The Privileged and the Damned

by Kimberly Lang

  “Ethan, there’s a Mr. Black here to see you.” Joyce sounded cautious. “He doesn’t have an appointment, but he says he’s Lily’s father, and that it’s important that he speak with you.”

  Not having an appointment was Joyce-speak for “I have Security on standby to escort him from the building.”

  “Send him on in.”

  Joyce’s shocked, “Okay…” spoke volumes. This would be interesting.

  His second look at Oscar Black was even more tainted than his first, as their investigator had had much better luck in getting Oscar’s entire story. Those records weren’t sealed.

  Other than in hair color, Lily must take after her mother. Where Lily was pale and slender, Oscar was olive-skinned and portly. And while Oscar was nicely dressed, looking much like an all-round average guy, Ethan could see the rough edges: the evidence of years of hard living and anger.

  Something about Oscar set Ethan’s teeth on edge immediately, but he couldn’t put his finger on exactly what.

  Without greeting or preamble, Oscar Black jumped right in. “Lily keeps telling me you’re a good man, and I hope you really are.”

  Ethan wouldn’t believe that Lily had gone back to her father. He leaned back and rudely propped his feet on his desk. “And why is that?”

  “After the trouble you’ve gotten her in, I’m hoping you’ll do the right thing.” If there was a point between parental outrage and weasely wheedling, Oscar had hit it dead center.

  “If Lily’s in trouble, why hasn’t she contacted me?”

  “It’s not that kind of trouble, if you get my meaning.”

  One strange perk of growing up in his family was that Ethan knew when someone was dancing around extortion and how to handle it. “Oh, I get your meaning. If Lily is pregnant with my child, I’ll take full responsibility for them both.”

  Oscar turned an amusing color of green.

  “In fact—” he pushed the phone across the desk “—call her right now and tell her that.” Oscar hesitated, and Ethan sat back in his chair. “That’s what I thought.”

  “You broke my baby’s poor heart—”

  “Save it.”

  The look that crossed Oscar’s face nearly sent Ethan reeling. He’d seen the same look on his own father’s face. The same scorn, the same anger when things didn’t immediately go the way he planned. Oscar was Douglas Marshall without the money and social standing, working on the other side of the law and without a care for the “greater good.”

  Or anyone’s good other than his own. And, from one report Ethan had, both men shared equally bad tempers—the only difference being the way they expressed them. His hands curled into fists, itching to take a swing.

  Oscar was a small-time, small-town criminal, swimming in deep waters for the first time. Ethan felt like a shark sliding in as Oscar took too long to regroup and try a different tack.

  “I know Lily’s not involved with this. In fact, I doubt you have a damn clue where she even is right now. So, unless you have something else to talk to me about…”

  Defeated and exposed, Oscar let his mask fall away entirely, and Ethan’s stomach turned over on Lily’s behalf. No wonder Lily had been a “troubled teen.” This was what Judge Harris had seen and why he’d cut Lily a deal. Thank God. He made a mental note to send a very large donation Judge Harris’s way.

  “Stupid girl landed in a damn goldmine and didn’t have a clue what to do. Thought she was Cinder-freakin’-ella there for a little while—until you dumped her.”

  Ethan felt dirty just talking to the man. “I think you should take this as a hint that Lily no longer wants to—”

  “I don’t give a happy damn what that girl wants. Or what she does. But she owes me money, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to just forget that.”

  “How much?” he snapped.

  Oscar paused a second too long in his mental calculation of what Lily meant to Ethan versus the size of his checkbook. “Ten grand.”

  He couldn’t do a thing about his own father, but maybe he could do something about Lily’s. “I’ll give you five. But that ends your relationship with Lily.”

  “She’s my daughter.”

  “And for that she has my utmost sympathy.” He hit the intercom on his desk. When Joyce answered, he kept eye contact with Oscar as he spoke. “Can you grab Frank Morgan and the blue box and come here?” Joyce sputtered her agreement, and he disconnected the call. “I’m not in the mood to bargain today. Five grand cash, right now, and you never get near Lily—or any member of my family, for that matter—again. And if you ever so much as come further north than Atlanta, I’ll make sure you disappear without a trace. I suggest you take the deal.”

  Oscar’s eyes narrowed. “Or what?”

  “Or my Head of Security will sit on you while I call your parole officer and tell him you just attempted to blackmail the family of a sitting U.S. senator. You can finish out your last sentence and tack on at least another five years or so.”

  The door to his office opened and Joyce came in, carrying the cashbox from the safe. Frank Morgan stood next to the door, looking appropriately menacing.

  “Make your choice.”

  Oscar was purple with anger. “The money,” he snapped.

  “I thought you’d see it that way.” Ethan counted out the cash and handed it over. “Just remember that I’m a man of my word, and you will regret it if you cross me again. Frank, escort this…person from the premises and convince him he’d be wise to keep closer to the great state of Mississippi in the future.”

  “My pleasure, Mr. Marshall.” Frank cracked his knuckles, and Oscar paled slightly as Frank followed him from the room.

  Joyce closed the cashbox and smirked. “You just made Frank’s day with that. He never gets to flex his muscles and play the intimidating bad guy anymore.”

  “I wish Frank would actually squash Oscar Black like the bug he is.”

  “I have a feeling Frank is hard-pressed at the moment not to. Even his patience has its limits, and Lily’s father is probably banging right up against them. If anyone could truly push Frank to violence, he might just be the one to do it.”

  “Hopefully Frank knows that I will get him the very best lawyers money can buy, should he be pushed over that edge today.”

  Joyce snorted. “I’m sure he does. Now, how do you want that money tagged in the books? ‘Hush money’ is not a line I wish to create.”

  Only Joyce… “I guess call it a gift.”

  “For Lily?” she clarified quietly.

  “Yeah. It’s one thing off her back.”

  “Too bad you have no way of telling her that. I’m sure she’d appreciate it.”

  Ethan didn’t want Lily’s appreciation. He wanted her current location.

  Someone had to know where she was. It wasn’t possible to just disappear. Actually, it was, he amended, and with Lily’s background she probably knew how to do it. Working in his favor, though, was the fact that it was expensive, and he doubted Lily had the money to spend on a new identity. More importantly, it was also illegal.

  And Lily wasn’t a criminal.

  Not anymore.

  That gave him an idea.

  I hate this dog. Lily rubbed the back of her hand where Pinky had snapped at her, glad to see it hadn’t broken the skin this time. It went against the grain for her to hate any animal, but this spoiled, yappy, grumpy Pomeranian had earned her animosity.

  “Look, furball, I don’t like this any more than you do, but Mrs. Clarke wants your toenails pink, so give it up. I will win this battle.”

  Pinky the Pomeranian made her miss Goose, Tinker, Duke and the rest of the horses all the more. Cleveland made her miss rural Virginia. Her roommates, Karen and Paula, made her long for the quiet privacy of her little apartment over the stable offices at Hill Chase.

  She was miserable. Lonely. She wanted her old life back. She wanted to go home—and home was Hill Chase.

  And Ethan. Ethan was all tangled up in that mise
ry, but she couldn’t think about him. It hurt too much. She missed Ethan so badly it was a physical ache in her chest that kept her awake at night. She’d happily trade the rest of her wish list if she could just have Ethan. Not even for keeps; she’d settle for just a little while longer.

  But all that was out of the question. Ethan had made his feelings very clear. In retrospect, she probably wouldn’t have lasted at Hill Chase much longer anyway—with or without Pop showing up. He was too much a part of that, and being there with him when she couldn’t have him would have been a special circle of hell designed just for her.

  She adjusted Pinky, hooking an arm over his back to hold him in place, and held the tiny paw still for a second coat of Pretty Pony Pink.

  Pinky growled, his lips pulling back over tiny sharp teeth.

  “I totally agree with your sentiment, but if you bite me again you’re going to be a little furry football.” Pinky cocked his head at her, and she relented. “Fine. No football. But I will shave you like a poodle. The other dogs will laugh.”

  Pinky made a little dog huffing sound.

  “You know, you’re not even a tenth of the size of Goose, but you’re twice the trouble. God, I miss that horse.”

  “If it’s any consolation, I think he misses you, too.”

  Pinky barked at the new voice, but Lily couldn’t move. Adrenaline rushed through her, but her legs were frozen for some reason. I’m hallucinating. Pinky gave me rabies and I’ve gone mad from it. There had to be an explanation—one that made sense—because there was no reason at all for Ethan to be here. At the Pampered Pets Parlor. In Cleveland. Hell, he had no reason to even be in Ohio.

  She carefully screwed the lid back on the bottle of polish and blew on Pinky’s nails to dry them, but she was really stalling for time as she grasped for the right thing to say. Putting Pinky back into his carrier, where he growled in Ethan’s general direction from complete safety, she cleared her throat. “This is definitely a surprise.” She turned as she spoke, and seeing him there in the doorway made her heart hurt. Reality was even better than memory.

  He was too casually dressed to be doing any business in the area, but the jeans, the boots and the UVA sweatshirt—that oddity stopped her briefly, since she knew he wasn’t UVA—were as devastating on him as a tux. The sharp wind outside today had blown his hair around and reddened his cheeks. He looked adorable. Delicious. Heart-achingly wonderful.

  “I would imagine it is a surprise. You, Lily, are a very tough lady to track down.” Ethan stepped fully into the tiny grooming room and let the door swing shut behind him.

  “Yet you managed to find me. Can I ask how?” Because I’m not brave enough to ask why just yet.

  “It wasn’t easy.” He propped a hip on the grooming table. “We found a blog that had a picture of the two of us on it, and listed you by name.”

  “So that’s how Pop knew I was at Hill Chase,” she muttered.

  “Probably. I contacted the blogger and found out who had identified you for him. Then I tracked that person down, and she told me she’d gone through that diversion program with you, and gave me the names of a few other people who were there at the same time. Their records aren’t sealed like yours, so I eventually found your friend TJ who, after a ton of convincing on my part, told me you’d called her last week from a payphone in the 216 area code. Phone calls to every vet, pet shop, stable and kennel in the area finally paid off.”

  “That’s an awful lot of trouble to go to.” And thankfully a hell of a lot more than Pop would be willing to do. But that didn’t really tell her why Ethan was here. She swallowed around the lump in her throat and asked the big question. “Can I ask why you did it?”

  “We’ve been worried about you.”

  That was unexpected. “We?”

  “Ray, Granddad, me.” He smiled wryly. “Mainly me.”

  Her heart stuttered. “Well, as you can see, I’m fine.”

  “But you miss Goose?”

  “Yeah, of course. I love those horses.”

  “Anything—or anyone—else you…um…miss?”

  Ethan forced himself to ask the question because he was tired: tired of searching, tired of worrying, tired of beating around the bush. Lily did look fine—if a little morose and wary—and he didn’t know whether to hug her in relief or strangle her for putting him through all of this.

  “Honestly?” she asked.

  “It would be nice.”

  Lily hesitated. “I really miss Hill Chase.” That was certainly a slap to his ego. “I know I wasn’t there for very long, but it felt like home. But once Pop found out I was there I just couldn’t stay. He’s not one to give up too easily, and he’d hound me.”

  “Your pop shouldn’t be a problem for you anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  “He made the mistake of coming to see me.”

  “Oh, God, I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be. We had a nice chat. He tried to blackmail me—” Lily paled “—I paid him off and threatened his life and liberty if he ever came near either one of us again.”

  “You paid him off? For what? I don’t—”

  “There seemed to be a question of some money you owed him. Since I overheard your conversation that day—”

  Lily groaned and sat. “That was the money I used to get to Virginia. It was as much mine as it was his. He just didn’t see it that way.”

  “Well, you’re clear now.”

  Her shoulders dropped a little. In relief, maybe, or something else? “I’ll pay you back. It might take a while—”

  “You think that’s why I searched half the country for you and then flew to Cleveland? To hit you up for five thousand dollars?”

  “Five?” Lily looked outraged now. “It was only three grand.”

  “Your Pop definitely has chutzpah, then. He asked for ten.”

  “Ten? That man has never had ten thousand dollars in his life,” Lily muttered angrily.

  “The money doesn’t matter, Lily. The point is that your father shouldn’t be a problem for you anymore. You can quit running.”

  “A blackmail attempt definitely violates his parole. You could have just had him arrested.”

  “That can still be arranged. Is that what you want?”

  Lily’s looked at him oddly. “Break the law, go to jail. It’s pretty clear-cut, Ethan.”

  “I wasn’t sure what you’d want me to do. He’s your father—”

  “Much to my dismay.”

  “Oh, you’re preaching to the choir on that one, darlin’. But that just makes it all the more complicated.”

  Lily laughed. The sound warmed him.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You found the gray area.”

  “In all its many, many shades—thanks to you. Life used to be so much simpler.”

  “I don’t know whether to congratulate you or apologize.”

  “I’m the one who owes you an apology. I overreacted and…” His entire carefully prepared speech escaped him now. “Well, people suck sometimes, remember?”

  Lily’s smile was small, but it was a smile nonetheless. “That they do. But after what you’ve done for me you’ve more than made up for it. Pop isn’t brave enough to test you, and that lets me off the hook. It’s a big relief. Thank you.”

  “I don’t want your gratitude, Lily.”

  “O-kay…”

  Damn it. He was going to have to grovel… “I want you.”

  Just a second ago Lily wouldn’t have thought it possible to be any more shocked than she already was. She was still reeling from everything Ethan had just laid on her, and now he went and topped the pile with that.

  Her blood, which had run sluggish in her veins for weeks, suddenly began to circulate with a vengeance as her body took his statement at its most basic level of meaning.

  Her brain, though, was misfiring. “You want me?”

  “Yes.”

  “You mean like now? Here?” She looked around the dingy groomin
g room.

  “Not here, necessarily, but, yes, now. And tomorrow, and for the next fifty years or so.”

  Pure joy poured like sunshine into her soul, but reality pulled the shades down quickly. She couldn’t bring herself to fully accept what those words might mean. She needed a little time. Space. Possibly a strong drink or two.

  “I think we should probably back up a little here.” She stood and started to release the clasp on Pinky’s cage, intending to end this conversation. “I, uh, get off work at four. We could go someplace and talk about—”

  “Oh, for God’s sake…” Ethan scooted off the table and grabbed her hand before she opened the cage.

  Pinky growled and snapped.

  “Look at me.”

  Lily forced her eyes up to Ethan’s as his hands settled on her shoulders.

  “I love you.”

  She closed her eyes and let the lovely feeling slide over her. It brought tears to her eyes, and the ache in her chest felt different. “Ethan…”

  “I came all the way to freakin’ Cleveland to tell you that. And to ask you to come home. With me.”

  If only it were that simple. “But my past is a disaster waiting to happen for you and your family. My record may be sealed, but I can’t give people amnesia or make them not tell the press every last gory detail.”

  His hands were on her hair, smoothing it back from her face and tucking it behind her ears, and she fought the urge to curl into his hand like a kitten. “You think I care?”

  “You have to care. I’ll never live down my past.”

  “You don’t have to live it down—because you lived through it and came out great on the other side. You said it yourself, you know. Your past made you who you are today, but it doesn’t mean you’re that person anymore.” His lips brushed gently against hers. “I’m sorry you had to go through that hell first, but I love who you turned out to be.”

  “Really?”

  “Honestly, truly and absolutely. No gray area at all.”

  “I love you.” She was wrapping her arms around Ethan and feeling him pull her close…