Impact (Suncoast Society #32)(7)

And Leo and Eva’s daughter, Laurel, and Eva and Crawford’s infant son, Kenny. Not to mention others in their closely knit group of friends.

When they arrived at Cris’ office, he shifted the car into park. Then he leaned in and kissed her before unfastening his seat belt. “Have a good day today, Redbird,” he softly said. “Be my good girl.”

“Yes, Sir.” The automatic response fell from her lips. Most of the world saw the hard side of Tilly Cardinal LaCroux.

They didn’t see this.

The true her.

The slave who wanted to curl up in the protection of her Master’s lap and let him fix the world for her.

She took his place in the driver’s seat. She was about to pull away from the curb when she realized Cris had left his personal cell phone in the center console, hooked into the hands-free system.

She honked and rolled down the passenger side window for him. “You forgot something,” she said with a smile as she held it up.

“Thanks, sweetheart.” He leaned in and took it from her. She used to tease him and Landry about having both business and personal cell phones.

Until she went to work for Lucas and Leigh. Now, she got it. Not only did she have two cell phones, she had two iPads, her personal one and the one she only used for work.

Tilly pulled out into traffic, trying to sort her day in her mind.





Leigh was already in the office and handling a phone call when Tilly arrived. Tilly went to her office and was getting organized to start her day when Leigh appeared in her doorway.

“Still won’t rent a car, huh?”

“What are you, psychic?”

“I saw you pull in driving Cris’ car. And you texted me that you were running late this morning, so I’m guessing you took him to work.”

Tilly sat back in her chair. “I’m not going to give that little f*cker ammo against me.”

“There is no ammo against you. It was an accident. You’ve already let Archie Lounds into your head and ceded him the game by not ignoring him. If he wants to make something up against you, he’ll make it up regardless. Hell, he’s made up worse shit about more famous people. It’s all right.”

“Yeah, and the less ammo I give him, the better.”

Tilly thought Leigh muttered stubborn damn Domme under her breath as she turned from Tilly’s office doorway.

The rest of the morning, fortunately, passed in a reasonably uneventful fashion.

Then Landry called her around lunch time.

“Pray tell, love, why won’t you rent a car?”

Tilly silently groaned. “I already went through this with Cris.”

“Yes, well, I’m asking you to go through this with me.”

Landry already knew about the car accident but he’d assumed—as had Cris—that Tilly would simply rent a car.

“Yes, I get it,” she said when she finished. “I’m stubborn and boneheaded and maybe it doesn’t make sense to you two, but I’m not renting a car when I don’t need to.”

Landry let out one of those sighs, one that made its way over the phone all the way from Florida.

“All right, Little Miss Stubborn,” he said. “Have it your way. I won’t even tell you ‘I told you so’ when you break down and rent one.”

“I’m not going to rent one.”

“Cris can go rent one, if he desires.”

“You did not overrule me. Tell me you didn’t.”

“Now, love. Would I do that?”

“Bullshit, yes, you would. Did you tell him to rent a car?”

“Not yet, I haven’t. I’m trying to decide how much satisfaction I can derive from your irritation all the way here in Florida.”

“You know, that’s sooo not fair.”

“I never said I was fair, love. I believe I made that perfectly clear to you when we got married.”

“You did, but I thought you were teasing.”

“Frankly, I’m beginning to think you’re just being stubborn on purpose.”

“Well, think what you want, Sir Fussypants. We had a deal not to mess with each other’s jobs.”

“True. But I could counter that you having to drive Cris to and from work is interfering with his job. And yours. You were late to the office this morning, were you not? Or should I call Leigh to ask her?”

Dammit.

“Don’t you go using logic on me, mister.”

Landry chuckled. “Love you, sweetheart. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Love you,” she grumbled before ending the call.

Damn Dom.

Later that afternoon, as Tilly was stuck in traffic while going to get Cris, she started to reconsider her stance. This was a major pain in the ass.

That is, until Cris greeted her with a smirk when she rolled up in front of his office building.

She knew that smirk. That smirk meant he thought he had the upper hand and she was about to capitulate.

“Ready to take me to the rental car place?”

She bristled. “No, we’re going home. Someone promised to cook me dinner tonight.”

His smirk faded, giving her satisfaction. “Seriously?”

“Uh, yeah. I’ve been looking forward to your chicken parm all—”