Page 54 of Lawless in Leather

It only took fifteen minutes before Brady and Luis arrived. Raina let them in, and Brady headed straight for her computer.

“What did it say?” he demanded.

She shook her head. “I didn’t read it.”

Brady fixed her with his bright-blue eyes. Which were suddenly a very steely shade of bright blue. “Honestly?”

“Yes. I don’t want to know.”

“You can’t just ignore him,” Luis said.

“Why not?”

“Well, for one thing, someone slashed your tires. And now your crazy ex is back in the picture. You need to tell Mal.”

“Oh no. There’s no telling Mal.”

That earned her identical exasperated looks from both men.

“If you don’t tell Mal,” Brady said, “I will.” Luis backed up this statement with an emphatic nod, as if to say And if he doesn’t, I will.

Crap. See, this was why she should have listened to reason when it came to Mal and kept things professional. If he was merely her boss then she wouldn’t hesitate to tell him about Jeremy. But now, now that he’d been in her bed, she didn’t want to dump the crazy of her past life on him any more than she already had. She wanted uncomplicated. Mal in white-knight mode—and she had no doubt that he would want to charge in and fix things, take control of the situation—would only make things complicated.

“Mal has more important things on his mind than Jeremy. Besides, he’s in Baltimore with the team.”

“They have these devices that let you communicate with people far away now,” Luis said, deadpan. “You may have heard of them? They’re called phones.”

“Ha ha. Okay, how about this. We read the email. If it’s anything alarming—my definition of alarming—I’ll call Mal. If it’s not, then I’ll wait and tell him when he gets back from Baltimore.”

They frowned at her.

“Are you two practicing identical expressions now that you’re married?” she said, trying to lighten the mood a little. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t tell Mal. Just that if what’s in the email isn’t?—”

“The fact that he’s emailing at all is alarming,” Brady said.

“He wants me to be alarmed,” Raina said. “If we react like the sky is falling, if he thinks he’s freaked me out, then he wins.” She produced a frown of her own. “And he’s not going to win.”

“So tell Mal. He’s got a security company. He must eat jerks like Jeremy for breakfast. Tell him and he’ll take care of it. Simple,” Brady said.

“I don’t need saving,” Raina snapped.

“No, but nothing wrong with asking for a little help,” Brady said mildly.

She bit back the mixture of fury and panic rising in her throat. Brady and Luis were here to help. They meant well. They weren’t trying to take over. But still, she was going to deal with this problem her way. She took a deep breath and went to the computer to open the damned email.

It was short.

Looking good, R. Nice gig you scored.

On the face of it, that was a perfectly polite message. But she knew Jeremy. This was his way of telling her that he had his eye on her again. And the nice gig was the sort of subtle putdown he used to use on her all the time. Implying she couldn’t have gotten the job without sleeping with someone. Because he couldn’t imagine anyone getting ahead just because they worked hard and earned things. But she knew the truth.

Brady and Luis were leaning over her shoulders, reading along.

“See,” she said, sitting straighter. “Nothing terrible. I’ll tell Mal when he gets back.”

“If Jeremy sends anything else, you’ll let us know?”

“Yes. I’m not an idiot.” She knew if Jeremy did send anything else and she told them, they’d be beating down Mal’s door with the news. And she would be hot on their heels. But she wasn’t going to run scared from one email. She would ignore him, as she had ignored his existence for several years, and not let him turn her life into fear again.

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