Title: Settling the Score
Series: CalPac Crew, Book Four
Author: C. Koehler
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: 12/28/2020
Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex
Pairing: Male/Male
Length: 103900
Genre: Contemporary, LGBTQIA+, Contemporary, romance,
family-drama, gay, bisexual, medical student, property developer, corporate
intrigue, instant family
Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56369507-settling-the-score
Book Description
Stuart Cochrane and Philip Sundstrom are very busy men. Stuart, freshly graduated from California Pacific, works as much as he can to save money for medical school. Philip, now in charge of the family home-construction company, works long hours to save the company from his father’s blunders and back-stabbing cronies. A chance encounter brings them together and the attraction is fierce and instant. While neither has time for a relationship, they can’t keep away from each other.
When the National Team recruits Stuart to cox, only
Philip understands that Stuart’s sick of rowing and wants nothing more than to
start medical school. When Philip’s board of directors plots to remove him from
his own company, Stuart helps him scheme and strategize. Despite their
emotional and sexual chemistry, Stuart’s hang-ups about money and rich people
doom their fledgling relationship. But after a personal tragedy, Stuart must
overcome his prejudices and accept Philip’s help. Can Philip set aside his
broken heart to help Stuart in his hour of greatest need and, dare he hope, a
family?
Excerpt
Settling the Score
C. Koehler © 2020
All Rights Reserved
The waiter held Philip’s eye a moment too long. Philip
knew what that meant and flushed from the starched collar of his shirt all the
way up to the gelled magnificence of his golden bangs. Left to its own devices,
his hair flopped down to cover his eyes, and right then, Philip kind of wished
it could. Instead, he’d styled his hair like he always did, parting it on the
left and then the bulk of the bangs were up up and away! in a truly stupendous
flight of fancy that was probably on the wrong side of metrosexual for a
corporate CEO. When he was by himself, he played the game, but c’mon, dude. He
was here with his girlfriend. What kind of trash did he think Philip was? It
meant he had to cut the waiter. The cut direct wasn’t his style, but Philip
felt like he didn’t have a choice. Angie was his priority.
“The waiter’s certainly attentive this evening,” Angie
commented.
Philip cocked one eyebrow. “Sweetheart, did you get a
good look at yourself? You’re stunning.”
“You think so?” she said, smiling sweetly. “Thank you,
Philip. It’s always nice to be noticed.”
“I always notice you,” he said, smiling back. He
raised his wine glass in a salute. “Notice and appreciate.”
Angie touched her glass to his in an almost-silent
toast. “Charmer. Half the time I feel upstaged by you. Is that a new suit? You
look amazing.” Then she glanced at the waiter. “I get the feeling I’m not the
only one who thinks your tailor is a god among men.”
“Boy, you buy one new sport suit—”
“A week,” Angie interrupted, her eyes merry. She was enjoying
herself.
“—one new suit, and people accuse you of being a
dandy.” Philip sighed theatrically. “Memo to self: return the ascot and
waistcoat ASAP,” he said in a stage whisper.
They shared a quiet laugh. Philip reached across the
table to caress her cheek, and Angie leaned into his touch. Her beauty struck
him once again, and that evening, she’d gone all out, every bit his match in an
ivory satin gown with the back down to here and her auburn hair done with seed
pearls as it cascaded down her back. She even wore a simple cameo around her
neck, an antique Wedgwood piece he’d given her for Valentine’s Day the year
before. Then he noticed she’d mounted it on a mauve ribbon that clashed
horribly with her auburn hair. What on earth had she been thinking? He’d given
it to her on a cream ribbon for a reason—
Dinner arrived and Philip dropped his hand.
He tried to ignore the argument going in his mind
about the colors, but it was hard. He’d always had an overdeveloped sense of
aesthetics, and at times growing up with Brad and Randall had been nothing but
torment. Builders’ houses were always one of two types: ramshackle and about to
fall over, or palatial monuments to every architectural innovation and new
concept to show up in the design rags. The Sundstrom home was one of the latter
type, if poorly decorated, and no sooner had he shoved Randall off stage and
into the hands of the police than he called in the cavalry to remove the worst
of his father’s excesses and atrocities. Gone were the putti pissing into
fountains and faux-antique tapestries and superfluous televisions, and there
were no more—Philip jerked his thoughts back to the here and now. He sat across
the table from a beautiful woman at a posh restaurant. His aesthetic hang-ups
could wait.
Philip genuinely enjoyed Angie’s company. They might
not live together—yet—but they certainly spent a lot of time in each other’s
company, mostly at her condo. She found his house “creepy, like a funeral
home,” even with Randall out of there and every room but his mother’s old
sitting room and her library redone. Not that he blamed her—it was large and
foreboding, and maybe it was time to sell it. When he’d called to invite her
out to dinner earlier in the week, she’d been overjoyed, even more so than
usual. It made him wonder if he weren’t missing something, but a thorough
search of his day planner by both himself and Suresh revealed nothing.
After gnawing his guts out for a while, he’d finally
given up, and when it came time to pick her up, he gave in and let himself
enjoy the evening. “Are you ready to go home?”
“Yes, I think so,” Angie said. Was that a tightening
around her eyes?
Philip signaled the waiter, who promptly brought him
the check. When Philip put a black Amex card down, the man’s eyes widened. It
would have been comical, but Philip found it hard to believe no one at this
restaurant had ever seen American Express’s Centurion Card before.
“Here you are, Mr. Sundstrom,” the waiter said when he
returned, placing the receipt before Philip and then departing. Philip signed
it, including a generous tip.
Philip held Angie’s chair for her and then waited
patiently while she wrapped her shawl around her shoulders. As they walked out
of the restaurant, Philip smiled at their waiter. “Thank you. We had a lovely
evening.”
But it was only as they waited for his car to be
brought around that he noticed the waiter had written a number—presumably
his—on the back of the credit card slip, but lightly and in pencil so it didn’t
show from the front. Classy. Philip crumpled it up and threw it in the trash.
“They’re staring at you out here too,” Angie
whispered.
Philip blushed. “I think you mean they’re looking at
you.”
“Some of them, maybe.” She laughed. “A few, the
straight ones.”
But they weren’t all straight, he could tell that
right off the bat. Sorry, boys. He played, but never when he was in a committed
relationship.
“Remind me not to come back here. This is very
embarrassing.”
She hooked her arm on his. “I think it’s hilarious,
and you blush very prettily.”
“Great.” He rolled his eyes.
It made him uncomfortable, that regard, even if he
understood it. Thanks to the last year at SunHo, he knew how to project an air
of authority, and a lot of people found that attractive. It wasn’t quite a
matter of “do the opposite of Randall.” After all, his father had run SunHo
with an air of power, but in Philip’s estimation, that power was based on fear.
Employees in SunHo’s corporate offices had feared for their jobs, at least when
Randall stomped and blustered. But authority? That was something different.
Philip knew when he spoke, he would be listened to. He might be young for a
CEO, but by and large, he was respected. He wasn’t sure Randall could’ve said
that, or even appreciated the difference.
In his early thirties, Philip was young, fit, and, based
on the evidence at dinner, handsome; he was very well situated financially, and
the waiter and valets could tell that from the credit card and his car. He
loved his Merc, a sleek sports car, the six-figure kind with the spoiler to
prevent it from taking flight. At least he assumed that’s why they stared. Or
maybe he had spinach stuck between his teeth, he thought ruefully, the perils
of being a vegetarian there to keep him humble.
They drove back to Angie’s condo in silence, insulated
from the sounds of the city by the Merc, but what, Philip wondered, isolated
them from each other? He bore responsibility for that, the lion’s share, at
least. He felt bad for neglecting Angie in favor of SunHo. It wasn’t that he
preferred SunHo per se, but it seemed so much more immediate to him. More…real,
he realized guiltily, but that’s not how he wanted his life to be. Angie always
understood—or acted as if she did. She got that he’d taken over the family
business, even if she didn’t know the particulars of how that had come about.
As far as he was concerned, she didn’t need to either.
But simply because Philip had chosen this life, it
didn’t stand to reason that Angie was happy with it. He knew she’d prefer to be
living the high life, preferably in San Francisco. Angie cared for him, so no
gold digger, she, but he didn’t fool himself on that score either. She enjoyed
the life his money afforded them. Buying Brad out a few years ago might’ve set
him back, but SunHo grew and expanded, despite the recession and building slowdown.
Philip was loaded, and Angie knew it.
He glanced over at Angie as he drove, her face turned
away from him, inscrutable in the passing lights. He knew what he wanted from
the next step in life, but was it what Angie wanted?
Unable to decipher his uncharacteristically enigmatic
girlfriend, Philip retreated into his thoughts, pretending he was in the
cockpit of a spaceship instead of a luxury car, because damn, the onboard
computer was almost that complicated. He liked Mercedes for the same reason he
liked Macs. They both embodied high performance and elegant design and didn’t
bother him with a lot of irritating details. Sure, BMW made amazing cars, but
they always seemed to want his input on some matter or other, and he got enough
of that at work. As for PCs, Philip was sure there was an elegant and highly
functional one somewhere, he’d just never heard of it. But really, they’d gone
from a charming dinner together full of conversation and laughter to him
retreating into his imagination. Again. He’d been doing that more and more
lately.
If he were to be honest with himself, it couldn’t be a
good sign, but they looked good together, and she was someone to hold on cold,
dark nights. Angie was someone to cling to when he’d spent too much time
reading the Existentialists and felt too alone in an uncaring universe. But was
that really a reason to stay in a relationship with someone? On the whole,
Philip reasoned, there were worse ones, but it would only be fair if she felt
the same way, and he knew for a fact she had no patience for what she called
his “navel-gazing.” This raised the question of why on Earth he was with
someone who so easily dismissed his interests and the things he valued. On the
other hand, he didn’t remember his parents sharing that many interests. So many
puzzles.
The keypad at the entrance to the parking lot under
Angie’s condo tower saved Philip from further omphaloskepsis. After he parked
in her designated guest space and opened the door for her, Angie again laughed
and flirted in the elevator.
“Dinner was great, but tomorrow night I want to go
clubbing in the city,” she said, moving in close, breathing in his ear, hand
roaming south of his belt.
“What’re you doing?” Philip gasped at the sudden
assault.
“What does it feel like I’m doing?”
He looked down at her, amazed at her audacity.
“Groping me. What if someone comes in?”
“Then I stop.”
Purchase Links
NineStar Press: https://ninestarpress.com/product/settling-the-score/
Books2Read: https://books2read.com/u/4NXDO6
Meet the Author
Christopher Koehler always wanted to write, but it
wasn’t until his grad school years that he realized writing was how he wanted
to spend his life. Long something of a hothouse flower, he’s been lucky to be
surrounded by people who encouraged that, especially his long-suffering husband
of twenty-nine years and counting.
He loves many genres of fiction and nonfiction, but
he’s especially fond of romances, because it’s in them that human emotions and
relations, at least most of the ones fit to be discussed publicly, are laid
bare.
While writing is his passion and his life, when he’s
not doing that, he’s a househusband, at-home dad, and oarsman with a slightly
disturbing interest in manners and the other ways people behave badly.
Christopher is approaching the tenth anniversary of
publication and has been fortunate to be recognized for his writing, including
by the American Library Association, which named Poz a 2016 Recommended Title,
and an Honorable Mention for “Transformation,” in Innovation, Volume 6 of Queer
Sci Fi’s Flash Fiction Anthology.
Author Links
Facebook: https://fb.me/Christopher.tells.stories
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/christopherink
Email: christoarpher@gmail.com
Giveaway
One lucky winner will receive a $10.00 NineStar Press
Gift Code!
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