Page 4 of Salvaged Hearts

“Ugh, sorry. I don’t want to deal with his asinine behavior while he projects his unhappiness on me.Happy?”

“That you have the vocabulary of a thirty-five-year-old divorcee? Not really.”

“So. What are you going to do?”

“Talk to your daddy?—”

“AboutMs. Alice, Uncle Grey.”

“Oh, that.” Great. I was being patronized by a ten-year-old. With a resigned sigh, I smacked my head on the wood desk leg, studying my ceiling. The perk of your best buddy being four feet tall was the lack of pretense for composure.

Alessandra Rhodes. If you’d asked me two years ago whether she’d still be working forHart Investments, I would have unequivocally said on a cold day in hell. Everything about those big grey doe eyes and too-young face said Emerald Bay would chew her up and spit her out. But within days of my stubborn asshole of a brother offering her a position, she’d assimilated with the staff—memorizing not only their names and their children but dietary restrictions and important life events like a pretty little walkingHart Investmentsencyclopedia. After that, she’d doubled the productivity of her team.

Then she did the impossible. She won over my Mattie.

That alone was all the testament of character I needed.

Despite being nothing but a royal prick, Alessandra sidled up beside me at the first gala she attended, having memorized the roster like she’d been born into high society rather than some desolate rock in the Alaskan sea. Drink in hand, she’d hoveredat my elbow, a demure smile on her gorgeous face as she subtly supplied the name of each attendee before they reached us, along with their spouse and a random fact about their work or whose kid was graduating from whatever university. The woman belonged in investigative work, not marketing.

With allies, enemies, and people of interest, I could spout off stats for days, but the same diligence seemed wasted on B-list attendees at stuffy soirees. At least, it did before Alessandra. But the show of goodwill landed us accounts like only Ollie had ever managed.

It was at that point that I stole my brother’s acquisition for the PR team.Myteam. Me, more specifically. Because the woman looked like a cartoon princess but had the mind of a goddamned shark. A mind I’d used to my advantage for the last…well, twenty-one months, as she’d so aptly pointed out.

“That is unfortunate news, isn’t it?” I said, looking down to find my niece had rotated out of her hiding space, planted her black, unlaced Converse on the floor, and braced her chin on her knees. At least she still looked tiny. Innocent. I knew better.

“I thought she was your prodigy.” Even as she said it, those blue greens narrowed, like she knew— “That’s wrong.Apprentice?”

“Protégé, kid. You were thinking of the wordprotégé.”

“P-r-o-t-e-g-e. Someone guided by an older, more experienced person.” I chuckled at her memorized recitation, reaching forward to ruffle her hair, which earned a defiant wrinkle of her nose. She ran her tiny fingers through mussed strands and demanded, “So, what’s your plan? You seemed pretty confident she wouldn’t end up leaving.”

“Ms. Rhodes doesn’t know about our most recent acquisition.”

“Like, a company?”

“Like, an asset.”

“Hmm, what kind of asset?”

“Talent.”

“Like…a new player?” Heart Investments was the umbrella above the empire this pint-sized genius would inherit, but we owned a decent share of the West Coast when it came down to it. My father—for all his faults—and his father before him had built a dynasty to pass down the line. I might have denied my heritage for the better portion of my adolescence and into my twenties, but it was Matilda entering the world that made me first set aside my resentment and realize if I dropped the ball—walked away—it likely wouldn’t keep running long enough for her to step into her place at the top. Mattie and her baby brother Beau were the only reason that Ollie and I didn’t sell everything.

Everything except for our football team, theEmerald Bay Bombers. Our most recent acquisition. Ollie bought it on his thirtieth birthday after a humiliating run of losses. His first action as owner was canning the arrogant coach. The second was bringing in our cousin to run it. The program had improved a bit in the two years since, but this trade would be his magnum opus.Thistrade was going to make waves, not just in the media but in the rapport of our guys, and in the team’s strategy. Because he’d just pushed our new coach, Nico Sartori, into stealingWindy City’sstar quarterback. America’s Prince Charming. The prodigy kid. With an arm like a canon and an unshakable head on his shoulders—much like his little sister—hopes were soaring that he’d rally the team. Be the difference we needed to return the Emerald Bay name to its former gilded glory.

Miming ringing a bell, I said, “Ding, ding, ding. You got it, kiddo.”

“Why would Ms. Alice care about a new player?” She blinked in confusion.

I expelled a long breath, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Because I wasn’t going to tell her until it was finalized, butCoach Sartori just made the biggest trade in team history. We’re about to sign Alessandra’s brother, Paxton, for a five-year contract.”

2

No “Sir” For You

ALICE

The soft hum of after-class conversations picked up while I rolled my mat into a tight little tube Saturday evening. My younger sister, Leighton, nudged my elbow when I sidled up beside her, grinning over her tan bare shoulder, her frizzy, nearly black hair tamed into a long fishtail braid down her back.

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