Hard Rules (Dirty Money #1)(33)

“Figuring it out as we go.”

“I’m not … I can’t…”

“We’ll figure it out.”

“No. No, we can’t. We said—”

“No PTA,” he supplies. “Just a lot of f*cking and whatever else we decide to let happen.”

“Shane—”

The doorbell rings. “And that will be the coffee I ordered. I was afraid mine would put hair on your chest and I like you how you are.” He kisses me fast and hard. “Meet me downstairs.” And just like that, he’s leaving and I’m staring after him, once again with my fingers on my mouth where his lips just were. I can’t do this. Can I? Maybe just another night or two won’t hurt. I can do that. I want to do it. I am doing it.

Charging forward before I change my mind, I exit the room, and hurry down what in the light of day is truly a stunning bamboo staircase attached to the wall. At the bottom level, Shane is nowhere to be found. I hurry to the bar to grab my purse and check my phone. The minute I reach the bar, I find him on the opposite side. “White mocha,” he says, setting a Starbucks-style cup in front of me. “That’s what they recommended downstairs.”

I reach for the cup. “Thank you.” This man is too charming for my own good. “It’s my favorite.” I take a sip. “And it’s excellent.”

His eyes light up. “Then I owe Tai an extra tip.”

Really too charming. “He didn’t mention a bra randomly falling on someone’s head did he?”

He laughs. “No. He didn’t, but that would be good for a laugh.”

“That would be humiliating.”

“They’d never know it was yours.” He lifts a bag. “Bagels. They make them here.”

“Don’t you have to be at work?”

“Eventually.”

One of my phones rings and I bend down to grab my purse and somehow—it’s unzipped and I end up pouring the contents everywhere. I squat and scramble to pick everything up, reaching for one phone, and then the other, but it’s too late. Shane is on a knee in front of me, and he’s got the second. He glances at it and at the one in my hand. “Two phones.”

Unease ripples through me. “I bought a new one when I lost mine.”

I can see his mind working, perhaps remembering me telling the guard the phone I’d lost was new. “Two new phones,” he says, confirming that’s exactly what he was thinking. “Talk to me, sweetheart. Let me help you.”

A ball of emotions tightens in my chest. “We’re sex, Shane. This isn’t your problem any more than I should have commented about you looking into your father’s date last night.” I shove the phone, as well as my compact back in my purse, holding out my hand. “Can I have that please?”

He stands with my phone and I follow him to my feet, slipping my purse over my head and across my body. We stare at each other, and those gray eyes study me, intensely gorgeous. I hate that I met him now, this way. “Shane—”

He steps to me, taking my hand and pressing the phone into it, holding on to it and me. “You’re right. It’s none of my business. Yet. But I plan to change that.”

“I don’t want you to change that.”

“Yes. You do.”

He’s wrong. Because I like him. Really like him and he’d most likely hate me if he knew the secret I’m hiding. “You don’t understand—”

“Make me understand.”

“It’s complicated. We both agreed we aren’t doing complicated.”

“I’m good at complicated, sweetheart. Try me.”

If only it were that simple. My phone starts to ring in our hands. “It could be about a job,” I say, grasping at a chance to breathe and think.

“Of course. We’ll talk when you’re done.”

Talk? I can’t talk to him about anything remotely close to the truth. He releases my hands and his own phone starts ringing. I glance at mine to discover a local number and quickly answer only to miss the call that had to be about a job. I wait for the message to beep when I hear Shane say, “You got to be f*cking kidding me. There’s a big tip for you keeping him in the lobby. I’ll be right there.” He ends the call, pocketing his phone. “Stay here. My father is trying to pay us a visit.”

“Oh my God. Why would he do that?”

“Because he’s my father.” His hands come down on my arms. “I’m sorry about this. Let me get rid of him before we leave.”

“I’ll be here waiting,” I say, wanting it to be the truth, but knowing it can’t be.

He steps around me and the voice mail on my phone beeps. I stare at it, waiting for the sound of the door shutting. The minute it does, I punch the button and listen to the call, letting out a sigh of relief. At least one of my problems is solved. I squeeze my eyes shut, rejecting the idea that Shane is officially another problem, but I can’t. I open my eyes again. I know his father showing up downstairs is my escape. I know I have to leave before he gets back, but I don’t want to be gone. I dig the second phone out of my purse, and punch in the only number I ever call on this phone.





SHANE


Watching the elevator floors tick by, I am certain of two things. I’m not letting Emily get away and I’m done playing my father’s games. The doors open, and I step into the hotel lobby to find my father leaning against the wall, his arms crossed in front of his black pinstriped suit, his red power tie in place and his white shirt starched, which can mean only one thing. He has a room in this hotel that he maintains, including a change of clothes. And damn it, I am as pissed at him as I am at that piece of shitty news, among other things, I still notice how thin he is, probably one eighty when he’d been two hundred pounds when I’d arrived last year.