Dirty For Me (Motor City Royals) (13 page)

“A man he’d never seen before.” Her mother paused. “The man had tattoos, apparently. Drove one of those muscle cars.”

Tamara’s fingers closed hard around the plastic of the phone. From where she sat, she could see Scott in his office, talking to someone standing near his desk. He was smiling, obviously enjoying whatever conversation he was having.

The bastard. The complete and utter bastard.

Was it wrong though? Was being with Zee, finding out who she truly was, stepping outside her role for just a few hours, truly wrong?

She blinked hard, trying to focus on the silence at the other end of the phone. “Oh, you mean Zee?” she said, as if it was no big deal. “He’s just a friend, Mom. He was in the area so I asked him to give me a ride home.”

“A friend?” There was a world of doubt in her mother’s voice. “Where did you meet him?”

Suddenly anger erupted inside her, hot as a solar flare. She tried to keep it down, to keep it under control. “Can I ask what business is it of Scott’s? Or of yours? He’s just a friend, that’s all.”

“I know, dear, I know.” Her mother turned soothing. “But you have to be careful who you associate with. And Scott said—”

“Scott said what?”

There was an offended silence. “Please don’t cut me off like that, Tamara. I’m not attacking you.”

“I’m sorry, Mom,” she said, trying for patience. “But it sure sounds like you are.”

“Well, you can see how it looks, can’t you? Getting into a car late at night with a strange man.”

Oh hell, she needed to get it together. Protesting too much was going to make her look defensive and she didn’t want that. “He’s a friend, like I said. He runs some self-defense classes that I went to with someone from work, nothing more.” She forced out a laugh. “I mean, did Scott think I was seeing him or something?”

Another moment of silence.

“Scott didn’t know quite what to believe,” Cassandra said carefully. “He was . . . concerned.”

Oh, Tamara knew how concerned he was. Concerned enough to get as much dirt on her as he possibly could. “I have a boyfriend already.” She tried to inject a note of amusement into her voice. “I mean, really, Robert is pretty much perfect, like you keep saying. Why would I want someone else?”

“Well, true,” her mother sighed. “There is that. And I have to say, I can’t see you taking up with someone who looks like a criminal. Even if he isn’t.”

Sure, Zee was a “criminal.” Who’d held her in his arms and given her a bath. Who stayed in Royal Road because of his friends and was starting to run his own gym. Yeah, definitely a criminal.

The anger turned inside her, aiming at her mother and the assumptions she was making.

Tamara’s jaw tightened as she bit down on all the words she suddenly wanted to say and couldn’t. “So, is there anything else you wanted to talk about, Mom? Because if not, I’ve got a ton of work to do this afternoon.”

There wasn’t anything else and, after her mother had ended the call, Tamara put her phone back down on the desk, realizing that every single muscle in her body was clenched tight.

With an effort she tried to relax, breathing in deep the way the therapist had taught her in the torturous months after Will’s death. Normally it worked, but not this time.

She leaned back in her chair, staring sightlessly at her computer screen.

Was being seen with Zee going to put her shot at the permanent position at risk? Did Scott hate her enough to use that against her? Clearly he’d had no compunction about bringing what he’d seen to her parents, so he knew they wouldn’t be pleased about it. He was trying to undermine her, make her look bad. But why? What had she ever done to him but been the boss’s daughter?

Ah, but what was the point in wondering about that? Whatever his reasons were, they didn’t change the fact that he was out for her blood.

The sharp edge of disappointment rested against her skin, cutting a line so thin she barely felt it. At first. And then, as she thought about the reality of not seeing Zee, the pain set in, unexpectedly sharp.

The spreadsheet on the screen blurred in her vision and she had to take a breath.

God, she was ridiculous, because it wasn’t like they had anything special. It was sex and that was it. Sure, it was fantastic, mind-blowing sex, but nothing more than that. Did she really want to risk her success and alienating her entire family for the sake of a few nights with Zee?

No, of course she didn’t. That would be crazy. That would leave her with no support, no nothing. Her chance for making things right with her parents, atoning for what she’d done, gone.

She couldn’t risk that, she just couldn’t.

Pulling herself together, she put thoughts of Zee out of her mind. She had to get this stupid spreadsheet done; otherwise she’d be here all night.

Around seven, Scott came out of his office, briefcase in hand, obviously ready to go home. He glanced at her as he locked his office door, then walked over to stand threateningly in front of her desk.

“How’s it going?”

“Nearly done.” She kept her gaze on her screen. “It’ll be on your desk by tomorrow morning.”

There was a silence.

Tamara gritted her teeth and looked up at him. “Something I can do for you?”

Scott’s blue eyes were gleaming. “Boyfriend make another quick trip from New York last night?”

A trickle of ice water slid down her back. What the hell was he talking about?

He lifted a finger and gestured. “You need to invest in some scarves.”

She couldn’t stop herself from reaching out to touch the place on her neck he’d pointed at. The place Zee had bitten her the night before.

Oh shit. She’d slept late that morning and had rushed out the door, not even having the time to check herself in the mirror....

The trickle became a torrent.

“That’s none of your business,” she snapped, resisting the urge to tug the collar of her blouse up.

“Isn’t it? You were nearly late this morning and I’m guessing it wasn’t because you’d spent the night talking with your parents at the charity dinner.” His eyes were thin slivers of ice. “Oh, wait, no. That’s right. Because you left early, didn’t you? With some guy covered in tattoos.”

Something in her chest squeezed tight. “Like I told my mother this morning after you passed on that little piece of information—and thanks, by the way—he’s a friend and that’s it.”

“A friend?” Scott smiled, but there was nothing of amusement in it. “Since when do friends give each other bruises like that one?”

She should have been feeling afraid, because if Scott knew for certain about Zee, she could kiss his recommendations good-bye and the coveted position within Lennox along with it. Yet it wasn’t fear that gripped her. It was anger.

Anger at feeling helpless. At feeling like her world was made of glass and one sharp movement would shatter it, bring it all down.

“How is that any business of yours?” she demanded. “What I do outside of work and who I do it with has got nothing to do with you.”

There was a terrible silence, the delicate structure of the past eight years of her life teetering on the edge of a chasm.

Scott’s gaze flickered, his mouth a hard line. “It does if you want a position here, Tamara.”

Slowly, she leaned back in her seat. She wanted to pick up the paperweight on her desk and throw it at him, push her computer off her desk, break a window, scream. Do something loud and violent, smash the glass world she’d been living in since Will had died. The one where she could never make a mistake, never put a foot wrong.

But she didn’t, because her parents deserved better than that and so did Will’s memory.

Instead she sat there, her knuckles white on the arms of her chair, staring at him. “What do you want, Scott? Why don’t you just tell me instead of threatening me?”

“I’m not threatening you.” His gaze was pitiless. “Girls like you are all the same. You always get what you want. You never have to work hard, everything is handed to you on a plate. So consider this a lesson that some things aren’t easy. You have to work for them. You have to play by the rules just like everyone else.”

The anger rose up, swamping her, strangling her. What the hell did he know about her life? Nothing. Less than nothing.

She clutched harder onto the armrests of her chair, trying to ignore the fury gathering itself in her gut. Trying to keep it under control. “Tell me what you want from me.”

“Only that you understand how precarious your position is here. And that you’ll have to work very hard if you want that recommendation. Oh yes.” He gave her another mirthless smile. “And I’d stay away from strange, tattooed men, if I were you. Especially if you don’t want Daddy and your rich New York boyfriend to know who you’ve been screwing on the side.”

Rage was a small, hard ball in the center of her chest, and she had to force herself to smile back, to not let him see that he’d gotten to her. “Well, sure, Scott. I appreciate the warning.”

His gaze flickered as if he hadn’t been expecting that, which was some satisfaction, though not much. “I’ll see you tomorrow then. Have fun with the spreadsheet.”

After he’d gone, Tamara shoved her chair back and got up, pacing back and forth for a few moments with her hands in fists, trying to put a lid on her anger.

How dare he? How dare he threaten her like that? Because no matter what he’d said, he was threatening her. As if she was a goddamn criminal.

Tamara stopped pacing, her heartbeat thudding in her chest.

No, she wasn’t. No. Her parents had been very clear that what had happened with Will hadn’t been her fault, that she’d only been protecting herself. And besides, this was different. This wasn’t life or death or anything, only sex with an unsuitable man.

She hadn’t done anything wrong. She hadn’t.

Tamara moved back to her chair and sat down, taking a few deep breaths. Okay, so what she had to do now was be careful, let everything calm down a bit. She didn’t want to give Zee up totally, not yet. Not when there was still a week or so left before this ridiculous engagement party. But maybe she needed to leave it a few days before she saw him again. And when she
did
see him again, she’d better make sure it was in his neighborhood rather than hers.

She couldn’t let the hard work she’d put into building this fragile life of hers all go to waste. Her parents’ over involvement in her life might drive her crazy, but they only wanted what was best for her and they’d sacrificed too much themselves for her to throw it away over some guy.

Feeling calmer, she glanced down at her phone on the desk. The screen was blank. No texts. No calls. But that was probably for the best right now.

Tamara dismissed the silent phone from her mind and concentrated on her work.

“O
kay, so now you’ve got us all here, what did you want to say?” Rachel leaned back, her elbows on the step above her, platform-booted feet on the step below where she sat. “’Cause if this is another ‘exciting surprise’ like Levi coming back was, I’m outta here.”

Gideon, leaning against the workbench, his arms folded, said nothing. Zoe, sitting on the bench beside him, her legs swinging like a child’s, frowned. “We’re not going to like this are we?”

Zee sat on a plastic chair, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped between them. He felt calm, surprisingly so for a man about to reveal to his closest friends that he’d been lying to them for the past ten years.

But he had no choice.

After he’d seen his father’s henchman at the fight, he’d spent the entire night walking the streets trying to find out where the prick had gone, the unquenchable rage he’d thought he’d dealt with years ago boiling in his veins. Yet the guy had disappeared, leaving no trace.

Eventually Zee had returned to his apartment, still burning, and had paced around and around, trying to figure out how the hell Joshua Chase had found him and what the fuck he was going to do about it.

It had taken him the whole damn weekend, working himself into exhaustion in the gym, to come to the conclusion that it actually didn’t matter how Joshua had found him, the real problem was that he had. And what the fuck was he going to do about it?

If he’d still been seventeen, he would have run. But he wasn’t seventeen anymore. He’d built a life here, had a future here, friends who cared about him, and he’d be fucked if he’d abandon everything just because that prick was sniffing around.

Anyway, running wouldn’t help and would only put his friends in danger, because no doubt, if he left, his father would want to know where he’d gone and wouldn’t have any compunction about putting the pressure on Gideon, or Rachel, or Zoe. And Zee couldn’t have that. If anything happened to them, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself.

Unfortunately though, that left him with only one option. Staying put. But if he was going to do that, his friends needed to know the truth about him and who he really was. And they also needed to make a choice. Zee had no idea what his father wanted, but if he stayed and his father came after him, it might prove just as dangerous for the others as if he’d left. They had a right to know that. They also had a right to decide whether they wanted him to leave.

He didn’t want to, but if they thought it was better he go, then he would.

Waiting until Levi had gotten out would probably have been a better idea since then he could tell everyone at once, but if Krupin was hanging around, he couldn’t afford to wait.

Fuck, nothing about this was going to be easy, was it? Then again, when had his life ever been easy?

“No,” he said flatly. “You probably won’t like it.” He looked each of them in the eye. “I need to tell you who I really am.”

“What? You’re not actually Ezekiel West?” Rachel’s voice was derisive. “That’s not exactly the news of the century. Everyone knows that’s not your real name.”

Zee met Rachel’s angry dark eyes. “But you don’t know my real name.”

“And? Please don’t tell me it’s Elvis Presley.”

“It’s not. It’s Damian Chase.”

She rolled her eyes. “Is that supposed to mean something? So you swapped one dick name for another, big deal.”

Zee opened his mouth to explain.

“Damian Chase went missing ten years ago,” Gideon said quietly before Zee could speak. “His father upended half of Detroit looking for him.”

Zee looked sharply at the other man, his guts twisting.

Gideon looked back, his expression completely calm.

Realization flooded through him. “You knew?” Zee demanded. “All this time and you knew?”

Zoe’s frown deepened as she looked from Gideon to Zee and back again. “Knew what?”

“That Zee is Joshua Chase’s son,” Gideon said, still calm. “Yes, I knew. I knew the moment you walked into the center.”

Shock pulsed through him, making Zee feel like his head was ringing. “You never said a fucking word.”

“No. Because I knew what you were running from. And I figured if you didn’t want to tell us, you probably had reason.”

“Joshua Chase?” Rachel demanded, belligerent. “Isn’t he that businessman guy who’s doing a lot of investing in abandoned property?”

Zee sat back in his seat and glanced at Rachel, mainly because he had no fucking idea how to deal with Gideon’s little bombshell. At least her question he could answer. “Yeah. But he also owns half the Detroit criminal underworld.”

“Oh my God,” Zoe muttered.

But Rachel’s gaze was snapping with anger. “Holy fucking shit, Zee. Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Because Dad was tearing up the town looking for me and I thought the fewer people that knew the better.”

“Fuck’s sake—”

“Rachel.” Gideon’s voice was low and flat. “I know you’re still pissed about Levi, but can we deal with one crisis at a time, please?”

Rachel’s eyes shot daggers at him, but she shut up.

“Thank you.” Gideon turned his attention once more to Zee. “Okay, so you didn’t tell us who you were, that’s not a big deal, understand? I don’t give a shit who your father is. You’ve been Zee for ten years and that’s who you’ll stay, at least to me.” He shifted against the counter. “But what I want to know is why you’re suddenly coming clean with us now.”

The acknowledgment should have made him feel better, but it didn’t. Because trust Gideon to get to the heart of the real problem.

Zee tried to relax his tight muscles and failed. He didn’t want to tell them, didn’t want to be reminded again of how fragile this life he’d built for himself actually was. A normal kind of life, the one Madison had wanted for him.

But the days spent running from his past were over. It had finally caught up with him and it had tangled up the people he cared about too. Secrecy was now a luxury he couldn’t afford.

“Because last night at my fight, I saw Victor Krupin, my dad’s right-hand man.” He paused. “And he was looking right at me.”

A heavy silence fell.

“Great, so he knows you’re here?” Rachel said suddenly. “Fucking wonderful.” With a quick movement, she stood up. “So not only do we get Levi back, we also get a big crime boss coming down into Royal looking for you. How much better can life get?”

Gideon didn’t say anything, staring at Zee.

Zoe had stopped swinging her legs, her frown ferocious.

The atmosphere in the garage became thick.

Zee didn’t move. “I don’t know how Dad found me and I don’t know what he wants. I tried looking for Victor after the fight, but he’d disappeared. One thing is for sure though. He’s fucking with me. He wants me to know that he’s found me.”

Rachel muttered something inaudible.

Another aching silence fell.

Then Gideon asked at last, “So what are you going to do?”

“I want to stay here. This is my home, and you guys are the only family I have left. That prick took everything from me once before and I’ll be fucked if I let him take it again.” Zee sucked in a breath and held the other man’s gaze. “But that decision isn’t mine to make. It’s yours.” He looked around to include Rachel and Zoe. “It’s all of yours.”

“What do you mean by that?” Rachel had folded her arms. Her expression was tough, but he could see she’d gone pale.

“I mean,” Zee said, “that since I’m the one who brought him here, you all need to decide what you want me to do. Whether I stay.” He glanced back at Zoe and Gideon. “Or I go.” Sure, leaving would put his friends in danger, but he wanted to give them the choice anyway. It would be what he’d want.

“You stay,” Zoe said instantly, a mutinous look on her face. “Your father can go fuck himself.”

Gideon shifted on his feet. “Of course you’re goddamn staying.” He said it like he couldn’t believe someone was even asking him that question. “No one gets chased out of this neighborhood, not while I’m here.”

Rachel’s mouth tightened and she looked away, down at her feet. “Fuck, Zee. I don’t want you to leave either.”

“Oh yeah, and Levi would agree with the rest of us,” Gideon added with some finality. “We’re family and you stick by your family.”

A small part of Zee, a part he hadn’t even realized was tense, relaxed all of a sudden. Because he’d lost a lot in his life, but at least he hadn’t lost this.

“Thanks,” he said, the word a little rough. “I appreciate it. But you have to know that me staying might make things dangerous.”

Gideon lifted a shoulder as if he didn’t give a shit. “It’s always been dangerous around here, man. There’s always some motherfucker who thinks he can muscle in on our territory, who thinks he can take what’s ours. I got no problem showing them they’re wrong.”

Zee leaned back in his chair, the tight thing in his chest a little less tight. “He’s powerful, Gideon. He owns half the fucking city. Believe me, I know.”

“So you’re just going to sit there with your thumb in your ass until he comes to get you?”

The shock was beginning to ebb and something else was taking its place. A determination. The same determination that had brought him to Royal and set him on the path to rebuilding himself.

He wasn’t seventeen anymore. He wasn’t going to run and hide. He was going to stand and fight, because, shit, that’s what he did best after all.

“No,” Zee said. “I thought I’d go get him first.”

As he sat there he felt his phone vibrate in the pocket of his jeans, reminding him again that he had a text. But he ignored it, even though he knew who it was from since he’d checked it before he’d sat down. It was from Tamara, wanting to know whether he wanted to meet.

He already knew he was going to say no. He had to. The reappearance of his father had changed everything and there was no way he’d put yet another person at risk, especially a woman so similar to Madison. And it didn’t matter that it was just sex, that she wasn’t his girlfriend—he couldn’t see her again. Because the best place for her was far away from him.

He tried to tell himself he didn’t care.

And failed.

* * *

Tamara fiddled with her glass of wine, trying to concentrate on what Rose was saying. Her friend was in the middle of describing her latest date, but the bar where they’d gone for some after-work drinks was crowded and noisy, and Tamara could barely hear her.

Though, to be fair, it wasn’t so much the noise of the bar that was making it difficult to concentrate as the shifting, restless energy that was churning around inside her.

The weekend had passed without a word from Zee and even though she’d tried to pretend it didn’t matter, that she didn’t care, it did matter and she did care.

At first she’d been fine with it, especially after Scott’s little “chat.” Hell, she’d even been slightly relieved that the temptation hadn’t presented itself. But as Sunday came around and he still hadn’t gotten in touch, she’d started to feel antsy.

She only had another week before this engagement party happened, and once it had, that would be it. She’d be Robert’s fiancée, her future set. A future that did not have a sexy, tattooed mechanic and mind-blowing sex in it.

Which was fine. She could handle that, it was what she’d been working toward after all, her way of putting Will and everything that had happened afterward firmly into the past.

Yet she’d hoped for a few more nights of freedom before that. If Zee didn’t contact her soon, there’d be no more time.

She’d spent the weekend catching up on work and having an awkward and stilted conversation with Robert via Skype. Then she’d had lunch with her parents, trying to pretend that everything was normal and she didn’t want to check her phone every five seconds. Luckily they didn’t notice her distraction and, even luckier, neither of them mentioned the tattooed man at the charity function.

But Sunday afternoon she’d given in and texted him, hoping it sounded casual and not desperate. There was no response.

Now it was Monday evening and even though she had work to do since Scott seemed bent on making her work twelve hours a day, she’d given in and gone out for one drink with Rose, hoping to distract herself.

Except all she could think about was whether Rose had gone to her self-defense class. And whether she’d seen Zee. Whether he was okay and hadn’t apparently fallen off the face of the earth.

It was true, all true. But all the rationalizations in the world made no difference to the restlessness that moved like ants under her skin. That had her wanting to pick up her phone and dial Zee’s number, hear his voice.

She didn’t know what that was all about, perhaps something to do with the fact that she’d told him about Will, given him a piece of herself, and that he’d given her a piece in return. Or maybe it was just the simple fact that he’d run her a bath and held her, and it had been too long since someone had taken care of her like that.

Whatever it was, it was driving her crazy. Which meant she either had to see him or forget him. And since forgetting him didn’t seem to be working, she had to see him.

“So anyway,” Rose was saying, “how’d your weekend go?”

“Work, you know. Doing a special project for Scott, which means lots of late nights.”

Rose shook her head. “The guy’s a jerk.”

“You’re not wrong.” Tamara picked up her glass and took another sip, hoping the alcohol would make things better somehow. “But if I want to get this job, I kind of have to.”

“Such is the life of the intern.” The other woman raised a glass in a toast. “Here’s to it being over quickly and permanent positions for all of us.”

Tamara clinked her glass with Rose’s, then took another sip. And as she did so, her phone vibrated. She looked down at the screen and everything inside her contracted.