Dirty Rich Cinderella Story: Ever After: Lori & Cole Read online

  “Arrogant. Good looking. Impossibly stubborn.” I smile. “Generous. Driven. Everything. She says the place you have her staying at is incredible.”

  “That would be our weekend home that your mother has now officially seen before you.”

  I blanch. “What? Weekend home?”

  “That’s right,” he confirms. “A client hooked me up with the property when I was still in Houston. I rent it out for a hefty fee, but now we can claim it as ours. Now we have a reason to head out there and escape the city.”

  “My mother?”

  “No,” he rejects quickly. “I don’t want to risk dragging the press out there. I was talking about us. We’re the reason.”

  And just like that, once again, he’s giving me a reason to smile, not fret. “Cole, I just want you to know—”

  His phone buzzes with a text and he grimaces. “And we’re back. They found me.” He leans in and kisses me. “Save that thought for when we’re alone and naked.” He kisses me again quickly and answers the line. “What’s up, Ashley?”

  He listens a minute and I don’t miss the subtle tension in his body. “Okay. How the hell does this even happen?” Another pause. “Right. Yes.” He disconnects and looks at me. “Somehow our arrival got out to the press. Savage is back in New York. He and some guy named Smith are waiting inside to escort us home.”

  “My God. This is nuts. How often do you go through this?”

  “Most cases aren’t televised and followed by the country, like our last one,” he says. “The good news is that everyone wants you after one of these wins. The bad news is that everyone wants you after one of these wins. It’ll pass quickly, but we’ve been out of reach. The press and naysayers need their moment. Which is why I build a security service into our fees on cases like these.” He leans in and kisses me. “I’ll just keep you extra close for the next week. I have more than a few office fantasies we have yet to act out.” He doesn’t give me time to respond. Instead, he unhooks my seatbelt and grips my waist with a gentle squeeze. “Let’s go home and get naked, fuck, and then sleep for twelve hours.”

  “Yes, please, to all,” I say, my weary body warming with the idea of finally being back home with this man. He kisses me, unhooks his seatbelt and stands up, offering me his hand.

  We start walking down the ramp when his phone buzzes with a text and his jaw sets hard. “More trouble in the Houston office.” He shoves his phone into his pocket. “I need to fix that mess once and for all. It shouldn’t be this damn hard to run a satellite office.”

  “More power struggles with the partners?”

  “Yes. Rumors of some sort of hostile takeover yet again.”

  I stop walking. “You have to get on a plane and go there now. You have to deal with this.”

  “We have clients coming in tomorrow to see us,” he says.

  “I’ll handle it. Trust me to handle it.” Several people walk around us.

  Cole kisses me and wraps his arm around my shoulders, setting us back in motion. “I do, but if I’m forced to go to Houston this week, it will not be good for those tempting fate.” His phone rings again and he glances at the number. “Savage,” he tells me, taking the call.

  The two of them arrange where to meet and by the time they hang up, we’re approaching baggage claim. We exit the main airport to find Savage waiting for us, and every time I see the man I think of a woodsman, complete with a plaid shirt and ax. Except he never has a plaid shirt and ax. He’s just big, broad, with a goatee, and a scar down his cheek, and definitely dangerous looking.

  “How the fuck was Rome?” he asks when we stop in front of him.

  I laugh. “Paris,” I correct.

  “Right,” he says. “I don’t like Paris. The women eat snails and raw meat. Hard to kiss a woman that has that shit in their mouths.”

  Cole and I both laugh. “You are a piece of work, man,” Cole murmurs. “How bad is the press?”

  “Not here,” he says. “Because we tricked them into thinking you were on a private jet at another location. Don’t ask how. We’re just that good.”

  “I need to go to the ladies’ room,” I say. “Am I safe to go?”

  “All is clear here in baggage claim,” Savage says. “Just come right back. No detours.”

  I nod, relieved that the situation isn’t one that requires escorts to the bathroom. Obviously, Cole was just on edge on our way home, feeling all kinds of things that he’s not used to feeling. I kiss his cheek and follow the bathroom sign. Thankfully there isn’t a line and I quickly do my thing, wash up and head for the door when suddenly, a burly man is in the bathroom, stalking toward me.

  I scream and turn to run, but there is nowhere to go but a wall or a stall where I will end up trapped.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Lori

  The man coming toward me is big, charging at me, and my heart is in my throat. I can barely think. I have no weapon. I have no place to go. That’s all I know until I hit the wall and the man stops in front of me, fisting his hands next to my head. Now he’s so close, that I know his eyes are green because of course, I want to know the color of eyes my killer has. His face is pudgy, his arms thick with muscle. “They should have the death penalty for people like you who get killers off to kill again.”

  “I don’t defend guilty people,” I say, because if I’m going to die, I’ll die fighting, be it with words or a knee. And that’s what I do. I knee him, I do it with every force of energy I possess. He grunts and buckles forward, but not before he grabs a chunk of my hair.

  “Bitch,” he hisses, and in hindsight, his tight yanking at my scalp makes the knee seem like a mistake.

  It’s right then that I hear, “Lori!”

  At Cole’s voice, I suck in air, but the man yanks me hard against him. Cole must grab him because he’s jerked backward but still has a hold on me. I’m now so close to this beast of a man’s face that I see the moment Cole’s fist slams into his cheek. The man releases me, and I hit the wall as he whirls and punches Cole. I scream, terrified for Cole, but in another ten seconds Savage has grabbed my attacker from behind, head-locked him, and somehow manages to speak into an earpiece, “Baggage area ladies’ bathroom, now.” The guy starts to flail around and sink to the ground. Savage is putting him to sleep, I think.

  Cole grabs me and pulls me to him. “Are you okay?” He buries his face in my neck.

  “I am now,” I whisper, holding him as tightly as he’s holding me. “I’m okay now that you’re here.”

  “Listen up, you two,” Savage says from behind us, and we turn to find the man now passed out on the floor, while Savage puts some sort of plastic cuffs on him. “Are you okay, Lori? Do you need medical care?”

  “No,” I say. “No, I’m just shaken.”

  “We’re going to need to talk to the police,” he says. “Smith will bring security with him when he gets here. Chaos will erupt. Stay with him or me and we have extra men on the way.” He’s barely spoken the words when two police officers, and a tall man with sandy brown hair I soon surmise to be Smith, enters the bathroom. From there, it’s exactly as Savage said. Chaos. The man, my attacker, is taken away, and the EMS team that arrives checks our injuries, which for Cole includes a huge gash down his cheek. We’re asked a million questions by a million people, and at some point, I calm down enough to start to worry.

  “My mother,” I say, talking to an officer. “Is my mother in danger?”

  Cole turns me to face him, hands on my shoulders. “Savage has a man on the way to stay with them just to be safe.”

  “We think this guy acted on his own,” the officer, a tall, redheaded man with such hard features that even his freckles manage to be intimidating, interjects. “He’s got a relationship with the deceased on the trial you just worked.”

  This shakes me. A random person attacking me was less intimidating than someone who personally sought me out, but what cuts me, is that this man didn’t attack me out
of insanity, not literally. He’s in pain. He’s lost someone he loves.

  “Cole,” I breathe out, and he knows just what I’m thinking. I see it in his face, in the softening of his eyes.

  “I know,” he says softly, confirming that understanding, and wrapping his arms around my shoulders to pull me close, his focus returning to the officer. “We’re going to need an emergency restraining order for us, our business, and a laundry list of people attached to this.”

  “I’ll take the lead to push it through,” the officer offers.

  “What’s his history and your assessment of him as a future problem?”

  “He’s actually a civil engineer who’s been on the job ten years. He has no priors. He has no alerts on his record.”

  “What’s his relationship to the deceased in the trial in question?”

  “Brother.”

  Brother. That cuts me. His grief cuts me. I delivered the closing that launched my career with this case, and in his eyes, I’m the one who set the killer free. Only he wasn’t a killer. “Our client needs to be alerted of trouble. He’ll be a target.”

  “We’ve tried to reach him by phone,” the officer says. “We have a car being sent to his residence to ensure he’s well.” He reaches in his pocket and hands Cole his card. “For the restraining order and if you need me.”

  “Can we go now?” Cole asks.

  “Of course.”

  Cole turns us away from the officer and Savage is waiting a few feet away. “Has Reese been notified?” Cole asks the minute we’re in front of him.

  Reese, I think, of course. He’s Cole’s partner. He could become a target.

  “Yes,” Savage confirms. “Our team alerted him. He and Cat are going to meet you at your apartment. We have a vehicle waiting just outside the door.”

  We head that direction and I swear when we step outside, I feel like bullets will fly, which is silly. This was one man in the midst of protestors. It’s over. Cole helps me into the back of a black SUV and the minute he joins me and the door shuts behind him, he pulls me to him. “You scared the hell out of me,” he murmurs before his lips come down on mine, and he’s kissing me like he’s trying to breathe me in, like he might never kiss me again.

  The front door opens and he tears his lips from mine, pressing his cheek to mine and whispers, “You will not leave me. Ever.” The depths of that guttural, illogical demand that is about death, and nothing but death, ripples through me with heartache and pain.

  My hand settles on his face and I whisper, “Same goes for you,” but when he pulls back and looks at me, the depths of torment in his eyes tell a story, and it’s not one I’ve heard. There is more to Cole’s worry and fear. Something that triggered his instincts before we came home, and that’s clearly what happened. He felt something was coming.

  We settle into the seat side by side, our legs pressed together, and Cole wraps his arm around my shoulder, holding me close. He and Savage talk, and I hear every word they speak, but my mind is on Cole, not me. Cole, not that man. There’s something I don’t know and it’s cutting him right now; deeply and in every possible way. I’m worried about the man I love, not me, and this has me lacing my fingers with his and holding on tight.

  ***

  It’s a full forty-five minutes later when we enter our apartment building, which is thankfully free of protestors. I step into the elevator with Cole on one side of me and Savage on the other, but I’m still not thinking about me and my attack. I’m thinking about Cole. It’s really then that I realize that this is how I felt with my mother. I left law school to protect her. Now I want to protect Cole, but the difference is that back then my mother couldn’t protect me. Now, Cole wants, needs, and can protect me, while I just want to do the same with him. I need time alone with him. I need to talk to him. He needs this, too.

  None of us speak on the ride up or the walk to our apartment, and the minute we’re at the door, it opens and Cat is pulling me into a hug. “Thank God you’re okay.” She pulls back to look at me. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. I’m good.”

  She gives me a skeptical look and covers my hand with hers, dragging me inside the apartment where Reese is hovering, looking big and brooding in black jeans and a T-shirt. “You okay, Lori?” he asks.

  “I’m okay,” I say again. Everyone wants to know if I’m okay. I just want Cole. Alone.

  “Lori,” he says from behind me.

  I turn and his hands come down on my shoulders. “Reese and I are going to take care of the emergency restraining orders. Stay here with Cat and Savage.”

  “Savage needs to go with you.”

  “Smith is going with us,” he says. “I want Savage with you.”

  I have no idea when this was decided, but I don’t like it. “I saw what Savage did in that bathroom. He needs to go with you.”

  Savage clears his throat. “Smith is a badass,” he says. “He’ll kick ass if he needs to.”

  “Can I see you alone?” I ask Cole.

  “I need to go do this,” Cole says. “Let me go and just get back.”

  “Please, Cole. I need to see you.”

  His jaw sets hard and he takes my hand, leading me down the hallway, past Reese and Cat, guiding me through the living room and into the kitchen. The minute we’re inside, alone, I whirl on him, grabbing his belt buckle. “Talk to me.”

  “What does that mean, Lori?”

  “Exactly. You are not you right now. You weren’t you in our final moments in Paris last night. You’re out of your own head.”

  His hands slide under my hair, to my neck. “My wife was just attacked. Right now, the only place my head is, is making sure that man never gets close to you again.”

  “I know, but—”

  “No buts. I need you to stay here and do what Savage says. He’ll let you know the minute his man has your mother in his sights. They won’t approach her and freak her out. They’ll just watch.”

  “Cole—”

  His mouth comes down on mine, and suddenly I’m pressed against the refrigerator, his big body framing mine, and he is kissing me, a deep passionate, tormented kiss that is darker than any kiss I’ve ever experienced with this man. It’s pain and torment that didn’t just happen today. It’s more, it’s something he’s never let me see and I don’t understand.

  “I love you,” he says when he tears his mouth from mine. “I’ll be back soon.” And then he’s gone, exiting the kitchen and leaving me staring after him.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Lori

  I’m still standing in the kitchen staring after Cole, my heart in my throat, when Cat appears in the doorway. “Hey,” she says, walking into the room and standing in front of me. “I’d hug you, but I see that look in your eyes. You’re in fight mode. How about some coffee?”

  “How do you know me well enough to see that?”

  “We’ve worked together and spent a lot of hours talking in between that work,” she says walking to the pot and holding up a pod. “Chocolate, right?”

  “Yes,” I say, smiling with the warmth of this friendship that I so needed in my life. Like I needed Cole, and Cat and our connection led me to him.

  I walk to the fridge, grab my favorite creamer, which is hers as well, and sit down. She places my brewed coffee in front of me and starts her own. “What’s going on?” she asks. “Well, aside from a crazy person attacking you in a bathroom, because I don’t think that’s what’s on your mind right now.”

  I pour creamer in my cup. “Cole is worrying me. He’s not handling this well.”

  “He’s worried about his wife.” She grabs her cup and sits down across from me. “That’s called love,” she adds, taking her turn with the creamer.

  “I know,” I say. “But this is not the Cole I know. He’s tormented. He was tormented before we left Paris with just the idea of trouble and yet he says the threats and picketing are normal with one of these high-profile, controv
ersial cases.”

  “Oh it is,” she says. “You should have seen the insanity at the trial Reese was on when we met. It was nuts.”

  “And yet Cole is going out of his mind. He seems calm, but he’s not. And he sent my mother away.”

  “That was for you. He knows how you worry about her.”

  “He’s not good, Cat. He will lose his mind if anything else happens.”

  “Men like Reese and Cole are protective,” she says. “It’s not a bad thing. They both know how to balance that out in the right way.”

  “You’re telling me that Reese loses his mind over picketers?”

  “This is more than picketers.”

  “He was like this before the attack,” I remind her.

  She sips her coffee, her expression thoughtful. “Reese has siblings and family. They’re a mess, but he has that family unit. Cole doesn’t. His father doesn’t count. They had no relationship at all. Just throwing this out there, but Cole has been alone a long time. He cut himself off and then fell for you in a big way. He went all in, all walls down.”

  “I know he did,” I say, my heart squeezing. “Even when I didn’t because I was scared.”

  “Well, it’s his turn to be scared. Sometimes we think that alone is better. We can’t get hurt. Then we discover alone isn’t better, but losing the person who made you see that, is terrifying. I feel it sometimes. Reese puts himself on the line and I want to pull him back and keep him just for me.”

  I flashback to Cole telling me that we’re dealing with his demons now. That’s my answer. “We were living my fears before we got married,” I say. “Now we’re living his.”

  “It seems so, but his fears are all about loving you. Just love him. Listen to him. Make him talk so you can listen to him. You’ll be okay.”

  “Thanks, Cat. I needed this.”

  She studies me a minute. “Let’s talk about you. You were attacked.”

  “I’m fine. Maybe it hasn’t hit me yet, but I’m fine. Did you hear he’s the brother of the victim in our case?”