Chapter Seven
COOPER
No answer. I knew she was home. After the incident at Knox’s place on Friday, I’d put a tracker in her purse. Paranoid, yes. But as we’d all learned the hard way, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.
If any of Tsepov’s men had seen my mad rush to get Alice to the hospital they knew they could get to me through her. I’d needed to know she was safe.
During dinner, my phone had beeped with an alert that her car had left the garage.
I didn’t need to track it to know she was headed to Zumba, or dance class, or one of the varied things she did to have fun and stay in shape.
A second alert came an hour and a half later when her car had reentered the garage.
She might already be asleep. Neither of us had gotten much of that over the weekend. Just because I was half desperate to get inside her again didn’t mean she couldn’t use a break. She was probably sore. Exhausted. And I was a thoughtless asshole. One night away from her wouldn’t kill me.
My cock insisting that a night away from her would definitely kill me, I went back upstairs to my place. I debated texting but couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound desperate or stalker-ish.
I thought about watching a movie or going to bed early. Instead, I wandered my place, restless and out of sorts. I wanted Alice. Her smile. Her laugh. Her way of putting everything in perspective, so all of it—the dinner with my mother, problems with my father—didn’t seem as overwhelming.
I picked up my phone and pulled up her name in the messaging app and stared at the screen. She might be asleep, but if she was awake, I just wanted to see her. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d struggled with what to say to a woman. Junior high, maybe?
Alice wasn’t just any woman. She was Alice. I knew her better than anyone. This should be easy.
As I deliberated, my phone vibrated in my hand. An alert from the tracker in Alice’s purse. Her car had just pulled out of the garage.
What the fuck? It was almost eleven o’clock. Alice didn’t go to bed early, but neither was she a night owl. Too many nights I’d come home late and her car was always tucked into the garage as it should be.
So what the fuck was she doing leaving at eleven o’clock at night?
All thoughts of not seeming like a stalker fled my mind as I hit her contact on the screen. When she answered, her voice was cautious. Careful. “Hey.”
“What the hell are you doing? It’s after eleven.”
“Yeah, Dad, I know that. I have a clock on my dashboard.”
“Cut the sarcasm, Alice. Where are you going at eleven o’clock at night? Until we know for sure that Tsepov has backed off, I don’t want you out there on your own, especially this late at night.”
“Are you going to send a guard with me to dance class?”
“I’m considering it,” I admitted, “but there’s a difference between dance class at six-thirty and heading out to—where the fuck are you going at eleven-fifteen at night?”
“Look, it’s not a big deal. I’ll be back before you know it.”
“Alice,” I ground out. “Talk.”
A long exhalation before she said gently, “I ran into your mom in the hall. She asked me to go pick some stuff up for her. I knew you didn’t want her driving around so—”
I didn’t need Alice to explain. I already knew her story was a whitewashed version of the truth.
She hadn’t run into my mother in the hall.
My mother had banged on her door and demanded that Alice go out, not to get her stuff, but to buy her alcohol.
Because, apparently, the six bottles of wine in the pantry of her apartment weren’t enough.
“You’re going to the liquor store, aren’t you?”
Another sigh. “Coop, it’s okay. I know how she is.”
“You’re not an errand girl, Alice.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s actually part of my job description,” she said, trying to infuse humor into the conversation. I wasn’t in the mood.
My mother had been drinking all night. I didn’t have to imagine the way she’d probably spoken to Alice, treating her like less than the dirt under her shoes. I knew why my mother hated Alice, even understood it, but that didn’t mean I’d let her get away with it.
“I’ll see you when you get back,” I said. “Stay alert. So far, I think Tsepov is on the level and this is all about Dad now, but I don’t want to take any chances.”
“Got it, boss.”
When she called me boss in that saucy tone it went straight to my cock.
The half-hour it took for her to hit the liquor store and get home stretched far too long. I went downstairs the second her car hit the garage. Alice walked out of the elevator, her arms loaded with two bulging brown paper bags. Seeing me, she stopped short. “Cooper. It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay.”
Striding ahead of her, I knocked lightly on my mother’s door and stepped to the side, out of view. The door swung open so fast my mother must have been standing there, waiting. The look on her face sliced into my heart. Disdain at the sight of Alice. Relief at the heft of those brown paper bags.
“It took you long enough.”
I could have guessed how she spoke to Alice when they were alone. Hearing it was worse than I’d imagined. I stepped into view and my mother blanched.
Angry words threatened to spill out of my mouth. I clenched my jaw and inhaled slowly before I said, “When you finish drinking all of that, let me know, and I’ll send someone to restock. Do not ask Alice to run errands for you again. Understand?”
My mother jutted her chin in the air. “I don’t see what the problem is. It’s her job.”
“It is very much not her job,” I corrected.
“Alice manages the office. She was kind enough to take time out of her day to stock your pantry and get the apartment ready, but keeping you in liquor is not on her list of responsibilities. If you need something, call me. Not Alice. Tell me you understand, Mom.”
My mother lifted her chin even higher, until, for a second, I thought she’d lose her balance and fall backward. Without a word, she walked back into the apartment, the door open behind her.
Relieving Alice of her burdens, I said, “Stay here.”
I followed my mother into the apartment and set the paper bags on the kitchen counter.
Digging into my reserves of patience, I said, “Mom, we need to be careful. Tsepov said he’d leave us alone, but we can’t trust him. I don’t want anybody going out at night by themselves. Not you. Not Alice. We’re trying to keep you safe. Please don’t make it harder.”
My mother didn’t respond, too busy pulling out a bottle of gin, slicing a lime, and pouring tonic. Her drink assembled, she lifted it and took a long sip, giving me a cool, appraising glance.
“I never knew what your father saw in her. She’s odd and not particularly pretty. Now she’s got her hooks in you. Be smart, Cooper. If you want to be the head of this family, you can’t get trapped by some nobody. Get what you want from her if you have to, but don’t be a fool about it.”
I stared down at my mother, my teeth clenched hard enough to crack, holding back the words I wanted to say. Words I couldn’t speak to the woman who’d given birth to me.
Finally, I managed, “I am the head of the family. And who I get involved with is none of your business. I meant what I said before. Don’t ever talk about Alice that way again.”
My mother rolled her eyes in exasperation “This is what happens when I try to live a life of my own. I leave town and the next thing I know your brother’s with a nobody who has a criminal for a father.
Knox is off with some woman who has a child.
” She raised her eyes to the ceiling as if praying for the strength to deal with such an assault on the family honor.
Taking another sip and pinning me with her bloodshot eyes, she accused, “I don’t know how you could have let that happen to Knox. That woman is not our kind. And now here you are, sleeping with the help. It’s so trite, Cooper. I raised you better than this.”
No, I wanted to say, the nanny raised me. You were too busy being Maxwell Sinclair’s wife to bother raising anyone.
Instead, I said, “Sleep tight, Mom.”
I left, shutting the door gently behind me. The hall was empty, but Alice’s door was open a few inches. I found her in the kitchen stirring honey into a cup of herbal tea, her clothes discarded in favor of a fuzzy pink robe. She shoved the mug of tea in my hand when I walked in.
Before I could open my mouth, she said, “I’m sorry. I should have called. She was agitated. I figured dinner was rough and you needed a break. But I should’ve called.”
I took a sip of the sweet, fragrant tea, the compassion in her eyes easing the knot in my chest. “No, I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to put up with that. The way she talks to you—”
“Cooper, you don’t have to apologize for your mother.” She turned to put away the honey and box of tea bags. “I don’t know why she hates me so much, but it doesn’t really matter. The list of people she likes is so short, I don’t mind not being on it.”
I stared at her back and wanted to ask, How can you not know why she hates you? More than anyone, Alice should know exactly why my mother hated her. The tone of her voice was so guileless, it was as if she really, truly had no clue.
It was so long ago, maybe she’d forgotten. God knows I’d decided to forget years ago. If it didn’t matter to me, why should it matter to her? Except that it still clearly mattered to my mother. Either way— “She can’t talk to you like that.”
“Cooper,” Alice slipped her arms around my waist, tipping her head to look up at me.
“She’s a lonely, bitter, unhappy woman. Should she be less of a bitch?
Of course. No one should behave that way.
I don’t have the mental energy to hold it against her.
She’s never going to like me. That’s fine. I don’t particularly like her either.”
I set the mug of half-finished tea on the counter and dropped my mouth to the top of her head, kissing her hair. I had no words. Thank you was inadequate. My chest was tight with a swirling mass of need, and affection, and something so big I wasn’t ready to give it a name.
“How was class?” I asked.
“A little boring. I don’t think I’m a ballet kind of girl. I might go back to Zumba. Or kickboxing. I liked kickboxing.”
“I’ll give you a kickboxing class,” I offered, my mind latching onto the picture of Alice in tight workout gear, grappling with me on the mat.
Reading my mind, she laughed. “Somehow I don’t think we’d end up doing much kickboxing.”
“Maybe not,” I agreed.
I slid my hands beneath her robe, trailing the backs of my fingers over the tops of her breasts, her soft skin warm against mine.
“Are you sore?” I hadn’t needed Alice to tell me it’d been a long time since she’d had sex, never mind that much sex in two short days.
“A little. Pliés were not fun.”
I slid my hand around to cup her ass, leaning over to reach down that far. I loved her size, but the difference in our heights was awkward when we were both standing. Wrapping an arm around her shoulders, I hooked the other beneath her legs and scooped her up.
“I can do something about that. But I’m going to have to take a closer look.”
“Whatever you say, boss.”
Yeah, my cock liked it when she called me boss. It liked it a lot.