“She will, once this mess with her asshole husband is sorted out.”
Or Tommy Gallo is dead.
“My point”—Jagger continued—“is that if your girl hasn’t paid us anything or signed any sort of contract, then she’s not really a client, is she?”
Son of a bitch. He was right. But that was a matter of simple semantics.
“She’s still married.”
“Not by her choice.”
It wasn’t the first time Liam had considered the argument. Truth be told, he agreed with Jagger.
As far as he was concerned, Tommy Gallo ended his marriage to Allison the first time he touched her in anger. The abusive prick also forfeited any rights he’d previously had—as a husband and father.
The only problem was, “I don’t know how Allison feels about all that.”
“You said the kiss was great,” Jagger reminded him. “So I’m assuming she kissed you back?”
And then some.“We sort of kissed each other.”
“Then I revert back to my original statement of…there ya go.”
A few more minutes passed while they waited for the rest of the team to arrive. Liam used the time to think about all his teammate had said.
By the time the whole gang was present, and the unscheduled meeting was about to begin, he’d come to a decision about him and Allison, and how they should proceed moving forward.
He looked to the man who was probably his closest friend with a hushed, “Thanks, man.”
“Any time, brother.” Jagger flashed him a knowing smirk.
One hourand forty-seven minutes later, Liam was walking back into his home. A round of rambunctious laughter greeted him as soon as he opened the door.
“I’m not kidding!” Raegan Rockland put a palm up to to emphasize the claim.
Christian’s wife Megan chuckled with disbelief. “So the guy actually pooped his pants?”
“And peed,” Raegan confirmed. “The perp had spent like ten minutes mouthing about how big and bad he was, and how much money his parents had, and how we were all going to be sorry. But as soon as he lashed out and tried punching me in the face, my partner tazed the shit out of him and he went down like a sack of potatoes.”
“Nasty, rotten potatoes.” Aurora “Ro” King playfully pinched her nose.
The room erupted once more as Liam’s gaze zeroed in on Allison. She was sitting in his favorite recliner, laughing right along with the other women in the room.
Her smile erased all remnants of his earlier fear. Not only had she remained safe in the care of Raegan and the others, but the enticing blonde looked…happy.
She looked his way, and he could’ve sworn there was an extra little twinkle in her eye when she spotted him. He tried not to put too much weight into it. Did his best not to let himself believe it had appeared simply because of him.
But there was definitely something different in her gaze as she stared at him from across the room. Something that hadn’t been there before. And as Liam stood in his home’s entryway looking at her from several feet away, he couldn’t help but wonder if she was starting to fall for him, too.
Too? When did you start falling for her?
He didn’t have the answer to that question. Just the knowledge and acceptance that his feelings for Allison hadgrown. Did it begin earlier, with that incredible, all-consuming kiss? Or perhaps when she’d quite literally bumped into him in the elevator that very first day.
Either way, there was no more denying the fact that his feelings for the gorgeous single mom had blossomed into something more. It wasn’t slowly or in several small, tiny doses. More like a ton of bricks that had landed on him as they’d fallen from the sky.
Liam wasn’t sure where those bricks had come from, or what he was supposed to do with them now. All he knew was that he wanted to see that same smile on Allison’s face every day for the rest of his life.
“You’re back!” Megan Hunt turned her brunette head his way. “How was the meeting?”
