Page 72 of With Wine Comes War

What?

“Excuse me? Rules?” He turned his head away so I couldn’t see his expression.

“Yes, the house rules. Your cleaning, cooking, and taking care of the man of the house rules. One rule is making sure you have my slippers and a martini ready when I walk in the door.”

Clearly, he was kidding but playing along could be fun.

“Well, what if you get home before I do?”

“Then I’ll be sitting on the couch naked waiting for my blow job.”

I burst out laughing.

“So, in the last five minutes you’ve completely lost your mind.” He pulled into the valet, kissing me before I got out.

“I’m only kidding, but if you want to do any of that you’re more than welcome,” he said through the window as I was passing.

“You may get pleasantly surprised.” I kissed those luscious full lips through the window. I gave him a wink and headed up to my apartment for a minute before having the valet guy get my car.

Chapter 19

ROMAN

Now I was the one who needed a distraction. I told her we could talk about the house rules when we got home later. I’m glad that Alex could take a joke and knew I was kidding. No one else I’ve ever dated would’ve played along like that.

I didn’t know she was going up to her apartment, I thought as I watched her get into the elevator. I thought she was just getting her car. She must’ve needed something. I’ll drive across the street andwait until I see her leave, then I’ll feel better. As soon as I saw her at the valet, she called me.

“Thanks dad, all is good.” I laughed and waved to her.

“Have a good day and I’ll see you at home tonight.” God, that felt so good to say to her.

I called Amelia on the way in to find out what these meetings were about. She said she didn’t know, and she’d let Harrison talk to me about Texas. I drove to the office and once there, I stopped at Amelia’s desk to get my schedule. I liked it on paper, so I didn’t have to stare at a computer screen all day. I head into my office and Harrison was right behind me.

“Hey man, good morning. I’ve got some crazy good news for you about Texas.” Harrison said with excitement.

“Good news, huh? Like I don’t have to go?”

“That can be part of it.”

“Really? What happened?”

“You know how the zoning got fixed, right?” I nodded.

“I only know that it did get fixed but not how. I also thought we were waiting for the money trail.”

He smiled from ear to ear and said, “I still don’t know how it got fixed, either, but the money trail was found, and arrests were made. The project is ready to go again…”

I tried to say something, but he continued and said, “Hey, now wait just a second before you interrupt, I need to finish. The kickback money was returned. It’s in an account down there being held by some financial advisor firm in the name of ‘The King/Kennedy Project’.”

I’m sorry, what? Who the fuck?.. I looked at Harrison, confused.

He said, “I know, I know. We have no idea who did this. Like none.”

That was unsettling.

“I can’t touch that money without finding out where it came from. I may have to go down there.”Fuck! What’s going on?

“How much money is it?”

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