All It Takes (Romancing Manhattan 2)

“Jesus,” Finn whispers. “I knew it. I’ve never seen you look at anyone like that.”

“So, I know that her uncle is fucking her over, and I can’t tell her.”

“No,” Carter replies. “You can’t.”

“What do you have so far?” Finn asks, and I repeat what I told Bruce, that we’ve found 50 percent of the money.

“But we’ve only gone through a quarter of the boxes, and we have two weeks left.”

“We have to step up the pace with that,” Finn says. “We have law clerks that can go through the paperwork.”

“You’re right,” I reply, nodding. “We have to find the proof that the money was paid back. I’ll just have all the boxes brought here, and we can have the clerks do it.”

“Good luck with that,” Carter says with a smirk. “Like Sienna’s just going to hand all of her family’s paperwork from the past hundred years to the opposing counsel.”

“I’ll talk her into it,” I reply. “She’ll see reason.”

“Like I said, good luck with that.”

I immediately hurry back to my own office, lock the door, and call Sienna.

“This is Sienna.”

“It’s me. Listen, I was looking at the calendar, and the stack of boxes we still have to go through, and it occurs to me that time is working against us.”

“I already know this,” she says with a sigh.

“Well, I was thinking, why don’t I have all the remaining boxes moved to my offices, and I can assign several law clerks to start helping.”

She’s quiet for a minute, and just when I think I’ve dropped the call, my phone starts to ring with a FaceTime.

“Are you nuts?” she asks when I pick up.

“I don’t think so.”

“Quinn, I’m not going to just hand over all my family’s information to your office. The fact that I’ve invited you to help me was a huge step for me.”

Okay, so Carter was right.

“Sienna, there’s no way we’ll finish on time at this pace. We need more man power. Even with you working full-time, and me helping part-time, it’s not enough.”

She blows out a breath and closes her eyes, and I wish I was there to hold her hand, or wrap her in my arms. But she doesn’t need that. She needs to figure this out on her own.

Watching the emotions play over her beautiful face is fascinating. Finally, she sighs again and shakes her head, as if she doesn’t believe what she’s about to say. “Quinn, there are going to be rules.”

“Understood and agreed. I’ll arrange to have everything moved over on Monday morning.”

“Okay. I’ll see you later.”

And then she’s gone, and I set the plan into motion, hire the moving company, and assign the duties, using only senior clerks.

For all our sakes, I don’t want anyone to fuck this up.

“Jesus, my eyes are blurry,” Sienna says the next afternoon. She pushes her fingers against her eyes and sighs. We’ve been sitting at this table since the sun came up this morning, poring through boxes.

Still nothing.

I stand, stretch my legs, and walk to her, kneading her shoulders and neck.

“Oh, that’s good.” She sighs, leaning into my touch. “I know we should stay longer, but my brain is mush.”

“It’ll still be here tomorrow,” I reply, leaning in to kiss the top of her head. “And we’ll have plenty of help at the office starting on Monday.”

“Are you sure it’s a good idea?” she asks and leans back to look up at me. “It makes me nervous.”

“What, you don’t trust me?”

“You? Yes, without hesitation. But I don’t know your clerks.”

I fucking hate having this secret between us. Something tells me that once trust is broken with Sienna, repairing it is almost impossible.

But I don’t have a choice.

“We’ll lay the ground rules. Dave has given you the slack to work this case exclusively until it’s done, so you’ll be there every day. We’re going to make it work.”

“Okay,” she says with a sigh. “We do need the help, that’s for sure.”

She stands and turns to hug me, tipping her face up for a kiss. Her lips are soft and smooth, and confident under mine.

She intoxicates me.

“I think it’s my turn to take you somewhere special,” she says with a smile.

“Do I need a safety harness? A helmet?” I turn her words back at her and she giggles, making my stomach—and my cock—clench.

“Not this time,” she replies as she gathers her things and leads me out of the house, locking up, and joining me at my car. She moves to the passenger side, but I stop her.

“Why don’t you drive?”

She stops and turns those big blue eyes to mine. “Me?”

“You.” I grin and open the driver’s-side door for her. “You know where we’re going.”

She looks longingly at the car, then smiles widely and hurries over to slide in behind the wheel.

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” she says as I sit in the passenger side and buckle my seat belt. “I won’t speed too badly.”