Pops scowled at my unblinking stare. “If you have to go out when she comes over—then go. I don’t need a chaperone. I have Cliff if I need him, and Rayen will be with me.” A soft smile lightened his pale features, reminding me that despite his hard-ass attitude right now, he was still recovering.
“You should reschedule, Pops, at least until you feel well enough to entertain—”
“I’m not canceling,” he muttered in a belligerent tone. “It was difficult enough to get her to agree in the first place, and I want some damn happiness before I depart from this world.”
I had nothing to say to that, not with shock still reeling through me. I stared at my hands, I hadn’t realized I had clenched.
“Jack, my boy…” I looked up and met Pops’ happy grin. “When your heart’s set on something or someone, you will move mountains to get what you want.”
“I thought that pumping organ belonged to Nana?” After all, it had been Pops’ usual words until recently. Until Ray.
A soft smile lit his wan features. “She would have been delighted.”
My chest constricted as if a huge fucking fist had seized it. Though Grandfather had turned seventy, he didn’t look his age. He could be a real charmer when he wanted and…fuck! Men his age had relationships and married women far younger than them all the time.
But not Ray. Not her.
For the first time in my life, I wanted someone. Not because my dick led, but because I had realized too fucking late—three years too late—that those first feelings of attraction I’d felt for Ray could have been something so much more. But I’d been a damn mess back then.
“The girl’s quite a looker,” Chuck, who’d been silent during our exchange, piped in. I really didn’t need him adding fuel to this already raging fire.
The hollow sensation in my chest deepened. I rose from the chair. “We should leave before the traffic traps us for hours.”
In the parking lot, I waited as Pops got into the car and buckled himself in.
“I’m going to ask her to be my companion,” Pops said, startling me.
My response was instant. “No.”
“What do you mean, no?” He nailed me with a glare that warned he wasn’t interested in my refusal without a solid reason. How could I explain that if she worked for him, I couldn’t go after her? It was a work rule we retained with every single employee.
“You don’t even know her. You would deprive someone of a good,safejob?” he demanded.
“You can’t be interested in her if she’s working for you,” I pointed out. “She’ll be an employee.”
“Pfft.” He waved that away. “I’m old. I can do anything I want. I have maybe a few years left.”
He just had to go and say that.
“What is this about?” I asked, needing answers. “Do you want her because she will replace Nana in your heart, or because she’s good company?”
“How will I know if you keep saying no? I like her, Jack. I want her in my life. And you’ll like her, too.”
I already do.
Christ. I pinched the bridge of my nose. How did this get so complicated?
Ignoring Pops’ probing stare, I got into the car, started it, and eased into the late-noon traffic.
At my silence, Pops grunted and shut his eyes, leaving me to stew in my thoughts. My gut continued with the strangling sensation because I had no idea what the fuck I would do if Ray accepted Pops’ offer. I couldn’t touch her. She’d be staff.
But she wouldn’t be working foryou.
An hour later, back at home as I parked my car in the garage, Cliff appeared to help my grandfather indoors. My cell rang.
I grabbed my phone from the console. At the name, I frowned, my heart banging against my ribs.Shenever called me unless it was about Max. But he’d cleaned up his bad-boy act since meeting Ila.
I answered. “Ray?”
