As if he can peer into my head and view the dirty picture show there, Jude’s eyes darken, become hooded. Just like when he thrust into my pussy and owned it like he had the Proof of Purchase tucked in his wallet…
A cough from my left jerks me out of my personal porn video, and I turn my head to meet Simon’s amused scrutiny and his little half grin.
“I-I’m sorry?” I stammer, heat swirling in my chest, surging up my neck, and pouring into my face.
“Mrs. Brendt wanted to know if you were back for good,” Simon drawls, gesturing with a jerk of his head toward one of the neighbors.
“Oh, I don’t know where my mind drifted,” I offer the excuse that sounds lame and cliché even to my own ears. I lean forward and address the older woman on the other side of Simon. “I’m not sure yet. Nothing’s really set in stone.”
“Did your job transfer you?” Dan asks, his fork hovering above his slice of lemon cake. “Cypress works for one of the biggest insurance companies in the country,” he informs the others, and I can’t miss the pride in the announcement. Returning his attention to me, he says, “Surely they didn’t send you here for so short a time.”
“No, it wasn’t a transfer.” I straighten my shoulders and lean back in my chair. “I’m no longer employed with Universal Health Group.” Just uttering the name of my former employer curdles my stomach. Has the acrid stench of disappointment and failure stinging my nose.
“Why?” he presses, laying his fork down beside his plate. “Did something happen?”
No way in hell am I explaining what happened with UHG with him, especially in front of a group of people who are basically strangers to me. Even if I know one of them biblically. But Dan is old school—a work-makes-the-man kind of person. For all his other faults, failure to provide for us financially—including my half sisters that Dan had sired with other mistresses before he’d met Katherine—had never been one of them. As far as I know, he still works for the same auto parts factory, going on thirty years now.
He would never understand my quitting a high-paying, secure job that offered full benefits without another one lined up. As for why I quit—Dan would probably abhor the actions of my employers, but he wouldn’t get my giving up and not sticking it out. He’d see it as my letting them push me out, run me off, and that he wouldn’t condone.
I thought I was that strong, stubborn person, too.
But a year of harassing retaliation tactics stripped me of that resolve. It ripped me clean of my confidence, my idealistic visions of my carefully mapped out life. The whole thing broke me down, and at my cracked, bruised core, I discovered something about myself: I was scared. Uncertain. Lost. And so damn tired.
So I’d left. With no job, no plan, no idea of what or who I wanted to be at twenty-six years old, I’d run.
No, Dan would never understand that.
But to be fair, most of the time, neither did I.
“You found a better paying position in Chicago?” he prodded after I hadn’t responded to his initial question.
“Actually”—I notch my chin up, meeting his gaze head-on without flinching—“I’ve been waitressing at a local dive bar in the Ukrainian Village for the last couple of months with Dara.”
Well, damn, I hadn’t meant to let that slip.
I flick a glance at Katherine, but since she doesn’t seem confused at the mention of my sister’s name, I’m assuming she’s aware of Dara and Jesse’s existence. Unlike her sons, or at least Jude, judging by the shock in his expression. Dara works at The Rabbit Hole—it’s how I got my job there. How strange that, while he was apparently a regular there, he hadn’t been aware of his own relationship to Dara through Dan. Though Jude doesn’t strike me as the kind of man who wouldn’t acknowledge her, no matter how distant the connection.
“Are you serious, Cypress?” Dan gapes at me. “What kind of sense does that make?”
“For the time being, perfect,” I say, injecting a calm into my voice that I’m far from feeling.
“Dan,” Katherine murmurs.
He glances at her, then back at me, his lips thinning into a firm line that is probably straining to hold back demands for an explanation.
“Are you talking about The Rabbit Hole?” Simon cocks his head to the side. “Hey”—he jerks his chin toward Jude—“Isn’t that the bar near the shop?”
Oh goddamn. Judas couldn’t have been as uncomfortable at the Last Supper as I am at this dinner.
“Yes, we go there sometimes,” Jude replies, and I threaten myself with a self-inflicted marathon ofJay Leno’s Garageif I dare to look in his direction. So I settle for studying his forearms that are braced next to his empty coffee cup. Big mistake. White cotton might cover them, but it can’t hide the tight muscles beneath. And at closer glance—and screw it, I can’t help but take a closer glance—the dark ink of the tats scrolling up his skin are faintly visible. I remember those tattoos, the strength in those arms as he levered himself above me, staring into my eyes as he thrust into me…
Mouth suddenly dry, I tear my too-absorbed contemplation away…and crash into Dan’s narrowed scrutiny. It flicks to his stepson then back to me, speculation heavy in its depths.
“Shop?” I damn near shout, desperate to change the subject to… God,anything. To avoid my father’s far-too-discerning-for-comfort scrutiny. “What kind of shop?” I ask, deliberately lowering my volume back to my “inside voice.”
And from the smirk playing at the corner of Simon’s mouth, my tactics have not gone over his head.
“Tattoo,” Jude rumbles. “I’m a tattoo artist.”
