Page 149 of Never Fall for an Angel

“From Marcus? I don’t want it. It’s blood money.”

“This is from your father.”

“So dead parent money,” I shake my head. I didn’t know my father. At least, not that I can remember. He passed in an accident when I was young.

Christian pulls to a stop in front of the old brick building downtown, looking at me before he gets out of the car.

“Think of it as money you didn’t know you had. Parker was holding it in an offshore account. It’s not a lot, but five thousand dollars is still five thousand dollars.”

“Why would Marcus be hiding my father’s money? And why does he have it in the first place?”

Christian cocks a brow at me.

“Does Parker do anything legally?”

“Touché.”

He chuckles, climbing out of the car, and I begrudgingly follow him. He stops at the door, holding it open for me, but when we step inside, his hand goes to the small of my back.

I can’t lie and say it doesn’t shoot tingles up my spine. We haven’t touched each other since our kiss at the club two weeks ago, but I’ve thought about it every. Single. Moment since.

Cheeks flaming and my mind in a puddle, we step up to the front counter, where he drops his hand. I let out a deep breath, the spot on my back where he’d touched me burning like he’d held a match to my skin.

“We have a meeting with Pierce at three,” Christian tells the front desk worker as calm as ever, while I’m having an existential crisis because he touched me., who blushes and bats her pretty long lashes at him despite his hand still clasped around mine.

“Of course. Mr. Pierce will be right with you,” she purrs, batting her pretty long eyelashes at him like she might take flight and land right in his bed.

I hate her.

Before we even turn away from the counter, a door to our left opens and an older man steps out.

“Ah, Ms. Carpenter. I’m so glad you could make it in,” he says, though the look he gives me says the opposite. “Right this way.”

We follow him down a corridor to an office in the back. He shuts the door behind us and motions for us to sit, and I do, while Christian stands behind me, leaning against the wall.

Mr. Pierce looks uncomfortable, dotting his brow with handkerchief from the front pocket of his suit.

“Just a few last-minute cleaning things to take care of,” Mr. Pierce says, falling into the chair behind the desk. “Were you and your father close?”

I shrug. “He died when I was four, so about as close as a four-year-old can get with anyone, I guess.”

Mr. Pierce doesn’t know how to respond to that, so he doesn’t.

“Just a few papers to sign. Nothing too crazy,” he says, even though the stack he drops in front of me may as well be a new iteration of the Bible.

“I have to signallthis?”

“Yes, well, your father had a lot of documentation we had to sort through before we could release the funds into your account.”

“For five thousand dollars?”

Mr. Pierce chuckles under his breath, wiping his brow.

He’s awfully sweaty.

I look back at Christian, who nods to me, and I let out a sigh.

“Let me help,” Mr. Pierce says, his gaze flicking back and forth between Christian and me. “Here.”

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