Page 17 of Breaking Rules

“Tell me, lass. Tell me what you want.”

My breathing hitched at the sound of pure need in those words. “I want to hear you come. Hear you say my name and know that you’re thinking of me, remembering what it feels like when we’re together.”

I couldn’t believe I was telling him this, sharing things I only ever thought…and still holding back the one thing I couldn’t acknowledge, not even to myself.

It had to bewantand notneed. I couldn’tneedhim. Not in any way that really mattered.

“Are you close,mo nighean?”

“Yes.” I repeated the affirmation. “Yes.”

My hips moved against my hand, and pleasure tore through me, arcing through my body like lightning. All heat and power and light. Hundreds of miles away, Alec followed me, calling out my name. In that moment, the space between us disappeared, and we were together in that way that obliterated all obstacles and made me feel like anything was possible.

Ten

Alec

For me,sex had always been an enjoyable way to blow off steam, a place to be in control, but never an impulse I felt I needed a certain number of times in a specific timeframe. As such, I’d only indulged when the urge struck, and my schedule allowed for it.

Then I’d met Lumen.

Of all the sexual things I’d done in my life, I’d never had phone sex until last night. In the past, if I’d wanted physical release but hadn’t wanted to bother finding a partner, I would take care of it myself, no one else needed. Last night, however, I’d wanted to talk to Lumen, and it had turned into something sexual.

“Get yer head outta yer arse, McCrae,” I muttered to myself as I shook my head.

It was the middle of the week, and things had been piling up at work since I’d taken that abrupt leave Monday afternoon. I hadn’t done more than check in yesterday, which meant I’d spent all of this morning simply catching up on email. Fortunately, I had a good reputation, which meant once I’d explained to my clients that there’d been an incident at my daughter’s school, no one would hold my brief absence against me.

At least, they wouldn’t be vocal about it. No one wanted to be the person known for criticizing a man whose child had been present during a shooting.

I finished the email I’d been writing and sent it off. That had been the last one…except I’d gotten responses to the first five I sent out. I sighed and went back to the top. When had this become so tedious? Hadn’t I enjoyed my work?

Try as I might, I couldn’t quite remember anything similar to joy or even happiness. Perhaps some pride and satisfaction when I was able to show Da how well I’d done with the company he’d created, but certainly no enjoyment.

Not that I felt as if I had the right to complain about any of it. I was worth billions, and the work we did was good. Both the company and I personally contributed astronomical sums to various charities. We made the world better.

Shouldn’t that have been enough?

Now that I had Evanne in my life, keeping me from being entirely consumed by my job, I wondered what I’d been doing all these years, missing out on being an integral part of my daughter’s life when I could have easily adjusted my time at work to be with her more.

Thoughts like that made it difficult to concentrate, and I was grateful for the interruption when Theresa knocked on the study door.

“Keli’s here.”

It took a moment for the words to process, and still, I needed to hear them again. “What?”

“Keli is here.” Theresa’s expression was blank, but I knew she’d never approved of my ex. The way she’d left Evanne with me hadn’t helped matters much. “She’s in the front room.”

Assuming that this would take a good portion of the rest of my day, I closed everything down, taking the extra couple minutes to run through various possible reasons for her sudden appearance, not the least of which was that she’d decided that I wasn’t suited to be a full-time parent. The problem was, I hadn’t as of yet decided if I agreed with that assessment or not.

I was still several feet from the front room when I heard Evanne laughing. My stomach clenched. For the most part, Keli and I hadn’t butted heads when it came to our daughter, and the big reason for that on my part had been me not wanting to put Evanne in the middle of something that wasn’t her fault or her responsibility. She loved her mom, and I’d have to have been a right bastard to take that away from her simply because Keli and I weren’t suited for each other.

“Good afternoon,” I said as I stepped into the room.

Keli was seated on the floor next to Evanne, showing her something that I assumed was a present from Italy. When she looked up at me, I was struck again at how much Evanne looked like a perfect combination of us two. Keli’s curls were ebony to Evanne’s dark brown, eyes teal rather than blue, the differences owing to my blond hair and blue eyes. Evanne’s features were the same, a little of me and a little of Keli. The nose that was mine had come from my own mother, and that was bittersweet. Ma would have loved knowing her granddaughter.

“Always so formal, Alec,” Keli said with a smile.

I waited for her to tell me why she was here, but when she didn’t, I sat next to Evanne on the floor. Ignoring Keli’s surprised expression, I took a good look at my daughter, searching her face for any negative emotion. I’d only been partially honest with Evanne when it came to why her mother had left, not lying outright, but hiding the full truth. I’d simply said that Keli had wanted to go somewhere with her boyfriend, and Evanne needed to go to school here. I refused to cause Evanne the hurt that the full truth would bring, but I wasn’t certain Keli had the same compunction.