Page 29 of Lust
Strange how that voice always sounded like her brothers. The same ones he was going to have lunch with. The same ones he would send to prison.
“Joe.” Liza’s footsteps thudded behind him. “Wait up.”
His lips pinched at the sides. He stopped just outside the glass door entrance.
She handed him the baseball. “You forgot this.”
He put it in his jacket pocket and opened the door. “After you.”
There was one thing Joe knew to be true about Liza Lazarus; it was her inability to let go of a sore subject. She’d once raved about a poor umpiring decision for her favorite team for two days. She’d even gone so far as to replay the video and thrust it on anyone who’d listen and then draw diagrams on napkins to explain her reasoning. He’d only replied, “The umpire is always right.” Which, of course, infuriated her further. The look she sent him now was just like then. She wasn’t done, but she would let him have some space.
Inside Heaven, the smell of butter and garlic made his mouth water. People were crowded into booths. A waiter dropped a tray, the female chef shouted something from the kitchen, and there was a line at the cash register.
“Maybe we should go somewhere else,” he suggested.
“Bullshit,” she replied. “This is fine. I’m starving, and there’s a private room out the back.”
The head waiter noticed Liza and came over from the kitchen.
“Liza,” he said, then glanced at Joe. “I’m afraid there aren’t any tables free, but if you and your guest don’t mind dining with the rest of your family, there is space in the VIP room.”
She nodded. “I thought they might be here.”
This should be interesting. Perhaps he’d garner more information during this lunch meeting than he could at a poker night with the guys from the station.
Joe followed Liza through the busy restaurant to a space near the corridor that went to the bathrooms. The waiter knocked on a frosted glass door. Conversation within hushed. The waiter paused, glanced at Liza, and on her nod, opened the door.
Inside, six people sat at the long table. Although Joe hadn’t officially met them all, he recognized most from his case files or from seeing them when he was younger. Sloan and her fiancé, Max, sat on one side. Max was Caucasian and looked like he spent his time at the beach rather than the inner city. Liza’s mother and father, Mary and Flint, were on the other side of the long table. Flint’s long arm rested over Mary’s chair.
Next to him sat a brown-skinned woman wearing a black bomber jacket with a security emblem. It matched what Max wore, so Joe assumed this was Bailey Haze, Tony’s fiancé, who also worked with Max at Nightingale Securities.
And then there was the last person, sitting at the head of the table. Joe had to stifle his visceral reaction of contempt for the man—Parker Lazarus. The tall, aristocratic, and egotistical asshole probably deserved to act the way he did. He had the looks, the hair, the body, and the brain. The man was the genius who’d invented many life-saving and environment-saving devices in demand around the world. He’d single-handedly made Lazarus Tech a Fortune 500 company.
He’d been none of those things when he’d said Joe would never be good enough for Liza and then warned Joe away with his very convincing fists. From where Joe sat, it was the Lazarus family who wasn’t good enough for Liza.
He stared at the man whose piercing golden eyes watched him back. Parker picked up his napkin, wiped his mouth, and stood as Liza began the introductions.
“You remember my parents, Mary and Flint,” she said.
He met their eyes and nodded.I’ll investigate you later.
“And this is Bailey, Tony’s fiancé. She works with Max there, and you know Sloan.”
“S’up, bras.” Sloan gave a crooked, amused smile.
Max reached around Sloan’s shoulders and rested his arm in a possessive way. He gave Joe a cordial tip of the chin, but his eyes betrayed his wariness.
“And, of course, that big meathead over there is Parker.”
The air tightened with stress as they waited for Parker to react. His eyes slid to Liza, his brow raised, and then he stood. With dramatic flair, he buttoned his designer blazer and then strode over.
Joe’s trigger finger twitched.
Joe hated that he had to look up to meet Parker’s gaze. Something wild and feral prowled behind Parker’s tawny stare that disagreed with his careful deportment. But he hid it well. Parker never once conceded his gaze, but this time, Joe didn’t back down. He’d never do so again.
“You two in love, or something?” Liza scoffed. “You want me to leave?”
Parker held out his hand. “Welcome back.”
