Page 212 of Things We Left Behind
“What the hell iswrongwith you?” I demanded, bursting into Lucian’s office waving the statement like I was leading a marching band.
Behind his desk, he looked at me with that cool, flat mask, but there was heat in his eyes. And bruises on his face. He looked like some heart-throbby heroic boxer who’d lost a title fight.
“Sorry, sir,” Petula huffed, screeching to a halt in the doorway behind me. “She’s faster than I thought.”
“It’s fine,” Lucian said, making it sound like it was anything but fine.
“Kick his ass,” Petula said to me under her breath and disappeared.
“You may go, Nallana,” Lucian told the woman in the chair across from him.
Her hands were tucked in the pocket of a Nine Inch Nails sweatshirt. She looked amused. “But I wanna stay and watch the show,” she said.
“Go away,” Lucian said, eyes still on me.
On a sigh, she hopped out of the chair, shot me a wink, and left.
I slapped the paper down on his desk. Then just to be a jerk, I dragged my fingertips across the spotless glass top. “Explain.”
“I owe you zero explanations. You need to leave.”
“Not until you explain this,” I said, drilling my finger into the paper.
He glanced down at it, then reached into his desk drawer and did something I didn’t expect. The son of a bitch put on a sexy pair of reading glasses.
It was like the universe was mocking me. The hot guy who rocked my world between the sheets and wore reading glasses was the one man I didn’t want.
“This looks like an invoice that’s been satisfied,” he said as though I was the dumbest human on the planet. “Now if you don’t mind, I don’t want you here.”
“Iknowthat, you insufferable oaf. It’s a medical invoice for an experimental cancer treatment not covered by health insurance. Why isyourname on it?”
“My name is on a lot of things,” he said. He took off his readers, then fed the paper through the shredder at his feet. “If that’s all, I’ll have security escort you out.”
There was a tension in him, a nervousness that I’d never seen before.
“I’m not leaving without answers. The faster you give them to me, the sooner I’ll be gone.”
He snatched up his desk phone and dialed. “Ms. Walton will be requiring an escort back to her mother’s place in five minutes.”
I crossed my arms and glared at him as he listened to whoever was on the other end of the phone call.
“Yes. Have her vehicle swept and post a guard.” He hung up abruptly and leveled me with an icy look. “Ask your questions, and then you need to go.”
I was hanging on by sheer will. I closed my eyes and tooka calming breath. “Lucian, why is your name on an astronomically expensive cancer treatment for my father? A treatment I was told was a clinical trial? A treatment that gave him six more weeks with us.” My voice broke pathetically.
The tension between us ratcheted up to unbearable heights. We stared each other down even as my eyes dampened.
“Don’t do this, Sloane,” he said quietly. “Please.”
“For once in your life, just tell me,” I begged.
“You should discuss this with your mother.”
“She told me to talk to you.”
He was silent for a long beat. “He wanted one more Christmas with you.”
I took a step back and hid my face behind my hands.
