“Conner?”
“Oh, sorry. What did you say?”
“I said that I bet she’s still in bed.”
“I heard her moving around a few minutes ago.”
“Oh, well, she might be stuck.”
“What do you mean stuck?”
“On writing. When she starts a new book, she tends to take forever. Usually, she finds some kind of distraction. A guy. Hey, is that Mick guy still there?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“I always thought they would hook up.”
Just the thought had him fighting back a growl. As long as he was there, that motorcycle-driving idiot wasn’t going to touch her. She was his.
That thought stopped him cold. Dammit. There he went again. The woman was driving him crazy. He had thought to keep his distance. He knew that was impossible after last night. He had proven that by taking the step and giving her an order. He would have never done that if he hadn’t made the decision.
Conner didn’t play fast and loose with his sexuality. He didn’t mind a good healthy flirting session, but when it came to taking that next step, he never took it easily. It was probably one of the reason he hadn’t had a long relationship in the last few years. He hadn’t trusted any woman enough, or maybe he had sensed they didn’t trust him.
“Conner?”
He realized he’d drifted off again. It was embarrassing how often he did that when it came to Jillian.
"I said I heard her moving around earlier."
"Not a good sign. Either she got more edits, which means you want to stay away from her, or she had to deal with her family."
"Deal with her family?"
"I’m not sure just what goes on with them, but I do know that about this time of the month, she gets a lot of phone calls."
He tucked that bit of information away to think about later. He heard her outside talking to Mick, and he wanted to see her. He knew one way to get his sister off the phone.
"So, what’s going on with that Demeter case?"
"Oh, no you don't. The doc said only if we needed some kind of answer from you because of legal reasons. Otherwise, no dice."
"Okay. But, if you need me..."
"Forget it. I am not even in the mood to fight with you. Go find Jillian, go to Bellows. Have fun."
After hanging up, he wandered to the window and looked down on the scene beneath him. Mick was showing Jillian a tattoo, and from the looks of it, it was new. She didn't look happy at all, but she was faking it. He apparently asked her to go for a ride, but she shook her head. Conner could tell something was wrong. Even if she wasn’t interested, Jillian was polite. Now she wasn’t smiling, and there was an air of preoccupation about her.
She watched as Mick drove off, and then she started to walk back to the house. Conner knew this was the only way he could look casual, so he slipped out the door and down the stairs to the ground floor, catching her before she could escape into her part of the house.
"Hey, I was thinking of going to Bellows today."
“Sounds good for you.”
Definitely not the attitude he was used to from Jillian. Could it be she was irritated with him from last night? Embarrassed? That didn’t fit Jillian’s personality. He couldn’t remember a woman who was as straightforward about sex as she was. That was saying a lot considering he used to train Dommes. Add in a sister who’d felt the need to share way too much about her life when she was a teenager, and he was pretty accustomed to women being too open with him.
Jillian didn’t hide anything. Or, in the short time he had spent in Hawaii, he thought she didn’t hide things. She always seemed open and willing to share. Until now. Now, though, she was closed off.
"Not in a good mood today?"
She slanted him a look. "I needed about four hours more sleep."
He held his hands up. "You can't blame that on me. I stayed upstairs and out of your way."
She shook her head. "Not really."
"What do you mean by that?” he asked.
"Never mind. It isn't important."
"No, I think it is," he said, irritated with her now. She avoided looking at him, and it was really starting to bug him. "I can't believe you're upset about a simple kiss."
He saw her lips curve before she turned to face him. It did things to him he didn't want to think about. The idea that a woman's smile, no matter how small, had his heart squeezing tight was not something he was used to. Allowing a woman to have that much power over him was a dangerous proposition.
She looked at him then, her eyes less troubled. He saw her brow ease, and again, he felt that little squeeze. Damn. Definitely not a good sign. Still, he couldn’t help it.
She shook her head again. "There was nothing simple about that kiss, Agent Dillon."
"I'm not an agent," he said automatically.
She laughed. "Come on, let me have a little fantasy about you and winning the bet."
"Bet?"
"Yeah. We not only were preoccupied with you in college, but there was a bet going on about who would get the first kiss. Since I am assuming you never kissed any of the other dorm occupants, I think I won that bet last night."
Something loosened in his chest. He hadn’t realized how worried he had been about her reaction to his kiss the night before.
“And the phone call after? Did you heed my instructions?”
The air stilled between them, the tension rising to another level.
"Why don't you come to Bellows with me today? There's some shade, right? You could settle there, take a nap while I play with my boogie board?"
She snorted. "Are you allowed to do that in public?"
He rolled his eyes. "Twenty minutes?"
Her cell phone went off, and her smile faded. "Give me thirty."
He nodded as she answered her phone. "Yes, Charles, I hear there's a problem."
He watched as she walked back to her front door. He couldn't get much from her side of the conversation, but he was going to definitely find out who Charles was and why he made her so fucking unhappy.
* * * *
Jillian sighed with pleasure as she shifted on her towel. Conner was right. Going out was a good idea, and here in Bellows, there was spotty cell phone service, so she could ignore the phone calls. After her phone call with her aunt, she was happy to ignore them all. Charles's information was exactly what she’d expected. Yes, her cousins didn't know how to budget their money, and that was one reason her bitch of a grandmother left her in charge.
She brushed that aside and mulled Brent’s problems. He had gone over the edge now, and there wasn't much that could be done about it. Charles had been blunt. His gambling problem had gotten out of hand. Worse, he had borrowed money from his mother. Money she would never see again. Jillian tried not to worry about that, knew that she had been saddled with the family money for one reason. So that her grandmother could have the last laugh.
She shook away those worries and looked out on the water. It wasn't that busy today because it was cool, with a little rain on and off, and it was the middle of the week. But there was Conner boogie boarding.
She watched as he crested over one wave and tried to ignore the way her body reacted. She had never been a woman who suppressed her feelings. Not anymore. Not since that bitch of a grandmother called her a nappy-headed loser. Still, there was something about Conner that warned her to be cautious. She had always thought he was the Alpha Dog of any group of men, but seeing him in the club last night—not to mention that kiss—she now knew Conner Dillon was definitely a Dom she could not take lightly.
He rose out of the water, and she sucked in a breath. For a man who just had a heart issue and was within spitting distance of forty, he was in fantastic shape. Hell, he would be considered in fantastic shape for a man in his twenties. Although, a man in his twenties wouldn't have that solid frame an older man did.
She watched as he walked to her and tried very hard to look away. She was gaping, she knew, and she didn't kn
ow why. There were gorgeous, half-naked men aplenty in Hawaii. Mick and Adam were always half naked. Maybe it was because she was accustomed to seeing him in suits.
Water sluiced down over his flesh, and she had to lick her lips. His muscled chest had a smattering of hair that formed a line that traveled down his stomach. It bisected a set of abs that would make a younger man look amazing.
"Gonna get out on the water?" He asked as he bent over to pick up his towel. The scent of the water was on him, the salt and sweetness of the Pacific clinging to him.
She cleared her throat as she tried to clear her mind and calm her libido.
"No, I'll just enjoy your attempts."
He dropped down beside her. "My attempts?"
"I'm sitting here wondering just how you know how to boogie board so well."
One eyebrow rose. "I do live in Miami."
"And you work seventy hours a week."
He shot her a smile, and she felt her heart turn over. Shit. He rarely smiled but when he did, he had full-on dimples. It almost made him look too pretty, if he hadn’t broken his nose one too many times.
"I grew up in Florida too, remember. I did my fair share of surfing and boogie boarding. I wasn’t that much into surfing. Like to ski, too."
She heard the wistfulness in his voice, and it would be easy to brush it away, but something told her to pursue it.
"You miss it."
He glanced at her then looked back out at the water. "A bit. I thought moving to Miami would give me more time on the water. Then, I got busy."
He didn't have to say with what. She knew as well as he did that Maura became the focus of his world when their parents died. A lesser man could have walked away. They had some distant relatives, but he didn't. And for someone like Jillian, who lost her parents at a young age, that made him even more appealing. She had spent her teenage years surrounded by men who spent their lives avoiding reality and responsibility. This made Conner all that more irresistible. Add in the dreamy body and those bedroom eyes, and she knew he was going to be trouble for her.
"So, how is the opening in DC going?”
He shrugged, and she couldn’t help but watch the play of muscles. There was nothing like a great set of shoulders.
“Okay. I have a lot of connections there still."
"Like Maria Callahan from last night?"
He nodded. "Although, before last night, I hadn’t heard she’d left the agency."
She laughed. "You act like she should have cleared it through you."
He gave her a glance then looked back out at the water. "No. I was her mentor until I left, and we kept up with each other until a couple of years ago. But, her father was Big John Callahan. It really is amazing that she left. I thought she would make a career out of it."
"So you think she was suited to it, like you were?"
He shook his head. "No, actually I was pretty sure that she hated it. Her father pushed her into it a bit. I remember being on cases and this teenager would be there hanging on his every word. She absorbed everything. It wasn’t a normal childhood, and not once can I remember her ever being happy."
"She went on cases with him?"
He nodded.
"That is so many ways wrong."
Conner sighed. "I agree. It was unhealthy to the extreme. She learned that the only thing her father valued was catching a killer. So, I guess she thought that was the only way she would at least gain some satisfaction. She was a damned good agent, but I don’t know if she ever liked it.” He shook his head. “I would have never done that to Maura."
Of course he wouldn't. Conner had always tried his best to make sure Maura could live in a nurtured environment.
"Are you going to tell me what got you so upset this morning?"
She grimaced, and it was her turn to look away. "Family."
"I thought you didn't have much contact with them."
"As little as possible. I learned a long time ago that if I stayed out of their way, life was much easier. Of course, it would be better if I had picked a pseudonym to write under. They are still pissed that I use my real name."
"But you talked to someone this morning?"
She sighed as the memory of her conversations came back to her. "My aunt. She was trying to remind me of my obligations. I hate the word."
“Obligations?”
She nodded.
"Everyone has obligations."
Of course he would say that. He never shirked his duty, in work or home. Jillian was pretty sure that was one of the reasons he had never married. Conner was a man who stood by his word, and if he couldn’t give himself to a woman one hundred percent, he wouldn’t marry her. Why that made her sad she didn’t know.
She shrugged. "In a way, yes. But these are the obligations that the poor relation has for the other people in my family, if you get my drift."
She felt his nod but couldn't look at him. Her family relations were so embarrassing. Jillian knew she wasn’t responsible for their behavior, but it didn’t make it any better. Conner took all his responsibilities seriously, more so than a lot of people. Knowing she was related by blood to some of the laziest, back-bitching jackasses in Atlanta society was humiliating.
"They aren't expecting you to come back to the mainland for something, are they?"
She glanced at him and realized he was really worried. She shook her head and chuckled. "Oh, God, no. They would rather have nothing to do with me, but they have some family issues, and they need approval from me on them. It was in my grandmother's will, the old bitch."
"Do you think she might have been trying to keep you tied to your family for your own good?"
Jillian knew she could let him believe that. It wasn’t like she hadn’t done it before. Appearances had never been important to her, but getting into her family politics was not something she wanted to do with people. Even her lovers. Until now. He wasn’t her lover yet, but she knew that it was going to happen without a doubt. For some reason, though, she knew she wanted him to comprehend just what she dealt with.
"You know the last thing she said to me?" she asked as she looked out over the water.
He shook his head.
“‘It's too bad you've decided to take yourself down to your father's level. He was never good enough for my daughter. Blood will always tell.’”
He was quiet for a second or two, and then he said, "So your grandmother disapproved because he was a baseball player?”
She studied him for a second then realized that for Conner, he would never see her as her family did. "No. My father was black."
"Yeah, so?"
She smiled. "My mother's side of the family had old southern values, one of them being that you don't mix the races."
"But your mother didn't feel that way?"
She smiled then, remembering her mother and just how in love with her father she was. There was never a question in her mind. "Nope. And worse, she cut off all contact with her family. My grandmother actually tried to have my father arrested. It didn't work because Dad was the favored son of the Braves at the time."
“She tried to have Reggie Sawyer arrested?”
She laughed. "Yeah."
He was quiet for a second or two, then said, "You never talk about them much.”
“Them?”
“Your parents. You complain about the Bentleys, but I never hear you talk much about your mother and father. I know you cared about them because you have pictures of them up in your house. The same ones you had when you were rooming with my sister.”
The man never missed a beat. While it was aggravating that he noticed so much, it also gave her a sense of security in a way.
"It isn't like I lied about it. And after the accident, I hated people knowing. They always felt like they had to tell me they were sorry he died. So many people thought they knew him personally. It was kind of hard to take. And they always seem to forget I lost both my parents. It wasn’t just my dad. Hearing the stories were the worst of it. It was
a lot to take for a girl of ten. I guess an adult would have handled the grief better."
She didn’t know if she would take it better now. Everyone felt that she should accept their grief, take it on, because for them she was the memory of her father. At the time, she had been overwhelmed by the attention.
He nodded in understanding. "Then you had to move in with your grandmother.”
"I had no choice. She didn’t particularly care for me or my father. She was still pretty mad at my mother for marrying him. Dad had only one brother. His parents died when I was just a baby, and the few extended family members he had were either too old or totally inappropriate to raise a child."
"Ah, yes, your uncle was Sam Sawyer, the football player."
"Yep. And he had a mean streak. Dad would never let me near him. So, off to grandmother's I went. And that whole crazy inbreed family."
He snorted out a laugh. "Inbreed?"
"They marry in their class, always white of course, and it is the same group of friends and acquaintances. You know there is some inbreeding going on there."
"So you have to stay in contact with them?"
She nodded but didn't want to go into her duties to the family. They just made her angry and sad. Knowing that the same blood that ran through them ran through her was embarrassing. She wanted to pretend that they didn’t exist, at least for a little while.
"Since you got me out of my funk, why don't I treat you to lunch at Cholo's?"
"Not sure I like the sound of that."
She laughed, feeling better now that she had talked to him. "Fish tacos, bruddah. They are the best on the island."
He studied her for a second, then said, “You know, you don’t have to be embarrassed about your family.”
The fact that he could read her so well was a bit troubling.
Embarrassed? More like mortified, but she didn’t like that he was so perceptive. “I never said anything about that.”
“No, but I sense there are things you don’t want to talk about because they’re uncomfortable for you. I just want you to know that what your family does isn’t about you. It’s about them.”
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