“Why don’t you ever make yourself at home here? You’ve worked for me for what? Seven, eight years.”
“Almost eight.” He sounded surprised I was even in the ballpark.
“You’re over there, all formal. You can come in, take a seat. Hell, let’s have a drink. I could use one.” Or five.
“Do you need a physician?”
Maybe a straight jacket.
“I need to get laid.”
“Contrary to popular belief, that won’t solve problems. For instance, that case you neglected yesterday. Did leaving with that woman help?”
“That woman is the devil incarnate.” And not that it was any of his concern, but leaving with her had helped . . . and made things worse at the same time.
“She won’t let you fuck her.”
I gaped at my assistant. “I’ve never heard you curse.”
“I’m a professional.” He lifted his chin. “And I can’t say the same for you.”
“You don’t think I’m professional?” That stung a bit.
“Your language is abysmal.”
I sank down in my chair. “If that’s the worst thing about me, I can live with it.”
“If it’s the best?”
“I’ve got a problem.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked as if he really didn’t.
“Legs. We’ll just leave it at that.”
His shoulders sagged in apparent relief. “That man is back out in the lobby. I’ve told him you are busy. He insists he’ll wait. Shall I have him removed?”
“Is he bothering you?”
“He’s quiet.”
“Any idea what he wants?”
“I told you. An attorney.” He held the notepad in his hands tightly. “I hesitate to tell you this, but he said he wants the best.”
I put the back of my hand to my forehead. “The perils of a stellar reputation.”
He scowled. “If you continue on this current path, you’ll lose it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
“You think I’m slipping?”
“You’ve gotten soft.” Gerard was nothing if not honest.
“Because I don’t want to defend guilty people?” I’d had a change of heart about the course of my life. What was the big deal?
“Once upon a time, you believed everyone was innocent until proven otherwise.”
“You work with enough of the kind of people I have and see if your opinion doesn’t change.”
He sniffed. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been here for nearly eight years’ worth of them.”
“If you don’t like what I’m doing, why stay? Hell, why have you been here this long anyway? I make demands all day long. Do you even have a girlfriend? Or boyfriend?”
“I have neither, sir.”
I waved my hand in the air. “It doesn’t matter.”
“How can I forge a relationship when, for all intents and purposes, I am married to you?”
I dropped my head to my desk. “Mr. Dixon was wrong. I am in a long-term relationship.”
“I beg your pardon?” I looked up. He appeared as serious as always. “I’m here because I only surround myself with the best. And you give me a raise whenever I ask.”
Was that a compliment? Gerard didn't throw those around very often, if ever. He was brutally honest, which I appreciated. Finesse was one thing. Sugar-coating was another.
“Are you asking now?”
“Are you offering?”
I’d always liked that he went after what he wanted. I waved my hand toward the door. “Refer the man out there to somebody else.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Stop calling me sir.”
Gerard did a little bow before he left.
I logged into the payroll system and bumped his salary up another thousand bucks a month.
Chapter Thirteen
Marlow
“You don’t have to do this.”
I lifted my gaze to Holt from my position on the floor where I’d been for the last half hour.
“I know I don’t,” I said acidly, then winced at my abrasiveness.
My head throbbed. Muscles I didn’t know I had ached. And I didn’t want to talk to anyone.
“Heard dinner last night didn’t go well.” He slid down the wall and sat beside me.
“One day you’ll all learn to stop inviting me.”
“Is that what you want?”
I hugged my knees to my chest. Should have been an easy answer. It wasn’t.
“Not now.”
“Have I always annoyed you?”
I jerked my head toward him. “Pretty much. But don’t take it personally. Andrew aggravates the hell out of me too.”
I was the oldest sibling. The only girl in the house growing up. The only one in our family until recently. Sometimes I wondered if that was why I didn’t have the emotions most women did. Because I hadn’t really been around any for most of my life.
But my brothers and father had that something I didn’t. They were empathetic. I was just . . . angry.
He fiddled with a piece of string hanging off his sleeve. “She showed up over at Ed’s again.”
The she was no doubt our mother. Ed owned the garage Holt worked for before deciding to go on his own.
The anger that was my best friend intensified. How dare she bother my baby brother?
“What do you mean again?”
“The first time she wanted me to have dinner with her. Gave me her number and everything.”
Please don't ever let him fall for the same load of crap I did.
“Yeah? What’d you say?”
“I threw the card out after she left. Didn’t see her again until she showed up in Wyoming.”
I should’ve known that. Holt was smarter than I was and definitely had better instincts.
“I thought that’s what you had wanted.” I propped my chin on my arms.
“She didn’t mention it to you?”
“Does it sound like she did?”
He hefted out a sigh. “Would it be so hard to just answer the question? You don’t have to treat me like I’m an idiot.”
“No. She never said a word.” I softened my tone. Bark. That seemed to be the only way I knew how to react to anything. I’d always been blunt, but this bad habit had only gotten worse since—not now. “For the record, what she did to you, saying that man was your father, was shitty.”
“You seem confident that he wasn’t.”
I stared at him incredulously. “Out of the three of us, you’re the most like Dad. Sure, he and Andrew look more alike, but you’ve got his heart. And his smile.”
His lips parted. “I do?”
I punched him in the arm. “Don’t tell me you never noticed.” I made a hand over the goods gesture. “Give me your phone. Show me a picture of the two of you.”
He didn’t have to scroll long before he found one. At the bar before all hell broke loose during our brother’s wedding weekend.