“What the fuck just happened?” he asked aloud. Everything had been going great. Or had it?
His knee bumped the small table as he stood. The tea set wobbled precariously, and for a brief second, he considered smashing the pot against the brick wall.
Not giving a shit what anyone thought, he bolted from his office and jogged along the hallway to the reception desk. Samantha was sitting with her back to him—rigidly—and made no effort to engage when he stepped into her space.
“Whatever it is, I’m sorry,” he began. Aware of the several pairs of eyes watching them didn’t stop him from considering the advisability of getting on his knees.
John held his breath when her chair swiveled, and she faced him. When she slowly stood, he had the distinct impression of watching a mythical creature—a being of godlike size—unfold in front of his eyes. Once she was standing straight and tall, he felt as though she towered over him.
He swallowed. Hard.
In a tone he recognized as one intended to announce her displeasure and her absolute power, she ripped into him.
“Despite your sexist assumption that I’m incapable of parenting my daughter, Mr. Lloyd,” she snarled, “let me assure you that I do not now, nor have I ever, needed anyone’s help.”
Oh, shit.
“You are a pompous …” she growled and shook, “asshat.”
A crowd had gathered to witness his downfall at the hands of an enraged mother who quite clearly wasn’t having any of his shit. He knew without looking that several cell phones were recording his humiliation for posterity.
“Where Chelsea is concerned, I make the decisions, Mr. Lloyd. Me. Am I making myself clear?”
She punctuated her yelling with what-the-fuck hand gestures and some finger pointing.
“But I thought, well, she needs a dad and all, and I …”
“Do you hear yourself?” she demanded.
Oh, god. He’d really fucked this up. Where the hell was Jen when he needed her?
“I don’t need your approval. Chelsea and I do just fine, thank you. And I do not need your help. Or your fancy limo or the favors you used. I’m not auditioning anyone to be her father. Understand?”
All he could manage was an awkward nod.
Samantha’s expression when her gaze swept around the reception area meant business.
“Before any of you post something online, consider your future at Lloyd Global.”
Jesus. She was impressive, he thought. Hell. She wasn’t even looking at him, but her tone made his balls shrivel.
He began to stutter an apology when she bent over, picked up her purse, and slung the strap over her shoulder as she straightened and pushed him out of her way.
“I’m going home now,” she barked.
“You’re quitting?” he squawked.
“Oh, for god’s sake,” Sam mumbled. “That's not what I said. Now," she growled. "Get out of my way.”
He stepped back but followed her to the elevator.
“Sam, please. I get that I fucked up.”
She stepped into the elevator and gave him a fierce glare. As the doors slid shut, she also flipped him off.
When he turned around, the reception lobby had cleared of people. He couldn’t blame anybody. He’d run for cover too after what they’d witnessed.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” John muttered disagreeably.
“We wouldn’t have to if you weren’t such a butthead,” Ryan growled in response.
They were rifling through Jen’s files in a desperate search for a phone number that might or might not actually exist.
“Are you sure she has a landline?”
“Yes,” John snapped. “I remember her saying the number had been in her family for decades. Now shut up and keep looking.”
Ryan gritted his teeth and returned to the task at hand. “Jesus, man. Did you check with HR? Maybe they have it.”
His brother openly scoffed and looked at Ryan as if he had a screw loose. “Oh, sure,” he sniped. “Just what I want after the scene I already caused. Frantic CEO desperately seeking confidential information on an employee.”
He had a point, so Ryan scowled some more and continued.
John sat at the desk and fired up the computer. Reflex made Ryan slap his brother’s hands.
“Dude. Seriously. Do NOT poke around her computer.”
“Is that a thing?” John asked.
“Fuck, yeah, it is,” he responded with a snort. “Would you go through Mom’s contacts?”
“Not in this lifetime.”
“So turn that thing off before you do a stupid and step too far over the line.”
His brother exploded. “Fuck, Ryan! Do a stupid? Isn’t that why we’re doing this in the first place?”
Exasperated, Ryan slammed the file cabinet shut and glared at his older brother.
“Were you out of your mind?”
John hung his head. “Shut up. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“She’s seven, for Christ’s sake, you dumbass. And the program clearly said ages nine to eleven. Not only that, but it’s in Alabama! What the hell did you think Samantha would do? Thank you for sending her second grader to another state?”
“It’s Space Camp, Ryan. Not a prison ship. And the family program for her age group was lame. It wasn’t all that hard to pull some strings and get her a special accommodation.”
“You’re lucky Samantha didn’t have you arrested.”
Ryan saw his brother’s fists clench and knew he went too far with his last comment.
“I didn’t expect her to react the way she did,” John grumbled.
“Guess we’re shooting Mom’s dinner party in the foot, huh? Samantha won’t talk to you, and Jen has her phone turned off.”
“Which is exactly why we need that goddamn number! Fuck,” John growled.
Ryan looked around the tidy office. If Jen had a landline and the number was here someplace, it’d take a forensics team to find it.
“This is ridiculous.”
John glanced at him but didn’t concur or offer anything at all.
He put his hands on his hips and thought it through. They both needed to catch up with Jen. John because he screwed the pooch and ended up with a receptionist telling him to fuck off very publicly, and Ryan because well—because he was crushing big time and couldn’t concentrate on anything else.
“Screw this. I’m going to her place.”
“You can’t do that,” John growled. “She’ll remove your face if you invade her private time.”
“Fuck her private time. This is almost an emergency.”
“Whose emergency?” his brother asked with a smirk. “Mine or yours?”
“Nah,” Ryan replied. “Nuh-uh, brother. This one’s all you.”
“You keep telling yourself that,” John mumbled.
“Fine,” he drawled. Crossing his arms, he shook his head in disbelief. “She’s got me tied up in knots.”
“How’d she do that?”
“By ignoring me,” he answered although his mind elaborated on the statement by adding, And because she has the softest skin I’ve ever touched, and a mouth that’s a game changer.
“That’s rich coming from you. Denver house? A dog? What’s next? Religious cult? Vegan? You’re not winning any awards for being forthright.”
“Yeah, well, your shadow looms large, and a little brother has to do what he has to do.”
John winced. “Ryan. It’s not my shadow. It’s Dad’s.”
They each sighed. Greg Lloyd was one damn hard act to follow.
“You got the brains, and I got the tree-hugging shit. Some gene pool, huh?”
There wasn’t a lot either of them could add.
“Come on. Let’s get out of here. I’m starting to feel like a burglar,” he told John. “Time for a direction change. I’ll go to Jen’s house, and you steer clear of Samantha until we have a plan. Okay?”
He called for a car, and within twenty
minutes, he was on his way to Jen Carlton’s apartment.
Chapter 10
The Uber driver complained about a boxy delivery truck with flashing hazards blocking most of the curb outside Jen’s building as Ryan exited into the oncoming traffic. He was damn lucky to make it to the sidewalk without getting run over or pushed down.
Two delivery guys struggled with a large, cumbersome tree that had a burlap sack wrapped around its root base. They stumbled to the building’s doors and used the intercom to gain entry. Ryan was close enough to hear the conversation.
“Howser Nursery with a delivery for Carlton.”
Carlton? Ryan’s attention was instantly captured.
“Come on up,” he heard a disembodied voice say.
Jumping into helpful action, Ryan held the door while the tree squeezed through.
“Stairs,” one of the guys barked. “Third floor. Apartment three, two, three.” They diverted from the lobby elevator and started up the stairs with their burden.
“I’ll get the door at the top,” he told them before stepping into the slow-moving elevator.
On the third floor, he noted three apartments. Two on the eastern side of the building but just one at the other end.
His eyes found Jen’s door by the brass numbers on the wall next to it. Across the wide hall was a door marked with a lit exit sign. He went to it and pulled, using his foot to prop it open as he leaned into the stairwell.
“How you guys doing?” he called out.
“Almost there, thanks,” one of them answered.
They stopped to catch their breath and wipe the sweat from their faces after carefully maneuvering the significant tree from the stairwell.
When Jen’s door opened wide, Ryan ducked behind the tail end of the tree and helped with the moving. She barked orders as he shielded his face and moved into her apartment.
“Down the hall and left to the terrace. You’ll see it.”
Unable to see much of anything except the guy in front of him, Ryan stumbled awkwardly, almost tripping over a basket overflowing with shoes, and helped the guys get the unwieldy birch tree onto the terrace. When they were outside and the guys dropped the heavy tree, he got his first look at something so extraordinary that he gasped.
An oasis of greenery and plants completely covered an enormous flagstone patio. Raised planters and an assortment of unique pots overflowed with an abundance of colors, heights, and textures.
It was like walking into a memory of his father, and he struggled from the emotional impact.
A voice he was certain belonged to Jen was barking orders. He looked at her as she waved her arms at the foreman and pointed.
His eyes narrowed. Wait a minute. What the hell? This was Jen Carlton, right? Or did she have a doppelgänger? Maybe a twin?
Ryan’s jaw cranked open as he took her in.
The uptight, suit wearing, business dominatrix with a penchant for order was nowhere to be found. In her place was a knockout babe who looked more pagan than perfect. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
Starting with the floral Wellington boots that for some reason shocked the crap out of him, he drifted his eyes slowly upward over thighs that solicited filthy thoughts. It was the tattered short shorts with the pockets showing that started his brain melting. Her grungy t-shirt had seen better days—possibly in the past century.
Nothing was left of his melted man-brain after he got a good look at her hair and face.
Used to an impossibly smooth and severe hairstyle, Ryan wasn’t expecting to see her any other way. She wore a messy knot on the back of her head that seemed to be in suspended animation with loads of loose tendrils. Her cheeks were bright pink, and a sheen of sweat glistened on her face and neck. Without her woman’s armor of impeccable makeup and styling, she resembled a mere mortal. A very sexy, very fuckable female who still didn’t know that he was in her midst.
Had he made a mistake by barging in? Perhaps. Though finding a different Jen than the one he expected explained why John had reacted so curiously to hearing that Ryan took her home. His brother must suspect she rocked a second and very surprising life.
Debating a hasty retreat, he hesitated a moment too long. She was waving her arms at the greenery behind him and explaining things to the workmen when she saw him. And froze.
Raking unsteady fingers through his long hair, Ryan met her shocked gaze and held firm. He saw her swallow. Noted how her pink cheeks turned a ruddy scarlet before she tightened like a screw.
The foreman didn’t know he’d inadvertently allowed an unwanted person to infiltrate his client’s hideout, so the clueless guy kept talking over her silence.
During the minute that ticked by in slow motion, he and Jen stared at each other. He tried to pin down the reactions flashing in her eyes and on her face, but only one stood out. And it looked as though, despite her annoyance, she might be a little glad to see him.
After a half an hour of grunts, groans, and shouted instructions, the large tree was upright in its concrete planter. When the work crew ran off to bring up the two smaller trees, she turned on him with a vengeance that Ryan found oddly titillating.
“You do know that I have to quit now, right? Thanks a lot, jerk face. Nice job.”
She spat at him with her hands slapped to her hips, and man, what a sight she made as she stood her ground in the absurd outfit and rained hail, fire, and brimstone down on him for invading her personal space.
Splotches of dirt were evident on her legs while a smudge decorated one cheek and extended down her chin and onto her neck. Her t-shirt was more a handiwipe than clothing, and a quick glimpse of her hands would probably make a manicurist drop like a stone.
Bottom line? Jen Carlton caught off guard was a hot mess.
He wanted to tell his dick to stop laughing and behave, but it was too late. His dormant libido came back online with one hell of a power surge thanks to the most unexpected sexual attraction of all time, complicated in no small measure by the fact he already found her mentally and emotionally stimulating. Discovering a hidden and very astonishing side to Jen was the wild card he couldn’t ignore.
“Zip it, lady. No one is quitting, and you and I have different definitions of the word jerk face.”
She squinted and gave off an air that suggested he was a half-wit. “What the hell does that even mean?”
He couldn’t believe she walked straight into the best innuendo comeback of all time.
“What? You mean jerk face?”
“Yes,” she sniped with absolutely no authority whatsoever. In her business suit and wearing a face of makeup, she was definitely intimidating. But Wellies, cutoffs, a sloppy hair knot, and a grubby shirt? No way.
“You are a jerk face,” she replied with a grouchy pithiness that made him want to laugh.
“I disagree,” he challenged.
“What?”
Her disbelief that he challenged her was funnier than a YouTube monkey video.
“You can have a jerk face, but you can’t be one.”
Again, all she said was, “What?”
Ryan gave a lazy shrug. “I thought this was something you gals discussed. The jerk face.”
Her expression was hilarious. Clearly, she thought he was a dolt.
“Are you totally … what?”
He couldn’t help the idiot grin on his face. Her confusion and indignation were making this too easy.
“Jen, Jen,” he drawled. “Surely, you know this? One must be jerking to make a jerk face.”
She rubbed her nose with a grimy hand and pushed her wayward hair out of her face. “You’re not making any sense.” Her brows bumped together. “Must be jerking what?”
Oh god, really? Had she actually gone there? He counted. One ... two ... three ... and then her face lit up with understanding.
“You are a pig,” she snarled just as the crew reappeared with a dogwood tree and something else he didn’t get a good look at.
He helped her and the work
crew get the greenery situated and then wandered the terrace as she signed for the delivery. It was impossible not to be moved by her extraordinary efforts. Here, in the heart of the city, was a hidden gem. A green sanctuary that blew him away.
More memories of his dad crowded Ryan’s mind. He thought about the trees his family planted at their suburban home and remembered the two greenhouses where his father kept the high-maintenance plants that fascinated him so.
When he realized a trellis covered in vines and flowers partially obscured a second part of the terrace, he turned the corner and stopped dead when he saw the rooftop greenhouse. The city’s roof gardens were hardly a secret, but to find himself in the midst of a horticultural Shangri-La when he envisioned an Ikea commercial as her home base left him at a loss.
Chapter 11
Who did this happen to?
Me, that’s who.
Jen shooed the nursery workmen from her apartment and shut the door with a decisive push. She leaned against it and considered her options.
The shock of finding Ryan standing in her apartment was never going to go away. She glanced around and winced. Now he’d know she was a smoke and mirrors actor in her position at Lloyd. There was simply no way to explain her looking glass opposite world—not without sounding like a loon.
Playing with her sloppy hair, she quickly nixed the notion of attempting a costume and scenery change. Ryan was too savvy for such a daft maneuver.
For the length of time it took to stomp down the hallway, she considered the fact he was there for a reason and let out a series of harsh breaths. Jen rubbed her temple and groaned out loud when her hand fell away and she caught sight of her dirty nails.
Could this be any worse?
Stepping through the doors to the terrace, she looked around but couldn’t locate her unwanted guest.
Strutting like an awkward soldier in her unforgiving Wellies, Jen walked the length of the garden terrace and had turned the corner leading to the greenhouse when she finally found him. He was standing in the middle of it with the door open wide.
Ready to play the stern nanny, she was robbed of speech and sense when he turned around and saw her. His eyes were ablaze with emotions she couldn’t understand.
Enduring (Family Justice Book 8) Page 57