Iris popped her head out of the kitchen, waving a pink menu. “Can we do Ethiopian?”
Taking a deep breath, I bowed my head. “Whatever you want,meala.”
That would remain true for tonight. I would give her space and room to come around to living with me, but this discussion wasn’t over. Far from it.
I was distracted from a morning of checking in with a big client across the river in New Jersey. I’d spent several hours with Mr. Kang, and now I had an inbox filled with emails I had to respond to. Stepping into Aileen’s apartment, my focus on my phone, her raised voice startled me.
“Fecking eejit. Finnegan David McMaster, good for nothing—” Her curses were drowned out by a crash and something heavy hitting the wall of her office. Any other woman, I would have been concerned, but Aileen’s temper was a thing of legends. Finn was often the object of her rage. He was my brother in almost every sense, but the lad could use a heavy dose of growing up.
Steven came trotting out of the office, looking unconcerned as he headed for his water bowl.
“What’s your ma on about now, fella?” I patted his head and made my way into the office where Aileen stood in the center, her hands on her hips, blustering with a bright red face.
“All right in here?” It was a stupid question. Aileen had cleared every piece of paper off Finn’s desk, scattering it all to the floor. Her crystal ashtray lay chipped on the ground, and there was a good chunk missing from the wall.
“No, it isn’t all right. Finn’s reckless disregard for professionalism and minding his fecking dick is going to be the ruin of LSS. He’s lucky you’re here and not him. If I saw him right now, he’d have lost a cheek from how hard I want to slap him.”
Her chest rose and fell so rapidly, I was starting to worry. Aileen’s temper had never run this hot. Not in my presence.
I went to her, holding her shoulders, speaking to her in a voice I hoped like hell was calming. “Breathe. Please breathe and tell me what Finn’s done so I can kick his arse for you.”
She wagged her finger like a weapon. “I’ve just hung up with Saul Goodman. You know, one of our biggest clients. He was rightly dismayed his beautiful, new bride, Vanessa, has been carrying on with her bodyguard.”
I sucked in a breath. “What? That can’t be right.”
“Oh, it is.” Her eyes narrowed to angry slits. “Vanessa told him herself. She’s leaving Saul because she’s in love. Love!” She guffawed like it was an outlandish proposition. “Can you even fathom? Finn’s charmed some young little thing with his cock and she’s calling it love.”
“Aileen...” I closed my eyes, pushing back my own rising anger to deal with Aileen’s, “I can’t believe Finn would be this stupid. It’s one thing to sleep with a client, but it’s a whole other thing when she’s married.”
She shoved my hand from her. “Both of you boys flouting rules. You’re nearly as bad, getting involved with Ms. Adler, especially after the whole Olivia Grayson debacle.” She shook her head, stalking over to her ashtray, tsking as she picked up the pieces.
I’d take some blame for crossing the line with Iris, but my last client’s behavior had nothing to do with me. She had been a troubled young girl who would have fixated on anyone who’d paid her the slightest attention. I just happened to be the unlucky bastard who was there at the wrong time, and Aileen damn well knew it.
“Olivia Grayson is mentally unwell, and neither she nor Iris have anything to do with our current situation. Tell me what Saul said.”
She placed the broken crystal on her desk and glowered at me. Her chin quivered, but at least her breathing had slowed. My ma would never forgive me if I let Aileen have a heart attack.
“Mr. Goodman intends to have his lawyers draft a letter to terminate all our contracts with his artists, which is understandable. When I assured him Finn would no longer be a part of LSS, he backed down from contacting each of our clients to inform them of our breach of ethics.” She tossed her hands out with a cry of rage. “Fuck, this is a pile of steaming shite, Ronan. I don’t want to deal with any of this. I’m too old. Too fecking old to babysit wayward man-children.”
“Fuck.” I ran my fingers through my hair and tugged hard. “He has to go?”
Aileen leveled me with a hard stare. “I love that boy, but he doesn’t take this job as seriously as he needs to. He never has. And now he’s nothing but a liability. We can’t keep him on. Even without Saul’s threat, he’d be fired. If you take a moment to think about it with your head and take your emotions out of it, you’ll realize my hands are tied. I have built this business with my own blood and sweat. I will not see it fall because Finnegan can’t control his dick. This is what’s happening, and I won’t change my mind.”
Too many thoughts waged war in my head. My loyalty was being split between Finn and Aileen. It killed me that she had to fire him, but at the same time, a ball of rage was snowballing in my chest. He’d fucked up in a way that couldn’t be laughed off. The last time he was careless like this, he’d flipped our vehicle and destroyed both my knee and my career. Now he was taking chances with the job that had brought me back to life and gave me focus.
I walked to the doorway before spinning around and meeting Aileen’s worried eyes.
“I’ll handle him.”
She nodded once. “Don’t go easy on him, but don’t get arrested.”
I almost laughed. Finn was lucky it was going to be me dealing with him instead of Aileen. He probably wouldn’t walk away from a confrontation with her.
“Don’t worry.” I checked my phone, finding Iris, and by extension, Finn, who was running with her, through the app. “If you want me to call Mr. Goodman—”
Aileen scoffed. “Are you kidding? The last thing he needs is another one of my handsome boys in his face reminding him of his wife’s wandering eye. I will deal with that arsehole.”
“All right.” I slapped my hands against the molding. “I’m going to track Finn down. Why don’t you go toss a ball with Steven? Give him a good pet and calm down.”