“Took on Lenny’s psycho brother and made her life worse.”
Zeke’s brows went up and stayed there. “You got aggressive?”
The way Easton had brought fear into the room, coated it in self-righteous judgment, and cloaked it in hate. “I wanted to put my hand down his throat, rip his tongue out, then make him eat it. I don’t know what came over me. I was flippant when Easton needed soothing, and in his face when he was already riled up. I pushed his buttons so hard it all—” He made explosion hands with a sound effect.
“How?” Zeke pushed the obnoxious drink toward Halsey.
Halsey pushed it back. “He turned on his family, broke things, and stormed out. Lenny will pay for this. He’ll be all over her to get back at being humiliated by her accountant.”
“Wind that back.” Zeke windmilled a finger. “Did you say accountant?”
“It was the excuse we gave her family for why I was suddenly around.”
“You’re posing as Lenny Bradshaw’s fake accountant on a sting.” He whistled. “And I’m the irresponsible one.”
“She fired me. Guess it doesn’t matter. She’s never going to want to see my face again.”
“The face she kissed?” Zeke took up the abandoned drink. “In my experience, when a woman kisses you, it’s an opening bet.”
“She was under duress. She can’t be held accountable for it.”
Zeke scrubbed at his hair, making it stand up in an untidy mess that brought all the hookups to his yard. “Jesus, Halsey. You sure know how to complicate things.”
“I have no idea what I’m supposed to do to fix this.”
“Wish you’d called Cal,” Zeke said.
“This is why I hate fieldwork. I don’t have the instinct for it.”
“That’s trash and you know it. You’re out of practice because of the big desk thing, but there’s nothing wrong with your instincts. You deal with psychopaths, narcissists, and egomaniacs every day. Showing Easton he crossed a line isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If he knows you’re around, he might look for easier pickings. It’s something else got you rattled.”
It was Lenny. He’d never been so distracted by a woman before. He didn’t have to fake his existence with her, and that was a wholly new experience. It was honest and outside of family; he didn’t have a lot of that in his relationships. It was unique and thrilling and so was the knowledge they were attracted to each other.
And attracted was too polite a term for what he felt.
He was appallingly smitten.
You are fucking hot for her, idiot.
He wanted to apologize to her until he wore the denim of his jeans through. He’d wanted to back her up against the wall and kiss her till neither of them could reason anymore. If he couldn’t keep his thoughts straight around her, he couldn’t safely involve her in his scheming, and he couldn’t give her the satisfaction of revenge.
All that, and Cookie Jar would once again get a free pass for his worst excesses.
The conversation was going nowhere. “Tell me what to do, Zeke.”
“How badly do you want to bring Cookie Jar down?”
“Badly enough. I’m asking you for advice in a Starbucks.”
Zeke considered that, and Halsey’s false hope for useful guidance died an excruciating death when he said, “I’d start with kissing her back.”
Chapter Sixteen
Mal was awake but not in a mood to respond to Lenny’s entreaty to open the bedroom door, and Lenny didn’t have it in her after the impact of her almost ravishing in the corridor to push too hard.
She leaned her forehead on the closed door because the back of her neck had gone soft and wouldn’t support her head. It had been at least an hour since Halsey had made her a riot of chemical response. Long enough to clean up the kitchen, eat a bowl of cereal and two more chocolates, and try to get the lamp working again. Long enough to shake off th
e euphoria that lit her up and gave her goose bumps and to feel heavy with regret for what hadn’t happened.