“They can’t say that. It’s—oh, God, this is terrible.” She looked up to find Wy watching her, his mouth a forbidding seal. “Everyone here has seen it, haven’t they?”

“Yep.”

She didn’t dwell on her misfires on the dating battlefield overmuch. If she did, she wouldn’t have been out there on the front lines, week in, week out. But this . . . how the hell was she supposed to get any respect in CFD if she was the focus of such tawdriness?

Wy’s phone rang and Luke’s name popped up on the screen. “Yeah, I’m with her now.” He listened, frowned, hung up. “Let’s go.” Never a wasted word with their Wy.

“Where? I have to work.”

“Luke’s found coverage for you and Kinsey wants us to meet her at M Squared. When we’re through with that fucker Cochrane, he’s gonna wish he’d never heard the name Dempsey.”

The last place Alex expected to be spending a morning was in a conference room with views overlooking the icy Chicago River at M Squared, Madison Maitland’s PR firm on North Wacker. Practically everyone she cared about was here: Luke, Wy, Kinsey, who with Madison was assessing the article on her iPad.

Everyone, that is, except the one person she needed to see most.

Alex stood at a sideboard near a trio of cut crystal decanters—this entire setup had a real Mad Men vibe—because she was too hopped up to sit down. She so needed to talk to him, but without her phone, she didn’t know his number, and the last thing she wanted was to navigate the city hall switchboard. Or ask Madison to call him. Pride, and concern about how they would react, kept her from letting her family see who she truly needed at this moment.

“Any chance we can get this started?” Luke grated. He’d hugged her when she’d come in, a wall of muscle-seething anger, and even though she knew it wasn’t directed at her, she felt responsible all the same. Here she was, at the eye of the storm yet again.

Kinsey smiled thinly at Luke. “Babe, give us a sec. We’re getting there.”

The door crashed open and all eyes shot to the new arrival. Eli.

Thank God. Alex had never wanted to see anyone so badly, had never wanted so much to run to someone and have him hold her close, but maybe this wasn’t the best time for the lovers-in-the-meadow embrace.

Eli, however, had not received the memo.

He stalked toward her, his intent apparent: flay her alive with his gaze, comfort her with his touch.

She tried to motion with her eyes, No, not in front of my family.

The prick still came.

Those strong hands made to dominate and pleasure her rose to cup her jaw. “Are you okay?”

Yes, because you’re here.

No . . . because you’re here.

“I’ve been better.”

“I tried to call you but—”

“I didn’t have my phone,” she said before he could say it was left on his nightstand. Stable door? Locked.

He rubbed his thumb along her jaw, as if craving one last connection with her skin, then dropped his hands. “I was going to say it’s in my pocket,” he murmured, “but I’m getting the impression you’d prefer I threw it in the river than give it to you here.”

In unison, they turned to the conference table. Alex knew what she’d see there, but knowing it didn’t quite prepare her for the truth bomb that was about to explode.

“What the fuck is going on here?” Luke yelled, verbalizing succinctly the views captured in the room’s surprised expressions. “Alex, are you telling me that you . . . and him?”

“Luke, babe,” said Kinsey.

“Don’t ‘Luke babe’ me,” her brother snapped at his fiancée before turning to Alex, his lips curved in a sneer. “I thought this was some publicity stunt. Are you fucking mad getting involved with him? For real?”

Eli bristled, a whirl of raw energy beside her. “Talk to her like that again, Almeida, and you and I will have words.”

Luke stood, and but for the fact the large conference table separated them, Alex knew he would have lunged at Eli. “You’ve made her a target for every shit head with a cell phone. Are we really going to pretend that this is a good thing?”

“I will protect her.”

Luke scoffed. “Right. Well, mission accomplished, Cooper, you’ve got my union’s endorsement. How long before we see the statement distancing the mayor from the woman who’s bad news for his campaign?”

“Luke,” Alex cut in, her body moving in front of Eli’s as if she could protect him. As if the most powerful man in Chicago needed protecting. Of course he didn’t. But she wanted to shield him. His skin might be as thick as the ice pack out on the lake, but sometimes it felt as though no one was in his corner.

“This isn’t the time to discuss my sex life.”

Wyatt and Kinsey winced at her choice of phrase. Wincing didn’t quite accurately describe Luke’s expression.

“Really? Because it seems like everyone else wants to talk about it. I don’t care that you’ve dated half of Chicago, but have you forgotten what he did to Kinsey? The hoops he made me jump through to get my job back last summer?”

“Luke,” Kinsey said, her hand on his arm. “It all worked out. Let’s try to focus on the problem at hand.”

“He’s the problem! Cut him out and she’s okay.”

Alex had heard quite enough. “Luke, I know that since Dad died, you’ve always felt responsible for us. You’ve made sacrifices, and the idea of me being hurt on the job or in any other way makes that muscle in your jaw”—she pointed—“yeah, that one . . . It makes it twitch like the clappers. Yes, you kicked Kevin O’Shaughnessy’s ass when he called me ‘sturdy’ in the eighth grade and yes, you wiped my tears when Jimmy Carter stood me up at junior prom—”

“Jimmy Carter stood you up at junior prom?” Eli muttered behind her.

She elbowed him sharply and absorbed his “oomph.” So not the time.

“I’ll never forget every single thing you’ve done for me, Luke. I love you, but you have to let me handle this. And you have to accept my decisions.”

With an expression dueling between fury and love—a typical Dempsey mash-up—Luke sent a piercing glare over her shoulder at Eli. “You’re choosing him.”

“Yes.”

It shocked even her to hear it said with such conviction. One word, clear and unmistakable in its intent. Luke blinked once, twice, and apparently lost the use of his legs, because he collapsed into his seat. Behind her, Eli cupped her arms, squeezed, and pulled her back against his solid chest.

Something Alex couldn’t put her finger on clouded Madison’s eyes before she cleared her throat. “Now that the pissing match is on hold, gentlemen, let’s discuss what needs to happen.”

“The Red Eye is one of Cochrane’s papers,” Alex said. “Has he been following me?” She turned to Eli and spoke with her eyes what she couldn’t say in front of her family. Was Cochrane gathering evidence against me to use in a lawsuit?

His brow darkened in understanding. “I doubt it. All those images were easy enough to gather. Facebook, Instagram, whatever. People have been snapping you forever because of your fifteen minutes last summer, so it was all out there on the Web waiting for someone to put it together—”

“And make me look like a triple-skank ho.”

“This is a shot at me.” Fury re-formed Eli’s features to a statue, his granite jaw looking like it would shatter if she touched it. “Things have been strained between Sam and me lately, so this is the standard saber rattling while he figures out how much he can push me around. It was bound to happen eventually, but he’s broken the rules of engagement and involved a civilian. Not cool.”

Not cool. From the look on Eli’s face, things were about to get very hot for Sam Cochrane.

The sun was beating in Eli’s chest where his cold, black heart should be.

Alexandra Dempsey loved him.

She hadn’t said it aloud, but the moment she placed her body between his and her brother’s, absorbing every one of Luke’s blows like bullets, he suspected.