I never lie to any man because I don’t fear anyone. The only time you lie is when you are afraid.
—John Gotti
CHAPTER FOUR
SHANE
The instant Emily’s delicate little hand settles against mine, I close my fingers around hers, holding on tight, wanting her to the point of almost need. This night, somehow, she’s become the light in the darkness that is my fucked-up family.
I drag her to me, my hand molded to her lower back, hers settling over my thundering heart, her eyes on my chest. “Look at me,” I order.
She tilts her chin up, those pretty blue eyes filled with desire, but also trepidation that I will take great pleasure in tearing away. “This isn’t,” she begins. “I don’t normally…”
“I know.”
“You know?”
“Yes. I know and I don’t make a habit of taking women I just met to bed.”
“Then why me? Why tonight?”
“Because it would be unfair to someone else for me to fuck them while thinking about you. I want you. Just you.”
“Yes, but—”
“Because you’re you. That’s the only answer I have for either of us.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Neither do I, but we won’t figure it out standing here in yet another hallway.”
She studies me for several long moments, and I fight the urge to pressure her, but I wait, and when she finally nods her approval, the relief I feel defies all reason and my understanding of who I am as a man. But I don’t question it or give her time to change her mind. I take her hand, leading her through the tables, me in front, simply because it’s the only way I can hold on to her. Now that I have her, I’m not letting her go. I want this woman. I’m not letting her get spooked and run again.
Once we are at the door, I pull her in front of me, holding it open for her, but staying close, my hand on her back. We exit, a gust of especially cold wind greeting us and she faces me, hugging herself. “I really need that jacket right about now.”
“Take mine,” I say, shrugging out of it, feeling protective of this woman when I barely know her.
“No,” she says, holding up her hands. “I can’t do that. It’s very—”
I settle it around her, holding on to the lapels as she murmurs, “expensive,” and I am looking at her lips, thinking about my mouth on hers. “Put your arms in,” I order softly, the wind lifting that sweet scent of hers in the air, and I swear my groin tightens as if she’d touched me. Holy hell, I’m in trouble with this woman. “Arms,” I say again when she hasn’t moved.
She hesitates a moment longer but does as I say, laughing as her hands are swallowed by my sleeves. “You’re big or I’m small.”
“Considering I’m six two and I’d guess you to be a foot shorter, I’d say both.”
“Hey now,” she reprimands me. “I’m five four. Don’t take my two inches.”
“Five four,” I amend, reaching for one of her arms to roll up the sleeve.
“Don’t do that,” she objects, grabbing my hand. “This is at least a two-thousand-dollar suit. You can’t roll up the material.”
For a woman who tries not to talk about herself, she’s just told me there’s a good chance she’s been around money, even if she doesn’t have it now. “The jacket will be fine. The dry cleaners can handle it. I promise.”
For a moment, she looks like she might argue, but instead says, “Thank you,” and there’s an odd hint of something in her voice that reaches beyond simple politeness and stirs further interest in me. She interests me and remarkably, the edge of minutes before has eased slightly, and I haven’t even gotten her naked yet.
I grab the lapels again and inch her closer. “My place is a mile from here. I want to take you there. This is where you say yes again.”
“You know my answer.”
“Say it,” I demand, needing her to be clear about what she wants, and what I want.
“Yes,” she whispers, then seeming to understand I’ll ask for more, she firms her voice to add, “Your place is fine.”
“Good answer.” I don’t give her time to get nervous on me, draping my arm around her shoulders to sweep her into the shelter of my body, and set us in motion down a fairly deserted section of the sidewalk. “The walk is longer from the direction we exited the restaurant,” I say, noting her hands grasping her purse, not me, where they belong. “But I need to drop by the building and pick up my car. Is yours in the garage?”
“I walked,” she says as we enter the dark patch just before the bustle of Sixteenth Street. “Good grief, this back street is spooky. I’d never walk it without you.”
“Just another half a block and we’ll be back on the main road,” I say, when someone jumps out of the darkness, and starts cursing at us. I quickly pull Emily to the opposite side of me, away from the action, and hustle us forward. The minute we’re on Sixteenth, I place her in front of me and turn to find a homeless man hanging back and laughing.
“Little bastard,” I murmur, joining Emily, who’s now facing me. “He’s not following us,” I say, my hands settling on her arms. “Are you okay?”
“Now that my heart is out of my throat. That was scary.”
“I’m pretty sure that was a guy known as ‘Joe’ who has some notoriety around him. He’s a street person who enjoys scaring people.”
“Enjoys it? What a horrible way to amuse himself. And how can I be mad at him and still feel sorry for him?”
“Don’t,” I say, draping my arm around her neck and turning her to step us into action again. “My understanding is that he has family who’ve tried to help but he always ends up back here.”
“Drugs?”
“Yes. Drugs. He won’t stay clean. Addiction is an evil monster that comes in many forms.”
“Yes,” she whispers, delicately clearing her throat. “Yes. It is.”
She cuts her gaze, hiding what I might find in her eyes, her response suggesting the topic is personal to her and I wonder if that has anything to do with her coming to Denver alone. “Have you ever lived downtown in a major city?”
“No. Why?”
“I’ve traveled enough to know that every downtown located in a major metropolis is packed with convenience, but also comes with a rough side. I was with you tonight, but you never know when you’ll run into another Joe, or someone with worse intentions.”
“I’m always careful.” She cuts me a look. “As you can tell, considering I’m going home with a stranger tonight.”
“I’m not a stranger. You know where I work. You know a restaurant I frequent and plenty of people saw us together. And by the way, Jeffrey’s really does make a damn good plate of ravioli. You would have liked it.”
“It smelled and looked amazing but…” She hesitates. “I guess it’s good we didn’t decide to stay. I’m sorry about your father.”
“Yes well, it really shouldn’t have surprised me the way it did. I mean this is a man I caught fucking our neighbor, my buddy’s mother, on our kitchen counter when I was sixteen.”
“Oh God. That must have been a nightmare for you.”
“It wasn’t one of my brighter moments.”
“I’d say it’s more like it wasn’t one of your father’s brighter moments. But your mother stayed?”
“Yes. She stayed.”
“So, they worked it out. Are you sure this dinner was inappropriate?”
“Inappropriate is about as ‘appropriate’ as it gets,” I say, remembering the way the woman was hanging on my father and wishing like hell I hadn’t opened the door for more questions I won’t answer.
But she doesn’t ask another question, instead summing things up perfectly with, “Then he’s an asshole.”
“Yes,” I agree. “He’s an asshole.” Silently adding, An asshole dying of cancer. And yet he seems to revel in pissing people off and watch them catapult their anger to guilt.
“I love horses,” she says, as a carriage pulled by a black gelding passes by us. “And this one is quite beautiful.”
“Have you been around horses?”
“My father loved to ride. I love to ride.” I’m curious about this side of her, but she’s already moving on. “I’m glad the carriages only work the section of Sixteenth closed to traffic. The animals seem well cared for too.”
“Unlike the ones in New York City,” I say, reluctantly allowing her to divert the topic from herself. “My apartment was right next to Central Park. Those poor animals are in the middle of traffic getting their hoofs beat to hell.”
“You lived in Manhattan?”
“Yeah. I moved there right out of law school and stayed there until I moved back to Denver last year.”
She stops dead in her tracks and turns to look at me. “You’re an attorney?”
“Didn’t I mention that?”
“No. You did not mention that. You sat there and listened to me talk about law school and you didn’t say a word.”
I step to her, my hands settling at her waist, under the jacket. “I’m telling you now.”
“What kind of law?”
“Corporate.”
“Where’d you go to school?”
“Harvard.”
She gapes. “Harvard? You went to Harvard?”
“Yes. I went to Harvard.”
“And then you were recruited out of college to work in New York?”
“That’s right.”
“Money or passion?” she asks.
My brows dip. “What?”
“Are you in it for the money or the passion?”
“Why can’t I have both?”
“Is that possible?”
“Not always. But sometimes.” I study her a moment, and that sexy trepidation I’ve noticed several times before has returned with a vengeance. “Emily,” I say softly, lifting my chin toward our destination. “We’re ten feet from the building, and my car, which means us leaving together, and we aren’t moving any closer to achieving that goal. Is this nerves or second thoughts?”
“I really want to know about you and Harvard and—”
“Understood. And I’ll tell you, but we’re still standing here.”
She glances at the building and then back to me. “I wasn’t, but now that you just pointed all of that out, I am. It’s been a while and you’re…”
“I’m what?”
“You. You’re just you, and don’t ask me to explain that because like you, I can’t.”
There is something so damn sweet about this woman that hits all the right spots and I reach over and caress hair from her face. “We’re going to be good together. We already are. I feel it. You have to feel it, too. Do you feel it?”
“Yes,” she says. “I do.”
Pleased with her answer, I link our arms again and we cross a walkway toward the building. “I don’t have to ask to know you’re a good attorney,” she comments a few steps later. “You’re very persuasive.”
I laugh. “Some would say I’m an asshole.”
“Are you?”
“If I’m dealing with an asshole, then yes, I’m an asshole. Have you taken the LSAT?”
“Even if I had, I wouldn’t tell you. I have no desire to compare scores.”
“Now you’ve really made me curious.”
“Why?” she asks as we reach the glass doors to the building. “It’s nothing you haven’t already done and done very well.”
I key a code into the security panel and open the door. “What was your score?” I press again.
Her answer is to purses her lips, and her stride into the building, making a beeline for the elevators. I laugh and pursue, snagging her hand. “I need to get my bag,” I say, leading her in the opposite direction. “And then I’m going to get your scores out of you.”
“I didn’t even say I took the test.”
“We both know you did.”
Her cell phone rings, she stops walking to reach into her purse, and I release her and motion to the desk. “I’ll grab my bag.”
She nods, and I head for the security desk, giving Randy a wave. By the time I reach the counter, he’s sets my bag on top, and leans close. “Your father was with a woman tonight.”
“I know,” I say. “I had the misfortune of running into them. Do you know her?”
“No, but I saw her with your brother a couple of weeks back at a restaurant around the corner.”
My fucking brother is manipulating and spying on my father. Why does this surprise me? “Thanks, Randy. Do me a favor. Make me a copy of tonight’s security feed, wipe it clean, and send it to my apartment.”
“Consider it done.”
I give him a nod and grab my cell phone from my pocket, turning to find Emily standing in profile near the elevator corridor, her head tilted low. I text Seth: My father’s at Jeffrey’s with a woman. Randy says he saw her with Derek off location. I know nothing else.
I wait for a reply, watching Emily as she turns just enough for me to see the anger on her face, a perfect match for what I’m feeling right now. Well, not a perfect match per se. She’s sweet at her core, while I’m not sure what the hell I am, but it’s not even close to sweet. I’m everything she is not, and that makes her damn appealing.
Deciding to hell with Seth’s reply, I stick my phone in my pocket, and start walking toward Emily, a man on a mission to get us both naked as soon as possible. No more delays and I really have no clue how I went from furious in that restaurant to laughing on the walk over here, but I’m damn sure not laughing now. Neither is she. Her spine is stiff, her long brown hair hiding her face, but I can hear her muffled, terse whispers. I’m almost on top of her when she ends the call and faces me, all but jumping out of my jacket in the process.
“You scared me,” she says, stuffing her phone back in her purse. “Sorry about that.” She cuts her gaze. “It was my landlord and he’s—”
“You don’t need to make up stories for me.”
Her gaze jerks to mine. “What?”
“You don’t lie well and that’s a compliment.”
“I’m not—”
“Don’t,” I order softly, shackling her hips under my jacket, her hand settling on my chest, where it balls rather than flattens.
She pales. “What?”
“Say nothing or tell me everything, but don’t lie to me.”
Her fingers grip a section of my shirt. “Nothing then.”
“Understood,” I agree, but the fact that I want to convince her to tell me everything is a problem I’ll either deal with later, or holy hell, maybe not. I cup her face. “Here’s how this is going to play out: Whatever, or whomever, is tormenting you can’t have you tonight. That’s what you need to know. Not tonight. Understood?”
“Yes,” she breathes out. “Please.”
“Yes and please. Remember those words and my name because I’m going to make you say them over and over again.”
She sucks in a breath, a mix of shock and interest in her expression that burns hot in my blood. She has never been properly fucked and I damn sure like the idea of being the one to remedy the situation. I take her hand and lead her to the elevator, punching our floor. The doors open instantly and I lead her inside, punching the ground level. I don’t turn to her or I’ll shove her against the elevator, fuck some of this anger out of my system, and Randy will have a show before he deletes the footage.
The doors open in less than sixty seconds, and I take her with me as I exit the elevator and enter the garage, where my car sits alone, a centerpiece of nothing. Interesting, considering my father is only two blocks away, but I’m sure it has to do with hiding his evening activities. Fishing my keys from my pocket, I click the locks, and the lights flicker at the same moment my cell phone beeps. I release Emily to grab my phone, and look down at the text that reads: Sending a man now. Simple and to the point, that’s how Seth operates, and I like it that way. I stick my phone back in the pocket of my pants, my attention riveted on Emily who is standing at the trunk of the car, her finger tracing the Bentley emblem, with what I assume is nervous energy.
She glances in my direction, her eyes meeting mine from a distance. This time I’m not sure what I read in her face, but holy hell, I feel this woman in ways that make no sense. I start toward her and she rounds the car, making her way to the passenger door. I’m there in time to open it for her but she doesn’t get in the car. She faces me.
“A Bentley was my dream car,” she announces, apparently throwing her vow to say nothing to the wind. “No,” she amends, gripping the rim at the top of the window. “Is my dream car. And Harvard’s my dream school. And you have them both and somehow I’m with you. I’m not sure if you’re a kiss good-bye to my dreams or a promise they aren’t over.”
“Don’t let the universe decide what it means. Don’t let it have that power. And don’t let what you want get away from you.” I step closer to her, my hand settling on the window next to hers but I do not touch her. “What I want is what I told you in the restaurant. To fuck you so right and well you never forget me.” Her lips part, her eyes widening in surprise, chest rising and falling. “Now. Your turn. Don’t censor your answer and don’t think about yesterday or tomorrow. Right here, right now. What do you want, Emily?”
“You know what I want.”
“Say it,” I command, pushing her limits, a precursor to the rest of the night intended as a test to find out if she can really handle where I plan to take her.
She knows it too. I see it in the lift of her chin, and the hint of rebellion in her eyes. “You. Nothing but you.”
And with that simple, perfect answer, she turns and slides into the Bentley. I immediately close the distance between us, kneeling beside her, and yanking the belt from the panel. She grabs my hand midway across her body.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking care of you.”
“I don’t need you to take care of me,” she says, and she isn’t talking about a seatbelt any more than I am, but for different reasons. I know what I see in her eyes because I’ve lived it. She’s alone, trying to convince herself that’s just fine by her.
Reaching over her, I connect the belt, my arm brushing her breast, her reaction a soft gasp that I feel in the tightening of my body. I inhale and settle back on my heels, my hand finding the bare expanse of her knee just beneath her skirt. “Tonight,” I say. “You’re mine and I take care of what’s mine.” I don’t give her a chance to object as I stand and shut the door.
Rounding the trunk of the Bentley, I stop dead in my tracks as my brother’s 911 pulls in and parks three spaces from my car. Without question, he is up to something, and I can’t help but think it has something to do with the woman who’s with my father. Damn glad Emily is in the car, and out of his line of sight, I step forward to greet my brother.
He exits the 911, his gaze landing hard on me, a smirk appearing on his chiseled features. “Ah, sweet brother,” he calls out, moving to the trunk of his car, his jacket now removed. “Working late I see.”
I take three steps, bringing us close enough to ensure Emily won’t overhear our conversation. “What are you doing here at this hour, Derek?”
“Rolling up my sleeves and getting the dirty work done, of course. A necessary evil considering I’m at war with my own brother, but at least I know who’s in my corner. I wonder if you do.”
It’s not a question and he doesn’t wait for an answer. He turns and walks toward the elevator, leaving me standing there, his words left behind as a taunt. His intent is to make me question myself and everyone around me. Of course, I know my father is ultimately on his side. Perhaps he even has more of the stockholders in his pocket than I suspect. Or not. In my experience, those who talk the loudest use language as a smokescreen. Why, if he had everything locked down, as he’d like me to believe, did he feel the need to plant a woman in our father’s life to spy on him? And I’d bet money that’s what’s happening. Whatever the case, all is fair in love and war, and I’m starting to believe all there is left for Derek is war. I inhale, feeling the darkening of my mood, like a monster taking over. I need an outlet and I need it now.
I start walking toward the Bentley, and I’m pretty damn sure the woman inside, and the pleasure I’m going to give her, are about the only honest things in my life right now.