Adored (Masters and Mercenaries #8.5)(46)

Was she? She wanted the baby. She knew that, but it was hard to be happy about it when Mitch didn’t want to talk about baby things. Every time she brought up things like nurseries or baby names, he shifted the conversation to something different, saying they had plenty of time to discuss it. They needed to live in the now and let the future work itself out.

She was getting sick of living in the now.

“That’s great. I know you don’t know me very well, but I would love to know my niece or nephew.”

She sat up straight. Maybe it was time someone knew Flynn Adler. “I would like that, too. Are you married?”

He shook his head. “No. I run the family company. I don’t have time to date. We’re moving into a couple of new and exciting areas. I always wanted to run R&D, but I was needed in management. Chase is a better programmer anyway. He’s incredible. I’m worried he won’t make it out of high school. He’s had some trouble with drugs. It scares the hell out of me.”

Flynn seemed like a man who had the weight of the world on his shoulders. He reminded her a little of her brother. There had been a time when Will had to juggle school and work and being a dad because they didn’t have one. “Where is your mother in all this?”

“She’s in Monaco with her second husband, who happens to be younger than me. Chase’s mom died of breast cancer a few years back. We’re all that’s left. I seem to be failing at raising a teenage boy. I don’t know how to get through to him. I can’t make him understand that life isn’t high school.”

He was alone. “Would it help at all if I talked to your father? I can’t promise you that Mitch will, but I can at least tell him about the baby and how well Mitch is doing professionally.”

Flynn had his cell phone out in a heartbeat. “I can’t tell you how much that would help.” He punched in a few numbers. “Hey, Dad. Guess who I’m talking to?”

A few minutes later she took the phone and had a long talk with the grandfather of her child.





Chapter Nine



Mitchell looked around the small apartment and thanked god Laurel hadn’t been here. Someone had kicked in her door and then taken a knife to the place. Her furniture was slashed all to hell, pictures broken, all her dishes smashed.

Lisa walked in, her eyes red. She’d been the one to call the police, and then Derek Brighton had immediately contacted Li. It had been a good thing to let Derek know McKay-Taggart was on the case. Otherwise, it might have been hours before he would have been notified.

Lisa walked right up to him and threw her arms around his waist, crying. “Who would do this, Mitch? Who would try to hurt her like this?”

The good news was he was totally getting used to dealing with crying Daley women. He was sure at one point in time he would have hesitated, but now he simply hugged her back. She was Laurel’s sister and he was Laurel’s…damn. Well, he was Laurel’s Dom and it was his job to comfort her sister and that was that.

How would they view him after a while? He knew the whole Daley family thought they were only months away from a wedding. Would Lisa seek comfort from him if he knew he and her sister were never going to get married?

He pushed the thoughts aside because only one thing mattered now and that was dealing with the problem in front of him. The police were busy, taking pictures, looking for fingerprints.

“This isn’t about her. It’s about me,” he explained to Lisa. “And I’m going to fix it.”

She stepped back. “It’s about you?”

“Someone doesn’t want me working on the contract I’m writing at the moment.”

Her jaw firmed and a stubborn light hit her eyes. “Well, screw them. You can’t back down.”

The Daley women were a bit stubborn too, he’d learned. Oh, they could be sneaky, but they tended to get their way. He wasn’t an idiot. He knew the mashed potatoes Laurel served hadn’t had a damn potato in them. He suspected cauliflower was the culprit. But she’d looked so excited about it, he’d played along.

He’d specifically requested she stop nagging him about his diet. Not requested. Ordered. And he hadn’t even thought about punishing her for lying. He’d smiled like an idiot and eaten every semi-nasty bite, and then found out that Laurel’s version of brownies contained something that wasn’t sugar, but also wasn’t half bad, and he hadn’t disciplined her for that either.

“I’m not going to back down. I’m making a lot of money on this contract and I’ll need it. Besides, me backing down only sends the problem along to someone else. I’d rather catch this guy and make him pay.” He nodded as Derek stepped out of the kitchen with Liam.

“Mitchell, we haven’t been able to get hold of Laurel,” Derek said. “We were hoping you would know where she is.”

She’d texted him and told him she was going to lunch with a friend at the deli close to work. “Her phone was dying. Something’s wrong with her battery. It’s being replaced this afternoon. She texted me she would be out of pocket for an hour or so right before Liam and Kai showed up. Where are Kai and the big guy?”

“Kai took Tag to lunch. I can’t let him go into a meeting hungry. He tends to eat the clients. Derek will give me a ride back to the office,” Li explained. “Lisa called it in. She has a unit at the end of the hall. She was coming back from a class and noticed the door was open.”