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Crap, his fingers are rubbing me through my pants and panties, while I’m fighting not to moan. “I—Chris, no. It’s not—will you stop? Okay, don’t stop yet.”
He chuckles in my ear, sending a shiver down my spine. “No dessert yet, you’ll ruin your dinner.”
I want to scream as he bites my earlobe then takes his hand away. “You’re so mean. Who texted you?”
With a shake of his head, he hands me his phone. “Trent, a teammate, he wants to go to the strip club. I want you to know I never went out to the strip club.”
I look up from his phone, shocked he handed it to me. “I know. But I wouldn’t have been angry if you had, you warned me. At the time there was a part of me trying really hard to self-destruct us, and I almost wanted you to so I could use it against you. I might have set an alert on your name within five minutes after I sent the vase back to you.”
“You were checking up on me?” A dimple flashes.
Laughing, I nod as I hand him his phone back. “Yep, and reading everything on you I could find to figure you out. What are you going to do after you retire this year?”
He shrugs. “Enjoy life, eat pizza and ice cream. I was thinking about getting my passport renewed and visiting a country where I don’t speak the language. I’m good from the investments I’ve made, so money isn’t a concern. I can keep an eye on them from anywhere, I’m not pinned to a desk or location.
“I want to stay in Chicago, which is why I bought the building here. I was considering becoming more hands-on in my properties, to keep me busy on a day-to-day basis. I want to play it as it comes, though. I just got back all my bids for the repair to go through, and already I’m wondering if I want to do it. We’ll see, I’m up for anything.”
“You don’t worry you’re going to miss it?”
“I’m thirty-five, I’ll be thirty-six in July, that’s old for a baseball player. While it will be a huge change, I’m ready. I was going to retire after my first season here until we won the World Series. They thought I had something to do with it, offering me a contract I couldn’t refuse.”
“You were a part of two other World Series wins, it sounds reasonable to think you might have something to do with it.”
“A part of. The first one, yeah, I worked my ass off, I was hungry for the ring. The second one, though, I was in the right place at the right time. Same with here in Chicago. Management has worked hard, putting together the right players, making sure everyone worked together until it was a fine-oiled machine. What about you? You’re in the corner office, are you on the partner track?”
I shrug. “I was but I’m not anymore. Here I was steeling myself to have the conversation with Ethan when he gets back, and he already knew.” My stomach flips at putting it into words
“What happened?”
“I figured out I’m never going to be like my brother. I don’t have what it takes, the ability to put things and money before people. I’m not cut out for it.”
He has the I’m-trying-his-patience look on his face. “What happened?”
“Karen and her wife divorced. Ethan represented Karen, and her wife, Susan, asked me to sit in on her settlement offer. Ethan...” I shake my head as I remember how cold his expression was, remember what he said. “Susan wanted more than the prenup she signed gave her. Looking through the financials, she would have gotten much more if she went for support. She refused his offer. He slid across the table a receipt for an abortion she had a few years prior, when she was supposed to be with Karen, and said if she signed the offer she could walk out with the receipt and no one would ever know. If she didn’t sign, he would set fire to her world and she could watch it burn. He was going to send the receipt to her Pentecostal preacher father.
“Ethan was willing to burn her world to the ground over a few million dollars. It made me sick. I’ve seen him do it before, but to companies, not people. As I watched him, I knew I didn’t have his killer instinct. To truly be no-holds barred, to win at any cost.”
Chris squeezes my hand. “How is it going to work, you quitting?”
“I’m not sure exactly. It will take a little time to roll willing clients to other lawyers in the firm so they don’t end up losing anyone. My concern is the loss of clients. There’s no getting around it, but the fewer the better and that will be hard to achieve.”
“Are you going to go into a different type of law? Why did you want to
be a lawyer? Was it all Ethan?”
“I have no freaking idea what I’m going to do. I’m going to take some time to figure it out once I leave. Money isn’t a problem, there’s a family trust I get monthly which is more than I need.”
“A family trust?” He says it as if he’s asking me to confirm I have an STI.
Of course, Chris would hate the idea. The men in my past were eager to hear about it, not Chris. “Um...yeah.” His eye brow goes up. “I get large payouts from it on certain birthdays. I received a million at eighteen, twenty one and every time I got a degree. Five million at twenty five and thirty and every five years then fifty five thousand a month.”
He’s pale. “A month?”
“It almost all goes to charity, I only keep maybe ten percent. I set up a foundation and it helps people with everything from scholarships to medical bills to battered women. I don’t want the money, it doesn’t define me.”
A hand goes through his hair, he looks away then takes a deep breath before looking at me. “It was easy to tell you had money. I wasn’t expecting it to be so much, but I make the money, I take care of you. It will never be any other way.”
With a smile I lean into kiss him. “Yes, okay. However, you want it to be, it is.”
