Stephanie shot to her feet at the sound of someone clearing her throat. The room spun as she stumbled into Ethan’s arms.
“Am I interrupting something?” Nicole’s voice was icy enough to frost the windows.
Ethan and Stephanie jumped apart as if invisible bungee cords had pulled them in opposite directions.
“Of course not,” Ethan said, his voice cracking like a pre-pubescent boy. He coughed. “How soon before the taxi gets here?”
The woman cringed. “Yeah, well, about that. It’s going to be at least an hour and a half, probably more like two. I offered them triple, but there’s a convention in town. There simply isn’t anything available. I called the dealership. Your car is dismantled, so it can’t be driven. They have no courtesy drivers to spare. I tried Lissa, but the call went straight to her voice mail. Three strikes and we’re out. Sorry, boss man.”
“What about the rideshare companies?” he asked.
Nicole grimaced. “You have pending litigation with the big two in town. I won’t repeat what the dispatchers said to me, but I don’t think it’s anatomically impossible.”
Ethan ran his fingers through his hair, his stony mask disintegrating faster than Stephanie’s veneer of pride had. He looked as if he might cry. “What am I going to do? I have to get to the hospital. Megan needs me. Pete needs me.” His eyes glistened. “God, Nicole, he’s in foster care. What if he ends up at Mrs. MacGregor’s house?”
Who was Mrs. MacGregor? Judging from their expressions, the woman couldn’t have been good. Ethan and Nicole obviously shared a past. Were they planning a future?
“Do you always get so emotional over your clients?” Stephanie asked.
His pathetic effort to try to pull on that stony mask of his nearly made her laugh.
He sniffed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s my allergies.”
“Yeah, sure. Try again,” Stephanie challenged.
Ethan ran his hand through his hair. “Megan is my sister. Baby Pete is my nephew. They’re the only people I do get emotional about, the only people I give a damn about,” he admitted.
“Ethan!” Nicole admonished him.
“Hell, I’m so tied up in knots, I’m not thinking straight.” He turned to Stephanie. “Forget I said that,” he begged.
Forget about it? Not a chance. It was time to play a little offense, to literally put herself in the driver’s seat. To keep her enemy close.
“I’ll take you.” Stephanie blurted out, almost as if she was staking a claim on him. “Let’s go.” If ever there was the need for a time machine, this was it. Once again, her impulsive nature had gotten the better of her, but it was too late to back out now.
He blinked hard, squeezing a tiny drop of liquid from the corner of his eye. He wiped it away. “Allergies!” he exclaimed a little more forcefully than necessary.
“Allergies. Right.” Stephanie dug her car keys out of her bag and dangled them in front of him.
His brows knit. “You’d do that for me? Why?”
Why? Great question. Once she untangled that particular Gordian knot, she’d tackle something less complex, like how to get her über red friends and her mega blue friends to agree on a nice shade of purple somewhere in the middle. Piece of cake.
She scrambled for a response. “I like the idea of you owing me a favor.” It was lame, but it would have to do.
The stony mask slipped back over his face, his now frigid expression nearly freezing the blood in her veins. “Nice try. I don’t grant favors, nor do I accept them. I don’t like being indebted to someone. Anyone. Ever.”
Stephanie shrugged. “Suit yourself. Call my attorney if you need anything.” She turned to leave.
“Wait!” he called after her.
Was that more of a plea than a command? She turned back to him. “Do you need my attorney’s number?”
“No, don’t need your attorney’s number. I need a ride to the damned hospital. And I’m desperate enough to accept your kind offer. How about I buy you lunch after I get Megan settled?” he offered.
“Have you lost your mind?” she asked.
“That’s a distinct possibility, but you don’t have to look so horrified at the prospect of eating a meal with me.”
“My husband has been dead less than a week. Plus, you’re suing me. If someone saw us having lunch without Uncle Brian, they’d assume it was a date. The gossip mill would go insane. That kind of irresponsible lapse in judgment would be all my board of directors needs to bounce me out of my own company, and I’m barely holding onto it as it is. Thanks, but no thanks.”
“You’re right. I have no idea where that came from. I’d barbeque any client who met with opposing counsel behind my back. I wasn’t thinking.”
She turned to walk away. He reached out to grab her elbow. “Don’t go. I would appreciate a ride to the hospital, please and thank you. It doesn’t look like I have much of a choice.”
CHAPTER 10
ETHAN OPENED THE LOBBY door for Stephanie and followed her into the parking lot. At least she didn’t fuss at him the way some women did when he performed the automatic ritual that had been drilled into him. But then, she was a pampered little princess who had always had someone to do her heavy lifting so she wouldn’t break a sweat. Or a nail. A red flag unfurled.
But he had to admit, there were benefits to walking behind her; the view was delicious, especially with the way those wicked shoes pushed her ass back almost begging for his caress.
Women came on to him all the time, but it had been a while since one had caught his eye. He had forced his libido into hibernation a long time ago—seven years to be exact—where it had drifted in suspended animation.
Until today.
It had picked one hell of a time to wake up. Was it because Stephanie Kerrigan was forbidden fruit? His loyalty belonged to Megan, the one person who had never deserted him. Never pushed him away. They’d been a team of two since the day she’d been born. Waiting, praying for their mother—or anyone—to find them and rescue them from foster care hell. Prayers that had been answered with a resounding no.
Ethan could not repay Megan’s devotion by allowing himself to be attracted to their opponent. It couldn’t happen. Ever. Forbidden fruit. Yeah, that had to be it. Coupled with sleep deprivation. All of this nonsense would go away as soon as he was able to catch some Zs.
The soft clicks and chirps of her keyless entry drew his attention to a glowing glob of orange. It radiated what most people would see as a splash of pizazz in the middle of a sea of drab sameness. Ethan saw more pain, more humiliation. Cracking the door to his past always left him temporarily vulnerable. This whole mess with Megan and Pete had pulled him away from his meditation exercises before he’d been able to lock his painful thoughts away. An errant memory blindsided him.
The sting of her slap burned across seven-year-old Ethan’s face. “Are you a girlie-boy?”
Ethan had no idea what that was, but it didn’t sound good. Fighting back tears, he could only whimper. “No ma’am, Mrs. MacGregor. Megan wanted to play with her dolls, and no one else would play with her. I...”
The sting of another slap silenced him. “Boys don’t play with dolls. If you want to be a girl, put on a dress and be a girl.”
With a single, brutal yank, she tore Ethan’s clothes from his little body. She shoved a dress against his chest before pushing him out the front door onto the porch.
Cold and naked, Ethan had no choice but to put on the dress. Shame filled him as he pulled himself into a tight crouch behind the spirea bush, hoping that its coppery, burnt orange foliage would shield him from view.
The vision lasted less than a second. The smell of the wet earth filled his head as the flashback faded. What didn’t fade was the flame that grew from the glowing ember in his gut. The ember that never totally extinguished. It burned across his cheeks.
“I hate orange. This thing looks like you stayed at the ball too long, Cinderella. I half-expect liveried
field mice to scamper out from behind the bumper. Why on earth would you buy a monstrosity like this?” he asked as he climbed into her car.
She settled into the driver’s seat and fastened her seatbelt. “Buy? Oh, no, this is a lease. Why would I spend money on a depreciating asset? Paying all that interest for something I only plan to keep for two years doesn’t make financial sense. I’m a Halloween baby, so orange is my signature color, but with my red hair, I can’t wear it. Daddy always said the stork didn’t bring me, that I was delivered on the back of a broomstick. The dealership had to scour three states for this sweet ride.”
She was delivered by witches. That was easy to believe. It was also easy to believe she bought or leased things she had no intention of keeping. She used things, then threw them away. It was a pattern he was all too familiar with. Another red flag unfurled.
Ethan itched to own things. Never again would he be in a position where something could be snatched away from him by someone’s capricious whim. “Leasing makes sense from a business standpoint, but, unlike you, I grew up with nothing. Even the clothes on my back weren’t mine. That’s why everything I own has been bought and paid for; I don’t owe a dime to anyone.”
But now, he owed Stephanie.
CHAPTER 11
“BUCKLE UP, BUTTERCUP,” she advised him. She shoved the car into gear, popped the clutch, and jammed the accelerator to the floor, giggling as his body slammed back into his seat. She’d taken that zero-to-sixty metric as a challenge—and won more often than not.
He grasped the door handle in a white-knuckled death grip, his eyes wide, jaw slack. The man was terrified. Perfect.
“If you don’t relax, Mr. Webb, you’ll break something if I crash like my last passenger did,” she teased.
His right foot slammed on the non-existent passenger-side brake pedal. “If you crash? More like when. Slow down! You drive like a freaking maniac. Need I remind you I’m a personal injury attorney?”
She jerked the wheel for a violent lane change, flipping off the angry, horn-blowing driver she had cut off. “You’re a professional pariah. Who’s going to represent you?” she taunted as she veered back into the right lane.
His foot was going to punch a hole in her floorboard if he didn’t chill. “We’re a money-hungry bunch. If the potential payday is big enough, I’ll represent Satan himself. My colleagues are no different. Now for the love of God, will you please slow down? I’m visiting a patient at the hospital; I have no desire to become a patient myself,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Oh, relax. I’m insured. Plus, you’re young, strong, and healthy. You’ll heal fast,” she ribbed him.
“Smitty was young, strong, and healthy. He was no match for the mangled metal that trapped him in his car as he bled out,” Ethan reminded her.
Smitty. As much of an idiot as Smitty had been, he hadn’t deserved the slow, painful death that had been his fate. The white-hot anger that had consumed her earlier cooled a few degrees.
She slowed, set her turn signal, and made a graceful lane change. “I was only having some fun with you. Don’t tell me you’ve never blown off steam with a little aggressive driving?”
“Absolutely not,” he assured her. “I’m a professional asshole. I get paid to annihilate people. I leave the demolition derby to the amateurs then profit from their stupidity. I set my cruise control at exactly the speed limit and would rather walk six blocks than park illegally.”
“Are you serious? No speeding tickets? No parking tickets?” She glanced at her purse in the backseat. Had Uncle Brian taken her paperwork?
“For the love of God, woman, keep your eyes on the road! And yes, I’m serious. I am a nit-picking perfectionist; if my opponents ever caught wind of an indiscretion, they’d carve me up like a Thanksgiving turkey. As I said,” he pounded his chest, “personal injury attorney. If I’m ever in an accident, I’ll be sued by everyone within a five-block radius on general principle. I’m careful. I protect what’s mine. Right now, my car is in pieces having a dashcam with an integrated monitoring and security system installed. The way you drive, you should get one, too.”
It almost sounded like he cared about her. That he wanted to make sure she was protected. Because she was his? Hardly. The only thing he cared about was keeping her alive and financially solvent long enough to claim half of her company for Megan. To crush her in court. To profit from her stupidity.
It would be so easy to be stupid with Ethan. Just being in a car with him set her senses on fire the way no other man ever had, including Smitty, the man she had been convinced was her soulmate, the love of her life.
In such a tight space, Ethan’s masculine presence wrapped her in a strong, secure chrysalis. He smelled honest. Not the fancy, overpowering aroma of an expensive cologne or aftershave, just the simple scent of soap, shampoo, and clean, fresh laundry. Not at all what she would have expected given his public image. But then, she had a softer side she didn’t dare show in the boardroom for fear of being eaten alive. It was logical to assume he had a face he couldn’t show in public. No one could be an asshole all day every day, could they?
Maybe he could, but she would never know. She pulled into the hospital parking lot.
Ethan pointed to the main entrance. “You can pull up to the front door. I’ll hop out, so you can be on your way. Thank you for the ride.”
“Not gonna happen, Sparky,” she said. Sparky? Where had that come from? Duh, from the sparks that ignited in her every time they touched. There was a simple fix for that. Don’t touch. Ever. No matter how much she wanted to or how good it felt.
“Weren’t you listening? I told you I wanted the baby. I’m going inside with you,” she informed him. “I’ll wait while you take care of Megan. Then we’ll go get the baby. Together.”
“I should have seen this coming,” he mumbled.
“Yes, you should have. I said it plain as day, but you were so hellbent on getting here, that little chunk of information must have gotten lost.”
She pulled into the queue for valet parking.
Ethan tugged on the handle. “Why isn’t this opening? It’s supposed to unlock.” He tugged harder. “Let me out!” He turned to face her with wide eyes.
“You can rip it off, and it won’t do you any good. My computer-genius brother, Shane, reprogrammed the onboard computer. Only I can unlock the door. A girl can’t be too careful these days.”
If he’d been a cartoon character, he’d have steam coming out of his ears. “I said let me out. Now!”
She pulled out of line and headed toward the exit.
His voice rose an octave. “Where are you going?”
“I’m taking you back to your office. Either I go in, or you go back. Your choice.”
“This is kidnapping. I’ll press charges,” he threatened.
Stephanie shrugged. “You could, but by that time, Pete might be settling in at Mrs. MacGregor’s house of horrors.”
“God damn you, woman. I’m not sure there’s a word in the English language to adequately describe you.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment. You might be the immovable object, but I’m the irresistible force, and in physics, force always wins. You’re doomed.”
He deflated into the seat. “I’ve used that line a time or two. Okay, you can come in,” he agreed reluctantly.
Stephanie maneuvered back to the valet stand, hopped out of the car, and accepted the claim ticket from the attendant. Webb had caved, but he wasn’t making it easy for her. He broke into a jog. She was going to have to hustle to catch up. If he thought he could put enough distance between them that he’d be able to lose her in the hospital’s labyrinth, he had one big surprise coming.
She sprinted after him like a gazelle, praying that the thin heels of her new stilettos would hold up under the pressure. She caught up with him at the reception desk as he was handing the volunteer his business card.
“I’m here to see Megan Smith, please,” he told the elderly, pink-sm
ocked woman behind the desk.
Clutching the business card in her gnarled hand, the white-haired, grandmotherly woman stood, her tiny stature barely reaching the middle of Ethan’s chest. She slowly tilted her head to one side to see his face. “I will only be a moment.” She pointed to her left. “Please have a seat in the waiting area.” Without waiting for his response, she retrieved her cane from behind the desk and hobbled off to her right.
“A moment? Is she kidding? At the rate she’s moving, it’ll be dinnertime before I find Megan,” he grumbled under his breath.
Stephanie watched the volunteer teeter down the hall. “It doesn’t look like you have much of a choice.”
“So, what else is new?” he asked, sweeping his arm toward the waiting room. “After you.”
Ethan’s agitation seemed to calm as they entered the waiting area. Everything worked together to create a serene oasis in the midst of the chaos mental hospitals dealt with on a daily basis. Soft blue hues colored the walls, overstuffed chairs in swirling patterns of blues and grays invited stressed-out visitors to set down their burdens if only temporarily. Healing reiki music flowed softly from discretely placed speakers.
Choosing a seat near the saltwater aquarium, Ethan set his briefcase on a chair and claimed the seat next to it. “I’ve always liked Mandarin fish. They’re pretty, kinda psychedelic.”
Stephanie sank into the chair next to him. “I’m partial to clownfish. They’re orange.”
He shook his head with a chuckle. “I should have known.” He stroked his jaw. “Listen, I... I appreciate the ride. It’s been...” He closed his mouth and opened it again, but no words came out. It was almost as if he was short-circuiting.
For Pete's Sake: An Enemies to Lovers Marriage of Convenience Standalone Romance Novel (Tobin Tribe Book 1) Page 5