Page 62 of Things We Left Behind

Lucian

You seem tense,” Emry observed.

“Tense? Why would I be tense? Just because I’ve got clients to deal with, the FBI moving at a snail’s pace, an exasperating woman interrupting my schedule, a tail that smells like the Hugo crime organization. There’s no reason to be tense,” I snapped.

The city streets were always bumper to bumper in black luxury SUVs. But I’d still made the tail when I’d been alerted to Sloane’s arrival.

I hadn’t been able to deal with the security issue because I’d needed to seeher. I’d been compelled to ignore the situation I could have easily dealt with because I wanted to see her in my offices. I wanted to be there when she saw what I’d built.

And then I’d gone and lost every shred of discipline. I’d forgotten the most basic of lessons. Sloane’s proximity to me brought her too close to danger. It always had.

My friend steepled his fingers over his rounded belly and waited expectantly.

I realized I hadn’t even taken a seat. I’d been pacing in front of the man’s fireplace since the minute I arrived. We were meant to be having dinner tonight. But one look at me when he opened the door and he’d shed the apron and waved me into his home office.

I brought my fingertips to my forehead. “Sorry, Emry. I’m ruining our dinner.”

It had been a long time since I’d felt this out of control. I needed to lock down my feelings to put a stop to the images that played incessantly in my head. Those green eyes at half-­mast. The red lips parting.

He waved away my apology. “It’s a casserole. It’ll keep.”

“You burnt it, didn’t you?”

He grinned ruefully. “I’m surprised you didn’t notice the charcoal smell.”

I hadn’t noticed anything. I needed to calm the fuck down. “She’s infuriating,” I said, resuming my pacing.

“The FBI agent?”

“No! Sloane.”

Chuckling, he heaved himself out of his leather recliner and crossed to the brass bar cart he kept under a painting of stormy seas challenging a wooden ship.

I leaned against the mantel and willed myself to stop thinking about how it had felt to have Sloane pinned between me and my desk.

Emry poured two glasses of wine from a shapely decanter. He was wearing a black wool sweater covered in neon fish over a checkered button-­down.

“That sweater deserves to be set on fire,” I observed when he handed me one of the glasses. He looked like someone’s kindly, hapless grandfather.

I wondered briefly what he thought of when he looked at me. Did I look like the CEO of a multimillion-­dollar company? Did I look like I could be someone’s husband, someone’s father? Or did I look like the villain I was?

“Let’s table the subject of the exasperating Sloane—­temporarily—­and go back to the part about you being followed by an organized crime syndicate,” he suggested, indicating the second chair.

“I didn’t lead them here if that’s what you’re worried about,” I said as I reluctantly sat.

“Hmm,” came the pointed reply.

I blew out a breath. I was, as Emry would have said in our therapy days, “coloring others’ words with my ego’s definitions.” Nowadays, he only had to hum for me to get the message.

“I know you well enough to understand you take every precaution to protect those you care about. My concern is foryou. Do you give yourself the same care?”

“Can’t you just tell me how to stop feeling all these feelings so I can focus on what needs to be accomplished?” I asked, staring into the glass.

“If we were in a session, I’d say something thought-­provoking about how sometimes the feelings we resist the most are the ones that have the most to teach us. Then we could discuss why, in an itemized list of situations anyone would find challenging, you’re most concerned with a woman from your past. One you claim to have nothing but animosity toward. But we’re just two friends about to order pizza so we don’t have to eat the smoking meteor in my kitchen. As a friend, I’ll ask this. Why is a visit from a public librarian more disconcerting to you than the fact that a mob boss might be aware you’re helping the FBI build a case against him?”

Because I was in control when it came to Anthony Hugo.

Because I knew how to deal with men like that.