by Lauren Dane
“How successful can you be, Abbie? Roman Lyons isn’t even attending the meetings anymore.” Robin smirked.
Abbie would not let them goad her into quitting. This would work if they just gave it time. If it didn’t, they’d at least have a reason to be upset and agitate for something meaningful. “He’s the head of the Council. He’s got a lot more pressing business than sitting through a task force meeting. He’s sent his son, his heir to House Lyons, and that’s more than you or Jonas or anyone else has done. This is a process. It takes time. This is moving in the direction we want it to, but if we rush, we’ll lose everything we’ve worked for. Use your damned heads. The streets? Who would do that? You, Robin and four other people? The unranked are nervous and upset. You might get a damned riot or two out of it and then we’d never get an advisory council.”
“Abbie is right. Robin, shut up. Dai, you’re not giving Abbie enough respect here for all she’s done,” Georges spoke up again.
Abbie looked at her brother, grateful for his support.
She stood. “I’ve got to go. Hold it together and be professional. We have the weight of the unranked behind us, but let’s take care with it and not squander or betray it. I’ll see the rest of you at the next meeting. I’ll keep you apprised of any changes.”
Sweeping out of the room she headed toward the justice administration building. She had a hearing for Jaron and wanted to catch Marcus to reassure him before it started.
Though she wished it didn’t, it shook her more than she wanted to admit that her father wasn’t more supportive of her. It wasn’t a crime to try and balance her life with the MRD. She still ran it more than efficiently. And yes, it shook her up that someone was trying to harm her and remove her livelihood. She wasn’t going to apologize for that.
And now she had to deal with another administrative hearing for Jaron. Several things had slowed down the process. First, murder wasn’t overly common in Ravena, so there were more layers of hearings and administrative process before they even got to the point where she could get him out until trial. And then, there was the fact that he was the son of an unranked man who’d worked for the Lyons for some time. In light of the situation with Family members working with the Imperialists, the extra scrutiny weighed against quick actions. No one was inclined to give Jaron a break at this point.
She was grumpy. She’d seen Roman on the vids the night before and it only made her miss him more. Worse, the commentators hinted he was prime marriage material. Something that’d been hinted at many times before. But he hadn’t been in her bed then. It didn’t bear thinking on but she couldn’t get it out of her head.
Marcus paced just outside the front doors to the building and came toward her quickly as she approached. Time to stop being mopey, moony-eyed Abbie and to start being hard-assed Abigail Haws, barrister who made the inquisitor on the other side fear her.
She liked that thought. In fact, it would definitely make her feel better to make someone quake in fear. Hmpf.
The hearing was long and nearly pointless but she did feel better that she made the inquisitor jump. Twice! She was not one of Abbie’s favorite people and was being obstructive on purpose. Just because she had the power to be. But Abbie hoped the next hearing would be one where she could argue to free Jaron until his trial.
Marcus was able to visit with his son while Abbie dealt with several of her other clients, and when she swung back through lockup, he was ready to go back to work.
“I wanted to thank you for all you’re doing for Jaron. He told me your mother brought him sweet cakes yesterday. He . . . we appreciate that so much, I can’t even begin to tell you.”
He was so kind and caring. Such a good father. Why couldn’t she be attracted to him instead of his totally unattainable boss?
“My mother runs a bakery. She loves to bake and she does it to relax. I told her about Jaron and she thought he’d appreciate a little bit of home. She said she thought he was a very well-mannered young man. I’m glad it gave him some comfort and I’m quite sure she’ll be back with more goodies for him. It’s who she is.” Abbie laughed. Her mother was a good-hearted woman. One of the best people she’d ever known. It made her happy to know some of that rubbed off and brightened Jaron’s day.
“Roman said your sister has a café? And your mother has a bakery? Your kitchen must have been a fun place growing up.” Marcus smiled as they walked outside.
She turned up the collar of her coat. It was definitely getting cooler. “My mother and sister share a space. The bakery is in one part and the café in the other. Mainly the café is open at midday and the evenings and the bakery first thing. If you like good local food you should give the place a try.” Gods help her, she was pleased that Roman had shared that information with Marcus.
“Will you let me buy you a meal just now? I don’t have to be back to the office for a bit of time, and Roman is at a Council meeting, so he probably won’t be back until much later.” He stopped, putting a hand on her arm. “I know your type. I bet you haven’t eaten in hours.”
“All right. Sounds good. My sister’s place is just across the plaza there.” She pointed.
They walked in companionable silence and Nyna sat them near the front windows, placed a pot of steaming tea on the table along with a basket of bread and hustled off to bring them the special offering of the day.
“Your sister is a beautiful woman. Older? Younger?” Marcus poured the tea, trying to look nonchalant.
“She’s younger. My brothers are bookends. Daniel is the oldest, Georges is the youngest. I’m the second oldest and Nyna is just younger than me by a little bit over a term. My mother was with child for pretty much five standard years. We’re all very close in age.”
“Although completely different.” Nyna put plates before each of them. “Stew to warm your bones. Fruit and cheese in a bit. I’ll keep the bread coming. Mai is going to be disappointed she went home and missed seeing you.”
“Sit with us, Nyna. If you’re not too busy.” Abbie patted a chair and tried not to smile at Marcus’s reaction.
“Not too busy to sit with my sister and her handsome friend.” She winked at Marcus, who’d recovered enough to laugh and look at her through his lashes.
“Nyna, Marcus is Jaron’s father. He’s the boy they’re pursuing on murder charges.”
Nyna shook her head and patted Marcus’s arm. “My mother thinks your son is wonderful. I’m sorry you’re both having to go through this but Abbie will get him out. She’s the best.”
Marcus smiled and looked back at Abbie. “She is. Jaron and I are in her debt. And your mother’s, too.”
“I’m obviously biased, but I think Abbie has one of the best legal minds in the ’Verse. She can be quite scary for someone so small. She gets it from my mother, who’s even shorter than Abbie is.”
Abbie thwacked her sister with the napkin before she went back to her stew. She liked seeing Nyna flirting with Marcus. It was good for both of them.
“And so pretty. Don’t think Roman hasn’t noticed. But then you know that.” Marcus raised a brow in Abbie’s direction.
“Doesn’t matter, Marcus. He and I are not . . . It wouldn’t work. He’s a nice man. A good man who needs to know a heck of a lot more about the people he governs. But he is not for me.” Abbie blushed furiously.
“Only if he’s an idiot.” Nyna huffed an annoyed breath. Abbie had shared every last detail of the situation with her sister and Abbie knew Nyna wouldn’t let anything slip but she still kicked her shin under the table for good measure.
“He’s got a lot on his mind. With the first treason trial beginning, it puts him in a difficult place. He’s being pulled among many constituencies. It’s not that he’s opposed to your group as much as he doesn’t know how to even think about it and having the other, more hard-line Families pushing, fighting amongst themselves for power, well it just makes things even more complicated.” Marcus hummed his satisfaction. “Nyna this is delicious. I can’t be
lieve this café has been here three standard and I’ve never eaten here before.”
Nyna leaned in and took a piece of his bread. “Well, now you know, so you can remedy that.”
Abbie wisely held back a laugh. She’d have to give Nyna all the details about Marcus later on, but until then, she’d let Nyna and Marcus forge their own path. At least they could.
Bitterness made the tangy mouthful of stew go to ashes. She sighed and pretended to be carefree as they shared a meal. All the while, she was not able to stop thinking about whatever Roman happened to be doing at that moment.
Chapter 11
Roman trudged into the foyer of his home far after dark had settled. He’d argued with the faction calling for sanctions against the MRD for most of the day. Ridiculous.
At a point when they should be banding together, Roman had to squander his time on this petty bullshit and it made him angry. All this small stuff when their world was being turned upside down. It was a waste.
He couldn’t quite recall when he’d last been so angry. Perhaps in the time after Lindy had died and he’d been alone with two young sons. The futility of her death had enraged him, frustrated him, made him want to hit someone.
But, this silliness was, well, it was bullying. It was quite definitely what the unranked activists had been painting them all to be. It was Ranked people punishing those who dared to question the system.
The hard-line Families and Associate Families had been calling for Abbie’s job. They’d wanted to have her charged for sedition. Saul Kerrigan had even called for Gretel Mortan to be placed back in lockup! Roman was a fair-minded man, he took leadership seriously, and the behavior he’d witnessed that day offended him to the core.
He sighed heavily and sat to remove his shoes.
The faint tinkling of the keys of the piano in the back of the house wafted through the air. Corrin, most likely. Roman stood to go to the one constant in his life.
The large music room held a massive piano that had been in the Lyons Family for generations. Roman loved it and had been thrilled when his mother gave it to him when he took over the Family. Corrin and Deimos were musical and both had mastered several instruments and had good singing voices. The latter they owed to their mother. Corrin was the more artistic of the two, pursuing music and sculpting and starting an interesting career. Roman was very proud of both of his sons.
As he stood in the arched doorway, he looked on at Deimos’s dark head bent down over a sheaf of papers, his feet up on a stool while Corrin laughed with a friend, his fingertips idly playing across the keys.
They’d sustained him a very long time, his boys. But the loneliness that’d been drawing him in of late—since he’d first met Abbie Haws, he’d realized—ate at him. He was more than someone’s father. He wanted to have a connection to a woman again. Wanted to share that part of himself with someone. That need had awakened and the loss of Abbie’s presence, once he’d tasted it, brought an ache.
He’d been so lonely he’d considered pursuing some of the unattached women in his circle. Had even gone to several social events to do so. But not too long into a conversation, all he could think was how much these women were nothing like Abbie. Nothing like the one woman he could not stop thinking about.
“Dai.” Deimos looked up at him with a smile. “You look tired. I heard some reports about the Council meeting. Was it as bad as the rumors say?”
Mercy, their cook and the woman who had been their governess while the boys grew up, must have known he’d come home because she entered the room with a tray and placed some food out for him, along with a steaming mug of tea. The look she sent him dared him to not sit down and begin to eat. Because he was hungry and knew how much this woman cared for him and his family, he sat and began to spoon up the warm soup.
“Thank you, Mercy.”
She waved over her shoulder as she walked out, taking Corrin’s empty mug and chiding him about picking up the shoes he’d left under the piano.
“If by bad you mean did I come close to punching your grandfather Kerrigan in the face and throwing him out onto his large and lazy ass? Yes, it was bad.”
“Uncle Alexander was there, too, I hear. Dai, his heart is in the right place. He just doesn’t go about it right.”
Roman shrugged. “It’s my job to lead, even when things are difficult. Your uncle—” Roman paused, looking for the right words. He didn’t believe Alexander was a bad person. But he had been raised as the spare, and so where Roman had been pushed and trained and molded into a responsible man from birth, Alexander had played. And it showed. He was selfish and irresponsible and frequently incapable of self-reflection of any kind.
“I know.” Deimos got up to bring a packet of papers to him. “Marcus sent this over earlier today. Dai, this is information about Abbie Haws. Why would you have her investigated? I’ve been working with her for a while now. She seems like a good woman. Hells, I wish she liked younger men. Gods know I’ve hinted at a romantic interlude a few times only to have her ignore me.” His son grinned and Roman wanted to pop him one for even thinking about Abbie that way.
But then he saw Deimos had been poking fun at him. Had he been so transparent?
“She’s working with my son, the heir to House Lyons. Of course I’m going to have her looked into.” He jammed some food into his mouth, grabbed his mug and made a hasty retreat to read that file.
The stone stairs absorbed the soft sound of his ascent up toward the master suite. The enormous room overlooked the innermost ring of the city and a wall of windows faced out over the parapets and balconies beyond, giving him refuge when he needed time alone.
Now, the light from the stars and the far-off rising moon gave the space a pale, cool glow as he tugged off his work clothing and headed in to run a bath in the adjoining bathroom.
Laughing, Abbie waved at her siblings as she entered her building, her arms filled with bags from their day of shopping and a lovely dinner with her parents. The tension between Abbie and her father had continued, but for once, her mother had absolutely refused to tolerate it and had browbeaten her father into behaving.
So she had leftovers enough to last several days, as well as a new set of sheets for her bed and a new sweater to beat back the chill in the air. Georges had brought a friend by to introduce to her. The effort was so transparent it had amused her. And it was time to move on, so she’d accepted the rather sweet dinner invitation. She had nothing to lose. She had to stop mooning over Roman Lyons.
But there he stood, leaning against her door, head down, a bag at his feet. Roman Lyons, a man not really tall, about a head or so above her own, but so big it felt as if he stole all the air in the hallway.
She stopped, unable to not take him in with something fairly close to wonder that someone so masculine and sexy actually existed and that he’d been naked in her arms.
When he looked up, those eyes of his locked onto hers just before a long, slow perusal of her body. There was something in his gaze, hot, predatory, something else . . . Anger, perhaps?
“I didn’t expect—um, how long have you been waiting for me?”
She bustled past, trying to balance her keys to unlock the door. He growled low in his throat and took them from her, unlocking her door and opening it so she could get inside with all her things.
The click of the tumblers sounded, tugging deep, as if he unmoored something within her as he locked the door to the outside.
She put her things into the cold box and then turned to face him. “Why are you here acting all broody and silent? If you’re angry at me, I deserve to know why.”
“I can’t stay away,” he said simply, voice taut.
“And that makes you angry? Because I have to tell you something: That you’d be angry because you’re attracted to me, that makes me angry!” She threw her hands up. What did he want from her? And why did he have to smell so good?
“I need a drink.” He dropped the bag he’d brought in and scrubbed his hands through
his hair.
“What the seven hells is wrong with you?” She approached him, looking up into his face. “Are you all right?”
The heat in his eyes flowed into something else. Anguish? Sadness? “I don’t know how to ask this and I can’t keep myself away.”
She froze, her fingers still sifting through his hair. “What is it? You can talk to me. You’re really beginning to worry me.”
He began to speak but then shook his head. Before she knew it, he’d wrapped her in his arms and pulled her to him, bringing his mouth down to crush over hers.
His taste raced through her, chasing away her doubts like smoke, intoxicated her, blurred everything around the edges.
He made her forget everything, made it difficult to recall just what their differences were. It was dangerously erotic.
He ripped his mouth from hers, panting. His eyes flashed, filling her with an edgy pleasure/fear. Not fear that he’d harm her physically but that she had no idea where this was headed. It probably wasn’t good and yet she had no intention of stopping.
“I want you. Abbie, can I have you?”
Words flitted from her brain, leaving her able to only nod in response. He made a sound, low in his throat, all sex and need. It rode her spine, flowed into her body until she could do nothing but writhe against him as he moved a bit back, awaiting her answer.
Once she’d agreed, he was on her again, body pressed against hers, his hands holding her upper arms as his lips descended and claimed her mouth. His stubble, pale and gold in the low light of the room, brushed against the skin of her chin as his taste slithered through her system again. Hard-edged and yet deep. Yearning, so much yearning. Stoking her own need again.
She gave as much as she took, her arms moving up to encircle his neck. His teeth nipped her bottom lip, dragging a moan from her.
