“Don’t be a brat. You need to discuss what happened today.”

I huff out a breath, his fingers loosening enough so I can finally slip away from him. “It might have been nice to have that discussion before we went into mediation. Since this is my case. Unless you’d like to save everyone the trouble and take over?”

“You and I both know I don’t handle divorces, but that doesn’t mean I want to let you fuck this up.”

“I appreciate your concern,” I say with obvious contempt.

“You seem friendly with Danica Pierce.”

I rear back. “Excuse me?”

“It’s an observation. There’s a familiarity there.”

“I don’t see how it’s any of your business.”

“Have you fucked her?”

My lip curls in a sneer. “The fuck? What kind of question is that?”

“A valid one.” Eli regards me like a parent scolding a child. I fucking hate it. It’s something he’s adopted perfectly from Alexander over the years. “Considering the importance of this case and the status of this client, it would be completely inappropriate for you to have some sort of sexual history with the opposing counsel.”

I refuse to tell Eli a goddamned thing about Dani. I don’t even want her in his head. I can’t say why the idea of him considering her at all makes me want to hit something, but in this moment, I really could hit him. Something I haven’t done since we were teenagers.

“Again, it’s none of your business, but there’s nothing going on that you should be concerned about.”

“Good.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “Keep it that way.”

“I can’t believe it bears reminding,” I sneer, “but you aren’t my father.”

“I’m just someone who will have to be here when you fuck up.”

“Do I need to remind you again of my win ratio?”

Eli shrugs. “It could be higher.”

Right. If I stoop to levels you and Alexander are comfortable with. No thanks.

“Are we done here?” I straighten my suit jacket just to have something to do, turning away from him. “I have work to do.”

“As long as you agree to call Dad,” he tells me. “Sooner rather than later.”

“I will see him in the morning. I’m sure whatever bullshit you two have been keeping from me can wait until then.”

Eli shakes his head. “Always determined to be difficult, aren’t we, Ezra?”

I grit my teeth as I walk away from him. I won’t give him the satisfaction of an answer.

I don’t stop walking until I’m slumping down into my desk chair, leaning back into the supple black leather, and closing my eyes. I’m sure I absolutely do not want to hear the story behind this whole secret account shit with Mr. Casiraghi, positive that it will only make me like the guy less. Hell, I knew he was a prick after our first meeting. The guy definitely strikes me as the type who would fuck someone over, most of all his wife, but unfortunately, I don’t get the luxury of being choosy when it comes to my clients. No choice but to fall in line.

I’m still seething quietly over Eli’s crassness in regard to Dani, wondering if an outsider might sense something between us that I might be missing. Sure, I like to tease her, to rile her to points I’m positive no one else can, but I try to reserve it for just the two of us. I would never actually jeopardize her reputation by goading her in public or making our personal relationship obvious.

I snort at that. Relationship.

You can’t really call it that. I don’t even know what you would call it. I can’t even slap a friends-with-benefits label on it, since I’m pretty sure I’m the furthest thing from what Dani considers a friend. I just…can’t seem to stop wanting to touch her. If she’s in the room, my hands itch. If she’s nearby, my eyes gravitate to her. Even when she’s tearing into me, I can’t bring myself to be annoyed. I just enjoy her talking to me at all. Most of the time I try not to analyze it. Most likely, it’s something as simple as her being the best sex I’ve ever had. My body knows when it’s found a good thing and is engaging in its own form of self-preservation so that it can keep it. That’s all. So again, what the fuck was that back in her office?

I decide it’s a problem for another day. Just another thing for me to push under the rug. If I can’t see it, I don’t have to deal with it. One of these days, I’m going to flip up that rug to a life’s worth of rotting junk—but that’s Tomorrow Ezra’s problem.

Today Ezra has other shit to worry about.

•   •   •

Despite working until almost midnight at the office, I still manage to drag myself out of bed at eight in the morning the following day to head to my parents’ house. I woke up to Alexander practically demanding that I do so, and if I know anything about Alexander Hart, it’s that absence definitely does not make the heart grow fonder. Delaying the inevitable will only make it that much worse when I finally face it.

I tell Rita good morning as she waters my mother’s flowers in the foyer when I step inside the too-large house. It’s always been too big for us, I think idly, following the marble tiles through the front of the house.

“Oh, Ezra,” my mother calls from the kitchen. “I didn’t know you were coming today.”

I halt my steps toward my father’s office to duck back into the other room, finding my mother at the kitchen table with her journal. I bend to press a kiss to her hair, which is a dark wheat color similar to mine, only just starting to gray at her temples. “Morning, Mom.”

“Good morning, darling,” she says with a bright smile. Her eyes look clear. This must be a lucid day. “I’ve missed you. You didn’t come to dinner last week.”

“Sorry…work has been busy.”

She clucks her tongue. “You’re just like Eli and your father. Always working.”

I’m nothing like them.

“Well, someone has to keep the firm running,” I tease.

Her green eyes crinkle at the corners, and for a moment everything is normal. There’s no live-in nurse watering the flowers in the other room, no bastardized version of a father down the hall in his office. It’s just my mother and me and her smile.

She reaches to pat my cheek. “Your hair is getting so long. You should let me cut it.”

“Now, Ms. Hart,” Rita interrupts, ruining the moment. “You know you can’t have scissors.”

The flash of pain is brief in my mother’s face, but I see it. I wish I didn’t, but I do.

“I’ll make an appointment for a trim soon,” I assure her. “I really have just been busy.”

Rita comes up beside us to settle her hand against Mom’s shoulder. “It’s time for your morning meds, Ms. Hart. Do you want orange juice or tea?”

“Juice is fine,” my mother answers softly, her eyes far away now.

I swallow against the lump in my throat, pressing another kiss to her hair. “Talk soon, Mom. Okay?”

She nods meekly. “Of course, dear.”

I have to take a moment back out in the hall, the urge to stomp down to Alexander’s office and cause him bodily harm ever present. But there are a dozen reasons why I can’t do that, and one of them is sitting in the other room.

I find him just where I expected to, perched in his giant wingback chair surveying documents on his desk as if he’s looking at lands to be conquered. For all I know, he might be. Alexander Hart views everything as something to be conquered.

“Sit down,” he says.

As far as greetings from him go, it could be worse.

I plop down into one of the chairs on the other side of his desk, lacing my fingers together in my lap just to have something to hold on to. I wait several minutes for him to finish whatever he’s doing, knowing that interrupting will only spur him to make me wait longer. I can’t say how much time passes before he gives me his attention, but his cold blue eyes find mine with that look he reserves only for me, as if I am a disappointment waiting to happen.