His Forbidden Love (Manhattan Billionaires #2) - Ava Ryan Page 0,55

the ground.”

“Can we not?” Jake asks.

“He fucked the nanny,” Liam says, ignoring this plea. “Now he’s trying to keep his hands off her. It’s not going well. As you can see.”

Jake glares across the table at Liam with murder in his eyes. “I didn’t fuck her as the nanny. Matter of fact, let’s watch our language around this whole subject.”

Liam and I exchange sidelong looks and do our best not to burst into wicked laughter. Jake’s got it much worse than we suspected, which means that he is now ripe for roasting. This is great.

“She and I met on a dating app. We, ah, hooked up. Next day, guess who shows up when it’s my turn with the kids?” Jake shudders at the memory. “My ex hired her.”

“Oh, shit,” I say, abandoning all efforts to hide my amusement.

“Exactly,” Jake says, tossing his spoon down. Leaning back in his chair, he runs his hands over the top of his head and curses. He discovers that one of his knees is jiggling and rubs his thigh to make it stop. Then he looks at us with desperation in his eyes. “I can’t stop thinking about her. I’m dying to fuck her again.”

Liam and I exchange a blank look.

“So?” I say.

“You’re not this stupid, Mike,” Jake says. “First of all, she’s my employee. Second, the kids love her, and I don’t want to screw that up. Third, Marlene would kill me.”

“Well, that’s true,” Liam says darkly. “Marlene’s a nightmare.”

Liam and I never liked Marlene. One of the happiest days in the life of our friendship with Jake was the day he decided to divorce her.

“So what are you going to do?” I ask quickly. Jake is still looking as though he might lunge across the table for Liam’s neck, and I don’t have time to bail anyone out of jail today. I’ve got surgery this afternoon.

“No fucking idea,” Jake says with a resigned sigh as he picks up his spoon again.

“Well, you’d better be careful,” Liam tells him with a pointed glance. This clown. Ever since he got his relationship with my sister straightened out, he thinks he’s a romantic Gandhi or Buddha. All wisdom, all the time. “Otherwise, you wind up like me or Mike here.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” I ask, startled to hear myself lumped in with a guy who’s engaged.

Liam holds up his left hand and, without a word, points to his ring finger.

I recoil involuntarily. I’ve been divorced for a year now, but the wounds haven’t quite healed all the way over. I’m like a guy who got run over by a bus, lost his leg and started using a prosthetic limb. I’ve found my footing and am indefinitely on the upswing, yeah, but I’m not quite ready to sign up for a marathon just yet.

“Hang on,” I say, putting my hands in stickup position. “Ally and I are just getting to know each other. This is all fresh and new. No one said anything about marriage.”

Liam makes a derisive noise. “So that’s the story you’re telling?”

“It’s true,” I say.

Liam pauses to give me a clinical once-over, as though he’s evaluating me for surgery. “Mike’s got a classic case of denial,” he tells Jake, as though he’s brought Jake in for a second opinion. “Poor fool doesn’t recognize his own symptoms. He can’t live without her for two seconds. He’s been scanning the crowd for her this whole time we’ve been talking.”

“I have not—” I begin hotly.

“He spends every night with her,” Liam continues. “No longer bothers to hang out with us or even text us back. How many times have we asked him to join us for drinks tonight, Jake?”

“At least two for me,” Jake says, happy to throw me under the bus if it means he’s out of the hot seat.

“Also two for me,” Liam says.

By now my face is burning up because they’re right. I open my mouth to issue a standard excuse about how busy I am lately and so on and so forth, but Liam holds up a hand to stop me.

“Here she comes now, Jake,” he says with unrestrained glee. “Let’s see how Mike acts. Maybe we’ve judged him too harshly. Maybe he’s not, in fact, as whipped as we think he is.”

Here’s where it gets sad, folks.

I know they’re giving me shit. I know I’m currently under their microscope. I know I need to channel my inner Al Pacino as Michael Corleone and act like a cool cucumber. Too bad