"I think it might have been back-dated. Tina was reporting to me while I was in the hospital, and something was definitely up. But her angle was to take my business. She knew I'd catch onto her game sooner or later, so she was stringing things out in talking with Acker, wanting to be able to get the business for herself. No way would she want to sign a contract with him, not even one this bad."
"Unless he insisted on getting both, or had her sign the one with you as insurance to keep you from working with me. He might have been unsure about her. After all, if she was sleeping with him to get the business, she knew that her qualifications were sketchy."
"I can't imagine her agreeing to that. First, it would hurt her pride to admit that keeping me out of the game was necessary. She really thinks she is good enough to take me on head-to-head. She has an entirely different concept of the business, so she'd want a chance to prove herself against me. Also, she is a political creature, and she'd see that having two contracts meant Acker was in control. He might persuade me to work for him, and Tina would believe that I'd work for the highest bidder, and then she'd be out on her ass. She's far too clever in that sense to give him a club like that."
Julio rubbed his chin. "Then what happened?"
"When Willa came along and forced her out, I imagine that they told Tina they'd cancel her contract based on some excuse that would be close enough to the truth to hold up in court. I'm sure they could find ways to claim it was because of her incompetence or some fraudulent claim she'd made. Then they suggested that if she went along with this, signing a back-dated contract, then Acker would pay her off."
"So it would be the lesser of the evils? She's still out of the game, but has the money to move on to other projects and other clients."
"And she moves on with no black mark to her name. That makes sense."
Julio picked up his glass and sat back. "What's your assessment, oh sexy one?"
She pointed a long finger at him. "No flirting until we sort this out."
"Then we must sort quickly."
Lissa sucked in a breath. Her body was ready to stop talking business and get down to business, but she forced her tone to remain on topic. "Julio, I can't risk getting involved in a legal hassle with Acker. He'd tie me up in knots, and the squabble would be public. He'd make it seem like I didn't keep my word. That would alienate clients."
"That seems likely. He has expensive legal people who will know all manner of snares and traps that we mere mortals can only imagine and shudder at."
"So I suppose I need to talk with Tina. If I'm right, I need to persuade her to give me a signed statement."
"That would mean you'd win the case, but it would still be too late for the project. We need to move now."
"But, if I'm right, and this contract is fraudulent, which I'm pretty sure it is, even his high-paid lawyers won't want to be caught using it to browbeat me."
"And failing that? If Tina won't be helpful?"
That wasn't the direction she wanted her thoughts to go in. "I don't know. I guess I'm shafted."
"Willa working with Tom Acker … I never thought that would happen, but then I apparently didn't know her as well as I thought. Well, you see Tina, and I'll get some people doing research, and we will find a solution."
Lissa's head fell, and the next thing she knew, Julio was beside her, pulling her to him. He looked into her eyes.
"We'll get this sorted, I promise."
His tone was comforting, but not as comforting as the feel of his mouth on hers.
They kissed for a long moment, and the months of loneliness and the pain from rejection that had never occurred faded away.
She opened her mouth to him, and passions took hold, taking the blood from her brain and erasing all other thoughts.
Without another word, they moved to her bedroom and locked the door.
They made love urgently, quietly, not wanting to wake the babies or alert Joan to their activity. When they'd reached the point of a mutual climax, as he spilled his seed into her even as his fingers swirled frantically over her swollen clit, she couldn't stop the cry of pleasure that broke from within her. He bent down and swallowed most of her sounds with his kiss as their bodies rocked together.
Breathing heavily, Julio pulled out of her and positioned his body to face her on the bed. "I've missed you so much," he whispered as he placed a soft kiss on her cheek. She closed her eyes and he moved his hot mouth to her eyelids. She groaned as her body seemed to melt from his heat.
"I've missed you too, Julio."
They lay in each other's arms for a long time after that, listening to the sounds in the apartment: a television program droning on from Joan's bedroom and the snores of the babies, like rain falling, from the baby monitor. Their babies.
For just a moment in time, Lissa and Julio were both thinking the same thing: All was right with the world.
A baby's cry woke Lissa from a deep sleep. She glanced at her clock. Three in the morning.
As her head cleared, the night came rushing back. No wonder she was groggy. Her body still tingled from Julio's lovemaking. Although they'd been fast, and careful not to make any noise, he'd still managed to arouse her to heights she hadn't thought possible. No man she'd ever been with had been able to get her body to respond the way he could. His tongue, his fingers, how they made her nerve endings tingle, how he could make her nipples erect, how he could make her oh so wet. Even now, as she realized she was alone in the bed. He must have left while she was sleeping, which was probably a good thing, but still, the memories, his smells, and the odors of sex still clinging to her body, to her sheets … She let her fingers slide down her belly towards her slickening heat.
A baby crying in the distance broke her mood. Muffled voices reached her as she put on a robe and headed for the nursery. She opened the door and saw one baby sleeping soundly, undisturbed. The other two beds were empty.
Half-awake still, Lissa staggered towards the voices, into the kitchen. There she found Joan and Julio, each holding a baby, bouncing it and talking. She smelled tea-Joan's favorite herbal tea.
"Good morning, more or less," Joan said.
"Some little person or two seem to think it is. We still have one person in the family who wants to lie in."
"The family." She'd said it that way without thinking. It had seemed right, and Julio had smiled when she said it. Joan too.
Julio brought the baby over to her. "Ryland, tell Mom you didn't mean to wake her," he said.
"But he did mean to wake her," Joan protested. "That's how they remind parents who is actually in charge. If they are awake, then they must be attended to."
"You seem to have an agitator in the nursery," Julio teased. "Whose side are you on, Joan?"
A new cry came from the nursery. "I guess he finally realized he was being left out," Lissa said.
As Lissa went to get the Hunter from his crib, she understood part of what was troubling her. It was easy to slip into this idea of a family. It was comforting and reassuring. And it frightened her. If she let herself get used to it and believe in it, then she could lose it one day. The pain would be far worse than the pain she'd felt when she'd lost Julio, after Switzerland. She hadn't opened her heart to him completely because of that. Wanting and enjoying too quickly became needing, and it was hard enough to manage the things that were in your control.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Lissa found Abby waiting for her when she got to the office.
"We haven't found a sign of that contract on our server," she said. "I'm not sure what that means, exactly, but we can't prove it's a new document."
Lissa cupped her hands around her coffee cup. Getting into the rhythm of business after the night-well, the start of the day-came as something of a jolt. The safe, warm feeling of being around her babies and her lover, their father, lingered tantalizingly. "Okay. That was a long shot. I'm sure you'd have found it if it were there."
"Well, I do have some good-or at least interesting-news. You wanted to talk to Tina. She called this morning asking to meet with you. I made an appointment for this morning. I hope that was okay."
"Sure. That's probably good. Odd, though. She'll be after something. Did you tell her anything?"
"No. She told me she wanted to discuss the contract for the Milan project. I suppose the word is out and she sees some kind of opportunity to make hay."
"I think you're right." Lissa grinned. "I'll be at my desk, fortifying myself with coffee and grinding my teeth."
"Is the situation that bad?"
"Frustrating more than anything. Maybe Tina will tell me something I can use to get out of the contract. Then I can work with Julio. For now, I'm marking time, and I'm not good at that."
"How is it going with Julio? I can't wait to meet him."
"He comes over to visit the kids." Then she grinned. "But yes, he stayed. He was even up at three this morning with the kids."
"Wow. Then he wants to get to know them?"
"I think he wants a lot more than that."
"Is he a good dad?"
"I think he thinks so." So did she. It was easy to see how much he loved them. He acted like he loved her too, but how would that work? They worked well together, and he was an unbelievable lover-Abby got that right, too. It was the family thing that had her brain in turmoil. She still grappled with the idea that she was a mother to three boys-how she would deal with that, much less how she might have the energy for a relationship with Julio, was more than she could deal with.