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My mind drifted back to my discussion with Nat when she’d opened up to me more about her fucked up dad. Sadly, Nat and Shane didn’t have a lot of answers about why their dad was so cruel; they assumed it had to do with inheritance from their mother, of all things, which I understood all too well. But many details were a mystery, and that was all I knew. I didn’t want to press hard for more because I promised her my patience, which was precisely what I would give. Family issues were sticky, and I knew that first-hand. Her willingness to communicate when she was ready was all I needed for now. The rest would come in time.
I smiled when Shane stood up. “I’m going to go lay down in the back,” he said.
“Well, if you plan on using mine and your sister’s room, you’re sorely mistaken,” I said with a grin, resting my chin in my hand and swiveling slowly in my airplane seat.
“I’ll be in one of the peasant’s rooms, then,” he answered with a laugh. “Maybe that hot flight attendant can join—”
“I think that hardworking young woman will be just fine without your unwanted advances; thank you very much,” Nat said, agitated and most likely because of the conversation she and Shane had before he got up. “Now, go rest.”
Shane nodded and left to find a room, and I walked over and sat next to her on the leather sofa. “I heard you talking about inheritance stuff again. You know, if anyone can understand complicated inheritances and weird interpersonal relationships with family, it’s me. Just let me know to what level you want me involved, and I’m on it.”
“That’s the thing,” she’d said, turning to look at me. “I’m not sure if I should involve you in this. Everything with my dad is so intense and bizarre; he always makes things much more complicated than they need to be. So, if I bring in my bigshot boyfriend from his elite company, who happens to be an Oxford-educated attorney—”
“Solicitor,” I corrected gently.
“Yeah, whatever,” she bit back at me gently. “Anyway, he’ll see that as an attack, and he will fight back. It won’t be pleasant.”
“I wouldn’t expect it to be,” I said. “But I take your point, and I would never want to make things harder for you.” I sat back some and nodded toward her somber expression. “I’ll take my cue from you on how to proceed.”
She smiled and ran her hand up my leg. “Thank you.”
I got up when I heard an email alert, hoping it was the one I was expecting from the security division of the company, and walked over to check my computer. As I did, I couldn’t help but notice the nagging feeling in my stomach that I’d essentially told Nat I’ll sit back and wait until the last minute to help her. Because let’s face it, if Natalia Hoover needed help, she would never ask for it. Not in a million years. We were too alike in that way.
So, I’d put myself in a position not to lift a finger even though something could go wrong with her abusive father, which didn’t sit right with me.
I quickly responded to the company that’d gotten back to me and closed my laptop. I glanced over and saw that Nat was reclined on the couch, setting one arm behind her head and putting the other hand on her face to cover her eyes.
I went over to where she was lying and picked up her feet.
“What are you—oh,” she said, uncovering her face briefly and then relaxing once more as I sat down on the couch and set her feet on my lap, slowly pulling her shoes off one by one.
“Not that I’m complaining, since these shoes look incredible,” I said, placing the lovely black torture devices carefully next to my feet, “but I will never, ever grasp why you’d do that to yourself. Doesn’t wearing that shit hurt?”
“Sure,” she said, shrugging, “if you don’t spring for quality, and even then, it’s a pretty gnarly experience. But that’s the price we pay for looking like a million bucks, right?”
I shook my head. “I still don’t get it.”
“You appreciate the sight of it, don’t you?”
I smiled, leaning over to give her a simple kiss. “I do, that’s true.”
I sat back on the sofa and began to rub the graceful arch of her foot, luxuriating in the sigh of pleasure she let out as I indulged in the massage.
“You okay?” I asked, leaning back and wrapping both my hands around her feet so I could give the massage my total concentration. “This isn’t me getting involved, I swear. But in case you weren’t sure, a healthy part of relationships is one party asking the other if they’re okay when dealing with family messes.”
She shrugged as she reached one hand up and set it on my shoulder. “If you say so.” She sighed, stretching her foot out so my thumb could access every bit. “If you promise to massage me like this on the regular, you can ask me whatever you want.”
“Will you answer, though?”
“Probably not,” she chuckled. Then she sighed, sat up, and reached out for a pillow that she set under the small of her back so she could concentrate on the conversation. “This isn’t the place for this conversation anyway.”
“Why, we’re alone?”
“I know, but I don’t want to risk Shane coming out and thinking we’re talking about him, even though we’re just trying to figure out how to extricate him from everything that has to do with our family trust.”
“Exactly what were your mother’s requests regarding the trust?” I questioned, wanting to know more about this peculiar situation.
“Mom had specific wishes and instructions for how she wanted her assets distributed, particularly after we used the money set aside for us to go to school.”
