by Lexi Blake
A mysterious smile crooked up the sides of Tag’s face. “Didn’t I? I don’t remember. I’ll have to ask Charlie. Well, the good news is Laurel’s got a whole family around her and once the inevitable happens, she and the kid will be fine.”
This whole conversation was making him antsy. She didn’t need her brother or her sisters to take care of her. She had him. “She’ll be fine because I’ll make sure she’s fine. One way or another.”
Tag gave him a thumbs-up. “Sounds like you know what you’re doing then. No need to worry that you don’t have legal ties to her or the kid. I’m sure it will all work out on its own. That’s the great thing about relationships. They happen on their own with no work or compromise at all. I’m going to go and eat whatever Sean made. He said it was…” Tag yawned again, looking a whole lot like a sleepy lion. “I don’t remember. Meat. It better be meat. I want to put meat in my face before I go back to the office. I’ve got a meeting with some bigwig computer dude to nap through this afternoon. You’ll be fine. Hey, you’re totally used to breakups and stuff.”
What the fuck was that supposed to mean?
Before he could ask, Liam was rushing into the room. “Mitchell, we need to get over to Laurel’s. It seems there’s been a break-in at her apartment. I got a call from Derek. Lisa was going over to check on the place and found the door open. She called the police and Derek is on his way.”
Thank god Laurel was at work. He rushed out, ready to hurt someone.
* * * *
“Laurel Daley?”
Laurel looked up from her computer. “Yes?”
She had to stop and do a double take because for a moment, she thought she was looking at Mitchell. It took a few blinks to realize this man was younger, a bit less broad than her Master. He was also far better dressed, a thing she intended to address eventually with Mitch. She had to go slow with her Dom, introduce things gradually. She was going to sneak in a couple of pairs of navy-colored slacks. He wouldn’t even realize he was wearing them and when he did, she would point out that he’d been wearing them for weeks and the world hadn’t ended.
But none of that mattered because she was looking at someone who absolutely had to be related to her Master.
The gorgeous man in front of her was dressed casually in an open-throated black shirt and khakis. His hair was stylishly long, brushing the tops of his muscled shoulders. “My name is Flynn Adler. I’m so happy to meet you, Laurel. I’ve read an awful lot about you.”
That forced her attention away from the fact that he looked like Mitch. She immediately went on full alert and thought about how she should handle this. She didn’t know this man, but he knew her.
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to explain what that means.” She put as much chill as she could into her voice. She was well aware of the situation with Harvey Dixon. If he was now sending someone to intimidate her, she wasn’t about to give him what he wanted.
But how the hell had Dixon found someone who looked so much like Mitchell? That couldn’t be a coincidence.
The man in front of her frowned. “The private investigator told me you’re living with Mitch.”
Now she was nervous. Luckily, it wasn’t quite lunchtime. The office was still full of people. It gave her some measure of comfort. “Private investigator?”
“I’m sorry. I’m…well, I never expected that Mitch wouldn’t tell you about us. He’s never mentioned me or Chase?”
She didn’t recognize either name. “Who’s Chase? For that matter, who are you?”
“I’m Flynn Adler.” He placed careful emphasis on his last name, as though it should mean something to her. When she said nothing, he continued. “Of the California Adlers. I’m Mitchell’s brother.”
Her stomach dropped. Brother? He had a brother and he’d never once mentioned him? Mitchell knew all about her family. She told him everything. She thought he’d always been quiet because all he had was his mother, and they weren’t close. Now she found out he had a brother? Only one? “And Chase?”
“He’s the youngest. Mitch is first. He’s eight years older than me. Chase is significantly younger. He’s a junior in high school. Mitch really never told you about us?”
She shook her head. What else hadn’t he told her? How did he hide a whole family? And why? Did she mean so little to him that he didn’t bother to mention his brothers? “Did he mention you to me?”
Flynn huffed. “Uhm, no. He doesn’t talk to me, Laurel. I found out about you through the private investigator. I’m so sorry to invade your privacy this way. I had no other choice. I thought it would be better to talk to you. You’re obviously important to my brother.”
“I don’t know about that. Our relationship is fairly casual.” It hadn’t felt that way. It felt serious, but she had to question the fact that he’d hidden this part of his life from her. Was he never going to tell her their baby had two uncles?
“I thought you were living with him.”
“We’re not engaged or anything. Not really looking to do it.” Mitch had made himself plain. He would marry her, but he didn’t want to. He would do it for the sake of the baby. “I’m not sure how much I can help you. I can give you Mitch’s office address.”
He held a hand up. “No. I have it. I’ve tried to contact him about a hundred times over the last twenty years. I’ve called and e-mailed and sent letters. I’m worried that if I show up at his office unannounced, he’ll call the cops. If I show up announced, he’ll probably lock the doors and leave me outside. So I thought I would come and talk to you.”
“Why won’t he talk to you?”
“I have to think it’s more about our father than me. I’ve only met Mitch once. I was a kid. He didn’t say more than two or three sentences to me. He was really only interested in talking to Dad about the money to start his firm. Once he had that and Dad had introduced him to some important clients, he dropped us. Well, Dad. He never was interested in me. I sent him a note when Chase was born. Nothing. Not even a card.”
Mitch had told her Margot, his first wife, had been the one to go to his father. He hadn’t wanted to. Now it seemed like there was more to the story. If her baby had more family, she wanted to know about it.
Sometimes Mitch could be very stubborn. He could let really good things pass him by because he was afraid of the change they would bring to his life. She’d spent weeks thinking about him, weeks trying to dig under the surface and find the real man she knew was buried underneath his pride.
His pride would keep him from his family unless she did something. His pride might keep their baby from knowing his or her relatives, and she couldn’t allow that to happen. “Maybe we should talk. How about an early lunch? There’s a sandwich place next door. It’s not great, but if you stick to deli staples, you’ll be okay. Don’t try the special.”
He smiled. It was what Mitch would smile like if he ever relaxed and let himself be truly happy. “I promise.”
Ten minutes later she sat across from Flynn Adler, a chicken sandwich loaded with veggies and cup of tortilla soup on her side. He’d gone for the all-meat special. Another way he was an awful lot like his brother. He was courting heart disease and apparently loved cholesterol. Still, she wasn’t allowed to nag no matter how much she wanted to.
Discussing the Master’s diet was off limits. So naturally she’d taken to cooking breakfast every morning and dinner every night. She’d gotten a cookbook that taught her how to sneak vegetables into staple meals. It was meant for kids, but worked on Mitch, too.
Sometimes she felt like she had to sneak in her love or Mitch would reject it.
“So why are you here?” She took a sip of her water. It was hard not to see Mitch in his brother.
“I’m here because Dad is dying and he needs to see Mitch. I gave up trying to get to know Mitch years ago. I get it. He doesn’t want anything to do with me or Chase. I wouldn’t be here for me. I’m here for my dad.”
“Your dad, who walked away from Mitch? Who d
idn’t have anything to do with him for most of his childhood?” She knew enough of the story to defend Mitch a bit.
When he raised that singular brow and his jawline got hard, he really looked like Mitch, the Dom. “There are always two sides to a story, and you would do well to remember that. I’ll admit that my father was married to his first wife when he had an affair with Mitch’s mother. I don’t know everything.”
“Mitch grew up without him. Isn’t that all you need to know?”
“Did you know Dad settled a bunch of money on Nora Bradford? Do you know what she did with it? She moved them out of San Francisco and as far away from Dad as she could get. Once she ran through the money Dad meant for Mitch, she went through a string of lovers and wouldn’t allow Dad to see his son without sending a hefty check. After a while, it got too hard to keep up with where Nora had taken him. She moved about ten times before Mitch got to high school.”
Chaos. It would have been so chaotic for a child to constantly be on the move. Always the new kid. Always having to adapt to his mother’s new man. Never having a family to call his own. His mother, from what she could tell, was always more interested in herself than Mitch. She didn’t call him unless she wanted something, usually money.
What had it been like to be Mitch growing up? She’d had a rough childhood. Her mother had been in and out of jail, in and out of rehab, but they’d owned their trailer and somehow Will had always found a way to keep them together and fed. She’d always had Will and Lila and Lisa. They’d given her support and love and stability.
Mitch, it seemed, had none of those things.
“He could have fought for custody. It sounds like he would have won.”
“I didn’t say my father was perfect. He went through a divorce and married my mother. And then another divorce. I suppose he lost track of Mitchell, lost the will to fight. Like I said, he’s not perfect.”
She couldn’t imagine having a child in the world and not fighting to be his mother. “What does he want with Mitchell now?”
Flynn leaned forward, his eyes on her as though he could will her to believe him. “Laurel, he’s dying. He was recently diagnosed with stage four cancer. The doctors have given him maybe a month to live. Six weeks, tops. He wants to make things right with Mitch. He needs this. It’s his dying wish.”
“And you’ve written to Mitch?” How could Mitch know his father was dying and not talk about it? She talked about her mother often. He’d even driven her and Lisa halfway across the state the prior weekend to visit their mom in prison. He’d made sure her mother had everything she needed.
But not once had he mentioned his own father was dying.
“Multiple times. I’ve sent e-mails, letters, left voice mail messages. He changed his number, naturally, and now I can’t find it.”
He’d changed it for a different reason, but Flynn didn’t need to know that. She wasn’t sure how much to tell him. “He hasn’t talked to me about it. Mitch can be stubborn. I know he feels your father abandoned him.”
Flynn’s hands were fists as he moved them off the table. “Then Mitch should confront him about it. All my dad wants is to see him. I don’t think it will matter if Mitch needs to yell and scream and let it all out as long as he gives our father a few minutes of his time so he can say what he needs to say.”
“Mitch would never yell.” He never lost control that way. Except the first couple of times they’d made love. When they made love now, he was very controlled. He brought her an enormous amount of pleasure, but it felt like there was a distance between them. He was thoughtful and she knew she should be grateful for it, but she missed the passion they’d had those first two times.
Mitch wouldn’t yell. Not at his father. Not at her. Maybe it was a good thing or maybe he simply didn’t care enough to yell.
“He needs to. My father would take it. He knows he hurt Mitch, but how can he ever have any chance to make it right if Mitch won’t talk to him?”
“I’m not sure Mitch believes in second chances.” It was another thing that frightened her. They were happy for now, but when the pressure hit and she couldn’t play the perfect submissive, when she had to be a woman with all her flaws, how would he handle it?
He always said the reason he hadn’t wanted a relationship with her was because she deserved better. What if he’d just been kind by saying that? What if the real reason had been he simply hadn’t wanted her?
Flynn sat back, his sandwich untouched. “Then there’s not a lot I can do. I’m sorry I wasted your time.”
He started to push his chair back, like he was leaving. She couldn’t let that happen. Flynn had ties to Mitch, knowledge she needed. Flynn was his brother. He couldn’t walk away with nothing. She reached out a hand and put it over his.
“Please don’t go. I know Mitch won’t talk to you or your dad, but I will. I lied to you. Mitch and I are serious. Maybe not about getting married, but we’ve got a commitment between us and you should know I’m pregnant.”
Flynn sat back, a smile covering his handsome face. “That’s great, Laurel. It’s about damn time, as my dad would say. Mitch isn’t getting any younger. When’s the wedding? Or are you waiting until after the baby’s born? I know that’s a popular thing to do. Damn, Dad’s going to be happy to hear that. He doesn’t have any grandkids.”
Why did she always blush when she had to answer the wedding question? It was the twenty-first century. Plenty of people had babies without getting married. She’d grown up in a household where her mother had never married and had four kids. Not that she wanted to follow in her mom’s footsteps, but still. “We don’t have plans to marry at this point. I’m afraid this baby wasn’t planned, though I’m very happy about the pregnancy.”
Was she? She wanted the baby. She knew that, but it was hard to be happy about it when Mitch didn’t want to talk about baby things. Every time she brought up things like nurseries or baby names, he shifted the conversation to something different, saying they had plenty of time to discuss it. They needed to live in the now and let the future work itself out.
She was getting sick of living in the now.
“That’s great. I know you don’t know me very well, but I would love to know my niece or nephew.”
She sat up straight. Maybe it was time someone knew Flynn Adler. “I would like that, too. Are you married?”
He shook his head. “No. I run the family company. I don’t have time to date. We’re moving into a couple of new and exciting areas. I always wanted to run R&D, but I was needed in management. Chase is a better programmer anyway. He’s incredible. I’m worried he won’t make it out of high school. He’s had some trouble with drugs. It scares the hell out of me.”
Flynn seemed like a man who had the weight of the world on his shoulders. He reminded her a little of her brother. There had been a time when Will had to juggle school and work and being a dad because they didn’t have one. “Where is your mother in all this?”
“She’s in Monaco with her second husband, who happens to be younger than me. Chase’s mom died of breast cancer a few years back. We’re all that’s left. I seem to be failing at raising a teenage boy. I don’t know how to get through to him. I can’t make him understand that life isn’t high school.”
He was alone. “Would it help at all if I talked to your father? I can’t promise you that Mitch will, but I can at least tell him about the baby and how well Mitch is doing professionally.”
Flynn had his cell phone out in a heartbeat. “I can’t tell you how much that would help.” He punched in a few numbers. “Hey, Dad. Guess who I’m talking to?”
A few minutes later she took the phone and had a long talk with the grandfather of her child.
Chapter Nine
Mitchell looked around the small apartment and thanked god Laurel hadn’t been here. Someone had kicked in her door and then taken a knife to the place. Her furniture was slashed all to hell, pictures broken, all her dishes smashed.
Lisa walked in,
her eyes red. She’d been the one to call the police, and then Derek Brighton had immediately contacted Li. It had been a good thing to let Derek know McKay-Taggart was on the case. Otherwise, it might have been hours before he would have been notified.
Lisa walked right up to him and threw her arms around his waist, crying. “Who would do this, Mitch? Who would try to hurt her like this?”
The good news was he was totally getting used to dealing with crying Daley women. He was sure at one point in time he would have hesitated, but now he simply hugged her back. She was Laurel’s sister and he was Laurel’s…damn. Well, he was Laurel’s Dom and it was his job to comfort her sister and that was that.
How would they view him after a while? He knew the whole Daley family thought they were only months away from a wedding. Would Lisa seek comfort from him if he knew he and her sister were never going to get married?
He pushed the thoughts aside because only one thing mattered now and that was dealing with the problem in front of him. The police were busy, taking pictures, looking for fingerprints.
“This isn’t about her. It’s about me,” he explained to Lisa. “And I’m going to fix it.”
She stepped back. “It’s about you?”
“Someone doesn’t want me working on the contract I’m writing at the moment.”
Her jaw firmed and a stubborn light hit her eyes. “Well, screw them. You can’t back down.”
The Daley women were a bit stubborn too, he’d learned. Oh, they could be sneaky, but they tended to get their way. He wasn’t an idiot. He knew the mashed potatoes Laurel served hadn’t had a damn potato in them. He suspected cauliflower was the culprit. But she’d looked so excited about it, he’d played along.
He’d specifically requested she stop nagging him about his diet. Not requested. Ordered. And he hadn’t even thought about punishing her for lying. He’d smiled like an idiot and eaten every semi-nasty bite, and then found out that Laurel’s version of brownies contained something that wasn’t sugar, but also wasn’t half bad, and he hadn’t disciplined her for that either.
