Page 100 of Things We Left Behind
The server reappeared with two wineglasses and took Lucian’s order while he poured us each a glass.
I accepted my wine and leaned back in my chair. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but thank you for riding to my rescue…twice today.”
He arched an eyebrow. “I’m impressed. You said that without wincing.”
“I was wincing on the inside.”
Was Lucian Rollins flirting with me? Or was he just being human, and it was so far from his usual icy devil asshat routine that even the most benign polite gesture felt like it was sexually charged?
“Then you’re welcome,” he said.
I tipped my glass toward him. He raised his at me.
“Okay. Enough of this being nice to each other. It makes my skin crawl,” I said with a shudder.
Lucian chuckled and I nearly fumbled my glass. Clearly I had tumbled into an alternate reality, likeSputnik Sweetheartby Haruki Murakami. Was this a new world where Lucian Rollins and I got along?
“Agreed,” he said.
“So, about Mary Louise. If I talk to her son and her story checks out, what would the next step be…hypothetically?” I asked.
“You’d need to hire an attorney with experience in caseslike this. Someone who has the time to dedicate and a good rapport with both judges and juries. They’d need to build a team of associates, paralegals, and interns.”
“You’re saying I need a team of unicorns.”
“And don’t forget about the money. Appeals are expensive.”
“We’re sitting on a pretty nice nest egg,” I bragged.
“If it’s less than a seven-figure nest egg, I wouldn’t be so sure,” he said.
I sputtered into my wine, narrowly avoiding a spill. “A million dollars?”
“Depending on how long the appeal process lasts, it could be more.”
“Are you fucking around?”
His eyes locked on mine. “I never fuck around about money.”
“Shit.” I put down the wine and picked up my water. “Shit.”
“I could be persuaded to—”
“No!” I said.
“Definitely a concussion,” the woman at the table next to us stage-whispered to her husband.
“He’s, like, beautiful and handsome at the same time,” her husband whispered back.
“Why wouldn’t you take money when it’s offered, Sloane?”
Because it was his. Because he’d hurt me. Because I’d hurt him. Because the last time our lives had gotten tangled up, neither of us had ever recovered.
“Because I said so.” It was too bad Massimo turned out to be a big, stoned phony, because I was clearly ready to become a parent.
“Still unnecessarily stubborn, I see,” he said.
“I think we’ve both proven on multiple occasions that we can’t work together.”
