Chapter Seventeen
Avery checked his watch. Ten ’til eight.
He’d hoped to be out of here a long time ago to have dinner with Jo and hear about her day, but the walk-through with Whitaker’s people had taken longer than he’d thought.
Then Nick had called a post-merger debriefing, so Avery’d been catching up on some other things to kill time before he left to meet his brothers across the street at Liquid Assets.
Which was odd. Not the meeting, but the location. Nick never hung out at L.A. In fact, other than an occasional family gathering or drinks in his office at the end of the day, Nick didn’t hang out with them. Not anymore. Not since Julie, anyway.
Avery was all for his brother rejoining the land of the living if that was what this was about. Just not tonight.
“Before I go, here’s the LPM from the last few days.” Zach set a stack of low priority mail several inches thick on Avery’s desk. Everything else had been couriered to his condo. “Nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow, except the one on top. It’s time sensitive.”
“Thanks. Go home.” Avery eyed the purple envelope with blobs of silver glitter. The return address read Mr. & Mrs. Walter Hayes with a post office box in Jeopardy, Texas. Why would he be getting mail from Jo’s parents?
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
The seal already broken—Zach opened all his mail—Avery pulled out an invitation to the wedding of their daughter, Georgia. Jo had a sister? And who got married on April Fool’s Day? And why would they invite him? They didn’t even know him.
Yeah, that’s a no.
But he’d let Jo explain why to her family. They’d be broken up by then, and he’d be in Greece on his annual trip with the Sigmas. Such was the plan, and he was sticking to it.
For now, he’d make the most of every second he had left with her. Starting with tonight.
If he ever made it home.
He crammed the invitation in his laptop bag and headed across the street. They’d never done a post-merger meeting before, so the request reeked of another ambush.
Sure enough, all three of his brothers were already waiting.
Avery slid into the empty seat between Marcus and Spencer. “If this is another meeting just to bust my balls, fuck y’all. I’m out.”
He almost hoped it was, so he’d have an excuse to bounce.
“Just the opposite, in fact.” Nick pushed a glass of whiskey across the table toward Avery.
“I wanted to congratulate everyone on another job well done.” He lifted his glass.
“To Spencer for laying the foundation, Marcus for keeping morale high with a positive campaign, and Avery for figuring out how to provide a better salary for Whitaker’s staff at the eleventh hour.
Thank you for working your asses off on this one. ”
Slow to raise his glass, Avery waited for the “but” to drop, but glasses clinked, and Nick sank deeper into his chair.
He looked tired, the faint lines around his eyes deeper.
He hadn’t included himself in the toast, but he’d been on the front line, taking the brunt of Whitaker’s demands and shoving back when necessary.
They could all use a diversion, and Avery was ready to get home to his.
Poised to push out of his chair, muscles tight, Avery slugged back the whiskey.
“I’ve missed this.” Nick caught a server’s attention and indicated another round. “It’s been a while since it was just the four of us without some agenda to discuss.” Nick glanced at Avery. “Or someone’s balls to bust.”
Avery’s ass melted onto the hard wooden seat as if it knew he wasn’t going anywhere.
Fuck.
Marcus and Spencer chuckled as the server set four tumblers on the table.
Avery sipped at this one. He had to drive home. “At least I’ve got balls to bust.” He inclined his chin at Spencer. “Melody has yours in her purse, and Charlotte…” He turned to Marcus. “She’s had yours in a vise for years.”
Marcus grinned. “Yeah, well, my balls are—”
“Hey, Avery.” The familiar voice slithered down his spine, and a hand trailed from one shoulder to another, the touch intimate and fucking irritating. “I thought it was you.”
Pivoting in his chair to dislodge her grip on his shoulder, he came face to tits with Tits.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“I haven’t seen you around lately,” she said, a pout on her unnaturally oversized red lips.
“I’ve been busy.” He didn’t want to, but courtesy demanded he introduce her. “Hilary Brant. My brothers—Spencer, Marcus, and Nick. We’re waiting for a client.”
“Then I won’t keep you.” She shifted closer. “I’ll be here a while if you want to join me when you’re done.”
A cloud of perfume and the repercussion of a bad decision lingered in her wake, and he stifled a groan as he faced three sets of questioning gazes.
Nick grunted. “A client, huh?”
Avery rubbed a hand over his face. “Yeah, sorry, but fuck, she’s everywhere. I can’t shake her.”
Marcus frowned. “I thought Jo was the one with the stalker.”
Stretching out his legs, Avery waved a dismissive hand. “She’s got hers. I’ve got mine. Maybe we should introduce them.”
“I talked to Hardy last night.” Elbows on the arms of his chair, Nick steepled spread fingers over his stomach.
“He’s got someone on his team watching her ex and a lead on the tweaker, but the guy’s all over the place.
Probably thinks Hardy’s man is a cop.” He tapped his steepled fingers.
“I also called Commissioner Harris this morning to see if he could get the police to take this more seriously.”
“And?”
“He called me back this afternoon. Said the apartment manager let them in, but the place had been cleaned out. Know anything about that?”
Avery winced. “Jo didn’t think anything would come of the investigation, and frankly neither did I. We cleaned up yesterday.”
Nick sighed. “So, no hope of fingerprints.”
“That might not be the case.” Adrenaline hummed in his veins. “I have an old broken mixer in my truck they might be able to pull prints from it.”
Marcus looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “Explain why you would keep a broken mixer.”
He hadn’t been able to bring himself to throw it away. “It was Jo’s grandmother’s. Seeing it smashed up hit her pretty hard. I thought I’d see if it could be restored.”
Spencer choked on whiskey and a laugh.
Marcus hid a grin behind his glass.
Ignoring his asshole brothers, Avery looked at Nick. “I’ll call Officer Benning and set up a time to take it in.”
Nick nodded. “How’s she holding up?”
“As well as can be expected for someone who’s lost their job and had their home ransacked by some fucker with an obsession. But she’s strong. She’s focused on getting her business going, and I have Zach looking for an apartment for her.”
Among a few other things he’d rather not go into.
Nick narrowed his gaze on Avery, his steepled fingertips tapping. “So her stay with you is transitory?”
The question came out of nowhere, firing up Avery’s defenses. “Your memory must be failing, old man. I told you Jo and I are fake dating, remember?”
“Does she?”
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
“I’m not sure what you’re implying, but she didn’t plan all this as some nefarious plot to bring down the Preston empire, and if you think that—”
“Take it easy.” All humor gone, Marcus leaned a forearm on the table. “We like Jo. It’s still the situation we’re concerned about.”
“What about it?”
“Melody stopped by the office after leaving your place.” Spencer rolled his empty glass in between his fingers, then leaned forward to discard it. “They had a good time, so thanks for that, but she’s worried about Jo.”
“Why?” Avery sat forward. His first thought was that her psycho stalker had found her. He’d thought she’d be safe at his condo, especially with the girls there. “What happened?”
“Nothing happened. She’s concerned that Jo’s catching feelings for you.”
“Why would she think that?”
“The conversation you two had when you were leaving supposedly looked intense but ‘tender,’ ” Spencer said, making air quotes, “and the way Jo looked at you was ‘gooey.’ ”
Marcus scoffed. “Charlotte used the word ‘adoring.’ ”
A black cloud of dread stirred in Avery’s gut. Gooey? Adoring? All he’d seen was irritation, remorse, and heat. Had he missed something?
Nah. “They saw what they wanted to see. It was all part of the act.”
“She also said that,” Marcus went on, “when the subject of your visit to the club came up and everyone was throwing shade, Jo came to your defense and shut it down.”
“At least someone has my back,” Avery muttered under his breath, both irritated that he’d been the topic of their man bashing and warmed by Jo’s not-so-surprising loyalty. For all the shit she gave him about his fuckboy lifestyle, she seemed to genuinely see him for who he was and liked him anyway.
“We all have your back.” Nick reached for his glass. “We just want you to be careful or someone’s going to get hurt.”
“No one is getting hurt.” But the cloud grew, gathering force. “Three more weeks, and we’ll be done.”
“And how do you see this thing ending?” Nick was a persistent motherfucker.
Avery lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “It just will. She’ll move on with her life, a little more secure than before. I’ll move on with mine with no one riding my ass to the altar.”
Marcus jabbed a finger at him. “Just make sure your breakup doesn’t fuck up Charlotte’s plans or I swear my boot will be so far up your ass—”
“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure it’s an amicable parting.” We’re all reasonable adults. Right?
“Just be careful.” Nick turned to Marcus. “How are the wedding plans going?”
Avery tuned out the rest of the conversation, the doubt his brothers had manifested crowding his thoughts. It stayed with him even after they called it a night and the entire way home.
Instead of the charge of excitement he’d felt all day to see Jo, he entered the condo feeling guarded and unsure of their plan. It was dark. Quiet. Empty. And smelled like vanilla. Like Jo.