Resisting the Bad Boy
R
ESISTING
THE
B
AD
B
OY
N
ICE
G
IRL TO
L
OVE
B
OOK
O
NE
V
IOLET
D
UKE
Copyright © 2013 Violet Duke
All rights reserved.
ISBN-10: 098916330X
ISBN-13: 978-0-9891633-0-9
D
EDICATION
T
O
M
Y
W
ONDERFUL
H
USBAND AND
T
WO
A
MAZING
K
IDS.
C
HAPTER
O
NE
G
LANCING ACROSS THE ROOM
at his guests, Connor Sullivan was pleasantly shocked to see his brother Brian arrive at the party with a date on his arm. As most everyone in his house tonight could attest, Connor wasn’t used to failing. He was one of the most sought-after corporate attorneys in the Western U.S. with a courtroom reputation even his friends referred to as notorious—due in part to the impressive number of times and ways he’s been held in contempt for his clients.
So sue him, he enjoyed the rough and tumble victories.
He fought hard for his wins, and he did it well. But when it came to helping his little brother cope with being a widower at the age of thirty, Connor had no clue who to fight, or how to win. Aside from paying off a decade’s worth of hospital bills from his sister-in-law’s battle with early-onset Huntington’s, and creating a scholarship in Beth’s name for youths plagued with the debilitating disease, Connor had felt useless to Brian after her death. All he’d been able to do was give him space, the only thing Brian insisted he needed.
For nearly a year.
So, when Brian called a few months back to ask for a favor, Connor had all but tripped over himself to give him a blind take-any-organ-you-want yes. As a result, this fall, Connor’s niece was now going to walk over each afternoon and hang out until Brian could pick her up in the evenings. It was hardly even a favor. Little Skylar was a cutie and Connor didn’t foresee any issues with her letting herself in while he was at work. How much trouble could a sixth grader get into in his home in broad daylight? He was just glad he happened to live near the middle school she’d gotten a boundary exemption to attend. With Skylar’s best friend moving last spring, so soon after her mom’s death, Brian had been relentless in getting district approval so the two best-friends-since-daycare could at least be in the same school again this upcoming year.
Thank god. Connor couldn’t imagine what it was like for an eleven year old to lose her mom. The school transfer was the first thing he’d seen her smile about in months.
Ditto for her dad.
By all accounts, Brian was clawing back from the edge of the cliff he’d been hanging onto by his fingertips for far too many years. But it was slow going. Logically understanding that Brian had to tackle this on his own didn’t make it any less of a bitch for Connor; it just made him craftier about how he snuck in the big brother thing. Luckily, it was summer in Arizona and he had a pool. Simple as that. Even with the endless hours he now kept as an equity partner at Caldwell, Sullivan & Phillips, squeezing in poolside barbeques for Brian and Skylar had become a weekly priority. Which paid off big time. After a month of regular cookouts, it was no longer uncommon for Brian to show up at the house unannounced, grab an unoffered beer, and plant himself on the couch to catch a game uninvited.
It was nice having his brother back.
For the better part of a decade, Brian’s singular mission had been to give his wife a lifetime’s worth of happiness every day, while hiding his own anguish over her heartwrenching physical and psychological decline. Connor knew it used to kill Brian to watch Beth gradually give up raising her own child the worse her motor functions became. Even
before
she’d become bedridden. That’s when Connor had begun jumping in to take Skylar as much he could, mainly since the eldest Sullivan matriarch had about as much experience being a warm grandma as she’d had being ‘mom’ instead of ‘mother’ when he and Brian were kids. In fact, she’d
asked
to be third in the caretaker line-up, after Brian’s best friend from college—a nice girl Connor vaguely recalled meeting years ago. So basically, it’d been a two-person job to shield Skylar from what was happening to her mom.
There had been no shielding Brian, however.
Beth had been Brian’s world, his high school sweetheart, the girl he’d come home vowing he was going to spend his life with the day he met her. Receiving the devastating news that Beth’s time with him would be far shorter and infinitely rougher—mere weeks after their unplanned child was born—simply prompted Brian to love and live every day following like it was their last.
And he’d only been nineteen at the time.
Truth be told, while Connor had always admired Brian’s extraordinary, absolutely nonhereditary capacity for love, he’d been a little glad to see the tragic love story finally came to an end. Awful as that sounds. He’d adored his sister-in-law, really. But the time was long past for Brian to move on with his life.
Tonight, it looked like he was finally starting to.
“I’m going over to say hi to my brother. Do you want to come along or are you good here?” Connor asked his date for the night, the always stunning Victoria, a divorce lawyer from a rival firm who happened to be between men this week.
“Brian’s here tonight? How wonderful,” replied Victoria with her token radiant smile, the most effective tool in her arsenal to detract attention from her constantly wandering eyes. “Give him my best will you? I’m going to mingle. The Adonis in the gray pinstripe is looking mighty lonely in the corner.”
Connor sighed. “Have fun. Just stay away from the men at my firm…the women too, for that matter. Last year alone, you sent our sweet, bright-eyed bankruptcy fifth-year into a funk and had two of the probate guys ready to kill each other. You know what? To be safe, check where they work before you even start speaking to them.”
“No promises,” she sang out as she sashayed off.
Despite the very real threat her refusal to behave was sure to present, Connor still found himself smiling after her. How Victoria came to be the only constant female in his life for four years running was one of life’s great mysteries. He supposed she fell in the friends with benefits category, though calling her a friend was a bit of a stretch…and he’d politely stopped all transactional ‘benefits’ after the first month. Okay, so she was more of a trophy-date-on-demand. Still, they had a nice thing going. She’d accompany him to black tie functions to save him from vapid socialites on the prowl, and he’d reciprocate if ever she needed. Fortunately, her revolving dating door spun faster than his did so he rarely had to carry out his end. Not that she wasn’t a nice enough woman. But her glib old money view on the world was a little much to take at times.
When he heard the peal of her flirt-giggle so soon in the game, he was mildly curious about who she’d set her sights on tonight. He peered over and snorted out a laugh when he saw it was Clay Gibbs, the man who put the ass in pompous. The only reason Connor let his assistant invite the privileged asshat tonight was because Clay was a third generation firm client on a very short leash. With him here, the bail money they kept in the safe for him actually had a fighting chance to remain there.
“Oh, what a surprise, Victoria didn’t stay to say hi.”
Hearing the long lost sound of Brian busting his chops had Connor beaming—he couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard him do it. “Yeah, well, you know Victoria.”
“Nope, I sure don’t. And I prefer to keep it that way.”
Connor chuckled. “I’ll be sure to tell her there’s a man in Arizona inexplicably immune to her charms. Glad you could make it out tonight, man. And with a lovely date, no less.” Looking over at the pretty brunette standing beside Brian, Connor had to work hard to keep his reaction in check. Seeing her vintage pin-up girl figure from across the room earlier, he hadn’t expected the face accompanying the voluptuous body to be so…sweet.
Wholesome even.
“I’m Connor,” he said smiling, thrown a bit by the quick glimmer of humor he saw flash in her eyes.
“Hi, Connor. It’s nice to see you again.”
Again? Crap, did he know her? He carefully scanned her fresh-faced features once more. Wide, guileless eyes—a charming novelty he was positive he hadn’t encountered in years—untinted lips, a light tan that actually appeared to be from the sun, and rich, dark auburn locks done up in a ponytail more comfortable than fashionable. There was no way in hell he knew her. She was the very definition of a buxom beach babe brunette, if such a category existed, with an appealing blend of innocence and intelligence behind a pair of unaccountably sexy, cliché-free glasses. Definitely not his usual type. Pity. “I’m so sorry, have we met before?”
Brian glared at him, looking more than a little disappointed. “Dude, it’s Abby. Abby Bartlett?”
This
was Brian’s friend from college? Wow, she sure grew up. In a nice girl with a hot halo sort of way. “Abby, of course. My apologies. We met in the hospital right after Skylar’s birth.”
Those deep brown eyes of hers were outright laughing at him now. “And maybe a couple more times since.”
Well that ratcheted his discomfort to full blown chagrin.
Her hey-don’t-sweat-it smile didn’t help…the playful brow tilt that followed soon after, however, did. “Relax, Connor. How about this—the next time you introduce yourself to me again, I’ll be sure to pretend I know what the inside or your house looks like for ‘other’ reasons. Make you squirm a bit. That ought to square us.”
Surprised laughter built in his chest. How about that? Talk about intriguing. Before he could banter back, however, a nearby voice interrupted, “Professor Bartlett, is that you?”
Professor
?
Spicy upgrade from cute librarian. Connor was hooked. He watched with mounting admiration as Abby scolded—actually scolded—his firm’s best civil litigator.
“Will you stop with that? My PhD is
not
a done deal.”
“Oh hush, young lady.” James T. Holt came over to give Abby a formal peck on the cheek. “As far as I’m concerned, ‘ABD’ stands for all but done. You may as well get used to being called a professor.” Jim turned to bring Connor up to speed. “Abby here is a miracle worker. Thanks to her, my son was actually able to move onto high school this year.”
“Reese wasn’t
that
bad,” defended Abby, hands on hips.
“Says the woman who only had him in small doses,” replied Jim dryly. “I’m just glad you started tutoring at his school when you did. I was really getting worried.”