by Mari Carr
They reached the end together. Caitlyn’s legs tightened around his waist as he came inside her, filling her. She closed her eyes briefly, marveling over how two very different orgasms—one striking hard and fast, the other sliding over her like cool silk sheets on a hot summer’s day—could be just as powerful.
Lucas kissed her as he withdrew, and then, because their bodies simply knew what to do, he lay beside her as she turned, pressing her back to his chest. Lucas wrapped his arm around her as he had done every night since she’d come to his bed, and they closed their eyes.
Just before Lucas drifted to sleep, he whispered, “I love you so much it hurts.”
She understood that feeling perfectly.
A buzzing caused her to stir. Caitlyn glanced at the clock. They’d been asleep for nearly two hours. She rolled away from Lucas, who was still down for the count, to search out the sound.
Reaching down, Caitlyn saw Lucas’s cell on the floor. It had obviously fallen out of his jacket pocket. She picked it up, intent on putting it on the nightstand, when it buzzed again and her gaze landed on the screen. It was a text from his father.
Health inspector on way to pub. It will be shut down by dinner.
Caitlyn’s stomach lurched.
Since her fight with Lucas on Sunday, patrons at the bar had subjected Caitlyn to every unsavory bit of gossip about Lucas imaginable. Clearly, her friends believed she’d feel better about the split if she knew what a bastard the man was.
Judy, from the beauty shop, had spent the better part of an hour yesterday filling Caitlyn and Keira in on all the ways the Whitings had applied the heat, forcing her to sell. Countless fines from the city for all manner of so-called violations had finally left her with no choice but to cut and run. Judy insisted the same techniques had been used against Carl, the owner of the pawn shop.
Caitlyn had crawled into bed last night angrier than she’d ever been in her life, and it was what had driven her back to the penthouse to pack up her stuff. She’d walked in, determined to grab her things and cut Lucas Whiting out of her life forever…without a single backward glance.
Unfortunately, that fury had faded fast as she’d worked her way through the penthouse, looking for personal items. Every single room held a memory. And not a single one was bad.
Between the amazing sex, the shared laughter, the cooking lessons she’d started giving him, the nights they curled on the couch to watch TV, their debates over politics and sports, and countless other memories, Caitlyn found it impossible to hold on to her anger and her hate.
Lucas had told her he didn’t want to be the villain on their very first date. And since then, he’d set out to show her there was so much more to him than all the bad stuff passed along in rumors. He’d proven to her that people aren’t all good or all bad. Instead, everyone resided somewhere in the middle.
But now…
It was impossible to feel any of those good feelings about him. Last night, she’d been pissed. This afternoon, sad. Then confused. Then tentatively happy.
Now, she was just numb.
Caitlyn took off the necklace and returned it to the nightstand with his phone. She put her clothes back on, picked up her suitcase and turned to take one last look at Lucas, sleeping soundly.
She’d done it again.
Fallen for the wrong guy.
12
Lucas stormed into Pat’s Pub just before closing time. He was a man on a mission.
He’d woken up an hour earlier, dazed and disoriented. After three nights of basically zero rest, he’d slept the sleep of the dead after making love to Caitlyn.
It had taken him nearly ten minutes to figure out she wasn’t in the penthouse. Once he realized that, other things became obvious. Her suitcase was gone. And the necklace was back on the nightstand.
He couldn’t figure out what he’d done wrong. He’d gone to sleep happier than he’d ever been in his life, sure that things between them were on the mend.
Lucas had picked up his phone to call her, to demand answers, and that was when he saw it. The text from his father. Caitlyn’s necklace had lain across the phone. Clearly she’d seen the message.
He needed to talk to her, to tell her he hadn’t set up the inspection. That he hadn’t even known about it.
He was halfway across the bar when Tris blocked his path.
“Get out of my way.”
Tris shook his head. “No. You’re not going up there.”
Lucas closed his fist, ready to eviscerate Caitlyn’s uncle. “You’re wrong. I am.”
That was when Padraig came into view. And then Ewan. And Lochlan.
Fuck. Why was there so many of them?
“It’s not a good time for you to be here, Whiting,” Ewan warned. Sunday, he’d been Lucas. The change in name—and distinctly unfriendly tone—was glaring. Of course, Caitlyn had confided Ewan would be the one to take the brunt of the IRS audit. He didn’t blame the guy for being pissed.
He might have stood a chance if it had come to simply laying out Tris to get to the stairs, but his odds were significantly reduced now that there were four of them ready to shed blood to keep him out. “I didn’t have anything to do with the inspection.”
“It didn’t happen,” Padraig said.
Lucas suspected there was more to that story, but he wasn’t sure how to ask. He didn’t have to wait long. Tris answered his unspoken question.
“Caitlyn rear-ended the inspector’s car.”
“On purpose?” Lucas asked, fighting not to laugh.
Padraig didn’t bother to hide his amusement. “Guy had only just walked into the restaurant when Caitlyn came in asking about the owner of a dark blue Subaru. Apparently it was a new car, and she’d put a pretty significant dent in the back bumper. The inspector was so upset, he left.”
Lucas couldn’t believe the lengths Caitlyn would go to in order to protect her family’s pub. Then he looked at the four immovable mountains blocking his path, and he got it. This family took care of its own. No matter what. Brute strength wasn’t going to get him through this wall.
Lucas looked around the pub. The place was empty except for one couple sitting at the bar, who appeared to be polishing off their last round. Then he faced Tris once more. “I’ll pay for the damages. No, fuck that, I’ll buy her a new car. I need to talk to her.”
“What else is coming?” Tris asked.
Caitlyn had asked Lucas the exact same question earlier and, like a fool, he’d told her nothing. Then his father had fucked him over and sent the health inspector.
“I don’t know.”
Ewan rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right. Get the fuck out of this pub.”
Lucas was getting tired of being kicked out. “I’m telling you the truth. I don’t know what else my father has set up. But believe me, I’m going to find out.” His dad’s house was actually his second stop tonight. Lucas had intended to find Caitlyn, explain, apologize, and then he was heading over to his father’s to put an end to all of it.
“You rich guys are all the same. You think you’re above the law, think that you can grab whatever you want without consequences. Do you know how many lives your family has destroyed?” Tris asked.
Lucas had a vague idea. And it was a hell of a lot more than Tris Collins was probably thinking. “Listen, Tris—”
Tris cut him off. “You don’t have a fucking clue. Judy Jenkins worked as a hairdresser for twenty-seven years, scrimping and saving all that time so she could buy her own shop one day. She finally gets her dream store, and your family swoops in with an offer to buy. And when she says no, you found a way to make her life hell, sending the city in to slap one violation after another on her until she was buried in fines. Cracks in the floor, chemicals in the bathroom, improper labeling. All of it was trumped-up bullshit.”
Lucas had initiated that offer, but he couldn’t recall Judy’s face. That buyout had happened shortly after his brother’s death. Lucas had spent months moving around on autopilot, going
through the motions without thought or care. However, he didn’t doubt that every word of Tristan’s story was true because it was standard operating procedure at Whiting Properties.
Tristan was right. He’d been blindly bullying people for years. It was time to pay the piper.
“It ends here,” he said at last.
Ewan narrowed his eyes. “What’s that mean?”
“Do me a favor,” Lucas said, not bothering to answer. “Don’t tell Caitlyn I stopped by. I need to take care of some stuff first.”
For four men who’d been hell-bent on blocking his path, now that he was leaving, they didn’t seem to want to let him go.
“Take care of what?” Lochlan asked.
He didn’t blame them for being suspicious. Lucas had been threatening their livelihood for months. And more than that, he’d hurt Caitlyn. He suspected they could forgive his actions in regards to the pub easier than the other transgression. If he had a snowball’s chance in hell at winning her back, at earning her trust and that of her family, he needed to set things right. As things stood right now…he didn’t deserve Caitlyn.
“It might take me a few weeks to sort through it all. I’m not going to contact Caitlyn until it’s done. But I am coming back.”
Lochlan and Padraig still looked confused. Hell, Lochlan looked like he still wanted to lay Lucas out, but Tris and Ewan seemed to understand him.
“Okay,” Tris said at last. “We won’t tell her you were here.”
Lucas looked at Ewan. “I’ll take care of the IRS thing.”
Ewan’s expression visibly cleared. “I’d appreciate that. Can we tell Riley to stop scrubbing the kitchen to within an inch of its life too?”
Lucas nodded. “Yeah. No one else is going to bother you. The offer is off the table.” He turned, intent on leaving, but Tristan stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“Don’t take too long, Lucas.”
“I won’t.” He prayed he’d be able to do what he needed to quickly, because there was nothing he wanted more than to come back to her.
To be the man worthy of her love.
Lucas closed the file folder on his desk and waited patiently for his father to arrive. He’d set up this meeting for after hours, when the office would be empty, no one around to overhear them.
For the past week, Lucas had worked nonstop—day and night—gathering information on the down low. He’d had to be very careful not to reveal what he was doing. If his father found out, his plan would most likely have blown up in his face, taking down the wrong Whiting.
“Okay. I’m here.” His father stood in the doorway looking extremely annoyed. “What’s so fucking important that you felt the need to discuss it tonight instead of waiting until the morning?”
“I’m quitting.”
Dad scowled. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Lucas reached into the file folder and pulled out his plan for extricating himself from Whiting Properties. It was merely a sketch of what was destined to be a long, brutal breakup that would cost the company a small fortune in lawyer fees. Regardless, he was getting out.
His father walked into the room and glanced at the paper, his face growing ruddier as he scanned each line.
“You can’t do this,” he said at last.
“You’re wrong. I can.”
“Why? What is this about?”
Lucas had anticipated that question, and he’d spent countless hours considering his response. Caitlyn had been a huge part of his decision, but he knew she wasn’t the only reason he was leaving. He’d started drifting away from the family business the night his phone rang and his father told him Toby was dead. Dad had said it the same way he might have said he was having a salad for lunch. Matter-of-fact. Emotionless.
Before they ended the phone call, his father had begun to bitch about how planning the funeral was going to delay work on their current project. Then he discussed scheduling a meeting with Lucas and the lawyers to go over their wills. His brother hadn’t been dead more than two hours and his father had already erased him and moved on.
Lucas had lost more sleep than he cared to admit, wondering if his father would accept his death the same way. As if his dying was nothing more than an inconvenience.
But he didn’t want to say all that to his father. Because he was fairly certain the man wouldn’t care. Instead, he’d view it as weakness, womanish sentiment.
“I’m not comfortable with the way we do business any longer.”
Dad narrowed his eyes. “Does this have anything to do with the woman you’ve been seeing?”
It had everything to do with Caitlyn. She’d opened his eyes to so many things. “Yes. And no.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m going to marry her. If she’ll have me.”
His dad snorted. “Of course she’ll have you. You’re rich. What are her family connections?”
Typical response. His father was clearly hoping to expand the family coffers through an advantageous marriage. “Her family owns Pat’s Irish Pub.”
The answer prompted the response he’d expected. His father slammed his fist on the table loudly. “Son of a bitch. Is that why you’ve been dragging your feet, fucking up this deal? Since when do you lead with your cock?”
Time to get them back on track. “We can call the lawyers tomorrow to start implementing the buyout.” Lucas owned half of Whiting Properties. The only way to cleanly extricate himself from the business was to sell his part to his father.
Dad snarled. “You think leaving the company is going to protect your girlfriend and her family? Whiting Properties is going to buy that pub. With or without you.”
It was Lucas’s turn to smile. “No. You aren’t. For one thing, buying me out won’t come cheaply. It’s going to take you time to recoup from that. And then, there’s this.” Lucas slid the folder toward his father.
His dad sat down, opened it, flipping through page after page.
In the folder, Lucas had outlined every shady deal they’d ever done. The payoffs, the bribery, the outright threats. On top of it all was a letter to the Baltimore Sun.
“You send that to the paper, you don’t just take me down. You fall too.” His father’s tone was quieter, less hostile. Lucas had clearly rattled his old man.
“I don’t care.”
“Your girlfriend might.”
Lucas knew that. He’d accepted that if he used this approach, it couldn’t be a bluff. He would have to follow through. Even if it meant losing Caitlyn, even if it meant prison. “That letter and all the evidence in the file can stay right here with you. All you have to do is accept my resignation, my buyout, and leave the Collins family alone.”
“You would give up the business, give up your family, all for a piece of ass?”
His dad would never get it. Ever. Lucas shook his head. He’d taken all the abuse he could stand from this man. “I’m not giving up a family. I’m gaining one.”
For the first time since they’d started this conversation, Lucas saw a crack in his father’s façade. “You’re all I have left, Lucas.”
Lucas didn’t know how to respond to that. He’d never, not once in his life, ever felt as if he mattered to his dad. That had been a hard pill to swallow when he was younger. Then he’d turned thirty and realized he was his own man, that he didn’t need anyone’s approval or love. Jesus. He’d been a fucking fool. Just a few short weeks with Caitlyn had shown him everything he’d been missing, that he had thought he could live without.
He didn’t want to be alone anymore. And though it made him feel weak and stupid, he knew his dad’s approval, his love, was something he wanted.
Maybe he was more of a sadist than he thought. Because God knew that desire was definitely destined to cause pain.
They sat for several minutes, the silence and tension thick, as Lucas struggled to respond.
Finally, the answer seemed clear.
“Do you want to meet Caitlyn?”
“If I stayed, things would have to change around here. We’d walk the straight and narrow. We’d use our wealth to improve the city, not increase our bank accounts.”
“Gentrification is—”
“No, we’re not squeezing out the small businesses, not driving people out of their homes anymore.”
“This is blackmail.”
Lucas grimaced. “Guess I’m a chip off the old block.”
His dad fell silent for several uncomfortable minutes. Then he shook his head. “No. You’re not. Not at all. If you were, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“Sorry to be such a disappointment to you.”
“I’m not taking that deal. I’m not buying you out,” Dad said.
Lucas started to rise angrily, but his father waved his hand and cut off his argument. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m not buying you out because you’re buying me out.”
“What?”
“I want to retire before this job kills me.”
It was the first time Lucas had ever heard his father mention quitting or admit that his health was poor at best. He had always figured the old guy would have a stroke or heart attack at his desk and that would be it.
“You want to retire?”
Dad nodded.
“What’s Astrid think of that?” Lucas had never asked his father about his affair with his personal assistant. Mainly, because he didn’t want to know the answer.
His father scowled. “I don’t give a shit what she thinks. I don’t answer to a woman.”
And just like that, his father’s inner asshole reemerged. Lucas regretted bringing up the subject. “Fine.”
“But apparently you do answer to a woman,” his dad said. “Never thought I’d see the day.”
Lucas could attempt to explain his feelings for Caitlyn, could try to describe how a healthy relationship wasn’t based on control or power or how much money each partner brought to the table. It was give and take, compromise. Something Lucas would have to learn—God willing—with Caitlyn’s help and patience. She was going to have to have a lot of patience to deal with him.