Page 10 of Her Bad Boy

"Hold on. Wait just a minute."

"Let go of my hand," she ground out, wishing her voice wasn't trembling so, but adrenaline was warring with the need to either faint or throw up, and as much as she did want to get away from him, she wasn't sure that she'd be able to remain standing once she got up.

She looked alarmingly pale, and Lucas released her hand immediately, noting that it was clammy. "Allie, wait," he commanded sharply, adding, "please," very belatedly.

And, to his surprise—and delight, he would realize later—she stopped her frantic flight.

"Now, I know what I said upset you and I'm sorry for that. But you look as if you're going to drop any minute. You're perfectly safe, I promise you. Please take a moment and take a deep breath. I won't touch you again, but I will take you back to your car and follow you home."

He was as good as his word—foregoing the courtesies she had liked originally on the way in—some of them because she had dashed ahead of him to the car despite how he had yelled after her to wait for him. Allie couldn't even worry about the fact that he had ended up paying for a meal that she had owed him. She just wanted to get home. This man was much too potent for someone who was essentially a beginner. If she ever became involved with someone again—and she highly doubted that she would—he would need to come with training wheels, not rocket fuel.

When they had made it to the parking lot where her condo was, she got stopped by a nosy neighbor, but he pulled into her second spot and got out to wait for her as if he'd been there a thousand times.

That was another alarming thing he'd done.

"H-how did you know where I live?" she asked, walking slowly up the stairs of her stoop.

Lucas merely smiled in a manner that was almost—but not quite—benign, answering her question with one of his own, "Do you know where I live?"

Allie tried not to look shocked, not caring this time that she failed miserably.

As soon as she'd put her key in her lock and opened her door, she heard him say, with no trace of sarcasm in his tone, "Thank you for a wonderful evening, Miss Barstow."

And then he was gone, and she was left there, trying not to let him see her peeping out her window at him as he drove away, feeling excited and scared and elated and deflated at the same time, then realizing—starkly—that it would be much better for her health in so many ways if she didn't feel any of those things.

Not about him, anyway.

Chapter 4

It didn't help that she had to see him every day, although he was just as courteous as he always had been and never made her feel uncomfortable—just the opposite. At one point, she'd come in extra early and found her favorite coffee—just the way she liked it—sitting at her spot, with no one around. And, in what was a monumental shift in her consciousness, instead of throwing it away, as tainted by him and everything he represented, erring on the side of extreme caution in regards to ethics as she might have done mere days ago—she drank it.

But the case itself ended up being dismissed on a technicality and, along with it, her hopes of becoming first assistant D.A., he faded—slowly—back into that box again.

Until her birthday.

Laura had encouraged her to go out to celebrate—which she didn't usually do. She'd had parties and gifts while her parents were alive—she was, after all, a doted on, only child. But since they were gone, she'd more often spent the day working than anything else.

This time, though, Laura got her to actually take a day off—which Perry was only too happy to agree to, since she had almost enough leave accumulated to take an entire year off, if she wanted to—to do whatever she wanted. Laura had planned some things—a massage, Mani Pedi, etc.—but the rest of it was Allie's choice. They went to a couple of small museums she'd always wanted to see, stopped by a shop that sold folk art, had an outrageously caloric lunch of just appetizers and dessert at one of their favorite local restaurants where they'd always said they were going to do just that but then they always got sidetracked by the delicious entrees. Then, they caught a movie, eating an enormous tub of buttered popcorn—at a place that actually used real butter—into which they'd thrown a handful of milk duds, making it a chocolaty, decadent, salty, buttery mess of pure, unadulterated bliss.

Friends and coworkers met them at a very nice restaurant relatively early that evening for dinner and drinks, and Allie actually allowed herself to be talked into having a drink. Her friends looked at her as if she'd brought out a crack pipe and begun smoking in front of them when she'd ordered a Moscow mule, and then they'd proceeded to drink most of it under the guise of tasting it, which, of course, necessitated the ordering of another.

Because she was such a lightweight, Laura drove her home, and as soon as they turned into her parking lot, they could both see that there was something that was too big to be flowers or something like that waiting for her at her door, but Allie couldn't imagine what it might be.

Turned out it was a large crate—the kind one might place in the trunk of one's car—that contained a bunch of wrapped presents, as well as a couple of "Happy Birthday" balloons. There was no note.

Laura carried the crate in and put it between her friend's two rocker recliners.

"Any idea who this stuff is from?"

"None whatsoever," Allie replied, sinking into her chair.

"Well, start opening. I'm dying of curiosity. Something in there is heavy as fuck."

But Allie knew as soon as she'd unwrapped the first present both what was heavy and who had sent it. She had a good idea what the rest of the items were going to be, too, and she wasn't wrong. By the time she finished, the crate was full of an elaborate jump starter that did everything but windows, including inflate tires and charge her phone—although it weighed so much she wasn't sure she'd be able to lift it out of her trunk—a small, collapsible shovel, two yellow track things to help her get out if she got stuck, a tarp, safety blankets, and pretty much everything else she would ever need in case her car broke down.

And she didn't have cell service. Or AAA. And no one was ever going to come by. And she couldn't walk to civilization.

But it was a very thoughtful gift.

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