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A glance told him it was a FaceTime call and the caller was Ian Dare. “Aah, shit. I have to take this.”
“I’ll go find my wife and catch up with you before you leave.” Remy pushed back his chair and rose to his feet.
Once alone, he swiped his phone. “Ian. To what do I owe the pleasure?” Dex asked.
Ian’s face showed on the screen. He’d obviously returned home to Miami and was at work, as Dex recognized the renovated stadium photo on the wall behind the man’s desk.
“I just hung up with my sister.”
Which could mean he wanted to speak about any number of things. “And?” Dex didn’t typically play coy but no point in showing his hand before he had to.
He had no idea what, if anything, Samantha would tell her brother about them. Nor did he know where they stood. He’d said goodbye to her with a long kiss the morning after, leaving her in bed so he could head home, change, and work out before his first meeting of the day.
“That son of a bitch hit her.”
Aah. This call made sense.
“I took care of it,” Dex said. The only reason Jeremy Rollins wasn’t ten feet under was because Samantha had begged him to let the man just leave. Okay, that was an exaggeration, but at the very least Dex would have liked to hit him hard enough to break his jaw. That would have given him a sense of satisfaction.
“She told me, and I appreciate you being there for her.”
Dex decided it was time for a long overdue talk. “Aren’t you going to ask me why I was at your sister’s?”
“I assume you’d tell me what Samantha did. That it’s none of my business,” Ian said.
“Yet you made it your business at the Thunder’s New Year’s Eve party.”
Dex drummed his fingers on the edge of his brother’s desk. No matter where this conversation went, he was all in with Samantha. Knowing her current situation, he didn’t expect her to feel the same but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be there for her while she pulled the pieces of her life back together.
“She was just a kid, then.”
“Over twenty-one, but you made your point and I was just starting out. I wasn’t going to fuck up my career with the Thunder. But I’m not afraid of blowback anymore.”
Ian chuckled, the bastard. “Well, you have my approval anyway. Samantha can do worse than someone who protects her when her family can’t be there.”
Dex rolled his eyes at the arrogance of the man. But he’d feel the same in Fallon’s case. Still, Ian didn’t need to know that.
“I don’t need your approval anymore, Ian.” But he’d be lying if he didn’t feel better knowing he had it. Samantha idolized her brother and she was going through enough. She didn’t need Dex complicating things further.
“And that’s why you have it anyway. Good talking to you, Dex. Oh, and another thing. The lawyer said a slap isn’t enough to get a restraining order without having Jeremy arrested and charged with domestic violence or assault. And Samantha feels it’s too late. So I assume you’ll be making your presence known in my sister’s life so that bastard knows what fear feels like.”
Samantha wouldn’t like Dex playing bodyguard but if he did it in a smooth enough way, she’d see interest not meddling. It meant a lot to her to stand on her own two feet. He’d just be there to support her because Jeremy wasn’t laying a hand on her again.
“Ian?”
“Hmm?”
“Go back to work and let me live my life. I’ve got your sister’s back.”
Ian disconnected the call without saying goodbye.
***
Samantha sat at her desk, unable to concentrate on a new client. Given how important the account was to the firm and how distracted Samantha was, she decided to hand off the work to her top VP. She even cut herself slack as she made the decision because there was no doubt Samantha was in a transitional time of her life.
The apartment she’d tossed Jeremy out of might be hers but it had too many memories of a man she now despised. There was no doubt that having Dex in her bed had helped stamp out unwanted reminders but the uncomfortable feeling when she was there remained. She wasn’t up to moving right now but the idea was floating in the back of her mind.
It helped that she’d managed not to see Jeremy for the first three days after Dex Day, as she’d come to call their night together. Better than calling it the day Jeremy had slapped her and being forced to think about it all the time.
