Sleeping With the Opposition (Bad Boy Bosses) (10 page)

The guy nodded and pulled away from the curb. Leo sat in the shadows of the backseat with his roiling frustration. When the car stopped in front of a darkened warehouse a while later, he was surprised. He’d been so caught up in thoughts of Bria, he hadn’t been paying attention to anything else. They’d left the skyscrapers and condos behind a while ago. This was a much older part of town that still harkened back to the days of dirty industrialism. Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on how you wanted to look at it—the city hadn’t gotten around to developing and urbanizing it yet. Most of the big buildings were empty, run-down, and forgotten, waiting for someone to buy them all up and make condos or something out of them.

“You sure whatever it is you’re looking for is
here
?” the taxi driver asked with a frown as he peered out the window.

Now that’s the question, isn’t it?
“Yeah, this is good, thanks.” He handed the guy enough to pay the fare and cover a decent tip. “Keep the change.”

The driver reached over the backseat and handed him a business card. “You call me if you want a ride back to the city later, and I’ll come back for you.”

Leo nodded. “Thanks.” He tucked the card in his jacket pocket and got out of the car.

He avoided the main door in the front facing the street and walked around the side of the building to a brown steel door that blended into the old red brick. No lights anywhere, but although the building looked deserted from every angle, he could already hear the noise from inside. It came through the doors and windows like a rumbling storm looking for a way out.

As he reached out to knock on the door, the thunderous music transferred into his arm and traveled to his chest.

He waited a second, then knocked again. The door opened to reveal a monster-sized dude wearing a white T-shirt. “Leo, man. What are you doing here?” Aiden asked with a grin. He held out his hand. Leo smiled back and shook it.

He shrugged. “I guess I just needed a change of scenery.” Aiden and his brother Mac and sister Julie ran a bar that also hosted semipro boxing matches, which existed on the very fringe of legal. The only reason they hadn’t yet been shut down was because the siblings were super rigid about adhering to every regulation and had never had a violation.

“You lookin’ to get in the ring tonight, bro?” The diamond stud in Aiden’s ear flashed as he took in Leo’s gym clothes. At the boxing club, he was always teasing Leo about getting back in the ring for real one of these days.

“I’m not here to get dirty.” He chuckled. “Have you guys gotten that desperate for fighters?”

He laughed. “Naw, but with your pretty-boy looks, you’d be a big draw, my friend. Very popular with the crowd.”

Leo ignored that. He liked to box, but his days of fighting for money were over. It was a form of exercise and a much-needed release, that’s all. Turning it into a lifestyle wasn’t part of the Plan.

The Plan.
He’d come up with the Plan while working for Mr. Russo at the restaurant and learning to box with Jason.

At first, the Plan had just been to keep his mother from crying and finish high school—which had seemed a challenging enough prospect at the time. But once he’d decided to turn things around, he’d really turned them around. All or nothing, that’s how he’d operated, even then.

He’d brought his grades up to the point where college had become a real possibility, and even managed to get a scholarship to cover half of his first year.

So the Plan had evolved to include getting his law degree, and once that had been accomplished, he’d looked for the next challenge: wealth. He’d used all his boxing money to learn everything he could about the world of investment banking, and by the time he was out of college he was debt-free and on his way to a serious nest egg, so he’d focused on the next part of the Plan: running his own firm. He’d met Bria, and he’d immediately made room in the Plan for marriage and kids. Lots of kids. After his dad died, there’d been Mr. Russo. Then Aiden, Mac, and Julie had welcomed him into their family, and he’d known he wanted a big family of his own for real one day.

Everything had been on track…until it became horribly, painfully derailed.

For a moment, he stopped and actually considered getting into the ring tonight, but not seriously. Like the courtroom, he never went into anything unprepared. Doing it just for a chance to pound on someone would end up backfiring on him.

“All right, come on in.” Aiden stepped out of the way and held the door. The noise tripled, hitting Leo like a heat wave. So did the smell. Ripe bodies, spilled beer…spilled blood.

It was a hundred bucks just to get through the door. He handed over a small stack of twenties, but Aiden shook his head and shoved it back at him. “Naw, man. Keep it.”

“Thanks. I’ll have Mac bring you a beer,” he said, clapping his friend on the shoulder as he stepped across the threshold.

Although it had been dark outside, his eyes still needed to adjust. The lighting was dim and inconsistent. The large bar on one side of the big room and the boxing ring on the other side were well lit, but with all the people crowded around both, it was far from enough. Then again, nobody came here to take in the decor.

Aiden at the door and Mac at the bar were the owners of the building, along with their sister, Julie. The three of them were a tight-knit Irish family, and he’d known them almost as long as he’d known Mr. Russo, because first Mac, and then Aiden and Leo, had all joined the same after-school boxing program run by Mr. Russo’s son, Jason, when they were kids. The brothers now ran the day-to-day stuff here and kept order when the place was open for business, but Julie was the one who actually organized the fight schedule and handled all the finances.

Leo looked up to the second story where the office was, behind a big viewing window. Sure enough, a tiny figure stood up there all by herself, looking down on the floor.

Someone stopped by his side and followed his gaze. “She’s been up there every night,” Mac said. He was leaner than Aiden, but they shared practically identical features. Leo could barely hear him over the clamor of the screaming crowd and the thumping music. “I’ve tried ordering her to go home and get some sleep, but—”

Leo laughed. “Your sister has never been the type to let anyone tell her what to do…especially her brothers,” he said.

Mac laughed with him. “No, you’re right about that.” He sighed. “But I wish she would let us help, you know?” Julie’s fiancé had been in an accident just two months ago and was still laid up in a coma. When she wasn’t here at the club, she was at the hospital sitting with him.

Leo understood perfectly. As much as Julie loved her family and friends, there were some things a person went through alone, no matter how many people were around.

“Maybe she’ll listen to you. Go on up. She’d probably appreciate the company, if nothing else.” Mac’s expression tightened with worry as he looked up again.

Leo glanced up again, too, and nodded, but before he left, he said, “Send Aiden at the door something to drink, would you? He’s looking parched.”

Mac grimaced. “My brother sure knows how to sucker the customers.”

Leo grinned. “I didn’t say I was paying for it.”

Mac chuckled and clapped him on the shoulder before leaving him.

Leo made his way through the crowd and ducked beneath the rope blocking off the steel-framed staircase going to the second floor. The door at the top opened before he could knock, and Julie stood there with a hand on her hip, smiling. Dark brown hair cascaded over her slim shoulders, and her long legs were encased in skinny jeans and tall boots. “Leo! What brings you here tonight?” she asked with a wide smile of welcome.

He smiled back. “I needed to get out of the house for a while.”

Her expression turned to one of sympathy, exactly what he didn’t want right now. He brushed past her into the dark office. “Where’s the whiskey?”

She shut the door and went to the big desk against the back wall, pulling out a drawer and holding up a bottle. “You mean this whiskey?”

He grinned. “Bust it out.”

As she retrieved two shot glasses from the same drawer and poured, he walked over and looked out the big window to the fight below. He could already tell which of the competitors was going to win. The younger guy was playing up the crowd a bit, but he was also strong and keen, with a tendency toward MMA-style moves—which he managed to get away with here because the rules were a little less stringent. The other guy seemed to be more experienced and methodical, but in this case, Leo decided he just wasn’t going to be fast enough.

“Brianna still isn’t talking to you?” Julie asked in a soft voice filled with concern. Although their lives had gone in different directions since high school, they’d been friends a long time. He hadn’t talked to her—or anyone—about what he and Bria had been going through, but Julie was intuitive, and she’d picked up on it when she’d come to check up on them in the hospital.

He didn’t turn around. “She’s talking. She just has nothing positive to say…at least to me.”

“She’s hurting, but it’ll get better. You just have to give it some more time.” She handed him a glass over his shoulder. He took it with a nod of thanks and sucked it back with a gulp.

He twirled the empty glass. The fear and despair dug in a little deeper.

Julie moved to stand beside him. Her reflection in the window was one of quiet strength and unflinching support. “You can’t give up on her.”

He swore and squeezed his eyes shut to keep from looking at his own reflection.

Julie, always too perceptive by half, touched his arm. “You love each other, and you need each other.” Her voice was thick with emotion, and he immediately felt guilty for dumping his shit on her when she had enough of her own to deal with. “And if you give up, you’ll hate yourself in the dark years to come.”

He wasn’t a quitter, and he’d refused to believe that his love wasn’t enough for Bria anymore. There’d been a glimmer of hesitation in her insistence that they were over, and that had kept him going. He didn’t want to admit that he’d been wrong.

“Have you tried talking to her about it? I’ve known you for a long time, Leo, and while you’re great to have around when the going is good, you bottle those emotions of yours up tighter than a clam at high tide,” she said, a maddeningly knowing look on her face. “Bria miscarried a baby.
Your
baby. Maybe she needs to know that you didn’t just shrug it off and move on, that you’re hurting as much as she is.”

He scrubbed a hand across his face. Maybe he hadn’t said it in so many words, but she had to know that. And the words were just words. They wouldn’t help anyone. Falling apart like a giant baby would only prove that she couldn’t rely on him, prolonging the agony for both of them. He’d done everything he was supposed to, he’d been the rock by Bria’s side and shown her that he wasn’t going anywhere, no matter what. He’d tried to help her see that they still had a whole life in front of them. He’d promised there would be other children. That’s what mattered. Strength. Security. Hope for the future. Fighting back against the pain.

He put his arm around Julie’s shoulders and hugged her to him. “How is Dez doing?” he asked.

She sighed and shook her head at him but didn’t point out that he was still bottling up his feelings by changing the subject.

“The doctors don’t have a lot of optimism for his recovery,” she said. “Actually, they’re talking about pulling the plug. They say that even if he wakes up now, there might be nothing left of him. His parents are considering it.” She said it clinically, reciting straight facts as if she’d given the same speech a dozen times already—which was probably true since everyone had probably been asking. The pain in her voice was there, but contained, as if she didn’t dare let herself give in to it.

Leo’s guilt only intensified. His wife wasn’t lying in a hospital bed near death anymore. She was healthy and alive, and he needed to be grateful for that at the very least, and stay strong to get them through the rest.

“What do you think he would want?”

She scowled. “It doesn’t matter what I think. I’m just the fiancée, and apparently only Dez’s
family
can decide whether he lives or dies now.”

He squeezed her arm. “He may yet come out of it. There’s always hope.”

She pulled back and looked into his eyes. “I’ll believe that if you keep believing in Brianna.”

He swallowed past the thickness in his throat. “You got a deal.”

Chapter Nine

Bria came back to the office from her third lunch meeting in as many days. She’d been tapping every contact she had for new clients to replace André Cordeiro—even though he hadn’t officially terminated her retainer…yet.

She should be disappointed that she hadn’t heard from him since that morning in her office. Brandon still hadn’t finalized the guy’s account. He remained optimistic that Bria would get another chance to take it to court. But despite the hit her career would take when Cordeiro didn’t oblige, she was actually hoping she
didn’t
hear from him at all. If he and his wife could get over their misunderstandings, she would be happy for them.

What did that say for her cutthroat business savvy?

Bria grimaced. It didn’t help that every time she thought about André she found herself thinking about Leo.

She hadn’t seen
him
for three days, either. The morning after he’d shown up at her office was Saturday, and she’d awakened feeling betrayed by her own eagerness to spend the day with him…but he hadn’t been home. And he hadn’t texted her that day or the next to demand their agreed-upon date. She’d lain in bed and stared up at the ceiling listening for his footsteps every night, but heard nothing until the early hours of morning. She couldn’t help but wonder if he’d found someone else.

That hurt more than she wanted it to, and she couldn’t even be angry with him. She’d been the one insisting at every opportunity that they were done.

But he’d been right when he said she was afraid of spending time with him. Because the exact thing she’d worried about had come true. The more time they spent together, the more she’d been reminded just how much she loved him, just how good they were together, and her resolve to do the right thing weakened.

There was a sharp rap on her office door. Then three more sharp knocks conveyed both impatience and entitlement. She didn’t have to look up to know who it was.

Bria looked through the glass wall first and noticed that Brandon wasn’t at his desk, which explained how Nadia had gotten to her door without being buzzed. She came right on in, and Bria forced a smile. “What can I do for you, Nadia?”

“Richard had some ridiculous personal matter and can’t be my second in court this afternoon,” she said, tight-lipped. It was firm policy for all associates to attend court in pairs. Only partners could go it alone, but even they usually chose to have support.

Bria frowned. “Didn’t his wife go into labor this morning?” she asked.

Nadia only shrugged. “I need a second,” she said. “Are you coming?”

She nodded. “All right. What time?”

“Now.”

Bria sighed.
Of course
. “Then you had better drive, so I can look over the file on the way to the courthouse.”

“You don’t need to know what the file’s about,” she said. “You just need to sit there in the chair. I’ll handle the rest.”

She started to ask if that’s what Richard had agreed to but didn’t. This wasn’t her file, so if Nadia wanted to act like a dictator, that was her choice. “I won’t get in your way,” she promised. “But I’d still like to know what case I’m sitting in on.”

“Fine. You can review my notes.”

“Thank you.” She grabbed her briefcase and jacket and followed her out, giving Brandon the side-eye on the way as he was coming down the hall with a mug of coffee in his hand. “I’ll be back later, and I’ll need those Deveraux financial statements ready to go.”

He grinned and gave her a dutiful salute, which she figured was more about Nadia’s military-like posture than anything Bria had said.

By the time they’d entered the courtroom twenty-five minutes later, Bria had a good idea what Nadia’s file was all about. This was an access case. The father was bringing a motion to be able to see his kids more often, but since he’d been forced out of the matrimonial home—courtesy of Nadia Foster’s hard-ass tactics—he hadn’t been able to afford suitable lodgings appropriate for the children to visit. Nadia had even gotten Children and Family Services involved, to make
sure
he wouldn’t get any access to those kids until they came in and approved the guy’s apartment.

Bria groaned. There were better ways to handle a situation like that. From the material in the file, Bria couldn’t quite tell how much of this was Nadia playing hardball just because Nadia liked to play hardball, or if the wife had serious concerns about her husband’s capacity to care for the children.

What
was
in the file, though, were change-of-representation documents from the husband, appointing Ashton Granger Markham as his new attorney of record, and a notice of motion from Leo Markham himself.

Nadia hadn’t said a word about Leo being the attorney on the other side of her case when she’d asked Bria to come to court. Of course not. Leo’s being there was no doubt the exact reason
why
she’d asked Bria, and also probably why she’d tried to suggest that Bria shouldn’t need to review the file. She didn’t doubt that Nadia had wanted to watch her squirm, but she was going to be disappointed.

They met Nadia’s client, Sylvia Jones, inside the courthouse and retreated to a relatively quiet corner of the hallway to confer for a few minutes before it was time to go into the courtroom. Nadia made no move to introduce Bria, so she stepped forward and shook the woman’s hand, which was cold and clammy, revealing her nervousness. “I’m Brianna Martin. I’ll be assisting Ms. Foster in court on your behalf this afternoon.”

“Nice to meet you, Ms. Martin,” she said in a high voice that shook with emotion.

“You can just call me Bria.” The woman was wringing her hands and glancing back and forth as if she were watching for someone. “Are you all right?” Bria asked.

“I’m sorry, I’m a little nervous about seeing David, and this is the first time I’ve ever been in a courthouse. I always thought if I had to come it would be for something ordinary like jury duty, not because my marriage had imploded and strangers were stepping in to decide my future for me.”

She looked so devastated, on the verge of tears, and Nadia paid no attention, had started scrolling through emails on her phone. Bria patted Sylvia’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, you aren’t going to have to say anything. That’s what Nadia’s here for. It’s going to be fine. You and your husband have a valid separation agreement that spells out everything. If your husband hasn’t secured satisfactory accommodations for himself, then he won’t be granted overnight access to the children.”

Sylvia was still wringing her hands together. “Is something else worrying you?” Bria asked, concerned.

Nadia looked up then and stepped between them. “We talked about this, Sylvia,” she said sharply. “We have to stick to the plan even when it feels harsh. Your children will thank you for securing their education when they get into Harvard or Yale.”

The poor woman nodded quickly, eyes wide. She had no idea that Nadia’s motivation for crushing the competition had nothing to do with any child’s future—only her own. “I know,” she said, “but I just—”

“No buts,” Nadia replied, but suddenly her whole demeanor changed as her attention shifted—from dispassionate and a little bored to sly and calculating.

Bria followed the direction of her gaze and realized why. Leo was coming toward them.

He looked mind-numbingly amazing in his navy suit with a bright green and yellow tie that she didn’t recognize. He’d shaved, but she hadn’t seen him again this morning, so did that mean he’d gone to the house after she’d left…or had he started moving his things out of it into some new place without her knowing?

His eyes found her and a smile of welcome teased his lips before he shifted to greet Nadia. She didn’t see another one of Ashton Granger Markham’s associates with him, but she wasn’t really surprised that he’d rather attend court alone. He’d always said she was the only person who would be able to work with him.

Nadia glanced at Bria with a self-satisfied smirk. “I need to have a few words with counsel. If you’ll excuse me for a minute,” she said before sauntering to his side like the cat after the cream, stepping in closer than was strictly professional and reaching for his hand.

Oh God, was it just her, or did they linger in the touch? When the woman slipped her fingers over his tie, Bria’s heart almost stopped, and she couldn’t help but wonder if
that’s
where Leo had spent the last three nights, and if
Nadia
had given him the tie.

Her stomach turned, and she tried to quash that train of thought. Even if her husband had found someone else, it would never be Nadia. He wasn’t that angry with her, was he?

Bria forced herself to look away and noticed the man standing just behind Leo. “Is that your husband?” she asked Sylvia.

“Yes, and his parents.” David Jones was a tall, rail-thin man with a couple days’ scruff covering his worn and tired-looking face. He was flanked by an older couple who looked like they were on their way to battle at their son’s side. The file had mentioned that the grandparents had also been involved in several requests for access to the children.

Bria turned to Sylvia—but not before catching the focused look Leo sent her way, making her skin tingle. “Forgive me for asking, but I only had a brief opportunity to review your file this morning,” she began. “If your husband is insistent on having his time with the children, is there some reason why he hasn’t gotten a suitable apartment, so the kids could come over?”

Sylvia’s hands started wringing again. “He’s broke,” she admitted. “He can’t afford anything decent in the city because he’s paying me so much money in spousal and child support.”

Bria recalled that the husband’s former law firm had finalized the separation agreement, not Leo or anyone else at Ashton Granger Markham. Nadia must have taken advantage of the previous lawyer’s obvious inexperience to get her client the most money she could, not caring that eventually such an imbalance would backfire on everybody. If the husband had come to Leo’s firm sooner, she might have still been there, and she would never have allowed Nadia to get away with such a one-sided deal.

“He agreed to pay me so much money because it was for the children, you know? But now he lives in a dump in a really bad neighborhood, and as much as I feel guilty about that, I don’t want my kids to go anywhere near it.” Her voice hitched.

“Is there any
other
reason why your husband should not be allowed to take the kids for overnight or extended visits?” she asked. The file had hadn’t gone into much detail about the reasons for the breakdown of the marriage, since there would be no petition for divorce until the parties had been separated for a year. Nadia’s notes had indicated that the couple started fighting about money, and time, and the kids, until the husband had said he wanted out, but as far as she’d been able to tell, there’d been no domestic abuse of any kind. She still wanted to be certain before the idea that had started to form in her mind gained any more traction.

“I was really angry with him for a long time for leaving me, and I wanted to see him hurt as much as he hurt me,” Sylvia admitted, with a hitch in her voice. Her features crumpled with guilt.

“That’s absolutely natural,” Bria reassured her softly. “But in time you’ll feel less pain and anger, and then you’re going to be able to deal with each other so much better if the financial scales are balanced between you.”

This isn’t your file
, she reminded herself. She was only here today to fill a chair.

“He ran out on me when things got hard, but if nothing else, he’s always been a good father,” she whispered.

Bria nodded, relieved that Sylvia could admit that much. There were couples who refused to see any good in the person they’d once professed to love “for better or for worse” because their pain eclipsed it all. Bria spared a glance for Leo. He looked up at the same moment and their gazes locked. His expression softened. Her insides started to melt, and her heart beat fast.

“If there were a safe place for your husband to exercise his access to the kids, would you be agreeable to a compromise?”

Before Sylvia could answer Nadia returned, giving Bria the evil eye. And she was probably right to warn her to step back. Despite Nadia’s asking her to sit in on this motion, it was not Bria’s case, so it didn’t matter if this was not the way Bria would have handled it.

Leo held the door to the courtroom for his client and the older couple. She glanced up as she passed him. He didn’t look like his usual energetic self. In fact, he looked like he hadn’t slept in days. She tried not to think about why he wouldn’t have been getting enough sleep, but her brain had already gone to that dark place, and now all she could see in her head were images of him and another woman naked together in a massive bed.

David Jones looked at his wife with a desperation and resentment that Bria had seen many times before. So many times, in fact, that she knew exactly how quickly that look could turn to bitterness and hate. One day, Mr. Jones might not want to pay his wife so much money in child support. He might decide he’d paid enough and had a better chance of making a life for himself on the opposite side of the country under another name. Then those children he never got to see anyway would grow up believing their father was a greedy monster who didn’t care about them.

By then, none of the lawyers would care. None of them thought about any of the families whose lives they played with, once the courtroom drama was over, the judges’ orders had been made, and their inflated accounts had been paid.

As everyone took their places, she refused to look at Leo again. Her issues with him were distracting her from the separate and important issues of her client. He didn’t say anything, and he didn’t touch her, but she felt him. His direct gaze was a warm hand on the back of her neck, a gentle touch to the small of her back, a promise…and a question. One she didn’t know the answer to anymore. Still, she couldn’t help it; she let those feelings wash over her for just a minute before squaring her shoulders.

Mr. Jones’s parents sat behind Leo and their son. With Sylvia between Bria and Nadia, they remained standing as the judge came in and called the room to order. Leo stepped forward and explained that his client was looking to vary the separation agreement to allow Mr. Jones to have long-overdue access to his children.