Solving For Nic (24 page)

“You’re not serious?” Lizzie was on her feet again.

“Completely serious.” Jen sighed. “It happened while you were in Florida, but so far he’s been keeping a low profile.”

“He’s not going to try anything else,” Stefan said. “The whole world is watching him.”

“No, he’s just regrouping.” Jared added. “My brother is building a hell of a case against him but it’s not going to be easy. Everybody owes that old man favors.” Jared straightened all the paperwork up, put it back in the envelope, then checked his watch. “And speaking of my brother, Grant is probably on the golf course. I’ll take this to him. He loves me when I interrupt his golf game.”

“I don’t want Rogan to lose custody.” Lizzie whispered.

“He won’t,” Stefan snapped. “You were right not to take Nic’s calls. Stay away from him, Lizzie. That whole family is nothing but trouble.”

“Who the hell is that?” Stefan groaned as Jen rolled away from him after the doorbell went off for the third time. “This had better be good.”

“I’ll go.” She grabbed her robe from the floor where Stefan had thrown it earlier. “It’s probably Jared.”

The doorbell chimed again.

“Fuck.” He swung off the bed and grabbed his jeans, wincing as he eased up the zipper. Whoever was pressing their doorbell was seriously risking their life. “No, stay here. It’s not the hippie. He walks in when he wants to.” He grabbed his T-shirt then headed for the stairs, taking them two at a time while he pulled the shirt over his head.

He jerked the door open and his head snapped back. He hadn’t expected Nic Maretti on his front porch looking all impatient and aggravated. Stefan leaned against the doorframe blocking the entrance. He was not about to let Maretti in. “You got some kind of death wish, Maretti?”

Nic’s expression didn’t flicker. “Where is she?”

Stefan shook his head, fingers squeezing into a fist and resisting the urge to plant it in Nic’s face. It wouldn’t take much to wipe his bored expression off his face. Instead, he said, “Not here.”

“Stefan.” Jen slid her arm around his waist, reminding him to be civilized. “Come in, Nic, I’ll make coffee.”

Stefan huffed, his anger fading now that she was touching him. Still pride demanded he put up a protest. “This is not a social call. You don’t have to make him coffee.”

She backed away from him and folded her arms across her chest, giving him a fierce look. He should deck Maretti, take her back upstairs and finish what she’d started. Then she raised her eyebrow at him, ready to take him on and he forgot everything except how much he loved her.

He stepped back away from the door and waved Nic in. “Yeah, fine. Whatever. Come on in, it’s all about the Southern Hospitality at the Sellers house.”

Nic had not slept. He wasn’t hungry yet, somehow he found himself in the most amazing kitchen he’d ever seen while Jen scrambled eggs and Sellers prowled around, grumbling that he didn’t do coffee.

“How do you like your eggs, Nic?” she asked, ignoring her husband.

“Just salt.”

“No cheese?” Jen asked, a strange smile on her face. “Bacon?”

“No cheese and definitely not bacon. I don’t eat meat.”

“You don’t eat meat?” Stefan stopped dumping coffee in the coffee pot and glanced over his shoulder.

“No.”

Jen and Stefan exchanged a strange look and tried not to laugh.

Nic did not have time for this.

“I want bacon.” The scruffy musician Nic had caught Lizzie dancing with at Trick’s walked into the kitchen. He was half-awake as he headed straight for the coffee. He pulled a coffee mug down from a cabinet. Did he live here too?

“What the hell are you doing here?” Stefan demanded.

Unconcerned, the guy shrugged as he poured himself of cup of coffee, sipped it then spit it out in the sink despite Jen’s horrified protests. “You call this coffee? Jen, you know better than to let him play with the coffee pot.”

“Screw you.” Stefan jerked the refrigerator open and grabbed a bottle of water. “You aren’t supposed to be here.”

“I was hiding in the Carriage house until you two finished your thing. About time too, I’m starving. Oh, hey, Nic.”

“Have we met?” Nic asked, not impressed by the musician’s sudden grin.

“Jared Marshall. You loaned me a bunch of money. Thanks, by the way. You should come by the bakery if you’re going to be in town awhile. Check out the best investment you ever made.”

Nic had trouble reconciling this unkempt boy with the brilliant business plan he’d read. Marshall had been all over Lizzie at Trick’s but today he looked different. His hair was all gone. “You’re Jared Marshall?”

“Soon to be the late Jared Marshall,” Stefan grumbled.

“Chill, Sellers. It’s not like I was in the house. Unless you want some pointers.”

Jen’s hand flattened on Stefan’s chest before he could reach the younger guy. “Cool it, Jared.”

“What?” Jared laughed. “I want extra cheese. Give me that, you’re doing it wrong.” He grabbed the skillet away from Jen and began folding the eggs exactly the same way she had. “Go stand by your man before he rips my head off. I don’t want to die on an empty stomach.”

“My eggs had better be perfect,” Stefan warned him, dropping down on a barstool. “Extra cheese.”

“Extra cheese,” Jared mimicked him in a little kid’s voice. Then scraped the eggs onto a plate. “Hey, these are plain. Is Lizzie here?”

“Those are for Nic.” Jen pushed the plate across the island to Nic. “You want coffee, Nic?” She poured him a mug before he could refuse it.

“She’s not here? Where is she?” Nic had no intentions of eating the fluffy mass of yellow on his plate. Then his stomach grumbled so he had a few bites. The eggs were perfect and the coffee was delicious. Then he realized he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten anything.

They all ignored his question again. Stefan stared suspiciously at the plate of eggs Jared handed him. “You better not have spit in them.”

“Dude, you’ve been watching me the whole time.”

“Ignore them,” Jen said. “I live for the day they grow up.”

Nic set his coffee cup down. “This is all very charming but I need to know where Lizzie is.”

Jared grinned, nodding at a brown envelope lying in the middle of the island. “There’s your first clue.”

All eyes were on him again, but this time no one was laughing. He reached for the envelope, knowing instinctively the contents were a game changer. When he pulled the papers out and flipped through them, every cell in his body turned inside out.

“You didn’t know?” Jen asked.

“No.”

“This is Andreas, isn’t it?” Stefan nodded at the paperwork Nic was crushing in his hands.

“No one else would be this stupid. Does Lizzie know about this?”

“Yes,” Jen answered him.

“She and Rogan ran away together.” Stefan smirked.

“Yeah,” Jared said. “They’re tired of hiding their love.”

“Who are we to stand in their way?” Stefan added, then he and hippie bumped fists.

Nic decided neither would live long enough to grow up. “You do realize Andreas will have a private investigator following them? Angie would never have signed off on this without some sort of proof.”

“Proof?” Stefan’s barstool slid several feet away from him as he came to his feet in one threatening motion. “Fuck him and his private investigator. There is no proof. Your father is done fucking with my family. It’s bad enough he’s bankrolling that snake of a judge but if he and Angie try to drag my sister through the mud, we will rain hell down on all of you. If Lizzie wanted Rogan, they’d be married with kids by now. They’d be a whole lot happier with each other than tangled up with your family.”

Nic considered everything Sellers said, his mind sharp and calm. When Sellers finished, he waited. The silence stretched until it was at a breaking point. Nic had learned a long time ago that sometimes the best negotiation tool was to say nothing and Sellers was not a negotiator. It was one of the things Nic had always liked about him and his loyalty to his family. Sellers was a good guy and he was not wrong.

“Fuck you,” Sellers snapped, backing down.

Nic blinked, his voice calm and cool. “You were expecting me to argue with you?”

“No.” Stefan’s voice was icy with disdain. “I expect you to leave my sister the hell alone.”

“That is not going to happen. I’m going to get Lizzie then I’ll deal with Andreas. Now where are they?”

“Orange Beach,” Jen said. “Lizzie likes to go to the beach when she’s upset.”

Nic inclined his head. “Thank you. Do not call them and warn them I’m on the way. You owe me, Sellers,” he reminded Stefan and the younger man backed down.

“This was a good idea.” Lizzie sighed as the sea breeze and the sound of waves hitting the shore washed over the balcony.

“Yeah.” Rogan joined her on the balcony. He pulled one of the chairs up to the railing, sat down and kicked back, resting his heels on the metal ledge. “You going to be okay?”

Lizzie nodded, pushing the hair the breeze flattened across her face behind her ears.

“I’ll make sure she leaves you out of the divorce, kiddo. I promise.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” She sat down next to him. Tired and wiped out from the drive, she was too restless to go to bed but too exhausted to do anything constructive. “It’s okay.”

Rogan sighed. “You know, the Marettis aren’t like us. They look down on the rest of us like we’re their subjects.”

“Nic’s not like that.”

“Nic’s worse. Eventually he’ll be the De Santis heir, so don’t think he doesn’t watch the world from his ivory tower.”

“I used to think he was disconnected,” she said. “But Nic’s more complicated.”

If he did watch the world from an ivory tower, it’s because the people who should have loved him and grounded him had failed him. Not because he believed he was better than everyone else. Guilt stabbed at her stomach. She wanted to be the person to break through the walls surrounding him but she knew she would destroy herself in the process.

The doorbell rang and Lizzie jumped up, eager to brush off the sudden remorse. Maybe she should have answered those calls. “I’ll get it.”

“Bring me back a beer.” He caught her hand as she brushed past him.

“Okay, but you’re only having one more.”

“Whatever.”

“We’re not getting drunk,” she called over her shoulder as she opened the front door.

She turned back to the open door and her heart stopped. They were so getting drunk. As fast as possible.

“Do you want me to set them down for you?” the delivery man asked, smiling at her from around a monstrous bouquet of red roses as long as her arm.

“Sure.” She stood aside so he could set them on the kitchen’s raised breakfast bar. They were blood red and the condo was already filling with their sickening scent.

“Thank you.”

She couldn’t take her eyes off the roses. They could’ve been a dozen snakes on sticks and she would have been less afraid to reach for the white card stuck in the middle.

“Oh, and don’t forget this.”

He handed her a small box and told her the gratuity had been taken care of too. Good thing, because tipping him was the last thing on Lizzie’s mind. She stood a long time, the small blue wrapped package in her bloodless fingers.

The sliding glass doors opened behind her.

“What the fuck?”

She spun around so quickly reaching for the roses before he could see them and ended up knocking them off the raised bar. Her entire body cringed as rose petals, water and glass shattered all around her bare feet. The vase missed her toes by a hair’s breath. The glass spray burned as it ripped against her lower calves and ankles like briars in the woods.

“Don’t move.” Rogan sounded like he was at the other end of a tunnel. She ignored him and knelt down to pick up the white card before it was soaked.

“Lizzie, wait.” He grabbed the shoes he’d left by the sliding glass door. “Hang on and I’ll get you.

It was too late. She waved him off and sat down hard in the middle of the mess, glass and thorns scratching her feet. The biting pain was nothing compared to the ice burning through her system. She hadn’t known anything could hurt so much.

This was what you wanted
, she reminded herself. What had she expected when she ignored his phone calls and text messages? Did she think he’d quietly disappear?