Lock You Down (Rivers Brothers 2)

"I imagine so," I agreed.

"Though, really, people can get served for any number of reasons. Even in a professional capacity," she thought out loud. "Alright," she agreed, nodding, moving to stand. "I have been sufficiently warned," she declared, slipping into her shoes, then moving toward the door, leaving me to haul myself out of the chair and hobble behind her.

"Krissy, can you put his in a to-go cup?" she asked. "He isn't staying."

"Pity," Krissy pouted, but poured my coffee out of a ceramic glass and into a stainless fucking steel one.

She screwed on the cap and handed it to me before walking back to make Reagan's drink, a much more complicated process judging by her concentration on the task.

"You give out stainless steel mugs to people who visit your office?" I scoffed, shaking my head.

"We try not to produce any waste here," she informed me, chin lifting a bit. Proud. Likely a change she had implemented. And I guess it was commendable. "Besides," she added, tapping her delicate pink nail on the side of the cup, "it's free advertisement," she finished, drawing my attention to the logo on the side. "Have a good day. Try to ice that hip of yours," she called back as she disappeared into her office.

With nothing else to do, and knowing Krissy would probably devour me whole if I lingered, I made my way toward the steps, grumbling all the way down.

I got to the parking lot before I raised the cup, taking a long swig of too hot liquid, nearly groaning in surprised pleasure.

Good fucking coffee.

I shouldn't have been surprised.

Everything about this business operation, and Reagan Hoffman herself screamed money.

There was something about people who were born with it, raised with it, had known little else but the plush comfort of it.

It was in the big things, of course. The cars that were more than a downpayment on a house. The fancy shoes with a certain color staining the bottom of them.

But it was in the smaller things too. A very particular kind of speech, something that often made me think of old black and white movies. Polished. Cultured. Even when rambling. It was in the posture, in the confidence.

Reagan had all of that.

But seemingly none of the pompousness that could accompany that. Or the shallowness. Or even the entitlement.

It was refreshing.

And maybe a bit too appealing.

"Fuck," I hissed, shaking my head at myself as I slid my ass onto my seat, then had to grab the jeans covering my knee to lift my aching other side into the car.

It had never been hard--for me, at least, clearly Atlas was a different story--to stay on the side of professionalism.

Our clientele of the female persuasion usually fell into three types. The rich older woman with an attitude, the young, famous woman, or the damsel in distress.

None of those appealed to me.

I'd never wanted to fuck a client.

And certainly never the person who was causing problems for the client.

There'd be no denying, though, that when she had laughed back there in her office, my cock had started to stir to life.

Just the kind of complication I did not need on the job.

Especially, I decided as I backed out of the lot and waited to turn onto the main road once more, because Reagan Hoffman did not seem like she was going to stop.

Why else would she ask what the threat was? And then proceed to muse the ways in which she could excuse being served papers as anything other than for a restraining order.

She didn't plan to stop.

Why?

I had no idea.

She seemed, by all accounts, to have her shit together. And after a bit more searching around back at the office, eating a bag of chips because Atlas had nabbed my lunch and, of course, had not replaced it, I felt even more sure that she was not the kind of person who stalked assholes like Michael McDermot.

She had gone to Yale.

She had a large friend circle if her Facebook was anything to go by. She'd actually hit the limit.

She was well-traveled, according to her pictures littering her Instagram account. Her in a barely-there white bikini on light sand beach, giant sunglasses swallowing up most of her face. Or her on a white mountain clad head to toe in deep purple snow gear. Eating pizza in Rome. Sitting on a cliff overlooking the sea in Greece. Sipping coffee in France.

If there was a place people liked to travel, she had been there. And she had the picture to prove it.

People like that, who seemed successful, educated, worldly, and happy--she was beaming in every single picture--well, they typically didn't start stalking some jerk twice her age.

It wasn't even like Michael was a particularly good-looking older guy. Women could and often did go for a silver fox. But his hair was thinning in the front, smattered with very obvious hair plugs. His forehead was all hard creases of displeasure.