“Um,” Cheyenne tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “No, I…um…I have some things I need to do.”
“Okay, but I will see you at the bar tonight, right?”
“Yes.” She nodded and I noticed her shoulders relax.
The next thing I knew Billy turned to face me. Seeing this man from across a long table was one thing. Having him mere inches away, with his attention focused on me, was an entirely different proposition.
I put out my hand, struggling to keep it from trembling with all the hormones rushing through me. He grasped it, and it was all I could do to keep from gasping. The sensation of his warm, large, calloused fingers enveloping mine had my knees going all wobbly and my head spinning with dizzying desire.
Instead of shaking my hand like his brothers had done, he turned it until it was palm down and lifted it for a gallant kiss. His firm, soft lips pressed to my skin and my entire body exploded with tingling awareness.
I stood, speechless. The slow, easy kiss seemed to last for an eternity. Finally, he straightened and gave me a wink. “Will I see you there, tonight, too, lady lawyer?”
Lady lawyer. Normally, I’d be offended at the female distinction. I was a lawyer, not a lady lawyer. Just like women were bosses, not girl bosses. But somehow coming from Billy Comfort it sounded like audible foreplay. Or at least that’s how my lust-ridden brain was interpreting it.
What was happening to me? It wasn’t like me to be swayed by pretty words, not that they were particularly pretty. If anything, they fell on the side of condescending, but that was not how my body was taking them.
Maybe I actually was having a nervous breakdown triggered by an infusion of arousal.
I cleared my throat and reluctantly tugged my hand out of his. “My name is Reagan. Reagan York.”
“Reagan,” he repeated as his lips curled in the half-grin that I was already looking forward to seeing again. “Sorry, ’bout that, darlin’. I hadn’t caught your name. Will I see I see you there tonight, Reagan? Reagan York.”
I opened my mouth to say, “No, but thank you for the invitation,” and was as shocked as I could be to hear the word, “Maybe,” come out in a breathless sigh.
Maybe?
Okay, now I knew something was wrong. I was decisive. If I didn’t want to do something, I didn’t, and I never made apologies for it. On the flipside, if I wanted to do something, I did it.
And I didn’t want to do this…did I?
“Maybe, huh?” His grin widened and he winked. “I’ll take it.”
There were a million reasons why I shouldn’t go. This was a small town, and Nadia had made it clear that there were unwritten rules and that I needed to be careful, working for Jennings Abernathy.
She hadn’t gone into detail about what those rules were, but I certainly didn’t want to step in it on my first day. I still had small-town PTSD from living in a tiny Alabama town until I was eight. I remembered all too well just how ruthless and devastating the gossip could be.
I was new to this firm, and since I’d spent the past five years working for partners that I knew I’d never get any sort of recommendation from—because one of them was supposed to be my future father-in-law—the last thing I needed to do was mess this up. That alone was a good enough reason to stay away.
When I took into account the way this man affected me on a visceral level, though… Well, then I knew I should stay away.
Billy, totally unaware of the inner turmoil his invitation had caused in me, sauntered out of the conference room like he didn’t have a care in the world, and I kept my eyes steadfastly forward.
Do not look at his ass. Do not look at his ass. Do not look at his ass, I chanted inside my head.
I was almost successful. But in the end, I couldn’t help but steal one small peek as he rounded the corner to head off down the hall, and I was not disappointed.
“Thank you.”
I heard a soft voice, snapping me back to reality, and I turned to Cheyenne.
“I was really nervous about today, and you being here made it so much easier.”
“Of course. That’s my job. You didn’t mention that your brothers…” I trailed off as I thought about how to word it. “Didn’t know you’d be here,” I finished.
Color sprang up on her cheeks. “I wasn’t sure what to expect and I didn’t know how to explain it.”
I flashed her a grin. “Understandable.”
“Do you have a minute? To talk privately?”
I looked around the conference room. We were the only two people there but apparently she was looking for even more privacy. “Sure. Why don’t we go to my office?”
As we walked down the corridor, Daisy approached us, coming out of the break room. “Oh, is the meeting over?”
“Yes.” I nodded.
“Did everyone leave?” She craned her neck to look into the conference room.
“Ms. Comfort is still here,” I stated the obvious as I motioned toward Cheyenne.
“Oh right. But everyone else left?”
I had a gut feeling that Mr. Cocky might be the “everyone else” in this line of inquiry. I had no proof that was the case, but from the expression on her face, I was fairly certain. It got me wondering if there might be a connection to her not being at the front desk when Mr. Cocky was missing.
A nagging irritation rose up in me that I quickly filed under his lack of consideration for both his family’s and my time, but if I were being totally honest, the source might be more accurately attributed to jealousy. Which made zero sense and was not acceptable in any way.
“Right this way.” I stepped past Daisy and ushered Cheyenne into my office, trying to shake off the lingering thoughts of a certain cocky Comfort brother and his sexy half-grin. It was proving very difficult.
CHAPTER 5
Billy
Heat rose from the asphalt as I walked out to the parking lot with Jimmy and Hank. It was springtime and the weather was changing. Days and nights were getting hotter.
We were all silent. That wasn’t unusual for Hank, but it was strange as hell for Jimmy and me. I wasn’t sure if the cat that had our respective tongues was the finality of the will reading or the reappearance of our long-lost sister.
When we reached the point in the lot where it would’ve made sense to break off in different directions to our cars and still none of the three of us had said anything, we stopped in our tracks and just stood there, awkwardly.
It was a damn strange situation. I’d never been at a loss for what to say to my brothers, and they’d certainly never been short of words around me. It wasn’t like we always talked things out in the most civilized or levelheaded ways. Hell, sometimes we yelled until the walls shook, or worked out our differences with our fists. Pretty normal testosterone-driven stuff, especially for three brothers who’d been raised (more or less) by a drunk who had trouble taking care of himself, let alone them.
Yeah, it was clear from our normal mode of interaction that we’d lost the one civilizing influence in our lives when we’d lost our mother, and that any impact she’d been able to impart had been too early to overcome our more rough-and-tumble instincts after she was gone.
But this… Hell. This strained silence was something altogether new.