Page 10 of The Wrong Boss

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ears and shook her head. “They said they’d try, but I’m not stupid. Once I started talking about old ticket stubs and baby pictures, their eyes glazed over. I’m not seeing that stuff ever again.” Her voice broke on the last word, but she cleared her throat and smiled at the bartender who placed a mojito in front of her.

“You risked getting stabbed over old ticket stubs and baby pictures?”

Her glare was almost a relief. I’d enjoyed all the sharp edges of her earlier. I’d hated seeing her hurt, but her toughness had drawn me. Now, in the quiet of the bar, without the pumping adrenaline and impending danger, the cracks in her facade made me feel things I’d rather not.

Apparently, I had a weakness for tough, beautiful women who seemed just a little bit broken.

That figured.

She sipped her drink and adjusted her dress. The slit was high on her thigh, and she tugged the silky fabric over to cover the expanse of skin the slit revealed, only for the fabric to fall back between her knees. She had beautiful legs. I kept my forearms resting on the bar and pointed my eyes forward, because staring at her was making me slightly dizzy.

“It was a memory box,” she finally replied. “Mymother died when I was seventeen. She was a single mom—I never knew my dad—and she was the best. We’d go out to the movies once a month, and I kept nearly all the ticket stubs. Back in the days when you actually got ticket stubs,” she added wryly. Then she sighed, and I found my eyes drawn to her once more. I watched her lick her lips as her finger traced the cut crystal shapes on the side of her glass, her gaze directed inward. “We moved a lot, so I never had much stuff. Which, to be honest, is pretty handy when you break up with a long-term boyfriend and need to get out of his apartment in a hurry.”

She said it as a joke, face turning up to meet my gaze with a hidden little smile on the corner of her lips, but I didn’t laugh.

“That box was all you had left of her?” I guessed.

“Yes,” she whispered in reply. “It was mostly worthless, other than one of her earrings. I didn’t even have the pair. But she wore them every day until she lost one of them.” She touched her ear, and a soft smile tugged at her lips. “A little gold hoop with a tiny gold bird dangling on it. The bird’s eye was an emerald. I know it sounds like it’s worth stealing, but it really wasn’t. The emerald was no bigger than a pinhead. It was just pretty, is all, and it was hers.”

Staring into her eyes was like being drawn into another world. I saw the depth of pain in her past. Her strength. Her mettle. She wasn’t pushing me away or sniping at me with that sharp tongue. She wasn’t demanding I put her down. For just a brief moment, it felt like I saw right down to the core of her—and I wanted more.

But that was ridiculous. She was a stranger. I’d done a good deed, and now we’d go our separate ways. I didn’t know thiswoman, nor did I want to. This would be a funny story to tell at parties later. Next time I went on a date, I could use it as comedic relief about why my romantic life was always in shambles.

She meant nothing to me. I didn’t even know her name.

So it was a surprise when I heard myself say, “I only have one picture of my mother.”

We turned toward each other, and our knees bumped. Neither one of us moved away.

“Really?” she asked.

“My birth mother,” I clarified. “I was adopted. They—my adoptive parents—never told me. I found my birth certificate in the attic after my dad died, when I was trying to clear out some of his things to help my mom out. I was twenty-three.”

“That must have been a shock.”

I huffed a bitter laugh and took a sip of my drink. “Yeah. But it explained a lot about how I was treated growing up.”

I hated talking about my past, and I wasn’t sure why I was opening up to this woman. But when she slid her hand over my forearm, just below the cuff that I’d rolled up to my elbow earlier, the heat of her palm against my skin was a balm.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

I shrugged. “Long time ago. Not sure why I’m talking about it now.”

“Maybe it’s a full moon.”

I hid my smile behind another sip of my drink. Our knees still touched, and I wished I had the right to slide my palm over her bare thigh.

“Have you met your birth parents?”

I tore my gaze away from the expanse of skin rendered visible by the slit in her dress and met her gaze. “No,” I told her. “But I know who they are. My birth mother passed not long after I was born, and my birth father is a successful businessman. I’ve been putting off reaching out to him.” He’d made a fortune on Wall Street. It was in our blood, I supposed.

“How come?”

I shrugged, not sure how to put it into words, and not sure why I was telling her any of this in the first place. Rome didn’t even know about it. I’d grown up feeling out of place in my family, and I wasn’t sure if I could bear to feel the same way with my birth father. I didn’t want to hear excuses about why he’d given me up.

But at the same time, I felt a pull to find out more. To know the man who created me. To look him in the eye and ask him for his side of the story. It was a simple question, at the end of the day:Why didn’t you want me?

“I’m not sure,” I finally answered, taking a sip of my drink.

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