Chapter Twenty-Six
Lori
Iwake pressed close to Cole and smile. This is my life now. I start every day with this man holding me. This is not someone else’s fairy tale. It’s mine and it’s real. “Morning,” Cole murmurs, kissing my forehead. “You’re awake.”
I raise to my elbow to look at him, a light stubble of dark brown shadowing his jaw, his hair a rumpled, sexy mess. “And you’re wide awake.”
“Not for long.”
“You’re worried about the DA,” I say.
“No. I woke up holding my wife, and decided to enjoy it before the alarm went off.”
His cellphone rings on the nightstand. “Or my phone rang. And so, it’s already begun.” He reaches across me, kisses me hard and fast in the process, and then grabs his phone to glance at the screen. “Reid. I’ll put him on speaker.” Cole punches the answer button.
“What the fuck, Cole?”
“I guess you got my message,” he says, dryly pushing to a sitting position to rest against the headboard.
“You want to go at the DA on the morning I tell you I have a stockholder meeting for an important project? No. You wait.”
“Good morning, sunshine,” I say, sitting against the headboard next to Cole.
“Sunshine, my ass,” Reid snaps. “You wait, Lori. We do this when it’s time and it’s not. I’ve left the DA squirming for a reason. I want him to come to me. I want him to wonder why I haven’t taken a piece of his ass. I’m close to getting you four times the deal you wanted. He cannot believe that you’re willing to back off. Not yet. You want to make nice with him, you do it after I finish making him suck his damn thumb.”
“I take it you want us to wait,” Cole says dryly.
“Finally, one of you gets the point,” Reid says.
“I’m daring to challenge you on this,” I say. “I think if I go in there and tell him how much I just want this over, how much I want to make peace, he’ll be more likely to settle.”
He’s silent a few moments. “I’ll think about it. After my meeting. Don’t screw this up in the meantime.” He hangs up. Cole and I look at each other.
“I think we need to do this sooner than later, before the DA makes a move that burns the firm.”
“Agreed, but an extra day won’t matter,” he says. “Let’s give Reid room to breathe so that he can focus and talk objectively about our next move.”
My cellphone rings now. I grab it to find my mother. “Hey, mom,” I answer quickly. “Is everything okay?”
“Of course. I’m at work and I knew you’d be getting up to start your day. I just wanted to see if you’re okay. You haven’t called me since your attack.”
“I’ll make coffee,” Cole whispers, standing up in all of his naked glory before he pulls on his pajama bottoms and heads for the door.
“It wasn’t an attack, mom. He was grieving for his sister—it’s complicated. I got emotional because I felt his pain. That’s all.”
“I see. I’m sure you did. Can you help him?”
My stomach knots. “He tried to kill himself. He’s okay though and I can only hope that the good in this is that it helps ensure he gets real help.”
“I suddenly really need to see my daughter. I know you’re very busy but can you and Reid do dinner with your mom and her very special man?”
Her very special man. I still can’t get used to her with anyone but my father and yet, after the way my father left her to struggle, she deserves happiness. “When?”
“Whenever you can. I’m off Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday but we can always go to breakfast if needed.”
“Let me talk to Cole and I’ll let you know our schedule so we can coordinate with yours, but I’m looking forward to it.”
“I want you to come to our place. I want you to see how good this man is to me.”
I swallow hard. “Yes. I’d like that.”
We say our goodbyes and disconnect right when Cole walks into the bedroom with two mugs. “Why are you frowning?”
“My mother wants us to come see her new home and how well her man takes care of her.”
He sits down and hands me a cup. “Again. Why are you frowning?”
“I shouldn’t be. I want her to be happy, but…”
“It’s stirring up feelings about your father.”
“Yes. They were in love. I do know this. In the end, he wasn’t all he should have been to her, but they were in love. I suddenly feel sad that my father is just forgotten when a few months ago, that’s what I wanted.”
“Maybe, just maybe, this means you’re starting to forgive your father for his mistakes. Therefore, he’s human again, not a monster who betrayed you.”
I sip my coffee and consider this. “Do I want to forgive him, Cole? He gambled. He left us in debt. He left us desperate as my mother had a stroke.”
Cole sets his cup down and then mine. “Yes. You do. He was not perfect, but you have always told me that until the end you believed you were loved. Gambling, like drinking, is an addiction. He needed help.”
“Are you ever going to try to forgive your father?”
“Never. He was,” he considers a moment, “like the DA. He didn’t have a problem. He was the problem. He was just a monster.” He looks skyward and then settles his hands on my arms. “I’m not him. I will never be him. I promise you, Lori. I will always love you, protect you, and put you first.”
I’m not sure if he’s saying this for me because of how my father makes me feel, or for him, because of how his father makes him feel. Actually, I do. He’s saying it for us.
Everything is for us now.
Lori and I walk to the coffee shop, and we’re waiting for our order when Roger’s attorney calls. “Under the circumstances,” he says. “My client agrees to six months in hospital treatment in exchange for you dropping the charges.”
“Good. Put it in writing.”
Lori grabs our coffees and hands me mine, waiting eagerly for news, which I share. “It feels like this is almost over, doesn’t it?” she asks, as we exit to the street.
“It feels like we’re getting there,” I agree.
“Now we just need a new case,” she says as we arrive at the office, and step onto the elevator a good forty minutes early.
I glance over at her. “Yes. We do.” And I find I really mean that. We’re ready. I’m ready.
She rewards me with a beautiful smile and it’s a smile that I want to see for the rest of my life.
We enter the executive offices to find Ashley already at her desk, hard at work. I watch her interact with Lori and it’s clear to me that she’s not good. She’s not feisty and snarky. Her eyes are bloodshot with dark circles beneath them. Even her dress is black, like she’s in mourning. Lori notices, too, giving me a look that we both understand. I need to talk to her. Lori heads to her office, and I eye Ashley. “Grab a dollar bill or whatever you have and come to my office.”
She frowns and reaches for her purse. I enter my office and grab the contract I did up for Ashley before I left the house this morning. She joins me and I motion to the conference table where we sit across from one another. She holds up the dollar. “What is this for?”
“Hand it to me.”
She does so and I push the contract in front of her. “Sign that.”
She scans it and looks at me. “Free services?”
“Of course, free services. Sign.”
She signs and offers it back to me. “Thank you, Cole.”
“Thank me by talking to me.”
“What do I say, Cole? The man I loved lied to me and now the FBI wants to talk to me.”
“What haven’t you told me?”
“Nothing.”
“What haven’t you told me?” I repeat.
“Nothing. That’s what hurts. I believed he was who he said he was.”
“Which was what?”
“Retired military. Contract security consulting, which is why he traveled a lot. You know this. I told you.”
“And yet I never met him.”
“Because he traveled so much.”
“They think you know something you aren’t saying,” I say.
“Who? The FBI?”
“Yes.”
“Oh God. They’re going to try to take me down with him, aren’t they? And if he’s CIA, that has to mean he’s some sort of spy. That’s what was talked about in France.” She stands up. “They think I’m a spy.”
I stand up with her. “You’re okay. You’ve got me, remember? I’m good at what I do and I’m less concerned about them using you for bait, and more concerned about them pushing you into witness protection.”
“What? You think—I don’t want to go into witness protection. They can’t make me, right?”
“No. They can’t make you, but if you think—”
“No. I mean—Oh God. I need to go home. What if I’m putting the people here in danger?”
“If they felt that, they’d already have you in protection.”
“Then why even suggest they will later?”
I hold up my hands. “It’s my job to prepare you for any possibility.”
My phone buzzes. “Alex is on the line,” the receptionist announces, “and Ashley isn’t answering her phone.”
“I’ll take it,” I say. “Give me thirty seconds and put it through.”
“I need to get to my desk,” Ashley says, trying to pass me.
I catch her arms. “It will be okay, but I need you to think hard about anything you know that I need to know before tomorrow’s meeting.”
“Okay,” she says, but she cuts her gaze and pulls away, walking toward the door. She leaves and shuts me inside and I curse. There’s something she isn’t telling me.
My phone starts to ring and I head to my desk, grabbing the line. “Alex. Give me good news.”
“I’ll fly in Saturday, but I need to leave Sunday morning.”
We make arrangements and I buzz Reese and let him know the plans, but my mind is still on Ashley and that meeting with the FBI. I dial Royce. “Reid had us hold off on making nice with the DA.”
“He told me.”
“Good. Moving on to why I really called. I’m concerned Ashley is keeping secrets and I have no good reason that she would do that. She has attorney-client privilege.”
“I’ve done my research,” Royce says. “I have nothing to offer. Whatever she’s hiding is buried.”
“But the FBI could know what it is and we don’t,” I say.
“They could, yes. It’s unlikely or they’d have handled this interview more aggressively, but it’s possible.”
“Dig deeper.”
“When she was stuck in France, we did. There is nothing to find.”
We talk for a few minutes and disconnect, my fingers thrumming on the desk. Ashley said herself that she could be dangerous. She’s my assistant that I brought into this firm. I have a responsibility to protect everyone here. I dial Royce again. “You want to push the meeting up to tonight,” he assumes.
“Yes. Now that the DA confrontation has been delayed, I need to know what this is and if it’s dangerous.”
“Understood.”
“I want Smith to take her home until the meeting and stay with her around the clock.”
“Also understood. I don’t blame you. We’ll bring her here. She can hang out in our building. We’re one hundred percent secure. I’ll send Smith to you now.”
We disconnect and I cannot get this FBI meeting done soon enough.