“I understand,” Angela said. She reached for her purse, putting away her phone and standing up.
Just as she rose from the table, Peter looked toward the door and saw Carver walking into the coffee shop. His immediate reaction was relief, needing the comfort of his alpha, but he didn’t really want Carver and his sister to meet.
They represented two parts of his life that he didn’t want to mix.
Carver came toward the table just as Angela turned to leave, a look of recognition flashing over his face. Of course he’d know what Peter’s sister looked like, Peter realized. Carver was thorough like that.
He hoped Carver wouldn’t be nasty. He just wanted his sister to leave so that he could forget about her.
“Hi, Peter,” Carver said, putting his hand on the back of Peter’s neck and holding him. He looked at Angela with a quizzical expression, as stern and severe as ever, though without any of the malice Peter had expected.
“Ms. Brown, this is a surprise,” Carver said, looking between Peter and Angela with a lifted brow. “I thought you had moved to L.A.?”
Peter wondered what was going on.
“I did,” Angela said, looking between Carver and Peter with a strange expression. “I’m just in town for a day. If you excuse me, I have to leave.”
Peter was confused. Did Carver and Angela know each other? That was impossible.
“How do you know Peter, here?” Carver asked, misplaced possessiveness in his voice.
“She’s my sister,” Peter said, looking up at his alpha and wondering how the fuck he knew Angela.
“Your sister?” Carver asked, taken aback.
Angela said nothing, looking like she very much wanted to leave.
“How do you know Angela?” Peter demanded, Carver’s heavy hand on the back of his neck suddenly unwelcome.
“We don’t really know each other,” Angela said. “We met once—”
“I was her lawyer,” Carver said, the two of them speaking over each other.
Peter’s mind went static, his sister’s words from earlier rattling around in his head.Our lawyer said the likelihood of being audited was almost zero.Was she talking about Carver?
Had he helped her frame him?
Peter was going to be sick.
“What do you mean, you were her lawyer?” Peter asked, the edges of his vision blacking out like he was backing into a tunnel. He wrenched away from Carver’s hand, looking up at him in accusation.
“I helped her devise a tax strategy for some money she and her uncle had coming in from a South African business venture, and then I referred her to a law firm in The Virgin Islands when she didn’t like the plan I put together,” Carver said, realization dawning. “I didn’t help her frame you for money laundering, if that’s what you’re implying.”
“He didn’t?” Peter looked at Angela.
“He didn’t. He just… pointed us in the right direction of someone who would.”
“I did not,” Carver growled. He took a threatening step toward Angela, making her back up and knock into the table.
The noise made several people in the coffee shop turn to stare at them, and Carver schooled his features into a less angry expression.
“I didn’t,” he repeated, this time to Peter.
“The lawyers at Abbott and Peterson were the ones who advised us not to use our own names on the accounts, and they’re the ones who suggested Peter,” Angela said, holding her purse in front of her like a shield. “That was the firm you referred us to, wasn’t it?”
Carver opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. Finally, he sputtered, “I sent you there for tax advice, not so that you could engage inmoney laundering.”
Angela snorted. “Like you cared what we did. Are you honestly trying to tell me that you thought Abbott and Peterson was an honest firm?”
