Going Down Easy (Billionaire Bad Boys 1)

“He has idiosyncrasies.” Like anxiety and ADHD he tried to keep hidden.

From how he aligned the pens on his desk any time they got out of order to his fresh coffee, to the precise way his shirts were lined up in his closet—this she knew because she’d brought his dry cleaning to his apartment and had to hang them up. She’d taken the time to undo the plastic and put the clean shirts at exactly the same width apart like the others before leaving things just as she’d found them.

“Quirks,” she added. Adorable quirks, Lexie thought.

“Protective much?” Kendall asked, putting down her fork and staring at her sister. “Someone has a thing for her boss!”

Her father’s fork clattered to the table. “You do?”

“Would you both cool it?” Lexie said, her face flaming.

“She needs to pick up a dress for a formal event Saturday night. With her boss.” Kendall waggled her eyebrows.

Lexie shot her sister an annoyed glare. “It’s a business affair.”

“At least she admits it’s an affair.” Kendall laughed, the sound musical to Lexie’s ears. Especially when they were in this house, where laughter and true happiness were rare.

Ignoring the innuendo, Lexie decided to address the elephant in the room. “Where’s Mom?”

“She’s under the weather,” Wade said, using his old fallback excuse.

“You mean she’s upstairs in your bedroom, shades drawn, hiding under the covers,” Kendall muttered.

“Actually she’s sitting in the rocker,” he said, picking up his plate and heading for the sink.

The rocker was worse than the bed. If Lexie closed her eyes, she could hear the creak of the old chair as her mother pushed back and forth in an endless cycle.

“God, why can’t the doctors do something for her?” Kendall asked. Frustrated, she shoved back her chair and began cleaning the table with her father.

Although Lexie knew she should help, she quietly left the room and made her way upstairs, her stomach in knots. She walked slowly down the hall and pushed open the double doors to her parents’ bedroom, hearing the creak of the chair before she set foot inside.

“Mom?” Lexie asked into the dark room.

No reply.

She walked farther in and sat on the edge of the bed, on her father’s side, while her mother rocked in the chair. “Mom, it’s Lexie.”

More creaking noises from the chair.

Lexie curled her legs beneath her and sighed, as frustrated as Kendall that they no longer had their mother around. Over the years, they’d had less and less of Addy and more of … this.

She wanted to be able to tell her mom about Kade, just like she’d wanted to talk to her when she’d lost her virginity after her prom and decided she was really in love with John. But her mom had been under the weather, and her father hadn’t wanted her disturbed.

“I’m falling for my boss,” Lexie said out loud, just to see if she could get a rise from her mother.

Nothing.

With a lump in her throat and the same old lead weight on her chest, she rose to her feet and walked out of the room.

With Kendall, no matter how bad things got, there was a flicker, a spark of personality, someone and something to fight for. Her mother was long gone, and Lexie feared her father hadn’t faced that fact yet. When he did, he’d have to consider putting her in a home where she could get more specialized care—and he could go on with his life. If such a thing were possible.

She walked back downstairs, not wanting to draw attention to where she’d been or argue with her father about upsetting her mother. He was so overprotective of her it wasn’t an easy balance for Lexie to deal with.

As she approached the kitchen again, she heard the sound of raised voices, her father and sister, arguing.

“I said no. I already gave you money to buy interview clothes. I can’t imagine you need more.” Their father rarely raised his voice, so Lexie assumed this conversation had been going on since she’d walked out.