Some of his apprehension about being a good father lessened in that moment. No, he might not have been raised by a good man, but that didn’t determine what kind of father he would be. Judy’s birth had erased the last of his bitterness about the past. His life was no longer about what he didn’t have. His wife, his daughter, and the family they’d made together—that was his future. “Come inside, Mom. Judith Rosella Corisi needs to meet her nonna.”

Chapter Four

A week later, Lil and Alethea sat at a West Village restaurant whose touted brick walls were accented with spicy wallpaper depicting nude women. As requested, they were seated in a corner table, away from the other diners.

“Do you mind taking the battery out of your phone, Lil?”

“Are you serious?”

“Unless you have it protected with anti-spyware, it’s pathetically easy to upload a virus to a phone that allows people to listen in to your conversations, even if the phone’s turned off.”

“I’m not dismantling my phone because you’re feeling paranoid today.”

Alethea simply met her friend’s eyes and waited. Friends since middle school, she knew curiosity would change Lil’s mind.

“Oh, fine.” Lil opened the back of her phone and removed the battery, placing it on the table between them. “Now can you tell me? Or are you going to ask me twenty questions to make sure it’s me? What if I’ve been abducted by aliens and replaced with an exact replica? They may have uploaded all of my memories, so I’d also suggest a blood test.”

“Laugh all you want, Lil. Just because it’s not probable doesn’t mean it’s impossible.” She met Lil’s eyes as she tried to drive her point home. “I’m not talking about alien abduction and you know it. I’m talking about the rumors that something’s going on at Corisi Enterprises. No, don’t give me that look. You’re living in a fantasy. Safety requires diligence. You have a niece today because the doctor didn’t blindly trust that everything would go smoothly. He watched for problems. He acted quickly.”

Lil slumped against the back of the booth. “Do we have to do this today, Al? I was hoping to have a nice lunch with you. You know, one where you ask me how Abby and my new niece are doing and I get to gush about them and show you pictures. Normal stuff.”

If that’s the game I need to play to get you to listen to me, sure. It wasn’t that she didn’t care about Abby or the stories Lil had to share—she did. It was just that what she had asked Lil to meet her to discuss was urgent. “How is Abby?”

Lil looked like she wanted to say something else, but she decided to play along instead. “She’s good. She’s home. They named their baby Judith Rosella. You should see how beautiful she is. And when she wants something she has a cry you can hear throughout the whole house. Not like the soft cry Colby started with. This girl has lungs.”

Corisi lungs, Alethea thought but kept it to herself. Lil wasn’t in the mood for her cutting humor. “Is Dominic back at work?”

“He hasn’t left Abby’s side. I’m pretty sure she’s ready for him to go, though. He’s such a mother hen. Who would have guessed it?”

“He knows how easy it is to lose something that’s unprotected.”

Lil shook her head in defeat. “I give up. Let’s talk about something else. Was it my imagination or did I break up something between you and Marc at the hospital?”

“Marc, the security guy?”

“You know which Marc I’m talking about. The one who looks like a cross between a gladiator and the Secret Service. I could have sworn you were getting all moony-eyed over him.”

Damn it, she could feel herself flushing. Lil knew her too well. “You’re crazy. I was pissed because he couldn’t see that I was doing him a favor.”

“Pissed? No. That wasn’t the expression on your face. I think it was more like, ‘Oh, baby, take me now, you big hot stud.’”

Alethea threw a crouton at Lil’s head. Lil ducked and chuckled. “That was definitely not what I was thinking.” Liar, liar, pants on fire.

Lil raised an eyebrow in disbelief. She lifted her phone in one hand and the battery in another. “No one is listening but me. You don’t have to lie.”

Alethea denied the truth to even herself for a moment, then caved as a grin spread across her face. She bent forward across the table. “I have the hottest dreams about that man.” She shivered. “I don’t know what it is about him. From the moment I saw him that night I snuck Jeremy into Dominic’s engagement party, I’ve had a bit of a thing for him.”

“A thing?” Lil clapped her hands once in excitement before her.

Alethea shrugged one shoulder. “Okay, so I may have done repeated background checks on him just to see if I could find an unattractive photo of him. Nope. He was cute even as a kid. Except for that one time when he banged up his face a bit playing hockey. Nah, even then he looked adorably beaten up.”

Shaking her head, Lil said, “Al, you scare me sometimes. Why not just ask him out?”

“I can’t.” Just the thought of it made her brain shudder.

“Really?” Lil asked with growing fascination. Alethea regretted revealing as much as she had. “You’re not shy around men. You usually twist them up like emotional pretzels and spit them out.”

“This guy is different. He’s a war hero, for God’s sake, with a Navy Cross. It’s why Dominic hired him. Marc came home wounded, and made the news when he was turned down for a job at a department store. Unemployed war hero. The story went national. Dominic put him in charge of his security team. Trial by fire, so to speak. He’s a self-made man with an impressive reputation in his field.”

Lil’s eyes rounded. “Oh, my God, I never thought I’d see the day. You finally found a man you respect.”

“Don’t build this up into more than it is. I like that he is who he is. No stories. No lies. No matter how deep you dig, you find more all-American, boy-next-door good guy. He put his brother and sister through college. Paid off his parents’ home for them.”

“And you wouldn’t want to slip up and sleep with a man like that, would you?”

Alethea gave her an impatient look. “You, more than anyone else, should know why he’s off limits to me.”

Evidently, Lil had forgotten her earlier warning to stay away from him. “I dare you to call him.”

“That may work on others, but it doesn’t work on me. I get in enough trouble without your help. Can you imagine what everyone would say if I started dating Dominic’s head of security?”

“If it stopped you from obsessing over every possible thing that could go wrong, and sneaking into hospitals just to prove you can, I think they’d love it. I should have Jake ask him if he’s dating anyone.”

“No. Lil, stop. I shouldn’t have said anything. Don’t tell Jake. Don’t tell anyone what I said.”

Looking mutinous for a moment, Lil then sighed in resignation. “My lips are sealed.”

“I’m serious, Lil.”

Throwing her hands up humorously, Lil said, “Why does everyone think I can’t keep a secret?”

Alethea raised a hand and flagged the server to bring the bill. “Because we know you?” she asked, but there was no bite to her tone, only one good friend lovingly teasing another. “You know I’m kidding. Well, I’m mostly kidding. Can we talk seriously for a minute?”

Lil laid her fork down. “I can’t get involved the way you asked me to. All I can do is ask Jake again if there are problems at work and suggest that he talk to you. That’s as far as I’ll go, Al.”

“He won’t tell you the truth.”

In an instant, Lil was as serious as a heart attack. “We tell each other everything.”

“Everyone has secrets.”

“Not us,” Lil said confidently.

Sitting back with a sigh, Alethea decided to try another approach. “What if he doesn’t know how serious it is?”

Lil sat straighter. “Jake is one of the sharpest minds in the country. If there is a problem, he’s going to see the big picture. If you have solid information, let’s take it directly to him.”

“What the hell is solid information? I pay people to keep their ears to the ground. I pay them well to update me on events even if they seem unimportant. It’s because I get tidbits from inside, outside, underground, and overseas, and I see patterns where others might not. I’m not suggesting that I’m smarter than your genius boyfriend—”

“Fiancé.”

“Fiancé, excuse me,” Alethea said sarcastically.

“Wait, did you just say inside? As in, inside Corisi Enterprises? You have someone on your payroll there?” Lil’s mouth dropped open in shock.

Said like that, it sounds bad. “I have since Abby left for China. Something you would have thanked me for if she’d gone missing.”

“Oh, my God, Al.” Lil stood, stuffed the various pieces of her phone into her purse, and swung it over her shoulder. “I can’t listen to any more.”

“Aren’t you even curious about what I found?”

Checkmate.

Lil sat. “You found something?”

“Those glitches are not an accident. My person has traced two of them back through several decoys to one specific IP address.”

“Then there isn’t a question anymore. We have to take this to Jake.”

“Not yet.”

“What are you talking about? Jake needs to know this. As soon as they find the source, he and Dominic will annihilate whoever it is. Problem solved.”

After the waitress returned with the paid bill, Alethea looked Lil straight in the eye and said, “We can’t let that happen. Not until we know for sure he’s guilty.”

“You just said you knew who was doing it.”

“No, I said it was coming through one IP address. We need more than that before we point a finger.”

“Al, you always think we have to do this on our own, but Jake can help us. We don’t have to be private sleuths anymore. You could be part of a team instead of working alone.”

“Lil, it’s Stephan’s IP address.”

Lil swayed in her seat. “No.”

“Yes.”

“Holy shit.” Lil was quiet for a moment, considering the idea. Then she shook her head adamantly. “No. Stephan wouldn’t do that. He loves Nicole.”

“He’s gone after Dominic before.”

“That was before they got engaged.” She shook her head again in shock and held a shaky hand up to her mouth. “You don’t honestly believe he would do this, do you?”

“Money and power corrupt people. I don’t know.”

Lil held her purse tightly to her side, looking angry and miserable. “I don’t know what to do with this, Al. I don’t want to know this. I want to be happy. I love Nicole and I love Stephan. This would tear the family apart. Oh, my God, we can’t tell Jake. He doesn’t trust Stephan.”