proper business dress, with none of this business casual nonsense. Brooke was very happy to wear a suit, thank-you-very-much. It gave her authority and kept her comfortable in an office that was air-conditioned ten months out of the year.

When she reached the ground floor, she headed for the rest rooms and combed her hair, checked her makeup, and applied the Band-Aids she carried in her wallet to her blisters.

She wanted to look mature—intimidatingly mature, since Chase so clearly wasn’t.

The fact that he might not have returned to his office yet didn’t occur to her until she was actually asking for him at the reception desk.

“Brooke Weathers,” she gave her name to the receptionist, who sat in the center of a round room with hallways leading off it like a spider in the center of her web. “Tell him it’s personal.”

The receptionist murmured into her headset, then looked at Brooke in pseudo sympathy. “Could you be more specific?”

The nerve of him. There were so many things she could say—Sure, tell him I’m from the free clinic. I have the results of his tests and thought he’d like to hear them in person. Or…He’s behind on his Porsche payments and I’m here to repossess. Even better, Tell him the rabbit died.

Honestly. Anyone who ignored the “personal” label did so at his own risk. However, tempting as it was to be flippant, Brooke merely said, “Tell him I’m Courtney Weathers’s sister.”

The receptionist was relaying that information when a door off one of the hallways opened.

“I heard.”

A man in a crisp long-sleeved shirt rolled to his forearms stood staring at her. Although several dozen yards and a blond receptionist separated them, Brooke felt the tsunami-sized waves of hostility headed her way.

He wasn’t the pudgy, balding, affable goof she’d been expecting. Nope. No pudge, no bald spot and an expression of glacial politeness.

He jerked his head to indicate that she should join him in his office, then disappeared inside.

Make that an expression bordering on politeness. Brooke hesitated, unwilling to concede a battle so early.

On the other hand, the important thing here was not her pride. Her goal was to keep Courtney from doing something she would surely regret. And that was the only reason Brooke ignored the fact that Chase Davenport had all but told her to heel, and followed him into his office.

WELL, THE SISTER hadn’t wasted any time getting over here once she heard Chase had a hold on Jeff’s wallet.

Yeah, after Jeff’s mother had divorced Chase’s father, she’d made a couple of lucky marriages and now had more money than even she knew what to do with. Chase had hoped Jeff hadn’t known exactly how much money Chase was managing for him, but someone, probably that flake of a mother of his, must have told him. He’d probably bragged about it at school and the result was this: trouble in a navy blue suit.

She was mad, he could tell that right off. She held her chin up and looked him right in the eye. Ordinarily, he’d like that in a woman, but this sure wasn’t ordinary.

And neither was the internal wallop he got once she came close enough for him to see that she was a toned-down version of her sister. The hair wasn’t as short, wasn’t as black, the lips weren’t as red, the body wasn’t as thin—and the few pounds had been put to excellent use.

But his response was just the natural response of a male in his prime to an attractive female. It was biological. Nothing to get worked up about.

He deliberately ran his gaze over her, taking in a suit that showed signs of wear and hadn’t been all that expensive to begin with. Still she’d made the effort. Too bad the red lines on her feet from her shoes, and the fact that her legs were bare, undermined the professional image she was trying to convey.