26: O Fortuna

                                    

                                          
Sebastian had gone home after spending the day with the delectable but politely hostile Miss Logan, and went straight to his woodshop to brood. He was in the middle of carving a delicate scroll when the door chime sounded. He scowled in irritation until he looked up at the front porch monitor and saw Giselle pulling a man Sebastian couldn't identify into the house.
                          
He grinned and went back to work. There was only one man she'd bring into this house and for only one reason, so his irritation died as fast as it had flared.
                          
He continued to carve late into the night, trying to sift out why HRP's situation didn't make any sense. First Eilis asserted she could have put herself together again. Then, today, she had politely requested he read her company's history, making it clear she found it negligent for him to have not already done so. He'd skimmed it enough to know that on September 11, 2001, she had been in New York to merge with another human resources outsourcing company.
                          
He grunted as he tapped at a knot in the wood. No, not merge. Buy. Eilis had been about to buy a bigger company than hers, somewhere in the high eight figures. But she'd been late to the closing meeting, the company was destroyed by the hijacked planes, and soon thereafter, HRP had gone into the tank.
                          
Sebastian knew he was missing something. Five years ago, HRP was healthy, a well-oiled machine. Now ... it wasn't. Certainly, other businesses lost money and survived with better management, but HRP had the same management now as it had when it had been about to plunk down a hefty chunk of change—that then disappeared.
                          
He jumped when the garage door opener jerked awake, making him miss the chisel and whack his hand, then burning his eyes with sunrise.
                          
"What the hell is wrong with you?" he barked when he could see again, angry at the interruption.
                          
"It's eight o'clock in the morning," Knox shot back, slamming his car door and walking into the garage. "And you look like shit. I came to talk to you about Eilis Logan. And where's Giselle? Her car's not out there."
                          
That made Sebastian grin. "Giselle is just fine, I do believe. What do you want to know about Logan?"
                          
"How much of a mess her company really is."
                          
Sebastian pursed his lips while he put away his chisels and mallets, swept and vacuumed the wood chips, and wondered how he'd carved the night away without noticing. When he was finished cleaning up, he followed Knox downstairs.
                          
"Are you sure Giselle's okay?" Knox asked again.
                          
"I am her landlord, not her mother."
                          
"What do you mean, you're not her mother? You act like her mother and mine, too, come to think of it."
                          
"If you're so worried," Sebastian said, just to be obnoxious, "go look in her room and see if she's there."
                          
He did.
                          
"Gi— Holy shit."
                          
Sebastian grinned. The bed was trashed, the room reeked of sex, and the guilty parties were naked. Giselle was curled up against Kenard asleep, her back against his ribs, his arm her pillow. Knox nearly swallowed his tongue.
                          
"Get out." That nasty snarl came from the man in the bed. With the burn scars that matted half his face and apparently, the entire left side of his body, he looked as deadly as he sounded. Sebastian curled his hand around Knox's collar and dragged him of the doorway, then closed the door.
                          
"Well, that was refreshing and unexpected!" Sebastian crowed.
                          
"For you, maybe," Knox said dryly as he led the way up to the dining room platform to the kitchen, "but not for me. You should've seen his face when I told him she'd threatened Fen at gunpoint."