I ignored it despite the thump of my heart and looked at my father. “You have to have a better solution than this.”
Dad stood, walked toward his desk, and opened the drawer. He pulled out his checkbook and scribbled across one of the pages. Then he slid it toward Lani. “Before we were interrupted,” he said with a hard look at me, “this is my offer.”
Lani visibly took a deep breath if the raise of her tits was anything to go by.
Fuck. What was wrong with me?
“No,” she whispered.
“Yes,” Dad replied.
“No!” I snapped, stepping forward. I grabbed the check off the table and my eyes bulged at the five figure number he’d so casually written down. “This has to be a fucking joke.”
“If it is,” Dad started, “it’ll match your behavior for the past few years, won’t it?”
I snapped my jaw shut.
“I can’t take this,” Lani said quietly. “It won’t be damn easy, but I doubt it’ll be this hard either.”
“This is my fee,” Dad replied to her. “The deposit, actually. You’ll receive a check for the other half upon public appreciation of my son.”
“What?” I exploded. “Okay. This was pretty amusing five minutes ago when it was all about the articles and all the good I have to do in the world, but this is another step up. You’re trying to pay her to make me look good?”
“Well, apparently you can’t conquer such a feat alone.” Lani spun in her seat and met my gaze dead-on. “So, yes. That’s exactly what’s being proposed here.”
Annoyance bubbled up inside me. “Dad...”
“The deal.” Dad said it so simply it’s as if he knew I’d counter that. He probably did. “You made a deal, Brett.”
“Not for this,” I replied tightly. “Not with her.”
Lani slammed her hand against the desk, releasing the check that was just in her grasp. It fluttered onto Dad’s board, as she turned to me.
Her almost-black hair swung behind her. Her chocolate-brown eyes were coal black as she found my gaze. Her lips, plain and slicked with nothing more than gloss, thinning into a flat line as she stepped toward me and closed the distance between us.
Motherfuck, she was beautiful.
“I don’t give a fuck what you agreed to,” she said firmly.
Fire burned through every word, and all I could do was look at her and clench my fists so I didn’t give into the instinct to grab her and, goddamn it, kiss her.
“This is the new agreement,” Lani said, her dark eyes on mine. “Start behaving yourself, Brett Walker, or I’ll make you wish you had.”
“Well, damn,” I said in a low voice. “Did Lani Montana get a backbone?”
She jabbed her finger into my chest. “I won’t turn your bullshit into flowery crap just because you want me to. I’m not going to be the girl you can talk into shit.”
I ignored the blood pumping down to my cock. “She got a backbone.”
Her eyes hardened. “Lani Montana doesn’t need a backbone. She’s got a vagina. Google Betty White if you don’t know the quote, asshole.” She turned and grabbed my father’s check off the desk.
She folded it three times and then, she set it between her fingers and put it between the two of us.
“It takes a pounding, right?” I smirked, taking hold of her hand. I squeezed her fingers together so she had a tighter grip on the folded bit of paper. “Get your notebook, Lani. I’m gonna keep you busy.”
She yanked her hand out of my grip and injected such hatred into her gaze it pierced me right down to my gut. “My job is to make you look like a respectful person in this society, Brett. But remember one thing, I’m a journalist, not a fucking fiction writer.” She stepped back, those dark eyes hard on mine. “And if you back me into a corner, I’ll crucify your ass.”
Then, she turned, smiled at my father, and said simply, “Let me know when you’re ready to start.”
And then she walked right the fuck out the room, closing the door behind her.
I stared after her.
Mother. Fucker.
That wasn’t the Lani Montana I remembered.
No, this was a new breed of Lani. This was a reincarnation, an adaptation, a reinvigoration of the girl I loved so long ago.
And fuck me if she wasn’t cock-hardeningly hot.
I wanted to bend her over in front of me and fuck her until she screamed that attitude out of her. But that was ridiculous, and I damn well knew it.
Dad sighed, leaning forward on the desk. “You can’t help yourself, can you, Brett?”
I looked back over my shoulder. “What?”
“Everybody.” He dropped his hand from his eyes and met mine. “Everybody you meet you have to piss off.”
“Not everybody,” I said, stuffing my hands into my pockets and heading for the door. “Just the ones who deserve it.”
I wanted to know if she kissed with as much fire as she spoke.
I didn’t know what I’d find when I walked into my father’s office yesterday. More to the point, I didn’t know who I’d find. The short run-in I’d had with Lani outside the baby store didn’t exactly involve a whole lot of conversation. Maybe I was a fool for thinking the same thing would have happened when I saw her at my house.
Maybe I’d assumed she would still be the same quiet, introverted Lani Montana who smiled at me over the top of a ratty old paperback book. The same demure, soft girl who peered at me through her hair when I tried to convince her to help me with essays.
Maybe I’d assumed nothing at all. Maybe I’d waded in there, guns blazing, and not considered anything.
Scratch that. That was exactly what had happened. I’d gone in, firing on all cylinders, not giving a fuck about anything or anyone.
Because I knew one thing: For Lani to make me look like a fucking decent person, she’d have to find out just how far I’d sunk in the past few years. She’d have to delve into every bad damn decision I’ve ever made.
She’d soon find out that the high school hero was now the family failure.
I didn’t want to think about how much I hated the thought of that. It was fucking selfish, but I knew that back then, I was important to her. Just as she was to me. I was fucking somebody to her—she saw beneath the shit my so-called friends never tried to.
In the bullshit haze of judgment and lies that came with being at the top of the social ladder in high school, she was my breath of fresh air.
Would she have ever left without a word if she knew that?
I didn’t know. I didn’t want to think about it either, but it was just too damn hard not to.
Eight years of silence.
Now here she was, exploding into my life like a supernova.
Son of a bitch.
I hit the switch on the treadmill to turn it off. When the belt stopped moving, I stepped off, grabbed a towel, and wiped my face. Camille tried to convince me to run with her on the beach this morning, but I knew the risk of running into Lani was too great. Granted, my presence would stop Camille spilling all my secrets that weren’t off-limits, but I knew I’d open my mouth and piss Lani off more.