Chapter 2
Jacob
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Nick. You can take that extremely generous offer I gave you by ten this morning, or you can meet us in court.” I held my phone to my ear with my shoulder, freeing up my hand to reply to an email from a junior member of the firm asking me for advice.
“But Jacob—”
God. It’s way too early to deal with Nick. My esteemed colleague hadn’t been given the nickname “Tricky Nicky” for nothing.
“Don’t even try,” I said. “I meant it when I said that offer was extremely generous, and you know it.”
He sighed. “Your client wouldn’t have made the amount you’re asking for in punitive damages in three lifetimes. Let’s settle on enough for one lifetime and call it a day.”
“No can do. Just because he’s the little guy and you’re the giant doesn’t mean you can short-change him. Your client’s product nearly killed the guy, and you knew it could happen.” I checked the time after hitting send on the email. Fuck. When did it get that late? “Look, Nick. I haven’t even left my house yet. I need to wrap this up and get my daughter to school. I’ll be looking for the signed offer on my desk by ten. If it’s not there, I’ll see you in court.”
“Be reasonable, Jacob. We can talk about this.”
“We already have.” A noise in the doorway made me look up. Allie, my seven-going-on-thirty-year-old daughter, stood there with her hand on her hip and her tiny eyebrow raised. “I’ve got to go, Nicky. Remember what I said.”
Without waiting for his reply, I pulled the phone away from my ear, hung up, and lifted my palms at her. “I know. I know. We’re going to be late if we don’t get moving and Halloween is your favorite day of school. You don’t want to miss it.”
I grinned when I looked over her outfit. She was dressed in a black suit, shiny dress shoes, and a tie that was much too big for her.
“You make a very convincing lawyer. Want to just skip the whole schooling thing and come work for me?”
She smoothed out the jacket and shook her head. “I can’t skip school. There’s a costume contest after lunch.”
“That’s not what I meant, but it is a compelling point.” I got up and walked across my home office, ruffling her loose hair as I passed by. “Do you still want me to help you with your hair?”
“Yes, please.” She followed me to my bathroom, held her arms out so I could help her onto the counter, and folded her hands in her lap. She tipped her head back while I got some product on my hands. “Can you slick it back? I want to look like the lawyer in that show you don’t like.”
I rolled my eyes but nodded. Her big brown eyes still melted my heart every time I looked into them. There was no saying no to her, even if I knew exactly which make-believe lawyer she was referring to and I hated the character he played.
“Let’s slick it back then. Just remember. He’s blond, and you’re a brunette, so you won’t look exactly like him anyway. There’s also the small matter of him being an adult male and you being, well, not.” I grabbed the comb and got to work, smelling the fresh scent of citrus when I kissed her forehead once I was done. “There we go. All done.”
“Thank you, Daddy!” She hopped off, hugged my waist, and started walking backward after she released me. “Can we go now?”
“Yep. Just about. We need to pack up your lunch. Then we can head out.”
She groaned. “We should have done that last night.”
“Well, it would go faster if you’d stop complaining and start helping.” I smiled when we walked into the kitchen. “Go grab your backpack. I’ll get your lunch.”
I’d already packed her lunch box earlier, but I added a juice box and some fruit before snapping the lid in place. With Allie pitching in by fetching her backpack and her school supplies, we were ready to go in no time.
Our garage held a new luxury Mercedes parked beside my electric-blue Corvette. I’d always been a bit of a sucker for a nice car, and the Corvette had been one of my first ever purchases once I could afford it. The Mercedes was our family car, but it was still a fucking dream to drive. Its safety ratings had clinched the deal for me.
Who says a Dad-car can’t be an awesome one?
We piled into the Mercedes and, once Allie was buckled in, peeled out of the driveway and headed to school. Glancing at her in the mirror when we were on the road, I smiled again at her outfit. “We’re still going trick or treating tomorrow, right?”
She shrugged a shoulder, her gaze fixed on the landscape rolling by. “I suppose we can.”
“Have you decided you’re too old for trick or treating now?” It’d been a topic of discussion for the last couple of weeks. It broke my heart to think my little girl was growing up so fast that she didn’t even want to go out on Halloween, but I wasn’t giving up yet.
Allie shrugged again and gave her head a small shake. “I’m still not sure. What if I’m the oldest kid out there?”
“You won’t be.” That much, I was sure of. “You only get to be a kid once, honey. Seven is too young to stop trick or treating.”
“Do you really think so?” She cocked her head to the side, shifting in the backseat so she faced me. “I don’t know. None of my friends have said if they’re going.”
I laughed. “If it was socially acceptable and people in this town wouldn’t recognize me, I’d still be doing it. Trust me. Your friends are going. It only really becomes fun after seven.”
“I’ll think about it,” she promised, scrunching up her freckled nose as she lowered her chin to give me a look. “But I’m not saying yes yet.”
“You should go,” I said, “for both our sakes.”
Uncertainty marred her forehead and darkened her eyes, but eventually, she agreed—even if it was begrudgingly. “Fine. I’ll go, but if I’m too old, we’re going home.”
“That’s my girl.” I grinned.
Allie always wanted to be an adult. Convincing her to be a kid for just a little while longer was an ongoing struggle, and debates like this one happened often in our house.
She was really good at formulating arguments for her age. I guessed she’d picked that up from me.
The kid wanted to be a lawyer too. She definitely had the communication and logical reasoning skills for it. I just didn’t really want her future career choice to be set in stone from such a young age. I didn’t actively discourage it because that was a surefire way to make her dig her tiny little heels in, but so far, I’d managed to not exactly encourage it either.
Little jokes like the one I’d made earlier about her coming to work with me were my attempt at showing interest and not dissuading her, but I also always denied her requests when she seriously asked to visit my office. I figured if she still wanted to go by the time she was twelve, then I’d take her a time or two to see if she was still interested.
My office was no place for a seven-year-old. Especially not for my seven-year-old. I didn’t want her following in my footsteps, even if she was the spitting image of me. It wasn’t because I didn’t think she could do it—she’d be great. She was already better at cross-examination than most of the interns at the firm. It was more about wanting her to do something that would really make her happy. Preferably with less stress, fewer hours, and a better work-life balance.
“We’re going to be late, Dad.” Her voice cut into my thoughts.
I glanced at the clock on the dash and realized she was right. Our efforts to make up for me losing track of time this morning were being severely hampered by the slow-moving car we’d gotten caught behind. I rolled my eyes at the custom license plate that said “WRITER” before checking the traffic in the oncoming lane.
If we stayed behind this ninety-something-year-old writer, Allie would only get to school tomorrow. As soon as I saw a gap, I darted around the vehicle and accidentally cut them off in the process. Ah well. If the writer doesn’t want people cutting them off, he or she needs to stop driving like a geriatric sloth.
The driver laid on the horn, but I just sped up and ignored the glare my daughter shot me.
“That was mean, Daddy. We should’ve waited.”
“I did wait until there was enough space for me to get past. You said we were going to be late and I know how you feel about that. Now we’ll get there on time.”
“I thought being rude was wrong.” My brown-eyed girl narrowed her eyes at me in the rearview mirror. “You’re always talking about what’s right and wrong, justice, and morality. What you just did goes against all of that.”
My daughter, the compass of morality. I couldn’t argue with her on this one, though. She wasn’t wrong, but I had been. I didn’t feel bad about it but I couldn’t make a stand to defend myself either. It was simply one of those things.
“Do what Daddy says, honey,” I told her, “not what he does.”
Allie sighed and crossed her arms, shaking her head again as she turned back to the window. “You’re a bad influence.”
Chapter 3
Laurie
What an asshole! I bit my tongue to stop myself from cursing the driver in the Mercedes out loud. I didn’t like swearing in front of Katie.
Besides, she was still talking about how excited she was for the costume contest. I didn’t even think she realized how close we’d just come to being in an accident.
My heart pounded and I gripped the smooth surface of my steering wheel so hard my knuckles turned white. Doesn’t he care at all about other people on the road?
“I’m going to win,” Katie said from her chair on the backseat, her voice confident and her spine straight. We’d braided her hair into two shiny pigtails that hung past her shoulders, and added a plaid ribbon that matched her shirt to the straw hat. “I have a good feeling about my costume this year.”
“So do I,” I said, taking a deep breath to calm my racing heart. “The point is to have fun with it, though. As long as everyone has fun, it doesn’t matter who wins.”
“I guess you’re right.” She sighed before flashing me another wide smile. “But whoever wins will have so much more fun than the others.”
Laughing as we got to the school, I pulled into the drop-off lineup. We crept up the line behind a blue minivan until it eventually skipped ahead. A familiar black Mercedes was suddenly in front of us. It was the very same one that had cut us off just a couple of miles back.
Well, what do you know?
A little girl in a suit climbed out, ducked her head back into the car, and then waved once she’d retrieved her backpack.
I nodded at her. “Do you know that kid?”
Katie craned her neck around my seat to get a look at who I was talking about. “That’s Allie. She’s in Mrs. Thompson’s class.”
“Right.” Mrs. Thompson taught the same grade Katie was in, which meant the asshole’s kid was in Katie’s year.
“Bye, Laurie.” She scooted forward in her seat after undoing her seatbelt to plant a kiss on my cheek. “I’ll see you later.”
“Good luck with the contest,” I called as she climbed out of the backseat. She did a half-turn to give me a thumbs-up, her blue eyes shining in excitement.
“If I win, can we go for ice cream after school?”
I shrugged, a soft smile forming on my lips. “Let’s go anyway. Win or lose. We don’t need a special occasion to have ice cream.”
She rushed to the front doors after giving me another nod and an enthusiastic wave, meeting up with some of her friends before going inside. Once she was safely in the school, I started to pull away only to realize the darn Mercedes was blocking me.
Straining forward, I managed to peer into the driver-side mirror to see a man talking on his phone. He clearly didn’t care a lick about who he was inconveniencing while casually chatting and making the rest of us wait.
I gave my horn a little tap, muttering a string of foul words at him under my breath. A hand with long fingers and an expensive watch on his wrist came out of the window to wave me past. Obviously, he was oblivious to the fact that I couldn’t get past.
He was so wrapped up in his world that he must not even have noticed the row of cones blocking the way. I let out a heavy breath and mumbled more bad words while putting my car in park and unbuckling my seatbelt.
I made sure my brake was engaged, leaving the car idling as I climbed out and stomped up to his window. It was still open, and it sounded like he was arguing with someone. Go figure.
Folding my arms over my chest, I dipped my head and glared at him until he noticed me.
He arched a brow before barking into the phone. “Hold on. I’ll call you back in a minute.”
He hung up without waiting for a reply. Typical.
When he turned his full attention on me for the first time, my breath caught in my lungs. It had been a very long time since I’d really noticed a guy, but I couldn’t not notice this one. Truth be told, he was exactly the type I used to be interested in when I still bothered with things like dating.
He looked out at the world through russet-brown eyes surrounded by long, pitch-black lashes. His hair was a warm color somewhere between chestnut and copper. Although his body was partially hidden by the car and clad in a fancy suit, it was all too clear that he had a lean physique with broad shoulders. He looked like he was tall too.
Designer stubble covered his square, chiseled jaw. It was distinct from a five o’clock shadow because it was longer and must have been neatly trimmed to look that way.
“Yes?” he asked with a small smirk touching his lips, as if he knew the direction in which my thoughts had just drifted.
I scowled at the arrogant asshole who also happened to be a danger to society when behind the wheel. “You’re blocking everyone’s way out. If you want to talk on your phone, the least you can do is pull into one of the parking spots. Not everyone can sit around and wait for what’s convenient for you.”
He flicked his gaze to his rearview mirror, probably realizing for the first time that there were actually other people waiting behind him, before bringing it back to mine. When he looked at me, I felt like I was being assessed, having my measure taken, and coming up short.
“I apologize. It wasn’t my intention to inconvenience anyone, but you don’t have to be so rude about it. I just didn’t realize.”
Of course, even his damn voice was attractive. It had that smooth, melodic quality to it that made me want to pull up a chair and listen to him read out even a grocery list.
I swallowed hard, forcing my head to take over from my stupid body while crossing my arms tighter around myself. “Oh, I’m the rude one? That’s really rich coming from you.”
Both of his elegantly curved brows swept up, but I got the feeling it was in amusement rather than shock or actual interest in what I was saying. “Really? How so? I haven’t done a thing other than take a phone call and not pulling off fast enough for you.”
As hot as he was, I despised pompous men like him. He was so full of himself that he was completely clueless about everyone else around him.
“Don’t pretend like you’re the innocent victim here.” My arm shot up at my side, and I pointed at where we’d come from. “You also cut me off back there. What were you thinking? Both of us had children in our cars.”
The douche actually smiled, which only infuriated me more because it was a really nice smile, but also because it simply served to confirm the kind of person he was. He thought this was funny.
Yep. Total asshole.
“I wouldn’t have had to cut you off if you didn’t drive like a ninety-six-year-old out on a Sunday afternoon. I didn’t know you had a child in your car, but there was nothing dangerous about what I did. There was more than enough space for me to pass.”
My head nearly exploded, and my blood boiled to steam. At least a dozen retorts sat on the tip of my tongue.
Before I had a chance to utter a single one, he pulled away and waved out his window at me, leaving me standing in front of my car with everyone else in line honkin
g at me now. Narrowing my eyes, I seriously considered flipping him off.
But then I remembered where I was. Inevitably, I would be the one reported for improper behavior, and other parents would blame me.
Katie loved this school, and they had been extremely supportive of us through everything. I would hate to embarrass her and get in trouble with the administration at the same time.
It was a real pity, but he was gone, and I was now the one holding everyone up. With no other choices, I simply yelled a few more curses at him in my head and went back to my car.
Smiling apologetically at the driver behind me before climbing in, I held my hand up in a gesture to say sorry. I had half a mind to chase the asshole down to give him a real piece of my mind without any prying eyes, but that would make me look completely unhinged.
If I didn’t have places to be, I might have considered doing it. I didn’t give a hoot what he thought about my mental state anyway. Unfortunately, I couldn’t spend the rest of the day exacting some kind of revenge on the pompous prick.
Even that would have been more fun than what I had to go do, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have to go do it. If I ever wanted to get my mojo back and stand a chance of getting back to work for real, I needed to get things sorted out.
A rock that had nothing to do with the morning’s events formed in the pit of my stomach. My day had started out terribly, but it would only get worse from here. Every time I went to go see the illustrious Mr. Eric Starkey, my lawyer, I hated him just a little bit more.
Eventually though, the royalties I earned from the books I had published before wouldn’t be enough to sustain us. I needed to get my muse back, and I needed him to help me get justice before I could do that.
As I pulled away from the school, I wondered if there were still any lawyers in the whole damn world who actually wanted justice for their clients. In my experience, the only thing the bottom-feeding leeches wanted was to be paid their fees, even if they hadn’t done anything to earn that money.
Desperate For You Page 2