“You probably have a life to get back to,” she went on, sounding awfully innocent all of a sudden. “A girlfriend.”
I stared at her as I took the last swig from the beer. Did kidnapping her and threatening her cross her wires or something? Were those turn-ons for her? At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were.
Laina Hawkins clearly had a type, too. None of her so-called boyfriends were age appropriate. It shouldn’t surprise me to be on the receiving end of her curiously flirtatious tone.
“I don’t think my son would appreciate you saying things like that.”
“Maybe not, but for a while, he wasn’t a fan of Fang or Mike, either.”
Now to that, I had nothing to say. I wasn’t around when the whole relationship between them was being formed, so as far as I knew, she wasn’t lying. And I didn’t think she would—lie, I meant. Not about that.
When I only continued to stare at her, perhaps a bit too long, she grinned and said, “Call him. What are you waiting for?”
What I wanted was to wipe that smug, coy look off her face somehow, but given everything, I didn’t think there was anything I could have possibly done to do that. She was… a little aggravating, and a whole lot more something else.
I dialed Kieran, and he picked up on the second ring: “I’ve been trying to call—”
I didn’t let him finish. Instead, I rattled off my address and said, “Come now. We need to talk.” And before he could ask any questions of me, I ended the call and set my phone down on the couch beside me. My finger tapped the screen of the phone, while my other hand tapped the empty beer bottle.
“Isn’t he going to be surprised when he comes and I’m here?” She giggled to herself, like she really thought it was funny. Maybe she did. She was weird.
I didn’t say anything as I got up and went to toss the bottle in the garbage can in the kitchen. Honestly, I debated on going for another, but I resisted. Before I returned to the living room, I sighed and ran a hand through my hair.
Things were getting complicated, and I had the feeling the complications were only just beginning. I didn’t need to be a psychic to know that much. That girl in there… nothing about her was simple, and since she was at the root of this, well, there was no telling how much more twisted things would get before this was over.
When I returned to the living room, she was waiting for me. I sat down a few feet from her the exact moment she hit me with: “Seriously, though. A completely objective third-party observer with absolutely no personal interest in the matter does want to know if you have a girlfriend back home.”
The sigh that left me after that was bone-rattling, I swore. I gave her the side-eye, but she didn’t back down. All she did was wait for me to say something. “No,” I huffed after a while, “no girlfriend.”
“No wife?”
I shook my head once. “No wife.”
“Good.” The word left her quickly, too quickly, and I cocked a brow at her and caused her to hurriedly add, “Good to know for later, in case I ever meet someone who’s into tall, tattooed, silver foxes. You never know when you might stumble across someone like that.”
Okay, out of everything she could’ve possibly said, I was not expecting that—and because I wasn’t expecting it, she got me. I laughed. A bad thing to do, because it would probably only egg her on, but fuck me, I couldn’t help it.
She was ridiculous. Ridiculous in every goddamned way.
“You better get it all out of your system,” I told her. “If Kieran hears you say anything like that, he’ll lose his mind.”
“Then let him,” she said simply, taking her legs off the coffee table so she could scoot towards me. “You don’t need to know this, but he’s kind of hot when he’s lost his mind out of jealousy.”
“You are trouble.”
She nodded. “Yeah, I am. I’m trouble and I’m proud of it. I don’t really know what to make of you, though. Say Kieran comes here and he tells you everything you want, what then? What’s next? If you think I’m going to sit back and let Tessa ruin my dad’s life—”
She’d stop her from doing it, because she had loyalty to the man, something which Tessa had lost when it came to her brother. It’s something I could admire about Laina, as much as I shouldn’t say it.
She was so blunt in what she said, too. She didn’t bother trying to mince words or beat around the bush, and that was why I was inclined to believe every single word she said.
“I don’t know,” I settled for telling her. “Tessa’s family. I’d like to give her another chance to change her tune, but basedon that video you showed me, she might be past the point of no return.”
I didn’t like the idea of giving up on her. She was my kid, my daughter, even if she had made mistakes. But to try to have her own brother killed? That was a bridge too far. That was something I could not forgive.
“You know,” Laina started, “it strikes me as odd that you’re more upset with Tessa trying to have Kieran killed than her wanting me out of the picture. Do you condone violence against underaged girls?”
“Of course not,” I hissed out. “But sometimes getting what you want isn’t pretty. Sometimes bad things need to be done. You only lucked out because Kieran apparently had a thing for you years ago.” I hated that when I said it, I could see exactly why that was.
