I held up a finger and pushed Play on the next message.
“Hey, uh, this is Vick Verkman, a friend of Gary’s. I don’t know how to tell you this, but Gary was in a terrible accident last night. He’s in a coma, and the hospital is threatening to unplug him unless someone pays his hospital bills. He keeps whispering your name.”
Lucian put down his fork. “Vick Verkman’s voice sounds a lot like Gary.”
“Oh, just wait,” I said, playing the next message.
“Sloane? This is Mercedes, Gary’s mom. I’m sorry to tell you that Gary passed away last night from injuries sustained in a car accident he had while worrying about you and your uncle. The funeral home is threatening to keep his body unless we pay them—”
I stopped the message and took another bite of soft pretzel.
Lucian rolled his eyes. “Tell me you didn’t send him money.”
I grinned. “I texted his ‘mom’ back and asked her where I could send the check. She suggested I write it out to Gary Jessup and mail it to his home address so his ‘estate could handle it.’”
“He gave you his real name and address after he faked his own death?”
“Yep. It made it easy to report him to the app and track down his employment so I could send a funeral arrangement of flowers with my condolences to him there.”
“Where does he work?” Lucian asked, picking up his fork again.
I swirled warm pretzel through the caramel puddle on the plate. “For one of those skeezy debt collection places. You know the kind. They buy medical or mortgage debt for pennies on the dollar and then try to collect on it by harassing people. I think it was called Morganstern Credit Corporation.”
Lucian said nothing as he took another bite. He was eating standing up, leaning against the sink, the counter between us.
“What? No ‘You’re so undesirable men fake their own deaths to get away from you’ jokes?” I asked.
“Too many punch lines. I froze,” he said. “Why are you subjecting yourself to this?”
“To spending time with you?” I asked, coyly batting my eyelashes.
“I know you’re only here for the baked goods.”
I savored my last bite and refrained from licking the drizzle of gooey goodness from the plate. “I want a family. It’s time.”
I got up and rounded the peninsula. Silently, Lucian slid to the side, allowing me access to the sink. I washed the plate and fork, then left them to dry.
“You’re serious about all this, aren’t you?”
He sounded baffled, and I glanced up at him. There wasn’t enough space between us, which created an odd, barefoot intimacy.
“I’d think you of all people would understand. Haven’t you ever made up your mind about something you wanted and then gone out and got it? Or in your case, coughed up a few million and bought yourself whatever it was you wanted.”
He nudged me out of the way, my body heating at the innocuous contact. I put a little distance between us and hopped up on the counter while he washed his dishes, then used the towel looped over the oven handle to dry both our plates before returning them to their respective homes.
Meticulous, I noted. The man couldn’t tolerate things out of place. He probably folded his socks before sex.
“That’s very pragmatic of you,” he said.
I bristled from my perch. “I can be pragmatic.”
He glanced my way, and I felt the heat from those molten silver eyes.
“In many areas, yes,” he conceded. “But given your usual reading material, I would have expected you to prioritize romance.”
“What nonsense are you spouting now?” I demanded.
“You’ve been reading romance novels by the truckload since you were a teenager. You practically have ‘happily ever after’ tattooed on your forehead.”
I crossed my arms. Did I wish I could meet someone who would sweep me off my feet like Naomi and Lina had? Yes. Was I more than a little jealous of their over-the-top sex lives and grand romances? Absolutely.
“Sometimes you have to stop waiting for something to happen and start making it happen,” I said.
“I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t care,” I snapped back.
His grin was devastating and fleeting.
I examined my fingernails and feigned boredom. “Just out of curiosity, what don’t you believe?”
“You’re not going to settle for a man just because he ticks off the ‘potential father material’ box. That’s not how you’re wired.”
“Oh, and how exactly am I wired?”
He moved quickly, like a beast lunging for its prey. I found him standing between my knees, caging me in with his hands on the counter. “You’re wired to want a man who’s going to live up to every one of those heroes you read about. The ones who fight for their woman, who drag her off into dark corners because they can’t stand not touching her a moment longer. The ones who would do anything for her. That’s what you want.”
His voice was a rough rasp, an invisible caress.
Why did it feel so good, so thrilling to be this close to him?
“This is starting to feel like your office all over again,” I warned.
His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t budge. He stayed where he was, almost touching me in a dozen places.
“Don’t settle,” he said. “You’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”
“Are you seriously giving me love life advice right now?”
“I’m merely pointing out that you could be lining yourself up for more trouble by forcing things to happen instead of letting them unfold.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You can have kids when you’re seventy-five.”
“No. I can’t. I had a vasectomy.”
My mouth fell open. “What? When? Why?”
He pushed away from me and stood in the center of the room, looking supremely uncomfortable. “You should go,” he announced.
But I was riveted. “I mean, you don’t have to tell me. Even though I just spilled my guts to you about my very personal, humiliating dating life. Don’t feel like you owe me anything.”
“I gave you a pretzel.”
“Half a pretzel,” I pointed out.
For a moment, I thought he was going to close down again, like he always did. Then he gritted out a sigh. “I was in my twenties. There was a pregnancy scare with a girl who didn’t matter. I already knew I had no intentions of ever starting a family, so I made sure it wouldn’t happen.”
“Wow. That’s a big decision to make when you’re that young,” I observed.
“I haven’t changed my mind, so you can stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you pity me.”
I snorted. “I don’t pity you, you gigantic oaf. I’m just…surprised. I guess I always just assumed you were more calculating with your decisions. That seems like a knee-jerk reaction.”
“This conversation is annoying me. You should leave,” he announced.
“Lucian.” All the aggravation, the frustration that roiled inside me came out in those two syllables.
“What?” he asked quietly.
“Why do we keep getting on this roller coaster?” I asked.
“I always thought of it as more of a dance,” he countered.
“Roller coaster, dance, series of huge mistakes. What are we doing, Lucifer?”
He locked eyes with me, and I felt as if I was frozen to the spot.
“We’re holding on to something that doesn’t exist anymore,” he said flatly.
I absorbed the blow and sighed out a breath.
“How do we let go of something that doesn’t exist?” I asked.
“If I figure it out, I’ll let you know…in a letter…from my attorney.”
My lips quirked. That was the magic of Lucian. I could hate him, and he could still make me smile. “Did you ever want a family?” I asked.
“Once. A long time ago,” he said, his voice low.
I bit my lip and tried to avoid the barrage of memories.
“You should go, Pix.”
“You don’t have to be like them,” I told him. “You’re already better. I mean, besides your terrible personality. You’d do it better than they did.”
He was already shaking his head. “I invest my time in what matters most. I don’t have any left over for a wife and kids. I’d only be putting them at risk.”
I straightened. “I talked to Nash about you working with the FBI—”
“Of course you did.”