his role of CEO. If his brothers and sisters knew Will had almost asked her out today, they’d never leave him alone about it. His cousins would never trust his decisions if he acted like Donovan or Marcus.
“Y’all talking about the interviews today?” Marcus asked, poking his head in the door.
“Yes,” Donovan said, leaning back in his chair to look at their oldest brother. “And Will is trying to act like he doesn’t know which one Zoe was.”
Marcus chuckled and entered the room. He took the seat next to Donovan and propped his elbows on Will’s desk. “The one you drooled so much over, we needed to get the cleaning crew to mop up the saliva? The one who caused the hallway to become so sexually charged when she and Will laid eyes on each other?”
It was going to take some time for Will to get used to being around his family like this. Luckily his sisters, Dana and Eva, were out of town at a convention. They would already have started planning his wedding. Will needed to get used to the idea of carrying on his grandparents’ corporate legacy before he thought about adding to it.
“You ought to go into creative writing,” Will said with a dry yawn.
“I’ve got my hands full being president.” Marcus glanced down at his fingers.
As Marcus inspected his cuticles, Donovan and Will dramatically bowed down at the president, a teasing move they did every time Marcus felt the need to inform them of his title. No one wanted to be the president. The president was the face of the company with not as much power as people believed. But if anyone needed to be the face, it was Marcus. He was what Will considered pretty, with soft brown hair and deeply tanned skin, helped out a bit by the Miami sun.
Thanks to a car accident a few years ago, Donovan never wanted to be in the public eye. He wanted to hide the long scar down his cheek from the cameras. No matter the differences Will saw between himself and his brothers, everywhere they went, people always knew they were siblings.
“You guys are jerks, you know that?” asked Marcus with a tight smile.
“You guys nominated me, a guy with no credibility in the business other than my last name, to be the CEO while I was recuperating,” Will said drily. “So sue me if I don’t feel sorry for you.”
“By ‘recuperating—’” Donovan raised his hands for air quotes “—you mean you were at your sci-fi convention?”
Will pressed his hands on top of the portfolios. “I believe you were right there next to me in a Flash mask.”
Marcus’s head snapped toward Donovan. “You said you were in New York.”
“I was, right after Comic-Con.”
Before his brothers went off on a tangent, Will cleared his throat. “Let’s talk about the interviews today. I’d like to be on a united front before we meet back with the cousins.”
His grandparents carried on a long family tradition of creating products for the community. They’d raised their six kids in a modest four-bedroom home in Overtown, a predominately African American neighborhood in Miami. His great-great-grandmother had sold hair-care products to the women whose husbands worked on the railroads. Skin-care and hair-care products had helped mold the Ravens into a millionaire family back in the day. Will wanted to make sure Ravens Cosmetics made it to one hundred years in business.
Will concentrated on his brothers in front of him. “Who did y’all like?”
“Zoe,” Donovan and Marcus chorused.
Will liked Zoe, but he wasn’t sure it was for the same reasons as his brothers. It wasn’t like Will to arrive at RC late, as he had that morning. His cousins Katie and Dixon had conveniently forgotten to remind him of the time change for the interviews. And to make matters worse, he’d worked out with Dixon this morning. No wonder Dixon had hopped off the treadmill a few miles sooner than normal. Will should have known better. These cousins were ready to dissolve Ravens Cosmetics. He frowned. Will refused to let that happen on his watch.
“I’m not sure she’s what I had in mind for such a position.”
“And what did you have in mind?”
Flipping open the portfolio with Zoe’s face on it, Will thumbed through the photographs of all the women and men she’d worked on. “This work is too busy for me. We’re here to support the everyday woman, and she paints a face like they’re eighties rock stars.”
“Paints a face?” Marcus snickered as if he’d said something erroneous. “What’s wrong with that?”
“I want to go in a different direction. I want something more classic.” Will sat back in his seat and poised his fingers like a steeple. “Like a 1940s look.”
“You want to start a new retro look?” asked Donovan.
“See, that’s what is wrong with you two.” Will shrugged his shoulders and continued without waiting for an answer. “What’s wrong with it? Everyone else is looking for these loud colors and makeup so heavy the girls resemble raccoons. I’m trying to save the company with something new this generation hasn’t experienced.”
“And you think you can bring classic back? Women evolved from that style, as well. Zoe is hot right now.”
Will shrugged again. Yes, Zoe was hot now and if she worked here, she’d also be un-dateable. “Hey, you guys put me in this position. I can take it, but you are going to have to trust me on this. Tell me the truth, do you really want to bring your lady to Sunday dinner looking like this?” Will held up one of the jobs Zoe had done and shook his head. At the elevator she’d given off a classic vibe, but her body of work on paper did not interest him. “No, I want to take things in a new direction. Trust me.”
By the time Zoe turned the lock on her door at the Cozier Condos off Biscayne Boulevard, she was tired and heartbroken. Humiliated was a better description of her day. Never before had she expected to go through the stressful interview process to prove her worth. Well, maybe not never. Once she’d had to interview for the job as a scoop girl at The Scoop’s Ice Cream Parlor back in Southwood, Georgia, when Zoe’s love for makeup had exceeded her allowance. She had to prove to the owners she loved ice cream and all of the flavors they had to offer. Hopefully Zoe’s most stressful interviews would be her first and her last.
The set of house keys jingled with a clink into the clear bowl on top of the credenza. The weight of the keys shifted the bowl into yesterday’s mail, nudging the silver box with gold writing on top. The latest Ravens Cosmetic Artist Kit filled with fabulous foundation colors had arrived, along with the silver tubes of lipstick. Zoe broke out one bullet-shaped container and inspected the color—No Shade. Usually these beauty boxes excited her, but today’s mood rippled with disappointment.
When in doubt, Zoe always called on a hometown friend for advice. On her phone, she pressed the icon she had for Lexi—a tiara—and waited for the beauty queen to answer. While Lexi had gone to a different school during the year, she came home to Southwood for the summers and she and her friends had taken Zoe under their wing.
Lexi answered on the second ring. “How did it go today?”
“It
