Page 105 of Earned Husband

I walked out of the boardroom and into our reception, but my footsteps faltered when I saw Deja standing at the desk. She had her suitcase at her side and her camera strap over one shoulder, and the moment our eyes met, my entire world brightened.

Jane was somewhere behind me, but I didn’t give a shit. I just broke into a jog and pulled her into my arms. Laughing against her hair, I lifted her clean off her feet. “How are you here?”

She hugged me just as tightly, even wrapping her legs around my waist right there in our executive reception area. “This is where I’m supposed to be right now.” She looked into my eyes, then smiled and brought her lips down on mine, murmuring between kisses. “Everything else can wait right now, Colin. This is the only place I want to be.”

CHAPTER 44

DEJA

Jane and I hadn’t spent much time together when I’d been in Chicago with my family before, but she’d insisted on taking Colin and me out to lunch tocelebrate. I hadn’t really understood what we were celebrating until they’d filled me in on the latest in the Thayer family saga, but now that they had, I was overjoyed.

Sitting next to Colin in an upscale cafe down the block from their building, I’d scooted my chair up until it was right next to him, one of my hands resting on his thigh while I reached for my mimosa with the other.

“So this is it, then, huh?” I raised my drink into the air and smiled at them both. “Congratulations, guys. That’s huge.”

Jane clinked her glass against mine, took a sip, and leaned back in her chair, studying me and her brother with a satisfied little grin on her lips. Colin picked up his glass too, toasting with me before sliding his hand over mine on his leg.

“Wethinkthis is it,” he corrected lightly. “As far as we know, it is, but things have a way of changing on a dime with our legal situation.”

Jane inhaled a deep breath, her head suddenly shaking. “No. Nope. We’re not being pessimistic today. Deja is right. This is a huge win, and from here on out, things are going to get easier.”

“Dad is still locked up,” he said with a slight grimace.

Her eyes flashed with surprise before sliding to me, like she couldn’t quite believe that he’d say something like that in my presence, but I got where she was coming from. A month ago, he wouldn’t have discussedanyof this in front of me.

Now, he didn’t seem to mind that I was hearing it at all. He kept drawing lazy patterns on the back of my hand with his finger, his gaze still on his sister’s, but his posture relaxed, like he honestly didn’t mind that I was listening.

“It’s really starting to look like he did it,” he said. “Or is it just me?”

Jane blinked a couple times, sighing before she shrugged. “Yeah, maybe he did, but Mallory was our last unturned stone. At least now, the press will report that the latest raid on our offices had nothing to do with Thayer and her trial will prove that none of us had anything to do with that money disappearing. That’s a win, Colin.”

“Fair enough,” he agreed after a beat. “We live to fight another day.”

“Damn straight.” She grinned, glancing at me. “We’re finally at a point where we can try and return to some kind of normalcy. Whatever that looks like for us when we’re not fighting for Dad, or to find Mallory, or having meetings with lawyers about trusts every other week.”

I nodded. “Under any other circumstances, I’d say that normalcy is overrated, but I don’t think that’s true in your case. You guys deserve a few boring, uneventful years and to never have to speak to another lawyer again.”

Jane laughed and held up her glass for another toast. “I’ll drink to that. God, from now on, I’m giving the phone to Alex wheneveranylawyer calls. Except Jacque. I’ll still talk to her.”

“She’s your sister-in-law.” Colin arched an eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure that means you’ll always have to talk to her.”

“Sure, but she’s a human who just so happens to practice law.” Jane winked. “I’m not sure the same can be said for most of the other lawyers we’ve had to deal with.”

Colin chuckled and slid his fingers between mine, leaning a little closer to my side when he sat back on the chair. “They’re Mallory’s problem now. Thank God.”

“Absolutely.” Jane took another sip of her drink as our plates were cleared. Once the waiter was gone, she turned to Colin with a slightly more serious expression on her face. “I’ve been thinking. If it’s okay with you, I’d like to talk to Jacque about how to handle the boys’ trusts when we get the money back.”

Colin’s grip on my hand tightened, and for a second, I thought this might be where he pulled away again. I knew that getting their brothers’ trusts restored had been his primary goal for a long time, but I wasn’t sure that he’d discuss the family’s financial matters in front of me. We’d come a long way, but that was a sensitive subject for absolutely everybody.

“Do it,” he said, releasing my hand to slide his arm around my shoulders and pull me even closer, as if he’d sensed that I’d been about to excuse myself to go powder my nose to give them a chance to talk. “Once she’s put away and the offshore account is returned to us, I’d like it if we could set Isaac, Ryan, Holden, and Wyatt up with trusts, whatever is left, but it would be great if you and I could just pay off all their student loans and set at least Wyatt and Holden up for an easier transition into adulthood than the rest of us had.”

“Agreed.” Jane flashed him a relieved smile, her shoulders squaring a little in a way that made me think she felt like amassive weight had just been lifted from them. “God knows, if Wyatt and Holden can enter adulthood without the extreme financial pressures we faced, I’ll sleep easy for the rest of my life.”

For just a second, the corners of Colin’s eyes tightened. “They’re still Thayers.”

“Yeah, but we’re thenewgeneration of Thayers,” she said without skipping a beat. “I know it’s going to take a while to sink in, but there won’t be any more raids, Colin. The press will never have to camp outside our building again and, okay, when Dad eventually gets out of prison, things will probably get a bit bumpy again, but our own legal troubles are behind us.”

He stared at her for a long moment before he finally blew out a breath. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. We’ll just keep building, and once the truth comes out about Mallory, people will know that it wasn’t our family who hid the assets for so many years.”