He didn’t come back online properly until he was sitting in the staff break room, at the table, with a plate of scrambled eggs, six slices of bacon, and four pieces of toast in front of him.
Lane blinked as his stomach roared: Even as his brain remained a mess, his hand picked up the fork and started shoveling.
Lizzie sat down across from him, her chair squeaking on the bald wooden floor. “Are you okay?”
He glanced past her to Miss Aurora, who was standing by the door as if she were about to leave. “My father is an evil man.”
“He’s got his own set of values.”
Which was the closest she would get to ever condemning anyone.
“He’s trying to sell my sister.” Cue the gasps. “It’s like … out of a bad novel.”
He was in the middle of sharing the details when his phone went off—and the second he saw who it was, he answered. “Samuel, where are we?”
Samuel T. had to raise his voice over the chatter in the background. “Seventy-five thousand for the bail, it’s the best we could do. As soon as you bring a certified check, you can pick her up.”
“I’m on it. Are you leaving?”
“Not until she gets out of here. She has the right to consult with her attorney, so as long as I’m around, she won’t have to be in some cell alone—or God forbid, with someone else.”
“Thanks.”
As he cut the connection, Miss Aurora ducked out to keep an eye on her chefs, and he turned to Lizzie. “I’m going to go get the bail money now. After that … I don’t know what.”
She reached out and put her hand on his forearm. “As I said before, is there anything I can do?”
It was like a strike of lightning. One minute, he was as normal as any male could be in the situation … the next? Lust pumped through his veins, hardening him, rechanneling the crazy in his head into something truly insane.
Lowering his lids, he muttered, “You sure you want me to answer that.”
Lizzie swallowed hard and looked down at where she was touching him. When she didn’t say anything, but she also didn’t pull away, he leaned in and lifted her chin with his forefinger. Locking eyes on her lips, he kissed her in his mind, picturing himself dipping down and putting his mouth on hers. Pushing her back into that hard chair. Getting under her clothes as he knelt down between her legs with—
“Oh … God,” she whispered, her eyes avoiding his.
But still, she didn’t turn away.
Lane licked his lips. Then he dropped his hand and eased out of range. “You need to go. Now. Or I’m going to do something you’ll regret.”
“What about you?” she whispered. “Would you regret it?”
“Kissing you? Never.” He shook his head, recognizing that his emotions were all over the place … as well as completely out of control. “But I won’t touch until you ask me to. That much I can promise.”
After a moment, she got up with none of her usual grace, the chair she’d been in skipping over the floor, her feet tripping. He gave her enough time to get out of the break room and go some distance down the hall before he went to leave himself.
Any closer and he was liable to grab her, put her up on the table and give them both the release they needed.
Because she did want him. He had seen it for himself just now.
Not that he could dwell on that.
He had to go get his father to pay the bail—it wasn’t that Lane didn’t have the money. He had plenty of poker winnings, and unlike his sister, he was thirty-six, so he had that first level of access to his trusts. But William Baldwine had created this mess, and the fact that the man was out of town on business was going to make cutting the check and having it certified at the bank all the easier.
A minute later, Lane was at the controller’s office and he didn’t bother knocking, just went for the doorknob.
Locked.
Just as he’d done on his father’s glass, he pounded on the stout oak—with his uninjured hand.
“Is she not in?” Mr. Harris inquired from the doorway of his own suite.
“Where’s the key to this door?”
“I’m not permitted to open—”
Lane wheeled around. “You get the fucking key or I’m going to break the goddamn thing down.”
What do you know. A split second later, the butler came over with a heavy hunk of old brass. “Allow me, Mr. Baldwine.”
Except the key didn’t get them anywhere. It went into the mechanism just fine, but there was no turning it.
“I’m terribly sorry,” the butler said as he jimmied things around. “It appears to have jammed.”
“Are you sure that’s the right key?”
“It is marked here.” The man flashed the little tag that hung off the ornate end. “Perhaps she will be in shortly.”
“Let me try.”
Lane moved the penguin suit out of the way, but got nowhere with the key, either. Losing his patience, he put his shoulder to the panels, and–
The crack of splintering wood drowned out his shout of rage, and he had to catch the panels as they bounced back at him—