Justus shot up, knocking his chair to the carpeted floor with a muffled thunk. “Don’t you ever mention her to me!” he roared.
“Oh my God,” Angela cried.
Enraged, Vincent leapt to his feet and slammed both palms on his desk. That same invisible fist, always with him these days, tightened in his chest, squeezing his heart painfully. Only by sheer force of will did he stay upright and not press his hand to his chest.
“Do you think I’d ever let Maya live with you?” he shouted, spittle flying from his mouth. “When you have no respect for anything or anyone and no sense of duty and no ambition other than wondering where your next piece of ass is going to come from? Are you insane?”
Justus’s face twisted into a sneer. Apparently fearing the worst, Angela jumped up and caught his arm to hold him back.
Vincent didn’t care whether his son tried to hurt him now or not. Only one thing mattered here, and that was Maya’s welfare. He raised his hand and pointed across the desk at Justus.
“You’ll raise my only grandchild over my dead body!”
Justus smiled crookedly. “Suit yourself.”
Without another word, he strode out.
Angela took a hasty few steps after him, her arm outstretched. “Justus, wait!”
“Oh, let him go!” Vincent shouted. “Let him go! I never wanted him here anyway!”
Angela had reached the library door, but she stopped and turned, fists clenched, as if she could barely control the urge to punch him.
“What kind of a man are you? Don’t you see what you’re doing to your son? Your only remaining child? Don’t you care?”
“No.”
Her eyes widened with horror.
“Don’t you look at me like that! You have no idea what’s going on here, Angela!”
“I know a monster when I’m staring at one!”
“I’m the monster? Why don’t you point your finger at him? When was he ever a son to me? When he cried every time I touched him when he was a baby? When he howled every time I held him? When did he ever want to read a book with me, or play tennis with me or just sit and watch TV with me? When did he ever do anything other than scorn my career and my work ethic and my house the whole time he was enjoying the money I earned? When?”
“I don’t know about any of that, but I know he’s still your son, just like V.J. was.”
“Don’t you put him in the same category as V.J.!” Ignoring the chest pain, Vincent pointed his index finger at her face. “V.J. loved me! He wanted to be like me! He understood me! And I understood him!”
“And have you tried to understand Justus?” Angela asked without missing a beat. “Because I’ve known him for about ten minutes, and I think I understand him pretty well. I think that your shadow and the way you treat him hangs over every part of his life and most decisions he makes. But, hey.” She shrugged. “What the hell do I know?”
That caught him off guard.
“What?”
“Think about it,” she said flatly.
He tried, but his brain had turned to mush and, really, what was the point? Nothing ever changed between him and Justus. Nothing ever would.
“I don’t expect you to understand, Angela.” Tired now, he sank back into his chair, too drained to hide his despised weakness. Leaning his elbows on the desk, he lowered his head into his hands.
Angela didn’t seem to notice his infirmity. She marched right up to the edge of his desk and loomed over him. “Well I care about Justus. He’s a good man. So I’m telling you right now I will not stand silently by while you rip his guts out. And I will not let you poison Maya’s life with your animosity.”
He slowly raised his head and watched her. He’d gotten rather fond of Angela over the last few days, although he’d already discovered she wasn’t as malleable as he would have liked, most notably over the burial issue. Still, he’d admired her courage and sense.
Until now.
“Are you threatening me?” he asked, incredulous.
They locked stares for a hard moment. And she, a young lawyer with less than ten years’ experience, either forgot or didn’t care that he’d been practicing for longer than she’d been alive and was one of the most prominent lawyers in the city.
In the country.
“Yes,” she said.
Then she swept out, her high heels drumming loud, angry steps as she disappeared down the hall.
Unbelievable.
He shook his head, tempted to smile again because the unyielding rod in Angela’s spine reminded him so vividly of Sharon.
Sharon.
God, he missed her.
He pressed a hand to his head, not surprised to discover he’d broken out in a clammy sweat. He shrugged out of his jacket and found that his starched cotton dress shirt and undershirt were sopping wet.
Time for some nitro.
With a shaky hand, he took the prescription bottle out of the drawer, shook several tablets onto his blotter, took one, and immediately felt the familiar bitter sting under his tongue.
That was better.
Breathing deeply, he waited for the pressure in his chest to ease enough to go upstairs and lie down.
“This isn’t a good time, Angela.”
Justus, who had his arms crossed and was perfectly framed in the doorway to his apartment, watched her with moody, dangerous eyes. For the first time ever, he wasn’t thrilled to see her, and Angela was surprised how much it hurt. After her shouting match with Vincent, she’d come directly here, equally determined to make sure Justus was okay after his father’s attack and to work out a custody compromise with Maya.
But Justus didn’t look okay.
And his rigid jaw told her he might not be in a compromising mood.
Ah, well. They’d have to work something out anyway, because she had no intention of leaving.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’ll try not to take too long.”
Nerves made her heart do a pretty good impersonation of a jackhammer, but she tried to ignore its pounding as she marched right up to Justus, thinking he’d step aside and let her in.
He didn’t.
His glittering gaze locked with hers while he waited for her next move.
“Excuse me,” she said coldly, narrowing her eyes.
With a mocking little smile, he angled his body the minimum amount to let her squeeze through. Irritated but relieved (thank God he’d decided to let her in; if he’d wanted to block her she’d have had more luck pushing an elephant out of the way), she nudged his hard body with her shoulder as she passed, to no visible effect.
She went to the living room, where she took off her coat and gloves and threw them on a chair. The door slammed shut and Justus appeared from the foyer, his face still dark with tension.
Angela tried to think of something conciliatory to say.
“I need to pick Maya up from preschool in a few minutes, so this is the only time I’ll have today to talk without being interrupted. And I wanted to do this in person.”
He said nothing.
Her unease grew. His living room, so warm and cozy only last night, felt dangerous now, as if she was trapped in a cave with a bear she could hear but not yet see. Part of the issue was that he hadn’t bothered turning on any of the lights, although the TV was paused on what looked like an episode of NYPD Blue. Weak afternoon sunlight filtered through the blinds, creating harsh shadows on the walls. A clock ticked over on the mantel, the sound thunderous in the oppressive silence.
Angela tried to swallow the lump in her throat. “Can’t we work things out with Maya? You know I’d let you have as much time with her—”
“You won’t let me do anything.”
She winced.
If she hadn’t seen his lips move, she’d never have recognized the harsh tone as his voice.
And there was more where that came from.
“If I was a woman,” he continued, “we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. You don’t even want her—”<
br />
She sputtered, hating that she couldn’t muster a quick retort to this basic truth that she certainly hadn’t planned to become a parent this way.
“—and you’re only taking her because you know I’m the only other choice.”
“I do want her, Justus. And I told her the other night that she’d be living with me. I told her she could have the guest bedroom. I promised we’d paint it this weekend.”
He said nothing.
Her unease grew.
“I promised her, Justus! I can’t go back on my word! I promised her we’d be a family!”
In that agonizing moment, as the silence mushroomed and those gleaming eyes, so merciless and dark, stared her down, Angela realized that she didn’t have the slightest possibility of compromise.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “Justus—”
“You shouldn’t have told her that.”
“But I did! I can’t break my word to her!”
“Break your word? Why don’t you take a minute and think about what’s best for Maya?”
“I’m best,” she said, but even she could hear the uncertainty in her voice.
He snorted. “You know how I know you don’t really want her?”
“No.”
He circled her, his gaze sweeping relentlessly up and down her body. “Because you never gave a damn about her until her parents got killed.”
She froze.
“Isn’t that right, Angela?” He leaned toward her face so the only things she could see were the gold and black sparks in his glittering eyes. “Huh? Before last week, when did you ever voluntarily spend ten minutes with her? When did you ever take her to the zoo? When did you ever take her to McDonald’s for a Happy Meal?”
Oh, God, how his jeering hurt, especially when he spoke the truth.
Unable to answer, unshed tears of shame and guilt blurring her vision, she turned her face away from the smug satisfaction in his eyes.
But her refusal to look at him only seemed to enrage him further. He pinched her chin between his thumb and forefinger and, ignoring her surprised cry, jerked her head back around.
“And now you want her? And you’ll let me take her when I want her? I don’t think so.”
Angela finally found her spine. Maybe she’d been a negligent aunt in the past, but those days were over. She’d opened her heart—and her home—to Maya and she would not let him bully her like this.
So she jerked her head away, blinking back her tears. “You don’t know what kind of aunt I’ve been, you arrogant son of a bitch.”
Justus’s eyes widened with shock.
“You have the nerve to talk about what kind of parent I’d make? Well, what about you?”
His face turned to stone. “Excuse me?”
“She’s a three-and-a-half-year-old girl, Justus,” she jeered. “Who are you going to use for a mother figure for her? Janet and the other nineteen-year-olds you date?”
“Jealous?”
Uh-oh.
The air in the room shifted dangerously, and she felt it over every inch of her tingling skin.
She stared at him, unable to catch her breath for an embarrassingly long time.
Finally she was able to force a laugh. “As if.”
His expression went still and inscrutable.
Desperate to steer the conversation back into safer waters, Angela latched on to the first hurtful thing she could think of to say. “You know what? Your father had a point. How do you think you can be a good parent when you spend all your time at the gym or with your little—”
“Don’t even try it,” he roared. “I heard you. I heard you!”
“What?”
“Earlier! In the library with my father! I went back to tell him to go fuck himself, and I heard you defending me. You don’t believe anything he said about me! I heard you!”
Oh, God.
She’d had no idea he’d heard or that she was capable of something as despicable as throwing his father’s words in his face.
Time to backpedal. “It doesn’t matter what I said then. The point is, with your lifestyle—”
“My...lifestyle?”
His voice, which sounded like a rattlesnake’s warning muffled by silk, made her pause. How had it come to this between them? Weren’t they friends? Hadn’t they cared about each other when the day began?
And she’d called Vincent poisonous earlier? When had she become such a sickening hypocrite?
She took a calming breath and chose her words very carefully.
“If you think about it, I’m sure you’ll agree that Maya shouldn’t be exposed to all your little...fuck buddies.”
“Was that a nasty word coming out of those pretty lips? I’m impressed. Makes me wonder what else those lips can do.”
“Don’t try to change the topic! You know you’ll just have a parade of trashy women in and out of Maya’s life! Won’t you?”
“Damn, baby.” He eyed her incredulously, a hot and disturbing new light shining in his eyes. “You’re a hypocrite to the bone, aren’t you?”
Her heart lurched crazily. What could she do? Admit that he was right? That no matter how much she tried to pretend otherwise, the thought of him and Janet—or any other woman, for that matter—made her sick to her stomach?
No freaking way.
This was a topic she would never explore—not with herself and certainly not with him.
She kept quiet, but her silence only seemed to make things worse.
“Aren’t you, Angela?”
She realized, far too late, that he had no intentions of letting it go. Not this time. The room collapsed around her, leaving no air to breathe. Meanwhile, the panic she’d managed to control so far finally exploded, turning her belly to lead and her legs to Jell-O.
Which meant she was in a shitload of trouble.
Justus on a good day was a wild card.
This new, angry Justus was determined to strip her bare.
So much for her whole misguided peacekeeping mission. Her only goal now was to get out of here before anything else happened and one of them rang a bell that couldn’t be un-rung.
“It’s late,” she said quickly, snatching her purse and coat from the sofa. “I have to go.”
She actually made it two steps toward the door before he caught her arm and swung her back around and up against the hard, thrilling warmth of his body.
A long, breathless moment passed.
“I don’t think so,” he told her softly, his laser focus slipping to her lips. “We have one other thing we need to talk about, and it’s waited more than long enough.”
12
The second he touched her, Angela knew she was lost. Hadn’t this moment been ten years in the making? Hadn’t she wanted it—yearned for it—since the second she saw him again the night Ronnie dumped her? Didn’t she lose a little of her head and a little bit more of her heart every time he smiled at her or looked at her with those eyes?
Even so, her instinct for self-preservation would not let her surrender.
Not to Justus.
Never to Justus.
“I don’t want this,” she lied as he pulled her up against him, ignoring the delicious burn where his hands held her upper arms, the way pressing her breasts up against his muscular chest eased the ache in her nipples, and the way her nerveless fingers dropped her coat and bag and clung to his forearms. “We can’t do this.”
“Shh.”
Staring up into his intent face, she felt his anger go up in smoke.
And just as quickly felt his passion for her take its place.
With a throaty croon, he backed her up against a wall, eased one of his unyielding thighs between her legs, and buried his face between her neck and shoulder. She opened her mouth to protest, with a little backbone in it this time, but then he gathered her even closer to the dizzying strength of his body, and she said something else entirely.
“Justus. Please.”
“I want you,” he murmured, nuzzli
ng her cheek and the sensitive hollow below her ear until her flesh felt like it was glowing with pleasure. “I think about you.”
And then her hypocrisy kicked into hyperdrive. She leaned her head to the side, giving him greater access to her neck while her mouth spouted more foolishness.
“We have to stop. This is such a bad idea.”
“I can’t.” Raising his head, he filtered his hands through her hair and pressed fevered kisses to her forehead, nose, and eyes. “I need you.”
I need you, too.
It was right on the tip of her tongue. Holding it back from him, when he needed to know, felt like breathing water. A crime against nature.
But she managed to hang on to her words even if she couldn’t leash her roaming hands. They’d already slid under the lower edge of his sweatshirt and discovered the heady thrill of touching his bare back. His skin was so smooth. So hot. And the muscles beneath flexed against her fingers, tempting her to scratch him, just to see how he would react.
But she controlled herself, an act that took five years off her life.
He didn’t control himself. His hands covered all the territory of her body in those few seconds, gliding up her sides and across her breasts...cupping her ass so she could grind against his unyielding thigh...finding the edge of her skirt and delving beneath, to her bare legs.
Sensations tumbled through her, faster and faster now, as undeniable as her face in the mirror. Crying out with pleasure and soaking wet, she teetered on a razor’s edge, wondering if he’d make her come right here, up against a wall, without ever even removing a stitch of her clothing—
“I think about you,” he repeated hoarsely. “I breathe for you. I get hard for you. I jack off to you.”
“Oh, God.”
Planting his hands on either side of her head, he angled her head back and smoothed her hair away from her face. He stared, as if hypnotized, at her mouth.
She parted her lips, waiting, waiting—
“It’s always been you, Angela,” he whispered. “I’ve never wanted any woman the way I want you.”
Want...
Want...
Want.
That one word was antifreeze in Angela’s veins, the one thing that pierced her sensual haze and put her firmly back on her sensible-heeled feet. She stiffened. For good measure, Janet’s pouty face flashed before her eyes, shattering his spell over her like a crystal chandelier crashing on a concrete floor.
Risk (It's Complicated Book 2) Page 13