by Chloe Liese
The bastard was staring at me, agitation rolling off him in waves. Arms crossed. Sleeves rolled up. And he swiveled in his chair. His forearms were a tantalizing picture of muscles and olive skin that tensed and released while he swayed. I thought I was high strung, but he was making even me want to roll out my shoulders and breathe deeply.
“You’re telling me stress is transmitted intergenerationally,” he said through clenched teeth.
When he talked, my body betrayed me. My breasts ached and my knickers were damp. Damn him. I cleared my throat and interlaced my fingers. “Yes.”
He kept on swiveling his seat. “Meaning that if your parents grow up in a rough neighborhood—lack of resources and healthcare, drug crime, gangs, shitty schools—pardon.” He waved it off. He had a foul mouth and seemed to have given up on trying to censor himself. “That gets…passed on. How?”
I stared him down over the boardroom conference table. “It’s complex, and no disrespect, but I doubt you have the background to understand epigenetic and neuroendocrinal changes. If you don’t believe me though, and you’d like to see for yourself, feel free to browse the tome of references I have here.” I patted a massive binder to my right. “Or call Rachel Yehuda, and any other researcher who deals with the neuroscience of PTSD and ask them.”
Tony’s gaze flicked between us while he dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief.
Zed stopped swaying abruptly and leaned his elbows on the table. “Assuming you’re right, then what?”
I bit my cheek and squeezed my hands together. By Christ, the man was patronizing. Of course, I was right.
“So, they have it even harder than we thought,” he said. “It’s not just making sure school lunches have vegetables in them, or kids get time outside at recess. You’re giving me a problem, Ms. MacGregor, not a solution.”
It was exhausting, waging this battle in my brain. His voice was even and low. It did things to me. If I blocked out what he said, I could enjoy how the sound reverberated in my chest before it landed with a thud between my thighs. Unfortunately, the arrogant content was hard to ignore.
“It’s actually a brilliant opportunity,” I countered. “We partner with medical schools and relevant university departments. Bring in funding for these neighborhood health clinics. Medical providers collaborate with researchers. We get real, local data on what we’re dealing with in terms of stress-related diseases—mental and physical—and the community gets the free healthcare your mother dreamed of.”
He stared at me curiously.
“Not to mention,” I pressed on, “a few years down the road, when we have enough data that can prove not just correlation but causation between economic disparities and poor health outcomes—”
“Even controlling for endogeneity between all the factors that impact wellbeing?” He leaned in. “Quality of life, longevity?”
Well damn, he did have a brain. I knew he’d studied economics and philosophy at Harvard. Entitlement and a fast track into corporate law was written all over him. I’d seen his litigious side plenty, but witnessing his statistically inclined mind was new, and frustratingly attractive.
I hadn’t expected him to raise the question, but I was prepared for it. “Yes. It’ll control for that. This is exactly what politicians need shoved under their noses so they can smell the stink of their complacency.”
He sat back and rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. His fingers were long and knuckled. I imagined them in rough clutches and tender strokes, depending on what the moment called for. Then I clenched my legs together and tried to rub the ache away.
He dropped his hand in a quiet fist on the table. “That sounds…promising. Thank you, Ms. MacGregor.”
He refused to call me Nairne unless I corrected him. Then he’d say it once, and afterward go right back to referring to me formally. He was like Granda’s wolfhound, Connall. Untrainable.
Zed glanced at his watch. “That’s all for today, everyone. Thanks for your time. Oh, Matt. Make some time to talk with Ms. MacGregor, get what you need for the grant application.”
People dispersed and our grant writer came by, smiling at me. He was by objective standards attractive. Blond hair, blue eyes. A lean athleticism that I’d attribute to avid outdoorsmanship, maybe marathons. Unfortunately, I found him as compelling as buttering toast or making my bed—a fixture in my schedule that elicited absolutely no emotion.
“Nairne.”
At least somebody around here was educable. I smiled as he sat next to me. “Matthew.”
“What do you say we talk this through over a sandwich? I know a great place down the street.”
The table rattled as a chair slammed into it and drew our attention. Zed’s eyes bored into me. Whereas the fellow next to me was all kindness and bright features, at the other end of the room stood Lucifer himself. Dark hair, and pale eyes that glowed harsh against his tan skin. Sin and arrogance and demand. His gaze held mine for a long moment until it moved to its next victim. “Matt, I just remembered, I had something to ask you. I need to get to a press conference, though. Walk with me.”
Matthew sighed and muttered under his breath as he gathered his papers. “It’d kill him to say please.” He smiled at me apologetically. “Next time.”
“Next time,” I agreed. But I knew there wouldn’t be. And I wasn’t ready to admit why.
Five
Zed
The Esplanade is a nearly twenty-mile stretch of flat, picturesque land that winds along the banks of the Charles River. I grew up along the water, spent endless hours of my childhood and adolescence biking the trails. I broke my first bone when I slipped from the playground monkey bars. I dug for treasure and toads, went to concerts at the Hatch Shell, and had my first kiss under its canopy of stars.
It wasn’t even sunrise, but it was August, which meant the ground held yesterday’s heat, and the air was muggy. As I ran my regular ten-miler along the river, my mind wandered, and my usual hyperawareness dissolved into the thick breeze. As I passed one familiar spot after another, I saw Mom, how she loved packing picnic lunches and chasing us along the water. How she used to lean back on her hands and give her face to the sun with a smile that always made me smile with her.
She’d been gone exactly nine months. Dad said I still hadn’t grieved, but he was her husband so that was all he did. Meaning, he was not an objective measurer of mourning. When she died, I’d been confronted with the limits of my control. I’d done everything I could to see her kick cancer’s ass and it still hadn’t worked. She was gone, and I’d been useless. It pissed me off and broke my heart that I hadn’t been able to do a damn thing about it.
I had her eyes and her foul mouth. Nothing else.
She’d been messy, effusive, and always empathic. A great joke teller. She loved the smell of old books and the dirty work of gardening. She’d meant everything to us, and I’d let her die. Fuck mortality. Fuck cancer. Fuck death.
Rounding the Hatch Shell, I remembered her swaying me in her lap as we watched the firework extravaganza. That year the sky had lit up in a rainbow of crackling spiders—that’s what they’d looked like to my five-year-old mind, at least—while the Boston Pops performed patriotic tunes. She’d kissed my hair, and when I tried to snuggle close, my baby brother had kicked me in the head, his tiny feet shoving me away so he could nurse without interruption. I’d decided then that baby brothers were bullshit, because me and Mama and those fireworks, they were mine.
My possessive and controlling impulses showed themselves early, you could say.
More memories drifted through my mind, until I turned the corner on the trail, and those thoughts vanished. The wind off the river whipped her hair, yanking ribbon after mahogany ribbon from a long braid. It was countless gradations of auburn and it spooled thick and shiny over her shoulder. Dark-framed glasses obscured her eyes. She sat on a blanket and leaned into the wind like it was an old friend.
But that hair was a work of art. I could feel its weight in my grasp, wr
apped around my fist. The wind plastered her shirt against her chest and revealed a lean body—balletic arms and long legs. My whole body woke up as I took her in. Hunger and arousal welled inside me. I needed more. Her face turned away and that was unacceptable, so I kept jogging closer until my curiosity clashed with recognition and my stomach lurched.
Jesus H. Christ.
“Nairne?” Her name left my mouth sounding pissed and confused, because I was. What the hell was she doing here?
Her head turned my way just as the sun broke over the horizon and blazed in her emerald eyes. “Zed.” She leaned back on her hands and squinted up at me.
Leggings, sports bra, some kind of flowy top. All black, except for the shirt that was falling off her shoulder and torturously sheer white. Bare face and wild hair that betrayed the time Ms. MacGregor took to coax those sexy waves into the smooth front she brought to the board meetings. Natural and unpolished, she was even more beautiful. And she was still a giant pain in my ass. Smart-mouthed. Conceited. With a ridiculously distracting body.
I stuck my hands on my hips and tried not to stare at her tits. It wasn’t easy. “What are you doing here?”
There was some reclining bike thing nearby. It figured Nairne wouldn’t ride a normal bike but have some ergonomic alternative bicycle.
She quirked her head to the side and frowned up at me. “It’s a public space, is it not?”
I scrubbed my face with my hands, then ran them through my hair. “Christ, MacGregor,” I growled. “I’m not awake enough for verbal sparring. Just answer the damn question.”
She snorted and sat straighter. Brushed some grass off her thigh. “I’m sitting on my arse watching the sunrise, Mr. Salvatore. That suit you?”
Arse. Her broad vowels. That fiery hair and temper. At least one piece in the puzzle of Nairne clicked for me. She was Scottish. She’d answered my question, but it didn’t explain what she was doing here, when I’d never seen her before. And I ran the loop five days a week, rain or shine. I glanced out to the river where early daylight reflected off its mirrored surface. “I’ve never seen you here before.”
She shielded her eyes and peered up at me. “First time for everything. I sense I’m intruding. Some ritual of yours that I’ve thrown a wrench in.”
Damn straight, she had.
She smiled, reading me easily. “I’d offer not to come again and disturb your routine, but that’s a little too obsequious for my taste.”
My gaze snapped to her. Obsequious. Submissive. She didn’t have a submissive bone in her body. At least she knew herself. She was the antithesis of what worked in my life, but that didn’t change how absurdly I wanted her.
“As always, Ms. MacGregor, you speak your mind.” I backed away, giving us space because the wind had picked up and hit me with a perfume of flowers and ocean air that was definitely hers, rather than a product of our surroundings. It smelled incredible. It was going straight to my dick, and that was not all right. “I’ll leave you to it.”
She squinted at my odd retreat and dropped her hand. “Thanks.”
I spun and ran back onto the trail. The threat of seeing her again on another morning like this was enough to send my body on a dead sprint. I finished the last mile and gasped for air outside my place, hands on my knees.
“Getting old’s a bitch, ain’t it, Sal?”
Art was eighty and insisted on calling me Sal. He was my next-door neighbor, didn’t know who the hell I was, and couldn’t hear for shit. It made for a surprisingly pleasant dynamic.
“That it is, Art.” I had to practically yell the words.
He nodded and looked me over as I straightened.
“Oh, no, that’s not your problem.” Art wobbled toward me. “I know that look.”
“What?”
He grinned and poked one gnarled finger right in my chest. “A woman.”
An Indian summer for the books made my drive unseasonably warm and comfortable that evening. Windows down. Van Morrison blending with the wind that tangled my misbehaved hair and made me compulsively comb it out of my face. Annoying, yes, but I just couldn’t bring myself to shut out that warm breeze. There was something intoxicating about the night. I knew if I closed up my car, I’d miss the last balmy dusk until spring.
I’d told Lucas I’d meet him for a couple of rounds. He was a teammate, and one of the few guys outside the life that I had time for, or trusted. I spent my days surrounded by familiar faces, nearly all of which were strangers to me. It was best that way. But Lucas was dry-humored and smart, and we seemed to have a similar hard-headed, self-deprecating disposition. So, we worked.
He’d named the place. Some joint called Henderson’s. He was British and thus a gin man through and through, but he’d been on a scotch bender lately. And allegedly, Henderson’s had a bar that was a whiskey-drinker’s wet dream. I never liked scotch, whiskey, whatever you want to call it, but this place had trivia night and no jersey chasers. Grabby paws, fake everything, and nothing between their ears. Their absence and the ubiquity of rum and coke were enticement enough.
The place was easy to find and so was Lucas. Sandy blond and six-foot-four made him an easy target at the bar. He swung around and balked when I clapped him on the back.
“Christ, you look surly.” He glanced at me over his whiskey glass as he took a drink and sent the fumes my way. Turpentine. Gasoline. Horrible, horrible stuff.
I sat down next to him and threw off my jacket. “Nice to see you, too, sweetie.”
He laughed and waved down a bartender. “He’ll have a double rum and coke and a burger that’s so rare, it’s a health code violation.”
I checked my phone and pocketed it. “Knock its horns off, wipe its ass, and throw it in a meat grinder.”
The bartender scrunched his nose as he made my drink. “Gross. Hey, you know who you remind me of? The soccer hot shot. What’s his name?”
My fingers drummed along the bar as I watched the soda gun splash coke against the glass. I never got plastered in public, but I’d throw back a double and ride a nice buzz for a while. “I get that a lot. I forget his name. About the burger—I’ll sign a waiver. I just want it practically mooing.”
He set down the drink and looked at me like I was nuts. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Lucas watched me drain half of my low-brow cocktail as a smile grew on his face. “What’s gotten into you? You’re a mess.”
I set the glass down and looked around. I felt antsy. Off. I hadn’t fucked a woman in two weeks, since—
No, I wasn’t even going to think her name. “I’m fine. I could use a lay.”
“Ah.” He set down his whiskey. Jesus, the stuff reeked. “That explains it.”
Lucas knew my situation. I was a prominent face in the city who despite his mafia ties managed to keep a squeaky-clean reputation. Chair of Boston’s beloved nonprofit for its underprivileged kids and their communities. Face of the local professional soccer team, their lead scorer and primary brand ambassador.
And a brutal fuck.
“Yeah.” I had partners who signed a watertight NDA and were as discrete and docile as they came. But I hadn’t wanted a thing to do with them since the Scottish Hellion had taken over my board meetings.
“So…what happened?” Lucas stared at the TV. Big Papi swung and missed. We watched the Sox flush another inning down the shitter while I tried to figure out what I was willing to admit.
“I don’t want them anymore.”
He turned to face me. “That so? Who is she?”
“Why is everyone so positive I’m wrecked over a woman?”
Lucas grinned into his drink. “Because this is what happens to a man. Men always want to fuck. Until they meet the woman. Then they want something more. And everything goes to hell.”
The burger came and there was a pool of greasy blood surrounding the bun. Perfection.
“That was quick,” he muttered. Lucas’ plate slid in front of him. “I ordered mine twenty minutes ago.”<
br />
I shrugged. “It’s a two-minute sear each side, that’s it. Thus, the blood.”
Lucas shuddered.
My burger smelled pretty damn good, and while I wanted to eat, I wanted to clarify my predicament more. “Back to what you’re saying. Wanting…more. You know I don’t work like that.”
He shook his head while he freed the silverware from his napkin. “Maybe not before.”
“Before.” I laughed, then took a bite. “You make it sound like it’s a switch that you flip. I’m wired this way. I’m not going to magically grow a soul for this shit overnight.”
Lucas cut into his medium-rare steak and took a bite. I almost gagged at the sight. Way too cooked. “No one said anything about it being overnight. But it happens—”
“Says the confirmed bachelor. Who the hell are you to talk?”
He shrugged and glanced up at the TV as he chewed. “You’re making assumptions. Longstanding bachelordom does not equate to inexperience with affection for the female sex. I’ve been exactly where you are. I know the signs. The change that comes. It’s happening to you already. For instance, you don’t want to—”
“I know. But I’m saying it’s anomalous. A momentary lapse probably. None of this doomsday crap you’re spewing.”
“Denial.” He smiled around his steak and took a swig of whiskey. “It’s not just a river in Egypt.”
Terrible. Just terrible. “Those kinds of punning jokes will get you nothing but my disrespect.”
The microphone nearby crackled, and a voice came over too loudly, announcing trivia.
“Ah, there it is. The evil smile of competitive delight.” Lucas raised an arm, and somebody handed him a paper and pencil. “Come on, Zeddy. Let the games begin.”
Six
Nairne