Page 110 of Lace 'em Up

His hand drops to his side, snapping his notebook closed, clipping the pen onto the cover. “What are you talking about?” He tucks them away. “I’m fine.”

Liar.

“The team’s finally getting itself together—no thanks to more than a few people behind the scenes who need to get their shit together or get the fuck out,” he says. “But I don’t have time to get into that. Let’s figure out the rest of this so I can get to my meeting.”

Gruff words, but I don’t miss the tightening of his shoulders, the muscle flicking in his cheek.

Be brave and kind.

Kind isn’t the problem. I’d fight a war for this man, to protect that big heart hidden inside the often grumpy and stern exterior. What he’d done for his daughter, for me, for so many others in his periphery was astronomical. And now that Angela, his ex-wife, had popped up back in his life, throwing so many parts of it into chaos, he might need a fairy godmother of his own.

And…

Maybe I needed to be the one to return the favor.

So…now it’s on to brave.

“I’m talking about your ex-wife showing up.”

He stills, teeth clicking together audibly.

I touch his shoulder. “Are you doing okay with her being around again?” After leaving him and Chrissy when Chrissy was a baby and being MIA until recently…

And now trying to contest a divorce that had been granted years before.

Because if it wasn’t final, then the assets she could get her hands on?—

Well, Phillip might have fucked with me, might have wronged me terribly.

But Chrissy’s mom?

Angela might fuck with Jean-Michel, with Chrissy, and with everyone under the umbrella of Jean-Michel’s many businesses.

The pressure to keep it all together must be?—

Astronomical.

Plus, Angela is as much of a bitch as my stepmom, Cathy.

“I’m fine,” he says again.

“Right,” I tell him, crossing my arms and fixing him with what I’ve begun to think of as my Cactus Queen glare, “and that sounds so convincing.”

To Jean-Michel’s credit—although that muscle in his jaw ticks again—he doesn’t snap at me. Instead, he exhales, shakes his head, and turns for the door. “There’s an apartment in my building that’s opened up.” A glance over his shoulder. “Since Mama Bang headed home and you don’t need to play make-believe anymore.”

Nothing else could have stopped me in my tracks quite as effectively.

Something I know he knows since he pauses, rotates to fully face me, and turns the tables.

Effectively.

Confidently.

Because…

That’s Jean-Michel.

“Unless, it’s not pretend.”

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