Page 172 of Boss of the Year

Daniel whirled toward him, his typically combed hair disheveled, his ironed Polo shirt wrinkled. His blue eyes, which usually danced with merriment, were glassy with rage. I didn’t have to be next to him to guess that the scent of gin or vodka was rolling off him in waves.

“Don’t be coy,” he snapped. “You and your grand plans. Did you think I wouldn’t find out? Did you think I wouldn’t figure out the whole fucking scheme?”

Was this about me? Maybe I was naïve, but I had assumed that when Lucas had returned, the matter was settled between him and his family. Or that he had ignored their wishes and come back to me anyway.

“Daniel, I don’t know what Winnifred told you?—”

“Mom didn’t tell meshit,” Daniel snarled. “But none of you ever seemed to remember Dad. Just like you never remember me. Poor old Cliff Lyons, soft in the head. Well, he had a lucid day, you fucker, and he told me everything.”

With a quick glance my way, Lucas tried to shuttle his brother back toward the exit. “Daniel, come on. I need to get dressed. Why don’t you go down to the bar, get another drink, and then we can talk about it?—”

“You knew I wanted her! You knew it the whole time!”

I sat up more, unable to keep from watching him as he whirled around like a spinning top. Wanted who? Me? If that was the truth, he had a funny way of showing it.

“Daniel,” Lucas said sharply. “Cut it out. You’re drunk?—”

“Don’t tell me I’m drunk!” Daniel’s voice cracked with emotion. “I’ve been going out of my mind, you know, wondering why she disappeared, why she won’t return my calls.”

I frowned, resisting the urge to find my phone, which was in my purse somewhere in the front room, and check for said calls.

As far as I knew, I hadn’t received any.

“And now I find out you’ve been here the whole time, seducing her away from me with a whole lot more than ‘business,’” he babbled on in that too-fast way some people spoke under the influence. “Did you really think that by coming here, I was just going to skip off into the sunset with Emma Hubbard like a good boy? Did youreallythink I was just going to let Mother tie it all up like a damn bow while the woman of my dreams was out here withyou?”

I sucked in a tight breath.

The woman of his dreams?

Really?

The idea of Daniel Lyons flying off the handle over me, calling me anything close to this, would have been the stuff of fantasies a year ago. Even a month ago. Now, with the imprint of Lucas’s body still fresh on mine, it just made me feel ill.

“Jesus, did you drink the entire galley on your flight?” Lucas’s voice was sharp with disgust. “You smell like a goddamn distillery.”

“That’s none of your business, you fucking rat!”

“It is when you show up at my hotel ranting like a lunatic.” Lucas’s jaw tightened. “You want to know why I wouldn’t let Marie near you? Because you can’t go twelve hours without a bottle, and she doesn’t need to have her life ruinedagainby another alcoholic. Which you would know if you had ever taken the time to learn one fucking thing about her!”

I sucked in a breath at the mention of my parents. I didn’t know why it always surprised me how acute Lucas’s memory was, or the fact that he clearly did his research after I shared the smallest things, but it did.

Daniel’s perfectly proportioned face contorted with rage. “You don’t get to judge me! You don’t get to?—”

Those sky-blue eyes swept around and found me wrapped in the white sheet. Even through his drunken haze, they touchedover the pieces of a puzzle that had to be obvious: hair mussed from Lucas’s hands, lips swollen from his kisses, red marks on my neck and shoulders, and remnants of a flush on my cheeks.

He turned back to Lucas. “You son of a bitch.”

And then he launched.

The punch connected with Lucas’s jaw with a crack that filled the suite. Outside, Paris sank peacefully into its early evening rhythm, but inside was chaos as Lucas fell onto the desk, knocking over a cup of pens and a lamp, but kept his feet as he touched his split lip.

“Daniel, stop?—”

“You just couldn’t help yourself, could you?” Daniel levied another wild swing that Lucas dodged easily this time. “YouknewI wanted her. I told you so. But you saw those pretty green eyes and luscious tits, and you just had to take her for yourself!”

At that, Lucas flew forward, pouncing with the speed of a big cat as he grabbed Daniel by the shirt and slammed him against the wall. “Youevertalk about her like that again, you spoiled fucking prick, and you will swallow every one of these veneers I paid for.”

“I was in love with her!” Daniel shouted as he rammed into Lucas at the waist, only to be parried easily to the side.