Chapter 9
“You need to hire someone else,” I say, pushing open the door to my father's office with a huff of annoyance. He doesn’t so much as look up from the paperwork spread across his desk, but I know he’s listening. He’s always listening.
“If you’re bored with her, I have no problem filling the gaps in her time.”
I stop short, my brows pulling together as I try to make sense of what he just said.
“What?”
He looks up now, with a hint of a smirk on his lips as he waits for me to catch on. I’m not proud of how long it takes for it to click. I’m going to chalk it up to how ridiculous his suggestion was that I didn’t even consider that an option.
“The fact that you even joke like that is insulting. If I could steal her away and take all her attention every day for the rest of forever, I would.” I glare at him as I collapse into the chair across from him. His lips twitch, but other than that, he doesn’t react.
“Next time, try giving a little context. As I’m sure you're aware, we employ a great number of people.”
He’s got me there, I guess. Besides, I doubt the idea of replacing him has ever even crossed Dad’s mind.
“Vince.”
That gets his full attention. He sets down the papers he’d been combing over before he looks up at me, confusion clear on his face, and I can’t blame him.
Vince is his best friend, has been since, fucking forever.
They have a history together, which is how he got the job in the first place.
Before Dad and Uncle Alex’s company took off, Vince just kinda did whatever.
From the sounds of it, he was more like muscle for hire, but not in the strictly legal kind of way.
Dad gave him a job, and while he might be our bodyguard and chauffeur on paper, he still does his fair share of illegal things, just off the books.
“I require much more information if you believe that suggestion is even slightly valid.”
Yeah, I knew he wouldn’t like it, but he’ll see.
“Have you seen the way he looks at her?” I’m out of my chair in the blink of an eye, walking the length of his desk before turning back around to do it again.
Usually, pacing isn’t really my thing, but the urge to move is too strong to ignore.
My irritation is getting the better of me and making me jittery.
“Kat?” Father asks for clarification, and I roll my eyes but answer anyway.
“Yes.”
“No.”
“What?” I stop dead in my tracks to look at him, half expecting him to be joking, but he’s not.
“How the fuck have you not seen it? He’s practically drooling over her!” That might be a little extreme, especially for Vince, but his giving her any attention is a big deal. Just thinking about it, and I’m already pacing again.
“Did Kat express some kind of discomfort with him?”
His question trips me up, and I turn to look at him only to find him watching me closely, his eyes narrowed in that way I hate, as if he’s looking through me.
“No,” I grit out, annoyed. This isn’t about Kat; it’s about Vince.
“But I’m sure she wouldn’t, even if she were.
You know she’s too nice; look at how long she let Trevor press her and make her uncomfortable.
Vincent is the man who drives her around and is responsible for her protection. Why would she want to make him upset?”
“I don’t know, Des. She seemed pretty grateful when he saved her from Carter.” Father sits back in his chair, still watching me, and I hear the challenge in his tone.
He doesn’t see it, but that’s okay. I can help him see it. This has been bugging me for a while now.
I move toward his desk, leaning down, I press my palms flat against the dark wood and look him in the eyes. “He’s the reason she needed saving. He never should have left them alone like that.”
“No, that fault lies with Carter and Trevor. There is no reason he should have been unable to leave them to go to the restroom.” He’s right, I know he is, but I don’t like it. It doesn’t matter, though; he still needs to go. Kat is ours, as in she belongs to us Lawson’s, which he is not.
“Moving forward, I’ll have more men available so that if he should have to step away, they are not left completely unattended, at least until our problem is handled.” I didn’t need to ask to know what he meant by that.
Carter is the problem.
“He let him get away,” I growl, leaning further into his space, but if he minds, he doesn’t show it.
“He had a choice to make between comforting Kat and gunning down his car in broad daylight. For all we know, he could have given chase and left Kat, only for Carter to have someone else in place to take her. You might not like that he got away; none of us do, but Vince made the right call. The same one I would have made had I been there, but I wasn’t, and neither were you.
” His words are sharp, his tone unwavering as he leans forward until we're damn near nose to nose.
“I think the words you're looking for are ‘thank you,’ not ‘you're fired.’ Try showing gratitude instead of sounding like a spoiled brat. I raised you better than that.”
His words get under my skin just the way he intended, but I refuse to back down.
“Just because he did what he could doesn’t make it good enough. He clearly isn’t up for the task, and the last thing we need is for him to get distracted. What if they’d taken Addy? What if this had happened while Kat was pregnant?”
It’s a low blow. Something I don’t even want to think about because it’s enough to turn my stomach, but I know my father. If anything is going to make him see my side, it’s the idea of her being pregnant and even more fragile than she is now.
His eyes narrow, and for a second, I think I’ve got him, but as quickly as it happens, he wipes his face clean of any kind of reaction and once again reclines back in his chair.
“What’s this really about, Desmond?” His voice is tight, letting me know he’s still on edge, but it’s not enough. I knew it was a long shot, but I’d hoped to get him on my side.
With a curse, I throw myself back into the chair behind me, scrubbing a hand down my face.
“She’s not his,” I hiss, unable to hold my temper.
Father doesn’t respond, but I can feel his gaze on me, and I know he’s waiting for more. “Vince isn’t a Lawson, no matter how good of friends you two might be.”
“Ah, so you're jealous,” he says with a scoff that makes me feel like a child being scolded.
I’m not a child, though, and Kat isn’t a toy I want to keep to myself. She’s a woman, our woman, and it’s our job to keep others away. To keep her safe and protected.
“How is this just okay with you? Are you telling me that if we went out to dinner, and some guy was checking her out, you would just be okay with it?”
I watch his jaw clench and unclench and know I’ve struck a nerve.
Good, maybe he can understand a little better now.
“That’s not the same.” I open my mouth to explain how it’s almost exactly the same, but he holds up a hand, stopping me before I can. “But that would depend on a few things. Who that person was, whether we could trust them, and mostly Kat herself.”
He’s full of shit; I can see it all over his face.
I sit up in my chair, resting my elbows on my knees and pressing my mouth to my fingers that are steepled together in front of me, a wicked smile turning my lips.
“So you’re telling me if a man who wasn’t me, Alex, Oli, or yourself put their hands on Kat, you would be okay with it?” I watch him closely, so fucking closely that I see the way his eye twitches at just the thought.
“That’s what I thought.”
“Vince isn’t just a man at a restaurant, though, Des. He’s your godfather. The man who taught you to fight and ride motorcycles. I’ve known him longer than you’ve been alive. He’s almost as much a brother to me as Alex is.”
He gives me a pointed look, but I wave him off, leaning back in my chair again, draping my arm over the back.
“And what’s your point? Dale taught me to make PB&J when I was a kid, and Nicholas taught me to do cannonballs in the pool. I don’t want to share her with them either.”
“That’s not at all the same.”
“That’s exactly the same. Hired help—that’s what Vince is. He drives the car, and he watches your back.” It feels shitty to say, to boil down what he does to something so simple, but the point remains the same.
“Fine, if that’s all he is, you can take over looking for Carter.
You can use your many connections to track him down and then dispose of him afterward.
And I don’t just mean kill him. You need to handle him afterward so that he isn’t found, so that it’s not tracked back to us, to Kat.
I’ll let her know you’ll be gone a few days a week.
She’s more than welcome to sleep with me on those nights. ”
He’s calm, but I can see the fire that rages in his eyes as he looks at me. Daring me to say something stupid, and I do because that’s kind of what I do.
“I could handle taking him out,” I say, ignoring the other bit. He’s trying to bait me, and I hate how good a job he’s doing.
He laughs, but there’s no humor in it, and I sink into the chair with my arms crossed as I glare at him.
“You can’t even manage to stay out of the tabloids for more than two days, and you think you have the capabilities to dispose of a body without being seen?”
I hate when he’s right. I hate it even more that it happens so often.
He turns his attention back to the paperwork in front of him, essentially dismissing me, and I take the hint.
“Have you considered that maybe Kat wouldn’t mind Vince’s attention?”
His question stops me in my tracks, hand on the doorknob.
“Vince is a good man, and in all the years I’ve known him, I’ve never seen him show true interest in a woman.
Kat is good for us, and I think she would be good for him as well.
If she wants him, you won’t stand in the way.
Kat’s a big girl. She can decide what she wants.
If you can’t handle it, you can see your way out of the equation. ”