Hard Rules (Dirty Money #1)(17)

“Drugs?”

“Yes. Drugs. He won’t stay clean. Addiction is an evil monster that comes in many forms.”

“Yes,” she whispers, delicately clearing her throat. “Yes. It is.”

She cuts her gaze, hiding what I might find in her eyes, her response suggesting the topic is personal to her and I wonder if that has anything to do with her coming to Denver alone. “Have you ever lived downtown in a major city?”

“No. Why?”

“I’ve traveled enough to know that every downtown located in a major metropolis is packed with convenience, but also comes with a rough side. I was with you tonight, but you never know when you’ll run into another Joe, or someone with worse intentions.”

“I’m always careful.” She cuts me a look. “As you can tell, considering I’m going home with a stranger tonight.”

“I’m not a stranger. You know where I work. You know a restaurant I frequent and plenty of people saw us together. And by the way, Jeffrey’s really does make a damn good plate of ravioli. You would have liked it.”

“It smelled and looked amazing but…” She hesitates. “I guess it’s good we didn’t decide to stay. I’m sorry about your father.”

“Yes well, it really shouldn’t have surprised me the way it did. I mean this is a man I caught f*cking our neighbor, my buddy’s mother, on our kitchen counter when I was sixteen.”

“Oh God. That must have been a nightmare for you.”

“It wasn’t one of my brighter moments.”

“I’d say it’s more like it wasn’t one of your father’s brighter moments. But your mother stayed?”

“Yes. She stayed.”

“So, they worked it out. Are you sure this dinner was inappropriate?”

“Inappropriate is about as ‘appropriate’ as it gets,” I say, remembering the way the woman was hanging on my father and wishing like hell I hadn’t opened the door for more questions I won’t answer.

But she doesn’t ask another question, instead summing things up perfectly with, “Then he’s an *.”

“Yes,” I agree. “He’s an *.” Silently adding, An * dying of cancer. And yet he seems to revel in pissing people off and watch them catapult their anger to guilt.

“I love horses,” she says, as a carriage pulled by a black gelding passes by us. “And this one is quite beautiful.”

“Have you been around horses?”

“My father loved to ride. I love to ride.” I’m curious about this side of her, but she’s already moving on. “I’m glad the carriages only work the section of Sixteenth closed to traffic. The animals seem well cared for too.”

“Unlike the ones in New York City,” I say, reluctantly allowing her to divert the topic from herself. “My apartment was right next to Central Park. Those poor animals are in the middle of traffic getting their hoofs beat to hell.”

“You lived in Manhattan?”

“Yeah. I moved there right out of law school and stayed there until I moved back to Denver last year.”

She stops dead in her tracks and turns to look at me. “You’re an attorney?”

“Didn’t I mention that?”

“No. You did not mention that. You sat there and listened to me talk about law school and you didn’t say a word.”

I step to her, my hands settling at her waist, under the jacket. “I’m telling you now.”

“What kind of law?”

“Corporate.”

“Where’d you go to school?”

“Harvard.”

She gapes. “Harvard? You went to Harvard?”

“Yes. I went to Harvard.”

“And then you were recruited out of college to work in New York?”

“That’s right.”

“Money or passion?” she asks.

My brows dip. “What?”

“Are you in it for the money or the passion?”

“Why can’t I have both?”

“Is that possible?”

“Not always. But sometimes.” I study her a moment, and that sexy trepidation I’ve noticed several times before has returned with a vengeance. “Emily,” I say softly, lifting my chin toward our destination. “We’re ten feet from the building, and my car, which means us leaving together, and we aren’t moving any closer to achieving that goal. Is this nerves or second thoughts?”

“I really want to know about you and Harvard and—”

“Understood. And I’ll tell you, but we’re still standing here.”

She glances at the building and then back to me. “I wasn’t, but now that you just pointed all of that out, I am. It’s been a while and you’re…”

“I’m what?”

“You. You’re just you, and don’t ask me to explain that because like you, I can’t.”

There is something so damn sweet about this woman that hits all the right spots and I reach over and caress hair from her face. “We’re going to be good together. We already are. I feel it. You have to feel it, too. Do you feel it?”

“Yes,” she says. “I do.”