Loving Leo (The Romanovsky Brothers Book 3) (13 page)

“You’re the one that ran me down in your Porsche, but I’m terrifying?”

“When I first climbed out of that car and laid eyes on you, I stopped breathing for a minute.”

“When you first climbed out of that car, you leapt for your precious grille.  By the time you were done kissing it better I was already back on my feet shaking the asphalt out of my hair.”

“Lies.  I went straight to your aid.”

“Once you saw my tits spilling out of my top, yeah.  I had your undivided attention then.”

“God, I knew it.”  He moved in closer, daring to cover her thigh with his entire hand.  When she let him, he squeezed, not unaware of his dick tightening with need.  “You hate me.”

“I don’t hate you.  And, to be honest, the collision wasn’t
all
your fault.  I should have heard that Flat-6 coming from a mile away.”

“What do you know about a
Flat-6
?”

“I like cars.”

“I like women who like cars.”

“You just like women.”

“Guilty, but I’ve never met one that knows a Flat-6 engine by ear.”

“My dad worked on cars all his life.  He owns a garage and he used to let me help him.  Now that I look back, he wasn’t so much letting
me help him as he was exploiting me for the free labor.”

His smile grew.

“He built his shop in a nice area, took the financial loss for years, but still managed to keep us fed and clothed.  Pretty soon, the Lambos and Porsches started coming through the door and—”

“Profit becomes inevitable.”

“Correct, Mr. CRO.”  She nudged him.  “It almost became too much for him to keep up with.  He doesn’t even have time to enjoy the money.  He works 24-7.  My uncle tries to pick up some of the slack, but Dad doesn’t know how to relax.  He gets antsy quickly when he doesn’t have anything to do with his hands.”

“Your uncle?  Your mother’s brother?”

“No, my father’s brother.”

Leo shifted with a frown.  “Didn’t you say your father’s family was assassinated in Africa?”

Her eyes widened.

Leo would pay good money to get in her head.

Her gaze fell to her lap.  “My father and uncle were the only two who made it out alive.”

He nodded, frowning at her broken eye contact.  “Where’s the garage?”

“South Cove.”

Leo whistled.  “A mile off Wall Street.  He’s cleaning up.”

“Not nearly as much as you and your brothers, but he does okay.”

“Good for him.  He sounds like a smart man.”

“He is.”

“Maybe I’ll meet him sometime.”  His voice lowered.  “Where’d you grow up?”

“Jersey City.”

“No shit?”

“Westside.”

“
Girrrrrl
,” he teased, a smile lighting up his face when she laughed.  It was a breathtaking sight when her smiles were real.  If he had to do a gay accent to get it out of her, he would do it with bells on.   “That’s the damn hood.”

“It was tough.”

“I was on fifteenth and JFK,” Leo said.

Her wide eyes flew to him.  “That was two blocks from me.  Damn, small world.”

“Looks like we both made it out alive.”

“The few, the proud.”

“What high school did you go to?”

Her eyes fell away from his.  “Um… Private school.  Boston.  Once my father started making money, he wanted to make sure I got the best education.”

“That must have been tough.  Being away from him.” Leo said, frowning.

“He was just trying to do right by me.”

When the waitress came to take their food orders, they gaped at their menus, shocked that they’d forgotten to even open them.

“Damn,” Leo said.  “We haven’t even had a chance to look.”

“You come here all the time, right?” she asked.  “You know what’s good.  Why don’t you choose?  I trust you.” She winked.

He sat taller before ordering for both of them.  They waited for the waitress to go before they both sank back into the booth, facing each other once more.

“Mother?” he asked.

“Homemaker.  She stopped working when the
first
Lambo came rolling through Dad’s shop.  Yours?”

“You met mine.  Homemaker.  Extremely dutiful.  Doesn’t question my father unless the roof is on fire.”

“Has it ever been on fire?”

“Not that I know of.”

“You must have some crazy stories to tell, having a father that was a police chief.”

“Nah.  He kept us really sheltered from all that.  We never heard about his work.  He didn’t like to talk about it, and he didn’t want us following in his footsteps. He worked his fingers to the bone so we could do better than him.”

“You definitely did.”

“Val did.  Like I said, he just let us come along for the ride.”

“He didn’t do it alone.”

“He could’ve.”

“I don’t think you give yourself enough credit.”

“Maybe his greatness has always made me feel a little inadequate.”  The moment the words left his mouth, Leo straightened, alarm pulling his eyebrows. “Wow. I’ve never said that out loud before,” he breathed, eyes falling to her lips.

Hers did the same to his.  “How is your relationship with Val?”

“My skin.  My bones.  He’s the blood in my veins.  He’s my best friend.”

“Do you guys have any secrets?”

“No.”

“What would you do if you found out he was hiding a big secret from you?  Something that could hurt you?”

“I don’t know what I would do, because he would never put me in a position to decide.  Nor would I him.”

“What about him and Zoey?  He kept his feelings for her a secret from you, didn’t he?”

“I think he kept his feelings for Zoey a secret from
himself
until he couldn’t take it anymore.”

She chortled.  “What about Gary and Roman?”

“My skin.  My bones.  My blood.  They’re my brothers.”

“It must be nice to have so many people to turn to.”

“Did you find it difficult to turn to your brother?”

Her chest rose. “Leroy was in and out of my life, all my life.  Turning to him was difficult.  Not that I didn’t want to, I wrote him tons of letters, it’s just… turning to your brother isn’t quite turning to your brother when UPS is your go-between.”

“They’re a nightmare,” he said.

“A fucking joke,” she agreed. “I used to always call Leroy to make sure he got all my packages in jail, and every once in a while there was one that just disappeared.  Just fucking
poof,
never to be seen or heard from again.
 
It’d be a miracle if he received even half the letters I sent him as a kid.” She leaned on the table and pressed her chin into her hand, looking off.  A long silence passed, and then her eyes met his again.  “When he went to juvie for the first time, I was ten.  I wrote him a letter every single day.  Sometimes it wasn’t even a real letter. I would just draw him a picture or something.”

“I’m sure it kept him going.”

“Maybe…” Her eyes grew hopeful.  “He still has every single letter.  He keeps them in a box at the back of his closet.  Every time I go to visit him, I check to make sure the box is still there.  I know it’s stupid, but I feel like it would really hurt me if he ever got rid of it.”

“That’s not stupid.”  Leo tried to move closer, and then realized he couldn’t.  He would never be able to get close enough to her, he feared.  Not even if he was lucky enough to get between those legs and sink inside.  His heart sped up and almost stole his words.  Instead, it just broke his voice. “I’m sure the comfort you got from sending those letters wasn’t much different from the comfort he felt receiving them.  The value of that box is through the roof for both of you, and I doubt he’ll ever part with it.”

“I never thought of it that way.”

“You said you studied criminal justice to help him have a better life.  Did it work?”

“I managed to get him out of prison four years early.”

“Wow.  That’s impressive.  Four years.  How in the world did you do it?”

Her eyes met his and widened, as if his question stunned her.

His eyebrows jumped at the sudden alarm on her face.

“I, um…” She scooted away from him.

His hand fell from where it had been holding her leg, immediately yearning to have it back under his grasp.  He watched her stand, mouth dropping open at her departure.

“Sorry,” she said.  “I just have to go to the ladies room.”

He watched her make a beeline for the bathroom, confusion lacing his eyes.

***

Jessica slapped her palms down on the bathroom counter. After checking to make sure all the stalls were empty, she’d been trying, and failing, to get her breathing down to a reasonable level.

She’d almost lost complete control with Leo.  She’d almost told him that she was a cop, and that working in law enforcement had done a lot to help her get Leroy out of prison.

She looked up and caught her reflection in the mirror, shocked that she’d actually
wanted
to tell Leo all of that.  She’d wanted to open herself up to him the way he’d been opening himself up to her.  She’d been asking him so many invasive questions, all in the interest of solving her case, and he hadn’t balked once.

He’d told her everything.  He’d told her all about Reggie King, about Novsky, about his brothers.  He’d even divulged the deep insecurities he had when it came to Val. He’d done it accidentally, but Jessica knew that kind of accident didn’t happen unless a lot of trust was in the air.

Because of that, telling him everything about
her
had come easily.  Naturally.  The
real
Jessica had come spilling out of her, at such a rapid pace she hadn’t even realized it was happening until it was too late.

By the time she’d found some sense and raced to the bathroom, Ashley Williams had all but left the building.

Jessica had given him the true story of her mechanic father, her homemaker mother, and the housing project she’d grown up in in Jersey City.  She’d even told him the truth about Leroy.

She’d almost exposed the ridiculous lie she’d told about her father’s side of the family being killed in Africa.

Thankfully, she’d at least had the good sense not to tell Leo that they’d gone to the same high school.  The last thing she needed was for him to go home and scour their yearbook, looking for her face, wondering why she looked so much like that Beer Belly Borgia girl.

She didn’t know what the waiter had slipped into her martini, but she would not be taking another sip for the rest of the night.  She’d allowed herself to get too loose.

He’d loosened up too.

Expletives had flown between them the way they never had before.  An honesty was settling in, the kind that only came organically, with time and trust.

How easily she’d forgotten that she could
never
trust him, and he definitely couldn’t trust her.

Her thigh still pulsed from where he’d had his hand on her, caressing her skin, gripping her flesh in an eager hold as his eyes flashed with adulation.

“God damn it, Jessica,” she said to her reflection.

She couldn’t believe she’d let this happen.

Do I fucking like Leo Romanovsky?

Her phone rang before she could let herself simmer in that alarming question for too long, and Jessica was thankful for the distraction.

“Borgia,” she answered, keeping a close eye on the door of the bathroom to make sure nobody came in.

“Jessica, you need to meet me downtown.”

Jessica rolled her eyes.   “I’m working, Harp.  I’ve got Leo by the balls.  Literally.”  She pushed her lips together to help redistribute her lipstick.  “Can it wait?”

“No.” Harper’s voice remained calm, even as he said the words that sent a chill straight down her spine.  “Knox Jefferson is dead.”

Jessica swallowed thickly as she moved out of the bathroom.  Leo was watching the bathroom doors from their booth, and seemed relieved when their eyes met.

She made her way back, reminding herself what this was all about.  This wasn’t about making a love connection.  It wasn’t about learning his favorite color, his dating deal breakers, or how many kids he wanted to have.  It wasn’t about any of that.

It was about her job.  Taking a mental break in the bathroom and getting that phone call from Harper had blasted some sense back into her.

She slid into the booth, reminding herself to breathe when his hand went right back to her crossed thigh, a little higher than before.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

She took in his unsure smile, hating how adorable she found it.  At first she’d believed this new coy demeanor of his was a cleverly executed act.  Now she was beginning to believe he was truly nervous.  It was easy to believe, because she was nervous too.

If her heart wasn’t pounding off-kilter, reminding her that she needed to take her medication, she was sure she could fall into those honey eyes and forget the world in an instant.  Thankfully, her heart
was
beating out of sync, conjuring up thoughts that sent her hand flying to her clutch bag.

“I’m so sorry, Leo.” Her eyes searched his.  “But I have to go.”

Leo straightened, eyes wounded, even as he struggled to paint a smile on his face.

“Our food hasn’t even arrived.”  He looked toward the kitchen, and then his eyes came back to her as he licked his lips.

He thought he’d done something wrong.  Something to turn her off.    She reached out and returned the gentle touch he’d been giving her all night, covering his thigh with her hand.

His eyes fell, and he kept them down.

“I know,” she said. “And I’m so sorry, but I just got a phone call in the bathroom, and it’s an emergency.” When he kept his eyes lowered, she snatched up her clutch with a little too much force and stood, gasping when the gun she always carried slid out of the bag on her way up.

They both watched the pistol land on the booth with a thud.  It stopped right next to Leo’s strong thigh.

If it were possible, his eyebrows went even higher.  He stared at the gun for several seconds before rising his eyes to hers.

“Do you always bring your Glock on the first date?” he asked.

Jessica snatched up the gun, shoving it back in her bag.

“I hope you weren’t planning to use that thing on me,” he said.

“A girl can never be too careful.  I really have to go, Leo.  Will you forgive me?”

“Of course, Ash.”

Ash. 
It wasn’t even her name, and it still warmed her.

He went to stand, reaching for his wallet.  “At least let me drive you.”

“
No!
” She lowered her voice when her frantic denial caught the attention of the people dining around them.

Leo re-took his seat, sighing.

“I’m sorry.”  She tucked her hair behind her ear, backing away from the table.  “I’ll call you later?”

She didn’t wait for an answer before turning and moving toward the door.

When she stepped out of the restaurant and into the cool air, out of Leo’s sight, she took off her heels and broke into a run.

***

“Leeeeooooo!”

Leo was unmoved by the hugs and kisses he received upon stepping into his apartment later that night.  Not even his favorite hip hop song blasting through the stereo speakers could lift his spirits.

He lowered his eyes, sparing himself the sight of pouted lips and puppy eyes as he pushed through the girls who greeted him at the door, only lifting his gaze when he stepped into the kitchen.

Zoey looked at him from where she was bent over the kitchen island. A half eaten carrot cake sat annihilated before her.

She froze in the midst of shoving a forkful into her mouth, looking at him with guilt tingeing her eyes.

Leo stopped in the doorway, raising an eyebrow.

“I ate your cake,” she mumbled, her eyes growing bigger.   When a moment passed with no response, she stood tall, fork still in hand, and pointed at her belly.  “It’s all her fault!  This kid has no regard for other people’s things.  Especially when that thing is delicious food.  Sarah makes the best carrot cake in the city!  I can’t be held accountable for this baby’s lack of control.”  She lifted her brows, pointing a fork down at the cake.  “There’s still some left, though.  Grab a fork and come share.”

“That’s okay, sis,” Leo mumbled.  “Have at it.”

He tossed his keys on the island and threw open the fridge, fishing out a water bottle.

“Wait a minute, Leo…”

He turned to Zoey just in time to see her glaring at the microwave clock.

“You’ve only been gone for an hour,” she said, looking back at him.

He nodded, unscrewing the water and taking a big swig.

“She ditched me,” he said, after a swallow. “Walked out in the middle of the date.”  He slammed the bottle down on the counter.

Zoey’s mouth dropped.  “Why in the world would she do that?”

“Said she had an emergency, but on a first date I think we all know what that really means.”

Zoey circled the island in a flash and clapped her arms around his waist.  She pressed her cheek to his chest, feeling him chuckle.

“Guess I should’ve worn the tie,” he said.

She tightened her hold.

“I’m fine, Zoey.”

“No way.  I knew I saw a weird look in your eye the moment you walked in.  Fuck her for hurting your feelings.”

He shrugged.  “Maybe something really did happen.  Her grandmother could’ve died for all we know.”

Zoey pulled back and met his eyes, massaging his arms up and down.

His jaw tightened.  “Or maybe you were right.  Maybe a Leo never changes it’s spots.”

“I was a total asshole for saying that to you.  You should know better than to listen to me by now.  You know I’m batshit insane.  Add in this baby and I’m nothing but a danger to myself and others.  Verbally and otherwise.”

He scraped a clump of white frosting off her eyebrow, and then gave up when he saw it was all over her face.  There was even a little in her hair.

“Nah, you were right,” he said.  “Maybe Ashley realized she was sitting across the table from a scumbag.”

“Don’t talk about my brother like that.  Only I’m allowed to talk shit about you like that.”

“How would she feel if she walked into this apartment right now? Saw all of this?  Music blasting?  Women running around all over the place, for the sole purpose of…”  He motioned into his living room where girls were dancing and drinking.  “This is who I am.  This is who I’ll always be.  I was stupid to think I could be different.” His eyes fell.

Zoey pouted, cupping his cheeks.

He lifted his eyes to hers.  “She sees right through me.  All I wanted was to get her into bed, just to prove that I could.  She knows it.  She’s known it all along.  It doesn’t matter that now…”  His words trailed away.

Zoey frowned. “Now you like her,” she finished.

He held her eyes for a moment and then pulled back.  “It doesn’t matter.  She ditched me.  She knows who I am, and she’s not feeling it.  She made that perfectly clear.”

Zoey watched as he made his way out of the kitchen.

“Maybe something really did happen, Leo.”

He stopped in the doorway, slapping his hand against the plaster and meeting her eyes.

“I don’t like seeing you upset like this.” She covered her stomach.  “And neither does the baby.”

“Go ahead and finish the cake.”  He nodded to the hallway behind him.  “I’m going to bed.”

***

“What’s the news on Knox?” Jessica asked the moment she stepped off the elevator and entered her office.

Harper was waiting for her, pushing himself up from the chair behind her desk.

She came to a stop in the middle of the room as he circled the desk and leaned against it, crossing his arms.

“They’re going to rule it a suicide,” he said.

Jessica made a disgusted noise, turning away from him and moving to the window.  She looked down at the people bustling along the street below.

“It was King.”  She turned back to him.

“Of course it was.”

“Angie Colt told me Knox skipped the country.”

“He came back. Touched down at LaGuardia a few hours before Roman found him hanging from his stairwell.”

“Why the fuck would he come back to New York?  He knows how King operates—how desperate he is to win this election.”

Harper sighed.  “I don’t know, B.”

“Enough is enough, Harp.  What is it going to take to finally bring this monster in?  How many more ‘mysterious’ deaths?  How many more ‘suicides?’  Angie Colt is next.   We need to bring him in.”

“On what grounds?”  Harper shrugged.  “If we bring him in, we’ll only have to release him again, because we don’t have enough on him. We have no informants.  No testimony. Then, not only will he be free, he’ll know we’re watching him.  His ignorance to our investigation is the strongest hand we have to play right now.  The
only
hand.”

“Where the hell are we on the other ops?  Is every agent on Victor King sitting around with a finger up their ass?”

“I’m sure they could say the same about you.”

She shot him a look. 

“B, it takes time.  You know this.”

“A suicide.”  She scoffed.  “Give me a fucking break already.”  She paced with a grimace, yanking her hands through her hair.  “Knox was just another sap.  Just another name on the list.  King is going to keep knocking them all off, one by one.”

“We know Knox was Roman’s biological father, even though they never knew each other.  Maybe he was coming back to warn Roman about King.”

Jessica stopped pacing in the middle of the room and met his eyes, pushing her hands to her hips.

“Or…” She faltered, because she could feel the vulnerability building in her eyes.  She saw Harper turn away from that vulnerability, pretending he didn’t see it.   She lowered her eyes and kept them down until the threat of emotion bubbling over was no longer a possibility.  “Or…” She took another moment when her voice betrayed her emotion.  Swallowing it back, she continued.  “Maybe King lured Knox back, and then murdered him, to send a message to the Romanovskys.  He
wants
them to know…” Jessica lifted her eyes to his.  “That they’re next.”