Shrugging, I say, “Well, that’s good, right? I’m sorry she called you, but thanks for helping her out. I know Lia will be grateful.” When he looks uncomfortable, shifting from one foot to the other, I ask, “That was the end of it, wasn’t it?”
“Not exactly,” he mutters. “I…gave her a lift home and when we got there, she…came on to me.”
“Pardon?” I ask, thinking I must have heard him wrong.
“She climbed into my lap and kissed me while grabbing my…dick.”
I motion him toward the living room and sink down into the chair behind me, wondering how many more crazy things I am going to hear. Rose was now some kind of horny Annie Oakley. “Jesus. Was she on something?”
“Hell yeah,” Max retorted. “My cock.”
Dropping my head back, I can’t contain the laughter at his dry response. It’s so freaking crazy it’s funny. My usually unflappable lawyer looks completely bewildered at what occurred, and I am damn blown away myself. Maybe there was a full moon last night or something. “Please tell me you didn’t fuck her in the car?”
“No!” he snaps, looking indignant. “I mean, it went further than it should have because her hands were just everywhere before I knew it. And damn, she’s kind of scary, but beautiful.”
“She got to you,” I say in disbelief.
“No.” He shakes his head. “No way. It was just a surprise.”
“Come on.” I point to where he is pacing in a circle, clenching his fists. “You wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
He drops down on the couch across from me, releasing a breath. “Yeah, holy Hell, she’s something else. I didn’t know whether to run for my life or propose.”
“Trust me,” I wince, “I know exactly where you’re coming from.” As we both sit there in silence staring off into space, I say, “Lee Jacks just left.”
He expels a loud breath. “This day is just one big fucking mess, isn’t it?” I agree as I get up and walk to the bar in the corner to fix us each a glass of bourbon. He takes a big gulp, grimacing at the sting. “All right, let’s hear it.”
Chapter Six
Lee Jacks
I stride from Lucian Quinn’s building, pausing as my driver opens the back door of the Rolls Royce Phantom idling quietly at the curb. My temples throb as I settle onto the buttery-soft leather interior. “So?” a voice asks.
I turn to face my right-hand man in both business and personal matters. My brother Peter sits waiting for the results of my meeting. “First off, fire Sears, now.” The fact that I was not informed about Lia’s hospitalization as well as her court appearance against her stepfather is inexcusable. I do not tolerate sloppy work; I pay too fucking well to accept something like that. Without asking questions, he calls the office and hands the order down. One of the reasons Peter and I have always worked well together is that we are able to communicate without an overabundance of words. He knows I don’t make decisions lightly, and he doesn’t second-guess any work-related decision I make. Hell, he’s one of the few people in my life who doesn’t seem terrified of me.
In our lives, it’s always been Peter and me against the world. We were raised for our first ten years by a junkie mother who finally overdosed after years of doing just enough to keep us out of foster care. We never knew our father, and I suspect our mother didn’t either. Although my mother wasn’t physically abusive, the similarities of my childhood to Lia’s are not lost on me. It makes me sick to my stomach to think of a child of mine going through what Quinn said she had. I had always been so careful to ensure I had no children. To me, that was a weakness I didn’t want to risk. Peter, on the other hand, went in the complete opposite direction and wanted the American dream. He has a sweet and loving wife, two children, and a house in an exclusive, gated community where he sits on the homeowners’ board.
He and I have come a long way from surviving on the streets and fending for ourselves. After our mother died, we lived in foster homes until we were sixteen. No one puts much effort into looking for runaways with no family ties. The day Victor Falco caught me stealing scraps from his restaurant kitchen was the day our lives changed forever. The man became the father I’d never had and would go on to show me how successful I could be when the lines between right and wrong were no longer a factor. I would spend years after Victor’s death trying to keep my promise to Peter to leave the shadows I’d been operating in for far too long and return to a life where death or jail weren’t constant dangers.
“Well?” Peter prompts me, breaking through my walk down memory lane. I know he’s impatient for news of Lia. He had been just as shocked as I to learn that I might possibly have a daughter. I was afraid he had even let himself dream of my redemption at the hands of the child I hadn’t known existed.