I sat down on the leather couch and the boy sat down next to me. I scooted over slightly and smiled at him politely. His eyes swept my body again, a cocky smirk on his face. My God, the boy didn't even have facial hair yet. "How's the form?"
"Excuse me?"
"What's the craic?"
"I'm sorry, I don't—"
A door on the other side of the room suddenly opened and a tall, dark outline stood in the doorway. "Rory."
The boy—Rory—stood abruptly and moved around the table. I stood, too. "Sorry, Mr. Ramsay. This fine thing is here to see ya." I did understand that. I pulled myself straighter. My heart was now a frantic drumbeat in my chest as I stared at the man I'd only known as a boy so many years ago. My nerves stretched tight, tension coiling in my stomach. I was suddenly having difficulty pulling air into my lungs. He took a step closer, into the light, and it felt as if time stood still. Brogan Ramsay stood in front of me. He was all man now, tall and broad, his black hair cut shorter than it'd been the last time I'd seen him. He removed a pair of black-rimmed glasses, and I stared at his face. It was the same and yet different. I recognized the ice-blue beauty of his eyes, framed by thick, inky lashes and black, slashing brows, and the sensual shape of his mouth. But the difference showed in his strong jaw and sculpted cheekbones—the bone structure of a full-grown man. He was even more beautiful than I remembered. The girl in me swooned and melted just a little. But I wasn't a girl, I was a woman, and I stiffened my spine. I wasn't here to swoon.
His gaze finally moved from Rory to me and lingered on my face for one startling moment as my breath caught, his eyes hard chips of blue ice. I froze under his cool assessment. He looked away as if in disinterest, and I released a breath.
"I told you I require a visitor's name, Rory."
"I sent it, sir."
"You didn't."
Rory swallowed. "Phone's acting the maggot, sir. Strangest thing. Lydia De Havilland." He swept his hand toward me as if I were royalty, but Brogan's eyes didn't follow it. A small muscle twitched in his cheek.
"Get it fixed. Go now."
"Shur look it. I'm gona head on." Rory rushed from the room, not looking back. My gaze returned to Brogan, taking him in. He wore black suit pants and a gray shirt, open at the collar and the sleeves rolled up to show strong, tanned forearms, those same forearms I used to stare at as he worked in my yard.
"Hi, Brogan," I said softly, unmoving. Emotions were assaulting me, so fast and furious I hardly had time to analyze them. They overlapped, swirling together to form a ball of nerves in my stomach, a tightening in my chest. Something seemed to flutter through my veins.
"Lydia, it's been a long time. How can I help you?" His voice was deep, smooth, completely unaffected. Bored even.
I stiffened. "You don't know why I'm here?"
He paused and then turned, heading back into the room from which he'd emerged. "Would you care to sit down?"
I followed him into what I saw was his office. He tossed his glasses onto the top of a large, black desk in the center of the room and sat down in the chair behind it. I hesitated momentarily before taking a seat in the chair across from him.
"It has been a long time," I said, replying to the comment he'd made a few moments before. "I'm glad to see you're well, Brogan." I cleared my throat. "What exactly is this business?" I asked, sweeping my hand around, indicating the building as a whole.
"I'm in life insurance." There was some kind of amused gleam in his eye I had no idea how to interpret. I noted he no longer had any trace of an accent. I wondered if that had come naturally, or if he'd worked to rid himself of it. Either way, it seemed a shame. I'd always loved the lilting sound of his speech, the way he sometimes threw in Irish slang that I had no idea how to interpret. The way the boy, Rory, had just done. I remembered laughing and asking him what certain sayings meant. I'd known a few . . . long ago. Sometimes they still came back to me, unexpectedly. He'd called dandelions piss-in-the-bed. What are you doing down there? I'm clearing out the piss-in-the-bed.
I cleared my throat again. "Insurance. Oh. Okay. Well, good. Obviously you're very successful."
Brogan tapped his fingers on his desk as if impatient. "As to your previous question," he went on, apparently ignoring what I'd just said, "yes, I do know why you're here. I imagine it's because your brother is still a coward and a moron. Sending his sister to do his bidding? To clean up his mess?"
I swallowed, heat flooding my face. Outside thunder rumbled. "He didn't send me. I insisted on coming. But yes, I am here to clean up his mess." I licked my lips nervously.
"And how exactly are you going to do that? Are you offering to purchase the company back? There'll be a surcharge now, of course."
Surcharge? "I . . . I can't. We don't have the capital to do that. I'm hoping we can come up with some other arrangement."
He lifted one dark brow. "And what did you have in mind?"
I looked to the side and then back to him. Truthfully, I hadn't arrived at a plan before rushing over here to beg Brogan for mercy. And now I saw the folly in that. "We were friends once, Brogan. I'm hoping you'll—"
He suddenly slammed his fist down on his desk, his face contorting into a mask of fury. "We were never friends. You tricked me and lied to me. You cost my father his job. You have no idea what you cost my family."