Page 25 of Legally Mine

Chapter 6

We rode in silence, the clean, luxurious interior of the car a refuge from the filth of the street. David, Brandon's kindly, middle-aged driver, gave me a wink through the rearview mirror. At least someone was happy to see me.

Brandon, on the other hand, was a statue in his seat, his eyes mostly shaded by the curve of his baseball cap. Even so, his stare was basically a sledgehammer. I turned toward my tinted window, taking solace in the soft leather seats and the cool glass against my cheek. In the backseat, we were sitting maybe a few feet from each other, but it might as well have been miles.

The nausea was gone, slowly being replaced by fatigue and a mounting awareness that the person I had been dreaming about for the last several weeks was sitting next to me in his expensive Mercedes. And, if his expression was any indication, mostly likely hated my guts.

Oh, God.

Conscious of the way his eyes followed my ever movement, I popped a few of the Listerine squares I kept in my purse. We were going to have to talk, and I needed to get the nasty taste out of my mouth. Then I finally turned to him, taking a deep breath as I met the full force of his piercing blue eyes. Brandon didn't move, just watched me with an expression one might have when encountering a wounded animal that might scratch them. Was there loathing there? I couldn't tell.

"What-what are you doing here?" I asked. My voice was scratchy after having to yell so much in the club. Losing my dinner hadn't helped either.

Brandon finally blinked, then shook his head and rubbed a hand over his face. I knew that move. His patented "I don't want to answer that question" move. The move he made when his thoughts were too much for even him to handle. It tipped the edge of his frayed bill up above his hairline, revealing his face in full. Even puffy-eyed and weary, he was still the most beautiful person I'd ever met.

Instead of responding directly, Brandon pulled out his phone and swiped to a photo, which he then held out for me to view. Apparently, instead of texting him in response, I'd ended up taking a picture. A picture of a toppled mass of women, two of whom had their underwear on full display. I was slammed against a wall behind them, my eyes half-shut and basically looking like I was trapped in some kind of demented orgy. Okay, so it didn't look good.

I glanced up, still suspicious. "Doesn't explain how you knew I was here."

Brandon grunted impatiently, then zoomed in on the top right hand corner of the picture, where I could see the top of an ad the club had placed inside the bathroom stall door. It read: "Events at Solstice Nightclub in June."

"Huh." I sat back in my seat, shrinking myself into the corner. "We got Sherlock Holmes over here."

Brandon still didn't say anything, just put his phone back in his pocket. He gripped at his knees, clenching at the fabric. I glared at him, suddenly tired of the silent treatment. No one had asked him to come here, and definitely not to treat me like a piece of furniture.

"So, I'm in the car with you. You going to tell me where we are going?" I asked.

He gave me a dark, blue look. "I don't know. You texted me."

I frowned. "I never asked you to pick me up."

"I don't know what you were asking me to do with those texts. But I'm here, up in the middle of the damn night, and you clearly needed someone to stop you from, I don't know, dying in the street. So, where to, Miss Crosby?"

The venom in his voice was so strange; I hated that he was calling me by my last name, just like he had when I was still just an intern at his law firm, only six months ago. I glared back.

"David, could you please drop me off at Sheafe and Margaret Street?" I asked the driver without breaking eye contact with Brandon.

Brandon frowned. "Where is that?"

"Where I live!" I snapped, now preoccupying myself with searching for something––anything––in my purse.

Unfortunately, my clutch was small, so sorting through it was not a good distraction. But I didn't want to look at him, didn't want to feel those beautiful blue eyes boring into me with such vitriol. It hurt too much.

"Where you live? What happened to the New York job?"

I ground my teeth, still avoiding his face. His hand was now resting on the back of the car seats, only a few inches from my shoulder. It was physically painful to be this close to him and not touch. I could smell his scent, almonds and soap and sleep, and it was so much more vivid than in my imagination. My thighs clenched.

"I had to take one here," I said finally. "I've got debts to pay and a father to put through some very expensive therapy. A public service job just wasn't going to cut it, so here I am again."

Brandon processed the information while his gaze flew around the car and his hand massaged the leather seat.

"What debt?" he finally asked as he pulled his hands back into his lap. "I paid everything off to Messina. All of it."

"Oh, I know," I bit out quietly, chucking my clutch onto the seat between us. "I know all about your so-called 'generosity' to that low-life motherfucker. Set him up for life, didn't you?"

"Oh, so now I'm a jerk?" Brandon looked up to the ceiling of the car as if in pain and groaned. "Perfect. Here we fuckin' are again."

"I don't know. Maybe." Apparently, the alcohol hadn't completely worn off yet. My mouth was shooting off like a teenager, and I couldn't seem to stop it.

---