In other words, Daisy had been busy.

And Ava had phoned that day and said she’d emailed five different logos to look at. It had been hard to choose, but I’d picked one that was classy and professional and had more blacks and grays than the hot pink, just so it wouldn’t be too girlie.

Further, Mr. Kumar had stopped by Fortnum’s that morning to give me the “kitty” he’d collected from his neighbors. It wasn’t a lot, but since Tex, Hector nor Mace would accept payment, it worked.

This meant I’d closed and been paid for my first case.

And I was standing in my offices that would be furnished and operational by Thursday.

It had happened.

Me. Ally Nightingale was in the business.

I smiled.

The door opened and Lee appeared.

My smile died and I drew in breath.

Indy had come into Fortnum’s forty-five minutes ago, saying she was over the worst of it and was going to give work a try. Five minutes after that, Lee had called asking to meet me at my offices.

I wasn’t apprehensive. I knew I’d passed the Lee Tests, all of them. He wouldn’t have involved me, given me a choice (and dangerous) assignment or a soft look before I left last night if I hadn’t.

I just didn’t know what he was going to do with that.

I didn’t move from my place at the window as he walked in, eyes on me, and stopped in the doorway.

He leaned against the jamb.

“Nice space,” he remarked, even though he barely looked at it.

“Yep,” I replied because it sure the f**k was.

Then he announced, “Luke fell last night.”

Hunh?

I felt my brows draw together. “Luke fell?”

“If he was even on the fence,” he went on.

“Lee, you’ve lost me,” I told him.

His eyes grew intent when he said, “Thinks you’re the shit, Ally.”

That was when I got it.

Luke was backing my play.

This meant I had them all, except Monty. And Jack and Matt hadn’t weighed in yet.

Okay, I had a majority.

That feeling hit me again, the f**king good one.

But I just nodded and said, “That’s great.”

“It was the right decision to come to me with that note,” Lee stated.

I didn’t reply because I already knew that.

Lee kept going.

“I gotta say, that shocked the shit outta me. But in a good way.”

“You’ve seen I’m good at what I do,” I reminded him. “And you know to be good at it, you gotta be smart.”

“You got that goin’ for you.”

I drew in a breath at the compliment.

Lee again spoke.

And when he did, he rocked my world.

“I want you on my team so I can teach you and sign off on your hours.”

Oh my God!

This time I sucked in a breath.

Then it hit me.

I looked around the space and back to him. “Lee, I—”

He cut me off. “Contract, Ally. You take your own cases. Once I assess your skillset, you contract with me when I need your skills or when I need a woman. One of my boys works your cases with you so they can validate your hours for the Licensing Board and to expand your abilities. I’ll back Shirleen’s play and punt cases to you that you’ll excel at. But it would be a mistake for us to work together on a day to day basis. The men and I work well together, but that’s because we have years workin’ together. We used to butt heads and frequently. Now, we know each other’s boundaries. You and me, we’ll likely butt heads unless we give it time to get used to each other. I’d like to avoid that.”

I could not believe this.

I was loving it, but I couldn’t believe it

“I would too,” I agreed instead of doing a war whoop of joy.

“So no day to day. But contract will work.”

“Yeah,” I replied quietly.

“You were excellent last night, honey,” he stated, just as quietly.

My eyes started burning.

“I’ll talk to Dad,” he continued. “Mom’s already on board. She knows she didn’t raise a weak woman and she knows you’re all Nightingale.”

Oh shit. It was coming.

I looked to my feet.

“Ally,” he called.

I deep-breathed and looked to Lee.

“There are a million other things I’d want for you. It took me a while and Hank to lay it out, but the thing I should want most is what you want. So now I’m tellin’ you, like yesterday with that note, don’t ever doubt it, anytime you need me, I’m there.”

He always was.

Always.

“I love you,” I whispered.

“I know,” he replied.

I clenched my teeth to fight crying.

Lee wasn’t done rocking my world.

“After you left yesterday afternoon, Eddie got in my face.”

Oh man.

“We had words,” he carried on. “But I heard him and I heard you. Now I’m askin’ you to back off Darius.”

Oh no.

Hell no.

He wasn’t buttering me up with flattery, acceptance and promises to work with the Hot Bunch Dream Team and then socking this shit to me.

I turned fully to him. “Lee. No way.”

He lifted a hand and dropped it, shaking his head. “Eddie and I are gonna talk to Malia. See if she’s down for a possible approach from Darius. We’ll make sure she knows it’s only possible. But if she’s not, and gives indication she never will be, Eddie and me do not want this brought up to him. He’ll fight it, but he also might hope. If there’s no hope, I don’t want to set him up to feel that pain.”

That made sense.

“Okay, I’ll give you and Eddie time,” I agreed and jotted a call to Duke to give him a status report on my list of things to do that day.

“We make a miracle happen and talk Darius around, we pull in Jules. She knows the way to go about this shit and she can ease this for all three of them.”

That was such a brilliant idea I wished I’d thought of it myself.

“Right,” I said.

“And until all that’s in motion, Indy, Mom, Dad, Tom, Shirleen, no one knows about this. Darius is not gonna take kindly to us gettin’ in his shit. He needs fallback positions. If he picks someone in our crew, you out of his picture, it’ll be Indy or Shirleen.”

I nodded.

“You down with that?” he asked.

“Absolutely.”

That was when Lee nodded.

“This is the right thing to do,” I told him.