by HELEN HARDT
“You’re not being fair,” I said. “I only drafted the will, for God’s sake. I’m not to blame here.”
“You couldn’t talk my father out of this hare-brained scheme,” Reid said.
“You’re siding with him?” I shook my head. “Your brother has lost his mind.”
“I’m siding with keeping the company in the family,” Reid said. “All of us get that Rock’s life has been hijacked here. It’s not fair to any of us.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not part of the family. This has nothing to do with me.”
“Not fair to any of us, Reid? I’m pretty sure I’ve cornered the market on getting shit on here.” Rock stood, his green eyes full of fire. “You and I need to talk, Lacey. Now. In private.”
“I don’t see what we—”
“I said now.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me into a stand.
I tried to ignore the sparks from his touch. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Hear me out,” he said, and then he walked outside the bar.
I looked at Roy, Reid, and Riley. “What exactly is going on here?”
“How would we know?” Riley said, still seeming distant. “We know our brother about as well as you do. He’s a stranger to us. Reid’s the only one who’s had any contact with him.”
“Yeah, and it’s been very little contact,” Reid agreed.
“I’m not taking a job with your company,” I said. “I don’t have the qualifications.”
“He’s just blowing off steam,” Roy said. “Talk to him. He’ll see reason. He’s a smart man. A little bit of a loose cannon, but he’s not irrational. He’s just had his whole life upended.”
“Fine. Wait here.” I walked out of the bar and into the lobby of the office building.
Rock was leaning against a wall near the restrooms in the lobby. He’d purposefully gone out of the way. Clearly he wanted privacy.
“What took you so long?” he said as I approached.
I ignored him. “What do you want?”
“This.” He pulled me to him and smashed his mouth into mine.
I opened without thinking. We were slightly secluded, but if any of the Wolfe siblings walked out of the bar to use the bathroom—
I pulled away, breaking the kiss with a loud smack.
“What’s wrong? You were kissing me back.”
“This is my office building,” I said.
“Yeah. And we just fucked upstairs in your office. What’s a little kiss in the lobby?”
I willed my body to stop responding. Didn’t work. My nipples were hard knobs poking against the lace of my bra. My bare pussy—he’d destroyed my thong earlier—pulsed between my legs. I wanted to continue that kiss, wanted so much more…
“This is where I work, Rock.”
“Correction. This is where you worked.”
“You’re insane.” I inched away from him, flattening my hands on the wall.
“I’ve always been a little crazy,” he said.
“That appears to be an understatement.” I cleared my throat. “I’m happy where I am with my firm. I’m a partner now, and my client base is growing. I don’t want to leave. And I’m not qualif—”
“Stop saying that. You’re an attorney, aren’t you? You’re perfectly qualified to be someone’s personal counsel.”
“Is it a personal counsel you want? Or a personal fuck buddy?”
“Well…” He grinned.
“I figured. Then what happens when you get tired of me? When you want a new flavor of the month? Or week?”
“What makes you think I’ll get tired of you?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Have you ever been in a relationship, Rock?”
“What’s that got to do with anything? Did I ask you for a relationship?”
Damn. Anvil in the belly. I hardly knew the man, but those words stung me like a hornet.
“No, but—”
“No buts. This is a make it or break it situation. You come along for the ride, or I don’t do this.”
“Why would you do this to me? I’ve never done anything to you. You’re making me responsible for the well-being of your family. That’s not fair.”
“It’s not fair that my father did it to me either.”
Rock Wolfe was a jerk. An asshole. He was pulling me into this because he was pissed off and wanted to punish someone else as he’d been punished.
And still…I wanted to fuck him again. I wanted to fuck a supreme douchebag. What the hell was the matter with me?
Maybe if I honeyed up a bit, I could get him to see reason.
“No, it’s not fair that this happened to you,” I said gently. “None of us thinks it’s fair, and we all feel for you. Really. But I have nothing to do with any of it.”
“You drafted his will, Lacey.”
He had me there. “That doesn’t make this my fault. I have an obligation to every client who comes to me to do as they ask as long as the law allows it. I have to zealously represent every client I take on. It’s part of the oath I took when I was admitted to the bar.”
“Consider me a client, then. I want to be zealously represented. I already told you I’d double whatever you’re making at your firm.”
“I’m a partner now. I make…a lot.”
“Whatever a lot is, I’ll double it. You of all people know what my father’s business—”
“Your business, Rock.”
He took a step back, his eyebrows arched.
Was this just now dawning on him?
“Your business,” I said a little more gently this time. “It’s yours. Not your father’s. It’s yours, as long as you fulfill the terms of the will. Your father is no longer a part of this equation.”
He closed his eyes for a few seconds and then opened them. “I need help.”
“You have Reid.”
“He must hate me. This should have been his.”
“He knows what kind of man your father was. So do Roy and Riley. No one is blaming you for this. They’re blaming him.”
“I’m really going to have to do this, aren’t I?”
Without meaning to, I reached out and cupped his cheek. “Yes. If you want to do right by your siblings. They’re innocent in all this.” And so am I. But I didn’t add that part.
I’d tried like hell to talk Derek Wolfe out of all of this, done the best I could. I’d had my mentor and the most senior attorneys at my firm try. To no avail.
The man would not be budged.
He’d created this chaos, and he was no doubt looking up—yeah, he was in hell for sure—at us now, laughing his ass off.
I hoped Rock would have the last laugh.
“Like I said in the bar,” I continued. “Do this. Do this not just for your brothers and sister but for yourself. You’ll be a rich man, Rock. You can use that power for good. Show your father who you really are. A good man. You have what it takes to be a great CEO.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“No. I’m completely serious.” And I was. “You fill a room with your presence. People will follow where you lead.”
“The only problem is, I have no fucking idea where to lead them.”
“You have Reid. He knows the business. He’ll help you.”
“And you?”
Were we back to this again? “You don’t need me.”
“Fine. You don’t need to be my personal counsel. Stay where you are.” He moved toward me, the bulge in his jeans pushing into my belly. “But if you think I don’t need you, you’re sadly mistaken, Lacey.”
9
Rock
I was so fucking hard. I wanted to pound her right against this wall, right in public.
What was it about her?
I’d had hotter women, more beautiful women, curvier women, thinner women.
But Lacey Ward had awakened something in me I couldn’t deny. Maybe it was just the fact that my life had been stolen from me, and she was there. That’s what I’d thought at first, but
right now, all I wanted was to sink myself into her lush body and get lost. Forget. Forget that I wouldn’t be going back to Montana. Wouldn’t be going back to my life of working outdoors, riding every weekend, taking each day as it came. Living in the moment.
“I think we need to go back to the bar,” Lacey said. “You need to tell them what you’ve decided.”
I pulled back. “What if I can’t do it, Lacey? What if my father was right about me?”
“Have you considered looking at this a different way?” she asked.
“What other way is there to look at it?” Especially when all I want to look at is you, naked on my bed.
“Your grandfather built Wolfe Enterprises from the ground up. And your father, especially, made it what it is today. Why would he want to sell it off to the highest bidder?”
“Gee, I don’t know. Maybe because he’s an asshole who wants to screw over his kids?”
“Okay, fair enough. But think about it, Rock. That company was his pride and joy.”
“True. More so than any of his children,” I said with disgust.
“Maybe it was. He had fucked-up priorities, if that’s the case, but you might be right.”
“Oh, I’m right. Trust me.”
“Would he really want his pride and joy sold off to the highest bidder? Possibly to a rival?”
“Obviously the chance to screw me over meant more to him than his billion dollar company. Seems like classic Derek Wolfe to me.”
“Seriously, Rock. You say yourself that his work meant more to him than his children. This company represents his work, what he considered the most important. He wouldn’t just let it go.”
“What does he care? He’s dead.”
“Maybe, just maybe, he did what he felt would be putting it in the best hands.”
“You’ve got to be kidding. The bastard hated me.”
“Maybe. I don’t know. Or maybe he thought you were the perfect person to run his company. To run your company.”
I thought for a moment. Actually considered her words. But, “Nice thought, but it’s bullshit. Nope, he hated me so much that he put me in a position to either ruin my own life or my siblings’. Classic Derek Wolfe.”
She sighed. “All right. He put you in an impossible situation as a form of punishment. Let’s say you’re right.”
“I am right.”
“Fine. Then rise to the challenge.”
“I don’t have a choice.”
“You do. But you’re a good man who can’t turn his back on his siblings. That says a lot about you. You’re one hundred times the man your father ever was.”
Her words ignited a fire within me. “Do you really think so?”
“I know so.”
“Damn, Lacey.” I pushed her back against the wall and crushed our mouths together.
She opened at once, and I dived in, kissing her, licking her, running my tongue over her teeth, her gum line. I wanted to touch every part of her. I poured my appreciation for what she’d said into that kiss, and she responded with all the vigor I imagined.
She broke the kiss and gasped. “Not here!”
“Please,” I said. “I have to have you. I’m hard as a rock, baby. I need you.”
“I work here.”
“Don’t care.”
She pushed me away. “Well, I do. And your brothers and sister are waiting for us in the bar.”
I adjusted my jeans. Damn, I was rock hard. “All right. We’ll go deal with them. And then you’re coming to my hotel room.”
“Rock, I—”
“I’m not taking no for an answer. You want this as much as I do. Admit it.”
She closed her eyes and bit her lower lip. I touched her cheek, and her eyes popped open.
“Admit it, Lacey. Admit that you want me. That you want to be in my bed.”
“I… I want to be in your bed.”
I nearly creamed my pants right there. “You’ll be there. Right after we finish this meeting.
I steadied her and we walked back into the bar. Reid, Roy, and Riley were still seated, talking, but went silent when Lacey and I sat back down at the table.
Silenced droned on as eyes burned into me. “I’ll do it,” I said. “And Lacey won’t be part of the deal. Though I do want your help,” I said to her.
“Of course. Whatever I can do,” she said.
“Finally you’re talking sense,” Reid said.
“Sense? No, I’m not talking sense. I’m about ready to take a job I’m in no way qualified for. If it was Dad’s desire to see his company run into the ground, he may just get his wish.”
“You won’t run the company into the ground,” Reid said. “I won’t let you.”
I shook my head. “I won’t let me either. The bastard may have fucked me over royally, but I won’t let him fuck the rest of you over. As much as I’d like to go running back to Montana, I can’t let that happen.”
Riley smiled, and for a moment, she was that happy toddler I used to play with. “Thank you, Rock. That means a lot to all of us. To our mother too.”
“Hey, I’m not doing any of this for Mommie Dearest.”
“You’re not going to make sure she continues to get an allowance?”
“Is that part of this deal?” My mother was no candidate for mother of the year. She wasn’t as bad as my father. Only Hitler and Stalin had that honor. But she’d turned a blind eye to his antics the entire time we were kids. She let him beat the shit out of us, and she’d let him go into Riley’s room at night. “Why do any of you care about that shrew?”
“Because she’s our mother, Rock,” Reid said. “She was his victim too.”
Boy, was my brother short-sighted. “I don’t buy that. Not at all. If we’re going to talk about Connie, I’m going to need another drink.” I signaled the waiter.
“He cut her off,” Reid said. “Spousal maintenance ceases when the payor dies. He didn’t leave Fonda anything either. They’re both pissed.”
“Then maybe they’ll have to stop wearing designer clothing and going in for plastic surgery every other month,” I said. “Cry me a river.”
Roy stood, his countenance rigid. “Seriously, we’re all about this? About Rock’s upended life? About Mom and Fonda being broke? Don’t any of you care about the real mystery here? Our father was murdered.”
“Good riddance,” I said.
“I have to agree with Rock,” Reid said. “He was a bastard. Everyone is better off.”
“You’re missing the point,” Roy said. “Someone killed him, and they could very well come after one of us next.”
10
Lacey
“Since Dad was a paragon of society”—Rock rolled his eyes—“obviously he couldn’t have had any enemies.”
That got a laugh out of Reid. “Who wasn’t Dad’s enemy?”
“That’s my point,” Roy said. “Shouldn’t we be watching our backs?”
“Dad’s enemies aren’t our enemies, Roy,” Riley said.
“Besides,” Reid said, “if we try to nail down all the people Dad screwed over in his lifetime, that list would be a mile long.”
“But he was murdered. Someone hated him that much.” From Roy.
“A lot of people hated him that much.” Reid rubbed his forehead. “Including all of us.”
“But someone hated him enough to murder him.” Again Roy.
“Including all of us,” Reid echoed again.
“My point,” Roy said quietly. “They’re going to come after us. We need to figure this out before they drag us in as suspects.”
“Reid,” Rock said, “You and I don’t have time to try to track down Dad’s killer. We have a company to run, and I have a hell of a lot to learn. Roy, if you want to look into it, have at it. I, for one, don’t give a damn. Whoever killed the fucker did the world a service.” He downed the last of his bourbon and turned to me. “Let’s go.”
“Go?” Reid said. “Where the hell are you going?”
�
�Anywhere but here.”
“But—”
“I’ll be in at ten on Monday morning. We can figure out the company bullshit then. For now, I have plans.”
All four siblings eyed me, Rock with a lascivious gaze, the others questioning.
What could I say? I didn’t owe any of them any explanation. None of their business if I was going to go to my client’s—my client’s son’s—hotel room for wild and crazy sex. We were both consenting adults.
So why in hell did I feel like I had to say something?
“We’re just going to…” Warmth crept into my cheeks.
“It’s none of their business.” Rock stood and held out his hand to me.
I took it and rose. “It’s just some business stuff,” I mumbled.
“If business means me fucking you until you can’t see straight,” he whispered into my ear.
I willed my legs to stay steady. “I’m…so sorry for your loss,” I said to the siblings.
“You don’t see any of us crying, do you?” Reid chuckled and gestured to Rock. “He’s trouble, though. Watch out for him.”
Trouble. How well I already knew.
Trouble I really wanted to get into.
My libido was in overdrive as Rock unlocked the door to his hotel room. A spacious suite greeted me. Of course. Wolfe money.
“Reid made the reservation,” Rock said, almost apologetically. “This really isn’t my style.”
“What is your style?”
“I’m a bare bones kind of guy. I don’t need a lot of fluff in my life. Just a cozy place to hang my hat and rest my body, my Harley that goes like the wind, and decent food in the belly. A good bourbon now and then. That’s me.”
“You mean you weren’t raised this way?”
He scoffed. “I was raised in a golden palace. Until I was fourteen, that is. Then everything changed.”
I’d heard the rumors. Rock had been sent off to military school, though I didn’t know why. Derek Wolfe never told me, and neither did any of his kids. I got the feeling no one talked about it. But if we were going to have a relationship, I needed to know.
“How did it change?”
He stalked toward me, his gaze igniting fire between my legs. “I don’t want to talk about that right now.”
