The Plan (The Hillers of Barratt County #4)

Chapter 16

16

She’d burst into tears as soon as he’d said it. Like a great big weeny. That hadn’t gone over well with her brothers at all. But…George had no business saying horrible things like that. Not when he didn’t mean them.

All Ronnie had ever wanted was to feel… like she mattered… again. She hadn’t felt that way after they’d lost her sister. She definitely hadn’t felt like that after she’d did the naughty with her boss that night.

But if he meant it…

Maybe that would change everything.

Still, a smart girl didn’t let her guard down with a man like Gorgeous Georgie Hiller. Those Gorgeous Hiller brothers…were dangerous to a woman’s sanity. No denying that.

Ronnie put her bag in the little cabinet where she had always put it, fighting the conflicting sensations washing over her.

Everything felt both achingly familiar and completely foreign, like walking into a dream where all the furniture had been shifted two inches to the left. It had yesterday, too. She suspected it would for a few days.

Why was she here again? Hadn’t she made a resolution here? She’d told herself the night before, after he’d finally dropped her off at her apartment like she’d insisted—she wasn’t going to let him confuse her like this.

Yet it wasn’t even 9:30 a.m. and she was definitely confused. Oh, that man. What was it about that man that did this to her specifically?

Her desk chair had been replaced with something that was now sinfully comfortable. She’d confirmed that the day before. The walls were a rich, warm gray instead of beige. Everything looked so polished and professional now—except for that conference room door that still didn't quite close right.

That door. Her heart skipped as memories flooded back—George's hands in her hair, the heat of his mouth on her neck, papers scattered across the floor…Oh, boy. The hormones were real.

She’d only had sex one time. One time. And that was all she could remember about this place, even after she’d worked there for twenty long months? That man had done something to her. He’d reprogrammed her or something. That was the only explanation.

His alien seed was potent. No denying that.

"Well. Here I am." Twelve weeks, six days. And she was just supposed to pick up right where she left off? Even her old plant was hanging on—though she might have returned just in time.

"I've been watering it,” someone said behind her. Ronnie turned to find Giavonna, looking like a young goddess with perfect hair and makeup. Even in jeans and a T-shirt. She looked far older, more sophisticated than her nineteen years. This one had been born with an old soul, no denying that. "Georgie isn't very good with plants. I hope he's better with babies. He did okay when Greer was born, I think. But I was five then, how should I know? How do you feel today?"

"A bit like an alien has taken over my life, actually." Two aliens, if she counted George's caveman impression this morning. Who just picks a crying woman up and puts her in his truck like that?

"The baby or my brother?"

"I'll get back to you on that." The man was insane—no other word for how he had faced down her brothers before putting her in his truck. Murdoch had especially had that super-overprotective look on his beautiful face. And Cam—he had done everything he possibly could to ruffle George’s beautiful feathers.

Only Anthony had been any kind of voice of reason at all, asking about her health and any concerns she had noticed. He’d been so focused on her. He was such a sweetheart, that one.

And even her most softhearted brother had been…just a wee bit angry with Georgie. Cracking his knuckles and looking at George that way—she’d known with one look. Anthony was angry, too. He was just so much quieter about it.

He was probably planning something. Anthony was a planner, through and through. He put George to shame, and that was saying something right there. No one could out plan Anthony Lake. No one.

"He talks about you all the time, you know," Giavonna said. “Veronica this, Veronica that. When she comes back. He would slip up and say that a lot. He wanted you to come back so much. He adores you. I knew he was hot for you from about the first time I met you. It was hard to miss.”

"Well, I have lived in the same place for two years. He could have found me." The words came out sharper than intended, but really—she hadn’t been that hard to find. He was just…doing the right thing. Because that was what a man like Georgiano Maxwell Hiller did.

She was rather mature for twenty-two—he was most certainly immature for almost thirty-two. That was what she was going to tell him the next time he brought up his age as an excuse. See what he had to say about that, true or not.

And the age thing had just been an excuse. He hadn’t really wanted her. Except well…for the whole getting naked thing.

Sometimes she wondered what the next day would have been like if she hadn’t quit that night.

Probably not much different than it had been before. Just…she would have looked at him and remembered how he looked without those stuffy business shirts…and…and…

Well, they probably would have ended up on the table again eventually. Once the defenses were down and everything. Or she’d have quit a few days later, or something. How was she to know?

This was her first ever experience, after all. Maybe she should have paid more attention to what the girls in school had been saying about guys back then? She felt a bit out of her depth here, after all.

"I personally think he was scared." Giavonna grabbed a stack of files from on top of the cabinet. George's signature move—placing things anywhere except where they belonged. Ronnie sighed. Some things about that man would never change. "I knew...he was hot for you before that night, you know. It was the way he talked about you."

"Hot for me, yes. I kind of got that message." He had picked her up, met her brothers, then brought her here. He'd kissed her so hot she was surprised the paint hadn't bubbled on the walls from the heat—and then he'd scurried off to meet with the man from a case he had wrapped up the day...that had changed her world. Giavonna had been waiting outside, ready to unlock the doors, when they'd arrived.

She strongly suspected Giavonna was her babysitter today. To keep her from running away. Or to keep her brothers from carrying her off back to their parents’—where Cam had threatened to dig a moat and put crocodiles in it to keep George away if that was what she had wanted.

Giavonna lowered her voice as she sorted through the files. She stopped at one, with a red label. “He’s been working on this one again. The Tolben case still bothers him, you know. Jim lost everything—his business, his house. It shouldn't have happened that way."

"Hmm. It’s going to bother him for a long while.” She remembered how upset he’d been that day the verdict had come in—and, it was hard to forget what had happened that night after. “He shouldn’t have lost it. And that’s going to hurt him for a long while.”

She was only here because he'd literally picked her up and put her in his truck this morning. Like a caveman. A very well-dressed caveman in a very nice suit she had wanted to peel right off of him. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t worry about him, right? He was the father of her alien-baby, after all. She had a vested interest in his well-being here. And she didn’t like knowing he was hurting. He cared about his clients so much. He had a soft-hearted side that wasn’t hard for a woman to see when she looked close enough.

"What does George think happened?" The words slipped out before she could stop them. Damn hormones making her care. “Anything new in the last three months?”

"He's still digging." Giavonna hesitated for a moment. "Between us? I think someone got paid off. The ruling made no sense otherwise. None of what happened seems based on case law at all. I even asked a professor at FCU about it—Hendricks Barratt. He’s a big attorney with B-3 that George has been friends with for years. George wants to appeal, but Jim says no. Says he’s finished caring. But…George cares. He's still looking into it. It's eating at him, Ronnie. You know how he gets. And Jim will barely take his calls now. It’s almost like he’s afraid to, I think."

Ronnie did know. That was the problem. George and his huge heart that made him an incredible lawyer but also made him forget little things like self-preservation and common sense. The same heart that had made her stupid hormones think jumping him in the conference room was a brilliant idea. Well, letting him jump her. Although…it had kind of been a mutual jumping really.

She still didn’t remember who had popped that first button that night. It very well could have been her.

Oh, that man—of course he still cared. He was one of the softest-hearted men she had ever known. It was what made her feel so gooey where he was concerned.

Well, someone had to look after him. And since she was already hosting his alien seed—she had to protect her baby’s father. Her baby needed him to do all the ‘daddy things’ after all.

"I'll talk to him.” She just added it to her list of things to clunk George over the head with—like not carrying off former law clerks and everything. Especially right in front of her brothers. She was surprised they hadn’t shown up to thrash him yet. It was probably just a matter of time.

Maybe she could have her sister Becky call them with some sort of fake emergency? Distract them for a little bit?

"Good. He listens to you. He always has." Her look made Ronnie squirm. Either that…or…well the bathroom was right there. Because it was eat, move, pee, eat, move, pee now! today , too. "Even when he was pretending not to notice how perfect you were for him."

"Perfect for him? I'm pretty sure his definition of perfect doesn't include get pregnant on the conference room table and change his whole future.” Though the way he'd looked at her this morning, all protective intensity and hunger…

Yikes . She had almost wanted to jump him right there. Until the baboons had arrived, anyway. Those three were really great for cooling raging libidos—no denying that.

No. Bad hormones. Focus.

“Ew. That is something I so did not want to know,” Giavonna said. “And…there is disinfectant spray still under the bathroom counter. I think…I think you should probably take care of that table today. Please. I have to work there, after all.”

Ronnie just grinned at her. “Sorry. It just sort of…happened.”

“I am so not listening. I will never find myself on a man’s conference table, Ronnie. I just won’t. Have some dignity, girl.”

“Never say never. Remember that.”

Now, she had a job to do. Starting with fixing the mess the man had made of her filing system. She could see where Giavonna had tried to keep up with it, but she only had part-time hours to help her big brother. George, that man was a full-time job in every single way. The rest—including her inconvenient attraction to said lawyer and the tiny alien they'd created—would have to wait.

Not to mention, she had to find a way to convince her brothers not to turn him into fish bait the first chance they had. What was he thinking? Murdoch and Cam could have both arrested him for this morning. George had just peeled out too fast for them to catch him.

It was only a matter of time before those three showed up again and finished what Anthony had threatened to start with George. And Anthony was the nice one of her brothers.

This was not going to be good at all.