Lila's Thunder: The Almeida Brothers, Book One (3 page)

He squinted and opened his mouth.
  Nothing came out.

Lila began backing away from him. “I, uh… I just remembered that I left some important files back at the apartment.
  You know how scatter brained I am on Monday mornings.”

“I’ll walk with you,” h
e offered.

“No.”
  Lila vehemently refused, taking a deep breath to relax the panic in her voice. “No, I don’t want you to miss class.  Harvard acceptees don’t miss class.”

“Fuck Harvard.”
  Chase gripped his bag, making his way toward her.

“Chase,
” Lila demanded, holding a hand up. “Stop.”  Her eyes scanned his. “You’re a kid.”

He blinked, unable to respond.

“Kids should be in class.” She knew she’d struck him, it was all over his face.  Running a hand through her hair Lila turned away from him, calling over her shoulder. “Go to school.”

Clutching the phone in her hand so tightly she was surprised it didn’t crack between her fingers, Lila stomped down the busy street with only one intention.

Kill Jack Almeida.

Chase watched her go, wondering when she’d realize that she was walking in the complete opposite direction of her apartment.

-
--

Twenty minutes later Lila was stomping through the lobby of Jones Day Law Firm, catching eyes with a pretty young receptionist who smiled at her. “Hi. Do you have an appointment?”

Lila swept right past the reception desk, ignoring the desperate calls from the young woman behind it.
  As she stomped through the busy halls, dodging suits and skirts all over the place, she scanned the gold name plates on the back of all the doors until she landed on the one she wanted.

Without knocking she barged into Jack’s office where he was leaning back arrogantly in his chair with a phone pressed to his ear.
  He was giving some poor soul on the other end a piece of his mind as he scribbled haphazardly onto a notepad in front of him.  At the sound of his office door slamming against the wall he rose his eyes heatedly, ready to rip to shreds whatever new intern thought it was okay to come into his office without knocking.  When he caught sight of Lila he sat up straight, the anger on his face vanishing.

From the middle of his office she raised her phone, which had been clutched in a tight grip in her hand since the moment she’d read his email.
  “What the hell is this?”

“I’ll call you back,”
Jack said into the receiver, hanging up before the person on the other line had time to respond.  He began to rise from his chair but stopped in mid-stand, holding his tie against his chest.  She was wearing a black pencil skirt that seemed a dash too tight for The Dalton School, and a white button down blouse that was
definitely
too tight for the Dalton School.  Her deep brown skin glowed against the white satin and flashes of her wet white t-shirt from the night before spun in his mind.

“Good morning,” h
e said smoothly. A small smile lit his face and Lila could have punched him for it.

His receptionist came running in breathlessly behind Lila, her blonde hair fanning around her shoulders as she slowed to a grateful stop. She spoke
rapidly, throwing a glare at Lila. “Mr. Almeida she just stormed in.  I tried to stop her—"

Jack held his hand out to her without a word, signaling that everything was fine.
  Waiting for her to leave, his eyes went back to Lila.  “Have a seat.”

Lila crossed her arms over her chest. “No.”

Jack retook his own seat and threw her a look. “Have a seat.”

She sighed and decided that she should probably cho
ose her battles as she took a seat while dropping her phone on his desk. “What the hell is this, Jack? You’re firing me?”

Jack unbuttoned his jacket and leaned forward on his desk.
  The multi-line phone next to him was blinking out of control.  “Yes. I’m firing you. I simply don’t need you anymore, Lila… And now that he’s going to college neither does Chase.”

“Chase needs more than you could
begin
to comprehend,” she said in contempt.

“Believe it or not you just walked into the office of the best god damn lawyer in this building. I can assure you that if I made it out alive in that shark pit...” He motioned to the hustle and bustle outside his open door. “I’ll make it out alive with my seventeen year old brother.”

“You don’t even know your seventeen year old brother.  He doesn’t know you. The two of you might as well be strangers.”

“How the hell
can
we know each other, Lila, when he’s at your apartment more than his own home?”

“He’s at my apartment more than his own home because it isn’t a
home
.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed.

“He doesn’t know you because you’re not there.  You. Are not. There.” Lila jammed her eyes shut. This was not the way she’d pictured this going.  “I’ve done everything I could do for him, and I did everything you paid me for.  You couldn’t even find the decency to fire me to my face after
five years?”

J
ack leveled her with his eyes. “You’re too attached to him, Lila.”

“I a
m only thinking about his well-being. I am the only constant that he has in his life right now and he needs that.  You seem to think that just because he’s twice the size he was when you hired me that he’s not wobbling at the knees anymore, but he is.  He needs stability and driving me away is not going to help matters.  There’s still pain there Jack, and it won’t go away overnight.”

Lila con
tinued. “You have no idea what it’s like a be a seventeen year old boy in as much pain as Chase has been in for the last five years.  It’s only this year that he’s started to make friends at school and become comfortable opening himself up to new people and experiences.  A year is not a long time, Jack, and the ground he’s treading on is too shaky to throw any huge changes at him.”

“Huge changes?
He’s graduating high school in
five months
.”  Jack threw his arms out. “Three months after that he’ll be on his way to the single most competitive academic environment on the face of the planet.  If he can’t handle losing you then he’s going to have a hell of a time getting through the next four years when life’s real challenges start kicking his ass from every angle. You can’t baby him forever.”

“I’m not babying him-- I’m protecting him. How can you be so unbelievably insensitive to his needs?
  He’s a kid who lost his parents, that doesn’t just go away with the snap of a finger.”

“He’s not the only one who lost them, Lila--they were my parents too.”

Lila looked away.

“And I’ll tell you what, if I had a woman like you waiting in the wings to lick my wounds every time things got tough I would have never made it out of the house
, let alone finished Harvard Law. I don’t need you holding him back.”   Without another word he stood and walked around his desk, sweeping past Lila before taking the door of his office in his hand and slamming it shut on all of the curious eyes staring in from the other side.  Taking a deep breath, he made his way to the front of his desk and leaned against it, facing her. “I’ve already spoken with Principal White and requested that Chase be transferred to a different counselor.”

Lila sat perfectly still for a moment and looked off into space, unable to move. After a few tediously long minutes passed she quietly stood up and began making her way to the door.
  Her heels clicked against the marble floor and when she opened the door to leave Jack’s hand came over her shoulder and pushed it closed.

Lila looked down and shook her head before turning on her heel and looking up at him.
  She leaned back on the closed door when the power behind his golden eyes made her knees shake. “What?” she demanded.

He kept his hand against the door. “We’re not finished.”

A small smile touched her lips. “I’m fired. You’ve confirmed that I’m fired.  I think we’re done.” When he didn’t go to move Lila almost lost it.  “What is this?  What do you really want, Jack?”

“What do I want?”

“Yes,” she beamed, her voice beginning to tremble.  It was everything she had inside of her to keep the tears from brimming over the edges of her eyes.  She refused to cry in front of him again. “What do you want?”

Jack stood his ground. The sunlight peeking through the Manhattan skyline behind him made the wavy ringlets that danced passed her shoulders and shadowed her face glow like black silk. He licked his lips, eyes narrowing.

Lila watched him with her mouth agape as realization began to sweep over her.  It was Jack’s job to constantly evade the truth, to hop around the real issue, and he was damn good at it.  But at that moment she saw the truth written all over his face.

She had to swallow back the fury that nearly engulfed her when she realized what was really going on. Slowly, tentatively, keeping her eyes riveted to him, she tucked her fingers into her open black blazer and pushed it off of her shoulders, letting it fall to the floor. He stared down at the puddle of fabric before raising his eyes to hers.

Gazing up at him, she slowly tilted her head and ran her hands down her neck until her fingers were lingering on the top button of her blouse. She popped it open.  “Is this what you want?”

She watched his eyes fall to the top of her blouse where the healthy peaks of her full, heaving breasts were now exposed to him. The sight seemed to grab him in a chokehold, riveting him where he stood.

Lila studied his reaction, the valley between her legs betraying her as it began to swell in response to the desire in his eyes.  Placing the tips of her fingers at the curve of his neck and feeling his racing pulse, she took his blue silk tie and tugged, tilting her head back as she pulled him closer.

“Is this what you want?” A hint of her red lace bra peeked through when she popped another button and he swallowed hard before forcing himself to meet her eyes.

“No,” he answered.

Lila undid another button, and then another, continuing to pull at his tie until her chest was brushing up against the open flaps of his jacket. Reaching down
, she took his hand and guided his trembling fingers inside of her blouse.  He immediately cupped her breast, his breath growing ragged.

As he kneaded her
, she slipped her hands inside of his jacket, pulling it down over his shoulders before taking the back of his neck in her hand. She stepped between his splayed legs, the added height of her stilettos leaving her face mere inches from his, their lips a whisper apart. “Is this what you want, Jack?”

His eyes grew heavy. “Yes,” h
e breathed, squeezing her, seizing her around the waist while parting his lips, his tongue desperate to taste her.

It was all as clear as day now.
  As quickly as Lila was on him, she was off of him, tossing her head away and backing up as she re-buttoned her blouse.  She stared up at him in distain and, this time, she couldn’t stop her eyes from growing wet. “So that’s it, huh? That’s all this has been about? Your fucking ego?”

He seemed shaken at the sudden loss of contact and struggled to speak. “No.”

“If you can’t have me then you’ll make damn sure Chase won’t have me, either, right?”

“Lila. No.”

“You really don’t care about anyone, do you?  You don’t care about anyone but your god damn self.”

“No.”
  He grasped her arms, just needing a moment to
think,
but he couldn’t think.  Not when she was this close.

“Don’t,”
 she spat, snatching her arms away from him.

Before he could stop her, before he could think a si
ngle coherent thought, she had slammed the door behind her.  He stared at the closed door and several tense moments passed before he fell against it, pressing his pounding forehead against the cool wood, grateful for the small favor.

He knew he had half of Manhattan waiting on hold for him at his desk
, and when his assistant’s voice rang into the quiet air from the loudspeaker, reminding him, he knew he should get back to work.  But he couldn’t. He couldn’t bring himself to move.

A knock on the door came from the other side, making it vibrate against Jack’s skull and, in extension, immediately reigniting the headache that had been slowly fading away.
  He gritted his teeth in anger and threw the door open, ready to give his assistant the tongue lashing of her life. When he came face to face with Chase his mouth fell and a million different thoughts surged through his head all at once.

Jack sputtered, having no idea where to begin.
  He raised his arm to check his watch. “Um…”  School had started an hour ago.  Looking back up at Chase, taking in the sight of him holding the strap of his book bag like his life depended on it, Jack didn’t miss the distress in his eyes or the tiny downward curl at the edges of his mouth.  He looked over Chase’s shoulder, eye scanning the room.