by Penny Reid
She nodded, her eyes hopeful.
My thoughts drifted to the logistics of running a security detail for her. Quinn and I were out of the private security business mostly, but—obviously—we’d make an exception for Kat. Also, I needed to start planning on what would happen when the newspapers caught wind of her father’s death, which would happen any day now, and all the public interest that was sure to follow.
“I’ll need to meet with the hotel people as soon as possible. I assume the penthouse has restricted access? And we’ll need to keep the team close by, maybe a floor below, where we can have more control over your safety.”
“Agreed. I’ll let you handle those details,” she said, all professional and shit.
I cocked an eyebrow at her tone. “Oh really? You’ll let me handle the details?”
Her lips curved into an answering smile. “Security is your area of expertise, so why would I need to be involved? I trust you to handle it and keep me informed if there’s anything I need to know.”
I snorted, laughing. “Aye-aye, boss.”
“Delegation is one of my strengths,” she said. I loved the way she was looking at me, like she actually was my boss, but she also wanted to get in my pants. “I’m very good at it.”
“I bet.”
We stared at each other while I wished we were anywhere but here—in my room at home, at our place in Chicago, in the rental car—I didn’t care where.
My eyes dropped to that first button and I wondered what she’d do if I reached over and unfastened it, maybe the next few as well. Or what would she say if I asked her to stand so I could hike her skirt up and touch the soft skin of her thighs?
“I wish . . .” she said, which brought my eyes back to hers.
“What?” Tell me.
“I wish I didn’t have to withdraw from the University of Chicago.”
“Oh yeah. Can you transfer your credits to some place out here? Isn’t that how it works?”
“Yes. Eventually. I’ll call tomorrow, or maybe Friday, and explain the situation. Once things settle down, I’ll apply to schools out here.” She looked resigned, regretful. “And then there’s work.”
“You mean Foster?” Foster was the architecture firm where she worked.
“I’ll have to turn in my notice. I’ll do that on Friday, too. There’s no getting around it. I just wish . . .”
When she didn’t finish, I prompted, “That you could keep working there?”
“More like, I wish this weren’t so sudden. I wish I could phase out over a month, so they would have time to find someone and I could train them.”
“Didn’t they fire Janie suddenly? Because her ex-boyfriend’s father, who was giving Foster business, wanted her gone?”
Kat seemed to consider this. “Yes, they did. But that doesn’t mean I feel great about leaving abruptly.”
He shrugged. “It’s business. They did what they had to do with Janie. You do what you gotta do. Life, work, business goes on, even when great people leave.”
“I guess it does. When Janie left, it took months to find a replacement, and then they ended up hiring four people to do her job. But, eventually, she was replaced.”
“In business, no one is irreplaceable.”
Her eyes came back to mine, sharpened. “The opposite of a family.”
“What?”
“In a family, no one is replaceable.”
I studied her, not knowing where she was going with this. Was she talking about her father? Or . . . ?
Chewing on her lip, her stare grew increasingly intense until she blurted, “Why is your mother alone? What happened with your father? I see pictures of him all over the house, but aren’t they divorced?”
The air was driven from my lungs. I blinked at her, startled. She’d blindsided me.
“I’m sorry.” She winced, a concerned frown settling between her eyebrows. “I’m sorry, it’s none of my business. I just—”
“My dad, Denis, was in love with this lady. Let’s call this lady Linda.” I leaned forward, placing my elbows on my knees and glared at the back of my hands. There was never going to be a right time to tell this story, so it might as well be now. “Linda had a baby, let’s call the baby Seamus. Linda didn’t want Seamus, and she didn’t want my pop, so she left Seamus at a fire station when he was something like three months old, and my dad—he’s a navy guy—was deployed overseas.”
I lifted my eyes to hers, found them thoughtful and interested. “My mom, well, she’d known my dad since forever. He’s ten years older than her, but they grew up next door to each other, and she’d been full stop crazy about the guy for years and years. The firefighters where Linda had left Seamus knew my dad, they all went to school together, so they take Seamus to my dad’s parents while they try to track down Linda. They can’t find her, she’s gone, skipped town.”
“Seamus is your half-brother.”
I nodded, rubbed my face, and then leaned back in my seat, placing my arm along the table, so fucking tired of this story already. “My mom helped my grandparents out from time to time. She starts babysitting Seamus for free, who of course falls in love with her, grows attached, you know? When my dad gets back, his parents don’t like the idea of raising their son’s illegitimate child, they want him to sign his rights away to the state, put Seamus up for adoption. So my dad, he asks my mom to marry him, to raise his son. She’s in love with the guy, in love with his son, and she’s only seventeen—a dumb, love-sick kid—so she says yes, and he is so grateful.”
She stiffened, a hint of dread in her expression, like she knew what was going to happen next in the story.
“My mom marries my dad when she graduates from high school, adopts Seamus, goes to live with the O’Malley’s—my dad’s parents—and puts herself through nursing school part time while taking care of his parents and his kid. But he’s always so grateful, can’t say thank you enough. He buys her presents, nice stuff, and expensive jewelry. Gratitude for miles. She wants more kids. He’s deployed, career navy guy, so he’s only ever home to get my mom pregnant. Appreciation as far as the eye could see. He gives her everything but his time.”
“Then one day, my dad is home for a weekend. Being an asshole teenager, I sneak my father’s wallet, planning to lighten him of a few twenty-dollar bills. I open the wallet and what do I find? Pictures of him with a lady who is not my mother, and they look recent.”
Kat flinched.
“No pictures of my mom. No pictures of us kids. Just pictures of that lady.” My eyes lost focus as I remembered. “I took one photo, ’cause I didn’t know who this person was, and asked my grandfather O’Malley about it. He loses his temper—as he was prone to do—and confronts my dad in front of my mom. So there we were, the four of us, my mom crying, and the truth all comes out. I didn’t know about Seamus, about any of it, and I didn’t know my dad had been running around on my mom the whole time with this lady, but it all comes out. And Grandpa tells my dad he has to choose, he can’t keep putting Eleanor and the kids through this.”
The taste of coffee and croissant turned sour in my mouth.
“He packed his bags.” My stare returned to hers. “And do you know what he said to my mom before he left?”
She shook her head. Her big, brown, beautiful eyes teeming with compassion.
“He said he would always be grateful. But that gratitude wasn’t love, and he was tired of trying to force it.”
“What a bastard.” The words were a breath, like she hadn’t meant to speak them aloud.
I smirked, though I didn’t find her statement funny so much as painfully true. “Yeah. Well. I found out later his precious Linda died that same year. His parents didn’t speak to him, went to their graves disowning him. He’s still in the navy and that’s all he’s got, high up now, an admiral or something.”
“You don’t know if he’s an admiral?”
I shook my head, pushing the croissant away, no longer hungry.
“Was that the
last time you saw him?”
“No. I saw him . . .” My eyes moved up and to the right. “I saw him a few years back in Washington, DC. I was there for work and ran into him at a restaurant.”
“Did you talk to him?”
I nodded. This part of the story was easy to tell. But, looking back, I’d always had the sense it had happened to someone else. “He approached me, wanted to go somewhere, to talk.”
“What did you do?”
“I told him that I’d always be grateful he sent money home to Ma when we were growing up, but that gratitude wasn’t the same as love, and I was tired of trying to force it.”
She flinched again. “Ouch.”
“What the fuck does he care? He’s the one who left, he’s the one who didn’t give a shit.”
Kat nodded, her pretty mouth a mournful line. “You’re right. He’s the one who left.”
“Damn straight.” I reached for my coffee, but then set it back on the table, feeling restless. “And you want to know the worst part of it?”
“What’s that?”
Disgusted, I crossed my arms. “Those pictures of him in the house. She won’t let us speak badly of him, sends us down the cellar if we do.”
“Do you think she still . . . ?”
“I don’t know.”
And that was the God’s honest truth.
Chapter Twenty-Three
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—The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists
**Kat**
Dan began playing footsie with me under the table just after 9:00 PM.
I felt something slide up my leg and jumped. Mr. Stevenson, the VP of estate finance at Brooks and Quail, where many of my family’s US-based investments were housed, had been reviewing the loss statements over the last quarter.
“Are you all right?” he asked, looking concerned.
He was on my left side, Dan across from us, Eugene sitting on Mr. Stevenson’s other side. The touch—presumably a foot—had come from in front of me on the right.
“Yes. Fine. I apologize, just a sudden cramp.” I reached under the table as though to scratch the right side of my leg; in reality I pinched his ankle. “Please continue with the prospectus.”
He continued. I planned to send a warning glare to Dan. That plan fled my brain as soon as our gazes connected.
Dan was leaning slightly to one side, looking relaxed, lounging in the chair; his elbow was on the table, his middle and index fingers along the side of his face, his chin propped on his thumb, his ring and pinky fingers just under his lips, one of his eyebrows slightly raised over a smoldering gaze.
He looked like he was issuing me a dare. My heart quickened.
I endeavored to glare at him. He smirked, his stare dropping to my mouth as his tongue licked his bottom lip. Then he drew it into his mouth, his foot coming back to my leg and sliding along the interior. I felt dizzy.
I’m frustrated to admit it, but his distraction techniques were working.
Earlier in the evening, close to 7:00 PM, he’d been sitting next to me. Everything had been fine, perfectly professional all day. We’d made it through the will, an extensive and detailed account of all the properties, bank accounts, offshore holdings, and so forth. But then I’d turned to Dan, planning to ask a question, and found his eyes on the top button of my shirt. His stare was intensely focused, like he wanted to destroy the buttons, or maybe just maim them.
I asked Dan the question, to which he’d shaken himself, blinked, and responded with, “What was that?”
I asked it again and he’d replied, pragmatically, dispassionately, and objectively. But I immediately missed the way I’d caught him looking at me. On a whim, holding his gaze, I decided to surreptitiously unbutton the top button of my shirt. The smolder hadn’t stopped since.
Presently, Mr. Stevenson said, “We have another four hundred statements on the viability of this particular fund I’d like to show you,” and I decided I’d had enough.
“Thank you, Mr. Stevenson.” I gave him a tight smile, pushing back in my chair. “But I believe that’s enough for today.”
He glanced from me to Eugene. “I have seventeen more accounts to review.”
“Yes. And we’ll do so tomorrow at my office downtown. You know the address.” I stood and so did everyone else.
“I plan to return to New York tonight,” he protested, pointing to the binder he’d brought.
“You’ll have to change your plans.” I was already gathering my belongings.
“That’s not possible. We’ll have to make an appointment for later in the month. Should I have my assistant call Mr. Marks’s office?”
I stopped organizing my things and stared at Mr. Stevenson, giving him an opportunity to reverse his assertion.
When he didn’t, I continued stacking papers. “Mr. Stevenson, you will meet me at my office tomorrow at nine. You knew how long it would take to review these reports. It is your job to plan your meetings with me efficiently, not mine. I will not be expected to conform to your schedule if you and your firm wish to continue managing this portfolio. If you didn’t want to stay another day in Boston, then you should have used your time more wisely.” Finished organizing my things, I placed the load into my bag and walked around the table towards the wooden double doors. I didn’t need to look to know Dan was behind me, and behind Dan was Eugene.
“I’ll see you out.” I heard Eugene say.
“That won’t be necessary.” I turned right, toward the elevator. “We know the way. Please ensure Mr. Stevenson knows how to find my office.”
Eugene’s footsteps fell away, and Dan drew even with my shoulder.
Once we were out of earshot, he took my bag from me and slung it over his shoulder. “You didn’t cut that Stevenson guy any slack.”
“No. I didn’t.” I shrugged. “But he makes a lot of money off of my family. Requesting he stay another day isn’t asking for something inappropriate. You and I, and Eugene, shouldn’t be expected to stay until midnight. That was poor planning on his part.”
“Hmm.” I felt his eyes on me.
I glanced at him as we approached the elevators. “He works for me, not the other way around.”
As soon as I pressed the call button, the doors slid open. I stepped on first. Dan followed and pressed the button for the lobby. The doors shut and he turned to me, crossing his arms, looking as though he was fighting a smile.
“What?” Now I was glaring.
“Nothing.” He shook his head, the smile he was fighting morphing into something else as his eyes traveled down the length of me and then back up, his gaze coming to rest on the button I’d undone. “You’re just really sexy when you’re bossy.”
Now I was fighting a smile, and also the heat sliding up my cheeks. “I wasn’t bossy.”
“You were bossy.”
“I was communicating my expectations.”
“Bossy.” His gaze slowly rose to my lips.
“If I were a man, you would call me assertive.”
“If you were a man, I would have called you a bossy motherfucker.”
I huffed a laugh, he was cheeky and unbelievable and I loved this about him. “Then call me a bossy motherfucker.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’d never call you that name.” His gaze came to mine; the earlier teasing and heat were still present, but now tempered with sincerity. “I would never call you any name other than your own.”
“You call me Kit-Kat.”
“Exactly.” He pushed awa
y from the wall of the elevator, reaching for my hand and bringing it to his lips. His voice lowered, “I promise you, if you were any other woman, I would definitely call you a bossy motherfucker.”
Somehow he’d made that last sentence sound like a seduction. My heart skipped a beat, my stomach fluttering. I watched and felt him place a sensual kiss on the skin between my middle and index fingers, wicked thoughts dancing behind his expressive eyes.
The elevator dinged, the doors slid open, and he held me transfixed.
“Let’s go.” He finally said, tilting his head toward the exit. “I’m sure you’re tired from a full day of being bossy.”
I rolled my eyes and scoffed, mostly to cover the fact that Dan calling me “bossy” twisted my lower belly into warm, velvety knots.
Hand in hand, we walked through an almost empty lobby. The security guard unlocked the door for us and soon we were in the car, driving back to Dan’s mom’s house. Once we were on our way, his palm settled on my skirt over my knee. I stared out the window, thinking over all the information I’d learned today about the nature and structure of my family’s fortune, and feeling the weight of it all.
“What’s going on in that sexy, bossy brain of yours?”
Turning toward the windshield, I became acutely aware of his thumb tracing a circle over my knee. Glancing at my leg, I realized Dan had pushed the hem of my skirt up on one side, his fingers now curled over the bare skin of my thigh.
I leaned my elbow on the windowsill and angled my legs toward him. “I’m going to need to assemble a team of people I trust to help me manage our investments.”
“You have Eugene.”
“That’s true.” I did have Eugene. “He’s loyal, but he keeps secrets. He doesn’t trust that I can handle things on my own.”
Dan glanced at me, then back to the road, saying nothing, his fingers inching higher on my leg as he slid his palm upward.
“He thinks I need to be protected.”