It’s dumb for that to be the first thing out of my mouth as I lower myself into a seat and stare at the food he’s made, but it’s all I can come up with as he takes the seat across from mine, his eyes never leaving me.
“No shit. All you cook is oatmeal and that cheap stuff you get from the discount aisle,” Ben snarls, attacking his food like a starved animal.
The set down makes my cheeks burn fiercely with embarrassment, and I swallow a breath, willing myself not to cry at the humiliation I feel at knowing that Lucian is now privy to the extent of my plight.
I’m poor, yeah, but dammit, I still have my pride. I can’t bear the thought of anyone knowing that instead of getting groceries like a normal person, I browse the discount bargains just to keep us fed.
“Benjamin! Apologize.”
The barking growl is so harsh I jump a little and almost choke on the sip of coffee I’d just taken, my throat burning as I cough a stream of caffeine all over my untouched plate.
One look at Lucian and I know that nothing less than a full apology will suffice. He’s breathing harshly, almost snarling as he casts a feral glare at Ben, waiting silently as my poor little brother turns beet red and splutters around his fork.
“Sorry.”
It’s not exactly the sincerest thing I’ve ever heard, but I’ll take it, I think, allowing myself a peek at the man dominating my kitchen. I may not want him here, but he’s managed something that no one, not even the therapist, has been able to do in months.
Ben never apologizes, never, so the fact that he’d not only gotten him to say sorry last night, but this morning as well, with only one word…well, I think I might want him to stick around a while, if only till I’m feeling a little closer to living through my dread disease.
“You can do a lot better than that, Benjamin. And mind your bloody language around your sister.”
“Uh, it’s fine—”
“No! It really isn’t,” Luc says harshly, silencing me with a look. “If he cannot be grateful for the fact that you work like a slave to keep him in a home and fed, the least he can bloody well do is keep his attitude to himself. Now, I said apologize. Properly.”
I feel like a total heel when his gray eyes meet mine, the depths shining with unshed tears, and he apologizes in a soft whisper that breaks my heart.
It reminds me of the old Ben who’d clung to me and cried the day I’d told him that Mom wasn’t coming home. I want that Ben back, so badly I can’t stand it.
“Thank you.”
I say it and look at them both, letting the cold bastard know that, while I don’t want him here, I’m not such an animal that I can’t be grateful for this at least.
But I still need to get him out so I can get things done and start looking for a job.
“Thanks for breakfast, but we have things to do,” I begin, pushing my ruined breakfast away. “Ben, go get ready for school, kiddo.”
Lucian, I can see, is not impressed by my newly reawakened backbone, but he waits till the kid is goes—another thing I’m grateful for—before pinning me to my chair with a glare.
“You’re sick; you need food and your bed.”
The snort that leaves me is unladylike in the extreme, and I smirk at him as if he’s just told me a particularly funny joke. Seriously? The guy comes back into my life for like two seconds and he thinks he can tell me what I need?
“Yeah, but unfortunately I need to get him to school, and then I need to go get myself new employment.”
Thank you, God, I don’t have to go to the diner today, thanks to Bill’s aversion to menstruating females, so I have the day to beat the pavement.
“You have a job. Two, if I’m not mistaken,” he says regally, reminding me that I’m dealing with a guy who knows absolutely nothing about the real world.
He probably sits in his ivory tower and stares at the world through a rose-tinted sheet of floor to ceiling windows. Me? I’m not so dumb. I know that if I don’t get my dragging ass in gear I’ll be sitting without a roof and nourishment.
“One, since I quit working for you last night,” I say, standing to dump my plate into the sink. “And that won’t cut it, so—”
He’s out of his chair and in my face so fast I don’t have time to back away. His fingers are like clamps as they settle around my shoulders and pull me in, bringing me screamingly close to his bare chest and the muscles my traitorous tongue wants to lick.
I’m sick, not dead, so yeah, I can fully appreciate the arousal his closeness brings forth.
“Resignation not accepted. Now sit down. You can eat breakfast while my driver gets Benjamin to school. And then you’re going to the doctor.”
Another snort leaves me, and yeah, I’m aware that snorting at a man who is obviously a little crazy—I say this because of our past and the fact that he should know never to show his face here (long story)—
“Ashley, sit down. Please.”
“Why?” I ask, pulling myself away slowly. “You know…I don’t know why you’re here. You shouldn’t be.”
No, he should be an entire ocean away, not here witnessing my poverty and humiliation. It kills me that he’s seeing me brought so low. By my financial needs and the fact that I can’t raise a kid worth a damn.
He sighs heavily and runs a hand through his hair, a gesture I’m familiar with even all these years later, and smiles ruefully.
“You were sick last night, and…I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Well, I am.”
“No, you really aren’t. You’re sick, exhausted, and in way over your head with that boy. I’m here to help.”
“I don’t want your help.”
Oh, yes, I do. I really do. I’m so tired of having all of this shit on my shoulders. Working, scrimping, worrying about keeping everything within my meager budget while my brother does his damnedest to destroy what little we have.
And that damn ceramic cat. Sounds silly, but my heart is broken that he destroyed one of the few things Mom had cherished.
“You may not want it, but you need it, Ash. Come on, love, you know you can’t keep at it for much longer,” he says, so kindly my eyes water. “If something isn’t done about the anger in that little boy, he’ll be lost. Let me help. Please.”
“But—”
He takes my face in his hands and looks down at me from his imposing height, ironically making me feel safer than I have in a long time, despite the danger I feel just from that one touch.
“For him.”
That, and the tiny spark of hope I felt seeing his eyes soften is all it takes, and I’m nodding before I can allow myself the time to think straight. Truth be known, I need help. I can’t keep going like this, no matter how badly I want to believe I’m Superwoman.
Maybe, if I’m lucky enough for things to work out, I can finally discover why the love of my life had abandoned me when I needed him the most.
Chapter Four
Luc
After making more eggs—no bacon, thanks to Ashley’s insistence—and watching my girl eat, I do what I’ve been dying to do since the minute I’d found her semi-conscious outside my office.
I breathe again.
I’ve been dying inside since the day I walked away from her all those years ago, and now that I have her back, nothing will stop me from keeping her.
Sure, I’d put measures in place to get her working at Jasper Headquarters, and even had a man on her to keep watch when she skips between buses like a headless chicken, but last night was the first time I’d allowed myself the luxury of touching her.
I have a plan, you see.
Step one had been to ensure she was close enough that I could watch her. I hate that part of that had been her cleaning the offices while I kept an eye on her through the security cameras that link directly to my office.
I’d had every intention of going after her, but first I’d had to get rid of every impediment in my life, beginning with my vicious ex-wife and her bloodsucking family.
A few months of planning and all out obsession later, I’d planned to ‘bump into her’ and use my various seductive skills to bind her to me. Unfortunately, I’d learned she is now the exhausted mother of a juvenile delinquent who apparently enjoys making her fucked up life a misery.
Well, that shite ends here. Today.
I could give a good bloody damn what Ashley has to say; I will get that boy in line or I’m shipping his spoiled arse off to a boarding school in fucking Switzerland.
Now, I know what you’re thinking, but no, I do not love Ashley Munro. I haven’t since that day I walked my teenaged arse to the airport and gone back to my leech family.
But I want her, have for nigh seven years now.
And what I want I get, end of story.
But first things first. I have to doctor my poor baby and get her back into fighting fettle, and also get her brother off our backs long enough to seduce my little virgin.
Yes, she is as pure as the day I’d left her, and a bloody good thing, or I’m not sure I could have faced her without wringing her neck. Strange, but true: I have a mad possessive streak when it comes to that woman, and the thought of another man touching what I truly consider mine drives me insane.
But she’s completely pure and untouched, and so she gets to live for what I have planned.
“Just get me the bloody number for that quack shrink. Oh, and Brody? Not a word to my sister.”
“You think I’m going anywhere near that female after the shit she pulled last week?” he asks, making me chuckle heartily.
My younger sister is a force to be reckoned with, and she’s apparently decided that she wants Brody James, my VP. I could almost pity the poor fool for assuming he can escape the little vixen’s clutches, but, as with all things in life, a big brother will do what he must to give his baby sister her heart’s desire.
I’ve decided to give her Brody. He just doesn’t know it yet.
“Don’t be a baby, James. Now get me what I need and either go for it with Camille or sit back and wait for her to steamroll you. Now goodbye, I have a woman to nurse.”
First, though, I need to get my bird, something that’s proving difficult now that I know exactly what her life entails. She’s up to her neck in debt, is working herself to death, and has the mothering instincts of a feral cat.
And she’s bloody stubborn.
Even after she’d agreed to let me stay and help I’d watched her mind start racing a mile a minute with doubts and suspicions. I knew she would eventually get to that place where she’d come to her senses and kick my arse to the curb.
I can’t allow that yet, so I did the only sensible thing and crushed two mild sedatives into her orange juice. Now she’s fast asleep in her rickety bed and oblivious to my plans.
First of which had been getting her brother sat down and in the loop as far as my tolerances are concerned. I’d let him know in no uncertain terms that if he so much as raised his voice to my woman again, I’d ship him off so fast his head would spin.
Sure, I feel bad for him, and ironically, I want to help him, even knowing I’m shite with kids—this one reminds me of myself not too long ago—but I can’t have him harming my baby a moment longer.
He’d agreed, somewhat fearfully, because the kid’s smart enough to know when he’s outgunned, and I’d sent him off to school with the hope that he’d stay in line long enough for me to trick Ashley into loving me.
Now I just have to convince my dick that seducing a woman in her condition isn’t the way to go. You’d think the sight of her unkempt hair and runny nose would turn me off the whole arousal thing.
But no. Apparently my dick doesn’t care if she’s half dead; he still wants her.
“Wake up, Ash,” I whisper, running a hand over her fevered brow long enough to pull her from her restless slumber. “You need to eat something and take your medicine, love.”
Her marvelous gray eyes flutter open and she smiles sweetly, her groggy muddle not worn off yet. I know she’d be glaring daggers at me otherwise.
“Lucian?”
Ah, the smile slips immediately, replaced by a scowl when her mind clears and she remembers that we are indeed no longer teenage friends, and that I’ve strong armed my way back into her life.
“You need to eat and get dressed, love. I’ve made an appointment with a new therapist, and she wants to see us about Benjamin’s case today.”
It’s unfair of me to use her love for her brother, I know, but, as I really have no other angle to use at this point—her flight the other night has convinced me that plain seduction won’t work—I have to use what’s at my disposal.
I run three companies and oversee my own charity. I haven’t reached where I am by playing fair yet, so using the only weakness she has is my only choice right now.
“Therapist? But he has—”
“The doctor we’re going to see specializes in these sorts of cases. You know, with children from broken homes.”
Bloody awkward having to phrase it that way, but it beats my initial assessment of ‘being abandoned by your loser father’.
“Luc—”
“Right then. Eat your soup and have a bath, love. I’ll be back to help you with your medicine in twenty minutes.”
I leave before the sight of her unclothed body can unleash the animal prowling beneath my skin. Forgive me, but when that sheet slipped, revealing her large breasts capped by peachy pink nipples, I’d gotten hard.
At least I’m not falling on her like an untried youth. Although, for a moment there, I’d been bleeding close to saying to hell with this gentlemanly farce I’m playing and doing just that.
I’m hard as a pike and ravenous after seven years of lusting after a ghost. I want in Ashley so badly I ache with it. Shite, walking away last night after I’d undressed her and seen the curvy perfection of her body had been a testament to my willpower.
But, sap that I am, I’ve decided to let her have at least a day to get her situation squared before I take what’s mine.
I’m a gentleman.
Sometimes.
Chapter Five
After an hour and a half of nonstop talking, something I’d not wanted to do in front of Lucian, but apparently had no choice about, I’m slumped in the backseat of his car, doing everything in my power not to cry and make my already pale face look worse.
The therapist had been honest to the point of pain and laid it all out for me. Ben needed a shit load of help, as well as more stability than I could currently offer him.
I want to cry just knowing that I’ve messed things up this badly with him, but most of all I wanna find my old man and beat him half to death before murdering him stone dead.
“Shh, love, everything will be fine. I swear.”
I’m shocked to find that I’ve been weeping silent tears, and even more flabbergasted when the big, cold Brit beside me shifts me onto his lap and strokes reassuringly at my hair, something I haven’t felt since Mom died.
“But she said—”
“She said we have to get him to her tomorrow and rearrange your life a little, love. That’s all,” he murmurs, rubbing a soothing hand down my hair.
“But—but there’s nothing that I can do about any of the stuff she was saying, Lucian,” I wail, shoving my face into his neck. “I mean, sure I do need to spend more time with Ben, and yeah, maybe refusing to talk about Wesley wasn’t my brightest moment, but I can’t just do it all. I need to work. I have to make enough money to keep us in a house and…and the shitty discount food Ben hates so much.”
Okay, I know I’m being a total shlub and that yes, although I totally despise Lucian for past crimes, I need him right now. I have no one, absolutely no one to help me or even just to talk to about this, since Randy walked out last night, and I’m just so tired of doing all of this shit alon
e.
I know, because I’m not stupid, that whatever hand Lucian is playing here, I’m going to end up either screwed or heartbroken or both, but right now, at this moment in time, I can’t make myself give a damn.
I need him, and if he’s willing to help me I will pay whatever price I have to. Ben needs it, and I… Well, I need it too, if I’m being honest.
“Shh, love, don’t cry,” I hear him murmur sweetly as that stroking never stops.
His body is rock hard and tense beneath me though, so I figure whatever I’ve just said has pissed him off a bit.
“You’ve done the best with a really shite situation, love. Don’t ever feel bad about giving everything you have.”
Ah, so he’s still tripping off Ben’s insults about my ability to provide. Well, I can’t say I blame him. After getting myself together this afternoon I’d finally allowed my temper loose, and know what? I take umbrage to the little brat’s insults.
Sure, some of the stuff I buy isn’t anywhere close to gourmet, but in my book, if your belly’s full and you’re not living in a cardboard box, you’re better off than most.
“What am I gonna do, Lucian?” I ask, pulling myself together enough to slide back to the seat and fix my hair and face. “I can’t afford any of this, and if I drop one of my jobs I’ll have to let the house go. It’s the only place Ben has left where he remembers Mom and Dad together.”
“Well, he’s going to have to adjust when you move in with me, and that’s that. There’s no use holding onto it anymore.”
That floors me a little and I pull back, ready to blast him. No way in hell am I moving in with—
Didn’t you say you were willing to pay the price?
“What…what do you want, Lucian?” I ask tremulously, only barely managing to curtail a shiver when he leans in and plants a feather light kiss on my trembling lips.
Arousal, fierce and swift, hits me, and I gasp, giving him the opening his tongue needs to thrust in for a leisurely taste. When I don’t pull back, because honestly, how can I when his mouth is so wet and tasty, he takes it as encouragement and goes deeper.
LAWSON (A Standalone Billionaire Romance Novel) Page 58
