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“See you around,” she said, her voice choked with emotion. And then she was gone.
I sat, staring at the water again and thinking about everything she’d told me. I had to make some calls.
I couldn’t think about Olivia in my bedroom this morning, in my bed, the bruises on her face. You promised me. She was right; part of me might long to snap Craig Bastien’s neck for what he’d done to her, but I was no good to anyone on Death Row. I had to rein in my temper. I had to be cool.
She didn’t think I could do it. She saw a thug, a getaway driver, a con, a man who had lived by his wits all his life. She wanted to believe in me, but I saw the doubt in her eyes. She was trying to reconcile the man she was looking at—big, brawny, furious—with the man I was with her.
It killed me. But I knew what I had to do. I’d never had a purpose the way I did for the next few hours, when I was going to put my plan in motion. I was going to do this if I died doing it. If it was, literally, the last thing I’d ever do.
I could be a good person. I could maybe even be the man Olivia wanted me to be, the man she deserved. But there was still poison in my veins, and I had to get rid of it. I had to clean the shit out of my life before I could be free to build a new one.
I paid the bill and watched the water for a while, and then I pulled out my phone.
Twenty-Four
Olivia
When I came downstairs, showered and dressed, there was a man in the kitchen. He had pulled up a stool to the high kitchen counter and was busy digging into a takeout container with a pair of chopsticks. He wore jeans, motorcycle boots, and a black t-shirt with a classic Metallica logo on it. His dark blond hair was worn slightly long, swept back behind his ears and touching the back of his neck, and he had a short beard on his face.
He looked up at me when I entered and his blue-gray eyes lit into me like lasers. “Don’t call 911,” he said. “I’m Ben.”
I stopped in the kitchen doorway. “The lawyer?”
“The same.” He put down his chopsticks, slid off his stool, and held out a hand to me. His arm was roped with muscles and he had a leather bracelet on one wrist. “Ben Hanratty.”
He doesn’t look like a lawyer, Devon had said. That was an understatement. “Olivia Maplethorpe,” I said, shaking his hand.
He grinned at me. His grip was warm and kind, his hand enveloping mine before he pulled away. “I know. Is your mom still sexy?”
I coughed. “Um, I suppose. I don’t think of her that way.”
“Avery’s Place,” Ben said, getting on his stool again. He whistled appreciatively. “What a beautiful woman. I had plenty of happy daydreams about Avery back in the day, let me tell you. I put some coffee on. You want some tofu?”
He looked older than Devon, in his thirties maybe. If my mother knew this man thought she was sexy, she would probably be so flattered she’d float straight off the floor. I eyed the contents of his takeout container warily, then moved to the coffeepot. “No tofu, thank you.”
“Let me guess,” Ben said good-naturedly, poking at the rice in his container deftly, his big fingers wrapped around his chopsticks. “You don’t think I look like a lawyer, and you don’t think I look like a guy who eats tofu. But it’s my day off, so I left my suit and tie at home. And I actually like tofu.”
I pulled a mug from the cupboard. “I like surprises,” I said.
“Then I guess Devon really is the man for you.” He didn’t notice when I froze awkwardly at the words.
I poured my coffee, being careful with my bandaged wrist, and turned to stare at him as I sipped it. Sure, he didn’t look like a lawyer, but he looked like a man capable of kicking the ass of anyone who tried to throw me down another flight of stairs. Maybe it wasn’t the worst thing in the world to have a guy who looked like the president of the local MC sitting at the breakfast bar. “You’re really Devon’s lawyer?” I asked.
“I am,” he said. He glanced at me. “I know his situation looks fucked up on the surface. Do you have any questions?”
I blinked. “You mean, about the inheritance?”
“Sure.” He shrugged. “I’ll answer anything you want.”
“What about lawyer-client privilege?”
He turned over a cube of tofu with his chopsticks and regarded me thoughtfully. “I’ve known Devon for eight years,” he said, “ever since he came to the age of majority. Do you know how many women he’s introduced me to?”
My spine went tight. “No.”
“Zero,” Ben said. He held up his thumb and finger in a circle for emphasis. “Exactly none. And then he calls me up and says you’re in his house, and he needs me to look out for you until he gets home, because some asshole threw you down a flight of stairs. And that whole sentence sounded incredible, but the most incredible thing to me was that Devon Wilder had a woman in his house. I didn’t even register the rest of it at first. You get me?” He watched my confused face. “There has never been a man who is more of a loner than Devon. He has Max at his back, and me dealing with his legal shit, and that’s it. He has no one else. So to me, if you’re here, then I can tell you anything. Because if Devon didn’t trust you, you wouldn’t be here at all.”
I digested that. Do you trust me? Devon had asked me this morning. And I’d told him that I didn’t think he trusted me. But this man knew something very, very different.
