“I’m probably going to lose Powers, Inc.” Saying it aloud did nothing to relieve the ache in the back of his neck that had formed when he’d seen how bad off his situation really was this afternoon.
“What?” She sat up straight and looked down at him, apparently wide-awake now.
“Don’t worry, you’re so incredibly talented, someone will scoop you up.”
She pulled the cover up to hide her exposed breasts. “Do you think I’m worried about my job?” Picking up the pillow from her side of the bed, she swung it at him hard.
“I’m worried about you. You built Powers from scratch. It’s your brainchild. Why would you lose it?”
Grabbing her arm, he gently pulled her down until she lay next to him. He stroked her hair. This wasn’t appropriate pillow talk. Why had he brought it up to begin with? The problem with telling anyone anything about yourself was the woman usually thought it gave her the right to question you. Even worse, you started relying on her to be there and when she wasn’t, you were weak. Draco knew he could never afford to be weak.
“I don’t want to lose it. The insurance adjuster will most likely tell us we’re not covered for disasters of this magnitude. I suppose it was short-sighted of me not to think there would be an evil group of people looking to destroy my company when I took out my policy a decade ago.”
“How utterly blind you were.”
He arched an eyebrow as he looked at her. “Did you just make a joke?”
“A sarcastic remark. It’s different.”
“I’m aware.” He smiled as he kissed her head. The little wench had hit him with a pillow and not apologized. She had guts; he’d give her that. Men twice her size wouldn’t have dared. Of course, he’d just been inside of her so maybe that gave her some kind of right to smack him with a feather pillow when she was annoyed.
Inwardly, he shrugged.
“So you’ll lose the building.”
“Most likely.” He sighed as reality shoved itself back into his thoughts. “And the mayor informed me today I could probably count on paying for the damages to the city too. They’re holding me responsible.”
“You can fight that. It’s not your fault. We’ll get legal representation.”
He appreciated the “we,” although the thought of Wendy being involved in any of this made him slightly ill. His first priority, before he dealt with anything else, was going to be to keep her safe, period.
“Great, another lawsuit.”
“I’ll come with you to the insurance meeting tomorrow.”
“No.” He cleared his throat. “You’ll stay here where it’s safe, with Ace.”
“Draco.” Her tone suggested she was going into no-nonsense mode like she’d done when she’d tried to order him to see the doctor. “There’s no way that will be anything other than a disaster. You don’t do well with people.”
“Thanks.”
She sighed. “Come on, you can’t say you don’t know that.”
“I know I tire of small talk before I should, and I’m easily annoyed. I swear, Wendy, I won’t make a mess of the meeting. It’s too important. I can function in society when I need to.”
She made a small sound of protest and he kissed her head. “Go to sleep.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
Rubbing her back, he smiled. “You can. You’re safe and warm. I’m here to protect you. This will all get worked out, one way or another.”
As he lay next to her, listening to her breathe, he found himself drifting toward sleep. Amazing. And highly unusual. He rarely slept. Most of the time, he struggled to catch up on his rest. Deciding to go with it, he closed his eyes.
* * * * *
Draco awoke to the smell of food cooking. It took him a moment to orient himself and another to realize Wendy wasn’t next to him. He shot up in bed. How had she gotten away from him without him waking? That never happened. Ace couldn’t sneeze in the vicinity without waking Draco. What the hell?
He darted from the bed, searching left and right until he found his pajama pants.
Pulling them on, he ran from the room into the hallway, following his nose to the kitchen.
Ace sat at the table, and, between bites of egg, gazed adoringly at Wendy, who labored over the stove frying bacon, which would explain the smell that had tickled his nose when he’d awakened.
His brother looked up as he approached. “She cooks.”
Wendy didn’t turn around as she spoke. “I try.”
“She succeeds.” Ace spooned another pile of eggs into his mouth.
Feeling really discombobulated, Draco took a seat at the table, unsure what to do with himself in this scene of domestic bliss between his brother and the woman Draco had tasted inside and out the night before.
“Brother, how did you talk Wendy into cooking for you?”
His brother smiled and shoveled in another bite. He spoke with his mouth full. “I didn’t ask. She offered.”
“Wendy, you’re here for us to protect you. That doesn’t mean you have to cook or clean.”
She shrugged, still not turning around, which was starting to bug him. Why wouldn’t she look at him? “I like to. It brings order to chaos.”
“Cooking brings order to chaos?”
“No.” She laughed, this time looking over her shoulder to grin at him. When he saw her sparkling eyes, he could finally breathe. “Cooking stops hunger pains. Your brother prowled around like a hungry lion. I took pity on him.”
“I see.” He could imagine. Most days Ace wasn’t up before noon when Draco was already at work. He didn’t have to see his younger brother’s awakening theatrics.
“Cleaning brings order to chaos?”
“Yes, for me, it does that.”
A sudden vision of Wendy scrubbing the floors filled his mind and he didn’t like it one bit. “Look, if you make a mess you can feel free to clean it up but you’re not here to wait on us.”
She turned off the stove and used tongs to move the now-cooked pork onto a plate. Ace bounced up and down in his seat like an excited child. Draco rolled his eyes.
He just wanted coffee.
“You need to give me something to do, Draco. I can’t sit around here and twiddle my thumbs. I’m used to being busy.”
He considered this. “What do you do on weekends?”
“When I’m not working, I’m either doing charity work with Space Adventures, or I’m online.”
“So go online.”
She scoffed. “I can’t play my online games all day.”
Ace interrupted. “Actually, I can’t sit here all day. I need to go. I have a couple of leads I need to follow through on the transporter theory.”
Wendy’s face lit up and Draco had a sudden urge to punch his brother right in the face for being the one to make that happen.
“You looked into my theory.”
“Uh-huh.” Ace grinned at her, doing what Draco had always thought of as Ace’s cherub face. The son-of-a-gun used to do that to their mother, and he always got what he wanted. “It was Draco’s idea. He said it was your theory.”
Wendy made eye contact with Draco and smiled. It was a slow grin, not an easy smile, but one that told him she was immensely grateful. While it made his heart stutter, he realized he didn’t want Wendy’s gratitude. No, he wanted her to assume he would do whatever she needed because she was sure he would.
The thought made him ill. Suddenly, he couldn’t even handle the idea of coffee.
He needed to get out of there and he needed to get out of there right now. This sense of domesticity was too much. It was too easy picturing them like this on a permanent basis, and god knew Draco didn’t need more people whose death would destroy him.
Bad enough he had Ace.
He pushed to his feet. “Wendy, if you’re coming with me to the adjuster, which I suppose you are, since Ace is going hunting for transporters, then you need to get dressed.”
“Oh, great.” She gave him a look that said she
was incredibly pleased and then headed for the hallway. “I really can help you, Draco.” She squeezed his arm as she passed him.
He was sure she could, but she could also destroy him more than any insurance adjuster, lawsuit, or giant mechanical cat ever could.
As Ace chomped on a piece of bacon, Draco felt a pang in his chest for not letting Wendy eat the breakfast she’d cooked.
His brother sat back. “Have fun last night?”
“That’s none of your frickin’ business.”
“Now, that might work with others, but you and I both know I can hear every breath you take if I want to.”
He needed to get dressed. “So don’t want to.”
“I really like her. I think she’s funny. And I like that she likes to please, she doesn’t take your shit without giving some back, and she takes care of you … .”
That was true. Wendy took good care of him. “I’m afraid she’s going to have expectations of me that you and I both know I can’t fulfill.”
Ace stood and carried his plate to the sink. He turned on the water. “Why can’t you?”
“What?”
“Why can’t you fulfill them?” Ace turned off the water.
“I’m not a forever kind of guy. I have no intention of having children. What I do and how I do it will never let me be that guy, the one who has a wife who relies on him, who has a kid in the backseat.” Even though the idea is compelling … . “Wendy needs a family. She’s never had one.”
Ace turned and regarded him. Gone was the jovial face he wore for the world. In its place was his too serious younger brother who had felt every hurt of the world as if it were his own.
“Whatever we are, Draco, we’re a family.”
True. No argument there.
“We could be her family. She could be your wife.”
He tried not to choke at the word. Ace was getting way ahead of himself.
“Wow, little brother, people don’t get married because they have one amazing night of sex. They just don’t.”
Ace walked toward him. “I’m a grown man, Draco. I live in the world, maybe more than you do.”
What the hell did he mean by that?
Ace continued. “You’ve known this woman for four years. You’ve spent the majority of your time with her since the moment you met. There is no way you’re going to convince me last night was nothing more than sex, amazing or otherwise.”
Draco needed to get out of this conversation immediately. “You just want someone to cook and clean for you. Even if I married her, she wouldn’t be either your slave or your mother.”
“I’d like her to be my sister.”
“All right, enough.” His voice rose, but he didn’t care. He had a ton of stuff to get done today. It was likely his entire livelihood was about to come crashing down on his head. He didn’t need this … meddling, in addition to everything else. For god’s sake, he still had a psychopathic organization to defeat and a missing teenager who, regardless of the fact the boy’s mother was now dead, Draco had agreed to find.
Ace crossed his arms over his chest and narrowed his eyes. He’d switched from his charming pose to his obstinate one. “What are you running from?”
Draco stepped forward. His hand bunched into a fist, and he eyed Ace’s nose with a longing to smash it. “I’ve never run from anything in my life.”
“Really? Because you’re doing a damn good job of it right now.”
“Look.” Draco lowered his tone. He really didn’t want Wendy hearing him. “It’s bad enough I have to worry about you. If something happened to you, it would kill me.
They’re already after my Handler because they think it’ll bother me. Imagine if she was my girlfriend or my wife. They’d never stop coming after her. I can’t let anyone else get that close. Close enough to put them in danger. Close enough to hurt me if I lose them.
Have I made myself clear?”
Ace’s face had fallen sometime during the last speech but Draco had been so enraged, he hadn’t noticed when it happened.
“Is that what we are to you? Things you have to worry about?”
He nodded. “Pretty much. Every damn thing in my life I care about is something someone can take away. I already have more than I can handle.”
“Do you think you’re the only one at risk? I’m always putting myself out there.
It’s just as likely that they’d come after me through you.”
Draco shook his head. “No, it’s not, because when we started this god forsaken enterprise I put my face out there as being in charge. I’m the one who does interviews.
I’m the one who’s seen on television. You sleep past noon, screw your Handler so you can’t come to work, and never show yourself to anyone, even in the office.”
“I’ve got news for you now, big brother. You insisted on handling things ten years ago. You insisted that I be the man behind you so I could know what was going on with the employees without them knowing I also owned the company.” Ace took a deep breath. “And, yes, I made a mistake with my Handler but, guess what? You can’t use that against me anymore. You’ve fucked your Handler, and as of last night, we’re even.”
And in that last comment, Ace was, indeed, correct. Draco watched his brother storm down the hall in the opposite direction Wendy had taken. Fucked his Handler? If only it had been that simple. He shook his head, realizing he was about to have a day from hell.
Chapter Eleven
Wendy sat next to Draco in the insurance adjuster’s office, trying to resist the urge to lean over and grab the man by his blue bowtie and slam him face first into his goldfish bowl. Usually, she wasn’t violent, but George Judge—who had evidently decided that his last name entitled him to sit in judgment on all claimants like some kind of supreme being—seemed to be enjoying Draco’s situation a little too much for her not to get really angry, at least on the inside.
He had beady little eyes, a nose that was too large for his face, and almost no upper lip. Overall, it would have been hard enough to look at him on a good day, which this one was not turning out to be.
“That’s right. Nowhere in your policy are you covered for the eventuality of being attacked by giant cat monsters.”
“I’m aware of that, of course.” Draco remained extremely civil when he addressed the little man—more than she would have.
It had turned out that she wasn’t much use here at all, which was disappointing.
She’d really wanted to help.
“But I’d like to point out that I paid the premium amount for the terrorism rider to cover this kind of situation.”
Beady Eyes rubbed his forehead, which dripped with sweat, and looked at Draco like he wanted to throw him off a short pier. “Mr. Powers, as I’m sure you’re aware, this does not constitute an act of terrorism.”
Draco sighed and Wendy waited for him to retort. She waited. And waited. Hell, he never said anything. She turned to look at his profile. He seemed almost …
defeated, which was not a look she was accustomed to seeing on the face of Draco Powers.
No. She shook her head. Sitting straighter in her seat, she gripped the sides of her chair. “Mr. Judge, I’m afraid I’m going to have to contest your definition of the word. Of course this counts as an act of terrorism.”
Draco tried to interrupt. “Warner … .”
She wasn’t finished talking and if he didn’t like what she had to say, he could fire her. “What would you call what happened to Powers, Inc.? An accident?”
“No, ma’am, of course not but—”
She didn’t like the condescension in his tone when he said “of course not.” “In the general sense, terrorism is the systematic use of terror as a means of getting someone to do what you want them to do. That is clearly what this was. In no way was it an ‘act of God,’ in no way did we do this to ourselves.” She ran a tongue over her lips and tried not to look at Draco. She didn’t want to see him glare at her. “Tell me what this is if not terroris
m?”
George had gone silent. He regarded her with his eyebrows lowered, his beady eyes even more squinted. “I can’t say that I agree with your definition in this case.”
“Fine.” She nodded. “Then we want an appeal.”
“An appeal?”
Draco abruptly turned his head to look at her square in the face. “An appeal?”
“Yes, an appeal. We want to start that process immediately.”
George Judge slammed his hands on the table as he stood. “I think that would be a waste of time for all of us.”
“Then it’s our time to waste.”
“You know, Mr. Powers … .” The insurance adjuster stood at his full height of five-foot-three inches. “I may never get another chance to say this so I’m going to say this now. I found everything about your organization to be disgusting. Who charges people for doing the right thing? Who charges people for basic human kindness? You have the ability to do what everyone wishes they could do, and you’re making money off it.”
Wendy laughed. “Who does that? You do that. You’re entire company charges people so they can recover from personal tragedies. Draco at least tries to make things better. Your company makes money off our fear that things will go wrong and then refuses to pay when they actually do. So you can take your pompous, holier-than-thou attitude and shove—”
Draco grabbed her and hauled her from the room, calling behind him as he walked. “Thank you Mr. Judge, we look forward to hearing from you on that appeal.”
As soon as they hit the sidewalk, Draco took off flying with Wendy trapped in his strong embrace. She had no idea if he was angry with her or not. He hadn’t uttered a word since he’d thanked the insurance adjuster.
When they’d ascended what she guessed to be about fifteen stories, he landed them on top of a building. He panted like he was out of breath, but she knew he could fly higher, faster, and longer than he had without missing a beat. Something else was going on.
“Draco, listen, I know I shouldn’t have said anything. I know you wanted me to be quiet, but I just couldn’t. I couldn’t.”
Screwing the Superhero Page 11
